Little Herr Friedemann

It was the fault of the wet-nurse. What was the good of Frau Consul Friedemann’s giving her an earnest talking-to, when her suspicions were first aroused, and bidding her suppress that vice of hers? What was the good of giving her a daily glass of claret in addition to the nourishing beer? It was suddenly evident that this young woman also went so far as to drink the spirits intended for the cooking-stove, and before a substitute for her had arrived, before one could discharge her, the disaster had happened. One day when the mother and her three half-grown daughters returned from a walk, little Johannes, about a month old, lay on the floor, whimpering lightly yet frightfully, just as he had fallen from the swaddling-table, while the wet-nurse stood staring stupidly.

The doctor, who tested the limbs of the contorted and jerking little body with firm, solicitous fingers, made a very, very serious face; the three girls stood sobbing in a corner and Frau Friedemann prayed aloud in the terror of her heart.

Even before the birth of the child the poor woman had been forced to undergo having her husband, the consul for the Netherlands, swept from her side by an illness as sudden as it was violent, and she was still too broken in spirit to be capable of hoping that little Johannes might be preserved to her. But after two days the physician, with an encouraging pressure of the hand, told her that an immediate danger was no longer to be feared; the slight concussion of the brain had, first of all, entirely disappeared, as one might see by the mere look of the eyes, which no longer had the same fixity as at the beginning. Of course, one would have to wait to know how, after all, the thing would develop⁠—and, to be sure, to hope for the best, to hope for the best.

The grey house with the gables in which Johannes Friedemann grew up stood near the northern gates of the old mercantile city, a city of medium size. Through the house door one entered a roomy vestibule, paved with stone tiles, from which a staircase with white-painted banister led to the upper stories. The wallpaper of the living-room in the first story revealed faded landscapes, and stiff-backed furniture stood ranged around the heavy mahogany table with the dark-red cover of plush.

Here he often sat during his childhood, at the window, in front of which beautiful flowers were always growing⁠—sat on a little stool at the feet of his mother and listened to some wonderful story while he regarded the smooth, grey parting of her hair and her kind, gentle face and breathed the slight fragrance that always emanated from her. Or perhaps he would ask to see the picture of his father, a pleasant-looking gentleman with grey side-whiskers. He was in heaven, said his mother, and was awaiting them all there.

Behind the house there was a small garden, in which they spent a good part of the day during the summer, in spite of the sweetish vapours which were almost always being wafted across it from a neighbouring sugar-refinery. An old, gnarled walnut-tree grew there, and often little Johannes sat in its shade on a low wooden stool and cracked nuts, while Frau Friedemann and the three sisters, who were now grown up, sat together in a tent of grey canvas. The eyes of the mother often lifted themselves from her embroidery and wandered across to the child with pathetic tenderness.

He was not a beautiful child, little Johannes; and as he sat there on his stool with his pointed pigeon-breast, his hunched-up back, and his all too long, skinny arms, and cracked nuts with a great zest, he offered a most remarkable spectacle. His hands and feet, however, were small and delicate, and he had large, light-brown eyes, like those of a doe, a soft, well-cut mouth, and fine, light-brown hair. Although his head sat so lamentably between his shoulders, yet he was almost to be called beautiful.

When he was seven years old, he was sent to school, and now the years went by swiftly and uniformly. Day by day, with that comically dignified manner of walking which is often a characteristic of the deformed, he would wander between the gabled houses and the shops to the old schoolhouse with the Gothic vaults; and when he had done his work at home, he would perhaps read in his books, with the lovely, coloured pictures on the covers, or occupy himself in the garden, while the sisters would tend house for the ailing mother. They also went to parties, for the Friedemanns belonged to the first families of the town; but the girls had unfortunately not yet married, for their fortune was not very large and they were rather plain-looking.

Johannes, to be sure, also received an invitation now and then from his companions of the same age, but he had no great pleasure in associating with them. He could not take part in their games, and as they always maintained a shy restraint towards him, comradeship was impossible.

There came the time when in the schoolyard he would often hear them talk of certain experiences; he would listen with wide and attentive eyes as they spoke of their ardour for this or that little girl, and would remain silent. These things, which obviously absorbed the others so completely, belonged to those for which he was not suited, like gymnastics and ball-throwing. Often this made him a bit sad; but, after all, he had always been accustomed to stand by himself and not to partake of the interests of the others.

In spite of this it happened⁠—he was sixteen years old at the time⁠—that he conceived a sudden inclination for a girl of the same age. She was the sister of one of his classmates, a blond, wayward, merry creature, and he had become acquainted with her at her brother’s. He was seized by a strange awkwardness in her presence, and the self-conscious and artificially friendly manner with which she, too, treated him filled him with deep sadness.

One summer afternoon as he was walking alone upon the ramparts that lay beyond the town gates, he heard a whispering behind a bush of jasmine and peered cautiously between the branches. On the bench which stood there sat that identical girl and beside her a tall, red-haired boy whom he knew very well; he had his arm about her waist and was pressing upon her lips a kiss, which she returned, tittering. When Johannes Friedemann had seen this, he turned on his heels and went softly away.

His head sat deeper than ever between his shoulders, his hands trembled, and a sharp, insistent pain mounted from his breast into his throat. But he choked it down and carried himself resolutely erect, as well as he could. “Very well,” he said to himself, “that is the end of that. I’ll never again trouble myself about all this. It brings joy and happiness to others, but to me always only pain and sorrow. I am done with it. It is all over for me. Never again.”

This resolution did him good. He renounced, renounced forever. He went home and took up a book or played the violin, as he had learned to do in spite of his deformed breast.

When he was seventeen, he left school, in order to enter business life, as was the universal custom in that world of his. He obtained a position as an apprentice in the great lumber firm of Schlievogt and Company, down along the river. He was treated with consideration; he, on his part, was friendly and obliging; and so the time passed peacefully and all was in good order. In his twenty-first year his mother died after a long illness.

This was a great sorrow for Johannes Friedemann, a sorrow which he retained for a long time. He enjoyed this sorrow, he abandoned himself to it, just as one abandons oneself to a great happiness; he cultivated it with a thousand childhood memories and exploited it as his first deep experience.

Is not life in itself something good, whether or not it takes that form which one calls “happy”? Johannes Friedemann felt that and he loved life. No one can realize with what circumspection he, who had renounced the greatest happiness which life can offer us, knew how to enjoy the pleasures which lay open to him. A walk in springtime through the park that surrounded the town, the perfume of a flower, the song of a bird⁠—might one not be thankful for such things?

And that a cultivated mind belongs to the capacity for enjoyment⁠—yes, that a cultivated mind is always only the same thing as the capacity for enjoyment⁠—that, too, he understood; and he cultivated himself. He loved music and went to all the concerts given in the town. Gradually he himself began to play the violin passably well, though he looked queer enough while playing, and he rejoiced in every soft and beautiful tone that he succeeded in producing. By constant reading he had also acquired a literary taste, which, no doubt, he shared with no one else in that town. He was well informed as to the latest books both at home and in foreign lands; he knew how to savour the rhythmic charm of a poem, knew how to let the intimate spirit of an exquisitely written short story work on him⁠—oh! one might almost say that he was an epicurean.

He learned to comprehend that all things are worthy of enjoyment and that it is almost foolish to distinguish between happy and unhappy experiences. He accepted willingly all his feelings and moods and cultivated them, the sombre as well as the gay, and no less the wishes unfulfilled⁠—his longings. He loved them for their own sakes and told himself that the best was lost through fulfilment. Is not the sweet, poignant, vague yearning and hoping of quiet evenings in spring more enjoyable than all the fulfilment which summer is able to bring?⁠—Yes, he was an epicurean, was little Herr Friedemann!

Surely the people who greeted him on the streets in that compassionate, friendly manner to which he had become accustomed of old, did not know this. They did not know that this unfortunate cripple who marched through the streets full of droll dignity in his light-coloured overcoat and polished silk hat⁠—he was, strangely enough, a bit vain⁠—tenderly loved the life which flowed gently past him, void of great passion, but filled with a quiet and tender happiness which he knew how to create for himself.

The chief hobby of Herr Friedemann, however, his actual passion, was the theatre. He possessed an uncommonly strong dramatic sensibility, and before powerful stage effects, or at the climax of a tragedy, his whole little body might begin to tremble. He had his special seat in the dress-circle of the municipal theatre, where he was to be seen regularly, and now and then his three sisters accompanied him. Since the death of their mother they kept house for him and themselves in the old home, which they owned in common.

Unluckily they were still not married; but they had long ago reached an age⁠—at which one becomes resigned, for Friederike, the oldest, was seventeen years older than Herr Friedemann. She and her sister Henriette were a trifle too tall and thin, while Pfiffi, the youngest, seemed far too short and stout. The last-named, moreover, had a droll trick of shaking herself at every word and then accumulating moisture in the corners of her mouth.

Little Herr Friedemann did not bother much about the three girls; but they kept faithfully together and were constantly of one mind. Especially when some engagement in their circle of acquaintances was announced, they would unanimously declare that this was really most delightful.

Their brother continued to live with them, even after he had left the timber firm of Schlievogt and Company and had gone into business by himself. He took over some small enterprise, an agency or the like, something that did not demand too much work. He used a few rooms on the ground-floor of the house, so that he only needed to climb the stairs to meals, for now and then he suffered a bit from asthma.

On his thirtieth birthday, a bright, warm June day, he sat in the grey garden-tent after lunch, with a new bolster, which Henriette had worked for him, behind his neck, a good cigar in his mouth, and a good book in his hand. Now and again he would put the book aside and listen to the joyous twittering of the sparrows which sat in the old nut-tree and gaze at the neat gravel-path that led to the house, and at the lawn, with the bright flowerbeds.

Little Herr Friedemann did not wear a beard, and his face had practically not changed at all; only the features had become a bit more pointed. His fine, light-brown hair he wore parted smoothly on the side.

Once as he let the book sink to his knees and blinked his eyes towards the blue, sunny heavens, he said to himself: “It’s now thirty years. Now there will be perhaps another ten or even twenty. God knows. They will come quietly and silently and go by like those that are past, and I shall await them in tranquillity of soul.”

In July of the same year that change in the post of commandant of the district took place which set that entire world agog. The portly, jovial gentleman who had occupied this post for long years had been a great favourite in social circles, and his departure was viewed with regret. God knows to what circumstance it was due that now Herr von Rinnlingen should have come here from the capital.

The exchange, moreover, did not seem to be a bad one, for the new Lieutenant-Colonel, who was married, but childless, rented a very roomy villa in the southern suburbs, and this led people to believe that he was planning receptions and the like. At all events the rumour that he was extraordinarily affluent was substantiated by the fact that he brought four servants, five saddle- and carriage-horses, a landau, and a light trap with him.

This couple soon after their arrival began to pay calls on the most esteemed families, and their name was on all lips; but it was decidedly not Herr von Rinnlingen himself who aroused the most interest, but his wife. The men were staggered and for the present ventured no opinion, but the women were frank enough to show that they did not approve of the ways and nature of Gerda von Rinnlingen.

“It is natural that one should sense the air of the capital,” asserted Frau Hagenström, the wife of the attorney, speaking to Henriette Friedemann, “quite natural. She smokes, she rides⁠—no matter! But her conduct is not only free; it is loud, and even that is not the right word. You see, she is by no means ugly, one might even say that she was pretty; and yet she is quite devoid of feminine charm, and her look, her laugh, her movements, lack everything that men admire. She is not coquettish, and I, God knows, would be the last to disapprove of that; but is it right for such a young woman⁠—she is twenty-four years old⁠—to sacrifice completely all the natural, pretty powers of attraction? I am not very ready of speech, my dear, but I know what I mean. Our men are still, as it were, stunned. You will see that in a few weeks they will turn away from her completely disgusted.”

“Well,” said Fräulein Friedemann, “she is excellently provided for.”

“Yes, her husband!” cried Frau Hagenström. “How does she treat him? You will see! I should be the first to insist that a married woman should to a certain degree be reserved towards the other sex. But how does she act towards her own husband? She has a way of giving him an ice-cold look and in a tone of pity saying: ‘Dear friend’ to him, that arouses my indignation. For you ought to see him⁠—correct, a fine figure of a man, courteous, a splendidly preserved man in the forties, a brilliant officer! They have been married four years, my dear.”

The spot in which little Herr Friedemann was to be vouchsafed to cast eyes upon Frau von Rinnlingen for the first time was the Hauptstrasse, which consisted almost exclusively of business houses, and this meeting took place at noon, just as he came from the Exchange, where he had joined in a conversation or two.

He was walking, tiny yet important, at the side of Herr Stephens, a wholesale merchant, an uncommonly large and bulky gentleman with round-trimmed side-whiskers and terribly thick eyebrows. Both wore top hats and because of the warm weather had opened their overcoats. They talked of politics, striking their walking-sticks rhythmically on the pavement; but when they had about reached the middle of the street, Herr Stephens, the wholesale merchant, suddenly said: “Devil take me, if there isn’t the Von Rinnlingen driving towards us.”

“Well met, now,” said Herr Friedemann in his high, somewhat sharp voice and he looked expectantly straight ahead. “I have really not had a look at her yet. There we have the yellow wagon.”

It was indeed the yellow hunting-trap, which Frau von Rinnlingen was using today, and she drove the two slender horses herself, while the footman, with crossed arms, sat behind her. She wore a wide jacket, very light in colour, and the skirt was also light. Her ruddy blond hair spread out from under the little round straw-hat with brown leather band, and was curled over her ears and fell in a thick knot on her neck. The colour of her oval face was a dull white, and in the corners of her brown eyes, which lay unusually close together, there were bluish shadows. Her short but well-shaped nose was saddled with freckles, which were very becoming to her; but one could not see whether her mouth was pretty or not, for she constantly thrust out her under lip and then drew it back, rubbing it against the upper lip.

Stephens, the wholesale merchant, greeted her with extraordinary deference as the wagon reached them, and little Herr Friedemann also lifted his hat, looking at Frau von Rinnlingen with wide and attentive eyes. She lowered her whip, nodded her head slightly, and drove slowly past, looking to right and left at the houses and shopwindows.

After a few steps the wholesale merchant said: “She has been out driving and is now on the way home.”

Little Herr Friedemann did not reply, but looked down at the pavement before him. Then suddenly he looked up at the wholesale merchant and asked: “What did you say?”

And Herr Stephens repeated his sagacious remark.

Three days later at noon Johannes Friedemann returned home from his regular walk. Lunch took place at half past twelve and he was just about to go for half an hour to his “office,” which was situated immediately to the right of the entrance door, when the servant-girl came across the entrance hall and said to him: “There are visitors here, Herr Friedemann.”

“In the office?” he asked.

“No, upstairs, with the ladies.”

“Who is it?”

“Lieutenant-Colonel and Frau von Rinnlingen.”

“Oh,” said Herr Friedemann, “then I will⁠—”

And he ascended the stairs. On the second floor he walked across the hallway and he already had in his hand the knob of the lofty, white-painted door which opened into the “landscape room” when he suddenly halted, retreated a step, turned about, and went slowly back as he had come. And although he was completely alone, he said to himself, aloud: “No. Better not.”

He went downstairs to his “office,” sat down at the desk, and took up the newspaper. After a minute or so, however, he let it drop and looked sideways out of the window. He remained seated so until the girl came and told him that lunch was served; he then went up to the dining-room, where his sisters were already waiting for him, and sat down on his chair, on which three music-books were lying.

Henriette, who served the soup, said: “Johannes, guess who was here!”

“Well?” he asked.

“The new Lieutenant-Colonel and his wife.”

“Really? Well, that was nice.”

“Yes,” said Pfiffi, and the corners of her mouth began to water; “I find that they are both most agreeable persons.”

“At all events,” said Friederike, “we mustn’t wait too long with our return call. I suggest that we go the day after tomorrow, Sunday.”

“Sunday,” said Henriette and Pfiffi.

“And, Johannes, you’ll come with us, of course?” asked Friederike.

“I should say so!” said Pfiffi and she shook herself. Herr Friedemann had utterly failed to hear the question and ate his soup with a quiet and timorous mien. It was as though he were listening to something, to some strange sound.

On the following evening Lohengrin was on the boards at the municipal theatre and all the best people were present. The little auditorium was packed from top to bottom and filled with buzzing noises, a smell of gas, and perfumes. But all opera-glasses, in the orchestra seats as well as those in the balconies, were directed at box thirteen, just to the right of the stage, for there for the first time Herr von Rinnlingen and wife had made their appearance, and this was an opportunity, for once, to study the couple thoroughly.

When little Herr Friedemann, in an immaculate dress-suit, with a shining white shirt-bosom projecting pointedly, entered his box⁠—box thirteen⁠—he started back, at the same time making a movement with his hand towards his forehead, while his nostrils expanded convulsively for a moment. But then he sat down on his chair, the seat to the left of Frau von Rinnlingen.

She looked at him a moment as he sat down, protruding her under lip, and then turned to exchange a few words with her husband, who stood behind her. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with turned-up moustaches and a bronzed, good-natured face.

When the overture began and Frau von Rinnlingen leaned over the railing, Herr Friedemann shot a hasty side-glance at her. She wore a light-coloured evening dress and was even a trifle décolleté⁠—the only one among the ladies present. Her sleeves were very wide and puffy, and her white gloves reached to her elbows. There was something voluptuous about her figure tonight, something that was not noticeable the other day, when she wore the wide jacket; her full bosom rose and sank slowly and the coils of ruddy-blond hair lay low and heavy upon her neck.

Herr Friedemann was pale, much paler than usual, and beneath his smoothly parted brown hair small beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. Frau von Rinnlingen had stripped her glove from her left arm, which lay on the red velvet of the balustrade, and this round, dull-white arm, which like the unadorned hand was traversed by pale-blue veins, he saw always before him; there was no help for that.

The fiddles sang, the trumpets came in crashingly, Telramund fell, general jubilation reigned in the orchestra, and little Herr Friedemann sat immovably, pale and still, his head sunk deep between his shoulders, a forefinger pressed to his lips and his other hand under the lapel of his coat.

When the curtain fell, Frau von Rinnlingen rose and left the box with her husband. Herr Friedemann saw this without looking in that direction, passed his handkerchief lightly across his forehead, stood up suddenly, walked as far as the door leading to the corridor, turned back again, sat down in his place, and remained there motionless in the position which he had assumed before.

When the signal bell tinkled and his neighbours came back, he felt that Frau von Rinnlingen’s eyes rested on him, and without really willing it he raised his head. As their glances met, she did not by any means look aside, but continued to regard him attentively without a trace of embarrassment, until he himself, conquered and humiliated, lowered his eyes. He had grown still paler, and a strange, sweetish, biting anger began to rise in him.⁠—The music began.

Towards the end of this act it happened that Frau von Rinnlingen let her fan slip from her hand and that this fell to the floor beside Herr Friedemann. Both bent down at the same time, but she seized it herself and said with a smile which had mockery in it: “I thank you.”

Their heads had been close together and for a moment he had been forced to breathe the warm perfume of her breast. His face was distorted, his whole body contracted, and his heart pounded with such horribly heavy and powerful beats that his breath almost left him. He sat for another half-minute; then he pushed back his chair, stood up noiselessly, and noiselessly went out.

He walked, followed by the strains of the music, across the corridor, received his silk hat, his light overcoat, and his cane at the coatroom, and strode down the steps to the street.

It was a warm, still evening. In the light of the gas lamps the grey, gabled houses stood silently against the heavens, which were glistening with bright, mild stars. The steps of the few people who passed Herr Friedemann echoed upon the pavement. Somebody greeted him, but he did not see it; he held his head low, and his high, pointed chest trembled, so heavily did he breathe. Now and then he said to himself softly: “My God! My God!”

He looked into his heart with horror-stricken and anxious eyes, and saw how his emotions, which he had cultivated so tenderly, had always treated so mildly and wisely, were now torn up, whirled about, twisted inside out.⁠—And suddenly, quite overpowered, in a condition of dizziness, intoxication, longing, and torture, he leaned against a lamppost and with trembling lips whispered: “Gerda!”

Everything remained quiet. Far and wide at this moment there was no human being to be seen. Little Herr Friedemann pulled himself together and walked on. He had gone along the street in which the theatre stood and which pitched rather steeply towards the river, and now he followed the Hauptstrasse towards the north, towards his home.

How she had looked at him! How? She had conquered him, forced him to lower his eyes? She had humiliated him with a look? Was she not a woman and he a man? And had not her remarkable brown eyes really trembled for joy during all this?

Once again he felt this impotent, almost voluptuous hatred rise within him, but then he thought of the moment when her head had touched his own, when he had breathed the fragrance of her body, and he stood still for the second time, bent back his deformed chest and shoulders, drew his breath through his teeth, and then murmured once more, utterly bewildered, despairing, beyond himself: “My God! My God!”

And again he strode mechanically on, slowly, through the sultry evening air, through the empty, echoing streets, until he stood in front of his house. He stood still a moment in the hall and drew in the cool, cellar-like smell that prevailed there; then he entered his “office.”

He sat down at the writing-desk by the open window and stared straight before him at a large, yellow rose, which someone had put there for him in a glass of water. He took it and breathed in its fragrance with closed eyes; but then with a weary and disconsolate gesture he pushed it aside. No, no, that was over! What was such fragrance to him now? What were all those things to him which up to the present had meant his “happiness”?

He turned aside and looked out at the quiet street. Now and again footsteps resounded and echoed past. The stars stood overhead and twinkled. How deathly tired and weak he had grown! His head seemed so empty and his despair began to dissolve into a great, gentle melancholy. A few lines of poetry swept through his memory, the music of Lohengrin rang again in his ears, once again he saw Frau von Rinnlingen’s figure before him, her white arm upon the red velvet, and then he fell into a heavy, deep, feverish sleep.

He was often close to waking, but he feared this and each time sank anew into unconsciousness. Then, after it had grown quite light, he opened his eyes and looked about him with large, sorrowful eyes. All things stood clear to his soul; it seemed as though his suffering had not been interrupted at all by sleep. His head felt dull and his eyes burned; but after he had washed himself and wet his forehead with eau de cologne, he felt better and sat down again quietly in his chair by the window, which had remained open. It was still very early in the morning, about five o’clock. Now and again a baker’s boy went by; otherwise not a soul was to be seen. All the jalousies opposite were still down. But the birds were twittering and the sky was luminous and blue. It was a beautiful Sunday morning.

A feeling of comfort and confidence overcame little Herr Friedemann. Of what was he afraid? Were not all things as usual? Granted that he had had a bad attack yesterday; well, that was to be the end of it! It was not too late yet, he could still escape perdition! He must avoid every occasion that might renew the attack; he felt that he was strong enough for this. He felt that he had the strength to overcome it and to smother it wholly in his breast.

When the clock struck half past seven, Friederike entered and set the coffee-tray on the round table which stood in front of the leather sofa at the back of the room.

“Good morning, Johannes,” said she, “here is your breakfast.”

“Thanks,” said Herr Friedemann. And then: “Dear Friederike, I’m sorry that you will have to pay that call alone. I don’t feel quite well enough to be able to go with you. I have slept badly, have a headache⁠—in short, I must ask you⁠—”

Friederike replied: “That is too bad. You can’t entirely refrain from paying this call. But you really do look ill. Shall I lend you my menthol pencil?”

“Thanks,” said Herr Friedemann. “It will pass.” And Friederike went out.

Standing at the table, he drank his coffee slowly and ate a small croissant. He was satisfied with himself and proud of his determination. When he was done, he took a cigar and sat down once more at the window. Breakfast had done him good and he felt happy and full of hope. He took up a book, read, smoked, and with blinking eyes looked out into the sunlight.

The street had now grown lively; a rattling of wagons, talk, and the tinkling of a horsecar sounded in his ears; but the twittering of birds was to be heard over all, and a warm, soft air was wafted from the gleaming blue sky.

At ten o’clock he heard the sisters crossing the hall, heard the entrance door creak, and saw the three ladies pass in front of the window, without paying any attention to it. An hour went by; he felt happier and happier.

A kind of excessive courage began to inspire him. What wonderful air, and how the birds twittered! How would it be if he took a short walk?⁠—And then, suddenly, without any connecting idea, arose the sweet yet terrifying thought: “What if I went to her?”⁠—And then, after he had suppressed by means of an actual muscular exertion all that arose in him of anxious warning, he added with a serene determination: “I’ll go to her!”

And he donned his black Sunday suit, took his silk hat and cane, and walked quickly, and breathing hurriedly, through the entire town to the southern suburbs. Without looking at a single person, at every step he raised and lowered his head earnestly, utterly rapt in a state of forgetfulness and exaltation, until he stood in the chestnut avenue in front of the red villa at the entrance of which the name “Lieutenant-Colonel von Rinnlingen” was to be read.

Here a trembling overcame him, and his heart beat hard and convulsively against his breast. But he entered the vestibule and rang the bell inside. The die was now cast and there was no going back. “Let all things take their course,” he thought. Everything within him was now as still as death.

The door sprang open; the footman came towards him across the anteroom, took his card, and hastened up the stairs, on which lay a red carpet. Herr Friedemann stared at this immovably until the servant came back and said the “gnädige Frau” begged him to come up.

Upstairs, close to the door of the drawing-room, where he left his cane, he cast a glance into the mirror. His face was pale, and above his reddened eyes his hair stuck to his forehead; the hand which held his silk hat trembled without his being able to stop it.

The servant opened the door and he entered. He found himself in a rather large, half-dark room; the shades of the windows were drawn. To the right stood a grand piano, and in the centre, about the round table, were grouped armchairs upholstered in brown silk. Over the sofa, on the wall to the left, hung a landscape in a heavy gold frame. The wallpaper, too, was dark. Palms stood in a bay-window in the background.

A minute went by; then Frau von Rinnlingen drew aside the portieres to the right and came towards him soundlessly on the thick brown carpet. She wore a very simple red-and-black-checked dress. A shaft of sunlight fell into the room from the bay-window, and in this the motes danced. It caught her heavy reddish hair so that for a moment it gleamed like gold. She kept her remarkable eyes directed on him searchingly, and as usual thrust out her under lip.

“Gnädige Frau,” began Herr Friedemann, and looked up at her, for he reached only to her breast, “I too should like to pay you my respects. When you honoured my sisters with your call, I was, unfortunately, absent and⁠—greatly regretted this⁠—”

He really had nothing more to say, but she stood and looked at him remorselessly, as though she wished to force him to speak further. His blood rushed suddenly to his head. “She wishes to torture and mock me!” he thought, “and she sees through me! How her eyes quiver!”

Finally, in a very clear and very light voice, she said: “It is very kind of you to come. I too regretted not meeting you the other day. Will you please take a seat?”

She sat down close to him, laid her arms upon the armrests of the chair, and leaned back. He sat bent forward and held his hat between his knees.

She went on: “Do you know that your sisters were here a quarter of an hour ago? They told me you were ill.”

“That is true,” replied Herr Friedemann, “I didn’t feel well this morning. I didn’t think I should be able to go out. I beg you to excuse my being late.”

“You don’t appear in good health even now,” she said very quietly, and looked him full in the face. “You are pale and your eyes are inflamed. Isn’t your health generally good?”

“Oh⁠—” stammered Herr Friedemann, “I am, in general, quite satisfied.”

“I too am ill a good deal,” she continued, without turning her eyes from him; “but nobody notices it. I am nervous and subject to the most remarkable conditions.”

She ceased, inclined her chin upon her breast, and looked at him expectantly with upraised eyes. But he did not answer. He sat still and kept his eyes fixed upon her with a wide and thoughtful gaze. How strangely she spoke and how her light, uncontrolled voice moved him! His heart had grown quieter; it was as if he dreamed.

Frau von Rinnlingen began anew: “I am surely not mistaken⁠—but didn’t you leave the theatre yesterday before the close of the performance?”

“Yes, gnädige Frau.”

“I was sorry for that. You were a most reverent neighbour, even though the performance was not good, or only relatively good. You love music? Do you play the piano?”

“I play the violin a little,” said Herr Friedemann. “That is to say⁠—it is almost none at all⁠—”

“You play the violin?” she asked; then she looked abstractedly past him, and considered. Suddenly she said: “Why, we might play together now and then. I can accompany a bit. I should be glad to find someone here⁠—Would you come?”

“I should be glad to be of service to you,” he replied, still as in a dream. A pause ensued. Then suddenly the expression of her face changed. He saw how it became distorted with a scarcely perceptible expression of pitiless mockery, how her eyes were again turned upon him, steadfastly and searchingly, as twice before, with that strange, mysterious quivering. His face grew fiery red; and without knowing where he should turn, completely flustered and beside himself, he let his head sink between his shoulders and looked down at the carpet, utterly lost. Like a short shudder that impotent, sweet, poignant fury went through him.

As he raised his eyes again with a desperate resolve, she refrained from looking at him, but directed her eyes over his head towards the door. Laboriously he brought forth a few words: “And are you at least in some way content with your sojourn in our city?”

“Oh,” said Frau von Rinnlingen indifferently, “certainly. Why should I not be content? Of course I feel a bit narrowed here, a bit watched, but⁠—Moreover,” she went on rapidly, “before I forget it⁠—we expect to have a few people here within the next few days, a small, informal company. We could make a bit of music, chat a bit⁠—Then there is a very pretty garden behind the house; it extends down to the stream. In short, you and your ladies will, of course, receive an invitation, but I should like to ask you at once; will you give us the pleasure?”

Herr Friedemann had scarcely uttered his thanks and his acceptance when the door-handle was pressed down with energy and the Lieutenant-Colonel entered. Both rose, and while Frau von Rinnlingen introduced the gentlemen to each other, her husband bowed to Herr Friedemann and to her with equal courtesy. His brown face was quite suffused with warmth.

While drawing off his gloves, he said something to Herr Friedemann in his strong and incisive voice and Herr Friedemann looked up at him with his large, expressionless eyes and half expected to be kindly patted on the shoulder. Then with heels drawn together and the upper part of his body slightly bent forward the Lieutenant-Colonel turned to his wife and said, with perceptibly softened voice: “Have you asked Herr Friedemann for the pleasure of his company at our little reception, my dear? If it is agreeable to you, I think we might have it in about a week. I hope that the weather will continue good and that we can make use of the garden.”

“As you think best,” said Frau von Rinnlingen and looked straight past him.

Two minutes later Herr Friedemann bade them goodbye. As he bowed once more at the threshold, he met their eyes, which rested upon him without any expression.

He went away, but not back to town; involuntarily he chose a way which branched off from the avenue and led to the former ramparts along the river. There were well-tended lawns there, shady paths, and benches.

He walked quickly and unconsciously, without looking up. He was unbearably hot, and he felt the fires within him rise and fall, and a merciless throbbing in his weary head.

Were not her eyes still resting upon him? Not as when he left, however, empty and void of expression, but as before, with that trembling cruelty, as when she had spoken to him in that strange, quiet manner? Oh, did it delight her to render him helpless and to put him beside himself? Even though she saw through him, might she not have a bit of pity for him?

He had walked below, along the river, close to the green grass-covered bastions, and he sat down on a bench which was surrounded by jasmine-bushes in a half-circle. Everything about him was full of a sweet, sultry fragrance. In front of him the sun brooded upon the trembling water.

How tired and exhausted he felt, and yet how all things were in tortured revolt within him! Would it not be best to look about him once more and then go down into the still water, after a brief pang to be freed, rescued unto a deep rest? Ah, rest, rest it was that he yearned for! Not rest within a void and unhearing nothingness, however, but a peace lighted by a soft and gentle sun, filled by sweet, quiet thoughts.

His entire tender love of life thrilled through him at this moment, and a deep longing for his lost happiness. But then he looked about him into the silent, eternal, indifferent peace of nature, saw how the river pursued its course in the sun, how the grass moved tremblingly and the flowers stood where they had blossomed, in order then to wither and decay, saw how all things, all things, were bound to destiny with this dumb surrender⁠—and then suddenly he was overcome by a feeling of friendliness and acquiescence in the necessity which was able to give man a kind of superiority over all fate.

He thought of that afternoon on his thirtieth birthday, when, happy in the possession of content, he had believed he was able to survey the rest of his life without fear or hope. He had seen neither light nor shadow then, but everything had lain before him in a mild twilight, until far below him it merged, almost imperceptibly, into the dark, and he had contemplated the years that were still to come with a quiet and superior smile⁠—how long ago was that?

And then this woman had come, she was bound to come, it was his fate, she herself was his fate, she alone! Had he not felt this from the very first moment? She had come, and though he had striven to defend his peace⁠—all the forces within him were bound to rise in revolt for her, all that from youth onward he had suppressed in himself because he felt that it would mean ruin and torment to him⁠—this had seized him with a terrible, irresistible power and was bringing him to ruin!

It was bringing him to ruin⁠—he felt that. But why struggle and torture himself? Let everything take its course! He would go his way and close his eyes to the yawning abyss behind there, obedient to fate, obedient to the puissant, poignant, sweet power that no one could elude.

The water glistened, the jasmine breathed forth its keen, sultry fragrance, the birds twittered everywhere about him in the trees, between which shone a heavy, velvety blue sky. But little hunchbacked Herr Friedemann continued to sit for a long time upon his bench. He sat bending forward, his forehead propped in both hands.

All were agreed that this affair at Rinnlingen’s was most enjoyable. Some thirty persons sat at the long, tastefully decorated table which extended through the wide dining-room; the footman and two servants were already hurrying about with the ices; there was a clinking, a clattering, and a warm odour of food and perfume. Affable wholesale merchants with their wives and daughters were assembled here; in addition almost all the officers of the garrison, an old, beloved physician, a few lawyers, and such others as belonged to the best circles. A student of mathematics was also present, a nephew of the Lieutenant-Colonel, who was on a visit to his relations; he carried on the most abstruse conversations with Fräulein Hagenström, who sat opposite Herr Friedemann.

He himself sat on a beautiful velvet cushion at the lower end of the table, next to the unbeautiful wife of the headmaster of the school, not far from Frau von Rinnlingen, who had been escorted to the table by Consul Stephens. It was surprising what a change had taken place in little Herr Friedemann during the last week. It was, perhaps, the fault of the whitish incandescent gaslight which flooded the room that his face appeared so terribly pale; but his cheeks had sunken in, his eyes, reddened and surrounded by dark shadows, revealed an unutterably sad glimmer, and it seemed as though his figure was more deformed than ever.⁠—He drank a good deal of wine and now and then spoke a few words to his table-companion.

Frau von Rinnlingen had as yet exchanged not a single word with Herr Friedemann at table; now she bent forward a little and called to him: “I waited for you in vain these days, for you and your fiddle.”

He looked at her a moment in complete absence of mind before he answered. She wore a light-coloured, airy costume which exposed her white throat, and a Maréchal Niel rose in full flower was fastened in her bright hair. Her cheeks this evening were a trifle flushed, but as usual blue shadows lay in the corners of her eyes.

Herr Friedemann looked down on his plate and produced some kind of answer, whereupon he was obliged to reply to a question of the headmaster’s wife, whether he loved Beethoven. At this moment, however, the Lieutenant-Colonel, who sat at the upper end of the table, caught his wife’s eye, tapped on his glass, and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that we take our coffee in the other rooms; and then the garden tonight must be not at all bad, and if anyone wishes to draw a breath of fresh air there, I am with him.”

In the silence which ensued Lieutenant von Deidesheim tactfully made a witty remark, so that everybody rose amid merry laughter. Herr Friedemann was one of the last to leave the room with his lady; he led her through the Old German room, in which the men were beginning to smoke, into the half-dark and comfortable living-room, and left her.

He was dressed with great care; his coat was faultless, his shirt immaculately white; and his small and well-shaped feet were covered by patent-leather shoes. Now and then one could see that he wore red silk socks.

He looked out into the corridor and saw that larger groups were already going down the steps into the garden. But he sat down with his cigar and his coffee near the door of the Old German room, in which several gentlemen stood chatting together, and looked into the living-room.

Immediately to the right of the door a group sat about a small table, the centre of which was the student, who spoke with enthusiasm. He had made the assertion that more than one parallel to a straight line could be drawn through a point; Frau Hagenström, the wife of the attorney-at-law, had exclaimed: “That’s impossible!” and now it was strikingly manifest that all pretended to have understood it.

But in the back of the room, on the ottoman, close to the low, red-shaded lamp, sat Gerda von Rinnlingen in conversation with young Fräulein Stephens. She sat leaning back a little on the yellow silk cushions, one foot placed over the other, and slowly smoked a cigarette, exhaling the smoke through the nose and thrusting forward her under lip. Fräulein Stephens sat upright and as though carved from wood and made her replies, smiling anxiously.

No one paid any attention to little Herr Friedemann, and no one observed that his big eyes were unremittingly directed upon Frau von Rinnlingen. He sat in a relaxed position and regarded her. There was nothing like passion in his look, and hardly any pain; something dull and dead lay in it, a heavy, powerless, and will-less surrender.

Ten minutes or so went by in this way; then Frau von Rinnlingen rose suddenly, and without looking at him, as though she had secretly observed him during the entire time, she went up to him and remained standing before him. He stood up, lifted his eyes to her, and heard the words: “Should you care to accompany me into the garden, Herr Friedemann?”

He replied: “With pleasure, gnädige Frau.”

“You haven’t yet seen our garden?” she asked, as they stood on the steps. “It is pretty large. I hope that there won’t be too many people there yet; I should like to draw a bit of fresh air. I got a headache during the dinner; possibly this claret was too strong for me.⁠—Here, we must go out through this door.” It was a glass door, which opened from the anteroom on a small, cool lobby; then a few steps led to the open air.

In the wonderful, warm, star-bright night, fragrance streamed from every flowerbed. The garden lay in full moonlight, and the guests walked up and down the white luminous gravel-paths, chatting and smoking. A group had assembled about the fountain, where the old, beloved physician amid general laughter was setting paper boats afloat.

Frau von Rinnlingen passed by with a slight inclination of her head, and pointed to the distance, where the pretty and fragrant flower-garden darkened to the denseness of a park.

“We will go down the central path,” she said. Two low, broad obelisks stood at the entrance.

Behind there, at the end of the straight avenue of chestnuts, they saw the river gleaming blank and green in the moonlight. Everything about was dark and cool. Here and there a side path branched off, which no doubt also curved towards the river. For a long time no sound was heard.

“Close to the water,” she said, “is a pretty place, where I have often sat. There we can chat for a moment.⁠—Just see, now and again a star glitters through the leafage.”

He did not answer, but looked at the green, shimmering surface which they were nearing. One could see the opposite bank, the park about the ramparts. As they left the avenue and stepped out on the lawn which inclined towards the river, Frau von Rinnlingen remarked: “Here is our place, a little to the right; see, it’s unoccupied.”

The bench on which they sat down stood close to the park, six steps to the side of the avenue. It was warmer here than between the broad trees. The crickets chirped in the grass, which close to the water passed into thin reeds. The moon-bright river reflected a mild light.

Both were silent for a while and looked at the water. Then, completely shaken, he heard the very voice he had heard a week before; this soft, deliberate, and tender tone moved him again.

“Since when have you had your affliction, Herr Friedemann?” she asked. “Were you born with it?”

He swallowed hard, for his throat was as if he were strangling. Then he replied, softly and politely: “No, gnädige Frau, I was dropped on the floor as a little child; it comes from that.”

“And how old are you now?” she went on.

“Thirty years, gnädige Frau.”

“Thirty years,” she repeated. “And you have not been happy, these thirty years?”

Herr Friedemann shook his head, and his lips quivered. “No,” said he; “that was falsehood and imagination.”

“So you believed you were happy?” she asked.

“I tried to,” he said, and she replied:

“That was brave.”

A minute went by. Only the crickets chirped, and behind them the trees rustled very softly.

“I understand a little about unhappiness,” she then said. “Such summer nights along the water are the best thing for it.”

He did not reply to this, but pointed with a feeble gesture to the other bank, which lay peacefully in the dark.

“I sat there the other day,” he said.

“After you left me?” she asked.

He merely nodded.

Then suddenly he sprang up from his seat, sobbed, gave vent to a cry, a cry of complaint which at the same time had something liberating in it, and sank slowly to the ground at her feet. He had touched her hand with his, as it rested on the bench beside him, and while he held it fast, while he seized the other also, while this quite deformed little man lay twitching and quivering upon his knees before her and buried his face in her lap, he stammered in a hoarse, inhuman voice: “You know it⁠—let me⁠—I can’t go on⁠—my God⁠—my God⁠—”

She did not resist him, nor did she bend down to him. She sat fully erect, leaning a little away from him, and her small eyes, which lay so close together and in which the damp shimmer of the water seemed to mirror itself, stared fixedly straight in front of her, over his head, into the distance.

And then suddenly, with a jerk, with a short, proud, contemptuous laugh, she had torn her hands from his hot fingers, had seized his arm, thrown him sideways flat upon the ground, sprung up, and vanished in the avenue.

He lay there, his face in the grass, stunned, beside himself; and every moment a quiver went through his body. He drew himself together, made two steps, and fell to the ground once more. He lay close to the water.

What actually went on in him during what followed now? Perhaps it was that voluptuous hate which he had felt when she humiliated him by her look, a hate which now, as he lay on the ground, after being treated by her like a dog, resolved itself into an insane fury, which called for action, even though it should be against himself⁠—perhaps disgust at himself, which filled him with a thirst to destroy himself, to tear himself to pieces, to extinguish himself.

He pushed himself still further forward upon his stomach, lifted the upper part of his body, and let it fall into the water. He did not lift his head again; he did not once move his legs, which lay on the bank.

At the splashing of the water the crickets had for a moment grown silent. Now their chirping began again, the park rustled softly, and down through the long avenue came subdued laughter.