"A union without formal sanction."
"You mean a marriage without marriage."
"If you like, yes. The mere word means nothing to me, just as little as legalisation, sanctification, or whatever else such things may be called; I am a bit touched with nihilism and have no real faith in the blessing of the church. But, to cut a long story short, I am in favor of monogamy, not on moral grounds, but because I cannot help it, and because of my own inborn nature. All relations are repugnant to me, where beginning and breaking off may happen within the same hour, so to speak. And if I just now called myself a nihilist, I may with still more justice call myself a Philistine. I long for simple forms, for a quiet, natural way of living, where heart speaks to heart and where one has the best that there is, faithfulness, love and freedom."
"Freedom!" repeated Botho.
"Yes, Rienäcker. But since I well know that dangers may lurk here too and that the joy of freedom, perhaps all freedom, is a two-edged sword, that can wound, one never knows how, I wanted to ask you."
"And I will answer you," said Rienäcker, who was growing more and more serious, as these confidences recalled his own life, both past and present, to his mind. "Yes, Rexin, I will answer you as well as I can, and I believe that I am able to answer you. And so I implore you, keep out of all that. In such a relation as you are planning for, only two things are possible, and the one is fully as bad as the other. If you play the true and faithful lover, or what amounts to the same thing, if you break entirely with your position and birth and the customs of your class, sooner or later, if you do not go to pieces altogether, you will become a horror and a burden to yourself; but if things do not go that way, and if, as is more common, you make your peace, after a year or more, with your family and with the social order, then there is sorrow, for the tie must be loosened which has been knit and strengthened by happiness, and alas, what means still more, by unhappiness and pain and distress. And that hurts dreadfully."
Rexin looked as if he were about to answer, but Botho did not notice him and went on: "My dear Rexin, a short time ago you were speaking, in a way that might serve as a model of decorous expression, of relations 'where beginning and breaking off may happen within the same hour,' but these relations, which are really none at all, are not the worst. The worst are those, to quote you once more, which keep to the 'middle course.' I warn you, beware of this middle course, beware of half-way measures. What you think is gain is bankruptcy, and what seems to you a harbor means shipwreck. That way leads to no good, even if to outward appearances all runs smoothly and no curse is pronounced and scarcely a gentle reproach is uttered. And there is no other way. For everything brings its own natural consequences, we must remember that. Nothing that has happened can be undone, and an image that has once been engraved in the soul, never wholly fades out again, never completely disappears. Memory remains and comparisons will arise in the mind. And so once more, my friend, give up your intention or else the whole course of your life will be disturbed and you will never again win your way through to clearness and light. Many things may be permitted, but not those that involve the soul, not those that entangle the heart, even if it is only your own."
[CHAPTER XXIV]
A telegram sent just as Katherine was on the point of departure arrived on the third day: "I shall arrive this evening. K."
And she actually arrived. Botho was at the station and was presented to Frau Salinger, who declined all thanks for her good companionship during the journey, and kept repeating how fortunate she had been, and above all how fortunate he must be in having such a charming young wife. "Look here, Herr Baron, if I were so fortunate as to be her husband, I would never part from such a wife even for three days." And then she began to complain of men in general, but in the same breath she added an urgent invitation to Vienna. "We have a nice little house less than an hour from Vienna, and a couple of saddle horses and a good table. In Prussia you have schools and in Vienna we have cooking. And I don't know which I prefer."