st him?
Really--pardon me, my dear Effi, for mentioning it now--really it was
you who brought down sorrow upon yourself and your husband."

Effi assented. "Yes, mama, and how sad that it should be so. But when
all the terrible things happened, and finally the scene with
Annie--you know what I mean--I turned the tables on him, mentally, if
I may use the ridiculous comparison, and came to believe seriously
that he was to blame, because he was prosaic and calculating, and
toward the end cruel. Then curses upon him crossed my lips."

"Does that trouble you now?"

"Yes. And I am anxious that he shall know how, during my days of
illness here, which have been almost my happiest, how it has become
clear to my mind that he was right in his every act. In the affair
with poor Crampas--well, after all, what else could he have done? Then
the act by which he wounded me most deeply, the teaching of my own
child to shun me, even in that he was right, hard and painful as it is
for me to admit it. Let him know that I died in this conviction. It
will comfort and console him, and may reconcile him. He has much that
is good in his nature and was as noble as anybody can be who is not
truly in love."

Mrs. von Briest saw that Effi was exhausted and seemed to be either
sleeping or about to go to sleep. She rose quietly from her chair and
went out. Hardly had she gone when Effi also got up, and sat at the
open window to breathe in the cool night air once more. The stars
glittered and not a leaf stirred in the park. But the longer she
listened the more plainly she again heard something like soft rain
falling on the plane trees. A feeling of liberation came over her.
"Rest, rest."

* * * * *

It was a month later and September was drawing to an end. The weather
was beautiful, but the foliage in the park began to show a great deal
of read and yellow and since the equinox, which had brought three
stormy days, the leaves lay scattered in every direction. In the
circular plot a slight change had been made. The sundial was gone and
in the place where it had stood there lay since yesterday a white
marble slab with nothing on it but "Effi Briest" and a cross beneath.
This had been Em's last request. "I should like to have back my old
name on my stone; I brought no honor to the other." This had been
promised her.

The marble slab had arrived and been placed in position yesterday, and
Briest and his wife were sitti