Quisisana; or, Rest at Last

by Friedrich Spielhagen

VI.

This thought, which had at length quieted Bertram's, wildly tumultuous spirits, was also his first, when late next morning he awoke from deep and dreamless slumbers--neither tragedy nor comedy! Calm and clear observation, as best becomes a solitary individual who has done with life; who neither hopes nor fears anything from Fate for himself; maintaining a benevolent interest in the fate of others, where benevolence is merited and interest is justified; cherishing throughout the conviction that, after all, every one makes or mars his own life; that interference and advice are rarely of much use, and generally distinctly hurtful; and that, even under the most favourable circumstances, the task of mediator is ever, of all tasks, the most thankless.

In the clear light of these contemplations and of the delicious morning which was resting in sunny radiance above the lovely landscape, last night's scenes appeared to Bertram like the confused darkness of a feverish dream; nay, he derived some comfort from the thought that he probably had been ill, and was therefore only partly responsible for his extraordinary demeanour. Still, he was gravely responsible for one thing--he ought sooner to have become conscious of his condition. He might well thank his stars that in his excited state he had not behaved even more strangely; above all, that to-day, for the first time since his last long and severe illness, he felt as fresh and strong as in his best days. Assuredly with the morning all things seemed to have become better--much better than he could have expected--than he deserved!

The master's disposition was singularly serene, and he gave it a most friendly expression in the course of his toilet, showing himself ready for a friendly gossip with Konski; but Konski, strange, to say, was out of temper, and refused to be gossiped with.

At last Bertram said: "What ails you? If you are displeased, at what I said yesterday about our speedy departure, you may calm yourself. We still remain here for the whole time we had originally arranged. I see you have unpacked already."

"We may leave to-day, for aught I care!" grumbled Konski.

"What's up now? Out with it, Konski! You know I cannot bear sour looks. Anything in connection with Mamsell Christine?"

"Of course it is!" replied Konski; "and I wonder who's to keep from sour looks under these circumstances! I had written to her that this was to be my last trip with you, and when we returned from Italy in March we might go and be spliced. I did not want to tell you at all, but don't you see, sir, one gets older every year, and it has to be some time or other, and ..."

"And now you wish to marry at once, and I am to give you your discharge?"

"Marry at once, indeed!" sniffed Konski; "she won't marry at all now--leastways, not me--and that, after we have been engaged these five years! But there is no trusting them women, and especially the old ones! She is five and forty years of age, she is,--a year older than I am myself; and now she's going to marry a young greenhorn of five and twenty!"

It was some time before Konski, generally so calm and patient, could explain in detail to his master how badly he had been treated. According to his account, Mamsell Christine had written the tenderest letters to him until a few weeks ago, and had declared herself agreeable to all his suggestions and proposals; and now it appeared from the statements of the other servants whom he had cross-questioned, and whose evidence the faithless one could not but corroborate, that she had been "carrying on" for a long while with one Peter Weissenborn, who had formerly been head-gardener at Rinstedt, and who had been settled in the neighbouring town for the last six months, and who was now, it was said, likely to be appointed one of the Court gardeners, thanks to the protection of the Herr Baron. The Herr Baron, Konski went on, had also induced My Lady to give Mamsell Christine leave to quit her service at any time without formal notice; and, indeed, the servants all said, that the way to get My Lady's consent to anything, was to get the Herr Baron on your side; that made success quite certain. And My Lady was said to be quite in favour of this marriage between Christine and the future Court gardener. In that case she would always have two of her former servants at hand when she came to town, and that was likely to be an event of frequent occurrence now; if, indeed, she did not go to live there altogether, as some of the servants asserted--Aurora, for instance--My Lady's maid, who was her second favourite, next to Christine.

Bertram endeavoured to comfort the poor fellow. He pointed out to him that he should be glad to be rid of a person who had evidently never meant honestly by him, and who would in all probability have been as faithless in marriage as she had now proved before. This conviction led him to reject any wish there might exist to get the matter rectified again, as was done sometimes, and in much higher social circles too; otherwise he would have been willing to use his influence with My Lady, which presumably would have been at least as telling as that of the Herr Baron.

Konski shook his head. "I am extremely obliged to you, sir," said he. "I am quite content if you will still keep me on, after I have proved myself to be such a thorough ass. And, as far as talking to her Ladyship goes, that would be in vain--the Herr Baron is cock of the walk there. I could tell you a good deal more about that, but I know you do not like that sort of thing!"

Bertram was startled. The man's last remark could have but one meaning, and the image of the girl among the wallflowers and with the jealous lover, emerged in singular distinctness from last night's feverish phantasies. He would fain have for once broken through his rule of never going out of his way to listen to the gossip of kitchen and servants' hall, but, as Konski did not volunteer any further remarks, he was ashamed to put any direct questions. Just at that moment, too, there came a knock, and a servant brought a message from her Ladyship. She had learned that the Herr Doctor had risen, and might she request the Herr Doctor's' company on the verandah to tea?

Bertram lost no time in following the invitation. Hildegard, who had been sitting in a shaded corner of the verandah at the deserted breakfast-table, came forward to meet him. As she moved towards him with well-balanced step, he could not but recall last night's talk about the never-changing beauty of a poet's heroine. He gazed upon the lofty figure in its youthful slimness, the clear, deep colouring of the incomparably beautiful countenance, the blue-black splendour of the ample hair, smooth at the temples, and crowning the glorious head with a dense braid.

There was a smile on her dainty lips, and if deepened a little as she saw her guest's speaking eyes bent upon her in undisguised admiration. She was making tender inquiries about the state of his health, leading him the while to the table and making him sit beside her, with the kettle bubbling in front of them.

"Otto," she said, "is, as usual, somewhere about the estate. The Baron is painting a portion of the village from the bottom terrace, and Lydia is, I believe, keeping him company with a book. Erna, you will probably find later on in her favourite place, under the big plantain tree. I have sent them all away, because I so long to have a comfortable confidential chat with you. Yesterday we did not manage to have one. And first of all, dear friend, accept my hearty thanks for having so kindly pardoned a breach of confidence of which I--not from choice--had been guilty. Nay, do not refuse the expression of my gratitude. I saw how hard you found it to appear unconscious and serene; I thank you all the more. But I knew that with your wonted cleverness you would at once find the only correct point of view--that of pity. Whatever has been done and sinned between the two of you,--she is the one to be pitied. A poor girl, growing old, even if she is in favour at Court; and although the Grand Ducal family could not be kinder, yet all this cannot satisfy the cravings of her eager mind--but I perceive that this is a painful topic for you!"

"It is not painful for me," replied Bertram; "or at least only so far as the description of a dissatisfied, unquiet soul must ever be painful for us, if it is hopelessly out of our power to bring satisfaction and peace to it."

"I understand you," said Hildegard; "and you will understand me when I beg of you not quite to rob the poor soul in question of its utterly foolish hopes to which it clings, alas! with incredible tenacity. You can do this so easily: you need but be amiable and, courteous to her, as you are to everybody--no more, but, to be sure, no less--do you consent?"

"I will try, since you wish it--on one condition!"

"And this condition?"

"I have come to the following determination--indeed, it is a matter of course for me. In the drama of human life I will not henceforth ever again leave, my well-won place in the stalls, and under no circumstances will I take a part on the stage itself--no tragic part--and still less a comic one!"

"From the latter," replied his fair hostess with a smile, "you are safe under any circumstances, through your own cleverness; from the former----"

"Through my age."

"I meant to say, also through your cleverness; or, if you prefer it, through the cool, unimpassioned frame of mind which you have grown into, and which I often envy you!"

Bertram looked up in amazement, and then quickly busied himself with his tea-cup. Hildegard, to envy him his coolness! Hildegard, who had ever appeared to him the very embodiment of conscious equanimity!

"You may be surprised to hear this from me," she continued; "but must we not all, sooner or later, learn the lesson of resignation? And my time surely has come. Indeed, it has been so all my life. What have not I had to resign in the course of my life! Or do you think that the husband's wealth can blind the wife, if she be proud, to the consciousness that she is not loved as she longs, and as, may be, she deserves to be loved?"

Bertram knew these phrases from of old; but he said to himself that to-day particularly he must make the best of everything, so he exclaimed--

"Is it possible, my friend, that you still cherish this hypochondriacal fear which you have given utterance to before, but from which I deemed you cured long ago? How can you complain of a deficiency in love, when your husband positively adores you? You can utter no wish, simply because what you could wish for is already fulfilled. Or you need but have a wish, and it is forthwith fulfilled."

"You are pleading for the friend of your youth," she made answer, raising her dark eyebrows. "Do not forget this: I am bringing no charge against him. I am resigned. Were I to die to-day, what would his loss come to? What would he miss?"

"The brightness of his life," Bertram replied gallantly.

"As if he cared for the brightness of his life!" said his wife. "Is it so? Does he share one of my fancies, my harmless penchants? Does he not vainly strive to appear interested in the things of beauty with which I love to surround, myself and to decorate our dwelling? Did he not consent wit evident repugnance to have the mansion-house restored in a style befitting a whilom princely residence--to let me seek out and renew the old, tangled paths through the Park? Does he support me in my humane undertakings? Have I not had to beg the few thousand thalers from him that I required for my Kindergarten and for my poorhouse? Why, he lives solely for his porcelain factory, his sugar refinery, his coal-mines, his new railway project! I say again: I have accepted all this as inevitable, and as a matter of course, as long as I alone was concerned, as long as I alone suffered. But, indeed, to bring Erna into this life of trivialities, to leave the dear child in a sphere where she sees nothing, hears nothing, that could give the slightest nourishment to head or heart, where anything and everything revolves round Mammon, is sacrificed to Mammon--that is beyond me, beyond my strength!"

"Then, if I understand you aright, you wish, to get Erna married?"

Through the soft, velvety radiance of the deep-brown eyes flashed something like a deeper light. The question was evidently not expected--at least not yet--but the next moment already her eyes had resumed their customary expression, and she forced those beautiful lips to smile, as she said, in a tone of gentle reproach--

"Let us express it rather less egotistically. I should like Erna to find a husband worthy of her."

"A most natural wish too! One which every mother cherishes for a grown-up daughter. And as an old friend of the family I heartily join in the wish, and do not for a moment doubt that we shall readily agree as to what we shall expect her husband to be."

"I am not so sure on that point."

"Let us try anyhow. Firstly, he should be noble!"

"That is not your conviction."

"Then let it be a concession. If people wish to come to an understanding they must be prepared to make concessions."

"This concession I accept gladly. Go on, please."

"He should not be a scholar by profession; but have a good--a man of the world's--education, and a taste for the fine arts. In fact, we want a cavalier, of course, in the best sense of the word."

"Agreed."

"He need not be wealthy. In fact, it would be preferable that he had no fortune, he would in that case be all the more indebted to Erna."

"Most true!"

"He should not be a landed proprietor, or at least not a man who feels it a duty and an absolute necessity to live in the country and devote himself to agriculture. Best of all, he should have no definite calling, or, anyhow, only one which did not impose difficult and troublesome duties; say a position which should have it as a natural consequence that the man in question moved in the best society, and even came occasionally into pleasant contact with Court circles."

"Best of friends, how strangely skilled you are in reading a mother's heart!"

"Let me, then, look to the very bottom of it, where possibly the name of the individual in question is already written. If I read the characters correctly, they form the name ..."

"Now I am truly keen to know."

"Baron Kuno von Lotter-Vippach."

"Lydia has told you!"

"No. Neither Fräulein von Aschhof nor any one else has spoken to me, I give you my word of honour."

"But it is most strange ..."

"Why so strange? Am I not a very old friend, to whom you have many a time talked on most important topics, and whom you have many a time honoured with your most intimate confidence?"

"Then it is all the better, all the more deserving of my gratitude; and I thank you heartily, sincerely ..."

She had seized both his hands; her beautiful countenance, now lighted up with a flush of gladness, had never been more beautiful; yet to Bertram it appeared like some hideous mask.

"I cannot accept your thanks," he said, withdrawing his hands with slight and very hurried pressure. "I could but do so honestly, if I shared those wishes of yours which I have guessed. That is not quite the case. The impression which Baron Lotter made upon me yesterday was not specially favourable; to be quite open, the impression was unfavourable."

"That," Hildegard replied eagerly, "leaves me very calm. You men seldom like each other at a first encounter, and at a second you find one another charming. In the Baron's case no second encounter has even been necessary; he overflows with your praises; he calls you the cleverest and most amiable of men; he is charmed to have made your acquaintance; and I am convinced that you, too, my friend, will soon modify your judgment--I should almost like to say your prejudice--once you come to know the Baron better. He is somewhat spoiled, like all very handsome men; somewhat conceited, if you like; but at bottom very modest, easily led, good as gold. He will please you, believe me, and more than please you! You will come to esteem and love him!"

"Is the more important question, to me the most important, already settled? Does Erna think as favourably of the Baron? Does she love him? For that he loves her, I must, I suppose, assume."

"That is beyond all doubt," Hildegard made answer; "as for Erna, I hope so, I believe so; anyhow she does not express herself unfavourably about him, and that, with Erna, means a good deal, for she is not at all easily pleased, and is not accustomed to conceal her dislike, if dislike there be. It is of course difficult to form a correct opinion of Erna's sentiments; doubly difficult for me, because she has been so long from home, and we are not always in accord in our views and tendencies. Again, in Lydia she has never placed full confidence--which, by the by, I can scarcely wonder at. I only know one being whom she thoroughly trusts--and you dear friend, are the one!"

"I?"

"Are you surprised to hear this? Surely not? Has not the child always been so fond of Uncle Bertram, that we, her parents, might have grown jealous? Has she not ever been your favourite? If she is so no longer, for goodness sake do not let the poor girl see it. She would be inconsolable."

"Now, you are laughing at me."

"Indeed, I am not. Ask Lydia. That Lydia often speaks of you, you will find natural enough, and that now and again a word of bitterness slips in, you will find pardonable. Erna does not pardon it. In her eyes you are once and for good raised above all reproach. You are, as it were, her ideal. It is a downright case of infatuation, and it goes so far that she once assured us, with all a child's gravity--she was still almost a child--that if ever she married, Uncle Bertram must be her husband and she got quite angry when Lydia and I laughed at her."

The beautiful lady smiled, and Bertram succeeded in forcing a smile too.

"How very funny," he said; "but then very young girls are proverbially prone to conceive infatuation for some one or other of their masters, and I think, in Lydia's eyes, I have always been one of her instructors, in literature and what not. Poor girls! they give their affections to old Mentor, but they mean young Telemachus. Well, and there is apparently a young Telemachus on the stage already, if you have seen aright."

"Just to decide that point," replied Hildegard, "Mentor must not yet resign his functions. On the contrary, I must entreat him most urgently to help the mother with his clear vision and his advice, and to use his old influence with the daughter. I may rely upon this, my trusty friend, may I not?"

She held out her hand to him with these words. He raised it deferentially to his lips and said--

"You may rest convinced that Erna's well-being is dearer to me than anything else in the world."

Hildegard had wished and had expected another, a more definite, answer. It was still doubtful whether she had really acquired an ally in him. However, the main point was gained; she had taken the initiative, had represented the affair from her own point of view, had appealed to Bertram's friendship, had asked for his assistance, had given him a proof of her confidence, which he would doubtless accept as unconditional. This sort of thing is always flattering to a man, always makes him feel indebted. Of course, a woman must flatter a man if she would make him feel indebted.

Just then it was anyhow impossible to obtain a more definite assurance from Bertram, for the Baron and Lydia were ascending the main steps of the terrace; the Baron, in his temporary capacity as artist, clad in a costume of brown velvet, and a straw hat with a stupendously broad brim, and Lydia in such a grotesquely fantastic morning costume as to suggest the idea that she had been acting as model for some wonderful sketch of the artist. And indeed she did figure upon the canvas, but only as a bit of the foreground, which represented a portion of the terrace, across which you looked down into the valley and at the village, with the wooded hills rising behind. The Baron was evidently much pleased with his work, although he declared again and again not to have half finished it; it was not fair, he added, to apply to a hasty sketch the same standard of judgment as to a regular studio picture, in which everything would of course turn out quite different. This, Bertram could not but think, would be most desirable, but hardly very probable. This so-called sketch was evidently a picture which had already been touched and retouched, some portions had been painted over two, even three times, and divers desultory dilettante endeavours had failed to bring anything like harmony into the composition. Nevertheless he politely agreed with the ladies' words of praise, which flowed freely from Hildegard's lips, while Lydia, as was her wont, launched out in extravagant eulogy: wonderful, was it not, what progress the Herr Baron made day by day? At last there was once more a painter with a mission for historical landscapes on a grand scale! The resemblance of his genius to that of a Rottmann, a Preller--became more and more apparent. Nor did she alone think so. Only the other day, at Court, when they were talking of the pupils at the Academy of Arts, and some one mentioned the Baron's name, Princess Amelia said, and said with marked emphasis, "No pupil he, ladies, nay, a master, and a great master! The Baron is a distinct acquisition for our School of Arts; he represents a triumph!"

"Yes, it is true; the august lady is very graciously disposed towards me," asserted the Baron, stroking his natty beard. "I wonder what she will say to my new sketches."

Fortunately for Bertram, who was planning his escape under some pretext or other from this painful scene, his host now came up to greet his friend, and to ask if he felt strong enough and was inclined to go for a little drive with him; only to the porcelain factory, they would be back in an hour. Bertram declared his readiness.

"The Baron would surely like to go with you," said Hildegard, exchanging glances with her husband; "but I fear there is barely comfortable room even for two in your little trap."

The Baron hastened to assure her that he could not go, anyhow, as he had promised Miss Erna to try the accompaniment to some new songs with her.

Hildegard asked Bertram if he would not, before starting, say good morning to Erna, who would be hurt if he left without having done so.

They called for Erna in vain. It seemed to Bertram that Hildegard only wished to find time enough to beckon him aside, and to whisper to him that he need not conceal from her husband what they had been discussing in reference to Erna. On the contrary, she was anxious to learn Otto's opinion of the whole matter; he would probably speak with less reserve to his friend than, alas! to her, and that Bertram would take her side she felt sure now.

"But Erna is not coming, I see," she exclaimed aloud; "I will not keep you gentlemen any longer. Au revoir--an hour hence."