But, far from the girl's expressing any pleasure at this frank recognition of her excellence, her face did not relax one whit.
Erika had gone to bed. Countess Lenzdorff was still up and pacing her chamber to and fro. She thoroughly understood the full significance of her granddaughter's being with her; she was neither heartless nor complaining, but, where emotion was concerned, a sensitive old woman who studiously avoided everything that could agitate her nerves. But at present she could not control her emotion; feeling awoke within her as from a long sleep. At first she was conscious only of a vague discomfort,--a strange sensation which she ascribed to nervousness that must be controlled; but, far from being controlled, it increased, growing stronger until it became a positive hunger of the heart.
The self-dissatisfaction which had begun to torment her when she learned that Erika after her mother's death had been entirely uncared for, left alone with her step-father, now increased tenfold. It was the fault of the Pole, who had not notified her of his wife's death. But this excuse did not content her. How could she blame him? What had he done save follow her example in caring only for his own personal ease?
The unkindness with which she had treated her daughter-in-law now troubled her more than her loveless neglect of her grandchild. Had she any right to despise and cast her off because of her weakness? Good heavens! she was a rare creature in spite of everything; she had shown herself so in her child's education. What an influence she must have exercised over the girl to preserve her from deterioration through those terrible three years. Poor Emma! The old Countess's heart grew heavy as she recalled her. Her injustice to the poor woman dated from years back. She could not deny it.
She had never been fond of her daughter-in-law: each differed too fundamentally from the other. On the one hand was Anna Lenzdorff, with her keenly observant mind, self-interested even in her strict morality which in her arrogance she regarded as the necessity of her nature for moral purity and independence, something for which she claimed no merit, since she practised it solely for her private satisfaction; good-natured, but without enthusiasm, endlessly but lovelessly indulgent to humanity, and rather of opinion that life is nothing but a farce with a tragic conclusion, something out of which the most advantage may be gained by observing it from a safe, comfortable corner, without ever making an attempt to mingle in its activities, firmly convinced that the best conduct of life consists in acknowledging its glaring contradictions, its lack of harmony, in making use of palliatives where they are of use, and in postponing for as long as possible the facing of the huge deficit sure to appear at the close of every human existence. And on the other hand was Emma,--Emma, who had a positive horror of the philosophy of life, which her mother-in-law with easy indifference denominated "my laughing despair,"--Emma, who believed in everything, in God and in humanity,--yes, even, as her mother-in-law maintained, in the cure of leprosy and the disinterestedness of English politics,--Emma, for whom an existence in which she could take no active part was devoid of interest, and who looked upon a loveless life as worse than death,--Emma, whose unselfishness bordered upon fanaticism, blinding her conscience for a moment now and then, when she would have given to one person what she had no right to take from others,--Emma, utterly unable to appreciate proportion and moderation, and who, scorning all the palliatives and make shifts with which one eases existence, demanded from life absolute happiness, and consequently, dazzled by an illusion, plunged blindly into an abyss.
Ah, if it had been only an abyss! but no, it was a slough, and Anna Lenzdorff could not traverse it.
It certainly was strange that she, who found an excuse for every criminal of whom she read in the papers, had never been able to forgive her daughter-in-law when, thanks to her inborn thirst for the romantic, she forgot herself so far as to adore that Polish nonentity. What in the world could a woman of sense find in romance?
When Anna von Rhödern, at twenty-two, had married Count Ernst Lenzdorff, her views of life were in great measure the same that she had since elaborated so perfectly. She was of Courland descent, and the daughter of a prominent diplomat in the Russian service. Unlike her daughter-in-law, she had been a courted beauty, but at two-and-twenty she had turned her back upon all the sentimental possibilities to which in virtue of her great charm she had a right, and had married Count Lenzdorff, whose entire part in her existence she afterwards summed up in declaring that he really had bored her very little. And that, she maintained, was a great deal in a husband.
She had become acquainted with him in Paris, where he was secretary to the Prussian legation, and she married him there; afterwards he took up his abode in Berlin, where he held a distinguished position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In moments of insolent frankness she was wont to describe him as an automaton whose key was in the possession of whoever might be Minister of Foreign Affairs. Once wound up, he could perform all the duties of his office during the few hours in which they were required of him; when they were over he was a lifeless wooden figure-head--nothing more. A wooden figure-head whom one is obliged to drag after one in life conduces but little to one's comfort, especially when the wooden figure-head is of the dimensions of Count Ernst Lenzdorff, and of this his wife shortly became aware. With great courtesy and skill she removed him from her life as soon as possible, placing him somewhere in the background upon a suitable pedestal,--the best place for wooden figureheads, and one where they can be made to look very effective.
The Countess's only son was the very image of his father, and quite as imposingly wooden.