Minna/Book 4, Chapter 4
No sleep came to my eyes during that night.
I heard the clock on the Kreuz church strike one quarter after the other while I tossed to and fro on my bed. Sometimes my thoughts began to ramble in the uncertain way that is so often the harbinger of slumber, but then a wave of fever-heat rolled over me, and I was wide awake again. Dull despair took possession of me, and made everything seem lost, and by-and-bye my tears began to flow.
The more impossible a misfortune seems, the nearer is its realisation as soon as it comes within the range of possibility, for because it has already taken the leap over the widest precipice, one cannot doubt that it will also have the strength to overcome the smaller chasm. Having developed to something from nothing, why should it not be able to become everything? Certainties exist, which to us seem so incontestable that they are almost argued away, when we are brought to dispute about them at all; for together with their indisputability their inmost being seems to disappear.
What can be a more certain possession, more remote from any danger, than a faithful woman's love? I felt that Minna loved me, I knew that hers was, as Stephensen also had said, a faithful nature.
But the dreadful, Nemesis-like thing was, that this fidelity recoiled upon itself: it was her faithfulness towards older feelings that had been aroused to battle against later ones, by which she was tied to me.
How safely I had rested in my happiness! And now a stranger had told me, in so many words, that he hoped to tear it from me. And as far as I was concerned? Had I laughed in his face or turned my back on him as if he were a poor fool? No, I had entered into a quarrel with him, as if my happiness needed defending; still worse, I had absolutely arranged with him how best to act in the future, and in this way I had agreed to the possibility of his gaining the victory, and admitted that I did not already possess this happiness, but had first to win it.
The danger was not only possible but actual; it was upon me, and I groaned under its weight as if possessed by a nightmare.
How safely I had rested in my happiness! And yet it occurred to me now that I had in reality always suspected danger, and that there had always been a shadow hovering over the clear sunshine of this time. I remember how this suspicious letter had awakened me from the intoxicating bliss of the first kiss. I suddenly felt again the unaccountable terror which came upon me in Schandau when I heard her letter fall into the box. On my first lonely visit to the home of her childhood, a feeling of jealousy had overcome me in a manner that now appeared quite ghost-like. Then again, hardly had I enjoyed the bliss of reunion, before it was embittered by Minna's sadness, and by his reproachful letter which had created a foolish jealousy in me, and a less foolish fear; how persistently I had begged her to leave it unanswered, and she had replied, "I must," with her peculiar fatalism that now also seemed to have infected me. And the following day, when she had written and shown me this letter, and we had sat together in the evening on the small hill in "Grosser Garten," and viewed the distant Lilienstein, did not a melancholy shadow creep upon our hearts, as if we looked back towards a lost Paradise?
In this way the hostile fate seemed to be born at the same time as our compact, and threateningly to have approached, till it now—as Beethoven says—"knocked at the door of our existence." And it was sure to get admittance; the strong one does not threaten in vain.
I forgot that the moment when fate knocks at our door, is the time to show that one is capable of receiving it and, if necessary, of throwing it downstairs; otherwise circumstances, confident of our weakness, might easily take to masking under the cloak of fate.
A prey to such miscellaneous reflections, I was gripped at the same time and with equal force by a state of lethargy, and by a purely physical horror which caused me to rise in agony. I had a vision, I should rather say a feeling, of something enormous and unshapely, of greyish hue, that came out of the darkness and slowly and continuously approached. But even these vague expressions give perhaps a wrong idea of my condition, for this nervous impression was really indescribable, yes, even unfathomable; it seemed to emerge from some part of my own nature which lay under the consciousness, and was as incapable of being bounded by our narrowed conceptions and imaginations, as are the enormous creations of prehistoric times to find a place amongst the now living species.
After awhile I shook off this uncomfortable feeling, dressed, and went out.
It was a cold dawn with mist and fine rain. All the cafés were still closed. Giddy and heavy in my head, and with the sinking feeling that follows a too early rising, I had to go without food for over an hour.
At last I found a café that was being aired and cleaned. I sat down in a corner, and the waiter, who had formed his own opinion of my requirements, proposed "a soda water."
"Coffee," I ordered peremptorily.
But the fire was not yet lighted, so I had to wait. I had a real, though not pleasant, sensation of travelling, with remembrances of hotels and the rush to catch early trains. To travel, away from here!… It was just what Minna had wanted yesterday evening. Then I had persuaded her against it,—but now what would not I have given for us to have already started, for her to be sitting with me, and for the cab to be ordered for the early train? Where should we go? Anywhere, only away!
But it was impossible now, even if I had money. Stephensen had, with his frankness, really succeeded in paralysing me; and very likely that had been his intention, though he had not suspected that we had been thinking of going away secretly. It was not so much that my pride prevented me from flying, though the idea that Stephensen, with some reason, might complain of my action, was revolting to me; worse than this was the fear that I should for ever have the feeling of having gained my best treasure in a deceitful manner; and still worse, the possibility that I might even be guilty of injustice towards her. For my part this flight could only have meaning under the supposition that Minna, after grave consideration, would have preferred Stephensen. But what right had I to prevent such a decision, even if I did so with her consent?
And suppose it proved to be a hasty step; suppose that later on she discovered that she had mistaken her feelings, how bitter would not that repentance be which came too late! No, we ought to remain, happen what would. And still there was an inner voice, which continually whispered: "Go away! Surely she will still go."
Then came the programme for the day. The great question was, should I go to her at the first possible moment?
My longing and fear urged me on, but my better judgment said: "Why disturb her at such an early hour? I shall alarm and trouble her, and she requires all her calmness and clearness. Besides, it shows that I myself am out of gear; it makes me appear nervous, perhaps even distrustful! Very likely if I stay away there is a probability of his speaking with her alone; that I cannot, anyhow, prevent, so just as well now as later.… Yes, they must speak together, curse it, I cannot possibly propose for him. Well, either I have to run away with her, or leave off playing Argus."
I decided to go as usual to the Polytechnic, and to put off seeing Minna until after dinner.