or it than
you."

"All wives are," laughed Innstetten.

"So it is settled. You will accept invitations as heretofore, and I
will stay here and wait for my 'High Lord,' which reminds me of Hulda
under the elder tree. I wonder how she is getting along?"

"Young ladies like Hulda always get along well. But what else were you
going to say?"

"I was going to say, I will stay here, and even alone, if necessary.
But not in this house. Let us move out. There are such handsome houses
along the quay, one between Consul Martens and Consul Gruetzmacher, and
one on the Market, just opposite Gieshuebler. Why can't we live there?
Why here, of all places? When we have had friends and relatives as
guests in our house I have often heard that in Berlin families move
out on account of piano playing, or on account of cockroaches, or on
account of an unfriendly concierge. If it is done on account of such a
trifle--"

"Trifle? Concierge? Don't say that."

"If it is possible because of such things it must also be possible
here, where you are district councillor and the people are obliged to
do your bidding and many even owe you a debt of gratitude. Gieshuebler
would certainly help us, even if only for my sake, for he will
sympathize with me. And now say, Geert, shall we give up this
abominable house, this house with the--"

"Chinaman, you mean. You see, Effi, one can pronounce the fearful word
without his appearing. What you saw or what, as you think, slipped
past your bed, was the little Chinaman that the maids pasted on the
back of the chair upstairs. I'll wager he had a blue coat on and a
very flat-crowned hat, with a shining button on top."

She nodded.

"Now you see, a dream, a hallucination. And then, I presume, Johanna
told you something last night, about the wedding upstairs."

"No."

"So much the better."

"She didn't tell me a word. But from all this I can see that there is
something queer here. And then the crocodile; everything is so uncanny
here."

"The first evening, when you saw the crocodile, you considered it
fairy-like--"

"Yes, then."

"And then, Effi, I can't well leave here now, even if it were possible
to sell the house or make an exchange. It is with this exactly as with
declining an invitation to Varzin. I can't have the people here in the
city saying that District Councillor Innstetten is selling his house
because his wife saw the little pasted-up picture of a Chinaman as a
ghost by her bed. I sh