CHAPTER XXXIII
Two days later the promised lines arrived and Effi read: "I am glad, dear gracious Lady, to be able to give you good news. Everything turned out as desired. Your husband is too much a man of the world to refuse a Lady a request that she makes of him. But I must not keep from you the fact that I saw plainly his consent was not in accord with what he considers wise and right. But let us not pick faults where we ought to be glad. We have arranged that Annie is to come some time on Monday and may good fortune attend your meeting."
It was on the postman's second round that Effi received these lines and it would presumably be less than two hours till Annie appeared. That was a short time and yet too long. Effi walked restlessly about the two rooms and then back to the kitchen, where she talked with Roswitha about everything imaginable: about the ivy over on Christ's Church and the probability that next year the windows would be entirely overgrown; about the porter, who had again turned off the gas so poorly that they were likely to be blown up; and about buying their lamp oil again at the large lamp store on Unter den Linden instead of on Anhalt St. She talked about everything imaginable, except Annie, because she wished to keep down the fear lurking in her soul, in spite of the letter from the minister's wife, or perhaps because of it.
Finally, at noon, the bell was rung timidly and Roswitha went to look through the peephole. Surely enough, it was Annie. Roswitha gave the child a kiss, but said nothing, and then led her very quietly, as though some one were ill in the house, from the corridor into the back room and then to the door opening into the front room.
"Go in there, Annie." With these words she left the child and returned to the kitchen, for she did not wish to be in the way.
Effi was standing at the other end of the room with her back against the post of the mirror when the child entered. "Annie!" But Annie stood still by the half opened door, partly out of embarrassment, but partly on purpose. Effi rushed to her, lifted her up, and kissed her.
"Annie, my sweet child, how glad I am! Come, tell me." She took Annie by the hand and went toward the sofa to sit down. Annie stood and looked shyly at her mother, at the same time reaching her left hand toward the corner of the table cloth, hanging down near her. "Did you know, Annie, that I saw you one day?"
"Yes, I thought you did."
"Now tell me a great deal. How tall you have grown! And that is the scar there. Roswitha told me about it. You were always so wild and hoidenish in your playing. You get that from your mother. She was the same way. And at school? I fancy you are always at the head, you look to me as though you ought to be a model pupil and always bring home the best marks. I have heard also that Miss von Wedelstädt praises you. That is right. I was likewise ambitious, but I had no such good school. Mythology was always my best study. In what are you best?"
"I don't know."
"Oh, you know well enough. Pupils always know that. In what do you have the best marks?"
"In religion."
"Now, you see, you do know after all. Well, that is very fine. I was not so good in it, but it was probably due to the instruction. We had only a young man licensed to preach."
"We had, too."
"Has he gone away?"
Annie nodded.
"Why did he leave?"
"I don't know. Now we have the preacher again."
"And you all love him dearly?"
"Yes, and two of the girls in the highest class are going to change their religion."
"Oh, I understand; that is fine. And how is Johanna?"
"Johanna brought me to the door of the house."
"Why didn't you bring her up with you?"
"She said she would rather stay downstairs and wait over at the church."
"And you are to meet her there?"
"Yes."
"Well, I hope she will not get impatient. There is a little front yard over there and the windows are half overgrown with ivy, as though it were an old church."
"But I should not like to keep her waiting."
"Oh, I see, you are very considerate, and I presume I ought to be glad of it. We need only to make the proper division of the time—Tell me now how Rollo is."
"Rollo is very well, but papa says he is getting so lazy. He lies in the sun all the time."
"That I can readily believe. He was that way when you were quite small. And now, Annie, today we have just seen each other, you know; will you visit me often?"
"Oh, certainly, if I am allowed to."
"We can take a walk in the Prince Albrecht Garden."
"Oh, certainly, if I am allowed to."
"Or we may go to Schilling's and eat ice cream, pineapple or vanilla ice cream. I always liked vanilla best."
"Oh, certainly, if I am allowed to."
At this third "if I am allowed to" the measure was full. Effi sprang up and flashed the child a look of indignation.
"I believe it is high time you were going, Annie. Otherwise Johanna will get impatient." She rang the bell and Roswitha, who was in the next room, entered immediately. "Roswitha, take Annie over to the church. Johanna is waiting there. I hope she has not taken cold. I should be sorry. Remember me to Johanna."
The two went out.
Hardly had Roswitha closed the door behind her when Effi tore open her dress, because she was threatened with suffocation, and fell to laughing convulsively. "So that is the way it goes to meet after a long separation." She rushed forward, opened the window and looked for something to support her. In the distress of her heart she found it. There beside the window was a bookshelf with a few volumes of Schiller and Körner on it, and on top of the volumes of poems, which were of equal height, lay a Bible and a songbook. She reached for them, because she had to have something before which she could kneel down and pray. She laid both Bible and songbook on the edge of the table where Annie had been standing, and threw herself violently down before them and spoke in a half audible tone: "O God in Heaven, forgive me what I have done. I was a child—No, no, I was not a child, I was old enough to know what I was doing. I did know, too, and I will not minimize my guilt. But this is too much. This action of the child is not the work of my God who would punish me, it is the work of him, and him alone. I thought he had a noble heart and have always felt small beside him, but now I know that it is he who is small. And because he is small he is cruel. Everything that is small is cruel. He taught the child to say that. He always was a school-master, Crampas called him one, scoffingly at the time, but he was right. 'Oh, certainly if I am allowed to!' You don't have to be allowed to. I don't want you any more, I hate you both, even my own child. Too much is too much. He was ambitious, but nothing more. Honor, honor, honor. And then he shot the poor fellow whom I never even loved and whom I had forgotten, because I didn't love him. It was all stupidity in the first place, but then came blood and murder, with me to blame. And now he sends me the child, because he cannot refuse a minister's wife anything, and before he sends the child he trains it like a parrot and teaches it the phrase, 'if I am allowed to.' I am disgusted at what I did; but the thing that disgusts me most is your virtue. Away with you! I must live, but I doubt if it will be long."
When Roswitha came back Effi lay on the floor seemingly lifeless, with her face turned away.