The Blue Flower (18 page)

B
ETWEEN
Artern and Jena, Langensalza and Jena, Durrenberg and Jena, Fritz traversed the dusty summer roads, crowded now with migrants and soldiers. In his notebook he wrote -

I am like a gambler who has risked everything on one stake.

The wound I must not see.

Sophie underwent another operation to drain the abscess on the 8th of August, 1796. A third, towards the end of August, was necessary because the other two had been completely unsuccessful. Professor Stark spoke of things going as well as could be expected. The patient’s forces were not declining, the pus was only moderate. The autumn, however, was always a dangerous time, particularly for young people.

Sophie to Fritz: ‘Hardly, dear Hardenberg, can I write you a line but do me the kindness not to distress yourself - This asks heartily your Sophie.’

On each of the two fathers the third operation had profound effects. Rockenthien’s noisiness, his persistent looking on the bright side, his dirty jokes, all vanished, not gradually but overnight, as though a giant hand had closed over him, squeezing him clear of hope. The Freiherr, on the other hand, for the first time in his life, wavered - not in his religious faith, but on the question of what to do next. Until the end of August, he put off visiting Jena. Then he made up his mind to go, taking as many as possible of his family with him, and staying the night at Schloben-bei-Jena. Even this was partly an attempt to get rid of the Uncle Wilhelm, who was still a guest at Weissenfels. ‘I shall remain here, brother, until I can see that my advice is no longer needed.’

‘Very good,’ said the Freiherr, ‘then you will not be coming to Schloben.’ He gave orders for only six or seven bedrooms to be prepared.

For themselves and a week’s provisions they would need both the carriages, and four of the long-suffering horses. Fritz was already in Jena, Anton was at military school in Schulpforta, but Karl was at home - half the officers in his regiment had been on leave since Saxony had withdrawn from the coalition against the French - and Sidonie, and Erasmus. The Bernhard had not much wanted to come, but neither did he want to be left at Weissenfels with the baby, the servants and his Uncle.

The Freifrau, jolting along beside Erasmus, knew that it could not be right, in the middle of the distress she felt for Sophie, to recognise even a moment’s happiness, and yet her heart beat faster when they turned into the familiar valley and for the first time in three years it was time to look out for the four great chimney-stacks of Schloben, and the tops of the poplars. She had always loved the place. Perhaps because the house was thickly surrounded with trees, it gave her an unfamiliar feeling of safety. Anton had been born here, and a little girl, Benigna, who had not survived. Her husband, she knew, even though they came here nowadays so rarely, said on no account would he ever part from Schloben.

‘The chimneys!’ cried Sidonie, who was sitting up by the driver.

They passed the oak tree with the ropes of their old swings still hanging from a high branch and a lower one. To the right was the humpbacked bridge which crossed both the stream and the footpath and led to the farm buildings and the chapel.

The property was dark and damp, and in such bad repair that the top flight of the main staircase was no longer safe and the servants had to reach their bedrooms by way of ladders. The
Gutsverwalter
, too, had moved into the great house, simply for the sake of shelter, since his own place was in ruins. But there was none of the dignified wretchedness of Oberwiederstadt, rather a diffused
sense, in that misty valley, of relaxation, of perpetual forgiveness, of coming home after having done one’s best.

Karl, sentimental like all military men, had tears in his eyes as they passed the remains of the swings, the old sledge-run down from the top of the valley, the pond, dry now until the autumn. He thought too of the months he had spent here not long ago, after his plans to marry money had ended in confusion, and he had had to take refuge from a furious and insulted woman.

‘We used to put straw in our boots in winter,’ said Sidonie.

‘And take them off before we went indoors,’ said Karl. ‘How white your feet used to look, Sido, just like a fish, not like ours at all. Should you like to be a child again?’

‘I should prefer us all to be children,’ said Erasmus, ‘then we should have a kingdom of our own.’

‘That is not at all my experience,’ said the Bernhard.

When he was very young the Bernhard had believed that the six-year gap between himself and Sidonie would gradually disappear and that just as he would come to be as tall as she was, or taller, so he would grow to be the same age as she was, or older. He had been disillusioned.

The warm twilight smelled of linden trees and chicken dung. ‘Listen to the stream,’ said Sidonie. ‘We shall be able to hear it muttering away all night.’

The Bernhard replied that he preferred to live by a river.

While the luggage was being slowly unshipped, the house doors opened and the
Gutsverwalter
, Billerbeck, came out, followed by some flustered poultry, who evidently also considered the house as home. Everyone lived at the back. The front entrance was scarcely used. Through the pearly dusk which filled the main hall you could see the distant lighted kitchen at the end of a cavernous passageway.

Between the Freiherr and his
Gutsverwalter
there was scarcely any formality. Almost the same height as each other, they embraced warmly.

‘We have suffered, we are suffering, Billerbeck. God is testing us.’

‘I know it, Excellency.’

Four years ago, when he was last in Schloben, Bernhard had been quite a small boy, sharing a four-poster with one of his brothers - he was almost sure it had been Erasmus - in a large room on the first floor. This room like most of the others on the north side had been seriously damaged since then by rain driving in through the broken windows. Any day now, Billerbeck repeated again and again, the repairs will be put in hand. Meanwhile, the Bernhard was lodged in a slip of a room on the second floor in a bed not much larger than a cot.

‘My father and mother are already in bed and asleep,’ said the Bernhard to himself. ‘There is no wind, but from
time to time the moon shines in and the room becomes bright. Somewhere, too, a clock is ticking.’ And so it was, even though he could not see it. High up on the outer south side of Schloben was an enormous and ancient gilded clock-face which set the time, even if not quite accurately, for the whole household; its works were in the thickness of the wall of the room where the Bernhard lay. ‘I am lying restlessly in my bed,’ he went on. ‘Everyone else has heard what I did, and yet none of them give it serious attention.’

For some time now it had come to him that the opening chapter of Fritz’s story was not difficult to understand. It had never been shown to him, or read to him. But there was nothing of any interest to him at Weissenfels that he had not had a good look at.

He had been struck - before he crammed the story back into Fritz’s book-bag - by one thing in particular: the stranger who had spoken at the dinner table about the Blue Flower had been understood by one person and one only. This person must have been singled out as distinct from all the rest of his family. It was a matter of recognising your own fate and greeting it as familiar when it came.

T
HEY
started for Jena next morning at five o’clock. The barely drinkable first coffee was served to them in the morning room. Outside, at the head of the valley, the sky was barred with long streaks of cloud which seemed to be waiting for the dawn to burn them into transparency. Schloben itself, except for the glitter of the stream, was in shadow. ‘You can hardly imagine the strange mood I’m in,’ said Karl. ‘I should like to sit at this window until the whole place grows bright.’ ‘We are enchanted here,’ said Sidonie. ‘Until we get started, we shan’t be able to realise the depth of our unhappiness. We have come to see poor Fritz, and yet we’re farther away from him than ever. I’m ashamed to feel such peace.’

‘
Satt
!’ cried Erasmus, banging down his coffee cup.

With an early start, they could return to Schloben that evening, giving the horses eight hours’ rest. At Jena, the Freiherr had reserved a large private room for them at
the Rose. In spite of the family’s difficulties he always went to the best inns, for he knew of no others.

‘There is Fritz!’ shouted Karl, who was driving the first carriage and turned well in front of the others into the yard of the Rose.

‘No, that is not my brother!’ cried Sidonie. First out, jumping down without waiting for the step to be fixed, she ran towards him. ‘Fritzchen, I hardly knew your face.’

Such a large party, of course, could not arrive all at once at Frau Winkler’s. The Freiherr would call there first, the others later.

‘Should I not accompany you, Heinrich?’ asked the Freifrau, summoning up all her reserve of courage. No, he would walk there with Fritz. They would start at once. The rest went into the Rose and upstairs to the handsome front room overlooking the square.

‘There they go,’ said Karl, lifting one of the white linen blinds. ‘When did we last see the two of them walking together like that?’

After Fritz and the father were out of sight a group of prisoners, fettered by the leg, came to clean the street. Whenever the guard lost interest in them they laid down their brushes and held out their hands for charity. Sidonie threw out her purse.

‘They will cut each others’ throats for it,’ said Karl.

‘No, I am sure they have a system of distribution,’ said Erasmus.

‘Very probably the youngest will get least,’ said the Bernhard.

‘Coffee, coffee, for the respected ladies and gentlemen!’ called the landlord, who had followed them up. A waiter in a striped apron asked if they desired wine.

‘Not yet,’ Erasmus told him.

‘I want you to lie down,’ said Sidonie to her mother. ‘These sofas seem expressly designed not to be lain upon, but all the same, I want you to try.’

The Freifrau lay down. ‘Poor Fritz, poor sick Sophgen. But it will cheer her to see our Angel.’ She motioned to the Bernhard to come and sit beside her. The room was already growing warmer. The broad blinds hung without the slightest tremor.

The next arrival was Dietmahler, sent by Professor Stark to see if he could be of assistance. He hesitated in the doorway, looking from face to face in the shadowed room. He had come into the Rose and upstairs without being announced. They were all talking to each other, no-one looked round, and Dietmahler unwisely confided in the blond child who was standing close to him, examining the hydraulics of the coffee-urn.

‘You are Bernhard, aren’t you? I am a friend of your brother Friedrich, I have been to your house in Weissenfels. I don’t know whether your sister Sidonie remembers me.’

‘Very likely not,’ said the Bernhard. ‘However, I remember you.’

Sidonie, half hearing, came towards them, smiling. Naturally she remembered everything - the washday, the happiness of his visit, and, of course, he was -

‘Of course,’ said the Bernhard.

‘I have now the honour to be the Deputy Assistant to Professor Stark,’ said Dietmahler. ‘You may have heard your brother mention me in his letters, in connection with the treatment of his Intended.’ He took out his professional card.

That would bring his name to her mind, no doubt of it. But the few moments during which she had not been able to remember it confirmed Dietmahler in what, after all, he already knew, that he was nothing. What means something to us, that we can name. Sink, he told his hopes, with a kind of satisfaction, sink like a corpse dropped into the river. I am rejected, not for being unwelcome, not even for being ridiculous, but for being nothing.

‘Dietmahler!’ Erasmus called out. Now Sidonie did remember, and covered her face for a moment with her hands. ‘Dietmahler, thank God you are here, you will tell us exactly what is happening. You haven’t been practising long enough to know how to tell lies.’

‘That is not very polite,’ said Karl.

‘Fraulein von Kuhn is still feverish,’ said Dietmahler. ‘Long visits are out of the question; half an hour, perhaps. Unfortunately, her cough delays the healing of the
incision. It splits open. The Professor believes now that if he was given permission to carry out one further operation we might hope for an immediate and complete recovery.’

‘And what do you believe?’ asked Erasmus.

‘I don’t question the Professor’s prognosis.’

After this, Dietmahler excused himself. He had to think, he said, of his other duties.

‘Of course you must,’ cried Sidonie. ‘And you must forgive us, but we are anxious. Even now we can’t truly believe that you have any other patient but Fritz’s Sophgen. People in distress are selfish beyond belief.’

‘That is what your brother said to me.’

‘Then he showed more sense than usual.’

She was trying to make amends, although she did not know what for. Then he was gone, and having nothing else to do, they stood at the window and watched him, in his turn, crossing the cobbled street to walk in the shade.

The Freifrau was sleeping uneasily. The landlord again asked if he should send up a few bottles of wine.

‘If it will make you happy, yes,’ said Karl.

‘Wine from the district, Herr Leutnant?’

‘Heaven forbid, bring Moselwein.’

As soon as the waiter had come and gone, Erasmus broke out violently. ‘Father will soon be back, since he is allowed to visit for only half an hour. We have managed
very badly. What will come of his visit? You know that whatever consent or permission he has given, he still considers the marriage quite unsuitable -‘

‘It is quite unsuitable,’ the Bernhard interrupted him. ‘It is our business to see the beauty of that.’

‘You should not have come here, Angel in the House,’ said Erasmus angrily.

‘Nor, I think, should you,’ said the Bernhard.

Turning to Karl, Erasmus went on, ‘Why has the father been permitted to call so soon upon Sophgen, whose condition, poor soul, has had such an effect on Fritz that his own sister did not recognise him? What must he feel now? As a parent and a Christian he must pity her, but beyond that he can only think that his eldest son is to be tied for life to a sick girl, who may never be able to bear him children. He will have to withdraw his consent. No-one could expect him to do otherwise. And then it will be a matter for poor Fritz, the wretched Fritz, to break the cruel truth - to say: my dearest Philosophy, I regret that my father does not think you fit to share my bed -‘

‘My mother is waking up,’ said Sidonie.

On the stairs there sounded a heavy tread which sent a tremor through the new sash-windows of the best room at the Rose. The Freiherr stood before them, with tears running down his face - to that they were accustomed at prayer-meeting, the tears of true repentance - but he
was sobbing with grotesque intakes of air, with hiccoughs, as though choking over a gross mouthful.

‘The poor child … ough! … the poor child … so ill … ough! … and she has nothing …’

He leaned - something none of them had ever seen before - against the frame of the door, grasping it with both hands.

‘I shall give her Schloben!’