He went to his friends ashamed and embarrassed. They also were embarrassed. Each of them had received a similar letter, but they had not dared to tell each other, and all three of them were on their guard and watched each other and dared not move or speak, and they just talked nonsense. If Lili Reinhart’s natural carelessness took the ascendant for a moment, or if she began to laugh and talk wildly, suddenly a look from her husband or Christophe would stop her dead; the letter would cross her mind; she would stop in the middle of a familiar gesture and grow uneasy. Christophe and Reinhart were in the same plight. And each of them was thinking: “Do the others know?”
However, they said nothing to each other and tried to go on as though nothing had happened.
But the anonymous letters went on, growing more and more insulting and dirty. They were plunged into a condition of depression and intolerable shame. They hid themselves when they received the letters, and had not the strength to burn them unopened. They opened them with trembling hands, and as they unfolded the letters their hearts would sink; and when they read what they feared to read, with some new variation on the same theme—the injurious and ignoble inventions of a mind bent on causing a hurt—they wept in silence. They racked their brains to discover who the wretch might be who so persistently persecuted them..
One day Frau Reinhart, at the end of her letter, confessed the persecution of which she was the victim to her husband, and with tears in his eyes he confessed that he was suffering in the same way. Should they mention it to Christophe? They dared not. But they had to warn him to make him be cautious.—At the first words that Frau Reinhart said to him, with a blush, she saw to her horror that Christophe had also received letters. Such utter malignance appalled them. Frau Reinhart had no doubt that the whole town was in the secret. Instead of helping each other, they only undermined each other’s fortitude. They did not know what to do. Christophe talked of breaking somebody’s head. But whose? And besides, that would be to justify the calumny! … Inform the police of the letters?—That would make their insinuations public … —Pretend to ignore them? It was no longer possible. Their friendly relations were now disturbed. It was useless for Reinhart to have absolute faith in the honesty of his wife and Christophe. He suspected them in spite of himself. He felt that his suspicions were shameful and absurd, and tried hard not to pay any heed to them, and to leave Christophe and his wife alone together. But he suffered, and his wife saw that he was suffering.
It was even worse for her. She had never thought of flirting with Christophe, any more than he had thought of it with her. The calumnious letters brought her imperceptibly to the ridiculous idea that after all Christophe was perhaps in love with her; and although he was never anywhere near showing any such feeling for her, she thought she must defend herself, not by referring directly to it, but by clumsy precautions, which Christophe did not understand at first, though, when he did understand, he was beside himself. It was so stupid that it made him laugh and cry at the same time! He in love with the honest little woman, kind enough as she was, but plain and common! … And to think that she should believe it! … And that he could not deny it, and tell her and her husband:
“Come! There is no danger! Be calm! …” But no; he could not offend these good people. And besides, he was beginning to think that if she held out against being loved by him it was because she was secretly on the point of loving him. The anonymous letters had had the fine result of having given him so foolish and fantastic an idea.
The situation had become at once so painful and so silly that it was impossible for this to go on. Besides, Lili Reinhart, who, in spite of her brave words, had no strength of character, lost her head in the face of the dumb hostility of the little town. They made shamefaced excuses for not meeting:
“Frau Reinhart was unwell. … Reinhart was busy. … They were going away for a few days. …”
Clumsy lies which were always unmasked by chance, which seemed to take a malicious pleasure in doing so.
Christophe was more frank, and said:
“Let us part, my friends. We are not strong enough.”
The Reinharts wept.—But they were happier when the breach was made.
The town had its triumph. This time Christophe was quite alone. It had robbed him of his last breath of air:—the affection, however humble, without which no heart can live.
III
Deliverance
He had no one. All his friends had disappeared. His dear Gottfried, who had come to his aid in times of difficulty, and whom now he so sorely needed, had gone some months before. This time forever. One evening in the summer of the last year a letter in large handwriting, bearing the address of a distant village, had informed Louisa that her brother had died upon one of his vagabond journeys which the little peddler had insisted on making, in spite of his ill health. He was buried there in the cemetery of the place. The last manly and serene friendship which could have supported Christophe had been swallowed up. He was left alone with his old mother, who cared nothing for
