What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother. "If I
had a mother," she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes
had a wistful, starved look when she thought it, "if I only had a
mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I'd put my head on
her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I'd tell her
everything, and she wouldn't mind however silly it was, and she wouldn't
be tired however long it was, and she'd say 'Little darling child, you
are only a baby after all,' and would scold me a little, and kiss me a
great deal, and then I'd listen so comfortably, all the time with my
face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and
wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold
and difficult without a mother."
The house was in confusion. The baroness had come out of her
unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not
related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors,
now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself
out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little
importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died.
They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for
life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here
was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost
anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and
nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be
interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann
observed once at least every day that it was _schrecklich_, and went on
with her embroidery; Fräulein Kuhräuber cried a little when, on her way
to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and
the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case
would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and
spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal,
joyous life.
As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest
and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that
possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If
she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those
days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs.
"Here or somewhere else--anywhere she likes--she shall live and be
happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except
that there will be no shadow between us now."
But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the
baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and
immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got
over, she became fractious. "You will have a difficult time," Axel had
said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The
difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the
baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete
convalescence, the more difficult did life for Anna become. For it
resumed the old course, and they all resumed their old selves, the same
old selves, even to the shadow of an unmentioned Lolli between them,
that Axel had said they would by no means get away from; but with this
difference, that the peculiarities of both Frau von Treumann and the
baroness were more pronounced than before, and that not one of the trio
would speak to either of the other two.
Frau von Treumann was still firmly fixed in the house, without the least
intention apparently of leaving it, and she spent her time lying in wait
for Anna, watching for an opportunity of beginning again about Karlchen.
Anna had avoided the inevitable day when she would be caught, but it
came at last, and she was caught in the garden, whither she had retired
to consider how best to approach the baroness, hitherto quite
unapproachable, on the burning question of Lolli.
Frau von Treumann appeared suddenly, coming softly across the grass, so
that there was no time to run away. "Anna," she called out
reproachfully, seeing Anna make a movement as though she wanted to run,
which was exactly what she did want to do, "Anna, have I the plague?"
"I hope not," said Anna.
"You treat me as if I had it."
Anna said nothing. "Why does she stay here? How can she stay here, after
what has happened?" she had wondered often. Perhaps she had come now to
announce her departure. She prepared herself therefore to listen with a
willing ear.
She was sitting in the shade of a copper beech facing the oily sea and
the coast of Rügen quivering opposite in the heat-haze. She was not
doing anything; she never did seem to do anything, as these ladies of
the busy fingers often noticed.
"Blue and white," said Anna, looking up at the gulls and the sky to give
Frau von Treumann time, "the Pomeranian colours. I see now where they
come from."
But Frau von Treumann had not come out to talk about the Pomeranian
colours. "My Karlchen has been ill," she said, her eyes on Anna's face.
Anna watched the gulls overhead in the deep blue. "So has Else," she
remarked.
"Dear me," thought Frau von Treumann, "what rancour."
She laid her hand on Anna's knee, and it was taken no notice of. "You
cannot forgive him?" she said gently. "You cannot pardon a momentary
indiscretion?"
"I have nothing to forgive," said Anna, watching the gulls; one dropped
down suddenly, and rose again with a fish in its beak, the sun for an
instant catching the silver of the scales. "It is no affair of mine. It
is for Else to forgive him."
Frau von Treumann began to weep; this way of looking at it was so
hopelessly unreasonable. She pulled out her handkerchief. "What a heap
she must use," thought Anna; never had she met people who cried so much
and so easily as the Chosen; she was quite used now to red eyes; one or
other of her sisters had them almost daily, for the farther their old
bodily discomforts and real anxieties lay behind them the more tender
and easily lacerated did their feelings become.
"He could not bear to see you being imposed upon," said Frau von
Treumann. "As soon as he knew about this terrible sister he felt he must
hasten down to save you. 'Mother,' he said to me when first he suspected
it, 'if it is true, she must not be contaminated.'"
"Who mustn't?"
"Oh, Anna, you know he thinks only of you!"
"Well, you see," said Anna, "I don't mind being contaminated."
"Oh, dear child, a young pretty girl ought to mind very much."
"Well, I don't. But what about yourself? Are you not afraid of--of
contamination?" She was frightened by her own daring when she had said
it, and would not have looked at Frau von Treumann for worlds.
"No, dear child," replied that lady in tones of tearful sweetness, "I am
too old to suffer in any way from associating with queer people."
"But I thought a Treumann----" murmured Anna, more and more frightened
at herself, but impelled to go on.
"Dear Anna, a Treumann has never yet flinched before duty."
Anna was silenced. After that she could only continue to watch the
gulls.
"You are going to keep the baroness?"
"If she cares to stay, yes."
"I thought you would. It is for you to decide who you will have in your
house. But what would you do if this--this Lolli came down to see her
sister?"
"I really cannot tell."
"Well, be sure of one thing," burst out Frau von Treumann
enthusiastically, "I will not forsake you, dear Anna. Your position now
is exceedingly delicate, and I will not forsake you."
So she was not going. Anna got up with a faint sigh. "It is frightfully
hot here," she said; "I think I will go to Else."
"Ah--and I wanted to tell you about my poor Karlchen--and you avoid
me--you do not want to hear. If I am in the house, the house is too hot.
If I come into the garden, the garden is too hot. You no longer like
being with me."
Anna did not contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought
to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at
Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or
ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She
thought, "I will ask Axel"--and then remembered that there was no Axel
to ask. He never came near her. He had dropped out of her life as
completely as though he had left Lohm. Since that unhappy day, she had
neither seen him nor heard of him. Many times did she say to herself, "I
will ask Axel," and always the remembrance that she could not came with
a shock of loneliness; and then she would drop into the train of thought
that ended with "if I had a mother," and her eyes growing wistful.
"Perhaps it is the hot weather," she said suddenly, an evening or two
later, after a long silence, to the princess. They had been speaking of
servants before that.
"You think it is the hot weather that makes Johanna break the cups?"
"That makes me think so much of mothers."
The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was
Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose
recovery was slow, was up in her room.
"What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess.
"I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I
have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold
weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly."
"So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers
and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house
saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep
away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to
set things right again.
"I always thought it would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna,
"and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what
I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and
long sometimes to be petted."
The princess looked wise. "My dear," she said, shaking her head, "it is
not a mother that you want. Do you know the couplet:--
_Man bedarf der Leitung
Und der männlichen Begleitung?_
A truly excellent couplet."
Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss--always to be led
round by the nose by some husband."
"Not _some_ husband, my dear--one's own husband. You may call it leading
by the nose if you like. I can only say that I enjoyed being led by
mine, and have missed it grievously ever since."
"But you had found the right man."
"It is not very difficult to find the right man."
"Yes it is--very difficult indeed."
"I think not," said the princess. "He is never far off. Sometimes, even,
he is next door." And she gazed over Anna's head at the ceiling with
elaborate unconsciousness.
"And besides," said Anna, "why does a woman everlastingly want to be led
and propped? Why can't she go about the business of life on her own
feet? Why must she always lean on someone?"
"You said just now it is because it is hot."
"The fact is," said Anna, "that I am not clever enough to see my way
through puzzles. And that depresses me."
"I well know that you must be puzzled."
"Yes, it is puzzling, isn't it? I can talk to you about it, for of
course you see it all. It seems so absurd that the only result of my
trying to make people happy is to make everyone, including myself,
wretched. That is waste, isn't it. Waste, I mean, of happiness. For I,
at least, was happy before."
"And, my dear, you will be happy again."
Anna knit her brows in painful thought. "If by being wretched I had
managed to make the others happy it wouldn't have been so bad. At least
it wouldn't have been so completely silly. The only thing I can think of
is that I must have hit upon the wrong people."
"_I Gott bewahre!_" cried the princess with energy. "They are all alike.
Send these away, you get them back in a different shape. Faces and names
would be different, never the women. They would all be Treumanns and
Elmreichs, and not a single one worth anything in the whole heap."
"Well, I shall not desert them--Else and Emilie, I mean. They need help,
both of them. And after all, it is simple selfishness for ever wanting
to be happy oneself. I have begun to see that the chief thing in life is
not to be as happy as one can, but to be very brave."
The princess sighed. "Poor Axel," she said.
Anna started, and blushed violently. "Pray what has my being brave to do
with Herr von Lohm?" she inquired severely.
"Why, you are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not
expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope
of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him
and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it
being brave. I call it being unnatural and silly."
"It has never been a question of Herr von Lohm," said Anna coldly,
indeed freezingly. "What claims has he on me? My plans were all made
before I knew that he existed."
"Oh, my dear, your plans are very irritating things. The only plan a
sensible young woman ought to make is to get as good a husband as
possible as quickly as she can."
"Why," said Anna, rising in her indignation, and preparing to leave a
princess suddenly become objectionable, "why, you are as bad as Susie!"
"Susie?" said the princess, who had not heard of her by that name. "Was
Susie also one who told you the truth?"
But Anna walked out of the room without answering, in a very dignified
manner; went into the loneliest part of the garden; sat down behind some
bushes; and cried.
She looked back on those childish tears afterwards, and on all that had
gone before, as the last part of a long sleep; a sleep disturbed by
troubling and foolish dreams, but still only a sleep and only dreams.
She woke up the very next day, and remained wide awake after that for
the rest of her life.