Part 95

Agatha called on her nephew a second, a third, a fourth time. Even though Eberhard’s Arctic impenetrability seemed made for all time, though yielding seemed to be no part of his nature, she finally succeeded in jolting him loose from his bearings. And when Sylvia accompanied her mother—Sylvia generally won her point with her mother—he shook off his armour with unexpected suddenness; you could see the struggles that were going on in his soul.

Falteringly, and in the affected and finical tone he not infrequently adopted, he told the story of his youth, commenting on the everlasting discord between his father and his mother and the disagreeable quarrels that used to take place at home. He said that just as soon as his mother would ask that something be done, his father would demand the opposite. The children soon saw that father was going his way and mother hers; they were not unaware of the fact that their parents cordially distrusted each other and even went so far as to lay traps for each other. He insisted that his mother, with all her amiability and gentleness, was obsessed with the idea of teasing, annoying, and wounding his father on that very point where she had already and so often teased, annoyed, and wounded him before; and that this lack of reason and consideration on her part, coupled with the absence of kindness and candour on his, had made the paternal home a hell, torn at the hearts of the growing children, and in time so hardened them that they suspected every friendly face they saw, and withdrew, as if so from something vile, from every hand that was reached out to them. He related further that in this loveless wilderness brother and sister had been drawn to each other, that in Emilia’s heart, and his own as well, this mutual friendship was cherished as a sacred, inviolable possession, so sacred that it impelled them in time to establish a league against all the rest of the world. How did they conduct themselves once this league had been founded? If they read a book it was in common; they kept no secrets from each other, advised each other, and shared their happiness and sorrow equally, until one fine day Emilia’s father appeared before her, and informed her that Count Urlich had asked for her hand and that he had promised that he should have it.

At this point in the story, Eberhard became silent; he bit his lips; his ashen face, that had never before reminded Agatha so much of the old Baron, betrayed an incurable grief.

Agatha was familiar with this incident, in rough outline; but as Eberhard related it, it stirred her soul to the very depths. “One must try to forget,” she said.

“Forget? No, that I cannot do; never have been able to do. Be it a matter of virtue or of vice, I cannot forget. Emilia, then still half child and only half woman, was made flexible in time. But that my mother did not do everything in her power to prevent this gruesome deed, and that it caused her to sink deeper and deeper into the coils of domestic anguish by reason of her innate and gnawing weakness—that was the bitterest experience of my entire life.”

“But she is your mother, Eberhard. Never in the history of the human family has a son had the right to condemn his mother.”

“That is news to me,” replied Eberhard coldly. “Mothers are human beings like any one else. Even mothers can commit a sin by filling their children with the poison of distrust and disgust with life. Father and mother, parents: they are a symbol, a glorious one when they hover above us and around us, worthy of respect and calling for filial veneration. But if I am bound to them only by the ties of duty, they are not symbols; they are mere phantoms, conceptions of human speech. There is no duty but the duty of love.”

Sylvia had sat in perfect silence. Unconsciously she had followed the most beautiful law of harmonious souls: to wield an influence, to have power, not through the use of words and the elaboration of reasons, but by a pure life, an unquestioned existence. Agreement and disagreement lay like a play of light and shadow on her brow.

In this way she reminded Eberhard more and more of Eleanore.

Perhaps it was the power of this memory that moved him to promise that he would go with Agatha on the following day to his mother. The sole condition he imposed was that he be assured that he would not meet his father.

Seeing that he was relentless in this request, Frau von Erfft conceded it, though she had a reassuring premonition that the events and the hour would be stronger than will and purpose.

On entering his mother’s boudoir, Eberhard’s eyes fell at once on the alabaster clock, the face of which was supported by three figures representing the daughters of time. In his childhood days the clock had always had a highly poetic meaning to him: it seemed to symbolise the fulfilment of his most ardent wishes.

The Baroness had been prepared for his coming by her sister. While Eberhard and Sylvia had been standing in the corner room waiting, a few of the servants had gathered at the door, where they whispered to each other timidly.

Eberhard went up to his mother and kissed her hand. The Baroness’s face was the colour of lead; her eyes were opened as wide as possible, and yet she seemed hardly conscious. Emilia stood at one side; her hands were pressed to her bosom, her fingers were twitching convulsively.

Frau Agatha endeavoured to relieve the situation of its solemnity and unnaturalness by making a few humorous remarks about Eberhard’s hiding place on the hill by the Castle. Baroness Clotilda looked at her son in anxious and uneasy suspense: “I scarcely recognise him,” she said with a hoarse voice, “he has changed so.”

“You have changed, too, Mother,” said Eberhard, as his chin sought refuge between the lapels of his coat. He was as stiff as a poker. Agatha looked at him full of vexation and annoyance. He acted as though he were being bored by the meeting.

But it was only a mask. As he looked at the old, indistinct, tired, bullied face, he became conscious of his mistake: he felt that he was wrong in saying that “Mothers are also human beings.” He saw at once that amends had to be made, that action was necessary; he felt that his next step would lead to inevitable self-contempt if he neglected the moral deed of repentance.

As he struggled with himself and stared, as if paralysed, into the rebellion of his own soul, a certain pair of eyes had forced their way behind the seeming apathy. A sudden blush came to Sylvia’s cheeks: she went up to her cousin, and took him by the hand. He quivered; he saw at once that she had divined what was going on in his soul, and now she was determined to bring his fight to a close, a final, definite close. She took him out of the room; he followed her; she led him through the dining room, the reception room, the smoking room, the library, and on to his father’s room. Agatha, Emilia, and the Baroness looked at each other in amazement. They went to the door of the room, and listened in breathless suspense.

Sylvia opened the door rather boldly. The old Baron was sitting on the leather chair before the stove. His legs were wrapped in a blanket; the expression on his face was of stony coldness.

Hardly had he noticed the two when he sprang to his feet as if the lightning had struck close by him. He shook; he faltered; he groped about for a physical support; and from his throat there came a stifled gurgle. That was all.

Eberhard walked over to him, and reached out his hand.

For a moment it seemed as if the old man would collapse. A last flash of hatred and revenge shot from his blue eyes; then he too reached out his hand. His arm trembled; thick knots of quivering muscles formed on his cheeks. Sylvia had gently closed the door and vanished.

Anxious minutes passed by and nothing happened, except that each held the hand of the other and each looked into the eyes of the other. The silence was broken only by the crackling of the fire in the stove.

“Just at the right time,” murmured the old Baron, without looking up and as if lost in meditation, “just at the right time.”

Eberhard made no reply. He stood as still, as motionless, as silent, and with his heels as close together as if he were a young officer facing his superior in command.

After a while he wheeled about and slowly left the room.

Sylvia was waiting in the library. In the twilight it was possible to see only the vague outline of her body.

Eberhard took hold of her and whispered: “I really believe that I no longer have a father.”