Irretrievable (19 page)

The weather
had broken and there followed a number of rainy days. The Princess kept mainly to her private apartments and, except for fleeting encounters, she saw Holk only in the evenings when, after a game of whist, they had tea together. Nothing was changed in their relationships, at least for Holk and Ebba. Every day she became more and more impertinent and mischievous and when she realized that Pentz must have gossiped over her affair in Stockholm, she made allusions to it herself and talked of love affairs and especially court love affairs as if they were not only respectable but almost compulsory. “There are all sorts of ways of living,” she said. “One can be Countess Schimmelmann and one can be Ebba von Rosenberg; each way has its own justification but one must not try to follow both at once.” Holk, somewhat taken aback, looked at her half amused, half shocked, but Ebba continued: “There are so many standards by which to judge human beings and one of the very best and surest is their attitude to love affairs. There are people who get goose-flesh at once when they hear of a
rendezvous
or a
billet doux
but personally I don't feel like that at all. What would life be without love affairs? Dull, bleak, and boring. But when someone can see, with love and understanding, how, from the briefest encounter, from the most fleeting glance, something is created that is stronger than death itself—oh, there's only one thing better than observing it and that is experiencing it! I'm sorry for anyone who can't understand that or, while understanding it, won't accept it freely and with joy. Anyone with the courage of his convictions will always find someone to sympathize and, after all, it's sufficient if there is just one such person.” Not an evening passed without similar remarks which Holk for a time strove to resist, with less and less success. Every day, he saw more clearly how right and how acute Pentz had been when he had spoken of the power of so-called piquant relationships, relationships which women seem better able to foster than to restrain. Yes, Pentz was right and with a strange feeling of mingled delight, irritation, and anxiety, he realized more and more plainly that Ebba was playing with him. The Princess, however, noticed this too and decided to have a word with Ebba about it.

“Ebba,” she said, “Holk has been with us a fortnight now and I should very much like to know what you think of him. I have confidence in your excellent judgement …”

“Political?”

“Ah, you minx, you know that I'm quite indifferent to his politics, otherwise he wouldn't be in my service at all. I mean his character and I might almost add, his heart.”

“I think he has a kind heart and a weak one.”

The Princess laughed. “Certainly, he has that. But that doesn't help us very much. So tell me something about his character. Character is more important than heart. Someone may have, at one and the same time, a weak heart and a strong character because he has principles. And then his strong character can save him.”

“In that case Holk is lost,” laughed Ebba, “for I think that his character is much weaker than his heart. It's his character that is his basic weakness. And the worst of it is that he doesn't even know it. Because he looks like a man, he considers himself one. But he's only a good-looking man, which usually means not a man at all. All in all, he hasn't had the proper training to develop his very modest talents in the line that would have suited him. He ought to have been a collector or an antiquarian or the director of a home for fallen girls or just a fruit-grower.”

“Now, now,” said the Princess, “that's a great deal all at once. But do go on.”

“He's confused and half-hearted and it is this half-heartedness that will cause his downfall. He pretends to be a Schleswig-Holsteiner and yet he serves as gentleman-in-waiting to an obviously Danish princess; he's a living work of reference on genealogies who can reel off all the Rosenbergs, except the Filehne branch, and yet he sets himself up as an enlightened liberal. I haven't known him long enough to have caught him out in all his contradictions but I am quite certain that they exist in every sphere. For example, I've no doubt for a moment that he goes to his little village church every Sunday and comes out of his nap just when the Creed is being read, but I doubt whether he knows what there is in it and if he does, I doubt if he believes in it; yet in spite of that, or perhaps even because of that, he springs to his feet at once.”

“Ebba, you're going too far.”

“Indeed I'm not. Let me only mention a much more important example of his half-heartedness. As far as his morals are concerned, he is what one might describe as almost virtuous and yet he has a yearning to be a man of the world. And that sort of half-heartedness is the worst of all, worse than half-heartedness in so-called important questions, which are often not important at all.”

“That is very true, but here, Ebba, I have you just where I want you—and where I intend to keep you! You say that he has a yearning to be a man of the world. Unfortunately, you are exactly right there: I can see it more and more every day. But because he has this weakness, we must throw him a rope, a golden rope, not so that he can move up to the attack but so that he may beat a retreat. You must stop flitting about in front of him like a will-o'-the-wisp as you keep doing at the moment. He has already been dazzled enough. As long as he is here, you must hide your light under a bushel. I know very well that that is asking a great deal of you, because if one has a light, one likes to see it shining; but you must make this sacrifice for me and if you find it difficult, then to console yourself you must keep in mind that he will not be here for ever. In the New Year he will be leaving us and for better or worse we shall be having our old trio again, and then you may do what you like, marry Pentz or run away with Erichsen or even with Bille, whose measles must come to an end sooner or later. Whatever you do, I approve of, in advance. Perhaps you could oust the countess, not Holk's but Countess Danner; perhaps that would be the best thing.”

Ebba shook her head. “That's not allowed, ousting the Danner would mean that I could no longer be my Princess's grateful and devoted servant.”

“My dear Ebba, you mustn't talk like that, you don't deceive me in the least. I receive as much gratitude from you as you choose to give me. Nor do I do anything for the sake of gratitude. That is the most ungrateful and unwise thing there is, to expect gratitude. But do think over the question of Holk.”

“My apologies, Your Highness—but what am I to think over? Ever since I have been able to reason, I've always said to myself: ‘a girl must look after herself' and I'm right, you must be able to. And if someone can't do it, it merely means that she doesn't want to. All right, then, we must look after ourselves. But what is a girl to do against a fully grown count of forty-five who may become a grandfather any day? If anyone ought to be able to look after himself, it's the count, who has, I believe, been married for sixteen years and has an excellent and capable wife who is beautiful as well, as Pentz was telling me only the other day.”

“It's for the sake of his wife that I am urging you …”

“Well, if your most gracious Highness orders me, I shall endeavour to obey. But are you speaking to the right person? Surely not. It should be Holk. It's he who owes it to his wife to be faithful, not I, and if he is not faithful, it's his responsibility, not mine. Am I my brother's keeper?”

“Ah, I know that you're quite right,” said the Princess, running her hand over Ebba's wavy fair hair. But however that may be, you must realize that we are under constant observation, just as surely as we are in a position to observe so many things ourselves, and I shouldn't like it if we were to expose ourselves to the King and his countess.”

On the day following this conversation, Holk, being off-duty, intended to deal with his correspondence. On his desk lay all the letters he had received during the last fortnight, including some from his wife. He quickly perused them, which did not take long since there were only a few, and then, finally, he read a telegram in which she excused herself for not having written for four days. That was all and if their extent was slight, their contents were even slighter. This annoyed him, because he was careful to avoid asking himself who was really to blame. He merely said to himself—and here he was justified—that, earlier, things had been very different. Earlier, indeed even during his last absence in Copenhagen, the letters they had exchanged had all the time been real love letters, full of the affection that they had felt for each other in their younger years. But this time all tenderness was absent, the tone was chilly, and if his wife tried to make a joke there always seemed to be something caustic or sarcastic in it which cancelled all its charm. Yes, that was unfortunately how things were and yet a letter had to be written. But how? He was still brooding over this problem when Frau Hansen entered and handed him the letters which the postman had just bought. Two of them bore the Copenhagen postmark but the third, in Christine's handwriting, was in an envelope of a different shape from the usual and instead of the Glücksburg postmark bore that of Hamburg. For a moment Holk was surprised and then, even before opening the envelope, he realized what had happened: “Of course, Christine is on her tour of the boarding-schools.” So it proved to be and this is what he read:

After he had read the letter, Holk felt somewhat sentimental. It contained so much affection that it revived memories of past happiness. She was still the best of them all. What was the beautiful Brigitte by comparison? Yes, and what was Ebba, even, by comparison? Ebba was like a rocket that you followed with an “Aaah … !” of astonishment as long as it continued to shoot upwards but when it was all over, it was nothing but a firework after all, something completely artificial. Christine, on the other hand, was like the simple, clear light of day. Immersed in this feeling, he quickly read through the letter again, only to find that his pleasure had quite evaporated, all the pleasant impressions had gone, leaving only one, or predominantly one, thing behind: the tone of self-righteousness. And once more his thoughts took their familiar turn: “Oh, these virtuous women! Always sublime, always serving the Truth; and I suppose they even think so themselves. But without wishing to deceive anyone, they deceive themselves. Only one thing is quite certain: their excellence is appalling.”