Elective Affinities (34 page)

She looked down at the letter and, after some hesitation, picked it up, tore it open and read it. She read it without changing her expression, and without changing her expression she laid it gently down; then she pressed the palms of her hands together, and, raising them in the air, carried them to her breast, at the same time bowing very slightly and bestowing on him who had made this urgent request such a glance that he was glad to desist. The gesture tore at his heart. He could not bear to watch her as she stood there. It seemed as if she would sink to her knees before him if he persisted. He rushed from the room in despair and sent the innkeeper’s wife in to the solitary figure he had left behind.

He paced up and down the entrance hall. Night had come on and it was still quiet in the room. Eventually the innkeeper’s wife appeared and removed the key. The good lady was disturbed and embarrassed and did not know what she
ought to do. Finally, as she was moving off she proffered the key to Eduard, who refused it. She left the light burning and went away.

In the profoundest misery Eduard threw himself down on Ottilie’s threshold and dissolved into tears. Seldom have a loving couple passed so woeful a night so close together.

Day dawned; the coachman wanted to be off, the innkeeper’s wife unlocked the door and went into the room. She found Ottilie asleep in her clothes; she came back and beckoned Eduard with a tender smile. They both went in and stood looking down at the sleeping girl, but Eduard was unable to bear even this sight. The innkeeper’s wife would not venture to waken her but sat down close to where she was lying. Eventually Ottilie opened her lovely eyes and rose to her feet. She refuses breakfast, and then Eduard comes in to her. He implores her to speak but one word, to say what it is she wants; he swears he desires to do only what she wants; but she does not speak. Again he asks her, tenderly and insistently, if she will be his. With downcast eyes she gently shakes her head. He asks if she wants to go on to school. She shakes her head indifferently. But when he asks whether he may take her back to Charlotte, she replies with a confident affirmative nod. He hastens to the window to instruct the coachman but she is away, out of the room like the wind, down the stairs, into the carriage. The coachman takes the road back to the mansion; Eduard follows on horseback some distance behind.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

C
HARLOTTE
was astounded to see Ottilie come driving and Eduard come riding into the courtyard at the same time. She hastened to the entry: Ottilie dismounts from the carriage and approaches with Eduard. With fervour she forcibly seizes the hands of Eduard and Charlotte, presses them together and hastens to her room. Eduard falls upon his wife’s neck and bursts into tears. He cannot explain, he asks her to be patient with him, to stand by Ottilie, to help her. Charlotte hastens to Ottilie’s room and shudders as she goes in, for it had already been cleared and only the bare walls remained. It looked as enormous as it seemed cheerless. The servants had removed everything: only the little chest had been left in the middle of the room, since they had been uncertain where to put it. Ottilie lay on the floor, her head on the casket and her arms thrown over it. Charlotte kneels down beside her, asks what has happened and receives no answer.

She leaves her maid with Ottilie and hastens to Eduard. She finds him in the drawing-room; he too tells her nothing. He throws himself on the floor before her, he bathes her hands with his tears, he flees to his room, and when she makes to follow him she is met by his valet, who enlightens her as far as he is able. She pieces the rest together for herself, and then at once quickly resolves on what must immediately be done. Ottilie’s room is restored as quickly as it can be. Eduard had found his own rooms exactly as he left them, down to the last scrap of paper.

The three appear to resume their former life together; but Ottilie continues to keep silence and Eduard can do nothing but beg his wife to show that patience which he himself appears to lack. Charlotte sends messengers to Mittler and the
Major. The former was not to be found; the latter arrives. To him Eduard pours out his heart, he confesses every last detail, and thus Charlotte learns what has happened, what has changed the situation so remarkably, the cause of all the emotion.

She speaks most lovingly to her husband. She does not know what else to ask but that he should for the present leave Ottilie alone. Eduard is sensible of his wife’s love and good sense, but he is exclusively dominated by his passion. Charlotte offers him hope and promises to agree to the divorce. He places no confidence in her words. He is in so morbid a condition that hope and belief alternately desert him; he urges Charlotte to offer her hand to the Major; he is in the grip of a sort of frantic ill-humour. Charlotte, to soothe and sustain him, does what he demands. She offers the Major her hand, provided Ottilie is willing to be united with Eduard and on the express condition the two men go away together for the time being. The Major has some foreign business to transact for his court and Eduard promises to accompany him. Arrangements are made and, since at any rate something is being done, a certain calm is achieved.

Meanwhile, it is apparent that Ottilie is taking hardly any food or drink, while she is continuing to persist in her silence. They speak to her, but this makes her distressed and they forbear. For have not most of us the weakness that we would not gladly torment anyone even for his own good? Charlotte pondered every possible way of assisting her and at length she lit upon the idea of summoning the young schoolmaster, who had great influence over Ottilie and who had made very friendly inquiries about her unexpected failure to arrive, which inquiries had not yet received a reply.

So as not to present her with a surprise they discuss this proposal in Ottilie’s presence. She seems not to be in agreement; she deliberates; at length a resolve seems to mature within her; she hastens to her room, and before they have
assembled together for the evening she sends down the following epistle:

Ottilie to her Friends

What need have I, my dear friends, to say that which speaks for itself? I have deserted my rightful path and I am not to return to it. Even if I could become at one with myself again, it seems that a malign demon has gained power over me to bar my way from without.

My intention to renounce Eduard and to go far away from him was quite sincere. I hoped never to meet him again. It has turned out otherwise: he stood before me even against his own will. Perhaps I took too literally my promise not to speak with him. As my feelings and conscience prompted me at that moment I stood silent before him, and now I have nothing more to say. On an impulse of feeling I chanced to impose on myself a vow which, to sober consideration, might seem hazardous. Let me persist in it so long as my heart commands me. Do not call in any mediator! Do not urge me to speak or to take more food and drink than I absolutely need. Help me through this time by your patience and consideration. I am young, and youth recovers unawares. Suffer me in your company, gladden me with your love, instruct me with your conversation: but leave my soul to me!

The long-prepared departure of the men did not take place because that foreign business of the Major’s was delayed: much to Eduard’s delight! Excited now by Ottilie’s note, encouraged anew by her comforting, hope-giving words and feeling justified in continuing to hold out, he all at once declared he would not go. ‘How foolish,’ he cried, ‘deliberately and precipitately to throw away what we most need and can least do without, and, even if we are threatened with losing it, might still hold on to! And for why! Merely so it may seem that man is capable of willing and choosing. Possessed by such foolish self-conceit I have often in the past torn myself away from my friends hours, indeed days, before
I had to, merely so as not to be compelled to leave when the final unavoidable hour arrived. But this time I will stay. Why should I go, why should I leave her? Has she not already left me? I have no intention of touching her, of taking her hand, of pressing her to my heart: I even dare not think of it, I shudder at the thought. She has not gone away from me, she has risen above me.’

And so he stayed, as he wanted to, as he had to. And he had never felt anything to compare with the sense of wellbeing he felt when he and she were together, a sensation which she too still retained: she too could not forsake this blissful feeling which had become for them both a necessity. They exerted, as before, an indescribable, almost magical attraction upon one another. They lived beneath one roof, but even when they were not actually thinking about one another, when they were involved with other things, driven hither and thither by society, they still drew closer together. If they found themselves in the same room, it was not long before they were standing or sitting side-by-side. Only the closest proximity to one another could make them tranquil and calm of mind, but then they were altogether tranquil, and this proximity was sufficient: no glance, no word, no gesture, no touch was needed, but only this pure togetherness. Then they were not two people, they were one person, one in unreflecting perfect well-being, contented with themselves and with the universe. Indeed, if one of them had been imprisoned at the far end of the house, the other would gradually and without any conscious intention have moved across in that direction. Life was an enigma to them whose solution they could discover only with one another.

Ottilie was altogether cheerful and relaxed, so that the others began to feel quite at ease about her. She rarely absented herself from their company, though she had persuaded them to let her eat alone. She was served by no one except Nanni.

Typical experiences are repeated more frequently than one thinks, because their immediate cause is the nature of him who experiences them. His character, personality, inclinations, tendencies, the locality in which he lives, his environment and habits, together form a whole in which he lives as in his own element, his own atmosphere, and in which alone he can be comfortable. And thus we are astonished to find that human beings, about whose changeableness so much complaint is heard, are after a lapse of many years unchanged and, in spite of subjection to an endless number of inner and outer influences, unchangeable.

And so too almost everything in our friends’ daily life together was back again on its old lines. Ottilie continued to give silent proof of her obliging nature by many acts of kindness, and the others too behaved normally, each according to his own nature. In this way the domestic circle appeared to be a replica of their former life and they could be forgiven the illusion that everything was still as it had been.

The autumn days, of a like length to those earlier spring days, called the company back into the house at the self-same hour. The adornment of fruit and flower which this season owns gave them to imagine it must be the autumn of that first spring: the time between had fallen into oblivion. For now there bloomed such flowers as they had planted in those first days too; now those trees bore fruit which then they had seen in blossom.

The Major came and went, and Mittler too was often to be seen. Their evening gatherings were usually of the routine sort. Eduard usually read to them, more vivaciously, with more feeling, better, indeed more cheerfully than before. It was as if he sought to thaw out Ottilie’s numbness through gaiety as well as through warmth of feeling. As before, he sat so that she could see his book, indeed he grew restless and distracted if she did not read over his shoulder, if he could not be certain she was following his words with her eyes.

The joyless troubled feelings of the time between had gone. No longer did anyone bear resentment against anyone else: all bitterness had faded away. The Major accompanied on the violin Charlotte’s piano-playing, as Eduard’s flute again kept time with Ottilie’s. And thus they drew closer to Eduard’s birthday, which had not been celebrated the year before.

This time, they had half tacitly, half explicitly agreed, it was to be celebrated quietly, without festivity. Yet the nearer it approached, the more solemn Ottilie became, with a solemnity which the others had hitherto sensed rather than expressly noticed. She often seemed to be inspecting the flowers in the garden; she had hinted to the gardener that he should preserve as they were as many of the summer plants as he could, and she had lingered in particular before the asters, which that year were blossoming in exceptionally great profusion.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
HE
most significant thing the friends quietly observed, however, was that Ottilie had for the first time unpacked the casket and selected various materials from it and cut up sufficient to make a single complete set of clothes. When she tried with Nanni’s help to pack it away again she could hardly manage it: the casket was over-full, even though part of its contents had been removed. The girl stared covetously at the clothes, especially when she saw that all the smaller accessories had also been provided. There were shoes, stockings, embroidered garters, gloves and many other things. She begged Ottilie to give her just a few of them. Ottilie declined to do so, but straightway opened a chest of drawers and let the child have her choice. Nanni made a quick grab and at once ran off with her booty to exhibit it and announce her good fortune to the other members of the household.

Ottilie eventually succeeded in arranging everything carefully back in the chest, whereupon she opened a concealed compartment fitted into the lid. There she had hidden a number of notes and letters from Eduard, various dried flowers culled on their walks together, a lock of her beloved’s hair, and other things. She added one more object – it was her father’s portrait – and closed it all up, after which she hung the little key on the gold chain back around her neck.

Sundry hopes had in the meanwhile begun to stir in our friends’ hearts. Charlotte was convinced that Ottilie would start to speak again on that coming day, for she now seemed to be secretly occupied and she wore an air of cheerful self-content, a smile such as appears on the face of one who is concealing something good and gratifying from those he loves. No one knew that Ottilie passed many hours in a state
of great debility from which she roused herself by willpower only when she appeared outside her room.