“Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do.  Furthermore I think she has improved in many ways.  Her character is what it is, but the conditions since she moved to Berlin are much more favorable and they are becoming more and more devoted to each other.  She told me something to that effect and, what is more convincing to me, I found it confirmed by what I saw with my own eyes.”

“Well, what did she say?”

“She said:  ’Mama, things are going better now.  Innstetten was always an excellent husband, and there are not many like him, but I couldn’t approach him easily, there was something distant about him.  He was reserved even in his affectionate moments, in fact, more reserved then than ever.  There have been times when I feared him.’”

“I know, I know.”

“What do you mean, Briest?  That I have feared you, or that you have feared me?  I consider the one as ridiculous as the other.”

“You were going to tell me about Effi.”

“Well, then, she confessed to me that this feeling of strangeness had left her and that had made her very happy.  Kessin had not been the right place for her, the haunted house and the people there, some too pious, others too dull; but since she had moved to Berlin she felt entirely in her place.  He was the best man in the world, somewhat too old for her and too good for her, but she was now ‘over the mountain.’  She used this expression, which, I admit, astonished me.”

“How so?  It is not quite up to par, I mean the expression.  But—­”

“There is something behind it, and she wanted to give me an inkling.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, Briest.  You always seem to think she could never be anything but innocent.  But you are mistaken.  She likes to drift with the waves, and if the wave is good she is good, too.  Fighting and resisting are not her affair.”

Roswitha came in with Annie and interrupted the conversation.

This conversation occurred on the day that Innstetten departed from Hohen-Cremmen for Berlin, leaving Effi behind for at least a week.  He knew she liked nothing better than whiling away her time, care-free, with sweet dreams, always hearing friendly words and assurances of her loveliness.  Indeed that was the thing which pleased her above everything else, and here she enjoyed it again to the full and most gratefully, even though diversions were utterly lacking.  Visitors seldom came, because after her marriage there was no real attraction, at least for the young people. * * *

On her wedding anniversary, the 3d of October, Effi was to be back in Berlin.  On the evening before, under the pretext of desiring to pack her things and prepare for the journey, she retired to her room comparatively early.  As a matter of fact, her only desire was to be alone.  Much as she liked to chat, there were times when she longed for repose.