Elective Affinities (9 page)

Despite his advancing years Eduard had retained something childlike to which Ottilie’s youth was particularly congenial. They liked to recall together earlier occasions on which they had seen one another. These recollections went back as far as the time Eduard was first attracted to Charlotte. Ottilie claimed to remember them as being the handsomest couple at court, and when Eduard denied she could remember anything so early she asserted she could still perfectly well recall how once, when Eduard had come into the room, she had hidden her face in Charlotte’s lap, not because she was afraid but out of childish confusion. She could have added:
because he had made so lively an impression upon her, because she liked him so well.

Under these circumstances much of the business the two friends had been doing together was beginning to come to a halt. They found it necessary to take renewed stock of the situation, draft memoranda, write letters. They arranged to meet in their office, where they found their ancient copy-clerk idling his time away. They set to work and soon had him active again, although they failed to notice they were burdening him with many things they had previously been used to taking care of themselves. The Captain’s very first memorandum, Eduard’s very first letter both failed to come right, and they toiled about for a time with drafting and copying, until Eduard, who was making the least headway of the two, at length asked what the time was.

It then transpired that the Captain had, for the first time for many years, forgotten to wind his watch. They seemed, if not to realize clearly, at any rate to suspect that time was beginning to be a matter of indifference to them.

While the men were to some extent neglecting their business the women were becoming more industrious. As a rule the ordinary life of a family, which has its origin in the nature of the people and the circumstances involved, assimilates an extraordinary inclination, a growing passion, like a vat, and quite a long time may elapse before this new ingredient causes any perceptible fermentation and finally comes foaming over the edge.

The mutual affections which had developed were having the pleasantest effect upon our friends. Their hearts were opened and a general feeling of goodwill evolved from the particular. Each one was happy and did not envy the other his happiness.

A condition like this, by opening the heart elevates the mind, and everything we do or undertake to do tends towards the immeasurable. Our friends no longer confined themselves
to the house. They went for longer walks and when Eduard hurried ahead with Ottilie to find out new paths and to break new ground the Captain and Charlotte quietly followed talking seriously and taking an interest in many newly-discovered spots and many unexpected vistas.

One day their walk took them through the gate of the right wing of the mansion down to the inn over the bridge towards the lake. They walked along the lakeshore as far as they could, up to the place where the bank became enclosed by a bush-covered hill, and further along by cliffs, and ceased to be passable.

But Eduard, who was familiar with the region from when he had hunted there, pressed further on with Ottilie up to an overgrown path, knowing the old mill hidden among the cliffs could not lie far off from there. But the rarely frequented path soon disappeared and they found themselves lost amid thick undergrowth and moss-covered rocks. But it was not for long. The roaring of the mill-wheel soon told them the place they were looking for was near at hand.

Advancing on to a crag they saw the curious old black wooden structure in the declivity before them, overshadowed by steep cliffs and tall trees. They at once made up their minds to clamber down over the moss and broken rocks. Eduard went first and when he looked back up the way he had come and saw Ottilie following fearlessly behind him, stepping lightly from stone to stone with untroubled poise, he thought it must be a creature from heaven hovering there above him. But when she stepped on insecure places and had to take his outstretched hand or lean against his shoulder he could not doubt that what touched him then was the tenderest female creature. He almost wished she would stumble or slip so that he could catch her in his arms and press her to his heart. But this he would on no condition have done, and for more than one reason. He feared he might offend or injure her.

What this last remark is intended to mean we shall straightway
discover. As soon as they had arrived at the bottom, and he had sent the friendly miller’s wife off to fetch milk and the welcoming miller off to meet Charlotte and the Captain and he was sitting opposite Ottilie at the rustic table under the tall trees, Eduard said to her after some hesitation: ‘I have a request to make, my dear Ottilie: I hope you will excuse it, even if you have to refuse it. You make no secret of the fact – as indeed there is no need to – that you wear on your breast, beneath your dress, a miniature. It is a picture of your father, that worthy man whom you hardly knew and who deserves, in every sense of the term, a place near your heart. Now forgive me, but the picture is uncomfortably large, and this glass and metal give me a thousand anxieties whenever you pick up a child, or carry anything in front of you, or the carriage sways, or when we battle through the undergrowth, or just now, as we were clambering down from the cliff. I dread that if you should stumble or fall or be jolted you may be hurt or injured. For my sake do please remove that picture – not from your thoughts or from your room – indeed, give it the finest and most sacred spot in your dwelling – no, remove it from your breast, remove something whose proximity seems to me, perhaps from an exaggerated anxiety, so dangerous to you.’

Ottilie sat looking in front of her while he was speaking. She was silent for a time. Then, without haste or hesitation and with her eyes turned to heaven rather than to Eduard, she unfastened the chain, drew out the picture, pressed it to her forehead and handed it to Eduard with the words: ‘Keep it for me until we get home. I have no better way of showing how much I appreciate your friendly solicitude.’

Eduard did not dare to press the picture to his lips. He grasped her hand and pressed it to his eyes. It was perhaps the loveliest pair of hands that had ever been clasped together. He felt as if a stone had fallen from his heart, as if a wall between him and Ottilie had been broken down.

Guided by the miller, Charlotte and the Captain came down
by an easier path. They greeted one another and sat and took refreshment. They did not want to go back by the same route and Eduard suggested a cliff-path on the other side of the stream from which you could have another view of the lakes, although some effort was needed to go up it. They now made their way through intermittent woodland and looking towards the open country saw villages, plots and dairy farms in green fertile fields. They came to a farmstead lying hidden among the trees on the hillside. The opulence of the region before and behind them could be seen at its best from the gently rising hill. From there they made their way to a pleasant little coppice and when they came out of it they found themselves on the heights facing the mansion.

This prospect, at which they had as it were arrived unexpectedly, gave them great pleasure. They had walked around a little world and were standing on what was to be the site of the new building and looking again into the windows of their own house.

They climbed down to the moss-hut and for the first time all four sat in there together. It was natural they should all want the route they had that day walked slowly and with difficulty built up so that it could be walked in companionable ease and comfort. Everyone offered suggestions and it was calculated the path which had taken them several hours must, if properly laid down, lead back to the mansion in no more than one hour. They were already in their minds constructing a bridge below the mill, where the stream flows into the lakes, to shorten the route and add beauty to the landscape when Charlotte called a halt by reminding them of the cost such an undertaking would involve.

‘There is a way of meeting that,’ Eduard replied. ‘We only have to sell that farmstead in the wood that looks so well situated and brings in so little and employ the proceeds on this new enterprise: thus we shall have the pleasure of enjoying on an incomparable walk the interest from well-invested
capital from which, when we come to reckon up at the end of the year, we now discontentedly draw a very meagre income.’

Charlotte could not as a good housekeeper find much to say against this proposal. The matter had been spoken of before. Now the Captain wanted to draw up a plan for parcelling out the ground among the peasantry but Eduard thought he knew a quicker and more convenient way of disposing of it. The present tenant, who had already produced ideas for improving it, ought to keep it and pay for it by instalments and they would undertake the new project also by instalments, one stage at a time.

So reasonable and cautious an arrangement could not be objected to, and they all were already seeing the new paths in their mind’s eye and thinking of the agreeable resting-places and vantage-points they would discover along it and near it.

To picture it all in more detail, at home that evening they straightway took out the new map. They inspected the route they had covered and considered how it might perhaps in this or that spot be redirected to better advantage. Their earlier ideas were discussed again and coordinated with the latest ideas, the site of the new pavilion over against the mansion was again approved and the circle of paths leading to it settled on.

Ottilie had stayed silent during all this. Eduard finally moved the plan, which had been lying in front of Charlotte, over to her and invited her to offer her opinions, and when she hesitated, gently encouraged her to say whatever she had to say, for the whole thing, he said, was still only at the stage of discussion.

‘I would build the pavilion here,’ said Ottilie, laying her finger on the highest level place on the hill. ‘You could not see the mansion, I know, for it is concealed by the little wood; but to make up for that you would find yourself in a new and different world, since the village and all the houses would also be hidden. The view of the lakes, of the mill, of the
heights, and out towards the mountains and the countryside is extraordinarily fine; I noticed it when we went past.’

‘She is right!’ cried Eduard: ‘How is it we did not think of that? This is where you mean, isn’t it, Ottilie?’ – and he took a pencil and drew a thick black rectangle on the hill.

The Captain felt a stab of pain when he saw this. He did not like to see a carefully and neatly drawn plan disfigured in that way. But he contented himself with a mild expression of disapproval and acquiesced in the idea. ‘Ottilie is right,’ he said. ‘Food and drink taste better after a long walk than they would have tasted at home. We want variety and unfamiliar things. It was right for your forefathers to build the house over here, for it is sheltered from the wind and within easy reach of all our daily requirements; on the other hand, a building intended more for pleasure trips than as a house would be very well placed over there and during the fine seasons would afford us the most agreeable hours.’

The more they talked the matter over the better it seemed and Eduard could not hide his elation that the idea had been Ottilie’s. He was as proud of it as if it had been his own.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
first thing the next morning the Captain inspected the site and sketched out a rough plan and then, when they had all again agreed on the spot, a detailed one together with an estimate and everything else necessary. There was no lack of preparation. The business of selling the farmstead was taken up again straight away. The men found fresh opportunity for being busy together.

The Captain suggested to Eduard it would be courteous – that it was virtually their duty – to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday by the laying of the foundation-stone. It did not need much effort to overcome Eduard’s old aversion to such celebrations because it came into his mind that Ottilie’s birthday, which was later in the year, could be celebrated in a similar solemn manner.

Charlotte, who took the new arrangements with the utmost seriousness, and was indeed almost suspicious of the facility with which they were being carried through, busied herself with checking the estimates and the apportionment of time and money on her own account. They saw one another less often during the day, so they sought one another out with the greater eagerness in the evening.

Ottilie had meanwhile become altogether mistress of the household. With her quiet and confident manner it could hardly have been otherwise. All her thoughts were directed towards the house and the domestic life rather than towards the world outside and the outdoor life. Eduard soon noticed that it was only to oblige them that she went with them on their walks, that it was only out of a sense of social duty that she lingered with them outside in the evenings, and then she often found some household task as an excuse for going in. He
was therefore very soon able to arrange their excursions so that they got back home before sunset. He took up again (what he had for long let drop) the reading of poems aloud, especially poems whose recitation permitted the expression of a pure but passionate love.

In the evenings they usually sat about a small table on seats they had pulled up to it. Charlotte sat on the sofa, Ottilie in an easy chair opposite her, and the men sat on the other two sides of the table. Ottilie sat to the right of Eduard and it was in this direction he turned the light when he read. Ottilie then used to draw nearer so as to see the book, for she too trusted her own eyes more than someone else’s mouth, and Eduard also used to draw nearer so as to make it easier for her and he even paused in his reading longer than he needed to so as not to turn the page before she too had reached the end of it.

Charlotte and the Captain did not fail to notice all this and they often looked at one another and smiled. But another sign which chanced to reveal the quiet affection Ottilie had developed for Eduard took them by surprise.