He was wealthy enough to have been able to indulge in the luxury of that displeasure. In addition his estates demanded more rigorous management. … From Christmas to late spring he lived in Berlin, where his older brother occupied one of those positions at court that mean little enough either to superior or inferior ranks, but which, in a certain social set dependent upon the court, have an influence of inestimable value. Without assuming the part of either a social lion or a patron, he used this influence with sufficient thoroughness to be popular, even, in certain cases, to be feared, and belonged to that class of men to whom one always confides one's difficulties, never one's wife.
John came to announce to his master that the bath was ready. And while Niebeldingk stretched himself lazily in the tepid water he let his reflections glide serenely about the delightful occurrence of the past night.
That occurrence had been due for six months, but opportunity had been lacking. "I am closely watched and well-known," she had told him, "and dare not go on secret errands." … Now at last their chance had come and had been used with clever circumspectness. … Somewhere on the Polish boundary lived one of her cousins to whose wedding she was permitted to travel alone. … She had planned to arrive in Berlin unannounced and, instead of taking the morning train from Eydtkuhnen, to take the train of the previous evening. Thus a night was gained whose history had no necessary place in any family chronicle and the memories of which could, if need were, be obliterated from one's own consciousness. … Her arrival and departure had caused a few moments of really needless anxiety. That was all. No acquaintance had run into them, no waiter had intimated any suspicion, the very cabby who drove them through the dawn had preserved his stupid lack of expression when Niebeldingk suddenly sprang from the vehicle and permitted the lady to be driven on alone. …
Before his eyes stood her picture—as he had seen her lying during the night in his arms, fevered with anxiety and rapture … Ordinarily her eyes were large and serene, almost drowsy. … The night had proven to him what a glow could be kindled in them. Whether her broad brows, growing together over the nose, could be regarded as a beautiful feature—that was an open question. He liked them—so much was certain.
"Thank heaven," he thought. "At last, once more—a woman."
And he thought of another who for three years had been allied to him by bonds of the tenderest intimacy and whom he had this night betrayed.
"Between us," he consoled himself, "things will remain as they have been, and I can enjoy my liberty."
He sprayed his body with the icy water of the douche and rang for John who stood outside of the door with a bath-robe.
When, ten minutes later, shivering comfortably, he entered the breakfast-room, he found beside his cup a little heap of letters which the morning post had brought. There were two letters that gripped his attention.
One read:
"Berlin N., Philippstrasse 10 a.
DEAR HERR VON NIEBELDINGK:—
For the past week I have been in Berlin studying agriculture, since, as you know, I am to take charge of the estate. Papa made me promise faithfully to look you up immediately after my arrival. It is merely due to the respect I owe you that I haven't kept my promise. As I know that you won't tell Papa I might as well confess to you that I've scarcely been sober the whole week.—Oh, Berlin is a deuce of a place!
If you don't object I will drop in at noon to-morrow and convey Papa's greetings to you. Papa is again afflicted with the gout.
With warm regards,
Your very faithful
FRITZ VON EHRENBERG."
The other letter was from … her—clear, serene, full of such literary reminiscences as always dwelt in her busy little head.
"DEAR FRIEND:—
I wouldn't ask you: Why do I not see you?—you have not called for five days—I would wait quietly till your steps led you hither without persuasion or compulsion; but 'every animal loves itself' as the old gossip Cicero says, and I feel a desire to chat with you.
I have never believed, to be sure, that we would remain indispensable to each other. 'Racine passera comme le café,' Mme. de Sévigné says somewhere, but I would never have dreamed that we would see so little of each other before the inevitable end of all things.
You know the proverb: even old iron hates to rust, and I'm only twenty-five.
Come once again, dear Master, if you care to. I have an excellent cigarette for you—Blum Pasha. I smoke a little myself now and then, but c'est plus fort que moi and ends in head-ache.
Joko has at last learned to say 'Richard.' He trills the r cunningly. He knows that he has little need to be jealous.
Good-bye!
ALICE."
He laughed and brought forth her picture which stood, framed and glazed, upon his desk. A delicate, slender figure—"blonde comme les blés"—with bluish grey, eager eyes and a mocking expression of the lips—it was she herself, she who had made the last years of his life truly livable and whose fate he administered rather than ruled.
She was the wife of a wealthy mine-owner whose estates abutted on his and with whom an old friendship, founded on common sports, connected him.
One day, suspecting nothing, Niebeldingk entered the man's house and found him dragging his young wife from room to room by the hair. … Niebeldingk interfered and felt, in return, the lash of a whip. … Time and place had been decided upon when the man's physician forbade the duel. … He had been long suspected, but no certain symptoms had been alleged, since the brave little woman revealed nothing of the frightful inwardness of her married life. … Three days later he was definitely sent to a sanitarium. But between Niebeldingk and Alice the memory of that last hour of suffering soon wove a thousand threads of helplessness and pity into the web of love.
As she had long lost her parents and as she was quite defenceless against her husband's hostile guardians, the care of her interests devolved naturally upon him. … He released her from troublesome obligations and directed her demands toward a safe goal. … Then, very tenderly, he lifted her with all the roots of her being from the old, poverty-stricken soil of her earlier years and transplanted her to Berlin where, by the help of his brother's wife—still gently pressing on and smoothing the way himself—he created a new way of life for her.
In a villa, hidden by foliage from Lake Constance, her husband slowly drowsed toward dissolution. She herself ripened in the sharp air of the capital and grew almost into another woman in this banal, disillusioned world, sober even in its intoxication.
Of society, from whose official section her fate as well as her commoner's name separated her, she saw just enough to feel the influence of the essential conceptions that governed it.
She lost diffidence and awkwardness, she became a woman of the world and a connoisseur of life. She learned to condemn one day what she forgave the next, she learned to laugh over nothing and to grieve over nothing and to be indignant over nothing.
But what surprised Niebeldingk more than these small adaptations to the omnipotent spirit of her new environment, was the deep revolution experienced by her innermost being.
She had been a clinging, self-effacing, timid soul. Within three years she became a determined and calculating little person who lacked nothing but a certain fixedness to be a complete character.
A strange coldness of the heart now emanated from her and this was strengthened by precipitate and often