e was right. 'Oh,
certainly if I am allowed to!' You don't _have_ to be allowed to. I
don't want you any more, I hate you both, even my own child. Too much
is too much. He was ambitious, but nothing more. Honor, honor, honor.
And then he shot the poor fellow whom I never even loved and whom I
had forgotten, because I didn't love him. It was all stupidity in the
first place, but then came blood and murder, with me to blame. And now
he sends me the child, because he cannot refuse a minister's wife
anything, and before he sends the child he trains it like a parrot and
teaches it the phrase, 'if I am allowed to.' I am disgusted at what I
did; but the thing that disgusts me most is your virtue. Away with
you! I must live, but I doubt if it will be long."

When Roswitha came back Effi lay on the floor seemingly lifeless, with
her face turned away.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Rummschuettel was called and pronounced Effi's condition serious. He
saw that the hectic flush he had noticed for over a year was more
pronounced than ever, and, what was worse, she showed the first
symptoms of nervous fever. But his quiet, friendly manner, to which he
added a dash of humor, did Effi good, and she was calm so long as
Rummschuettel was with her. When he left, Roswitha accompanied him as
far as the outer hall and said: "My, how I am scared, Sir Councillor;
if it ever comes back, and it may--oh, I shall never have another
quiet hour. But it was too, too much, the way the child acted. Her
poor Ladyship! And still so young; at her age many are only beginning
life."

"Don't worry, Roswitha. It may all come right again. But she must get
away. We will see to that. Different air, different people."

Two days later there arrived in Hohen-Cremmen a letter which ran:
"Most gracious Lady: My long-standing friendly relations to the houses
of Briest and Belling, and above all the hearty love I cherish for
your daughter, will justify these lines. Things cannot go on any
longer as they are. Unless something is done to rescue your daughter
from the loneliness and sorrow of the life she has been leading for
years she will soon pine away. She always had a tendency to
consumption, for which reason I sent her to Ems years ago. This old
trouble is now aggravated by a new one; her nerves are giving out.
Nothing but a change of air can check this. But whither shall I send
her? It would not be hard to make a proper choice among the watering
places of Silesia. S