I
It was in the Hotel Fratazza in San Martino di Castrozza that, at the
end of years, Crammon and the Countess Brainitz met again.
The countess sat on the balcony of her room, embroidering a
Slavonic peasant scarf, and searching with her satisfied eyes the
craggy mountains and the wooded slopes and paths. As she did so, a
dust-covered motor car stopped at the entrance below, and from it
stepped two ladies and two gentlemen in the fashionable swathings of
motoring. The gentlemen took off their goggles, and made arrangements
with the manager of the hotel.
“Look down, Stöhr,” the countess turned to her companion. “Look at that
stoutish man with a face like an actor. He seems familiar to----” At
that moment Crammon looked up and bowed. The countess uttered a little
cry.
That evening, in the dining-hall, Crammon could not avoid going to
the countess’ table and asking after her health, the length of her
stay here, and similar matters. The countess rudely interrupted his
courteous phrases. “Herr von Crammon, there’s something I have to
say to you privately. I’m glad to have this opportunity. I have been
waiting for it very long.”
“I am entirely at your service, countess,” said Crammon, with
ill-concealed vexation. “I shall take the liberty of calling on you
to-morrow at eleven.”
At ten minutes past eleven on the next day he had himself announced. In
spite of the energetic way in which she had demanded this interview, he
felt neither curiosity nor anxiety.
The countess pointed to a chair, sat down opposite her guest, and
assumed the expression of a judge. “My dear sister, whom you, Herr von
Crammon, cannot fail to remember, passed from this world to a better
one after a long illness eighteen months ago. I was permitted to be
with her to the end, and in her last hours she made a confession to me.”
The sympathy which Crammon exhibited was of such obvious superficiality
that the countess added with knife-like sharpness of tone: “It was
my sister Else, Herr von Crammon, the mother of Letitia. Haven’t you
anything to say?”
Crammon nodded dreamily. “So she too is gone,” he sighed, “dear woman!
And all that was twenty years ago! It was a glorious time, countess.
Youth, youth--ah, all the meaning in that word! Don’t remind me, dear
countess, don’t remind me!
“‘Even the beautiful dies, though it conquer men and immortals,
Zeus of the iron breast feels no compassion within.’”
“Spare me your poetical quotations,” the countess replied angrily. “You
shan’t get the better of me as you did once upon a time. In those days
the mask of discretion was the most convenient and comfortable for
you to assume; and I don’t deny that you assumed it with the utmost
skill. But let me add this at once: One may be as discreet as a mummy,
yet there are situations in life in which one is forced to follow the
call of one’s heart, that is, if one is provided with such a thing. A
momentary hoarseness, a quiver of the lips, a moisture of the eye--that
would have sufficed. I observed nothing of the kind in you. Instead you
stood by quite calmly, while that poor girl, your daughter, your own
flesh and blood, was sold to a filthy maniac, a tiger in human form.”
Crammon’s answer was temperate and dignified. “Perhaps you will have
the kindness, dear countess, to recall my sincere and insistent
warning. I came to you late at night, tormented by conscience, and
made the most weighty and solemn representations to you.”
“Warning! Fudge! You told me wild stories. You cheated me right and
left.”
“Those are strong expressions, countess.”
“I mean them to be!”
“Too bad! Ah, well! The dewy moisture of the eye, countess, is the
sort of thing you mustn’t expect of me; I haven’t the required gift. I
found the little girl sympathetic, very sympathetic, but merely as a
human being. You mustn’t expect paternal emotions of me. Frankly and
honestly, countess, I consider those emotions vastly overestimated by
sentimental people. A mother--ah, there the voice of nature speaks. But
a father is a more or less unlucky accident. Suppose you had planned
to overwhelm me with an effective scene. Let us picture it. Yonder
door opens, and there appears a young gentleman or a young lady armed
with all necessary documents or proofs. Such proper documents and
proofs could be gathered against any normal man of forty-three like
the sands of the sea. And so this young man or young lady approaches
me with the claims of a son or a daughter. Well, do you really believe
that I would be deeply moved, and that the feelings of a father would
gush from my heart like waters from a fountain? On the contrary, I
would say: ‘My dear young man, or my dear young lady, I am charmed
to make your acquaintance,’ but that exhausts the entire present
possibilities of the situation. And wouldn’t it, by the way, be most
damnably uncomfortable, if one had to live in the constant expectation
of meeting one’s unpaid bills of twenty years ago in human form?
Where would that lead to? The offspring in question, whether male or
female, if possessed of any tact, would thoroughly consider such a
step, and pause before using an ill-timed intrusion to burden a man
who is busy stirring the dregs in the cup of life for some palatable
remnants. The conception of our charming Letitia, my dear lady, was
woven into so peculiar a mesh of circumstance, and so evidently due
to the interposition of higher powers, that my own service in the
matter shrinks into insignificance. When I met the dear girl, I had the
feeling of a wanderer who once thoughtlessly buried a cherry kernel by
the roadside. Years later he passes the same spot, and is surprised
by a cherry tree. Delightful but quite natural. But do you expect the
man to raise a cry of triumph? Is he to haunt the neighbourhood, and
say: ‘Look at my cherry-tree! Am I not a remarkable fellow?’ Or would
you expect him to go to the owner of the land and demand the tree and
uproot it, or even steal it by night in order to transplant it he knows
not where? Such a man would be a fool, countess, or a maniac.”
“I didn’t suspect you of having much spirituality, Herr von Crammon,”
the countess replied bitterly, “but I thought a little might be found.
I confess that I’m dumbfounded. Pray tell me this: Do all men share
your views, or are you unique in this respect? It would console me to
believe the latter, for otherwise humanity would seem to cut too sorry
a figure.”
“God forbid, dearest countess, that I should be guilty of disturbing
the admirable equilibrium of your mind and soul,” Crammon returned
eagerly. “God forbid! By all means consider me an exception. Most
of the people I know are quite proud of their productions, whether
the latter take the form of verse, or a new fashion in waistcoats,
or a quite original way of preparing the livers of geese. They are
insatiable for the fame of authorship. When you see them from afar, you
feel yourself forced to invent compliments; and there is no lie that
they do not swallow with a greed that makes you ashamed for them. And
no chef, no poet, and no tailor is so puffed up with creative vanity as
your common bourgeois progenitor. Compared to him the rhinoceros is a
delicate and sensitive creature. My dislike of the institution of the
family was heightened by an incident that illustrates my point. I once
asked a man, who was a notorious cuckold, how his two boys happened to
be so extraordinarily fair, since both he and his wife were very dark.
He replied with the utmost impudence that his ancestors had been Norman
knights. Norman knights, of all things in the world! And the man was a
Jew from Prague. Norman knights!”
The countess shook her head. “You’re telling me anecdotes again,”
she said, “and I’m not fond of them, least of all of yours. So you
repudiate all responsibility? You consider Letitia a stranger, and
deny the darling child? Is that, in a word, the meaning of all your
discourse?”
“Not at all, countess. I am ready for any amicable rapprochement; only
I refuse to be nailed down, and have a sentimental moral responsibility
foisted on me. Were that attempted, I should be apt to flee, although
I am by nature calm and deliberate. But let us not waste the time
discussing theories. Tell me the precise nature of little Letitia’s
misfortunes.”
Mastering the horror with which Crammon filled her, the countess
related how she had received a telegram from Genoa a month ago. The
message had been: “Send money or come immediately.” She had hastened to
Genoa, and found the poor child in a pitiful condition. Letitia had so
little money that she had to pawn her jewels to pay her hotel bills;
she was tyrannized and cheated by the Argentinian nurse whom she had
brought over; one of the twins had a touch of intestinal catarrh, the
other of inflammation of the eyes----”
“Twins? Did you say twins?” Crammon interrupted her in consternation.
“Twins. Precisely what I said. You are the grandfather of twins.” The
countess’s reply reeked with malicious satisfaction.
“The ways of Providence are indeed wonderful,” Crammon murmured, and
his eyes dulled a little, “grandfather of twins.... Extraordinary, I
confess. I must say that the affair doesn’t look humorous. Why did she
leave her husband? Why didn’t you stay with her?”
“You shall hear all. The man maltreated her--actually and physically.
She fell into the hands of drunkards, robbers, poisoners,
horse-thieves, forgers, and slanderers. She was a prisoner in the
house; she suffered hunger; they tormented her body and soul, and made
cruel threats; she was in fear of her life; they trained wild animals
to terrorize her, and hired escaped convicts to watch her. Fear and
horror brought her to the brink of the grave. It was unspeakable.
Without the interposition and noble-hearted assistance of a German
captain, who offered her passage to Europe, she would have perished
miserably. Unhappily I could not even thank her unselfish friend; he
had left Genoa when I arrived. But Letitia gave me his address, and I
shall write him.”
“It’s all very regrettable,” said Crammon, “and yet it is what I
expected. I had a foreboding, and thence my prophecy. I thought this
Stephen Gunderam odious from the start. He was like a cheap showman
blowing a tin trumpet. I wouldn’t have trusted him with an old
umbrella, not to speak of a young girl whose exquisite qualities were
patent to all the world. Nevertheless I disapprove of her flight. If
the conditions were demonstrably insufferable, she should have sought
her freedom through the appropriate legal methods. Marriage is a
sacrament. First she jumps at it, as though it were a well-warranted
seventh heaven. Next, having experienced the discomforts which a very
imbecile would have expected under the circumstances, she takes French
leave, and steams off to Europe with two helpless and unsheltered
babes. That is neither consistent nor prudent, and I must distinctly
withhold my approval.”
The countess was indignant. “It’s your opinion that the poor child
should rather have let them torment her to death?”
“I beg your pardon. I merely point out her unfortunate way of seeking
redress; beyond that I do not presume to judge. I consider it a wrong
step to break the union sanctified by the Church, and desert both
hearth and country. It is a godless thing, and leads to destruction.
And what happened while you were with her? What did she determine on?
Where is she now?”
“In Paris.”
“In Paris! Is that so? And the purpose of her visit?”
“She wants to recuperate. I don’t grudge her the chance. She needs it.”
“I don’t question it, countess. But Paris seems an unusual place for
such a purpose. And did she directly refuse the pleasure of your
society, or do you merely fail to share her taste for recuperating in
Paris?”
The countess was visibly embarrassed. She wrinkled her brow, and her
little red cheeks glowed. “In the hotel she made the acquaintance of a
Vicomte Seignan-Castreul, who was staying there with his sister,” she
said hesitantly. “They invited Letitia to be their guest in Paris and
afterwards at their château in Brittany. The child wept, and said to
me: ‘Auntie, I’d love to go, but I can’t because I haven’t a cent.’ It
cut me to the heart, and I scraped together what I could--five thousand
francs in all. The darling thanked me from the heart, and then left
with the vicomte and vicomtesse, and promised to meet me in Baden-Baden
in October.”
“And where are the twins in the meanwhile?”
“She took them with her, of course--the twins, and their Argentinian
nurse, an English maid, and her own maid.”
“I honour your generosity, countess, but I don’t somehow like either
your vicomte or your vicomtesse.”
The countess suddenly gave a loud sob. “I don’t either!” she cried,
and pressed her hands to her face. “I don’t either. If only the dear
child does not meet with new misfortunes! But what was I to do? Can one
resist her pleading? I was so happy to have her back; I felt as though
she’d risen from the grave. No, the vicomte is not sympathetic to me at
all. He has a dæmoniac character.”
“People with dæmoniac characters are always swindlers, countess,”
Crammon said drily. “A decent man is never that. It’s a swindle in
itself, that word.”
“Herr von Crammon,” the countess announced with decision, “I expect of
you now that you show character in the other and beautiful sense of the
word, I expect you to come to Baden-Baden when Letitia has arrived,
to interest yourself in her who is closer to you than any one else on
earth, and to make up for your wrong and your neglect.”
“For the love of all the saints, not that!” Crammon cried in terror.
“Recognition, deep emotion, father and daughter fall into each other’s
arms, remorse and damp handkerchiefs! No! Anything you want, but not
that.”
“No excuses, Herr von Crammon, it is your duty!” The countess had
arisen, and her eyes were majestic. Crammon writhed and begged and
besought her. It did no good. The countess would not let him go until
he had pledged her his word of honour to be in Baden-Baden by the end
of October or, at latest, the beginning of November.
When the countess was alone, she walked up and down for a little, still
hot and gasping. Then she called her companion. “Send me the waiter,
Stöhr,” she moaned, “I’m weak with hunger.”
Fräulein Stöhr did as she was bidden.