“You must have taken cold, Martha,” remarked my sister as we drove away. “Your invitation sounded quite hoarse; and why did not you introduce that melancholy staff-officer to me? I have seldom seen a less cheerful visage.”
On the day appointed, and at the hour named, Tilling was announced. Before that I had made the following entry in the red book:—
“I expect that this day will be decisive of my fate. I feel such a solemnity, such an anxiety, so sweet an expectation. I must fix this frame of mind on these pages, so that, if I turn back to them again after long years, I may be able to recall quite vividly the hours which I am now looking forward to with so much emotion. Perhaps it will turn out quite differently from what I expect—perhaps exactly the same. At any rate it will be interesting to me to see how far anticipation and reality correspond. The expected guest loves me; the letter he wrote from his mother’s deathbed proves that. He is loved in return; the rosebud in the funeral wreath must have shown him that. And now we are to meet without witnesses, moved to our hearts’ core—he in need of comfort, I penetrated with the desire to console him. I expect there will not be many words pass. Tears in both our eyes, hands clasped tremblingly, and we shall have understood one another. Two loving, two happy mortals, earnest, devoted, passionate, devoutly happy; while in society the thing will be announced indifferently and drily, somewhat in this fashion: ‘Have you heard? Martha Dotzky is engaged to Tilling—a poor match!’ It is five minutes past two. He may come now any minute. There is a ring! This palpitation, this trembling: I feel that——”
This is as far as I got. The last line is scrawled in letters which are almost illegible—a sign that “this palpitation, this trembling” was not a mere figure of rhetoric.
Anticipation and reality did not correspond. During his half-hour’s call Tilling behaved very reservedly and very coldly. He begged my forgiveness for the liberty he had taken in writing to me, and hoped I would attribute this breach of etiquette to the loss of control which a man in such sorrowful moments may well experience. Then he told me something more of the last days and of the life of his mother; but of what I was looking for, not a word. And so I also became every moment more reserved and cold. When he rose to go I made no effort to detain him, and I did not ask him to come again.
When he had gone I rushed again to the red book, which was lying there open, and went on with the interrupted topic.
“I feel that all is over—that I have shamefully deceived myself, that he does not love me, and will even think now that he is as indifferent to me as I to him. I received him in an almost repellent way. I feel that he will never come again. And yet the world holds for me no second man. There is no one else so good, so noble, so intellectual—and there is no other woman, Frederick, who has loved you as I have loved you—assuredly not your princess, to whom, as it seems, you have turned back again. Son Rudolf, you must now be my consolation and my stay. From this time I will have no more to do with woman’s love—it is mother’s love alone which must now fill my heart and my life. If I can succeed in forming you into such a man as he is—if some day I may be wept by you, as he weeps for his mother—I shall have gained my end.”
It is surely a foolish habit—this diary-writing. These wishes, plans, and views, always changing, vanishing and coming anew, which form the current of our soul’s life—to strive to immortalise them by writing them down is a mistake to start with, and brings before oneself, when one peruses it in after years, the constant shame of having to recognise one’s own fickleness. Here are recorded now on the same page, and under the same date, two such different humours—first the most confident hope, and by its side the most complete despair, and the pages next it may give proof of something quite different again.
The Easter Monday was favoured by the most splendid spring weather, and the ride in the Prater, which takes place, according to custom, on that day, a kind of holiday preparatory to the great Corso of May Day, went off with especial lustre. I cannot say how much this lustre, this delight in holiday and spring which was all around me, contrasted with the sorrow which filled my spirit. And yet I would not have given up my sorrow, would not have had again the same light, and therefore also empty heart, as two months before—when I had not made Tilling’s acquaintance. For, though my love was, according to all appearance, an unhappy one, yet it was love—and this implies a raising of the intensity of life—that warm, tender feeling which expanded my heart as often as the dear image passed before my inward eye. I could not have lived without it.
I had never thought it likely that the subject of my dreams would come before my eyes here in the Prater, in the midst of this whirl of worldly pleasure. And yet when, without thinking, I happened once to let my gaze wander towards the ride, I saw far off galloping down the promenade in our direction an officer, in whom—though my short sight could not distinguish him clearly—I at once recognised Tilling. As soon as he came near, and crossed our carriage, with a salute in passing, I returned his greeting, not with a mere bow, but with warm gestures. At the same moment I was aware that I had done what was unbecoming and improper.