It really was from her! I tore open the envelope and pulled out several closely-written pages of note-paper, from which fell a smaller letter—the one to Mr. Stephensen—in an open envelope. This confidence astonished me, but seemed to be a good omen; naturally I did not at first stay to examine it more closely.
Her letter, which, woman-like, was undated, read as follows:—
"Dear Mr. Fenger,—I wonder what you really think of me, though, I am sure, that you positively do not know what to think. I quite understood that the reason why you did not post my letter was not because it was wet, but because you wished to ask me 'What does it mean?' Such an explanation I think you have a right to demand or, at all events, to expect. Even without this incident I should have taken the first suitable opportunity to let you know, at any rate, most of the contents of this letter. I have been in doubt whether it would not be better to speak to you—there are plenty of lonely walks and the children could always be with us—but, after all, I thought writing would be best, for really I am going to make a sort of confession. When it is over, you will not think so well of me as you do now. But just for that reason it is a necessity to me that you should come to know me, however sad it may be to destroy pleasant illusions.
"It was a lucky coincidence that I had given you a rather detailed account of my home and my bringing up. Not altogether a coincidence, however, as I had previously decided to let you know what I had experienced, and my former confidences had to be the introduction. I therefore ask you to call to mind as much as you can remember; the main points will, I suppose, have given you a distinct impression, even if my description was rather confused, and without it you might judge me much more harshly than I perhaps deserve.
"But let me begin. Ah! I wish you were sitting opposite to me, it is so difficult to write about it.
"I do not know if I told you that my mother had six sisters. They were daughters of a wealthy inn-keeper, whose hostel was chiefly patronised by country people. They all had to take their part in the household duties, and consequently did not get much education. Of family life there was hardly any, as the mother was occupied in the housekeeping, and the father in the business. He sometimes flogged his daughters with the stick, it was nearly their whole education, and it did not bear good fruit. (I am thankful I am writing now.) Five of them had children before they were married, my mother and her younger sister alone being of the opinion that everything was permitted so long as one did not commit that error.
"By such a mother I was brought up, and I clung to her with a great love; for while only a little child I was made her confidante and shared her sorrows, while father never spoke to me. When quite a little girl, I heard her tell her love stories, and I grew up with the idea that one rose in the eyes of other people in proportion to the number of admirers one had.
"Shortly after my confirmation, I renewed acquaintance with a former school-friend, who was some years older than I. Our gardens joined and she often called me over to her. I soon remarked that, when we walked out, Emily sent many covert glances towards the house in the neighbouring garden, and she soon confided in me that 'her darling' lived there, but I was not to tell her mother. One day two young men looked out of the window, the 'darling' and a friend of his, and I could hardly believe my eyes when the friend nodded to me. I told it all to mother, who was very much amused. How it happened I don't remember now, but a meeting was arranged to which my mother accompanied me, and I can still distinctly call to mind the mingled feelings of disgust and pride which filled my mind as I walked with this stranger. After this he came to see us; I was then not more than fourteen years old. He sat beside me and also kissed me, and we took walks together. Oh, dear friend, it was dreadful! Imagine, I believed that this was quite correct, and yet this individual was so unsympathetic to me. He went away, and we wrote occasionally to each other—God knows what about! I always lived with a vague feeling that things were not as they ought to be, especially as this introduction was deceitfully hidden from my father.
"It must have been shortly after this that a young musician came to live with us. I had to wait on him as I did on the other lodgers. He was more intimate with us than any of the others had been, and, unfortunately, I grew very fond of him, but quite—I must now ask you, dear Mr. Fenger, to give me your absolute trust—in an innocent way. When, through the door, I could hear that he was preparing to go out, I quickly put on my hat and jacket, pretending I had a commission to do for my mother, but really with the hope that I could walk down the street with him. One day a picnic was arranged by my cousins, and I asked if the musician could be of the party, but as the others objected to a stranger, I stayed at home. He then invited me to go alone with him to Loschwitz, which my mother did not object to, and, as usual, an untruth was told to my father.
"After this we one evening played a game of forfeits, and he was deputed to kiss me, which I distinctly refused to allow. He went into his room, and my mother, by some ruse or another, sent me to him. He repeatedly asked me for the kiss, and got it, and from that day I really loved him so much that, according to my fifteen-year-old ideas, I thought that I could never love another so well. The previous intimacy now began to worry me dreadfully, but I did not see any way out of it. However, the correspondence soon came to an end.
"The young musician asked my mother for my hand, but she told him I was far too young to think of a serious engagement. Soon afterwards I heard that he was on the point of being engaged to some one else—which report, however, turned out eventually to be untrue—and my despair was beyond everything. Anyhow he left us, and, a fortnight later, Mr. Stephensen took the room. The day the musician departed, I knelt on the floor and tore off some dead twigs of a garland which he had won at a shooting competition, and kept it as a souvenir.
"Mr. Stephensen then came. Later on he assured me that he had only engaged the lodging for my sake, as in reality he did not care for it. He was thus already attracted by me, and, as he afterwards told me, looked upon me as a superior and unapproachable being. For the sake of both these men's honour, I must remark that they were never unduly familiar towards me. Therefore I could afterwards understand the passion of Mignon, which is also so perfectly innocent.
"When Mr. Stephensen had lived with us a fortnight, the musician came one evening to say good-bye. I went with him to the door. There he asked me to kiss him at parting, which I did, Stephensen"—(a commenced "Axel" was here crossed out)—"in his jealousy, listening at the door. Since then he has told me that from that minute he looked upon me as in no way different to others, and began to want me to be his according to his own 'views.'
"Oh, dear friend, it was hard to learn that in a moment, when I was so little conscious of doing anything wrong, I had lost a man's respect and love, and in his eyes lowered myself to the level of a worthless woman. Never shall I forget the feelings which overwhelmed me when I came to realise how low I had fallen in the eyes of one who, though he had known me so little, thought so highly of me, and whom I afterwards came to love! Thousands of times I cried bitter, despairing tears. My only consolation was that I knew myself to be innocent. Often, when I have pondered over it, it has appeared to me that when a man has formed so pure and beautiful an impression, which after all must be intuitive, he ought not, through an accidental circumstance, to change his opinion so that it becomes entirely different, but should wait until he is calm again and is able to judge dispassionately. I think that a real lover ought not to have thrust me away, but have made allowances for a childish indiscretion, considering that, after all, my faults were those of my bringing up and surroundings, and that he would be able to shield me from harm and raise me to the ideal he had formed. But perhaps this was too much to expect, and very likely it is only ignorance of feelings which makes me reason thus. Maybe that in reading this you will understand Mr. Stephensen better than you do me, and feel that in his place you would have reasoned in the same way.
"It was this recollection which so strongly overcame me after I had allowed you to kiss me. If you had known whom you had kissed, and that it was far from—oh, so far, from being my first kiss! And did not even this kiss prove that he had been right in considering me flighty? Perhaps you also had discovered it, and therefore took advantage of the knowledge. But no, I could not think that of you after our innocent intercourse. Such a kiss would not have been in accordance with it; perhaps it was a childish, thoughtless, or playful kiss, but certainly it was not one of love's Judas kisses. However, I understood neither you nor myself, and I was afraid for both of us. When I came home, I cried as if my heart would break, without really knowing why I was crying.
"But I must return to the old days. Mr. Stephensen spoke much to me about what I have told you, pointing out how wrong it all was, and correcting the objectionable views in which my mother had brought me up, and gradually he opened my eyes to many things to which I had previously been blind. He also discussed his art with me, and found that I had a good deal of natural taste for it (the painter Jagemann from the Weimar-period, a friend of Schiller, about whom perhaps you have read, was one of my ancestors, and my father had, as a young man, painted a little himself). I often went with Mr. Stephensen round our glorious gallery, where he was copying two pictures. During this time he grew more and more demonstrative, to which I strongly objected, and I only put up with it because I was so fond of him. Besides, I had the hope that he would marry me, but he always tried to talk me out of it. He had no means; and his art, he said, would suffer under domestic troubles, and when I promised to be so good a housewife that it would not cost him more than when he was single, he replied that such a tie was not good for an artist, who had to travel about and give himself up completely to his work and ideas. He kept on trying to convince me that the suggestion of a closer bond was mere Philistinism and selfishness on my part, and that free intercourse between man and woman, under such circumstances, was a quite worthy, nay, even, ideal relation. I have never been able to agree with this, and while he, with good reason, had begun to find my moral education very unsatisfactory, I ended by finding his own morals rather loose—perhaps it was prejudice on my part, but, anyhow, I could not adopt his views. So much I know, that it was not calculation or worldly wisdom in me, but an unconquerable feeling, accompanied by the painful knowledge that his love for me was far from being so tender as mine for him; of course he also had his art, while I only had my love.
"When his time in Dresden was over, we parted with the understanding that we should remain good friends and write to one another. I was to try and marry well and be sure to tell him all my experiences, so that I might not again take a false step.
"This was my position. Can you imagine how very lonely I was? For my mother I felt an aversion. The dearest in this world, the only one with whom I could converse, had left me, and I had not even the right to long for him. I tried to take up my piano-playing again, but every beautiful melody made me so indescribably sad that I had to give it up.
"It was at this time that my father died (about which I think I told you) and I came to know Mr. and Mrs. Hertz, with whom I found an atmosphere as totally different from the one in my home as—on the other hand—rom the artistic one which I came to know through your countryman; and this helped, more than I can say, to bring me peace. But I can never forget that it was Mr. Stephensen who by his sympathy and interest for me, first of all awoke my feeling of pride and prevented me from being ruined by the unhealthy atmosphere which surely bid fair to destroy me.
"With regard to our correspondence, it has continued ever since, with longer or shorter intervals, for a year and a half. He has always answered my letters rather quickly and asked me to write again soon; sometimes he has sent a leaf of his sketch-book, and last Christmas a beautiful painting. In order to make you understand this kind of correspondence, I beg you to read the enclosed letter, which has already been through your hands. Not that I think you have any suspicion from which I could, by this means, clear myself; but you will not misunderstand my fancy, even if you do not understand it. Perhaps I do not understand it myself, but only feel that I want you to know it; it even seems to me as if the circumstances have given you a sort of right to do so, and as if by simply tearing the letter up I should deprive you of it. Send it off I will not, for, as you will see by the date, it will soon be a fortnight old; I was sure that I had posted it, and rather expected the case to be reversed, and that the post would bring me a letter from him.
"And now, good-bye! I have been writing half the night and am dreadfully tired. My hope is that you will not judge me too harshly after this communication, but, anyhow, you must tell me quite candidly what impression this letter has made on you, and not out of kindness be too lenient. Unless this confidence is frankly answered, how shall I benefit by it? That I value your judgment you know beforehand, and you will also see it by my letter to Mr. Stephensen.—Your friend,
Confused though I was by the many conflicting emotions caused by the reading of this letter, I did not at first try to come to any clear comprehension of it, but at once opened the letter with which two days before I had been tempted to tamper. I did not doubt that it would contain observations about myself.
I quickly ran through the opening sentences, with the usual excuses for not having written for so long, and the remarks about the weather and the country. A little more attention was bestowed upon a short, not very complimentary, description of the honourable family with whom she was living, and I noticed that she did not try to play the novelist, a part which young letter-writing ladies—especially in the governess line—are apt to indulge in on such occasions. After this I read with a palpitating heart the following lines—
"I have made acquaintance with a young student by the name of Fenger, a countryman of yours. It was, as you will understand, this fact which first recommended him to me, and made us more quickly acquainted than is usually the case. I very often meet him at the Hertzes. He is not exactly handsome, but has one of those frank fair faces which please one, especially when he smiles. He is very tall, but stoops a little, and sometimes it seems to me that his chest is not very strong. I should be very grieved if such was the case. He shows me so much attention that I cannot hide from myself that he appreciates me. Time will show, however, if this is anything more than a fleeting summer-holiday fancy. He is still very young, his age is only twenty-four, but really he seems much younger, as if he was still untouched by life. With regard to myself, I hardly know what position I should take in case things took a serious turn, and I cannot make myself reflect over this and take up a position accordingly; such a course being against my nature. Of course, when one can be accused of having 'encouraged' a young man—I think that is the expression—or even of having 'flirted' with him, which often only means having been gay, natural, and having given way to moods, and then when it comes to the point drawing back, which means not being willing to follow him to the ends of the earth; well, then, of course, one is a horror, or, at any rate, a rather contemptible person. For my part, I think it would be extremely foolish and stupid if two people dare not so much as look at each other because their acquaintance might culminate in love, which, after all, is not bound to be unhappy. Then again, mere friendship can exist between man and woman, and the greatest possible advantages may result from such companionship. No, if I started such calculating considerations I should always feel both conceited and foolish. In short, I very much like this Mr. Fenger, and to talk with him is both pleasant and in many ways instructive. But perhaps you now think that I am, if not actually taking a false step, nevertheless upon a dangerous path?"
After this followed the finishing remarks, and the signature, "Your friend."