She wished intensely her husband were not there: the figure of her friend seemed to stand and reproach her for his presence. But what should have driven Eduard away only attracted him more. A certain agitation was noticeable in her. She had been weeping, and if weak and gentle people usually lose some of their charm when they weep, those we usually know as strong and self-controlled gain infinitely. Eduard was so kind, so affectionate, so pressing. He begged her to let him stay with her, he did not demand, he tried seriously and then playfully to persuade her, he forgot he had rights here, he made no mention of them. Finally he put out the candle.

In the lamplit twilight inner inclination at once asserted its rights, imagination at once asserted its rights over reality. Eduard held Ottilie in his arms. The Captain hovered back and forth before the soul of Charlotte. The absent and the present were in a miraculous way entwined, seductively and blissfully, each with the other.

And yet the present will not be robbed of its daemonic right. They passed some of the night in chatter and pleasantry which was all the freer since unhappily the heart had no part in it. But when Eduard awoke beside his wife next morning the day seemed to be looking in upon him with ominous foreboding, the sun seemed to be lighting up a crime; he stole softly away from his wife and when she awoke she found herself, strangely enough, alone.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WHEN the company assembled again for breakfast an observant witness could have learned how each was feeling from how each behaved. The Count and the Baroness were cheerful and relaxed, as two lovers are when after enduring separation they have confirmed their mutual affection. On the other hand, Charlotte and Eduard encountered the Captain and Ottilie as if they were ashamed and contrite. For the nature of love is such that it believes it alone is in the right, that all other rights vanish before the rights of love. Ottilie was happy in the way a child is happy, you could have said she too was in her own fashion relaxed and open. The Captain appeared to be in a serious mood; his conversation with the Count had aroused in him what had for some time been dormant and quiet, and he had come to feel all too clearly that he was not really fulfilling his vocation here and was in effect only wasting his time in semi-active idleness. The two guests departed, and they were hardly gone before other visitors arrived. Charlotte was glad to see them because she wanted to get out of herself and be distracted; Eduard found them inconvenient because all he wanted to do was occupy himself with Ottilie; Ottilie also found them unwelcome because she had not yet finished her copying and it was going to have to be ready by the following morning. When the visitors left later in the day she hurried at once to her room.

The day passed, evening came. Eduard, Charlotte and the Captain walked the visitors to their coach and after they had gone decided not to go straight back to the house but to walk on to the lakes. Eduard had bought a small boat, it had cost quite a lot, and it had now arrived. They wanted to see how easy it was to row and whether it steered well.

The boat was tied up against the bank of the middle lake not far from a group of ancient oak-trees. These trees had already had a role assigned to them in the coming development of the lakes. A landing stage was going to be constructed there and under the oak-trees there was going to be a bench with an awning which would be a point for anyone steering over the newly-constructed great lake to steer towards.

‘Now where would be the best place to put the landing stage on the other side?’ Eduard asked. ‘Beside my plane-trees, I should think.’

‘They are a little too far to the right,’ said the Captain. ‘If you land further down you will be closer to the house. But it needs thinking about.’

The Captain was already standing at the stern of the boat with one of the oars in his hand. Charlotte got into the boat and Eduard also got in and took up the other oar. But as he was about to push off from the bank he thought of Ottilie and how this boating excursion would make him late back, because who knew what time they would get back from it, and he made up his mind at once and jumped back on to the bank, handed the oar to the Captain, and made a hasty excuse and hurried back to the house.

There he was told Ottilie had shut herself in her room and was writing.