Elective Affinities (31 page)

This task was not so easy to accomplish, at least no adequate answer occurred to the Major, and there was nothing left for him to do but to impress on Eduard again how weighty, how doubtful and in many respects dangerous the whole undertaking was, and that they had at least to think very seriously how it was to be tackled. Eduard acquiesced, but only on condition his friend would not desert him until they had come to a complete agreement on the matter and the first steps had been taken.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I
F
people who are complete strangers and indifferent to one another live for a time in company they will bare their hearts to one another and a certain intimacy must arise. It was thus all the more to be expected that our two friends, now they were once more side by side and going about together daily and hourly, would have no secrets from one another. They revived memories of earlier times and the Major did not conceal that when Eduard had returned from his travels Charlotte had intended Ottilie should be his, that she had had in mind that they should marry. Eduard, delighted to the point of derangement by this revelation, spoke without restraint of the affection between Charlotte and the Major which, since it was in his immediate interest to do so, he painted in the liveliest colours.

The Major could not entirely deny what he said, yet he could not entirely admit it either; but Eduard only insisted on it the more strongly. He thought of it all, not as merely possible, but as having already happened. All parties had only to consent to what they desired; a divorce could certainly be procured; an early marriage was to follow, and Eduard would travel away with Ottilie.

Of all things the imagination can picture, there is perhaps nothing more entrancing than young lovers, a young married couple, looking to enjoy their new relationship in a new world and to test and confirm the durability of their union against so many different scenes and circumstances. While Eduard and Ottilie were away, Charlotte and the Major were to have unlimited authority to regulate everything pertaining to their property, fortune and material arrangements, and to manage them justly and fairly, so that all parties could be
satisfied. But what Eduard seemed to build on most of all, and to expect the greatest advantage from, was this: since the child was to stay with his mother, the Major would be able to bring him up, guide him according to his own outlook, and develop his capacities. Then it would not have been in vain that they had given him in baptism their common name of Otto.

All this had become so firmly complete in Eduard’s mind that he wanted to wait not a single day before beginning to put it into practice. On their way to the estate they came to a little town in which Eduard owned a house; here he intended to stay and await the Major’s return. But he could not bring himself to dismount at the house immediately and he accompanied his friend to the town’s end. They were both on horseback and they rode on together sunk in earnest conversation.

All at once they beheld in the distance the new pavilion on the hill; it was the first time they had seen its red tiles glittering in the sunlight. Eduard is seized by an irresistible longing; everything is to be settled this very evening. He will conceal himself in a village close by; the Major shall put the whole matter urgently before Charlotte, take her unawares and by the unexpectedness of the proposal oblige her freely to disclose what she thinks of it. For Eduard had transferred his desires to Charlotte, and believed that all he was doing was meeting her own desires halfway: he looked for so immediate a consent from her because he himself would have given his consent at once.

He saw the happy outcome joyfully in his mind’s eye and, so that this outcome should be quickly announced to him as he impatiently waited, a number of cannon-shots were to be fired or, if it had already become night, a number of rockets sent up.

The Major rode on to the mansion. He did not find Charlotte, he learned instead that she was at present living in the new building on the hill but was at that moment away on a
visit in the neighbourhood, from which she would probably not be getting back until quite late. He returned to the inn where he had installed his horse.

In the meanwhile, Eduard, driven by uncontrollable impatience, had crept out of his hiding place and, by solitary paths known only to hunters and fishermen, had come to his own park, where towards evening he found himself in the undergrowth close by the lake, whose new enlarged expanse he then saw for the first time.

Ottilie had that afternoon gone for a walk beside the lake. As was her custom she carried the child and read as she walked, and thus reading and walking she reached the oak-trees beside the mooring place. The boy had fallen asleep; she sat herself down, laid him beside her, and went on reading. The book was one of those which draw a tender heart to it and refused to let it go. She forgot the time and that she still had a long way to go around the lake back to the new pavilion; she sat lost in her book and in herself, so lovely a sight that the trees and bushes around her should have come alive and been given eyes so as to admire and take delight in her. And at that moment a ruddy shaft of light fell upon her from the setting sun and turned her cheek and shoulder to gold.

Eduard, who had so far succeeded in advancing undetected and who found his park deserted and the whole region empty, ventured further and further in, until at length he broke through the undergrowth beside the oak-trees. He saw Ottilie and she him; he flew towards her and threw himself at her feet. After a long silence in which both sought to compose themselves, he explained in few words why and how he had come. He had sent the Major to Charlotte and their common destiny was perhaps being decided at that very moment. He had never doubted her love, and she had certainly never doubted his. He begged her to consent. She hesitated, he entreated; he made to assert his former rights and embrace her in his arms; she motioned towards the child.

Eduard saw it and was astonished. ‘Great God!’ he exclaimed, ‘if I had reason to doubt my wife and my friend this little form would be a terrible witness against them. Are these not the Major’s features? Such a likeness I have never seen.’

‘But no!’ Ottilie replied. ‘Everyone says he resembles me.’ ‘Is that possible?’ Eduard said, and at that moment the child opened his eyes, two big, black, penetrating eyes, deep and friendly. The boy already regarded the world with so steady a gaze, and it was as if he knew the two who were standing before him. Eduard dropped down beside the child and was kneeling a second time before Ottilie. ‘It is you!’ he exclaimed: ‘they are your eyes. Oh, but let me look only into yours. Let me draw a veil over the fatal hour that gave this little creature existence. Am I to frighten your spotless soul with the unhappy thought that man and wife can, though estranged, embrace together and a lawful bond be profaned by the vehemence of desire! Or yes, since we have come so far, since Charlotte and I must part, since you are to be mine, why should I not say it! Why should I not utter the harsh words: this child was begotten in twofold adultery! It sunders me from my wife and my wife from me as it should have united us. May it bear witness against me, may these lovely eyes say to yours that in the arms of another I belonged to you; may you feel, Ottilie, feel truly, that I can atone for that error, for that crime, only in your arms!’

‘Listen!’ he cried, leaping up. He thought he heard a shot, the signal the Major was to give. But the shot came from a huntsman in the neighbouring hills. Nothing further followed, and Eduard grew impatient.

Only now did Ottilie notice that the sun had sunk behind the mountains. Its last rays were reflected from the windows of the building on the hill. ‘You must go, Eduard!’ she cried. ‘We have waited so long, we have been patient so long. Consider what we both owe Charlotte. She must decide our fate; let us not anticipate her decision. I am yours if she consents;
if she does not, I must renounce you. Since you believe the decision to be so near, let us await it. Go back to the village where the Major thinks you still are. How much can happen that may require explaining. Is it likely that he will announce the success of his mission with a bare cannon-shot? Perhaps he is looking for you at this moment. He has not met Charlotte, that I know: he may have gone after her, for they knew where she had gone. How many different things may have happened! Leave me! She must be coming now. She is expecting me up there with the child.’

Ottilie spoke in haste. All that might happen passed through her mind. She was happy to have Eduard near her and she felt she now had to send him away. ‘I beg, I beseech you, beloved!’ she cried, ‘go back and wait for the Major!’ ‘I shall obey your command,’ Eduard replied, gazing on her passionately and then clasping her tightly in his arms. She embraced him and drew him with the utmost tenderness to her breast. Hope soared away over their heads like a star falling from the sky. They fancied, they believed they belonged to one another; for the first time they exchanged firm, frank kisses, and when they parted they had to tear themselves away from one another.

The sun had set, and already twilight and mist were settling on the lake. Ottilie stood agitated and confused; she gazed over to the pavilion on the hill and thought she saw Charlotte’s white dress on the balcony. The way back around the lake was long; she knew Charlotte would be waiting impatiently for the child. She sees the plane-trees standing on the other side of the lake; only a sheet of water divides her from the path leading straight up to the pavilion. As with her eyes, so in her mind she has already reached it. The doubtfulness of venturing on to the water with the child is forgotten in this sense of urgency. She hurries to the boat, she pays no heed to her beating heart, to her trembling feet, to the signs that she is near to swooning.

She leaps into the boat, seizes the oar, and pushes off from the shore. She has to push hard, she pushes a second time, the boat sways and glides a little distance out into the lake. With the child on her left arm, her book in her left hand, and the oar in her right hand, she too sways and falls into the boat. The oar slips out of her hand to one side of the boat, and as she is trying to steady herself the child and book slip out to the other side, all into the water. She still has hold of the child’s dress, but the awkward position she is in makes it difficult for her to get up. With only one free hand, she cannot push herself upright. At length she succeeds, she pulls the child from the water, but his eyes are closed and he has ceased to breathe.

At that moment she is restored to her full senses, but her grief is for that reason all the greater. The boat is drifting almost into the middle of the lake, the oar is floating off, she can see no one on the bank, and how would it help her if she could! Cut off from everyone, she is gliding across the faithless intractable element.

She tries to render aid herself. She had heard so often about how to save the drowning and she had seen it done on the evening of her birthday. She undresses the child and dries it with her muslin frock. She tears open her clothes and for the first time bares her breast to the open sky; for the first time she presses a living creature to her pure naked breast – alas, a living creature no longer. The unhappy child’s cold limbs chill her bosom down to her innermost heart. An unending stream of tears pours from her eyes and imparts to the numb body an appearance of warmth and life. She persists, she covers the body with her shawl, and she thinks to make good with stroking, embracing, warming and kissing the child, and drenching it with her tears, those aids which, cut off as she is, she cannot bring him.

All in vain! The child lies motionless in her arms, the boat floats motionless on the water; but even here her spirit does
not desert her. She turns to Heaven for aid. She sinks to her knees in the boat and with both hands raises the benumbed body over her guiltless breast, as white as marble and, alas, as cold. She gazes on high with tear-filled eyes and calls for help from that place where a tender heart looks to find abundant aid when there is none elsewhere.

Nor does she turn in vain to the stars which are beginning to show here and there in the sky. A gentle wind arises and drives the boat towards the plane-trees.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

S
HE
hastens to the new pavilion, she calls for the doctor, she gives him the child. Calm in any emergency, he treats the tender body according to the prescribed formula. Ottilie assists in every way she can: she fetches and carries, but she does it all as if walking in a dream, for, like great good fortune, great misfortune alters the aspect of everything; and only when, after he has gone through all the procedures for reviving the drowned, the good man shakes his head and to her hopeful questions replies at first with silence and then a gentle No, does she leave Charlotte’s bedroom, where all this has been taking place, and has hardly reached the living-room when she falls exhausted on her face on to the carpet before she can gain the sofa.

At that moment Charlotte is heard driving up. The doctor entreats those present to stay where they are: he will go to meet and prepare her; but she is already entering the room. She finds Ottilie lying on the floor, and one of the maids runs towards her crying and weeping. The doctor comes in behind her and she learns everything at once. But how can he ask her to abandon all hope in an instant! An experienced and prudent man, he asks her only not to go and see the child; he departs, to deceive her that there is more to be done. She has seated herself on her sofa, Ottilie still lies on the floor, but her lovely head has been raised on to Charlotte’s knees and there it now lies. Their physician friend comes and goes; he appears to be attending to the child, he is really attending to the women. Thus midnight comes on, the deathly stillness grows ever deeper. Charlotte no longer conceals from herself that the child will never come back to life; she demands to see him. He has been washed and wrapped in warm woollen blankets
and laid in a basket, which is placed beside her on the sofa; only the little face is uncovered; it lies there serene and lovely.