Читать книгу The Undying Past - Hermann Sudermann - Страница 3
I
ОглавлениеThe mid-day sun beat fiercely on the much-trodden square in front of a provincial railway station. The old white mare nodded drowsily between the shafts of the yellow mailcart which rattled down from the little town to meet every train. Two or three hotel omnibuses, painted brownish-grey, with mud-splashed wheels, also came clattering down the dusty boulevard, at the other end of which rose two stucco towers with their vanes piercing the deep blue of the July sky.
A clanging bell had already signalled the train's departure from the neighbouring station. The station-master put on his red cap, the barmaid began to wipe with a duster the glass case protecting the cheese and other viands, and a couple of postmen crunched over the gravel, wheeling trucks containing letter-bags and parcels.
"Not a single soul inside again," grumbled the restaurant-manager through the waiting-room window, as he watched the hotel omnibus drive up. "What is the use of keeping beer cool if nobody comes to drink it?"
The barmaid nodded meditatively as she flicked the flies from a pile of stale rusks.
Then there came in sight, dashing along the boulevard, an open landau drawn by a pair of spirited bays.
The restaurant-host's face brightened. "The party from Stolten Court!" exclaimed he, seizing his cap. "The young gentlemen's leave is over, then."
The carriage steered clear of waiting passengers with a sweeping curve as it bowled up to the station stairs.
One of the young cuirassier officers who occupied the back seat of the carriage pulled himself slowly erect, and, in all his fair-haired splendour, climbed out, pushing aside with a brusque movement the restaurant-manager, who had officiously thought it necessary to tender his services. The other youth, equally gigantic and fair-haired, and perhaps a trifle more phlegmatic, followed. They threw open on either side the carriage doors, and, with an action of the arm that seemed borrowed from a Court quadrille, assisted the stupendous female form sitting on the front seat of the carriage to alight.
With swelling bosom and wide-spreading hips, her fat hands imprisoned in new light kid gloves, her grey gauze veil thrown back, displaying a snub nose, the lady calmly descended, with a glance over her shoulder of somewhat sharp disapproval at the old gentleman who followed her.
"Leave me alone, boys," he snapped, when his sons would have helped him too. "Your broken-down old father is still able to help himself."
He threw off his dust-coat on the seat behind him, and with an elastic bound sprang down without touching the carriage steps. He stood there, a dapper figure in his short, elegantly cut coat, his little eyes twinkling with self-satisfaction out of a face lined from fast living, the cheeks of which hung down on either side of an aggressively curled-up grey moustache. He had to look up to his wife and sons, who were all more than a head taller than himself.
The party entered the small waiting-room reserved for first-class passengers, which, besides two bare polished tables, and portraits in lithograph, veiled in green gauze, of the county nobility and gentry, boasted nothing but apparatuses for the annihilation of flies; which consisted of a glass bottle full of soapy water, two plates containing poisoned paper, and a few glasses covered with brandy-soaked bread bored with holes. Within and around these traps revolved hundreds of half-drowned and poisoned flies in their last death-struggle.
The host of the restaurant offered his refreshments to the "Herr Baron"--Königsberg beer or tea, also an incomparably fine brew of lemonade, were to be had. Herr von Stolt ordered beer, and sent his sons out to look after their luggage.
They closed the door behind them as they took their leave, and disappeared in the direction of the buffet, where they were soon heard chaffing the barmaid.
"Thank God that they are going away," said the lady, with a sigh, loosening her violet hat-strings, from which a broad double chin billowed forth awe-inspiringly. "It is high time."
Her spouse suppressed a smile, and then asked, "Why?"
"Have you seen anything of either of them between meal-times during the last fortnight?" she answered with another question.
"Now, now, it is not so bad as all that," repeated he; "but, as you say, they were certainly out a good deal."
"And where did they go? That is the point."
"Well, where should they go? To the Prussian Crown, or some such resort, to drink a little champagne and amuse themselves with the girls. I did the same when I was their age."
"And you aren't much better now."
"Really--I must protest, Malwine."
She drew herself up and measured him from head to foot with the compassionate glance of a wife to whom marital forgiveness has perforce become a habit.
"We won't drag you into the matter, my dear," she answered. "You know no good can come of it. Neither do I reproach the boys on that score. They are welcome to run after all the girls in the neighbourhood, whether dairymaids or barmaids, to their hearts' content."
"You are very long-suffering, Malwine."
"Certainly I am. But what doesn't please me is that my sons should grow too fond of society women--married women belonging to our own set, too. Königsberg, for two cuirassiers who have inherited money from their father and height from their mother----"
"That I am shorter than you are, dear Malwine," he interrupted, "is a fact that I am weary of hearing you insist on. I will do my best to grow."
"I was going to say," she continued, "that Königsberg is not exactly a paradise of all the virtues--quite the contrary." A maternal sigh escaped her huge billowy bosom. "All the more important, therefore, that home should remain for them a purer world. Tell me, what would happen when they begin to regard the circle from which I shall one day choose for them wives with critical eyes? And why? Because there are creatures in it who have no idea of maintaining their dignity in associating with young men."
"Upon my word, I don't know what you are driving at," Herr von Stolt said, and gazed intently at the toes of his riding-boots.
"Why feign to be ignorant," answered his wife. "You know perfectly well the person I mean, being as intimate with her as your sons."
"I have long since given up meddling in local scandals, my dear," he said, with a snigger; "but if with all these obscure hints it is Felicitas Kletzingk whom you mean, you are decidedly on the wrong scent. There never was a more guileless little woman. We know what Ulrich is. He is always either spending the day in Berlin or sitting lost in a brown study. And his little wife, of course, will amuse herself."
Frau von Stolt broke into a harsh laugh.
"Of course; now let us hear the old category of her perfections. She is an angel--on that point all the men within a circuit of ten miles are agreed. She is so ingenuous and so melancholy; so talented and so good; so gentle, and, in short, a paragon. But we women see deeper, my friend. We are not to be taken in by any wiles, flute-like tones, and smiling fawn-like eyes. Then for us, truly, there lies behind it all no temptation to appropriate what is not our own."
"Malwine, you are becoming insulting," retorted Herr von Stolt, twirling the ends of his grey moustache with an injured air.
"If only there were something in her!" the lady exclaimed, undaunted; "but I assure you she is commonplace to the very core. There is nothing genuine about her. She has her looks, and nothing else. I can't conceive what can have attracted Ulrich with his position and fortune to this person. Rhaden's widow, poor, with a child, and compromised to boot."
"How compromised?"
"Don't be absurd, Alfred," was the reply. "You men have always been of opinion that Rhaden fell in the duel with Sellenthin because there was a case of adultery at the bottom of it."
"Yes, certainly before her second marriage. So much I will admit. But Leo Sellenthin and Ulrich have been friends from childhood, and what friends! Something quite extraordinary, like David and Jonathan. Would Ulrich have married this woman if there had been anything between her and his friend? It stands to reason that there could have been nothing, doesn't it?"
Frau von Stolt relapsed into meditation. Her husband's argument apparently had convinced her.
"But apart from that altogether," she began again, after a pause. "Leo is abroad, and not coming home. What concerns us now is Felicitas Kletzingk's present conduct, and I must say that it almost amounts to a scandal."
Herr von Stolt shrugged his shoulders.
"Here is an example," continued his wife--"just one example. The other morning I had occasion to turn out our sons' pockets."
"So you are in the habit of turning out other people's pockets!" exclaimed Herr Stolt, perceptibly disturbed by the discovery.
"Yes, why not? It is advisable to keep one's self abreast of their little peccadilloes in love as well as professional affairs. And what do you think I found? Letters from Madam Felicitas--small olive-green missives, reeking with that abominable perfume with which she always scents herself."
Herr von Stolt involuntarily sniffed the air, and smiled dreamily as he did so.
"It was my privilege to read through a real--what do you call it?--æsthetic correspondence, as exaggerated as you please, all about noble humanity, moonshine, communion with nature, and other rubbish. Not that there is any question of our good sons being capable of living up to such a silly rôle for though they have an excellent knowledge of horses, this sort of high-falutin is quite beyond their comprehension, thank God. Besides, I talked to them each separately, and put my emphatic veto upon it."
"And has that done any good?" asked Herr von Stolt, with a grin.
"To a certain extent it has. But of course I could not prevent their actual visits to Felicitas. I don't understand how Ulrich can wink at his wife's intercourse with these young men. Not only our two, but Otzen and Neuhaus, and the second Sembritzky, and a lot more of them are constantly there, all young and green."
"Hum! there are older visitors too, I'm thinking," interposed Herr von Stolt, thoughtfully.
"Yes. There is yourself, for instance."
"Really, Malwine!" he ejaculated reproachfully.
"Dear Alfred, we understand each other."
"When I do happen to ride over to Uhlenfelde, it is to see Ulrich."
"Especially when Ulrich is in the Reichstag?"
The matrimonial recriminations ended abruptly, for at this moment a tall spare masculine figure, in a white dust-coat which hung without a fold, glided past the waiting-room window. It rather resembled a walking towel, on which some one had stuck a head.
"Talk of the devil!" exclaimed Frau Malwine, and jumped up to see whither the passing form had betaken itself.
"Who was it?" asked Herr von Stolt, who was sitting with his back to the window.
"Ulrich von Kletzingk."
The door of the vestibule opened, and he who had gone by came in.
He had a pale sickly face of a reflective cast, with sharp small nose and hollow cheeks, set on narrow shoulders and a long freckled neck. It was framed in a light beard, which hung about it like a ragged fringe. The high, rather receding forehead was furrowed with three perpendicular lines denoting mental fatigue, and it ended in a shock of bristly dark-brown hair standing erect. The most remarkable feature of this intellectual head were the dark brilliant eyes, which shone forth from their blue sockets like torches of energy. After emitting luminous flashes, they seemed to slumber wearily again till a new excitement set them aflame once more.
When he was aware who occupied the room, a shadow of nervous uneasiness descended for a moment on the new-corner's face, but passed quickly away. The tone in which he greeted the husband and wife was moderately friendly, if not cold. His voice was not pleasant to hear. It was shrill and high pitched, and however rapidly he spoke, the words seemed to be forced with pain and difficulty from his narrow chest.
Frau Malwine beamed. She was no longer the mother of the Gracchi, in which part she had been just posing to her husband. She exhausted herself in expressions of affection for Frau Felicitas, and added the tender reproach that it was ages since she had seen anything of her. Twice when she had been expected, an extra supply of meringues had been baked, of the kind which was the pride of her modest ménage, but Frau Felicitas had not come. Ulrich Kletzingk allowed this outpouring of gush to pass over him quietly. Only the nervous playing with the buttons of his riding-glove betrayed that he was not quite at ease.
"You put us to shame, madame," he answered. "Your friendship, however, has been too unobtrusive, for I think that it is some months since we saw you at Uhlenfelde."
Frau Malwine, a little disconcerted at the reminder that she owed Uhlenfelde a call, nevertheless, in the same strain of affected naïvété, went so far as to explain that she was sure she had been well represented by her sons.
Kletzingk bowed and smiled politely.
"At any rate," she continued, with animation, "I ought to express my thanks to you, Herr Baron, for the happy influence the atmosphere of your house has exercised on my young scapegraces. My only fear is that I may have abused your hospitality in sending them over to you nearly every day. I trust that they have always given my kind regards?"
"I believe so, probably." He gazed out of the window. At that moment he longed for nothing more earnestly than to be delivered from this woman's offensive chatter.
Herr von Stolt, who hitherto had been content to smile in his sleeve in cynical enjoyment of his wife's sallies, now joined in the conversation. He inquired after the condition of the crops at Uhlenfelde, and gave a good report of his own. The harvest had been got in satisfactorily on the whole; only the wheat was middling. He left the rest to Providence. "But do tell me, Kletzingk," he said, suddenly taking another tack, "what is up at Halewitz? The rye there is yellow as guineas and still uncut. I could scarcely believe my eyes as we drove by there to-day."
Baron Kletzingk bit his lips, bent his head, and stared silently at the ground.
"I don't mean to reproach you for it, of course," Stolt added hastily; "we all know that you are not responsible for this estate falling into a neglected hell--pardon the expression, Malwine--but our friend has been globe-trotting for four years. In my opinion it is time that he came home."
"I am expecting him now," replied Kletzingk.
The effect of this announcement was stupendous.
Herr von Stolt nearly choked in suppressing a cry of amazement, and his wife bounded up as if she had been shot from a cannon.
"Leo Sellenthin! It is impossible! Coming now by this train?"
"Yes, by this train."
"Where is he coming from?"
"That I don't know, dear madame. My last letter to him was addressed to La Plata."
"And you tell me all this as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Aren't you pleased?"
"How could I be otherwise than delighted?" Kletzingk responded. "With him I lost half myself."
"Ah, to be sure. And, do tell me, Leo and you--the old intimacy exists still?"
"Still, madame, and I hope and trust that it will continue to exist in defiance of anything the world may choose to say."
His eyes rested steadily on her face, while she turned to study a fly-paper with interest.
The two young cuirassier officers rushed in to announce that the train was in sight. When they saw the baron they appeared suddenly abashed. They waited awkwardly till he offered them his hand, and then seized it with somewhat excessive warmth. But Kletzingk was far from paying heed to their manners. It was with an effort that he roused himself sufficiently to bid the old lady and gentleman a courteous farewell.
"I hope Sellenthin will speak to us," called Frau von Stolt after him.
He did not hear. With his long stork-like steps he hurried on to the platform. His breast heaved, and the veins started out in knots on his wide arched temples. He stood there with his clenched fist pressed to his left side, and stared with frightened eyes at the incoming train.
"Uli!" cried a resonant voice in jubilation echoing along the platform, and a blond head was thrust out of one of the carriage windows. Beneath the yellow hair were cheeks tanned to copper hue, a pair of merrily twinkling eyes, and a long flowing beard which the draught from the train swept backwards like a besom.
Frau von Stolt caught hold of her husband's arm. "He has not improved in looks," said she.
"Grown rather wild," he assented.
Four eye-glasses were directed with breathless attention to the two friends as they flew into each other's embrace.
"It was wise of him, after all, to wait till the grass had grown over that affair," went on Frau Malwine.
But Herr von Stolt, as sceptical well-wisher, reserved his opinion. He let his eye-glass fall, made a grimace, and merely muttered--
"Unsavoury story; unsavoury story!"
Then, apparently radiant with joy, he hurried forward to shake the hand of the home-coming neighbour.
