In the course of three days the Baroness had five talks with her
husband. Each time he rejected her petition to have the affairs of their
son straightened out; and when she became insistent and seemed minded to
keep up her fight, he became silent, speechless.
It was during her last attempt that the servants heard her speaking with
extraordinary passion and violence. When she left the Baron's room her
whole body was quivering with emotion and excitement. She came out, and
ordered the house servants to pack her trunk and her coachman to be
ready to leave in a few minutes.
An hour later she was on her way to the estate at Siegmundshof, about
ten miles from the baronial residence. Her maid accompanied her. But she
was utterly unable to find peace there. During the day she would pace
back and forth through the rooms, crying and wringing her hands; at
night she would lie down, but not to sleep. On the fourth day she
returned to the city, had the carriage driven to the residence of Count
Urlich, and sent her coachman in to get the Countess. Emilia came down,
terrified, to know what her mother wanted. The Baroness told her that
she wished her to accompany her to Herr Carovius, whose address she had
found in the city directory.
Herr Carovius had waited in vain for the news the Baroness had promised
him. His anger got the best of him: he decided to make an example of the
Auffenberg family, and, with this end in view, entered their house as
the personal embodiment of punitive justice. When he was told that he
could not be admitted, he began once more to start trouble; he raged and
stormed like a madman. The servants came running out from all quarters;
finally a policeman appeared on the scene and questioned him. The porter
then dragged him from the house and out through the big gate at the
entrance to the grounds, where he stood surrounded by a crowd of curious
but not entirely disinterested people, bare-headed, waving his arms and
striking an imaginary adversary with his fists--a picture, all told, of
anger intensified to the point of insanity.
His backers at once got wind of his fruitless attempts to collect. They
became uneasy, gave Herr Carovius himself a deal of trouble, and finally
appointed a lawyer to take charge of the case. In the meantime Herr
Carovius had learned through a spy that it had come to a complete break
between the Baron and the Baroness, that the latter had left within two
days with bag and baggage, and that great consternation prevailed among
the servants and friends of the family.
A voluptuous light crept across Herr Carovius's face: here was defeat
and despair, weeping and gnashing of teeth; what more could he wish? He
felt that he was personally the annihilator of the collective
aristocracy. And if it is possible to take a fiendish delight in
witnessing the destruction of what one after all despises, how much
greater may this joy be when the thing destroyed is something one loves
and admires!
It was while in this mood that the Baroness and her daughter came to see
him. The sight of the two women left him momentarily speechless. He
forgot to say good-day to them; to ask them in never once occurred to
him.
The Baroness wanted to know where Eberhard was: she was determined to
see him. When Herr Carovius stuttered out the astounding information to
her that he was living hardly more than three hundred paces from where
she was then standing, she began to tremble and leaned against the wall.
She was not prepared for this: she had always imagined that he was
staying at some mysterious place in some mysterious distance.
Herr Carovius at once insisted that he accompany the ladies to the
Baron's diminutive residence. But the Baroness felt that she was not
capable of this: she feared it would mean her death. "Take me home with
you, Emilia," she said to her daughter, "and you go over and have a talk
with Eberhard first."
But Emilia had not seen Eberhard once during the nine years of her
married life, and was even less inclined than her mother to meet him
now. Nor was it possible to take the Baroness to her home. The old lady
had evidently forgotten that she had told Count Urlich never to show his
face in her presence again. The occasion of this inexorable request was
the time she learned that the governess of his child was in a family way
and that he was responsible for her disgrace.
Since the Baroness stoutly refused to return either to her town
residence or to Siegmundshof, there was nothing for Emilia to do but to
take her to a hotel. Herr Carovius, who had accompanied the two women on
the street and had enjoyed to the full their pitiable distress,
suggested that they go to the Bavarian Court. He climbed up on the seat
by the coachman, told him how to get there, and looked down in regal
triumph on the pedestrians.
Countess Emilia, quite at her wits' end, sent a telegram to her Aunt
Agatha. The next Wednesday Frau von Erfft with her daughter Sylvia
arrived. "Clotilda acts as if she had lost her mind," she said to Emilia
after having spent an hour in the room with her sister. "I am going to
see your father. I must have a long talk with Siegmund."
The Baron received his sister-in-law with marked coolness, though he had
always had a great deal of respect for her.
Frau von Erfft was quite careful to avoid any reference to the family
affairs. She talked about Sylvia, remarking that she was now
twenty-seven years old, and that she had rejected all her suitors, a
fact which was causing her parents a measure of concern. "She simply
will not be contented," said Frau Agatha. "She is bent on securing a
special mission in her marriage, and fears nothing so much as the loss
of her personal liberty. That is the way our children are, dear
Siegmund; and if we had brought them into the world differently, they
would be different. In our day the ideal was obedience; but now children
have discovered the duty they owe themselves."
"Then they should look out for themselves," replied the Baron gloomily.
He had fully appreciated what his sister-in-law was driving at.
From the confused and incoherent remarks of her sister, Agatha had
learned what had taken place between the Baron and the Baroness. She was
familiar with the painful past; and when she looked into the old Baron's
eyes, she saw what was necessary. She made up her mind then and there to
have Eberhard meet his mother.
She wished above everything else to quiet Clotilda and persuade her to
return home. The task, owing to the weakness and instability of the
Baroness, was not difficult. Sylvia remained with her aunt, and her
quiet, resolute disposition had a wholesome effect upon her. In the
meantime Agatha had got Eberhard's address. After some search she found
the house: Eberhard was at home.