In the evening of the same day Innstetten was back again in Berlin. He
had taken the carriage, which he had left by the crossroad behind the
dunes, directly for the railway station, without returning to Kessin,
and had left to the seconds the duty of reporting to the authorities.
On the train he had a compartment to himself, which enabled him to
commune with his own mind and live the event all over again. He had
the same thoughts as two days before, except that they ran in the
opposite direction, beginning with conviction as to his rights and his
duty and ending in doubt. "Guilt, if it is anything at all, is not
limited by time and place and cannot pass away in a night. Guilt
requires expiation; there is some sense in that. Limitation, on the
other hand, only half satisfies; it is weak, or at least it is
prosaic." He found comfort in this thought and said to himself over
and over that what had happened was inevitable. But the moment he
reached this conclusion he rejected it. "There must be a limitation;
limitation is the only sensible solution. Whether or not it is prosaic
is immaterial. What is sensible is usually prosaic. I am now
forty-five. If I had found the letters twenty-five years later I
should have been seventy. Then Wüllersdorf would have said:
'Innstetten, don't be a fool.' And if Wüllersdorf didn't say it,
Buddenbrook would, and if _he_ didn't, either, I myself should. That
is clear. When we carry a thing to extremes we carry it too far and
make ourselves ridiculous. No doubt about it. But where does it begin?
Where is the limit? Within ten years a duel is required and we call it
an affair of honor. After eleven years, or perhaps ten and a half, we
call it nonsense. The limit, the limit. Where is it? Was it reached?
Was it passed? When I recall his last look, resigned and yet smiling
in his misery, that look said: 'Innstetten, this is stickling for
principle. You might have spared me this, and yourself, too.' Perhaps
he was right. I hear some such voice in my soul. Now if I had been
full of deadly hatred, if a deep feeling of revenge had found a place
in my heart--Revenge is not a thing of beauty, but a human trait and
has naturally a human right to exist. But this affair was all for the
sake of an idea, a conception, was artificial, half comedy. And now I
must continue this comedy, must send Effi away and ruin her, and
myself, too--I ought to have burned the letters, and the world should
never have been permitted to hear about them. And then when she came,
free from suspicion, I ought to have said to her: 'Here is your
place,' and ought to have parted from her inwardly, not before the
eyes of the world. There are so many marriages that are not marriages.
Then happiness would have been gone, but I should not have had the
eye staring at me with its searching look and its mild, though mute,
accusation."
Shortly before ten o'clock Innstetten alighted in front of his
residence. He climbed the stairs and rang the bell. Johanna came and
opened the door.
"How is Annie?"
"Very well, your Lordship. She is not yet asleep--If your Lordship--"
"No, no, it would merely excite her. It would be better to wait till
morning to see her. Bring me a glass of tea, Johanna. Who has been
here?"
"Nobody but the doctor."
Innstetten was again alone. He walked to and fro as he loved to do.
"They know all about it. Roswitha is stupid, but Johanna is a clever
person. If they don't know accurate details, they have made up a story
to suit themselves and so they know anyhow. It is remarkable how many
things become indications and the basis for tales, as though the whole
world had been present."
Johanna brought the tea, and Innstetten drank it. He was tired to
death from the overexertion and went to sleep.
The next morning he was up in good season. He saw Annie, spoke a few
words with her, praised her for being a good patient, and then went to
the Ministry to make a report to his chief of all that had happened.
The minister was very gracious. "Yes, Innstetten, happy is the man who
comes out of all that life may bring to us whole. It has gone hard
with you." He approved all that had taken place and left the rest to
Innstetten.
It was late in the afternoon when Innstetten returned home and found
there a few lines from Wüllersdorf. "Returned this morning. A world of
experiences--painful, touching--Gieshübler particularly. The most
amiable humpback I ever saw. About you he did not say so very much,
but the wife, the wife! He could not calm himself and finally the
little man broke out in tears. What strange things happen! It would be
better if we had more Gieshüblers. But there are more of the other
sort--Then the scene at the home of the major--dreadful. Excuse me
from speaking about it. I have learned once more to be on my guard. I
shall see you tomorrow. Yours, W."
Innstetten was completely staggered when he read the note. He sat down
and wrote a few words in reply. When he had finished he rang the bell.
"Johanna, put these letters in the box."
Johanna took the letters and was on the point of going.
"And then, Johanna, one thing more. My wife is not coming back. You
will hear from others why. Annie must not know anything about it, at
least not now. The poor child. You must break the news to her
gradually that she has no mother any more. I can't do it. But be wise
about it, and don't let Roswitha spoil it all."
Johanna stood there a moment quite stupefied, and then went up to
Innstetten and kissed his hand.
By the time she had reached the kitchen her heart was overflowing with
pride and superiority, indeed almost with happiness. His Lordship had
not only told her everything, he had even added the final injunction,
"and don't let Roswitha spoil it all." That was the most important
point. And although she had a kindly feeling and even sympathy for her
mistress, nevertheless the thing that above all else occupied her was
the triumph of a certain intimate relation to her gracious master.
Under ordinary conditions it would have been easy for her to display
and assert this triumph, but today it so happened that her rival,
without having been made a confidante, was nevertheless destined to
appear the better informed of the two. Just about at the same time as
the above conversation was taking place the porter had called
Roswitha into his little lodge downstairs and handed her as she
entered a newspaper to read. "There, Roswitha, is something that will
interest you. You can bring it back to me later. It is only the
_Foreigners' Gazette_, but Lena has already gone out to get the _Minor
Journal_. There will probably be more in it. They always know
everything. Say, Roswitha, who would have thought such a thing!"
Roswitha, who was ordinarily none too curious, had, however, after
these words betaken herself as quickly as possible up the back stairs
and had just finished reading the account when Johanna came to her.
Johanna laid the letters Innstetten had given her upon the table,
glanced over the addresses, or at least pretended to, for she knew
very well to whom they were directed, and said with feigned composure:
"One goes to Hohen-Cremmen."
"I understand that," said Roswitha.
Johanna was not a little astonished at this remark. "His Lordship does
not write to Hohen-Cremmen ordinarily."
"Oh, ordinarily? But now--Just think, the porter gave me _this_
downstairs only a moment ago."
Johanna took the paper and read in an undertone a passage marked with
a heavy ink line: "As we learn from a well informed source, shortly
before going to press, there occurred yesterday morning in the
watering place Kessin, in Hither Pomerania, a duel between Department
Chief von Innstetten of Keith St. and Major von Crampas. Major von
Crampas fell. According to rumors, relations are said to have existed
between him and the Department Chief's wife, who is beautiful and
still very young."
"What don't such papers write?" said Johanna, who was vexed at seeing
her news anticipated. "Yes," said Roswitha, "and now the people will
read this and say disgraceful things about my poor dear mistress. And
the poor major! Now he is dead!"
"Why, Roswitha, what are you thinking of anyhow? Ought he _not_ to be
dead? Or ought our dear gracious master to be dead?"
"No, Johanna, our gracious master, let him live, let everybody live. I
am not for shooting people and can't even bear the report of the
pistol. But take into consideration, Johanna, that was half an
eternity ago, and the letters, which struck me as so strange the
moment I saw them, because they had a red cord, not a ribbon, wrapped
around them three or four times and tied--why, they were beginning to
look quite yellow, it was so long ago. You see, we have been here now
for over six years, and how can a man, just because of such old
things--"
"Ah, Roswitha, you speak according to your understanding. If we
examine the matter narrowly, you are to blame. It comes from the
letters. Why did you come with the chisel and break open the sewing
table, which is never permissible? One must never break open a lock in
which another has turned a key."
"Why, Johanna, it is really too cruel of you to say such a thing to my
face, and you know that _you_ are to blame, and that you rushed half
crazy into the kitchen and told me the sewing table must be opened,
the bandage was in it, and then I came with the chisel, and now you
say I am to blame. No, I say--"
"Well, I will take it back, Roswitha. But you must not come to me and
say: 'the poor major!' What do you mean by the 'poor major?' The poor
major was altogether good for nothing. A man who has such a red
moustache and twirls it all the time is never good for anything, he
does nothing but harm. When one has always been employed in
aristocratic homes--but you haven't been, Roswitha, that's where you
are lacking--one knows what is fitting and proper and what honor is,
and knows that when such a thing comes up there is no way to get
around it, and then comes what is called a challenge and one of the
men is shot."
"Oh, I know that, too; I am not so stupid as you always try to make me
appear. But since it happened so long ago--"
"Oh, Roswitha, that everlasting 'so long ago!' It shows plainly enough
that you don't know anything about it. You are always telling the same
old story about your father with the red-hot tongs and how he came at
you with them, and every time I put a red-hot heater in the iron I see
him about to kill you on account of the child that died so long ago.
Indeed, Roswitha, you talk about it all the time, and all there is
left for you to do now is to tell little Annie the story, and as soon
as little Annie has been confirmed she will be sure to hear it,
perhaps the same day. I am grieved that you should have had all that
experience, and yet your father was only a village blacksmith who shod
horses and put tires on wheels, and now you come forward and expect
our gracious master calmly to put up with all this, merely because it
happened so long ago. What do you mean by long ago? Six years is not
long ago. And our gracious mistress, who, by the way, is not coming
back--his Lordship just told me so--her Ladyship is not yet twenty-six
and her birthday is in August, and yet you come to me with the plea of
'long ago.' If she were thirty-six, for at thirty-six, I tell you, one
must be particularly cautious, and if his Lordship had done nothing,
then aristocratic people would have 'cut' him. But you are not
familiar with that word, Roswitha, you know nothing about it."
"No, I know nothing about it and care less, but what I do know is that
you are in love with his Lordship."
Johanna struck up a convulsive laugh.
"Well, laugh. I have noticed it for a long time. I don't put it past
you, but fortunately his Lordship takes no note of it. The poor wife,
the poor wife!"
Johanna was anxious to declare peace. "That will do now, Roswitha. You
are mad again, but, I know, all country girls get mad."
"May be."
"I am just going to post these letters now and see whether the porter
has got the other paper. I understood you to say, didn't I, that he
sent Lena to get one? There must be more in it; this is as good as
nothing at all."