Roswitha came in with Annie and interrupted the conversation.
This conversation occurred on the day that Innstetten departed from Hohen-Cremmen for Berlin, leaving Effi behind for at least a week. He knew she liked nothing better than whiling away her time, care-free, with sweet dreams, always hearing friendly words and assurances of her loveliness. Indeed that was the thing which pleased her above everything else, and here she enjoyed it again to the full and most gratefully, even though diversions were utterly lacking. Visitors seldom came, because after her marriage there was no real attraction, at least for the young people. * * *
On her wedding anniversary, the 3d of October, Effi was to be back in Berlin. On the evening before, under the pretext of desiring to pack her things and prepare for the journey, she retired to her room comparatively early. As a matter of fact, her only desire was to be alone. Much as she liked to chat, there were times when she longed for repose.
Her rooms were in the upper story on the side toward the garden. In the smaller one Roswitha was sleeping with Annie and their door was standing ajar. She herself walked to and fro in the larger one, which she occupied. The lower casements of the windows were open and the little white curtains were blown by the draft and slowly fell over the back of the chair, till another puff of wind came and raised them again. It was so light that she could read plainly the titles of the pictures hanging in narrow gilt frames over the sofa: "The Storming of Düppel, Fort No. 5," and "King William and Count Bismarck on the Heights of Lipa." Effi shook her head and smiled. "When I come back again I am going to ask for different pictures; I don't like such warlike sights." Then she closed one window and sat down by the other, which she left open. How she enjoyed the whole scene! Almost behind the church tower was the moon, which shed its light upon the grassy plot with the sundial and the heliotrope beds. Everything was covered with a silvery sheen. Beside the strips of shadow lay white strips of light, as white as linen on the bleaching ground. Farther on stood the tall rhubarb plants with their leaves an autumnal yellow, and she thought of the day, only a little over two years before, when she had played there with Hulda and the Jahnke girls. On that occasion, when the visitor came she ascended the little stone steps by the bench and an hour later was betrothed.
She arose, went toward the door, and listened. Roswitha was asleep and
Annie also.
Suddenly, as the child lay there before her, a throng of pictures of the days in Kessin came back to her unbidden. There was the district councillor's dwelling with its gable, and the veranda with the view of the "Plantation," and she was sitting in the rocking chair, rocking. Soon Crampas stepped up to her to greet her, and then came Roswitha with the child, and she took it, held it up, and kissed it.
"That was the first day, there is where it began." In the midst of her revery she left the room the two were sleeping in and sat down again at the open window and gazed out into the quiet night.
"I cannot get rid of it," she said. "But worst of all, and the thing that makes me lose faith in myself—" Just then the tower clock began to strike and Effi counted the strokes. "Ten—Tomorrow at this time I shall be in Berlin. We shall speak about our wedding anniversary and he will say pleasing and friendly things to me and perhaps words of affection. I shall sit there and listen and have a sense of guilt in my heart." She leaned her head upon her hand and stared silently into the night.
"And have a sense of guilt in my heart," she repeated. "Yes, the sense is there. But is it a burden upon my heart? No. That is why I am alarmed at myself. The burden there is quite a different thing—dread, mortal dread, and eternal fear that it may some day be found out. And, besides the dread, shame. I am ashamed of myself. But as I do not feel true repentance, neither do I true shame. I am ashamed only on account of my continual lying and deceiving. It was always my pride that I could not lie and did not need to—lying is so mean, and now I have had to lie all the time, to him and to everybody, big lies and little lies. Even Rummschüttel noticed it and shrugged his shoulders, and who knows what he thinks of me? Certainly not the best things. Yes, dread tortures me, and shame on account of my life of lies. But not shame on account of my guilt—that I do not feel, or at least not truly, or not enough, and the knowledge that I do not is killing me. If all women are like this it is terrible, if they are not—which I hope—then I am in a bad predicament; there is something out of order in my heart, I lack proper feeling. Old Mr. Niemeyer once told me, in his best days, when I was still half a child, that proper feeling is the essential thing, and if we have that the worst cannot befall us, but if we have it not, we are in eternal danger, and what is called the Devil has sure power over us. For the mercy of God, is this my state?"
She laid her head upon her arms and wept bitterly. When she straightened up again, calmed, she gazed out into the garden. All was so still, and her ear could detect a low sweet sound, as of falling rain, coming from the plane trees. This continued for a while. Then from the village street came the sound of a human voice. The old nightwatchman Kulicke was calling out the hour. When at last he was silent she heard in the distance the rattling of the passing train, some two miles away. This noise gradually became fainter and finally died away entirely—Still the moonlight lay upon the grass plot and there was still the low sound, as of falling rain upon the plane trees. But it was only the gentle playing of the night air.