Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane Read Free Book Online Page A

nothing; she was searching for words. But before she could find them she heard her father’s voice from the adjoining room, which was in the rear of the main house, and Ritterschaftsrat von Briest, a well-preserved man of pronounced bonhomie in his fifties, stepped over the threshold of the garden-room – with him Baron Innstetten, slim, dark-haired and of military bearing.
    Effi, seeing him, began to tremble nervously; but not for long, because almost at the very moment Innstetten approached her with a friendly bow, the golden red heads of the twins appeared round the Virginia creeper that half-obscured the window, and Hertha, the cheekier of them, called into the room, ‘Come back Effi.’ Then she ducked down and the two sisters jumped off the arm of the bench they had been standing on back down into the garden, and all that could be heard was their subdued giggling and laughter.

3
    On that same day Baron Innstetten had become engaged to Effi Briest. The jovial father of the bride to be, adjusting with difficulty to the solemnity of his role at the engagement dinner which followed, had proposed a toast to the young couple, and this gave Frau von Briest a disturbing sensation about the heart, probably conjuring up times scarcely eighteen years past. But not for long. It couldn’t be her, so now, instead of her, it was her daughter – just as good, all in all, perhaps even better. For life with Briest was quite tolerable, even if he was a shade prosaic and lapsed on occasion into frivolity. Towards the end of the meal – ice-cream was already being passed round – the old Ritterschaftsrat stood up again and proposed that the formal mode of address be dropped within the family. Whereupon he embraced Innstetten and gave him a kiss on the left cheek. But this was not the end of it for he went on to recommend intimate names and titles for use within the family, setting up a sort of scale of familiarity which naturally respected theestablished rights of individual cases. Thus for his wife the continuation of ‘Mamma’ would be best (for there were some young mammas), whereas he himself would resist the honourable title of ‘Papa’, strongly preferring to be simply Briest, which was so nice and short. And as for the children – and at this word, meeting the eye of Innstetten who was barely a dozen years his junior, he had to give himself a jolt – well, Effi would be Effi and Geert Geert. Geert, if he was not mistaken, meant a tall, slender stem, and that made Effi the ivy that would cling to it. The couple looked at one another in some embarrassment at these words, coupled in Effi’s case with an expression of adolescent amusement, but Frau von Briest said, ‘Briest, say what you like and propose what toasts you will, but if you please, spare us your poetic images, that’s outside your province.’ Cautionary words which found more agreement than dissent in Briest. ‘You may be right, Luise.’
    As soon as they rose from table Effi took her leave and went to call at the pastor’s. On the way she told herself, ‘I expect Hulda will be annoyed. I’ve beaten her to it after all – and she has always been vain and conceited.’ But Effi’s expectations were not quite accurate; Hulda kept her composure and behaved very well, leaving it to her mother to voice any misgivings or irritation, and the pastor’s wife did indeed make some very strange remarks. ‘Yes, well, that’s the way of it, of course. If it couldn’t be the mother it will have to be the daughter. We’ve seen it all before. Old families stick together, and to those that have shall be given.’ Old Niemeyer, deeply embarrassed at this stream of pointed, uneducated, ill-mannered remarks, once more had cause to regret having married a housekeeper.
    From the pastor’s Effi naturally went on to schoolmaster Jahnke’s; the twins had been on the look-out for her and met her in the front garden.
    ‘Well Effi,’ said Hertha, as all three walked up