Countess Emilia, quite at her wits’ end, sent a telegram to her Aunt Agatha. The next Wednesday Frau von Erfft with her daughter Sylvia arrived. “Clotilda acts as if she had lost her mind,” she said to Emilia after having spent an hour in the room with her sister. “I am going to see your father. I must have a long talk with Siegmund.”
The Baron received his sister-in-law with marked coolness, though he had always had a great deal of respect for her.
Frau von Erfft was quite careful to avoid any reference to the family affairs. She talked about Sylvia, remarking that she was now twenty-seven years old, and that she had rejected all her suitors, a fact which was causing her parents a measure of concern. “She simply will not be contented,” said Frau Agatha. “She is bent on securing a special mission in her marriage, and fears nothing so much as the loss of her personal liberty. That is the way our children are, dear Siegmund; and if we had brought them into the world differently, they would be different. In our day the ideal was obedience; but now children have discovered the duty they owe themselves.”
“Then they should look out for themselves,” replied the Baron gloomily. He had fully appreciated what his sister-in-law was driving at.
From the confused and incoherent remarks of her sister, Agatha had learned what had taken place between the Baron and the Baroness. She was familiar with the painful past; and when she looked into the old Baron’s eyes, she saw what was necessary. She made up her mind then and there to have Eberhard meet his mother.
She wished above everything else to quiet Clotilda and persuade her to return home. The task, owing to the weakness and instability of the Baroness, was not difficult. Sylvia remained with her aunt, and her quiet, resolute disposition had a wholesome effect upon her. In the meantime Agatha had got Eberhard’s address. After some search she found the house: Eberhard was at home.
IV
The first talk she had with him passed off without results of any kind. He evaded her courageous remarks, and failed to hear what he did not care to hear. He was stiff, polite, and annoyingly listless. Agatha, full of vexation, told her daughter of her disappointment. Sylvia said she would like to go with her mother the next time she visited Eberhard. Agatha shook her head, though she was in no way minded to abandon her purpose.
There was no change at the Baron’s house. Baroness Clotilda was in a perpetual state of nervous excitement that was anything but reassuring either to herself or those about her. The Baron was a disquieting riddle to the entire household: he never left his room; he paced up and down hours at a time, with his hands folded across his back.
Agatha called on her nephew a second, a third, a fourth time. Even though Eberhard’s Arctic impenetrability seemed made for all time, though yielding seemed to be no part of his nature, she finally succeeded in jolting him loose from his bearings. And when Sylvia accompanied her mother—Sylvia generally won her point with her mother—he shook off his armour with unexpected suddenness; you could see the struggles that were going on in his soul.