Elective Affinities (18 page)

‘You can smile at me, my dear Mittler, or not smile, just as you like! Oh I am not ashamed of this attachment, of this foolish mad infatuation if you want to call it that. No, I have never loved before, it is only now I know what love is. Everything in my life was until now merely prologue, merely delay, merely pastime, merely waste of time, until I came to know her, until I came to love her, until I wholly and truly loved her. People have reproached me, not exactly to my face but certainly behind my back, with being only a bungler, with being only a dabbler and an incompetent in most things. It may be so, but I had not yet found that in which I can now show myself a master. I should like to see the man who has a greater talent for love than I have.

‘It is a lamentable talent, I know, it is one full of tears and suffering, but it comes so naturally to me, I find it so congenial, that I should be hard put to it ever to give it up again.’

While Eduard had certainly relieved his feelings by this energetic outpouring, it had also all at once brought every detail of his singular situation clearly into focus and, overwhelmed by the painful conflict, he burst into tears and his tears flowed the more freely in that his heart had been softened through disclosing what was in it.

Mittler, when he saw himself being deflected far from the
object of his journey by Eduard’s painful and passionate outburst, found his natural impetuosity and inexorability of mind even less tractable than usual and he expressed his disapproval bluntly and with candour. Eduard ought to pull himself together (so he informed him); ought to consider what he owed to his dignity as a man; ought not to forget that what redounded most to a person’s honour was to be composed in face of misfortune; ought to remember that to endure suffering with equanimity and decorum was the way to be respected, esteemed and held up as an example to all.

Agitated and miserably distressed as he was, Eduard could not help thinking these expressions vain and hollow. ‘It is very well for the happy man to talk,’ he cried, flying into a passion, ‘but he would feel ashamed if he could see how intolerable he is to one who is not happy. You are supposed to have infinite endurance and patience, but infinite suffering is a thing your smug contented man refuses to recognize. There are occasions – yes there are such occasions! – when all consolation is base and it is a duty to despair. Isn’t there a noble Greek who knows how to paint heroes who nonetheless does not disdain, when his heroes are overwhelmed with grief, to let them weep? He even has a proverb which says: Men who give way easily to tears are good. I have nothing to do with those whose hearts are dry and whose eyes are dry! My curse on the happy who see in the unhappy no more than a spectacle to be watched. Let a man be tortured, physically and mentally tortured, in the cruellest way imaginable, still he is supposed to bear himself bravely so as to win their applause and so that when he dies they will go on applauding him, as if he were a gladiator perishing with decorum in the arena. My dear Mittler, I am grateful for your visit, but you would be doing me a great favour if you would disappear for a while and take a walk round the garden or the valley. Come back again later. I will try to be more composed and more like yourself.’

But Mittler preferred continuing the conversation to breaking it off, because he felt he would not find it very easy to resume. Eduard too was not really averse to continuing and the conversation was in any event moving, if painfully, towards its objective.

‘Thinking round and round and talking back and forth is of no help, that I know,’ said Eduard. ‘But it was only as we were talking that I came to know my own mind, that I felt quite definitely what I ought to do; what I had in fact already decided to do. I see my life before me as it is now and as it will be. My only choice is between misery and happiness. My dear chap, I want you to help me get a divorce. That is what I need and that is what has already in effect taken place. Get Charlotte to agree to it. I won’t go into why I think she will be amenable. Go to her, my dear fellow, set all our minds at rest, make us happy again!’

Mittler faltered. Eduard went on: ‘My fate and Ottilie’s are inseparable, and we shall not perish. Look at this cup! Our initials are cut into it. At a moment of rejoicing a man threw it into the air, nobody was to drink out of it again, it was to shatter on the stony ground, but it was caught before it could fall. For a high price I bought it back and now I drink out of it every day, so that every day it tells me that when fate has decreed something that thing is indestructible.’

‘Heaven help us,’ cried Mittler, ‘but what forbearance my friends demand of me! Superstition is it now? Is that the latest? I abominate it, it is the worst thing that ever plagued the human race. We play with prophecies, intuitions and dreams, and use them to try to give some significance to everyday life. But when life has for once got some real significance of its own, when everything buffets and blows about us, these ghosts and spirits only serve to make the storm blow harder.’

‘Leave the needy heart,’ cried Eduard, ‘tossed as it is between hope and dread in the uncertainty of this life, some
guiding star it may look up to even if it cannot steer by it.’

‘That would be all very well,’ Mittler replied, ‘if only people who believe in such things would show some consistency. But I have always noticed that no one pays any attention to warning or admonitory signs, the only signs that are believed in or paid attention to are fair and flattering ones.’

Since Mittler could see he was being led into mystic regions in which he felt the more uncomfortable the longer he stayed, he was now somewhat more disposed to accede to Eduard’s urgent desire he should go to Charlotte. Why should he oppose it? His own objective must now be to gain time so as to find out what the women were thinking and doing.

He hurried to Charlotte and found her, as usual, cheerful and composed. She was glad to tell him of all that had happened: from Eduard he had been able to gather only the effect of what had happened. He cautiously advanced his own view of the matter, but could not bring himself to utter the word divorce even in passing. He was therefore very surprised and astonished and in his own fashion exhilarated when, after so much disagreeableness, Charlotte concluded by saying: ‘I must believe and hope that all will be well again and that Eduard will come back again. How can it be otherwise, since you find me in a certain condition.’

‘Do I understand you aright?’ Mittler interjected. ‘Perfectly,’ Charlotte replied. ‘A thousand blessings on this news!’ he cried, clapping his hands. ‘I know how strongly this argument works on the heart of a man. How many marriages have I not seen hastened, strengthened, revived by it! One such expectancy has more effect than a thousand words. Indeed, of all we can expect from life, this expectancy is surely the best, is it not! – But,’ he went on, ‘so far as I am concerned I might have every cause for annoyance. I can see that in this case my vanity is not going to be flattered. I shall get no thanks from you, that I can see. I remind myself of a friend of mine, a doctor, who was always able to cure
the poor, which he did for the love of God, but could seldom cure a rich man who was willing to pay. Fortunately, in this case the matter is going to settle itself, for my efforts and admonitions would certainly have got nowhere.’

Charlotte now asked him to take the news to Eduard, to take him a letter from her, and see what was to be done. He declined. ‘Everything has already been done,’ he cried. ‘Write to him! Any courier will do as well as I. I have to make off to where I am more needed. I shall only come back to congratulate you. I shall come to the christening.’

Charlotte had often before been displeased with Mittler and she was so this time. In his impetuous way he had done much good, but this same precipitancy had led to many a disaster. No one was more subject to sudden prejudices.

Charlotte’s courier was sent to Eduard, who received him half in dread. She could equally well have said Yes or No. For a long time he did not dare open the letter. When he did open it and read it he was taken very much aback, and he stood as if petrified when he read the paragraph with which it ended:

‘Recall to mind those nocturnal hours when you visited your wife romantically as a lover, drew her irresistibly to you, enclosed her in your arms as if she were a mistress or a bride. Let us reverence this strange chance as a dispensation of heaven which joined us together anew at the very moment when our life’s happiness seemed as if it was going to fall apart and vanish away.’

It would be hard to describe what went on in Eduard’s soul after he had read that. But in such a dilemma as he then found himself what finally happens is that old habits and old inclinations reassert themselves as a way of killing empty time and filling empty life. For the nobleman war and hunting are an ever-ready aid of this description. Eduard longed for danger from without to counterbalance the danger from within. He longed for destruction because existence was
threatening to become unendurable: he even found consolation in the thought he was going to cease to exist and that by doing this he could make happy his friends and those he loved. There was no one to oppose his will in this because he kept his intentions secret. He drew up a formal last will and testament: he made over the estate to Ottilie and to be able to do that gave him a delicious sensation. He made provision for Charlotte, for the unborn child, for the Captain, for his servants. That war had broken out again was a fortunate chance. In his youth he had found the superficialities of military life a burden, it was because of them he had left the service, but now it was a glorious feeling to set out under a general of whom he could say: Under his command death is probable, victory certain.

When she too learned of Charlotte’s secret, Ottilie was as confounded as Eduard, and more so, and she withdrew into herself. She had nothing more to say. She could not hope and she should not desire. But a glimpse of her soul is provided by a journal which she kept, from which we propose to offer a number of extracts.

PART TWO

CHAPTER ONE

W
E
often encounter in everyday life something which, when we encounter it in art, we are accustomed to attribute to the poet’s artistry: when the chief characters are absent or concealed, or lapse into inactivity, their place is at once taken by a second or third character who has hardly been noticed before, and when this character then comes fully into his own he seems just as worthy of our attention and sympathy and even of our praise.

This is what happened as soon as Eduard and the Captain had gone: the architect came more and more to the fore with every day that passed. The preparation and carrying out of so many tasks depended solely on him and he proved himself precise, informed and energetic in that work and also able to give support to the ladies in all sorts of ways and to keep them amused in hours of idleness. His appearance was in itself one to inspire confidence and awaken affection. He was a young man in every sense, well-built, slim, tall, perhaps a little too tall, modest but not timid, familiar but not importunate. He was happy to take on any responsibility and to take care of any task, and because he had no difficulty in doing the accounts he soon knew all about the household and its running, and his beneficent influence was felt everywhere. He was usually the one to receive callers and he knew how to turn away an unexpected visitor, or if he could not do that, at any rate to prepare the women so that they suffered no inconvenience.

One caller who gave him a certain amount of trouble was a young solicitor who was sent along one day by a neighbouring aristocrat to discuss a subject which, although not very important in itself, was disturbing to Charlotte. We have
to give our attention to this incident because it supplied an impetus to various things which might perhaps otherwise have lain dormant for a long time.

Let us recall those alterations Charlotte had made in the churchyard. All the gravestones had been moved from their places and set up against the wall and against the base of the church. The ground had been levelled and, except for the broad walk which led to the church and then past it to the little gate beyond, sown with various kinds of clover, which provided a fine green and flowery expanse. New graves could be added from the end of this expanse, but each time the ground was to be levelled again and sown with clover. No one could deny that this arrangement provided a dignified and cheerful prospect when you went to church on Sunday or feast-days. Even the parson who, stricken in years and riveted to the old ways, had at first not been very happy about the new dispensation, now found pleasure in sitting, a Philemon with his Baucis, under the ancient lime-trees before his backdoor and having before him a gaily coloured carpet instead of a field of rough and rugged gravestones. This patch of ground was, moreover, to be for the permanent benefit of his household, since Charlotte had provided that its use would be guaranteed to the parsonage.

But for all that, there were some parishioners who had already expressed disapproval that the place where their ancestors reposed was no longer marked, and that their memory had thus been so to speak obliterated. There were many who said that, although the gravestones which were preserved showed who was buried there, they did not show where they were buried, and it was where they were buried that really mattered.

This opinion was shared by a neighbouring family which had many years before reserved a plot in this burial ground and in exchange made a small bequest to the church. Now the young solicitor had been sent to revoke the bequest and to
give notice that no further payments would be made, because the condition under which payments had hitherto been made had been unilaterally abrogated and all protests and representations ignored. Charlotte, the originator of this change, wanted to talk to the young man herself. He stated his and his client’s case firmly but politely and gave them all much to think about.

‘You will understand,’ he said, after a brief preamble justifying his presumption in coming, ‘you will understand that all persons, the highest and the humblest, are concerned to mark the place in which their loved ones lie. To the poorest peasant burying one of his children it is a kind of comfort and consolation to set upon its grave a feeble wooden cross, and to decorate it with a wreath, so that he may preserve the memory of that child for at any rate as long as his sorrow for it endures, even though such a memorial must, like that grief itself, at last be wiped away by time. The prosperous employ, instead of wood, iron, make their cross fast and firm and in various ways protect it, and already one may speak of a memorial which will endure through the years. But because even these at length must fall and lose their brightness, the rich feel no stronger call than the call to erect a stone which will endure for many generations and which their posterity can refurbish and renew. But it is not the stone itself which draws us to the spot, but that which is preserved beneath it, that which is entrusted to the earth beside it. The question here is not so much of the memorial as of the person himself, not of the memory but of the present fact. I can embrace the departed far more readily in a grave than in a monument, for a monument has in itself little real meaning: it should rather be a landmark around which wives, husbands, relatives, friends continue to assemble even after their departure hence, and the survivor should retain the right to turn strangers and ill-wishers away from his dear ones at rest.