"Yes, I was, because you spoke of my still being so young. Certainly I am still young; but that makes no difference. During our happy days Innstetten used to read aloud to me in the evening. He had very good books, and in one of them there was a story about a man who had been called away from a merry table. The following morning he asked how it had been after he left. Somebody answered: 'Oh, there were all sorts of things, but you really didn't miss anything.' You see, mama, these words have impressed themselves upon my memory—It doesn't signify very much if one is called away from the table a little early."
Mrs. von Briest remained silent. Effi lifted herself up a little higher and said: "Now that I have talked to you about old times and also about Innstetten, I must tell you something else, dear mama."
"You are getting excited, Effi."
"No, no, to tell about the burden of my heart will not excite me, it will quiet me. And so I wanted to tell you that I am dying reconciled to God and men, reconciled also to him."
"Did you cherish in your heart such great bitterness against him? Really—pardon me, my dear Effi, for mentioning it now—really it was you who brought down sorrow upon yourself and your husband."
Effi assented. "Yes, mama, and how sad that it should be so. But when all the terrible things happened, and finally the scene with Annie—you know what I mean—I turned the tables on him, mentally, if I may use the ridiculous comparison, and came to believe seriously that he was to blame, because he was prosaic and calculating, and toward the end cruel. Then curses upon him crossed my lips."
"Does that trouble you now?"
"Yes. And I am anxious that he shall know how, during my days of illness here, which have been almost my happiest, how it has become clear to my mind that he was right in his every act. In the affair with poor Crampas—well, after all, what else could he have done? Then the act by which he wounded me most deeply, the teaching of my own child to shun me, even in that he was right, hard and painful as it is for me to admit it. Let him know that I died in this conviction. It will comfort and console him, and may reconcile him. He has much that is good in his nature and was as noble as anybody can be who is not truly in love."
Mrs. von Briest saw that Effi was exhausted and seemed to be either sleeping or about to go to sleep. She rose quietly from her chair and went out. Hardly had she gone when Effi also got up, and sat at the open window to breathe in the cool night air once more. The stars glittered and not a leaf stirred in the park. But the longer she listened the more plainly she again heard something like soft rain falling on the plane trees. A feeling of liberation came over her. "Rest, rest."
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