Elective Affinities (4 page)

‘I really cannot see why you have so high an opinion of Ottilie!’ Eduard replied. ‘I can explain it only by supposing she has inherited your affection for her mother. It is true she is pretty, and I recall that the Captain pointed her out to me when we came back a year ago and met her with you at your aunt’s. She is pretty, she possesses in particular lovely eyes; yet I cannot say she made the least impression on me.’

‘That is very commendable in you,’ said Charlotte, ‘for I was there too, was I not? Although she is far younger than I, yet the presence of your more elderly friend charmed you so thoroughly you overlooked the beauty that was yet in bud. This too is part of what you are like and why I am so happy to share my life with you.’

Charlotte gave the impression of talking very frankly and openly, but she was keeping something concealed, and that was that she had deliberately produced Ottilie in front of Eduard when he came back so as to throw so advantageous a match in the way of her foster-daughter. At that time she no longer thought of Eduard in connection with herself. The Captain too had been suborned to draw Eduard’s attention to Ottilie, but Eduard had been obstinately mindful of his youthful love for Charlotte, and he had looked neither to right nor left, but was thinking only that he might now be going to find it possible to seize at last the possession he wanted so much but which events seemed to have put beyond his reach for ever.

The couple were about to go down to the mansion across the new park when a servant came clambering up towards them laughing, and called out from below: ‘Come along quick, sir! Come along quick, madam! Herr Mittler has just come bursting in. He has roused us all up and told us to go and look for you and ask you if you need him. “Ask if they need me, d’you hear!” was his words. “And make haste, make haste!”’

‘The strange fellow!’ Eduard exclaimed. ‘Has he not arrived at just the right moment, Charlotte?’ Turning to the servant, he said: ‘Go back quickly! Tell him we do need him, very much! Ask him to dismount, take care of his horse, invite him in and offer him some breakfast. We are just coming.

‘Let us take the shortest way back,’ he said to his wife, and went off down the path through the churchyard which he usually avoided. He was very surprised when he discovered that here too Charlotte had provided for the demands of sensibility. With every consideration for the ancient monuments she had managed to level and arrange everything in such a way as to create a pleasant place which was nice to look at and which set the imagination working.

The oldest memorial of all had been put in a place of suitable honour. In the order of their antiquity the gravestones were erected against the wall, inserted into it, or lodged in some other way. The base of the church itself was ornamented and augmented by this arrangement. Eduard felt very moved when, entering through the little gateway, he saw the place. He pressed Charlotte’s hand and tears came into his eyes.

But they went out of them the next instant when the eccentric guest appeared. Incapable of sitting quietly in the mansion he had ridden at full gallop through the village up to the churchyard gate, where he drew rein and shouted out: ‘You’re not pulling my leg, eh? If you really do need me I’ll stay until lunchtime. But don’t detain me. I’ve a lot still to do today.’

‘Since you’ve taken the trouble to come so far,’ Eduard called up to him, ‘you might as well ride all the way in. We meet in a solemn place. See how Charlotte has beautified this funeral-ground.’

‘Into that place,’ replied the mounted man, ‘I enter neither on horse, nor by carriage, nor on foot. The people in there are at peace, with them I have no business. You’ll never find me joining them until they drag me in feet first. So you’re serious, then?’

‘Yes,’ Charlotte cried, ‘quite serious! It is the first time we newly-weds have found ourselves in a difficulty we don’t know how to get out of.’

‘You don’t look as if you are in any difficulty,’ he replied, ‘but I’ll believe you. If you’re leading me on I’ll leave you in the lurch another time. Follow me back. Make haste! My horse could do with a rest.’

The three were soon back home and in the dining-room. They ate and Mittler said what he had done and what he was going to do that day. This singular gentleman was in earlier years a minister of religion. Unflagging in his office, he had distinguished himself by his capacity for settling and silencing all disputes, domestic and communal, first between individual people, then between landowners, and then between whole parishes. There were no divorces and the local judiciary was not pestered by a single suit or contention during the whole period of his incumbency. He recognized early on how essential a knowledge of law was to him, he threw himself into a study of this science, and he soon felt a match for the best lawyers. The sphere of his activities expanded wondrously and he was on the point of being called to the Residenz so that he might complete from on high what he had begun among the lowly when he won a big prize in a lottery. He bought a modest estate, farmed it out and made it into the central point of his life, with the firm intention, or rather according to his fixed habit and inclination, never to enter
any house where there was not a dispute to settle or difficulties to put right. People superstitious about the significance of names say it was the name Mittler, which means mediator, which compelled him to adopt this oddest of vocations.

As a sweet was being served the guest earnestly admonished his hosts to hold back their disclosures no longer, as he would have to leave as soon as he had had coffee. The couple made their confessions in some detail, but no sooner had he grasped the point of it all than he leapt up from the table in vexation, sprang to the window and commanded his horse be saddled.

‘Either you don’t know me,’ he cried, ‘or don’t understand me, or this is some malicious joke. Is there any contention here? Is assistance needed here? Do you think I exist to hand out advice? That’s the most preposterous trade a man can ply. Let each advise himself and do what he can’t help doing. If it turns out well, let him congratulate himself on his wisdom and good fortune; if it goes ill, he can always turn to me. He who wants to rid himself of an evil always knows what he wants, but he who wants something better than he already has is night-blind – yes, you can laugh! – he’s playing blindman’s buff. He will catch something, perhaps – but what? Do what you wish: it’s all one! Invite your friends, don’t invite them: it’s all one! I’ve seen the most judicious plans miscarry, the absurdest succeed. Don’t go racking your brains over it, and if it goes ill, in one way or the other, still don’t go racking ’em. Just send for me and I’ll come to your assistance. Till then, your servant!’

And with that he swung himself onto his horse without waiting for the coffee.

‘Here you see.’ said Charlotte, ‘how little it profits to bring in a third party when two intimates are not entirely in accord. We are now surely even more confused and undecided than we were before, if that be possible.’

They would both no doubt have continued to vacillate if a
letter had not arrived from the Captain in reply to Eduard’s. He said he had decided to accept one of the posts offered him, although it was in no way suited to him. He was to participate in the boredom of an aristocratic and wealthy circle on the understanding he would know how to dissipate it.

Eduard saw the whole situation very clearly and painted it in vivid colours. ‘Are we to sit back and witness our friend reduced to such circumstances?’ he exclaimed. ‘You cannot be so inhuman, Charlotte!’

‘Our singular friend Mittler is right after all,’ Charlotte replied. ‘All such undertakings are perilous adventures. No one can foresee what will come of them. Such new arrangements can produce happiness or unhappiness without our venturing to ascribe to ourselves any particular merit or blame. I do not feel strong enough to oppose you any longer. Let us make a trial of it. The sole thing I ask is that it should be for only a short while. Allow me to stir myself more on his behalf and make zealous use of my influence and connections to procure for him a place which will in his own way afford him some contentment.’

Eduard certified his gratitude in the most charming possible manner and hastened, with light and happy heart, to write to his friend and tell him what they proposed. Charlotte had to append her approval in her own hand and to join her own cordial invitation to his. Her words were kind and courteous, and she wrote with a nimble pen, yet with a kind of haste not usual with her and, an uncommon thing for her to do, she disfigured the sheet with a blot, which annoyed her and only became bigger when she tried to rub it out.

Eduard made a joke of it, and because there was still room he added a second postscript, saying his friend should see from this sign with what impatience he was awaited and pattern the speed of his journey on that with which the letter had been written.

The carrier went off and Eduard thought he could not express his gratitude more convincingly than by insisting again and again that Charlotte should at once have Ottilie taken out of school and brought home.

She asked him not to press her at present over that matter, and in the evening she managed to arouse his interest in a musical diversion. Charlotte played the piano very well, Eduard played the flute less well. He sometimes made great efforts but he had not been granted the patience and perseverance needed for the cultivation of a talent of this sort. He played very unevenly: some passages he played well, only perhaps too fast, while at others he would halt and hesitate, so that it would have been difficult for anyone else to get through a duet with him. But Charlotte knew how to manage it. She would halt and then let him draw her along again and thus she discharged the double duty of proficient conductor and prudent housewife: both know how to keep the whole thing to the correct measure, even if individual passages may not always be in tempo.

CHAPTER THREE

T
HE
Captain arrived. He had sent ahead of him a very judicious letter which altogether calmed down any fears Charlotte may have had. She thought that so great an insight into himself and so clear a perception of his own position and that of his friends was a good sign.

Conversation during their first hours together was lively, almost exhausting, as it usually is among friends who have not seen one another for some time. Towards evening Charlotte took them for a walk in the new park. The Captain was very pleased with it and noticed every beautiful sight and spot which the new paths had for the first time opened up. He had a practised eye but it was one that was easily pleased. He recognized very well what shortcomings there were but he refrained (many do not refrain) from making those who were conducting him round ill-humoured by demanding more than circumstances allowed or (which is worse) by recalling something more perfect he had seen somewhere else.

When they reached the moss-hut they discovered it very gaily decked out. The materials were, to be sure, only artificial flowers and evergreens, but fine sheaves of natural wheat and other products of field and tree were mixed with them and the arrangement did credit to the artistic sense of whoever had carried it out. ‘Although my husband hates to have any fuss made over his birthday or nameday, I know he will not take it amiss if today I dedicate these few garlands to a threefold celebration,’ Charlotte said.

‘A threefold celebration?’ Eduard exclaimed. ‘Yes indeed!’ Charlotte said. ‘We may fairly treat our friend’s arrival as an occasion for celebration; and then, has it occurred to neither
of you that today is your nameday? Are you not both called Otto?’

The two friends took hands across the little table. ‘You bring back to my mind,’ said Eduard, ‘that youthful deed of friendship. As children we both bore that fine, laconic name; but when we were at school together and confusion arose, I voluntarily resigned it to him.’

‘In doing which you were not actuated entirely by generosity,’ said the Captain. ‘For I recall quite well you preferred the name Eduard, which does indeed sound uncommonly pleasing when uttered by fair lips.’

The three were now sitting around the little table at which Charlotte had exclaimed so passionately against the guest’s coming. Contented as he was, Eduard had no wish to remind his wife of that occasion, but he could not refrain from saying: ‘I do not doubt there would be room for a fourth too.’

At that moment there came from the mansion the sound of horns. It was like a confirmation that our friends were right to be together like this, and they listened to the sound in silence and each of them was sunk into himself and was doubly conscious of his own happiness in being together with the others.

Eduard first interrupted the interval by getting up and stepping out in front of the moss-hut. ‘Let us take our friend right to the top of the hill,’ he said to Charlotte, ‘in case he should think this narrow valley comprises our whole home and estate. Up there the view is more open and there is more room to breathe.’

‘Then we shall still have to clamber up the old footpath,’ Charlotte replied. ‘It is rather hard going, but I hope the steps and paths I am having constructed will very soon make an easy way right to the top.’

By this route, over rocks and through brushwood and thickets, they reached the top of the hill, which was not a
plateau but a continuous fertile ridge. Village and mansion to the rearward could no more be seen. Ahead and far below lay a chain of lakes. Beyond them lay tree-covered hills with the lakes stretching towards them. Finally, steep cliffs cut off the farthest of the lakes perpendicularly and threw their massive image down onto the water’s surface. Across in the ravine, where a rushing stream fell down into the lakes, stood a half-hidden mill which, together with the ground surrounding it, appeared to be a good resting-place. The whole visible semi-circle was filled with a great variety of hills and gullies and of woods and thickets whose early greenery promised a luxuriant prospect later in the year. In many places there stood out isolated clumps of trees, and in particular a mass of poplars and plane-trees, green and full-grown, their branches striving up and outward, on the edge of the middle lake at the feet of our friends as they stood gazing down.