Immensee and Other Stories

by Theodor Storm

  Time moved along after the Easter holidays, and now the afternoon of Pentecost had arrived. The two women were in the sunny vestibule, busily working; Aunt Brigitta had the curtain moulding of the shop window lying before her on the counter, endeavouring to pin a fresh white curtain on it; Anna, with a number of green woodruff wreaths hanging over one arm, was reaching for nails or hooks on the freshly kalsomined wall opposite, on which to hang the festive decorations. Two of the wreaths were nicely placed, but the nail for the third one was too high, so that the slender girl’s outstretched arm could not reach it with the wreath.

  “Child, child!” cried Aunt Brigitta from the counter, “you’re boiling hot; why don’t you fetch a stool?”

  “No, Auntie, it must be possible!” replied Anna laughing, and with zestful groans she began to renew her useless exertions.

  Suddenly the front door was thrown open, so that the ringing of the bell sounded deafeningly through the hall; amid the ringing a youthful man’s voice cried, “A man’s hand up there!” and in one and the same moment the wreath was removed from Anna’s outstretched hand and hung on the nail. Anna found herself in the arms of a handsome man with tanned face and impressive sideburns, whose dress was unmistakably that of a city dweller. But she had already pushed him from her with such a vigorous thrust that he flew straight towards Aunt Brigitta, who threw up her hands in front of her moulding. At this the poor victim burst into a merry laugh which drowned out the dying tones of the doorbell.

  “Heinrich, Heinrich, it’s you!” cried the women in unison.

  “This is what they call a surprise, Aunt Brigitta, isn’t it?”

  “Boy,” said the old lady, still somewhat vexed, “in your stylish coat there’s still the same old blow-hard; when you announce your coming, we can wait till we die, and when you come you could frighten us to death.”

  “Oh well, Aunt Brigitta, you’ll be rid of me again soon enough; a fellow like me hasn’t much time for loafing.”

  “Oh, Heinrich,” said the good aunt, eyeing him with evident satisfaction, “it wasn’t meant like that! How well you’re looking, boy. But now help me a minute too with your nice tall body.”

  With one jump Heinrich was over the counter and immediately thereafter he was standing on the window seat, holding in his hands the moulding with the white curtains hanging from it.

  A short time later, when the arrival of the master of the house was announced by the measured ringing of the doorbell, Heinrich was already sitting, with his wants attended to, in the good room at the coffee table, proclaiming to the eager listeners the wonders of the big city and his own activities. Immediately thereafter he stood face to face with his father, who grasped both his hands and with bated breath looked into his eyes. “My son!” he said finally, and Heinrich felt how a quiver passed from the old man’s body into his own.

  For a long time, even after they were sitting with the others at table, the father’s gaze remained fixed on the face of his son, whose quickly restored flow of speech passed his ears without being really understood. Heinrich seemed to him to be outwardly almost a stranger; the resemblance to Juliana had lessened, he told himself with painful satisfaction; the time of his departure from his native town, even though only a few years had passed since then, now lay far behind him. A happy thought suddenly filled the father’s heart; whatever had happened at that time, it had been only the fault of a boyish young man still in the process of development, the responsibility for which could no longer be loaded upon the man now sitting before him. Carsten involuntarily folded his hands; when Anna’s eyes happened to turn towards him, she too stopped listening to Heinrich’s wonderful tales: her old uncle sat there as if he were praying.

  Later, to be sure, when son and father were sitting alone face to face, Heinrich had to give an account of himself to his father, too. He was now on a business trip for his firm, he said; he would have to leave the very next day, travelling northward. From the elegant notebook which Heinrich took out of his pocket, Carsten was initiated into various details, and he nodded contentedly, seeing his son in well-organized work. Less intelligible were the bits of information given out by Heinrich about his independent business deals; he managed to pass these over with casual intimations, while he explained in great detail the new enterprises which were to be launched with the indubitable profits of the first ones. Carsten had no experience in such matters, but when the projects went higher and higher in Heinrich’s voluble exposition, and the money flowed in from richer and richer sources, then at times he felt as if Juliana’s features were looking at him from his son’s face, and in fear as well as affection he grasped his son’s hands, as if by so doing he could keep him on solid ground.

  However, when they sat together in church the next forenoon, he could not deny himself a slight satisfaction as on all benches heads were turned above hymnals towards the fine-looking young man; indeed, he was almost sorry that today Mr Jaspers was not also singing hymns at them from his customary pew.

  In the afternoon, while Carsten and Brigitta were taking their naps in the house, Heinrich and Anna sat outside on the bench under the pear tree. They too were enjoying their afternoon rest, only their young eyes did not close like the old ones inside; they did not speak, to be sure, they listened to the summer song of the bees, coming down to them from the tree, its white blossoms covering it like snow. At times, and then more and more often, Anna would turn her head and secretly study the face of her childhood playmate, who was writing in the sand with his cane the name of a celebrated equestrienne. She still could not figure it out: the bearded man at her side, whose voice had an entirely different sound, was he still the Heinrich of yore? Just then a starling flew down from the roof onto the curb of the well, looked at her with its bright eyes, and began to chatter with puffed out throat, as if it wished to recall to her memory who had once sat there in its place. Anna opened her eyes wide and gazed up at a speck of blue sky visible through the branches of the tree; she feared the shadow which threatened to fall upon this golden summer day from the corner by the well.

  But Heinrich’s memory had likewise been awakened by the garrulous bird; only his eyes saw no shadows whatever coming from any corner. “What do you think, Anna,” he said, pointing to the well with his cane, “do you believe I really would have jumped into that stupid well, that day?”

  She was almost startled by these words. “If I had to believe it,” she replied, “then you certainly would not have been worth my pulling you back from it.”

  Heinrich laughed. “You women are poor at figuring. Then you could certainly have let me sit there.”

  “Oh, Heinrich, say rather that nothing like that can ever, ever happen again!”

  Instead of answering he took his costly gold watch from his pocket and let it dangle on its chain before her eyes. “We’re making our own business deals now,” he said then. “Only a few more months, then I’ll throw those few paltry talers at the feet of the Senator’s heirs; if they don’t want to pick them up, they can let them lie; for of course a thing like that must be paid.”

  “They’ll accept it all right, if you offer it to them modestly.”

  “Modestly?” He had placed himself before her and was looking into her face, which she had lifted up to him from her sitting position. “Well, if you think that,” he added somewhat absently, while his eyes assumed the expression of attentive observation. “Do you know, Anna,” he suddenly cried, “that you really are a deucedly pretty girl?”

  The words had the ring of such spontaneous admiration that Anna became almost embarrassed. “I think you’ve brought home other eyes from Hamburg,” she said.

  “Right, Anna; I can see more now! But do you realize that you’ll soon be twenty-three years old? Why don’t you have a husband yet?”

  “Because I didn’t want one. What questions you ask, Heinrich!”

  “I know very well what I’m asking, Anna; marr
y me, then you’ll be rid of all embarrassment.”

  She looked at him in anger. “That is not a nice joke.”

  “And why should it be a joke?” he replied, trying to seize her hand.

  She stood up, almost as tall as he. “Never, Heinrich, never.” And when she had ejaculated these words, shaking her head vehemently, she freed herself and went back into the house, but she had flushed up to the blonde hair on her brow.

  The business transactions from which Heinrich had promised himself mountains of gold must have had a different outcome after all. In less than a month after his departure, letters arrived from Hamburg, some from Heinrich himself and others from third parties, the contents of which Carsten managed to conceal from the women, yet which caused him to request a confidential interview with his old friend the mayor, who was well versed in civil as well as criminal law. And the very next evening in the city Ratskeller Mr Jaspers was already whispering over his wineglass to his neighbour, the city inspector of weights and measures: old Carstens, the fool with the dissolute son, was reliably reported to have cashed several of his best mortgage loans that very forenoon at a substantial discount. The other knew even more: the money, a large sum, had been mailed to Hamburg that same afternoon. They agreed that something must have happened there which demanded immediate and imperative help. “Help!” repeated Mr Jaspers, with his thin lips sipping smugly the last drops of his red wine. “Hans Christian wanted to help the rat, too, and poured boiling water into the rat trap.”

  At any rate, if there had really been danger, it seemed for the present to have been averted; even Mr Jaspers could not ferret out anything further, and whatever had buzzed around in town gossip gradually died out. Only in Carsten himself a striking change was noticeable from this time on; his commanding figure seemed suddenly to have shrivelled, the quiet assurance of his bearing appeared to have been blotted out, and while at one time he evidently sought to evade people’s glances, at another time he seemed almost anxiously to seek in them an approval which he had otherwise found only in himself. He could become violently startled at all sorts of insignificant things; for instance, if there was an unexpected knock on his door, or if the postman entered in the evening, without his having seen him from the window. One might have thought that in his old age Carsten had acquired a bad conscience.

  The women saw this, and they probably had their own ideas; for the rest, however, Carsten bore his burden alone; only at times he expressed his regret that he had not devoted his whole energy to the enlargement of the business he had inherited, so that Heinrich could now take it over and live near them all. Matters were not at their best in the house on the alley; for Aunt Brigitta too, whose worried looks were always following her brother, was ailing; only from Anna’s eyes shone ever and again the unconquerable cheerfulness of youth.

  It was on a hot September afternoon that the doorbell rang and Aunt Brigitta, who had been busy in the kitchen with Anna, stepped into the vestibule. “In Heaven’s name,” she cried, “here comes the bearer of bad news, as the mayor calls him. What does he want of us?”

  “Away with bad luck,” said Anna, pounding the underside of the table with the knife in her hand. “Shouldn’t that help, Auntie?”

  By now the disparaged one was standing before the open kitchen door. “Ah, the best of good days to all of you!” he called out with his old-womanish voice, mopping away the drops of perspiration from the hairy fringes of his fox-red wig with his blue-checked handkerchief. “Well, how are you, how are you? Is friend Carsten at home? Always busily at work?”

  But before he could receive an answer, he had curiously scrutinized the old spinster. “Well, well, Briggy, you look bad; you’ve lost ground since we last saw each other.”

  Aunt Brigitta nodded. “You’re right, I don’t feel too well, but the doctor thinks I’ll improve now in this nice weather.”

  Mr Jaspers emitted a chuckle. “Yes, yes, Briggy, that’s what the doctor thought about little Danish Marie in the convent, when she had consumption. You know she always called her little room ‘my tiny paradise’,” again he chuckled in amusement, “but still she had to leave her tiny paradise.”

  “God protect us in his grace,” cried Aunt Brigitta, “you old person, your talk’s enough to bring death on our heels.”

  “Now, now, Briggy, old spinsters and ashen stakes keep for many a year!”

  “But now you hurry and get out of my kitchen, Mr Jaspers,” said Brigitta. “My brother can deal better with your compliments.”

  Mr Jaspers retired; at the same time, however, he lifted the steaming wig from his bald pate and held it out to Anna on one finger. “Young lady,” he said, “be kind enough to hang this thing up awhile on your picket fence, but be a little careful that the cat doesn’t get it.”

  Anna laughed. “No, no, Mr Jaspers; you just carry out your old monstrosity yourself. And our cat, she doesn’t eat such red rats.”

  “Is that so! You’re really a saucy thing,” said the bearer of bad news, inspected briefly his detached hair adornment, dried it with his blue-checked handkerchief, clapped it on his head again, and at once disappeared in the doorway of the living room.

  When Carsten, who had been sitting over his account books, saw the eyes of Mr Jaspers, glittering with officiousness, appear in the doorway, he laid down his pen with a hasty motion. “Well, Jaspers,” he said, “what news are you taking out for a walk today?”

  “True enough, true enough, my young friend,” replied Mr Jaspers, “but you know – one man’s meat is another man’s poison!”

  “Well, then make it brief and empty out your pockets!”

  Mr Jaspers seemed not to notice the tense look from the wide-open, deep-set eyes directed to his wrinkled little face. “Patience, patience, friend,” he said, smugly drawing a chair close to him, “it’s this way: the little shopkeeper in South Street, where the people of Ostenfeld get their necessities, you know him, I’m sure; the little fellow always had a shiny, well-combed tuft of hair on his head, but that didn’t help him either, Carsten, not a farthing’s worth. I hope you aren’t related in any way to this little pewit.”

  “You mean on my money’s side? No, no, Jaspers, but what about him? It was a good living while his parents had it.”

  “Indeed it was, Carsten, but a good living and a stupid fellow, they never stay together long; he has to sell. I have it in my hands; four thousand talers down, five thousand registered debts included in the deal. Well? Now you stare at me? But I thought at once, that would be something for your Heinrich that doesn’t come your way every day.”

  Carsten heard this but didn’t dare to answer; he rummaged nervously among the papers on his desk. But then he said, and his words seemed to be spoken with difficulty. “That won’t work out yet; my Heinrich must first age some more.”

  “Age some more?” Mr Jaspers laughed again with great amusement. “That’s what our pastor thought about his boy too, but what was born a donkey, friend, will never become a horse.”

  Carsten felt a strong urge to show his guest the door, but he feared instinctively that that would be throwing this chance through the door too.

  “No, no, friend,” the other went on calmly, “I have better advice. You must find him a wife: understand me, a capable one, and one who also has a few thousand in credit. Well,” and with his red wig he made a motion towards the kitchen “you have everything close by.”

  Carsten said almost mechanically, “How you worry about other people’s children!”

  But Mr Jaspers had stood up and slyly looked down at the sitting man. “Think it over, friend, I still have to go to the finance board; I’ll keep the deal open for you till tomorrow.”

  With these words he was already out of the door. Carsten remained seated at the table with his head propped up; he did not see that immediately thereafter, as Mr Jaspers’s top hat was pushing past the windows outside, the importunate
little eyes cast one more sharp glance into the room.

  The suggestions of the “city’s bearer of bad news” seemed never­theless to have had an after-effect. That was just what Carsten had been trying to find for such a long time; the business offered for sale, to be sure now badly neglected, could under good management be considered a secure investment with a not too high rate of interest. Here in town the father could keep an eye on it himself, and in time Heinrich would learn to stand on his own feet. Carsten took heart; with trembling hand he once more took from his desk drawer those Hamburg letters that had not long ago cost him the greatest part of his small property: and he carefully read them through, one by one. Enclosed in the last one was a receipted note; the name under the acceptance had been crossed out to make it illegible.

  How often he had looked through those letters to convince himself over and over again that everything was in order now, that no disaster could develop from them in the future. But now they should at last be destroyed. He tore them into shreds and threw them into the stove, where the first winter fire should soon wholly consume them.

  He closed the door of the stove as softly as if he had secretly com­mitted an evil deed. Then for a long time he stood before his open desk, the key in his hand; he was breathing with difficulty, and his grey head sank ever deeper on his chest. But still, and again and again this appeared before his eyes, the deeds to which his weak son had been misled by big city conditions, would be impossible here in the small town! If only he could have him here soon, right now! A feverish fear seized him that his son might just now, at the last moment, when the safe harbour was perhaps ready to receive him, be once more tempted into that whirlpool.

  The desk was to be sure finally locked, but for about an hour the otherwise never idle man walked aimlessly back and forth in the house and yard, now speaking a few words to the women about matters which otherwise had never concerned him, now walking through the hall into the yard to inspect the well curb, long since repaired. Returning from there, he opened a door that led from the hall into an annex and to Juliana’s death chamber in its upper storey. The narrow stairway, unused for years, creaked under his steps, as if the old time were awakening from its sleep. Up in the bedroom, below the window that faced the gloomy alley, stood an empty bedstead, half destroyed by worms. Carsten drew up the only chair and sat here long. Before his eyes the bare boards filled; from white pillows a pale countenance with two dying eyes gazed at him, as if now they would promise him what it was too late to grant.