It was dark; Bertha looked out into the night.

She determined that very night before she went to bed to fetch from the attic the little case in which she kept the letters of her parents and of Emil. She longed to be home again. She felt as though a question had been wakened within her soul, and that the answer awaited her at home.

IV

When, late in the evening, Bertha entered her room, the idea which she had taken into her head of going up to the attic at once and fetching down the case with the letters seemed to her to be almost venturesome.

She was afraid that some one in the house might observe her on her nocturnal pilgrimage, and might take her for mad. She could, of course, go up the next morning quite conveniently and without causing any stir; and so she fell asleep, feeling like a child who has been promised an outing into the country on the following day.

She had much to do the next forenoon; her domestic duties and piano lessons occupied the whole of the time. She had to give her sister-in-law an account of her visit to Vienna. Her story was that in the afternoon she had gone for a walk with her cousin, and the impression was conveyed that she had made an excuse to Frau Rupius at the request of Agatha.

It was not until the afternoon that she went up to the attic and brought down the dusty travelling-case, which was lying beside a trunk and a couple of boxes--the whole collection covered with an old and torn piece of red-flowered coffee-cloth. She remembered that her object on the last occasion on which she had opened the case had been to put away the papers which her parents had left behind. On her return to her room she opened the case and perceived lying on top of the other contents a number of letters from her brothers and other letters, with the handwriting of which she was not familiar; then she found a neat little bundle containing the few letters which her parents had addressed to her: these were followed by two books of her mother's household accounts, a little copybook dating back to her own schooldays and containing entries of timetables and exercises, a few programmes of the dances which she had attended when a young girl, and, finally, Emil Lindbach's letters, which were wrapped up in blue tissue paper, torn here and there. And now she was able to fix the very day on which she had last held those letters in her hand, although she had not read them on that occasion. It was when her father had been lying ill for some time and, for whole days, she had not once gone outside the door.

She laid the bundle aside. She wanted, first of all, to see all the other things which had been stored in the case, and concerning which she was consumed with curiosity. A number of letters lay in a loose heap at the bottom of the case, some with their envelopes and others without. She cast her eye over them at random. There were letters from old friends, a few from her cousin, and here was one from the doctor who had courted her in the old days. In it he asked her to reserve for him the first waltz at the medical students' dance. Here--what was it? Why, it was that anonymous letter which some one had addressed to her at the Conservatoire. She picked it up and read:

"My Dear Fraulein,

"Yesterday I again had the good fortune to have an opportunity of admiring you on your daily walk; I do not know whether I had also the good fortune to be observed by you."

No, he had not had that good fortune. Then followed three pages of enthusiastic admiration, and not a single wish, not a single bold word.

She had, moreover, never heard anything more of the writer.

Here was a letter signed by two initials, "M.G." That was the impudent fellow who had once spoken to her in the street, and who in this letter made proposals--wait a minute, what were they? Ah, here was the pa.s.sage which had sent the hot blood mounting to her brow when she had first read it:

"Since I have seen you, and since you have looked on me with a glance so stern and yet seemingly so full of promise, I have had but one dream, but one yearning--that I might kiss those eyes!"

Of course, she had not answered the letter; she was in love with Emil at the time. Indeed, she had even thought of showing him the letter, but was restrained by the fear of rousing his jealousy. Emil had never learned anything of "M. G."

And that piece of soft ribbon that now fell into her hands?... A cravat ... but she had quite forgotten whose it was, and why she had kept it.

Here again was a little dance alb.u.m in which she had written the names of her partners. She tried to call the young men to mind, but in vain.

Though, by the way, it was at that very dance that she had met that man who had said such pa.s.sionate words to her as she had never heard from any other. It seemed as though he suddenly emerged a victor from among the many shadows that hovered around her. It must have happened during the time when she and Emil had been meeting each other less frequently. How strange it was ... or had it only been a dream? This pa.s.sionate admirer had clasped her closely in his arms during the dance--and she had not offered the slightest resistance. She had felt his lips in her hair, and it had been incredibly pleasant ... Well, and then?--she had never seen him again.

It suddenly seemed to her that, after all, in those days she had had many and strange experiences, and she was lost in amazement at the way in which all these memories had slumbered so long in the travelling case and in her soul.... But no, they had not slumbered; she had thought of all these things many a time: of the men who had courted her, of the anonymous letter, of her pa.s.sionate partner at the dance, of the walks with Emil--but only as if they had been merely such things as go to const.i.tute the past, the youth which is allotted to every young girl, and from which she emerges to lead the placid life of a woman. On the present occasion, however, it seemed to Bertha as if these recollections were, so to speak, unredeemed promises, as if in those experiences of distant days there lay destinies which had not been fulfilled; nay, more, as if a kind of deception had long been practised upon her, from the very day on which she had been married until the present moment; as if she had discovered it all too late; and here she was, unable to lift a finger to alter her destiny.

Yet why should it seem so?... She thought of all these futile things, and there beside her, wrapped up in tissue paper, still lay the treasure, for the sake of which alone she had rummaged in the case--the letters of the only man she had loved, the letters written in the days when she had been happy. How many women might there be now who envied her because that very man had once loved her--loved her with a different, better, chaster love than that which he had given any of the women who had followed her in his affections. She felt herself most bitterly deceived that she, who could have been his wife if ... if ... her thoughts broke off.

Hurriedly, as though seeking to rid her mind of doubt, or rather, indeed, of fear, she tore off the tissue paper and seized the letters.

And she read--read them one after another. Long letters, short letters; brief, hasty notes, like: "To-morrow evening, darling, at seven o'clock!"

or "Dearest, just one kiss ere I go to sleep!" letters that covered many pages, written during the walking tours which he and his fellow students had taken in the summer; letters written in the evening, in which he had felt constrained to impart to her his impressions of a concert immediately on returning home; endless pages in which he unfolded his plans for the future; how they would travel together through Spain and America, famous and happy ... she read them all, one after another, as though tortured by a quenchless thirst. She read from the very first, which had accompanied a few pieces of music, to the last, which was dated two and a half years later, and contained nothing more than a greeting from Salzburg.

When she came to an end she let her hands fall into her lap and gazed fixedly at the sheets lying about. Why had that been the last letter? How had their friendship come to an end? How could it have come to an end?

How had it been possible that that great love had died away? There had never been any actual rupture between Emil and herself; they had never come to any definite understanding that all was over between them, and yet their acquaintanceship had ended at some time or other--when?... She could not tell, because at the time when he had written that card to her from Salzburg she had still been in love with him. She had, as a matter of fact, met him in the autumn--indeed, during the winter of the same year everything had seemed once more to blossom forth. She remembered certain walks they had taken over the crunching snow, arm in arm, beside St. Charles' Church--but when was it that they had taken the last of these walks? They had, to be sure, never taken farewell of each other.... She could not understand it.

How was it that she had been able so easily to renounce a happiness which it might yet have been within her power to retain? How had it come about that she had ceased to love him? Had the dullness of the daily routine of her home life, which weighed so heavily upon her spirits ever since she had left the Conservatoire, lulled her feelings to sleep just as it had blunted the edge of her ambitions? Had the querulous remarks of her parents on the subject of her friendship with the youthful violinist--which had seemed likely to lead to nothing--acted on her with such sobering effect?

Then she recalled to mind that even at a later date, when some months had elapsed since she had last seen him, he had called at her parents' house, and had kissed her in the back room. Yes, that had been the last time of all. And then she remembered further that on that occasion she had noticed that his relation towards women had changed; that he must have had experiences of which she could know nothing--but the discovery had not caused her any pain.

She asked herself how it all would have turned out if in those days she had not been so virtuous, if she had taken life as easily as some of the other girls? She called to mind a girl at the Conservatoire with whom she had ceased to a.s.sociate on finding that her friend had an intrigue with a dramatic student. She remembered again the suggestive words which Emil had spoken as they were walking together past his window, and the yearning that had come over her as they stood by the bank of the Wien. It seemed inconceivable that those words had not affected her more keenly at the moment, that that yearning had been awakened within her only once, and then only for so short a time. With a kind of perplexed amazement she thought of that period of placid purity and then, with a sudden agonized feeling of shame which drove the blood to her temples, of the cold readiness with which she had given herself afterwards to a man whom she had never loved. The consciousness that whatever happiness she had tasted in the course of her married life had been gained in the arms of the husband she had not loved made her shudder with horror, for the first time, in its utter wretchedness. Had that, then, been life such as her thoughts had depicted to her, had that been the mystic happiness such as she had yearned for?... And a dull feeling of resentment against everything and everybody, against the living and the dead, began to smoulder within her bosom. She was angry with her dead husband and with her dead father and mother; she was indignant with the people amongst whom she was now living, whose eyes were always upon her so that she dared not allow herself any freedom; she was hurt with Frau Rupius, who had not turned out to be such a friend that Bertha could rely on her for support; she hated Klingemann because, ugly and repulsive as he was, he desired to make her his wife; and finally she was violently enraged with the man she had loved in the days of her girlhood, because he had not been bolder, because he had withheld from her the ultimate happiness, and because he had bequeathed her nothing but memories full of fragrance, yet full of torment. And there she was, sitting in her lonely room amongst the faded mementoes of a youth that had pa.s.sed unprofitably and friendlessly; there she was, on the verge of the time when there would be no more hopes and no more desires--life had slipped through her fingers, and she was thirty and poor.

She wrapped up the letters and the other things, and threw them, all crumpled as they were, into the case. Then she closed it and went over to the window.

Evening was at hand. A gentle breeze was blowing over from the direction of the vine-trellises. Her eyes swam with unwept tears, not of grief, but of exasperation. What was she to do? She, who had, without fear and without hope, seen the days, nights, months, years extending into the future, shuddered at the prospect of the emptiness of the evening which lay before her.

It was the hour at which she usually returned home from her walk. On that day she had sent the nursemaid out with Fritz--not so much as once did she yearn for her boy. Indeed, for one moment there even fell on her child a ray of the anger which she felt against all mankind and against her fate. And, in her vast discontent, she was seized with a feeling of envy against many people who, at ordinary times, seemed to her anything but enviable. She envied Frau Martin because of the tender affection of her husband; the tobacconist's wife because she was loved by Herr Klingemann and the captain; her sister-in-law, because she was already old; Elly, because she was still young; she envied the servant, who was sitting on a plank over there with a soldier, and whom she heard laughing. She could not endure being at home any longer; She took up her straw hat and sunshade and hurried into the street. There she felt somewhat better. In her room she had been unhappy; in the street she was no more than out of humour.

In the main thoroughfare she met Herr and Frau Mahlmann, to whose children she gave music lessons. Frau Mahlmann was already aware that Bertha had ordered a costume from a dressmaker in Vienna on the previous day, and she began to discuss the matter with great weightiness. Later on, Bertha met her brother-in-law, who came towards her from the chestnut avenue.

"Well," he said, "so you were in Vienna yesterday! Tell me, what did you do with yourself there? Did you have any adventures?"

"What do you mean?" asked Bertha, looking at him in great alarm, as though she had done something she ought not, and had been found out.

"What? You had no adventures? But you were with Frau Rupius; all the men must surely have run after you?"

"What on earth has come into your head? Frau Rupius' conduct is irreproachable! She is one of the most well-bred ladies I know."

"Quite so, quite so! I am not saying a word against Frau Rupius or you."

She looked him in the face. His eyes were gleaming, as they often did when he had had a little too much to drink. She could not help recalling that somebody had once foretold that Herr Garlan would die of an apoplectic stroke.

"I must pay another visit to Vienna myself one of these days," he said.

"Why, I haven't been there since Ash Wednesday. I should like to see some of my acquaintances once again. The next time you and Frau Rupius go, you might just take me with you."

"With pleasure," answered Bertha. "I shall have to go again, of course, before long, to have my costume tried on."

Garlan laughed.

"Yes, and you can take me with you, too, when you try it on."

He sidled up closer to her than was necessary. It was a way he had always to squeeze up against her, and, moreover, she was accustomed to his jokes, but on the present occasion she thought him particularly objectionable. She was very much annoyed that he, of all men, always spoke of Frau Rupius in such a suspicious way.

"Let us sit down," said Herr Garlan; "if you don't mind."

They both sat down on a seat. Garlan took the newspaper from his pocket.

"Ah!" said Bertha involuntarily.

"Will you have it?" asked Garlan.

"Has your wife read it yet?"

"Tut, tut!" said Garlan disdainfully. "Will you have it?"

"If you can spare it."