Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

I had several times repeated these questions without receiving an answer, when she suddenly stopped, and murmured with pale lips--"I can go no further!" It seemed to me that she was on the point of fainting. I was in the greatest embarrassment. There was not a public conveyance to be seen anywhere in the street, and in our objectless flight we had wandered far from the fashionable quarter where, upon my repeated inquiries, she informed me that she lodged. But it so happened, I know not how, that we had strayed into the neighborhood of my own lodging, and I thought it the best, indeed the only thing I could do, to take her there. "You can at least remain there long enough to warm yourself, while I get a carriage to take you home." Without answering a word she followed me. I had the key of the outer door, so that I did not need to disturb the old watchman; and his dog, that came growling up to us, as soon as he recognized me, leaped about me, wagging his tail.

I congratulated myself that I had hit upon this expedient, for Constance hung heavily upon my arm, and I had almost to carry her across the yard and up the steps to my room. And when we had reached the room, and by the dim light of the fire I had led her to the arm-chair, and lighted my lamp, I saw that her eyes were vacant of expression and half-closed, while a deep pallor overspread her whole face.

My confusion in a situation so new for me was less than I should have supposed. I had no other thought than as promptly as possible to assist one who was in such urgent need of assistance. I stirred the fire until it blazed brightly; I took off her cloak, now saturated with the melted snow, and wrapped her in a plaid; I folded a coverlid around her feet, and warmed her cold hands in my own. Then it occurred to me that probably a cup of tea, which I could prepare in a moment, would be of service; so I got out the tea-things from my cupboard, boiled the water in a tin kettle over my fire, and poured her out a cup of the refreshing beverage, not forgetting first to add a little good cognac. She drank it eagerly; I offered her a second cup, which she also drank.

The warm drink seemed to have greatly revived her: she looked at the pictures on the walls, at the furniture, and last at me, and said, reaching out to me her small hand, in which the warm life began to pulsate again, "How good you are! how good! You are the best creature I have ever known. How much happier might my life have been had you come to our house a few months earlier: you good, good George!"

It was again the Constance of those old times: the same fascinating prattle in the same soft melodious voice: and I, who knew so well what confidence to place in all this kindness and gentleness, stood like the great oaf that I was, my whole soul thrilled by the sweet, unforgotten tones, and trembling from head to foot at the touch of her soft hand. But my reason made an effort to obtain the supremacy once for all. I drew my hand from hers, stepped back to the fireplace, and said, while with great apparent calmness I was warming my hands behind my back:

"You are very kind; but your kindness must not make me forget that I have undertaken to see you safely home. If you are so disposed, and feel sufficiently recovered, I will now go for a carriage."

"You are still angry with me," she said, leaning back in the chair and looking up to me under her long lashes. "Why are you angry? What have I done to you? What have I done that another in my place would not have done? For my love I gave reputation, home, myself: was I to bear so tender a solicitude for the feelings of a youth, who scarcely knew himself what those feelings were? Did you love me? Did you ever love me?" she repeated, springing up and looking into my eyes. "You never loved me. You could not else stand so calmly there, and you are not worth the regret it cost me to play off that little deception on you. Do you know that I was so childish as never entirely to get over it? That your friendly face with its honest eyes looked continually in upon my dreams, and drew from me tears of remorse? You, of all men, have least right to be angry with me."

And she threw herself back in the chair, and defiantly folded her arms over her breast.

"Who said that I was angry with you?" I replied.

"You must be angry," she returned with a sort of violence. "I will have you angry: should I wish you to despise me? There is no third case possible. The third would be indifference; and I am not indifferent to you, am I, George? Not indifferent, though you are now making an amazing effort to appear so. When two persons have once stood as near to each other as we two, and are connected by such recollections as ours, they can never entirely lose each other in the desert of indifference. Do you know that some weeks ago, when I saw a likeness of you in the exhibition, I was startled as if I had seen a ghost, and could not bring myself away from it, and afterwards I returned to it again and again, and wept many tears at the thought of you? Then I saw by the catalogue that it was painted by my cousin, and I made a pair of you both, a happy pair, and blessed you in my inmost heart. Now indeed I see that it is otherwise. What are you? What are you doing! How did you come to this strange place?" and she looked again around the room.