Crammon had written as follows to the Countess Brainitz: “Since I
have pledged my word, of course I shall come. But I beg you to have
the kindness to prepare Letitia in some appropriate way. As the fatal
moment approaches I feel more and more uncomfortable. It is a very
difficult act of expiation that you demand of me. I would rather make
a pilgrimage to Mount Ararat and become a hermit there for a few years
and seek for the remains of Noah’s ark. I grant you that I have always
enjoyed the delights that came to me without scruple; but it does not
seem to me that I have deserved this. It is too much.”
The countess replied that she would do her utmost to mitigate the
painfulness of the meeting. She had no objection to the dear child’s
weeping on her bosom, before facing a father who admitted his
fatherhood with so many hesitations and fears. “And so, Herr von
Crammon,” she wrote at the end of her letter, “we are expecting you.
Letitia has returned from Paris more enchanting than ever. All the
world is at her feet. I trust you will not be an exception.”
“The devil take her!” Crammon growled, as he packed his bags.
When he arrived at the countess’s country-house, which was called the
Villa Ophelia, he was told that the ladies had gone to the theatre.
He was taken to the room that had been prepared for him. He washed,
dressed for dinner, strolled back to the drawing-room, stuck his hands
deep into his pockets like a shivering tramp, and dropped morosely
into an easy chair. He heard the rain plash, and from another room
the crying of an infant. “Aha,” he thought, in his vexation, “that is
my grandchild, one of the twins. How do I know that some misguided
creature won’t put it on my knee, and ask me to admire and pet and
even kiss it? Who, I say, will protect me from a bourgeois idyl of
that sort? You might expect anything of a woman like the countess.
These sentimental actresses who refuse to grow old are capable of
anything. Is there anything more annoying in the world than a baby? It
is neither a human being nor an animal; it smells of cow-udders and
scented powder, and makes an insufferable and repulsive noise. It pokes
its limbs into the faces of older persons; and if there are two of
them, and all these horrors assail one doubly, one is apt to be quite
defenceless, and may fairly inquire: ‘What have you, Bernard Crammon,
whose interest in the propagation of the race has always been strictly
negative--what have you to do with such things?’”
Crammon ended his reflections with a smile of self-mockery. At that
moment he heard cheerful voices, and Letitia and the countess entered.
He arose with exquisite chivalry. He was most friendly and most
polished.
He did not conceal his astonishment over Letitia’s appearance. His
Austrian delight in feminine charm and his impulse to do homage to it
scattered the fog of his egotistical vexation. Either, he thought,
his memory was playing him false, or else Letitia had undergone a
marvellous development since the days at Wahnschaffe Castle. Crude
young girls had never, to be sure, attracted him. The women whom he
admired and courted had to be rich in knowledge and responsible, for
that eased his own responsibility.
After the first greetings the countess spoke. “Dear people,” she said,
with her North German readiness to meet all occasions, “I must leave
you for half an hour now. A theatre is a grimy place. I must wash my
hands. Everything about it is grimy--the seats, the spectators, the
actors, and the play. It always gives me a yearning for soap and water.
You can use the time to chat a bit. Afterwards we’ll have supper.”
She rustled out, not without having cast a severe glance at Crammon.
Crammon asked thoughtfully: “I wonder why she called this building the
Villa Ophelia. There are many inexplicable things in life. This is one
of them.”
Letitia laughed. She regarded him with a mixture of irony and shyness.
But as she stood before him in her frock of soft, pale yellow silk, her
neck and bosom radiating an ivory shimmer, Crammon found it difficult
to sustain his self-pity. Letitia approached him, and said archly
yet with feeling: “So you are my papa. Who would have thought it? It
must have been quite unpleasant for you to have an old, forgotten sin
suddenly transformed into a great girl.”
Crammon chuckled, although a shadow still lay on his face. He took
her hand into both of his and pressed it warmly. “I see that we
understand each other,” he said, “and that consoles me. What I feared
was an outburst and tears and the emotional display that is considered
fitting. It is so nice of you to be sensible. But let us sacrifice
something to the ceremonial tradition of the emotions. I shall imprint
a paternal kiss upon your brow.”
Letitia inclined her head, and he kissed her. She said: “We share a
delightful secret now. How shall I call you in company--Uncle, or Uncle
Crammon, or Uncle Bernard, or simply Bernard?”
“Simply Bernard, I’m sure,” Crammon replied. “I need not remind you,
of course, that you are legally the daughter of the late Herr von
Febronius and of his late wife. Our situation demands of us both the
most delicate tactfulness.”
“Certainly,” Letitia agreed, and sat down. “But just fancy the dangers
that lurk in this world. Suppose I hadn’t known anything and had fallen
in love with you. How horrible! And I must tell you at once that I
don’t seem to revere you a bit. My feeling is rather sisterly, and I’m
sure that I like you very, very much. Will you be satisfied with that,
or is it terribly unfilial?”
“It quite suffices,” said Crammon. “I can’t indeed impress on you too
strongly the wisdom of emotional frugality. Most people carry their
feelings about the way the Ashanti women do their glass beads. They
rattle them in public, and never realize what very ordinary stuff they
are. But that is by the way. For our relations we must have a very
special programme. This is important in order to ward off the intrusion
of outsiders. I am--it goes without saying--at your service at any time
and in any way. You may rely wholly upon my friendship, upon my ... let
us use the odious word--paternal friendship.”
Letitia was immensely amused at his grave and anxious zeal to gain what
easements the situation permitted. She was quite worthy of him in the
capacity for a certain hypocrisy. Beneath her charming expression and
her innocent appearance of pliability, she hid a good deal of mockery
and not a little self-will. She answered: “There’s no reason why we
should limit each other’s freedom. We shall not stand in each other’s
way, nor become unduly indebted to each other. Each has the right to
assume the other’s confidence, and thus to preserve his freedom of
action. I hope that that suits you.”
“You are a very determined little person, and I took you to be
foolishly enthusiastic and fanciful. Did the cattle drivers in the land
of fire sharpen your wits? Yes, it suits me; it suits me admirably.”
“There is so much ahead of me,” Letitia continued, and her eyes glowed
with desires and dreams, “I hardly know how I shall get through it
all--people, countries, cities, works of art. I’ve lost so much time
and I’m nearly twenty-one. Auntie wants me to stay with her, but that’s
impossible. I’m expected in Munich on the first of December and in
Meran on the tenth. In Paris it was divine. The people were perfectly
charming to me. Every one wanted me at once.”
“I quite believe it, quite,” said Crammon, and rubbed his chin. “But
tell me, how did that adventure with the vicomte end that the countess
told me about?”
“Oh, did she tell you about it?” Letitia blushed. “That wasn’t very
discreet.” For a moment her face showed an expression of sorrow and of
embarrassment. But unhappy experiences, even when they made their way
into her consciousness, could not really darken it. In a moment her
eyes were again full of laughter. All dark memories had fled. “Take me
on a motor drive to-morrow, won’t you, Bernard,” she urged him, and
stretched out her hands impulsively. “And you must invite the little
Baron Rehmer who lives in the Grand Hotel. He’s Stanislaus Rehmer, the
Polish sculptor. He’s going to model me and teach me Polish. He’s a
charming person.”
Crammon interrupted her: “Explain one thing to me! Tell me what is
happening in the Argentine. Hasn’t that blue-skinned bandit in whom
you once saw the essence of all manly virtues taken any steps against
you? You don’t imagine, do you, that he will simply stand by while you
take French leave with his double offspring? As for me, I wouldn’t have
shared the same board with him, far less the same bed. But that was
not your opinion, and the law doesn’t consider fluctuations of taste.”
“He’s brought a suit for divorce against me, and I’ve entered a
countersuit,” Letitia said. “I’ve seen mountains of documents. The
children are mine, since he forced me to flight by his extreme cruelty.
I’m not worried about it a bit.”
“Does he pay you an income?”
“Not a penny so far.”
“Then how do you live? You’re obviously not retrenching. Where does the
money come from? Who pays for all these luxuries? Or is it all a sham
with a background of debts?”
Letitia shrugged her shoulders. “I hardly know,” she answered, with
some embarrassment. “Sometimes I have money and sometimes I haven’t
any. Poor auntie sold a few old Dutch pictures that she had. One can’t
spend one’s life reckoning like a shopkeeper. Why do you talk of such
horrid things?” There was such sincere pain and reproachfulness in her
voice that Crammon felt like a sinner. He looked aside. Held by her
charm, he lost the courage to burden her farther with coarse realities.
And now, too, the countess appeared in the room. She had put on gloves
of gleaming white, and her face glowed like freshly scrubbed porcelain.
In her arms she carried Puck, the little Pekingese, who had grown old
and slept much.
“My dears, supper is served,” she cried, with the slightly stagy
cheeriness of her youth.