For a while there was dead silence in the room.
“And now?” he asked with a dawning suspicion, looking deeply and warmly into her eyes. “What was it that drove you away from my side today and out into the night?”
“Now, Rudolf?” He felt a tremble course through all her limbs. Suddenly she flung her arms around his neck, and with stifled voice she whispered anxious and confused words, the sense of which he could not grasp.
“Inez, Inez!” he said, and took her lovely and mournful face in both his hands.
“O Rudolf! Let me die, but don’t drive out our child!”
He had dropped on his knees before her and kissed her hands. He had heard only the message and not the ominous words in which it had been announced to him; all the shadows fled from his soul, and looking up at her hopefully, he said softly, “Now everything, everything must change for the better!” Time went on its way, but the dark powers were not yet overcome. Only with reluctance did Inez add to her own layette the things left from Aggie’s babyhood, and many a tear fell on the little caps and jackets at which she now sewed silently and eagerly.
Aggie too had not failed to realize that something unusual was in prospect. On the second floor, a room that looked out on the big garden, in which her playthings had previously been kept, was suddenly kept locked; she had peeped through the keyhole; a sort of twilight seemed to dominate it, a solemn stillness. And when she carried her doll kitchen, which had been set out in the corridor, up into the attic with the help of old Annie, she looked there in vain for the cradle with the green taffeta shade, which had stood under the skylight in the roof as long as she could remember. She peered curiously into all the corners.
“What are you nosing around for like an inspector?” asked the old woman.
“Oh, well, Annie, I wonder what has become of my cradle?”
Annie looked at her with a sly smile. “What would you say,” she said, “if the stork were to bring you a little brother?”
Aggie looked up in astonishment, but she felt her eleven-year-old dignity injured by this form of speech. “The stork?” she said contemptuously.
“That’s right, Aggie.”
“You mustn’t say that to me, Annie. Little children believe that, but I know very well that it’s nonsense.”
“You do? If you know so much better, Little Miss Smarty, where do the children come from, if the stork doesn’t bring them, as he’s been doing all these thousands of years?”
“They come from God,” said Aggie emotionally. “All of a sudden they’re here.”
“Now God preserve us!” cried the old woman. “How smart these little greenhorns are nowadays! But you are right, Aggie; if you are perfectly sure that God has discharged the stork from his office, I think so myself; He’s able to manage it all alone. But now if all of a sudden he was here, that little brother (or would you rather have a little sister?) would you be glad, Aggie?”
Aggie stood in front of the old woman, who had let herself down on a big trunk; a smile lit up her grave little face, but then she seemed to be thinking it over.
“Well, Aggie,” the old woman probed again. “Would you be glad, Aggie?”
“Yes, Annie,” she said at last, “I’d like to have a little sister, and father would surely be glad too, but—”
“Well, Aggie, what are you butting about?”
“But,” repeated Aggie, and then paused again for a moment as if puzzling over it, “then the poor child wouldn’t have any mother!”
“What?” cried the old woman in great alarm, getting up laboriously from her trunk. “That child without a mother? You are too learned for me, Aggie; come, let’s go downstairs! Do you hear that? It’s striking two! You’d better hurry to school!”
Already the first gales of spring were roaring around the house; the hour was approaching.
“If I should not survive,” thought Inez, “I wonder if he would then remember me too?”
With fearsome eyes she walked past the door of the room which was waiting her and her future destiny in silence; she took soft steps, as if there were something in there which she was afraid of waking.
And at last a child, a second little girl, had been born to the house. Outside the pale green twigs were tapping on the windows, but inside the young mother lay pale and disfigured; the warm suntan of the cheeks had vanished, but in her eyes burned a fire that was consuming her body. Rudolf sat by the bed and held her slender hand in his.
Now she turned her head with an effort towards the cradle which stood on the other side of the room under old Annie’s care. “Rudolf,” she said weakly, “I have one more request!”
“One more, Inez? I shall have many requests to make of you.”
She looked at him sadly; only for a second; then her eye sped hastily back to the cradle. “You know,” said she, breathing more and more heavily, “there is no portrait of me! You always said it should only be painted by a good master. We can’t wait any longer for the master hand. You might send for a photographer, Rudolf; it is a little difficult, but my child won’t get to know me any more; it must know what its mother looked like.”
“Wait just a little while,” said he, trying to put a note of courage into his voice. “It would excite you too much just now; wait until your cheeks fill out again!”
She passed both hands over her black hair, which lay long and glossy on the coverlet, while she cast an almost wild glance about the room.
“A mirror!” she said, as she raised herself up out of the pillows. “Bring me a mirror!”
He wanted to prevent it, but the old woman had already fetched a hand mirror and laid it on the bed. The sick woman seized it hastily, but as she looked into it, a vivid terror was depicted in her features; she took a cloth and wiped at the glass, but that wrought no change; ever stranger grew the ailing countenance that stared out at her.
“Who is that?” she suddenly shrieked. “That is not I! O, my God! No picture, no shadow for my child!”
She dropped the mirror and covered her face with her emaciated hands.
The sound of weeping reached her ears. It was not her child, which lay asleep in its cradle, unaware; Aggie had stolen in unobserved; she stood in the middle of the room and looked with tragic eyes at her stepmother, while she sobbed and bit her lips.
Inez had perceived her. “You are crying, Aggie?” she asked.
But the child did not answer.
“Why are you crying, Aggie?” she repeated with vehemence.
The features of the child darkened still more. “For my mother!” came the words almost defiantly from her little mouth.
The stepmother was startled for a moment, but then she stretched out her arms, and as the child, as if against her will, had come closer, she drew it passionately to her breast. “O Aggie, don’t forget your mother!”
Then two little arms closed around her neck, and she alone understood the whisper, “My dear, sweet Mama!”
“Am I your dear Mama, Aggie?”
Aggie did not answer; she merely nodded hard at the pillows.
“Well then, Aggie,” said she in a blissful and confiding whisper, “don’t forget me either! O, I don’t want to be forgotten!”
Rudolf had watched these proceedings without stirring, not daring to disturb them; half in mortal fear, half in secret rejoicing, but fear kept the upper hand. Inez had sunk back among her pillows; she spoke no more; she slept suddenly.
Aggie, who had softly withdrawn from the bed, knelt by her little sister’s cradle; full of admiration she studied the tiny hand that stuck up out of the cushions, and when the little red face puckered itself up and the tiny helpless human sound came from it, her eyes shone with delight. Rudolf, who had quietly come forwards, laid his hand in a caress on her head; she turned around and kissed her father’s other hand; then she looked down at her sister again.
> The hours advanced. Outside the noonday light shone, and the curtains at the windows were drawn more tightly. He had been sitting this long time beside the bed of his beloved wife, in brooding expectation; thoughts and images came and went; he did not look at them, but let them come and go. On a former occasion it had been as it was now; an uncanny feeling came over him; he felt as if he were living a second life. Again he saw the black tree of death rise up and cover his whole house with its dark branches. Anxiously he looked towards Inez, but she was slumbering quietly; her breast rose in tranquil breathing. Under the window among the blossoming lilacs a little bird sang incessantly; he did not hear it; he was at pains to drive away the deceptive hopes that were now trying to spin their web about him.
In the afternoon the physician came; he bent down over the sleeper and took her hand, which was covered with a warm moisture. Rudolf looked intently into the face of his friend, whose features took on an expression of surprise.
“Do not spare me!” he said. “Let me know all!”
But the doctor pressed his hand.
“Saved!” That was the only word he could recall. All at once he heard the song of the bird; life in its entirety came flooding back. “Saved!” And he had already given her up, her too, as lost into the vast night; he had thought that the violent agitation of the morning must destroy her, but not so:
“It brought her new life,
It snatched her from drowning!”
Into these words of the poet he compressed all his happiness; like music they went on ringing in his ears.
And still the patient went on sleeping; still he sat at her bed and waited. Only the night lamp was now giving light in the silent room; from the garden outside there now came, instead of birdsongs, the murmur of the night wind; sometimes it swelled like the tones of a harp and then sped by; the young twigs tapped softly on the windows.
“Inez!” he whispered. “Inez!” He could not desist from uttering her name.
Then she opened her eyes and let them rest on him strong and long, as if her soul must climb up from the depths of sleep before it could reach him.
“You, Rudolf?” she said at last. “And I have waked up once more?”
He looked at her and could not satiate himself with the sight of her. “Inez,” he said, his voice sounded almost humble, “I have been sitting here for hours, bearing this happiness on my head like a burden; help me carry it, Inez!”
“Rudolf!” She had raised herself up with a vigorous movement.
“You will live, Inez!”
“Who said so?”
“My friend, the doctor; I know he was not deceived.”
“Live! O good God! Live! For my child, for you!” It was as if a recollection suddenly came to her; she clasped her husband’s neck with her hands and pressed his ear to her mouth. “And for your, no, our Aggie!” she whispered. Then she released his neck, and seizing both his hands, she spoke to him gently and lovingly. “I feel so unburdened!” she said. “Now I have no idea why everything was so hard up to now!” And then, nodding at him, “You shall see, Rudolf; now the good time is coming! But,” and she lifted her head and brought her eyes quite close to his, “I must have a share in your past, you must tell me the whole story of your happiness! And, Rudolf, her sweet picture shall hang in the room that belongs to us both; she must be present when you tell me.”
He looked at her like one blessed.
“Yes, Inez; she shall be present!”
“And Aggie! I will tell her things about her mother that I have heard from you – things suited to her age, Rudolf, only such things…”
He could only nod silently.
“Where is Aggie?” she then enquired. “I should just like to kiss her good night!”
“She is sleeping, Inez,” he said, gently stroking her forehead with his hand. “You know it is midnight!”
“Midnight! Then you must sleep now, too! But I – don’t laugh at me, Rudolf – I am hungry; I must eat something! And then, after that, put the cradle beside my bed; quite close, Rudolf! Then I too will sleep some more; I feel that; positively, you can go away without concern.”
But he remained.
“First I must have a pleasure!” he said.
“A pleasure?”
“Yes, Inez, a wholly new one; I want to watch you eat!”
“O you!”
And when he had had this satisfaction too, he and the nurse carried the cradle over to her bed.
“And now good night! I feel as if I were to sleep into our wedding day again.”
But she pointed to the child with a happy smile.
And soon all was still. But it was not the black tree of death that spread its branches over the roof of the house; from distant fields of golden grain the red poppies of sleep were softly nodding. A rich harvest was still in prospect. And again it was the time of roses. On the broad path of the big garden stood a merry vehicle. Nero had clearly been promoted; for he was now harnessed not to a doll carriage but to a real baby carriage and he patiently held still while Aggie tightened the last buckle on his huge head. Old Annie was bending down to the sunshade of the little carriage and pulling at the cushions in which the little daughter of the house, still unnamed, lay with big eyes open, but already Aggie was crying, “Get up, old Nero!” and at a dignified pace the little caravan set itself in motion for its daily ride.
Rudolf and Inez, who clung to his arm, more beautiful than ever, had looked on smiling; now they took their own course; they struck off to one side through the shrubs along the garden wall, and soon they were standing before the locked gate. The bushes did not hang down as formerly; a trellis had been built up under them, so that one got to the gate as through a shady arbored walk. For a moment they listened to the polyphonic bird-choir, having its own way in the undisturbed solitude beyond. But then, compelled by Inez’s vigorous little hands, the key turned, and the bolt sprang back with a creaking noise. Inside they heard the birds swoop upward, and then all was still. The gate stood open by a hand’s breadth, but on the inside it was held by a network of blossoming vines; Inez put forth all her strength, and there was a crackle and rustle behind it, but the door was caught.
“You’ll have to do it!” she said at last, looking up exhausted but smiling at her husband.
The masculine hand forced the entrance; then Rudolf carefully laid the torn vines back on either side.
Before them the gravel path now shimmered in the full sunlight, but softly, as if it were still that moonlit night, they walked around on it between the dark-green conifers, past the cabbage roses, whose hundreds of blooms gleamed out from the rampant bushes, and under the tumble-down rush roof at the end of the path, in front of which the clematis had now spun its web all over the garden chair. Inside the hut, as in the preceding summer, the swallow had built her nest; it flew in and out over their heads without fear.
What did they say to each other? For Inez too this was now holy ground. At times they were silent, merely listening to the hum of the insects which were playing outside in the scented air. Years ago Rudolf had heard the same sounds; it had always been like that. People died; were these little music-makers eternal?
“Rudolf, I have discovered something!” Inez resumed. “Just take the first letter of my name and put it at the end! Then what do you get?”
“Nesi!”* he said with a smile. “That is a wonderful coincidence.”
“You see!” she continued, “so Aggie really has my name. So isn’t it reasonable that my child should get her mother’s name? Marie! That sounds so good and gentle; you know it’s not unimportant, the name a child hears itself called!”
He was silent for a moment.
“Let us not play with these things!” he said then, looking fondly into her eyes. “No, Inez; not even with the face of my dear little child shall her portrait be painted over for me. Not Marie, and not Ine
z – as your mother wished – shall the child be named! Inez too exists for me but once in all the world, and never again.” And after a while he added, “Will you now say that you have an obstinate husband?”
“No, Rudolf; only this, that you are Aggie’s true father!”
“And you, Inez?”
“Just have patience; I shall become your true wife! But—”
“Is there still a ‘but’?”
“Not a bad one, Rudolf! But – when once time is over – for someday the end will come – when we are all in that place that you don’t believe in, but that you perhaps hope for – the place to which she has preceded us; then” – and she raised herself up to him and put both hands about his neck – “don’t push me away, Rudolf! Don’t attempt it; I will never give you up!”
He enclosed her firmly in his arms and said, “Let us do what is at hand; that is the best thing a person can teach himself and others.”
“And what is that?” she asked.
“Live, Inez; as beautifully and as long as we can!”
Now they heard child-voices from the gate; little sounds that were not yet words, but that penetrate to the heart, and a high-pitched “Git ap!” and “Whoa!” in Aggie’s powerful voice. And in the tow of faithful Nero, guarded by the old serving woman, the merry future of the house made its entrance into the garden of the past.
Curator Carsten
Translated by Frieda M. Voigt
His real name was Carsten Carstens,* and he was the son of a humble citizen, from whom he had inherited a home built by his grandfather. It was in the alley by the harbour and included a small business in woollen goods and such wearing apparel as was customarily used by the seamen of the surrounding islands on their voyages. Since however he was of a somewhat brooding disposition and had, like many a North Friesian, an innate bent towards studying, he had occupied himself since earliest childhood with all sorts of books and writings, thus gradually gaining the reputation among his fellows of a man from whom one could procure reliable counsel in doubtful cases. If as a result of his uncommon reading, as could easily happen, his thoughts strayed off onto a path where his neighbours could not follow him, he encouraged no one to do so; consequently he escaped arousing the suspicions of anyone. So he had become the curator of a number of widows and spinsters, whom the laws of that period still required to get such assistance in all legal matters.
Immensee and Other Stories Page 7
