According to the agreement Innstetten set out the following evening.
He took the same train Wüllersdorf had taken the day before and
shortly after five o'clock in the morning was at the station, from
which the road branched off to the left for Kessin. The steamer
referred to several times before was scheduled to leave daily, during
the season, immediately after the arrival of this train, and
Innstetten heard its first signal for departure as he reached the
bottom step of the stairway leading down the embankment. The walk to
the landing took less than three minutes. After greeting the captain,
who was somewhat embarrassed and hence must have heard of the whole
affair the day before, he took a seat near the tiller. In a moment the
boat pulled away from the foot bridge; the weather was glorious, the
morning sun bright, and but few passengers on board. Innstetten
thought of the day when, returning here from his wedding tour, he had
driven along the shore of the Kessine with Effi in an open carriage.
That was a gray November day, but his heart was serene. Now it was the
reverse: all was serene without, and the November day was within.
Many, many a time had he come this way afterward, and the peace
hovering over the fields, the horses in harness pricking up their ears
as he drove by, the men at work, the fertility of the soil--all these
things had done his soul good, and now, in harsh contrast with that,
he was glad when clouds came up and began slightly to overcast the
laughing blue sky. They steamed down the river and soon after they had
passed the splendid sheet of water called the "Broad" the Kessin
church tower hove in sight and a moment later the quay and the long
row of houses with ships and boats in front of them. Soon they were at
the landing. Innstetten bade the captain goodbye and approached the
bridge that had been rolled out to facilitate the disembarkation.
Wüllersdorf was there. The two greeted each other, without speaking a
word at first, and then walked across the levee to the Hoppensack
Hotel, where they sat down under an awning.
"I took a room here yesterday," said Wüllersdorf, who did not wish to
begin with the essentials. "When we consider what a miserable hole
Kessin is, it is astonishing to find such a good hotel here. I have no
doubt that my friend the head waiter speaks three languages. Judging
by the parting of his hair and his low-cut vest we can safely count on
four--Jean, please bring us some coffee and cognac."
Innstetten understood perfectly why Wüllersdorf assumed this tone, and
approved of it, but he could not quite master his restlessness and
kept taking out his watch involuntarily. "We have time," said
Wüllersdorf. "An hour and a half yet, or almost. I ordered the
carriage at a quarter after eight; we have not more than ten minutes
to drive."
"Where?"
"Crampas first proposed a corner of the woods, just behind the
churchyard. Then he interrupted himself and said: 'No, not there.'
Then we agreed upon a place among the dunes, close by the beach. The
outer dune has a cut through it and one can look out upon the sea."
Innstetten smiled. "Crampas seems to have selected a beautiful spot.
He always had a way of doing that. How did he behave?"
"Marvelously."
"Haughtily? frivolously?"
"Neither the one nor the other. I confess frankly, Innstetten, it
staggered me. When I mentioned your name he turned as pale as death,
but tried hard to compose himself, and I saw a twitching about the
corners of his mouth. But it was only a moment till he had regained
his composure and after that he was all sorrowful resignation. I am
quite certain he feels that he will not come out of the affair alive,
and he doesn't care to. If I judge him correctly he is fond of living
and at the same time indifferent about it. He takes life as it comes
and knows that it amounts to but little."
"Who is his second? Or let me say, rather, whom will he bring along?"
"That was what worried him most after he had recovered himself. He
mentioned two or three noblemen of the vicinity, but dropped their
names, saying they were too old and too pious, and that he would
telegraph to Treptow for his friend Buddenbrook. Buddenbrook came and
is a capital man, at once resolute and childlike. He was unable to
calm himself, and paced back and forth in the greatest excitement. But
when I had told him all he said exactly as you and I: 'You are right,
it must be.'"
The coffee came. They lighted their cigars and Wüllersdorf again
sought to turn the conversation to more indifferent things. "I am
surprised that nobody from Kessin has come to greet you. I know you
were very popular. What is the matter with your friend Gieshübler?"
Innstetten smiled. "You don't know the people here on the coast. They
are half Philistines and half wiseacres, not much to my taste. But
they have one virtue, they are all very mannerly, and none more so
than my old Gieshübler. Everybody knows, of course, what it is about,
and for that very reason they take pains not to appear inquisitive."
At this moment there came into view to the left a chaise-like carriage
with the top down, which, as it was ahead of time, drove up very
slowly.
"Is that ours?" asked Innstetten.
"Presumably."
A moment later the carriage stopped in front of the hotel and
Innstetten and Wüllersdorf arose to their feet. Wüllersdorf stepped
over to the coachman and said: "To the mole."
The mole lay in the wrong direction of the beach, to the right instead
of the left, and the false orders were given merely to avoid any
possible interference. Besides, whether they intended to keep to the
right or to the left after they were beyond the city limits, they had
to pass through the "Plantation" in either case, and so their course
led unavoidably past Innstetten's old residence. The house seemed more
quiet than formerly. If the rooms on the ground floor looked rather
neglected, what must have been the state upstairs! The uncanny feeling
that Innstetten had so often combatted in Effi, or had at least
laughed at, now came over him, and he was glad when they had driven
past.
"That is where I used to live," he said to Wüllersdorf.
"It looks strange, rather deserted and abandoned."
"It may be. In the city it was called a haunted house and from the way
it stands there today I cannot blame people for thinking so."
"What did they tell about it?"
"Oh, stupid nonsense. An old ship's captain with a granddaughter or a
niece, who one fine day disappeared, and then a Chinaman, who was
probably her lover. In the hall a small shark and a crocodile, both
hung up by strings and always in motion, wonderful to relate, but now
is no time for that, when my head is full of all sorts of other
phantoms."
"You forget that it may all turn out well yet."
"It must not. A while ago, Wüllersdorf, when you were speaking about
Crampas, you yourself spoke differently."
Soon thereafter they had passed through the "Plantation" and the
coachman was about to turn to the right toward the mole. "Drive to the
left, rather. The mole can wait."
The coachman turned to the left into the broad driveway, which ran
behind the men's bathhouse toward the forest. When they were within
three hundred paces of the forest Wüllersdorf ordered the coachman to
stop. Then the two walked through grinding sand down a rather broad
driveway, which here cut at right angles through the three rows of
dunes. All along the sides of the road stood thick clumps of lyme
grass, and around them immortelles and a few blood-red pinks.
Innstetten stooped down and put one of the pinks in his buttonhole.
"The immortelles later."
They walked on thus for five minutes. When they had come to the rather
deep depression which ran along between the two outer rows of dunes
they saw their opponents off to the left, Crampas and Buddenbrook, and
with them good Dr. Hannemann, who held his hat in his hand, so that
his white hair was waving in the wind.
Innstetten and Wüllersdorf walked up the sand defile; Buddenbrook came
to meet them. They exchanged greetings and then the two seconds
stepped aside for a brief conference. They agreed that the opponents
should advance _a tempo_ and shoot when ten paces apart. Then
Buddenbrook returned to his place. Everything was attended to quickly,
and the shots were fired. Crampas fell.
Innstetten stepped back a few paces and turned his face away from the
scene. Wüllersdorf walked over to Buddenbrook and the two awaited the
decision of the doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. At the same time
Crampas indicated by a motion of his hand that he wished to say
something. Wüllersdorf bowed down to him, nodded his assent to the few
words, which could scarcely be heard as they came from the lips of the
dying man, and then went toward Innstetten.
"Crampas wishes to speak to you, Innstetten. You must comply with his
wish. He hasn't three minutes more to live."
Innstetten walked over to Crampas.
"Will you--" were the dying man's last words. Then a painful, yet
almost friendly expression in his eyes, and all was over.