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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:53 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:53 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14187-0.txt b/14187-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f97123c --- /dev/null +++ b/14187-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4226 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14187 *** + +_THE DANGEROUS AGE_ + + + + +_LETTERS AND FRAGMENTS FROM A WOMAN'S DIARY_ + +_TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF KARIN MICHAËLIS_ + +_NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXI_ + + + + +TO + +MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW + +BARON YOOST DAHLERUP + + + + +_INTRODUCTION TO THE FRENCH EDITION By MARCEL PRÉVOST_ + + +Here is a strange book. A novel from the North, its solid structure, its +clear, unadorned form are purely Latin. A woman's novel, in its integral +and violent sincerity it can only be compared to certain famous +masculine confessions. + +The author, Karin Michaëlis, a Dane, is not at all known in France. _The +Dangerous Age_ is not her first book; but it is, I feel sure, the first +that has been translated into French. Naturally enough the +Danish-Scandinavian literature is transmitted in the first instance +through newspapers and reviews, and through German publishers. This is +the result of local proximity and the affinity of language. Several +novels by Karin Michaëlis were known to the German public before _The +Dangerous Age_; but none of them had awakened the same keen curiosity, +provoked such discussion, or won such success as this book. In all the +countries of Central Europe the most widely read novel at the present +moment is _The Dangerous Age_. Edition succeeds edition, and the fortune +of the book has been increased by the quarrels it has provoked; for it +has been much discussed and criticised, not on account of its literary +value, which is incontestable, but because of the idea which animates +it. + +Shall I confess that it was just this great success, and the polemical +renown of the novel, that roused my suspicions when first I chanced to +see the German version of it? Contrary to the reputation which our +neighbours on the other side of the Vosges like to foist upon us, French +literature, at the present day, is far less noisily scandalous than +their own. It is only necessary to glance over the advertisements which +certain German publishing firms issue at the end of their publications +in order to be convinced of this. It is amusing to find every kind of +"puff" couched in the exaggerated style which the modern German affects. + +It was with some bias and suspicion, therefore, that I took up _Das +gefährliche Alter_. When I started to read the book, nothing could have +been further from my mind than to write, a French version and to present +it myself to the public. This is all the more reason why justice should +be done to Karin Michaëlis. I have read no other book of hers except +_The Dangerous Age_; but in this novel she has in no way exceeded what a +sincere and serious observer has a right to publish. Undoubtedly her +book is not intended for young girls, for what the English call +"bread-and-butter misses." But nobody is compelled to write exclusively +for schoolgirls, and it has yet to be proved that there is any necessity +to feed them on fiction as well as on bread and butter. + +_The Dangerous Age_ deals with a bold subject; it is a novel filled with +the "strong meat" of human nature; a novel which speaks in accents at +once painful and ironical, and ends in despair; but it is also a book to +which the most scrupulous author on the question of "the right to speak +out" need not hesitate to attach his name. + +It is difficult for one who knows no Danish, to judge of its literary +value; and that is my case. In the German version--and I hope also in +the French--the reader will not fail to discern some of the novelist's +finest gifts. In the first instance, there is that firmness and solidity +of structure which is particularly difficult to keep up when a book +takes the form of a journal, of jottings and meditations, as does _The +Dangerous Age_. Then there are the depth of reflection, the ingenuity of +the arguments, the muscular brevity of style, the expression being +closely modelled upon the thought; nothing is vague, but nothing is +superfluous. We must not seek in this volume for picturesque landscape +painting, for the lyrical note, for the complacently woven "purple +patch." The book is rigorously deprived of all these things; and, having +regard to its subject, this is not its least merit. + + * * * * * + +When a woman entitles a book _The Dangerous Age_ we may feel sure she +does not intend to write of the dangers of early youth. The dangerous +age described by Karin Michaëlis is precisely that time of life which +inspired Octave Feuillet to write the novel, half-dialogue, +half-journal, which appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in 1848, was +adapted for the stage, played at the _Gymnase_ in 1854, and reproduced +later with some success at the Comédie-Française--I mean the work +entitled _La Crise_. + +It is curious to compare the two books, partly on account of the long +space of time which separates them, and partly because of the different +way in which the two writers treat the same theme. + +Octave Feuillet, be it remembered, only wrote what might be spoken aloud +in the most conventional society. Nevertheless those who think the +author of _Monsieur de Cantors_ timid and insipid are only short-sighted +critics. I advise my readers when they have finished the last page of +_The Dangerous Age_ to re-read _La Crise_. They will observe many points +of resemblance, notably in the "journal" portion of the latter. +Juliette, Feuillet's heroine, thus expresses herself: + +"What name can I give to this moral discomfort, this distaste for my +former habits, this aimless restlessness and discontent with myself and +others, of which I have been conscious during the last few months?... I +have taken it into my head to hate the trinkets on my husband's +watchchain. We lived together in peace for ten years, those trinkets and +I ... Now, I don't know why, we have suddenly fallen out...." + +These words from _La Crise_ contain the argument of _The Dangerous Age_. + +And yet I will wager that Karin Michaëlis never read _La Crise_. Had she +read it, however, her book would still have remained all her own, by +reason of her individual treatment of a subject that is also a dangerous +one. We have made considerable advances since 1848. Even in Denmark +physiology now plays a large part in literature. Feuillet did not +venture to do more than to make his Juliet experience temptation from a +medical lover, who is a contrast to her magistrate husband. Although +doctors come off rather badly in _The Dangerous Age_, the book owes much +to them and to medical science. Much; perhaps too much. If this woman's +work had been imagined and created by a man, no doubt he would have been +accused of having lost sight of women's repugnance to speak or write of +their physical inferiority, or even to dwell upon it in thought. Yet the +name Karin Michaëlis is no pseudonym; the writer really is of the same +sex as her heroine Elsie Lindtner. + +Is not this an added reason for the curiosity which this book awakens? +The most sincere and complete, the humblest and most moving of feminine +confessions proceeds from one of those Northern women, whom we Latin +races are pleased to imagine as types of immaterial candour, sovereign +"intellectuality," and glacial temperament--souls in harmony with their +natural surroundings, the rigid pine forests and snow-draped heathlands +of Scandinavia. + +A Scandinavian woman! Immediately the words evoke the chaste vision sung +by Leconte de Lisle, in his poem "l'Epiphanie": + + Elle passe, tranquille, en un rêve divin, + Sur le bord du plus frais de tes lacs, ô Norvège! + Le sang rose et subtil qui dore son col fin + Est doux comme un rayon de l'aube sur la neige. + + Quand un souffle furtif glisse en ses cheveux blonds, + Une cendre ineffable inonde son épaule, + Et, de leur transparence argentant leurs cils longs, + Ses yeux out la couleur des belle nuits du pôle. + + Et le gardien pensif du mystique oranger + Des balcons de l'Aurore eternelle se penche, + Et regarde passer ce fantôme léger + Dans les plis de sa robe immortellement blanche. + +"Immortellement blanche!" Very white indeed!... Read the intimate +journal of Elsie Lindtner, written precisely by the side of one of these +fresh Northern lakes. Possibly at eighteen Elsie Lindtner may have +played at "Epiphanies" and filled "the pensive guardian of the mystic +orange tree" with admiration. But it is at forty-two that she begins to +edit her private diary, and her eyes that "match the hue of polar +nights" have seen a good deal in the course of those twenty years. And +if in the eyes of the law she has remained strictly faithful to her +marriage vows, she has judged herself in the secret depths of her heart. +She has also judged other women, her friends and confidants. The moment +of "the crisis" arrives, and, taking refuge in "a savage solitude," in +which even the sight of a male servant is hateful to her, she sets down +with disconcerting lucidity all she has observed in other women, and in +herself. These other women are also of the North: Lillie Rothe, Agatha +Ussing, Astrid Bagge, Margarethe Ernst, Magna Wellmann.... Her memory +invokes them all, and they reappear. We seem to take part in a strange, +painful revel; a witches' revel of ardent yet withered sorceresses; a +revel in which the modern demons of Neurasthenia and Hysteria sport and +sneer. + + * * * * * + +Let us not be mistaken, however. Elsie Lindtner's confession is not +merely to be weighed by its fierce physiological sincerity; it is the +feminine soul, and the feminine soul of all time, that is revealed in +this extraordinary document. I think nothing less would give out such a +pungent odour of truth. _The Dangerous Age_ contains pages dealing with +women's smiles and tears, with their love of dress and desire to please, +and with the social relations between themselves and the male sex, which +will certainly irritate some feminine readers. Let them try to unravel +the real cause of their annoyance: perhaps they will perceive that they +are actually vexed because a woman has betrayed the freemasonry that +exists among their own sex. We must add that we are dealing here with +another nation, and every Frenchwoman may, if she choose, decline to +recognise herself among these portraits from Northern Europe. + +A sure diagnosis of the vital conditions under which woman exists, and +an acute observation of her complicated soul--these two things alone +would suffice, would they not, to recommend the novel in which they were +to be found? But _The Dangerous Age_ possesses another quality which, at +first sight, seems to have no connection with the foregoing: it is by no +means lacking in emotion. Notwithstanding that she has the eye of the +doctor and the psychologist, Elsie Lindtner, the heroine, has also the +nerves and sensibility of a woman. Her daring powers of analysis do not +save her from moments of mysterious terror, such as came over her, for +no particular reason, on a foggy evening; nor yet from the sense of +being utterly happy--equally without reason--on a certain autumn night; +nor from feeling an intense sensuous pleasure in letting the little +pebbles on the beach slide between her fingers. In a word, all the +harshness of her judgments and reflections do not save her from the +dreadful distress of growing old.... + +In vain she withdraws from the society of her fellow-creatures, in the +hope that old age will no longer have terrors for her when there is no +one at hand to watch her physical decay; the redoubtable phantom still +haunts her in her retreat; watches her, brushes past her, and mocks her +sincere effort to abandon all coquetry and cease "to count as a woman." +At the same time a cruel melancholia possesses her; she feels she has +become old without having profited by her youth. Not that she descends +to the coarse and libertine regrets of "grand'mère" in Béranger's song, +"Ah! que je regrette!" Elsie Lindtner declares more than once that if +she had to start life over again she would be just as irreproachable. +But the nearer she gets to the crisis, the more painfully and lucidly +she perceives the antinomy between two feminine desires: the desire of +moral dignity and the desire of physical enjoyment. In a woman of her +temperament this need of moral dignity becomes increasingly imperious +the more men harass her with their desires--an admirable piece of +observation which I believe to be quite new. Moral resistance becomes +weaker in proportion as the insistent passion of men becomes rarer and +less active. She will end by yielding entirely when men cease to find +her desirable. Then, even the most honourable of women, finding herself +no longer desired, will perhaps lose the sense of her dignity so far as +to send out a despairing appeal to the companion who is fleeing from +her.... + +Such is the inward conflict which forms the subject of _The Dangerous +Age_. It must be conceded that it lacks neither greatness nor human +interest. + + * * * * * + +I wish to add a few lines in order to record here an impression which I +experienced while reading the very first pages of _The Dangerous Age_; +an impression that became deeper and clearer when I had closed the book. + +_The Dangerous Age_ is one of those rare novels by a woman in which the +writer has not troubled to think from a man's point of view. I lay +stress upon this peculiarity because it is _very rare_, especially among +the contemporary works of Frenchwomen. + +The majority of our French authoresses give us novels in which their +ambition to think, to construct and to write in a masculine style is +clearly perceptible. And nothing, I imagine, gives them greater pleasure +than when, thanks to their pseudonyms, their readers actually take them +for men writers. + +Therefore all this mass of feminine literature in France, with three or +four exceptions--all this mass of literature of which I am far from +denying the merits--has really told us nothing new about the soul of +woman. A strange result is that not a single woman writer of the present +day is known as a specialist in feminine psychology. + +Karin Michaëlis has been inspired to write a study of womankind without +trying to interpose between her thought and the paper the mind and +vision of a man. The outcome is astonishing. I have said that the +construction of the novel is solid; but no man could have built it up in +that way. It moves to a definite goal by a sure path; yet its style is +variable like the ways of every woman, even if she be completely +mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like +carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they +circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or +temptation to turn back from their course.... + +Elsie Lindtner's journal shows us many examples of these circling +flights and retrogressions. Sometimes too we observe a gap, an empty +space, in which words and ideas seem to have failed. Again, there are +sudden leaps from one subject to another, the true thought appearing, +notwithstanding, beneath the artificial thought which is written down. +Sometimes there comes an abrupt and painful pause, as though somebody +walking absent-mindedly along the road found themselves brought up by a +yawning cleft.... + +This cinematograph of feminine thought, stubborn yet disconnected, is to +my mind the principal literary merit of the book; more so even than its +strength and brevity of style. + + * * * * * + +For all these reasons, it seemed to me that _The Dangerous Age_ was +worthy to be presented to the public in a French translation. The _Revue +de Paris_ also thought it worthy to be published in its pages. I shall +be astonished if French readers do not confirm this twofold judgment, +offering to this foreign novel the same favourable reception that has +already been accorded to it outside its little native land. + +MARCEL PRÉVOST. + + + + +_The Dangerous Age_ + + + + +MY DEAR LILLIE, + +Obviously it would have been the right thing to give you my news in +person--apart from the fact that I should then have enjoyed the amusing +spectacle of your horror! But I could not make up my mind to this +course. + +All the same, upon my word of honour, you, dear innocent soul, are the +only person to whom I have made any direct communication on the subject. +It is at once your great virtue and defect that you find everything that +everybody does quite right and reasonable--you, the wife eternally in +love with her husband; eternally watching over your children like a +brood-hen. + +You are really virtuous, Lillie. But I may add that you have no reason +for being anything else. For you, life is like a long and pleasant day +spent in a hammock under a shady tree--your husband at the head and your +children at the foot of your couch. + +You ought to have been a mother stork, dwelling in an old cart-wheel on +the roof of some peasant's cottage. + +For you, life is fair and sweet, and all humanity angelic. Your +relations with the outer world are calm and equable, without temptation +to any passions but such as are perfectly legal. At eighty you will +still be the virtuous mate of your husband. + +Don't you see that I envy you? Not on account of your husband--you may +keep him and welcome! Not on account of your lanky maypoles of +daughters--for I have not the least wish to be five times running a +mother-in-law, a fate which will probably overtake you. No! I envy your +superb balance and your imperturbable joy in life. + +I am out of sorts to-day. We have dined out twice running, and you know +I cannot endure too much light and racket. + +We shall meet no more, you and I. How strange it will seem. We had so +much in common besides our portly dressmaker and our masseuse with her +shiny, greasy hands! Well, anyhow, let us be thankful to the masseuse +for our slender hips. + +I shall miss you. Wherever you were, the atmosphere was cordial. Even on +the summit of the Blocksberg, the chillest, barest spot on earth, you +would impart some warmth. + +Lillie Rothe, dear cousin, do not have a fit on reading my news: +_Richard and I are going to be divorced_. + +Or rather, we _are_ divorced. + +Thanks to the kindly intervention of the Minister of Justice, the affair +was managed quickly and without fuss, as you see. After twenty-two years +of married life, almost as exemplary as your own, we are going our +separate ways. + +You are crying, Lillie, because you are such a kind, heaven-sent, +tender-hearted creature. But spare your tears. You are really fond of +me, and when I tell you that all has happened for the best, you will +believe me, and dry your eyes. + +There is no special reason for our divorce. None at least that is +palpable, or explicable, to the world. As far as I know, Richard has no +entanglements; and I have no lover. Neither have we lost our wits, nor +become religious maniacs. There is no shadow of scandal connected with +our separation beyond that which must inevitably arise when two +middle-aged partners throw down the cards in the middle of the rubber. + +It has cost my vanity a fierce struggle. I, who made it such a point of +honour to live unassailable and pass as irreproachable. I, who am +mortally afraid of the judgment of my fellow creatures--to let loose the +gossips' tongues in this way! + +I, who have always maintained that the most wretched _ménage_ was better +than none at all, and that an unmarried or divorced woman had no right +to expect more than the semi-existence of a Pariah! I, who thought +divorce between any but a very young couple an unpardonable folly! Here +am I, breaking a union that has been completely harmonious and happy! + +You will begin to realize, dear Lillie, that this is a serious matter. + +For a whole year I delayed taking the final step; and if I hesitated so +long before realizing my intention, it was partly in order to test my +own feelings, and partly for practical reasons; for I _am_ practical, +and I could not fancy myself leaving my house in the Old Market Place +without knowing where I was going to. + +My real reason is so simple and clear that few will be content to accept +it. But I have no other, so what am I to do? + +You know, like the rest of the world, that Richard and I have got on as +well as any two people of opposite sex ever can do. There has never been +an angry word between us. But one day the impulse--or whatever you like +to call it--took possession of me that I must live alone--quite alone +and all to myself. Call it an absurd idea, an impossible fancy; call it +hysteria--which perhaps it is--I must get right away from everybody and +everything. It is a blow to Richard, but I hope he will soon get over +it. In the long run his factory will make up for my loss. + +We concealed the business very nicely. The garden party we gave last +week was a kind of "farewell performance." Did you suspect anything at +all? We are people of the world and know how to play the game...! + +If I am leaving to-night, it is not altogether because I want to be +"over the hills" before the scandal leaks out, but because I have an +indescribable longing for solitude. + +Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little villa for me--without +having the least idea I was to be the occupant. + +The house is on an island, the name of which I will keep to myself for +the present. The rooms are fourteen feet high, and the dining-room can +hold thirty-six guests. There are only two reception-rooms. But what +more could a divorced woman of my age require? The rest of the +house--the upper storey--consists of smaller rooms, with bay-windows and +balconies. My bedroom, isolated from all the others, has a glass roof, +like a studio. Another of my queer notions is to be able to look up from +my bed and see the sky above me. I think it is good for the nerves, and +mine are in a terrible condition. + +So in future, having no dear men, I can flirt with the little stars in +God's heaven. + +Moreover, my villa is remarkable for its beautiful situation, its +fortress-like architecture, and--please make a note of this--its +splendid inhospitality. The garden hedge which encloses it is as high as +the wall of the women's penitentiary at Christianshafen. The gates are +never open, and there is no lodge-keeper. The forest adjoins the garden, +and the garden runs down to the water's edge. The original owner of the +estate was a crank who lived in a hut, which was so overgrown with moss +and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything +given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. +At the same time, I have engaged a first-rate cook, called Torp, who +seems to have the cookery of every country as pat as the Lord's Prayer. +I have no intention of living upon bread and water and virtue. + +I shall manage without a footman, although I have rather a weakness for +menservants. But my income will not permit of such luxuries; or rather I +have no idea how far my money will go. I should not care to accept +Richard's generous offer to make me a yearly allowance. + +I have also engaged a housemaid, whose name is Jeanne. She has the most +wonderful amber-coloured eyes, flaming red hair, and long, pointed +fingers, so well kept that I cannot help wondering where she got them +from. Torp and Jeanne will make the sum-total of my society, so that I +shall have every opportunity of living upon my own inner resources. + +Dear Lillie, do all you can to put a stop to the worst and most +disgusting gossip, now you know the true circumstances of the case. One +more thing, in profound confidence, and on the understanding that you +will not say a word about it to my husband: Joergen Malthe, dear +fellow, formerly honoured me with his youthful affections--as you all +knew, to your great amusement. Probably, like a true man, he will be +quite frantic when he hears of my strange retirement. Be a little kind +and friendly to the poor boy, and make him understand that there is no +mystical reason for my departure. + +Later on, when I have had time to rest a little, I shall be delighted to +hear from you; although I foresee that five-sixths of the letters will +be about your children, and the remaining sixth devoted to your +husband--whereas I would rather it was all about yourself, and our dear +town, with its life and strife. I have not taken the veil; I may still +endure to hear echoes of all the town gossip. + +If you were here, you would ask what I proposed to do with myself. Well, +dear Lillie, I have not left my frocks nor my mirror behind me. +Moreover, time has this wonderful property that, unlike the clocks, it +goes of itself without having to be wound up. I have the sea, the +forest; my piano, and my house. If time really hangs heavy on my hands, +there is no reason why I should not darn the linen for Torp! + +Should it happen by any chance--which God forbid--that I were struck +dead by lightning, or succumbed to a heart attack, would you, acting as +my cousin, and closest friend, undertake to put my belongings in order? +Not that you would find things in actual disorder; but all the same +there would be a kind of semi-order. I do not at all fancy the idea of +Richard routing among my papers now that we are no longer a married +couple. + +With every good wish, + Your cousin, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + + + + +MY DEAR, KIND FRIEND, AND FORMER HUSBAND, + +Is there not a good deal of style about that form of address? Were you +not deeply touched at receiving, in a strange town, flowers sent by a +lady? If only the people understood my German and sent them to you in +time! + +For an instant a beautiful thought flashed through my mind: to welcome +you in this way in every town where you have to stay. But since I only +know the addresses of one or two florists in the capitals, and I am too +lazy to find out the others, I have given up this splendid folly, and +simply note it to my account as a "might-have-been." + +Shall I be quite frank, Richard? I am rather ashamed when I think of +you, and I can honestly say that I never respected you more than to-day. +But it could not have been otherwise. I want you to concentrate all your +will-power to convince yourself of this. If I had let myself be +persuaded to remain with you, after this great need for solitude had +laid hold upon me, I should have worried and tormented you every hour of +the day. + +Dearest and best friend, there is some truth in these words, spoken by I +know not whom: "Either a woman is made for marriage, and then it +practically does not matter to whom she is married, she will soon +understand how to fulfil her destiny; or she is unsuited to matrimony, +in which case she commits a crime against her own personality when she +binds herself to any man." + +Apparently, I was not meant for married life. Otherwise I should have +lived happily for ever and a day with you--and you know that was not the +case. But you are not to blame. I wish in my heart of hearts that I had +something to reproach you with--but I have nothing against you of any +sort or kind. + +It was a great mistake--a cowardly act--to promise you yesterday that I +would return if I regretted my decision. I _know_ I shall never regret +it. But in making such a promise I am directly hindering you.... Forgive +me, dear friend ... but it is not impossible that you may some day meet +a woman who could become something to you. Will you let me take back my +promise? I shall be grateful to you. Then only can I feel myself really +free. + +When you return home, stand firm if your friends overwhelm you with +questions and sympathy. I should be deeply humiliated if anyone--no +matter who--were to pry into the good and bad times we have shared +together. Bygones are bygones, and no one can actually realise what +takes place between two human beings, even when they have been +onlookers. + +Think of me when you sit down to dinner. Henceforward eight o'clock will +probably be my bedtime. On the other hand I shall rise with the sun, or +perhaps earlier. Think of me, but do not write too often. I must first +settle down tranquilly to my new life. Later on, I shall enjoy writing +you a condensed account of all the follies which can be committed by a +woman who suddenly finds herself at a mature age complete mistress of +her actions. + +Follow my advice, offered for the twentieth time: go on seeing your +friends; you cannot do without them. Really there is no need for you to +mourn for a year with crape on the chandeliers and immortelles around my +portrait. + +You have been a kind, faithful, and delicate-minded friend to me, and I +am not so lacking in delicacy myself that I do not appreciate this in my +inmost heart. But I cannot accept your generous offer to give me money. +I now tell you this for the first time, because, had I said so before, +you would have done your best to over-persuade me. My small income is, +and will be, sufficient for my needs. + +The train leaves in an hour. Richard, you have your business and your +friends--more friends than anyone I know. If you wish me well, wish that +I may never regret the step I have taken. I look down at my hands that +you loved--I wish I could stretch them out to you.... + +A man must not let himself be crushed. It would hurt me to feel that +people pitied you. You are much too good to be pitied. + +Certainly it would have been better if, as you said, one of us had +died. But in that case you would have had to take the plunge into +eternity, for I am looking forward with joy to life on my island. + +For twenty years I have lived under the shadow of your wing in the Old +Market Place. May I live another twenty under the great forest trees, +wedded to solitude. + +How the gossips will gossip! But we two, clever people, will laugh at +their gossip. + +Forgive me, Richard, to-day and always, the trouble I have brought upon +you. I would have stayed with you if I could. Thank you for all.... + + ELSIE. + +That my feeling for you should have died, is quite as incomprehensible +to me as to you. No other man has ever claimed a corner of my heart. In +a word, having considered the question all round, I am suffering simply +from a nervous malady--alas! it is incurable! + + + + +MY DEAR MALTHE, + +We two are friends, are we not, and I think we shall always remain so, +even now that fate has severed our ways? If you feel that you have any +good reason for being angry with me now, then, indeed, our friendship +will be broken; for we shall have no further opportunity of becoming +reconciled. + +If at this important juncture I not only hid the truth from you, but +deliberately misled you, it was not from any lack of confidence in you, +or with the wish to be unfriendly. I beg you to believe this. The fact +that I cannot even now explain to you my reasons for acting thus makes +it all the more difficult to justify my conduct to you. Therefore you +must be contented to take my word for it. Joergen Malthe, I would gladly +confide in you, but it is impossible. Call it madness, or what you will, +but I cannot allow any human being to penetrate my inner life. + +You will not have forgotten that September evening last year, when I +spoke to you for the first time about one of my friends who was going to +separate from her husband, and who, through my intervention, asked you +to draw the plan of a villa in which she might spend the rest of her +days in solitude? You entered so completely into this idea of a solitary +retreat that your plan was almost perfect. Every time we met last year +we talked about the "White Villa," as we called it, and it pleased us to +share this little secret together. Nor were you less interested in the +interior of the house; in making sketches for the furniture, and +arranging the decorations. You took a real delight in this task, +although you were annoyed that you had no personal knowledge of your +client. You remember that I said to you sometimes in joke: "Plan it as +though it were for me"; and I cannot forget what you replied one day: "I +hate the idea of a stranger living in the house which I planned with you +always in my mind." + +Judge for yourself, Malthe, how painful it was to leave you in error. +But I could not speak out then, for I had to consider my husband. For +this reason I avoided meeting you during the summer; I found it +impossible to keep up the deception when we were face to face. + +It is I--I myself--who will live in the "White Villa." I shall live +there quite alone. + +It is useless for me to say, "Do not be angry." You would not be what +you are if you were not annoyed about it. + +You are young, life lies before you. I am old. In a very few years I +shall be so old that you will not be able to realise that there was a +time when I was "the one woman in the world" for you. I am not harping +on your youth in order to vex you--your youth that you hate for my sake! +I know that you are not fickle; but I know, too, that the laws of life +and the march of time are alike inexorable. + +When I enter the new home you have planned for me, a lonely and divorced +woman, I shall think of you every day, and my thoughts will speak more +cordial thanks than I can set down coldly in black and white on this +paper. + +I do not forbid you to write to me, but, save for a word of farewell, I +would prefer your silence. No letters exchanged between us could bring +back so much as a reflection of the happy hours we have spent together. +Hours in which we talked of everything, and chiefly of nothing at all. + +I do not think we were very brilliant when we were together; but we were +never bored. If my absence brings you suffering, disappointment, +grief--lose yourself in your work, so that in my solitude I may still be +proud of you. + +You taught me to use my eyes, and there is much, much in the world I +should like to see, for, thanks to you, I have learnt how beautiful the +world is. But the wisest course for me is to give myself up to my chosen +destiny. I shut the door of my "White Villa"--and there my story ends. + + Your + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +Reading through my letter, it seems to me cold and dry. But it is harder +to write such a letter to a dear friend than to a stranger. + + + + + LANDED ON MY ISLAND. + CREPT INTO MY LAIR. + +The first day is over. Heaven help me through those to come! Everything +here disgusts me, from the smell of the new woodwork and the half-dried +wallpapers to the pattering of the rain over my head. + +What an idiotic notion of mine to have a glass roof to my bedroom! I +feel as though I were living under an umbrella through which the water +might come dripping at any moment. During the night this will probably +happen. The panes of glass, unless they are very closely joined +together, will let the water through, and I shall awake in a pool of +water. + +Awake, indeed! If only I ever get to sleep! My head aches and burns from +sheer fatigue, but I have not even thought of getting into bed yet. + +For the last year I have had plenty of time to think things over, and +now I am at a loss to understand why I have done this. Suppose it is a +piece of stupidity--a carefully planned and irrevocable folly? Suppose +my irritable nerves have played a trick upon me? Suppose ... suppose ... + +I feel lonely and without will power. I am frightened. But the step is +taken; and I can never turn back. I must never let myself regret it. + +This constant rain gives me an icy, damp feeling down my back. It gets +on my nerves. + +What shall I come to, reduced to the society of two females who have +nothing in common with me but our sex? No one to speak to, no one to +see. Jeanne is certainly attractive to look at, but I cannot converse +with her. As to Torp, she suits her basement as a gnome suits his +mountain cave. She looks as though she was made to repopulate a desert +unaided. She wears stays that are crooked back and front. + +Never in all my life have I felt so disappointed, and compelled to put a +good face upon a bad business, as when I splashed through the wet +garden and entered the empty house where there was not even a flower to +welcome my arrival. The rooms are too large and bare.... Why did I not +think of that before? + +All the same, decorum must be maintained, and my entry was not +undignified. + +Ah, the rain, the rain! Jeanne and Torp are still cleaning up. They mean +to go on half the night, scrubbing and sweeping as though we expected +company to-morrow. I start unpacking my trunk, take out a few things and +stop--begin again and stop again, horrified at the quantity of clothes +I've brought. It would have been more sensible to send them to one of +our beloved "charity sales." They are of no use or pleasure now. Black +merino and a white woollen shawl--what more do I want here? + +God knows how I wish at the present moment I were back in the Old Market +Place, even if I only had Richard's society to bore me. + +What am I doing here? What do I want here? To cry, without having to +give an account of one's tears to anyone? + +Of course, all this is only the result of the rain. I was longing to be +here. It was not a mere hysterical whim. No, no.... + +It was my own wish to bury myself here. + + * * * * * + +Yesterday I was all nerves. To-day I feel as fresh and lively as a +cricket. + +We have been hanging the pictures, and made thirty-six superfluous holes +in the new walls. There is no way of concealing them. (I must write to +Richard to have my engravings framed.) It would be stretching a point to +say we are skilled picture-hangers; we were nearly as awkward as men +when they try to hook a woman's dress for her. But the pictures were +hung somehow, and look rather nice now they are up. + +But why on earth did I give Torp my sketch of "A Villa by the Sea" to +hang in her kitchen? Was I afraid to have it near me? Or was it some +stupid wish to hurt _his_ feelings? _His_ only gift.... I feel ashamed +of myself. + +Jeanne has arranged flowers everywhere, and that helps to make the house +more homelike. + +The place is mine, and I take possession of it. Now the sun is shining. +I find pleasure in examining each article of furniture and remembering +the days when we discussed the designs together. I ought not to have let +him do all that. It was senseless of me. + + * * * * * + +They are much to be envied who can pass away the time in their own +society. I am in my element when I can watch other people blowing +soap-bubbles; but to blow them myself.... + +I am not really clever at creating comfortable surroundings. Far from +it. My white villa always looks uninhabited, in spite of all the flowers +with which I allow Jeanne to decorate the rooms. Is it because +everything smells so new? Or because there are no old smells? Here there +are no whiffs of dust, smoke, or benzine, nor anything which made the +Old Market Place the Old Market Place. Everything is so clean here that +one hesitates to move a step. The boards are as shiny as though they +were polished silver.... This very moment Torp appeared in felt shoes +and implored me to get her a strip of oilcloth to save her kitchen +floor. I feel just the same; I scarcely dare defile this spotless +pitchpine. + + * * * * * + +What is the use of all these discussions and articles about the equality +of the sexes, so long as we women are at times the slaves of an +inevitable necessity? I have suffered more than ever the last few days, +perhaps because I was so utterly alone. Not a human being to speak to. +Yes, I ought to have stayed in bed if only to conceal my ugliness. In +town I was wise. But here ... + + * * * * * + +All the same I am proud of my self-control. Many women do not possess as +much. + +The moon is in her first quarter; a cold dry wind is blowing up; it +makes one cough merely to hear it whistle. + +I hate winds of all kinds, and here my enemy seems to have free entry. I +ought to have built my house facing south and in some hollow sheltered +from the wind. Unfortunately it looks to the north, straight across the +open sea. + +I have not yet been outside the garden. I have made up my mind to keep +to this little spot as long as possible. I shall get accustomed to it. I +_must_ get accustomed to it. + +Dear souls, how they worry me with their letters. Only Malthe keeps +silence. Will he deign to answer me? + +Jeanne follows me with her eyes as though she wanted to learn some art +from me. What art? + +Good heavens, what can that girl be doing here? + +She does not seem made for the celibate life of a desert island. Yet I +cannot set up a footman to keep her company. I will not have men's eyes +prying about my house, I have had enough of that. + +A manservant--that would mean love affairs, squabbles, and troubles; or +marriage, and a change of domestics. No, I have a right to peace, and I +will secure it. The worst that could happen to me would be to find +myself reduced to playing whist with Jeanne and Torp. Well, why not? + +Torp spends all her evenings playing patience on the kitchen +window-sill. Perhaps she is telling her fortune and wondering whether +some good-looking sailor will be wrecked on the shores of her desert +island. + +Meanwhile Jeanne goes about in silk stockings. This rather astonishes +me. Lillie reproved me for the pernicious custom. Are they a real +necessity for Jeanne, or does she know the masculine taste so well? + + * * * * * + +From all the birch trees that stand quivering around the house a golden +rain is falling. There is not a breath of wind, but the leaves keep +dropping, dropping. This morning I stood on the little balcony and +looked out over the forest. I do not know why or wherefore, but such a +sense of quiet came over me. I seemed to hear the words: "and behold it +was very good." Was it the warm russet tint of the trees or the profound +perfume of the woods that induced this calm? + +All day long I have been thinking of Malthe, and I feel so glad I have +acted as I have done. But he might have answered my letter. + +Jeanne has discovered the secret of my hair. She asked permission to +dress it for me in the evening when my hair is "awake." She is quite an +artist in this line, and I let her occupy herself with it as long as she +pleased. She pinned it up, then let it down again; coiled it round my +forehead like a turban; twisted it into a Grecian knot; parted and +smoothed it down on each side of my head like a hood. She played with it +and arranged it a dozen different ways like a bouquet of wild flowers. + +My hair is still my pride, although it is losing its gloss and colour. +Jeanne said, by way of consolation, that it was like a wood in late +autumn.... + +I should like to know whether this girl sprang from the gutter, or was +the child of poor, honest parents.... + + * * * * * + +"Thousands of women may look at the man they love with their whole soul +in their eyes, and the man will remain as unmoved as a stone by the +wayside. And then a woman will pass by who has no soul, but whose +artificial smile has a mysterious power to spur the best of men to +painful desire...." + +One day I found these words underlined in a book left open on my table. +Who left it there, I cannot say; nor whether it was underlined with the +intention of hurting my feelings, or merely by chance. + + * * * * * + +I sit here waiting for my mortal enemy. Will he come gliding in +imperceptibly or stand suddenly before me? Will he overcome me, or +shall I prove the stronger? I am prepared--but is that sufficient? + +Torp is really too romantic! To-day it pleased her to decorate the table +with Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper festooned the hanging lamp; +Virginia creeper crept over the cloth. Even the joint was decked out +with wine-red leaves, until it looked like a ship flying all her flags +on the King's birthday. Amid all this pomp and ceremony, I sat all +alone, without a human being for whom I might have made myself smart. I, +who for the last twenty years, have never even dressed the salad without +at least one pair of eyes watching me toss the lettuce as though I was +performing some wonderful Indian conjuring trick. + +A festal board at which one sits in solitary grandeur is the dreariest +thing imaginable. + +I rather wish Torp had less "style," as she calls it. Undoubtedly she +has lived in large establishments and has picked up some habits and +customs from each of them. She is welcome to wait at table in white +cotton gloves and to perch a huge silk bow on her hair, which is +redolent of the kitchen, but when it comes to trimming her poor +work-worn nails to the fashionable pyramidal shape--she really becomes +tragic. + +She "romanticises" everything. I should not be at all surprised if some +day she decked her kitchen range with wreaths of roses and hung up works +of art between the stewpans. + +I am really glad I did not bring Samuel the footman with me. He could +not have waited on me better than Jeanne, and at any rate I am free from +his eyes, which, in spite of all their respectful looks, always reminded +me of a fly-paper full of dead and dying flies. + +Jeanne's look has a something gliding and subtle about it that keeps me +company like a witty conversation. It is really on her account that I +dress myself well. But I cannot converse with her. I should not like to +try, and then to be disillusioned. + +Men have often assured me that I was the only woman they could talk with +as though I were one of themselves. Personally I never feel at one with +menkind. I only understand and admire my own sex. + +In reality I think there is more difference between a man and a woman +than between an inert stone and a growing plant. I say this ... I +who ... + + * * * * * + +What business is it of mine? We were not really friends. The fact of her +having confided in me makes no demands on my feelings. If this thing had +happened five years ago, I should have taken it as a rather welcome +sensation--nothing more. Or had I read in the paper "On the--inst., of +heart disease, or typhoid fever," my peace of mind would not have been +disturbed for an hour. + +I have purposely refrained from reading the papers lately. Chancing to +open one to-day, after a month's complete ignorance of all that had been +happening in the world, I saw the following headline: Suicide of a Lady +in a Lunatic Asylum. + +And now I feel as shaken as though I had taken part in a crime; as +though I had had some share in this woman's death. + +I am so far to blame that I abandoned her at a moment when it might +still have been possible to save her.... But this is a morbid notion! If +a person wants "to shuffle off this mortal coil" it is nobody's duty to +prevent her. + +To me, Agatha Ussing's life or death are secondary matters; it is only +the circumstances that trouble me. + +Was she mad, or no? Undoubtedly not more insane than the rest of us, but +her self-control snapped like a bowstring which is overstrained. She +saw--so she said--a grinning death's head behind every smiling face. +Merely a bee in her bonnet! But she was foolish enough to talk about it; +and when people laughed at her words with a good-natured contempt, her +glance became searching and fixed as though she was trying to convince +herself. Such an awful look of terror haunted her eyes, that at her gaze +a cold shiver, born of one's own fears and forebodings, ran through one. + +She compelled us to realise the things we scarcely dare foresee.... + +I shall never forget a letter in which she wrote these words in a queer, +faltering handwriting: + +"If men suspected what took place in a woman's inner life after forty, +they would avoid us like the plague, or knock us on the head like mad +dogs." + +Such a philosophy of life ended in the poor woman being shut up in a +madhouse. She ought to have kept it to herself instead of posting it up +on the walls of her house. It was quite sufficient as a proof of her +insanity. + +I cannot think what induced me to visit her in the asylum. Not pure +pity. I was prompted rather by that kind of painful curiosity which +makes a patient ask to see a limb which has just been amputated. I +wanted to look with my own eyes into that shadowy future which Agatha +had reached before me. + +What did I discover? She had never cared for her husband; on the +contrary she had betrayed him with an effrontery that would hardly have +been tolerated outside the smart world; yet now she suffered the +torments of hell from jealousy of her husband. Not of her lovers; their +day was over; but of him, because he was the one man she saw. Also +because she bore his name and was therefore bound to him. + +On every other subject she was perfectly sane. When we were left alone +together she said: "The worst of it is that I know my 'madness' will +only be temporary. It is a malady incident to my age. One day it will +pass away. One day I shall have got through the inevitable phase. But +how does that help me now?" + +No, it was no more help to her than the dreadful paint with which she +plastered her haggard features. + +It was not the least use to her.... + +Her death is the best thing that could have happened, for her own sake +and for those belonging to her. But I cannot take my thoughts off the +hours which preceded her end; the time that passed between the moment +when she decided to commit suicide until she actually carried out her +resolve. + + * * * * * + +"If men suspected ..." + +It may safely be said that on the whole surface of the globe not one man +exists who really knows a woman. + +They know us in the same way as the bees know the flowers; by the +various perfumes they impart to the honey. No more. + +How could it be otherwise? If a woman took infinite pains to reveal +herself to a husband or a lover just as she really is, he would think +she was suffering from some incurable mental disease. + +A few of us indicate our true natures in hysterical outbreaks, fits of +bitterness and suspicion; but this involuntary frankness is generally +discounted by some subtle deceit. + +Do men and women ever tell each other the truth? How often does that +happen? More often than not, I think, they deal in half-lies, hiding +this, embroidering that, fact. + +Between the sexes reigns an ineradicable hostility. It is concealed +because life has to be lived, because it is easier and more convenient +to keep it in the background; but it is always there, even in those +supreme moments when the sexes fulfil their highest destiny. + +A woman who knows other women and understands them, could easily prove +this in so many words; and every woman who heard her--provided they were +alone--would confess she was right. But if a man should join in the +conversation, both women would stamp truth underfoot as though it were a +venomous reptile. + +Men can be sincere both with themselves and others; but women cannot. +They are corrupted from birth. Later on, education, intercourse with +other women and finally marriage, corrupt them still more. + +A woman may love a man more than her own life; may sacrifice her time, +her health, her existence to him. But if she is wholly a woman, she +cannot give him her confidence. + +She cannot, because she dares not. + +In the same way a man--for a certain length of time--can love without +measure. He can then be unlocked like a cabinet full of secret drawers +and pigeonholes, of which we hold the keys. He discloses himself, his +present and his past. A woman, even in the closest bonds of love, never +reveals more of herself than reason demands. + +Her modesty differs entirely from that of a male. She would rather be +guilty of incest than reveal to a man the hidden thoughts which +sometimes, without the least scruple, she will confide to another woman. +Friendship between men is a very different thing. Something honest and +frank, from which consequently they withdraw without anger, mutual +obligation, or fear. Friendship between women is a kind of masonic oath; +the breaking of it a mutual crime. When two women friends quarrel, they +generally continue to carry deadly weapons against each other, which +they are only restrained from using by mutual fear. + +There _are_ honest women. At least we believe there are. It is a +necessary part of our belief. Who does not think well of mother or +sister? But who _believes entirely_ in a mother or a sister? Absolutely +and unconditionally? Who has never caught mother or sister in a +falsehood or a subterfuge? Who has not sometimes seen in the heart of +mother or sister, as by a lightning flash, an abyss which the +profoundest love cannot bridge over? + +Who has ever really understood his mother or sister? + +The human being dwells and moves alone. Each woman dwells in her own +planet formed of centrifugal fires enveloped in a thin crust of earth. +And as each star runs its eternal course through space, isolated amid +countless myriads of other stars, so each woman goes her solitary way +through life. + +It would be better for her if she walked barefoot over red-hot +ploughshares, for the pain she would suffer would be slight indeed +compared to that which she must feel when, with a smile on her lips, she +leaves her own youth behind and enters the regions of despair we call +"growing old," and "old age...." + +All this philosophizing is the result, no doubt, of having eaten +halibut for lunch; it is a solid fish and difficult to digest. + +Perhaps, too, having no company but Jeanne and Torp, I am reduced to my +own aimless reflections. + +Just as clothes exercise no influence on the majority of men, so their +emotional life is not much affected by circumstances. With us women it +is otherwise. We really _are_ different women according to the dresses +we wear. We assume a personality in accord with our costume. We laugh, +talk and act at the caprice of purely external circumstances. + +Take for instance a woman who wants to confide in another. She will do +it in quite a different way in broad daylight in a drawing-room than in +her little "den" in the gloaming, even if in both cases she happens to +be quite alone with her confidante. + +If some women are specially honoured as the recipients of many +confidences from their own sex, I am convinced they owe it more to +physical than moral qualities. As there are some rooms of which the +atmosphere is so cosey and inviting that we feel ourselves at home in +them without a word of welcome, so we find certain women who seem to be +endowed with such receptivity that they invite the confidences of +others. + +The history of smiles has never yet been written, simply because the few +women capable of writing it would not betray their sex. As to men, they +are as ignorant on this point as on everything else which concerns +women--not excepting love. + +I have conversed with many famous women's doctors, and have pretended to +admire their knowledge, while inwardly I was much amused at their +simplicity. They know how to cut us open and stitch us up again--as +children open their dolls to see the sawdust with which they are stuffed +and sew them up afterwards with a needle and thread. But they get no +further. Yes--a little further perhaps. Possibly in course of time they +begin to discover that women are so infinitely their superiors in +falsehood that their wisest course is to appear once and for all to +believe them then and there.... + +Women's doctors may be as clever and sly as they please, but they will +never learn any of the things that women confide to each other. It is +inevitable. Between the sexes lies not only a deep, eternal hostility, +but the unfathomable abyss of a complete lack of reciprocal +comprehension. + +For instance, all the words in a language will never express what a +smile will express--and between women a smile is like a masonic sign; we +can use them between ourselves without any fear of their being +misunderstood by the other sex. + +Smiles are a form of speech with which we alone are conversant. Our +smiles betray our instincts and our burdens; they reflect our virtues +and our inanity. + +But the cleverest women hide their real selves behind a factitious +smile. + +Men do not know how to smile. They look more or less benevolent, more or +less pleased, more or less love-smitten; but they are not pliable or +subtle enough to smile. A woman who is not sufficiently prudent to mask +her features, gives away her soul in a smile. I have known women who +revealed their whole natures in this way. + +No woman speaks aloud, but most women smile aloud. And the fact that in +so doing we unveil all our artifice, all the whirlpool of our inmost +being to each other, proves the extraordinary solidarity of our sex. + +When did one woman ever betray another? + +This loyalty is not rooted in noble sentiment, but proceeds rather from +the fear of betraying ourselves by revealing things that are the secret +common property of all womanhood. + +And yet, if a woman could be found willing to reveal her entire self?... + +I have often thought of the possibility, and at the present moment I am +not sure that she would not do our sex an infinite and eternal wrong. + +We are compounded so strangely of good and bad, truth and falsehood, +that it requires the most delicate touch to unravel the tangled skein of +our natures and find the starting point. + +No man is capable of the task. + +During recent years it has become the fashion for notorious women to +publish their reminiscences in the form of a diary. But has any woman +reader discovered in all this literature a single intimate feature, a +single frank revelation of all that is kept hidden behind a thousand +veils? + +If indeed one of these unhappy women ventured to write a plain, +unvarnished, but poignant, description of her inner life, where would +she find a publisher daring enough to let his name appear on the cover +of the book? + +I once knew a man who, stirred by a good and noble impulse, and +confident of his power, endeavoured to "save" a very young girl whom he +had rescued from a house of ill-fame. He took her home and treated her +like a sister. He lavished time and confidence upon her. His pride at +the transformation which took place in her passed all bounds. The girl +was as grateful as a mongrel and as modest as the bride in a romantic +novel. He then resolved to make her his wife. But one fine day she +vanished, leaving behind her a note containing these words: "Many thanks +for your kindness, but you bore me." + +During the whole time they had lived together, he had not grasped the +faintest notion of the girl's true nature; nor understood that to keep +her contented it was not sufficient to treat her kindly, but that she +required some equivalent for the odious excitements of the past. + + * * * * * + +All feminine confessions--except those between relations which are +generally commonplace and uninteresting--assume a kind of beauty in my +eyes; a warmth and solemnity that excuses the casting aside of all +conventional barriers. + +I remember one day--a day of oppressive heat and the heavy perfume of +roses--when, with a party of women friends, we began to talk about +tears. At first no one ventured to speak quite sincerely; but one thing +led to another until we were gradually caught in our own snares, and +finally we each gave out something that we had hitherto kept concealed +within us, as one locks up a deadly poison. + +Not one of us, it appeared, ever cried because of some imperative inward +need. Tears are nature's gift to us. It is our own affair whether we +squander or economise their use. + +Of all our confessions Sophie Harden's was the strangest. To her, tears +were a kind of erotic by-play, which added to the enjoyment of conjugal +life. Her husband, a good-natured creature, always believed he was to +blame, and she never enlightened him on the point. + +Most of the others owned that they had recourse to tears to work +themselves up when they wanted to make a scene. But Astrid Bagge, a +gentle, quiet housewife and mother, declared she kept all her troubles +for the evenings when her husband dined at the volunteer's mess, because +he hated to see anyone crying. Then she sat alone and in darkness and +wept away the accumulated annoyances of the week. + +When it came to my turn, I spoke the truth by chance when I said that, +however much I wanted to cry, I only permitted myself the luxury about +once in two years. I think my complexion is a conclusive proof that my +words were sincere. + +There are deserts which never know the refreshment of dew or rain. My +life has been such a desert. + +I, who like to receive confidences, have a morbid fear of giving them. +Perhaps it is because I was so much alone, so self-centred, in my +childhood. + +The more I reflect upon life, the more clearly I see that I have not +laid out my talents to the best advantage. I have no sweet memories of +infidelity; I have lived irreproachably--and now I am very tired. + +I sit here and write for myself alone. I know that no one else will ever +read my words; and yet I am not quite sincere, even with myself. + +Life has passed me by; my hands are empty; now it is too late. + +Once happiness knocked at my door, and I, poor fool, did not rise to +welcome it. + +I envy every country wench or servant girl who goes off with a lover. +But I sit here waiting for old age. + +Astrid Bagge.... As I write her name, I feel as though she were standing +weeping behind my back; I feel her tears dropping on my neck. I cannot +weep--but how I long for tears! + + * * * * * + +Autumn! Torp has made a huge fire of logs in the open grate. The burning +wood gives out an intoxicating perfume and fills the house with cosey +warmth. For want of something better to do I am looking after the fire +myself. I carefully strip the bark from each log before throwing it on +the flames. The smell of burning birch-bark goes to my head like strong +wine. Dreams come and go. + +Joergen Malthe, what a mere boy you are! + + * * * * * + +The garden looks like a neglected churchyard, forgotten of the living. +The virginia creeper falls in blood-red streamers from the verandah. The +snails drag themselves along in the rain; their slow movements remind me +of women _enceinte_. The hedge is covered with spiders' webs, and the +wet clay sticks to one's shoes as one walks on the paths. + +Yet there are people who think autumn a beautiful time of year! + + * * * * * + +My will is paralysed from self-disgust. I find myself involuntarily +listening and watching for the postman, who brings nothing for me. There +are moments when my fingers seem to be feeling the smoothness of the +cream-laid "At Home" cards which used to be showered upon us, especially +at this season. Towards evening I grow restless. Formerly my day was a +_crescendo_ of activity until the social hours were reached. Now the +hours fall one by one in ashes before my eyes. + +I am myself, yet not myself. There are moments when I envy every living +creature that has the right to pair--either from hate or from habit. I +am alone and shut out. What consolation is it to be able to say: "It was +my own choice!" + + * * * * * + +A letter from Malthe. + +No, I will not open it. I do not wish to know what he writes.... It is +a long letter. + + * * * * * + +My nerves are quiet. But I often lie awake, and my sleep is broken. The +stars are shining over my head, and I never before experienced such a +sense of repose and calm. Is this the effect of the stars, or the +letter? + +I am forty-two! It cannot be helped. I cannot buy back a single day of +my life. Forty-two! But during the night the thought does not trouble +me. The stars above reckon by ages, not by years, and sometimes I smile +to think that as soon as Richard returns home, the rooms in our house in +the Old Market will be lit up, and the usual set will assemble there +without me. + +The one thing I should like to know is whether Malthe is still in +Denmark. + +I would like to know where my thoughts should seek him--at home or +abroad. + +I played with him treacherously when I called him "the youth," and +treated him as a mere boy. If we compare our ages it is true enough, +but not if we compare feelings. + +Can there be anything meaner than for a woman to make fun of what is +really sacred to her? My feelings for Malthe were and still are sacred. +I myself have befouled them with my mockery. + +But when I am lying in my bed beneath the vast canopy of the sky, all my +sins seem forgiven me. Fate alone--Fate who bears all things on his +shoulders--is to blame, and I wish nothing undone. + +The letter will never be read. Never voluntarily by me. + + * * * * * + +I do not know the day of the week. That is one step nearer the goal for +which I long. May it come to pass that the weeks and months shall glide +imperceptibly over me, so that I shall only recognise the seasons by the +changing tints of the forest and the alternations of heat and cold. + +Alas, those days are still a long way off! + +I have just been having a conflict with myself, and I find that all the +time I have been living here as though I were spending a summer holiday +in Tyrol. I have been simply deceiving myself and playing with the +hidden thought that I could begin my life over again. + +I have shivered with terror at this self-deception. The last few nights +I have hardly slept at all. A traveller must feel the same who sails +across the sea ignorant of the country to which he journeys. Vaguely he +pictures it as resembling his native land, and lands to find himself in +a wilderness which he must plant and cultivate until it blossoms with +his new desires and dreams. By the time he has turned the desert into a +home, his day is over.... + + * * * * * + +If I could but make up my mind to burn that letter! I weigh it, first in +my right hand, then in my left. Sometimes its weight makes me happy; +sometimes it fills me with foreboding. Do the words weigh so heavy, or +only the paper? + +Last night I held it close to the candle. But when the flame touched my +letter, I drew it quickly away.--It is all I have left to me now.... + + * * * * * + +Richard writes to me that Malthe has been commissioned to build a great +hospital. Most of our great architects competed for the work. He goes on +to ask whether I am not proud of "my young friend." + +My young friend!... + + * * * * * + +Jeanne spoke to me about herself to-day. I think she was quite +bewildered by the extraordinary fall of leaves which has almost blinded +us the last three days. She was doing my hair, and tracing a line +straight across my forehead, she remarked: + +"Here should be a ribbon with red jewels." + +I told her that I had once had the same idea, but I had given it up out +of consideration for my fellow creatures. + +"But there are none here," she exclaimed, + +I replied laughing: + +"Then it is not worth while decking myself out!" + +Jeanne took out the pins and let my hair down. + +"If I were rich," she said, "I would dress for myself alone. Men neither +notice nor understand anything about it." + +We went on talking like two equals, and a few minutes later, remembering +what I had observed, I gave her some silk stockings. Instead of thanking +me, she remarked so suddenly that she took my breath away: + +"Once I sold myself for a pair of green silk stockings." + +I could not help asking the question: + +"Did you regret your bargain?" + +She looked me straight in the face: + +"I don't know. I only thought about my stockings." + +Naturally such conversations are rather risky; I shall avoid them in +future. But the riddle is more puzzling than ever. What brought Jeanne +to share my solitude on this island? + + * * * * * + +Now we have a man about the place. Torp got him. He digs in the garden +and chops wood. But the odour impregnates Torp and even reaches me. + +He makes eyes at Jeanne, who looks at me and smiles. Torp makes a fuss +of him, and every night I smell his pipe in the basement. + + * * * * * + +I have shut myself upstairs and played patience. The questions I put to +the cards come from that casket of memories the seven keys of which I +believed I had long since thrown into the sea. A wretched form of +amusement! But the piano makes me feel sad, and there is nothing else to +do. + +Malthe's letter is still intact. I wander around it like a mouse round a +trap of which it suspects the danger. My heart meanwhile yearns to know +what words he uses. + +He and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives. We owe that to +my wisdom. If he never sees me, he will never be able to forget me. + + * * * * * + +How could I suppose it for a single moment! There is no possibility of +remaining alone with oneself! No degree of seclusion, nor even life in a +cell, would suffice. Strong as is the call of freedom, the power of +memory is stronger; so that no one can ever choose his society at will. +Once we have lived with our kind, and become filled with the knowledge +of them, we are never free again. + +A sound, a scent--and behold a person, a scene, or a destiny, rises up +before us. Very often the phantoms that come thronging around me are +those of people whose existence is quite indifferent to me. But they +appear all the same--importunate, overbearing, inevitable. + +We may close our doors to visitors in the flesh; but we are forced to +welcome these phantoms of the memory; to notice them and converse with +them without reserve. + +People become like books to me. I read them through, turn the pages +lightly, annotate them, learn them by heart. Sometimes I am at fault; I +see them in a new light. Things that were not clear to me become plain; +what was apparently incomprehensible becomes as straightforward as a +commercial ledger. + +It might be a fascinating occupation if I could control the entire +collection of these memories; but I am the slave of those that come +unbidden. In the town it was just the reverse; one impression effaced +another. I did not realise that thought might become a burden. + + * * * * * + +The time draws on. The last few days my nerves have made me feverish and +restless; to-day for no special reason I opened and read all my letters, +except his. It was like reading old newspapers; yet my heart beat faster +with each one I opened. + +Life there in the city runs its course, only it has nothing more to do +with me, and before long I shall have dropped out of memory like one +long dead. All these hidden fears, all this solicitude, these good +wishes, preachings and forebodings--there is not a single genuine +feeling among the whole of them! + +Margethe Ernst is the only one of my old friends who is sincere and +does not let herself be carried away by false sentiment. She writes +cynically, brutally even: "An injection of morphia would have had just +the same effect on you; but everyone to his own taste." + +As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write +lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines. She +wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her +motherly wing. + +"He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans +for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to +come." + +His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget. + +As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two +ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a +fire or a play. Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from +my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the +trees. + +Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me +scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely +sleepless nights. Are they always as lonely as he makes out? + +As in the past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions and his +whole middle-class outlook. Yet for many years he dominated my senses, +which gives him a certain hold over me still. I cannot make up my mind +to take the brutal step which would free me once and for all from him. I +must let him go on believing that our life together was happy. + +Why did I read all these letters? What did I expect to find? A certain +vague hope stirred within me that if I opened them I should discover +something unexpected. + +The one remaining letter--shall I ever find courage to open it? I _will_ +not know what he has written. He does not write well I know. He is not a +good talker; his writing would probably be worse. And yet, I look upon +that sealed letter as a treasure. + +Merely touching it, I feel as though I was in the same room with him. + + * * * * * + +Lillie's letter has really done me good; her regal serenity makes itself +apparent beneath all she undertakes. It is wonderful that she does not +preach at me like the others. "You must know what is right for yourself +better than anybody else," she says. These words, coming from her, have +brought me unspeakable strength and comfort, even though I feel that she +can have no idea of what is actually taking place within me. + +Life for Lillie can be summed up in the words, "the serene passage of +the days." Happy Lillie. She glides into old age just as she glided into +marriage, smiling, tranquil, and contented. Nobody, nothing, can disturb +her quietude. + +It is so when both body and soul find their repose and happiness in the +same identical surroundings. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne, with some embarrassment, asked permission to use the bathroom. +I gave her leave. It is quite possible that living in the basement is +not to her taste. To put a bathroom down there would take nearly a +fortnight, and during that time I shall be deprived of my own, for I +cannot share my bathroom or my bedroom with anyone, least of all a +woman.... + +I shall never forget the one visit I paid to the Russian baths and the +sight of Hilda Bang. Clothed, she presents rather a fine appearance, +with a good figure; but seen amid the warm steam, in nature's garb, she +seemed horrible. + +I would rather walk through an avenue of naked men than appear before +another woman without clothes. This feeling does not spring from +modesty--what is it? + + * * * * * + +How quiet it is here! Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays the steamer for +England goes by. I know its coming by the sound of the screw, but I take +care never to see it pass. What if I were seized with an impulse to +embark on her.... + +If one fine morning when Jeanne brought the tea she found the bird +flown? + +The time is gone by. Life is over. + +I am getting used to sitting here and stitching at my seam. My work does +not amount to much, but the mechanical movement brings a kind of +restfulness. + +I find I am getting rather capricious. Between meals I ring two or three +times a day for tea--like a convalescent trying a fattening cure. Jeanne +attends to my hair with indefatigable care. Without her, should I ever +trouble to do it at all? + +What can any human being want more than this peace and silence? + + * * * * * + +If I could only lose this sense of being empty-handed, all would be +well. Yesterday I went down to the seashore and gathered little pebbles. +I carried them away and amused myself by taking them up in handfuls. +During the night I felt impelled to get up and fetch them, and this +morning I awoke with a round stone in each hand. + +Hysteria takes strange forms. But who knows what is the real ground of +hysteria? I used to think it was the special malady of the unmated +woman; but, in later years, I have known many who had had a full share +of the passional life, legitimate and otherwise, and yet still suffered +from hysteria. + + * * * * * + +I begin to realise the fascination of the cloister; the calm, uniform, +benumbing existence. But my comparison does not apply. The nun renounces +all will and responsibility, while I cannot give up one or the other. + +I have reached this point, however; only that which is bounded by my +garden hedge seems to me really worthy of consideration. The house in +the Old Market Place may be burnt down for all I care. Richard may marry +again. Malthe may.... + +Yes, I think I could receive the news in silence like the monk to whom +the prior announces, "One of the brethren is dead, pray for his soul." +No one present knows, nor will ever know, whether his own brother or +father has passed away. + +What hopeless cowardice prevents my opening his letter! + + + + + EVENING. + +Somebody should found a vast and cheerful sisterhood for women between +forty and fifty; a kind of refuge for the victims of the years of +transition. For during that time women would be happier in voluntary +exile, or at any rate entirely separated from the other sex. + +Since all are suffering from the same trouble, they might help each +other to make life, not only endurable, but harmonious. We are all more +or less mad then, although we struggle to make others think us sane. + +I say "we," though I am not of their number--in age, perhaps, but not in +temperament. Nevertheless I hear the stealthy footsteps of the +approaching years. By good fortune, or calculation, I have preserved my +youthful appearance, but it has cost me dear to economise my emotions. + +Old age, in truth, is only a goal to be foreseen. A mountain to be +climbed; a peak from which to see life from every side--provided we +have not been blinded by snowfalls on the way. I do not fear old age; +only the hard ascent to it has terrors for me. The day, the hour, when +we realise that something has gone from our lives; when the cry of our +heart provokes laughter in others! + +To all of us women comes a time in life when we believe we can conquer +or deceive time. But soon we learn how unequal is the struggle. We all +come to it in the end. + +Then we grow anxious. Anxious at the coming of day; still more anxious +at the coming of night. We deck ourselves out at night as though in this +way we could put our anxiety to flight. + +We are careful about our food and our rest; we watch that our smiles +leave no wrinkles.... Yet never a word of our secret terror do we +whisper aloud. We keep silence or we lie. Sometimes from pride, +sometimes from shame. + +Hitherto nobody has ever proclaimed this great truth: that as they grow +older--when the summer comes and the days lengthen--women become more +and more women. Their feminality goes on ripening into the depths of +winter. + +Yet the world compels them to steer a false course. Their youth only +counts so long as their complexions remain clear and their figures slim. +Otherwise they are exposed to cruel mockery. A woman who tries late in +life to make good her claim to existence, is regarded with contempt. For +her there is neither shelter nor sympathy. + +It sometimes happens that a winter gale strips all the leaves from a +tree in a single night. When does a woman grow old in body and soul in +one swift and merciful moment? From our birth we are accursed. + +I blame no one for my failure in life. It was in my own hands. If I +could live it through again from the start, it is more than probable I +should waste the years for a second time. + + + + + CHRISTMAS EVE. + +At this hour there will be festivities in the Old Market Place. +Richard's last letter touched me profoundly; something within me went +out toward his honest nature.... + +What is the use of all these falsehoods? I long for an embrace. Is that +shocking? We women are so wrapped in deceit that we feel ashamed of +confessing such things. Yet it is true, I miss Richard. Not the husband +or companion, but the lover. + +What use in trying to soothe my senses by walking for hours through the +silent woods. + +Lillie, in the innocence of her heart, sent me a tiny Christmas tree, +decorated by herself and her lanky daughters. Sweets and little presents +are suspended from the branches. She treats me like a child, or a sick +person. + +Well, let it be so! Lillie must never have the vexation of learning that +I detested her girls simply because they represented the youthful +generation which sooner or later must supplant me. + +I have made good use of my eyes, and I know what I have seen: the same +enmity exists between two generations as between the sexes. + +While the young folk in their arrogant cruelty laugh at us who are +growing old, we, in our turn, amuse ourselves by making fun of them. If +women could buy back their lost youth by the blood of those nearest and +dearest to them, what crimes the world would witness! + +How I used to hate Richard when I saw him so completely at his ease +among young people, and able to take them so seriously. + + * * * * * + +Christmas Eve! In honour of Jeanne, I put on one of my very best +frocks--Paquin. Moreover, I have decorated myself with rings and chains +as though I were a silly Christmas Tree myself. + +Jeanne has enjoyed herself to-day. She and Torp rose before it was light +to deck the rooms with pine branches. Over the verandah waves the +Swedish flag, which Torp generally suspends above her bed, in +remembrance of Heaven knows who. I gave myself the pleasure of +surprising Jeanne, by bestowing upon her my green _crêpe de Chine_. In +future grey and black will be my only wear. + +After the obligatory goose, and the inevitable Christmas dishes, I spent +the evening reading the letters with which "my friends" honour me +punctiliously. + +Without seeing the handwriting, or the signature, I could name from the +contents alone the writer of each one of them. They all write about the +honours which have befallen Joergen Malthe: a hospital here; a palace of +archives there. What does it matter to me? I would far rather they +wrote: "To-day a motor-car ran over Joergen Malthe and killed him on the +spot." + +I have arrived at that stage. + +But to-night I will not think about him; I would rather try to write to +Magna Wellmann. I may be of some use to her. In any case I will tell her +things that it will do her good to hear. She is one of those who take +life hard. + + + + +DEAR MAGNA WELLMANN, + +It is with great difficulty that I venture to give you advice at this +moment. Besides, we are so completely opposed in habit, thought, and +temperament. We have really nothing in common but our unfortunate middle +age and our sex; therefore, how can it help you to know what I should do +if I were in your place? + +May I speak quite frankly without any fear of hurting your feelings? In +that case I will try to advise you; but I can only do so by making your +present situation quite clear to you. Only when you have faced matters +can you hope to decide upon some course of action which you will not +afterwards regret. Your letter is the queerest mixture of self-deception +and a desire to be quite frank. You try to throw dust in my eyes, while +at the same time you are betraying all that you are most anxious to +conceal. Judging from your letter, the maternal feeling is deeply +ingrained in your nature. You are prepared to fight for your children +and sacrifice yourself for them if necessary. You would put yourself +aside in order to secure for them a healthy and comfortable existence. + +The real truth is that your conscience is pricking you with a remorse +that has been instigated by others. Maternal sentiment is not your +strong point; far from it. In your husband's lifetime you did not try to +make two and two amount to five; and you often showed very plainly that +your children were rather an encumbrance than otherwise. When at last +your affection for them grew, it was not because they were your own +flesh and blood, but because you were thrown into daily contact with +these little creatures whom you had to care for. + +Now you have lost your head because the outlook is rather bad. Your +family, or rather your late husband's people, have attempted to coerce +you in a way that I consider entirely unjustifiable. And you have +allowed yourself to be bullied, and therefore, all unconsciously, have +given them some hold over your life and actions. + +You must not forget that your husband's family, without being asked, +have been allowing you a yearly income which permitted you to live in +the same style as before Professor Wellmann's death. They placed no +restrictions upon you, and made no conditions. Now, the family--annoyed +by what reaches their ears--want to insist that you should conform to +their wishes; otherwise they will withdraw the money, or take from you +the custody of the children. This is a very arbitrary proceeding. + +Reflect well what they are asking of you before you let yourself be +bound hand and foot. + +Are you really capable, Magna, of being an absolutely irreproachable +widow? + +Perhaps there ought to be a law by which penniless widows with children +to bring up should be incarcerated in some kind of nunnery, or burnt +alive at the obsequies of their husbands. But failing such a law, I do +not think a grown-up woman is obliged to promise that she will +henceforth take a vow of chastity. One must not give a promise only to +break it, and, my dear Magna, I do not think you are the woman to keep a +vow of that kind. + +For this reason you ought never to have made yourself dependent upon +strangers by accepting their money for the education of your children. +At the same time I quite see how hard it would be to find yourself +empty-handed with a pack of children all in need of something. If you +had not courage to try to live on the small pension allowed by the +State, you would have done better to find some means of earning a +livelihood with the help of your own people. + +You never thought of this; while I was too much taken up with my own +affairs just then to have any superfluous energy for other people's +welfare or misfortune. + +But now we come to the heart of the question. For some years past you +have confided in me--more fully than I really cared about. While your +husband was alive I often found it rather painful to be always looking +at him through the keyhole, so to speak. But this confidence justifies +me in speaking quite frankly. + +My dear Magna, listen to me. A woman of your temperament ought never to +bind herself by marriage to any man, and is certainly not fit to have +children. You were intended--do not take the words as an insult--to lead +the life of a _fille de joie_. The term sounds ugly--but I know no other +that is equally applicable. Your vehement temperament, your insatiable +desire for new excitements--in a word, your whole nature tends that way. +You cannot deny that your marriage was a grave mistake. + +There was just the chance--a remote one--that you might have met the +kind of husband to suit you: an eminently masculine type, the kind who +would have kept the whip-hand over you, and regarded a wife as +half-mistress, half-slave. Even then I think your conjugal happiness +would have ceased the first day he lost the attraction of novelty. + +Professor Wellmann, your quiet, correct husband, was as great a torment +to you as you were to him. Without intending it, you made his life a +misery. The dreadful scenes which were brought about by your violent and +sensual temperament so changed his disposition that he became brutal; +while to you they became a kind of second nature, a necessity, like food +or sleep. + +Magna, you will think me brutal, too, because I now tell you in black +and white what formerly I lacked the courage to say. Believe me, it was +often on the tip of my tongue to exclaim: "Better have a lover than +torment this poor man whose temperament is so different to your own." + +I will not say you did not care for your husband. You learnt to see his +good qualities; but there was no true union between you. You hated his +work. Not like a woman who is jealous of the time spent away from her; +but because you believed such arduous brain work made him less ardent as +a lover. Although you did not really care for him, you would have +sacrificed all his fame and reputation for an hour of unreasoning +passion. + +At his death you lost the breadwinner and the position you had gained +in the world as the wife of a celebrity. Your grief was sincere; you +felt your loneliness and loss. Then for the first time you clung to your +children, and erroneously believed you were moved by maternal feeling. +You honestly intended henceforward to live for them alone. + +All went well for three months, and then the struggle began. Do you +know, Magna, I admired the way you fought. You would not give way an +inch. You wore the deepest weeds. Sheltered behind your crape, you +surrounded yourself by your children, and fought for your life. + +This inward conflict added to your attractions. It gave you an air of +nobility you had hitherto lacked. + +Then the world began to whisper evil about you while you were still +quite irreproachable. + +No, after all there _was_ something to reproach you with, although it +was not known to outsiders. While you were fighting your instincts and +trying to live as a spotless widow, your character was undergoing a +change: against your will, but not unconsciously, you were become a +perfect fury. In this way your children acquired that timidity which +they have never quite outgrown. Strangers began to notice this after a +while, and to criticise your behaviour. + +Time went on. You wrote that you were obliged to do a "cure" in a +nursing home for nervous complaints. When I heard this, I could not +repress a smile, in spite of your misfortunes. Nerve specialists may be +very clever, but can they be expected, even at the highest fees, to +replace defunct husbands. You were kept in bed and dosed with bromides +and sulphonal. After a few weeks you were pronounced quite well, and +left the home a little stouter and rather languid after keeping your bed +so long. + +When you got home you turned the house upside-down in a frantic fit of +"cleaning." You walked for miles; you took to cooking; and at night, +having wearied your body out with incessant work, you tried to lull your +brain by reading novels. + +What was the use of it all? The day you confessed to me that you had +walked about the streets all night lest you should kill yourself and +your children, I realised that your powers of resistance were at an end. +A week later you had embarked upon your first _liaison_. A month later +the whole town was aware of it. + +That was about a year after the Professor's death. Six or seven years +have passed since then, and you have gone on from adventure to +adventure, all characterised by the same lamentable lack of discretion. +The reason for this lies in your own tendency to self-deception. You +want to make yourself and others believe that you are always looking for +ideal love and constant ties. In reality your motives are quite +different. You hug the traditional conviction that it would be +disgraceful to own that your pretended love is only an affair of the +senses. And yet, if you had not been so anxious to dupe yourself and +others, you might have gone through life frankly and freely. + +The night is far advanced, moreover it is Christmas Eve. + +I will not accuse you without producing proofs. Enclosed you will find +a whole series of letters, dated irregularly, for you only used to write +to me when I was away from home in the summer. In these letters, which I +have carefully collected, and for which I have no ground for reproaching +you, you will see yourself reflected as in a row of mirrors. Do not be +ashamed; your self-deception is not your fault; society is to blame. I +am not sending the letters back to discourage or hurt you; only that you +may see how, with each adventure, you have started with the same +sentimental illusions and ended with the same pitiable disenchantment. + +A penniless widow turned forty--we are about the same age--with five +children has not much prospect of marrying again, however attractive she +may be. I have told you so repeatedly; but your feminine vanity refuses +to believe it. In each fresh adventure you have seen a possible +marriage--not because you feel specially drawn towards matrimony, but +because you are unwilling to leave the course free to younger women. + +You have shown yourself in public with your admirers. + +Neglecting the most ordinary precautions, you have allowed them to come +to your house; in a word, you have unblushingly advertised connections +which ought to have been concealed. + +And the men you selected? + +I do not wish to criticise your choice; but I quite understand why your +friends objected and were ashamed on your account. + +At first people made the best of the situation, tacitly hoping that the +affairs might lead to marriage and that your monetary cares would thus +find a satisfactory solution. But after so many useless attempts this +benevolent attitude was abandoned, and scandal grew. + +Meanwhile you, Magna, blind to all opinion, continued to follow the same +round: flirtation, sentiment, intimacy, adoration, submission, jealousy, +suspicion, suffering, hatred, and contempt. + +The more inferior the man of your choice, the more determined you were +to invest him with extraordinary qualities. But as soon as the next one +appeared on the scene, you began to judge his predecessor at his true +value. + +If all this had resulted in your getting the wherewithal to bring up +your children in comfort, I should say straight out: "My dear Magna, pay +no attention to what other people say, go your own road." + +But, unfortunately, it is just the reverse; your children suffer. They +are growing up. Wanda and Ingrid are almost young women. In a year or +two they will be at a marriageable age. How much longer do you suppose +you can keep them in ignorance? Perhaps they know things already. I have +sometimes surprised a look in Wanda's eyes which suggested that she saw +more than was desirable. + +In my opinion it is better for children not to find out these things +until they are quite old enough to understand them completely. But the +evil is done, and cannot be undone. And yet, Magna, the peace of mind of +these innocent victims is entirely in your hands. You can secure it +without making the sacrifice that your husband's family demands of you. + +You have no right to let your children grow up in this unwholesome +atmosphere; and the atmosphere with which their dear mother surrounds +them cannot be described as healthy. + +If your character was as strong as your temperament, you would not +hesitate to take all the consequences on your own shoulders. But it is +not so. You would shrink from the hard work involved in emigrating and +making yourself a new home abroad; at the same time you would be lowered +in your own eyes if you gave your children into the care of others. + +Then, since for the next few years you will never resign yourself to +single life, and are not likely to find a husband, you must so arrange +your love affairs that they escape the attention of the world. Why +should you mix them up with your home life and your children? What you +need are prudence and calculation; but you have neither. + +You will never fix your life on a firm basis until you have relegated +men to the true place they occupy in your existence. If you could only +make yourself see clearly the fallacy of thinking that every man you +meet is going to love you for eternity. A woman like yourself can +attract lovers by the dozen; but yours is not the temperament to inspire +a serious relationship which might become a lasting friendship. If you +constantly see yourself left in the lurch and abandoned by your admirers +before you have tired of them yourself, it is because you always delude +yourself on this point. + +I know another woman situated very much as you are. She too has a large +family, and a weakness for the opposite sex. Everybody knows that she +has her passing love affairs, but no one quarrels with her on that +score. + +She is really entitled to some respect, for she lives in her own house +the life of an irreproachable matron. She shows the tenderest regard for +the needs of her children, and never a man crosses her threshold but the +doctor. + +You see, dear Magna, that I have devoted half my Christmas night to you, +which I certainly should not have done if I did not feel a special +sympathy for you. If I wind up my letter with a proposal that may wound +your feelings at first sight, you must try to understand that it is +kindly meant. + +Living here alone, a few months' experience has shown me that my income +exceeds my requirements, and I can offer to supply you with a sum which +you can pay me back in a year or two, without interest. This would +enable you to learn some kind of business which would secure you a +living and free you from family interference. Consider it well. + +I live so entirely to myself on this island that I have plenty of time +to ponder over my own lot and that of other people. Write to me when you +feel the wish or need to do so. I will reply to the best of my ability. +If I am very taciturn about my own affairs, it springs from an +idiosyncrasy that I cannot overcome. To make sure of my meaning I have +read my letter through once more, and find that it does not express all +I wanted to say. Never mind, it is true in the main. Only try to +understand that I do not wish to sit in judgment upon you, only to +throw some light on the situation. With all kind thoughts. + + Yours, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + + * * * * * + +It snows, and snows without ceasing. The trees are already wrapped in +snow, like precious objects packed in wadding. The paths will soon be +heaped up to their level. The snowflakes are as large as daisies. When I +go out they flutter round me like a swarm of butterflies. Those that +fall into the water disappear like shooting stars, leaving no trace +behind. + +The glass roof of my bedroom is as heavy as a coffin-lid. I sleep with +my window open, and when there comes a blast of wind my eyes are filled +with snow. This morning, when I woke, my pillow-case was as wet as +though I had been crying all night. + +Torp already sees us in imagination snowed up and receiving our food +supplies down the chimney. She is preparing for the occasion. Her hair +smells as though she had been singeing chickens, and she has +illuminated the basement with small lamps and red shades edged with +pearl fringes. + +Jeanne is equally enchanted. When she goes outside without a hat her +hair looks like a burning torch against the snow. She does not speak, +but hums to herself, and walks more lightly and softly than ever, as +though she feared to waken some sleeper. + +... I remember how Malthe and I were once talking about Greece, and he +gave me an account of a snowstorm in Delphi. I cannot recall a word of +his description; I was not listening, but just thinking how the snow +would melt when it fell upon his head. + +He has fulfilled my request not to write. I have not had a line since +his only letter came. And yet.... + + * * * * * + +I have burnt his letter. + +I have burnt his letter. A few ashes are all that remain to me. + +It hurts me to look at the ashes. I cannot make up my mind to throw them +away. + +I have got rid of the ashes. It was harder than I thought. Even now I +am restless. + + * * * * * + +I am glad the letter is destroyed. Now I am free at last. My temptations +were very natural. + +The last few days I have spent in bed. Jeanne is an excellent nurse. She +makes as much fuss of me as though I were really ill, and I enjoy it. + + * * * * * + +The Nirvana of age is now beginning. In the morning, when Jeanne brushes +my hair, I feel a kind of soothing titillation which lasts all day. I do +not trouble about dressing; I wear no jewellery and never look in the +glass. + +Very often I feel as though my thoughts had come to a standstill, like a +watch one has forgotten to wind up. But this blank refreshes me. + +Weeks have gone by since I wrote in my diary. Several times I have +tried to do so; but when I have the book in front of me, I find I have +nothing to set down. + +In the twilight I sit by the fire like an old child and talk to myself. +Then Torp comes to me for the orders which she ends by giving herself, +and I let her talk to me about her own affairs. The other day I got her +on the subject of spooks. She is full of ghost stories, and relates them +with such conviction that her teeth chatter with terror. Happy Torp, to +possess such imagination! + +Some days I hardly budge from one position, and can with difficulty +force myself to leave my table; at other times I feel the need of +incessant movement. The forest is very quiet, scarcely a soul walks +there. If I do chance to meet anyone, we glare at each other like two +wild beasts, uncertain whether to attack or to flee from each other. + +The forest belongs to me.... + +The piano is closed. I never use it now. The sound of the wind in the +trees is music enough for me. I rise from my bed and listen until I am +half frozen. I, who was never stirred or pleased by the playing of +virtuosi! + +I have no more desires. Past and future both repose beneath a shroud of +soft, mild fog. I am content to live like this. But the least event +indoors wakes me from my lethargy. Yesterday Torp sent for the sweep. +Catching sight of him in my room, I could not repress a scream. I could +not think for the moment what the man could be doing here. + +Another time a stray cat took refuge under my table. I was not aware of +it, but no sooner had I sat down than I felt surcharged with +electricity. I rang for Jeanne, and when she came into the room the +creature darted from its hiding-place, and I was panic-stricken. + +Jeanne carried it away, but for a long time afterwards I shivered at the +sight of her. + +Whence comes this horror of cats? Many people make pets of them. +Personally I should prefer the company of a boa-constrictor. + + * * * * * + +A man whose vanity I had wounded once took it upon himself to tell me +some plain truths. He did me this honour because I had not sufficiently +appreciated his attentions. + +He assured me that I was neither clever nor gifted, but that I was +merely skilful at not letting myself be caught out, and had a certain +quickness of repartee. He was quite right. + +What time and energy I have spent in trying to keep up this reputation +of being a clever woman, when I was really not born one! + +My vanity demanded that I should not be run after for my appearance +only; so I surrounded myself with clever men and let them call me +intellectual. It was Hans Andersen's old tale of "The King's New +Clothes" over again. + +We spoke of political economy, of statesmanship, of art and literature, +finance and religion. I knew nothing about all these things, but, thanks +to an animated air of attention, I steered safely between the rocks and +won a reputation for cleverness. + + * * * * * + +In English novels, with their insipid sweetness that always reminds me +of the smell of frost-bitten potatoes, the heroine sometimes permits +herself the luxury of being blind, lame, or disfigured by smallpox. The +hero adores her just the same. How false to life! My existence would +have been very different if ten years ago I had lost my long eyelashes, +if my fingers had become deformed, or my nose shown signs of redness.... + +A red nose! It is the worst catastrophe that can befall a beautiful +woman. I always suspected this was the reason why Adelaide Svanstroem +took poison. Poor woman, unluckily she did not take a big enough dose! + + * * * * * + + + + + JANUARY. + +My senses are reawakening. Light and sound now bring me entirely new +impressions; what I see, I now also feel, with nerves of which hitherto +I did not suspect the existence. When evening draws on I stare into the +twilight until everything seems to shimmer before my eyes, and I dream +like a child.... + +Yesterday, before going to bed, I went on my balcony, as I usually do, +to take a last glance at the sea. But it was the starry sky that fixed +my attention. It seemed to reveal and offer itself to me. I felt I had +never really seen it before, although I sleep with it over my head! + +Each star was to me like a dewdrop created to slake my thirst. I drank +in the sky like a plant that is almost dead for want of moisture. And +while I drank it in, I was conscious of a sensation hitherto unknown to +me. For the first time in my life I was aware of the existence of my +soul. I threw back my head to gaze and gaze. Night enfolded me in all +its splendour, and I wept. + +What matter that I am growing old? What matter that I have missed the +best in life? Every night I can look towards the stars and be filled +with their chill, eternal peace. + +I, who never could read a poem without secretly mocking the writer, who +never believed in the poets' ecstasies over Nature, now I perceive that +Nature is the one divinity worthy to be worshipped. + + * * * * * + +I miss Margarethe Ernst; especially her amusing ways. How she glided +about among people, always ready to dart out her sharp tongue, always +prepared to sting. And yet she is not really unkind, in spite of her +little cunning smile. But her every movement makes a singular impression +which is calculated. + +We amused each other. We spoke so candidly about other people, and lied +so gracefully to each other about ourselves. Moreover, I think she is +loyal in her friendship, and of all my letters hers are the best +written. + +I should have liked to have drawn her out, but she was the one person +who knew how to hold her own. I always felt she wore a suit of chain +armour under her close-fitting dresses which was proof against the +assaults of her most impassioned adorers. + +She is one of those women who, without appearing to do so, manages to +efface all her tracks as she goes. I have watched her change her tactics +two or three times in the course of an evening, according to the people +with whom she was talking. She glided up to them, breathed their +atmosphere for an instant, and then established contact with them. + +She is calculating, but not entirely for her own ends; she is like a +born mathematician who thoroughly enjoys working out the most difficult +problems. + +I should like to have her here for a week. + +She, too, dreads the transition years. She tries in vain to cheat old +age. Lately she adopted a "court mourning" style of dress, and wore +little, neat, respect-impelling mantillas round her thin, +Spanish-looking face. One of these days, when she is close upon fifty, +we shall see her return to all the colours of the rainbow and to ostrich +plumes. She lives in hopes of a new springtide in life. Shall I invite +her here? + +She would come, of course, by the first train, scenting the air with +wide nostrils, like a stag, and an array of trunks behind her! + +No! To ask her would be a lamentable confession of failure. + + * * * * * + +The last few days I have arrived at a condition of mind which occasions +great self-admiration. I am now sure that, even if the difference in our +ages did not exist, I could never marry Malthe. + +I could do foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I have +loved with all my heart. I could humble myself to be his mistress; I +could die with him. But set up a home with Joergen Malthe--never! + +The terrible part of home life is that every piece of furniture in the +house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long +after love has died out--if, indeed, it ever existed between them. Two +human beings--who differ as much as two human beings always must do--are +compelled to adopt the same tastes, the same outlook. The home is built +upon this incessant conflict. The struggle often goes on in silence, but +it is not the less bitter, even when concealed. + +How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration +masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel would have +done.... What a profound contempt I felt for his tastes; and, without +saying it in words, how he disapproved of mine! + +No! His home was not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal couple, +at one on all points. My person for his money--that was the bargain, +crudely but truthfully expressed. + + * * * * * + +Just as one arranges the scenery for a _tableau vivant_, I prepared my +"living grave" in this house, which Malthe built in ignorance of its +future occupant. And here I have learnt that joy of possession which +hitherto I have only known in respect of my jewellery. + +This house is really my home. My first and only home. Everything here is +dear to me, because it _is_ my own. + +I love the very earthworms because they do good to my garden. The birds +in the trees round about the house are my property. I almost wish I +could enclose the sky and clouds within a wall and make them mine. + +In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I +left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body. + +Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger +to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine. +I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me +before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I +shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the +bare deal table, the dusty books, the trunk covered with a travelling +rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor. + +Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over +me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured +to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth +interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air +with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their +touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his passion, and yet he +went on discussing this wretched dome--about which I cared as little as +for the inkstains on his table. + +I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room. + +"But I get the sunshine," he said, blushing. + +I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most +superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges +from the purple clouds at evening. + +Big child that you are, how I love you! + +But I will never, never start a home with you! + +Well, surely one gardener can hardly suffice to poison the air of the +place. If he is a nuisance I shall send him packing. + +The man comes from a big estate. If he is content to cultivate my +cabbage patch, it must be because, besides being very ugly, he has some +undiscovered faults. But I really cannot undertake to make minute +inquiries into the psychical qualities of Mr. Under-gardener Jensen. + +His photograph was sent by a registry office, among many others. We +examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as +though they had been fashion plates from Paris. To my silent amusement, +I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she +thought smells could be photographed, too. + +Prudence prompted me to select this man; he is too ugly to disturb our +peace of mind. On the other hand, as I had the wisdom not to pull down +the hut in which the former proprietor lived, the two rooms there will +have to do for Mr. Jensen, so that we can keep him at a little distance. + +Torp asked if he was to take meals in the kitchen. + +Certainly! I have no intention of having him for my opposite neighbour +at table. But, on the whole, he had better have his meals in his hut, +then we shall not be always smelling him. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps we are really descended from dogs, for the sense of smell can so +powerfully influence our senses. + +I would undertake in pitch darkness to recognise every man I know by the +help of my nose alone; that is, if I passed near enough to him to sniff +his atmosphere. I am almost ashamed to confess that men are the same to +me as flowers; I judge them by their smell. I remember once a young +English waiter in a restaurant who stirred all my sensibilities each +time he passed the back of my chair. Luckily Richard was there! For the +same reason I could not endure Herr von Brincken to come near me--and +equally for the same reason Richard had power over my senses. + +Every time I bite the stalk of a pansy I recall the neighbourhood of +the young Englishman. + +Men ought never to use perfumes. The Creator has provided them. But with +women it is different.... + + * * * * * + +To-day is my birthday. No one here knows it. Besides, what woman would +enjoy celebrating her forty-third birthday? Only Lillie Rothe, I am +sure!... + +One day I was talking to a specialist about the thousands of women who +are saved by medical science to linger on and lead a wretched +semi-existence. These women who suffer for years physically and are +oppressed by a melancholy for which there seems to be no special cause. +At last they consult a doctor; enter a nursing home and undergo some +severe operation. Then they resume life as though nothing had happened. +Their surroundings are unchanged; they have to fulfil all the duties of +everyday life--even the conjugal life is taken up once more. And these +poor creatures, who are often ignorant of the nature of their illness, +are plunged into despair because life seems to have lost its joy and +interest. + +I ventured to observe to the doctor with whom I was conversing that it +would be better for them if they died under the anæsthetic. The surgeon +reproved me, and inquired whether I was one of those people who thought +that all born cripples ought to be put out of their misery at once. + +I did not quite see the connection of ideas; but I suppressed my desire +to close his argument by telling him of an example which is branded upon +my memory. + +Poor Mathilde Bremer! I remember her so well before and after the +operation. She was not afraid to die, because she knew her husband was +devoted to her. But she kept saying to the surgeon: + +"You must either cure me or kill me. For my own sake and for his, I will +not go on living this half-invalidish life." + +She was pronounced "cured." Two years later she left her husband, very +much against his will, but feeling she was doing the best for both of +them. + +She once said to me: "There is no torture to equal that which a woman +suffers when she loves her husband and is loved by him; a woman for whom +her husband is all in all, who longs to keep his devotion, but knows she +must fail, because physically she is no longer herself." + +The life Mathilde Bremer is now leading--that of a solitary woman +divorced from her husband--is certainly not enviable. Yet she admits +that she feels far better than she used to do. + + * * * * * + +Any one might suppose I was on the way to become a rampant champion of +the Woman's Cause. May I be provided with some other occupation! I have +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs. + +Heaven be eternally praised that I have no children, and have been +spared all the ailments which can be "cured" by women's specialists! + + * * * * * + +Ye powers! How interminable a day can be! Surely every day contains +forty-eight hours! + +I can actually watch the seconds oozing away, drop by drop.... Or +rather, they fall slowly on my head, like dust upon a polished table. My +hair is getting steadily greyer. + +It is not surprising, because I neglect it. + +But what is the use of keeping it artificially brown with lotions and +pomades? Let it go grey! + +Torp has observed that I take far more pleasure in good cooking than I +did at first. + +My dresses are getting too tight. I miss my masseuse. + + * * * * * + +To-day I inspected my linen cupboard with all the care of the lady +superior of an aristocratic convent. I delighted in the spectacle of the +snowy-white piles, and counted it all. I am careful with my money, and +yet I like to have great supplies in the house. The more bottles, cases, +and bags I see in the larder, the better pleased I am. In that respect +Torp and I are agreed. If we were cut off from the outer world by flood, +or an earthquake, we could hold out for a considerable time. + + * * * * * + +If I had more sensibility, and a little imagination--even as much as +Torp, who makes verses with the help of her hymn-book--I think I should +turn my attention to literature. Women like to wade in their memories as +one wades through dry leaves in autumn. I believe I should be very +clever in opening a series of whited sepulchres, and, without betraying +any personalities, I should collect my exhumed mummies under the general +title of, "Woman at the Dangerous Age." But besides imagination, I lack +the necessary perseverance to occupy myself for long together with other +people's affairs. + + * * * * * + +We most of us sail under a false flag; but it is necessary. If we were +intended to be as transparent as glass, why were we born with our +thoughts concealed? + +If we ventured to show ourselves as we really are, we should be either +hermits, each dwelling on his own mountain-top, or criminals down in the +valleys. + + * * * * * + +Torp has gone to evening service. Angelic creature! She has taken a +lantern with her, therefore we shall probably not see her again before +midnight. In consequence of her religious enthusiasm, we dined at +breakfast-time. Yes, Torp knows how to grease the wheels of her +existence! + +Naturally she is about as likely to attend church as I am. Her vespers +will be read by one of the sailors whose ship has been laid up near here +for the winter. Peace be with her--but I am dreadfully bored. + +I have a bitter feeling as though Jeanne and I were doing penance, each +in a dark corner of our respective quarters. The Sundays of my childhood +were not worse than this. + +In the distance a cracked, tinkling bell "tolls the knell of parting +day." Jeanne and I are depressed by it. I have taken up a dozen +different occupations and dropped them all. + +If it were only summer! I am oppressed as though I were sitting in a +close bower of jasmine; but we are in mid-winter, and I have not used a +drop of scent for months. + +But, after all, Sundays were no better in the Old Market Place. There I +had Richard from morning till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be +bored in the society of one other person is much worse. And to think +that Richard never even noticed it! His incessant talk reminded me of a +mill-wheel, and I felt as though all the flour was blowing into my eyes. + + * * * * * + +I will take a brisk constitutional. + + * * * * * + +What is the matter with me? I am so nervous that I can scarcely hold my +pen. I have never seen a fog come on so suddenly; I thought I should +never find my way back to the house. It is so thick I can hardly see the +nearest trees. It has got into the room, and seems to be hanging from +the ceiling. I am damp through and through. + +The fire has gone out, and I am freezing. It is my own fault; I ought to +have rung for Jeanne, or put on some logs myself, but I could not summon +up resolution even for that. + +What has become of Torp, that she is staying out half the day? How will +she ever find her way home? With twenty lanterns it would be impossible +to see ten yards ahead of one. My lamp burns as though water was mixed +with the oil. + +Overhead I hear Jeanne pacing up and down. I hear her, although she +walks so lightly. She too is restless and upset. We have a kind of +influence on each other, I have noticed it before. + +If only she would come down of her own accord. At least there would be +two of us. + +I feel the same cold shivers down my back that I remember feeling long +ago, when my nurse induced me to go into a churchyard. I thought I saw +all the dead coming out of their graves. That was a foggy evening, too. +How strange it is that such far-off things return so clearly to the +mind. + +The trees are quite motionless, as though they were listening for +something. What do they hear? There is not a soul here--only Jeanne and +myself. + +Another time I shall forbid Torp to make these excursions. If she must +go to church, she shall go in the morning. + +It is very uncanny living here all alone in the forest, without a +watch-dog, or a man near at hand. One is at the mercy of any passerby. + +For instance, the other day, some tipsy sailors came and tried the +handle of the front-door.... But then, I was not in the least +frightened; I even inspired Torp with courage. + +I have a feeling that Jeanne is sitting upstairs in mortal terror. I sit +here with my pen in my hand like a weapon of defence. If I could only +make up my mind to ring.... + +There, it is done! My hand is trembling like an aspen leaf, but I must +not let her see that I am frightened. I must behave as though nothing +had happened. + +Poor girl! She rushed into the room without knocking, pale as a corpse, +her eyes starting from her head. She clung to me like a child that has +just awakened from a bad dream. + +What is the matter with us? We are both terrified. The fog seems to have +affected our wits. + +I have lit every lamp and candle, and they flicker fitfully, like +Jeanne's eyes. + +The fog is getting more and more dense. Jeanne is sitting on the sofa, +her hand pressed to her heart, and I seem to hear it beating, even from +here. + +I feel as though some one were dying near me--here in the room. + +Joergen, is it you? Answer me, is it you? + +Ah! I must have gone mad.... I am not superstitious, only depressed. + +All the doors are locked and the shutters barred. There is not a sound. +I cannot hear anything moving outside. + +It is just this dead silence that frightens us.... Yes, that is what it +is.... + + * * * * * + +Now Jeanne is asleep. I can hardly see her through the fog. + +She sits there like a shadow, an apparition, and the fog floats over her +red hair like smoke over a fire. + +I know nothing whatever about her. She is as reserved about her own +concerns as I am about mine. Yet I feel as though during this hour of +intense fear and agitation I had seen into the depths of her soul. I +understand her, because we are both women. She suffers from the eternal +unrest of the blood. + +She has had a shock to her inmost feelings. At some time or other she +has been so deeply wounded that she cannot live again in peace. + +She and I have so much in common that we might be blood-relations. But +we ought not to live under the same roof as mistress and servant. + + * * * * * + +Gradually the fog is dispersing, and the lights burn brighter. I seem to +follow Jeanne's dreams as they pass beneath her brow. Her mouth has +fallen a little open, as if she were dead. Every moment she starts up; +but when she sees me she smiles and drops off again. Good heavens, how +utterly exhausted she seems after these hours of fear! + +But somebody _is_ there! Yes ... outside ... there between the trees ... +I see somebody coming.... + +It is only Torp, with her lantern, and the dressmaker from the +neighbouring village. The moment she opened the basement door and I +heard her voice I felt quite myself again. + + * * * * * + +We have eaten ravenously, like wolves. For the first time Jeanne sat at +table with me and shared my meal. For the first and probably for the +last time. Torp opened her eyes very wide, but she was careful to make +no observations. + +My fit of madness to-night has taught me that the sooner I have a man of +some kind to protect the house the better. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has confided in me. She was too upset to sleep, and came knocking +at my bedroom door, asking if she might come in. I gave her permission, +although I was already in bed. She sat at the foot of my bed and told me +her story. It is so remarkable that I must set in down on paper. + +Now I understand her nice hands and all her ways. I understand, too, how +it came about that I found her one day turning over the pages of a +volume by Anatole France, as though she could read French. + +Her parents had been married twelve years when she was born. When she +was thirteen they celebrated their silver wedding. Until that moment in +her life she had grown up in the belief that they were a perfectly +united couple. The father was a chemist in a small town, and they lived +comfortably. The silver wedding festivities took place in their own +house. At dinner the girl drank some wine and felt it had gone to her +head. She left the table, saying to her mother, "I am going to lie down +in my room for a little while." But on the way she turned so giddy that +she went by mistake into a spare room that was occupied by a cavalry +officer, a cousin of her mother's. Too tired to go a step farther, she +fell asleep on a sofa in the darkened room. A little later she woke, and +heard the sounds of music and dancing downstairs, but felt no +inclination to join in the gaiety. Presently she dropped off again, and +when she roused for the second time she was aware of whispers near her +couch. In the first moment of awakening she felt ashamed of being caught +there by some of the guests. She held her breath and lay very still. +Then she recognized her mother's voice. After a few minutes she grasped +the truth.... Her mother, whom she worshipped, and this officer, whom +she admired in a childish way! + +They lit the candles. She forced herself to lie motionless, and feigned +to be fast asleep. She heard her mother's exclamation of horror: +"Jeanne!" And the captain's words: + +"Thank goodness she is sleeping like a log!" + +Her mother rearranged her disordered hair, and they left the room. + +After a few minutes she returned with a lamp, calling out: + +"Jeanne, where are you, child? We have been searching all over the +house!" + +Her pretended astonishment when she discovered the girl made the whole +scene more painful to Jeanne. But gathering up her self-control as best +she could, she succeeded in replying: + +"I am so tired: let me have my sleep out." + +Her mother bent over her and kissed her several times. The child felt as +though she would die while submitting to these caresses. + +This one hour, with its cruel enlightenment, sufficed to destroy +Jeanne's joy in life for ever. At the same time it filled her mind with +impure thoughts that haunted her night and day. She matured +precociously in the atmosphere of her own despair. + +There was no one in whom she could confide; alone she bore the weight of +a double secret, either of which was enough to crush her youth. + +She could not bear to look her mother in the face. With her father, too, +she felt ill at ease, as though she had in some way wronged him. +Everything was soiled for her. She had but one desire; to get away from +home. + +About two years later her mother was seized with fatal illness. Jeanne +could not bring herself to show her any tenderness. The piteous glance +of the dying woman followed all her comings and goings, but she +pretended not to see it. Once, when her father was out of the room, her +mother called Jeanne to the bedside: + +"You know?" she asked. + +Jeanne only nodded her head in reply. + +"Child, I am dying, forgive me." + +But Jeanne moved away from the bed without answering the appeal. + +No sooner had the doctor pronounced life to be extinct than she felt a +strange anxiety. In her great desire to atone in some way for her past +harshness, the girl resolved that, no matter what befell her, she would +do her best to hide the truth from her father. + +That night she entered the room where the dead woman lay, and ransacked +every box and drawer until she found the letters she was seeking. They +were at the bottom of her mother's jewel-case. Quickly she took +possession of them; but just as she was replacing the case in its +accustomed place, her father came in, having heard her moving about. She +could offer no explanation of her presence, and had to listen in silence +to his bitter accusation: "Are you so crazy about trinkets that you +cannot wait until your poor mother is laid in her grave?" + +In the course of that year one of the chemist's apprentices seduced her. +But she laughed in his face when he spoke of marriage. Later on she ran +away with a commercial traveller, and neither threats nor persuasion +would induce her to return home. + +After this, more than once she sought in some fleeting connection a +happiness which never came to her. The only pleasure she got out of her +adventures was the power of dressing well. When at last she saw that she +was not made for this disorderly life, she obtained a situation in a +German family travelling to the south of Europe. + +There she remained until homesickness drove her back to Denmark. Her +complete lack of ambition accounts for her being contented in this +modest situation. + +She never made any inquiries about her father, and only knows that he +left his money to other people, which does not distress her in the +least. Her sole reason for going on living is that she shrinks from +seeking death voluntarily. + +I wonder if there exists a man who could save her? A man who could make +her forget the bitterness of the past? She assures me I am the only +human being who has ever attracted her. If I were a man she would be +devoted to me and sacrifice everything for my sake. + +It is a strange case. But I am very sorry for the girl. I have never +come across such a peculiar mixture of coldness and ardour. + +When she had finished her story she went away very quietly. And I am +convinced that to-morrow things will go on just as before. Neither of us +will make any further allusion to the fog, nor to all that followed it. + + + + + SPRING. + +I am driven mad by all this singing and playing! One would think the +steamboats were driven by the force of song, and that atrocious +orchestras were a new kind of motive power. From morning till night +there is no cessation from patriotic choruses and folk-songs. + +Sometimes The Sound looks like a huge drying-ground in which all these +red and white sails are spread out to air. + +How I wish these pleasure-boats were birds! I would buy a gun and +practise shooting, in the hopes of killing a few. But this is the close +season.... The principal thoroughfares of a large town could hardly be +more bustling than the sea just now--the sea that in winter was as +silent and deserted as a graveyard. + +People begin to trespass in my forest and to prowl round my garden. I +see their inquisitive faces at my gates. I think I must buy a dog to +frighten them away. But then I should have to put up with his howling +after some dear and distant female friend. + + * * * * * + +How that gardener enrages me! His eyes literally twinkle with sneaky +thoughts. I would give anything to get rid of him. + +But he moves so well! Never in my life have I seen a man with such a +walk, and he knows it, and knows too that I cannot help looking at him +when he passes by. + +Torp is bewitched. She prepares the most succulent viands in his honour. +Her French cookery book is daily in requisition, and, judging from the +savoury smells which mount from the basement, he likes his food well +seasoned. + +Fortunately he is nothing to Jeanne, although she does notice the way he +walks from his hips, and his fine carriage. + +Midday is the pleasantest hour now. Then the sea is quiet and free from +trippers. Even the birds cease to sing, and the gardener takes his +sleep. Jeanne sits on the verandah, as I have given her permission to +do, with some little piece of sewing. She is making artificial roses +with narrow pink ribbon; a delightful kind of work. + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAR PROFESSOR ROTHE, + +Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it +immediately, as I should have wished to do. For that reason I sent you +the brief telegram in reply, the words of which, I am sorry to say, I +must now repeat: "I know nothing about the matter." Lillie has never +spoken a word to me, or made the least allusion in my presence, which +could cause me to suspect such a thing. I think I can truly say that I +never heard her pronounce the name of Director Schlegel. + +My first idea was that my cousin had gone out of her mind, and I was +astonished that you--being a medical man--should not have come to the +same conclusion. But on mature consideration (I have thought of nothing +but Lillie for the last two days) I have changed my opinion. I think I +am beginning to understand what has happened, but I beg you to remember +that I alone am responsible for what I am going to say. I am only +dealing with suppositions, nothing more. + +Lillie has not broken her marriage vows. Any suspicion of betrayal is +impossible, having regard to her upright and loyal nature. If to you, +and to everybody else, she appeared to be perfectly happy in her married +life, it was because she really was so. I implore you to believe this. + +Lillie, who never told even a conventional falsehood, who watched over +her children like an old-fashioned mother, careful of what they read and +what plays they saw, how could she have carried on, unknown to you and +to them, an intrigue with another man? Impossible, impossible, dear +Professor! I do not say that your ears played you false as to the words +she spoke, but you must have put a wrong interpretation upon them. + +Not once, but thousands of times, Lillie has spoken to me about you. She +loved and honoured you. You were her ideal as man, husband, and father. +She was proud of you. Having no personal vanity or ambition, like so +many good women, her pride and hopes were all centred in you. + +She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your operations; +and I need hardly remind you how carefully she followed your work. She +studied Latin in order to understand your scientific books, while, in +spite of her natural repulsion from the sight of such things, she +attended your anatomy classes and demonstrations. + +When Lillie said, "I love Schlegel, and have loved him for years," her +words did not mean "And all that time my love for you was extinct." + +No, Lillie cared for Schlegel and for you too. The whole question is so +simple, and at the same time so complicated. + +Probably you are saying to yourself: "A woman must love one man or the +other." With some show of reason, you will argue: "In leaving my house, +at any rate, she proved at the moment that Schlegel alone claimed her +affection." + +Nevertheless I maintain that you are wrong. + +Lillie showed every sign of a sane, well-balanced nature. Well, her +famous equability and calm deceived us all. Behind this serene exterior +was concealed the most feminine of all feminine qualities--a fanciful, +visionary imagination. + +Do you or I know anything about her first girlish dreams? Have you--in +spite of your happy life together--ever really understood her innermost +soul? Forgive my doubts, but I do not think you have. When a man +possesses a woman as completely as you possessed Lillie, he thinks +himself quite safe. You never knew a moment's doubt, or supposed it +possible that, having you, she could wish for anything else. You +believed that you fulfilled all her requirements. + +How do you know that for years past Lillie has not felt some longings +and deficiencies in her inner life of which she was barely conscious, or +which she did not understand? + +You are not only a clever and capable man; you are kind, and an +entertaining companion; in short, you have many good qualities which +Lillie exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical. You +are, in fact, rather prosaic, and only believe what you see. Your +judgments and views are not hasty, but just and decisive. + +Now contrast all this with Lillie's immense indulgence. Whence did she +derive this if not from a sympathetic understanding of things which we +do not possess? You remember how we used to laugh when she defended some +criminal who was quite beyond defence and apology! Something intense and +far-seeking came into her expression on those occasions, and her heart +prompted some line of argument which reason could not support. + +She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing us, cold and sceptical +people. + +But how she must have suffered! + +Then recollect the pleasure it gave her to discuss religious and +philosophical questions. She was not "religious" in the common +acceptation of the word. But she liked to get to the bottom of things, +and to use her imagination. We others were indifferent, or frankly +bored, by such matters. + +And Lillie, who was so gentle and lacking in self-assertion, gave way to +us. + +Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She felt a physical pang to see +cut flowers with their stalks out of water. Once I saw her buy up the +whole stock-in-trade of a flower-girl, because the poor things wanted +water. Neither you nor your children have any love of flowers. You, as a +doctor, are inclined to think it unhealthy to have plants in your rooms; +consequently there were none, and Lillie never grumbled about it. + +Lillie did not care for modern music. César Franck bored her, and Wagner +gave her a headache. Her favourite instrument was an old harpsichord, on +which she played Mozart, while her daughters thundered out Liszt and +Rubinstein upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good +humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune. + +Finally, Lillie liked quiet, musical speech, and she was surrounded by +people who talked at the top of their voices. + +"Absurd trifles," I can hear you saying. Perhaps. But they explain the +fact that although she was happy in a way, she still had many +aspirations which were not only unsatisfied, but which, without meaning +it unkindly, you daily managed to crush. + +Lillie never blamed others. When she found that you did not understand +the things she cared for, she immediately tried to think she was in the +wrong, and her well-balanced nature helped her to conquer her own +predilections. + +She was happy because she willed to be happy. Once and for all she had +made up her mind that she was the luckiest woman in existence; happy in +every respect; and she was deeply grateful to you. + +But in the depths of her heart--so deeply buried that perhaps it never +rose to the surface even in the form of a dream--lay that secret +something which led to the present misfortune. + +I know nothing of her relations with Schlegel, but I think I may venture +to say that they were chiefly limited to intercourse of the soul; and +for that reason they were so fatal. + +Have you ever observed the sound of Schlegel's voice? He spoke slowly +and so softly; I can quite believe it attracted your wife in the +beginning; and that afterwards, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, she +gravitated towards him. He possessed so many qualities that she admired +and missed. + +The man is now at death's door, and can never explain to us what passed +between them--even admitting that there was anything blameworthy. As far +as I know, Schlegel was quite infatuated with a totally different woman. +Had he really been in love with Lillie, would he have been contented +with a few words and an occasional pressure of her hand? Therefore, +since it is out of the question that your wife can have been unfaithful +to you, I am inclined to think that Schlegel knew nothing of her +feelings for him. + +You will reply that in that case it must all be gross exaggeration on +Lillie's part. But you, being a man, cannot understand how little +satisfies a woman when her love is great enough. + +Why, then, has Lillie left you, and why does she refuse to give you an +explanation? Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions? + +I will tell you: Lillie is in love with two men at the same time. Their +different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character. +If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby +losing all his faculties, Lillie would have remained with you and +continued to be a model wife and mother. In the same way, had you been +the victim of the accident, she would have clean forgotten Schlegel, and +would have lived and breathed for you alone. + +But fate decreed that the misfortune should be his. + +Lillie had not sufficient strength to fight the first, sharp anguish. +She was bewildered by the shock, and felt herself suddenly in a false +position. The love on which her imagination had been feeding seemed to +her at the moment the true one. She felt she was betraying you, +Schlegel, and herself; and since self-sacrifice has become the law of +her existence, she was prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her +love. + +As to you, Professor Rothe, you have acted very foolishly. You have +done just what any average, conventional man would have done. Your +injured vanity silenced the voice of your heart. + +You had the choice of two alternatives: either Lillie was mad, or she +was responsible for her actions. You were convinced that she was quite +sane and was playing you false in cold blood. She wished to leave you; +then let her go. What becomes of her is nothing to you; you wash your +hands of her henceforth. + +You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your +confidence. How could you have found it in your heart to do this, +instead of putting them off with any explanation rather than the true +one! + +Lillie knew you better than I supposed. She knew that behind your +apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature. She +understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your +house the moment you discovered that she had a thought or a sentiment +that was not subordinated to your will. + +You have let her go, believing that she had been playing a pretty part +behind your back, and that I was her confidante, and perhaps also the +instigator of her wicked deeds. + +Lillie has taken refuge with her children's old nurse. + +How significant! Lillie, who has as many friends as either of us, knows +by a subtle instinct that none of them would befriend her in her +misfortune. + +If you, Professor, were a large-hearted man, what would you do? You +would explain to the chief doctor at the infirmary Lillie's great wish +to remain near Schlegel until the end comes. + +Weigh what I am saying well. Lillie is, and will always remain the same. +She loves you, and such a line of conduct on your part would fill her +with grateful joy. What does it matter if during the few days or weeks +that she is with this poor condemned man, who can neither recognize her, +nor speak, nor make the least movement, you have to put up with some +inconvenience? + +If Lillie had your consent to be near Schlegel, she would certainly not +refuse to return to her wifely duties as soon as he was dead. It is +possible that at first she might not be able to hide her grief from you; +then it would be your task to help her win back her peace of mind. + +I know something of Schlegel; during the last few years I have seen a +good deal of him. Without being a remarkable personality, there was +something about him that attracted women. They attributed to him all the +qualities which belonged to the heroes of their dreams. Do you +understand me? I can believe that a woman who admired strength and +manliness might see in Schlegel a type of firm, inflexible manhood; +while a woman attracted by tenderness might equally think him capable of +the most yielding gentleness. The secret probably lay in the fact that +this man, who knew so many women, possessed the rare faculty of taking +each one according to her temperament. + +Schlegel was a living man; but had he been a portrait, or character in +a novel, Lillie would have fallen in love with him just the same, +because her love was purely of the imagination. + +You must do what you please. But one thing I want you to understand: if +you are not going to act in the matter, I shall do so. I willingly +confess that I am a selfish woman; but I am very fond of Lillie, and if +you abandon her in this cruel and clumsy way, I shall have her to live +with me here, and I shall do my best to console her for the loss of an +ungrateful husband and a pack of stupid, indifferent children. + +One word more before I finish my letter. Lillie, as far as I can +recollect, is a year older than I am. Could you not--woman's specialist +as you are--have found some explanation in this fact? Had Lillie been +fifty-five or thirty-five, all this would never have happened. I do not +care for strangers to look into my personal affairs, and although you +are my cousin's husband you are practically a stranger to me. +Nevertheless I may remind you that women at our time of life pass +through critical moments, as I know by my daily experiences. The letter +which I have written to you in a cool reasoning spirit might have been +impossible a week or two ago. I should probably have reeled off pages of +incoherent abuse. + +Show Lillie that your pretended love was not selfishness pure and +simple. + + With kind greetings, + Yours sincerely, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +P.S.--I would rather not answer your personal attacks. I could not have +acted differently and I regret nothing. + + * * * * * + +To-morrow morning I will get rid of that gardener without fail. + +An extra month's wages and money for his journey--whatever is +necessary--so long as he goes. + +I wish to sleep in peace and to feel sure that my house is safely locked +up, and I cannot sleep a wink so long as I know he comes to see Torp. + +That my cook should have a man in does not shock me, but it annoys me. +It makes me think of things I wish to forget. + +I seem to hear them laughing and giggling downstairs. + +Madness! I could not really hear anything that was going on in the +basement. The birds were restless, because the night is too light to let +them sleep. The sea gleams under the silver dome of the moonlit sky. + +What is that?... Ah! Miss Jeanne going towards the forest. + +Her head looks like one of those beautiful red fungi that grow among the +fir-trees. + +If the gardener had chosen _her_.... But Torp! + +I should like to go wandering out into the woods and leave the house to +those two creatures in the basement. But if I happened to meet Jeanne, +what explanation could I give? + +It would be too ridiculous for both of us to be straying about in the +forest, because Torp was entertaining a sweetheart in the basement! + +Doors and windows are wide open, and they are two floors below me, and +yet I seem to smell the sour, disgusting odour of that man. Is it +hysteria?... + +No. I cannot sleep, and it is four in the morning. The sunrise is a +glorious sight provided one is really in the mood to enjoy it. But at +the present moment I should prefer the blackest night.... + +There he goes! Sneaking away like a thief. Not once does he look back; +and yet I am sure the hateful female is standing at the door, waving to +him and kissing her hand.... + +But what is the matter with Jeanne? Poor girl, she has hidden behind a +tree. She does not want to be seen by him; and she is quite right, it +would be paying the boor too great an honour. + + * * * * * + +Merely to watch Richard eating was--or rather it became--a daily +torture. He handled his knife and fork with the utmost refinement. Yet I +would have given anything if he would have occasionally put his elbows +on the table, or bitten into an unpeeled apple, or smacked his lips.... +Imagine Richard smacking his lips! + +His manners at table were invariably correct. + +I shall never forget the look of tender reproach he once cast upon me +when I tore open a letter with my fingers, instead of waiting until he +had passed me the paper-knife. Probably it got upon his nerves in the +same way that he got upon mine when he contemplated himself in the +looking-glass. + +A spot upon the table-cloth annoyed and distracted him. He said nothing, +but all the time he eyed the mark as though it was left from a +murderer's track. + +His mania for tidiness often forced me, against my nature, to a +counteracting negligence. I intentionally disarranged the bookshelves in +the library; but he would follow me five minutes afterwards and put +everything in its place again. + +Yet had I really cared for him, this fussiness would have been an added +charm in my eyes. + +Was Richard always faithful to me? Or, if not, did he derive any +pleasure from his lapses? Naturally enough he must have had many +temptations; and although I, as a mere woman, was hindered by a thousand +conventional reasons, he had opportunities and reasonable excuses for +taking what was offered him. + +And probably he did not lose his chances; at any rate when he was away +for long together on business. But I am convinced that his infidelities +were a sort of indirect homage to his lawful wife, and that he did not +derive much satisfaction from them. I am not afraid of being compared +with other women. + +After all, my good Richard may have remained absolutely true to me, +thanks to his mania for having all things in order. + +I am almost sorry that I never caught him in some disgraceful +infidelity. Discovery, confession, scenes, sighs, and tears! Who knows +but what it might have been a very good thing for us? The certainty of +his unceasing attentions to me was rather tame; and he did not gain much +by it in the long run, poor man. + +The only time I ever remember to have felt jealous it was not a +pleasant sensation, although I am sure there were no real grounds for +it. It was brought about by his suggestion that we should invite Edith +to go to Monaco with us. Richard went as white as a sheet when I asked +him whether my society no longer sufficed for him.... + +I cannot understand how any grown-up man can take a girl of seventeen +seriously. They irritate me beyond measure. + + * * * * * + +Malthe has come back from Vienna, they tell me. I did not know he had +been to Vienna. I thought all this time he had been at Copenhagen. + +It is strange how this news has upset me. What does it matter where he +lives? + +If he were ten years younger, or I ten years older, I might have adopted +him. It would not be the first time that a middle-aged woman has +replaced her lap-dog in that way. Then I should have found him a +suitable wife! I should have surrounded myself by a swarm of pretty +girls and chosen the pick of the bunch for him. What a fascinating +prospect! + + * * * * * + +I have never made a fool of myself, and I am not likely to begin now. + + * * * * * + +I begin to meet people in the forest--_my_ forest. They gather flowers +and break branches, and I feel as though they were robbing me. If only I +could forbid people to walk in the forest and to boat on The Sound! + +It is quite bad enough to have the gardener prowling about in my garden. +He is all over the place. The garden seems to have shrunk since he came. +And yet, in spite of myself, I often stand watching the man when he is +digging. He has such muscular strength and uses it so skilfully. He puts +on very humble airs in my presence, but his insolent eyes take in +everything. + +Torp wears herself out evolving tasty dishes for him, and in return he +plays cards with her. + +Jeanne avoids him. She literally picks up her skirts when she has to go +past him. I like to see her do this. + + * * * * * + +This morning Jeanne and I laughed like two children. I was standing on +the shore looking at the sea, and said absent-mindedly: + +"It must be splendid bathing here." + +Jeanne replied: + +"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut." + +And I, still absent-minded, murmured: + +"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut." + +Suddenly we went off into fits of laughter. We could not stop ourselves. + +Now Jeanne has gone hunting for workmen. We will make them work by the +piece, otherwise they will never finish the job. I had some experience +this autumn with the youth who was paid by the day to chop wood for us. + +When the hut is built I will bathe every day in the sunshine. + + * * * * * + +They are both master-carpenters, and seem to be very good friends. +Jeanne and I lie in the boat and watch them, and stimulate them with +beer from time to time. But it does not seem to have much effect. One +has a wife and twelve children who are starving. When they have starved +for a while, they take to begging. The man sings like a lark. He has +spent two years in America, but he assures me it is "all tommy-rot" the +way they work like steam-engines there. Consequently he soon returned to +his native land. + +"Denmark," he says, "is such a nice little country, and all this water +and the forests make it so pretty...." + +Jeanne and I laugh at all this and amuse ourselves royally. + +The day before yesterday neither of the men appeared. A child had died +on the island, and one of them, who is also a coffin-maker, had to +supply a coffin. This seemed a reasonable excuse. But when I inquired +whether the coffin was finished, he replied: + +"I bought one ready-made in the town ... saved me a lot of bother, that +did." + +His friend and colleague had been to the town with him to help him in +his choice! + +The water is clear and the sands are white and firm. I am longing to try +the bathing. Jeanne, who rows well, volunteered to take me out in the +boat. But to bathe from the boat and near these men! I would rather +wait! + + * * * * * + +Full moon. In the far distance boats go by with their white sails. They +glide through the dusk like swans on a lake. The silence is so intense +that I can hear when a fish rises or a bird stirs in its nest. The scent +of the red roses that blossomed yesterday ascends to my window here.... + +Joergen Malthe.... + +When I write his name it is as though I gave him one of those caressing +touches for which my fingers yearn and quiver.... + +Yes, a dip in the sea will calm me. + +I will undress in the house and wrap myself in my dressing-gown. Then I +can slip through the pine-trees unseen.... + + * * * * * + +It was glorious, glorious! What do I want a bathing-hut for? I go into +the sea straight from my own garden, and the sand is soft and firm to my +feet like the pine-needles under the trees. + +The sea is phosphorescent; I seemed to be dipping my arms in liquid +silver. I longed to splash about and make sparkles all around me. But I +was very cautious. I swam only as far as the stakes to which the +fishermen fasten their nets. The moon seemed to be suspended just over +my head. + +I thought of Malthe. + +Ah, for one night! Just one night! + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has given me warning. I asked her why she wished to leave. She +only shook her head and made no answer. She was very pale; I did not +like to force her to speak. + +It will be very difficult to replace her. On the other hand, how can I +keep her if she has made up her mind to go? Wages are no attraction to +her. If I only knew what she wanted. I have not inquired where she is +going. + + * * * * * + +Ah, now I understand! It is the restlessness of the senses. She wants +more life than she can get on this island. She knows I see through her, +and casts her eyes downward when I look at her. + + + + +JOERGEN MALTHE, + +You are the only man I ever loved. And now, by means of this letter, I +am digging a fathomless pit between us. I am not the woman you thought +me; and my true self you could never love. + +I am like a criminal who has had recourse to every deceit to avoid +confession, but whose strength gives way at last under the pressure of +threats and torture, and who finds unspeakable relief in declaring his +guilt. + +Joergen Malthe, I have loved you for the last ten years; as long, in +fact, as you have loved me. I lied to you when I denied it; but my heart +has been faithful all through. + +Had I remained any longer in Richard's house, I should have come to you +one day and asked you to let me be your mistress. Not your wife. Do not +contradict me. I am the stronger and wiser of the two. + +To escape from this risk I ran away. I fled from my love--I fled, too, +from my age. I am now forty-three, you know it well, and you are only +thirty-five. + +By this voluntary renunciation, I hoped to escape the curse that +advancing age brings to most women. Alas! This year has taught me that +we can neither deceive nor escape our destiny, since we carry it in our +hearts and temperaments. + +Here I am, and here I shall remain, until I have grown to be quite an +old woman. Therefore, it is very foolish of me to pour out this +confession to you, for it cannot be otherwise than painful reading. But +I shall have no peace of mind until it is done. + +My life has been poor. I have consumed my own heart. + + * * * * * + +As far as I am aware, my father, a widower, was a strictly honourable +man. Misfortune befell him, and his whole life was ruined in a moment. +An unexpected audit of the accounts of his firm revealed a deficiency. +My father had temporarily borrowed a small sum to save a friend in a +pressing emergency. Henceforward he was a marked man, at home and +abroad. We left the town where we lived. The retiring pension which was +granted to him in spite of what had happened sufficed for our daily +needs. He lived lost in his disgrace, and I was left entirely to the +care of a maid-servant. From her I gathered that our troubles were in +some way connected with a lack of money; and money became the idol of my +life. + +I sometimes buried a coin that had been given me--as a dog buries his +bone. Then I lay awake all night, fearing I should not find it again in +the morning. + +I was sent to school. A classmate said to me one day: + +"Of course, a prince will marry you, for you are the prettiest girl +here." + +I carried the words home to the maid, who nodded her approval. + +"That's true enough," she said. "A pretty face is worth a pocketful of +gold." + +"Can one sell a pretty face, then?" I asked. + +"Yes, child, to the highest bidder," she replied, laughing. + +From that moment I entered upon the accursed cult of my person which +absorbed the rest of my childhood and all my first youth. To become rich +was henceforth my one and only aim in life. I believed I possessed the +means of attaining my ends, and the thought of money was like a poison +working in my blood. + +At school I was diligent and obedient, for I soon saw it paid best in +the long run. I was delighted to see that I attracted the attention of +the masters and mistresses, simply because of my good looks. I took in +and pondered over every word of praise that concerned my appearance. But +I put on airs of modesty, and no one guessed what went on within me. + +I avoided the sun lest I should get freckles. I collected rain-water for +washing. I slept in gloves; and though I adored sweets, I refrained from +eating them on account of my teeth. I spent hours brushing my hair. + +At home there was only one looking-glass. It was in my father's room, +which I seldom entered, and was hung too high for me to use. In my +pocket-mirror I could only see one eye at a time. But I had so much +self-control that I resisted the temptation to stop and look at my +reflection in the shop windows on my way to and from school. + +I was surprised when I came home one day to find that the large mirror +in its gold frame had been given over to me by my father and was hanging +in my room. I made myself quite ill with excitement, and the maid had to +put me to bed. But later on, when the house was quiet, I got up and lit +my lamp. Then I spent hours gazing at my own reflection in the glass. + +Henceforth the mirror became my confidant. It procured me the one +happiness of my childhood. When I was indoors I passed most of my time +practising smiles, and forming my expression. I was seized with terror +lest I should lose the gift that was worth "a pocketful of gold." + +I avoided the wild and noisy games of other girls for fear of getting +scratched. Once, however, I was playing with some of my school friends +in a courtyard. We were swinging on the shafts of a cart when I fell and +ran a nail into my cheek. The pain was nothing compared to the thought +of a permanent mark. I was depressed for months, until one day I heard a +teacher say that the mark was all but gone--a mere beauty spot. + +When I sat before the looking-glass, I only thought of the future. +Childhood seemed to me a long, tiresome journey that must be got through +before I reached the goal of riches, which to me meant happiness. + +Our house overlooked the dwelling of the chief magistrate. It was a +white building in the style of a palace, the walls of which were covered +in summer-time with roses and clematis, and to my eyes it was the finest +and most imposing house in the world. + +It was surrounded by park-like grounds with trim lawns and tall trees. +An iron railing with gilded spikes divided it from the common world. + +Sometimes when the gate was standing open I peeped inside. It seemed as +though the house came nearer and nearer to me. I caught a glimpse in +the basement of white-capped serving-maids, which seemed to me the +height of elegance. It was said that the yellow curtains on the ground +floor were pure silk. As to the upstairs rooms, the shutters were +generally closed. These apartments had not been opened since the death +of Herr von Brincken's wife. He rarely entertained. + +Sometimes while I was watching the house, Herr von Brincken would come +riding home accompanied by a groom. He always bowed to me, and +occasionally spoke a few words. One day an idea took possession of me, +with such force that I almost involuntarily exclaimed aloud. My brain +reeled as I said to myself, "Some day I will marry the great man and +live in that house!" + +This ambition occupied my thoughts day and night. Other things seemed +unreal. I discovered by accident that Herr von Brincken often visited +the parents of one of my schoolmates. I took great pains to cultivate +her acquaintance, and we became inseparable. + +Although I was not yet confirmed, I succeeded in getting an invitation +to a party at which Von Brincken was to be present. At that time I +ignored the meaning of love; I had not even felt that vague, gushing +admiration that girls experience at that age. But when at table this man +turned his eyes upon me with a look of astonishment, I felt +uncomfortable, with the kind of discomfort that follows after eating +something unpleasant. Later in the the evening he came and talked to me, +and I managed to draw him on until he asked whether I should like to see +his garden. + +A few days later he called on my father, who was rather bewildered by +this honour, and asked permission to take me to the garden. He treated +me like a grown-up person, and after we had inspected the lawns and +borders, and looked at the ripening bunches in the grape-house, I felt +myself half-way to become mistress of the place. It never occurred to me +that my plans might fall through. + +At the same time it began to dawn upon me that the personality of Von +Brincken, or rather the difference of our ages, inspired me with a kind +of disgust. In spite of his style and good appearance, he had something +of the "elderly gentleman" about him. This feeling possessed me when we +looked over the house. In every direction there were lofty mirrors, and +for the first time in my life I saw myself reflected in full-length--and +by my side an old man. + +This was the beginning. A year later, after I had been confirmed, I was +sent to a finishing school at Geneva at Von Brincken's expense. I had +not the least doubt that he meant to marry me as soon as my education +was completed. + +The other girls at the school were full of spirits and enthusiastic +about the beauties of nature. I was a poor automaton. Neither lakes nor +mountains had any fascination for me. I simply lived in expectation of +the day when the bargain would be concluded. + +When two years later I returned to Denmark, our engagement, which had +been concluded by letter, was made public. His first hesitating kiss +made me shudder; but I compelled myself to stand before the +looking-glass and receive his caresses in imagination without disturbing +my artificially radiant smile. + +Sometimes I noticed that he looked at me in a puzzled kind of way, but +I did not pay much attention to it. The wedding-day was actually fixed +when I received a letter beginning: + + + "MY DEAR ELSIE, + + "I give you back your promise. You do not love me. + + "You do not realize what love is...." + +This letter shattered all my hopes for the future. I could not, and +would not, relinquish my chances of wealth and position. Henceforth I +summoned all my will-power in order to efface the disastrous impression +caused by my attitude. I assured my future husband that what he had +mistaken for want of love was only the natural coyness of my youth. He +was only too ready to believe me. We decided to hasten the marriage, and +his delight knew no bounds. + +One day I went to discuss with him some details of the marriage +settlements. We had champagne at lunch, and I, being quite unused to +wine, became very lively. Life appeared to me in a rosy light. Arm in +arm, we went over the house together. He had ordered all the lights to +be lit. At length we passed through the room that was to be our conjugal +apartment. Misled, no doubt, by my unwonted animation, and perhaps a +little excited himself by the wine he had taken, he forgot his usual +prudent reserve, and embraced me with an ardour he had never yet shown. +His features were distorted with passion, and he inspired me with +repugnance. I tried to respond to his kisses, but my disgust overcame me +and I nearly fainted. When I recovered, I tried to excuse myself on the +ground that the champagne had been too much for me. + +Von Brincken looked long and searchingly at me, and said in a sad and +tired voice, which I shall never forget: + +"Yes, you are right.... Evidently you cannot stand my champagne." + +The following morning two letters were brought from his house. One was +for my father, in which Von Brincken said he felt obliged to break off +the engagement. He was suffering from a heart trouble, and a recent +medical examination had proved to him that he would be guilty of an +unpardonable wrong in marrying a young girl. + +To me he wrote: + +"You will understand why I give a fictitious reason to your father and +to the world in general. I should be committing a moral murder were I to +marry you under the circumstances. My love for you, great as it is, is +not great enough to conquer the instinctive repugnance of your youth." + +Once again he sent me abroad at his own expense. This time, at my own +wish, I went to Paris, where I met a young artist who fell in love with +me. Had I not, in the saddest way, ruled out of my life everything that +might interfere with my ambitious projects, I could have returned his +passion. But he was poor; and about the same time I met Richard. I +cheated myself, and betrayed my first love, which might have saved me, +and changed me from an automaton into a living being. + +Under the eyes of the man who had stirred my first real emotions, I +proceeded to draw Richard on. My first misfortune taught me wisdom. This +time I had no intention of letting all my plans be shattered. + +When I look back on that time, I see that my worst sin was not so much +my resolve to sell myself for money, as my aptitude for playing the +contemptible comedy of pretended love for days and months and years. I, +who only felt a kind of indifference for Richard, which sometimes +deepened into disgust, pretended to be moved by genuine passion. Yes, I +have paid dearly, very dearly, for my golden cage in the Old Market. + +Richard is not to blame. He could not have suspected the truth.... + +It is so fatally easy for a woman to simulate love. Every intelligent +woman knows by infallible instinct what the man who loves her really +wants in return. The woman of ardent temperament knows how to appear +reserved with a lover who is not too emotional; while a cold woman can +assume a passionate air when necessary. + +I, Joergen, I, who for years cared for no one but myself, have left +Richard firmly convinced to this day that I was greedy of his caresses. + +You are an honest man, and what I have been telling you will come as a +shock. You will not understand it, or me. + +Yet I think that you, too, must have known and possessed women without +loving them. But that is not the same. If it were, my guilt would be +less. + +I allowed my senses to be inflamed, while my mind remained cold, and my +heart contracted with disgust. I consciously profaned the sacred words +of love by applying them to a man whom I chose for his money. + +Meanwhile I developed into the frivolous society woman everybody took me +to be. Every woman wears the mask which best suits her purpose. My mask +was my smile. I did not wish others to see through me. Sometimes, during +a sudden silence, I have caught the echo of my own laugh--that laugh in +which you, too, delighted--and hearing it I have shuddered. + +No! That is not quite true. I was a different woman with you. A real, +living creature lived and breathed behind the mask. You taught me to +live. You looked into my eyes, and heard my real laughter. + +How many hours we spent together, Joergen, you and I! But we did not +talk much; we never came to the exchange of ideas. I hardly remember +anything you ever said; although I often try to recall your words. How +did we pass the happy time together? + +You are the only man I ever loved. + +When we first got to know each other you were five-and-twenty. So +young--and I was eight years your senior. We fell in love with each +other at once. + +You had no idea that I cared for you. + +From that moment I was a changed woman. Not better perhaps, but quite +different. A thousand new feelings awoke in me; I saw, heard, and felt +in an entirely new way. All humanity assumed a new aspect. I, who had +hitherto been so indifferent to the weal or woe of my fellow-creatures, +began to observe and to understand them. I became sympathetic. Towards +women--not towards men. I do not understand the male sex, and this must +be my excuse for the way in which I have so often treated men. For me +there was, and is, only one man in the world: Joergen Malthe. + +At first I never gave a thought to the difference in our ages. We were +both young then. But you were poor. No one, least of all myself, guessed +that you carried a field-marshal's baton in your knapsack. Money had not +brought me happiness; but poverty still seemed to me the greatest +misfortune that could befall any human being. + +Then you received your first important commission, and I ventured to +dream dreams for us both. I never dreamt of fame and honour; what did I +care whether you carried out the restoration of the cathedral or not? +The pleasure I showed in your talent I did not really feel. It was not +to the man as artist, but as lover, that my heart went out. + +Later, you had a brilliant future before you; one day you would make an +income sufficient for us both. But you seemed so utterly indifferent to +money that I was disappointed. My dreams died out like a fire for want +of fuel. + +Had you proposed that I should become your mistress, no power on earth +would have held me back. But you were too honourable even to cherish the +thought. Besides, I let you suppose I was attached to my husband.... + +I knew well enough that the moment you became aware of my feelings for +you, you would leave no stone unturned until you could legitimately +claim me as your wife.... Such is your nature, Joergen Malthe! + +So I let happiness go by. + + * * * * * + +Two years ago Von Brincken died, leaving me a considerable share of his +fortune--- and a letter, written on the night of the day when we last +met. + +I might then have left Richard. Your constancy would have been a +sufficient guarantee for my future. + +A mere accident destroyed my illusions. A friend of my own age had +recently married an officer much younger than herself. At the end of a +year's happiness he left her; and society, far from pitying her, laughed +at her plight. + +This drove me to make my supreme resolve--to abandon, and flee from, the +one love of my life. + +Joergen, I owe you the best hours I have known: those hours in which you +showed me the plans for the "White Villa." + +I feel a bitter, yet unspeakable joy when I think that you yourself +built the walls within which I am living in solitary confinement. + +Once I longed for you with a consuming ardour. + +Now, alas, I am but a pile of burnt-out ashes. The winds of heaven have +dispersed my dreams. + +I go on living because it is not in my nature to do away with myself. I +live, and shall continue to live. + +If only you knew what goes on within me, and how low I have sunk that I +can write this confession! + +There are thoughts that a woman can never reveal to the man she +loves--even if her own life and his were at stake.... + +It is night. The stars are bright overhead. Joergen Malthe, why have I +written all this to you?... What do I really want of you?... + + * * * * * + +No, no!... never in this world.... + +You shall never read this letter. Never, never! What need you know more +than that I love you? I love you! I love you! + +I will write to you again, calmly, humbly, and tell you the simple +truth: I was afraid of the future, and of the time when you would cease +to love me. That is what I fled from. + +I still fear the future, and the time when you will love me no more. But +all my powers of resistance are shattered by this one truth: _I love_. +For the first and only time in my life. Therefore I implore you to come +to me; but now, at once. Do not wait a week or a month. My lime trees +are fragrant with blossom. I want you, Joergen, now, while the limes +are flowering. Then, what you ask of me shall be done. + +If you want me for a wife, I will follow you as the women of old +followed their lords and masters, in joyful submission. But if you only +care to have me for a time, I will prepare the house for my desired +guest. + +Whatever you decide to do will be such an immense joy that I tremble +lest anything should happen to hinder its fulfilment.... + +Then let the years go by! Then let age come to me! + +I shall have sown so many memories of you and happiness that I shall +have henceforth a forest of glad thoughts, wherein to wander and take my +rest till Death comes to claim me. + +The sun is flashing on the window-panes; the sunbeams seem to be weaving +threads of joy in rainbow tints. + +You child! How I love you!... + +Come to me and stay with me--or go when we have had our hour of delight. + + * * * * * + +The letter has gone. Jeanne has rowed to the town with it. + +She looked searchingly at me when I gave it to her and told her to hurry +so that she should not lose the evening post. Both of us had tears in +our eyes. + +I will never part with Jeanne. Her place is with me--and with him. I +stood at the window and watched her pull away in the little white boat. +She pulled so hard at the oars. If only she is strong enough to keep it +up.... It is a long way to the town. + +Never has the evening been so calm. Everything seems folded in rest and +silence. There lies a majesty on sky and earth. I wandered at random in +the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed to feel the ground beneath my +feet. The flowers smell so sweet, and I am so deeply moved. + +How can I sleep! I feel I must remain awake until my letter is in his +hands. + +Now it is speeding to him through the quiet night. The letter yearns +towards him as I do myself. + +I am young again.... Yes, young, young!... How blue is the night! Not a +single light is visible at sea. + +If this were my last night on earth I would not complain. I feel my +happiness drawing so near that my heart seems to open and drink in the +night, as thirsty plants drink up the dew. + +All that was has ceased to be. I am Elsie Bugge once more, and stand on +the threshold of life in all its expanse and beauty. + + * * * * * + +He is coming.... + +He will come by the morning train. It seems too soon. + +Why did he not wait a day or two? I want time to collect myself. There +is so much to do.... + +How my hands tremble! + + * * * * * + +I carry his telegram next my heart. Now I feel quite calm. Why will +Jeanne insist on my going to bed? I am not ill. + +She says it is useless to arrange the flowers in the vases to-night, +they will be faded by to-morrow. But can I rely on Torp's seeing that we +have enough food in the house? My head is swimming.... The grass wants +mowing, and the hedge must be cut.... Ah! What a fool I am! As though he +would notice the lawn and the hedge!... + +Jeanne asks, "Where will the gentleman sleep?" I cannot answer the +question. I see she is getting the little room upstairs ready for him. +The one that has most sun. + + * * * * * + +Has Jeanne read my thoughts? She proposes to sleep downstairs with Torp +so long as I have "company." + + * * * * * + +I have begun a long letter to Richard, and that has passed the time so +well. I wish he could find some dear little creature who would sweeten +life for him. He is a good soul. During the last few days I seem to have +started a kind of affection for him. + +We will travel a great deal, Joergen and I. Hitherto I have seen +nothing on my many trips abroad. Joergen must show me the world. We will +visit all the places he once went to alone. + +Now I understand the doubting apostle Thomas. Until my eyes behold I +dare not believe. + +Joergen has such a big powerful head! I sometimes feel as though I were +clasping it with both my hands. + + * * * * * + +Torp suggests that to-morrow we should have the same _menu_ that she +prepared when the "State Councillor" entertained Prince Waldemar. Well! +Provided she can get all she wants for her creations! She can amuse +herself at the telegraph office as far as I am concerned. I am willing +to help her; at any rate, I can stir the mayonnaise. + + * * * * * + +How stupid of me to have given Lillie my tortoiseshell combs! How can I +ask to have them back without seeming rude? Joergen was used to them; +he will miss them at once. + +I have had out all my dresses, but I cannot make up my mind what to +wear. I cannot appear in the morning in a dinner dress, and a white +frock--at my age!... After all, why not?... The white embroidered +one ... it fits beautifully. I have never worn it since Joergen's last +visit to us in the country. It has got a little yellow from lying by, +but he will never notice it. + + * * * * * + +To-night _I will_ sleep--sleep like a top. Then I shall wake, take my +bath, and go for a long walk. When I come home, I will sit in the garden +and watch until the white boat appears in the distance. + + * * * * * + +I had to take a dose of veronal, but I managed to sleep round the clock, +from 9. P.M. to 9. A.M. The gardener has gone off in the boat; and I +have two hours in which to dress. + +What is the matter with me? Now that my happiness is so close at hand, +I feel strangely depressed. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne advises a little rouge. No! Joergen loves me just as I am.... + + * * * * * + +How he will laugh at me when he hears that I cried because I cannot get +into the white embroidered dress nowadays! It is my own fault; I eat too +much and do not take enough exercise. + +I put on another white dress, but I am very disappointed, for it does +not suit me nearly as well. + + * * * * * + +I see the boat.... + + * * * * * + + + + + TWO DAYS LATER. + +He came by the morning train, and left the same evening. That was the +day before yesterday, and I have never slept since. Neither have I +thought. There is time enough before me for thought. + +He went away the same evening; so at least I was spared the night. + +I have burnt his letter unread. What could it tell me that I did not +already know? Could it hold any torture which I have not already +suffered? + +Do I really suffer? Have I not really become insensible to pain? Once +the cold moon was a burning sun; her own central fires consumed it. Now +she is cold and dead; her light a mere reflection and a falsehood. + + * * * * * + +His first glance told me all. He cast down his eyes so that he might not +hurt me again. ... And I--coward that I was--I accepted without +interrupting him the tender words he spoke, and even his caress.... + +But when our eyes met a second time we both knew that all was at an end +between us. + +One reads of "tears of blood." During the few hours he spent in my house +I think we smiled "smiles of blood." + +When we sat opposite to each other at table, we might have been sitting +each side a deathbed. We only attempted to speak when Jeanne was waiting +at table. + +When we parted, he said: + +"I feel like the worst of criminals!" + +He has not committed a crime. He loved me once, now he no longer loves +me. That is all. + + * * * * * + +But after what has happened I cannot remain here. Everything will remind +me of my hours of joyful waiting; of my hours of failure and abasement. + +Where can I go to hide my shame? + + * * * * * + +Richard.... + + * * * * * + +Would that be too humiliating? Why should it be? Did I not give him my +promise: "If I should ever regret my resolution," I said to him. + + * * * * * + +I will write to him, but first I must gather up my strength again. +Jeanne goes long walks with me. We do not talk to each other, but it +comforts me to find her so faithful. + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAR RICHARD, + +It is a long time since I wrote to you, but neither have you been quite +so zealous a correspondent this summer, so it is tit for tat. + +I often think of you, and wonder how you are really getting on in your +solitude. Whether you have been living in the country and going up to +town daily? Or if, like most of the "devoted husbands," you still only +run down to the cottage for week-ends? + +If I were not absolutely free from jealousy, in any form, I should envy +you your new car. This neighbourhood is charming, but to explore it in a +hired carriage, lined with dirty velvet, does not attract me. Now, dear +friend, don't go and send off car and chauffeur post-haste to me. That +would be like your good nature. But, of course, I am only joking. + +Send me all the news of the town. I read the papers diligently, but +there are items of interest which do not appear in the papers! Above +all, tell me how things are going with Lillie. Will she soon be coming +home? Do you think her conduct was much talked of outside her own +circle? People chatter, but they soon forget. + +Homes for nervous cases are all very well in their way; but I think our +good Hermann Rothe went to extremes when he sent her to one. He is +furious with me, because I told him what I thought in plain words. +Naturally he did not in the least understand what I was driving at. But +I think I made him see that Lillie had never been faithless to him in +the physiological meaning of the word--and that is all that matters to +men of his stamp. + +I am convinced that Lillie would not have suffered half so much if she +had really been unfaithful in the ordinary sense. + +But to return to me and my affairs. + +You cannot imagine what a wonderful business-woman the world has lost in +me. Not only have I made both ends meet--I, who used to dread my +Christmas bills--but I have so much to the good in solid coin of the +realm that I could fill a dozen pairs of stockings. And I keep my +accounts--think of that, Richard! Every Monday morning Torp appears with +her slate and account-book, and they must balance to a farthing. + +I bathe once or twice a day from my cosey little hut at the end of the +garden, and in the evening I row about in my little white boat. +Everything here is so neat and refined that I am sure your fastidious +soul would rejoice to see it. Here I never bring in any mud on my shoes, +as I used to do in the country, to your everlasting worry. And here the +books are arranged tidily in proper order on the shelves. You would not +be able to find a speck of dust on the furniture. + +Of course the gardener from Frijsenborg, about whom I have already told +you, is now courting Torp, and I am expecting an invitation to the +wedding one of these next days. Otherwise he is very competent, and my +vegetables are beyond criticism. + +Personally, I should have liked to rear chickens, but Torp is so +afflicted at the idea of poultry-fleas that she implored me not to keep +fowls. Now we get them from the schoolmaster who cannot supply us with +all we want. + +I have an idea which will please you, Richard. + +What if you paid me a short visit? Without committing either of us--you +understand? Just a brief, friendly meeting to refresh our pleasant and +unpleasant memories? + +I am dying for somebody to speak to, and who could I ask better than +yourself? + +But, just to please me, come without saying a word to anyone. Nobody +need know that you are on a visit to your former wife, need they? We are +free to follow our own fancies, but there is no need to set people +gossiping. + +Who knows whether the time may not come when I may take my revenge and +keep the promise I made you the last evening we spent together? When two +people have lived together as long as we have, separation is a mere +figure of speech. People do not separate after twenty-two years of +married life, even if each goes a different road for a time. + +But why talk of the future. The present concerns us more nearly, and +interests me far more. + +Come, then, dear friend, and I will give you such a welcome that you +will not regret the journey. + + * * * * * + +Joergen Malthe paid me a flying visit last week. Business brought him +into the neighbourhood, and he called unexpectedly and spent an hour +with me. + +I must say he has altered, and not for the better. + +I hope he will not wear himself out prematurely with all his work. + +If you should see him, do not say I mentioned his visit. It was rather +painful. He was shy, and I, too, was nervous. One cannot spend a whole +year alone on an island without feeling bewildered by the sudden +apparition of a fellow-creature.... + +Tell your chauffeur to get the car ready. Should you find the +neighbourhood very fascinating, you could always telegraph to him to +bring it at once. + +If the manufactory, or any other plans, prevent your coming, send me a +few lines. Till we meet, + + Your ELSIE, + +who perhaps after all is not suited to a hermit's life. + + * * * * * + +So he has dared!... + +So all his passion, and his grief at parting, were purely a part that he +played!... Who knows? Perhaps he was really glad to get rid of me.... + +Ah, but this scorn and contempt!... + +Elsie Lindtner, do you realise that in the same year, the same month, +you have offered yourself to two men in succession and both have +declined the honour? Luckily there is no one else to whom you can abase +yourself. + +One of these days, depend upon it, Richard will eat his heart out with +regret. But then it will be too late, my dear man, too late! + +That he should have dared to replace me by a mere chit of nineteen! + +The whole town must be laughing at him. And I can do nothing.... + +But I am done for. Nothing is left to me, but to efface myself as soon +as possible. I cannot endure the thought of being pitied by anyone, +least of all by Richard. + +How badly I have played my cards! I who thought myself so clever! + +Good heavens! I understand the women who throw vitriol in the face of a +rival. Unhappily I am too refined for such reprisals. + +But if I had her here--whoever she may be--I would crush her with a look +she could never forget. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has agreed to go with me. + +Nothing remains but to write my letter--and depart! + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAREST RICHARD, + +How your letter amused me, and how delighted I am to hear your +interesting intelligence. You could not have given me better news. In +future I am relieved of all need of sympathetic anxiety about you, and +henceforth I can enjoy my freedom without a qualm, and dispose of life +just as I please. + +Every good wish, dear friend! We must hope that this young person will +make you very happy; but, you know, young girls have their whims and +fancies. Fortunately, you are not only a good-looking man in the prime +of life, but also an uncommonly good match for any woman. The young +girls of the present day are seldom blind to such advantages, and you +will find her devotion very lasting, I have no doubt. + +Who can she be? I have not the least idea. But I admire your +discretion--you have not changed in that respect. In any case, be +prepared, Richard, she will turn the house upside down and your work +will be cut out for you to get it straight again. + +I am sure she bikes; she will probably drop her cigarette ashes into +your best Venetian glasses; she is certain to hate goloshes and long +skirts, and will enjoy rearranging the furniture. Well, she will be able +to have fine times in your spacious, well-ordered establishment! + +I hope at any rate that you will be able to keep her so far within +bounds that she will not venture to chaff you about "number one." Do not +let her think that my taste predominates in the style and decorations of +the house.... + +Dear friend, already I see you pushing the perambulator! Do you remember +the ludicrous incident connected with the fat merchant Bang, who married +late in life and was always called "gran'pa" by his youthful progeny? Of +course, that will not happen in your case--you are a year or two younger +than Bang, so your future family will more probably treat you like a +playfellow. + +You see, I am quite carried away by my surprise and delight. + +If it were the proper thing, I should immensely like to be at the +wedding; but I know you would not allow such a breach of all the +conventions. + +Where are you going for the honeymoon? You might bring her to see me +here occasionally, in the depths of the country, so long as nobody knew. + +One of my first thoughts was: how does she dress? Does she know how to +do her hair? Because, you know, most of the girls in our particular set +have the most weird notions as regards hair-dressing and frocks. + +However, I can rely on the sureness of your taste, and if your wedding +trip takes you to Paris, she will see excellent models to copy. + +Now I understand why your letters got fewer and farther between. How +long has the affair been on hand? Did it begin early in the summer? Or +did you start it in the train between Hoerlsholm and Helsingoer, on your +way to and from the factory? I only ask--you need not really trouble to +answer. + +I can see from your letter that you felt some embarrassment, and +blushed when you wrote it. Every word reveals your state of mind; as +though you were obliged to give some account of yourself to me, or were +afraid I should take your news amiss. I have already drunk to your +happiness all by myself in a glass of champagne. + +You can tell your young lady, if you like. + +Under the circumstances you had better not accept the invitation I gave +you in my last letter; although I would give much to see your good, kind +face, rejuvenated, as it doubtless is, by this new happiness. But it +would not be wise. You know it is harder to catch and to keep a young +girl than a whole sackful of those lively, hopping little creatures +which are my horror. + +Besides, a new idea has occurred to me, and I can hardly find patience +to wait for its realisation. + +Guess, Richard!... I intend to take a trip round the world. I have +already written to Cook's offices, and am eagerly awaiting information +as to tickets, fares, etc. I shall not go alone. I have not courage +enough for that. I will take Jeanne with me. If I cannot manage it out +of my income, I shall break into my capital, even if I have to live on a +pittance hereafter. + +No--do not make any more of your generous offers of help. You must not +give any more money now to "women." Remember that, Richard! + +The White Villa will be shut up during my absence; it cannot take to +itself wings, nor eat its head off during my absence. Probably in future +I shall spend my time between this place and various big towns abroad, +so that I shall only be here in summer. + +At the same time as this letter, I am sending a wedding present for your +new bride. Girls are always crazy about jewellery. I have no further use +for a diadem of brilliants; but you need not tell her where it comes +from. You will recognise it. It was your first overwhelming gift, and on +our wedding day I was so taken up with my new splendour that I never +heard a word of the pastor's sermon. They said it was most eloquent. + +I hope you will have the tact to remove the too numerous portraits of +myself which adorn your walls. Sell them for the benefit of struggling +artists; in that way, they will serve some good purpose, and I shall not +run the risk of being disfigured by my successor. + +If I should come across any pretty china, or fine embroidery, in Japan, +I shall not forget your passion for collecting. + +Let me know the actual date of the wedding, you can always communicate +through my banker. But the announcement will suffice. Do not write. +Henceforth you must devote yourself entirely to your role of young +husband. + +You quite forgot to answer my questions about Lillie, and I conclude +from your silence that all is well with her. + +Give her my love, and accept my affectionate greetings. + + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +P.S.--As yet I cannot grapple with the problem of my future appellation. +I do not feel inclined to return to my maiden name. "Elizabeth Bugge" +makes me think of an overgrown grave in a churchyard. + +Well, you will be neither the first nor the last man with several wives +scattered about the globe. The world may be a small place, but it is +large enough to hold two "Mrs. Lindtners" without any chance of their +running across each other. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dangerous Age, by Karin Michaëlis + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14187 *** diff --git a/14187-h/14187-h.htm b/14187-h/14187-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc732ba --- /dev/null +++ b/14187-h/14187-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4296 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Dangerous Age, by Karin Michaëlis. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em;} + .poem span.i20 {display: block; margin-left: 20em;} + .poem span.i23 {display: block; margin-left: 23em;} + .poem span.i26 {display: block; margin-left: 26em;} + .poem span.i30 {display: block; margin-left: 30em;} + .poem span.i31 {display: block; margin-left: 31em;} + .poem span.i34 {display: block; margin-left: 34em;} + .poem span.i36 {display: block; margin-left: 36em;} + .poem span.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 9em;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%; width: 80%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + .right {margin-left:10%; margin-right:20%; text-align: right; font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: bold;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14187 ***</div> + +<h1><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a><i>THE DANGEROUS AGE</i></h1> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><i>LETTERS AND FRAGMENTS FROM A WOMAN'S DIARY</i><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></h2> + +<h3><i>TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF KARIN MICHAËLIS</i></h3> + +<h4><i>NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXI</i><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></h4> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>TO<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></h2> + +<h3>MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW</h3> + +<h2>BARON YOOST DAHLERUP<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></h2> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a><i>INTRODUCTION TO THE FRENCH EDITION <br /> +By <br /> +MARCEL PRÉVOST</i></h2> + + +<p>Here is a strange book. A novel from the North, its solid structure, its +clear, unadorned form are purely Latin. A woman's novel, in its integral +and violent sincerity it can only be compared to certain famous +masculine confessions.</p> + +<p>The author, Karin Michaëlis, a Dane, is not at all known in France. <i>The +Dangerous Age</i> is not her first book; but it is, I feel sure, the first +that has been translated into French. Naturally enough the +Danish-Scandinavian literature is transmitted in the first instance +through newspapers and reviews, and through German publishers. This is +the result of local proximity and the affinity of language. Several +novels by Karin Michaëlis were known to the German public before <i>The +Dangerous Age</i>; but none of them had awakened the same keen curiosity,<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a> +provoked such discussion, or won such success as this book. In all the +countries of Central Europe the most widely read novel at the present +moment is <i>The Dangerous Age</i>. Edition succeeds edition, and the fortune +of the book has been increased by the quarrels it has provoked; for it +has been much discussed and criticised, not on account of its literary +value, which is incontestable, but because of the idea which animates +it.</p> + +<p>Shall I confess that it was just this great success, and the polemical +renown of the novel, that roused my suspicions when first I chanced to +see the German version of it? Contrary to the reputation which our +neighbours on the other side of the Vosges like to foist upon us, French +literature, at the present day, is far less noisily scandalous than +their own. It is only necessary to glance over the advertisements which +certain German publishing firms issue at the end of their publications +in order to be convinced of this. It is amusing to find every kind of +"puff" couched in the exaggerated style which the modern German affects.</p> + +<p>It was with some bias and suspicion, therefore, that I took up <i>Das<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a> +gefährliche Alter</i>. When I started to read the book, nothing could have +been further from my mind than to write, a French version and to present +it myself to the public. This is all the more reason why justice should +be done to Karin Michaëlis. I have read no other book of hers except +<i>The Dangerous Age</i>; but in this novel she has in no way exceeded what a +sincere and serious observer has a right to publish. Undoubtedly her +book is not intended for young girls, for what the English call +"bread-and-butter misses." But nobody is compelled to write exclusively +for schoolgirls, and it has yet to be proved that there is any necessity +to feed them on fiction as well as on bread and butter.</p> + +<p><i>The Dangerous Age</i> deals with a bold subject; it is a novel filled with +the "strong meat" of human nature; a novel which speaks in accents at +once painful and ironical, and ends in despair; but it is also a book to +which the most scrupulous author on the question of "the right to speak +out" need not hesitate to attach his name.</p> + +<p>It is difficult for one who knows no Danish, to judge of its literary<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a> +value; and that is my case. In the German version—and I hope also in +the French—the reader will not fail to discern some of the novelist's +finest gifts. In the first instance, there is that firmness and solidity +of structure which is particularly difficult to keep up when a book +takes the form of a journal, of jottings and meditations, as does <i>The +Dangerous Age</i>. Then there are the depth of reflection, the ingenuity of +the arguments, the muscular brevity of style, the expression being +closely modelled upon the thought; nothing is vague, but nothing is +superfluous. We must not seek in this volume for picturesque landscape +painting, for the lyrical note, for the complacently woven "purple +patch." The book is rigorously deprived of all these things; and, having +regard to its subject, this is not its least merit.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>When a woman entitles a book <i>The Dangerous Age</i> we may feel sure she +does not intend to write of the dangers of early youth. The dangerous<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a> +age described by Karin Michaëlis is precisely that time of life which +inspired Octave Feuillet to write the novel, half-dialogue, +half-journal, which appeared in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> in 1848, was +adapted for the stage, played at the <i>Gymnase</i> in 1854, and reproduced +later with some success at the Comédie-Française—I mean the work +entitled <i>La Crise</i>.</p> + +<p>It is curious to compare the two books, partly on account of the long +space of time which separates them, and partly because of the different +way in which the two writers treat the same theme.</p> + +<p>Octave Feuillet, be it remembered, only wrote what might be spoken aloud +in the most conventional society. Nevertheless those who think the +author of <i>Monsieur de Cantors</i> timid and insipid are only short-sighted +critics. I advise my readers when they have finished the last page of +<i>The Dangerous Age</i> to re-read <i>La Crise</i>. They will observe many points +of resemblance, notably in the "journal" portion of the latter. +Juliette, Feuillet's heroine, thus expresses herself:</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>What name can I give to this moral discomfort, this distaste for my +former habits, this aimless restlessness and discontent with myself and +others, of which I have been conscious during the last few months?... I +have taken it into my head to hate the trinkets on my husband's +watchchain. We lived together in peace for ten years, those trinkets and +I ... Now, I don't know why, we have suddenly fallen out...."</p> + +<p>These words from <i>La Crise</i> contain the argument of <i>The Dangerous Age</i>.</p> + +<p>And yet I will wager that Karin Michaëlis never read <i>La Crise</i>. Had she +read it, however, her book would still have remained all her own, by +reason of her individual treatment of a subject that is also a dangerous +one. We have made considerable advances since 1848. Even in Denmark +physiology now plays a large part in literature. Feuillet did not +venture to do more than to make his Juliet experience temptation from a +medical lover, who is a contrast to her magistrate husband. Although +doctors come off rather badly in <i>The Dangerous Age</i>, the book owes much +to <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>them and to medical science. Much; perhaps too much. If this woman's +work had been imagined and created by a man, no doubt he would have been +accused of having lost sight of women's repugnance to speak or write of +their physical inferiority, or even to dwell upon it in thought. Yet the +name Karin Michaëlis is no pseudonym; the writer really is of the same +sex as her heroine Elsie Lindtner.</p> + +<p>Is not this an added reason for the curiosity which this book awakens? +The most sincere and complete, the humblest and most moving of feminine +confessions proceeds from one of those Northern women, whom we Latin +races are pleased to imagine as types of immaterial candour, sovereign +"intellectuality," and glacial temperament—souls in harmony with their +natural surroundings, the rigid pine forests and snow-draped heathlands +of Scandinavia.</p> + +<p>A Scandinavian woman! Immediately the words evoke the chaste vision sung +by Leconte de Lisle, in his poem "l'Epiphanie":</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a> +<span>Elle passe, tranquille, en un rêve divin,<br /></span> +<span>Sur le bord du plus frais de tes lacs, ô Norvège!<br /></span> +<span>Le sang rose et subtil qui dore son col fin<br /></span> +<span>Est doux comme un rayon de l'aube sur la neige.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Quand un souffle furtif glisse en ses cheveux blonds,<br /></span> +<span>Une cendre ineffable inonde son épaule,<br /></span> +<span>Et, de leur transparence argentant leurs cils longs,<br /></span> +<span>Ses yeux out la couleur des belle nuits du pôle.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Et le gardien pensif du mystique oranger<br /></span> +<span>Des balcons de l'Aurore eternelle se penche,<br /></span> +<span>Et regarde passer ce fantôme léger<br /></span> +<span>Dans les plis de sa robe immortellement blanche.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Immortellement blanche!" Very white indeed!... Read the intimate +journal of Elsie Lindtner, written precisely by the side of one of these +fresh Northern lakes. Possibly at eighteen Elsie Lindtner may have +played at "Epiphanies" and filled "the pensive guardian of the mystic +orange tree" with admiration. But it is at forty-two that she begins to +edit her private diary, and her eyes that "match the hue of polar +nights" have seen a good deal in the course of those twenty years. And +if in the eyes of the law she has remained strictly faithful to her +marriage vows, she has judged herself in the secret depths of her heart. +She <a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>has also judged other women, her friends and confidants. The moment +of "the crisis" arrives, and, taking refuge in "a savage solitude," in +which even the sight of a male servant is hateful to her, she sets down +with disconcerting lucidity all she has observed in other women, and in +herself. These other women are also of the North: Lillie Rothe, Agatha +Ussing, Astrid Bagge, Margarethe Ernst, Magna Wellmann.... Her memory +invokes them all, and they reappear. We seem to take part in a strange, +painful revel; a witches' revel of ardent yet withered sorceresses; a +revel in which the modern demons of Neurasthenia and Hysteria sport and +sneer.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Let us not be mistaken, however. Elsie Lindtner's confession is not +merely to be weighed by its fierce physiological sincerity; it is the +feminine soul, and the feminine soul of all time, that is revealed in +this extraordinary document. I think nothing less would give out such a +pungent odour of truth. <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a><i>The Dangerous Age</i> contains pages dealing with +women's smiles and tears, with their love of dress and desire to please, +and with the social relations between themselves and the male sex, which +will certainly irritate some feminine readers. Let them try to unravel +the real cause of their annoyance: perhaps they will perceive that they +are actually vexed because a woman has betrayed the freemasonry that +exists among their own sex. We must add that we are dealing here with +another nation, and every Frenchwoman may, if she choose, decline to +recognise herself among these portraits from Northern Europe.</p> + +<p>A sure diagnosis of the vital conditions under which woman exists, and +an acute observation of her complicated soul—these two things alone +would suffice, would they not, to recommend the novel in which they were +to be found? But <i>The Dangerous Age</i> possesses another quality which, at +first sight, seems to have no connection with the foregoing: it is by no +means lacking in emotion. Notwithstanding that she has the eye of the +doctor and the psychologist, Elsie Lindtner, the <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>heroine, has also the +nerves and sensibility of a woman. Her daring powers of analysis do not +save her from moments of mysterious terror, such as came over her, for +no particular reason, on a foggy evening; nor yet from the sense of +being utterly happy—equally without reason—on a certain autumn night; +nor from feeling an intense sensuous pleasure in letting the little +pebbles on the beach slide between her fingers. In a word, all the +harshness of her judgments and reflections do not save her from the +dreadful distress of growing old....</p> + +<p>In vain she withdraws from the society of her fellow-creatures, in the +hope that old age will no longer have terrors for her when there is no +one at hand to watch her physical decay; the redoubtable phantom still +haunts her in her retreat; watches her, brushes past her, and mocks her +sincere effort to abandon all coquetry and cease "to count as a woman." +At the same time a cruel melancholia possesses her; she feels she has +become old without having profited by her youth. Not that she descends +to the coarse and libertine regrets of<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a> "grand'mère" in Béranger's song, +"Ah! que je regrette!" Elsie Lindtner declares more than once that if +she had to start life over again she would be just as irreproachable. +But the nearer she gets to the crisis, the more painfully and lucidly +she perceives the antinomy between two feminine desires: the desire of +moral dignity and the desire of physical enjoyment. In a woman of her +temperament this need of moral dignity becomes increasingly imperious +the more men harass her with their desires—an admirable piece of +observation which I believe to be quite new. Moral resistance becomes +weaker in proportion as the insistent passion of men becomes rarer and +less active. She will end by yielding entirely when men cease to find +her desirable. Then, even the most honourable of women, finding herself +no longer desired, will perhaps lose the sense of her dignity so far as +to send out a despairing appeal to the companion who is fleeing from +her....</p> + +<p>Such is the inward conflict which forms the subject of <i>The Dangerous +Age</i>. It must be <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>conceded that it lacks neither greatness nor human +interest.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I wish to add a few lines in order to record here an impression which I +experienced while reading the very first pages of <i>The Dangerous Age</i>; +an impression that became deeper and clearer when I had closed the book.</p> + +<p><i>The Dangerous Age</i> is one of those rare novels by a woman in which the +writer has not troubled to think from a man's point of view. I lay +stress upon this peculiarity because it is <i>very rare</i>, especially among +the contemporary works of Frenchwomen.</p> + +<p>The majority of our French authoresses give us novels in which their +ambition to think, to construct and to write in a masculine style is +clearly perceptible. And nothing, I imagine, gives them greater pleasure +than when, thanks to their pseudonyms, their readers actually take them +for men writers.</p> + +<p>Therefore all this mass of feminine literature in France, with three or +four exceptions—all <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>this mass of literature of which I am far from +denying the merits—has really told us nothing new about the soul of +woman. A strange result is that not a single woman writer of the present +day is known as a specialist in feminine psychology.</p> + +<p>Karin Michaëlis has been inspired to write a study of womankind without +trying to interpose between her thought and the paper the mind and +vision of a man. The outcome is astonishing. I have said that the +construction of the novel is solid; but no man could have built it up in +that way. It moves to a definite goal by a sure path; yet its style is +variable like the ways of every woman, even if she be completely +mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like +carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they +circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or +temptation to turn back from their course....</p> + +<p>Elsie Lindtner's journal shows us many examples of these circling +flights and retrogressions. Sometimes too we observe a gap, an empty +space, in which words and ideas <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>seem to have failed. Again, there are +sudden leaps from one subject to another, the true thought appearing, +notwithstanding, beneath the artificial thought which is written down. +Sometimes there comes an abrupt and painful pause, as though somebody +walking absent-mindedly along the road found themselves brought up by a +yawning cleft....</p> + +<p>This cinematograph of feminine thought, stubborn yet disconnected, is to +my mind the principal literary merit of the book; more so even than its +strength and brevity of style.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>For all these reasons, it seemed to me that <i>The Dangerous Age</i> was +worthy to be presented to the public in a French translation. The <i>Revue +de Paris</i> also thought it worthy to be published in its pages. I shall +be astonished if French readers do not confirm this twofold judgment, +offering to this foreign novel the same favourable reception that has +already been accorded to it outside its little native land.</p> + +<p class="smcap">Marcel Prévost.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a><i>The Dangerous Age</i></h2> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap">My Dear Lillie,</p> +<p>Obviously it would have been the right thing to give you my news in +person—apart from the fact that I should then have enjoyed the amusing +spectacle of your horror! But I could not make up my mind to this +course.</p> + +<p>All the same, upon my word of honour, you, dear innocent soul, are the +only person to whom I have made any direct communication on the subject. +It is at once your great virtue and defect that you find everything that +everybody does quite right and reasonable—you, the wife eternally in +love with her husband; eternally watching over your children like a +brood-hen.</p> + +<p>You are really virtuous, Lillie. But I may add that you have no reason +for being anything else. For you, life is like a long and <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>pleasant day +spent in a hammock under a shady tree—your husband at the head and your +children at the foot of your couch.</p> + +<p>You ought to have been a mother stork, dwelling in an old cart-wheel on +the roof of some peasant's cottage.</p> + +<p>For you, life is fair and sweet, and all humanity angelic. Your +relations with the outer world are calm and equable, without temptation +to any passions but such as are perfectly legal. At eighty you will +still be the virtuous mate of your husband.</p> + +<p>Don't you see that I envy you? Not on account of your husband—you may +keep him and welcome! Not on account of your lanky maypoles of +daughters—for I have not the least wish to be five times running a +mother-in-law, a fate which will probably overtake you. No! I envy your +superb balance and your imperturbable joy in life.</p> + +<p>I am out of sorts to-day. We have dined out twice running, and you know +I cannot endure too much light and racket.</p> + +<p>We shall meet no more, you and I. How strange it will seem. We had so +much in <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>common besides our portly dressmaker and our masseuse with her +shiny, greasy hands! Well, anyhow, let us be thankful to the masseuse +for our slender hips.</p> + +<p>I shall miss you. Wherever you were, the atmosphere was cordial. Even on +the summit of the Blocksberg, the chillest, barest spot on earth, you +would impart some warmth.</p> + +<p>Lillie Rothe, dear cousin, do not have a fit on reading my news: +<i>Richard and I are going to be divorced</i>.</p> + +<p>Or rather, we <i>are</i> divorced.</p> + +<p>Thanks to the kindly intervention of the Minister of Justice, the affair +was managed quickly and without fuss, as you see. After twenty-two years +of married life, almost as exemplary as your own, we are going our +separate ways.</p> + +<p>You are crying, Lillie, because you are such a kind, heaven-sent, +tender-hearted creature. But spare your tears. You are really fond of +me, and when I tell you that all has happened for the best, you will +believe me, and dry your eyes.</p> + +<p>There is no special reason for our divorce.<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a> None at least that is +palpable, or explicable, to the world. As far as I know, Richard has no +entanglements; and I have no lover. Neither have we lost our wits, nor +become religious maniacs. There is no shadow of scandal connected with +our separation beyond that which must inevitably arise when two +middle-aged partners throw down the cards in the middle of the rubber.</p> + +<p>It has cost my vanity a fierce struggle. I, who made it such a point of +honour to live unassailable and pass as irreproachable. I, who am +mortally afraid of the judgment of my fellow creatures—to let loose the +gossips' tongues in this way!</p> + +<p>I, who have always maintained that the most wretched <i>ménage</i> was better +than none at all, and that an unmarried or divorced woman had no right +to expect more than the semi-existence of a Pariah! I, who thought +divorce between any but a very young couple an unpardonable folly! Here +am I, breaking a union that has been completely harmonious and happy!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>You will begin to realize, dear Lillie, that this is a serious matter.</p> + +<p>For a whole year I delayed taking the final step; and if I hesitated so +long before realizing my intention, it was partly in order to test my +own feelings, and partly for practical reasons; for I <i>am</i> practical, +and I could not fancy myself leaving my house in the Old Market Place +without knowing where I was going to.</p> + +<p>My real reason is so simple and clear that few will be content to accept +it. But I have no other, so what am I to do?</p> + +<p>You know, like the rest of the world, that Richard and I have got on as +well as any two people of opposite sex ever can do. There has never been +an angry word between us. But one day the impulse—or whatever you like +to call it—took possession of me that I must live alone—quite alone +and all to myself. Call it an absurd idea, an impossible fancy; call it +hysteria—which perhaps it is—I must get right away from everybody and +everything.<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a> It is a blow to Richard, but I hope he will soon get over +it. In the long run his factory will make up for my loss.</p> + +<p>We concealed the business very nicely. The garden party we gave last +week was a kind of "farewell performance." Did you suspect anything at +all? We are people of the world and know how to play the game...!</p> + +<p>If I am leaving to-night, it is not altogether because I want to be +"over the hills" before the scandal leaks out, but because I have an +indescribable longing for solitude.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little villa for me—without +having the least idea I was to be the occupant.</p> + +<p>The house is on an island, the name of which I will keep to myself for +the present. The rooms are fourteen feet high, and the dining-room can +hold thirty-six guests. There are only two reception-rooms. But what +more could a divorced woman of my age require? The rest of the +house—the upper storey—consists of smaller rooms, with bay-windows and +balconies. My bedroom, iso<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>lated from all the others, has a glass roof, +like a studio. Another of my queer notions is to be able to look up from +my bed and see the sky above me. I think it is good for the nerves, and +mine are in a terrible condition.</p> + +<p>So in future, having no dear men, I can flirt with the little stars in +God's heaven.</p> + +<p>Moreover, my villa is remarkable for its beautiful situation, its +fortress-like architecture, and—please make a note of this—its +splendid inhospitality. The garden hedge which encloses it is as high as +the wall of the women's penitentiary at Christianshafen. The gates are +never open, and there is no lodge-keeper. The forest adjoins the garden, +and the garden runs down to the water's edge. The original owner of the +estate was a crank who lived in a hut, which was so overgrown with moss +and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything +given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. +At the same time, I have engaged a first-rate cook, called Torp, who +seems to have the cookery of every coun<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>try as pat as the Lord's Prayer. +I have no intention of living upon bread and water and virtue.</p> + +<p>I shall manage without a footman, although I have rather a weakness for +menservants. But my income will not permit of such luxuries; or rather I +have no idea how far my money will go. I should not care to accept +Richard's generous offer to make me a yearly allowance.</p> + +<p>I have also engaged a housemaid, whose name is Jeanne. She has the most +wonderful amber-coloured eyes, flaming red hair, and long, pointed +fingers, so well kept that I cannot help wondering where she got them +from. Torp and Jeanne will make the sum-total of my society, so that I +shall have every opportunity of living upon my own inner resources.</p> + +<p>Dear Lillie, do all you can to put a stop to the worst and most +disgusting gossip, now you know the true circumstances of the case. One +more thing, in profound confidence, and on the understanding that you +will not say a word about it to my husband: Joergen Malthe, dear +<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>fellow, formerly honoured me with his youthful affections—as you all +knew, to your great amusement. Probably, like a true man, he will be +quite frantic when he hears of my strange retirement. Be a little kind +and friendly to the poor boy, and make him understand that there is no +mystical reason for my departure.</p> + +<p>Later on, when I have had time to rest a little, I shall be delighted to +hear from you; although I foresee that five-sixths of the letters will +be about your children, and the remaining sixth devoted to your +husband—whereas I would rather it was all about yourself, and our dear +town, with its life and strife. I have not taken the veil; I may still +endure to hear echoes of all the town gossip.</p> + +<p>If you were here, you would ask what I proposed to do with myself. Well, +dear Lillie, I have not left my frocks nor my mirror behind me. +Moreover, time has this wonderful property that, unlike the clocks, it +goes of itself without having to be wound up. I have the sea, the +forest; my piano, and my house. If time really hangs heavy on my hands, +there <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>is no reason why I should not darn the linen for Torp!</p> + +<p>Should it happen by any chance—which God forbid—that I were struck +dead by lightning, or succumbed to a heart attack, would you, acting as +my cousin, and closest friend, undertake to put my belongings in order? +Not that you would find things in actual disorder; but all the same +there would be a kind of semi-order. I do not at all fancy the idea of +Richard routing among my papers now that we are no longer a married +couple.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"> With every good wish,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;"> Your cousin,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 8em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>My Dear, Kind Friend, And Former Husband,</p> + +<p>Is there not a good deal of style about that form of address? Were you +not deeply touched at receiving, in a strange town, flowers sent by a +lady? If only the people understood my German and sent them to you in +time!</p> + +<p>For an instant a beautiful thought flashed through my mind: to welcome +you in this way in every town where you have to stay. But since I only +know the addresses of one or two florists in the capitals, and I am too +lazy to find out the others, I have given up this splendid folly, and +simply note it to my account as a "might-have-been."</p> + +<p>Shall I be quite frank, Richard? I am rather ashamed when I think of +you, and I can honestly say that I never respected you more than to-day. +But it could not have been otherwise. I want you to concentrate all your +will-power to convince yourself of this. If I had let myself be +persuaded to remain with <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>you, after this great need for solitude had +laid hold upon me, I should have worried and tormented you every hour of +the day.</p> + +<p>Dearest and best friend, there is some truth in these words, spoken by I +know not whom: "Either a woman is made for marriage, and then it +practically does not matter to whom she is married, she will soon +understand how to fulfil her destiny; or she is unsuited to matrimony, +in which case she commits a crime against her own personality when she +binds herself to any man."</p> + +<p>Apparently, I was not meant for married life. Otherwise I should have +lived happily for ever and a day with you—and you know that was not the +case. But you are not to blame. I wish in my heart of hearts that I had +something to reproach you with—but I have nothing against you of any +sort or kind.</p> + +<p>It was a great mistake—a cowardly act—to promise you yesterday that I +would return if I regretted my decision. I <i>know</i> I shall never regret +it. But in making such a promise I am directly hindering you.... Forgive +me, dear friend ... but it is not im<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>possible that you may some day meet +a woman who could become something to you. Will you let me take back my +promise? I shall be grateful to you. Then only can I feel myself really +free.</p> + +<p>When you return home, stand firm if your friends overwhelm you with +questions and sympathy. I should be deeply humiliated if anyone—no +matter who—were to pry into the good and bad times we have shared +together. Bygones are bygones, and no one can actually realise what +takes place between two human beings, even when they have been +onlookers.</p> + +<p>Think of me when you sit down to dinner. Henceforward eight o'clock will +probably be my bedtime. On the other hand I shall rise with the sun, or +perhaps earlier. Think of me, but do not write too often. I must first +settle down tranquilly to my new life. Later on, I shall enjoy writing +you a condensed account of all the follies which can be committed by a +woman who suddenly finds herself at a mature age complete mistress of +her actions.</p> + +<p>Follow my advice, offered for the twentieth time: go on seeing your +friends; you cannot <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>do without them. Really there is no need for you to +mourn for a year with crape on the chandeliers and immortelles around my +portrait.</p> + +<p>You have been a kind, faithful, and delicate-minded friend to me, and I +am not so lacking in delicacy myself that I do not appreciate this in my +inmost heart. But I cannot accept your generous offer to give me money. +I now tell you this for the first time, because, had I said so before, +you would have done your best to over-persuade me. My small income is, +and will be, sufficient for my needs.</p> + +<p>The train leaves in an hour. Richard, you have your business and your +friends—more friends than anyone I know. If you wish me well, wish that +I may never regret the step I have taken. I look down at my hands that +you loved—I wish I could stretch them out to you....</p> + +<p>A man must not let himself be crushed. It would hurt me to feel that +people pitied you. You are much too good to be pitied.</p> + +<p>Certainly it would have been better if, as <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>you said, one of us had +died. But in that case you would have had to take the plunge into +eternity, for I am looking forward with joy to life on my island.</p> + +<p>For twenty years I have lived under the shadow of your wing in the Old +Market Place. May I live another twenty under the great forest trees, +wedded to solitude.</p> + +<p>How the gossips will gossip! But we two, clever people, will laugh at +their gossip.</p> + +<p>Forgive me, Richard, to-day and always, the trouble I have brought upon +you. I would have stayed with you if I could. Thank you for all....</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 16em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie.</span></p> + + +<p>That my feeling for you should have died, is quite as incomprehensible +to me as to you. No other man has ever claimed a corner of my heart. In +a word, having considered the question all round, I am suffering simply +from a nervous malady—alas! it is incurable!</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>My Dear Malthe,</p> + +<p>We two are friends, are we not, and I think we shall always remain so, +even now that fate has severed our ways? If you feel that you have any +good reason for being angry with me now, then, indeed, our friendship +will be broken; for we shall have no further opportunity of becoming +reconciled.</p> + +<p>If at this important juncture I not only hid the truth from you, but +deliberately misled you, it was not from any lack of confidence in you, +or with the wish to be unfriendly. I beg you to believe this. The fact +that I cannot even now explain to you my reasons for acting thus makes +it all the more difficult to justify my conduct to you. Therefore you +must be contented to take my word for it. Joergen Malthe, I would gladly +confide in you, but it is impossible. Call it madness, or what you will, +but I cannot allow any human being to penetrate my inner life.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>You will not have forgotten that September evening last year, when I +spoke to you for the first time about one of my friends who was going to +separate from her husband, and who, through my intervention, asked you +to draw the plan of a villa in which she might spend the rest of her +days in solitude? You entered so completely into this idea of a solitary +retreat that your plan was almost perfect. Every time we met last year +we talked about the "White Villa," as we called it, and it pleased us to +share this little secret together. Nor were you less interested in the +interior of the house; in making sketches for the furniture, and +arranging the decorations. You took a real delight in this task, +although you were annoyed that you had no personal knowledge of your +client. You remember that I said to you sometimes in joke: "Plan it as +though it were for me"; and I cannot forget what you replied one day: "I +hate the idea of a stranger living in the house which I planned with you +always in my mind."</p> + +<p>Judge for yourself, Malthe, how painful it was to leave you in error. +But I could not <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>speak out then, for I had to consider my husband. For +this reason I avoided meeting you during the summer; I found it +impossible to keep up the deception when we were face to face.</p> + +<p>It is I—I myself—who will live in the "White Villa." I shall live +there quite alone.</p> + +<p>It is useless for me to say, "Do not be angry." You would not be what +you are if you were not annoyed about it.</p> + +<p>You are young, life lies before you. I am old. In a very few years I +shall be so old that you will not be able to realise that there was a +time when I was "the one woman in the world" for you. I am not harping +on your youth in order to vex you—your youth that you hate for my sake! +I know that you are not fickle; but I know, too, that the laws of life +and the march of time are alike inexorable.</p> + +<p>When I enter the new home you have planned for me, a lonely and divorced +woman, I shall think of you every day, and my thoughts will speak more +cordial thanks than I can set down coldly in black and white on this +paper.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>I do not forbid you to write to me, but, save for a word of farewell, I +would prefer your silence. No letters exchanged between us could bring +back so much as a reflection of the happy hours we have spent together. +Hours in which we talked of everything, and chiefly of nothing at all.</p> + +<p>I do not think we were very brilliant when we were together; but we were +never bored. If my absence brings you suffering, disappointment, +grief—lose yourself in your work, so that in my solitude I may still be +proud of you.</p> + +<p>You taught me to use my eyes, and there is much, much in the world I +should like to see, for, thanks to you, I have learnt how beautiful the +world is. But the wisest course for me is to give myself up to my chosen +destiny. I shut the door of my "White Villa"—and there my story ends.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Your<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 10em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.<br /></span></p> + +<p>Reading through my letter, it seems to me cold and dry. But it is harder +to write such a letter to a dear friend than to a stranger.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>Landed On My Island.<br /> +Crept Into My Lair.<br /></p> + +<p>The first day is over. Heaven help me through those to come! Everything +here disgusts me, from the smell of the new woodwork and the half-dried +wallpapers to the pattering of the rain over my head.</p> + +<p>What an idiotic notion of mine to have a glass roof to my bedroom! I +feel as though I were living under an umbrella through which the water +might come dripping at any moment. During the night this will probably +happen. The panes of glass, unless they are very closely joined +together, will let the water through, and I shall awake in a pool of +water.</p> + +<p>Awake, indeed! If only I ever get to sleep! My head aches and burns from +sheer fatigue, but I have not even thought of getting into bed yet.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>For the last year I have had plenty of time to think things over, and +now I am at a loss to understand why I have done this. Suppose it is a +piece of stupidity—a carefully planned and irrevocable folly? Suppose +my irritable nerves have played a trick upon me? Suppose ... suppose ...</p> + +<p>I feel lonely and without will power. I am frightened. But the step is +taken; and I can never turn back. I must never let myself regret it.</p> + +<p>This constant rain gives me an icy, damp feeling down my back. It gets +on my nerves.</p> + +<p>What shall I come to, reduced to the society of two females who have +nothing in common with me but our sex? No one to speak to, no one to +see. Jeanne is certainly attractive to look at, but I cannot converse +with her. As to Torp, she suits her basement as a gnome suits his +mountain cave. She looks as though she was made to repopulate a desert +unaided. She wears stays that are crooked back and front.</p> + +<p>Never in all my life have I felt so disappointed, and compelled to put a +good face <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>upon a bad business, as when I splashed through the wet +garden and entered the empty house where there was not even a flower to +welcome my arrival. The rooms are too large and bare.... Why did I not +think of that before?</p> + +<p>All the same, decorum must be maintained, and my entry was not +undignified.</p> + +<p>Ah, the rain, the rain! Jeanne and Torp are still cleaning up. They mean +to go on half the night, scrubbing and sweeping as though we expected +company to-morrow. I start unpacking my trunk, take out a few things and +stop—begin again and stop again, horrified at the quantity of clothes +I've brought. It would have been more sensible to send them to one of +our beloved "charity sales." They are of no use or pleasure now. Black +merino and a white woollen shawl—what more do I want here?</p> + +<p>God knows how I wish at the present moment I were back in the Old Market +Place, even if I only had Richard's society to bore me.</p> + +<p>What am I doing here? What do I want <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>here? To cry, without having to +give an account of one's tears to anyone?</p> + +<p>Of course, all this is only the result of the rain. I was longing to be +here. It was not a mere hysterical whim. No, no....</p> + +<p>It was my own wish to bury myself here.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Yesterday I was all nerves. To-day I feel as fresh and lively as a +cricket.</p> + +<p>We have been hanging the pictures, and made thirty-six superfluous holes +in the new walls. There is no way of concealing them. (I must write to +Richard to have my engravings framed.) It would be stretching a point to +say we are skilled picture-hangers; we were nearly as awkward as men +when they try to hook a woman's dress for her. But the pictures were +hung somehow, and look rather nice now they are up.</p> + +<p>But why on earth did I give Torp my sketch of "A Villa by the Sea" to +hang in her kitchen? Was I afraid to have it near me? Or was it some +stupid wish to hurt <i>his</i> feel<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>ings? <i>His</i> only gift.... I feel ashamed +of myself.</p> + +<p>Jeanne has arranged flowers everywhere, and that helps to make the house +more homelike.</p> + +<p>The place is mine, and I take possession of it. Now the sun is shining. +I find pleasure in examining each article of furniture and remembering +the days when we discussed the designs together. I ought not to have let +him do all that. It was senseless of me.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>They are much to be envied who can pass away the time in their own +society. I am in my element when I can watch other people blowing +soap-bubbles; but to blow them myself....</p> + +<p>I am not really clever at creating comfortable surroundings. Far from +it. My white villa always looks uninhabited, in spite of all the flowers +with which I allow Jeanne to decorate the rooms. Is it because +everything smells so new? Or because there are no old smells? Here there +are no whiffs of dust,<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a> smoke, or benzine, nor anything which made the +Old Market Place the Old Market Place. Everything is so clean here that +one hesitates to move a step. The boards are as shiny as though they +were polished silver.... This very moment Torp appeared in felt shoes +and implored me to get her a strip of oilcloth to save her kitchen +floor. I feel just the same; I scarcely dare defile this spotless +pitchpine.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>What is the use of all these discussions and articles about the equality +of the sexes, so long as we women are at times the slaves of an +inevitable necessity? I have suffered more than ever the last few days, +perhaps because I was so utterly alone. Not a human being to speak to. +Yes, I ought to have stayed in bed if only to conceal my ugliness. In +town I was wise. But here ...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>All the same I am proud of my self-control. Many women do not possess as +much.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>The moon is in her first quarter; a cold dry wind is blowing up; it +makes one cough merely to hear it whistle.</p> + +<p>I hate winds of all kinds, and here my enemy seems to have free entry. I +ought to have built my house facing south and in some hollow sheltered +from the wind. Unfortunately it looks to the north, straight across the +open sea.</p> + +<p>I have not yet been outside the garden. I have made up my mind to keep +to this little spot as long as possible. I shall get accustomed to it. I +<i>must</i> get accustomed to it.</p> + +<p>Dear souls, how they worry me with their letters. Only Malthe keeps +silence. Will he deign to answer me?</p> + +<p>Jeanne follows me with her eyes as though she wanted to learn some art +from me. What art?</p> + +<p>Good heavens, what can that girl be doing here?</p> + +<p>She does not seem made for the celibate life of a desert island. Yet I +cannot set up a footman to keep her company. I will not <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>have men's eyes +prying about my house, I have had enough of that.</p> + +<p>A manservant—that would mean love affairs, squabbles, and troubles; or +marriage, and a change of domestics. No, I have a right to peace, and I +will secure it. The worst that could happen to me would be to find +myself reduced to playing whist with Jeanne and Torp. Well, why not?</p> + +<p>Torp spends all her evenings playing patience on the kitchen +window-sill. Perhaps she is telling her fortune and wondering whether +some good-looking sailor will be wrecked on the shores of her desert +island.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Jeanne goes about in silk stockings. This rather astonishes +me. Lillie reproved me for the pernicious custom. Are they a real +necessity for Jeanne, or does she know the masculine taste so well?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>From all the birch trees that stand quivering around the house a golden +rain is falling. There is not a breath of wind, but the leaves <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>keep +dropping, dropping. This morning I stood on the little balcony and +looked out over the forest. I do not know why or wherefore, but such a +sense of quiet came over me. I seemed to hear the words: "and behold it +was very good." Was it the warm russet tint of the trees or the profound +perfume of the woods that induced this calm?</p> + +<p>All day long I have been thinking of Malthe, and I feel so glad I have +acted as I have done. But he might have answered my letter.</p> + +<p>Jeanne has discovered the secret of my hair. She asked permission to +dress it for me in the evening when my hair is "awake." She is quite an +artist in this line, and I let her occupy herself with it as long as she +pleased. She pinned it up, then let it down again; coiled it round my +forehead like a turban; twisted it into a Grecian knot; parted and +smoothed it down on each side of my head like a hood. She played with it +and arranged it a dozen different ways like a bouquet of wild flowers.</p> + +<p>My hair is still my pride, although it is <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>losing its gloss and colour. +Jeanne said, by way of consolation, that it was like a wood in late +autumn....</p> + +<p>I should like to know whether this girl sprang from the gutter, or was +the child of poor, honest parents....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>"Thousands of women may look at the man they love with their whole soul +in their eyes, and the man will remain as unmoved as a stone by the +wayside. And then a woman will pass by who has no soul, but whose +artificial smile has a mysterious power to spur the best of men to +painful desire...."</p> + +<p>One day I found these words underlined in a book left open on my table. +Who left it there, I cannot say; nor whether it was underlined with the +intention of hurting my feelings, or merely by chance.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I sit here waiting for my mortal enemy. Will he come gliding in +imperceptibly or stand suddenly before me? Will he overcome <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>me, or +shall I prove the stronger? I am prepared—but is that sufficient?</p> + +<p>Torp is really too romantic! To-day it pleased her to decorate the table +with Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper festooned the hanging lamp; +Virginia creeper crept over the cloth. Even the joint was decked out +with wine-red leaves, until it looked like a ship flying all her flags +on the King's birthday. Amid all this pomp and ceremony, I sat all +alone, without a human being for whom I might have made myself smart. I, +who for the last twenty years, have never even dressed the salad without +at least one pair of eyes watching me toss the lettuce as though I was +performing some wonderful Indian conjuring trick.</p> + +<p>A festal board at which one sits in solitary grandeur is the dreariest +thing imaginable.</p> + +<p>I rather wish Torp had less "style," as she calls it. Undoubtedly she +has lived in large establishments and has picked up some habits and +customs from each of them. She is welcome to wait at table in white +cotton gloves and to perch a huge silk bow on her hair, <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>which is +redolent of the kitchen, but when it comes to trimming her poor +work-worn nails to the fashionable pyramidal shape—she really becomes +tragic.</p> + +<p>She "romanticises" everything. I should not be at all surprised if some +day she decked her kitchen range with wreaths of roses and hung up works +of art between the stewpans.</p> + +<p>I am really glad I did not bring Samuel the footman with me. He could +not have waited on me better than Jeanne, and at any rate I am free from +his eyes, which, in spite of all their respectful looks, always reminded +me of a fly-paper full of dead and dying flies.</p> + +<p>Jeanne's look has a something gliding and subtle about it that keeps me +company like a witty conversation. It is really on her account that I +dress myself well. But I cannot converse with her. I should not like to +try, and then to be disillusioned.</p> + +<p>Men have often assured me that I was the only woman they could talk with +as though I were one of themselves. Personally I never <a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>feel at one with +menkind. I only understand and admire my own sex.</p> + +<p>In reality I think there is more difference between a man and a woman +than between an inert stone and a growing plant. I say this ... I +who ...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>What business is it of mine? We were not really friends. The fact of her +having confided in me makes no demands on my feelings. If this thing had +happened five years ago, I should have taken it as a rather welcome +sensation—nothing more. Or had I read in the paper "On the—inst., of +heart disease, or typhoid fever," my peace of mind would not have been +disturbed for an hour.</p> + +<p>I have purposely refrained from reading the papers lately. Chancing to +open one to-day, after a month's complete ignorance of all that had been +happening in the world, I saw the following headline: Suicide of a Lady +in a Lunatic Asylum.</p> + +<p>And now I feel as shaken as though I had <a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>taken part in a crime; as +though I had had some share in this woman's death.</p> + +<p>I am so far to blame that I abandoned her at a moment when it might +still have been possible to save her.... But this is a morbid notion! If +a person wants "to shuffle off this mortal coil" it is nobody's duty to +prevent her.</p> + +<p>To me, Agatha Ussing's life or death are secondary matters; it is only +the circumstances that trouble me.</p> + +<p>Was she mad, or no? Undoubtedly not more insane than the rest of us, but +her self-control snapped like a bowstring which is overstrained. She +saw—so she said—a grinning death's head behind every smiling face. +Merely a bee in her bonnet! But she was foolish enough to talk about it; +and when people laughed at her words with a good-natured contempt, her +glance became searching and fixed as though she was trying to convince +herself. Such an awful look of terror haunted her eyes, that at her gaze +a cold shiver, born of one's own fears and forebodings, ran through one.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>She compelled us to realise the things we scarcely dare foresee....</p> + +<p>I shall never forget a letter in which she wrote these words in a queer, +faltering handwriting:</p> + +<p>"If men suspected what took place in a woman's inner life after forty, +they would avoid us like the plague, or knock us on the head like mad +dogs."</p> + +<p>Such a philosophy of life ended in the poor woman being shut up in a +madhouse. She ought to have kept it to herself instead of posting it up +on the walls of her house. It was quite sufficient as a proof of her +insanity.</p> + +<p>I cannot think what induced me to visit her in the asylum. Not pure +pity. I was prompted rather by that kind of painful curiosity which +makes a patient ask to see a limb which has just been amputated. I +wanted to look with my own eyes into that shadowy future which Agatha +had reached before me.</p> + +<p>What did I discover? She had never cared for her husband; on the +contrary she had <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>betrayed him with an effrontery that would hardly have +been tolerated outside the smart world; yet now she suffered the +torments of hell from jealousy of her husband. Not of her lovers; their +day was over; but of him, because he was the one man she saw. Also +because she bore his name and was therefore bound to him.</p> + +<p>On every other subject she was perfectly sane. When we were left alone +together she said: "The worst of it is that I know my 'madness' will +only be temporary. It is a malady incident to my age. One day it will +pass away. One day I shall have got through the inevitable phase. But +how does that help me now?"</p> + +<p>No, it was no more help to her than the dreadful paint with which she +plastered her haggard features.</p> + +<p>It was not the least use to her....</p> + +<p>Her death is the best thing that could have happened, for her own sake +and for those belonging to her. But I cannot take my thoughts off the +hours which preceded her <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>end; the time that passed between the moment +when she decided to commit suicide until she actually carried out her +resolve.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>"If men suspected ..."</p> + +<p>It may safely be said that on the whole surface of the globe not one man +exists who really knows a woman.</p> + +<p>They know us in the same way as the bees know the flowers; by the +various perfumes they impart to the honey. No more.</p> + +<p>How could it be otherwise? If a woman took infinite pains to reveal +herself to a husband or a lover just as she really is, he would think +she was suffering from some incurable mental disease.</p> + +<p>A few of us indicate our true natures in hysterical outbreaks, fits of +bitterness and suspicion; but this involuntary frankness is generally +discounted by some subtle deceit.</p> + +<p>Do men and women ever tell each other the truth? How often does that +happen? More often than not, I think, they deal in half-lies, hiding +this, embroidering that, fact.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>Between the sexes reigns an ineradicable hostility. It is concealed +because life has to be lived, because it is easier and more convenient +to keep it in the background; but it is always there, even in those +supreme moments when the sexes fulfil their highest destiny.</p> + +<p>A woman who knows other women and understands them, could easily prove +this in so many words; and every woman who heard her—provided they were +alone—would confess she was right. But if a man should join in the +conversation, both women would stamp truth underfoot as though it were a +venomous reptile.</p> + +<p>Men can be sincere both with themselves and others; but women cannot. +They are corrupted from birth. Later on, education, intercourse with +other women and finally marriage, corrupt them still more.</p> + +<p>A woman may love a man more than her own life; may sacrifice her time, +her health, her existence to him. But if she is wholly a woman, she +cannot give him her confidence.</p> + +<p>She cannot, because she dares not.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>In the same way a man—for a certain length of time—can love without +measure. He can then be unlocked like a cabinet full of secret drawers +and pigeonholes, of which we hold the keys. He discloses himself, his +present and his past. A woman, even in the closest bonds of love, never +reveals more of herself than reason demands.</p> + +<p>Her modesty differs entirely from that of a male. She would rather be +guilty of incest than reveal to a man the hidden thoughts which +sometimes, without the least scruple, she will confide to another woman. +Friendship between men is a very different thing. Something honest and +frank, from which consequently they withdraw without anger, mutual +obligation, or fear. Friendship between women is a kind of masonic oath; +the breaking of it a mutual crime. When two women friends quarrel, they +generally continue to carry deadly weapons against each other, which +they are only restrained from using by mutual fear.</p> + +<p>There <i>are</i> honest women. At least we believe there are. It is a +necessary part of <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>our belief. Who does not think well of mother or +sister? But who <i>believes entirely</i> in a mother or a sister? Absolutely +and unconditionally? Who has never caught mother or sister in a +falsehood or a subterfuge? Who has not sometimes seen in the heart of +mother or sister, as by a lightning flash, an abyss which the +profoundest love cannot bridge over?</p> + +<p>Who has ever really understood his mother or sister?</p> + +<p>The human being dwells and moves alone. Each woman dwells in her own +planet formed of centrifugal fires enveloped in a thin crust of earth. +And as each star runs its eternal course through space, isolated amid +countless myriads of other stars, so each woman goes her solitary way +through life.</p> + +<p>It would be better for her if she walked barefoot over red-hot +ploughshares, for the pain she would suffer would be slight indeed +compared to that which she must feel when, with a smile on her lips, she +leaves her own youth behind and enters the regions of despair we call +"growing old," and "old age...."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>All this philosophizing is the result, no doubt, of having eaten +halibut for lunch; it is a solid fish and difficult to digest.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, too, having no company but Jeanne and Torp, I am reduced to my +own aimless reflections.</p> + +<p>Just as clothes exercise no influence on the majority of men, so their +emotional life is not much affected by circumstances. With us women it +is otherwise. We really <i>are</i> different women according to the dresses +we wear. We assume a personality in accord with our costume. We laugh, +talk and act at the caprice of purely external circumstances.</p> + +<p>Take for instance a woman who wants to confide in another. She will do +it in quite a different way in broad daylight in a drawing-room than in +her little "den" in the gloaming, even if in both cases she happens to +be quite alone with her confidante.</p> + +<p>If some women are specially honoured as the recipients of many +confidences from their own sex, I am convinced they owe it more to +physical than moral qualities. As there are some rooms of which the +atmosphere is so cosey and <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>inviting that we feel ourselves at home in +them without a word of welcome, so we find certain women who seem to be +endowed with such receptivity that they invite the confidences of +others.</p> + +<p>The history of smiles has never yet been written, simply because the few +women capable of writing it would not betray their sex. As to men, they +are as ignorant on this point as on everything else which concerns +women—not excepting love.</p> + +<p>I have conversed with many famous women's doctors, and have pretended to +admire their knowledge, while inwardly I was much amused at their +simplicity. They know how to cut us open and stitch us up again—as +children open their dolls to see the sawdust with which they are stuffed +and sew them up afterwards with a needle and thread. But they get no +further. Yes—a little further perhaps. Possibly in course of time they +begin to discover that women are so infinitely their superiors in +falsehood that their wisest course is to appear once and for all to +believe them then and there....</p> + +<p><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>Women's doctors may be as clever and sly as they please, but they will +never learn any of the things that women confide to each other. It is +inevitable. Between the sexes lies not only a deep, eternal hostility, +but the unfathomable abyss of a complete lack of reciprocal +comprehension.</p> + +<p>For instance, all the words in a language will never express what a +smile will express—and between women a smile is like a masonic sign; we +can use them between ourselves without any fear of their being +misunderstood by the other sex.</p> + +<p>Smiles are a form of speech with which we alone are conversant. Our +smiles betray our instincts and our burdens; they reflect our virtues +and our inanity.</p> + +<p>But the cleverest women hide their real selves behind a factitious +smile.</p> + +<p>Men do not know how to smile. They look more or less benevolent, more or +less pleased, more or less love-smitten; but they are not pliable or +subtle enough to smile. A woman who is not sufficiently prudent to mask +her features, gives away her soul in a smile. I <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>have known women who +revealed their whole natures in this way.</p> + +<p>No woman speaks aloud, but most women smile aloud. And the fact that in +so doing we unveil all our artifice, all the whirlpool of our inmost +being to each other, proves the extraordinary solidarity of our sex.</p> + +<p>When did one woman ever betray another?</p> + +<p>This loyalty is not rooted in noble sentiment, but proceeds rather from +the fear of betraying ourselves by revealing things that are the secret +common property of all womanhood.</p> + +<p>And yet, if a woman could be found willing to reveal her entire self?...</p> + +<p>I have often thought of the possibility, and at the present moment I am +not sure that she would not do our sex an infinite and eternal wrong.</p> + +<p>We are compounded so strangely of good and bad, truth and falsehood, +that it requires the most delicate touch to unravel the tangled skein of +our natures and find the starting point.</p> + +<p>No man is capable of the task.</p> + +<p>During recent years it has become the fashion for notorious women to +publish their remi<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>niscences in the form of a diary. But has any woman +reader discovered in all this literature a single intimate feature, a +single frank revelation of all that is kept hidden behind a thousand +veils?</p> + +<p>If indeed one of these unhappy women ventured to write a plain, +unvarnished, but poignant, description of her inner life, where would +she find a publisher daring enough to let his name appear on the cover +of the book?</p> + +<p>I once knew a man who, stirred by a good and noble impulse, and +confident of his power, endeavoured to "save" a very young girl whom he +had rescued from a house of ill-fame. He took her home and treated her +like a sister. He lavished time and confidence upon her. His pride at +the transformation which took place in her passed all bounds. The girl +was as grateful as a mongrel and as modest as the bride in a romantic +novel. He then resolved to make her his wife. But one fine day she +vanished, leaving behind her a note containing these words: "Many thanks +for your kindness, but you bore me."</p> + +<p>During the whole time they had lived to<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>gether, he had not grasped the +faintest notion of the girl's true nature; nor understood that to keep +her contented it was not sufficient to treat her kindly, but that she +required some equivalent for the odious excitements of the past.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>All feminine confessions—except those between relations which are +generally commonplace and uninteresting—assume a kind of beauty in my +eyes; a warmth and solemnity that excuses the casting aside of all +conventional barriers.</p> + +<p>I remember one day—a day of oppressive heat and the heavy perfume of +roses—when, with a party of women friends, we began to talk about +tears. At first no one ventured to speak quite sincerely; but one thing +led to another until we were gradually caught in our own snares, and +finally we each gave out something that we had hitherto kept concealed +within us, as one locks up a deadly poison.</p> + +<p>Not one of us, it appeared, ever cried because of some imperative inward +need. Tears <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>are nature's gift to us. It is our own affair whether we +squander or economise their use.</p> + +<p>Of all our confessions Sophie Harden's was the strangest. To her, tears +were a kind of erotic by-play, which added to the enjoyment of conjugal +life. Her husband, a good-natured creature, always believed he was to +blame, and she never enlightened him on the point.</p> + +<p>Most of the others owned that they had recourse to tears to work +themselves up when they wanted to make a scene. But Astrid Bagge, a +gentle, quiet housewife and mother, declared she kept all her troubles +for the evenings when her husband dined at the volunteer's mess, because +he hated to see anyone crying. Then she sat alone and in darkness and +wept away the accumulated annoyances of the week.</p> + +<p>When it came to my turn, I spoke the truth by chance when I said that, +however much I wanted to cry, I only permitted myself the luxury about +once in two years. I think my complexion is a conclusive proof that my +words were sincere.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>There are deserts which never know the refreshment of dew or rain. My +life has been such a desert.</p> + +<p>I, who like to receive confidences, have a morbid fear of giving them. +Perhaps it is because I was so much alone, so self-centred, in my +childhood.</p> + +<p>The more I reflect upon life, the more clearly I see that I have not +laid out my talents to the best advantage. I have no sweet memories of +infidelity; I have lived irreproachably—and now I am very tired.</p> + +<p>I sit here and write for myself alone. I know that no one else will ever +read my words; and yet I am not quite sincere, even with myself.</p> + +<p>Life has passed me by; my hands are empty; now it is too late.</p> + +<p>Once happiness knocked at my door, and I, poor fool, did not rise to +welcome it.</p> + +<p>I envy every country wench or servant girl who goes off with a lover. +But I sit here waiting for old age.</p> + +<p>Astrid Bagge.... As I write her name, I feel as though she were standing +weeping <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>behind my back; I feel her tears dropping on my neck. I cannot +weep—but how I long for tears!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Autumn! Torp has made a huge fire of logs in the open grate. The burning +wood gives out an intoxicating perfume and fills the house with cosey +warmth. For want of something better to do I am looking after the fire +myself. I carefully strip the bark from each log before throwing it on +the flames. The smell of burning birch-bark goes to my head like strong +wine. Dreams come and go.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe, what a mere boy you are!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The garden looks like a neglected churchyard, forgotten of the living. +The virginia creeper falls in blood-red streamers from the verandah. The +snails drag themselves along in the rain; their slow movements remind me +of women <i>enceinte</i>. The hedge is covered with spiders' webs, and the +wet clay sticks to one's shoes as one walks on the paths.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>Yet there are people who think autumn a beautiful time of year!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>My will is paralysed from self-disgust. I find myself involuntarily +listening and watching for the postman, who brings nothing for me. There +are moments when my fingers seem to be feeling the smoothness of the +cream-laid "At Home" cards which used to be showered upon us, especially +at this season. Towards evening I grow restless. Formerly my day was a +<i>crescendo</i> of activity until the social hours were reached. Now the +hours fall one by one in ashes before my eyes.</p> + +<p>I am myself, yet not myself. There are moments when I envy every living +creature that has the right to pair—either from hate or from habit. I +am alone and shut out. What consolation is it to be able to say: "It was +my own choice!"</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>A letter from Malthe.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>No, I will not open it. I do not wish to know what he writes.... It is +a long letter.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>My nerves are quiet. But I often lie awake, and my sleep is broken. The +stars are shining over my head, and I never before experienced such a +sense of repose and calm. Is this the effect of the stars, or the +letter?</p> + +<p>I am forty-two! It cannot be helped. I cannot buy back a single day of +my life. Forty-two! But during the night the thought does not trouble +me. The stars above reckon by ages, not by years, and sometimes I smile +to think that as soon as Richard returns home, the rooms in our house in +the Old Market will be lit up, and the usual set will assemble there +without me.</p> + +<p>The one thing I should like to know is whether Malthe is still in +Denmark.</p> + +<p>I would like to know where my thoughts should seek him—at home or +abroad.</p> + +<p>I played with him treacherously when I called him "the youth," and +treated him as a <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>mere boy. If we compare our ages it is true enough, +but not if we compare feelings.</p> + +<p>Can there be anything meaner than for a woman to make fun of what is +really sacred to her? My feelings for Malthe were and still are sacred. +I myself have befouled them with my mockery.</p> + +<p>But when I am lying in my bed beneath the vast canopy of the sky, all my +sins seem forgiven me. Fate alone—Fate who bears all things on his +shoulders—is to blame, and I wish nothing undone.</p> + +<p>The letter will never be read. Never voluntarily by me.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I do not know the day of the week. That is one step nearer the goal for +which I long. May it come to pass that the weeks and months shall glide +imperceptibly over me, so that I shall only recognise the seasons by the +changing tints of the forest and the alternations of heat and cold.</p> + +<p>Alas, those days are still a long way off!</p> + +<p>I have just been having a conflict with my<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>self, and I find that all the +time I have been living here as though I were spending a summer holiday +in Tyrol. I have been simply deceiving myself and playing with the +hidden thought that I could begin my life over again.</p> + +<p>I have shivered with terror at this self-deception. The last few nights +I have hardly slept at all. A traveller must feel the same who sails +across the sea ignorant of the country to which he journeys. Vaguely he +pictures it as resembling his native land, and lands to find himself in +a wilderness which he must plant and cultivate until it blossoms with +his new desires and dreams. By the time he has turned the desert into a +home, his day is over....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>If I could but make up my mind to burn that letter! I weigh it, first in +my right hand, then in my left. Sometimes its weight makes me happy; +sometimes it fills me with foreboding. Do the words weigh so heavy, or +only the paper?</p> + +<p>Last night I held it close to the candle.<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a> But when the flame touched my +letter, I drew it quickly away.—It is all I have left to me now....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Richard writes to me that Malthe has been commissioned to build a great +hospital. Most of our great architects competed for the work. He goes on +to ask whether I am not proud of "my young friend."</p> + +<p>My young friend!...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne spoke to me about herself to-day. I think she was quite +bewildered by the extraordinary fall of leaves which has almost blinded +us the last three days. She was doing my hair, and tracing a line +straight across my forehead, she remarked:</p> + +<p>"Here should be a ribbon with red jewels."</p> + +<p>I told her that I had once had the same idea, but I had given it up out +of consideration for my fellow creatures.</p> + +<p>"But there are none here," she exclaimed,</p> + +<p>I replied laughing:</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>Then it is not worth while decking myself out!"</p> + +<p>Jeanne took out the pins and let my hair down.</p> + +<p>"If I were rich," she said, "I would dress for myself alone. Men neither +notice nor understand anything about it."</p> + +<p>We went on talking like two equals, and a few minutes later, remembering +what I had observed, I gave her some silk stockings. Instead of thanking +me, she remarked so suddenly that she took my breath away:</p> + +<p>"Once I sold myself for a pair of green silk stockings."</p> + +<p>I could not help asking the question:</p> + +<p>"Did you regret your bargain?"</p> + +<p>She looked me straight in the face:</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I only thought about my stockings."</p> + +<p>Naturally such conversations are rather risky; I shall avoid them in +future. But the riddle is more puzzling than ever. What brought Jeanne +to share my solitude on this island?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>Now we have a man about the place. Torp got him. He digs in the garden +and chops wood. But the odour impregnates Torp and even reaches me.</p> + +<p>He makes eyes at Jeanne, who looks at me and smiles. Torp makes a fuss +of him, and every night I smell his pipe in the basement.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have shut myself upstairs and played patience. The questions I put to +the cards come from that casket of memories the seven keys of which I +believed I had long since thrown into the sea. A wretched form of +amusement! But the piano makes me feel sad, and there is nothing else to +do.</p> + +<p>Malthe's letter is still intact. I wander around it like a mouse round a +trap of which it suspects the danger. My heart meanwhile yearns to know +what words he uses.</p> + +<p>He and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives. We owe that to +my wisdom. If he never sees me, he will never be able to forget me.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>How could I suppose it for a single moment! There is no possibility of +remaining alone with oneself! No degree of seclusion, nor even life in a +cell, would suffice. Strong as is the call of freedom, the power of +memory is stronger; so that no one can ever choose his society at will. +Once we have lived with our kind, and become filled with the knowledge +of them, we are never free again.</p> + +<p>A sound, a scent—and behold a person, a scene, or a destiny, rises up +before us. Very often the phantoms that come thronging around me are +those of people whose existence is quite indifferent to me. But they +appear all the same—importunate, overbearing, inevitable.</p> + +<p>We may close our doors to visitors in the flesh; but we are forced to +welcome these phantoms of the memory; to notice them and converse with +them without reserve.</p> + +<p>People become like books to me. I read them through, turn the pages +lightly, annotate them, learn them by heart. Sometimes I am at fault; I +see them in a new light. Things that were not clear to me become plain; +what <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>was apparently incomprehensible becomes as straightforward as a +commercial ledger.</p> + +<p>It might be a fascinating occupation if I could control the entire +collection of these memories; but I am the slave of those that come +unbidden. In the town it was just the reverse; one impression effaced +another. I did not realise that thought might become a burden.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The time draws on. The last few days my nerves have made me feverish and +restless; to-day for no special reason I opened and read all my letters, +except his. It was like reading old newspapers; yet my heart beat faster +with each one I opened.</p> + +<p>Life there in the city runs its course, only it has nothing more to do +with me, and before long I shall have dropped out of memory like one +long dead. All these hidden fears, all this solicitude, these good +wishes, preachings and forebodings—there is not a single genuine +feeling among the whole of them!</p> + +<p>Margethe Ernst is the only one of my old <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>friends who is sincere and +does not let herself be carried away by false sentiment. She writes +cynically, brutally even: "An injection of morphia would have had just +the same effect on you; but everyone to his own taste."</p> + +<p>As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write +lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines. She +wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her +motherly wing.</p> + +<p>"He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans +for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to +come."</p> + +<p>His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget.</p> + +<p>As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two +ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a +fire or a play. Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from +my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the +trees.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me +scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely +sleepless nights. Are they always as lonely as he makes out?</p> + +<p>As in the past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions and his +whole middle-class outlook. Yet for many years he dominated my senses, +which gives him a certain hold over me still. I cannot make up my mind +to take the brutal step which would free me once and for all from him. I +must let him go on believing that our life together was happy.</p> + +<p>Why did I read all these letters? What did I expect to find? A certain +vague hope stirred within me that if I opened them I should discover +something unexpected.</p> + +<p>The one remaining letter—shall I ever find courage to open it? I <i>will</i> +not know what he has written. He does not write well I know. He is not a +good talker; his writing would probably be worse. And yet, I look upon +that sealed letter as a treasure.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>Merely touching it, I feel as though I was in the same room with him.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Lillie's letter has really done me good; her regal serenity makes itself +apparent beneath all she undertakes. It is wonderful that she does not +preach at me like the others. "You must know what is right for yourself +better than anybody else," she says. These words, coming from her, have +brought me unspeakable strength and comfort, even though I feel that she +can have no idea of what is actually taking place within me.</p> + +<p>Life for Lillie can be summed up in the words, "the serene passage of +the days." Happy Lillie. She glides into old age just as she glided into +marriage, smiling, tranquil, and contented. Nobody, nothing, can disturb +her quietude.</p> + +<p>It is so when both body and soul find their repose and happiness in the +same identical surroundings.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>Jeanne, with some embarrassment, asked permission to use the bathroom. +I gave her leave. It is quite possible that living in the basement is +not to her taste. To put a bathroom down there would take nearly a +fortnight, and during that time I shall be deprived of my own, for I +cannot share my bathroom or my bedroom with anyone, least of all a +woman....</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the one visit I paid to the Russian baths and the +sight of Hilda Bang. Clothed, she presents rather a fine appearance, +with a good figure; but seen amid the warm steam, in nature's garb, she +seemed horrible.</p> + +<p>I would rather walk through an avenue of naked men than appear before +another woman without clothes. This feeling does not spring from +modesty—what is it?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How quiet it is here! Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays the steamer for +England goes by. I know its coming by the sound of the screw, but I take +care never to see it pass.<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a> What if I were seized with an impulse to +embark on her....</p> + +<p>If one fine morning when Jeanne brought the tea she found the bird +flown?</p> + +<p>The time is gone by. Life is over.</p> + +<p>I am getting used to sitting here and stitching at my seam. My work does +not amount to much, but the mechanical movement brings a kind of +restfulness.</p> + +<p>I find I am getting rather capricious. Between meals I ring two or three +times a day for tea—like a convalescent trying a fattening cure. Jeanne +attends to my hair with indefatigable care. Without her, should I ever +trouble to do it at all?</p> + +<p>What can any human being want more than this peace and silence?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>If I could only lose this sense of being empty-handed, all would be +well. Yesterday I went down to the seashore and gathered little pebbles. +I carried them away and amused myself by taking them up in handfuls. +During the night I felt impelled to get up <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>and fetch them, and this +morning I awoke with a round stone in each hand.</p> + +<p>Hysteria takes strange forms. But who knows what is the real ground of +hysteria? I used to think it was the special malady of the unmated +woman; but, in later years, I have known many who had had a full share +of the passional life, legitimate and otherwise, and yet still suffered +from hysteria.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I begin to realise the fascination of the cloister; the calm, uniform, +benumbing existence. But my comparison does not apply. The nun renounces +all will and responsibility, while I cannot give up one or the other.</p> + +<p>I have reached this point, however; only that which is bounded by my +garden hedge seems to me really worthy of consideration. The house in +the Old Market Place may be burnt down for all I care. Richard may marry +again. Malthe may....</p> + +<p>Yes, I think I could receive the news in silence like the monk to whom +the prior announces, "One of the brethren is dead, pray <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>for his soul." +No one present knows, nor will ever know, whether his own brother or +father has passed away.</p> + +<p>What hopeless cowardice prevents my opening his letter!</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>Evening.</p> + +<p>Somebody should found a vast and cheerful sisterhood for women between +forty and fifty; a kind of refuge for the victims of the years of +transition. For during that time women would be happier in voluntary +exile, or at any rate entirely separated from the other sex.</p> + +<p>Since all are suffering from the same trouble, they might help each +other to make life, not only endurable, but harmonious. We are all more +or less mad then, although we struggle to make others think us sane.</p> + +<p>I say "we," though I am not of their number—in age, perhaps, but not in +temperament. Nevertheless I hear the stealthy footsteps of the +approaching years. By good fortune, or calculation, I have preserved my +youthful appearance, but it has cost me dear to economise my emotions.</p> + +<p>Old age, in truth, is only a goal to be foreseen. A mountain to be +climbed; a peak from <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>which to see life from every side—provided we +have not been blinded by snowfalls on the way. I do not fear old age; +only the hard ascent to it has terrors for me. The day, the hour, when +we realise that something has gone from our lives; when the cry of our +heart provokes laughter in others!</p> + +<p>To all of us women comes a time in life when we believe we can conquer +or deceive time. But soon we learn how unequal is the struggle. We all +come to it in the end.</p> + +<p>Then we grow anxious. Anxious at the coming of day; still more anxious +at the coming of night. We deck ourselves out at night as though in this +way we could put our anxiety to flight.</p> + +<p>We are careful about our food and our rest; we watch that our smiles +leave no wrinkles.... Yet never a word of our secret terror do we +whisper aloud. We keep silence or we lie. Sometimes from pride, +sometimes from shame.</p> + +<p>Hitherto nobody has ever proclaimed this great truth: that as they grow +older—when the summer comes and the days lengthen—women<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a> become more +and more women. Their feminality goes on ripening into the depths of +winter.</p> + +<p>Yet the world compels them to steer a false course. Their youth only +counts so long as their complexions remain clear and their figures slim. +Otherwise they are exposed to cruel mockery. A woman who tries late in +life to make good her claim to existence, is regarded with contempt. For +her there is neither shelter nor sympathy.</p> + +<p>It sometimes happens that a winter gale strips all the leaves from a +tree in a single night. When does a woman grow old in body and soul in +one swift and merciful moment? From our birth we are accursed.</p> + +<p>I blame no one for my failure in life. It was in my own hands. If I +could live it through again from the start, it is more than probable I +should waste the years for a second time.</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>Christmas Eve.</p> +<p>At this hour there will be festivities in the Old Market Place. +Richard's last letter touched me profoundly; something within me went +out toward his honest nature....</p> + +<p>What is the use of all these falsehoods? I long for an embrace. Is that +shocking? We women are so wrapped in deceit that we feel ashamed of +confessing such things. Yet it is true, I miss Richard. Not the husband +or companion, but the lover.</p> + +<p>What use in trying to soothe my senses by walking for hours through the +silent woods.</p> + +<p>Lillie, in the innocence of her heart, sent me a tiny Christmas tree, +decorated by herself and her lanky daughters. Sweets and little presents +are suspended from the branches. She treats me like a child, or a sick +person.</p> + +<p>Well, let it be so! Lillie must never have the vexation of learning that +I detested her girls simply because they represented the <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>youthful +generation which sooner or later must supplant me.</p> + +<p>I have made good use of my eyes, and I know what I have seen: the same +enmity exists between two generations as between the sexes.</p> + +<p>While the young folk in their arrogant cruelty laugh at us who are +growing old, we, in our turn, amuse ourselves by making fun of them. If +women could buy back their lost youth by the blood of those nearest and +dearest to them, what crimes the world would witness!</p> + +<p>How I used to hate Richard when I saw him so completely at his ease +among young people, and able to take them so seriously.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Christmas Eve! In honour of Jeanne, I put on one of my very best +frocks—Paquin. Moreover, I have decorated myself with rings and chains +as though I were a silly Christmas Tree myself.</p> + +<p>Jeanne has enjoyed herself to-day. She and Torp rose before it was light +to deck the rooms with pine branches. Over the verandah waves the +Swedish flag, which Torp <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>generally suspends above her bed, in +remembrance of Heaven knows who. I gave myself the pleasure of +surprising Jeanne, by bestowing upon her my green <i>crêpe de Chine</i>. In +future grey and black will be my only wear.</p> + +<p>After the obligatory goose, and the inevitable Christmas dishes, I spent +the evening reading the letters with which "my friends" honour me +punctiliously.</p> + +<p>Without seeing the handwriting, or the signature, I could name from the +contents alone the writer of each one of them. They all write about the +honours which have befallen Joergen Malthe: a hospital here; a palace of +archives there. What does it matter to me? I would far rather they +wrote: "To-day a motor-car ran over Joergen Malthe and killed him on the +spot."</p> + +<p>I have arrived at that stage.</p> + +<p>But to-night I will not think about him; I would rather try to write to +Magna Wellmann. I may be of some use to her. In any case I will tell her +things that it will do her good to hear. She is one of those who take +life hard.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>Dear Magna Wellmann,</p> + +<p>It is with great difficulty that I venture to give you advice at this +moment. Besides, we are so completely opposed in habit, thought, and +temperament. We have really nothing in common but our unfortunate middle +age and our sex; therefore, how can it help you to know what I should do +if I were in your place?</p> + +<p>May I speak quite frankly without any fear of hurting your feelings? In +that case I will try to advise you; but I can only do so by making your +present situation quite clear to you. Only when you have faced matters +can you hope to decide upon some course of action which you will not +afterwards regret. Your letter is the queerest mixture of self-deception +and a desire to be quite frank. You try to throw dust in my eyes, while +at the same time you are betraying all that you are most anxious to +conceal. Judging from your letter, the maternal feeling is deeply +ingrained in your nature. You are prepared to <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>fight for your children +and sacrifice yourself for them if necessary. You would put yourself +aside in order to secure for them a healthy and comfortable existence.</p> + +<p>The real truth is that your conscience is pricking you with a remorse +that has been instigated by others. Maternal sentiment is not your +strong point; far from it. In your husband's lifetime you did not try to +make two and two amount to five; and you often showed very plainly that +your children were rather an encumbrance than otherwise. When at last +your affection for them grew, it was not because they were your own +flesh and blood, but because you were thrown into daily contact with +these little creatures whom you had to care for.</p> + +<p>Now you have lost your head because the outlook is rather bad. Your +family, or rather your late husband's people, have attempted to coerce +you in a way that I consider entirely unjustifiable. And you have +allowed yourself to be bullied, and therefore, all unconsciously, have +given them some hold over your life and actions.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>You must not forget that your husband's family, without being asked, +have been allowing you a yearly income which permitted you to live in +the same style as before Professor Wellmann's death. They placed no +restrictions upon you, and made no conditions. Now, the family—annoyed +by what reaches their ears—want to insist that you should conform to +their wishes; otherwise they will withdraw the money, or take from you +the custody of the children. This is a very arbitrary proceeding.</p> + +<p>Reflect well what they are asking of you before you let yourself be +bound hand and foot.</p> + +<p>Are you really capable, Magna, of being an absolutely irreproachable +widow?</p> + +<p>Perhaps there ought to be a law by which penniless widows with children +to bring up should be incarcerated in some kind of nunnery, or burnt +alive at the obsequies of their husbands. But failing such a law, I do +not think a grown-up woman is obliged to promise that she will +henceforth take a vow of chastity. One must not give a promise only <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>to +break it, and, my dear Magna, I do not think you are the woman to keep a +vow of that kind.</p> + +<p>For this reason you ought never to have made yourself dependent upon +strangers by accepting their money for the education of your children. +At the same time I quite see how hard it would be to find yourself +empty-handed with a pack of children all in need of something. If you +had not courage to try to live on the small pension allowed by the +State, you would have done better to find some means of earning a +livelihood with the help of your own people.</p> + +<p>You never thought of this; while I was too much taken up with my own +affairs just then to have any superfluous energy for other people's +welfare or misfortune.</p> + +<p>But now we come to the heart of the question. For some years past you +have confided in me—more fully than I really cared about. While your +husband was alive I often found it rather painful to be always looking +at him through the keyhole, so to speak. But this <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>confidence justifies +me in speaking quite frankly.</p> + +<p>My dear Magna, listen to me. A woman of your temperament ought never to +bind herself by marriage to any man, and is certainly not fit to have +children. You were intended—do not take the words as an insult—to lead +the life of a <i>fille de joie</i>. The term sounds ugly—but I know no other +that is equally applicable. Your vehement temperament, your insatiable +desire for new excitements—in a word, your whole nature tends that way. +You cannot deny that your marriage was a grave mistake.</p> + +<p>There was just the chance—a remote one—that you might have met the +kind of husband to suit you: an eminently masculine type, the kind who +would have kept the whip-hand over you, and regarded a wife as +half-mistress, half-slave. Even then I think your conjugal happiness +would have ceased the first day he lost the attraction of novelty.</p> + +<p>Professor Wellmann, your quiet, correct husband, was as great a torment +to you as you <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>were to him. Without intending it, you made his life a +misery. The dreadful scenes which were brought about by your violent and +sensual temperament so changed his disposition that he became brutal; +while to you they became a kind of second nature, a necessity, like food +or sleep.</p> + +<p>Magna, you will think me brutal, too, because I now tell you in black +and white what formerly I lacked the courage to say. Believe me, it was +often on the tip of my tongue to exclaim: "Better have a lover than +torment this poor man whose temperament is so different to your own."</p> + +<p>I will not say you did not care for your husband. You learnt to see his +good qualities; but there was no true union between you. You hated his +work. Not like a woman who is jealous of the time spent away from her; +but because you believed such arduous brain work made him less ardent as +a lover. Although you did not really care for him, you would have +sacrificed all his fame and reputation for an hour of unreasoning +passion.</p> + +<p>At his death you lost the breadwinner and <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>the position you had gained +in the world as the wife of a celebrity. Your grief was sincere; you +felt your loneliness and loss. Then for the first time you clung to your +children, and erroneously believed you were moved by maternal feeling. +You honestly intended henceforward to live for them alone.</p> + +<p>All went well for three months, and then the struggle began. Do you +know, Magna, I admired the way you fought. You would not give way an +inch. You wore the deepest weeds. Sheltered behind your crape, you +surrounded yourself by your children, and fought for your life.</p> + +<p>This inward conflict added to your attractions. It gave you an air of +nobility you had hitherto lacked.</p> + +<p>Then the world began to whisper evil about you while you were still +quite irreproachable.</p> + +<p>No, after all there <i>was</i> something to reproach you with, although it +was not known to outsiders. While you were fighting your instincts and +trying to live as a spotless widow, your character was undergoing a +change: against your will, but not unconsciously, you <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>were become a +perfect fury. In this way your children acquired that timidity which +they have never quite outgrown. Strangers began to notice this after a +while, and to criticise your behaviour.</p> + +<p>Time went on. You wrote that you were obliged to do a "cure" in a +nursing home for nervous complaints. When I heard this, I could not +repress a smile, in spite of your misfortunes. Nerve specialists may be +very clever, but can they be expected, even at the highest fees, to +replace defunct husbands. You were kept in bed and dosed with bromides +and sulphonal. After a few weeks you were pronounced quite well, and +left the home a little stouter and rather languid after keeping your bed +so long.</p> + +<p>When you got home you turned the house upside-down in a frantic fit of +"cleaning." You walked for miles; you took to cooking; and at night, +having wearied your body out with incessant work, you tried to lull your +brain by reading novels.</p> + +<p>What was the use of it all? The day you confessed to me that you had +walked about <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>the streets all night lest you should kill yourself and +your children, I realised that your powers of resistance were at an end. +A week later you had embarked upon your first <i>liaison</i>. A month later +the whole town was aware of it.</p> + +<p>That was about a year after the Professor's death. Six or seven years +have passed since then, and you have gone on from adventure to +adventure, all characterised by the same lamentable lack of discretion. +The reason for this lies in your own tendency to self-deception. You +want to make yourself and others believe that you are always looking for +ideal love and constant ties. In reality your motives are quite +different. You hug the traditional conviction that it would be +disgraceful to own that your pretended love is only an affair of the +senses. And yet, if you had not been so anxious to dupe yourself and +others, you might have gone through life frankly and freely.</p> + +<p>The night is far advanced, moreover it is Christmas Eve.</p> + +<p>I will not accuse you without producing <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>proofs. Enclosed you will find +a whole series of letters, dated irregularly, for you only used to write +to me when I was away from home in the summer. In these letters, which I +have carefully collected, and for which I have no ground for reproaching +you, you will see yourself reflected as in a row of mirrors. Do not be +ashamed; your self-deception is not your fault; society is to blame. I +am not sending the letters back to discourage or hurt you; only that you +may see how, with each adventure, you have started with the same +sentimental illusions and ended with the same pitiable disenchantment.</p> + +<p>A penniless widow turned forty—we are about the same age—with five +children has not much prospect of marrying again, however attractive she +may be. I have told you so repeatedly; but your feminine vanity refuses +to believe it. In each fresh adventure you have seen a possible +marriage—not because you feel specially drawn towards matrimony, but +because you are unwilling to leave the course free to younger women.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>You have shown yourself in public with your admirers.</p> + +<p>Neglecting the most ordinary precautions, you have allowed them to come +to your house; in a word, you have unblushingly advertised connections +which ought to have been concealed.</p> + +<p>And the men you selected?</p> + +<p>I do not wish to criticise your choice; but I quite understand why your +friends objected and were ashamed on your account.</p> + +<p>At first people made the best of the situation, tacitly hoping that the +affairs might lead to marriage and that your monetary cares would thus +find a satisfactory solution. But after so many useless attempts this +benevolent attitude was abandoned, and scandal grew.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile you, Magna, blind to all opinion, continued to follow the same +round: flirtation, sentiment, intimacy, adoration, submission, jealousy, +suspicion, suffering, hatred, and contempt.</p> + +<p>The more inferior the man of your choice, the more determined you were +to invest him with extraordinary qualities. But as soon as <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>the next one +appeared on the scene, you began to judge his predecessor at his true +value.</p> + +<p>If all this had resulted in your getting the wherewithal to bring up +your children in comfort, I should say straight out: "My dear Magna, pay +no attention to what other people say, go your own road."</p> + +<p>But, unfortunately, it is just the reverse; your children suffer. They +are growing up. Wanda and Ingrid are almost young women. In a year or +two they will be at a marriageable age. How much longer do you suppose +you can keep them in ignorance? Perhaps they know things already. I have +sometimes surprised a look in Wanda's eyes which suggested that she saw +more than was desirable.</p> + +<p>In my opinion it is better for children not to find out these things +until they are quite old enough to understand them completely. But the +evil is done, and cannot be undone. And yet, Magna, the peace of mind of +these innocent victims is entirely in your hands. You can secure it +without making the sacrifice that your husband's family demands of you.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>You have no right to let your children grow up in this unwholesome +atmosphere; and the atmosphere with which their dear mother surrounds +them cannot be described as healthy.</p> + +<p>If your character was as strong as your temperament, you would not +hesitate to take all the consequences on your own shoulders. But it is +not so. You would shrink from the hard work involved in emigrating and +making yourself a new home abroad; at the same time you would be lowered +in your own eyes if you gave your children into the care of others.</p> + +<p>Then, since for the next few years you will never resign yourself to +single life, and are not likely to find a husband, you must so arrange +your love affairs that they escape the attention of the world. Why +should you mix them up with your home life and your children? What you +need are prudence and calculation; but you have neither.</p> + +<p>You will never fix your life on a firm basis until you have relegated +men to the true place they occupy in your existence. If you could <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>only +make yourself see clearly the fallacy of thinking that every man you +meet is going to love you for eternity. A woman like yourself can +attract lovers by the dozen; but yours is not the temperament to inspire +a serious relationship which might become a lasting friendship. If you +constantly see yourself left in the lurch and abandoned by your admirers +before you have tired of them yourself, it is because you always delude +yourself on this point.</p> + +<p>I know another woman situated very much as you are. She too has a large +family, and a weakness for the opposite sex. Everybody knows that she +has her passing love affairs, but no one quarrels with her on that +score.</p> + +<p>She is really entitled to some respect, for she lives in her own house +the life of an irreproachable matron. She shows the tenderest regard for +the needs of her children, and never a man crosses her threshold but the +doctor.</p> + +<p>You see, dear Magna, that I have devoted half my Christmas night to you, +which I certainly should not have done if I did not feel <a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>a special +sympathy for you. If I wind up my letter with a proposal that may wound +your feelings at first sight, you must try to understand that it is +kindly meant.</p> + +<p>Living here alone, a few months' experience has shown me that my income +exceeds my requirements, and I can offer to supply you with a sum which +you can pay me back in a year or two, without interest. This would +enable you to learn some kind of business which would secure you a +living and free you from family interference. Consider it well.</p> + +<p>I live so entirely to myself on this island that I have plenty of time +to ponder over my own lot and that of other people. Write to me when you +feel the wish or need to do so. I will reply to the best of my ability. +If I am very taciturn about my own affairs, it springs from an +idiosyncrasy that I cannot overcome. To make sure of my meaning I have +read my letter through once more, and find that it does not express all +I wanted to say. Never mind, it is true in the main. Only try to +understand that I do not wish to sit in judg<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>ment upon you, only to +throw some light on the situation. With all kind thoughts.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Yours,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.<br /></span></p> + + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>It snows, and snows without ceasing. The trees are already wrapped in +snow, like precious objects packed in wadding. The paths will soon be +heaped up to their level. The snowflakes are as large as daisies. When I +go out they flutter round me like a swarm of butterflies. Those that +fall into the water disappear like shooting stars, leaving no trace +behind.</p> + +<p>The glass roof of my bedroom is as heavy as a coffin-lid. I sleep with +my window open, and when there comes a blast of wind my eyes are filled +with snow. This morning, when I woke, my pillow-case was as wet as +though I had been crying all night.</p> + +<p>Torp already sees us in imagination snowed up and receiving our food +supplies down the chimney. She is preparing for the occasion. Her hair +smells as though she had been singe<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>ing chickens, and she has +illuminated the basement with small lamps and red shades edged with +pearl fringes.</p> + +<p>Jeanne is equally enchanted. When she goes outside without a hat her +hair looks like a burning torch against the snow. She does not speak, +but hums to herself, and walks more lightly and softly than ever, as +though she feared to waken some sleeper.</p> + +<p>... I remember how Malthe and I were once talking about Greece, and he +gave me an account of a snowstorm in Delphi. I cannot recall a word of +his description; I was not listening, but just thinking how the snow +would melt when it fell upon his head.</p> + +<p>He has fulfilled my request not to write. I have not had a line since +his only letter came. And yet....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have burnt his letter.</p> + +<p>I have burnt his letter. A few ashes are all that remain to me.</p> + +<p>It hurts me to look at the ashes. I cannot make up my mind to throw them +away.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>I have got rid of the ashes. It was harder than I thought. Even now I +am restless.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I am glad the letter is destroyed. Now I am free at last. My temptations +were very natural.</p> + +<p>The last few days I have spent in bed. Jeanne is an excellent nurse. She +makes as much fuss of me as though I were really ill, and I enjoy it.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The Nirvana of age is now beginning. In the morning, when Jeanne brushes +my hair, I feel a kind of soothing titillation which lasts all day. I do +not trouble about dressing; I wear no jewellery and never look in the +glass.</p> + +<p>Very often I feel as though my thoughts had come to a standstill, like a +watch one has forgotten to wind up. But this blank refreshes me.</p> + +<p>Weeks have gone by since I wrote in my <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>diary. Several times I have +tried to do so; but when I have the book in front of me, I find I have +nothing to set down.</p> + +<p>In the twilight I sit by the fire like an old child and talk to myself. +Then Torp comes to me for the orders which she ends by giving herself, +and I let her talk to me about her own affairs. The other day I got her +on the subject of spooks. She is full of ghost stories, and relates them +with such conviction that her teeth chatter with terror. Happy Torp, to +possess such imagination!</p> + +<p>Some days I hardly budge from one position, and can with difficulty +force myself to leave my table; at other times I feel the need of +incessant movement. The forest is very quiet, scarcely a soul walks +there. If I do chance to meet anyone, we glare at each other like two +wild beasts, uncertain whether to attack or to flee from each other.</p> + +<p>The forest belongs to me....</p> + +<p>The piano is closed. I never use it now. The sound of the wind in the +trees is music enough for me. I rise from my bed and <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>listen until I am +half frozen. I, who was never stirred or pleased by the playing of +virtuosi!</p> + +<p>I have no more desires. Past and future both repose beneath a shroud of +soft, mild fog. I am content to live like this. But the least event +indoors wakes me from my lethargy. Yesterday Torp sent for the sweep. +Catching sight of him in my room, I could not repress a scream. I could +not think for the moment what the man could be doing here.</p> + +<p>Another time a stray cat took refuge under my table. I was not aware of +it, but no sooner had I sat down than I felt surcharged with +electricity. I rang for Jeanne, and when she came into the room the +creature darted from its hiding-place, and I was panic-stricken.</p> + +<p>Jeanne carried it away, but for a long time afterwards I shivered at the +sight of her.</p> + +<p>Whence comes this horror of cats? Many people make pets of them. +Personally I should prefer the company of a boa-constrictor.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>A man whose vanity I had wounded once took it upon himself to tell me +some plain truths. He did me this honour because I had not sufficiently +appreciated his attentions.</p> + +<p>He assured me that I was neither clever nor gifted, but that I was +merely skilful at not letting myself be caught out, and had a certain +quickness of repartee. He was quite right.</p> + +<p>What time and energy I have spent in trying to keep up this reputation +of being a clever woman, when I was really not born one!</p> + +<p>My vanity demanded that I should not be run after for my appearance +only; so I surrounded myself with clever men and let them call me +intellectual. It was Hans Andersen's old tale of "The King's New +Clothes" over again.</p> + +<p>We spoke of political economy, of statesmanship, of art and literature, +finance and religion. I knew nothing about all these things, but, thanks +to an animated air of attention, I steered safely between the rocks and +won a reputation for cleverness.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>In English novels, with their insipid sweetness that always reminds me +of the smell of frost-bitten potatoes, the heroine sometimes permits +herself the luxury of being blind, lame, or disfigured by smallpox. The +hero adores her just the same. How false to life! My existence would +have been very different if ten years ago I had lost my long eyelashes, +if my fingers had become deformed, or my nose shown signs of redness....</p> + +<p>A red nose! It is the worst catastrophe that can befall a beautiful +woman. I always suspected this was the reason why Adelaide Svanstroem +took poison. Poor woman, unluckily she did not take a big enough dose!</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>January.</p> +<p>My senses are reawakening. Light and sound now bring me entirely new +impressions; what I see, I now also feel, with nerves of which hitherto +I did not suspect the existence. When evening draws on I stare into the +twilight until everything seems to shimmer before my eyes, and I dream +like a child....</p> + +<p>Yesterday, before going to bed, I went on my balcony, as I usually do, +to take a last glance at the sea. But it was the starry sky that fixed +my attention. It seemed to reveal and offer itself to me. I felt I had +never really seen it before, although I sleep with it over my head!</p> + +<p>Each star was to me like a dewdrop created to slake my thirst. I drank +in the sky like a plant that is almost dead for want of moisture. And +while I drank it in, I was conscious of a sensation hitherto unknown to +me. For the first time in my life I was aware of the exist<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>ence of my +soul. I threw back my head to gaze and gaze. Night enfolded me in all +its splendour, and I wept.</p> + +<p>What matter that I am growing old? What matter that I have missed the +best in life? Every night I can look towards the stars and be filled +with their chill, eternal peace.</p> + +<p>I, who never could read a poem without secretly mocking the writer, who +never believed in the poets' ecstasies over Nature, now I perceive that +Nature is the one divinity worthy to be worshipped.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I miss Margarethe Ernst; especially her amusing ways. How she glided +about among people, always ready to dart out her sharp tongue, always +prepared to sting. And yet she is not really unkind, in spite of her +little cunning smile. But her every movement makes a singular impression +which is calculated.</p> + +<p>We amused each other. We spoke so candidly about other people, and lied +so grace<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>fully to each other about ourselves. Moreover, I think she is +loyal in her friendship, and of all my letters hers are the best +written.</p> + +<p>I should have liked to have drawn her out, but she was the one person +who knew how to hold her own. I always felt she wore a suit of chain +armour under her close-fitting dresses which was proof against the +assaults of her most impassioned adorers.</p> + +<p>She is one of those women who, without appearing to do so, manages to +efface all her tracks as she goes. I have watched her change her tactics +two or three times in the course of an evening, according to the people +with whom she was talking. She glided up to them, breathed their +atmosphere for an instant, and then established contact with them.</p> + +<p>She is calculating, but not entirely for her own ends; she is like a +born mathematician who thoroughly enjoys working out the most difficult +problems.</p> + +<p>I should like to have her here for a week.</p> + +<p>She, too, dreads the transition years. She tries in vain to cheat old +age. Lately she adopted a "court mourning" style of dress, <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>and wore +little, neat, respect-impelling mantillas round her thin, +Spanish-looking face. One of these days, when she is close upon fifty, +we shall see her return to all the colours of the rainbow and to ostrich +plumes. She lives in hopes of a new springtide in life. Shall I invite +her here?</p> + +<p>She would come, of course, by the first train, scenting the air with +wide nostrils, like a stag, and an array of trunks behind her!</p> + +<p>No! To ask her would be a lamentable confession of failure.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The last few days I have arrived at a condition of mind which occasions +great self-admiration. I am now sure that, even if the difference in our +ages did not exist, I could never marry Malthe.</p> + +<p>I could do foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I have +loved with all my heart. I could humble myself to be his mistress; I +could die with him. But set up a home with Joergen Malthe—never!</p> + +<p>The terrible part of home life is that every <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>piece of furniture in the +house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long +after love has died out—if, indeed, it ever existed between them. Two +human beings—who differ as much as two human beings always must do—are +compelled to adopt the same tastes, the same outlook. The home is built +upon this incessant conflict. The struggle often goes on in silence, but +it is not the less bitter, even when concealed.</p> + +<p>How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration +masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel would have +done.... What a profound contempt I felt for his tastes; and, without +saying it in words, how he disapproved of mine!</p> + +<p>No! His home was not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal couple, +at one on all points. My person for his money—that was the bargain, +crudely but truthfully expressed.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Just as one arranges the scenery for a <i>tableau vivant</i>, I prepared my +"living grave" in this house, which Malthe built in ig<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>norance of its +future occupant. And here I have learnt that joy of possession which +hitherto I have only known in respect of my jewellery.</p> + +<p>This house is really my home. My first and only home. Everything here is +dear to me, because it <i>is</i> my own.</p> + +<p>I love the very earthworms because they do good to my garden. The birds +in the trees round about the house are my property. I almost wish I +could enclose the sky and clouds within a wall and make them mine.</p> + +<p>In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I +left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger +to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine. +I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me +before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I +shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the +bare deal table, the dusty <a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>books, the trunk covered with a travelling +rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor.</p> + +<p>Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over +me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured +to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth +interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air +with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their +touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his passion, and yet he +went on discussing this wretched dome—about which I cared as little as +for the inkstains on his table.</p> + +<p>I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room.</p> + +<p>"But I get the sunshine," he said, blushing.</p> + +<p>I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most +superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges +from the purple clouds at evening.</p> + +<p>Big child that you are, how I love you!</p> + +<p>But I will never, never start a home with you!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>Well, surely one gardener can hardly suffice to poison the air of the +place. If he is a nuisance I shall send him packing.</p> + +<p>The man comes from a big estate. If he is content to cultivate my +cabbage patch, it must be because, besides being very ugly, he has some +undiscovered faults. But I really cannot undertake to make minute +inquiries into the psychical qualities of Mr. Under-gardener Jensen.</p> + +<p>His photograph was sent by a registry office, among many others. We +examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as +though they had been fashion plates from Paris. To my silent amusement, +I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she +thought smells could be photographed, too.</p> + +<p>Prudence prompted me to select this man; he is too ugly to disturb our +peace of mind. On the other hand, as I had the wisdom not to pull down +the hut in which the former proprietor lived, the two rooms there will +have to do for Mr. Jensen, so that we can keep him at a little distance.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>Torp asked if he was to take meals in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Certainly! I have no intention of having him for my opposite neighbour +at table. But, on the whole, he had better have his meals in his hut, +then we shall not be always smelling him.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Perhaps we are really descended from dogs, for the sense of smell can so +powerfully influence our senses.</p> + +<p>I would undertake in pitch darkness to recognise every man I know by the +help of my nose alone; that is, if I passed near enough to him to sniff +his atmosphere. I am almost ashamed to confess that men are the same to +me as flowers; I judge them by their smell. I remember once a young +English waiter in a restaurant who stirred all my sensibilities each +time he passed the back of my chair. Luckily Richard was there! For the +same reason I could not endure Herr von Brincken to come near me—and +equally for the same reason Richard had power over my senses.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>Every time I bite the stalk of a pansy I recall the neighbourhood of +the young Englishman.</p> + +<p>Men ought never to use perfumes. The Creator has provided them. But with +women it is different....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-day is my birthday. No one here knows it. Besides, what woman would +enjoy celebrating her forty-third birthday? Only Lillie Rothe, I am +sure!...</p> + +<p>One day I was talking to a specialist about the thousands of women who +are saved by medical science to linger on and lead a wretched +semi-existence. These women who suffer for years physically and are +oppressed by a melancholy for which there seems to be no special cause. +At last they consult a doctor; enter a nursing home and undergo some +severe operation. Then they resume life as though nothing had happened. +Their surroundings are unchanged; they have to fulfil all the duties of +everyday life—even the conjugal life is taken up once more. And these +<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>poor creatures, who are often ignorant of the nature of their illness, +are plunged into despair because life seems to have lost its joy and +interest.</p> + +<p>I ventured to observe to the doctor with whom I was conversing that it +would be better for them if they died under the anæsthetic. The surgeon +reproved me, and inquired whether I was one of those people who thought +that all born cripples ought to be put out of their misery at once.</p> + +<p>I did not quite see the connection of ideas; but I suppressed my desire +to close his argument by telling him of an example which is branded upon +my memory.</p> + +<p>Poor Mathilde Bremer! I remember her so well before and after the +operation. She was not afraid to die, because she knew her husband was +devoted to her. But she kept saying to the surgeon:</p> + +<p>"You must either cure me or kill me. For my own sake and for his, I will +not go on living this half-invalidish life."</p> + +<p>She was pronounced "cured." Two years later she left her husband, very +much against <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>his will, but feeling she was doing the best for both of +them.</p> + +<p>She once said to me: "There is no torture to equal that which a woman +suffers when she loves her husband and is loved by him; a woman for whom +her husband is all in all, who longs to keep his devotion, but knows she +must fail, because physically she is no longer herself."</p> + +<p>The life Mathilde Bremer is now leading—that of a solitary woman +divorced from her husband—is certainly not enviable. Yet she admits +that she feels far better than she used to do.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Any one might suppose I was on the way to become a rampant champion of +the Woman's Cause. May I be provided with some other occupation! I have +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs.</p> + +<p>Heaven be eternally praised that I have no children, and have been +spared all the ailments which can be "cured" by women's specialists!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>Ye powers! How interminable a day can be! Surely every day contains +forty-eight hours!</p> + +<p>I can actually watch the seconds oozing away, drop by drop.... Or +rather, they fall slowly on my head, like dust upon a polished table. My +hair is getting steadily greyer.</p> + +<p>It is not surprising, because I neglect it.</p> + +<p>But what is the use of keeping it artificially brown with lotions and +pomades? Let it go grey!</p> + +<p>Torp has observed that I take far more pleasure in good cooking than I +did at first.</p> + +<p>My dresses are getting too tight. I miss my masseuse.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-day I inspected my linen cupboard with all the care of the lady +superior of an aristocratic convent. I delighted in the spectacle of the +snowy-white piles, and counted it all. I am careful with my money, and +yet I like to have great supplies in the house. The more bottles, cases, +and bags I see in the larder, the better pleased<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a> I am. In that respect +Torp and I are agreed. If we were cut off from the outer world by flood, +or an earthquake, we could hold out for a considerable time.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>If I had more sensibility, and a little imagination—even as much as +Torp, who makes verses with the help of her hymn-book—I think I should +turn my attention to literature. Women like to wade in their memories as +one wades through dry leaves in autumn. I believe I should be very +clever in opening a series of whited sepulchres, and, without betraying +any personalities, I should collect my exhumed mummies under the general +title of, "Woman at the Dangerous Age." But besides imagination, I lack +the necessary perseverance to occupy myself for long together with other +people's affairs.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>We most of us sail under a false flag; but it is necessary. If we were +intended to be <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>as transparent as glass, why were we born with our +thoughts concealed?</p> + +<p>If we ventured to show ourselves as we really are, we should be either +hermits, each dwelling on his own mountain-top, or criminals down in the +valleys.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Torp has gone to evening service. Angelic creature! She has taken a +lantern with her, therefore we shall probably not see her again before +midnight. In consequence of her religious enthusiasm, we dined at +breakfast-time. Yes, Torp knows how to grease the wheels of her +existence!</p> + +<p>Naturally she is about as likely to attend church as I am. Her vespers +will be read by one of the sailors whose ship has been laid up near here +for the winter. Peace be with her—but I am dreadfully bored.</p> + +<p>I have a bitter feeling as though Jeanne and I were doing penance, each +in a dark corner of our respective quarters. The Sundays of my childhood +were not worse than this.</p> + +<p>In the distance a cracked, tinkling bell<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a> "tolls the knell of parting +day." Jeanne and I are depressed by it. I have taken up a dozen +different occupations and dropped them all.</p> + +<p>If it were only summer! I am oppressed as though I were sitting in a +close bower of jasmine; but we are in mid-winter, and I have not used a +drop of scent for months.</p> + +<p>But, after all, Sundays were no better in the Old Market Place. There I +had Richard from morning till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be +bored in the society of one other person is much worse. And to think +that Richard never even noticed it! His incessant talk reminded me of a +mill-wheel, and I felt as though all the flour was blowing into my eyes.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I will take a brisk constitutional.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>What is the matter with me? I am so nervous that I can scarcely hold my +pen. I have never seen a fog come on so <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>suddenly; I thought I should +never find my way back to the house. It is so thick I can hardly see the +nearest trees. It has got into the room, and seems to be hanging from +the ceiling. I am damp through and through.</p> + +<p>The fire has gone out, and I am freezing. It is my own fault; I ought to +have rung for Jeanne, or put on some logs myself, but I could not summon +up resolution even for that.</p> + +<p>What has become of Torp, that she is staying out half the day? How will +she ever find her way home? With twenty lanterns it would be impossible +to see ten yards ahead of one. My lamp burns as though water was mixed +with the oil.</p> + +<p>Overhead I hear Jeanne pacing up and down. I hear her, although she +walks so lightly. She too is restless and upset. We have a kind of +influence on each other, I have noticed it before.</p> + +<p>If only she would come down of her own accord. At least there would be +two of us.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>I feel the same cold shivers down my back that I remember feeling long +ago, when my nurse induced me to go into a churchyard. I thought I saw +all the dead coming out of their graves. That was a foggy evening, too. +How strange it is that such far-off things return so clearly to the +mind.</p> + +<p>The trees are quite motionless, as though they were listening for +something. What do they hear? There is not a soul here—only Jeanne and +myself.</p> + +<p>Another time I shall forbid Torp to make these excursions. If she must +go to church, she shall go in the morning.</p> + +<p>It is very uncanny living here all alone in the forest, without a +watch-dog, or a man near at hand. One is at the mercy of any passerby.</p> + +<p>For instance, the other day, some tipsy sailors came and tried the +handle of the front-door.... But then, I was not in the least +frightened; I even inspired Torp with courage.</p> + +<p>I have a feeling that Jeanne is sitting upstairs in mortal terror. I sit +here with my pen <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>in my hand like a weapon of defence. If I could only +make up my mind to ring....</p> + +<p>There, it is done! My hand is trembling like an aspen leaf, but I must +not let her see that I am frightened. I must behave as though nothing +had happened.</p> + +<p>Poor girl! She rushed into the room without knocking, pale as a corpse, +her eyes starting from her head. She clung to me like a child that has +just awakened from a bad dream.</p> + +<p>What is the matter with us? We are both terrified. The fog seems to have +affected our wits.</p> + +<p>I have lit every lamp and candle, and they flicker fitfully, like +Jeanne's eyes.</p> + +<p>The fog is getting more and more dense. Jeanne is sitting on the sofa, +her hand pressed to her heart, and I seem to hear it beating, even from +here.</p> + +<p>I feel as though some one were dying near me—here in the room.</p> + +<p>Joergen, is it you? Answer me, is it you?</p> + +<p>Ah! I must have gone mad.... I am not superstitious, only depressed.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>All the doors are locked and the shutters barred. There is not a sound. +I cannot hear anything moving outside.</p> + +<p>It is just this dead silence that frightens us.... Yes, that is what it +is....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Now Jeanne is asleep. I can hardly see her through the fog.</p> + +<p>She sits there like a shadow, an apparition, and the fog floats over her +red hair like smoke over a fire.</p> + +<p>I know nothing whatever about her. She is as reserved about her own +concerns as I am about mine. Yet I feel as though during this hour of +intense fear and agitation I had seen into the depths of her soul. I +understand her, because we are both women. She suffers from the eternal +unrest of the blood.</p> + +<p>She has had a shock to her inmost feelings. At some time or other she +has been so deeply wounded that she cannot live again in peace.</p> + +<p>She and I have so much in common that we might be blood-relations. But +we ought <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>not to live under the same roof as mistress and servant.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Gradually the fog is dispersing, and the lights burn brighter. I seem to +follow Jeanne's dreams as they pass beneath her brow. Her mouth has +fallen a little open, as if she were dead. Every moment she starts up; +but when she sees me she smiles and drops off again. Good heavens, how +utterly exhausted she seems after these hours of fear!</p> + +<p>But somebody <i>is</i> there! Yes ... outside ... there between the trees ... +I see somebody coming....</p> + +<p>It is only Torp, with her lantern, and the dressmaker from the +neighbouring village. The moment she opened the basement door and I +heard her voice I felt quite myself again.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>We have eaten ravenously, like wolves. For the first time Jeanne sat at +table with me and shared my meal. For the first and prob<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>ably for the +last time. Torp opened her eyes very wide, but she was careful to make +no observations.</p> + +<p>My fit of madness to-night has taught me that the sooner I have a man of +some kind to protect the house the better.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne has confided in me. She was too upset to sleep, and came knocking +at my bedroom door, asking if she might come in. I gave her permission, +although I was already in bed. She sat at the foot of my bed and told me +her story. It is so remarkable that I must set in down on paper.</p> + +<p>Now I understand her nice hands and all her ways. I understand, too, how +it came about that I found her one day turning over the pages of a +volume by Anatole France, as though she could read French.</p> + +<p>Her parents had been married twelve years when she was born. When she +was thirteen they celebrated their silver wedding. Until that moment in +her life she had grown up in the belief that they were a perfectly +united <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>couple. The father was a chemist in a small town, and they lived +comfortably. The silver wedding festivities took place in their own +house. At dinner the girl drank some wine and felt it had gone to her +head. She left the table, saying to her mother, "I am going to lie down +in my room for a little while." But on the way she turned so giddy that +she went by mistake into a spare room that was occupied by a cavalry +officer, a cousin of her mother's. Too tired to go a step farther, she +fell asleep on a sofa in the darkened room. A little later she woke, and +heard the sounds of music and dancing downstairs, but felt no +inclination to join in the gaiety. Presently she dropped off again, and +when she roused for the second time she was aware of whispers near her +couch. In the first moment of awakening she felt ashamed of being caught +there by some of the guests. She held her breath and lay very still. +Then she recognized her mother's voice. After a few minutes she grasped +the truth.... Her mother, whom she worshipped, and this officer, whom +she admired in a childish way!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>They lit the candles. She forced herself to lie motionless, and feigned +to be fast asleep. She heard her mother's exclamation of horror: +"Jeanne!" And the captain's words:</p> + +<p>"Thank goodness she is sleeping like a log!"</p> + +<p>Her mother rearranged her disordered hair, and they left the room.</p> + +<p>After a few minutes she returned with a lamp, calling out:</p> + +<p>"Jeanne, where are you, child? We have been searching all over the +house!"</p> + +<p>Her pretended astonishment when she discovered the girl made the whole +scene more painful to Jeanne. But gathering up her self-control as best +she could, she succeeded in replying:</p> + +<p>"I am so tired: let me have my sleep out."</p> + +<p>Her mother bent over her and kissed her several times. The child felt as +though she would die while submitting to these caresses.</p> + +<p>This one hour, with its cruel enlightenment, sufficed to destroy +Jeanne's joy in life for ever. At the same time it filled her mind with +impure thoughts that haunted her night and day.<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a> She matured +precociously in the atmosphere of her own despair.</p> + +<p>There was no one in whom she could confide; alone she bore the weight of +a double secret, either of which was enough to crush her youth.</p> + +<p>She could not bear to look her mother in the face. With her father, too, +she felt ill at ease, as though she had in some way wronged him. +Everything was soiled for her. She had but one desire; to get away from +home.</p> + +<p>About two years later her mother was seized with fatal illness. Jeanne +could not bring herself to show her any tenderness. The piteous glance +of the dying woman followed all her comings and goings, but she +pretended not to see it. Once, when her father was out of the room, her +mother called Jeanne to the bedside:</p> + +<p>"You know?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Jeanne only nodded her head in reply.</p> + +<p>"Child, I am dying, forgive me."</p> + +<p>But Jeanne moved away from the bed without answering the appeal.</p> + +<p>No sooner had the doctor pronounced life <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>to be extinct than she felt a +strange anxiety. In her great desire to atone in some way for her past +harshness, the girl resolved that, no matter what befell her, she would +do her best to hide the truth from her father.</p> + +<p>That night she entered the room where the dead woman lay, and ransacked +every box and drawer until she found the letters she was seeking. They +were at the bottom of her mother's jewel-case. Quickly she took +possession of them; but just as she was replacing the case in its +accustomed place, her father came in, having heard her moving about. She +could offer no explanation of her presence, and had to listen in silence +to his bitter accusation: "Are you so crazy about trinkets that you +cannot wait until your poor mother is laid in her grave?"</p> + +<p>In the course of that year one of the chemist's apprentices seduced her. +But she laughed in his face when he spoke of marriage. Later on she ran +away with a commercial traveller, and neither threats nor persuasion +would induce her to return home.</p> + +<p>After this, more than once she sought in some <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>fleeting connection a +happiness which never came to her. The only pleasure she got out of her +adventures was the power of dressing well. When at last she saw that she +was not made for this disorderly life, she obtained a situation in a +German family travelling to the south of Europe.</p> + +<p>There she remained until homesickness drove her back to Denmark. Her +complete lack of ambition accounts for her being contented in this +modest situation.</p> + +<p>She never made any inquiries about her father, and only knows that he +left his money to other people, which does not distress her in the +least. Her sole reason for going on living is that she shrinks from +seeking death voluntarily.</p> + +<p>I wonder if there exists a man who could save her? A man who could make +her forget the bitterness of the past? She assures me I am the only +human being who has ever attracted her. If I were a man she would be +devoted to me and sacrifice everything for my sake.</p> + +<p>It is a strange case. But I am very sorry <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>for the girl. I have never +come across such a peculiar mixture of coldness and ardour.</p> + +<p>When she had finished her story she went away very quietly. And I am +convinced that to-morrow things will go on just as before. Neither of us +will make any further allusion to the fog, nor to all that followed it.</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>Spring.</p> + +<p>I am driven mad by all this singing and playing! One would think the +steamboats were driven by the force of song, and that atrocious +orchestras were a new kind of motive power. From morning till night +there is no cessation from patriotic choruses and folk-songs.</p> + +<p>Sometimes The Sound looks like a huge drying-ground in which all these +red and white sails are spread out to air.</p> + +<p>How I wish these pleasure-boats were birds! I would buy a gun and +practise shooting, in the hopes of killing a few. But this is the close +season.... The principal thoroughfares of a large town could hardly be +more bustling than the sea just now—the sea that in winter was as +silent and deserted as a graveyard.</p> + +<p>People begin to trespass in my forest and to prowl round my garden. I +see their inquisitive faces at my gates. I think I must buy a <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>dog to +frighten them away. But then I should have to put up with his howling +after some dear and distant female friend.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How that gardener enrages me! His eyes literally twinkle with sneaky +thoughts. I would give anything to get rid of him.</p> + +<p>But he moves so well! Never in my life have I seen a man with such a +walk, and he knows it, and knows too that I cannot help looking at him +when he passes by.</p> + +<p>Torp is bewitched. She prepares the most succulent viands in his honour. +Her French cookery book is daily in requisition, and, judging from the +savoury smells which mount from the basement, he likes his food well +seasoned.</p> + +<p>Fortunately he is nothing to Jeanne, although she does notice the way he +walks from his hips, and his fine carriage.</p> + +<p>Midday is the pleasantest hour now. Then the sea is quiet and free from +trippers. Even the birds cease to sing, and the gardener takes his +sleep. Jeanne sits on the verandah, as I <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>have given her permission to +do, with some little piece of sewing. She is making artificial roses +with narrow pink ribbon; a delightful kind of work.</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>Dear Professor Rothe,</p> + +<p>Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it +immediately, as I should have wished to do. For that reason I sent you +the brief telegram in reply, the words of which, I am sorry to say, I +must now repeat: "I know nothing about the matter." Lillie has never +spoken a word to me, or made the least allusion in my presence, which +could cause me to suspect such a thing. I think I can truly say that I +never heard her pronounce the name of Director Schlegel.</p> + +<p>My first idea was that my cousin had gone out of her mind, and I was +astonished that you—being a medical man—should not have come to the +same conclusion. But on mature consideration (I have thought of nothing +but Lillie for the last two days) I have changed my opinion. I think I +am beginning to understand what has happened, but I beg you to remember +that I alone am responsible for <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>what I am going to say. I am only +dealing with suppositions, nothing more.</p> + +<p>Lillie has not broken her marriage vows. Any suspicion of betrayal is +impossible, having regard to her upright and loyal nature. If to you, +and to everybody else, she appeared to be perfectly happy in her married +life, it was because she really was so. I implore you to believe this.</p> + +<p>Lillie, who never told even a conventional falsehood, who watched over +her children like an old-fashioned mother, careful of what they read and +what plays they saw, how could she have carried on, unknown to you and +to them, an intrigue with another man? Impossible, impossible, dear +Professor! I do not say that your ears played you false as to the words +she spoke, but you must have put a wrong interpretation upon them.</p> + +<p>Not once, but thousands of times, Lillie has spoken to me about you. She +loved and honoured you. You were her ideal as man, husband, and father. +She was proud of you. Having no personal vanity or ambition, like <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>so +many good women, her pride and hopes were all centred in you.</p> + +<p>She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your operations; +and I need hardly remind you how carefully she followed your work. She +studied Latin in order to understand your scientific books, while, in +spite of her natural repulsion from the sight of such things, she +attended your anatomy classes and demonstrations.</p> + +<p>When Lillie said, "I love Schlegel, and have loved him for years," her +words did not mean "And all that time my love for you was extinct."</p> + +<p>No, Lillie cared for Schlegel and for you too. The whole question is so +simple, and at the same time so complicated.</p> + +<p>Probably you are saying to yourself: "A woman must love one man or the +other." With some show of reason, you will argue: "In leaving my house, +at any rate, she proved at the moment that Schlegel alone claimed her +affection."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless I maintain that you are wrong.</p> + +<p>Lillie showed every sign of a sane, well-<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>balanced nature. Well, her +famous equability and calm deceived us all. Behind this serene exterior +was concealed the most feminine of all feminine qualities—a fanciful, +visionary imagination.</p> + +<p>Do you or I know anything about her first girlish dreams? Have you—in +spite of your happy life together—ever really understood her innermost +soul? Forgive my doubts, but I do not think you have. When a man +possesses a woman as completely as you possessed Lillie, he thinks +himself quite safe. You never knew a moment's doubt, or supposed it +possible that, having you, she could wish for anything else. You +believed that you fulfilled all her requirements.</p> + +<p>How do you know that for years past Lillie has not felt some longings +and deficiencies in her inner life of which she was barely conscious, or +which she did not understand?</p> + +<p>You are not only a clever and capable man; you are kind, and an +entertaining companion; in short, you have many good qualities which +Lillie exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical. You +are, in fact, rather <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>prosaic, and only believe what you see. Your +judgments and views are not hasty, but just and decisive.</p> + +<p>Now contrast all this with Lillie's immense indulgence. Whence did she +derive this if not from a sympathetic understanding of things which we +do not possess? You remember how we used to laugh when she defended some +criminal who was quite beyond defence and apology! Something intense and +far-seeking came into her expression on those occasions, and her heart +prompted some line of argument which reason could not support.</p> + +<p>She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing us, cold and sceptical +people.</p> + +<p>But how she must have suffered!</p> + +<p>Then recollect the pleasure it gave her to discuss religious and +philosophical questions. She was not "religious" in the common +acceptation of the word. But she liked to get to the bottom of things, +and to use her imagination. We others were indifferent, or frankly +bored, by such matters.</p> + +<p>And Lillie, who was so gentle and lacking in self-assertion, gave way to +us.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She felt a physical pang to see +cut flowers with their stalks out of water. Once I saw her buy up the +whole stock-in-trade of a flower-girl, because the poor things wanted +water. Neither you nor your children have any love of flowers. You, as a +doctor, are inclined to think it unhealthy to have plants in your rooms; +consequently there were none, and Lillie never grumbled about it.</p> + +<p>Lillie did not care for modern music. César Franck bored her, and Wagner +gave her a headache. Her favourite instrument was an old harpsichord, on +which she played Mozart, while her daughters thundered out Liszt and +Rubinstein upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good +humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune.</p> + +<p>Finally, Lillie liked quiet, musical speech, and she was surrounded by +people who talked at the top of their voices.</p> + +<p>"Absurd trifles," I can hear you saying. Perhaps. But they explain the +fact that although she was happy in a way, she still had <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>many +aspirations which were not only unsatisfied, but which, without meaning +it unkindly, you daily managed to crush.</p> + +<p>Lillie never blamed others. When she found that you did not understand +the things she cared for, she immediately tried to think she was in the +wrong, and her well-balanced nature helped her to conquer her own +predilections.</p> + +<p>She was happy because she willed to be happy. Once and for all she had +made up her mind that she was the luckiest woman in existence; happy in +every respect; and she was deeply grateful to you.</p> + +<p>But in the depths of her heart—so deeply buried that perhaps it never +rose to the surface even in the form of a dream—lay that secret +something which led to the present misfortune.</p> + +<p>I know nothing of her relations with Schlegel, but I think I may venture +to say that they were chiefly limited to intercourse of the soul; and +for that reason they were so fatal.</p> + +<p>Have you ever observed the sound of<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a> Schlegel's voice? He spoke slowly +and so softly; I can quite believe it attracted your wife in the +beginning; and that afterwards, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, she +gravitated towards him. He possessed so many qualities that she admired +and missed.</p> + +<p>The man is now at death's door, and can never explain to us what passed +between them—even admitting that there was anything blameworthy. As far +as I know, Schlegel was quite infatuated with a totally different woman. +Had he really been in love with Lillie, would he have been contented +with a few words and an occasional pressure of her hand? Therefore, +since it is out of the question that your wife can have been unfaithful +to you, I am inclined to think that Schlegel knew nothing of her +feelings for him.</p> + +<p>You will reply that in that case it must all be gross exaggeration on +Lillie's part. But you, being a man, cannot understand how little +satisfies a woman when her love is great enough.</p> + +<p>Why, then, has Lillie left you, and why does she refuse to give you an +explanation?<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a> Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions?</p> + +<p>I will tell you: Lillie is in love with two men at the same time. Their +different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character. +If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby +losing all his faculties, Lillie would have remained with you and +continued to be a model wife and mother. In the same way, had you been +the victim of the accident, she would have clean forgotten Schlegel, and +would have lived and breathed for you alone.</p> + +<p>But fate decreed that the misfortune should be his.</p> + +<p>Lillie had not sufficient strength to fight the first, sharp anguish. +She was bewildered by the shock, and felt herself suddenly in a false +position. The love on which her imagination had been feeding seemed to +her at the moment the true one. She felt she was betraying you, +Schlegel, and herself; and since self-sacrifice has become the law of +her existence, she was prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her +love.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>As to you, Professor Rothe, you have acted very foolishly. You have +done just what any average, conventional man would have done. Your +injured vanity silenced the voice of your heart.</p> + +<p>You had the choice of two alternatives: either Lillie was mad, or she +was responsible for her actions. You were convinced that she was quite +sane and was playing you false in cold blood. She wished to leave you; +then let her go. What becomes of her is nothing to you; you wash your +hands of her henceforth.</p> + +<p>You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your +confidence. How could you have found it in your heart to do this, +instead of putting them off with any explanation rather than the true +one!</p> + +<p>Lillie knew you better than I supposed. She knew that behind your +apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature. She +understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your +house the moment you discovered that she had a thought <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>or a sentiment +that was not subordinated to your will.</p> + +<p>You have let her go, believing that she had been playing a pretty part +behind your back, and that I was her confidante, and perhaps also the +instigator of her wicked deeds.</p> + +<p>Lillie has taken refuge with her children's old nurse.</p> + +<p>How significant! Lillie, who has as many friends as either of us, knows +by a subtle instinct that none of them would befriend her in her +misfortune.</p> + +<p>If you, Professor, were a large-hearted man, what would you do? You +would explain to the chief doctor at the infirmary Lillie's great wish +to remain near Schlegel until the end comes.</p> + +<p>Weigh what I am saying well. Lillie is, and will always remain the same. +She loves you, and such a line of conduct on your part would fill her +with grateful joy. What does it matter if during the few days or weeks +that she is with this poor condemned man, who can neither recognize her, +nor speak, nor make <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>the least movement, you have to put up with some +inconvenience?</p> + +<p>If Lillie had your consent to be near Schlegel, she would certainly not +refuse to return to her wifely duties as soon as he was dead. It is +possible that at first she might not be able to hide her grief from you; +then it would be your task to help her win back her peace of mind.</p> + +<p>I know something of Schlegel; during the last few years I have seen a +good deal of him. Without being a remarkable personality, there was +something about him that attracted women. They attributed to him all the +qualities which belonged to the heroes of their dreams. Do you +understand me? I can believe that a woman who admired strength and +manliness might see in Schlegel a type of firm, inflexible manhood; +while a woman attracted by tenderness might equally think him capable of +the most yielding gentleness. The secret probably lay in the fact that +this man, who knew so many women, possessed the rare faculty of taking +each one according to her temperament.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>Schlegel was a living man; but had he been a portrait, or character in +a novel, Lillie would have fallen in love with him just the same, +because her love was purely of the imagination.</p> + +<p>You must do what you please. But one thing I want you to understand: if +you are not going to act in the matter, I shall do so. I willingly +confess that I am a selfish woman; but I am very fond of Lillie, and if +you abandon her in this cruel and clumsy way, I shall have her to live +with me here, and I shall do my best to console her for the loss of an +ungrateful husband and a pack of stupid, indifferent children.</p> + +<p>One word more before I finish my letter. Lillie, as far as I can +recollect, is a year older than I am. Could you not—woman's specialist +as you are—have found some explanation in this fact? Had Lillie been +fifty-five or thirty-five, all this would never have happened. I do not +care for strangers to look into my personal affairs, and although you +are my cousin's husband you are practically a stranger to me. +Nevertheless I may remind you that women at our time of life pass +<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>through critical moments, as I know by my daily experiences. The letter +which I have written to you in a cool reasoning spirit might have been +impossible a week or two ago. I should probably have reeled off pages of +incoherent abuse.</p> + +<p>Show Lillie that your pretended love was not selfishness pure and +simple.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">With kind greetings,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Yours sincerely,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 12em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.<br /></span></p> + + +<p>P.S.—I would rather not answer your personal attacks. I could not have +acted differently and I regret nothing.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-morrow morning I will get rid of that gardener without fail.</p> + +<p>An extra month's wages and money for his journey—whatever is +necessary—so long as he goes.</p> + +<p>I wish to sleep in peace and to feel sure that my house is safely locked +up, and I cannot sleep a wink so long as I know he comes to see Torp.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>That my cook should have a man in does not shock me, but it annoys me. +It makes me think of things I wish to forget.</p> + +<p>I seem to hear them laughing and giggling downstairs.</p> + +<p>Madness! I could not really hear anything that was going on in the +basement. The birds were restless, because the night is too light to let +them sleep. The sea gleams under the silver dome of the moonlit sky.</p> + +<p>What is that?... Ah! Miss Jeanne going towards the forest.</p> + +<p>Her head looks like one of those beautiful red fungi that grow among the +fir-trees.</p> + +<p>If the gardener had chosen <i>her</i>.... But Torp!</p> + +<p>I should like to go wandering out into the woods and leave the house to +those two creatures in the basement. But if I happened to meet Jeanne, +what explanation could I give?</p> + +<p>It would be too ridiculous for both of us to be straying about in the +forest, because Torp was entertaining a sweetheart in the basement!</p> + +<p>Doors and windows are wide open, and <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>they are two floors below me, and +yet I seem to smell the sour, disgusting odour of that man. Is it +hysteria?...</p> + +<p>No. I cannot sleep, and it is four in the morning. The sunrise is a +glorious sight provided one is really in the mood to enjoy it. But at +the present moment I should prefer the blackest night....</p> + +<p>There he goes! Sneaking away like a thief. Not once does he look back; +and yet I am sure the hateful female is standing at the door, waving to +him and kissing her hand....</p> + +<p>But what is the matter with Jeanne? Poor girl, she has hidden behind a +tree. She does not want to be seen by him; and she is quite right, it +would be paying the boor too great an honour.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Merely to watch Richard eating was—or rather it became—a daily +torture. He handled his knife and fork with the utmost refinement. Yet I +would have given anything if he would have occasionally put his elbows +on the table, or bitten into an unpeeled apple, or <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>smacked his lips.... +Imagine Richard smacking his lips!</p> + +<p>His manners at table were invariably correct.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the look of tender reproach he once cast upon me +when I tore open a letter with my fingers, instead of waiting until he +had passed me the paper-knife. Probably it got upon his nerves in the +same way that he got upon mine when he contemplated himself in the +looking-glass.</p> + +<p>A spot upon the table-cloth annoyed and distracted him. He said nothing, +but all the time he eyed the mark as though it was left from a +murderer's track.</p> + +<p>His mania for tidiness often forced me, against my nature, to a +counteracting negligence. I intentionally disarranged the bookshelves in +the library; but he would follow me five minutes afterwards and put +everything in its place again.</p> + +<p>Yet had I really cared for him, this fussiness would have been an added +charm in my eyes.</p> + +<p>Was Richard always faithful to me? Or, <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>if not, did he derive any +pleasure from his lapses? Naturally enough he must have had many +temptations; and although I, as a mere woman, was hindered by a thousand +conventional reasons, he had opportunities and reasonable excuses for +taking what was offered him.</p> + +<p>And probably he did not lose his chances; at any rate when he was away +for long together on business. But I am convinced that his infidelities +were a sort of indirect homage to his lawful wife, and that he did not +derive much satisfaction from them. I am not afraid of being compared +with other women.</p> + +<p>After all, my good Richard may have remained absolutely true to me, +thanks to his mania for having all things in order.</p> + +<p>I am almost sorry that I never caught him in some disgraceful +infidelity. Discovery, confession, scenes, sighs, and tears! Who knows +but what it might have been a very good thing for us? The certainty of +his unceasing attentions to me was rather tame; and he did not gain much +by it in the long run, poor man.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>The only time I ever remember to have felt jealous it was not a +pleasant sensation, although I am sure there were no real grounds for +it. It was brought about by his suggestion that we should invite Edith +to go to Monaco with us. Richard went as white as a sheet when I asked +him whether my society no longer sufficed for him....</p> + +<p>I cannot understand how any grown-up man can take a girl of seventeen +seriously. They irritate me beyond measure.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Malthe has come back from Vienna, they tell me. I did not know he had +been to Vienna. I thought all this time he had been at Copenhagen.</p> + +<p>It is strange how this news has upset me. What does it matter where he +lives?</p> + +<p>If he were ten years younger, or I ten years older, I might have adopted +him. It would not be the first time that a middle-aged woman has +replaced her lap-dog in that way. Then I should have found him a +suitable wife! I should have surrounded myself by a swarm of <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>pretty +girls and chosen the pick of the bunch for him. What a fascinating +prospect!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have never made a fool of myself, and I am not likely to begin now.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I begin to meet people in the forest—<i>my</i> forest. They gather flowers +and break branches, and I feel as though they were robbing me. If only I +could forbid people to walk in the forest and to boat on The Sound!</p> + +<p>It is quite bad enough to have the gardener prowling about in my garden. +He is all over the place. The garden seems to have shrunk since he came. +And yet, in spite of myself, I often stand watching the man when he is +digging. He has such muscular strength and uses it so skilfully. He puts +on very humble airs in my presence, but his insolent eyes take in +everything.</p> + +<p>Torp wears herself out evolving tasty dishes for him, and in return he +plays cards with her.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>Jeanne avoids him. She literally picks up her skirts when she has to go +past him. I like to see her do this.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>This morning Jeanne and I laughed like two children. I was standing on +the shore looking at the sea, and said absent-mindedly:</p> + +<p>"It must be splendid bathing here."</p> + +<p>Jeanne replied:</p> + +<p>"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut."</p> + +<p>And I, still absent-minded, murmured:</p> + +<p>"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut."</p> + +<p>Suddenly we went off into fits of laughter. We could not stop ourselves.</p> + +<p>Now Jeanne has gone hunting for workmen. We will make them work by the +piece, otherwise they will never finish the job. I had some experience +this autumn with the youth who was paid by the day to chop wood for us.</p> + +<p>When the hut is built I will bathe every day in the sunshine.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>They are both master-carpenters, and seem to be very good friends. +Jeanne and I lie in the boat and watch them, and stimulate them with +beer from time to time. But it does not seem to have much effect. One +has a wife and twelve children who are starving. When they have starved +for a while, they take to begging. The man sings like a lark. He has +spent two years in America, but he assures me it is "all tommy-rot" the +way they work like steam-engines there. Consequently he soon returned to +his native land.</p> + +<p>"Denmark," he says, "is such a nice little country, and all this water +and the forests make it so pretty...."</p> + +<p>Jeanne and I laugh at all this and amuse ourselves royally.</p> + +<p>The day before yesterday neither of the men appeared. A child had died +on the island, and one of them, who is also a coffin-maker, had to +supply a coffin. This seemed a reasonable excuse. But when I inquired +whether the coffin was finished, he replied:</p> + +<p>"I bought one ready-made in the town ... saved me a lot of bother, that +did."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>His friend and colleague had been to the town with him to help him in +his choice!</p> + +<p>The water is clear and the sands are white and firm. I am longing to try +the bathing. Jeanne, who rows well, volunteered to take me out in the +boat. But to bathe from the boat and near these men! I would rather +wait!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Full moon. In the far distance boats go by with their white sails. They +glide through the dusk like swans on a lake. The silence is so intense +that I can hear when a fish rises or a bird stirs in its nest. The scent +of the red roses that blossomed yesterday ascends to my window here....</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe....</p> + +<p>When I write his name it is as though I gave him one of those caressing +touches for which my fingers yearn and quiver....</p> + +<p>Yes, a dip in the sea will calm me.</p> + +<p>I will undress in the house and wrap myself in my dressing-gown. Then I +can slip through the pine-trees unseen....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>It was glorious, glorious! What do I want a bathing-hut for? I go into +the sea straight from my own garden, and the sand is soft and firm to my +feet like the pine-needles under the trees.</p> + +<p>The sea is phosphorescent; I seemed to be dipping my arms in liquid +silver. I longed to splash about and make sparkles all around me. But I +was very cautious. I swam only as far as the stakes to which the +fishermen fasten their nets. The moon seemed to be suspended just over +my head.</p> + +<p>I thought of Malthe.</p> + +<p>Ah, for one night! Just one night!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne has given me warning. I asked her why she wished to leave. She +only shook her head and made no answer. She was very pale; I did not +like to force her to speak.</p> + +<p>It will be very difficult to replace her. On the other hand, how can I +keep her if she has made up her mind to go? Wages are no attraction to +her. If I only knew what she <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>wanted. I have not inquired where she is +going.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Ah, now I understand! It is the restlessness of the senses. She wants +more life than she can get on this island. She knows I see through her, +and casts her eyes downward when I look at her.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>Joergen Malthe,</p> + +<p>You are the only man I ever loved. And now, by means of this letter, I +am digging a fathomless pit between us. I am not the woman you thought +me; and my true self you could never love.</p> + +<p>I am like a criminal who has had recourse to every deceit to avoid +confession, but whose strength gives way at last under the pressure of +threats and torture, and who finds unspeakable relief in declaring his +guilt.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe, I have loved you for the last ten years; as long, in +fact, as you have loved me. I lied to you when I denied it; but my heart +has been faithful all through.</p> + +<p>Had I remained any longer in Richard's house, I should have come to you +one day and asked you to let me be your mistress. Not your wife. Do not +contradict me. I am the stronger and wiser of the two.</p> + +<p>To escape from this risk I ran away. I <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>fled from my love—I fled, too, +from my age. I am now forty-three, you know it well, and you are only +thirty-five.</p> + +<p>By this voluntary renunciation, I hoped to escape the curse that +advancing age brings to most women. Alas! This year has taught me that +we can neither deceive nor escape our destiny, since we carry it in our +hearts and temperaments.</p> + +<p>Here I am, and here I shall remain, until I have grown to be quite an +old woman. Therefore, it is very foolish of me to pour out this +confession to you, for it cannot be otherwise than painful reading. But +I shall have no peace of mind until it is done.</p> + +<p>My life has been poor. I have consumed my own heart.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>As far as I am aware, my father, a widower, was a strictly honourable +man. Misfortune befell him, and his whole life was ruined in a moment. +An unexpected audit of the accounts of his firm revealed a deficiency. +My father had temporarily borrowed a small sum <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>to save a friend in a +pressing emergency. Henceforward he was a marked man, at home and +abroad. We left the town where we lived. The retiring pension which was +granted to him in spite of what had happened sufficed for our daily +needs. He lived lost in his disgrace, and I was left entirely to the +care of a maid-servant. From her I gathered that our troubles were in +some way connected with a lack of money; and money became the idol of my +life.</p> + +<p>I sometimes buried a coin that had been given me—as a dog buries his +bone. Then I lay awake all night, fearing I should not find it again in +the morning.</p> + +<p>I was sent to school. A classmate said to me one day:</p> + +<p>"Of course, a prince will marry you, for you are the prettiest girl +here."</p> + +<p>I carried the words home to the maid, who nodded her approval.</p> + +<p>"That's true enough," she said. "A pretty face is worth a pocketful of +gold."</p> + +<p>"Can one sell a pretty face, then?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>Yes, child, to the highest bidder," she replied, laughing.</p> + +<p>From that moment I entered upon the accursed cult of my person which +absorbed the rest of my childhood and all my first youth. To become rich +was henceforth my one and only aim in life. I believed I possessed the +means of attaining my ends, and the thought of money was like a poison +working in my blood.</p> + +<p>At school I was diligent and obedient, for I soon saw it paid best in +the long run. I was delighted to see that I attracted the attention of +the masters and mistresses, simply because of my good looks. I took in +and pondered over every word of praise that concerned my appearance. But +I put on airs of modesty, and no one guessed what went on within me.</p> + +<p>I avoided the sun lest I should get freckles. I collected rain-water for +washing. I slept in gloves; and though I adored sweets, I refrained from +eating them on account of my teeth. I spent hours brushing my hair.</p> + +<p>At home there was only one looking-glass. It was in my father's room, +which I seldom <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>entered, and was hung too high for me to use. In my +pocket-mirror I could only see one eye at a time. But I had so much +self-control that I resisted the temptation to stop and look at my +reflection in the shop windows on my way to and from school.</p> + +<p>I was surprised when I came home one day to find that the large mirror +in its gold frame had been given over to me by my father and was hanging +in my room. I made myself quite ill with excitement, and the maid had to +put me to bed. But later on, when the house was quiet, I got up and lit +my lamp. Then I spent hours gazing at my own reflection in the glass.</p> + +<p>Henceforth the mirror became my confidant. It procured me the one +happiness of my childhood. When I was indoors I passed most of my time +practising smiles, and forming my expression. I was seized with terror +lest I should lose the gift that was worth "a pocketful of gold."</p> + +<p>I avoided the wild and noisy games of other girls for fear of getting +scratched. Once, however, I was playing with some of my <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>school friends +in a courtyard. We were swinging on the shafts of a cart when I fell and +ran a nail into my cheek. The pain was nothing compared to the thought +of a permanent mark. I was depressed for months, until one day I heard a +teacher say that the mark was all but gone—a mere beauty spot.</p> + +<p>When I sat before the looking-glass, I only thought of the future. +Childhood seemed to me a long, tiresome journey that must be got through +before I reached the goal of riches, which to me meant happiness.</p> + +<p>Our house overlooked the dwelling of the chief magistrate. It was a +white building in the style of a palace, the walls of which were covered +in summer-time with roses and clematis, and to my eyes it was the finest +and most imposing house in the world.</p> + +<p>It was surrounded by park-like grounds with trim lawns and tall trees. +An iron railing with gilded spikes divided it from the common world.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when the gate was standing open I peeped inside. It seemed as +though the house came nearer and nearer to me. I <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>caught a glimpse in +the basement of white-capped serving-maids, which seemed to me the +height of elegance. It was said that the yellow curtains on the ground +floor were pure silk. As to the upstairs rooms, the shutters were +generally closed. These apartments had not been opened since the death +of Herr von Brincken's wife. He rarely entertained.</p> + +<p>Sometimes while I was watching the house, Herr von Brincken would come +riding home accompanied by a groom. He always bowed to me, and +occasionally spoke a few words. One day an idea took possession of me, +with such force that I almost involuntarily exclaimed aloud. My brain +reeled as I said to myself, "Some day I will marry the great man and +live in that house!"</p> + +<p>This ambition occupied my thoughts day and night. Other things seemed +unreal. I discovered by accident that Herr von Brincken often visited +the parents of one of my schoolmates. I took great pains to cultivate +her acquaintance, and we became inseparable.</p> + +<p>Although I was not yet confirmed, I succeeded in getting an invitation +to a party at <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>which Von Brincken was to be present. At that time I +ignored the meaning of love; I had not even felt that vague, gushing +admiration that girls experience at that age. But when at table this man +turned his eyes upon me with a look of astonishment, I felt +uncomfortable, with the kind of discomfort that follows after eating +something unpleasant. Later in the the evening he came and talked to me, +and I managed to draw him on until he asked whether I should like to see +his garden.</p> + +<p>A few days later he called on my father, who was rather bewildered by +this honour, and asked permission to take me to the garden. He treated +me like a grown-up person, and after we had inspected the lawns and +borders, and looked at the ripening bunches in the grape-house, I felt +myself half-way to become mistress of the place. It never occurred to me +that my plans might fall through.</p> + +<p>At the same time it began to dawn upon me that the personality of Von +Brincken, or rather the difference of our ages, inspired me with a kind +of disgust. In spite of his style and good appearance, he had something +of <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>the "elderly gentleman" about him. This feeling possessed me when we +looked over the house. In every direction there were lofty mirrors, and +for the first time in my life I saw myself reflected in full-length—and +by my side an old man.</p> + +<p>This was the beginning. A year later, after I had been confirmed, I was +sent to a finishing school at Geneva at Von Brincken's expense. I had +not the least doubt that he meant to marry me as soon as my education +was completed.</p> + +<p>The other girls at the school were full of spirits and enthusiastic +about the beauties of nature. I was a poor automaton. Neither lakes nor +mountains had any fascination for me. I simply lived in expectation of +the day when the bargain would be concluded.</p> + +<p>When two years later I returned to Denmark, our engagement, which had +been concluded by letter, was made public. His first hesitating kiss +made me shudder; but I compelled myself to stand before the +looking-glass and receive his caresses in imagination without disturbing +my artificially radiant smile.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>Sometimes I noticed that he looked at me in a puzzled kind of way, but +I did not pay much attention to it. The wedding-day was actually fixed +when I received a letter beginning:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="smcap">"My Dear Elsie,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"I give you back your promise. You do not love me.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"You do not realize what love is...."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This letter shattered all my hopes for the future. I could not, and +would not, relinquish my chances of wealth and position. Henceforth I +summoned all my will-power in order to efface the disastrous impression +caused by my attitude. I assured my future husband that what he had +mistaken for want of love was only the natural coyness of my youth. He +was only too ready to believe me. We decided to hasten the marriage, and +his delight knew no bounds.</p> + +<p>One day I went to discuss with him some details of the marriage +settlements. We had champagne at lunch, and I, being quite un<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>used to +wine, became very lively. Life appeared to me in a rosy light. Arm in +arm, we went over the house together. He had ordered all the lights to +be lit. At length we passed through the room that was to be our conjugal +apartment. Misled, no doubt, by my unwonted animation, and perhaps a +little excited himself by the wine he had taken, he forgot his usual +prudent reserve, and embraced me with an ardour he had never yet shown. +His features were distorted with passion, and he inspired me with +repugnance. I tried to respond to his kisses, but my disgust overcame me +and I nearly fainted. When I recovered, I tried to excuse myself on the +ground that the champagne had been too much for me.</p> + +<p>Von Brincken looked long and searchingly at me, and said in a sad and +tired voice, which I shall never forget:</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are right.... Evidently you cannot stand my champagne."</p> + +<p>The following morning two letters were brought from his house. One was +for my father, in which Von Brincken said he felt <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>obliged to break off +the engagement. He was suffering from a heart trouble, and a recent +medical examination had proved to him that he would be guilty of an +unpardonable wrong in marrying a young girl.</p> + +<p>To me he wrote:</p> + +<p>"You will understand why I give a fictitious reason to your father and +to the world in general. I should be committing a moral murder were I to +marry you under the circumstances. My love for you, great as it is, is +not great enough to conquer the instinctive repugnance of your youth."</p> + +<p>Once again he sent me abroad at his own expense. This time, at my own +wish, I went to Paris, where I met a young artist who fell in love with +me. Had I not, in the saddest way, ruled out of my life everything that +might interfere with my ambitious projects, I could have returned his +passion. But he was poor; and about the same time I met Richard. I +cheated myself, and betrayed my first love, which might have saved me, +and changed me from an automaton into a living being.</p> + +<p>Under the eyes of the man who had stirred <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>my first real emotions, I +proceeded to draw Richard on. My first misfortune taught me wisdom. This +time I had no intention of letting all my plans be shattered.</p> + +<p>When I look back on that time, I see that my worst sin was not so much +my resolve to sell myself for money, as my aptitude for playing the +contemptible comedy of pretended love for days and months and years. I, +who only felt a kind of indifference for Richard, which sometimes +deepened into disgust, pretended to be moved by genuine passion. Yes, I +have paid dearly, very dearly, for my golden cage in the Old Market.</p> + +<p>Richard is not to blame. He could not have suspected the truth....</p> + +<p>It is so fatally easy for a woman to simulate love. Every intelligent +woman knows by infallible instinct what the man who loves her really +wants in return. The woman of ardent temperament knows how to appear +reserved with a lover who is not too emotional; while a cold woman can +assume a passionate air when necessary.</p> + +<p>I, Joergen, I, who for years cared for no one <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>but myself, have left +Richard firmly convinced to this day that I was greedy of his caresses.</p> + +<p>You are an honest man, and what I have been telling you will come as a +shock. You will not understand it, or me.</p> + +<p>Yet I think that you, too, must have known and possessed women without +loving them. But that is not the same. If it were, my guilt would be +less.</p> + +<p>I allowed my senses to be inflamed, while my mind remained cold, and my +heart contracted with disgust. I consciously profaned the sacred words +of love by applying them to a man whom I chose for his money.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile I developed into the frivolous society woman everybody took me +to be. Every woman wears the mask which best suits her purpose. My mask +was my smile. I did not wish others to see through me. Sometimes, during +a sudden silence, I have caught the echo of my own laugh—that laugh in +which you, too, delighted—and hearing it I have shuddered.</p> + +<p>No! That is not quite true. I was a <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>different woman with you. A real, +living creature lived and breathed behind the mask. You taught me to +live. You looked into my eyes, and heard my real laughter.</p> + +<p>How many hours we spent together, Joergen, you and I! But we did not +talk much; we never came to the exchange of ideas. I hardly remember +anything you ever said; although I often try to recall your words. How +did we pass the happy time together?</p> + +<p>You are the only man I ever loved.</p> + +<p>When we first got to know each other you were five-and-twenty. So +young—and I was eight years your senior. We fell in love with each +other at once.</p> + +<p>You had no idea that I cared for you.</p> + +<p>From that moment I was a changed woman. Not better perhaps, but quite +different. A thousand new feelings awoke in me; I saw, heard, and felt +in an entirely new way. All humanity assumed a new aspect. I, who had +hitherto been so indifferent to the weal or woe of my fellow-creatures, +began to observe and to understand them. I became sympathetic. Towards +women—not towards men. I do not <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>understand the male sex, and this must +be my excuse for the way in which I have so often treated men. For me +there was, and is, only one man in the world: Joergen Malthe.</p> + +<p>At first I never gave a thought to the difference in our ages. We were +both young then. But you were poor. No one, least of all myself, guessed +that you carried a field-marshal's baton in your knapsack. Money had not +brought me happiness; but poverty still seemed to me the greatest +misfortune that could befall any human being.</p> + +<p>Then you received your first important commission, and I ventured to +dream dreams for us both. I never dreamt of fame and honour; what did I +care whether you carried out the restoration of the cathedral or not? +The pleasure I showed in your talent I did not really feel. It was not +to the man as artist, but as lover, that my heart went out.</p> + +<p>Later, you had a brilliant future before you; one day you would make an +income sufficient for us both. But you seemed so utterly indifferent to +money that I was disappointed.<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a> My dreams died out like a fire for want +of fuel.</p> + +<p>Had you proposed that I should become your mistress, no power on earth +would have held me back. But you were too honourable even to cherish the +thought. Besides, I let you suppose I was attached to my husband....</p> + +<p>I knew well enough that the moment you became aware of my feelings for +you, you would leave no stone unturned until you could legitimately +claim me as your wife.... Such is your nature, Joergen Malthe!</p> + +<p>So I let happiness go by.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Two years ago Von Brincken died, leaving me a considerable share of his +fortune—- and a letter, written on the night of the day when we last +met.</p> + +<p>I might then have left Richard. Your constancy would have been a +sufficient guarantee for my future.</p> + +<p>A mere accident destroyed my illusions. A friend of my own age had +recently married <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>an officer much younger than herself. At the end of a +year's happiness he left her; and society, far from pitying her, laughed +at her plight.</p> + +<p>This drove me to make my supreme resolve—to abandon, and flee from, the +one love of my life.</p> + +<p>Joergen, I owe you the best hours I have known: those hours in which you +showed me the plans for the "White Villa."</p> + +<p>I feel a bitter, yet unspeakable joy when I think that you yourself +built the walls within which I am living in solitary confinement.</p> + +<p>Once I longed for you with a consuming ardour.</p> + +<p>Now, alas, I am but a pile of burnt-out ashes. The winds of heaven have +dispersed my dreams.</p> + +<p>I go on living because it is not in my nature to do away with myself. I +live, and shall continue to live.</p> + +<p>If only you knew what goes on within me, and how low I have sunk that I +can write this confession!</p> + +<p>There are thoughts that a woman can never <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>reveal to the man she +loves—even if her own life and his were at stake....</p> + +<p>It is night. The stars are bright overhead. Joergen Malthe, why have I +written all this to you?... What do I really want of you?...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>No, no!... never in this world....</p> + +<p>You shall never read this letter. Never, never! What need you know more +than that I love you? I love you! I love you!</p> + +<p>I will write to you again, calmly, humbly, and tell you the simple +truth: I was afraid of the future, and of the time when you would cease +to love me. That is what I fled from.</p> + +<p>I still fear the future, and the time when you will love me no more. But +all my powers of resistance are shattered by this one truth: <i>I love</i>. +For the first and only time in my life. Therefore I implore you to come +to me; but now, at once. Do not wait a week or a month. My lime trees +are fragrant with blossom. I want you, Joergen, now, while <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>the limes +are flowering. Then, what you ask of me shall be done.</p> + +<p>If you want me for a wife, I will follow you as the women of old +followed their lords and masters, in joyful submission. But if you only +care to have me for a time, I will prepare the house for my desired +guest.</p> + +<p>Whatever you decide to do will be such an immense joy that I tremble +lest anything should happen to hinder its fulfilment....</p> + +<p>Then let the years go by! Then let age come to me!</p> + +<p>I shall have sown so many memories of you and happiness that I shall +have henceforth a forest of glad thoughts, wherein to wander and take my +rest till Death comes to claim me.</p> + +<p>The sun is flashing on the window-panes; the sunbeams seem to be weaving +threads of joy in rainbow tints.</p> + +<p>You child! How I love you!...</p> + +<p>Come to me and stay with me—or go when we have had our hour of delight.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>The letter has gone. Jeanne has rowed to the town with it.</p> + +<p>She looked searchingly at me when I gave it to her and told her to hurry +so that she should not lose the evening post. Both of us had tears in +our eyes.</p> + +<p>I will never part with Jeanne. Her place is with me—and with him. I +stood at the window and watched her pull away in the little white boat. +She pulled so hard at the oars. If only she is strong enough to keep it +up.... It is a long way to the town.</p> + +<p>Never has the evening been so calm. Everything seems folded in rest and +silence. There lies a majesty on sky and earth. I wandered at random in +the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed to feel the ground beneath my +feet. The flowers smell so sweet, and I am so deeply moved.</p> + +<p>How can I sleep! I feel I must remain awake until my letter is in his +hands.</p> + +<p>Now it is speeding to him through the quiet night. The letter yearns +towards him as I do myself.</p> + +<p>I am young again.... Yes, young, young!...<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a> How blue is the night! Not a +single light is visible at sea.</p> + +<p>If this were my last night on earth I would not complain. I feel my +happiness drawing so near that my heart seems to open and drink in the +night, as thirsty plants drink up the dew.</p> + +<p>All that was has ceased to be. I am Elsie Bugge once more, and stand on +the threshold of life in all its expanse and beauty.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>He is coming....</p> + +<p>He will come by the morning train. It seems too soon.</p> + +<p>Why did he not wait a day or two? I want time to collect myself. There +is so much to do....</p> + +<p>How my hands tremble!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I carry his telegram next my heart. Now I feel quite calm. Why will +Jeanne insist on my going to bed? I am not ill.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>She says it is useless to arrange the flowers in the vases to-night, +they will be faded by to-morrow. But can I rely on Torp's seeing that we +have enough food in the house? My head is swimming.... The grass wants +mowing, and the hedge must be cut.... Ah! What a fool I am! As though he +would notice the lawn and the hedge!...</p> + +<p>Jeanne asks, "Where will the gentleman sleep?" I cannot answer the +question. I see she is getting the little room upstairs ready for him. +The one that has most sun.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Has Jeanne read my thoughts? She proposes to sleep downstairs with Torp +so long as I have "company."</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have begun a long letter to Richard, and that has passed the time so +well. I wish he could find some dear little creature who would sweeten +life for him. He is a good soul. During the last few days I seem to have +started a kind of affection for him.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>We will travel a great deal, Joergen and I. Hitherto I have seen +nothing on my many trips abroad. Joergen must show me the world. We will +visit all the places he once went to alone.</p> + +<p>Now I understand the doubting apostle Thomas. Until my eyes behold I +dare not believe.</p> + +<p>Joergen has such a big powerful head! I sometimes feel as though I were +clasping it with both my hands.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Torp suggests that to-morrow we should have the same <i>menu</i> that she +prepared when the "State Councillor" entertained Prince Waldemar. Well! +Provided she can get all she wants for her creations! She can amuse +herself at the telegraph office as far as I am concerned. I am willing +to help her; at any rate, I can stir the mayonnaise.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How stupid of me to have given Lillie my tortoiseshell combs! How can I +ask to <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>have them back without seeming rude? Joergen was used to them; +he will miss them at once.</p> + +<p>I have had out all my dresses, but I cannot make up my mind what to +wear. I cannot appear in the morning in a dinner dress, and a white +frock—at my age!... After all, why not?... The white embroidered +one ... it fits beautifully. I have never worn it since Joergen's last +visit to us in the country. It has got a little yellow from lying by, +but he will never notice it.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-night <i>I will</i> sleep—sleep like a top. Then I shall wake, take my +bath, and go for a long walk. When I come home, I will sit in the garden +and watch until the white boat appears in the distance.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I had to take a dose of veronal, but I managed to sleep round the clock, +from 9. P.M. to 9. A.M. The gardener has gone off in the boat; and I +have two hours in which to dress.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>What is the matter with me? Now that my happiness is so close at hand, +I feel strangely depressed.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne advises a little rouge. No! Joergen loves me just as I am....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How he will laugh at me when he hears that I cried because I cannot get +into the white embroidered dress nowadays! It is my own fault; I eat too +much and do not take enough exercise.</p> + +<p>I put on another white dress, but I am very disappointed, for it does +not suit me nearly as well.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I see the boat....</p> + +<hr class="full"/> + + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>Two Days Later.</p> + +<p>He came by the morning train, and left the same evening. That was the +day before yesterday, and I have never slept since. Neither have I +thought. There is time enough before me for thought.</p> + +<p>He went away the same evening; so at least I was spared the night.</p> + +<p>I have burnt his letter unread. What could it tell me that I did not +already know? Could it hold any torture which I have not already +suffered?</p> + +<p>Do I really suffer? Have I not really become insensible to pain? Once +the cold moon was a burning sun; her own central fires consumed it. Now +she is cold and dead; her light a mere reflection and a falsehood.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>His first glance told me all. He cast down his eyes so that he might not +hurt me again. ... And I—coward that I was—I ac<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>cepted without +interrupting him the tender words he spoke, and even his caress....</p> + +<p>But when our eyes met a second time we both knew that all was at an end +between us.</p> + +<p>One reads of "tears of blood." During the few hours he spent in my house +I think we smiled "smiles of blood."</p> + +<p>When we sat opposite to each other at table, we might have been sitting +each side a deathbed. We only attempted to speak when Jeanne was waiting +at table.</p> + +<p>When we parted, he said:</p> + +<p>"I feel like the worst of criminals!"</p> + +<p>He has not committed a crime. He loved me once, now he no longer loves +me. That is all.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>But after what has happened I cannot remain here. Everything will remind +me of my hours of joyful waiting; of my hours of failure and abasement.</p> + +<p>Where can I go to hide my shame?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>Richard....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Would that be too humiliating? Why should it be? Did I not give him my +promise: "If I should ever regret my resolution," I said to him.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I will write to him, but first I must gather up my strength again. +Jeanne goes long walks with me. We do not talk to each other, but it +comforts me to find her so faithful.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>Dear Richard,</p> + +<p>It is a long time since I wrote to you, but neither have you been quite +so zealous a correspondent this summer, so it is tit for tat.</p> + +<p>I often think of you, and wonder how you are really getting on in your +solitude. Whether you have been living in the country and going up to +town daily? Or if, like most of the "devoted husbands," you still only +run down to the cottage for week-ends?</p> + +<p>If I were not absolutely free from jealousy, in any form, I should envy +you your new car. This neighbourhood is charming, but to explore it in a +hired carriage, lined with dirty velvet, does not attract me. Now, dear +friend, don't go and send off car and chauffeur post-haste to me. That +would be like your good nature. But, of course, I am only joking.</p> + +<p>Send me all the news of the town. I read the papers diligently, but +there are items of <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>interest which do not appear in the papers! Above +all, tell me how things are going with Lillie. Will she soon be coming +home? Do you think her conduct was much talked of outside her own +circle? People chatter, but they soon forget.</p> + +<p>Homes for nervous cases are all very well in their way; but I think our +good Hermann Rothe went to extremes when he sent her to one. He is +furious with me, because I told him what I thought in plain words. +Naturally he did not in the least understand what I was driving at. But +I think I made him see that Lillie had never been faithless to him in +the physiological meaning of the word—and that is all that matters to +men of his stamp.</p> + +<p>I am convinced that Lillie would not have suffered half so much if she +had really been unfaithful in the ordinary sense.</p> + +<p>But to return to me and my affairs.</p> + +<p>You cannot imagine what a wonderful business-woman the world has lost in +me. Not only have I made both ends meet—I, who used to dread my +Christmas bills—but I have so much to the good in solid coin of the +realm <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>that I could fill a dozen pairs of stockings. And I keep my +accounts—think of that, Richard! Every Monday morning Torp appears with +her slate and account-book, and they must balance to a farthing.</p> + +<p>I bathe once or twice a day from my cosey little hut at the end of the +garden, and in the evening I row about in my little white boat. +Everything here is so neat and refined that I am sure your fastidious +soul would rejoice to see it. Here I never bring in any mud on my shoes, +as I used to do in the country, to your everlasting worry. And here the +books are arranged tidily in proper order on the shelves. You would not +be able to find a speck of dust on the furniture.</p> + +<p>Of course the gardener from Frijsenborg, about whom I have already told +you, is now courting Torp, and I am expecting an invitation to the +wedding one of these next days. Otherwise he is very competent, and my +vegetables are beyond criticism.</p> + +<p>Personally, I should have liked to rear chickens, but Torp is so +afflicted at the idea of poultry-fleas that she implored me not to <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>keep +fowls. Now we get them from the schoolmaster who cannot supply us with +all we want.</p> + +<p>I have an idea which will please you, Richard.</p> + +<p>What if you paid me a short visit? Without committing either of us—you +understand? Just a brief, friendly meeting to refresh our pleasant and +unpleasant memories?</p> + +<p>I am dying for somebody to speak to, and who could I ask better than +yourself?</p> + +<p>But, just to please me, come without saying a word to anyone. Nobody +need know that you are on a visit to your former wife, need they? We are +free to follow our own fancies, but there is no need to set people +gossiping.</p> + +<p>Who knows whether the time may not come when I may take my revenge and +keep the promise I made you the last evening we spent together? When two +people have lived together as long as we have, separation is a mere +figure of speech. People do not separate after twenty-two years of +married life, even if each goes a different road for a time.</p> + +<p>But why talk of the future. The present <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>concerns us more nearly, and +interests me far more.</p> + +<p>Come, then, dear friend, and I will give you such a welcome that you +will not regret the journey.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe paid me a flying visit last week. Business brought him +into the neighbourhood, and he called unexpectedly and spent an hour +with me.</p> + +<p>I must say he has altered, and not for the better.</p> + +<p>I hope he will not wear himself out prematurely with all his work.</p> + +<p>If you should see him, do not say I mentioned his visit. It was rather +painful. He was shy, and I, too, was nervous. One cannot spend a whole +year alone on an island without feeling bewildered by the sudden +apparition of a fellow-creature....</p> + +<p>Tell your chauffeur to get the car ready. Should you find the +neighbourhood very fascinating, you could always telegraph to him to +bring it at once.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>If the manufactory, or any other plans, prevent your coming, send me a +few lines. Till we meet,</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 16em;font-variant: small-caps;">Your Elsie,</span></p> + +<p>who perhaps after all is not suited to a hermit's life.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>So he has dared!...</p> + +<p>So all his passion, and his grief at parting, were purely a part that he +played!... Who knows? Perhaps he was really glad to get rid of me....</p> + +<p>Ah, but this scorn and contempt!...</p> + +<p>Elsie Lindtner, do you realise that in the same year, the same month, +you have offered yourself to two men in succession and both have +declined the honour? Luckily there is no one else to whom you can abase +yourself.</p> + +<p>One of these days, depend upon it, Richard will eat his heart out with +regret. But then it will be too late, my dear man, too late!</p> + +<p>That he should have dared to replace me by a mere chit of nineteen!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>The whole town must be laughing at him. And I can do nothing....</p> + +<p>But I am done for. Nothing is left to me, but to efface myself as soon +as possible. I cannot endure the thought of being pitied by anyone, +least of all by Richard.</p> + +<p>How badly I have played my cards! I who thought myself so clever!</p> + +<p>Good heavens! I understand the women who throw vitriol in the face of a +rival. Unhappily I am too refined for such reprisals.</p> + +<p>But if I had her here—whoever she may be—I would crush her with a look +she could never forget.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne has agreed to go with me.</p> + +<p>Nothing remains but to write my letter—and depart!</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>Dearest Richard,</p> + +<p>How your letter amused me, and how delighted I am to hear your +interesting intelligence. You could not have given me better news. In +future I am relieved of all need of sympathetic anxiety about you, and +henceforth I can enjoy my freedom without a qualm, and dispose of life +just as I please.</p> + +<p>Every good wish, dear friend! We must hope that this young person will +make you very happy; but, you know, young girls have their whims and +fancies. Fortunately, you are not only a good-looking man in the prime +of life, but also an uncommonly good match for any woman. The young +girls of the present day are seldom blind to such advantages, and you +will find her devotion very lasting, I have no doubt.</p> + +<p>Who can she be? I have not the least idea. But I admire your +discretion—you have not changed in that respect. In any case, be +pre<a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>pared, Richard, she will turn the house upside down and your work +will be cut out for you to get it straight again.</p> + +<p>I am sure she bikes; she will probably drop her cigarette ashes into +your best Venetian glasses; she is certain to hate goloshes and long +skirts, and will enjoy rearranging the furniture. Well, she will be able +to have fine times in your spacious, well-ordered establishment!</p> + +<p>I hope at any rate that you will be able to keep her so far within +bounds that she will not venture to chaff you about "number one." Do not +let her think that my taste predominates in the style and decorations of +the house....</p> + +<p>Dear friend, already I see you pushing the perambulator! Do you remember +the ludicrous incident connected with the fat merchant Bang, who married +late in life and was always called "gran'pa" by his youthful progeny? Of +course, that will not happen in your case—you are a year or two younger +than Bang, so your future family will more probably treat you like a +playfellow.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>You see, I am quite carried away by my surprise and delight.</p> + +<p>If it were the proper thing, I should immensely like to be at the +wedding; but I know you would not allow such a breach of all the +conventions.</p> + +<p>Where are you going for the honeymoon? You might bring her to see me +here occasionally, in the depths of the country, so long as nobody knew.</p> + +<p>One of my first thoughts was: how does she dress? Does she know how to +do her hair? Because, you know, most of the girls in our particular set +have the most weird notions as regards hair-dressing and frocks.</p> + +<p>However, I can rely on the sureness of your taste, and if your wedding +trip takes you to Paris, she will see excellent models to copy.</p> + +<p>Now I understand why your letters got fewer and farther between. How +long has the affair been on hand? Did it begin early in the summer? Or +did you start it in the train between Hoerlsholm and Helsingoer, on your +way to and from the factory? I only ask—you need not really trouble to +answer.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>I can see from your letter that you felt some embarrassment, and +blushed when you wrote it. Every word reveals your state of mind; as +though you were obliged to give some account of yourself to me, or were +afraid I should take your news amiss. I have already drunk to your +happiness all by myself in a glass of champagne.</p> + +<p>You can tell your young lady, if you like.</p> + +<p>Under the circumstances you had better not accept the invitation I gave +you in my last letter; although I would give much to see your good, kind +face, rejuvenated, as it doubtless is, by this new happiness. But it +would not be wise. You know it is harder to catch and to keep a young +girl than a whole sackful of those lively, hopping little creatures +which are my horror.</p> + +<p>Besides, a new idea has occurred to me, and I can hardly find patience +to wait for its realisation.</p> + +<p>Guess, Richard!... I intend to take a trip round the world. I have +already written to Cook's offices, and am eagerly awaiting information +as to tickets, fares, etc. I shall <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>not go alone. I have not courage +enough for that. I will take Jeanne with me. If I cannot manage it out +of my income, I shall break into my capital, even if I have to live on a +pittance hereafter.</p> + +<p>No—do not make any more of your generous offers of help. You must not +give any more money now to "women." Remember that, Richard!</p> + +<p>The White Villa will be shut up during my absence; it cannot take to +itself wings, nor eat its head off during my absence. Probably in future +I shall spend my time between this place and various big towns abroad, +so that I shall only be here in summer.</p> + +<p>At the same time as this letter, I am sending a wedding present for your +new bride. Girls are always crazy about jewellery. I have no further use +for a diadem of brilliants; but you need not tell her where it comes +from. You will recognise it. It was your first overwhelming gift, and on +our wedding day I was so taken up with my new splendour that I never +heard a word of the pastor's sermon. They said it was most eloquent.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>I hope you will have the tact to remove the too numerous portraits of +myself which adorn your walls. Sell them for the benefit of struggling +artists; in that way, they will serve some good purpose, and I shall not +run the risk of being disfigured by my successor.</p> + +<p>If I should come across any pretty china, or fine embroidery, in Japan, +I shall not forget your passion for collecting.</p> + +<p>Let me know the actual date of the wedding, you can always communicate +through my banker. But the announcement will suffice. Do not write. +Henceforth you must devote yourself entirely to your role of young +husband.</p> + +<p>You quite forgot to answer my questions about Lillie, and I conclude +from your silence that all is well with her.</p> + +<p>Give her my love, and accept my affectionate greetings.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 16em;font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> + + +<p>P.S.—As yet I cannot grapple with the problem of my future appellation. +I do not feel inclined to return to my maiden name.<a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a> "Elizabeth Bugge" +makes me think of an overgrown grave in a churchyard.</p> + +<p>Well, you will be neither the first nor the last man with several wives +scattered about the globe. The world may be a small place, but it is +large enough to hold two "Mrs. Lindtners" without any chance of their +running across each other.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14187 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b3d4e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14187 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14187) diff --git a/old/14187-8.txt b/old/14187-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..938fdf8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14187-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4618 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dangerous Age, by Karin Michaëlis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Dangerous Age + +Author: Karin Michaëlis + +Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14187] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANGEROUS AGE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_THE DANGEROUS AGE_ + + + + +_LETTERS AND FRAGMENTS FROM A WOMAN'S DIARY_ + +_TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF KARIN MICHAËLIS_ + +_NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXI_ + + + + +TO + +MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW + +BARON YOOST DAHLERUP + + + + +_INTRODUCTION TO THE FRENCH EDITION By MARCEL PRÉVOST_ + + +Here is a strange book. A novel from the North, its solid structure, its +clear, unadorned form are purely Latin. A woman's novel, in its integral +and violent sincerity it can only be compared to certain famous +masculine confessions. + +The author, Karin Michaëlis, a Dane, is not at all known in France. _The +Dangerous Age_ is not her first book; but it is, I feel sure, the first +that has been translated into French. Naturally enough the +Danish-Scandinavian literature is transmitted in the first instance +through newspapers and reviews, and through German publishers. This is +the result of local proximity and the affinity of language. Several +novels by Karin Michaëlis were known to the German public before _The +Dangerous Age_; but none of them had awakened the same keen curiosity, +provoked such discussion, or won such success as this book. In all the +countries of Central Europe the most widely read novel at the present +moment is _The Dangerous Age_. Edition succeeds edition, and the fortune +of the book has been increased by the quarrels it has provoked; for it +has been much discussed and criticised, not on account of its literary +value, which is incontestable, but because of the idea which animates +it. + +Shall I confess that it was just this great success, and the polemical +renown of the novel, that roused my suspicions when first I chanced to +see the German version of it? Contrary to the reputation which our +neighbours on the other side of the Vosges like to foist upon us, French +literature, at the present day, is far less noisily scandalous than +their own. It is only necessary to glance over the advertisements which +certain German publishing firms issue at the end of their publications +in order to be convinced of this. It is amusing to find every kind of +"puff" couched in the exaggerated style which the modern German affects. + +It was with some bias and suspicion, therefore, that I took up _Das +gefährliche Alter_. When I started to read the book, nothing could have +been further from my mind than to write, a French version and to present +it myself to the public. This is all the more reason why justice should +be done to Karin Michaëlis. I have read no other book of hers except +_The Dangerous Age_; but in this novel she has in no way exceeded what a +sincere and serious observer has a right to publish. Undoubtedly her +book is not intended for young girls, for what the English call +"bread-and-butter misses." But nobody is compelled to write exclusively +for schoolgirls, and it has yet to be proved that there is any necessity +to feed them on fiction as well as on bread and butter. + +_The Dangerous Age_ deals with a bold subject; it is a novel filled with +the "strong meat" of human nature; a novel which speaks in accents at +once painful and ironical, and ends in despair; but it is also a book to +which the most scrupulous author on the question of "the right to speak +out" need not hesitate to attach his name. + +It is difficult for one who knows no Danish, to judge of its literary +value; and that is my case. In the German version--and I hope also in +the French--the reader will not fail to discern some of the novelist's +finest gifts. In the first instance, there is that firmness and solidity +of structure which is particularly difficult to keep up when a book +takes the form of a journal, of jottings and meditations, as does _The +Dangerous Age_. Then there are the depth of reflection, the ingenuity of +the arguments, the muscular brevity of style, the expression being +closely modelled upon the thought; nothing is vague, but nothing is +superfluous. We must not seek in this volume for picturesque landscape +painting, for the lyrical note, for the complacently woven "purple +patch." The book is rigorously deprived of all these things; and, having +regard to its subject, this is not its least merit. + + * * * * * + +When a woman entitles a book _The Dangerous Age_ we may feel sure she +does not intend to write of the dangers of early youth. The dangerous +age described by Karin Michaëlis is precisely that time of life which +inspired Octave Feuillet to write the novel, half-dialogue, +half-journal, which appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in 1848, was +adapted for the stage, played at the _Gymnase_ in 1854, and reproduced +later with some success at the Comédie-Française--I mean the work +entitled _La Crise_. + +It is curious to compare the two books, partly on account of the long +space of time which separates them, and partly because of the different +way in which the two writers treat the same theme. + +Octave Feuillet, be it remembered, only wrote what might be spoken aloud +in the most conventional society. Nevertheless those who think the +author of _Monsieur de Cantors_ timid and insipid are only short-sighted +critics. I advise my readers when they have finished the last page of +_The Dangerous Age_ to re-read _La Crise_. They will observe many points +of resemblance, notably in the "journal" portion of the latter. +Juliette, Feuillet's heroine, thus expresses herself: + +"What name can I give to this moral discomfort, this distaste for my +former habits, this aimless restlessness and discontent with myself and +others, of which I have been conscious during the last few months?... I +have taken it into my head to hate the trinkets on my husband's +watchchain. We lived together in peace for ten years, those trinkets and +I ... Now, I don't know why, we have suddenly fallen out...." + +These words from _La Crise_ contain the argument of _The Dangerous Age_. + +And yet I will wager that Karin Michaëlis never read _La Crise_. Had she +read it, however, her book would still have remained all her own, by +reason of her individual treatment of a subject that is also a dangerous +one. We have made considerable advances since 1848. Even in Denmark +physiology now plays a large part in literature. Feuillet did not +venture to do more than to make his Juliet experience temptation from a +medical lover, who is a contrast to her magistrate husband. Although +doctors come off rather badly in _The Dangerous Age_, the book owes much +to them and to medical science. Much; perhaps too much. If this woman's +work had been imagined and created by a man, no doubt he would have been +accused of having lost sight of women's repugnance to speak or write of +their physical inferiority, or even to dwell upon it in thought. Yet the +name Karin Michaëlis is no pseudonym; the writer really is of the same +sex as her heroine Elsie Lindtner. + +Is not this an added reason for the curiosity which this book awakens? +The most sincere and complete, the humblest and most moving of feminine +confessions proceeds from one of those Northern women, whom we Latin +races are pleased to imagine as types of immaterial candour, sovereign +"intellectuality," and glacial temperament--souls in harmony with their +natural surroundings, the rigid pine forests and snow-draped heathlands +of Scandinavia. + +A Scandinavian woman! Immediately the words evoke the chaste vision sung +by Leconte de Lisle, in his poem "l'Epiphanie": + + Elle passe, tranquille, en un rêve divin, + Sur le bord du plus frais de tes lacs, ô Norvège! + Le sang rose et subtil qui dore son col fin + Est doux comme un rayon de l'aube sur la neige. + + Quand un souffle furtif glisse en ses cheveux blonds, + Une cendre ineffable inonde son épaule, + Et, de leur transparence argentant leurs cils longs, + Ses yeux out la couleur des belle nuits du pôle. + + Et le gardien pensif du mystique oranger + Des balcons de l'Aurore eternelle se penche, + Et regarde passer ce fantôme léger + Dans les plis de sa robe immortellement blanche. + +"Immortellement blanche!" Very white indeed!... Read the intimate +journal of Elsie Lindtner, written precisely by the side of one of these +fresh Northern lakes. Possibly at eighteen Elsie Lindtner may have +played at "Epiphanies" and filled "the pensive guardian of the mystic +orange tree" with admiration. But it is at forty-two that she begins to +edit her private diary, and her eyes that "match the hue of polar +nights" have seen a good deal in the course of those twenty years. And +if in the eyes of the law she has remained strictly faithful to her +marriage vows, she has judged herself in the secret depths of her heart. +She has also judged other women, her friends and confidants. The moment +of "the crisis" arrives, and, taking refuge in "a savage solitude," in +which even the sight of a male servant is hateful to her, she sets down +with disconcerting lucidity all she has observed in other women, and in +herself. These other women are also of the North: Lillie Rothe, Agatha +Ussing, Astrid Bagge, Margarethe Ernst, Magna Wellmann.... Her memory +invokes them all, and they reappear. We seem to take part in a strange, +painful revel; a witches' revel of ardent yet withered sorceresses; a +revel in which the modern demons of Neurasthenia and Hysteria sport and +sneer. + + * * * * * + +Let us not be mistaken, however. Elsie Lindtner's confession is not +merely to be weighed by its fierce physiological sincerity; it is the +feminine soul, and the feminine soul of all time, that is revealed in +this extraordinary document. I think nothing less would give out such a +pungent odour of truth. _The Dangerous Age_ contains pages dealing with +women's smiles and tears, with their love of dress and desire to please, +and with the social relations between themselves and the male sex, which +will certainly irritate some feminine readers. Let them try to unravel +the real cause of their annoyance: perhaps they will perceive that they +are actually vexed because a woman has betrayed the freemasonry that +exists among their own sex. We must add that we are dealing here with +another nation, and every Frenchwoman may, if she choose, decline to +recognise herself among these portraits from Northern Europe. + +A sure diagnosis of the vital conditions under which woman exists, and +an acute observation of her complicated soul--these two things alone +would suffice, would they not, to recommend the novel in which they were +to be found? But _The Dangerous Age_ possesses another quality which, at +first sight, seems to have no connection with the foregoing: it is by no +means lacking in emotion. Notwithstanding that she has the eye of the +doctor and the psychologist, Elsie Lindtner, the heroine, has also the +nerves and sensibility of a woman. Her daring powers of analysis do not +save her from moments of mysterious terror, such as came over her, for +no particular reason, on a foggy evening; nor yet from the sense of +being utterly happy--equally without reason--on a certain autumn night; +nor from feeling an intense sensuous pleasure in letting the little +pebbles on the beach slide between her fingers. In a word, all the +harshness of her judgments and reflections do not save her from the +dreadful distress of growing old.... + +In vain she withdraws from the society of her fellow-creatures, in the +hope that old age will no longer have terrors for her when there is no +one at hand to watch her physical decay; the redoubtable phantom still +haunts her in her retreat; watches her, brushes past her, and mocks her +sincere effort to abandon all coquetry and cease "to count as a woman." +At the same time a cruel melancholia possesses her; she feels she has +become old without having profited by her youth. Not that she descends +to the coarse and libertine regrets of "grand'mère" in Béranger's song, +"Ah! que je regrette!" Elsie Lindtner declares more than once that if +she had to start life over again she would be just as irreproachable. +But the nearer she gets to the crisis, the more painfully and lucidly +she perceives the antinomy between two feminine desires: the desire of +moral dignity and the desire of physical enjoyment. In a woman of her +temperament this need of moral dignity becomes increasingly imperious +the more men harass her with their desires--an admirable piece of +observation which I believe to be quite new. Moral resistance becomes +weaker in proportion as the insistent passion of men becomes rarer and +less active. She will end by yielding entirely when men cease to find +her desirable. Then, even the most honourable of women, finding herself +no longer desired, will perhaps lose the sense of her dignity so far as +to send out a despairing appeal to the companion who is fleeing from +her.... + +Such is the inward conflict which forms the subject of _The Dangerous +Age_. It must be conceded that it lacks neither greatness nor human +interest. + + * * * * * + +I wish to add a few lines in order to record here an impression which I +experienced while reading the very first pages of _The Dangerous Age_; +an impression that became deeper and clearer when I had closed the book. + +_The Dangerous Age_ is one of those rare novels by a woman in which the +writer has not troubled to think from a man's point of view. I lay +stress upon this peculiarity because it is _very rare_, especially among +the contemporary works of Frenchwomen. + +The majority of our French authoresses give us novels in which their +ambition to think, to construct and to write in a masculine style is +clearly perceptible. And nothing, I imagine, gives them greater pleasure +than when, thanks to their pseudonyms, their readers actually take them +for men writers. + +Therefore all this mass of feminine literature in France, with three or +four exceptions--all this mass of literature of which I am far from +denying the merits--has really told us nothing new about the soul of +woman. A strange result is that not a single woman writer of the present +day is known as a specialist in feminine psychology. + +Karin Michaëlis has been inspired to write a study of womankind without +trying to interpose between her thought and the paper the mind and +vision of a man. The outcome is astonishing. I have said that the +construction of the novel is solid; but no man could have built it up in +that way. It moves to a definite goal by a sure path; yet its style is +variable like the ways of every woman, even if she be completely +mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like +carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they +circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or +temptation to turn back from their course.... + +Elsie Lindtner's journal shows us many examples of these circling +flights and retrogressions. Sometimes too we observe a gap, an empty +space, in which words and ideas seem to have failed. Again, there are +sudden leaps from one subject to another, the true thought appearing, +notwithstanding, beneath the artificial thought which is written down. +Sometimes there comes an abrupt and painful pause, as though somebody +walking absent-mindedly along the road found themselves brought up by a +yawning cleft.... + +This cinematograph of feminine thought, stubborn yet disconnected, is to +my mind the principal literary merit of the book; more so even than its +strength and brevity of style. + + * * * * * + +For all these reasons, it seemed to me that _The Dangerous Age_ was +worthy to be presented to the public in a French translation. The _Revue +de Paris_ also thought it worthy to be published in its pages. I shall +be astonished if French readers do not confirm this twofold judgment, +offering to this foreign novel the same favourable reception that has +already been accorded to it outside its little native land. + +MARCEL PRÉVOST. + + + + +_The Dangerous Age_ + + + + +MY DEAR LILLIE, + +Obviously it would have been the right thing to give you my news in +person--apart from the fact that I should then have enjoyed the amusing +spectacle of your horror! But I could not make up my mind to this +course. + +All the same, upon my word of honour, you, dear innocent soul, are the +only person to whom I have made any direct communication on the subject. +It is at once your great virtue and defect that you find everything that +everybody does quite right and reasonable--you, the wife eternally in +love with her husband; eternally watching over your children like a +brood-hen. + +You are really virtuous, Lillie. But I may add that you have no reason +for being anything else. For you, life is like a long and pleasant day +spent in a hammock under a shady tree--your husband at the head and your +children at the foot of your couch. + +You ought to have been a mother stork, dwelling in an old cart-wheel on +the roof of some peasant's cottage. + +For you, life is fair and sweet, and all humanity angelic. Your +relations with the outer world are calm and equable, without temptation +to any passions but such as are perfectly legal. At eighty you will +still be the virtuous mate of your husband. + +Don't you see that I envy you? Not on account of your husband--you may +keep him and welcome! Not on account of your lanky maypoles of +daughters--for I have not the least wish to be five times running a +mother-in-law, a fate which will probably overtake you. No! I envy your +superb balance and your imperturbable joy in life. + +I am out of sorts to-day. We have dined out twice running, and you know +I cannot endure too much light and racket. + +We shall meet no more, you and I. How strange it will seem. We had so +much in common besides our portly dressmaker and our masseuse with her +shiny, greasy hands! Well, anyhow, let us be thankful to the masseuse +for our slender hips. + +I shall miss you. Wherever you were, the atmosphere was cordial. Even on +the summit of the Blocksberg, the chillest, barest spot on earth, you +would impart some warmth. + +Lillie Rothe, dear cousin, do not have a fit on reading my news: +_Richard and I are going to be divorced_. + +Or rather, we _are_ divorced. + +Thanks to the kindly intervention of the Minister of Justice, the affair +was managed quickly and without fuss, as you see. After twenty-two years +of married life, almost as exemplary as your own, we are going our +separate ways. + +You are crying, Lillie, because you are such a kind, heaven-sent, +tender-hearted creature. But spare your tears. You are really fond of +me, and when I tell you that all has happened for the best, you will +believe me, and dry your eyes. + +There is no special reason for our divorce. None at least that is +palpable, or explicable, to the world. As far as I know, Richard has no +entanglements; and I have no lover. Neither have we lost our wits, nor +become religious maniacs. There is no shadow of scandal connected with +our separation beyond that which must inevitably arise when two +middle-aged partners throw down the cards in the middle of the rubber. + +It has cost my vanity a fierce struggle. I, who made it such a point of +honour to live unassailable and pass as irreproachable. I, who am +mortally afraid of the judgment of my fellow creatures--to let loose the +gossips' tongues in this way! + +I, who have always maintained that the most wretched _ménage_ was better +than none at all, and that an unmarried or divorced woman had no right +to expect more than the semi-existence of a Pariah! I, who thought +divorce between any but a very young couple an unpardonable folly! Here +am I, breaking a union that has been completely harmonious and happy! + +You will begin to realize, dear Lillie, that this is a serious matter. + +For a whole year I delayed taking the final step; and if I hesitated so +long before realizing my intention, it was partly in order to test my +own feelings, and partly for practical reasons; for I _am_ practical, +and I could not fancy myself leaving my house in the Old Market Place +without knowing where I was going to. + +My real reason is so simple and clear that few will be content to accept +it. But I have no other, so what am I to do? + +You know, like the rest of the world, that Richard and I have got on as +well as any two people of opposite sex ever can do. There has never been +an angry word between us. But one day the impulse--or whatever you like +to call it--took possession of me that I must live alone--quite alone +and all to myself. Call it an absurd idea, an impossible fancy; call it +hysteria--which perhaps it is--I must get right away from everybody and +everything. It is a blow to Richard, but I hope he will soon get over +it. In the long run his factory will make up for my loss. + +We concealed the business very nicely. The garden party we gave last +week was a kind of "farewell performance." Did you suspect anything at +all? We are people of the world and know how to play the game...! + +If I am leaving to-night, it is not altogether because I want to be +"over the hills" before the scandal leaks out, but because I have an +indescribable longing for solitude. + +Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little villa for me--without +having the least idea I was to be the occupant. + +The house is on an island, the name of which I will keep to myself for +the present. The rooms are fourteen feet high, and the dining-room can +hold thirty-six guests. There are only two reception-rooms. But what +more could a divorced woman of my age require? The rest of the +house--the upper storey--consists of smaller rooms, with bay-windows and +balconies. My bedroom, isolated from all the others, has a glass roof, +like a studio. Another of my queer notions is to be able to look up from +my bed and see the sky above me. I think it is good for the nerves, and +mine are in a terrible condition. + +So in future, having no dear men, I can flirt with the little stars in +God's heaven. + +Moreover, my villa is remarkable for its beautiful situation, its +fortress-like architecture, and--please make a note of this--its +splendid inhospitality. The garden hedge which encloses it is as high as +the wall of the women's penitentiary at Christianshafen. The gates are +never open, and there is no lodge-keeper. The forest adjoins the garden, +and the garden runs down to the water's edge. The original owner of the +estate was a crank who lived in a hut, which was so overgrown with moss +and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything +given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. +At the same time, I have engaged a first-rate cook, called Torp, who +seems to have the cookery of every country as pat as the Lord's Prayer. +I have no intention of living upon bread and water and virtue. + +I shall manage without a footman, although I have rather a weakness for +menservants. But my income will not permit of such luxuries; or rather I +have no idea how far my money will go. I should not care to accept +Richard's generous offer to make me a yearly allowance. + +I have also engaged a housemaid, whose name is Jeanne. She has the most +wonderful amber-coloured eyes, flaming red hair, and long, pointed +fingers, so well kept that I cannot help wondering where she got them +from. Torp and Jeanne will make the sum-total of my society, so that I +shall have every opportunity of living upon my own inner resources. + +Dear Lillie, do all you can to put a stop to the worst and most +disgusting gossip, now you know the true circumstances of the case. One +more thing, in profound confidence, and on the understanding that you +will not say a word about it to my husband: Joergen Malthe, dear +fellow, formerly honoured me with his youthful affections--as you all +knew, to your great amusement. Probably, like a true man, he will be +quite frantic when he hears of my strange retirement. Be a little kind +and friendly to the poor boy, and make him understand that there is no +mystical reason for my departure. + +Later on, when I have had time to rest a little, I shall be delighted to +hear from you; although I foresee that five-sixths of the letters will +be about your children, and the remaining sixth devoted to your +husband--whereas I would rather it was all about yourself, and our dear +town, with its life and strife. I have not taken the veil; I may still +endure to hear echoes of all the town gossip. + +If you were here, you would ask what I proposed to do with myself. Well, +dear Lillie, I have not left my frocks nor my mirror behind me. +Moreover, time has this wonderful property that, unlike the clocks, it +goes of itself without having to be wound up. I have the sea, the +forest; my piano, and my house. If time really hangs heavy on my hands, +there is no reason why I should not darn the linen for Torp! + +Should it happen by any chance--which God forbid--that I were struck +dead by lightning, or succumbed to a heart attack, would you, acting as +my cousin, and closest friend, undertake to put my belongings in order? +Not that you would find things in actual disorder; but all the same +there would be a kind of semi-order. I do not at all fancy the idea of +Richard routing among my papers now that we are no longer a married +couple. + +With every good wish, + Your cousin, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + + + + +MY DEAR, KIND FRIEND, AND FORMER HUSBAND, + +Is there not a good deal of style about that form of address? Were you +not deeply touched at receiving, in a strange town, flowers sent by a +lady? If only the people understood my German and sent them to you in +time! + +For an instant a beautiful thought flashed through my mind: to welcome +you in this way in every town where you have to stay. But since I only +know the addresses of one or two florists in the capitals, and I am too +lazy to find out the others, I have given up this splendid folly, and +simply note it to my account as a "might-have-been." + +Shall I be quite frank, Richard? I am rather ashamed when I think of +you, and I can honestly say that I never respected you more than to-day. +But it could not have been otherwise. I want you to concentrate all your +will-power to convince yourself of this. If I had let myself be +persuaded to remain with you, after this great need for solitude had +laid hold upon me, I should have worried and tormented you every hour of +the day. + +Dearest and best friend, there is some truth in these words, spoken by I +know not whom: "Either a woman is made for marriage, and then it +practically does not matter to whom she is married, she will soon +understand how to fulfil her destiny; or she is unsuited to matrimony, +in which case she commits a crime against her own personality when she +binds herself to any man." + +Apparently, I was not meant for married life. Otherwise I should have +lived happily for ever and a day with you--and you know that was not the +case. But you are not to blame. I wish in my heart of hearts that I had +something to reproach you with--but I have nothing against you of any +sort or kind. + +It was a great mistake--a cowardly act--to promise you yesterday that I +would return if I regretted my decision. I _know_ I shall never regret +it. But in making such a promise I am directly hindering you.... Forgive +me, dear friend ... but it is not impossible that you may some day meet +a woman who could become something to you. Will you let me take back my +promise? I shall be grateful to you. Then only can I feel myself really +free. + +When you return home, stand firm if your friends overwhelm you with +questions and sympathy. I should be deeply humiliated if anyone--no +matter who--were to pry into the good and bad times we have shared +together. Bygones are bygones, and no one can actually realise what +takes place between two human beings, even when they have been +onlookers. + +Think of me when you sit down to dinner. Henceforward eight o'clock will +probably be my bedtime. On the other hand I shall rise with the sun, or +perhaps earlier. Think of me, but do not write too often. I must first +settle down tranquilly to my new life. Later on, I shall enjoy writing +you a condensed account of all the follies which can be committed by a +woman who suddenly finds herself at a mature age complete mistress of +her actions. + +Follow my advice, offered for the twentieth time: go on seeing your +friends; you cannot do without them. Really there is no need for you to +mourn for a year with crape on the chandeliers and immortelles around my +portrait. + +You have been a kind, faithful, and delicate-minded friend to me, and I +am not so lacking in delicacy myself that I do not appreciate this in my +inmost heart. But I cannot accept your generous offer to give me money. +I now tell you this for the first time, because, had I said so before, +you would have done your best to over-persuade me. My small income is, +and will be, sufficient for my needs. + +The train leaves in an hour. Richard, you have your business and your +friends--more friends than anyone I know. If you wish me well, wish that +I may never regret the step I have taken. I look down at my hands that +you loved--I wish I could stretch them out to you.... + +A man must not let himself be crushed. It would hurt me to feel that +people pitied you. You are much too good to be pitied. + +Certainly it would have been better if, as you said, one of us had +died. But in that case you would have had to take the plunge into +eternity, for I am looking forward with joy to life on my island. + +For twenty years I have lived under the shadow of your wing in the Old +Market Place. May I live another twenty under the great forest trees, +wedded to solitude. + +How the gossips will gossip! But we two, clever people, will laugh at +their gossip. + +Forgive me, Richard, to-day and always, the trouble I have brought upon +you. I would have stayed with you if I could. Thank you for all.... + + ELSIE. + +That my feeling for you should have died, is quite as incomprehensible +to me as to you. No other man has ever claimed a corner of my heart. In +a word, having considered the question all round, I am suffering simply +from a nervous malady--alas! it is incurable! + + + + +MY DEAR MALTHE, + +We two are friends, are we not, and I think we shall always remain so, +even now that fate has severed our ways? If you feel that you have any +good reason for being angry with me now, then, indeed, our friendship +will be broken; for we shall have no further opportunity of becoming +reconciled. + +If at this important juncture I not only hid the truth from you, but +deliberately misled you, it was not from any lack of confidence in you, +or with the wish to be unfriendly. I beg you to believe this. The fact +that I cannot even now explain to you my reasons for acting thus makes +it all the more difficult to justify my conduct to you. Therefore you +must be contented to take my word for it. Joergen Malthe, I would gladly +confide in you, but it is impossible. Call it madness, or what you will, +but I cannot allow any human being to penetrate my inner life. + +You will not have forgotten that September evening last year, when I +spoke to you for the first time about one of my friends who was going to +separate from her husband, and who, through my intervention, asked you +to draw the plan of a villa in which she might spend the rest of her +days in solitude? You entered so completely into this idea of a solitary +retreat that your plan was almost perfect. Every time we met last year +we talked about the "White Villa," as we called it, and it pleased us to +share this little secret together. Nor were you less interested in the +interior of the house; in making sketches for the furniture, and +arranging the decorations. You took a real delight in this task, +although you were annoyed that you had no personal knowledge of your +client. You remember that I said to you sometimes in joke: "Plan it as +though it were for me"; and I cannot forget what you replied one day: "I +hate the idea of a stranger living in the house which I planned with you +always in my mind." + +Judge for yourself, Malthe, how painful it was to leave you in error. +But I could not speak out then, for I had to consider my husband. For +this reason I avoided meeting you during the summer; I found it +impossible to keep up the deception when we were face to face. + +It is I--I myself--who will live in the "White Villa." I shall live +there quite alone. + +It is useless for me to say, "Do not be angry." You would not be what +you are if you were not annoyed about it. + +You are young, life lies before you. I am old. In a very few years I +shall be so old that you will not be able to realise that there was a +time when I was "the one woman in the world" for you. I am not harping +on your youth in order to vex you--your youth that you hate for my sake! +I know that you are not fickle; but I know, too, that the laws of life +and the march of time are alike inexorable. + +When I enter the new home you have planned for me, a lonely and divorced +woman, I shall think of you every day, and my thoughts will speak more +cordial thanks than I can set down coldly in black and white on this +paper. + +I do not forbid you to write to me, but, save for a word of farewell, I +would prefer your silence. No letters exchanged between us could bring +back so much as a reflection of the happy hours we have spent together. +Hours in which we talked of everything, and chiefly of nothing at all. + +I do not think we were very brilliant when we were together; but we were +never bored. If my absence brings you suffering, disappointment, +grief--lose yourself in your work, so that in my solitude I may still be +proud of you. + +You taught me to use my eyes, and there is much, much in the world I +should like to see, for, thanks to you, I have learnt how beautiful the +world is. But the wisest course for me is to give myself up to my chosen +destiny. I shut the door of my "White Villa"--and there my story ends. + + Your + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +Reading through my letter, it seems to me cold and dry. But it is harder +to write such a letter to a dear friend than to a stranger. + + + + + LANDED ON MY ISLAND. + CREPT INTO MY LAIR. + +The first day is over. Heaven help me through those to come! Everything +here disgusts me, from the smell of the new woodwork and the half-dried +wallpapers to the pattering of the rain over my head. + +What an idiotic notion of mine to have a glass roof to my bedroom! I +feel as though I were living under an umbrella through which the water +might come dripping at any moment. During the night this will probably +happen. The panes of glass, unless they are very closely joined +together, will let the water through, and I shall awake in a pool of +water. + +Awake, indeed! If only I ever get to sleep! My head aches and burns from +sheer fatigue, but I have not even thought of getting into bed yet. + +For the last year I have had plenty of time to think things over, and +now I am at a loss to understand why I have done this. Suppose it is a +piece of stupidity--a carefully planned and irrevocable folly? Suppose +my irritable nerves have played a trick upon me? Suppose ... suppose ... + +I feel lonely and without will power. I am frightened. But the step is +taken; and I can never turn back. I must never let myself regret it. + +This constant rain gives me an icy, damp feeling down my back. It gets +on my nerves. + +What shall I come to, reduced to the society of two females who have +nothing in common with me but our sex? No one to speak to, no one to +see. Jeanne is certainly attractive to look at, but I cannot converse +with her. As to Torp, she suits her basement as a gnome suits his +mountain cave. She looks as though she was made to repopulate a desert +unaided. She wears stays that are crooked back and front. + +Never in all my life have I felt so disappointed, and compelled to put a +good face upon a bad business, as when I splashed through the wet +garden and entered the empty house where there was not even a flower to +welcome my arrival. The rooms are too large and bare.... Why did I not +think of that before? + +All the same, decorum must be maintained, and my entry was not +undignified. + +Ah, the rain, the rain! Jeanne and Torp are still cleaning up. They mean +to go on half the night, scrubbing and sweeping as though we expected +company to-morrow. I start unpacking my trunk, take out a few things and +stop--begin again and stop again, horrified at the quantity of clothes +I've brought. It would have been more sensible to send them to one of +our beloved "charity sales." They are of no use or pleasure now. Black +merino and a white woollen shawl--what more do I want here? + +God knows how I wish at the present moment I were back in the Old Market +Place, even if I only had Richard's society to bore me. + +What am I doing here? What do I want here? To cry, without having to +give an account of one's tears to anyone? + +Of course, all this is only the result of the rain. I was longing to be +here. It was not a mere hysterical whim. No, no.... + +It was my own wish to bury myself here. + + * * * * * + +Yesterday I was all nerves. To-day I feel as fresh and lively as a +cricket. + +We have been hanging the pictures, and made thirty-six superfluous holes +in the new walls. There is no way of concealing them. (I must write to +Richard to have my engravings framed.) It would be stretching a point to +say we are skilled picture-hangers; we were nearly as awkward as men +when they try to hook a woman's dress for her. But the pictures were +hung somehow, and look rather nice now they are up. + +But why on earth did I give Torp my sketch of "A Villa by the Sea" to +hang in her kitchen? Was I afraid to have it near me? Or was it some +stupid wish to hurt _his_ feelings? _His_ only gift.... I feel ashamed +of myself. + +Jeanne has arranged flowers everywhere, and that helps to make the house +more homelike. + +The place is mine, and I take possession of it. Now the sun is shining. +I find pleasure in examining each article of furniture and remembering +the days when we discussed the designs together. I ought not to have let +him do all that. It was senseless of me. + + * * * * * + +They are much to be envied who can pass away the time in their own +society. I am in my element when I can watch other people blowing +soap-bubbles; but to blow them myself.... + +I am not really clever at creating comfortable surroundings. Far from +it. My white villa always looks uninhabited, in spite of all the flowers +with which I allow Jeanne to decorate the rooms. Is it because +everything smells so new? Or because there are no old smells? Here there +are no whiffs of dust, smoke, or benzine, nor anything which made the +Old Market Place the Old Market Place. Everything is so clean here that +one hesitates to move a step. The boards are as shiny as though they +were polished silver.... This very moment Torp appeared in felt shoes +and implored me to get her a strip of oilcloth to save her kitchen +floor. I feel just the same; I scarcely dare defile this spotless +pitchpine. + + * * * * * + +What is the use of all these discussions and articles about the equality +of the sexes, so long as we women are at times the slaves of an +inevitable necessity? I have suffered more than ever the last few days, +perhaps because I was so utterly alone. Not a human being to speak to. +Yes, I ought to have stayed in bed if only to conceal my ugliness. In +town I was wise. But here ... + + * * * * * + +All the same I am proud of my self-control. Many women do not possess as +much. + +The moon is in her first quarter; a cold dry wind is blowing up; it +makes one cough merely to hear it whistle. + +I hate winds of all kinds, and here my enemy seems to have free entry. I +ought to have built my house facing south and in some hollow sheltered +from the wind. Unfortunately it looks to the north, straight across the +open sea. + +I have not yet been outside the garden. I have made up my mind to keep +to this little spot as long as possible. I shall get accustomed to it. I +_must_ get accustomed to it. + +Dear souls, how they worry me with their letters. Only Malthe keeps +silence. Will he deign to answer me? + +Jeanne follows me with her eyes as though she wanted to learn some art +from me. What art? + +Good heavens, what can that girl be doing here? + +She does not seem made for the celibate life of a desert island. Yet I +cannot set up a footman to keep her company. I will not have men's eyes +prying about my house, I have had enough of that. + +A manservant--that would mean love affairs, squabbles, and troubles; or +marriage, and a change of domestics. No, I have a right to peace, and I +will secure it. The worst that could happen to me would be to find +myself reduced to playing whist with Jeanne and Torp. Well, why not? + +Torp spends all her evenings playing patience on the kitchen +window-sill. Perhaps she is telling her fortune and wondering whether +some good-looking sailor will be wrecked on the shores of her desert +island. + +Meanwhile Jeanne goes about in silk stockings. This rather astonishes +me. Lillie reproved me for the pernicious custom. Are they a real +necessity for Jeanne, or does she know the masculine taste so well? + + * * * * * + +From all the birch trees that stand quivering around the house a golden +rain is falling. There is not a breath of wind, but the leaves keep +dropping, dropping. This morning I stood on the little balcony and +looked out over the forest. I do not know why or wherefore, but such a +sense of quiet came over me. I seemed to hear the words: "and behold it +was very good." Was it the warm russet tint of the trees or the profound +perfume of the woods that induced this calm? + +All day long I have been thinking of Malthe, and I feel so glad I have +acted as I have done. But he might have answered my letter. + +Jeanne has discovered the secret of my hair. She asked permission to +dress it for me in the evening when my hair is "awake." She is quite an +artist in this line, and I let her occupy herself with it as long as she +pleased. She pinned it up, then let it down again; coiled it round my +forehead like a turban; twisted it into a Grecian knot; parted and +smoothed it down on each side of my head like a hood. She played with it +and arranged it a dozen different ways like a bouquet of wild flowers. + +My hair is still my pride, although it is losing its gloss and colour. +Jeanne said, by way of consolation, that it was like a wood in late +autumn.... + +I should like to know whether this girl sprang from the gutter, or was +the child of poor, honest parents.... + + * * * * * + +"Thousands of women may look at the man they love with their whole soul +in their eyes, and the man will remain as unmoved as a stone by the +wayside. And then a woman will pass by who has no soul, but whose +artificial smile has a mysterious power to spur the best of men to +painful desire...." + +One day I found these words underlined in a book left open on my table. +Who left it there, I cannot say; nor whether it was underlined with the +intention of hurting my feelings, or merely by chance. + + * * * * * + +I sit here waiting for my mortal enemy. Will he come gliding in +imperceptibly or stand suddenly before me? Will he overcome me, or +shall I prove the stronger? I am prepared--but is that sufficient? + +Torp is really too romantic! To-day it pleased her to decorate the table +with Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper festooned the hanging lamp; +Virginia creeper crept over the cloth. Even the joint was decked out +with wine-red leaves, until it looked like a ship flying all her flags +on the King's birthday. Amid all this pomp and ceremony, I sat all +alone, without a human being for whom I might have made myself smart. I, +who for the last twenty years, have never even dressed the salad without +at least one pair of eyes watching me toss the lettuce as though I was +performing some wonderful Indian conjuring trick. + +A festal board at which one sits in solitary grandeur is the dreariest +thing imaginable. + +I rather wish Torp had less "style," as she calls it. Undoubtedly she +has lived in large establishments and has picked up some habits and +customs from each of them. She is welcome to wait at table in white +cotton gloves and to perch a huge silk bow on her hair, which is +redolent of the kitchen, but when it comes to trimming her poor +work-worn nails to the fashionable pyramidal shape--she really becomes +tragic. + +She "romanticises" everything. I should not be at all surprised if some +day she decked her kitchen range with wreaths of roses and hung up works +of art between the stewpans. + +I am really glad I did not bring Samuel the footman with me. He could +not have waited on me better than Jeanne, and at any rate I am free from +his eyes, which, in spite of all their respectful looks, always reminded +me of a fly-paper full of dead and dying flies. + +Jeanne's look has a something gliding and subtle about it that keeps me +company like a witty conversation. It is really on her account that I +dress myself well. But I cannot converse with her. I should not like to +try, and then to be disillusioned. + +Men have often assured me that I was the only woman they could talk with +as though I were one of themselves. Personally I never feel at one with +menkind. I only understand and admire my own sex. + +In reality I think there is more difference between a man and a woman +than between an inert stone and a growing plant. I say this ... I +who ... + + * * * * * + +What business is it of mine? We were not really friends. The fact of her +having confided in me makes no demands on my feelings. If this thing had +happened five years ago, I should have taken it as a rather welcome +sensation--nothing more. Or had I read in the paper "On the--inst., of +heart disease, or typhoid fever," my peace of mind would not have been +disturbed for an hour. + +I have purposely refrained from reading the papers lately. Chancing to +open one to-day, after a month's complete ignorance of all that had been +happening in the world, I saw the following headline: Suicide of a Lady +in a Lunatic Asylum. + +And now I feel as shaken as though I had taken part in a crime; as +though I had had some share in this woman's death. + +I am so far to blame that I abandoned her at a moment when it might +still have been possible to save her.... But this is a morbid notion! If +a person wants "to shuffle off this mortal coil" it is nobody's duty to +prevent her. + +To me, Agatha Ussing's life or death are secondary matters; it is only +the circumstances that trouble me. + +Was she mad, or no? Undoubtedly not more insane than the rest of us, but +her self-control snapped like a bowstring which is overstrained. She +saw--so she said--a grinning death's head behind every smiling face. +Merely a bee in her bonnet! But she was foolish enough to talk about it; +and when people laughed at her words with a good-natured contempt, her +glance became searching and fixed as though she was trying to convince +herself. Such an awful look of terror haunted her eyes, that at her gaze +a cold shiver, born of one's own fears and forebodings, ran through one. + +She compelled us to realise the things we scarcely dare foresee.... + +I shall never forget a letter in which she wrote these words in a queer, +faltering handwriting: + +"If men suspected what took place in a woman's inner life after forty, +they would avoid us like the plague, or knock us on the head like mad +dogs." + +Such a philosophy of life ended in the poor woman being shut up in a +madhouse. She ought to have kept it to herself instead of posting it up +on the walls of her house. It was quite sufficient as a proof of her +insanity. + +I cannot think what induced me to visit her in the asylum. Not pure +pity. I was prompted rather by that kind of painful curiosity which +makes a patient ask to see a limb which has just been amputated. I +wanted to look with my own eyes into that shadowy future which Agatha +had reached before me. + +What did I discover? She had never cared for her husband; on the +contrary she had betrayed him with an effrontery that would hardly have +been tolerated outside the smart world; yet now she suffered the +torments of hell from jealousy of her husband. Not of her lovers; their +day was over; but of him, because he was the one man she saw. Also +because she bore his name and was therefore bound to him. + +On every other subject she was perfectly sane. When we were left alone +together she said: "The worst of it is that I know my 'madness' will +only be temporary. It is a malady incident to my age. One day it will +pass away. One day I shall have got through the inevitable phase. But +how does that help me now?" + +No, it was no more help to her than the dreadful paint with which she +plastered her haggard features. + +It was not the least use to her.... + +Her death is the best thing that could have happened, for her own sake +and for those belonging to her. But I cannot take my thoughts off the +hours which preceded her end; the time that passed between the moment +when she decided to commit suicide until she actually carried out her +resolve. + + * * * * * + +"If men suspected ..." + +It may safely be said that on the whole surface of the globe not one man +exists who really knows a woman. + +They know us in the same way as the bees know the flowers; by the +various perfumes they impart to the honey. No more. + +How could it be otherwise? If a woman took infinite pains to reveal +herself to a husband or a lover just as she really is, he would think +she was suffering from some incurable mental disease. + +A few of us indicate our true natures in hysterical outbreaks, fits of +bitterness and suspicion; but this involuntary frankness is generally +discounted by some subtle deceit. + +Do men and women ever tell each other the truth? How often does that +happen? More often than not, I think, they deal in half-lies, hiding +this, embroidering that, fact. + +Between the sexes reigns an ineradicable hostility. It is concealed +because life has to be lived, because it is easier and more convenient +to keep it in the background; but it is always there, even in those +supreme moments when the sexes fulfil their highest destiny. + +A woman who knows other women and understands them, could easily prove +this in so many words; and every woman who heard her--provided they were +alone--would confess she was right. But if a man should join in the +conversation, both women would stamp truth underfoot as though it were a +venomous reptile. + +Men can be sincere both with themselves and others; but women cannot. +They are corrupted from birth. Later on, education, intercourse with +other women and finally marriage, corrupt them still more. + +A woman may love a man more than her own life; may sacrifice her time, +her health, her existence to him. But if she is wholly a woman, she +cannot give him her confidence. + +She cannot, because she dares not. + +In the same way a man--for a certain length of time--can love without +measure. He can then be unlocked like a cabinet full of secret drawers +and pigeonholes, of which we hold the keys. He discloses himself, his +present and his past. A woman, even in the closest bonds of love, never +reveals more of herself than reason demands. + +Her modesty differs entirely from that of a male. She would rather be +guilty of incest than reveal to a man the hidden thoughts which +sometimes, without the least scruple, she will confide to another woman. +Friendship between men is a very different thing. Something honest and +frank, from which consequently they withdraw without anger, mutual +obligation, or fear. Friendship between women is a kind of masonic oath; +the breaking of it a mutual crime. When two women friends quarrel, they +generally continue to carry deadly weapons against each other, which +they are only restrained from using by mutual fear. + +There _are_ honest women. At least we believe there are. It is a +necessary part of our belief. Who does not think well of mother or +sister? But who _believes entirely_ in a mother or a sister? Absolutely +and unconditionally? Who has never caught mother or sister in a +falsehood or a subterfuge? Who has not sometimes seen in the heart of +mother or sister, as by a lightning flash, an abyss which the +profoundest love cannot bridge over? + +Who has ever really understood his mother or sister? + +The human being dwells and moves alone. Each woman dwells in her own +planet formed of centrifugal fires enveloped in a thin crust of earth. +And as each star runs its eternal course through space, isolated amid +countless myriads of other stars, so each woman goes her solitary way +through life. + +It would be better for her if she walked barefoot over red-hot +ploughshares, for the pain she would suffer would be slight indeed +compared to that which she must feel when, with a smile on her lips, she +leaves her own youth behind and enters the regions of despair we call +"growing old," and "old age...." + +All this philosophizing is the result, no doubt, of having eaten +halibut for lunch; it is a solid fish and difficult to digest. + +Perhaps, too, having no company but Jeanne and Torp, I am reduced to my +own aimless reflections. + +Just as clothes exercise no influence on the majority of men, so their +emotional life is not much affected by circumstances. With us women it +is otherwise. We really _are_ different women according to the dresses +we wear. We assume a personality in accord with our costume. We laugh, +talk and act at the caprice of purely external circumstances. + +Take for instance a woman who wants to confide in another. She will do +it in quite a different way in broad daylight in a drawing-room than in +her little "den" in the gloaming, even if in both cases she happens to +be quite alone with her confidante. + +If some women are specially honoured as the recipients of many +confidences from their own sex, I am convinced they owe it more to +physical than moral qualities. As there are some rooms of which the +atmosphere is so cosey and inviting that we feel ourselves at home in +them without a word of welcome, so we find certain women who seem to be +endowed with such receptivity that they invite the confidences of +others. + +The history of smiles has never yet been written, simply because the few +women capable of writing it would not betray their sex. As to men, they +are as ignorant on this point as on everything else which concerns +women--not excepting love. + +I have conversed with many famous women's doctors, and have pretended to +admire their knowledge, while inwardly I was much amused at their +simplicity. They know how to cut us open and stitch us up again--as +children open their dolls to see the sawdust with which they are stuffed +and sew them up afterwards with a needle and thread. But they get no +further. Yes--a little further perhaps. Possibly in course of time they +begin to discover that women are so infinitely their superiors in +falsehood that their wisest course is to appear once and for all to +believe them then and there.... + +Women's doctors may be as clever and sly as they please, but they will +never learn any of the things that women confide to each other. It is +inevitable. Between the sexes lies not only a deep, eternal hostility, +but the unfathomable abyss of a complete lack of reciprocal +comprehension. + +For instance, all the words in a language will never express what a +smile will express--and between women a smile is like a masonic sign; we +can use them between ourselves without any fear of their being +misunderstood by the other sex. + +Smiles are a form of speech with which we alone are conversant. Our +smiles betray our instincts and our burdens; they reflect our virtues +and our inanity. + +But the cleverest women hide their real selves behind a factitious +smile. + +Men do not know how to smile. They look more or less benevolent, more or +less pleased, more or less love-smitten; but they are not pliable or +subtle enough to smile. A woman who is not sufficiently prudent to mask +her features, gives away her soul in a smile. I have known women who +revealed their whole natures in this way. + +No woman speaks aloud, but most women smile aloud. And the fact that in +so doing we unveil all our artifice, all the whirlpool of our inmost +being to each other, proves the extraordinary solidarity of our sex. + +When did one woman ever betray another? + +This loyalty is not rooted in noble sentiment, but proceeds rather from +the fear of betraying ourselves by revealing things that are the secret +common property of all womanhood. + +And yet, if a woman could be found willing to reveal her entire self?... + +I have often thought of the possibility, and at the present moment I am +not sure that she would not do our sex an infinite and eternal wrong. + +We are compounded so strangely of good and bad, truth and falsehood, +that it requires the most delicate touch to unravel the tangled skein of +our natures and find the starting point. + +No man is capable of the task. + +During recent years it has become the fashion for notorious women to +publish their reminiscences in the form of a diary. But has any woman +reader discovered in all this literature a single intimate feature, a +single frank revelation of all that is kept hidden behind a thousand +veils? + +If indeed one of these unhappy women ventured to write a plain, +unvarnished, but poignant, description of her inner life, where would +she find a publisher daring enough to let his name appear on the cover +of the book? + +I once knew a man who, stirred by a good and noble impulse, and +confident of his power, endeavoured to "save" a very young girl whom he +had rescued from a house of ill-fame. He took her home and treated her +like a sister. He lavished time and confidence upon her. His pride at +the transformation which took place in her passed all bounds. The girl +was as grateful as a mongrel and as modest as the bride in a romantic +novel. He then resolved to make her his wife. But one fine day she +vanished, leaving behind her a note containing these words: "Many thanks +for your kindness, but you bore me." + +During the whole time they had lived together, he had not grasped the +faintest notion of the girl's true nature; nor understood that to keep +her contented it was not sufficient to treat her kindly, but that she +required some equivalent for the odious excitements of the past. + + * * * * * + +All feminine confessions--except those between relations which are +generally commonplace and uninteresting--assume a kind of beauty in my +eyes; a warmth and solemnity that excuses the casting aside of all +conventional barriers. + +I remember one day--a day of oppressive heat and the heavy perfume of +roses--when, with a party of women friends, we began to talk about +tears. At first no one ventured to speak quite sincerely; but one thing +led to another until we were gradually caught in our own snares, and +finally we each gave out something that we had hitherto kept concealed +within us, as one locks up a deadly poison. + +Not one of us, it appeared, ever cried because of some imperative inward +need. Tears are nature's gift to us. It is our own affair whether we +squander or economise their use. + +Of all our confessions Sophie Harden's was the strangest. To her, tears +were a kind of erotic by-play, which added to the enjoyment of conjugal +life. Her husband, a good-natured creature, always believed he was to +blame, and she never enlightened him on the point. + +Most of the others owned that they had recourse to tears to work +themselves up when they wanted to make a scene. But Astrid Bagge, a +gentle, quiet housewife and mother, declared she kept all her troubles +for the evenings when her husband dined at the volunteer's mess, because +he hated to see anyone crying. Then she sat alone and in darkness and +wept away the accumulated annoyances of the week. + +When it came to my turn, I spoke the truth by chance when I said that, +however much I wanted to cry, I only permitted myself the luxury about +once in two years. I think my complexion is a conclusive proof that my +words were sincere. + +There are deserts which never know the refreshment of dew or rain. My +life has been such a desert. + +I, who like to receive confidences, have a morbid fear of giving them. +Perhaps it is because I was so much alone, so self-centred, in my +childhood. + +The more I reflect upon life, the more clearly I see that I have not +laid out my talents to the best advantage. I have no sweet memories of +infidelity; I have lived irreproachably--and now I am very tired. + +I sit here and write for myself alone. I know that no one else will ever +read my words; and yet I am not quite sincere, even with myself. + +Life has passed me by; my hands are empty; now it is too late. + +Once happiness knocked at my door, and I, poor fool, did not rise to +welcome it. + +I envy every country wench or servant girl who goes off with a lover. +But I sit here waiting for old age. + +Astrid Bagge.... As I write her name, I feel as though she were standing +weeping behind my back; I feel her tears dropping on my neck. I cannot +weep--but how I long for tears! + + * * * * * + +Autumn! Torp has made a huge fire of logs in the open grate. The burning +wood gives out an intoxicating perfume and fills the house with cosey +warmth. For want of something better to do I am looking after the fire +myself. I carefully strip the bark from each log before throwing it on +the flames. The smell of burning birch-bark goes to my head like strong +wine. Dreams come and go. + +Joergen Malthe, what a mere boy you are! + + * * * * * + +The garden looks like a neglected churchyard, forgotten of the living. +The virginia creeper falls in blood-red streamers from the verandah. The +snails drag themselves along in the rain; their slow movements remind me +of women _enceinte_. The hedge is covered with spiders' webs, and the +wet clay sticks to one's shoes as one walks on the paths. + +Yet there are people who think autumn a beautiful time of year! + + * * * * * + +My will is paralysed from self-disgust. I find myself involuntarily +listening and watching for the postman, who brings nothing for me. There +are moments when my fingers seem to be feeling the smoothness of the +cream-laid "At Home" cards which used to be showered upon us, especially +at this season. Towards evening I grow restless. Formerly my day was a +_crescendo_ of activity until the social hours were reached. Now the +hours fall one by one in ashes before my eyes. + +I am myself, yet not myself. There are moments when I envy every living +creature that has the right to pair--either from hate or from habit. I +am alone and shut out. What consolation is it to be able to say: "It was +my own choice!" + + * * * * * + +A letter from Malthe. + +No, I will not open it. I do not wish to know what he writes.... It is +a long letter. + + * * * * * + +My nerves are quiet. But I often lie awake, and my sleep is broken. The +stars are shining over my head, and I never before experienced such a +sense of repose and calm. Is this the effect of the stars, or the +letter? + +I am forty-two! It cannot be helped. I cannot buy back a single day of +my life. Forty-two! But during the night the thought does not trouble +me. The stars above reckon by ages, not by years, and sometimes I smile +to think that as soon as Richard returns home, the rooms in our house in +the Old Market will be lit up, and the usual set will assemble there +without me. + +The one thing I should like to know is whether Malthe is still in +Denmark. + +I would like to know where my thoughts should seek him--at home or +abroad. + +I played with him treacherously when I called him "the youth," and +treated him as a mere boy. If we compare our ages it is true enough, +but not if we compare feelings. + +Can there be anything meaner than for a woman to make fun of what is +really sacred to her? My feelings for Malthe were and still are sacred. +I myself have befouled them with my mockery. + +But when I am lying in my bed beneath the vast canopy of the sky, all my +sins seem forgiven me. Fate alone--Fate who bears all things on his +shoulders--is to blame, and I wish nothing undone. + +The letter will never be read. Never voluntarily by me. + + * * * * * + +I do not know the day of the week. That is one step nearer the goal for +which I long. May it come to pass that the weeks and months shall glide +imperceptibly over me, so that I shall only recognise the seasons by the +changing tints of the forest and the alternations of heat and cold. + +Alas, those days are still a long way off! + +I have just been having a conflict with myself, and I find that all the +time I have been living here as though I were spending a summer holiday +in Tyrol. I have been simply deceiving myself and playing with the +hidden thought that I could begin my life over again. + +I have shivered with terror at this self-deception. The last few nights +I have hardly slept at all. A traveller must feel the same who sails +across the sea ignorant of the country to which he journeys. Vaguely he +pictures it as resembling his native land, and lands to find himself in +a wilderness which he must plant and cultivate until it blossoms with +his new desires and dreams. By the time he has turned the desert into a +home, his day is over.... + + * * * * * + +If I could but make up my mind to burn that letter! I weigh it, first in +my right hand, then in my left. Sometimes its weight makes me happy; +sometimes it fills me with foreboding. Do the words weigh so heavy, or +only the paper? + +Last night I held it close to the candle. But when the flame touched my +letter, I drew it quickly away.--It is all I have left to me now.... + + * * * * * + +Richard writes to me that Malthe has been commissioned to build a great +hospital. Most of our great architects competed for the work. He goes on +to ask whether I am not proud of "my young friend." + +My young friend!... + + * * * * * + +Jeanne spoke to me about herself to-day. I think she was quite +bewildered by the extraordinary fall of leaves which has almost blinded +us the last three days. She was doing my hair, and tracing a line +straight across my forehead, she remarked: + +"Here should be a ribbon with red jewels." + +I told her that I had once had the same idea, but I had given it up out +of consideration for my fellow creatures. + +"But there are none here," she exclaimed, + +I replied laughing: + +"Then it is not worth while decking myself out!" + +Jeanne took out the pins and let my hair down. + +"If I were rich," she said, "I would dress for myself alone. Men neither +notice nor understand anything about it." + +We went on talking like two equals, and a few minutes later, remembering +what I had observed, I gave her some silk stockings. Instead of thanking +me, she remarked so suddenly that she took my breath away: + +"Once I sold myself for a pair of green silk stockings." + +I could not help asking the question: + +"Did you regret your bargain?" + +She looked me straight in the face: + +"I don't know. I only thought about my stockings." + +Naturally such conversations are rather risky; I shall avoid them in +future. But the riddle is more puzzling than ever. What brought Jeanne +to share my solitude on this island? + + * * * * * + +Now we have a man about the place. Torp got him. He digs in the garden +and chops wood. But the odour impregnates Torp and even reaches me. + +He makes eyes at Jeanne, who looks at me and smiles. Torp makes a fuss +of him, and every night I smell his pipe in the basement. + + * * * * * + +I have shut myself upstairs and played patience. The questions I put to +the cards come from that casket of memories the seven keys of which I +believed I had long since thrown into the sea. A wretched form of +amusement! But the piano makes me feel sad, and there is nothing else to +do. + +Malthe's letter is still intact. I wander around it like a mouse round a +trap of which it suspects the danger. My heart meanwhile yearns to know +what words he uses. + +He and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives. We owe that to +my wisdom. If he never sees me, he will never be able to forget me. + + * * * * * + +How could I suppose it for a single moment! There is no possibility of +remaining alone with oneself! No degree of seclusion, nor even life in a +cell, would suffice. Strong as is the call of freedom, the power of +memory is stronger; so that no one can ever choose his society at will. +Once we have lived with our kind, and become filled with the knowledge +of them, we are never free again. + +A sound, a scent--and behold a person, a scene, or a destiny, rises up +before us. Very often the phantoms that come thronging around me are +those of people whose existence is quite indifferent to me. But they +appear all the same--importunate, overbearing, inevitable. + +We may close our doors to visitors in the flesh; but we are forced to +welcome these phantoms of the memory; to notice them and converse with +them without reserve. + +People become like books to me. I read them through, turn the pages +lightly, annotate them, learn them by heart. Sometimes I am at fault; I +see them in a new light. Things that were not clear to me become plain; +what was apparently incomprehensible becomes as straightforward as a +commercial ledger. + +It might be a fascinating occupation if I could control the entire +collection of these memories; but I am the slave of those that come +unbidden. In the town it was just the reverse; one impression effaced +another. I did not realise that thought might become a burden. + + * * * * * + +The time draws on. The last few days my nerves have made me feverish and +restless; to-day for no special reason I opened and read all my letters, +except his. It was like reading old newspapers; yet my heart beat faster +with each one I opened. + +Life there in the city runs its course, only it has nothing more to do +with me, and before long I shall have dropped out of memory like one +long dead. All these hidden fears, all this solicitude, these good +wishes, preachings and forebodings--there is not a single genuine +feeling among the whole of them! + +Margethe Ernst is the only one of my old friends who is sincere and +does not let herself be carried away by false sentiment. She writes +cynically, brutally even: "An injection of morphia would have had just +the same effect on you; but everyone to his own taste." + +As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write +lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines. She +wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her +motherly wing. + +"He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans +for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to +come." + +His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget. + +As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two +ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a +fire or a play. Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from +my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the +trees. + +Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me +scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely +sleepless nights. Are they always as lonely as he makes out? + +As in the past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions and his +whole middle-class outlook. Yet for many years he dominated my senses, +which gives him a certain hold over me still. I cannot make up my mind +to take the brutal step which would free me once and for all from him. I +must let him go on believing that our life together was happy. + +Why did I read all these letters? What did I expect to find? A certain +vague hope stirred within me that if I opened them I should discover +something unexpected. + +The one remaining letter--shall I ever find courage to open it? I _will_ +not know what he has written. He does not write well I know. He is not a +good talker; his writing would probably be worse. And yet, I look upon +that sealed letter as a treasure. + +Merely touching it, I feel as though I was in the same room with him. + + * * * * * + +Lillie's letter has really done me good; her regal serenity makes itself +apparent beneath all she undertakes. It is wonderful that she does not +preach at me like the others. "You must know what is right for yourself +better than anybody else," she says. These words, coming from her, have +brought me unspeakable strength and comfort, even though I feel that she +can have no idea of what is actually taking place within me. + +Life for Lillie can be summed up in the words, "the serene passage of +the days." Happy Lillie. She glides into old age just as she glided into +marriage, smiling, tranquil, and contented. Nobody, nothing, can disturb +her quietude. + +It is so when both body and soul find their repose and happiness in the +same identical surroundings. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne, with some embarrassment, asked permission to use the bathroom. +I gave her leave. It is quite possible that living in the basement is +not to her taste. To put a bathroom down there would take nearly a +fortnight, and during that time I shall be deprived of my own, for I +cannot share my bathroom or my bedroom with anyone, least of all a +woman.... + +I shall never forget the one visit I paid to the Russian baths and the +sight of Hilda Bang. Clothed, she presents rather a fine appearance, +with a good figure; but seen amid the warm steam, in nature's garb, she +seemed horrible. + +I would rather walk through an avenue of naked men than appear before +another woman without clothes. This feeling does not spring from +modesty--what is it? + + * * * * * + +How quiet it is here! Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays the steamer for +England goes by. I know its coming by the sound of the screw, but I take +care never to see it pass. What if I were seized with an impulse to +embark on her.... + +If one fine morning when Jeanne brought the tea she found the bird +flown? + +The time is gone by. Life is over. + +I am getting used to sitting here and stitching at my seam. My work does +not amount to much, but the mechanical movement brings a kind of +restfulness. + +I find I am getting rather capricious. Between meals I ring two or three +times a day for tea--like a convalescent trying a fattening cure. Jeanne +attends to my hair with indefatigable care. Without her, should I ever +trouble to do it at all? + +What can any human being want more than this peace and silence? + + * * * * * + +If I could only lose this sense of being empty-handed, all would be +well. Yesterday I went down to the seashore and gathered little pebbles. +I carried them away and amused myself by taking them up in handfuls. +During the night I felt impelled to get up and fetch them, and this +morning I awoke with a round stone in each hand. + +Hysteria takes strange forms. But who knows what is the real ground of +hysteria? I used to think it was the special malady of the unmated +woman; but, in later years, I have known many who had had a full share +of the passional life, legitimate and otherwise, and yet still suffered +from hysteria. + + * * * * * + +I begin to realise the fascination of the cloister; the calm, uniform, +benumbing existence. But my comparison does not apply. The nun renounces +all will and responsibility, while I cannot give up one or the other. + +I have reached this point, however; only that which is bounded by my +garden hedge seems to me really worthy of consideration. The house in +the Old Market Place may be burnt down for all I care. Richard may marry +again. Malthe may.... + +Yes, I think I could receive the news in silence like the monk to whom +the prior announces, "One of the brethren is dead, pray for his soul." +No one present knows, nor will ever know, whether his own brother or +father has passed away. + +What hopeless cowardice prevents my opening his letter! + + + + + EVENING. + +Somebody should found a vast and cheerful sisterhood for women between +forty and fifty; a kind of refuge for the victims of the years of +transition. For during that time women would be happier in voluntary +exile, or at any rate entirely separated from the other sex. + +Since all are suffering from the same trouble, they might help each +other to make life, not only endurable, but harmonious. We are all more +or less mad then, although we struggle to make others think us sane. + +I say "we," though I am not of their number--in age, perhaps, but not in +temperament. Nevertheless I hear the stealthy footsteps of the +approaching years. By good fortune, or calculation, I have preserved my +youthful appearance, but it has cost me dear to economise my emotions. + +Old age, in truth, is only a goal to be foreseen. A mountain to be +climbed; a peak from which to see life from every side--provided we +have not been blinded by snowfalls on the way. I do not fear old age; +only the hard ascent to it has terrors for me. The day, the hour, when +we realise that something has gone from our lives; when the cry of our +heart provokes laughter in others! + +To all of us women comes a time in life when we believe we can conquer +or deceive time. But soon we learn how unequal is the struggle. We all +come to it in the end. + +Then we grow anxious. Anxious at the coming of day; still more anxious +at the coming of night. We deck ourselves out at night as though in this +way we could put our anxiety to flight. + +We are careful about our food and our rest; we watch that our smiles +leave no wrinkles.... Yet never a word of our secret terror do we +whisper aloud. We keep silence or we lie. Sometimes from pride, +sometimes from shame. + +Hitherto nobody has ever proclaimed this great truth: that as they grow +older--when the summer comes and the days lengthen--women become more +and more women. Their feminality goes on ripening into the depths of +winter. + +Yet the world compels them to steer a false course. Their youth only +counts so long as their complexions remain clear and their figures slim. +Otherwise they are exposed to cruel mockery. A woman who tries late in +life to make good her claim to existence, is regarded with contempt. For +her there is neither shelter nor sympathy. + +It sometimes happens that a winter gale strips all the leaves from a +tree in a single night. When does a woman grow old in body and soul in +one swift and merciful moment? From our birth we are accursed. + +I blame no one for my failure in life. It was in my own hands. If I +could live it through again from the start, it is more than probable I +should waste the years for a second time. + + + + + CHRISTMAS EVE. + +At this hour there will be festivities in the Old Market Place. +Richard's last letter touched me profoundly; something within me went +out toward his honest nature.... + +What is the use of all these falsehoods? I long for an embrace. Is that +shocking? We women are so wrapped in deceit that we feel ashamed of +confessing such things. Yet it is true, I miss Richard. Not the husband +or companion, but the lover. + +What use in trying to soothe my senses by walking for hours through the +silent woods. + +Lillie, in the innocence of her heart, sent me a tiny Christmas tree, +decorated by herself and her lanky daughters. Sweets and little presents +are suspended from the branches. She treats me like a child, or a sick +person. + +Well, let it be so! Lillie must never have the vexation of learning that +I detested her girls simply because they represented the youthful +generation which sooner or later must supplant me. + +I have made good use of my eyes, and I know what I have seen: the same +enmity exists between two generations as between the sexes. + +While the young folk in their arrogant cruelty laugh at us who are +growing old, we, in our turn, amuse ourselves by making fun of them. If +women could buy back their lost youth by the blood of those nearest and +dearest to them, what crimes the world would witness! + +How I used to hate Richard when I saw him so completely at his ease +among young people, and able to take them so seriously. + + * * * * * + +Christmas Eve! In honour of Jeanne, I put on one of my very best +frocks--Paquin. Moreover, I have decorated myself with rings and chains +as though I were a silly Christmas Tree myself. + +Jeanne has enjoyed herself to-day. She and Torp rose before it was light +to deck the rooms with pine branches. Over the verandah waves the +Swedish flag, which Torp generally suspends above her bed, in +remembrance of Heaven knows who. I gave myself the pleasure of +surprising Jeanne, by bestowing upon her my green _crêpe de Chine_. In +future grey and black will be my only wear. + +After the obligatory goose, and the inevitable Christmas dishes, I spent +the evening reading the letters with which "my friends" honour me +punctiliously. + +Without seeing the handwriting, or the signature, I could name from the +contents alone the writer of each one of them. They all write about the +honours which have befallen Joergen Malthe: a hospital here; a palace of +archives there. What does it matter to me? I would far rather they +wrote: "To-day a motor-car ran over Joergen Malthe and killed him on the +spot." + +I have arrived at that stage. + +But to-night I will not think about him; I would rather try to write to +Magna Wellmann. I may be of some use to her. In any case I will tell her +things that it will do her good to hear. She is one of those who take +life hard. + + + + +DEAR MAGNA WELLMANN, + +It is with great difficulty that I venture to give you advice at this +moment. Besides, we are so completely opposed in habit, thought, and +temperament. We have really nothing in common but our unfortunate middle +age and our sex; therefore, how can it help you to know what I should do +if I were in your place? + +May I speak quite frankly without any fear of hurting your feelings? In +that case I will try to advise you; but I can only do so by making your +present situation quite clear to you. Only when you have faced matters +can you hope to decide upon some course of action which you will not +afterwards regret. Your letter is the queerest mixture of self-deception +and a desire to be quite frank. You try to throw dust in my eyes, while +at the same time you are betraying all that you are most anxious to +conceal. Judging from your letter, the maternal feeling is deeply +ingrained in your nature. You are prepared to fight for your children +and sacrifice yourself for them if necessary. You would put yourself +aside in order to secure for them a healthy and comfortable existence. + +The real truth is that your conscience is pricking you with a remorse +that has been instigated by others. Maternal sentiment is not your +strong point; far from it. In your husband's lifetime you did not try to +make two and two amount to five; and you often showed very plainly that +your children were rather an encumbrance than otherwise. When at last +your affection for them grew, it was not because they were your own +flesh and blood, but because you were thrown into daily contact with +these little creatures whom you had to care for. + +Now you have lost your head because the outlook is rather bad. Your +family, or rather your late husband's people, have attempted to coerce +you in a way that I consider entirely unjustifiable. And you have +allowed yourself to be bullied, and therefore, all unconsciously, have +given them some hold over your life and actions. + +You must not forget that your husband's family, without being asked, +have been allowing you a yearly income which permitted you to live in +the same style as before Professor Wellmann's death. They placed no +restrictions upon you, and made no conditions. Now, the family--annoyed +by what reaches their ears--want to insist that you should conform to +their wishes; otherwise they will withdraw the money, or take from you +the custody of the children. This is a very arbitrary proceeding. + +Reflect well what they are asking of you before you let yourself be +bound hand and foot. + +Are you really capable, Magna, of being an absolutely irreproachable +widow? + +Perhaps there ought to be a law by which penniless widows with children +to bring up should be incarcerated in some kind of nunnery, or burnt +alive at the obsequies of their husbands. But failing such a law, I do +not think a grown-up woman is obliged to promise that she will +henceforth take a vow of chastity. One must not give a promise only to +break it, and, my dear Magna, I do not think you are the woman to keep a +vow of that kind. + +For this reason you ought never to have made yourself dependent upon +strangers by accepting their money for the education of your children. +At the same time I quite see how hard it would be to find yourself +empty-handed with a pack of children all in need of something. If you +had not courage to try to live on the small pension allowed by the +State, you would have done better to find some means of earning a +livelihood with the help of your own people. + +You never thought of this; while I was too much taken up with my own +affairs just then to have any superfluous energy for other people's +welfare or misfortune. + +But now we come to the heart of the question. For some years past you +have confided in me--more fully than I really cared about. While your +husband was alive I often found it rather painful to be always looking +at him through the keyhole, so to speak. But this confidence justifies +me in speaking quite frankly. + +My dear Magna, listen to me. A woman of your temperament ought never to +bind herself by marriage to any man, and is certainly not fit to have +children. You were intended--do not take the words as an insult--to lead +the life of a _fille de joie_. The term sounds ugly--but I know no other +that is equally applicable. Your vehement temperament, your insatiable +desire for new excitements--in a word, your whole nature tends that way. +You cannot deny that your marriage was a grave mistake. + +There was just the chance--a remote one--that you might have met the +kind of husband to suit you: an eminently masculine type, the kind who +would have kept the whip-hand over you, and regarded a wife as +half-mistress, half-slave. Even then I think your conjugal happiness +would have ceased the first day he lost the attraction of novelty. + +Professor Wellmann, your quiet, correct husband, was as great a torment +to you as you were to him. Without intending it, you made his life a +misery. The dreadful scenes which were brought about by your violent and +sensual temperament so changed his disposition that he became brutal; +while to you they became a kind of second nature, a necessity, like food +or sleep. + +Magna, you will think me brutal, too, because I now tell you in black +and white what formerly I lacked the courage to say. Believe me, it was +often on the tip of my tongue to exclaim: "Better have a lover than +torment this poor man whose temperament is so different to your own." + +I will not say you did not care for your husband. You learnt to see his +good qualities; but there was no true union between you. You hated his +work. Not like a woman who is jealous of the time spent away from her; +but because you believed such arduous brain work made him less ardent as +a lover. Although you did not really care for him, you would have +sacrificed all his fame and reputation for an hour of unreasoning +passion. + +At his death you lost the breadwinner and the position you had gained +in the world as the wife of a celebrity. Your grief was sincere; you +felt your loneliness and loss. Then for the first time you clung to your +children, and erroneously believed you were moved by maternal feeling. +You honestly intended henceforward to live for them alone. + +All went well for three months, and then the struggle began. Do you +know, Magna, I admired the way you fought. You would not give way an +inch. You wore the deepest weeds. Sheltered behind your crape, you +surrounded yourself by your children, and fought for your life. + +This inward conflict added to your attractions. It gave you an air of +nobility you had hitherto lacked. + +Then the world began to whisper evil about you while you were still +quite irreproachable. + +No, after all there _was_ something to reproach you with, although it +was not known to outsiders. While you were fighting your instincts and +trying to live as a spotless widow, your character was undergoing a +change: against your will, but not unconsciously, you were become a +perfect fury. In this way your children acquired that timidity which +they have never quite outgrown. Strangers began to notice this after a +while, and to criticise your behaviour. + +Time went on. You wrote that you were obliged to do a "cure" in a +nursing home for nervous complaints. When I heard this, I could not +repress a smile, in spite of your misfortunes. Nerve specialists may be +very clever, but can they be expected, even at the highest fees, to +replace defunct husbands. You were kept in bed and dosed with bromides +and sulphonal. After a few weeks you were pronounced quite well, and +left the home a little stouter and rather languid after keeping your bed +so long. + +When you got home you turned the house upside-down in a frantic fit of +"cleaning." You walked for miles; you took to cooking; and at night, +having wearied your body out with incessant work, you tried to lull your +brain by reading novels. + +What was the use of it all? The day you confessed to me that you had +walked about the streets all night lest you should kill yourself and +your children, I realised that your powers of resistance were at an end. +A week later you had embarked upon your first _liaison_. A month later +the whole town was aware of it. + +That was about a year after the Professor's death. Six or seven years +have passed since then, and you have gone on from adventure to +adventure, all characterised by the same lamentable lack of discretion. +The reason for this lies in your own tendency to self-deception. You +want to make yourself and others believe that you are always looking for +ideal love and constant ties. In reality your motives are quite +different. You hug the traditional conviction that it would be +disgraceful to own that your pretended love is only an affair of the +senses. And yet, if you had not been so anxious to dupe yourself and +others, you might have gone through life frankly and freely. + +The night is far advanced, moreover it is Christmas Eve. + +I will not accuse you without producing proofs. Enclosed you will find +a whole series of letters, dated irregularly, for you only used to write +to me when I was away from home in the summer. In these letters, which I +have carefully collected, and for which I have no ground for reproaching +you, you will see yourself reflected as in a row of mirrors. Do not be +ashamed; your self-deception is not your fault; society is to blame. I +am not sending the letters back to discourage or hurt you; only that you +may see how, with each adventure, you have started with the same +sentimental illusions and ended with the same pitiable disenchantment. + +A penniless widow turned forty--we are about the same age--with five +children has not much prospect of marrying again, however attractive she +may be. I have told you so repeatedly; but your feminine vanity refuses +to believe it. In each fresh adventure you have seen a possible +marriage--not because you feel specially drawn towards matrimony, but +because you are unwilling to leave the course free to younger women. + +You have shown yourself in public with your admirers. + +Neglecting the most ordinary precautions, you have allowed them to come +to your house; in a word, you have unblushingly advertised connections +which ought to have been concealed. + +And the men you selected? + +I do not wish to criticise your choice; but I quite understand why your +friends objected and were ashamed on your account. + +At first people made the best of the situation, tacitly hoping that the +affairs might lead to marriage and that your monetary cares would thus +find a satisfactory solution. But after so many useless attempts this +benevolent attitude was abandoned, and scandal grew. + +Meanwhile you, Magna, blind to all opinion, continued to follow the same +round: flirtation, sentiment, intimacy, adoration, submission, jealousy, +suspicion, suffering, hatred, and contempt. + +The more inferior the man of your choice, the more determined you were +to invest him with extraordinary qualities. But as soon as the next one +appeared on the scene, you began to judge his predecessor at his true +value. + +If all this had resulted in your getting the wherewithal to bring up +your children in comfort, I should say straight out: "My dear Magna, pay +no attention to what other people say, go your own road." + +But, unfortunately, it is just the reverse; your children suffer. They +are growing up. Wanda and Ingrid are almost young women. In a year or +two they will be at a marriageable age. How much longer do you suppose +you can keep them in ignorance? Perhaps they know things already. I have +sometimes surprised a look in Wanda's eyes which suggested that she saw +more than was desirable. + +In my opinion it is better for children not to find out these things +until they are quite old enough to understand them completely. But the +evil is done, and cannot be undone. And yet, Magna, the peace of mind of +these innocent victims is entirely in your hands. You can secure it +without making the sacrifice that your husband's family demands of you. + +You have no right to let your children grow up in this unwholesome +atmosphere; and the atmosphere with which their dear mother surrounds +them cannot be described as healthy. + +If your character was as strong as your temperament, you would not +hesitate to take all the consequences on your own shoulders. But it is +not so. You would shrink from the hard work involved in emigrating and +making yourself a new home abroad; at the same time you would be lowered +in your own eyes if you gave your children into the care of others. + +Then, since for the next few years you will never resign yourself to +single life, and are not likely to find a husband, you must so arrange +your love affairs that they escape the attention of the world. Why +should you mix them up with your home life and your children? What you +need are prudence and calculation; but you have neither. + +You will never fix your life on a firm basis until you have relegated +men to the true place they occupy in your existence. If you could only +make yourself see clearly the fallacy of thinking that every man you +meet is going to love you for eternity. A woman like yourself can +attract lovers by the dozen; but yours is not the temperament to inspire +a serious relationship which might become a lasting friendship. If you +constantly see yourself left in the lurch and abandoned by your admirers +before you have tired of them yourself, it is because you always delude +yourself on this point. + +I know another woman situated very much as you are. She too has a large +family, and a weakness for the opposite sex. Everybody knows that she +has her passing love affairs, but no one quarrels with her on that +score. + +She is really entitled to some respect, for she lives in her own house +the life of an irreproachable matron. She shows the tenderest regard for +the needs of her children, and never a man crosses her threshold but the +doctor. + +You see, dear Magna, that I have devoted half my Christmas night to you, +which I certainly should not have done if I did not feel a special +sympathy for you. If I wind up my letter with a proposal that may wound +your feelings at first sight, you must try to understand that it is +kindly meant. + +Living here alone, a few months' experience has shown me that my income +exceeds my requirements, and I can offer to supply you with a sum which +you can pay me back in a year or two, without interest. This would +enable you to learn some kind of business which would secure you a +living and free you from family interference. Consider it well. + +I live so entirely to myself on this island that I have plenty of time +to ponder over my own lot and that of other people. Write to me when you +feel the wish or need to do so. I will reply to the best of my ability. +If I am very taciturn about my own affairs, it springs from an +idiosyncrasy that I cannot overcome. To make sure of my meaning I have +read my letter through once more, and find that it does not express all +I wanted to say. Never mind, it is true in the main. Only try to +understand that I do not wish to sit in judgment upon you, only to +throw some light on the situation. With all kind thoughts. + + Yours, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + + * * * * * + +It snows, and snows without ceasing. The trees are already wrapped in +snow, like precious objects packed in wadding. The paths will soon be +heaped up to their level. The snowflakes are as large as daisies. When I +go out they flutter round me like a swarm of butterflies. Those that +fall into the water disappear like shooting stars, leaving no trace +behind. + +The glass roof of my bedroom is as heavy as a coffin-lid. I sleep with +my window open, and when there comes a blast of wind my eyes are filled +with snow. This morning, when I woke, my pillow-case was as wet as +though I had been crying all night. + +Torp already sees us in imagination snowed up and receiving our food +supplies down the chimney. She is preparing for the occasion. Her hair +smells as though she had been singeing chickens, and she has +illuminated the basement with small lamps and red shades edged with +pearl fringes. + +Jeanne is equally enchanted. When she goes outside without a hat her +hair looks like a burning torch against the snow. She does not speak, +but hums to herself, and walks more lightly and softly than ever, as +though she feared to waken some sleeper. + +... I remember how Malthe and I were once talking about Greece, and he +gave me an account of a snowstorm in Delphi. I cannot recall a word of +his description; I was not listening, but just thinking how the snow +would melt when it fell upon his head. + +He has fulfilled my request not to write. I have not had a line since +his only letter came. And yet.... + + * * * * * + +I have burnt his letter. + +I have burnt his letter. A few ashes are all that remain to me. + +It hurts me to look at the ashes. I cannot make up my mind to throw them +away. + +I have got rid of the ashes. It was harder than I thought. Even now I +am restless. + + * * * * * + +I am glad the letter is destroyed. Now I am free at last. My temptations +were very natural. + +The last few days I have spent in bed. Jeanne is an excellent nurse. She +makes as much fuss of me as though I were really ill, and I enjoy it. + + * * * * * + +The Nirvana of age is now beginning. In the morning, when Jeanne brushes +my hair, I feel a kind of soothing titillation which lasts all day. I do +not trouble about dressing; I wear no jewellery and never look in the +glass. + +Very often I feel as though my thoughts had come to a standstill, like a +watch one has forgotten to wind up. But this blank refreshes me. + +Weeks have gone by since I wrote in my diary. Several times I have +tried to do so; but when I have the book in front of me, I find I have +nothing to set down. + +In the twilight I sit by the fire like an old child and talk to myself. +Then Torp comes to me for the orders which she ends by giving herself, +and I let her talk to me about her own affairs. The other day I got her +on the subject of spooks. She is full of ghost stories, and relates them +with such conviction that her teeth chatter with terror. Happy Torp, to +possess such imagination! + +Some days I hardly budge from one position, and can with difficulty +force myself to leave my table; at other times I feel the need of +incessant movement. The forest is very quiet, scarcely a soul walks +there. If I do chance to meet anyone, we glare at each other like two +wild beasts, uncertain whether to attack or to flee from each other. + +The forest belongs to me.... + +The piano is closed. I never use it now. The sound of the wind in the +trees is music enough for me. I rise from my bed and listen until I am +half frozen. I, who was never stirred or pleased by the playing of +virtuosi! + +I have no more desires. Past and future both repose beneath a shroud of +soft, mild fog. I am content to live like this. But the least event +indoors wakes me from my lethargy. Yesterday Torp sent for the sweep. +Catching sight of him in my room, I could not repress a scream. I could +not think for the moment what the man could be doing here. + +Another time a stray cat took refuge under my table. I was not aware of +it, but no sooner had I sat down than I felt surcharged with +electricity. I rang for Jeanne, and when she came into the room the +creature darted from its hiding-place, and I was panic-stricken. + +Jeanne carried it away, but for a long time afterwards I shivered at the +sight of her. + +Whence comes this horror of cats? Many people make pets of them. +Personally I should prefer the company of a boa-constrictor. + + * * * * * + +A man whose vanity I had wounded once took it upon himself to tell me +some plain truths. He did me this honour because I had not sufficiently +appreciated his attentions. + +He assured me that I was neither clever nor gifted, but that I was +merely skilful at not letting myself be caught out, and had a certain +quickness of repartee. He was quite right. + +What time and energy I have spent in trying to keep up this reputation +of being a clever woman, when I was really not born one! + +My vanity demanded that I should not be run after for my appearance +only; so I surrounded myself with clever men and let them call me +intellectual. It was Hans Andersen's old tale of "The King's New +Clothes" over again. + +We spoke of political economy, of statesmanship, of art and literature, +finance and religion. I knew nothing about all these things, but, thanks +to an animated air of attention, I steered safely between the rocks and +won a reputation for cleverness. + + * * * * * + +In English novels, with their insipid sweetness that always reminds me +of the smell of frost-bitten potatoes, the heroine sometimes permits +herself the luxury of being blind, lame, or disfigured by smallpox. The +hero adores her just the same. How false to life! My existence would +have been very different if ten years ago I had lost my long eyelashes, +if my fingers had become deformed, or my nose shown signs of redness.... + +A red nose! It is the worst catastrophe that can befall a beautiful +woman. I always suspected this was the reason why Adelaide Svanstroem +took poison. Poor woman, unluckily she did not take a big enough dose! + + * * * * * + + + + + JANUARY. + +My senses are reawakening. Light and sound now bring me entirely new +impressions; what I see, I now also feel, with nerves of which hitherto +I did not suspect the existence. When evening draws on I stare into the +twilight until everything seems to shimmer before my eyes, and I dream +like a child.... + +Yesterday, before going to bed, I went on my balcony, as I usually do, +to take a last glance at the sea. But it was the starry sky that fixed +my attention. It seemed to reveal and offer itself to me. I felt I had +never really seen it before, although I sleep with it over my head! + +Each star was to me like a dewdrop created to slake my thirst. I drank +in the sky like a plant that is almost dead for want of moisture. And +while I drank it in, I was conscious of a sensation hitherto unknown to +me. For the first time in my life I was aware of the existence of my +soul. I threw back my head to gaze and gaze. Night enfolded me in all +its splendour, and I wept. + +What matter that I am growing old? What matter that I have missed the +best in life? Every night I can look towards the stars and be filled +with their chill, eternal peace. + +I, who never could read a poem without secretly mocking the writer, who +never believed in the poets' ecstasies over Nature, now I perceive that +Nature is the one divinity worthy to be worshipped. + + * * * * * + +I miss Margarethe Ernst; especially her amusing ways. How she glided +about among people, always ready to dart out her sharp tongue, always +prepared to sting. And yet she is not really unkind, in spite of her +little cunning smile. But her every movement makes a singular impression +which is calculated. + +We amused each other. We spoke so candidly about other people, and lied +so gracefully to each other about ourselves. Moreover, I think she is +loyal in her friendship, and of all my letters hers are the best +written. + +I should have liked to have drawn her out, but she was the one person +who knew how to hold her own. I always felt she wore a suit of chain +armour under her close-fitting dresses which was proof against the +assaults of her most impassioned adorers. + +She is one of those women who, without appearing to do so, manages to +efface all her tracks as she goes. I have watched her change her tactics +two or three times in the course of an evening, according to the people +with whom she was talking. She glided up to them, breathed their +atmosphere for an instant, and then established contact with them. + +She is calculating, but not entirely for her own ends; she is like a +born mathematician who thoroughly enjoys working out the most difficult +problems. + +I should like to have her here for a week. + +She, too, dreads the transition years. She tries in vain to cheat old +age. Lately she adopted a "court mourning" style of dress, and wore +little, neat, respect-impelling mantillas round her thin, +Spanish-looking face. One of these days, when she is close upon fifty, +we shall see her return to all the colours of the rainbow and to ostrich +plumes. She lives in hopes of a new springtide in life. Shall I invite +her here? + +She would come, of course, by the first train, scenting the air with +wide nostrils, like a stag, and an array of trunks behind her! + +No! To ask her would be a lamentable confession of failure. + + * * * * * + +The last few days I have arrived at a condition of mind which occasions +great self-admiration. I am now sure that, even if the difference in our +ages did not exist, I could never marry Malthe. + +I could do foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I have +loved with all my heart. I could humble myself to be his mistress; I +could die with him. But set up a home with Joergen Malthe--never! + +The terrible part of home life is that every piece of furniture in the +house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long +after love has died out--if, indeed, it ever existed between them. Two +human beings--who differ as much as two human beings always must do--are +compelled to adopt the same tastes, the same outlook. The home is built +upon this incessant conflict. The struggle often goes on in silence, but +it is not the less bitter, even when concealed. + +How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration +masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel would have +done.... What a profound contempt I felt for his tastes; and, without +saying it in words, how he disapproved of mine! + +No! His home was not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal couple, +at one on all points. My person for his money--that was the bargain, +crudely but truthfully expressed. + + * * * * * + +Just as one arranges the scenery for a _tableau vivant_, I prepared my +"living grave" in this house, which Malthe built in ignorance of its +future occupant. And here I have learnt that joy of possession which +hitherto I have only known in respect of my jewellery. + +This house is really my home. My first and only home. Everything here is +dear to me, because it _is_ my own. + +I love the very earthworms because they do good to my garden. The birds +in the trees round about the house are my property. I almost wish I +could enclose the sky and clouds within a wall and make them mine. + +In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I +left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body. + +Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger +to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine. +I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me +before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I +shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the +bare deal table, the dusty books, the trunk covered with a travelling +rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor. + +Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over +me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured +to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth +interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air +with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their +touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his passion, and yet he +went on discussing this wretched dome--about which I cared as little as +for the inkstains on his table. + +I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room. + +"But I get the sunshine," he said, blushing. + +I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most +superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges +from the purple clouds at evening. + +Big child that you are, how I love you! + +But I will never, never start a home with you! + +Well, surely one gardener can hardly suffice to poison the air of the +place. If he is a nuisance I shall send him packing. + +The man comes from a big estate. If he is content to cultivate my +cabbage patch, it must be because, besides being very ugly, he has some +undiscovered faults. But I really cannot undertake to make minute +inquiries into the psychical qualities of Mr. Under-gardener Jensen. + +His photograph was sent by a registry office, among many others. We +examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as +though they had been fashion plates from Paris. To my silent amusement, +I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she +thought smells could be photographed, too. + +Prudence prompted me to select this man; he is too ugly to disturb our +peace of mind. On the other hand, as I had the wisdom not to pull down +the hut in which the former proprietor lived, the two rooms there will +have to do for Mr. Jensen, so that we can keep him at a little distance. + +Torp asked if he was to take meals in the kitchen. + +Certainly! I have no intention of having him for my opposite neighbour +at table. But, on the whole, he had better have his meals in his hut, +then we shall not be always smelling him. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps we are really descended from dogs, for the sense of smell can so +powerfully influence our senses. + +I would undertake in pitch darkness to recognise every man I know by the +help of my nose alone; that is, if I passed near enough to him to sniff +his atmosphere. I am almost ashamed to confess that men are the same to +me as flowers; I judge them by their smell. I remember once a young +English waiter in a restaurant who stirred all my sensibilities each +time he passed the back of my chair. Luckily Richard was there! For the +same reason I could not endure Herr von Brincken to come near me--and +equally for the same reason Richard had power over my senses. + +Every time I bite the stalk of a pansy I recall the neighbourhood of +the young Englishman. + +Men ought never to use perfumes. The Creator has provided them. But with +women it is different.... + + * * * * * + +To-day is my birthday. No one here knows it. Besides, what woman would +enjoy celebrating her forty-third birthday? Only Lillie Rothe, I am +sure!... + +One day I was talking to a specialist about the thousands of women who +are saved by medical science to linger on and lead a wretched +semi-existence. These women who suffer for years physically and are +oppressed by a melancholy for which there seems to be no special cause. +At last they consult a doctor; enter a nursing home and undergo some +severe operation. Then they resume life as though nothing had happened. +Their surroundings are unchanged; they have to fulfil all the duties of +everyday life--even the conjugal life is taken up once more. And these +poor creatures, who are often ignorant of the nature of their illness, +are plunged into despair because life seems to have lost its joy and +interest. + +I ventured to observe to the doctor with whom I was conversing that it +would be better for them if they died under the anæsthetic. The surgeon +reproved me, and inquired whether I was one of those people who thought +that all born cripples ought to be put out of their misery at once. + +I did not quite see the connection of ideas; but I suppressed my desire +to close his argument by telling him of an example which is branded upon +my memory. + +Poor Mathilde Bremer! I remember her so well before and after the +operation. She was not afraid to die, because she knew her husband was +devoted to her. But she kept saying to the surgeon: + +"You must either cure me or kill me. For my own sake and for his, I will +not go on living this half-invalidish life." + +She was pronounced "cured." Two years later she left her husband, very +much against his will, but feeling she was doing the best for both of +them. + +She once said to me: "There is no torture to equal that which a woman +suffers when she loves her husband and is loved by him; a woman for whom +her husband is all in all, who longs to keep his devotion, but knows she +must fail, because physically she is no longer herself." + +The life Mathilde Bremer is now leading--that of a solitary woman +divorced from her husband--is certainly not enviable. Yet she admits +that she feels far better than she used to do. + + * * * * * + +Any one might suppose I was on the way to become a rampant champion of +the Woman's Cause. May I be provided with some other occupation! I have +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs. + +Heaven be eternally praised that I have no children, and have been +spared all the ailments which can be "cured" by women's specialists! + + * * * * * + +Ye powers! How interminable a day can be! Surely every day contains +forty-eight hours! + +I can actually watch the seconds oozing away, drop by drop.... Or +rather, they fall slowly on my head, like dust upon a polished table. My +hair is getting steadily greyer. + +It is not surprising, because I neglect it. + +But what is the use of keeping it artificially brown with lotions and +pomades? Let it go grey! + +Torp has observed that I take far more pleasure in good cooking than I +did at first. + +My dresses are getting too tight. I miss my masseuse. + + * * * * * + +To-day I inspected my linen cupboard with all the care of the lady +superior of an aristocratic convent. I delighted in the spectacle of the +snowy-white piles, and counted it all. I am careful with my money, and +yet I like to have great supplies in the house. The more bottles, cases, +and bags I see in the larder, the better pleased I am. In that respect +Torp and I are agreed. If we were cut off from the outer world by flood, +or an earthquake, we could hold out for a considerable time. + + * * * * * + +If I had more sensibility, and a little imagination--even as much as +Torp, who makes verses with the help of her hymn-book--I think I should +turn my attention to literature. Women like to wade in their memories as +one wades through dry leaves in autumn. I believe I should be very +clever in opening a series of whited sepulchres, and, without betraying +any personalities, I should collect my exhumed mummies under the general +title of, "Woman at the Dangerous Age." But besides imagination, I lack +the necessary perseverance to occupy myself for long together with other +people's affairs. + + * * * * * + +We most of us sail under a false flag; but it is necessary. If we were +intended to be as transparent as glass, why were we born with our +thoughts concealed? + +If we ventured to show ourselves as we really are, we should be either +hermits, each dwelling on his own mountain-top, or criminals down in the +valleys. + + * * * * * + +Torp has gone to evening service. Angelic creature! She has taken a +lantern with her, therefore we shall probably not see her again before +midnight. In consequence of her religious enthusiasm, we dined at +breakfast-time. Yes, Torp knows how to grease the wheels of her +existence! + +Naturally she is about as likely to attend church as I am. Her vespers +will be read by one of the sailors whose ship has been laid up near here +for the winter. Peace be with her--but I am dreadfully bored. + +I have a bitter feeling as though Jeanne and I were doing penance, each +in a dark corner of our respective quarters. The Sundays of my childhood +were not worse than this. + +In the distance a cracked, tinkling bell "tolls the knell of parting +day." Jeanne and I are depressed by it. I have taken up a dozen +different occupations and dropped them all. + +If it were only summer! I am oppressed as though I were sitting in a +close bower of jasmine; but we are in mid-winter, and I have not used a +drop of scent for months. + +But, after all, Sundays were no better in the Old Market Place. There I +had Richard from morning till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be +bored in the society of one other person is much worse. And to think +that Richard never even noticed it! His incessant talk reminded me of a +mill-wheel, and I felt as though all the flour was blowing into my eyes. + + * * * * * + +I will take a brisk constitutional. + + * * * * * + +What is the matter with me? I am so nervous that I can scarcely hold my +pen. I have never seen a fog come on so suddenly; I thought I should +never find my way back to the house. It is so thick I can hardly see the +nearest trees. It has got into the room, and seems to be hanging from +the ceiling. I am damp through and through. + +The fire has gone out, and I am freezing. It is my own fault; I ought to +have rung for Jeanne, or put on some logs myself, but I could not summon +up resolution even for that. + +What has become of Torp, that she is staying out half the day? How will +she ever find her way home? With twenty lanterns it would be impossible +to see ten yards ahead of one. My lamp burns as though water was mixed +with the oil. + +Overhead I hear Jeanne pacing up and down. I hear her, although she +walks so lightly. She too is restless and upset. We have a kind of +influence on each other, I have noticed it before. + +If only she would come down of her own accord. At least there would be +two of us. + +I feel the same cold shivers down my back that I remember feeling long +ago, when my nurse induced me to go into a churchyard. I thought I saw +all the dead coming out of their graves. That was a foggy evening, too. +How strange it is that such far-off things return so clearly to the +mind. + +The trees are quite motionless, as though they were listening for +something. What do they hear? There is not a soul here--only Jeanne and +myself. + +Another time I shall forbid Torp to make these excursions. If she must +go to church, she shall go in the morning. + +It is very uncanny living here all alone in the forest, without a +watch-dog, or a man near at hand. One is at the mercy of any passerby. + +For instance, the other day, some tipsy sailors came and tried the +handle of the front-door.... But then, I was not in the least +frightened; I even inspired Torp with courage. + +I have a feeling that Jeanne is sitting upstairs in mortal terror. I sit +here with my pen in my hand like a weapon of defence. If I could only +make up my mind to ring.... + +There, it is done! My hand is trembling like an aspen leaf, but I must +not let her see that I am frightened. I must behave as though nothing +had happened. + +Poor girl! She rushed into the room without knocking, pale as a corpse, +her eyes starting from her head. She clung to me like a child that has +just awakened from a bad dream. + +What is the matter with us? We are both terrified. The fog seems to have +affected our wits. + +I have lit every lamp and candle, and they flicker fitfully, like +Jeanne's eyes. + +The fog is getting more and more dense. Jeanne is sitting on the sofa, +her hand pressed to her heart, and I seem to hear it beating, even from +here. + +I feel as though some one were dying near me--here in the room. + +Joergen, is it you? Answer me, is it you? + +Ah! I must have gone mad.... I am not superstitious, only depressed. + +All the doors are locked and the shutters barred. There is not a sound. +I cannot hear anything moving outside. + +It is just this dead silence that frightens us.... Yes, that is what it +is.... + + * * * * * + +Now Jeanne is asleep. I can hardly see her through the fog. + +She sits there like a shadow, an apparition, and the fog floats over her +red hair like smoke over a fire. + +I know nothing whatever about her. She is as reserved about her own +concerns as I am about mine. Yet I feel as though during this hour of +intense fear and agitation I had seen into the depths of her soul. I +understand her, because we are both women. She suffers from the eternal +unrest of the blood. + +She has had a shock to her inmost feelings. At some time or other she +has been so deeply wounded that she cannot live again in peace. + +She and I have so much in common that we might be blood-relations. But +we ought not to live under the same roof as mistress and servant. + + * * * * * + +Gradually the fog is dispersing, and the lights burn brighter. I seem to +follow Jeanne's dreams as they pass beneath her brow. Her mouth has +fallen a little open, as if she were dead. Every moment she starts up; +but when she sees me she smiles and drops off again. Good heavens, how +utterly exhausted she seems after these hours of fear! + +But somebody _is_ there! Yes ... outside ... there between the trees ... +I see somebody coming.... + +It is only Torp, with her lantern, and the dressmaker from the +neighbouring village. The moment she opened the basement door and I +heard her voice I felt quite myself again. + + * * * * * + +We have eaten ravenously, like wolves. For the first time Jeanne sat at +table with me and shared my meal. For the first and probably for the +last time. Torp opened her eyes very wide, but she was careful to make +no observations. + +My fit of madness to-night has taught me that the sooner I have a man of +some kind to protect the house the better. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has confided in me. She was too upset to sleep, and came knocking +at my bedroom door, asking if she might come in. I gave her permission, +although I was already in bed. She sat at the foot of my bed and told me +her story. It is so remarkable that I must set in down on paper. + +Now I understand her nice hands and all her ways. I understand, too, how +it came about that I found her one day turning over the pages of a +volume by Anatole France, as though she could read French. + +Her parents had been married twelve years when she was born. When she +was thirteen they celebrated their silver wedding. Until that moment in +her life she had grown up in the belief that they were a perfectly +united couple. The father was a chemist in a small town, and they lived +comfortably. The silver wedding festivities took place in their own +house. At dinner the girl drank some wine and felt it had gone to her +head. She left the table, saying to her mother, "I am going to lie down +in my room for a little while." But on the way she turned so giddy that +she went by mistake into a spare room that was occupied by a cavalry +officer, a cousin of her mother's. Too tired to go a step farther, she +fell asleep on a sofa in the darkened room. A little later she woke, and +heard the sounds of music and dancing downstairs, but felt no +inclination to join in the gaiety. Presently she dropped off again, and +when she roused for the second time she was aware of whispers near her +couch. In the first moment of awakening she felt ashamed of being caught +there by some of the guests. She held her breath and lay very still. +Then she recognized her mother's voice. After a few minutes she grasped +the truth.... Her mother, whom she worshipped, and this officer, whom +she admired in a childish way! + +They lit the candles. She forced herself to lie motionless, and feigned +to be fast asleep. She heard her mother's exclamation of horror: +"Jeanne!" And the captain's words: + +"Thank goodness she is sleeping like a log!" + +Her mother rearranged her disordered hair, and they left the room. + +After a few minutes she returned with a lamp, calling out: + +"Jeanne, where are you, child? We have been searching all over the +house!" + +Her pretended astonishment when she discovered the girl made the whole +scene more painful to Jeanne. But gathering up her self-control as best +she could, she succeeded in replying: + +"I am so tired: let me have my sleep out." + +Her mother bent over her and kissed her several times. The child felt as +though she would die while submitting to these caresses. + +This one hour, with its cruel enlightenment, sufficed to destroy +Jeanne's joy in life for ever. At the same time it filled her mind with +impure thoughts that haunted her night and day. She matured +precociously in the atmosphere of her own despair. + +There was no one in whom she could confide; alone she bore the weight of +a double secret, either of which was enough to crush her youth. + +She could not bear to look her mother in the face. With her father, too, +she felt ill at ease, as though she had in some way wronged him. +Everything was soiled for her. She had but one desire; to get away from +home. + +About two years later her mother was seized with fatal illness. Jeanne +could not bring herself to show her any tenderness. The piteous glance +of the dying woman followed all her comings and goings, but she +pretended not to see it. Once, when her father was out of the room, her +mother called Jeanne to the bedside: + +"You know?" she asked. + +Jeanne only nodded her head in reply. + +"Child, I am dying, forgive me." + +But Jeanne moved away from the bed without answering the appeal. + +No sooner had the doctor pronounced life to be extinct than she felt a +strange anxiety. In her great desire to atone in some way for her past +harshness, the girl resolved that, no matter what befell her, she would +do her best to hide the truth from her father. + +That night she entered the room where the dead woman lay, and ransacked +every box and drawer until she found the letters she was seeking. They +were at the bottom of her mother's jewel-case. Quickly she took +possession of them; but just as she was replacing the case in its +accustomed place, her father came in, having heard her moving about. She +could offer no explanation of her presence, and had to listen in silence +to his bitter accusation: "Are you so crazy about trinkets that you +cannot wait until your poor mother is laid in her grave?" + +In the course of that year one of the chemist's apprentices seduced her. +But she laughed in his face when he spoke of marriage. Later on she ran +away with a commercial traveller, and neither threats nor persuasion +would induce her to return home. + +After this, more than once she sought in some fleeting connection a +happiness which never came to her. The only pleasure she got out of her +adventures was the power of dressing well. When at last she saw that she +was not made for this disorderly life, she obtained a situation in a +German family travelling to the south of Europe. + +There she remained until homesickness drove her back to Denmark. Her +complete lack of ambition accounts for her being contented in this +modest situation. + +She never made any inquiries about her father, and only knows that he +left his money to other people, which does not distress her in the +least. Her sole reason for going on living is that she shrinks from +seeking death voluntarily. + +I wonder if there exists a man who could save her? A man who could make +her forget the bitterness of the past? She assures me I am the only +human being who has ever attracted her. If I were a man she would be +devoted to me and sacrifice everything for my sake. + +It is a strange case. But I am very sorry for the girl. I have never +come across such a peculiar mixture of coldness and ardour. + +When she had finished her story she went away very quietly. And I am +convinced that to-morrow things will go on just as before. Neither of us +will make any further allusion to the fog, nor to all that followed it. + + + + + SPRING. + +I am driven mad by all this singing and playing! One would think the +steamboats were driven by the force of song, and that atrocious +orchestras were a new kind of motive power. From morning till night +there is no cessation from patriotic choruses and folk-songs. + +Sometimes The Sound looks like a huge drying-ground in which all these +red and white sails are spread out to air. + +How I wish these pleasure-boats were birds! I would buy a gun and +practise shooting, in the hopes of killing a few. But this is the close +season.... The principal thoroughfares of a large town could hardly be +more bustling than the sea just now--the sea that in winter was as +silent and deserted as a graveyard. + +People begin to trespass in my forest and to prowl round my garden. I +see their inquisitive faces at my gates. I think I must buy a dog to +frighten them away. But then I should have to put up with his howling +after some dear and distant female friend. + + * * * * * + +How that gardener enrages me! His eyes literally twinkle with sneaky +thoughts. I would give anything to get rid of him. + +But he moves so well! Never in my life have I seen a man with such a +walk, and he knows it, and knows too that I cannot help looking at him +when he passes by. + +Torp is bewitched. She prepares the most succulent viands in his honour. +Her French cookery book is daily in requisition, and, judging from the +savoury smells which mount from the basement, he likes his food well +seasoned. + +Fortunately he is nothing to Jeanne, although she does notice the way he +walks from his hips, and his fine carriage. + +Midday is the pleasantest hour now. Then the sea is quiet and free from +trippers. Even the birds cease to sing, and the gardener takes his +sleep. Jeanne sits on the verandah, as I have given her permission to +do, with some little piece of sewing. She is making artificial roses +with narrow pink ribbon; a delightful kind of work. + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAR PROFESSOR ROTHE, + +Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it +immediately, as I should have wished to do. For that reason I sent you +the brief telegram in reply, the words of which, I am sorry to say, I +must now repeat: "I know nothing about the matter." Lillie has never +spoken a word to me, or made the least allusion in my presence, which +could cause me to suspect such a thing. I think I can truly say that I +never heard her pronounce the name of Director Schlegel. + +My first idea was that my cousin had gone out of her mind, and I was +astonished that you--being a medical man--should not have come to the +same conclusion. But on mature consideration (I have thought of nothing +but Lillie for the last two days) I have changed my opinion. I think I +am beginning to understand what has happened, but I beg you to remember +that I alone am responsible for what I am going to say. I am only +dealing with suppositions, nothing more. + +Lillie has not broken her marriage vows. Any suspicion of betrayal is +impossible, having regard to her upright and loyal nature. If to you, +and to everybody else, she appeared to be perfectly happy in her married +life, it was because she really was so. I implore you to believe this. + +Lillie, who never told even a conventional falsehood, who watched over +her children like an old-fashioned mother, careful of what they read and +what plays they saw, how could she have carried on, unknown to you and +to them, an intrigue with another man? Impossible, impossible, dear +Professor! I do not say that your ears played you false as to the words +she spoke, but you must have put a wrong interpretation upon them. + +Not once, but thousands of times, Lillie has spoken to me about you. She +loved and honoured you. You were her ideal as man, husband, and father. +She was proud of you. Having no personal vanity or ambition, like so +many good women, her pride and hopes were all centred in you. + +She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your operations; +and I need hardly remind you how carefully she followed your work. She +studied Latin in order to understand your scientific books, while, in +spite of her natural repulsion from the sight of such things, she +attended your anatomy classes and demonstrations. + +When Lillie said, "I love Schlegel, and have loved him for years," her +words did not mean "And all that time my love for you was extinct." + +No, Lillie cared for Schlegel and for you too. The whole question is so +simple, and at the same time so complicated. + +Probably you are saying to yourself: "A woman must love one man or the +other." With some show of reason, you will argue: "In leaving my house, +at any rate, she proved at the moment that Schlegel alone claimed her +affection." + +Nevertheless I maintain that you are wrong. + +Lillie showed every sign of a sane, well-balanced nature. Well, her +famous equability and calm deceived us all. Behind this serene exterior +was concealed the most feminine of all feminine qualities--a fanciful, +visionary imagination. + +Do you or I know anything about her first girlish dreams? Have you--in +spite of your happy life together--ever really understood her innermost +soul? Forgive my doubts, but I do not think you have. When a man +possesses a woman as completely as you possessed Lillie, he thinks +himself quite safe. You never knew a moment's doubt, or supposed it +possible that, having you, she could wish for anything else. You +believed that you fulfilled all her requirements. + +How do you know that for years past Lillie has not felt some longings +and deficiencies in her inner life of which she was barely conscious, or +which she did not understand? + +You are not only a clever and capable man; you are kind, and an +entertaining companion; in short, you have many good qualities which +Lillie exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical. You +are, in fact, rather prosaic, and only believe what you see. Your +judgments and views are not hasty, but just and decisive. + +Now contrast all this with Lillie's immense indulgence. Whence did she +derive this if not from a sympathetic understanding of things which we +do not possess? You remember how we used to laugh when she defended some +criminal who was quite beyond defence and apology! Something intense and +far-seeking came into her expression on those occasions, and her heart +prompted some line of argument which reason could not support. + +She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing us, cold and sceptical +people. + +But how she must have suffered! + +Then recollect the pleasure it gave her to discuss religious and +philosophical questions. She was not "religious" in the common +acceptation of the word. But she liked to get to the bottom of things, +and to use her imagination. We others were indifferent, or frankly +bored, by such matters. + +And Lillie, who was so gentle and lacking in self-assertion, gave way to +us. + +Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She felt a physical pang to see +cut flowers with their stalks out of water. Once I saw her buy up the +whole stock-in-trade of a flower-girl, because the poor things wanted +water. Neither you nor your children have any love of flowers. You, as a +doctor, are inclined to think it unhealthy to have plants in your rooms; +consequently there were none, and Lillie never grumbled about it. + +Lillie did not care for modern music. César Franck bored her, and Wagner +gave her a headache. Her favourite instrument was an old harpsichord, on +which she played Mozart, while her daughters thundered out Liszt and +Rubinstein upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good +humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune. + +Finally, Lillie liked quiet, musical speech, and she was surrounded by +people who talked at the top of their voices. + +"Absurd trifles," I can hear you saying. Perhaps. But they explain the +fact that although she was happy in a way, she still had many +aspirations which were not only unsatisfied, but which, without meaning +it unkindly, you daily managed to crush. + +Lillie never blamed others. When she found that you did not understand +the things she cared for, she immediately tried to think she was in the +wrong, and her well-balanced nature helped her to conquer her own +predilections. + +She was happy because she willed to be happy. Once and for all she had +made up her mind that she was the luckiest woman in existence; happy in +every respect; and she was deeply grateful to you. + +But in the depths of her heart--so deeply buried that perhaps it never +rose to the surface even in the form of a dream--lay that secret +something which led to the present misfortune. + +I know nothing of her relations with Schlegel, but I think I may venture +to say that they were chiefly limited to intercourse of the soul; and +for that reason they were so fatal. + +Have you ever observed the sound of Schlegel's voice? He spoke slowly +and so softly; I can quite believe it attracted your wife in the +beginning; and that afterwards, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, she +gravitated towards him. He possessed so many qualities that she admired +and missed. + +The man is now at death's door, and can never explain to us what passed +between them--even admitting that there was anything blameworthy. As far +as I know, Schlegel was quite infatuated with a totally different woman. +Had he really been in love with Lillie, would he have been contented +with a few words and an occasional pressure of her hand? Therefore, +since it is out of the question that your wife can have been unfaithful +to you, I am inclined to think that Schlegel knew nothing of her +feelings for him. + +You will reply that in that case it must all be gross exaggeration on +Lillie's part. But you, being a man, cannot understand how little +satisfies a woman when her love is great enough. + +Why, then, has Lillie left you, and why does she refuse to give you an +explanation? Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions? + +I will tell you: Lillie is in love with two men at the same time. Their +different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character. +If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby +losing all his faculties, Lillie would have remained with you and +continued to be a model wife and mother. In the same way, had you been +the victim of the accident, she would have clean forgotten Schlegel, and +would have lived and breathed for you alone. + +But fate decreed that the misfortune should be his. + +Lillie had not sufficient strength to fight the first, sharp anguish. +She was bewildered by the shock, and felt herself suddenly in a false +position. The love on which her imagination had been feeding seemed to +her at the moment the true one. She felt she was betraying you, +Schlegel, and herself; and since self-sacrifice has become the law of +her existence, she was prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her +love. + +As to you, Professor Rothe, you have acted very foolishly. You have +done just what any average, conventional man would have done. Your +injured vanity silenced the voice of your heart. + +You had the choice of two alternatives: either Lillie was mad, or she +was responsible for her actions. You were convinced that she was quite +sane and was playing you false in cold blood. She wished to leave you; +then let her go. What becomes of her is nothing to you; you wash your +hands of her henceforth. + +You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your +confidence. How could you have found it in your heart to do this, +instead of putting them off with any explanation rather than the true +one! + +Lillie knew you better than I supposed. She knew that behind your +apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature. She +understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your +house the moment you discovered that she had a thought or a sentiment +that was not subordinated to your will. + +You have let her go, believing that she had been playing a pretty part +behind your back, and that I was her confidante, and perhaps also the +instigator of her wicked deeds. + +Lillie has taken refuge with her children's old nurse. + +How significant! Lillie, who has as many friends as either of us, knows +by a subtle instinct that none of them would befriend her in her +misfortune. + +If you, Professor, were a large-hearted man, what would you do? You +would explain to the chief doctor at the infirmary Lillie's great wish +to remain near Schlegel until the end comes. + +Weigh what I am saying well. Lillie is, and will always remain the same. +She loves you, and such a line of conduct on your part would fill her +with grateful joy. What does it matter if during the few days or weeks +that she is with this poor condemned man, who can neither recognize her, +nor speak, nor make the least movement, you have to put up with some +inconvenience? + +If Lillie had your consent to be near Schlegel, she would certainly not +refuse to return to her wifely duties as soon as he was dead. It is +possible that at first she might not be able to hide her grief from you; +then it would be your task to help her win back her peace of mind. + +I know something of Schlegel; during the last few years I have seen a +good deal of him. Without being a remarkable personality, there was +something about him that attracted women. They attributed to him all the +qualities which belonged to the heroes of their dreams. Do you +understand me? I can believe that a woman who admired strength and +manliness might see in Schlegel a type of firm, inflexible manhood; +while a woman attracted by tenderness might equally think him capable of +the most yielding gentleness. The secret probably lay in the fact that +this man, who knew so many women, possessed the rare faculty of taking +each one according to her temperament. + +Schlegel was a living man; but had he been a portrait, or character in +a novel, Lillie would have fallen in love with him just the same, +because her love was purely of the imagination. + +You must do what you please. But one thing I want you to understand: if +you are not going to act in the matter, I shall do so. I willingly +confess that I am a selfish woman; but I am very fond of Lillie, and if +you abandon her in this cruel and clumsy way, I shall have her to live +with me here, and I shall do my best to console her for the loss of an +ungrateful husband and a pack of stupid, indifferent children. + +One word more before I finish my letter. Lillie, as far as I can +recollect, is a year older than I am. Could you not--woman's specialist +as you are--have found some explanation in this fact? Had Lillie been +fifty-five or thirty-five, all this would never have happened. I do not +care for strangers to look into my personal affairs, and although you +are my cousin's husband you are practically a stranger to me. +Nevertheless I may remind you that women at our time of life pass +through critical moments, as I know by my daily experiences. The letter +which I have written to you in a cool reasoning spirit might have been +impossible a week or two ago. I should probably have reeled off pages of +incoherent abuse. + +Show Lillie that your pretended love was not selfishness pure and +simple. + + With kind greetings, + Yours sincerely, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +P.S.--I would rather not answer your personal attacks. I could not have +acted differently and I regret nothing. + + * * * * * + +To-morrow morning I will get rid of that gardener without fail. + +An extra month's wages and money for his journey--whatever is +necessary--so long as he goes. + +I wish to sleep in peace and to feel sure that my house is safely locked +up, and I cannot sleep a wink so long as I know he comes to see Torp. + +That my cook should have a man in does not shock me, but it annoys me. +It makes me think of things I wish to forget. + +I seem to hear them laughing and giggling downstairs. + +Madness! I could not really hear anything that was going on in the +basement. The birds were restless, because the night is too light to let +them sleep. The sea gleams under the silver dome of the moonlit sky. + +What is that?... Ah! Miss Jeanne going towards the forest. + +Her head looks like one of those beautiful red fungi that grow among the +fir-trees. + +If the gardener had chosen _her_.... But Torp! + +I should like to go wandering out into the woods and leave the house to +those two creatures in the basement. But if I happened to meet Jeanne, +what explanation could I give? + +It would be too ridiculous for both of us to be straying about in the +forest, because Torp was entertaining a sweetheart in the basement! + +Doors and windows are wide open, and they are two floors below me, and +yet I seem to smell the sour, disgusting odour of that man. Is it +hysteria?... + +No. I cannot sleep, and it is four in the morning. The sunrise is a +glorious sight provided one is really in the mood to enjoy it. But at +the present moment I should prefer the blackest night.... + +There he goes! Sneaking away like a thief. Not once does he look back; +and yet I am sure the hateful female is standing at the door, waving to +him and kissing her hand.... + +But what is the matter with Jeanne? Poor girl, she has hidden behind a +tree. She does not want to be seen by him; and she is quite right, it +would be paying the boor too great an honour. + + * * * * * + +Merely to watch Richard eating was--or rather it became--a daily +torture. He handled his knife and fork with the utmost refinement. Yet I +would have given anything if he would have occasionally put his elbows +on the table, or bitten into an unpeeled apple, or smacked his lips.... +Imagine Richard smacking his lips! + +His manners at table were invariably correct. + +I shall never forget the look of tender reproach he once cast upon me +when I tore open a letter with my fingers, instead of waiting until he +had passed me the paper-knife. Probably it got upon his nerves in the +same way that he got upon mine when he contemplated himself in the +looking-glass. + +A spot upon the table-cloth annoyed and distracted him. He said nothing, +but all the time he eyed the mark as though it was left from a +murderer's track. + +His mania for tidiness often forced me, against my nature, to a +counteracting negligence. I intentionally disarranged the bookshelves in +the library; but he would follow me five minutes afterwards and put +everything in its place again. + +Yet had I really cared for him, this fussiness would have been an added +charm in my eyes. + +Was Richard always faithful to me? Or, if not, did he derive any +pleasure from his lapses? Naturally enough he must have had many +temptations; and although I, as a mere woman, was hindered by a thousand +conventional reasons, he had opportunities and reasonable excuses for +taking what was offered him. + +And probably he did not lose his chances; at any rate when he was away +for long together on business. But I am convinced that his infidelities +were a sort of indirect homage to his lawful wife, and that he did not +derive much satisfaction from them. I am not afraid of being compared +with other women. + +After all, my good Richard may have remained absolutely true to me, +thanks to his mania for having all things in order. + +I am almost sorry that I never caught him in some disgraceful +infidelity. Discovery, confession, scenes, sighs, and tears! Who knows +but what it might have been a very good thing for us? The certainty of +his unceasing attentions to me was rather tame; and he did not gain much +by it in the long run, poor man. + +The only time I ever remember to have felt jealous it was not a +pleasant sensation, although I am sure there were no real grounds for +it. It was brought about by his suggestion that we should invite Edith +to go to Monaco with us. Richard went as white as a sheet when I asked +him whether my society no longer sufficed for him.... + +I cannot understand how any grown-up man can take a girl of seventeen +seriously. They irritate me beyond measure. + + * * * * * + +Malthe has come back from Vienna, they tell me. I did not know he had +been to Vienna. I thought all this time he had been at Copenhagen. + +It is strange how this news has upset me. What does it matter where he +lives? + +If he were ten years younger, or I ten years older, I might have adopted +him. It would not be the first time that a middle-aged woman has +replaced her lap-dog in that way. Then I should have found him a +suitable wife! I should have surrounded myself by a swarm of pretty +girls and chosen the pick of the bunch for him. What a fascinating +prospect! + + * * * * * + +I have never made a fool of myself, and I am not likely to begin now. + + * * * * * + +I begin to meet people in the forest--_my_ forest. They gather flowers +and break branches, and I feel as though they were robbing me. If only I +could forbid people to walk in the forest and to boat on The Sound! + +It is quite bad enough to have the gardener prowling about in my garden. +He is all over the place. The garden seems to have shrunk since he came. +And yet, in spite of myself, I often stand watching the man when he is +digging. He has such muscular strength and uses it so skilfully. He puts +on very humble airs in my presence, but his insolent eyes take in +everything. + +Torp wears herself out evolving tasty dishes for him, and in return he +plays cards with her. + +Jeanne avoids him. She literally picks up her skirts when she has to go +past him. I like to see her do this. + + * * * * * + +This morning Jeanne and I laughed like two children. I was standing on +the shore looking at the sea, and said absent-mindedly: + +"It must be splendid bathing here." + +Jeanne replied: + +"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut." + +And I, still absent-minded, murmured: + +"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut." + +Suddenly we went off into fits of laughter. We could not stop ourselves. + +Now Jeanne has gone hunting for workmen. We will make them work by the +piece, otherwise they will never finish the job. I had some experience +this autumn with the youth who was paid by the day to chop wood for us. + +When the hut is built I will bathe every day in the sunshine. + + * * * * * + +They are both master-carpenters, and seem to be very good friends. +Jeanne and I lie in the boat and watch them, and stimulate them with +beer from time to time. But it does not seem to have much effect. One +has a wife and twelve children who are starving. When they have starved +for a while, they take to begging. The man sings like a lark. He has +spent two years in America, but he assures me it is "all tommy-rot" the +way they work like steam-engines there. Consequently he soon returned to +his native land. + +"Denmark," he says, "is such a nice little country, and all this water +and the forests make it so pretty...." + +Jeanne and I laugh at all this and amuse ourselves royally. + +The day before yesterday neither of the men appeared. A child had died +on the island, and one of them, who is also a coffin-maker, had to +supply a coffin. This seemed a reasonable excuse. But when I inquired +whether the coffin was finished, he replied: + +"I bought one ready-made in the town ... saved me a lot of bother, that +did." + +His friend and colleague had been to the town with him to help him in +his choice! + +The water is clear and the sands are white and firm. I am longing to try +the bathing. Jeanne, who rows well, volunteered to take me out in the +boat. But to bathe from the boat and near these men! I would rather +wait! + + * * * * * + +Full moon. In the far distance boats go by with their white sails. They +glide through the dusk like swans on a lake. The silence is so intense +that I can hear when a fish rises or a bird stirs in its nest. The scent +of the red roses that blossomed yesterday ascends to my window here.... + +Joergen Malthe.... + +When I write his name it is as though I gave him one of those caressing +touches for which my fingers yearn and quiver.... + +Yes, a dip in the sea will calm me. + +I will undress in the house and wrap myself in my dressing-gown. Then I +can slip through the pine-trees unseen.... + + * * * * * + +It was glorious, glorious! What do I want a bathing-hut for? I go into +the sea straight from my own garden, and the sand is soft and firm to my +feet like the pine-needles under the trees. + +The sea is phosphorescent; I seemed to be dipping my arms in liquid +silver. I longed to splash about and make sparkles all around me. But I +was very cautious. I swam only as far as the stakes to which the +fishermen fasten their nets. The moon seemed to be suspended just over +my head. + +I thought of Malthe. + +Ah, for one night! Just one night! + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has given me warning. I asked her why she wished to leave. She +only shook her head and made no answer. She was very pale; I did not +like to force her to speak. + +It will be very difficult to replace her. On the other hand, how can I +keep her if she has made up her mind to go? Wages are no attraction to +her. If I only knew what she wanted. I have not inquired where she is +going. + + * * * * * + +Ah, now I understand! It is the restlessness of the senses. She wants +more life than she can get on this island. She knows I see through her, +and casts her eyes downward when I look at her. + + + + +JOERGEN MALTHE, + +You are the only man I ever loved. And now, by means of this letter, I +am digging a fathomless pit between us. I am not the woman you thought +me; and my true self you could never love. + +I am like a criminal who has had recourse to every deceit to avoid +confession, but whose strength gives way at last under the pressure of +threats and torture, and who finds unspeakable relief in declaring his +guilt. + +Joergen Malthe, I have loved you for the last ten years; as long, in +fact, as you have loved me. I lied to you when I denied it; but my heart +has been faithful all through. + +Had I remained any longer in Richard's house, I should have come to you +one day and asked you to let me be your mistress. Not your wife. Do not +contradict me. I am the stronger and wiser of the two. + +To escape from this risk I ran away. I fled from my love--I fled, too, +from my age. I am now forty-three, you know it well, and you are only +thirty-five. + +By this voluntary renunciation, I hoped to escape the curse that +advancing age brings to most women. Alas! This year has taught me that +we can neither deceive nor escape our destiny, since we carry it in our +hearts and temperaments. + +Here I am, and here I shall remain, until I have grown to be quite an +old woman. Therefore, it is very foolish of me to pour out this +confession to you, for it cannot be otherwise than painful reading. But +I shall have no peace of mind until it is done. + +My life has been poor. I have consumed my own heart. + + * * * * * + +As far as I am aware, my father, a widower, was a strictly honourable +man. Misfortune befell him, and his whole life was ruined in a moment. +An unexpected audit of the accounts of his firm revealed a deficiency. +My father had temporarily borrowed a small sum to save a friend in a +pressing emergency. Henceforward he was a marked man, at home and +abroad. We left the town where we lived. The retiring pension which was +granted to him in spite of what had happened sufficed for our daily +needs. He lived lost in his disgrace, and I was left entirely to the +care of a maid-servant. From her I gathered that our troubles were in +some way connected with a lack of money; and money became the idol of my +life. + +I sometimes buried a coin that had been given me--as a dog buries his +bone. Then I lay awake all night, fearing I should not find it again in +the morning. + +I was sent to school. A classmate said to me one day: + +"Of course, a prince will marry you, for you are the prettiest girl +here." + +I carried the words home to the maid, who nodded her approval. + +"That's true enough," she said. "A pretty face is worth a pocketful of +gold." + +"Can one sell a pretty face, then?" I asked. + +"Yes, child, to the highest bidder," she replied, laughing. + +From that moment I entered upon the accursed cult of my person which +absorbed the rest of my childhood and all my first youth. To become rich +was henceforth my one and only aim in life. I believed I possessed the +means of attaining my ends, and the thought of money was like a poison +working in my blood. + +At school I was diligent and obedient, for I soon saw it paid best in +the long run. I was delighted to see that I attracted the attention of +the masters and mistresses, simply because of my good looks. I took in +and pondered over every word of praise that concerned my appearance. But +I put on airs of modesty, and no one guessed what went on within me. + +I avoided the sun lest I should get freckles. I collected rain-water for +washing. I slept in gloves; and though I adored sweets, I refrained from +eating them on account of my teeth. I spent hours brushing my hair. + +At home there was only one looking-glass. It was in my father's room, +which I seldom entered, and was hung too high for me to use. In my +pocket-mirror I could only see one eye at a time. But I had so much +self-control that I resisted the temptation to stop and look at my +reflection in the shop windows on my way to and from school. + +I was surprised when I came home one day to find that the large mirror +in its gold frame had been given over to me by my father and was hanging +in my room. I made myself quite ill with excitement, and the maid had to +put me to bed. But later on, when the house was quiet, I got up and lit +my lamp. Then I spent hours gazing at my own reflection in the glass. + +Henceforth the mirror became my confidant. It procured me the one +happiness of my childhood. When I was indoors I passed most of my time +practising smiles, and forming my expression. I was seized with terror +lest I should lose the gift that was worth "a pocketful of gold." + +I avoided the wild and noisy games of other girls for fear of getting +scratched. Once, however, I was playing with some of my school friends +in a courtyard. We were swinging on the shafts of a cart when I fell and +ran a nail into my cheek. The pain was nothing compared to the thought +of a permanent mark. I was depressed for months, until one day I heard a +teacher say that the mark was all but gone--a mere beauty spot. + +When I sat before the looking-glass, I only thought of the future. +Childhood seemed to me a long, tiresome journey that must be got through +before I reached the goal of riches, which to me meant happiness. + +Our house overlooked the dwelling of the chief magistrate. It was a +white building in the style of a palace, the walls of which were covered +in summer-time with roses and clematis, and to my eyes it was the finest +and most imposing house in the world. + +It was surrounded by park-like grounds with trim lawns and tall trees. +An iron railing with gilded spikes divided it from the common world. + +Sometimes when the gate was standing open I peeped inside. It seemed as +though the house came nearer and nearer to me. I caught a glimpse in +the basement of white-capped serving-maids, which seemed to me the +height of elegance. It was said that the yellow curtains on the ground +floor were pure silk. As to the upstairs rooms, the shutters were +generally closed. These apartments had not been opened since the death +of Herr von Brincken's wife. He rarely entertained. + +Sometimes while I was watching the house, Herr von Brincken would come +riding home accompanied by a groom. He always bowed to me, and +occasionally spoke a few words. One day an idea took possession of me, +with such force that I almost involuntarily exclaimed aloud. My brain +reeled as I said to myself, "Some day I will marry the great man and +live in that house!" + +This ambition occupied my thoughts day and night. Other things seemed +unreal. I discovered by accident that Herr von Brincken often visited +the parents of one of my schoolmates. I took great pains to cultivate +her acquaintance, and we became inseparable. + +Although I was not yet confirmed, I succeeded in getting an invitation +to a party at which Von Brincken was to be present. At that time I +ignored the meaning of love; I had not even felt that vague, gushing +admiration that girls experience at that age. But when at table this man +turned his eyes upon me with a look of astonishment, I felt +uncomfortable, with the kind of discomfort that follows after eating +something unpleasant. Later in the the evening he came and talked to me, +and I managed to draw him on until he asked whether I should like to see +his garden. + +A few days later he called on my father, who was rather bewildered by +this honour, and asked permission to take me to the garden. He treated +me like a grown-up person, and after we had inspected the lawns and +borders, and looked at the ripening bunches in the grape-house, I felt +myself half-way to become mistress of the place. It never occurred to me +that my plans might fall through. + +At the same time it began to dawn upon me that the personality of Von +Brincken, or rather the difference of our ages, inspired me with a kind +of disgust. In spite of his style and good appearance, he had something +of the "elderly gentleman" about him. This feeling possessed me when we +looked over the house. In every direction there were lofty mirrors, and +for the first time in my life I saw myself reflected in full-length--and +by my side an old man. + +This was the beginning. A year later, after I had been confirmed, I was +sent to a finishing school at Geneva at Von Brincken's expense. I had +not the least doubt that he meant to marry me as soon as my education +was completed. + +The other girls at the school were full of spirits and enthusiastic +about the beauties of nature. I was a poor automaton. Neither lakes nor +mountains had any fascination for me. I simply lived in expectation of +the day when the bargain would be concluded. + +When two years later I returned to Denmark, our engagement, which had +been concluded by letter, was made public. His first hesitating kiss +made me shudder; but I compelled myself to stand before the +looking-glass and receive his caresses in imagination without disturbing +my artificially radiant smile. + +Sometimes I noticed that he looked at me in a puzzled kind of way, but +I did not pay much attention to it. The wedding-day was actually fixed +when I received a letter beginning: + + + "MY DEAR ELSIE, + + "I give you back your promise. You do not love me. + + "You do not realize what love is...." + +This letter shattered all my hopes for the future. I could not, and +would not, relinquish my chances of wealth and position. Henceforth I +summoned all my will-power in order to efface the disastrous impression +caused by my attitude. I assured my future husband that what he had +mistaken for want of love was only the natural coyness of my youth. He +was only too ready to believe me. We decided to hasten the marriage, and +his delight knew no bounds. + +One day I went to discuss with him some details of the marriage +settlements. We had champagne at lunch, and I, being quite unused to +wine, became very lively. Life appeared to me in a rosy light. Arm in +arm, we went over the house together. He had ordered all the lights to +be lit. At length we passed through the room that was to be our conjugal +apartment. Misled, no doubt, by my unwonted animation, and perhaps a +little excited himself by the wine he had taken, he forgot his usual +prudent reserve, and embraced me with an ardour he had never yet shown. +His features were distorted with passion, and he inspired me with +repugnance. I tried to respond to his kisses, but my disgust overcame me +and I nearly fainted. When I recovered, I tried to excuse myself on the +ground that the champagne had been too much for me. + +Von Brincken looked long and searchingly at me, and said in a sad and +tired voice, which I shall never forget: + +"Yes, you are right.... Evidently you cannot stand my champagne." + +The following morning two letters were brought from his house. One was +for my father, in which Von Brincken said he felt obliged to break off +the engagement. He was suffering from a heart trouble, and a recent +medical examination had proved to him that he would be guilty of an +unpardonable wrong in marrying a young girl. + +To me he wrote: + +"You will understand why I give a fictitious reason to your father and +to the world in general. I should be committing a moral murder were I to +marry you under the circumstances. My love for you, great as it is, is +not great enough to conquer the instinctive repugnance of your youth." + +Once again he sent me abroad at his own expense. This time, at my own +wish, I went to Paris, where I met a young artist who fell in love with +me. Had I not, in the saddest way, ruled out of my life everything that +might interfere with my ambitious projects, I could have returned his +passion. But he was poor; and about the same time I met Richard. I +cheated myself, and betrayed my first love, which might have saved me, +and changed me from an automaton into a living being. + +Under the eyes of the man who had stirred my first real emotions, I +proceeded to draw Richard on. My first misfortune taught me wisdom. This +time I had no intention of letting all my plans be shattered. + +When I look back on that time, I see that my worst sin was not so much +my resolve to sell myself for money, as my aptitude for playing the +contemptible comedy of pretended love for days and months and years. I, +who only felt a kind of indifference for Richard, which sometimes +deepened into disgust, pretended to be moved by genuine passion. Yes, I +have paid dearly, very dearly, for my golden cage in the Old Market. + +Richard is not to blame. He could not have suspected the truth.... + +It is so fatally easy for a woman to simulate love. Every intelligent +woman knows by infallible instinct what the man who loves her really +wants in return. The woman of ardent temperament knows how to appear +reserved with a lover who is not too emotional; while a cold woman can +assume a passionate air when necessary. + +I, Joergen, I, who for years cared for no one but myself, have left +Richard firmly convinced to this day that I was greedy of his caresses. + +You are an honest man, and what I have been telling you will come as a +shock. You will not understand it, or me. + +Yet I think that you, too, must have known and possessed women without +loving them. But that is not the same. If it were, my guilt would be +less. + +I allowed my senses to be inflamed, while my mind remained cold, and my +heart contracted with disgust. I consciously profaned the sacred words +of love by applying them to a man whom I chose for his money. + +Meanwhile I developed into the frivolous society woman everybody took me +to be. Every woman wears the mask which best suits her purpose. My mask +was my smile. I did not wish others to see through me. Sometimes, during +a sudden silence, I have caught the echo of my own laugh--that laugh in +which you, too, delighted--and hearing it I have shuddered. + +No! That is not quite true. I was a different woman with you. A real, +living creature lived and breathed behind the mask. You taught me to +live. You looked into my eyes, and heard my real laughter. + +How many hours we spent together, Joergen, you and I! But we did not +talk much; we never came to the exchange of ideas. I hardly remember +anything you ever said; although I often try to recall your words. How +did we pass the happy time together? + +You are the only man I ever loved. + +When we first got to know each other you were five-and-twenty. So +young--and I was eight years your senior. We fell in love with each +other at once. + +You had no idea that I cared for you. + +From that moment I was a changed woman. Not better perhaps, but quite +different. A thousand new feelings awoke in me; I saw, heard, and felt +in an entirely new way. All humanity assumed a new aspect. I, who had +hitherto been so indifferent to the weal or woe of my fellow-creatures, +began to observe and to understand them. I became sympathetic. Towards +women--not towards men. I do not understand the male sex, and this must +be my excuse for the way in which I have so often treated men. For me +there was, and is, only one man in the world: Joergen Malthe. + +At first I never gave a thought to the difference in our ages. We were +both young then. But you were poor. No one, least of all myself, guessed +that you carried a field-marshal's baton in your knapsack. Money had not +brought me happiness; but poverty still seemed to me the greatest +misfortune that could befall any human being. + +Then you received your first important commission, and I ventured to +dream dreams for us both. I never dreamt of fame and honour; what did I +care whether you carried out the restoration of the cathedral or not? +The pleasure I showed in your talent I did not really feel. It was not +to the man as artist, but as lover, that my heart went out. + +Later, you had a brilliant future before you; one day you would make an +income sufficient for us both. But you seemed so utterly indifferent to +money that I was disappointed. My dreams died out like a fire for want +of fuel. + +Had you proposed that I should become your mistress, no power on earth +would have held me back. But you were too honourable even to cherish the +thought. Besides, I let you suppose I was attached to my husband.... + +I knew well enough that the moment you became aware of my feelings for +you, you would leave no stone unturned until you could legitimately +claim me as your wife.... Such is your nature, Joergen Malthe! + +So I let happiness go by. + + * * * * * + +Two years ago Von Brincken died, leaving me a considerable share of his +fortune--- and a letter, written on the night of the day when we last +met. + +I might then have left Richard. Your constancy would have been a +sufficient guarantee for my future. + +A mere accident destroyed my illusions. A friend of my own age had +recently married an officer much younger than herself. At the end of a +year's happiness he left her; and society, far from pitying her, laughed +at her plight. + +This drove me to make my supreme resolve--to abandon, and flee from, the +one love of my life. + +Joergen, I owe you the best hours I have known: those hours in which you +showed me the plans for the "White Villa." + +I feel a bitter, yet unspeakable joy when I think that you yourself +built the walls within which I am living in solitary confinement. + +Once I longed for you with a consuming ardour. + +Now, alas, I am but a pile of burnt-out ashes. The winds of heaven have +dispersed my dreams. + +I go on living because it is not in my nature to do away with myself. I +live, and shall continue to live. + +If only you knew what goes on within me, and how low I have sunk that I +can write this confession! + +There are thoughts that a woman can never reveal to the man she +loves--even if her own life and his were at stake.... + +It is night. The stars are bright overhead. Joergen Malthe, why have I +written all this to you?... What do I really want of you?... + + * * * * * + +No, no!... never in this world.... + +You shall never read this letter. Never, never! What need you know more +than that I love you? I love you! I love you! + +I will write to you again, calmly, humbly, and tell you the simple +truth: I was afraid of the future, and of the time when you would cease +to love me. That is what I fled from. + +I still fear the future, and the time when you will love me no more. But +all my powers of resistance are shattered by this one truth: _I love_. +For the first and only time in my life. Therefore I implore you to come +to me; but now, at once. Do not wait a week or a month. My lime trees +are fragrant with blossom. I want you, Joergen, now, while the limes +are flowering. Then, what you ask of me shall be done. + +If you want me for a wife, I will follow you as the women of old +followed their lords and masters, in joyful submission. But if you only +care to have me for a time, I will prepare the house for my desired +guest. + +Whatever you decide to do will be such an immense joy that I tremble +lest anything should happen to hinder its fulfilment.... + +Then let the years go by! Then let age come to me! + +I shall have sown so many memories of you and happiness that I shall +have henceforth a forest of glad thoughts, wherein to wander and take my +rest till Death comes to claim me. + +The sun is flashing on the window-panes; the sunbeams seem to be weaving +threads of joy in rainbow tints. + +You child! How I love you!... + +Come to me and stay with me--or go when we have had our hour of delight. + + * * * * * + +The letter has gone. Jeanne has rowed to the town with it. + +She looked searchingly at me when I gave it to her and told her to hurry +so that she should not lose the evening post. Both of us had tears in +our eyes. + +I will never part with Jeanne. Her place is with me--and with him. I +stood at the window and watched her pull away in the little white boat. +She pulled so hard at the oars. If only she is strong enough to keep it +up.... It is a long way to the town. + +Never has the evening been so calm. Everything seems folded in rest and +silence. There lies a majesty on sky and earth. I wandered at random in +the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed to feel the ground beneath my +feet. The flowers smell so sweet, and I am so deeply moved. + +How can I sleep! I feel I must remain awake until my letter is in his +hands. + +Now it is speeding to him through the quiet night. The letter yearns +towards him as I do myself. + +I am young again.... Yes, young, young!... How blue is the night! Not a +single light is visible at sea. + +If this were my last night on earth I would not complain. I feel my +happiness drawing so near that my heart seems to open and drink in the +night, as thirsty plants drink up the dew. + +All that was has ceased to be. I am Elsie Bugge once more, and stand on +the threshold of life in all its expanse and beauty. + + * * * * * + +He is coming.... + +He will come by the morning train. It seems too soon. + +Why did he not wait a day or two? I want time to collect myself. There +is so much to do.... + +How my hands tremble! + + * * * * * + +I carry his telegram next my heart. Now I feel quite calm. Why will +Jeanne insist on my going to bed? I am not ill. + +She says it is useless to arrange the flowers in the vases to-night, +they will be faded by to-morrow. But can I rely on Torp's seeing that we +have enough food in the house? My head is swimming.... The grass wants +mowing, and the hedge must be cut.... Ah! What a fool I am! As though he +would notice the lawn and the hedge!... + +Jeanne asks, "Where will the gentleman sleep?" I cannot answer the +question. I see she is getting the little room upstairs ready for him. +The one that has most sun. + + * * * * * + +Has Jeanne read my thoughts? She proposes to sleep downstairs with Torp +so long as I have "company." + + * * * * * + +I have begun a long letter to Richard, and that has passed the time so +well. I wish he could find some dear little creature who would sweeten +life for him. He is a good soul. During the last few days I seem to have +started a kind of affection for him. + +We will travel a great deal, Joergen and I. Hitherto I have seen +nothing on my many trips abroad. Joergen must show me the world. We will +visit all the places he once went to alone. + +Now I understand the doubting apostle Thomas. Until my eyes behold I +dare not believe. + +Joergen has such a big powerful head! I sometimes feel as though I were +clasping it with both my hands. + + * * * * * + +Torp suggests that to-morrow we should have the same _menu_ that she +prepared when the "State Councillor" entertained Prince Waldemar. Well! +Provided she can get all she wants for her creations! She can amuse +herself at the telegraph office as far as I am concerned. I am willing +to help her; at any rate, I can stir the mayonnaise. + + * * * * * + +How stupid of me to have given Lillie my tortoiseshell combs! How can I +ask to have them back without seeming rude? Joergen was used to them; +he will miss them at once. + +I have had out all my dresses, but I cannot make up my mind what to +wear. I cannot appear in the morning in a dinner dress, and a white +frock--at my age!... After all, why not?... The white embroidered +one ... it fits beautifully. I have never worn it since Joergen's last +visit to us in the country. It has got a little yellow from lying by, +but he will never notice it. + + * * * * * + +To-night _I will_ sleep--sleep like a top. Then I shall wake, take my +bath, and go for a long walk. When I come home, I will sit in the garden +and watch until the white boat appears in the distance. + + * * * * * + +I had to take a dose of veronal, but I managed to sleep round the clock, +from 9. P.M. to 9. A.M. The gardener has gone off in the boat; and I +have two hours in which to dress. + +What is the matter with me? Now that my happiness is so close at hand, +I feel strangely depressed. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne advises a little rouge. No! Joergen loves me just as I am.... + + * * * * * + +How he will laugh at me when he hears that I cried because I cannot get +into the white embroidered dress nowadays! It is my own fault; I eat too +much and do not take enough exercise. + +I put on another white dress, but I am very disappointed, for it does +not suit me nearly as well. + + * * * * * + +I see the boat.... + + * * * * * + + + + + TWO DAYS LATER. + +He came by the morning train, and left the same evening. That was the +day before yesterday, and I have never slept since. Neither have I +thought. There is time enough before me for thought. + +He went away the same evening; so at least I was spared the night. + +I have burnt his letter unread. What could it tell me that I did not +already know? Could it hold any torture which I have not already +suffered? + +Do I really suffer? Have I not really become insensible to pain? Once +the cold moon was a burning sun; her own central fires consumed it. Now +she is cold and dead; her light a mere reflection and a falsehood. + + * * * * * + +His first glance told me all. He cast down his eyes so that he might not +hurt me again. ... And I--coward that I was--I accepted without +interrupting him the tender words he spoke, and even his caress.... + +But when our eyes met a second time we both knew that all was at an end +between us. + +One reads of "tears of blood." During the few hours he spent in my house +I think we smiled "smiles of blood." + +When we sat opposite to each other at table, we might have been sitting +each side a deathbed. We only attempted to speak when Jeanne was waiting +at table. + +When we parted, he said: + +"I feel like the worst of criminals!" + +He has not committed a crime. He loved me once, now he no longer loves +me. That is all. + + * * * * * + +But after what has happened I cannot remain here. Everything will remind +me of my hours of joyful waiting; of my hours of failure and abasement. + +Where can I go to hide my shame? + + * * * * * + +Richard.... + + * * * * * + +Would that be too humiliating? Why should it be? Did I not give him my +promise: "If I should ever regret my resolution," I said to him. + + * * * * * + +I will write to him, but first I must gather up my strength again. +Jeanne goes long walks with me. We do not talk to each other, but it +comforts me to find her so faithful. + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAR RICHARD, + +It is a long time since I wrote to you, but neither have you been quite +so zealous a correspondent this summer, so it is tit for tat. + +I often think of you, and wonder how you are really getting on in your +solitude. Whether you have been living in the country and going up to +town daily? Or if, like most of the "devoted husbands," you still only +run down to the cottage for week-ends? + +If I were not absolutely free from jealousy, in any form, I should envy +you your new car. This neighbourhood is charming, but to explore it in a +hired carriage, lined with dirty velvet, does not attract me. Now, dear +friend, don't go and send off car and chauffeur post-haste to me. That +would be like your good nature. But, of course, I am only joking. + +Send me all the news of the town. I read the papers diligently, but +there are items of interest which do not appear in the papers! Above +all, tell me how things are going with Lillie. Will she soon be coming +home? Do you think her conduct was much talked of outside her own +circle? People chatter, but they soon forget. + +Homes for nervous cases are all very well in their way; but I think our +good Hermann Rothe went to extremes when he sent her to one. He is +furious with me, because I told him what I thought in plain words. +Naturally he did not in the least understand what I was driving at. But +I think I made him see that Lillie had never been faithless to him in +the physiological meaning of the word--and that is all that matters to +men of his stamp. + +I am convinced that Lillie would not have suffered half so much if she +had really been unfaithful in the ordinary sense. + +But to return to me and my affairs. + +You cannot imagine what a wonderful business-woman the world has lost in +me. Not only have I made both ends meet--I, who used to dread my +Christmas bills--but I have so much to the good in solid coin of the +realm that I could fill a dozen pairs of stockings. And I keep my +accounts--think of that, Richard! Every Monday morning Torp appears with +her slate and account-book, and they must balance to a farthing. + +I bathe once or twice a day from my cosey little hut at the end of the +garden, and in the evening I row about in my little white boat. +Everything here is so neat and refined that I am sure your fastidious +soul would rejoice to see it. Here I never bring in any mud on my shoes, +as I used to do in the country, to your everlasting worry. And here the +books are arranged tidily in proper order on the shelves. You would not +be able to find a speck of dust on the furniture. + +Of course the gardener from Frijsenborg, about whom I have already told +you, is now courting Torp, and I am expecting an invitation to the +wedding one of these next days. Otherwise he is very competent, and my +vegetables are beyond criticism. + +Personally, I should have liked to rear chickens, but Torp is so +afflicted at the idea of poultry-fleas that she implored me not to keep +fowls. Now we get them from the schoolmaster who cannot supply us with +all we want. + +I have an idea which will please you, Richard. + +What if you paid me a short visit? Without committing either of us--you +understand? Just a brief, friendly meeting to refresh our pleasant and +unpleasant memories? + +I am dying for somebody to speak to, and who could I ask better than +yourself? + +But, just to please me, come without saying a word to anyone. Nobody +need know that you are on a visit to your former wife, need they? We are +free to follow our own fancies, but there is no need to set people +gossiping. + +Who knows whether the time may not come when I may take my revenge and +keep the promise I made you the last evening we spent together? When two +people have lived together as long as we have, separation is a mere +figure of speech. People do not separate after twenty-two years of +married life, even if each goes a different road for a time. + +But why talk of the future. The present concerns us more nearly, and +interests me far more. + +Come, then, dear friend, and I will give you such a welcome that you +will not regret the journey. + + * * * * * + +Joergen Malthe paid me a flying visit last week. Business brought him +into the neighbourhood, and he called unexpectedly and spent an hour +with me. + +I must say he has altered, and not for the better. + +I hope he will not wear himself out prematurely with all his work. + +If you should see him, do not say I mentioned his visit. It was rather +painful. He was shy, and I, too, was nervous. One cannot spend a whole +year alone on an island without feeling bewildered by the sudden +apparition of a fellow-creature.... + +Tell your chauffeur to get the car ready. Should you find the +neighbourhood very fascinating, you could always telegraph to him to +bring it at once. + +If the manufactory, or any other plans, prevent your coming, send me a +few lines. Till we meet, + + Your ELSIE, + +who perhaps after all is not suited to a hermit's life. + + * * * * * + +So he has dared!... + +So all his passion, and his grief at parting, were purely a part that he +played!... Who knows? Perhaps he was really glad to get rid of me.... + +Ah, but this scorn and contempt!... + +Elsie Lindtner, do you realise that in the same year, the same month, +you have offered yourself to two men in succession and both have +declined the honour? Luckily there is no one else to whom you can abase +yourself. + +One of these days, depend upon it, Richard will eat his heart out with +regret. But then it will be too late, my dear man, too late! + +That he should have dared to replace me by a mere chit of nineteen! + +The whole town must be laughing at him. And I can do nothing.... + +But I am done for. Nothing is left to me, but to efface myself as soon +as possible. I cannot endure the thought of being pitied by anyone, +least of all by Richard. + +How badly I have played my cards! I who thought myself so clever! + +Good heavens! I understand the women who throw vitriol in the face of a +rival. Unhappily I am too refined for such reprisals. + +But if I had her here--whoever she may be--I would crush her with a look +she could never forget. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has agreed to go with me. + +Nothing remains but to write my letter--and depart! + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAREST RICHARD, + +How your letter amused me, and how delighted I am to hear your +interesting intelligence. You could not have given me better news. In +future I am relieved of all need of sympathetic anxiety about you, and +henceforth I can enjoy my freedom without a qualm, and dispose of life +just as I please. + +Every good wish, dear friend! We must hope that this young person will +make you very happy; but, you know, young girls have their whims and +fancies. Fortunately, you are not only a good-looking man in the prime +of life, but also an uncommonly good match for any woman. The young +girls of the present day are seldom blind to such advantages, and you +will find her devotion very lasting, I have no doubt. + +Who can she be? I have not the least idea. But I admire your +discretion--you have not changed in that respect. In any case, be +prepared, Richard, she will turn the house upside down and your work +will be cut out for you to get it straight again. + +I am sure she bikes; she will probably drop her cigarette ashes into +your best Venetian glasses; she is certain to hate goloshes and long +skirts, and will enjoy rearranging the furniture. Well, she will be able +to have fine times in your spacious, well-ordered establishment! + +I hope at any rate that you will be able to keep her so far within +bounds that she will not venture to chaff you about "number one." Do not +let her think that my taste predominates in the style and decorations of +the house.... + +Dear friend, already I see you pushing the perambulator! Do you remember +the ludicrous incident connected with the fat merchant Bang, who married +late in life and was always called "gran'pa" by his youthful progeny? Of +course, that will not happen in your case--you are a year or two younger +than Bang, so your future family will more probably treat you like a +playfellow. + +You see, I am quite carried away by my surprise and delight. + +If it were the proper thing, I should immensely like to be at the +wedding; but I know you would not allow such a breach of all the +conventions. + +Where are you going for the honeymoon? You might bring her to see me +here occasionally, in the depths of the country, so long as nobody knew. + +One of my first thoughts was: how does she dress? Does she know how to +do her hair? Because, you know, most of the girls in our particular set +have the most weird notions as regards hair-dressing and frocks. + +However, I can rely on the sureness of your taste, and if your wedding +trip takes you to Paris, she will see excellent models to copy. + +Now I understand why your letters got fewer and farther between. How +long has the affair been on hand? Did it begin early in the summer? Or +did you start it in the train between Hoerlsholm and Helsingoer, on your +way to and from the factory? I only ask--you need not really trouble to +answer. + +I can see from your letter that you felt some embarrassment, and +blushed when you wrote it. Every word reveals your state of mind; as +though you were obliged to give some account of yourself to me, or were +afraid I should take your news amiss. I have already drunk to your +happiness all by myself in a glass of champagne. + +You can tell your young lady, if you like. + +Under the circumstances you had better not accept the invitation I gave +you in my last letter; although I would give much to see your good, kind +face, rejuvenated, as it doubtless is, by this new happiness. But it +would not be wise. You know it is harder to catch and to keep a young +girl than a whole sackful of those lively, hopping little creatures +which are my horror. + +Besides, a new idea has occurred to me, and I can hardly find patience +to wait for its realisation. + +Guess, Richard!... I intend to take a trip round the world. I have +already written to Cook's offices, and am eagerly awaiting information +as to tickets, fares, etc. I shall not go alone. I have not courage +enough for that. I will take Jeanne with me. If I cannot manage it out +of my income, I shall break into my capital, even if I have to live on a +pittance hereafter. + +No--do not make any more of your generous offers of help. You must not +give any more money now to "women." Remember that, Richard! + +The White Villa will be shut up during my absence; it cannot take to +itself wings, nor eat its head off during my absence. Probably in future +I shall spend my time between this place and various big towns abroad, +so that I shall only be here in summer. + +At the same time as this letter, I am sending a wedding present for your +new bride. Girls are always crazy about jewellery. I have no further use +for a diadem of brilliants; but you need not tell her where it comes +from. You will recognise it. It was your first overwhelming gift, and on +our wedding day I was so taken up with my new splendour that I never +heard a word of the pastor's sermon. They said it was most eloquent. + +I hope you will have the tact to remove the too numerous portraits of +myself which adorn your walls. Sell them for the benefit of struggling +artists; in that way, they will serve some good purpose, and I shall not +run the risk of being disfigured by my successor. + +If I should come across any pretty china, or fine embroidery, in Japan, +I shall not forget your passion for collecting. + +Let me know the actual date of the wedding, you can always communicate +through my banker. But the announcement will suffice. Do not write. +Henceforth you must devote yourself entirely to your role of young +husband. + +You quite forgot to answer my questions about Lillie, and I conclude +from your silence that all is well with her. + +Give her my love, and accept my affectionate greetings. + + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +P.S.--As yet I cannot grapple with the problem of my future appellation. +I do not feel inclined to return to my maiden name. "Elizabeth Bugge" +makes me think of an overgrown grave in a churchyard. + +Well, you will be neither the first nor the last man with several wives +scattered about the globe. The world may be a small place, but it is +large enough to hold two "Mrs. Lindtners" without any chance of their +running across each other. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dangerous Age, by Karin Michaëlis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANGEROUS AGE *** + +***** This file should be named 14187-8.txt or 14187-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/8/14187/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Dangerous Age + +Author: Karin Michaëlis + +Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14187] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANGEROUS AGE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a><i>THE DANGEROUS AGE</i></h1> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><i>LETTERS AND FRAGMENTS FROM A WOMAN'S DIARY</i><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a></h2> + +<h3><i>TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF KARIN MICHAËLIS</i></h3> + +<h4><i>NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXI</i><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a></h4> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>TO<a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a></h2> + +<h3>MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW</h3> + +<h2>BARON YOOST DAHLERUP<a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></h2> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a><i>INTRODUCTION TO THE FRENCH EDITION <br /> +By <br /> +MARCEL PRÉVOST</i></h2> + + +<p>Here is a strange book. A novel from the North, its solid structure, its +clear, unadorned form are purely Latin. A woman's novel, in its integral +and violent sincerity it can only be compared to certain famous +masculine confessions.</p> + +<p>The author, Karin Michaëlis, a Dane, is not at all known in France. <i>The +Dangerous Age</i> is not her first book; but it is, I feel sure, the first +that has been translated into French. Naturally enough the +Danish-Scandinavian literature is transmitted in the first instance +through newspapers and reviews, and through German publishers. This is +the result of local proximity and the affinity of language. Several +novels by Karin Michaëlis were known to the German public before <i>The +Dangerous Age</i>; but none of them had awakened the same keen curiosity,<a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a> +provoked such discussion, or won such success as this book. In all the +countries of Central Europe the most widely read novel at the present +moment is <i>The Dangerous Age</i>. Edition succeeds edition, and the fortune +of the book has been increased by the quarrels it has provoked; for it +has been much discussed and criticised, not on account of its literary +value, which is incontestable, but because of the idea which animates +it.</p> + +<p>Shall I confess that it was just this great success, and the polemical +renown of the novel, that roused my suspicions when first I chanced to +see the German version of it? Contrary to the reputation which our +neighbours on the other side of the Vosges like to foist upon us, French +literature, at the present day, is far less noisily scandalous than +their own. It is only necessary to glance over the advertisements which +certain German publishing firms issue at the end of their publications +in order to be convinced of this. It is amusing to find every kind of +"puff" couched in the exaggerated style which the modern German affects.</p> + +<p>It was with some bias and suspicion, therefore, that I took up <i>Das<a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a> +gefährliche Alter</i>. When I started to read the book, nothing could have +been further from my mind than to write, a French version and to present +it myself to the public. This is all the more reason why justice should +be done to Karin Michaëlis. I have read no other book of hers except +<i>The Dangerous Age</i>; but in this novel she has in no way exceeded what a +sincere and serious observer has a right to publish. Undoubtedly her +book is not intended for young girls, for what the English call +"bread-and-butter misses." But nobody is compelled to write exclusively +for schoolgirls, and it has yet to be proved that there is any necessity +to feed them on fiction as well as on bread and butter.</p> + +<p><i>The Dangerous Age</i> deals with a bold subject; it is a novel filled with +the "strong meat" of human nature; a novel which speaks in accents at +once painful and ironical, and ends in despair; but it is also a book to +which the most scrupulous author on the question of "the right to speak +out" need not hesitate to attach his name.</p> + +<p>It is difficult for one who knows no Danish, to judge of its literary<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a> +value; and that is my case. In the German version—and I hope also in +the French—the reader will not fail to discern some of the novelist's +finest gifts. In the first instance, there is that firmness and solidity +of structure which is particularly difficult to keep up when a book +takes the form of a journal, of jottings and meditations, as does <i>The +Dangerous Age</i>. Then there are the depth of reflection, the ingenuity of +the arguments, the muscular brevity of style, the expression being +closely modelled upon the thought; nothing is vague, but nothing is +superfluous. We must not seek in this volume for picturesque landscape +painting, for the lyrical note, for the complacently woven "purple +patch." The book is rigorously deprived of all these things; and, having +regard to its subject, this is not its least merit.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>When a woman entitles a book <i>The Dangerous Age</i> we may feel sure she +does not intend to write of the dangers of early youth. The dangerous<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a> +age described by Karin Michaëlis is precisely that time of life which +inspired Octave Feuillet to write the novel, half-dialogue, +half-journal, which appeared in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> in 1848, was +adapted for the stage, played at the <i>Gymnase</i> in 1854, and reproduced +later with some success at the Comédie-Française—I mean the work +entitled <i>La Crise</i>.</p> + +<p>It is curious to compare the two books, partly on account of the long +space of time which separates them, and partly because of the different +way in which the two writers treat the same theme.</p> + +<p>Octave Feuillet, be it remembered, only wrote what might be spoken aloud +in the most conventional society. Nevertheless those who think the +author of <i>Monsieur de Cantors</i> timid and insipid are only short-sighted +critics. I advise my readers when they have finished the last page of +<i>The Dangerous Age</i> to re-read <i>La Crise</i>. They will observe many points +of resemblance, notably in the "journal" portion of the latter. +Juliette, Feuillet's heroine, thus expresses herself:</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>What name can I give to this moral discomfort, this distaste for my +former habits, this aimless restlessness and discontent with myself and +others, of which I have been conscious during the last few months?... I +have taken it into my head to hate the trinkets on my husband's +watchchain. We lived together in peace for ten years, those trinkets and +I ... Now, I don't know why, we have suddenly fallen out...."</p> + +<p>These words from <i>La Crise</i> contain the argument of <i>The Dangerous Age</i>.</p> + +<p>And yet I will wager that Karin Michaëlis never read <i>La Crise</i>. Had she +read it, however, her book would still have remained all her own, by +reason of her individual treatment of a subject that is also a dangerous +one. We have made considerable advances since 1848. Even in Denmark +physiology now plays a large part in literature. Feuillet did not +venture to do more than to make his Juliet experience temptation from a +medical lover, who is a contrast to her magistrate husband. Although +doctors come off rather badly in <i>The Dangerous Age</i>, the book owes much +to <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>them and to medical science. Much; perhaps too much. If this woman's +work had been imagined and created by a man, no doubt he would have been +accused of having lost sight of women's repugnance to speak or write of +their physical inferiority, or even to dwell upon it in thought. Yet the +name Karin Michaëlis is no pseudonym; the writer really is of the same +sex as her heroine Elsie Lindtner.</p> + +<p>Is not this an added reason for the curiosity which this book awakens? +The most sincere and complete, the humblest and most moving of feminine +confessions proceeds from one of those Northern women, whom we Latin +races are pleased to imagine as types of immaterial candour, sovereign +"intellectuality," and glacial temperament—souls in harmony with their +natural surroundings, the rigid pine forests and snow-draped heathlands +of Scandinavia.</p> + +<p>A Scandinavian woman! Immediately the words evoke the chaste vision sung +by Leconte de Lisle, in his poem "l'Epiphanie":</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a> +<span>Elle passe, tranquille, en un rêve divin,<br /></span> +<span>Sur le bord du plus frais de tes lacs, ô Norvège!<br /></span> +<span>Le sang rose et subtil qui dore son col fin<br /></span> +<span>Est doux comme un rayon de l'aube sur la neige.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Quand un souffle furtif glisse en ses cheveux blonds,<br /></span> +<span>Une cendre ineffable inonde son épaule,<br /></span> +<span>Et, de leur transparence argentant leurs cils longs,<br /></span> +<span>Ses yeux out la couleur des belle nuits du pôle.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span>Et le gardien pensif du mystique oranger<br /></span> +<span>Des balcons de l'Aurore eternelle se penche,<br /></span> +<span>Et regarde passer ce fantôme léger<br /></span> +<span>Dans les plis de sa robe immortellement blanche.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Immortellement blanche!" Very white indeed!... Read the intimate +journal of Elsie Lindtner, written precisely by the side of one of these +fresh Northern lakes. Possibly at eighteen Elsie Lindtner may have +played at "Epiphanies" and filled "the pensive guardian of the mystic +orange tree" with admiration. But it is at forty-two that she begins to +edit her private diary, and her eyes that "match the hue of polar +nights" have seen a good deal in the course of those twenty years. And +if in the eyes of the law she has remained strictly faithful to her +marriage vows, she has judged herself in the secret depths of her heart. +She <a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>has also judged other women, her friends and confidants. The moment +of "the crisis" arrives, and, taking refuge in "a savage solitude," in +which even the sight of a male servant is hateful to her, she sets down +with disconcerting lucidity all she has observed in other women, and in +herself. These other women are also of the North: Lillie Rothe, Agatha +Ussing, Astrid Bagge, Margarethe Ernst, Magna Wellmann.... Her memory +invokes them all, and they reappear. We seem to take part in a strange, +painful revel; a witches' revel of ardent yet withered sorceresses; a +revel in which the modern demons of Neurasthenia and Hysteria sport and +sneer.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Let us not be mistaken, however. Elsie Lindtner's confession is not +merely to be weighed by its fierce physiological sincerity; it is the +feminine soul, and the feminine soul of all time, that is revealed in +this extraordinary document. I think nothing less would give out such a +pungent odour of truth. <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a><i>The Dangerous Age</i> contains pages dealing with +women's smiles and tears, with their love of dress and desire to please, +and with the social relations between themselves and the male sex, which +will certainly irritate some feminine readers. Let them try to unravel +the real cause of their annoyance: perhaps they will perceive that they +are actually vexed because a woman has betrayed the freemasonry that +exists among their own sex. We must add that we are dealing here with +another nation, and every Frenchwoman may, if she choose, decline to +recognise herself among these portraits from Northern Europe.</p> + +<p>A sure diagnosis of the vital conditions under which woman exists, and +an acute observation of her complicated soul—these two things alone +would suffice, would they not, to recommend the novel in which they were +to be found? But <i>The Dangerous Age</i> possesses another quality which, at +first sight, seems to have no connection with the foregoing: it is by no +means lacking in emotion. Notwithstanding that she has the eye of the +doctor and the psychologist, Elsie Lindtner, the <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>heroine, has also the +nerves and sensibility of a woman. Her daring powers of analysis do not +save her from moments of mysterious terror, such as came over her, for +no particular reason, on a foggy evening; nor yet from the sense of +being utterly happy—equally without reason—on a certain autumn night; +nor from feeling an intense sensuous pleasure in letting the little +pebbles on the beach slide between her fingers. In a word, all the +harshness of her judgments and reflections do not save her from the +dreadful distress of growing old....</p> + +<p>In vain she withdraws from the society of her fellow-creatures, in the +hope that old age will no longer have terrors for her when there is no +one at hand to watch her physical decay; the redoubtable phantom still +haunts her in her retreat; watches her, brushes past her, and mocks her +sincere effort to abandon all coquetry and cease "to count as a woman." +At the same time a cruel melancholia possesses her; she feels she has +become old without having profited by her youth. Not that she descends +to the coarse and libertine regrets of<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a> "grand'mère" in Béranger's song, +"Ah! que je regrette!" Elsie Lindtner declares more than once that if +she had to start life over again she would be just as irreproachable. +But the nearer she gets to the crisis, the more painfully and lucidly +she perceives the antinomy between two feminine desires: the desire of +moral dignity and the desire of physical enjoyment. In a woman of her +temperament this need of moral dignity becomes increasingly imperious +the more men harass her with their desires—an admirable piece of +observation which I believe to be quite new. Moral resistance becomes +weaker in proportion as the insistent passion of men becomes rarer and +less active. She will end by yielding entirely when men cease to find +her desirable. Then, even the most honourable of women, finding herself +no longer desired, will perhaps lose the sense of her dignity so far as +to send out a despairing appeal to the companion who is fleeing from +her....</p> + +<p>Such is the inward conflict which forms the subject of <i>The Dangerous +Age</i>. It must be <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>conceded that it lacks neither greatness nor human +interest.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I wish to add a few lines in order to record here an impression which I +experienced while reading the very first pages of <i>The Dangerous Age</i>; +an impression that became deeper and clearer when I had closed the book.</p> + +<p><i>The Dangerous Age</i> is one of those rare novels by a woman in which the +writer has not troubled to think from a man's point of view. I lay +stress upon this peculiarity because it is <i>very rare</i>, especially among +the contemporary works of Frenchwomen.</p> + +<p>The majority of our French authoresses give us novels in which their +ambition to think, to construct and to write in a masculine style is +clearly perceptible. And nothing, I imagine, gives them greater pleasure +than when, thanks to their pseudonyms, their readers actually take them +for men writers.</p> + +<p>Therefore all this mass of feminine literature in France, with three or +four exceptions—all <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>this mass of literature of which I am far from +denying the merits—has really told us nothing new about the soul of +woman. A strange result is that not a single woman writer of the present +day is known as a specialist in feminine psychology.</p> + +<p>Karin Michaëlis has been inspired to write a study of womankind without +trying to interpose between her thought and the paper the mind and +vision of a man. The outcome is astonishing. I have said that the +construction of the novel is solid; but no man could have built it up in +that way. It moves to a definite goal by a sure path; yet its style is +variable like the ways of every woman, even if she be completely +mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like +carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they +circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or +temptation to turn back from their course....</p> + +<p>Elsie Lindtner's journal shows us many examples of these circling +flights and retrogressions. Sometimes too we observe a gap, an empty +space, in which words and ideas <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>seem to have failed. Again, there are +sudden leaps from one subject to another, the true thought appearing, +notwithstanding, beneath the artificial thought which is written down. +Sometimes there comes an abrupt and painful pause, as though somebody +walking absent-mindedly along the road found themselves brought up by a +yawning cleft....</p> + +<p>This cinematograph of feminine thought, stubborn yet disconnected, is to +my mind the principal literary merit of the book; more so even than its +strength and brevity of style.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>For all these reasons, it seemed to me that <i>The Dangerous Age</i> was +worthy to be presented to the public in a French translation. The <i>Revue +de Paris</i> also thought it worthy to be published in its pages. I shall +be astonished if French readers do not confirm this twofold judgment, +offering to this foreign novel the same favourable reception that has +already been accorded to it outside its little native land.</p> + +<p class="smcap">Marcel Prévost.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a><i>The Dangerous Age</i></h2> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap">My Dear Lillie,</p> +<p>Obviously it would have been the right thing to give you my news in +person—apart from the fact that I should then have enjoyed the amusing +spectacle of your horror! But I could not make up my mind to this +course.</p> + +<p>All the same, upon my word of honour, you, dear innocent soul, are the +only person to whom I have made any direct communication on the subject. +It is at once your great virtue and defect that you find everything that +everybody does quite right and reasonable—you, the wife eternally in +love with her husband; eternally watching over your children like a +brood-hen.</p> + +<p>You are really virtuous, Lillie. But I may add that you have no reason +for being anything else. For you, life is like a long and <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>pleasant day +spent in a hammock under a shady tree—your husband at the head and your +children at the foot of your couch.</p> + +<p>You ought to have been a mother stork, dwelling in an old cart-wheel on +the roof of some peasant's cottage.</p> + +<p>For you, life is fair and sweet, and all humanity angelic. Your +relations with the outer world are calm and equable, without temptation +to any passions but such as are perfectly legal. At eighty you will +still be the virtuous mate of your husband.</p> + +<p>Don't you see that I envy you? Not on account of your husband—you may +keep him and welcome! Not on account of your lanky maypoles of +daughters—for I have not the least wish to be five times running a +mother-in-law, a fate which will probably overtake you. No! I envy your +superb balance and your imperturbable joy in life.</p> + +<p>I am out of sorts to-day. We have dined out twice running, and you know +I cannot endure too much light and racket.</p> + +<p>We shall meet no more, you and I. How strange it will seem. We had so +much in <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>common besides our portly dressmaker and our masseuse with her +shiny, greasy hands! Well, anyhow, let us be thankful to the masseuse +for our slender hips.</p> + +<p>I shall miss you. Wherever you were, the atmosphere was cordial. Even on +the summit of the Blocksberg, the chillest, barest spot on earth, you +would impart some warmth.</p> + +<p>Lillie Rothe, dear cousin, do not have a fit on reading my news: +<i>Richard and I are going to be divorced</i>.</p> + +<p>Or rather, we <i>are</i> divorced.</p> + +<p>Thanks to the kindly intervention of the Minister of Justice, the affair +was managed quickly and without fuss, as you see. After twenty-two years +of married life, almost as exemplary as your own, we are going our +separate ways.</p> + +<p>You are crying, Lillie, because you are such a kind, heaven-sent, +tender-hearted creature. But spare your tears. You are really fond of +me, and when I tell you that all has happened for the best, you will +believe me, and dry your eyes.</p> + +<p>There is no special reason for our divorce.<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a> None at least that is +palpable, or explicable, to the world. As far as I know, Richard has no +entanglements; and I have no lover. Neither have we lost our wits, nor +become religious maniacs. There is no shadow of scandal connected with +our separation beyond that which must inevitably arise when two +middle-aged partners throw down the cards in the middle of the rubber.</p> + +<p>It has cost my vanity a fierce struggle. I, who made it such a point of +honour to live unassailable and pass as irreproachable. I, who am +mortally afraid of the judgment of my fellow creatures—to let loose the +gossips' tongues in this way!</p> + +<p>I, who have always maintained that the most wretched <i>ménage</i> was better +than none at all, and that an unmarried or divorced woman had no right +to expect more than the semi-existence of a Pariah! I, who thought +divorce between any but a very young couple an unpardonable folly! Here +am I, breaking a union that has been completely harmonious and happy!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>You will begin to realize, dear Lillie, that this is a serious matter.</p> + +<p>For a whole year I delayed taking the final step; and if I hesitated so +long before realizing my intention, it was partly in order to test my +own feelings, and partly for practical reasons; for I <i>am</i> practical, +and I could not fancy myself leaving my house in the Old Market Place +without knowing where I was going to.</p> + +<p>My real reason is so simple and clear that few will be content to accept +it. But I have no other, so what am I to do?</p> + +<p>You know, like the rest of the world, that Richard and I have got on as +well as any two people of opposite sex ever can do. There has never been +an angry word between us. But one day the impulse—or whatever you like +to call it—took possession of me that I must live alone—quite alone +and all to myself. Call it an absurd idea, an impossible fancy; call it +hysteria—which perhaps it is—I must get right away from everybody and +everything.<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a> It is a blow to Richard, but I hope he will soon get over +it. In the long run his factory will make up for my loss.</p> + +<p>We concealed the business very nicely. The garden party we gave last +week was a kind of "farewell performance." Did you suspect anything at +all? We are people of the world and know how to play the game...!</p> + +<p>If I am leaving to-night, it is not altogether because I want to be +"over the hills" before the scandal leaks out, but because I have an +indescribable longing for solitude.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little villa for me—without +having the least idea I was to be the occupant.</p> + +<p>The house is on an island, the name of which I will keep to myself for +the present. The rooms are fourteen feet high, and the dining-room can +hold thirty-six guests. There are only two reception-rooms. But what +more could a divorced woman of my age require? The rest of the +house—the upper storey—consists of smaller rooms, with bay-windows and +balconies. My bedroom, iso<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>lated from all the others, has a glass roof, +like a studio. Another of my queer notions is to be able to look up from +my bed and see the sky above me. I think it is good for the nerves, and +mine are in a terrible condition.</p> + +<p>So in future, having no dear men, I can flirt with the little stars in +God's heaven.</p> + +<p>Moreover, my villa is remarkable for its beautiful situation, its +fortress-like architecture, and—please make a note of this—its +splendid inhospitality. The garden hedge which encloses it is as high as +the wall of the women's penitentiary at Christianshafen. The gates are +never open, and there is no lodge-keeper. The forest adjoins the garden, +and the garden runs down to the water's edge. The original owner of the +estate was a crank who lived in a hut, which was so overgrown with moss +and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything +given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. +At the same time, I have engaged a first-rate cook, called Torp, who +seems to have the cookery of every coun<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>try as pat as the Lord's Prayer. +I have no intention of living upon bread and water and virtue.</p> + +<p>I shall manage without a footman, although I have rather a weakness for +menservants. But my income will not permit of such luxuries; or rather I +have no idea how far my money will go. I should not care to accept +Richard's generous offer to make me a yearly allowance.</p> + +<p>I have also engaged a housemaid, whose name is Jeanne. She has the most +wonderful amber-coloured eyes, flaming red hair, and long, pointed +fingers, so well kept that I cannot help wondering where she got them +from. Torp and Jeanne will make the sum-total of my society, so that I +shall have every opportunity of living upon my own inner resources.</p> + +<p>Dear Lillie, do all you can to put a stop to the worst and most +disgusting gossip, now you know the true circumstances of the case. One +more thing, in profound confidence, and on the understanding that you +will not say a word about it to my husband: Joergen Malthe, dear +<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>fellow, formerly honoured me with his youthful affections—as you all +knew, to your great amusement. Probably, like a true man, he will be +quite frantic when he hears of my strange retirement. Be a little kind +and friendly to the poor boy, and make him understand that there is no +mystical reason for my departure.</p> + +<p>Later on, when I have had time to rest a little, I shall be delighted to +hear from you; although I foresee that five-sixths of the letters will +be about your children, and the remaining sixth devoted to your +husband—whereas I would rather it was all about yourself, and our dear +town, with its life and strife. I have not taken the veil; I may still +endure to hear echoes of all the town gossip.</p> + +<p>If you were here, you would ask what I proposed to do with myself. Well, +dear Lillie, I have not left my frocks nor my mirror behind me. +Moreover, time has this wonderful property that, unlike the clocks, it +goes of itself without having to be wound up. I have the sea, the +forest; my piano, and my house. If time really hangs heavy on my hands, +there <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>is no reason why I should not darn the linen for Torp!</p> + +<p>Should it happen by any chance—which God forbid—that I were struck +dead by lightning, or succumbed to a heart attack, would you, acting as +my cousin, and closest friend, undertake to put my belongings in order? +Not that you would find things in actual disorder; but all the same +there would be a kind of semi-order. I do not at all fancy the idea of +Richard routing among my papers now that we are no longer a married +couple.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;"> With every good wish,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;"> Your cousin,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 8em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>My Dear, Kind Friend, And Former Husband,</p> + +<p>Is there not a good deal of style about that form of address? Were you +not deeply touched at receiving, in a strange town, flowers sent by a +lady? If only the people understood my German and sent them to you in +time!</p> + +<p>For an instant a beautiful thought flashed through my mind: to welcome +you in this way in every town where you have to stay. But since I only +know the addresses of one or two florists in the capitals, and I am too +lazy to find out the others, I have given up this splendid folly, and +simply note it to my account as a "might-have-been."</p> + +<p>Shall I be quite frank, Richard? I am rather ashamed when I think of +you, and I can honestly say that I never respected you more than to-day. +But it could not have been otherwise. I want you to concentrate all your +will-power to convince yourself of this. If I had let myself be +persuaded to remain with <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>you, after this great need for solitude had +laid hold upon me, I should have worried and tormented you every hour of +the day.</p> + +<p>Dearest and best friend, there is some truth in these words, spoken by I +know not whom: "Either a woman is made for marriage, and then it +practically does not matter to whom she is married, she will soon +understand how to fulfil her destiny; or she is unsuited to matrimony, +in which case she commits a crime against her own personality when she +binds herself to any man."</p> + +<p>Apparently, I was not meant for married life. Otherwise I should have +lived happily for ever and a day with you—and you know that was not the +case. But you are not to blame. I wish in my heart of hearts that I had +something to reproach you with—but I have nothing against you of any +sort or kind.</p> + +<p>It was a great mistake—a cowardly act—to promise you yesterday that I +would return if I regretted my decision. I <i>know</i> I shall never regret +it. But in making such a promise I am directly hindering you.... Forgive +me, dear friend ... but it is not im<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>possible that you may some day meet +a woman who could become something to you. Will you let me take back my +promise? I shall be grateful to you. Then only can I feel myself really +free.</p> + +<p>When you return home, stand firm if your friends overwhelm you with +questions and sympathy. I should be deeply humiliated if anyone—no +matter who—were to pry into the good and bad times we have shared +together. Bygones are bygones, and no one can actually realise what +takes place between two human beings, even when they have been +onlookers.</p> + +<p>Think of me when you sit down to dinner. Henceforward eight o'clock will +probably be my bedtime. On the other hand I shall rise with the sun, or +perhaps earlier. Think of me, but do not write too often. I must first +settle down tranquilly to my new life. Later on, I shall enjoy writing +you a condensed account of all the follies which can be committed by a +woman who suddenly finds herself at a mature age complete mistress of +her actions.</p> + +<p>Follow my advice, offered for the twentieth time: go on seeing your +friends; you cannot <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>do without them. Really there is no need for you to +mourn for a year with crape on the chandeliers and immortelles around my +portrait.</p> + +<p>You have been a kind, faithful, and delicate-minded friend to me, and I +am not so lacking in delicacy myself that I do not appreciate this in my +inmost heart. But I cannot accept your generous offer to give me money. +I now tell you this for the first time, because, had I said so before, +you would have done your best to over-persuade me. My small income is, +and will be, sufficient for my needs.</p> + +<p>The train leaves in an hour. Richard, you have your business and your +friends—more friends than anyone I know. If you wish me well, wish that +I may never regret the step I have taken. I look down at my hands that +you loved—I wish I could stretch them out to you....</p> + +<p>A man must not let himself be crushed. It would hurt me to feel that +people pitied you. You are much too good to be pitied.</p> + +<p>Certainly it would have been better if, as <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>you said, one of us had +died. But in that case you would have had to take the plunge into +eternity, for I am looking forward with joy to life on my island.</p> + +<p>For twenty years I have lived under the shadow of your wing in the Old +Market Place. May I live another twenty under the great forest trees, +wedded to solitude.</p> + +<p>How the gossips will gossip! But we two, clever people, will laugh at +their gossip.</p> + +<p>Forgive me, Richard, to-day and always, the trouble I have brought upon +you. I would have stayed with you if I could. Thank you for all....</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 16em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie.</span></p> + + +<p>That my feeling for you should have died, is quite as incomprehensible +to me as to you. No other man has ever claimed a corner of my heart. In +a word, having considered the question all round, I am suffering simply +from a nervous malady—alas! it is incurable!</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>My Dear Malthe,</p> + +<p>We two are friends, are we not, and I think we shall always remain so, +even now that fate has severed our ways? If you feel that you have any +good reason for being angry with me now, then, indeed, our friendship +will be broken; for we shall have no further opportunity of becoming +reconciled.</p> + +<p>If at this important juncture I not only hid the truth from you, but +deliberately misled you, it was not from any lack of confidence in you, +or with the wish to be unfriendly. I beg you to believe this. The fact +that I cannot even now explain to you my reasons for acting thus makes +it all the more difficult to justify my conduct to you. Therefore you +must be contented to take my word for it. Joergen Malthe, I would gladly +confide in you, but it is impossible. Call it madness, or what you will, +but I cannot allow any human being to penetrate my inner life.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>You will not have forgotten that September evening last year, when I +spoke to you for the first time about one of my friends who was going to +separate from her husband, and who, through my intervention, asked you +to draw the plan of a villa in which she might spend the rest of her +days in solitude? You entered so completely into this idea of a solitary +retreat that your plan was almost perfect. Every time we met last year +we talked about the "White Villa," as we called it, and it pleased us to +share this little secret together. Nor were you less interested in the +interior of the house; in making sketches for the furniture, and +arranging the decorations. You took a real delight in this task, +although you were annoyed that you had no personal knowledge of your +client. You remember that I said to you sometimes in joke: "Plan it as +though it were for me"; and I cannot forget what you replied one day: "I +hate the idea of a stranger living in the house which I planned with you +always in my mind."</p> + +<p>Judge for yourself, Malthe, how painful it was to leave you in error. +But I could not <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>speak out then, for I had to consider my husband. For +this reason I avoided meeting you during the summer; I found it +impossible to keep up the deception when we were face to face.</p> + +<p>It is I—I myself—who will live in the "White Villa." I shall live +there quite alone.</p> + +<p>It is useless for me to say, "Do not be angry." You would not be what +you are if you were not annoyed about it.</p> + +<p>You are young, life lies before you. I am old. In a very few years I +shall be so old that you will not be able to realise that there was a +time when I was "the one woman in the world" for you. I am not harping +on your youth in order to vex you—your youth that you hate for my sake! +I know that you are not fickle; but I know, too, that the laws of life +and the march of time are alike inexorable.</p> + +<p>When I enter the new home you have planned for me, a lonely and divorced +woman, I shall think of you every day, and my thoughts will speak more +cordial thanks than I can set down coldly in black and white on this +paper.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>I do not forbid you to write to me, but, save for a word of farewell, I +would prefer your silence. No letters exchanged between us could bring +back so much as a reflection of the happy hours we have spent together. +Hours in which we talked of everything, and chiefly of nothing at all.</p> + +<p>I do not think we were very brilliant when we were together; but we were +never bored. If my absence brings you suffering, disappointment, +grief—lose yourself in your work, so that in my solitude I may still be +proud of you.</p> + +<p>You taught me to use my eyes, and there is much, much in the world I +should like to see, for, thanks to you, I have learnt how beautiful the +world is. But the wisest course for me is to give myself up to my chosen +destiny. I shut the door of my "White Villa"—and there my story ends.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 8em;">Your<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 10em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.<br /></span></p> + +<p>Reading through my letter, it seems to me cold and dry. But it is harder +to write such a letter to a dear friend than to a stranger.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>Landed On My Island.<br /> +Crept Into My Lair.<br /></p> + +<p>The first day is over. Heaven help me through those to come! Everything +here disgusts me, from the smell of the new woodwork and the half-dried +wallpapers to the pattering of the rain over my head.</p> + +<p>What an idiotic notion of mine to have a glass roof to my bedroom! I +feel as though I were living under an umbrella through which the water +might come dripping at any moment. During the night this will probably +happen. The panes of glass, unless they are very closely joined +together, will let the water through, and I shall awake in a pool of +water.</p> + +<p>Awake, indeed! If only I ever get to sleep! My head aches and burns from +sheer fatigue, but I have not even thought of getting into bed yet.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>For the last year I have had plenty of time to think things over, and +now I am at a loss to understand why I have done this. Suppose it is a +piece of stupidity—a carefully planned and irrevocable folly? Suppose +my irritable nerves have played a trick upon me? Suppose ... suppose ...</p> + +<p>I feel lonely and without will power. I am frightened. But the step is +taken; and I can never turn back. I must never let myself regret it.</p> + +<p>This constant rain gives me an icy, damp feeling down my back. It gets +on my nerves.</p> + +<p>What shall I come to, reduced to the society of two females who have +nothing in common with me but our sex? No one to speak to, no one to +see. Jeanne is certainly attractive to look at, but I cannot converse +with her. As to Torp, she suits her basement as a gnome suits his +mountain cave. She looks as though she was made to repopulate a desert +unaided. She wears stays that are crooked back and front.</p> + +<p>Never in all my life have I felt so disappointed, and compelled to put a +good face <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>upon a bad business, as when I splashed through the wet +garden and entered the empty house where there was not even a flower to +welcome my arrival. The rooms are too large and bare.... Why did I not +think of that before?</p> + +<p>All the same, decorum must be maintained, and my entry was not +undignified.</p> + +<p>Ah, the rain, the rain! Jeanne and Torp are still cleaning up. They mean +to go on half the night, scrubbing and sweeping as though we expected +company to-morrow. I start unpacking my trunk, take out a few things and +stop—begin again and stop again, horrified at the quantity of clothes +I've brought. It would have been more sensible to send them to one of +our beloved "charity sales." They are of no use or pleasure now. Black +merino and a white woollen shawl—what more do I want here?</p> + +<p>God knows how I wish at the present moment I were back in the Old Market +Place, even if I only had Richard's society to bore me.</p> + +<p>What am I doing here? What do I want <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>here? To cry, without having to +give an account of one's tears to anyone?</p> + +<p>Of course, all this is only the result of the rain. I was longing to be +here. It was not a mere hysterical whim. No, no....</p> + +<p>It was my own wish to bury myself here.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Yesterday I was all nerves. To-day I feel as fresh and lively as a +cricket.</p> + +<p>We have been hanging the pictures, and made thirty-six superfluous holes +in the new walls. There is no way of concealing them. (I must write to +Richard to have my engravings framed.) It would be stretching a point to +say we are skilled picture-hangers; we were nearly as awkward as men +when they try to hook a woman's dress for her. But the pictures were +hung somehow, and look rather nice now they are up.</p> + +<p>But why on earth did I give Torp my sketch of "A Villa by the Sea" to +hang in her kitchen? Was I afraid to have it near me? Or was it some +stupid wish to hurt <i>his</i> feel<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>ings? <i>His</i> only gift.... I feel ashamed +of myself.</p> + +<p>Jeanne has arranged flowers everywhere, and that helps to make the house +more homelike.</p> + +<p>The place is mine, and I take possession of it. Now the sun is shining. +I find pleasure in examining each article of furniture and remembering +the days when we discussed the designs together. I ought not to have let +him do all that. It was senseless of me.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>They are much to be envied who can pass away the time in their own +society. I am in my element when I can watch other people blowing +soap-bubbles; but to blow them myself....</p> + +<p>I am not really clever at creating comfortable surroundings. Far from +it. My white villa always looks uninhabited, in spite of all the flowers +with which I allow Jeanne to decorate the rooms. Is it because +everything smells so new? Or because there are no old smells? Here there +are no whiffs of dust,<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a> smoke, or benzine, nor anything which made the +Old Market Place the Old Market Place. Everything is so clean here that +one hesitates to move a step. The boards are as shiny as though they +were polished silver.... This very moment Torp appeared in felt shoes +and implored me to get her a strip of oilcloth to save her kitchen +floor. I feel just the same; I scarcely dare defile this spotless +pitchpine.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>What is the use of all these discussions and articles about the equality +of the sexes, so long as we women are at times the slaves of an +inevitable necessity? I have suffered more than ever the last few days, +perhaps because I was so utterly alone. Not a human being to speak to. +Yes, I ought to have stayed in bed if only to conceal my ugliness. In +town I was wise. But here ...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>All the same I am proud of my self-control. Many women do not possess as +much.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>The moon is in her first quarter; a cold dry wind is blowing up; it +makes one cough merely to hear it whistle.</p> + +<p>I hate winds of all kinds, and here my enemy seems to have free entry. I +ought to have built my house facing south and in some hollow sheltered +from the wind. Unfortunately it looks to the north, straight across the +open sea.</p> + +<p>I have not yet been outside the garden. I have made up my mind to keep +to this little spot as long as possible. I shall get accustomed to it. I +<i>must</i> get accustomed to it.</p> + +<p>Dear souls, how they worry me with their letters. Only Malthe keeps +silence. Will he deign to answer me?</p> + +<p>Jeanne follows me with her eyes as though she wanted to learn some art +from me. What art?</p> + +<p>Good heavens, what can that girl be doing here?</p> + +<p>She does not seem made for the celibate life of a desert island. Yet I +cannot set up a footman to keep her company. I will not <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>have men's eyes +prying about my house, I have had enough of that.</p> + +<p>A manservant—that would mean love affairs, squabbles, and troubles; or +marriage, and a change of domestics. No, I have a right to peace, and I +will secure it. The worst that could happen to me would be to find +myself reduced to playing whist with Jeanne and Torp. Well, why not?</p> + +<p>Torp spends all her evenings playing patience on the kitchen +window-sill. Perhaps she is telling her fortune and wondering whether +some good-looking sailor will be wrecked on the shores of her desert +island.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Jeanne goes about in silk stockings. This rather astonishes +me. Lillie reproved me for the pernicious custom. Are they a real +necessity for Jeanne, or does she know the masculine taste so well?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>From all the birch trees that stand quivering around the house a golden +rain is falling. There is not a breath of wind, but the leaves <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>keep +dropping, dropping. This morning I stood on the little balcony and +looked out over the forest. I do not know why or wherefore, but such a +sense of quiet came over me. I seemed to hear the words: "and behold it +was very good." Was it the warm russet tint of the trees or the profound +perfume of the woods that induced this calm?</p> + +<p>All day long I have been thinking of Malthe, and I feel so glad I have +acted as I have done. But he might have answered my letter.</p> + +<p>Jeanne has discovered the secret of my hair. She asked permission to +dress it for me in the evening when my hair is "awake." She is quite an +artist in this line, and I let her occupy herself with it as long as she +pleased. She pinned it up, then let it down again; coiled it round my +forehead like a turban; twisted it into a Grecian knot; parted and +smoothed it down on each side of my head like a hood. She played with it +and arranged it a dozen different ways like a bouquet of wild flowers.</p> + +<p>My hair is still my pride, although it is <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>losing its gloss and colour. +Jeanne said, by way of consolation, that it was like a wood in late +autumn....</p> + +<p>I should like to know whether this girl sprang from the gutter, or was +the child of poor, honest parents....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>"Thousands of women may look at the man they love with their whole soul +in their eyes, and the man will remain as unmoved as a stone by the +wayside. And then a woman will pass by who has no soul, but whose +artificial smile has a mysterious power to spur the best of men to +painful desire...."</p> + +<p>One day I found these words underlined in a book left open on my table. +Who left it there, I cannot say; nor whether it was underlined with the +intention of hurting my feelings, or merely by chance.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I sit here waiting for my mortal enemy. Will he come gliding in +imperceptibly or stand suddenly before me? Will he overcome <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>me, or +shall I prove the stronger? I am prepared—but is that sufficient?</p> + +<p>Torp is really too romantic! To-day it pleased her to decorate the table +with Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper festooned the hanging lamp; +Virginia creeper crept over the cloth. Even the joint was decked out +with wine-red leaves, until it looked like a ship flying all her flags +on the King's birthday. Amid all this pomp and ceremony, I sat all +alone, without a human being for whom I might have made myself smart. I, +who for the last twenty years, have never even dressed the salad without +at least one pair of eyes watching me toss the lettuce as though I was +performing some wonderful Indian conjuring trick.</p> + +<p>A festal board at which one sits in solitary grandeur is the dreariest +thing imaginable.</p> + +<p>I rather wish Torp had less "style," as she calls it. Undoubtedly she +has lived in large establishments and has picked up some habits and +customs from each of them. She is welcome to wait at table in white +cotton gloves and to perch a huge silk bow on her hair, <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>which is +redolent of the kitchen, but when it comes to trimming her poor +work-worn nails to the fashionable pyramidal shape—she really becomes +tragic.</p> + +<p>She "romanticises" everything. I should not be at all surprised if some +day she decked her kitchen range with wreaths of roses and hung up works +of art between the stewpans.</p> + +<p>I am really glad I did not bring Samuel the footman with me. He could +not have waited on me better than Jeanne, and at any rate I am free from +his eyes, which, in spite of all their respectful looks, always reminded +me of a fly-paper full of dead and dying flies.</p> + +<p>Jeanne's look has a something gliding and subtle about it that keeps me +company like a witty conversation. It is really on her account that I +dress myself well. But I cannot converse with her. I should not like to +try, and then to be disillusioned.</p> + +<p>Men have often assured me that I was the only woman they could talk with +as though I were one of themselves. Personally I never <a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>feel at one with +menkind. I only understand and admire my own sex.</p> + +<p>In reality I think there is more difference between a man and a woman +than between an inert stone and a growing plant. I say this ... I +who ...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>What business is it of mine? We were not really friends. The fact of her +having confided in me makes no demands on my feelings. If this thing had +happened five years ago, I should have taken it as a rather welcome +sensation—nothing more. Or had I read in the paper "On the—inst., of +heart disease, or typhoid fever," my peace of mind would not have been +disturbed for an hour.</p> + +<p>I have purposely refrained from reading the papers lately. Chancing to +open one to-day, after a month's complete ignorance of all that had been +happening in the world, I saw the following headline: Suicide of a Lady +in a Lunatic Asylum.</p> + +<p>And now I feel as shaken as though I had <a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>taken part in a crime; as +though I had had some share in this woman's death.</p> + +<p>I am so far to blame that I abandoned her at a moment when it might +still have been possible to save her.... But this is a morbid notion! If +a person wants "to shuffle off this mortal coil" it is nobody's duty to +prevent her.</p> + +<p>To me, Agatha Ussing's life or death are secondary matters; it is only +the circumstances that trouble me.</p> + +<p>Was she mad, or no? Undoubtedly not more insane than the rest of us, but +her self-control snapped like a bowstring which is overstrained. She +saw—so she said—a grinning death's head behind every smiling face. +Merely a bee in her bonnet! But she was foolish enough to talk about it; +and when people laughed at her words with a good-natured contempt, her +glance became searching and fixed as though she was trying to convince +herself. Such an awful look of terror haunted her eyes, that at her gaze +a cold shiver, born of one's own fears and forebodings, ran through one.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>She compelled us to realise the things we scarcely dare foresee....</p> + +<p>I shall never forget a letter in which she wrote these words in a queer, +faltering handwriting:</p> + +<p>"If men suspected what took place in a woman's inner life after forty, +they would avoid us like the plague, or knock us on the head like mad +dogs."</p> + +<p>Such a philosophy of life ended in the poor woman being shut up in a +madhouse. She ought to have kept it to herself instead of posting it up +on the walls of her house. It was quite sufficient as a proof of her +insanity.</p> + +<p>I cannot think what induced me to visit her in the asylum. Not pure +pity. I was prompted rather by that kind of painful curiosity which +makes a patient ask to see a limb which has just been amputated. I +wanted to look with my own eyes into that shadowy future which Agatha +had reached before me.</p> + +<p>What did I discover? She had never cared for her husband; on the +contrary she had <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>betrayed him with an effrontery that would hardly have +been tolerated outside the smart world; yet now she suffered the +torments of hell from jealousy of her husband. Not of her lovers; their +day was over; but of him, because he was the one man she saw. Also +because she bore his name and was therefore bound to him.</p> + +<p>On every other subject she was perfectly sane. When we were left alone +together she said: "The worst of it is that I know my 'madness' will +only be temporary. It is a malady incident to my age. One day it will +pass away. One day I shall have got through the inevitable phase. But +how does that help me now?"</p> + +<p>No, it was no more help to her than the dreadful paint with which she +plastered her haggard features.</p> + +<p>It was not the least use to her....</p> + +<p>Her death is the best thing that could have happened, for her own sake +and for those belonging to her. But I cannot take my thoughts off the +hours which preceded her <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>end; the time that passed between the moment +when she decided to commit suicide until she actually carried out her +resolve.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>"If men suspected ..."</p> + +<p>It may safely be said that on the whole surface of the globe not one man +exists who really knows a woman.</p> + +<p>They know us in the same way as the bees know the flowers; by the +various perfumes they impart to the honey. No more.</p> + +<p>How could it be otherwise? If a woman took infinite pains to reveal +herself to a husband or a lover just as she really is, he would think +she was suffering from some incurable mental disease.</p> + +<p>A few of us indicate our true natures in hysterical outbreaks, fits of +bitterness and suspicion; but this involuntary frankness is generally +discounted by some subtle deceit.</p> + +<p>Do men and women ever tell each other the truth? How often does that +happen? More often than not, I think, they deal in half-lies, hiding +this, embroidering that, fact.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>Between the sexes reigns an ineradicable hostility. It is concealed +because life has to be lived, because it is easier and more convenient +to keep it in the background; but it is always there, even in those +supreme moments when the sexes fulfil their highest destiny.</p> + +<p>A woman who knows other women and understands them, could easily prove +this in so many words; and every woman who heard her—provided they were +alone—would confess she was right. But if a man should join in the +conversation, both women would stamp truth underfoot as though it were a +venomous reptile.</p> + +<p>Men can be sincere both with themselves and others; but women cannot. +They are corrupted from birth. Later on, education, intercourse with +other women and finally marriage, corrupt them still more.</p> + +<p>A woman may love a man more than her own life; may sacrifice her time, +her health, her existence to him. But if she is wholly a woman, she +cannot give him her confidence.</p> + +<p>She cannot, because she dares not.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>In the same way a man—for a certain length of time—can love without +measure. He can then be unlocked like a cabinet full of secret drawers +and pigeonholes, of which we hold the keys. He discloses himself, his +present and his past. A woman, even in the closest bonds of love, never +reveals more of herself than reason demands.</p> + +<p>Her modesty differs entirely from that of a male. She would rather be +guilty of incest than reveal to a man the hidden thoughts which +sometimes, without the least scruple, she will confide to another woman. +Friendship between men is a very different thing. Something honest and +frank, from which consequently they withdraw without anger, mutual +obligation, or fear. Friendship between women is a kind of masonic oath; +the breaking of it a mutual crime. When two women friends quarrel, they +generally continue to carry deadly weapons against each other, which +they are only restrained from using by mutual fear.</p> + +<p>There <i>are</i> honest women. At least we believe there are. It is a +necessary part of <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>our belief. Who does not think well of mother or +sister? But who <i>believes entirely</i> in a mother or a sister? Absolutely +and unconditionally? Who has never caught mother or sister in a +falsehood or a subterfuge? Who has not sometimes seen in the heart of +mother or sister, as by a lightning flash, an abyss which the +profoundest love cannot bridge over?</p> + +<p>Who has ever really understood his mother or sister?</p> + +<p>The human being dwells and moves alone. Each woman dwells in her own +planet formed of centrifugal fires enveloped in a thin crust of earth. +And as each star runs its eternal course through space, isolated amid +countless myriads of other stars, so each woman goes her solitary way +through life.</p> + +<p>It would be better for her if she walked barefoot over red-hot +ploughshares, for the pain she would suffer would be slight indeed +compared to that which she must feel when, with a smile on her lips, she +leaves her own youth behind and enters the regions of despair we call +"growing old," and "old age...."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>All this philosophizing is the result, no doubt, of having eaten +halibut for lunch; it is a solid fish and difficult to digest.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, too, having no company but Jeanne and Torp, I am reduced to my +own aimless reflections.</p> + +<p>Just as clothes exercise no influence on the majority of men, so their +emotional life is not much affected by circumstances. With us women it +is otherwise. We really <i>are</i> different women according to the dresses +we wear. We assume a personality in accord with our costume. We laugh, +talk and act at the caprice of purely external circumstances.</p> + +<p>Take for instance a woman who wants to confide in another. She will do +it in quite a different way in broad daylight in a drawing-room than in +her little "den" in the gloaming, even if in both cases she happens to +be quite alone with her confidante.</p> + +<p>If some women are specially honoured as the recipients of many +confidences from their own sex, I am convinced they owe it more to +physical than moral qualities. As there are some rooms of which the +atmosphere is so cosey and <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>inviting that we feel ourselves at home in +them without a word of welcome, so we find certain women who seem to be +endowed with such receptivity that they invite the confidences of +others.</p> + +<p>The history of smiles has never yet been written, simply because the few +women capable of writing it would not betray their sex. As to men, they +are as ignorant on this point as on everything else which concerns +women—not excepting love.</p> + +<p>I have conversed with many famous women's doctors, and have pretended to +admire their knowledge, while inwardly I was much amused at their +simplicity. They know how to cut us open and stitch us up again—as +children open their dolls to see the sawdust with which they are stuffed +and sew them up afterwards with a needle and thread. But they get no +further. Yes—a little further perhaps. Possibly in course of time they +begin to discover that women are so infinitely their superiors in +falsehood that their wisest course is to appear once and for all to +believe them then and there....</p> + +<p><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>Women's doctors may be as clever and sly as they please, but they will +never learn any of the things that women confide to each other. It is +inevitable. Between the sexes lies not only a deep, eternal hostility, +but the unfathomable abyss of a complete lack of reciprocal +comprehension.</p> + +<p>For instance, all the words in a language will never express what a +smile will express—and between women a smile is like a masonic sign; we +can use them between ourselves without any fear of their being +misunderstood by the other sex.</p> + +<p>Smiles are a form of speech with which we alone are conversant. Our +smiles betray our instincts and our burdens; they reflect our virtues +and our inanity.</p> + +<p>But the cleverest women hide their real selves behind a factitious +smile.</p> + +<p>Men do not know how to smile. They look more or less benevolent, more or +less pleased, more or less love-smitten; but they are not pliable or +subtle enough to smile. A woman who is not sufficiently prudent to mask +her features, gives away her soul in a smile. I <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>have known women who +revealed their whole natures in this way.</p> + +<p>No woman speaks aloud, but most women smile aloud. And the fact that in +so doing we unveil all our artifice, all the whirlpool of our inmost +being to each other, proves the extraordinary solidarity of our sex.</p> + +<p>When did one woman ever betray another?</p> + +<p>This loyalty is not rooted in noble sentiment, but proceeds rather from +the fear of betraying ourselves by revealing things that are the secret +common property of all womanhood.</p> + +<p>And yet, if a woman could be found willing to reveal her entire self?...</p> + +<p>I have often thought of the possibility, and at the present moment I am +not sure that she would not do our sex an infinite and eternal wrong.</p> + +<p>We are compounded so strangely of good and bad, truth and falsehood, +that it requires the most delicate touch to unravel the tangled skein of +our natures and find the starting point.</p> + +<p>No man is capable of the task.</p> + +<p>During recent years it has become the fashion for notorious women to +publish their remi<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>niscences in the form of a diary. But has any woman +reader discovered in all this literature a single intimate feature, a +single frank revelation of all that is kept hidden behind a thousand +veils?</p> + +<p>If indeed one of these unhappy women ventured to write a plain, +unvarnished, but poignant, description of her inner life, where would +she find a publisher daring enough to let his name appear on the cover +of the book?</p> + +<p>I once knew a man who, stirred by a good and noble impulse, and +confident of his power, endeavoured to "save" a very young girl whom he +had rescued from a house of ill-fame. He took her home and treated her +like a sister. He lavished time and confidence upon her. His pride at +the transformation which took place in her passed all bounds. The girl +was as grateful as a mongrel and as modest as the bride in a romantic +novel. He then resolved to make her his wife. But one fine day she +vanished, leaving behind her a note containing these words: "Many thanks +for your kindness, but you bore me."</p> + +<p>During the whole time they had lived to<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>gether, he had not grasped the +faintest notion of the girl's true nature; nor understood that to keep +her contented it was not sufficient to treat her kindly, but that she +required some equivalent for the odious excitements of the past.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>All feminine confessions—except those between relations which are +generally commonplace and uninteresting—assume a kind of beauty in my +eyes; a warmth and solemnity that excuses the casting aside of all +conventional barriers.</p> + +<p>I remember one day—a day of oppressive heat and the heavy perfume of +roses—when, with a party of women friends, we began to talk about +tears. At first no one ventured to speak quite sincerely; but one thing +led to another until we were gradually caught in our own snares, and +finally we each gave out something that we had hitherto kept concealed +within us, as one locks up a deadly poison.</p> + +<p>Not one of us, it appeared, ever cried because of some imperative inward +need. Tears <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>are nature's gift to us. It is our own affair whether we +squander or economise their use.</p> + +<p>Of all our confessions Sophie Harden's was the strangest. To her, tears +were a kind of erotic by-play, which added to the enjoyment of conjugal +life. Her husband, a good-natured creature, always believed he was to +blame, and she never enlightened him on the point.</p> + +<p>Most of the others owned that they had recourse to tears to work +themselves up when they wanted to make a scene. But Astrid Bagge, a +gentle, quiet housewife and mother, declared she kept all her troubles +for the evenings when her husband dined at the volunteer's mess, because +he hated to see anyone crying. Then she sat alone and in darkness and +wept away the accumulated annoyances of the week.</p> + +<p>When it came to my turn, I spoke the truth by chance when I said that, +however much I wanted to cry, I only permitted myself the luxury about +once in two years. I think my complexion is a conclusive proof that my +words were sincere.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>There are deserts which never know the refreshment of dew or rain. My +life has been such a desert.</p> + +<p>I, who like to receive confidences, have a morbid fear of giving them. +Perhaps it is because I was so much alone, so self-centred, in my +childhood.</p> + +<p>The more I reflect upon life, the more clearly I see that I have not +laid out my talents to the best advantage. I have no sweet memories of +infidelity; I have lived irreproachably—and now I am very tired.</p> + +<p>I sit here and write for myself alone. I know that no one else will ever +read my words; and yet I am not quite sincere, even with myself.</p> + +<p>Life has passed me by; my hands are empty; now it is too late.</p> + +<p>Once happiness knocked at my door, and I, poor fool, did not rise to +welcome it.</p> + +<p>I envy every country wench or servant girl who goes off with a lover. +But I sit here waiting for old age.</p> + +<p>Astrid Bagge.... As I write her name, I feel as though she were standing +weeping <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>behind my back; I feel her tears dropping on my neck. I cannot +weep—but how I long for tears!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Autumn! Torp has made a huge fire of logs in the open grate. The burning +wood gives out an intoxicating perfume and fills the house with cosey +warmth. For want of something better to do I am looking after the fire +myself. I carefully strip the bark from each log before throwing it on +the flames. The smell of burning birch-bark goes to my head like strong +wine. Dreams come and go.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe, what a mere boy you are!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The garden looks like a neglected churchyard, forgotten of the living. +The virginia creeper falls in blood-red streamers from the verandah. The +snails drag themselves along in the rain; their slow movements remind me +of women <i>enceinte</i>. The hedge is covered with spiders' webs, and the +wet clay sticks to one's shoes as one walks on the paths.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>Yet there are people who think autumn a beautiful time of year!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>My will is paralysed from self-disgust. I find myself involuntarily +listening and watching for the postman, who brings nothing for me. There +are moments when my fingers seem to be feeling the smoothness of the +cream-laid "At Home" cards which used to be showered upon us, especially +at this season. Towards evening I grow restless. Formerly my day was a +<i>crescendo</i> of activity until the social hours were reached. Now the +hours fall one by one in ashes before my eyes.</p> + +<p>I am myself, yet not myself. There are moments when I envy every living +creature that has the right to pair—either from hate or from habit. I +am alone and shut out. What consolation is it to be able to say: "It was +my own choice!"</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>A letter from Malthe.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>No, I will not open it. I do not wish to know what he writes.... It is +a long letter.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>My nerves are quiet. But I often lie awake, and my sleep is broken. The +stars are shining over my head, and I never before experienced such a +sense of repose and calm. Is this the effect of the stars, or the +letter?</p> + +<p>I am forty-two! It cannot be helped. I cannot buy back a single day of +my life. Forty-two! But during the night the thought does not trouble +me. The stars above reckon by ages, not by years, and sometimes I smile +to think that as soon as Richard returns home, the rooms in our house in +the Old Market will be lit up, and the usual set will assemble there +without me.</p> + +<p>The one thing I should like to know is whether Malthe is still in +Denmark.</p> + +<p>I would like to know where my thoughts should seek him—at home or +abroad.</p> + +<p>I played with him treacherously when I called him "the youth," and +treated him as a <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>mere boy. If we compare our ages it is true enough, +but not if we compare feelings.</p> + +<p>Can there be anything meaner than for a woman to make fun of what is +really sacred to her? My feelings for Malthe were and still are sacred. +I myself have befouled them with my mockery.</p> + +<p>But when I am lying in my bed beneath the vast canopy of the sky, all my +sins seem forgiven me. Fate alone—Fate who bears all things on his +shoulders—is to blame, and I wish nothing undone.</p> + +<p>The letter will never be read. Never voluntarily by me.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I do not know the day of the week. That is one step nearer the goal for +which I long. May it come to pass that the weeks and months shall glide +imperceptibly over me, so that I shall only recognise the seasons by the +changing tints of the forest and the alternations of heat and cold.</p> + +<p>Alas, those days are still a long way off!</p> + +<p>I have just been having a conflict with my<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>self, and I find that all the +time I have been living here as though I were spending a summer holiday +in Tyrol. I have been simply deceiving myself and playing with the +hidden thought that I could begin my life over again.</p> + +<p>I have shivered with terror at this self-deception. The last few nights +I have hardly slept at all. A traveller must feel the same who sails +across the sea ignorant of the country to which he journeys. Vaguely he +pictures it as resembling his native land, and lands to find himself in +a wilderness which he must plant and cultivate until it blossoms with +his new desires and dreams. By the time he has turned the desert into a +home, his day is over....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>If I could but make up my mind to burn that letter! I weigh it, first in +my right hand, then in my left. Sometimes its weight makes me happy; +sometimes it fills me with foreboding. Do the words weigh so heavy, or +only the paper?</p> + +<p>Last night I held it close to the candle.<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a> But when the flame touched my +letter, I drew it quickly away.—It is all I have left to me now....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Richard writes to me that Malthe has been commissioned to build a great +hospital. Most of our great architects competed for the work. He goes on +to ask whether I am not proud of "my young friend."</p> + +<p>My young friend!...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne spoke to me about herself to-day. I think she was quite +bewildered by the extraordinary fall of leaves which has almost blinded +us the last three days. She was doing my hair, and tracing a line +straight across my forehead, she remarked:</p> + +<p>"Here should be a ribbon with red jewels."</p> + +<p>I told her that I had once had the same idea, but I had given it up out +of consideration for my fellow creatures.</p> + +<p>"But there are none here," she exclaimed,</p> + +<p>I replied laughing:</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>Then it is not worth while decking myself out!"</p> + +<p>Jeanne took out the pins and let my hair down.</p> + +<p>"If I were rich," she said, "I would dress for myself alone. Men neither +notice nor understand anything about it."</p> + +<p>We went on talking like two equals, and a few minutes later, remembering +what I had observed, I gave her some silk stockings. Instead of thanking +me, she remarked so suddenly that she took my breath away:</p> + +<p>"Once I sold myself for a pair of green silk stockings."</p> + +<p>I could not help asking the question:</p> + +<p>"Did you regret your bargain?"</p> + +<p>She looked me straight in the face:</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I only thought about my stockings."</p> + +<p>Naturally such conversations are rather risky; I shall avoid them in +future. But the riddle is more puzzling than ever. What brought Jeanne +to share my solitude on this island?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>Now we have a man about the place. Torp got him. He digs in the garden +and chops wood. But the odour impregnates Torp and even reaches me.</p> + +<p>He makes eyes at Jeanne, who looks at me and smiles. Torp makes a fuss +of him, and every night I smell his pipe in the basement.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have shut myself upstairs and played patience. The questions I put to +the cards come from that casket of memories the seven keys of which I +believed I had long since thrown into the sea. A wretched form of +amusement! But the piano makes me feel sad, and there is nothing else to +do.</p> + +<p>Malthe's letter is still intact. I wander around it like a mouse round a +trap of which it suspects the danger. My heart meanwhile yearns to know +what words he uses.</p> + +<p>He and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives. We owe that to +my wisdom. If he never sees me, he will never be able to forget me.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>How could I suppose it for a single moment! There is no possibility of +remaining alone with oneself! No degree of seclusion, nor even life in a +cell, would suffice. Strong as is the call of freedom, the power of +memory is stronger; so that no one can ever choose his society at will. +Once we have lived with our kind, and become filled with the knowledge +of them, we are never free again.</p> + +<p>A sound, a scent—and behold a person, a scene, or a destiny, rises up +before us. Very often the phantoms that come thronging around me are +those of people whose existence is quite indifferent to me. But they +appear all the same—importunate, overbearing, inevitable.</p> + +<p>We may close our doors to visitors in the flesh; but we are forced to +welcome these phantoms of the memory; to notice them and converse with +them without reserve.</p> + +<p>People become like books to me. I read them through, turn the pages +lightly, annotate them, learn them by heart. Sometimes I am at fault; I +see them in a new light. Things that were not clear to me become plain; +what <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>was apparently incomprehensible becomes as straightforward as a +commercial ledger.</p> + +<p>It might be a fascinating occupation if I could control the entire +collection of these memories; but I am the slave of those that come +unbidden. In the town it was just the reverse; one impression effaced +another. I did not realise that thought might become a burden.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The time draws on. The last few days my nerves have made me feverish and +restless; to-day for no special reason I opened and read all my letters, +except his. It was like reading old newspapers; yet my heart beat faster +with each one I opened.</p> + +<p>Life there in the city runs its course, only it has nothing more to do +with me, and before long I shall have dropped out of memory like one +long dead. All these hidden fears, all this solicitude, these good +wishes, preachings and forebodings—there is not a single genuine +feeling among the whole of them!</p> + +<p>Margethe Ernst is the only one of my old <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>friends who is sincere and +does not let herself be carried away by false sentiment. She writes +cynically, brutally even: "An injection of morphia would have had just +the same effect on you; but everyone to his own taste."</p> + +<p>As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write +lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines. She +wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her +motherly wing.</p> + +<p>"He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans +for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to +come."</p> + +<p>His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget.</p> + +<p>As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two +ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a +fire or a play. Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from +my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the +trees.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me +scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely +sleepless nights. Are they always as lonely as he makes out?</p> + +<p>As in the past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions and his +whole middle-class outlook. Yet for many years he dominated my senses, +which gives him a certain hold over me still. I cannot make up my mind +to take the brutal step which would free me once and for all from him. I +must let him go on believing that our life together was happy.</p> + +<p>Why did I read all these letters? What did I expect to find? A certain +vague hope stirred within me that if I opened them I should discover +something unexpected.</p> + +<p>The one remaining letter—shall I ever find courage to open it? I <i>will</i> +not know what he has written. He does not write well I know. He is not a +good talker; his writing would probably be worse. And yet, I look upon +that sealed letter as a treasure.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>Merely touching it, I feel as though I was in the same room with him.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Lillie's letter has really done me good; her regal serenity makes itself +apparent beneath all she undertakes. It is wonderful that she does not +preach at me like the others. "You must know what is right for yourself +better than anybody else," she says. These words, coming from her, have +brought me unspeakable strength and comfort, even though I feel that she +can have no idea of what is actually taking place within me.</p> + +<p>Life for Lillie can be summed up in the words, "the serene passage of +the days." Happy Lillie. She glides into old age just as she glided into +marriage, smiling, tranquil, and contented. Nobody, nothing, can disturb +her quietude.</p> + +<p>It is so when both body and soul find their repose and happiness in the +same identical surroundings.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>Jeanne, with some embarrassment, asked permission to use the bathroom. +I gave her leave. It is quite possible that living in the basement is +not to her taste. To put a bathroom down there would take nearly a +fortnight, and during that time I shall be deprived of my own, for I +cannot share my bathroom or my bedroom with anyone, least of all a +woman....</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the one visit I paid to the Russian baths and the +sight of Hilda Bang. Clothed, she presents rather a fine appearance, +with a good figure; but seen amid the warm steam, in nature's garb, she +seemed horrible.</p> + +<p>I would rather walk through an avenue of naked men than appear before +another woman without clothes. This feeling does not spring from +modesty—what is it?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How quiet it is here! Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays the steamer for +England goes by. I know its coming by the sound of the screw, but I take +care never to see it pass.<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a> What if I were seized with an impulse to +embark on her....</p> + +<p>If one fine morning when Jeanne brought the tea she found the bird +flown?</p> + +<p>The time is gone by. Life is over.</p> + +<p>I am getting used to sitting here and stitching at my seam. My work does +not amount to much, but the mechanical movement brings a kind of +restfulness.</p> + +<p>I find I am getting rather capricious. Between meals I ring two or three +times a day for tea—like a convalescent trying a fattening cure. Jeanne +attends to my hair with indefatigable care. Without her, should I ever +trouble to do it at all?</p> + +<p>What can any human being want more than this peace and silence?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>If I could only lose this sense of being empty-handed, all would be +well. Yesterday I went down to the seashore and gathered little pebbles. +I carried them away and amused myself by taking them up in handfuls. +During the night I felt impelled to get up <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>and fetch them, and this +morning I awoke with a round stone in each hand.</p> + +<p>Hysteria takes strange forms. But who knows what is the real ground of +hysteria? I used to think it was the special malady of the unmated +woman; but, in later years, I have known many who had had a full share +of the passional life, legitimate and otherwise, and yet still suffered +from hysteria.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I begin to realise the fascination of the cloister; the calm, uniform, +benumbing existence. But my comparison does not apply. The nun renounces +all will and responsibility, while I cannot give up one or the other.</p> + +<p>I have reached this point, however; only that which is bounded by my +garden hedge seems to me really worthy of consideration. The house in +the Old Market Place may be burnt down for all I care. Richard may marry +again. Malthe may....</p> + +<p>Yes, I think I could receive the news in silence like the monk to whom +the prior announces, "One of the brethren is dead, pray <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>for his soul." +No one present knows, nor will ever know, whether his own brother or +father has passed away.</p> + +<p>What hopeless cowardice prevents my opening his letter!</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>Evening.</p> + +<p>Somebody should found a vast and cheerful sisterhood for women between +forty and fifty; a kind of refuge for the victims of the years of +transition. For during that time women would be happier in voluntary +exile, or at any rate entirely separated from the other sex.</p> + +<p>Since all are suffering from the same trouble, they might help each +other to make life, not only endurable, but harmonious. We are all more +or less mad then, although we struggle to make others think us sane.</p> + +<p>I say "we," though I am not of their number—in age, perhaps, but not in +temperament. Nevertheless I hear the stealthy footsteps of the +approaching years. By good fortune, or calculation, I have preserved my +youthful appearance, but it has cost me dear to economise my emotions.</p> + +<p>Old age, in truth, is only a goal to be foreseen. A mountain to be +climbed; a peak from <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>which to see life from every side—provided we +have not been blinded by snowfalls on the way. I do not fear old age; +only the hard ascent to it has terrors for me. The day, the hour, when +we realise that something has gone from our lives; when the cry of our +heart provokes laughter in others!</p> + +<p>To all of us women comes a time in life when we believe we can conquer +or deceive time. But soon we learn how unequal is the struggle. We all +come to it in the end.</p> + +<p>Then we grow anxious. Anxious at the coming of day; still more anxious +at the coming of night. We deck ourselves out at night as though in this +way we could put our anxiety to flight.</p> + +<p>We are careful about our food and our rest; we watch that our smiles +leave no wrinkles.... Yet never a word of our secret terror do we +whisper aloud. We keep silence or we lie. Sometimes from pride, +sometimes from shame.</p> + +<p>Hitherto nobody has ever proclaimed this great truth: that as they grow +older—when the summer comes and the days lengthen—women<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a> become more +and more women. Their feminality goes on ripening into the depths of +winter.</p> + +<p>Yet the world compels them to steer a false course. Their youth only +counts so long as their complexions remain clear and their figures slim. +Otherwise they are exposed to cruel mockery. A woman who tries late in +life to make good her claim to existence, is regarded with contempt. For +her there is neither shelter nor sympathy.</p> + +<p>It sometimes happens that a winter gale strips all the leaves from a +tree in a single night. When does a woman grow old in body and soul in +one swift and merciful moment? From our birth we are accursed.</p> + +<p>I blame no one for my failure in life. It was in my own hands. If I +could live it through again from the start, it is more than probable I +should waste the years for a second time.</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>Christmas Eve.</p> +<p>At this hour there will be festivities in the Old Market Place. +Richard's last letter touched me profoundly; something within me went +out toward his honest nature....</p> + +<p>What is the use of all these falsehoods? I long for an embrace. Is that +shocking? We women are so wrapped in deceit that we feel ashamed of +confessing such things. Yet it is true, I miss Richard. Not the husband +or companion, but the lover.</p> + +<p>What use in trying to soothe my senses by walking for hours through the +silent woods.</p> + +<p>Lillie, in the innocence of her heart, sent me a tiny Christmas tree, +decorated by herself and her lanky daughters. Sweets and little presents +are suspended from the branches. She treats me like a child, or a sick +person.</p> + +<p>Well, let it be so! Lillie must never have the vexation of learning that +I detested her girls simply because they represented the <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>youthful +generation which sooner or later must supplant me.</p> + +<p>I have made good use of my eyes, and I know what I have seen: the same +enmity exists between two generations as between the sexes.</p> + +<p>While the young folk in their arrogant cruelty laugh at us who are +growing old, we, in our turn, amuse ourselves by making fun of them. If +women could buy back their lost youth by the blood of those nearest and +dearest to them, what crimes the world would witness!</p> + +<p>How I used to hate Richard when I saw him so completely at his ease +among young people, and able to take them so seriously.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Christmas Eve! In honour of Jeanne, I put on one of my very best +frocks—Paquin. Moreover, I have decorated myself with rings and chains +as though I were a silly Christmas Tree myself.</p> + +<p>Jeanne has enjoyed herself to-day. She and Torp rose before it was light +to deck the rooms with pine branches. Over the verandah waves the +Swedish flag, which Torp <a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>generally suspends above her bed, in +remembrance of Heaven knows who. I gave myself the pleasure of +surprising Jeanne, by bestowing upon her my green <i>crêpe de Chine</i>. In +future grey and black will be my only wear.</p> + +<p>After the obligatory goose, and the inevitable Christmas dishes, I spent +the evening reading the letters with which "my friends" honour me +punctiliously.</p> + +<p>Without seeing the handwriting, or the signature, I could name from the +contents alone the writer of each one of them. They all write about the +honours which have befallen Joergen Malthe: a hospital here; a palace of +archives there. What does it matter to me? I would far rather they +wrote: "To-day a motor-car ran over Joergen Malthe and killed him on the +spot."</p> + +<p>I have arrived at that stage.</p> + +<p>But to-night I will not think about him; I would rather try to write to +Magna Wellmann. I may be of some use to her. In any case I will tell her +things that it will do her good to hear. She is one of those who take +life hard.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>Dear Magna Wellmann,</p> + +<p>It is with great difficulty that I venture to give you advice at this +moment. Besides, we are so completely opposed in habit, thought, and +temperament. We have really nothing in common but our unfortunate middle +age and our sex; therefore, how can it help you to know what I should do +if I were in your place?</p> + +<p>May I speak quite frankly without any fear of hurting your feelings? In +that case I will try to advise you; but I can only do so by making your +present situation quite clear to you. Only when you have faced matters +can you hope to decide upon some course of action which you will not +afterwards regret. Your letter is the queerest mixture of self-deception +and a desire to be quite frank. You try to throw dust in my eyes, while +at the same time you are betraying all that you are most anxious to +conceal. Judging from your letter, the maternal feeling is deeply +ingrained in your nature. You are prepared to <a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>fight for your children +and sacrifice yourself for them if necessary. You would put yourself +aside in order to secure for them a healthy and comfortable existence.</p> + +<p>The real truth is that your conscience is pricking you with a remorse +that has been instigated by others. Maternal sentiment is not your +strong point; far from it. In your husband's lifetime you did not try to +make two and two amount to five; and you often showed very plainly that +your children were rather an encumbrance than otherwise. When at last +your affection for them grew, it was not because they were your own +flesh and blood, but because you were thrown into daily contact with +these little creatures whom you had to care for.</p> + +<p>Now you have lost your head because the outlook is rather bad. Your +family, or rather your late husband's people, have attempted to coerce +you in a way that I consider entirely unjustifiable. And you have +allowed yourself to be bullied, and therefore, all unconsciously, have +given them some hold over your life and actions.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>You must not forget that your husband's family, without being asked, +have been allowing you a yearly income which permitted you to live in +the same style as before Professor Wellmann's death. They placed no +restrictions upon you, and made no conditions. Now, the family—annoyed +by what reaches their ears—want to insist that you should conform to +their wishes; otherwise they will withdraw the money, or take from you +the custody of the children. This is a very arbitrary proceeding.</p> + +<p>Reflect well what they are asking of you before you let yourself be +bound hand and foot.</p> + +<p>Are you really capable, Magna, of being an absolutely irreproachable +widow?</p> + +<p>Perhaps there ought to be a law by which penniless widows with children +to bring up should be incarcerated in some kind of nunnery, or burnt +alive at the obsequies of their husbands. But failing such a law, I do +not think a grown-up woman is obliged to promise that she will +henceforth take a vow of chastity. One must not give a promise only <a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>to +break it, and, my dear Magna, I do not think you are the woman to keep a +vow of that kind.</p> + +<p>For this reason you ought never to have made yourself dependent upon +strangers by accepting their money for the education of your children. +At the same time I quite see how hard it would be to find yourself +empty-handed with a pack of children all in need of something. If you +had not courage to try to live on the small pension allowed by the +State, you would have done better to find some means of earning a +livelihood with the help of your own people.</p> + +<p>You never thought of this; while I was too much taken up with my own +affairs just then to have any superfluous energy for other people's +welfare or misfortune.</p> + +<p>But now we come to the heart of the question. For some years past you +have confided in me—more fully than I really cared about. While your +husband was alive I often found it rather painful to be always looking +at him through the keyhole, so to speak. But this <a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>confidence justifies +me in speaking quite frankly.</p> + +<p>My dear Magna, listen to me. A woman of your temperament ought never to +bind herself by marriage to any man, and is certainly not fit to have +children. You were intended—do not take the words as an insult—to lead +the life of a <i>fille de joie</i>. The term sounds ugly—but I know no other +that is equally applicable. Your vehement temperament, your insatiable +desire for new excitements—in a word, your whole nature tends that way. +You cannot deny that your marriage was a grave mistake.</p> + +<p>There was just the chance—a remote one—that you might have met the +kind of husband to suit you: an eminently masculine type, the kind who +would have kept the whip-hand over you, and regarded a wife as +half-mistress, half-slave. Even then I think your conjugal happiness +would have ceased the first day he lost the attraction of novelty.</p> + +<p>Professor Wellmann, your quiet, correct husband, was as great a torment +to you as you <a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>were to him. Without intending it, you made his life a +misery. The dreadful scenes which were brought about by your violent and +sensual temperament so changed his disposition that he became brutal; +while to you they became a kind of second nature, a necessity, like food +or sleep.</p> + +<p>Magna, you will think me brutal, too, because I now tell you in black +and white what formerly I lacked the courage to say. Believe me, it was +often on the tip of my tongue to exclaim: "Better have a lover than +torment this poor man whose temperament is so different to your own."</p> + +<p>I will not say you did not care for your husband. You learnt to see his +good qualities; but there was no true union between you. You hated his +work. Not like a woman who is jealous of the time spent away from her; +but because you believed such arduous brain work made him less ardent as +a lover. Although you did not really care for him, you would have +sacrificed all his fame and reputation for an hour of unreasoning +passion.</p> + +<p>At his death you lost the breadwinner and <a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>the position you had gained +in the world as the wife of a celebrity. Your grief was sincere; you +felt your loneliness and loss. Then for the first time you clung to your +children, and erroneously believed you were moved by maternal feeling. +You honestly intended henceforward to live for them alone.</p> + +<p>All went well for three months, and then the struggle began. Do you +know, Magna, I admired the way you fought. You would not give way an +inch. You wore the deepest weeds. Sheltered behind your crape, you +surrounded yourself by your children, and fought for your life.</p> + +<p>This inward conflict added to your attractions. It gave you an air of +nobility you had hitherto lacked.</p> + +<p>Then the world began to whisper evil about you while you were still +quite irreproachable.</p> + +<p>No, after all there <i>was</i> something to reproach you with, although it +was not known to outsiders. While you were fighting your instincts and +trying to live as a spotless widow, your character was undergoing a +change: against your will, but not unconsciously, you <a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>were become a +perfect fury. In this way your children acquired that timidity which +they have never quite outgrown. Strangers began to notice this after a +while, and to criticise your behaviour.</p> + +<p>Time went on. You wrote that you were obliged to do a "cure" in a +nursing home for nervous complaints. When I heard this, I could not +repress a smile, in spite of your misfortunes. Nerve specialists may be +very clever, but can they be expected, even at the highest fees, to +replace defunct husbands. You were kept in bed and dosed with bromides +and sulphonal. After a few weeks you were pronounced quite well, and +left the home a little stouter and rather languid after keeping your bed +so long.</p> + +<p>When you got home you turned the house upside-down in a frantic fit of +"cleaning." You walked for miles; you took to cooking; and at night, +having wearied your body out with incessant work, you tried to lull your +brain by reading novels.</p> + +<p>What was the use of it all? The day you confessed to me that you had +walked about <a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>the streets all night lest you should kill yourself and +your children, I realised that your powers of resistance were at an end. +A week later you had embarked upon your first <i>liaison</i>. A month later +the whole town was aware of it.</p> + +<p>That was about a year after the Professor's death. Six or seven years +have passed since then, and you have gone on from adventure to +adventure, all characterised by the same lamentable lack of discretion. +The reason for this lies in your own tendency to self-deception. You +want to make yourself and others believe that you are always looking for +ideal love and constant ties. In reality your motives are quite +different. You hug the traditional conviction that it would be +disgraceful to own that your pretended love is only an affair of the +senses. And yet, if you had not been so anxious to dupe yourself and +others, you might have gone through life frankly and freely.</p> + +<p>The night is far advanced, moreover it is Christmas Eve.</p> + +<p>I will not accuse you without producing <a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>proofs. Enclosed you will find +a whole series of letters, dated irregularly, for you only used to write +to me when I was away from home in the summer. In these letters, which I +have carefully collected, and for which I have no ground for reproaching +you, you will see yourself reflected as in a row of mirrors. Do not be +ashamed; your self-deception is not your fault; society is to blame. I +am not sending the letters back to discourage or hurt you; only that you +may see how, with each adventure, you have started with the same +sentimental illusions and ended with the same pitiable disenchantment.</p> + +<p>A penniless widow turned forty—we are about the same age—with five +children has not much prospect of marrying again, however attractive she +may be. I have told you so repeatedly; but your feminine vanity refuses +to believe it. In each fresh adventure you have seen a possible +marriage—not because you feel specially drawn towards matrimony, but +because you are unwilling to leave the course free to younger women.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>You have shown yourself in public with your admirers.</p> + +<p>Neglecting the most ordinary precautions, you have allowed them to come +to your house; in a word, you have unblushingly advertised connections +which ought to have been concealed.</p> + +<p>And the men you selected?</p> + +<p>I do not wish to criticise your choice; but I quite understand why your +friends objected and were ashamed on your account.</p> + +<p>At first people made the best of the situation, tacitly hoping that the +affairs might lead to marriage and that your monetary cares would thus +find a satisfactory solution. But after so many useless attempts this +benevolent attitude was abandoned, and scandal grew.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile you, Magna, blind to all opinion, continued to follow the same +round: flirtation, sentiment, intimacy, adoration, submission, jealousy, +suspicion, suffering, hatred, and contempt.</p> + +<p>The more inferior the man of your choice, the more determined you were +to invest him with extraordinary qualities. But as soon as <a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>the next one +appeared on the scene, you began to judge his predecessor at his true +value.</p> + +<p>If all this had resulted in your getting the wherewithal to bring up +your children in comfort, I should say straight out: "My dear Magna, pay +no attention to what other people say, go your own road."</p> + +<p>But, unfortunately, it is just the reverse; your children suffer. They +are growing up. Wanda and Ingrid are almost young women. In a year or +two they will be at a marriageable age. How much longer do you suppose +you can keep them in ignorance? Perhaps they know things already. I have +sometimes surprised a look in Wanda's eyes which suggested that she saw +more than was desirable.</p> + +<p>In my opinion it is better for children not to find out these things +until they are quite old enough to understand them completely. But the +evil is done, and cannot be undone. And yet, Magna, the peace of mind of +these innocent victims is entirely in your hands. You can secure it +without making the sacrifice that your husband's family demands of you.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>You have no right to let your children grow up in this unwholesome +atmosphere; and the atmosphere with which their dear mother surrounds +them cannot be described as healthy.</p> + +<p>If your character was as strong as your temperament, you would not +hesitate to take all the consequences on your own shoulders. But it is +not so. You would shrink from the hard work involved in emigrating and +making yourself a new home abroad; at the same time you would be lowered +in your own eyes if you gave your children into the care of others.</p> + +<p>Then, since for the next few years you will never resign yourself to +single life, and are not likely to find a husband, you must so arrange +your love affairs that they escape the attention of the world. Why +should you mix them up with your home life and your children? What you +need are prudence and calculation; but you have neither.</p> + +<p>You will never fix your life on a firm basis until you have relegated +men to the true place they occupy in your existence. If you could <a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>only +make yourself see clearly the fallacy of thinking that every man you +meet is going to love you for eternity. A woman like yourself can +attract lovers by the dozen; but yours is not the temperament to inspire +a serious relationship which might become a lasting friendship. If you +constantly see yourself left in the lurch and abandoned by your admirers +before you have tired of them yourself, it is because you always delude +yourself on this point.</p> + +<p>I know another woman situated very much as you are. She too has a large +family, and a weakness for the opposite sex. Everybody knows that she +has her passing love affairs, but no one quarrels with her on that +score.</p> + +<p>She is really entitled to some respect, for she lives in her own house +the life of an irreproachable matron. She shows the tenderest regard for +the needs of her children, and never a man crosses her threshold but the +doctor.</p> + +<p>You see, dear Magna, that I have devoted half my Christmas night to you, +which I certainly should not have done if I did not feel <a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>a special +sympathy for you. If I wind up my letter with a proposal that may wound +your feelings at first sight, you must try to understand that it is +kindly meant.</p> + +<p>Living here alone, a few months' experience has shown me that my income +exceeds my requirements, and I can offer to supply you with a sum which +you can pay me back in a year or two, without interest. This would +enable you to learn some kind of business which would secure you a +living and free you from family interference. Consider it well.</p> + +<p>I live so entirely to myself on this island that I have plenty of time +to ponder over my own lot and that of other people. Write to me when you +feel the wish or need to do so. I will reply to the best of my ability. +If I am very taciturn about my own affairs, it springs from an +idiosyncrasy that I cannot overcome. To make sure of my meaning I have +read my letter through once more, and find that it does not express all +I wanted to say. Never mind, it is true in the main. Only try to +understand that I do not wish to sit in judg<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>ment upon you, only to +throw some light on the situation. With all kind thoughts.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;">Yours,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.<br /></span></p> + + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>It snows, and snows without ceasing. The trees are already wrapped in +snow, like precious objects packed in wadding. The paths will soon be +heaped up to their level. The snowflakes are as large as daisies. When I +go out they flutter round me like a swarm of butterflies. Those that +fall into the water disappear like shooting stars, leaving no trace +behind.</p> + +<p>The glass roof of my bedroom is as heavy as a coffin-lid. I sleep with +my window open, and when there comes a blast of wind my eyes are filled +with snow. This morning, when I woke, my pillow-case was as wet as +though I had been crying all night.</p> + +<p>Torp already sees us in imagination snowed up and receiving our food +supplies down the chimney. She is preparing for the occasion. Her hair +smells as though she had been singe<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>ing chickens, and she has +illuminated the basement with small lamps and red shades edged with +pearl fringes.</p> + +<p>Jeanne is equally enchanted. When she goes outside without a hat her +hair looks like a burning torch against the snow. She does not speak, +but hums to herself, and walks more lightly and softly than ever, as +though she feared to waken some sleeper.</p> + +<p>... I remember how Malthe and I were once talking about Greece, and he +gave me an account of a snowstorm in Delphi. I cannot recall a word of +his description; I was not listening, but just thinking how the snow +would melt when it fell upon his head.</p> + +<p>He has fulfilled my request not to write. I have not had a line since +his only letter came. And yet....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have burnt his letter.</p> + +<p>I have burnt his letter. A few ashes are all that remain to me.</p> + +<p>It hurts me to look at the ashes. I cannot make up my mind to throw them +away.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>I have got rid of the ashes. It was harder than I thought. Even now I +am restless.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I am glad the letter is destroyed. Now I am free at last. My temptations +were very natural.</p> + +<p>The last few days I have spent in bed. Jeanne is an excellent nurse. She +makes as much fuss of me as though I were really ill, and I enjoy it.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The Nirvana of age is now beginning. In the morning, when Jeanne brushes +my hair, I feel a kind of soothing titillation which lasts all day. I do +not trouble about dressing; I wear no jewellery and never look in the +glass.</p> + +<p>Very often I feel as though my thoughts had come to a standstill, like a +watch one has forgotten to wind up. But this blank refreshes me.</p> + +<p>Weeks have gone by since I wrote in my <a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>diary. Several times I have +tried to do so; but when I have the book in front of me, I find I have +nothing to set down.</p> + +<p>In the twilight I sit by the fire like an old child and talk to myself. +Then Torp comes to me for the orders which she ends by giving herself, +and I let her talk to me about her own affairs. The other day I got her +on the subject of spooks. She is full of ghost stories, and relates them +with such conviction that her teeth chatter with terror. Happy Torp, to +possess such imagination!</p> + +<p>Some days I hardly budge from one position, and can with difficulty +force myself to leave my table; at other times I feel the need of +incessant movement. The forest is very quiet, scarcely a soul walks +there. If I do chance to meet anyone, we glare at each other like two +wild beasts, uncertain whether to attack or to flee from each other.</p> + +<p>The forest belongs to me....</p> + +<p>The piano is closed. I never use it now. The sound of the wind in the +trees is music enough for me. I rise from my bed and <a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>listen until I am +half frozen. I, who was never stirred or pleased by the playing of +virtuosi!</p> + +<p>I have no more desires. Past and future both repose beneath a shroud of +soft, mild fog. I am content to live like this. But the least event +indoors wakes me from my lethargy. Yesterday Torp sent for the sweep. +Catching sight of him in my room, I could not repress a scream. I could +not think for the moment what the man could be doing here.</p> + +<p>Another time a stray cat took refuge under my table. I was not aware of +it, but no sooner had I sat down than I felt surcharged with +electricity. I rang for Jeanne, and when she came into the room the +creature darted from its hiding-place, and I was panic-stricken.</p> + +<p>Jeanne carried it away, but for a long time afterwards I shivered at the +sight of her.</p> + +<p>Whence comes this horror of cats? Many people make pets of them. +Personally I should prefer the company of a boa-constrictor.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>A man whose vanity I had wounded once took it upon himself to tell me +some plain truths. He did me this honour because I had not sufficiently +appreciated his attentions.</p> + +<p>He assured me that I was neither clever nor gifted, but that I was +merely skilful at not letting myself be caught out, and had a certain +quickness of repartee. He was quite right.</p> + +<p>What time and energy I have spent in trying to keep up this reputation +of being a clever woman, when I was really not born one!</p> + +<p>My vanity demanded that I should not be run after for my appearance +only; so I surrounded myself with clever men and let them call me +intellectual. It was Hans Andersen's old tale of "The King's New +Clothes" over again.</p> + +<p>We spoke of political economy, of statesmanship, of art and literature, +finance and religion. I knew nothing about all these things, but, thanks +to an animated air of attention, I steered safely between the rocks and +won a reputation for cleverness.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>In English novels, with their insipid sweetness that always reminds me +of the smell of frost-bitten potatoes, the heroine sometimes permits +herself the luxury of being blind, lame, or disfigured by smallpox. The +hero adores her just the same. How false to life! My existence would +have been very different if ten years ago I had lost my long eyelashes, +if my fingers had become deformed, or my nose shown signs of redness....</p> + +<p>A red nose! It is the worst catastrophe that can befall a beautiful +woman. I always suspected this was the reason why Adelaide Svanstroem +took poison. Poor woman, unluckily she did not take a big enough dose!</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>January.</p> +<p>My senses are reawakening. Light and sound now bring me entirely new +impressions; what I see, I now also feel, with nerves of which hitherto +I did not suspect the existence. When evening draws on I stare into the +twilight until everything seems to shimmer before my eyes, and I dream +like a child....</p> + +<p>Yesterday, before going to bed, I went on my balcony, as I usually do, +to take a last glance at the sea. But it was the starry sky that fixed +my attention. It seemed to reveal and offer itself to me. I felt I had +never really seen it before, although I sleep with it over my head!</p> + +<p>Each star was to me like a dewdrop created to slake my thirst. I drank +in the sky like a plant that is almost dead for want of moisture. And +while I drank it in, I was conscious of a sensation hitherto unknown to +me. For the first time in my life I was aware of the exist<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>ence of my +soul. I threw back my head to gaze and gaze. Night enfolded me in all +its splendour, and I wept.</p> + +<p>What matter that I am growing old? What matter that I have missed the +best in life? Every night I can look towards the stars and be filled +with their chill, eternal peace.</p> + +<p>I, who never could read a poem without secretly mocking the writer, who +never believed in the poets' ecstasies over Nature, now I perceive that +Nature is the one divinity worthy to be worshipped.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I miss Margarethe Ernst; especially her amusing ways. How she glided +about among people, always ready to dart out her sharp tongue, always +prepared to sting. And yet she is not really unkind, in spite of her +little cunning smile. But her every movement makes a singular impression +which is calculated.</p> + +<p>We amused each other. We spoke so candidly about other people, and lied +so grace<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>fully to each other about ourselves. Moreover, I think she is +loyal in her friendship, and of all my letters hers are the best +written.</p> + +<p>I should have liked to have drawn her out, but she was the one person +who knew how to hold her own. I always felt she wore a suit of chain +armour under her close-fitting dresses which was proof against the +assaults of her most impassioned adorers.</p> + +<p>She is one of those women who, without appearing to do so, manages to +efface all her tracks as she goes. I have watched her change her tactics +two or three times in the course of an evening, according to the people +with whom she was talking. She glided up to them, breathed their +atmosphere for an instant, and then established contact with them.</p> + +<p>She is calculating, but not entirely for her own ends; she is like a +born mathematician who thoroughly enjoys working out the most difficult +problems.</p> + +<p>I should like to have her here for a week.</p> + +<p>She, too, dreads the transition years. She tries in vain to cheat old +age. Lately she adopted a "court mourning" style of dress, <a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>and wore +little, neat, respect-impelling mantillas round her thin, +Spanish-looking face. One of these days, when she is close upon fifty, +we shall see her return to all the colours of the rainbow and to ostrich +plumes. She lives in hopes of a new springtide in life. Shall I invite +her here?</p> + +<p>She would come, of course, by the first train, scenting the air with +wide nostrils, like a stag, and an array of trunks behind her!</p> + +<p>No! To ask her would be a lamentable confession of failure.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>The last few days I have arrived at a condition of mind which occasions +great self-admiration. I am now sure that, even if the difference in our +ages did not exist, I could never marry Malthe.</p> + +<p>I could do foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I have +loved with all my heart. I could humble myself to be his mistress; I +could die with him. But set up a home with Joergen Malthe—never!</p> + +<p>The terrible part of home life is that every <a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>piece of furniture in the +house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long +after love has died out—if, indeed, it ever existed between them. Two +human beings—who differ as much as two human beings always must do—are +compelled to adopt the same tastes, the same outlook. The home is built +upon this incessant conflict. The struggle often goes on in silence, but +it is not the less bitter, even when concealed.</p> + +<p>How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration +masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel would have +done.... What a profound contempt I felt for his tastes; and, without +saying it in words, how he disapproved of mine!</p> + +<p>No! His home was not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal couple, +at one on all points. My person for his money—that was the bargain, +crudely but truthfully expressed.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Just as one arranges the scenery for a <i>tableau vivant</i>, I prepared my +"living grave" in this house, which Malthe built in ig<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>norance of its +future occupant. And here I have learnt that joy of possession which +hitherto I have only known in respect of my jewellery.</p> + +<p>This house is really my home. My first and only home. Everything here is +dear to me, because it <i>is</i> my own.</p> + +<p>I love the very earthworms because they do good to my garden. The birds +in the trees round about the house are my property. I almost wish I +could enclose the sky and clouds within a wall and make them mine.</p> + +<p>In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I +left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger +to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine. +I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me +before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I +shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the +bare deal table, the dusty <a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>books, the trunk covered with a travelling +rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor.</p> + +<p>Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over +me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured +to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth +interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air +with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their +touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his passion, and yet he +went on discussing this wretched dome—about which I cared as little as +for the inkstains on his table.</p> + +<p>I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room.</p> + +<p>"But I get the sunshine," he said, blushing.</p> + +<p>I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most +superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges +from the purple clouds at evening.</p> + +<p>Big child that you are, how I love you!</p> + +<p>But I will never, never start a home with you!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>Well, surely one gardener can hardly suffice to poison the air of the +place. If he is a nuisance I shall send him packing.</p> + +<p>The man comes from a big estate. If he is content to cultivate my +cabbage patch, it must be because, besides being very ugly, he has some +undiscovered faults. But I really cannot undertake to make minute +inquiries into the psychical qualities of Mr. Under-gardener Jensen.</p> + +<p>His photograph was sent by a registry office, among many others. We +examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as +though they had been fashion plates from Paris. To my silent amusement, +I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she +thought smells could be photographed, too.</p> + +<p>Prudence prompted me to select this man; he is too ugly to disturb our +peace of mind. On the other hand, as I had the wisdom not to pull down +the hut in which the former proprietor lived, the two rooms there will +have to do for Mr. Jensen, so that we can keep him at a little distance.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>Torp asked if he was to take meals in the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Certainly! I have no intention of having him for my opposite neighbour +at table. But, on the whole, he had better have his meals in his hut, +then we shall not be always smelling him.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Perhaps we are really descended from dogs, for the sense of smell can so +powerfully influence our senses.</p> + +<p>I would undertake in pitch darkness to recognise every man I know by the +help of my nose alone; that is, if I passed near enough to him to sniff +his atmosphere. I am almost ashamed to confess that men are the same to +me as flowers; I judge them by their smell. I remember once a young +English waiter in a restaurant who stirred all my sensibilities each +time he passed the back of my chair. Luckily Richard was there! For the +same reason I could not endure Herr von Brincken to come near me—and +equally for the same reason Richard had power over my senses.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>Every time I bite the stalk of a pansy I recall the neighbourhood of +the young Englishman.</p> + +<p>Men ought never to use perfumes. The Creator has provided them. But with +women it is different....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-day is my birthday. No one here knows it. Besides, what woman would +enjoy celebrating her forty-third birthday? Only Lillie Rothe, I am +sure!...</p> + +<p>One day I was talking to a specialist about the thousands of women who +are saved by medical science to linger on and lead a wretched +semi-existence. These women who suffer for years physically and are +oppressed by a melancholy for which there seems to be no special cause. +At last they consult a doctor; enter a nursing home and undergo some +severe operation. Then they resume life as though nothing had happened. +Their surroundings are unchanged; they have to fulfil all the duties of +everyday life—even the conjugal life is taken up once more. And these +<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>poor creatures, who are often ignorant of the nature of their illness, +are plunged into despair because life seems to have lost its joy and +interest.</p> + +<p>I ventured to observe to the doctor with whom I was conversing that it +would be better for them if they died under the anæsthetic. The surgeon +reproved me, and inquired whether I was one of those people who thought +that all born cripples ought to be put out of their misery at once.</p> + +<p>I did not quite see the connection of ideas; but I suppressed my desire +to close his argument by telling him of an example which is branded upon +my memory.</p> + +<p>Poor Mathilde Bremer! I remember her so well before and after the +operation. She was not afraid to die, because she knew her husband was +devoted to her. But she kept saying to the surgeon:</p> + +<p>"You must either cure me or kill me. For my own sake and for his, I will +not go on living this half-invalidish life."</p> + +<p>She was pronounced "cured." Two years later she left her husband, very +much against <a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>his will, but feeling she was doing the best for both of +them.</p> + +<p>She once said to me: "There is no torture to equal that which a woman +suffers when she loves her husband and is loved by him; a woman for whom +her husband is all in all, who longs to keep his devotion, but knows she +must fail, because physically she is no longer herself."</p> + +<p>The life Mathilde Bremer is now leading—that of a solitary woman +divorced from her husband—is certainly not enviable. Yet she admits +that she feels far better than she used to do.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Any one might suppose I was on the way to become a rampant champion of +the Woman's Cause. May I be provided with some other occupation! I have +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs.</p> + +<p>Heaven be eternally praised that I have no children, and have been +spared all the ailments which can be "cured" by women's specialists!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>Ye powers! How interminable a day can be! Surely every day contains +forty-eight hours!</p> + +<p>I can actually watch the seconds oozing away, drop by drop.... Or +rather, they fall slowly on my head, like dust upon a polished table. My +hair is getting steadily greyer.</p> + +<p>It is not surprising, because I neglect it.</p> + +<p>But what is the use of keeping it artificially brown with lotions and +pomades? Let it go grey!</p> + +<p>Torp has observed that I take far more pleasure in good cooking than I +did at first.</p> + +<p>My dresses are getting too tight. I miss my masseuse.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-day I inspected my linen cupboard with all the care of the lady +superior of an aristocratic convent. I delighted in the spectacle of the +snowy-white piles, and counted it all. I am careful with my money, and +yet I like to have great supplies in the house. The more bottles, cases, +and bags I see in the larder, the better pleased<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a> I am. In that respect +Torp and I are agreed. If we were cut off from the outer world by flood, +or an earthquake, we could hold out for a considerable time.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>If I had more sensibility, and a little imagination—even as much as +Torp, who makes verses with the help of her hymn-book—I think I should +turn my attention to literature. Women like to wade in their memories as +one wades through dry leaves in autumn. I believe I should be very +clever in opening a series of whited sepulchres, and, without betraying +any personalities, I should collect my exhumed mummies under the general +title of, "Woman at the Dangerous Age." But besides imagination, I lack +the necessary perseverance to occupy myself for long together with other +people's affairs.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>We most of us sail under a false flag; but it is necessary. If we were +intended to be <a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>as transparent as glass, why were we born with our +thoughts concealed?</p> + +<p>If we ventured to show ourselves as we really are, we should be either +hermits, each dwelling on his own mountain-top, or criminals down in the +valleys.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Torp has gone to evening service. Angelic creature! She has taken a +lantern with her, therefore we shall probably not see her again before +midnight. In consequence of her religious enthusiasm, we dined at +breakfast-time. Yes, Torp knows how to grease the wheels of her +existence!</p> + +<p>Naturally she is about as likely to attend church as I am. Her vespers +will be read by one of the sailors whose ship has been laid up near here +for the winter. Peace be with her—but I am dreadfully bored.</p> + +<p>I have a bitter feeling as though Jeanne and I were doing penance, each +in a dark corner of our respective quarters. The Sundays of my childhood +were not worse than this.</p> + +<p>In the distance a cracked, tinkling bell<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a> "tolls the knell of parting +day." Jeanne and I are depressed by it. I have taken up a dozen +different occupations and dropped them all.</p> + +<p>If it were only summer! I am oppressed as though I were sitting in a +close bower of jasmine; but we are in mid-winter, and I have not used a +drop of scent for months.</p> + +<p>But, after all, Sundays were no better in the Old Market Place. There I +had Richard from morning till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be +bored in the society of one other person is much worse. And to think +that Richard never even noticed it! His incessant talk reminded me of a +mill-wheel, and I felt as though all the flour was blowing into my eyes.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I will take a brisk constitutional.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>What is the matter with me? I am so nervous that I can scarcely hold my +pen. I have never seen a fog come on so <a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>suddenly; I thought I should +never find my way back to the house. It is so thick I can hardly see the +nearest trees. It has got into the room, and seems to be hanging from +the ceiling. I am damp through and through.</p> + +<p>The fire has gone out, and I am freezing. It is my own fault; I ought to +have rung for Jeanne, or put on some logs myself, but I could not summon +up resolution even for that.</p> + +<p>What has become of Torp, that she is staying out half the day? How will +she ever find her way home? With twenty lanterns it would be impossible +to see ten yards ahead of one. My lamp burns as though water was mixed +with the oil.</p> + +<p>Overhead I hear Jeanne pacing up and down. I hear her, although she +walks so lightly. She too is restless and upset. We have a kind of +influence on each other, I have noticed it before.</p> + +<p>If only she would come down of her own accord. At least there would be +two of us.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>I feel the same cold shivers down my back that I remember feeling long +ago, when my nurse induced me to go into a churchyard. I thought I saw +all the dead coming out of their graves. That was a foggy evening, too. +How strange it is that such far-off things return so clearly to the +mind.</p> + +<p>The trees are quite motionless, as though they were listening for +something. What do they hear? There is not a soul here—only Jeanne and +myself.</p> + +<p>Another time I shall forbid Torp to make these excursions. If she must +go to church, she shall go in the morning.</p> + +<p>It is very uncanny living here all alone in the forest, without a +watch-dog, or a man near at hand. One is at the mercy of any passerby.</p> + +<p>For instance, the other day, some tipsy sailors came and tried the +handle of the front-door.... But then, I was not in the least +frightened; I even inspired Torp with courage.</p> + +<p>I have a feeling that Jeanne is sitting upstairs in mortal terror. I sit +here with my pen <a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>in my hand like a weapon of defence. If I could only +make up my mind to ring....</p> + +<p>There, it is done! My hand is trembling like an aspen leaf, but I must +not let her see that I am frightened. I must behave as though nothing +had happened.</p> + +<p>Poor girl! She rushed into the room without knocking, pale as a corpse, +her eyes starting from her head. She clung to me like a child that has +just awakened from a bad dream.</p> + +<p>What is the matter with us? We are both terrified. The fog seems to have +affected our wits.</p> + +<p>I have lit every lamp and candle, and they flicker fitfully, like +Jeanne's eyes.</p> + +<p>The fog is getting more and more dense. Jeanne is sitting on the sofa, +her hand pressed to her heart, and I seem to hear it beating, even from +here.</p> + +<p>I feel as though some one were dying near me—here in the room.</p> + +<p>Joergen, is it you? Answer me, is it you?</p> + +<p>Ah! I must have gone mad.... I am not superstitious, only depressed.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>All the doors are locked and the shutters barred. There is not a sound. +I cannot hear anything moving outside.</p> + +<p>It is just this dead silence that frightens us.... Yes, that is what it +is....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Now Jeanne is asleep. I can hardly see her through the fog.</p> + +<p>She sits there like a shadow, an apparition, and the fog floats over her +red hair like smoke over a fire.</p> + +<p>I know nothing whatever about her. She is as reserved about her own +concerns as I am about mine. Yet I feel as though during this hour of +intense fear and agitation I had seen into the depths of her soul. I +understand her, because we are both women. She suffers from the eternal +unrest of the blood.</p> + +<p>She has had a shock to her inmost feelings. At some time or other she +has been so deeply wounded that she cannot live again in peace.</p> + +<p>She and I have so much in common that we might be blood-relations. But +we ought <a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>not to live under the same roof as mistress and servant.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Gradually the fog is dispersing, and the lights burn brighter. I seem to +follow Jeanne's dreams as they pass beneath her brow. Her mouth has +fallen a little open, as if she were dead. Every moment she starts up; +but when she sees me she smiles and drops off again. Good heavens, how +utterly exhausted she seems after these hours of fear!</p> + +<p>But somebody <i>is</i> there! Yes ... outside ... there between the trees ... +I see somebody coming....</p> + +<p>It is only Torp, with her lantern, and the dressmaker from the +neighbouring village. The moment she opened the basement door and I +heard her voice I felt quite myself again.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>We have eaten ravenously, like wolves. For the first time Jeanne sat at +table with me and shared my meal. For the first and prob<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>ably for the +last time. Torp opened her eyes very wide, but she was careful to make +no observations.</p> + +<p>My fit of madness to-night has taught me that the sooner I have a man of +some kind to protect the house the better.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne has confided in me. She was too upset to sleep, and came knocking +at my bedroom door, asking if she might come in. I gave her permission, +although I was already in bed. She sat at the foot of my bed and told me +her story. It is so remarkable that I must set in down on paper.</p> + +<p>Now I understand her nice hands and all her ways. I understand, too, how +it came about that I found her one day turning over the pages of a +volume by Anatole France, as though she could read French.</p> + +<p>Her parents had been married twelve years when she was born. When she +was thirteen they celebrated their silver wedding. Until that moment in +her life she had grown up in the belief that they were a perfectly +united <a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>couple. The father was a chemist in a small town, and they lived +comfortably. The silver wedding festivities took place in their own +house. At dinner the girl drank some wine and felt it had gone to her +head. She left the table, saying to her mother, "I am going to lie down +in my room for a little while." But on the way she turned so giddy that +she went by mistake into a spare room that was occupied by a cavalry +officer, a cousin of her mother's. Too tired to go a step farther, she +fell asleep on a sofa in the darkened room. A little later she woke, and +heard the sounds of music and dancing downstairs, but felt no +inclination to join in the gaiety. Presently she dropped off again, and +when she roused for the second time she was aware of whispers near her +couch. In the first moment of awakening she felt ashamed of being caught +there by some of the guests. She held her breath and lay very still. +Then she recognized her mother's voice. After a few minutes she grasped +the truth.... Her mother, whom she worshipped, and this officer, whom +she admired in a childish way!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>They lit the candles. She forced herself to lie motionless, and feigned +to be fast asleep. She heard her mother's exclamation of horror: +"Jeanne!" And the captain's words:</p> + +<p>"Thank goodness she is sleeping like a log!"</p> + +<p>Her mother rearranged her disordered hair, and they left the room.</p> + +<p>After a few minutes she returned with a lamp, calling out:</p> + +<p>"Jeanne, where are you, child? We have been searching all over the +house!"</p> + +<p>Her pretended astonishment when she discovered the girl made the whole +scene more painful to Jeanne. But gathering up her self-control as best +she could, she succeeded in replying:</p> + +<p>"I am so tired: let me have my sleep out."</p> + +<p>Her mother bent over her and kissed her several times. The child felt as +though she would die while submitting to these caresses.</p> + +<p>This one hour, with its cruel enlightenment, sufficed to destroy +Jeanne's joy in life for ever. At the same time it filled her mind with +impure thoughts that haunted her night and day.<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a> She matured +precociously in the atmosphere of her own despair.</p> + +<p>There was no one in whom she could confide; alone she bore the weight of +a double secret, either of which was enough to crush her youth.</p> + +<p>She could not bear to look her mother in the face. With her father, too, +she felt ill at ease, as though she had in some way wronged him. +Everything was soiled for her. She had but one desire; to get away from +home.</p> + +<p>About two years later her mother was seized with fatal illness. Jeanne +could not bring herself to show her any tenderness. The piteous glance +of the dying woman followed all her comings and goings, but she +pretended not to see it. Once, when her father was out of the room, her +mother called Jeanne to the bedside:</p> + +<p>"You know?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Jeanne only nodded her head in reply.</p> + +<p>"Child, I am dying, forgive me."</p> + +<p>But Jeanne moved away from the bed without answering the appeal.</p> + +<p>No sooner had the doctor pronounced life <a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>to be extinct than she felt a +strange anxiety. In her great desire to atone in some way for her past +harshness, the girl resolved that, no matter what befell her, she would +do her best to hide the truth from her father.</p> + +<p>That night she entered the room where the dead woman lay, and ransacked +every box and drawer until she found the letters she was seeking. They +were at the bottom of her mother's jewel-case. Quickly she took +possession of them; but just as she was replacing the case in its +accustomed place, her father came in, having heard her moving about. She +could offer no explanation of her presence, and had to listen in silence +to his bitter accusation: "Are you so crazy about trinkets that you +cannot wait until your poor mother is laid in her grave?"</p> + +<p>In the course of that year one of the chemist's apprentices seduced her. +But she laughed in his face when he spoke of marriage. Later on she ran +away with a commercial traveller, and neither threats nor persuasion +would induce her to return home.</p> + +<p>After this, more than once she sought in some <a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>fleeting connection a +happiness which never came to her. The only pleasure she got out of her +adventures was the power of dressing well. When at last she saw that she +was not made for this disorderly life, she obtained a situation in a +German family travelling to the south of Europe.</p> + +<p>There she remained until homesickness drove her back to Denmark. Her +complete lack of ambition accounts for her being contented in this +modest situation.</p> + +<p>She never made any inquiries about her father, and only knows that he +left his money to other people, which does not distress her in the +least. Her sole reason for going on living is that she shrinks from +seeking death voluntarily.</p> + +<p>I wonder if there exists a man who could save her? A man who could make +her forget the bitterness of the past? She assures me I am the only +human being who has ever attracted her. If I were a man she would be +devoted to me and sacrifice everything for my sake.</p> + +<p>It is a strange case. But I am very sorry <a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>for the girl. I have never +come across such a peculiar mixture of coldness and ardour.</p> + +<p>When she had finished her story she went away very quietly. And I am +convinced that to-morrow things will go on just as before. Neither of us +will make any further allusion to the fog, nor to all that followed it.</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>Spring.</p> + +<p>I am driven mad by all this singing and playing! One would think the +steamboats were driven by the force of song, and that atrocious +orchestras were a new kind of motive power. From morning till night +there is no cessation from patriotic choruses and folk-songs.</p> + +<p>Sometimes The Sound looks like a huge drying-ground in which all these +red and white sails are spread out to air.</p> + +<p>How I wish these pleasure-boats were birds! I would buy a gun and +practise shooting, in the hopes of killing a few. But this is the close +season.... The principal thoroughfares of a large town could hardly be +more bustling than the sea just now—the sea that in winter was as +silent and deserted as a graveyard.</p> + +<p>People begin to trespass in my forest and to prowl round my garden. I +see their inquisitive faces at my gates. I think I must buy a <a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>dog to +frighten them away. But then I should have to put up with his howling +after some dear and distant female friend.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How that gardener enrages me! His eyes literally twinkle with sneaky +thoughts. I would give anything to get rid of him.</p> + +<p>But he moves so well! Never in my life have I seen a man with such a +walk, and he knows it, and knows too that I cannot help looking at him +when he passes by.</p> + +<p>Torp is bewitched. She prepares the most succulent viands in his honour. +Her French cookery book is daily in requisition, and, judging from the +savoury smells which mount from the basement, he likes his food well +seasoned.</p> + +<p>Fortunately he is nothing to Jeanne, although she does notice the way he +walks from his hips, and his fine carriage.</p> + +<p>Midday is the pleasantest hour now. Then the sea is quiet and free from +trippers. Even the birds cease to sing, and the gardener takes his +sleep. Jeanne sits on the verandah, as I <a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>have given her permission to +do, with some little piece of sewing. She is making artificial roses +with narrow pink ribbon; a delightful kind of work.</p> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>Dear Professor Rothe,</p> + +<p>Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it +immediately, as I should have wished to do. For that reason I sent you +the brief telegram in reply, the words of which, I am sorry to say, I +must now repeat: "I know nothing about the matter." Lillie has never +spoken a word to me, or made the least allusion in my presence, which +could cause me to suspect such a thing. I think I can truly say that I +never heard her pronounce the name of Director Schlegel.</p> + +<p>My first idea was that my cousin had gone out of her mind, and I was +astonished that you—being a medical man—should not have come to the +same conclusion. But on mature consideration (I have thought of nothing +but Lillie for the last two days) I have changed my opinion. I think I +am beginning to understand what has happened, but I beg you to remember +that I alone am responsible for <a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>what I am going to say. I am only +dealing with suppositions, nothing more.</p> + +<p>Lillie has not broken her marriage vows. Any suspicion of betrayal is +impossible, having regard to her upright and loyal nature. If to you, +and to everybody else, she appeared to be perfectly happy in her married +life, it was because she really was so. I implore you to believe this.</p> + +<p>Lillie, who never told even a conventional falsehood, who watched over +her children like an old-fashioned mother, careful of what they read and +what plays they saw, how could she have carried on, unknown to you and +to them, an intrigue with another man? Impossible, impossible, dear +Professor! I do not say that your ears played you false as to the words +she spoke, but you must have put a wrong interpretation upon them.</p> + +<p>Not once, but thousands of times, Lillie has spoken to me about you. She +loved and honoured you. You were her ideal as man, husband, and father. +She was proud of you. Having no personal vanity or ambition, like <a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>so +many good women, her pride and hopes were all centred in you.</p> + +<p>She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your operations; +and I need hardly remind you how carefully she followed your work. She +studied Latin in order to understand your scientific books, while, in +spite of her natural repulsion from the sight of such things, she +attended your anatomy classes and demonstrations.</p> + +<p>When Lillie said, "I love Schlegel, and have loved him for years," her +words did not mean "And all that time my love for you was extinct."</p> + +<p>No, Lillie cared for Schlegel and for you too. The whole question is so +simple, and at the same time so complicated.</p> + +<p>Probably you are saying to yourself: "A woman must love one man or the +other." With some show of reason, you will argue: "In leaving my house, +at any rate, she proved at the moment that Schlegel alone claimed her +affection."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless I maintain that you are wrong.</p> + +<p>Lillie showed every sign of a sane, well-<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>balanced nature. Well, her +famous equability and calm deceived us all. Behind this serene exterior +was concealed the most feminine of all feminine qualities—a fanciful, +visionary imagination.</p> + +<p>Do you or I know anything about her first girlish dreams? Have you—in +spite of your happy life together—ever really understood her innermost +soul? Forgive my doubts, but I do not think you have. When a man +possesses a woman as completely as you possessed Lillie, he thinks +himself quite safe. You never knew a moment's doubt, or supposed it +possible that, having you, she could wish for anything else. You +believed that you fulfilled all her requirements.</p> + +<p>How do you know that for years past Lillie has not felt some longings +and deficiencies in her inner life of which she was barely conscious, or +which she did not understand?</p> + +<p>You are not only a clever and capable man; you are kind, and an +entertaining companion; in short, you have many good qualities which +Lillie exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical. You +are, in fact, rather <a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>prosaic, and only believe what you see. Your +judgments and views are not hasty, but just and decisive.</p> + +<p>Now contrast all this with Lillie's immense indulgence. Whence did she +derive this if not from a sympathetic understanding of things which we +do not possess? You remember how we used to laugh when she defended some +criminal who was quite beyond defence and apology! Something intense and +far-seeking came into her expression on those occasions, and her heart +prompted some line of argument which reason could not support.</p> + +<p>She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing us, cold and sceptical +people.</p> + +<p>But how she must have suffered!</p> + +<p>Then recollect the pleasure it gave her to discuss religious and +philosophical questions. She was not "religious" in the common +acceptation of the word. But she liked to get to the bottom of things, +and to use her imagination. We others were indifferent, or frankly +bored, by such matters.</p> + +<p>And Lillie, who was so gentle and lacking in self-assertion, gave way to +us.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She felt a physical pang to see +cut flowers with their stalks out of water. Once I saw her buy up the +whole stock-in-trade of a flower-girl, because the poor things wanted +water. Neither you nor your children have any love of flowers. You, as a +doctor, are inclined to think it unhealthy to have plants in your rooms; +consequently there were none, and Lillie never grumbled about it.</p> + +<p>Lillie did not care for modern music. César Franck bored her, and Wagner +gave her a headache. Her favourite instrument was an old harpsichord, on +which she played Mozart, while her daughters thundered out Liszt and +Rubinstein upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good +humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune.</p> + +<p>Finally, Lillie liked quiet, musical speech, and she was surrounded by +people who talked at the top of their voices.</p> + +<p>"Absurd trifles," I can hear you saying. Perhaps. But they explain the +fact that although she was happy in a way, she still had <a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>many +aspirations which were not only unsatisfied, but which, without meaning +it unkindly, you daily managed to crush.</p> + +<p>Lillie never blamed others. When she found that you did not understand +the things she cared for, she immediately tried to think she was in the +wrong, and her well-balanced nature helped her to conquer her own +predilections.</p> + +<p>She was happy because she willed to be happy. Once and for all she had +made up her mind that she was the luckiest woman in existence; happy in +every respect; and she was deeply grateful to you.</p> + +<p>But in the depths of her heart—so deeply buried that perhaps it never +rose to the surface even in the form of a dream—lay that secret +something which led to the present misfortune.</p> + +<p>I know nothing of her relations with Schlegel, but I think I may venture +to say that they were chiefly limited to intercourse of the soul; and +for that reason they were so fatal.</p> + +<p>Have you ever observed the sound of<a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a> Schlegel's voice? He spoke slowly +and so softly; I can quite believe it attracted your wife in the +beginning; and that afterwards, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, she +gravitated towards him. He possessed so many qualities that she admired +and missed.</p> + +<p>The man is now at death's door, and can never explain to us what passed +between them—even admitting that there was anything blameworthy. As far +as I know, Schlegel was quite infatuated with a totally different woman. +Had he really been in love with Lillie, would he have been contented +with a few words and an occasional pressure of her hand? Therefore, +since it is out of the question that your wife can have been unfaithful +to you, I am inclined to think that Schlegel knew nothing of her +feelings for him.</p> + +<p>You will reply that in that case it must all be gross exaggeration on +Lillie's part. But you, being a man, cannot understand how little +satisfies a woman when her love is great enough.</p> + +<p>Why, then, has Lillie left you, and why does she refuse to give you an +explanation?<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a> Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions?</p> + +<p>I will tell you: Lillie is in love with two men at the same time. Their +different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character. +If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby +losing all his faculties, Lillie would have remained with you and +continued to be a model wife and mother. In the same way, had you been +the victim of the accident, she would have clean forgotten Schlegel, and +would have lived and breathed for you alone.</p> + +<p>But fate decreed that the misfortune should be his.</p> + +<p>Lillie had not sufficient strength to fight the first, sharp anguish. +She was bewildered by the shock, and felt herself suddenly in a false +position. The love on which her imagination had been feeding seemed to +her at the moment the true one. She felt she was betraying you, +Schlegel, and herself; and since self-sacrifice has become the law of +her existence, she was prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her +love.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>As to you, Professor Rothe, you have acted very foolishly. You have +done just what any average, conventional man would have done. Your +injured vanity silenced the voice of your heart.</p> + +<p>You had the choice of two alternatives: either Lillie was mad, or she +was responsible for her actions. You were convinced that she was quite +sane and was playing you false in cold blood. She wished to leave you; +then let her go. What becomes of her is nothing to you; you wash your +hands of her henceforth.</p> + +<p>You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your +confidence. How could you have found it in your heart to do this, +instead of putting them off with any explanation rather than the true +one!</p> + +<p>Lillie knew you better than I supposed. She knew that behind your +apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature. She +understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your +house the moment you discovered that she had a thought <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>or a sentiment +that was not subordinated to your will.</p> + +<p>You have let her go, believing that she had been playing a pretty part +behind your back, and that I was her confidante, and perhaps also the +instigator of her wicked deeds.</p> + +<p>Lillie has taken refuge with her children's old nurse.</p> + +<p>How significant! Lillie, who has as many friends as either of us, knows +by a subtle instinct that none of them would befriend her in her +misfortune.</p> + +<p>If you, Professor, were a large-hearted man, what would you do? You +would explain to the chief doctor at the infirmary Lillie's great wish +to remain near Schlegel until the end comes.</p> + +<p>Weigh what I am saying well. Lillie is, and will always remain the same. +She loves you, and such a line of conduct on your part would fill her +with grateful joy. What does it matter if during the few days or weeks +that she is with this poor condemned man, who can neither recognize her, +nor speak, nor make <a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>the least movement, you have to put up with some +inconvenience?</p> + +<p>If Lillie had your consent to be near Schlegel, she would certainly not +refuse to return to her wifely duties as soon as he was dead. It is +possible that at first she might not be able to hide her grief from you; +then it would be your task to help her win back her peace of mind.</p> + +<p>I know something of Schlegel; during the last few years I have seen a +good deal of him. Without being a remarkable personality, there was +something about him that attracted women. They attributed to him all the +qualities which belonged to the heroes of their dreams. Do you +understand me? I can believe that a woman who admired strength and +manliness might see in Schlegel a type of firm, inflexible manhood; +while a woman attracted by tenderness might equally think him capable of +the most yielding gentleness. The secret probably lay in the fact that +this man, who knew so many women, possessed the rare faculty of taking +each one according to her temperament.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>Schlegel was a living man; but had he been a portrait, or character in +a novel, Lillie would have fallen in love with him just the same, +because her love was purely of the imagination.</p> + +<p>You must do what you please. But one thing I want you to understand: if +you are not going to act in the matter, I shall do so. I willingly +confess that I am a selfish woman; but I am very fond of Lillie, and if +you abandon her in this cruel and clumsy way, I shall have her to live +with me here, and I shall do my best to console her for the loss of an +ungrateful husband and a pack of stupid, indifferent children.</p> + +<p>One word more before I finish my letter. Lillie, as far as I can +recollect, is a year older than I am. Could you not—woman's specialist +as you are—have found some explanation in this fact? Had Lillie been +fifty-five or thirty-five, all this would never have happened. I do not +care for strangers to look into my personal affairs, and although you +are my cousin's husband you are practically a stranger to me. +Nevertheless I may remind you that women at our time of life pass +<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a>through critical moments, as I know by my daily experiences. The letter +which I have written to you in a cool reasoning spirit might have been +impossible a week or two ago. I should probably have reeled off pages of +incoherent abuse.</p> + +<p>Show Lillie that your pretended love was not selfishness pure and +simple.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">With kind greetings,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;">Yours sincerely,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 12em; font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.<br /></span></p> + + +<p>P.S.—I would rather not answer your personal attacks. I could not have +acted differently and I regret nothing.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-morrow morning I will get rid of that gardener without fail.</p> + +<p>An extra month's wages and money for his journey—whatever is +necessary—so long as he goes.</p> + +<p>I wish to sleep in peace and to feel sure that my house is safely locked +up, and I cannot sleep a wink so long as I know he comes to see Torp.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>That my cook should have a man in does not shock me, but it annoys me. +It makes me think of things I wish to forget.</p> + +<p>I seem to hear them laughing and giggling downstairs.</p> + +<p>Madness! I could not really hear anything that was going on in the +basement. The birds were restless, because the night is too light to let +them sleep. The sea gleams under the silver dome of the moonlit sky.</p> + +<p>What is that?... Ah! Miss Jeanne going towards the forest.</p> + +<p>Her head looks like one of those beautiful red fungi that grow among the +fir-trees.</p> + +<p>If the gardener had chosen <i>her</i>.... But Torp!</p> + +<p>I should like to go wandering out into the woods and leave the house to +those two creatures in the basement. But if I happened to meet Jeanne, +what explanation could I give?</p> + +<p>It would be too ridiculous for both of us to be straying about in the +forest, because Torp was entertaining a sweetheart in the basement!</p> + +<p>Doors and windows are wide open, and <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>they are two floors below me, and +yet I seem to smell the sour, disgusting odour of that man. Is it +hysteria?...</p> + +<p>No. I cannot sleep, and it is four in the morning. The sunrise is a +glorious sight provided one is really in the mood to enjoy it. But at +the present moment I should prefer the blackest night....</p> + +<p>There he goes! Sneaking away like a thief. Not once does he look back; +and yet I am sure the hateful female is standing at the door, waving to +him and kissing her hand....</p> + +<p>But what is the matter with Jeanne? Poor girl, she has hidden behind a +tree. She does not want to be seen by him; and she is quite right, it +would be paying the boor too great an honour.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Merely to watch Richard eating was—or rather it became—a daily +torture. He handled his knife and fork with the utmost refinement. Yet I +would have given anything if he would have occasionally put his elbows +on the table, or bitten into an unpeeled apple, or <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>smacked his lips.... +Imagine Richard smacking his lips!</p> + +<p>His manners at table were invariably correct.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the look of tender reproach he once cast upon me +when I tore open a letter with my fingers, instead of waiting until he +had passed me the paper-knife. Probably it got upon his nerves in the +same way that he got upon mine when he contemplated himself in the +looking-glass.</p> + +<p>A spot upon the table-cloth annoyed and distracted him. He said nothing, +but all the time he eyed the mark as though it was left from a +murderer's track.</p> + +<p>His mania for tidiness often forced me, against my nature, to a +counteracting negligence. I intentionally disarranged the bookshelves in +the library; but he would follow me five minutes afterwards and put +everything in its place again.</p> + +<p>Yet had I really cared for him, this fussiness would have been an added +charm in my eyes.</p> + +<p>Was Richard always faithful to me? Or, <a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>if not, did he derive any +pleasure from his lapses? Naturally enough he must have had many +temptations; and although I, as a mere woman, was hindered by a thousand +conventional reasons, he had opportunities and reasonable excuses for +taking what was offered him.</p> + +<p>And probably he did not lose his chances; at any rate when he was away +for long together on business. But I am convinced that his infidelities +were a sort of indirect homage to his lawful wife, and that he did not +derive much satisfaction from them. I am not afraid of being compared +with other women.</p> + +<p>After all, my good Richard may have remained absolutely true to me, +thanks to his mania for having all things in order.</p> + +<p>I am almost sorry that I never caught him in some disgraceful +infidelity. Discovery, confession, scenes, sighs, and tears! Who knows +but what it might have been a very good thing for us? The certainty of +his unceasing attentions to me was rather tame; and he did not gain much +by it in the long run, poor man.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a>The only time I ever remember to have felt jealous it was not a +pleasant sensation, although I am sure there were no real grounds for +it. It was brought about by his suggestion that we should invite Edith +to go to Monaco with us. Richard went as white as a sheet when I asked +him whether my society no longer sufficed for him....</p> + +<p>I cannot understand how any grown-up man can take a girl of seventeen +seriously. They irritate me beyond measure.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Malthe has come back from Vienna, they tell me. I did not know he had +been to Vienna. I thought all this time he had been at Copenhagen.</p> + +<p>It is strange how this news has upset me. What does it matter where he +lives?</p> + +<p>If he were ten years younger, or I ten years older, I might have adopted +him. It would not be the first time that a middle-aged woman has +replaced her lap-dog in that way. Then I should have found him a +suitable wife! I should have surrounded myself by a swarm of <a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>pretty +girls and chosen the pick of the bunch for him. What a fascinating +prospect!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have never made a fool of myself, and I am not likely to begin now.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I begin to meet people in the forest—<i>my</i> forest. They gather flowers +and break branches, and I feel as though they were robbing me. If only I +could forbid people to walk in the forest and to boat on The Sound!</p> + +<p>It is quite bad enough to have the gardener prowling about in my garden. +He is all over the place. The garden seems to have shrunk since he came. +And yet, in spite of myself, I often stand watching the man when he is +digging. He has such muscular strength and uses it so skilfully. He puts +on very humble airs in my presence, but his insolent eyes take in +everything.</p> + +<p>Torp wears herself out evolving tasty dishes for him, and in return he +plays cards with her.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>Jeanne avoids him. She literally picks up her skirts when she has to go +past him. I like to see her do this.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>This morning Jeanne and I laughed like two children. I was standing on +the shore looking at the sea, and said absent-mindedly:</p> + +<p>"It must be splendid bathing here."</p> + +<p>Jeanne replied:</p> + +<p>"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut."</p> + +<p>And I, still absent-minded, murmured:</p> + +<p>"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut."</p> + +<p>Suddenly we went off into fits of laughter. We could not stop ourselves.</p> + +<p>Now Jeanne has gone hunting for workmen. We will make them work by the +piece, otherwise they will never finish the job. I had some experience +this autumn with the youth who was paid by the day to chop wood for us.</p> + +<p>When the hut is built I will bathe every day in the sunshine.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>They are both master-carpenters, and seem to be very good friends. +Jeanne and I lie in the boat and watch them, and stimulate them with +beer from time to time. But it does not seem to have much effect. One +has a wife and twelve children who are starving. When they have starved +for a while, they take to begging. The man sings like a lark. He has +spent two years in America, but he assures me it is "all tommy-rot" the +way they work like steam-engines there. Consequently he soon returned to +his native land.</p> + +<p>"Denmark," he says, "is such a nice little country, and all this water +and the forests make it so pretty...."</p> + +<p>Jeanne and I laugh at all this and amuse ourselves royally.</p> + +<p>The day before yesterday neither of the men appeared. A child had died +on the island, and one of them, who is also a coffin-maker, had to +supply a coffin. This seemed a reasonable excuse. But when I inquired +whether the coffin was finished, he replied:</p> + +<p>"I bought one ready-made in the town ... saved me a lot of bother, that +did."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>His friend and colleague had been to the town with him to help him in +his choice!</p> + +<p>The water is clear and the sands are white and firm. I am longing to try +the bathing. Jeanne, who rows well, volunteered to take me out in the +boat. But to bathe from the boat and near these men! I would rather +wait!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Full moon. In the far distance boats go by with their white sails. They +glide through the dusk like swans on a lake. The silence is so intense +that I can hear when a fish rises or a bird stirs in its nest. The scent +of the red roses that blossomed yesterday ascends to my window here....</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe....</p> + +<p>When I write his name it is as though I gave him one of those caressing +touches for which my fingers yearn and quiver....</p> + +<p>Yes, a dip in the sea will calm me.</p> + +<p>I will undress in the house and wrap myself in my dressing-gown. Then I +can slip through the pine-trees unseen....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>It was glorious, glorious! What do I want a bathing-hut for? I go into +the sea straight from my own garden, and the sand is soft and firm to my +feet like the pine-needles under the trees.</p> + +<p>The sea is phosphorescent; I seemed to be dipping my arms in liquid +silver. I longed to splash about and make sparkles all around me. But I +was very cautious. I swam only as far as the stakes to which the +fishermen fasten their nets. The moon seemed to be suspended just over +my head.</p> + +<p>I thought of Malthe.</p> + +<p>Ah, for one night! Just one night!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne has given me warning. I asked her why she wished to leave. She +only shook her head and made no answer. She was very pale; I did not +like to force her to speak.</p> + +<p>It will be very difficult to replace her. On the other hand, how can I +keep her if she has made up her mind to go? Wages are no attraction to +her. If I only knew what she <a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a>wanted. I have not inquired where she is +going.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Ah, now I understand! It is the restlessness of the senses. She wants +more life than she can get on this island. She knows I see through her, +and casts her eyes downward when I look at her.</p> + + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>Joergen Malthe,</p> + +<p>You are the only man I ever loved. And now, by means of this letter, I +am digging a fathomless pit between us. I am not the woman you thought +me; and my true self you could never love.</p> + +<p>I am like a criminal who has had recourse to every deceit to avoid +confession, but whose strength gives way at last under the pressure of +threats and torture, and who finds unspeakable relief in declaring his +guilt.</p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe, I have loved you for the last ten years; as long, in +fact, as you have loved me. I lied to you when I denied it; but my heart +has been faithful all through.</p> + +<p>Had I remained any longer in Richard's house, I should have come to you +one day and asked you to let me be your mistress. Not your wife. Do not +contradict me. I am the stronger and wiser of the two.</p> + +<p>To escape from this risk I ran away. I <a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>fled from my love—I fled, too, +from my age. I am now forty-three, you know it well, and you are only +thirty-five.</p> + +<p>By this voluntary renunciation, I hoped to escape the curse that +advancing age brings to most women. Alas! This year has taught me that +we can neither deceive nor escape our destiny, since we carry it in our +hearts and temperaments.</p> + +<p>Here I am, and here I shall remain, until I have grown to be quite an +old woman. Therefore, it is very foolish of me to pour out this +confession to you, for it cannot be otherwise than painful reading. But +I shall have no peace of mind until it is done.</p> + +<p>My life has been poor. I have consumed my own heart.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>As far as I am aware, my father, a widower, was a strictly honourable +man. Misfortune befell him, and his whole life was ruined in a moment. +An unexpected audit of the accounts of his firm revealed a deficiency. +My father had temporarily borrowed a small sum <a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a>to save a friend in a +pressing emergency. Henceforward he was a marked man, at home and +abroad. We left the town where we lived. The retiring pension which was +granted to him in spite of what had happened sufficed for our daily +needs. He lived lost in his disgrace, and I was left entirely to the +care of a maid-servant. From her I gathered that our troubles were in +some way connected with a lack of money; and money became the idol of my +life.</p> + +<p>I sometimes buried a coin that had been given me—as a dog buries his +bone. Then I lay awake all night, fearing I should not find it again in +the morning.</p> + +<p>I was sent to school. A classmate said to me one day:</p> + +<p>"Of course, a prince will marry you, for you are the prettiest girl +here."</p> + +<p>I carried the words home to the maid, who nodded her approval.</p> + +<p>"That's true enough," she said. "A pretty face is worth a pocketful of +gold."</p> + +<p>"Can one sell a pretty face, then?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>Yes, child, to the highest bidder," she replied, laughing.</p> + +<p>From that moment I entered upon the accursed cult of my person which +absorbed the rest of my childhood and all my first youth. To become rich +was henceforth my one and only aim in life. I believed I possessed the +means of attaining my ends, and the thought of money was like a poison +working in my blood.</p> + +<p>At school I was diligent and obedient, for I soon saw it paid best in +the long run. I was delighted to see that I attracted the attention of +the masters and mistresses, simply because of my good looks. I took in +and pondered over every word of praise that concerned my appearance. But +I put on airs of modesty, and no one guessed what went on within me.</p> + +<p>I avoided the sun lest I should get freckles. I collected rain-water for +washing. I slept in gloves; and though I adored sweets, I refrained from +eating them on account of my teeth. I spent hours brushing my hair.</p> + +<p>At home there was only one looking-glass. It was in my father's room, +which I seldom <a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a>entered, and was hung too high for me to use. In my +pocket-mirror I could only see one eye at a time. But I had so much +self-control that I resisted the temptation to stop and look at my +reflection in the shop windows on my way to and from school.</p> + +<p>I was surprised when I came home one day to find that the large mirror +in its gold frame had been given over to me by my father and was hanging +in my room. I made myself quite ill with excitement, and the maid had to +put me to bed. But later on, when the house was quiet, I got up and lit +my lamp. Then I spent hours gazing at my own reflection in the glass.</p> + +<p>Henceforth the mirror became my confidant. It procured me the one +happiness of my childhood. When I was indoors I passed most of my time +practising smiles, and forming my expression. I was seized with terror +lest I should lose the gift that was worth "a pocketful of gold."</p> + +<p>I avoided the wild and noisy games of other girls for fear of getting +scratched. Once, however, I was playing with some of my <a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>school friends +in a courtyard. We were swinging on the shafts of a cart when I fell and +ran a nail into my cheek. The pain was nothing compared to the thought +of a permanent mark. I was depressed for months, until one day I heard a +teacher say that the mark was all but gone—a mere beauty spot.</p> + +<p>When I sat before the looking-glass, I only thought of the future. +Childhood seemed to me a long, tiresome journey that must be got through +before I reached the goal of riches, which to me meant happiness.</p> + +<p>Our house overlooked the dwelling of the chief magistrate. It was a +white building in the style of a palace, the walls of which were covered +in summer-time with roses and clematis, and to my eyes it was the finest +and most imposing house in the world.</p> + +<p>It was surrounded by park-like grounds with trim lawns and tall trees. +An iron railing with gilded spikes divided it from the common world.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when the gate was standing open I peeped inside. It seemed as +though the house came nearer and nearer to me. I <a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>caught a glimpse in +the basement of white-capped serving-maids, which seemed to me the +height of elegance. It was said that the yellow curtains on the ground +floor were pure silk. As to the upstairs rooms, the shutters were +generally closed. These apartments had not been opened since the death +of Herr von Brincken's wife. He rarely entertained.</p> + +<p>Sometimes while I was watching the house, Herr von Brincken would come +riding home accompanied by a groom. He always bowed to me, and +occasionally spoke a few words. One day an idea took possession of me, +with such force that I almost involuntarily exclaimed aloud. My brain +reeled as I said to myself, "Some day I will marry the great man and +live in that house!"</p> + +<p>This ambition occupied my thoughts day and night. Other things seemed +unreal. I discovered by accident that Herr von Brincken often visited +the parents of one of my schoolmates. I took great pains to cultivate +her acquaintance, and we became inseparable.</p> + +<p>Although I was not yet confirmed, I succeeded in getting an invitation +to a party at <a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a>which Von Brincken was to be present. At that time I +ignored the meaning of love; I had not even felt that vague, gushing +admiration that girls experience at that age. But when at table this man +turned his eyes upon me with a look of astonishment, I felt +uncomfortable, with the kind of discomfort that follows after eating +something unpleasant. Later in the the evening he came and talked to me, +and I managed to draw him on until he asked whether I should like to see +his garden.</p> + +<p>A few days later he called on my father, who was rather bewildered by +this honour, and asked permission to take me to the garden. He treated +me like a grown-up person, and after we had inspected the lawns and +borders, and looked at the ripening bunches in the grape-house, I felt +myself half-way to become mistress of the place. It never occurred to me +that my plans might fall through.</p> + +<p>At the same time it began to dawn upon me that the personality of Von +Brincken, or rather the difference of our ages, inspired me with a kind +of disgust. In spite of his style and good appearance, he had something +of <a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>the "elderly gentleman" about him. This feeling possessed me when we +looked over the house. In every direction there were lofty mirrors, and +for the first time in my life I saw myself reflected in full-length—and +by my side an old man.</p> + +<p>This was the beginning. A year later, after I had been confirmed, I was +sent to a finishing school at Geneva at Von Brincken's expense. I had +not the least doubt that he meant to marry me as soon as my education +was completed.</p> + +<p>The other girls at the school were full of spirits and enthusiastic +about the beauties of nature. I was a poor automaton. Neither lakes nor +mountains had any fascination for me. I simply lived in expectation of +the day when the bargain would be concluded.</p> + +<p>When two years later I returned to Denmark, our engagement, which had +been concluded by letter, was made public. His first hesitating kiss +made me shudder; but I compelled myself to stand before the +looking-glass and receive his caresses in imagination without disturbing +my artificially radiant smile.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>Sometimes I noticed that he looked at me in a puzzled kind of way, but +I did not pay much attention to it. The wedding-day was actually fixed +when I received a letter beginning:</p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="smcap">"My Dear Elsie,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"I give you back your promise. You do not love me.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"You do not realize what love is...."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This letter shattered all my hopes for the future. I could not, and +would not, relinquish my chances of wealth and position. Henceforth I +summoned all my will-power in order to efface the disastrous impression +caused by my attitude. I assured my future husband that what he had +mistaken for want of love was only the natural coyness of my youth. He +was only too ready to believe me. We decided to hasten the marriage, and +his delight knew no bounds.</p> + +<p>One day I went to discuss with him some details of the marriage +settlements. We had champagne at lunch, and I, being quite un<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>used to +wine, became very lively. Life appeared to me in a rosy light. Arm in +arm, we went over the house together. He had ordered all the lights to +be lit. At length we passed through the room that was to be our conjugal +apartment. Misled, no doubt, by my unwonted animation, and perhaps a +little excited himself by the wine he had taken, he forgot his usual +prudent reserve, and embraced me with an ardour he had never yet shown. +His features were distorted with passion, and he inspired me with +repugnance. I tried to respond to his kisses, but my disgust overcame me +and I nearly fainted. When I recovered, I tried to excuse myself on the +ground that the champagne had been too much for me.</p> + +<p>Von Brincken looked long and searchingly at me, and said in a sad and +tired voice, which I shall never forget:</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are right.... Evidently you cannot stand my champagne."</p> + +<p>The following morning two letters were brought from his house. One was +for my father, in which Von Brincken said he felt <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>obliged to break off +the engagement. He was suffering from a heart trouble, and a recent +medical examination had proved to him that he would be guilty of an +unpardonable wrong in marrying a young girl.</p> + +<p>To me he wrote:</p> + +<p>"You will understand why I give a fictitious reason to your father and +to the world in general. I should be committing a moral murder were I to +marry you under the circumstances. My love for you, great as it is, is +not great enough to conquer the instinctive repugnance of your youth."</p> + +<p>Once again he sent me abroad at his own expense. This time, at my own +wish, I went to Paris, where I met a young artist who fell in love with +me. Had I not, in the saddest way, ruled out of my life everything that +might interfere with my ambitious projects, I could have returned his +passion. But he was poor; and about the same time I met Richard. I +cheated myself, and betrayed my first love, which might have saved me, +and changed me from an automaton into a living being.</p> + +<p>Under the eyes of the man who had stirred <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>my first real emotions, I +proceeded to draw Richard on. My first misfortune taught me wisdom. This +time I had no intention of letting all my plans be shattered.</p> + +<p>When I look back on that time, I see that my worst sin was not so much +my resolve to sell myself for money, as my aptitude for playing the +contemptible comedy of pretended love for days and months and years. I, +who only felt a kind of indifference for Richard, which sometimes +deepened into disgust, pretended to be moved by genuine passion. Yes, I +have paid dearly, very dearly, for my golden cage in the Old Market.</p> + +<p>Richard is not to blame. He could not have suspected the truth....</p> + +<p>It is so fatally easy for a woman to simulate love. Every intelligent +woman knows by infallible instinct what the man who loves her really +wants in return. The woman of ardent temperament knows how to appear +reserved with a lover who is not too emotional; while a cold woman can +assume a passionate air when necessary.</p> + +<p>I, Joergen, I, who for years cared for no one <a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>but myself, have left +Richard firmly convinced to this day that I was greedy of his caresses.</p> + +<p>You are an honest man, and what I have been telling you will come as a +shock. You will not understand it, or me.</p> + +<p>Yet I think that you, too, must have known and possessed women without +loving them. But that is not the same. If it were, my guilt would be +less.</p> + +<p>I allowed my senses to be inflamed, while my mind remained cold, and my +heart contracted with disgust. I consciously profaned the sacred words +of love by applying them to a man whom I chose for his money.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile I developed into the frivolous society woman everybody took me +to be. Every woman wears the mask which best suits her purpose. My mask +was my smile. I did not wish others to see through me. Sometimes, during +a sudden silence, I have caught the echo of my own laugh—that laugh in +which you, too, delighted—and hearing it I have shuddered.</p> + +<p>No! That is not quite true. I was a <a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>different woman with you. A real, +living creature lived and breathed behind the mask. You taught me to +live. You looked into my eyes, and heard my real laughter.</p> + +<p>How many hours we spent together, Joergen, you and I! But we did not +talk much; we never came to the exchange of ideas. I hardly remember +anything you ever said; although I often try to recall your words. How +did we pass the happy time together?</p> + +<p>You are the only man I ever loved.</p> + +<p>When we first got to know each other you were five-and-twenty. So +young—and I was eight years your senior. We fell in love with each +other at once.</p> + +<p>You had no idea that I cared for you.</p> + +<p>From that moment I was a changed woman. Not better perhaps, but quite +different. A thousand new feelings awoke in me; I saw, heard, and felt +in an entirely new way. All humanity assumed a new aspect. I, who had +hitherto been so indifferent to the weal or woe of my fellow-creatures, +began to observe and to understand them. I became sympathetic. Towards +women—not towards men. I do not <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>understand the male sex, and this must +be my excuse for the way in which I have so often treated men. For me +there was, and is, only one man in the world: Joergen Malthe.</p> + +<p>At first I never gave a thought to the difference in our ages. We were +both young then. But you were poor. No one, least of all myself, guessed +that you carried a field-marshal's baton in your knapsack. Money had not +brought me happiness; but poverty still seemed to me the greatest +misfortune that could befall any human being.</p> + +<p>Then you received your first important commission, and I ventured to +dream dreams for us both. I never dreamt of fame and honour; what did I +care whether you carried out the restoration of the cathedral or not? +The pleasure I showed in your talent I did not really feel. It was not +to the man as artist, but as lover, that my heart went out.</p> + +<p>Later, you had a brilliant future before you; one day you would make an +income sufficient for us both. But you seemed so utterly indifferent to +money that I was disappointed.<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a> My dreams died out like a fire for want +of fuel.</p> + +<p>Had you proposed that I should become your mistress, no power on earth +would have held me back. But you were too honourable even to cherish the +thought. Besides, I let you suppose I was attached to my husband....</p> + +<p>I knew well enough that the moment you became aware of my feelings for +you, you would leave no stone unturned until you could legitimately +claim me as your wife.... Such is your nature, Joergen Malthe!</p> + +<p>So I let happiness go by.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Two years ago Von Brincken died, leaving me a considerable share of his +fortune—- and a letter, written on the night of the day when we last +met.</p> + +<p>I might then have left Richard. Your constancy would have been a +sufficient guarantee for my future.</p> + +<p>A mere accident destroyed my illusions. A friend of my own age had +recently married <a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>an officer much younger than herself. At the end of a +year's happiness he left her; and society, far from pitying her, laughed +at her plight.</p> + +<p>This drove me to make my supreme resolve—to abandon, and flee from, the +one love of my life.</p> + +<p>Joergen, I owe you the best hours I have known: those hours in which you +showed me the plans for the "White Villa."</p> + +<p>I feel a bitter, yet unspeakable joy when I think that you yourself +built the walls within which I am living in solitary confinement.</p> + +<p>Once I longed for you with a consuming ardour.</p> + +<p>Now, alas, I am but a pile of burnt-out ashes. The winds of heaven have +dispersed my dreams.</p> + +<p>I go on living because it is not in my nature to do away with myself. I +live, and shall continue to live.</p> + +<p>If only you knew what goes on within me, and how low I have sunk that I +can write this confession!</p> + +<p>There are thoughts that a woman can never <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>reveal to the man she +loves—even if her own life and his were at stake....</p> + +<p>It is night. The stars are bright overhead. Joergen Malthe, why have I +written all this to you?... What do I really want of you?...</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>No, no!... never in this world....</p> + +<p>You shall never read this letter. Never, never! What need you know more +than that I love you? I love you! I love you!</p> + +<p>I will write to you again, calmly, humbly, and tell you the simple +truth: I was afraid of the future, and of the time when you would cease +to love me. That is what I fled from.</p> + +<p>I still fear the future, and the time when you will love me no more. But +all my powers of resistance are shattered by this one truth: <i>I love</i>. +For the first and only time in my life. Therefore I implore you to come +to me; but now, at once. Do not wait a week or a month. My lime trees +are fragrant with blossom. I want you, Joergen, now, while <a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>the limes +are flowering. Then, what you ask of me shall be done.</p> + +<p>If you want me for a wife, I will follow you as the women of old +followed their lords and masters, in joyful submission. But if you only +care to have me for a time, I will prepare the house for my desired +guest.</p> + +<p>Whatever you decide to do will be such an immense joy that I tremble +lest anything should happen to hinder its fulfilment....</p> + +<p>Then let the years go by! Then let age come to me!</p> + +<p>I shall have sown so many memories of you and happiness that I shall +have henceforth a forest of glad thoughts, wherein to wander and take my +rest till Death comes to claim me.</p> + +<p>The sun is flashing on the window-panes; the sunbeams seem to be weaving +threads of joy in rainbow tints.</p> + +<p>You child! How I love you!...</p> + +<p>Come to me and stay with me—or go when we have had our hour of delight.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>The letter has gone. Jeanne has rowed to the town with it.</p> + +<p>She looked searchingly at me when I gave it to her and told her to hurry +so that she should not lose the evening post. Both of us had tears in +our eyes.</p> + +<p>I will never part with Jeanne. Her place is with me—and with him. I +stood at the window and watched her pull away in the little white boat. +She pulled so hard at the oars. If only she is strong enough to keep it +up.... It is a long way to the town.</p> + +<p>Never has the evening been so calm. Everything seems folded in rest and +silence. There lies a majesty on sky and earth. I wandered at random in +the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed to feel the ground beneath my +feet. The flowers smell so sweet, and I am so deeply moved.</p> + +<p>How can I sleep! I feel I must remain awake until my letter is in his +hands.</p> + +<p>Now it is speeding to him through the quiet night. The letter yearns +towards him as I do myself.</p> + +<p>I am young again.... Yes, young, young!...<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a> How blue is the night! Not a +single light is visible at sea.</p> + +<p>If this were my last night on earth I would not complain. I feel my +happiness drawing so near that my heart seems to open and drink in the +night, as thirsty plants drink up the dew.</p> + +<p>All that was has ceased to be. I am Elsie Bugge once more, and stand on +the threshold of life in all its expanse and beauty.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>He is coming....</p> + +<p>He will come by the morning train. It seems too soon.</p> + +<p>Why did he not wait a day or two? I want time to collect myself. There +is so much to do....</p> + +<p>How my hands tremble!</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I carry his telegram next my heart. Now I feel quite calm. Why will +Jeanne insist on my going to bed? I am not ill.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>She says it is useless to arrange the flowers in the vases to-night, +they will be faded by to-morrow. But can I rely on Torp's seeing that we +have enough food in the house? My head is swimming.... The grass wants +mowing, and the hedge must be cut.... Ah! What a fool I am! As though he +would notice the lawn and the hedge!...</p> + +<p>Jeanne asks, "Where will the gentleman sleep?" I cannot answer the +question. I see she is getting the little room upstairs ready for him. +The one that has most sun.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Has Jeanne read my thoughts? She proposes to sleep downstairs with Torp +so long as I have "company."</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I have begun a long letter to Richard, and that has passed the time so +well. I wish he could find some dear little creature who would sweeten +life for him. He is a good soul. During the last few days I seem to have +started a kind of affection for him.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a>We will travel a great deal, Joergen and I. Hitherto I have seen +nothing on my many trips abroad. Joergen must show me the world. We will +visit all the places he once went to alone.</p> + +<p>Now I understand the doubting apostle Thomas. Until my eyes behold I +dare not believe.</p> + +<p>Joergen has such a big powerful head! I sometimes feel as though I were +clasping it with both my hands.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Torp suggests that to-morrow we should have the same <i>menu</i> that she +prepared when the "State Councillor" entertained Prince Waldemar. Well! +Provided she can get all she wants for her creations! She can amuse +herself at the telegraph office as far as I am concerned. I am willing +to help her; at any rate, I can stir the mayonnaise.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How stupid of me to have given Lillie my tortoiseshell combs! How can I +ask to <a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"></a>have them back without seeming rude? Joergen was used to them; +he will miss them at once.</p> + +<p>I have had out all my dresses, but I cannot make up my mind what to +wear. I cannot appear in the morning in a dinner dress, and a white +frock—at my age!... After all, why not?... The white embroidered +one ... it fits beautifully. I have never worn it since Joergen's last +visit to us in the country. It has got a little yellow from lying by, +but he will never notice it.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>To-night <i>I will</i> sleep—sleep like a top. Then I shall wake, take my +bath, and go for a long walk. When I come home, I will sit in the garden +and watch until the white boat appears in the distance.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I had to take a dose of veronal, but I managed to sleep round the clock, +from 9. P.M. to 9. A.M. The gardener has gone off in the boat; and I +have two hours in which to dress.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>What is the matter with me? Now that my happiness is so close at hand, +I feel strangely depressed.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne advises a little rouge. No! Joergen loves me just as I am....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>How he will laugh at me when he hears that I cried because I cannot get +into the white embroidered dress nowadays! It is my own fault; I eat too +much and do not take enough exercise.</p> + +<p>I put on another white dress, but I am very disappointed, for it does +not suit me nearly as well.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I see the boat....</p> + +<hr class="full"/> + + +<p class="right"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>Two Days Later.</p> + +<p>He came by the morning train, and left the same evening. That was the +day before yesterday, and I have never slept since. Neither have I +thought. There is time enough before me for thought.</p> + +<p>He went away the same evening; so at least I was spared the night.</p> + +<p>I have burnt his letter unread. What could it tell me that I did not +already know? Could it hold any torture which I have not already +suffered?</p> + +<p>Do I really suffer? Have I not really become insensible to pain? Once +the cold moon was a burning sun; her own central fires consumed it. Now +she is cold and dead; her light a mere reflection and a falsehood.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>His first glance told me all. He cast down his eyes so that he might not +hurt me again. ... And I—coward that I was—I ac<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>cepted without +interrupting him the tender words he spoke, and even his caress....</p> + +<p>But when our eyes met a second time we both knew that all was at an end +between us.</p> + +<p>One reads of "tears of blood." During the few hours he spent in my house +I think we smiled "smiles of blood."</p> + +<p>When we sat opposite to each other at table, we might have been sitting +each side a deathbed. We only attempted to speak when Jeanne was waiting +at table.</p> + +<p>When we parted, he said:</p> + +<p>"I feel like the worst of criminals!"</p> + +<p>He has not committed a crime. He loved me once, now he no longer loves +me. That is all.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>But after what has happened I cannot remain here. Everything will remind +me of my hours of joyful waiting; of my hours of failure and abasement.</p> + +<p>Where can I go to hide my shame?</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>Richard....</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Would that be too humiliating? Why should it be? Did I not give him my +promise: "If I should ever regret my resolution," I said to him.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>I will write to him, but first I must gather up my strength again. +Jeanne goes long walks with me. We do not talk to each other, but it +comforts me to find her so faithful.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a>Dear Richard,</p> + +<p>It is a long time since I wrote to you, but neither have you been quite +so zealous a correspondent this summer, so it is tit for tat.</p> + +<p>I often think of you, and wonder how you are really getting on in your +solitude. Whether you have been living in the country and going up to +town daily? Or if, like most of the "devoted husbands," you still only +run down to the cottage for week-ends?</p> + +<p>If I were not absolutely free from jealousy, in any form, I should envy +you your new car. This neighbourhood is charming, but to explore it in a +hired carriage, lined with dirty velvet, does not attract me. Now, dear +friend, don't go and send off car and chauffeur post-haste to me. That +would be like your good nature. But, of course, I am only joking.</p> + +<p>Send me all the news of the town. I read the papers diligently, but +there are items of <a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>interest which do not appear in the papers! Above +all, tell me how things are going with Lillie. Will she soon be coming +home? Do you think her conduct was much talked of outside her own +circle? People chatter, but they soon forget.</p> + +<p>Homes for nervous cases are all very well in their way; but I think our +good Hermann Rothe went to extremes when he sent her to one. He is +furious with me, because I told him what I thought in plain words. +Naturally he did not in the least understand what I was driving at. But +I think I made him see that Lillie had never been faithless to him in +the physiological meaning of the word—and that is all that matters to +men of his stamp.</p> + +<p>I am convinced that Lillie would not have suffered half so much if she +had really been unfaithful in the ordinary sense.</p> + +<p>But to return to me and my affairs.</p> + +<p>You cannot imagine what a wonderful business-woman the world has lost in +me. Not only have I made both ends meet—I, who used to dread my +Christmas bills—but I have so much to the good in solid coin of the +realm <a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>that I could fill a dozen pairs of stockings. And I keep my +accounts—think of that, Richard! Every Monday morning Torp appears with +her slate and account-book, and they must balance to a farthing.</p> + +<p>I bathe once or twice a day from my cosey little hut at the end of the +garden, and in the evening I row about in my little white boat. +Everything here is so neat and refined that I am sure your fastidious +soul would rejoice to see it. Here I never bring in any mud on my shoes, +as I used to do in the country, to your everlasting worry. And here the +books are arranged tidily in proper order on the shelves. You would not +be able to find a speck of dust on the furniture.</p> + +<p>Of course the gardener from Frijsenborg, about whom I have already told +you, is now courting Torp, and I am expecting an invitation to the +wedding one of these next days. Otherwise he is very competent, and my +vegetables are beyond criticism.</p> + +<p>Personally, I should have liked to rear chickens, but Torp is so +afflicted at the idea of poultry-fleas that she implored me not to <a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>keep +fowls. Now we get them from the schoolmaster who cannot supply us with +all we want.</p> + +<p>I have an idea which will please you, Richard.</p> + +<p>What if you paid me a short visit? Without committing either of us—you +understand? Just a brief, friendly meeting to refresh our pleasant and +unpleasant memories?</p> + +<p>I am dying for somebody to speak to, and who could I ask better than +yourself?</p> + +<p>But, just to please me, come without saying a word to anyone. Nobody +need know that you are on a visit to your former wife, need they? We are +free to follow our own fancies, but there is no need to set people +gossiping.</p> + +<p>Who knows whether the time may not come when I may take my revenge and +keep the promise I made you the last evening we spent together? When two +people have lived together as long as we have, separation is a mere +figure of speech. People do not separate after twenty-two years of +married life, even if each goes a different road for a time.</p> + +<p>But why talk of the future. The present <a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>concerns us more nearly, and +interests me far more.</p> + +<p>Come, then, dear friend, and I will give you such a welcome that you +will not regret the journey.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Joergen Malthe paid me a flying visit last week. Business brought him +into the neighbourhood, and he called unexpectedly and spent an hour +with me.</p> + +<p>I must say he has altered, and not for the better.</p> + +<p>I hope he will not wear himself out prematurely with all his work.</p> + +<p>If you should see him, do not say I mentioned his visit. It was rather +painful. He was shy, and I, too, was nervous. One cannot spend a whole +year alone on an island without feeling bewildered by the sudden +apparition of a fellow-creature....</p> + +<p>Tell your chauffeur to get the car ready. Should you find the +neighbourhood very fascinating, you could always telegraph to him to +bring it at once.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>If the manufactory, or any other plans, prevent your coming, send me a +few lines. Till we meet,</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 16em;font-variant: small-caps;">Your Elsie,</span></p> + +<p>who perhaps after all is not suited to a hermit's life.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>So he has dared!...</p> + +<p>So all his passion, and his grief at parting, were purely a part that he +played!... Who knows? Perhaps he was really glad to get rid of me....</p> + +<p>Ah, but this scorn and contempt!...</p> + +<p>Elsie Lindtner, do you realise that in the same year, the same month, +you have offered yourself to two men in succession and both have +declined the honour? Luckily there is no one else to whom you can abase +yourself.</p> + +<p>One of these days, depend upon it, Richard will eat his heart out with +regret. But then it will be too late, my dear man, too late!</p> + +<p>That he should have dared to replace me by a mere chit of nineteen!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>The whole town must be laughing at him. And I can do nothing....</p> + +<p>But I am done for. Nothing is left to me, but to efface myself as soon +as possible. I cannot endure the thought of being pitied by anyone, +least of all by Richard.</p> + +<p>How badly I have played my cards! I who thought myself so clever!</p> + +<p>Good heavens! I understand the women who throw vitriol in the face of a +rival. Unhappily I am too refined for such reprisals.</p> + +<p>But if I had her here—whoever she may be—I would crush her with a look +she could never forget.</p> + +<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> + +<p>Jeanne has agreed to go with me.</p> + +<p>Nothing remains but to write my letter—and depart!</p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="smcap"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>Dearest Richard,</p> + +<p>How your letter amused me, and how delighted I am to hear your +interesting intelligence. You could not have given me better news. In +future I am relieved of all need of sympathetic anxiety about you, and +henceforth I can enjoy my freedom without a qualm, and dispose of life +just as I please.</p> + +<p>Every good wish, dear friend! We must hope that this young person will +make you very happy; but, you know, young girls have their whims and +fancies. Fortunately, you are not only a good-looking man in the prime +of life, but also an uncommonly good match for any woman. The young +girls of the present day are seldom blind to such advantages, and you +will find her devotion very lasting, I have no doubt.</p> + +<p>Who can she be? I have not the least idea. But I admire your +discretion—you have not changed in that respect. In any case, be +pre<a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>pared, Richard, she will turn the house upside down and your work +will be cut out for you to get it straight again.</p> + +<p>I am sure she bikes; she will probably drop her cigarette ashes into +your best Venetian glasses; she is certain to hate goloshes and long +skirts, and will enjoy rearranging the furniture. Well, she will be able +to have fine times in your spacious, well-ordered establishment!</p> + +<p>I hope at any rate that you will be able to keep her so far within +bounds that she will not venture to chaff you about "number one." Do not +let her think that my taste predominates in the style and decorations of +the house....</p> + +<p>Dear friend, already I see you pushing the perambulator! Do you remember +the ludicrous incident connected with the fat merchant Bang, who married +late in life and was always called "gran'pa" by his youthful progeny? Of +course, that will not happen in your case—you are a year or two younger +than Bang, so your future family will more probably treat you like a +playfellow.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a>You see, I am quite carried away by my surprise and delight.</p> + +<p>If it were the proper thing, I should immensely like to be at the +wedding; but I know you would not allow such a breach of all the +conventions.</p> + +<p>Where are you going for the honeymoon? You might bring her to see me +here occasionally, in the depths of the country, so long as nobody knew.</p> + +<p>One of my first thoughts was: how does she dress? Does she know how to +do her hair? Because, you know, most of the girls in our particular set +have the most weird notions as regards hair-dressing and frocks.</p> + +<p>However, I can rely on the sureness of your taste, and if your wedding +trip takes you to Paris, she will see excellent models to copy.</p> + +<p>Now I understand why your letters got fewer and farther between. How +long has the affair been on hand? Did it begin early in the summer? Or +did you start it in the train between Hoerlsholm and Helsingoer, on your +way to and from the factory? I only ask—you need not really trouble to +answer.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>I can see from your letter that you felt some embarrassment, and +blushed when you wrote it. Every word reveals your state of mind; as +though you were obliged to give some account of yourself to me, or were +afraid I should take your news amiss. I have already drunk to your +happiness all by myself in a glass of champagne.</p> + +<p>You can tell your young lady, if you like.</p> + +<p>Under the circumstances you had better not accept the invitation I gave +you in my last letter; although I would give much to see your good, kind +face, rejuvenated, as it doubtless is, by this new happiness. But it +would not be wise. You know it is harder to catch and to keep a young +girl than a whole sackful of those lively, hopping little creatures +which are my horror.</p> + +<p>Besides, a new idea has occurred to me, and I can hardly find patience +to wait for its realisation.</p> + +<p>Guess, Richard!... I intend to take a trip round the world. I have +already written to Cook's offices, and am eagerly awaiting information +as to tickets, fares, etc. I shall <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>not go alone. I have not courage +enough for that. I will take Jeanne with me. If I cannot manage it out +of my income, I shall break into my capital, even if I have to live on a +pittance hereafter.</p> + +<p>No—do not make any more of your generous offers of help. You must not +give any more money now to "women." Remember that, Richard!</p> + +<p>The White Villa will be shut up during my absence; it cannot take to +itself wings, nor eat its head off during my absence. Probably in future +I shall spend my time between this place and various big towns abroad, +so that I shall only be here in summer.</p> + +<p>At the same time as this letter, I am sending a wedding present for your +new bride. Girls are always crazy about jewellery. I have no further use +for a diadem of brilliants; but you need not tell her where it comes +from. You will recognise it. It was your first overwhelming gift, and on +our wedding day I was so taken up with my new splendour that I never +heard a word of the pastor's sermon. They said it was most eloquent.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>I hope you will have the tact to remove the too numerous portraits of +myself which adorn your walls. Sell them for the benefit of struggling +artists; in that way, they will serve some good purpose, and I shall not +run the risk of being disfigured by my successor.</p> + +<p>If I should come across any pretty china, or fine embroidery, in Japan, +I shall not forget your passion for collecting.</p> + +<p>Let me know the actual date of the wedding, you can always communicate +through my banker. But the announcement will suffice. Do not write. +Henceforth you must devote yourself entirely to your role of young +husband.</p> + +<p>You quite forgot to answer my questions about Lillie, and I conclude +from your silence that all is well with her.</p> + +<p>Give her my love, and accept my affectionate greetings.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 16em;font-variant: small-caps;">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> + + +<p>P.S.—As yet I cannot grapple with the problem of my future appellation. +I do not feel inclined to return to my maiden name.<a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a> "Elizabeth Bugge" +makes me think of an overgrown grave in a churchyard.</p> + +<p>Well, you will be neither the first nor the last man with several wives +scattered about the globe. The world may be a small place, but it is +large enough to hold two "Mrs. Lindtners" without any chance of their +running across each other.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dangerous Age, by Karin Michaëlis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANGEROUS AGE *** + +***** This file should be named 14187-h.htm or 14187-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/8/14187/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Dangerous Age + +Author: Karin Michaelis + +Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14187] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANGEROUS AGE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +_THE DANGEROUS AGE_ + + + + +_LETTERS AND FRAGMENTS FROM A WOMAN'S DIARY_ + +_TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF KARIN MICHAELIS_ + +_NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMXI_ + + + + +TO + +MY DEAR BROTHER-IN-LAW + +BARON YOOST DAHLERUP + + + + +_INTRODUCTION TO THE FRENCH EDITION By MARCEL PREVOST_ + + +Here is a strange book. A novel from the North, its solid structure, its +clear, unadorned form are purely Latin. A woman's novel, in its integral +and violent sincerity it can only be compared to certain famous +masculine confessions. + +The author, Karin Michaelis, a Dane, is not at all known in France. _The +Dangerous Age_ is not her first book; but it is, I feel sure, the first +that has been translated into French. Naturally enough the +Danish-Scandinavian literature is transmitted in the first instance +through newspapers and reviews, and through German publishers. This is +the result of local proximity and the affinity of language. Several +novels by Karin Michaelis were known to the German public before _The +Dangerous Age_; but none of them had awakened the same keen curiosity, +provoked such discussion, or won such success as this book. In all the +countries of Central Europe the most widely read novel at the present +moment is _The Dangerous Age_. Edition succeeds edition, and the fortune +of the book has been increased by the quarrels it has provoked; for it +has been much discussed and criticised, not on account of its literary +value, which is incontestable, but because of the idea which animates +it. + +Shall I confess that it was just this great success, and the polemical +renown of the novel, that roused my suspicions when first I chanced to +see the German version of it? Contrary to the reputation which our +neighbours on the other side of the Vosges like to foist upon us, French +literature, at the present day, is far less noisily scandalous than +their own. It is only necessary to glance over the advertisements which +certain German publishing firms issue at the end of their publications +in order to be convinced of this. It is amusing to find every kind of +"puff" couched in the exaggerated style which the modern German affects. + +It was with some bias and suspicion, therefore, that I took up _Das +gefaehrliche Alter_. When I started to read the book, nothing could have +been further from my mind than to write, a French version and to present +it myself to the public. This is all the more reason why justice should +be done to Karin Michaelis. I have read no other book of hers except +_The Dangerous Age_; but in this novel she has in no way exceeded what a +sincere and serious observer has a right to publish. Undoubtedly her +book is not intended for young girls, for what the English call +"bread-and-butter misses." But nobody is compelled to write exclusively +for schoolgirls, and it has yet to be proved that there is any necessity +to feed them on fiction as well as on bread and butter. + +_The Dangerous Age_ deals with a bold subject; it is a novel filled with +the "strong meat" of human nature; a novel which speaks in accents at +once painful and ironical, and ends in despair; but it is also a book to +which the most scrupulous author on the question of "the right to speak +out" need not hesitate to attach his name. + +It is difficult for one who knows no Danish, to judge of its literary +value; and that is my case. In the German version--and I hope also in +the French--the reader will not fail to discern some of the novelist's +finest gifts. In the first instance, there is that firmness and solidity +of structure which is particularly difficult to keep up when a book +takes the form of a journal, of jottings and meditations, as does _The +Dangerous Age_. Then there are the depth of reflection, the ingenuity of +the arguments, the muscular brevity of style, the expression being +closely modelled upon the thought; nothing is vague, but nothing is +superfluous. We must not seek in this volume for picturesque landscape +painting, for the lyrical note, for the complacently woven "purple +patch." The book is rigorously deprived of all these things; and, having +regard to its subject, this is not its least merit. + + * * * * * + +When a woman entitles a book _The Dangerous Age_ we may feel sure she +does not intend to write of the dangers of early youth. The dangerous +age described by Karin Michaelis is precisely that time of life which +inspired Octave Feuillet to write the novel, half-dialogue, +half-journal, which appeared in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in 1848, was +adapted for the stage, played at the _Gymnase_ in 1854, and reproduced +later with some success at the Comedie-Francaise--I mean the work +entitled _La Crise_. + +It is curious to compare the two books, partly on account of the long +space of time which separates them, and partly because of the different +way in which the two writers treat the same theme. + +Octave Feuillet, be it remembered, only wrote what might be spoken aloud +in the most conventional society. Nevertheless those who think the +author of _Monsieur de Cantors_ timid and insipid are only short-sighted +critics. I advise my readers when they have finished the last page of +_The Dangerous Age_ to re-read _La Crise_. They will observe many points +of resemblance, notably in the "journal" portion of the latter. +Juliette, Feuillet's heroine, thus expresses herself: + +"What name can I give to this moral discomfort, this distaste for my +former habits, this aimless restlessness and discontent with myself and +others, of which I have been conscious during the last few months?... I +have taken it into my head to hate the trinkets on my husband's +watchchain. We lived together in peace for ten years, those trinkets and +I ... Now, I don't know why, we have suddenly fallen out...." + +These words from _La Crise_ contain the argument of _The Dangerous Age_. + +And yet I will wager that Karin Michaelis never read _La Crise_. Had she +read it, however, her book would still have remained all her own, by +reason of her individual treatment of a subject that is also a dangerous +one. We have made considerable advances since 1848. Even in Denmark +physiology now plays a large part in literature. Feuillet did not +venture to do more than to make his Juliet experience temptation from a +medical lover, who is a contrast to her magistrate husband. Although +doctors come off rather badly in _The Dangerous Age_, the book owes much +to them and to medical science. Much; perhaps too much. If this woman's +work had been imagined and created by a man, no doubt he would have been +accused of having lost sight of women's repugnance to speak or write of +their physical inferiority, or even to dwell upon it in thought. Yet the +name Karin Michaelis is no pseudonym; the writer really is of the same +sex as her heroine Elsie Lindtner. + +Is not this an added reason for the curiosity which this book awakens? +The most sincere and complete, the humblest and most moving of feminine +confessions proceeds from one of those Northern women, whom we Latin +races are pleased to imagine as types of immaterial candour, sovereign +"intellectuality," and glacial temperament--souls in harmony with their +natural surroundings, the rigid pine forests and snow-draped heathlands +of Scandinavia. + +A Scandinavian woman! Immediately the words evoke the chaste vision sung +by Leconte de Lisle, in his poem "l'Epiphanie": + + Elle passe, tranquille, en un reve divin, + Sur le bord du plus frais de tes lacs, o Norvege! + Le sang rose et subtil qui dore son col fin + Est doux comme un rayon de l'aube sur la neige. + + Quand un souffle furtif glisse en ses cheveux blonds, + Une cendre ineffable inonde son epaule, + Et, de leur transparence argentant leurs cils longs, + Ses yeux out la couleur des belle nuits du pole. + + Et le gardien pensif du mystique oranger + Des balcons de l'Aurore eternelle se penche, + Et regarde passer ce fantome leger + Dans les plis de sa robe immortellement blanche. + +"Immortellement blanche!" Very white indeed!... Read the intimate +journal of Elsie Lindtner, written precisely by the side of one of these +fresh Northern lakes. Possibly at eighteen Elsie Lindtner may have +played at "Epiphanies" and filled "the pensive guardian of the mystic +orange tree" with admiration. But it is at forty-two that she begins to +edit her private diary, and her eyes that "match the hue of polar +nights" have seen a good deal in the course of those twenty years. And +if in the eyes of the law she has remained strictly faithful to her +marriage vows, she has judged herself in the secret depths of her heart. +She has also judged other women, her friends and confidants. The moment +of "the crisis" arrives, and, taking refuge in "a savage solitude," in +which even the sight of a male servant is hateful to her, she sets down +with disconcerting lucidity all she has observed in other women, and in +herself. These other women are also of the North: Lillie Rothe, Agatha +Ussing, Astrid Bagge, Margarethe Ernst, Magna Wellmann.... Her memory +invokes them all, and they reappear. We seem to take part in a strange, +painful revel; a witches' revel of ardent yet withered sorceresses; a +revel in which the modern demons of Neurasthenia and Hysteria sport and +sneer. + + * * * * * + +Let us not be mistaken, however. Elsie Lindtner's confession is not +merely to be weighed by its fierce physiological sincerity; it is the +feminine soul, and the feminine soul of all time, that is revealed in +this extraordinary document. I think nothing less would give out such a +pungent odour of truth. _The Dangerous Age_ contains pages dealing with +women's smiles and tears, with their love of dress and desire to please, +and with the social relations between themselves and the male sex, which +will certainly irritate some feminine readers. Let them try to unravel +the real cause of their annoyance: perhaps they will perceive that they +are actually vexed because a woman has betrayed the freemasonry that +exists among their own sex. We must add that we are dealing here with +another nation, and every Frenchwoman may, if she choose, decline to +recognise herself among these portraits from Northern Europe. + +A sure diagnosis of the vital conditions under which woman exists, and +an acute observation of her complicated soul--these two things alone +would suffice, would they not, to recommend the novel in which they were +to be found? But _The Dangerous Age_ possesses another quality which, at +first sight, seems to have no connection with the foregoing: it is by no +means lacking in emotion. Notwithstanding that she has the eye of the +doctor and the psychologist, Elsie Lindtner, the heroine, has also the +nerves and sensibility of a woman. Her daring powers of analysis do not +save her from moments of mysterious terror, such as came over her, for +no particular reason, on a foggy evening; nor yet from the sense of +being utterly happy--equally without reason--on a certain autumn night; +nor from feeling an intense sensuous pleasure in letting the little +pebbles on the beach slide between her fingers. In a word, all the +harshness of her judgments and reflections do not save her from the +dreadful distress of growing old.... + +In vain she withdraws from the society of her fellow-creatures, in the +hope that old age will no longer have terrors for her when there is no +one at hand to watch her physical decay; the redoubtable phantom still +haunts her in her retreat; watches her, brushes past her, and mocks her +sincere effort to abandon all coquetry and cease "to count as a woman." +At the same time a cruel melancholia possesses her; she feels she has +become old without having profited by her youth. Not that she descends +to the coarse and libertine regrets of "grand'mere" in Beranger's song, +"Ah! que je regrette!" Elsie Lindtner declares more than once that if +she had to start life over again she would be just as irreproachable. +But the nearer she gets to the crisis, the more painfully and lucidly +she perceives the antinomy between two feminine desires: the desire of +moral dignity and the desire of physical enjoyment. In a woman of her +temperament this need of moral dignity becomes increasingly imperious +the more men harass her with their desires--an admirable piece of +observation which I believe to be quite new. Moral resistance becomes +weaker in proportion as the insistent passion of men becomes rarer and +less active. She will end by yielding entirely when men cease to find +her desirable. Then, even the most honourable of women, finding herself +no longer desired, will perhaps lose the sense of her dignity so far as +to send out a despairing appeal to the companion who is fleeing from +her.... + +Such is the inward conflict which forms the subject of _The Dangerous +Age_. It must be conceded that it lacks neither greatness nor human +interest. + + * * * * * + +I wish to add a few lines in order to record here an impression which I +experienced while reading the very first pages of _The Dangerous Age_; +an impression that became deeper and clearer when I had closed the book. + +_The Dangerous Age_ is one of those rare novels by a woman in which the +writer has not troubled to think from a man's point of view. I lay +stress upon this peculiarity because it is _very rare_, especially among +the contemporary works of Frenchwomen. + +The majority of our French authoresses give us novels in which their +ambition to think, to construct and to write in a masculine style is +clearly perceptible. And nothing, I imagine, gives them greater pleasure +than when, thanks to their pseudonyms, their readers actually take them +for men writers. + +Therefore all this mass of feminine literature in France, with three or +four exceptions--all this mass of literature of which I am far from +denying the merits--has really told us nothing new about the soul of +woman. A strange result is that not a single woman writer of the present +day is known as a specialist in feminine psychology. + +Karin Michaelis has been inspired to write a study of womankind without +trying to interpose between her thought and the paper the mind and +vision of a man. The outcome is astonishing. I have said that the +construction of the novel is solid; but no man could have built it up in +that way. It moves to a definite goal by a sure path; yet its style is +variable like the ways of every woman, even if she be completely +mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like +carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they +circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or +temptation to turn back from their course.... + +Elsie Lindtner's journal shows us many examples of these circling +flights and retrogressions. Sometimes too we observe a gap, an empty +space, in which words and ideas seem to have failed. Again, there are +sudden leaps from one subject to another, the true thought appearing, +notwithstanding, beneath the artificial thought which is written down. +Sometimes there comes an abrupt and painful pause, as though somebody +walking absent-mindedly along the road found themselves brought up by a +yawning cleft.... + +This cinematograph of feminine thought, stubborn yet disconnected, is to +my mind the principal literary merit of the book; more so even than its +strength and brevity of style. + + * * * * * + +For all these reasons, it seemed to me that _The Dangerous Age_ was +worthy to be presented to the public in a French translation. The _Revue +de Paris_ also thought it worthy to be published in its pages. I shall +be astonished if French readers do not confirm this twofold judgment, +offering to this foreign novel the same favourable reception that has +already been accorded to it outside its little native land. + +MARCEL PREVOST. + + + + +_The Dangerous Age_ + + + + +MY DEAR LILLIE, + +Obviously it would have been the right thing to give you my news in +person--apart from the fact that I should then have enjoyed the amusing +spectacle of your horror! But I could not make up my mind to this +course. + +All the same, upon my word of honour, you, dear innocent soul, are the +only person to whom I have made any direct communication on the subject. +It is at once your great virtue and defect that you find everything that +everybody does quite right and reasonable--you, the wife eternally in +love with her husband; eternally watching over your children like a +brood-hen. + +You are really virtuous, Lillie. But I may add that you have no reason +for being anything else. For you, life is like a long and pleasant day +spent in a hammock under a shady tree--your husband at the head and your +children at the foot of your couch. + +You ought to have been a mother stork, dwelling in an old cart-wheel on +the roof of some peasant's cottage. + +For you, life is fair and sweet, and all humanity angelic. Your +relations with the outer world are calm and equable, without temptation +to any passions but such as are perfectly legal. At eighty you will +still be the virtuous mate of your husband. + +Don't you see that I envy you? Not on account of your husband--you may +keep him and welcome! Not on account of your lanky maypoles of +daughters--for I have not the least wish to be five times running a +mother-in-law, a fate which will probably overtake you. No! I envy your +superb balance and your imperturbable joy in life. + +I am out of sorts to-day. We have dined out twice running, and you know +I cannot endure too much light and racket. + +We shall meet no more, you and I. How strange it will seem. We had so +much in common besides our portly dressmaker and our masseuse with her +shiny, greasy hands! Well, anyhow, let us be thankful to the masseuse +for our slender hips. + +I shall miss you. Wherever you were, the atmosphere was cordial. Even on +the summit of the Blocksberg, the chillest, barest spot on earth, you +would impart some warmth. + +Lillie Rothe, dear cousin, do not have a fit on reading my news: +_Richard and I are going to be divorced_. + +Or rather, we _are_ divorced. + +Thanks to the kindly intervention of the Minister of Justice, the affair +was managed quickly and without fuss, as you see. After twenty-two years +of married life, almost as exemplary as your own, we are going our +separate ways. + +You are crying, Lillie, because you are such a kind, heaven-sent, +tender-hearted creature. But spare your tears. You are really fond of +me, and when I tell you that all has happened for the best, you will +believe me, and dry your eyes. + +There is no special reason for our divorce. None at least that is +palpable, or explicable, to the world. As far as I know, Richard has no +entanglements; and I have no lover. Neither have we lost our wits, nor +become religious maniacs. There is no shadow of scandal connected with +our separation beyond that which must inevitably arise when two +middle-aged partners throw down the cards in the middle of the rubber. + +It has cost my vanity a fierce struggle. I, who made it such a point of +honour to live unassailable and pass as irreproachable. I, who am +mortally afraid of the judgment of my fellow creatures--to let loose the +gossips' tongues in this way! + +I, who have always maintained that the most wretched _menage_ was better +than none at all, and that an unmarried or divorced woman had no right +to expect more than the semi-existence of a Pariah! I, who thought +divorce between any but a very young couple an unpardonable folly! Here +am I, breaking a union that has been completely harmonious and happy! + +You will begin to realize, dear Lillie, that this is a serious matter. + +For a whole year I delayed taking the final step; and if I hesitated so +long before realizing my intention, it was partly in order to test my +own feelings, and partly for practical reasons; for I _am_ practical, +and I could not fancy myself leaving my house in the Old Market Place +without knowing where I was going to. + +My real reason is so simple and clear that few will be content to accept +it. But I have no other, so what am I to do? + +You know, like the rest of the world, that Richard and I have got on as +well as any two people of opposite sex ever can do. There has never been +an angry word between us. But one day the impulse--or whatever you like +to call it--took possession of me that I must live alone--quite alone +and all to myself. Call it an absurd idea, an impossible fancy; call it +hysteria--which perhaps it is--I must get right away from everybody and +everything. It is a blow to Richard, but I hope he will soon get over +it. In the long run his factory will make up for my loss. + +We concealed the business very nicely. The garden party we gave last +week was a kind of "farewell performance." Did you suspect anything at +all? We are people of the world and know how to play the game...! + +If I am leaving to-night, it is not altogether because I want to be +"over the hills" before the scandal leaks out, but because I have an +indescribable longing for solitude. + +Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little villa for me--without +having the least idea I was to be the occupant. + +The house is on an island, the name of which I will keep to myself for +the present. The rooms are fourteen feet high, and the dining-room can +hold thirty-six guests. There are only two reception-rooms. But what +more could a divorced woman of my age require? The rest of the +house--the upper storey--consists of smaller rooms, with bay-windows and +balconies. My bedroom, isolated from all the others, has a glass roof, +like a studio. Another of my queer notions is to be able to look up from +my bed and see the sky above me. I think it is good for the nerves, and +mine are in a terrible condition. + +So in future, having no dear men, I can flirt with the little stars in +God's heaven. + +Moreover, my villa is remarkable for its beautiful situation, its +fortress-like architecture, and--please make a note of this--its +splendid inhospitality. The garden hedge which encloses it is as high as +the wall of the women's penitentiary at Christianshafen. The gates are +never open, and there is no lodge-keeper. The forest adjoins the garden, +and the garden runs down to the water's edge. The original owner of the +estate was a crank who lived in a hut, which was so overgrown with moss +and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything +given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. +At the same time, I have engaged a first-rate cook, called Torp, who +seems to have the cookery of every country as pat as the Lord's Prayer. +I have no intention of living upon bread and water and virtue. + +I shall manage without a footman, although I have rather a weakness for +menservants. But my income will not permit of such luxuries; or rather I +have no idea how far my money will go. I should not care to accept +Richard's generous offer to make me a yearly allowance. + +I have also engaged a housemaid, whose name is Jeanne. She has the most +wonderful amber-coloured eyes, flaming red hair, and long, pointed +fingers, so well kept that I cannot help wondering where she got them +from. Torp and Jeanne will make the sum-total of my society, so that I +shall have every opportunity of living upon my own inner resources. + +Dear Lillie, do all you can to put a stop to the worst and most +disgusting gossip, now you know the true circumstances of the case. One +more thing, in profound confidence, and on the understanding that you +will not say a word about it to my husband: Joergen Malthe, dear +fellow, formerly honoured me with his youthful affections--as you all +knew, to your great amusement. Probably, like a true man, he will be +quite frantic when he hears of my strange retirement. Be a little kind +and friendly to the poor boy, and make him understand that there is no +mystical reason for my departure. + +Later on, when I have had time to rest a little, I shall be delighted to +hear from you; although I foresee that five-sixths of the letters will +be about your children, and the remaining sixth devoted to your +husband--whereas I would rather it was all about yourself, and our dear +town, with its life and strife. I have not taken the veil; I may still +endure to hear echoes of all the town gossip. + +If you were here, you would ask what I proposed to do with myself. Well, +dear Lillie, I have not left my frocks nor my mirror behind me. +Moreover, time has this wonderful property that, unlike the clocks, it +goes of itself without having to be wound up. I have the sea, the +forest; my piano, and my house. If time really hangs heavy on my hands, +there is no reason why I should not darn the linen for Torp! + +Should it happen by any chance--which God forbid--that I were struck +dead by lightning, or succumbed to a heart attack, would you, acting as +my cousin, and closest friend, undertake to put my belongings in order? +Not that you would find things in actual disorder; but all the same +there would be a kind of semi-order. I do not at all fancy the idea of +Richard routing among my papers now that we are no longer a married +couple. + +With every good wish, + Your cousin, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + + + + +MY DEAR, KIND FRIEND, AND FORMER HUSBAND, + +Is there not a good deal of style about that form of address? Were you +not deeply touched at receiving, in a strange town, flowers sent by a +lady? If only the people understood my German and sent them to you in +time! + +For an instant a beautiful thought flashed through my mind: to welcome +you in this way in every town where you have to stay. But since I only +know the addresses of one or two florists in the capitals, and I am too +lazy to find out the others, I have given up this splendid folly, and +simply note it to my account as a "might-have-been." + +Shall I be quite frank, Richard? I am rather ashamed when I think of +you, and I can honestly say that I never respected you more than to-day. +But it could not have been otherwise. I want you to concentrate all your +will-power to convince yourself of this. If I had let myself be +persuaded to remain with you, after this great need for solitude had +laid hold upon me, I should have worried and tormented you every hour of +the day. + +Dearest and best friend, there is some truth in these words, spoken by I +know not whom: "Either a woman is made for marriage, and then it +practically does not matter to whom she is married, she will soon +understand how to fulfil her destiny; or she is unsuited to matrimony, +in which case she commits a crime against her own personality when she +binds herself to any man." + +Apparently, I was not meant for married life. Otherwise I should have +lived happily for ever and a day with you--and you know that was not the +case. But you are not to blame. I wish in my heart of hearts that I had +something to reproach you with--but I have nothing against you of any +sort or kind. + +It was a great mistake--a cowardly act--to promise you yesterday that I +would return if I regretted my decision. I _know_ I shall never regret +it. But in making such a promise I am directly hindering you.... Forgive +me, dear friend ... but it is not impossible that you may some day meet +a woman who could become something to you. Will you let me take back my +promise? I shall be grateful to you. Then only can I feel myself really +free. + +When you return home, stand firm if your friends overwhelm you with +questions and sympathy. I should be deeply humiliated if anyone--no +matter who--were to pry into the good and bad times we have shared +together. Bygones are bygones, and no one can actually realise what +takes place between two human beings, even when they have been +onlookers. + +Think of me when you sit down to dinner. Henceforward eight o'clock will +probably be my bedtime. On the other hand I shall rise with the sun, or +perhaps earlier. Think of me, but do not write too often. I must first +settle down tranquilly to my new life. Later on, I shall enjoy writing +you a condensed account of all the follies which can be committed by a +woman who suddenly finds herself at a mature age complete mistress of +her actions. + +Follow my advice, offered for the twentieth time: go on seeing your +friends; you cannot do without them. Really there is no need for you to +mourn for a year with crape on the chandeliers and immortelles around my +portrait. + +You have been a kind, faithful, and delicate-minded friend to me, and I +am not so lacking in delicacy myself that I do not appreciate this in my +inmost heart. But I cannot accept your generous offer to give me money. +I now tell you this for the first time, because, had I said so before, +you would have done your best to over-persuade me. My small income is, +and will be, sufficient for my needs. + +The train leaves in an hour. Richard, you have your business and your +friends--more friends than anyone I know. If you wish me well, wish that +I may never regret the step I have taken. I look down at my hands that +you loved--I wish I could stretch them out to you.... + +A man must not let himself be crushed. It would hurt me to feel that +people pitied you. You are much too good to be pitied. + +Certainly it would have been better if, as you said, one of us had +died. But in that case you would have had to take the plunge into +eternity, for I am looking forward with joy to life on my island. + +For twenty years I have lived under the shadow of your wing in the Old +Market Place. May I live another twenty under the great forest trees, +wedded to solitude. + +How the gossips will gossip! But we two, clever people, will laugh at +their gossip. + +Forgive me, Richard, to-day and always, the trouble I have brought upon +you. I would have stayed with you if I could. Thank you for all.... + + ELSIE. + +That my feeling for you should have died, is quite as incomprehensible +to me as to you. No other man has ever claimed a corner of my heart. In +a word, having considered the question all round, I am suffering simply +from a nervous malady--alas! it is incurable! + + + + +MY DEAR MALTHE, + +We two are friends, are we not, and I think we shall always remain so, +even now that fate has severed our ways? If you feel that you have any +good reason for being angry with me now, then, indeed, our friendship +will be broken; for we shall have no further opportunity of becoming +reconciled. + +If at this important juncture I not only hid the truth from you, but +deliberately misled you, it was not from any lack of confidence in you, +or with the wish to be unfriendly. I beg you to believe this. The fact +that I cannot even now explain to you my reasons for acting thus makes +it all the more difficult to justify my conduct to you. Therefore you +must be contented to take my word for it. Joergen Malthe, I would gladly +confide in you, but it is impossible. Call it madness, or what you will, +but I cannot allow any human being to penetrate my inner life. + +You will not have forgotten that September evening last year, when I +spoke to you for the first time about one of my friends who was going to +separate from her husband, and who, through my intervention, asked you +to draw the plan of a villa in which she might spend the rest of her +days in solitude? You entered so completely into this idea of a solitary +retreat that your plan was almost perfect. Every time we met last year +we talked about the "White Villa," as we called it, and it pleased us to +share this little secret together. Nor were you less interested in the +interior of the house; in making sketches for the furniture, and +arranging the decorations. You took a real delight in this task, +although you were annoyed that you had no personal knowledge of your +client. You remember that I said to you sometimes in joke: "Plan it as +though it were for me"; and I cannot forget what you replied one day: "I +hate the idea of a stranger living in the house which I planned with you +always in my mind." + +Judge for yourself, Malthe, how painful it was to leave you in error. +But I could not speak out then, for I had to consider my husband. For +this reason I avoided meeting you during the summer; I found it +impossible to keep up the deception when we were face to face. + +It is I--I myself--who will live in the "White Villa." I shall live +there quite alone. + +It is useless for me to say, "Do not be angry." You would not be what +you are if you were not annoyed about it. + +You are young, life lies before you. I am old. In a very few years I +shall be so old that you will not be able to realise that there was a +time when I was "the one woman in the world" for you. I am not harping +on your youth in order to vex you--your youth that you hate for my sake! +I know that you are not fickle; but I know, too, that the laws of life +and the march of time are alike inexorable. + +When I enter the new home you have planned for me, a lonely and divorced +woman, I shall think of you every day, and my thoughts will speak more +cordial thanks than I can set down coldly in black and white on this +paper. + +I do not forbid you to write to me, but, save for a word of farewell, I +would prefer your silence. No letters exchanged between us could bring +back so much as a reflection of the happy hours we have spent together. +Hours in which we talked of everything, and chiefly of nothing at all. + +I do not think we were very brilliant when we were together; but we were +never bored. If my absence brings you suffering, disappointment, +grief--lose yourself in your work, so that in my solitude I may still be +proud of you. + +You taught me to use my eyes, and there is much, much in the world I +should like to see, for, thanks to you, I have learnt how beautiful the +world is. But the wisest course for me is to give myself up to my chosen +destiny. I shut the door of my "White Villa"--and there my story ends. + + Your + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +Reading through my letter, it seems to me cold and dry. But it is harder +to write such a letter to a dear friend than to a stranger. + + + + + LANDED ON MY ISLAND. + CREPT INTO MY LAIR. + +The first day is over. Heaven help me through those to come! Everything +here disgusts me, from the smell of the new woodwork and the half-dried +wallpapers to the pattering of the rain over my head. + +What an idiotic notion of mine to have a glass roof to my bedroom! I +feel as though I were living under an umbrella through which the water +might come dripping at any moment. During the night this will probably +happen. The panes of glass, unless they are very closely joined +together, will let the water through, and I shall awake in a pool of +water. + +Awake, indeed! If only I ever get to sleep! My head aches and burns from +sheer fatigue, but I have not even thought of getting into bed yet. + +For the last year I have had plenty of time to think things over, and +now I am at a loss to understand why I have done this. Suppose it is a +piece of stupidity--a carefully planned and irrevocable folly? Suppose +my irritable nerves have played a trick upon me? Suppose ... suppose ... + +I feel lonely and without will power. I am frightened. But the step is +taken; and I can never turn back. I must never let myself regret it. + +This constant rain gives me an icy, damp feeling down my back. It gets +on my nerves. + +What shall I come to, reduced to the society of two females who have +nothing in common with me but our sex? No one to speak to, no one to +see. Jeanne is certainly attractive to look at, but I cannot converse +with her. As to Torp, she suits her basement as a gnome suits his +mountain cave. She looks as though she was made to repopulate a desert +unaided. She wears stays that are crooked back and front. + +Never in all my life have I felt so disappointed, and compelled to put a +good face upon a bad business, as when I splashed through the wet +garden and entered the empty house where there was not even a flower to +welcome my arrival. The rooms are too large and bare.... Why did I not +think of that before? + +All the same, decorum must be maintained, and my entry was not +undignified. + +Ah, the rain, the rain! Jeanne and Torp are still cleaning up. They mean +to go on half the night, scrubbing and sweeping as though we expected +company to-morrow. I start unpacking my trunk, take out a few things and +stop--begin again and stop again, horrified at the quantity of clothes +I've brought. It would have been more sensible to send them to one of +our beloved "charity sales." They are of no use or pleasure now. Black +merino and a white woollen shawl--what more do I want here? + +God knows how I wish at the present moment I were back in the Old Market +Place, even if I only had Richard's society to bore me. + +What am I doing here? What do I want here? To cry, without having to +give an account of one's tears to anyone? + +Of course, all this is only the result of the rain. I was longing to be +here. It was not a mere hysterical whim. No, no.... + +It was my own wish to bury myself here. + + * * * * * + +Yesterday I was all nerves. To-day I feel as fresh and lively as a +cricket. + +We have been hanging the pictures, and made thirty-six superfluous holes +in the new walls. There is no way of concealing them. (I must write to +Richard to have my engravings framed.) It would be stretching a point to +say we are skilled picture-hangers; we were nearly as awkward as men +when they try to hook a woman's dress for her. But the pictures were +hung somehow, and look rather nice now they are up. + +But why on earth did I give Torp my sketch of "A Villa by the Sea" to +hang in her kitchen? Was I afraid to have it near me? Or was it some +stupid wish to hurt _his_ feelings? _His_ only gift.... I feel ashamed +of myself. + +Jeanne has arranged flowers everywhere, and that helps to make the house +more homelike. + +The place is mine, and I take possession of it. Now the sun is shining. +I find pleasure in examining each article of furniture and remembering +the days when we discussed the designs together. I ought not to have let +him do all that. It was senseless of me. + + * * * * * + +They are much to be envied who can pass away the time in their own +society. I am in my element when I can watch other people blowing +soap-bubbles; but to blow them myself.... + +I am not really clever at creating comfortable surroundings. Far from +it. My white villa always looks uninhabited, in spite of all the flowers +with which I allow Jeanne to decorate the rooms. Is it because +everything smells so new? Or because there are no old smells? Here there +are no whiffs of dust, smoke, or benzine, nor anything which made the +Old Market Place the Old Market Place. Everything is so clean here that +one hesitates to move a step. The boards are as shiny as though they +were polished silver.... This very moment Torp appeared in felt shoes +and implored me to get her a strip of oilcloth to save her kitchen +floor. I feel just the same; I scarcely dare defile this spotless +pitchpine. + + * * * * * + +What is the use of all these discussions and articles about the equality +of the sexes, so long as we women are at times the slaves of an +inevitable necessity? I have suffered more than ever the last few days, +perhaps because I was so utterly alone. Not a human being to speak to. +Yes, I ought to have stayed in bed if only to conceal my ugliness. In +town I was wise. But here ... + + * * * * * + +All the same I am proud of my self-control. Many women do not possess as +much. + +The moon is in her first quarter; a cold dry wind is blowing up; it +makes one cough merely to hear it whistle. + +I hate winds of all kinds, and here my enemy seems to have free entry. I +ought to have built my house facing south and in some hollow sheltered +from the wind. Unfortunately it looks to the north, straight across the +open sea. + +I have not yet been outside the garden. I have made up my mind to keep +to this little spot as long as possible. I shall get accustomed to it. I +_must_ get accustomed to it. + +Dear souls, how they worry me with their letters. Only Malthe keeps +silence. Will he deign to answer me? + +Jeanne follows me with her eyes as though she wanted to learn some art +from me. What art? + +Good heavens, what can that girl be doing here? + +She does not seem made for the celibate life of a desert island. Yet I +cannot set up a footman to keep her company. I will not have men's eyes +prying about my house, I have had enough of that. + +A manservant--that would mean love affairs, squabbles, and troubles; or +marriage, and a change of domestics. No, I have a right to peace, and I +will secure it. The worst that could happen to me would be to find +myself reduced to playing whist with Jeanne and Torp. Well, why not? + +Torp spends all her evenings playing patience on the kitchen +window-sill. Perhaps she is telling her fortune and wondering whether +some good-looking sailor will be wrecked on the shores of her desert +island. + +Meanwhile Jeanne goes about in silk stockings. This rather astonishes +me. Lillie reproved me for the pernicious custom. Are they a real +necessity for Jeanne, or does she know the masculine taste so well? + + * * * * * + +From all the birch trees that stand quivering around the house a golden +rain is falling. There is not a breath of wind, but the leaves keep +dropping, dropping. This morning I stood on the little balcony and +looked out over the forest. I do not know why or wherefore, but such a +sense of quiet came over me. I seemed to hear the words: "and behold it +was very good." Was it the warm russet tint of the trees or the profound +perfume of the woods that induced this calm? + +All day long I have been thinking of Malthe, and I feel so glad I have +acted as I have done. But he might have answered my letter. + +Jeanne has discovered the secret of my hair. She asked permission to +dress it for me in the evening when my hair is "awake." She is quite an +artist in this line, and I let her occupy herself with it as long as she +pleased. She pinned it up, then let it down again; coiled it round my +forehead like a turban; twisted it into a Grecian knot; parted and +smoothed it down on each side of my head like a hood. She played with it +and arranged it a dozen different ways like a bouquet of wild flowers. + +My hair is still my pride, although it is losing its gloss and colour. +Jeanne said, by way of consolation, that it was like a wood in late +autumn.... + +I should like to know whether this girl sprang from the gutter, or was +the child of poor, honest parents.... + + * * * * * + +"Thousands of women may look at the man they love with their whole soul +in their eyes, and the man will remain as unmoved as a stone by the +wayside. And then a woman will pass by who has no soul, but whose +artificial smile has a mysterious power to spur the best of men to +painful desire...." + +One day I found these words underlined in a book left open on my table. +Who left it there, I cannot say; nor whether it was underlined with the +intention of hurting my feelings, or merely by chance. + + * * * * * + +I sit here waiting for my mortal enemy. Will he come gliding in +imperceptibly or stand suddenly before me? Will he overcome me, or +shall I prove the stronger? I am prepared--but is that sufficient? + +Torp is really too romantic! To-day it pleased her to decorate the table +with Virginia creeper. Virginia creeper festooned the hanging lamp; +Virginia creeper crept over the cloth. Even the joint was decked out +with wine-red leaves, until it looked like a ship flying all her flags +on the King's birthday. Amid all this pomp and ceremony, I sat all +alone, without a human being for whom I might have made myself smart. I, +who for the last twenty years, have never even dressed the salad without +at least one pair of eyes watching me toss the lettuce as though I was +performing some wonderful Indian conjuring trick. + +A festal board at which one sits in solitary grandeur is the dreariest +thing imaginable. + +I rather wish Torp had less "style," as she calls it. Undoubtedly she +has lived in large establishments and has picked up some habits and +customs from each of them. She is welcome to wait at table in white +cotton gloves and to perch a huge silk bow on her hair, which is +redolent of the kitchen, but when it comes to trimming her poor +work-worn nails to the fashionable pyramidal shape--she really becomes +tragic. + +She "romanticises" everything. I should not be at all surprised if some +day she decked her kitchen range with wreaths of roses and hung up works +of art between the stewpans. + +I am really glad I did not bring Samuel the footman with me. He could +not have waited on me better than Jeanne, and at any rate I am free from +his eyes, which, in spite of all their respectful looks, always reminded +me of a fly-paper full of dead and dying flies. + +Jeanne's look has a something gliding and subtle about it that keeps me +company like a witty conversation. It is really on her account that I +dress myself well. But I cannot converse with her. I should not like to +try, and then to be disillusioned. + +Men have often assured me that I was the only woman they could talk with +as though I were one of themselves. Personally I never feel at one with +menkind. I only understand and admire my own sex. + +In reality I think there is more difference between a man and a woman +than between an inert stone and a growing plant. I say this ... I +who ... + + * * * * * + +What business is it of mine? We were not really friends. The fact of her +having confided in me makes no demands on my feelings. If this thing had +happened five years ago, I should have taken it as a rather welcome +sensation--nothing more. Or had I read in the paper "On the--inst., of +heart disease, or typhoid fever," my peace of mind would not have been +disturbed for an hour. + +I have purposely refrained from reading the papers lately. Chancing to +open one to-day, after a month's complete ignorance of all that had been +happening in the world, I saw the following headline: Suicide of a Lady +in a Lunatic Asylum. + +And now I feel as shaken as though I had taken part in a crime; as +though I had had some share in this woman's death. + +I am so far to blame that I abandoned her at a moment when it might +still have been possible to save her.... But this is a morbid notion! If +a person wants "to shuffle off this mortal coil" it is nobody's duty to +prevent her. + +To me, Agatha Ussing's life or death are secondary matters; it is only +the circumstances that trouble me. + +Was she mad, or no? Undoubtedly not more insane than the rest of us, but +her self-control snapped like a bowstring which is overstrained. She +saw--so she said--a grinning death's head behind every smiling face. +Merely a bee in her bonnet! But she was foolish enough to talk about it; +and when people laughed at her words with a good-natured contempt, her +glance became searching and fixed as though she was trying to convince +herself. Such an awful look of terror haunted her eyes, that at her gaze +a cold shiver, born of one's own fears and forebodings, ran through one. + +She compelled us to realise the things we scarcely dare foresee.... + +I shall never forget a letter in which she wrote these words in a queer, +faltering handwriting: + +"If men suspected what took place in a woman's inner life after forty, +they would avoid us like the plague, or knock us on the head like mad +dogs." + +Such a philosophy of life ended in the poor woman being shut up in a +madhouse. She ought to have kept it to herself instead of posting it up +on the walls of her house. It was quite sufficient as a proof of her +insanity. + +I cannot think what induced me to visit her in the asylum. Not pure +pity. I was prompted rather by that kind of painful curiosity which +makes a patient ask to see a limb which has just been amputated. I +wanted to look with my own eyes into that shadowy future which Agatha +had reached before me. + +What did I discover? She had never cared for her husband; on the +contrary she had betrayed him with an effrontery that would hardly have +been tolerated outside the smart world; yet now she suffered the +torments of hell from jealousy of her husband. Not of her lovers; their +day was over; but of him, because he was the one man she saw. Also +because she bore his name and was therefore bound to him. + +On every other subject she was perfectly sane. When we were left alone +together she said: "The worst of it is that I know my 'madness' will +only be temporary. It is a malady incident to my age. One day it will +pass away. One day I shall have got through the inevitable phase. But +how does that help me now?" + +No, it was no more help to her than the dreadful paint with which she +plastered her haggard features. + +It was not the least use to her.... + +Her death is the best thing that could have happened, for her own sake +and for those belonging to her. But I cannot take my thoughts off the +hours which preceded her end; the time that passed between the moment +when she decided to commit suicide until she actually carried out her +resolve. + + * * * * * + +"If men suspected ..." + +It may safely be said that on the whole surface of the globe not one man +exists who really knows a woman. + +They know us in the same way as the bees know the flowers; by the +various perfumes they impart to the honey. No more. + +How could it be otherwise? If a woman took infinite pains to reveal +herself to a husband or a lover just as she really is, he would think +she was suffering from some incurable mental disease. + +A few of us indicate our true natures in hysterical outbreaks, fits of +bitterness and suspicion; but this involuntary frankness is generally +discounted by some subtle deceit. + +Do men and women ever tell each other the truth? How often does that +happen? More often than not, I think, they deal in half-lies, hiding +this, embroidering that, fact. + +Between the sexes reigns an ineradicable hostility. It is concealed +because life has to be lived, because it is easier and more convenient +to keep it in the background; but it is always there, even in those +supreme moments when the sexes fulfil their highest destiny. + +A woman who knows other women and understands them, could easily prove +this in so many words; and every woman who heard her--provided they were +alone--would confess she was right. But if a man should join in the +conversation, both women would stamp truth underfoot as though it were a +venomous reptile. + +Men can be sincere both with themselves and others; but women cannot. +They are corrupted from birth. Later on, education, intercourse with +other women and finally marriage, corrupt them still more. + +A woman may love a man more than her own life; may sacrifice her time, +her health, her existence to him. But if she is wholly a woman, she +cannot give him her confidence. + +She cannot, because she dares not. + +In the same way a man--for a certain length of time--can love without +measure. He can then be unlocked like a cabinet full of secret drawers +and pigeonholes, of which we hold the keys. He discloses himself, his +present and his past. A woman, even in the closest bonds of love, never +reveals more of herself than reason demands. + +Her modesty differs entirely from that of a male. She would rather be +guilty of incest than reveal to a man the hidden thoughts which +sometimes, without the least scruple, she will confide to another woman. +Friendship between men is a very different thing. Something honest and +frank, from which consequently they withdraw without anger, mutual +obligation, or fear. Friendship between women is a kind of masonic oath; +the breaking of it a mutual crime. When two women friends quarrel, they +generally continue to carry deadly weapons against each other, which +they are only restrained from using by mutual fear. + +There _are_ honest women. At least we believe there are. It is a +necessary part of our belief. Who does not think well of mother or +sister? But who _believes entirely_ in a mother or a sister? Absolutely +and unconditionally? Who has never caught mother or sister in a +falsehood or a subterfuge? Who has not sometimes seen in the heart of +mother or sister, as by a lightning flash, an abyss which the +profoundest love cannot bridge over? + +Who has ever really understood his mother or sister? + +The human being dwells and moves alone. Each woman dwells in her own +planet formed of centrifugal fires enveloped in a thin crust of earth. +And as each star runs its eternal course through space, isolated amid +countless myriads of other stars, so each woman goes her solitary way +through life. + +It would be better for her if she walked barefoot over red-hot +ploughshares, for the pain she would suffer would be slight indeed +compared to that which she must feel when, with a smile on her lips, she +leaves her own youth behind and enters the regions of despair we call +"growing old," and "old age...." + +All this philosophizing is the result, no doubt, of having eaten +halibut for lunch; it is a solid fish and difficult to digest. + +Perhaps, too, having no company but Jeanne and Torp, I am reduced to my +own aimless reflections. + +Just as clothes exercise no influence on the majority of men, so their +emotional life is not much affected by circumstances. With us women it +is otherwise. We really _are_ different women according to the dresses +we wear. We assume a personality in accord with our costume. We laugh, +talk and act at the caprice of purely external circumstances. + +Take for instance a woman who wants to confide in another. She will do +it in quite a different way in broad daylight in a drawing-room than in +her little "den" in the gloaming, even if in both cases she happens to +be quite alone with her confidante. + +If some women are specially honoured as the recipients of many +confidences from their own sex, I am convinced they owe it more to +physical than moral qualities. As there are some rooms of which the +atmosphere is so cosey and inviting that we feel ourselves at home in +them without a word of welcome, so we find certain women who seem to be +endowed with such receptivity that they invite the confidences of +others. + +The history of smiles has never yet been written, simply because the few +women capable of writing it would not betray their sex. As to men, they +are as ignorant on this point as on everything else which concerns +women--not excepting love. + +I have conversed with many famous women's doctors, and have pretended to +admire their knowledge, while inwardly I was much amused at their +simplicity. They know how to cut us open and stitch us up again--as +children open their dolls to see the sawdust with which they are stuffed +and sew them up afterwards with a needle and thread. But they get no +further. Yes--a little further perhaps. Possibly in course of time they +begin to discover that women are so infinitely their superiors in +falsehood that their wisest course is to appear once and for all to +believe them then and there.... + +Women's doctors may be as clever and sly as they please, but they will +never learn any of the things that women confide to each other. It is +inevitable. Between the sexes lies not only a deep, eternal hostility, +but the unfathomable abyss of a complete lack of reciprocal +comprehension. + +For instance, all the words in a language will never express what a +smile will express--and between women a smile is like a masonic sign; we +can use them between ourselves without any fear of their being +misunderstood by the other sex. + +Smiles are a form of speech with which we alone are conversant. Our +smiles betray our instincts and our burdens; they reflect our virtues +and our inanity. + +But the cleverest women hide their real selves behind a factitious +smile. + +Men do not know how to smile. They look more or less benevolent, more or +less pleased, more or less love-smitten; but they are not pliable or +subtle enough to smile. A woman who is not sufficiently prudent to mask +her features, gives away her soul in a smile. I have known women who +revealed their whole natures in this way. + +No woman speaks aloud, but most women smile aloud. And the fact that in +so doing we unveil all our artifice, all the whirlpool of our inmost +being to each other, proves the extraordinary solidarity of our sex. + +When did one woman ever betray another? + +This loyalty is not rooted in noble sentiment, but proceeds rather from +the fear of betraying ourselves by revealing things that are the secret +common property of all womanhood. + +And yet, if a woman could be found willing to reveal her entire self?... + +I have often thought of the possibility, and at the present moment I am +not sure that she would not do our sex an infinite and eternal wrong. + +We are compounded so strangely of good and bad, truth and falsehood, +that it requires the most delicate touch to unravel the tangled skein of +our natures and find the starting point. + +No man is capable of the task. + +During recent years it has become the fashion for notorious women to +publish their reminiscences in the form of a diary. But has any woman +reader discovered in all this literature a single intimate feature, a +single frank revelation of all that is kept hidden behind a thousand +veils? + +If indeed one of these unhappy women ventured to write a plain, +unvarnished, but poignant, description of her inner life, where would +she find a publisher daring enough to let his name appear on the cover +of the book? + +I once knew a man who, stirred by a good and noble impulse, and +confident of his power, endeavoured to "save" a very young girl whom he +had rescued from a house of ill-fame. He took her home and treated her +like a sister. He lavished time and confidence upon her. His pride at +the transformation which took place in her passed all bounds. The girl +was as grateful as a mongrel and as modest as the bride in a romantic +novel. He then resolved to make her his wife. But one fine day she +vanished, leaving behind her a note containing these words: "Many thanks +for your kindness, but you bore me." + +During the whole time they had lived together, he had not grasped the +faintest notion of the girl's true nature; nor understood that to keep +her contented it was not sufficient to treat her kindly, but that she +required some equivalent for the odious excitements of the past. + + * * * * * + +All feminine confessions--except those between relations which are +generally commonplace and uninteresting--assume a kind of beauty in my +eyes; a warmth and solemnity that excuses the casting aside of all +conventional barriers. + +I remember one day--a day of oppressive heat and the heavy perfume of +roses--when, with a party of women friends, we began to talk about +tears. At first no one ventured to speak quite sincerely; but one thing +led to another until we were gradually caught in our own snares, and +finally we each gave out something that we had hitherto kept concealed +within us, as one locks up a deadly poison. + +Not one of us, it appeared, ever cried because of some imperative inward +need. Tears are nature's gift to us. It is our own affair whether we +squander or economise their use. + +Of all our confessions Sophie Harden's was the strangest. To her, tears +were a kind of erotic by-play, which added to the enjoyment of conjugal +life. Her husband, a good-natured creature, always believed he was to +blame, and she never enlightened him on the point. + +Most of the others owned that they had recourse to tears to work +themselves up when they wanted to make a scene. But Astrid Bagge, a +gentle, quiet housewife and mother, declared she kept all her troubles +for the evenings when her husband dined at the volunteer's mess, because +he hated to see anyone crying. Then she sat alone and in darkness and +wept away the accumulated annoyances of the week. + +When it came to my turn, I spoke the truth by chance when I said that, +however much I wanted to cry, I only permitted myself the luxury about +once in two years. I think my complexion is a conclusive proof that my +words were sincere. + +There are deserts which never know the refreshment of dew or rain. My +life has been such a desert. + +I, who like to receive confidences, have a morbid fear of giving them. +Perhaps it is because I was so much alone, so self-centred, in my +childhood. + +The more I reflect upon life, the more clearly I see that I have not +laid out my talents to the best advantage. I have no sweet memories of +infidelity; I have lived irreproachably--and now I am very tired. + +I sit here and write for myself alone. I know that no one else will ever +read my words; and yet I am not quite sincere, even with myself. + +Life has passed me by; my hands are empty; now it is too late. + +Once happiness knocked at my door, and I, poor fool, did not rise to +welcome it. + +I envy every country wench or servant girl who goes off with a lover. +But I sit here waiting for old age. + +Astrid Bagge.... As I write her name, I feel as though she were standing +weeping behind my back; I feel her tears dropping on my neck. I cannot +weep--but how I long for tears! + + * * * * * + +Autumn! Torp has made a huge fire of logs in the open grate. The burning +wood gives out an intoxicating perfume and fills the house with cosey +warmth. For want of something better to do I am looking after the fire +myself. I carefully strip the bark from each log before throwing it on +the flames. The smell of burning birch-bark goes to my head like strong +wine. Dreams come and go. + +Joergen Malthe, what a mere boy you are! + + * * * * * + +The garden looks like a neglected churchyard, forgotten of the living. +The virginia creeper falls in blood-red streamers from the verandah. The +snails drag themselves along in the rain; their slow movements remind me +of women _enceinte_. The hedge is covered with spiders' webs, and the +wet clay sticks to one's shoes as one walks on the paths. + +Yet there are people who think autumn a beautiful time of year! + + * * * * * + +My will is paralysed from self-disgust. I find myself involuntarily +listening and watching for the postman, who brings nothing for me. There +are moments when my fingers seem to be feeling the smoothness of the +cream-laid "At Home" cards which used to be showered upon us, especially +at this season. Towards evening I grow restless. Formerly my day was a +_crescendo_ of activity until the social hours were reached. Now the +hours fall one by one in ashes before my eyes. + +I am myself, yet not myself. There are moments when I envy every living +creature that has the right to pair--either from hate or from habit. I +am alone and shut out. What consolation is it to be able to say: "It was +my own choice!" + + * * * * * + +A letter from Malthe. + +No, I will not open it. I do not wish to know what he writes.... It is +a long letter. + + * * * * * + +My nerves are quiet. But I often lie awake, and my sleep is broken. The +stars are shining over my head, and I never before experienced such a +sense of repose and calm. Is this the effect of the stars, or the +letter? + +I am forty-two! It cannot be helped. I cannot buy back a single day of +my life. Forty-two! But during the night the thought does not trouble +me. The stars above reckon by ages, not by years, and sometimes I smile +to think that as soon as Richard returns home, the rooms in our house in +the Old Market will be lit up, and the usual set will assemble there +without me. + +The one thing I should like to know is whether Malthe is still in +Denmark. + +I would like to know where my thoughts should seek him--at home or +abroad. + +I played with him treacherously when I called him "the youth," and +treated him as a mere boy. If we compare our ages it is true enough, +but not if we compare feelings. + +Can there be anything meaner than for a woman to make fun of what is +really sacred to her? My feelings for Malthe were and still are sacred. +I myself have befouled them with my mockery. + +But when I am lying in my bed beneath the vast canopy of the sky, all my +sins seem forgiven me. Fate alone--Fate who bears all things on his +shoulders--is to blame, and I wish nothing undone. + +The letter will never be read. Never voluntarily by me. + + * * * * * + +I do not know the day of the week. That is one step nearer the goal for +which I long. May it come to pass that the weeks and months shall glide +imperceptibly over me, so that I shall only recognise the seasons by the +changing tints of the forest and the alternations of heat and cold. + +Alas, those days are still a long way off! + +I have just been having a conflict with myself, and I find that all the +time I have been living here as though I were spending a summer holiday +in Tyrol. I have been simply deceiving myself and playing with the +hidden thought that I could begin my life over again. + +I have shivered with terror at this self-deception. The last few nights +I have hardly slept at all. A traveller must feel the same who sails +across the sea ignorant of the country to which he journeys. Vaguely he +pictures it as resembling his native land, and lands to find himself in +a wilderness which he must plant and cultivate until it blossoms with +his new desires and dreams. By the time he has turned the desert into a +home, his day is over.... + + * * * * * + +If I could but make up my mind to burn that letter! I weigh it, first in +my right hand, then in my left. Sometimes its weight makes me happy; +sometimes it fills me with foreboding. Do the words weigh so heavy, or +only the paper? + +Last night I held it close to the candle. But when the flame touched my +letter, I drew it quickly away.--It is all I have left to me now.... + + * * * * * + +Richard writes to me that Malthe has been commissioned to build a great +hospital. Most of our great architects competed for the work. He goes on +to ask whether I am not proud of "my young friend." + +My young friend!... + + * * * * * + +Jeanne spoke to me about herself to-day. I think she was quite +bewildered by the extraordinary fall of leaves which has almost blinded +us the last three days. She was doing my hair, and tracing a line +straight across my forehead, she remarked: + +"Here should be a ribbon with red jewels." + +I told her that I had once had the same idea, but I had given it up out +of consideration for my fellow creatures. + +"But there are none here," she exclaimed, + +I replied laughing: + +"Then it is not worth while decking myself out!" + +Jeanne took out the pins and let my hair down. + +"If I were rich," she said, "I would dress for myself alone. Men neither +notice nor understand anything about it." + +We went on talking like two equals, and a few minutes later, remembering +what I had observed, I gave her some silk stockings. Instead of thanking +me, she remarked so suddenly that she took my breath away: + +"Once I sold myself for a pair of green silk stockings." + +I could not help asking the question: + +"Did you regret your bargain?" + +She looked me straight in the face: + +"I don't know. I only thought about my stockings." + +Naturally such conversations are rather risky; I shall avoid them in +future. But the riddle is more puzzling than ever. What brought Jeanne +to share my solitude on this island? + + * * * * * + +Now we have a man about the place. Torp got him. He digs in the garden +and chops wood. But the odour impregnates Torp and even reaches me. + +He makes eyes at Jeanne, who looks at me and smiles. Torp makes a fuss +of him, and every night I smell his pipe in the basement. + + * * * * * + +I have shut myself upstairs and played patience. The questions I put to +the cards come from that casket of memories the seven keys of which I +believed I had long since thrown into the sea. A wretched form of +amusement! But the piano makes me feel sad, and there is nothing else to +do. + +Malthe's letter is still intact. I wander around it like a mouse round a +trap of which it suspects the danger. My heart meanwhile yearns to know +what words he uses. + +He and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives. We owe that to +my wisdom. If he never sees me, he will never be able to forget me. + + * * * * * + +How could I suppose it for a single moment! There is no possibility of +remaining alone with oneself! No degree of seclusion, nor even life in a +cell, would suffice. Strong as is the call of freedom, the power of +memory is stronger; so that no one can ever choose his society at will. +Once we have lived with our kind, and become filled with the knowledge +of them, we are never free again. + +A sound, a scent--and behold a person, a scene, or a destiny, rises up +before us. Very often the phantoms that come thronging around me are +those of people whose existence is quite indifferent to me. But they +appear all the same--importunate, overbearing, inevitable. + +We may close our doors to visitors in the flesh; but we are forced to +welcome these phantoms of the memory; to notice them and converse with +them without reserve. + +People become like books to me. I read them through, turn the pages +lightly, annotate them, learn them by heart. Sometimes I am at fault; I +see them in a new light. Things that were not clear to me become plain; +what was apparently incomprehensible becomes as straightforward as a +commercial ledger. + +It might be a fascinating occupation if I could control the entire +collection of these memories; but I am the slave of those that come +unbidden. In the town it was just the reverse; one impression effaced +another. I did not realise that thought might become a burden. + + * * * * * + +The time draws on. The last few days my nerves have made me feverish and +restless; to-day for no special reason I opened and read all my letters, +except his. It was like reading old newspapers; yet my heart beat faster +with each one I opened. + +Life there in the city runs its course, only it has nothing more to do +with me, and before long I shall have dropped out of memory like one +long dead. All these hidden fears, all this solicitude, these good +wishes, preachings and forebodings--there is not a single genuine +feeling among the whole of them! + +Margethe Ernst is the only one of my old friends who is sincere and +does not let herself be carried away by false sentiment. She writes +cynically, brutally even: "An injection of morphia would have had just +the same effect on you; but everyone to his own taste." + +As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write +lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines. She +wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her +motherly wing. + +"He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans +for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to +come." + +His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget. + +As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two +ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a +fire or a play. Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from +my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the +trees. + +Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me +scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely +sleepless nights. Are they always as lonely as he makes out? + +As in the past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions and his +whole middle-class outlook. Yet for many years he dominated my senses, +which gives him a certain hold over me still. I cannot make up my mind +to take the brutal step which would free me once and for all from him. I +must let him go on believing that our life together was happy. + +Why did I read all these letters? What did I expect to find? A certain +vague hope stirred within me that if I opened them I should discover +something unexpected. + +The one remaining letter--shall I ever find courage to open it? I _will_ +not know what he has written. He does not write well I know. He is not a +good talker; his writing would probably be worse. And yet, I look upon +that sealed letter as a treasure. + +Merely touching it, I feel as though I was in the same room with him. + + * * * * * + +Lillie's letter has really done me good; her regal serenity makes itself +apparent beneath all she undertakes. It is wonderful that she does not +preach at me like the others. "You must know what is right for yourself +better than anybody else," she says. These words, coming from her, have +brought me unspeakable strength and comfort, even though I feel that she +can have no idea of what is actually taking place within me. + +Life for Lillie can be summed up in the words, "the serene passage of +the days." Happy Lillie. She glides into old age just as she glided into +marriage, smiling, tranquil, and contented. Nobody, nothing, can disturb +her quietude. + +It is so when both body and soul find their repose and happiness in the +same identical surroundings. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne, with some embarrassment, asked permission to use the bathroom. +I gave her leave. It is quite possible that living in the basement is +not to her taste. To put a bathroom down there would take nearly a +fortnight, and during that time I shall be deprived of my own, for I +cannot share my bathroom or my bedroom with anyone, least of all a +woman.... + +I shall never forget the one visit I paid to the Russian baths and the +sight of Hilda Bang. Clothed, she presents rather a fine appearance, +with a good figure; but seen amid the warm steam, in nature's garb, she +seemed horrible. + +I would rather walk through an avenue of naked men than appear before +another woman without clothes. This feeling does not spring from +modesty--what is it? + + * * * * * + +How quiet it is here! Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays the steamer for +England goes by. I know its coming by the sound of the screw, but I take +care never to see it pass. What if I were seized with an impulse to +embark on her.... + +If one fine morning when Jeanne brought the tea she found the bird +flown? + +The time is gone by. Life is over. + +I am getting used to sitting here and stitching at my seam. My work does +not amount to much, but the mechanical movement brings a kind of +restfulness. + +I find I am getting rather capricious. Between meals I ring two or three +times a day for tea--like a convalescent trying a fattening cure. Jeanne +attends to my hair with indefatigable care. Without her, should I ever +trouble to do it at all? + +What can any human being want more than this peace and silence? + + * * * * * + +If I could only lose this sense of being empty-handed, all would be +well. Yesterday I went down to the seashore and gathered little pebbles. +I carried them away and amused myself by taking them up in handfuls. +During the night I felt impelled to get up and fetch them, and this +morning I awoke with a round stone in each hand. + +Hysteria takes strange forms. But who knows what is the real ground of +hysteria? I used to think it was the special malady of the unmated +woman; but, in later years, I have known many who had had a full share +of the passional life, legitimate and otherwise, and yet still suffered +from hysteria. + + * * * * * + +I begin to realise the fascination of the cloister; the calm, uniform, +benumbing existence. But my comparison does not apply. The nun renounces +all will and responsibility, while I cannot give up one or the other. + +I have reached this point, however; only that which is bounded by my +garden hedge seems to me really worthy of consideration. The house in +the Old Market Place may be burnt down for all I care. Richard may marry +again. Malthe may.... + +Yes, I think I could receive the news in silence like the monk to whom +the prior announces, "One of the brethren is dead, pray for his soul." +No one present knows, nor will ever know, whether his own brother or +father has passed away. + +What hopeless cowardice prevents my opening his letter! + + + + + EVENING. + +Somebody should found a vast and cheerful sisterhood for women between +forty and fifty; a kind of refuge for the victims of the years of +transition. For during that time women would be happier in voluntary +exile, or at any rate entirely separated from the other sex. + +Since all are suffering from the same trouble, they might help each +other to make life, not only endurable, but harmonious. We are all more +or less mad then, although we struggle to make others think us sane. + +I say "we," though I am not of their number--in age, perhaps, but not in +temperament. Nevertheless I hear the stealthy footsteps of the +approaching years. By good fortune, or calculation, I have preserved my +youthful appearance, but it has cost me dear to economise my emotions. + +Old age, in truth, is only a goal to be foreseen. A mountain to be +climbed; a peak from which to see life from every side--provided we +have not been blinded by snowfalls on the way. I do not fear old age; +only the hard ascent to it has terrors for me. The day, the hour, when +we realise that something has gone from our lives; when the cry of our +heart provokes laughter in others! + +To all of us women comes a time in life when we believe we can conquer +or deceive time. But soon we learn how unequal is the struggle. We all +come to it in the end. + +Then we grow anxious. Anxious at the coming of day; still more anxious +at the coming of night. We deck ourselves out at night as though in this +way we could put our anxiety to flight. + +We are careful about our food and our rest; we watch that our smiles +leave no wrinkles.... Yet never a word of our secret terror do we +whisper aloud. We keep silence or we lie. Sometimes from pride, +sometimes from shame. + +Hitherto nobody has ever proclaimed this great truth: that as they grow +older--when the summer comes and the days lengthen--women become more +and more women. Their feminality goes on ripening into the depths of +winter. + +Yet the world compels them to steer a false course. Their youth only +counts so long as their complexions remain clear and their figures slim. +Otherwise they are exposed to cruel mockery. A woman who tries late in +life to make good her claim to existence, is regarded with contempt. For +her there is neither shelter nor sympathy. + +It sometimes happens that a winter gale strips all the leaves from a +tree in a single night. When does a woman grow old in body and soul in +one swift and merciful moment? From our birth we are accursed. + +I blame no one for my failure in life. It was in my own hands. If I +could live it through again from the start, it is more than probable I +should waste the years for a second time. + + + + + CHRISTMAS EVE. + +At this hour there will be festivities in the Old Market Place. +Richard's last letter touched me profoundly; something within me went +out toward his honest nature.... + +What is the use of all these falsehoods? I long for an embrace. Is that +shocking? We women are so wrapped in deceit that we feel ashamed of +confessing such things. Yet it is true, I miss Richard. Not the husband +or companion, but the lover. + +What use in trying to soothe my senses by walking for hours through the +silent woods. + +Lillie, in the innocence of her heart, sent me a tiny Christmas tree, +decorated by herself and her lanky daughters. Sweets and little presents +are suspended from the branches. She treats me like a child, or a sick +person. + +Well, let it be so! Lillie must never have the vexation of learning that +I detested her girls simply because they represented the youthful +generation which sooner or later must supplant me. + +I have made good use of my eyes, and I know what I have seen: the same +enmity exists between two generations as between the sexes. + +While the young folk in their arrogant cruelty laugh at us who are +growing old, we, in our turn, amuse ourselves by making fun of them. If +women could buy back their lost youth by the blood of those nearest and +dearest to them, what crimes the world would witness! + +How I used to hate Richard when I saw him so completely at his ease +among young people, and able to take them so seriously. + + * * * * * + +Christmas Eve! In honour of Jeanne, I put on one of my very best +frocks--Paquin. Moreover, I have decorated myself with rings and chains +as though I were a silly Christmas Tree myself. + +Jeanne has enjoyed herself to-day. She and Torp rose before it was light +to deck the rooms with pine branches. Over the verandah waves the +Swedish flag, which Torp generally suspends above her bed, in +remembrance of Heaven knows who. I gave myself the pleasure of +surprising Jeanne, by bestowing upon her my green _crepe de Chine_. In +future grey and black will be my only wear. + +After the obligatory goose, and the inevitable Christmas dishes, I spent +the evening reading the letters with which "my friends" honour me +punctiliously. + +Without seeing the handwriting, or the signature, I could name from the +contents alone the writer of each one of them. They all write about the +honours which have befallen Joergen Malthe: a hospital here; a palace of +archives there. What does it matter to me? I would far rather they +wrote: "To-day a motor-car ran over Joergen Malthe and killed him on the +spot." + +I have arrived at that stage. + +But to-night I will not think about him; I would rather try to write to +Magna Wellmann. I may be of some use to her. In any case I will tell her +things that it will do her good to hear. She is one of those who take +life hard. + + + + +DEAR MAGNA WELLMANN, + +It is with great difficulty that I venture to give you advice at this +moment. Besides, we are so completely opposed in habit, thought, and +temperament. We have really nothing in common but our unfortunate middle +age and our sex; therefore, how can it help you to know what I should do +if I were in your place? + +May I speak quite frankly without any fear of hurting your feelings? In +that case I will try to advise you; but I can only do so by making your +present situation quite clear to you. Only when you have faced matters +can you hope to decide upon some course of action which you will not +afterwards regret. Your letter is the queerest mixture of self-deception +and a desire to be quite frank. You try to throw dust in my eyes, while +at the same time you are betraying all that you are most anxious to +conceal. Judging from your letter, the maternal feeling is deeply +ingrained in your nature. You are prepared to fight for your children +and sacrifice yourself for them if necessary. You would put yourself +aside in order to secure for them a healthy and comfortable existence. + +The real truth is that your conscience is pricking you with a remorse +that has been instigated by others. Maternal sentiment is not your +strong point; far from it. In your husband's lifetime you did not try to +make two and two amount to five; and you often showed very plainly that +your children were rather an encumbrance than otherwise. When at last +your affection for them grew, it was not because they were your own +flesh and blood, but because you were thrown into daily contact with +these little creatures whom you had to care for. + +Now you have lost your head because the outlook is rather bad. Your +family, or rather your late husband's people, have attempted to coerce +you in a way that I consider entirely unjustifiable. And you have +allowed yourself to be bullied, and therefore, all unconsciously, have +given them some hold over your life and actions. + +You must not forget that your husband's family, without being asked, +have been allowing you a yearly income which permitted you to live in +the same style as before Professor Wellmann's death. They placed no +restrictions upon you, and made no conditions. Now, the family--annoyed +by what reaches their ears--want to insist that you should conform to +their wishes; otherwise they will withdraw the money, or take from you +the custody of the children. This is a very arbitrary proceeding. + +Reflect well what they are asking of you before you let yourself be +bound hand and foot. + +Are you really capable, Magna, of being an absolutely irreproachable +widow? + +Perhaps there ought to be a law by which penniless widows with children +to bring up should be incarcerated in some kind of nunnery, or burnt +alive at the obsequies of their husbands. But failing such a law, I do +not think a grown-up woman is obliged to promise that she will +henceforth take a vow of chastity. One must not give a promise only to +break it, and, my dear Magna, I do not think you are the woman to keep a +vow of that kind. + +For this reason you ought never to have made yourself dependent upon +strangers by accepting their money for the education of your children. +At the same time I quite see how hard it would be to find yourself +empty-handed with a pack of children all in need of something. If you +had not courage to try to live on the small pension allowed by the +State, you would have done better to find some means of earning a +livelihood with the help of your own people. + +You never thought of this; while I was too much taken up with my own +affairs just then to have any superfluous energy for other people's +welfare or misfortune. + +But now we come to the heart of the question. For some years past you +have confided in me--more fully than I really cared about. While your +husband was alive I often found it rather painful to be always looking +at him through the keyhole, so to speak. But this confidence justifies +me in speaking quite frankly. + +My dear Magna, listen to me. A woman of your temperament ought never to +bind herself by marriage to any man, and is certainly not fit to have +children. You were intended--do not take the words as an insult--to lead +the life of a _fille de joie_. The term sounds ugly--but I know no other +that is equally applicable. Your vehement temperament, your insatiable +desire for new excitements--in a word, your whole nature tends that way. +You cannot deny that your marriage was a grave mistake. + +There was just the chance--a remote one--that you might have met the +kind of husband to suit you: an eminently masculine type, the kind who +would have kept the whip-hand over you, and regarded a wife as +half-mistress, half-slave. Even then I think your conjugal happiness +would have ceased the first day he lost the attraction of novelty. + +Professor Wellmann, your quiet, correct husband, was as great a torment +to you as you were to him. Without intending it, you made his life a +misery. The dreadful scenes which were brought about by your violent and +sensual temperament so changed his disposition that he became brutal; +while to you they became a kind of second nature, a necessity, like food +or sleep. + +Magna, you will think me brutal, too, because I now tell you in black +and white what formerly I lacked the courage to say. Believe me, it was +often on the tip of my tongue to exclaim: "Better have a lover than +torment this poor man whose temperament is so different to your own." + +I will not say you did not care for your husband. You learnt to see his +good qualities; but there was no true union between you. You hated his +work. Not like a woman who is jealous of the time spent away from her; +but because you believed such arduous brain work made him less ardent as +a lover. Although you did not really care for him, you would have +sacrificed all his fame and reputation for an hour of unreasoning +passion. + +At his death you lost the breadwinner and the position you had gained +in the world as the wife of a celebrity. Your grief was sincere; you +felt your loneliness and loss. Then for the first time you clung to your +children, and erroneously believed you were moved by maternal feeling. +You honestly intended henceforward to live for them alone. + +All went well for three months, and then the struggle began. Do you +know, Magna, I admired the way you fought. You would not give way an +inch. You wore the deepest weeds. Sheltered behind your crape, you +surrounded yourself by your children, and fought for your life. + +This inward conflict added to your attractions. It gave you an air of +nobility you had hitherto lacked. + +Then the world began to whisper evil about you while you were still +quite irreproachable. + +No, after all there _was_ something to reproach you with, although it +was not known to outsiders. While you were fighting your instincts and +trying to live as a spotless widow, your character was undergoing a +change: against your will, but not unconsciously, you were become a +perfect fury. In this way your children acquired that timidity which +they have never quite outgrown. Strangers began to notice this after a +while, and to criticise your behaviour. + +Time went on. You wrote that you were obliged to do a "cure" in a +nursing home for nervous complaints. When I heard this, I could not +repress a smile, in spite of your misfortunes. Nerve specialists may be +very clever, but can they be expected, even at the highest fees, to +replace defunct husbands. You were kept in bed and dosed with bromides +and sulphonal. After a few weeks you were pronounced quite well, and +left the home a little stouter and rather languid after keeping your bed +so long. + +When you got home you turned the house upside-down in a frantic fit of +"cleaning." You walked for miles; you took to cooking; and at night, +having wearied your body out with incessant work, you tried to lull your +brain by reading novels. + +What was the use of it all? The day you confessed to me that you had +walked about the streets all night lest you should kill yourself and +your children, I realised that your powers of resistance were at an end. +A week later you had embarked upon your first _liaison_. A month later +the whole town was aware of it. + +That was about a year after the Professor's death. Six or seven years +have passed since then, and you have gone on from adventure to +adventure, all characterised by the same lamentable lack of discretion. +The reason for this lies in your own tendency to self-deception. You +want to make yourself and others believe that you are always looking for +ideal love and constant ties. In reality your motives are quite +different. You hug the traditional conviction that it would be +disgraceful to own that your pretended love is only an affair of the +senses. And yet, if you had not been so anxious to dupe yourself and +others, you might have gone through life frankly and freely. + +The night is far advanced, moreover it is Christmas Eve. + +I will not accuse you without producing proofs. Enclosed you will find +a whole series of letters, dated irregularly, for you only used to write +to me when I was away from home in the summer. In these letters, which I +have carefully collected, and for which I have no ground for reproaching +you, you will see yourself reflected as in a row of mirrors. Do not be +ashamed; your self-deception is not your fault; society is to blame. I +am not sending the letters back to discourage or hurt you; only that you +may see how, with each adventure, you have started with the same +sentimental illusions and ended with the same pitiable disenchantment. + +A penniless widow turned forty--we are about the same age--with five +children has not much prospect of marrying again, however attractive she +may be. I have told you so repeatedly; but your feminine vanity refuses +to believe it. In each fresh adventure you have seen a possible +marriage--not because you feel specially drawn towards matrimony, but +because you are unwilling to leave the course free to younger women. + +You have shown yourself in public with your admirers. + +Neglecting the most ordinary precautions, you have allowed them to come +to your house; in a word, you have unblushingly advertised connections +which ought to have been concealed. + +And the men you selected? + +I do not wish to criticise your choice; but I quite understand why your +friends objected and were ashamed on your account. + +At first people made the best of the situation, tacitly hoping that the +affairs might lead to marriage and that your monetary cares would thus +find a satisfactory solution. But after so many useless attempts this +benevolent attitude was abandoned, and scandal grew. + +Meanwhile you, Magna, blind to all opinion, continued to follow the same +round: flirtation, sentiment, intimacy, adoration, submission, jealousy, +suspicion, suffering, hatred, and contempt. + +The more inferior the man of your choice, the more determined you were +to invest him with extraordinary qualities. But as soon as the next one +appeared on the scene, you began to judge his predecessor at his true +value. + +If all this had resulted in your getting the wherewithal to bring up +your children in comfort, I should say straight out: "My dear Magna, pay +no attention to what other people say, go your own road." + +But, unfortunately, it is just the reverse; your children suffer. They +are growing up. Wanda and Ingrid are almost young women. In a year or +two they will be at a marriageable age. How much longer do you suppose +you can keep them in ignorance? Perhaps they know things already. I have +sometimes surprised a look in Wanda's eyes which suggested that she saw +more than was desirable. + +In my opinion it is better for children not to find out these things +until they are quite old enough to understand them completely. But the +evil is done, and cannot be undone. And yet, Magna, the peace of mind of +these innocent victims is entirely in your hands. You can secure it +without making the sacrifice that your husband's family demands of you. + +You have no right to let your children grow up in this unwholesome +atmosphere; and the atmosphere with which their dear mother surrounds +them cannot be described as healthy. + +If your character was as strong as your temperament, you would not +hesitate to take all the consequences on your own shoulders. But it is +not so. You would shrink from the hard work involved in emigrating and +making yourself a new home abroad; at the same time you would be lowered +in your own eyes if you gave your children into the care of others. + +Then, since for the next few years you will never resign yourself to +single life, and are not likely to find a husband, you must so arrange +your love affairs that they escape the attention of the world. Why +should you mix them up with your home life and your children? What you +need are prudence and calculation; but you have neither. + +You will never fix your life on a firm basis until you have relegated +men to the true place they occupy in your existence. If you could only +make yourself see clearly the fallacy of thinking that every man you +meet is going to love you for eternity. A woman like yourself can +attract lovers by the dozen; but yours is not the temperament to inspire +a serious relationship which might become a lasting friendship. If you +constantly see yourself left in the lurch and abandoned by your admirers +before you have tired of them yourself, it is because you always delude +yourself on this point. + +I know another woman situated very much as you are. She too has a large +family, and a weakness for the opposite sex. Everybody knows that she +has her passing love affairs, but no one quarrels with her on that +score. + +She is really entitled to some respect, for she lives in her own house +the life of an irreproachable matron. She shows the tenderest regard for +the needs of her children, and never a man crosses her threshold but the +doctor. + +You see, dear Magna, that I have devoted half my Christmas night to you, +which I certainly should not have done if I did not feel a special +sympathy for you. If I wind up my letter with a proposal that may wound +your feelings at first sight, you must try to understand that it is +kindly meant. + +Living here alone, a few months' experience has shown me that my income +exceeds my requirements, and I can offer to supply you with a sum which +you can pay me back in a year or two, without interest. This would +enable you to learn some kind of business which would secure you a +living and free you from family interference. Consider it well. + +I live so entirely to myself on this island that I have plenty of time +to ponder over my own lot and that of other people. Write to me when you +feel the wish or need to do so. I will reply to the best of my ability. +If I am very taciturn about my own affairs, it springs from an +idiosyncrasy that I cannot overcome. To make sure of my meaning I have +read my letter through once more, and find that it does not express all +I wanted to say. Never mind, it is true in the main. Only try to +understand that I do not wish to sit in judgment upon you, only to +throw some light on the situation. With all kind thoughts. + + Yours, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + + * * * * * + +It snows, and snows without ceasing. The trees are already wrapped in +snow, like precious objects packed in wadding. The paths will soon be +heaped up to their level. The snowflakes are as large as daisies. When I +go out they flutter round me like a swarm of butterflies. Those that +fall into the water disappear like shooting stars, leaving no trace +behind. + +The glass roof of my bedroom is as heavy as a coffin-lid. I sleep with +my window open, and when there comes a blast of wind my eyes are filled +with snow. This morning, when I woke, my pillow-case was as wet as +though I had been crying all night. + +Torp already sees us in imagination snowed up and receiving our food +supplies down the chimney. She is preparing for the occasion. Her hair +smells as though she had been singeing chickens, and she has +illuminated the basement with small lamps and red shades edged with +pearl fringes. + +Jeanne is equally enchanted. When she goes outside without a hat her +hair looks like a burning torch against the snow. She does not speak, +but hums to herself, and walks more lightly and softly than ever, as +though she feared to waken some sleeper. + +... I remember how Malthe and I were once talking about Greece, and he +gave me an account of a snowstorm in Delphi. I cannot recall a word of +his description; I was not listening, but just thinking how the snow +would melt when it fell upon his head. + +He has fulfilled my request not to write. I have not had a line since +his only letter came. And yet.... + + * * * * * + +I have burnt his letter. + +I have burnt his letter. A few ashes are all that remain to me. + +It hurts me to look at the ashes. I cannot make up my mind to throw them +away. + +I have got rid of the ashes. It was harder than I thought. Even now I +am restless. + + * * * * * + +I am glad the letter is destroyed. Now I am free at last. My temptations +were very natural. + +The last few days I have spent in bed. Jeanne is an excellent nurse. She +makes as much fuss of me as though I were really ill, and I enjoy it. + + * * * * * + +The Nirvana of age is now beginning. In the morning, when Jeanne brushes +my hair, I feel a kind of soothing titillation which lasts all day. I do +not trouble about dressing; I wear no jewellery and never look in the +glass. + +Very often I feel as though my thoughts had come to a standstill, like a +watch one has forgotten to wind up. But this blank refreshes me. + +Weeks have gone by since I wrote in my diary. Several times I have +tried to do so; but when I have the book in front of me, I find I have +nothing to set down. + +In the twilight I sit by the fire like an old child and talk to myself. +Then Torp comes to me for the orders which she ends by giving herself, +and I let her talk to me about her own affairs. The other day I got her +on the subject of spooks. She is full of ghost stories, and relates them +with such conviction that her teeth chatter with terror. Happy Torp, to +possess such imagination! + +Some days I hardly budge from one position, and can with difficulty +force myself to leave my table; at other times I feel the need of +incessant movement. The forest is very quiet, scarcely a soul walks +there. If I do chance to meet anyone, we glare at each other like two +wild beasts, uncertain whether to attack or to flee from each other. + +The forest belongs to me.... + +The piano is closed. I never use it now. The sound of the wind in the +trees is music enough for me. I rise from my bed and listen until I am +half frozen. I, who was never stirred or pleased by the playing of +virtuosi! + +I have no more desires. Past and future both repose beneath a shroud of +soft, mild fog. I am content to live like this. But the least event +indoors wakes me from my lethargy. Yesterday Torp sent for the sweep. +Catching sight of him in my room, I could not repress a scream. I could +not think for the moment what the man could be doing here. + +Another time a stray cat took refuge under my table. I was not aware of +it, but no sooner had I sat down than I felt surcharged with +electricity. I rang for Jeanne, and when she came into the room the +creature darted from its hiding-place, and I was panic-stricken. + +Jeanne carried it away, but for a long time afterwards I shivered at the +sight of her. + +Whence comes this horror of cats? Many people make pets of them. +Personally I should prefer the company of a boa-constrictor. + + * * * * * + +A man whose vanity I had wounded once took it upon himself to tell me +some plain truths. He did me this honour because I had not sufficiently +appreciated his attentions. + +He assured me that I was neither clever nor gifted, but that I was +merely skilful at not letting myself be caught out, and had a certain +quickness of repartee. He was quite right. + +What time and energy I have spent in trying to keep up this reputation +of being a clever woman, when I was really not born one! + +My vanity demanded that I should not be run after for my appearance +only; so I surrounded myself with clever men and let them call me +intellectual. It was Hans Andersen's old tale of "The King's New +Clothes" over again. + +We spoke of political economy, of statesmanship, of art and literature, +finance and religion. I knew nothing about all these things, but, thanks +to an animated air of attention, I steered safely between the rocks and +won a reputation for cleverness. + + * * * * * + +In English novels, with their insipid sweetness that always reminds me +of the smell of frost-bitten potatoes, the heroine sometimes permits +herself the luxury of being blind, lame, or disfigured by smallpox. The +hero adores her just the same. How false to life! My existence would +have been very different if ten years ago I had lost my long eyelashes, +if my fingers had become deformed, or my nose shown signs of redness.... + +A red nose! It is the worst catastrophe that can befall a beautiful +woman. I always suspected this was the reason why Adelaide Svanstroem +took poison. Poor woman, unluckily she did not take a big enough dose! + + * * * * * + + + + + JANUARY. + +My senses are reawakening. Light and sound now bring me entirely new +impressions; what I see, I now also feel, with nerves of which hitherto +I did not suspect the existence. When evening draws on I stare into the +twilight until everything seems to shimmer before my eyes, and I dream +like a child.... + +Yesterday, before going to bed, I went on my balcony, as I usually do, +to take a last glance at the sea. But it was the starry sky that fixed +my attention. It seemed to reveal and offer itself to me. I felt I had +never really seen it before, although I sleep with it over my head! + +Each star was to me like a dewdrop created to slake my thirst. I drank +in the sky like a plant that is almost dead for want of moisture. And +while I drank it in, I was conscious of a sensation hitherto unknown to +me. For the first time in my life I was aware of the existence of my +soul. I threw back my head to gaze and gaze. Night enfolded me in all +its splendour, and I wept. + +What matter that I am growing old? What matter that I have missed the +best in life? Every night I can look towards the stars and be filled +with their chill, eternal peace. + +I, who never could read a poem without secretly mocking the writer, who +never believed in the poets' ecstasies over Nature, now I perceive that +Nature is the one divinity worthy to be worshipped. + + * * * * * + +I miss Margarethe Ernst; especially her amusing ways. How she glided +about among people, always ready to dart out her sharp tongue, always +prepared to sting. And yet she is not really unkind, in spite of her +little cunning smile. But her every movement makes a singular impression +which is calculated. + +We amused each other. We spoke so candidly about other people, and lied +so gracefully to each other about ourselves. Moreover, I think she is +loyal in her friendship, and of all my letters hers are the best +written. + +I should have liked to have drawn her out, but she was the one person +who knew how to hold her own. I always felt she wore a suit of chain +armour under her close-fitting dresses which was proof against the +assaults of her most impassioned adorers. + +She is one of those women who, without appearing to do so, manages to +efface all her tracks as she goes. I have watched her change her tactics +two or three times in the course of an evening, according to the people +with whom she was talking. She glided up to them, breathed their +atmosphere for an instant, and then established contact with them. + +She is calculating, but not entirely for her own ends; she is like a +born mathematician who thoroughly enjoys working out the most difficult +problems. + +I should like to have her here for a week. + +She, too, dreads the transition years. She tries in vain to cheat old +age. Lately she adopted a "court mourning" style of dress, and wore +little, neat, respect-impelling mantillas round her thin, +Spanish-looking face. One of these days, when she is close upon fifty, +we shall see her return to all the colours of the rainbow and to ostrich +plumes. She lives in hopes of a new springtide in life. Shall I invite +her here? + +She would come, of course, by the first train, scenting the air with +wide nostrils, like a stag, and an array of trunks behind her! + +No! To ask her would be a lamentable confession of failure. + + * * * * * + +The last few days I have arrived at a condition of mind which occasions +great self-admiration. I am now sure that, even if the difference in our +ages did not exist, I could never marry Malthe. + +I could do foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I have +loved with all my heart. I could humble myself to be his mistress; I +could die with him. But set up a home with Joergen Malthe--never! + +The terrible part of home life is that every piece of furniture in the +house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long +after love has died out--if, indeed, it ever existed between them. Two +human beings--who differ as much as two human beings always must do--are +compelled to adopt the same tastes, the same outlook. The home is built +upon this incessant conflict. The struggle often goes on in silence, but +it is not the less bitter, even when concealed. + +How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration +masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel would have +done.... What a profound contempt I felt for his tastes; and, without +saying it in words, how he disapproved of mine! + +No! His home was not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal couple, +at one on all points. My person for his money--that was the bargain, +crudely but truthfully expressed. + + * * * * * + +Just as one arranges the scenery for a _tableau vivant_, I prepared my +"living grave" in this house, which Malthe built in ignorance of its +future occupant. And here I have learnt that joy of possession which +hitherto I have only known in respect of my jewellery. + +This house is really my home. My first and only home. Everything here is +dear to me, because it _is_ my own. + +I love the very earthworms because they do good to my garden. The birds +in the trees round about the house are my property. I almost wish I +could enclose the sky and clouds within a wall and make them mine. + +In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I +left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body. + +Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger +to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine. +I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me +before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I +shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the +bare deal table, the dusty books, the trunk covered with a travelling +rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor. + +Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over +me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured +to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth +interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air +with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their +touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his passion, and yet he +went on discussing this wretched dome--about which I cared as little as +for the inkstains on his table. + +I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room. + +"But I get the sunshine," he said, blushing. + +I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most +superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges +from the purple clouds at evening. + +Big child that you are, how I love you! + +But I will never, never start a home with you! + +Well, surely one gardener can hardly suffice to poison the air of the +place. If he is a nuisance I shall send him packing. + +The man comes from a big estate. If he is content to cultivate my +cabbage patch, it must be because, besides being very ugly, he has some +undiscovered faults. But I really cannot undertake to make minute +inquiries into the psychical qualities of Mr. Under-gardener Jensen. + +His photograph was sent by a registry office, among many others. We +examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as +though they had been fashion plates from Paris. To my silent amusement, +I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she +thought smells could be photographed, too. + +Prudence prompted me to select this man; he is too ugly to disturb our +peace of mind. On the other hand, as I had the wisdom not to pull down +the hut in which the former proprietor lived, the two rooms there will +have to do for Mr. Jensen, so that we can keep him at a little distance. + +Torp asked if he was to take meals in the kitchen. + +Certainly! I have no intention of having him for my opposite neighbour +at table. But, on the whole, he had better have his meals in his hut, +then we shall not be always smelling him. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps we are really descended from dogs, for the sense of smell can so +powerfully influence our senses. + +I would undertake in pitch darkness to recognise every man I know by the +help of my nose alone; that is, if I passed near enough to him to sniff +his atmosphere. I am almost ashamed to confess that men are the same to +me as flowers; I judge them by their smell. I remember once a young +English waiter in a restaurant who stirred all my sensibilities each +time he passed the back of my chair. Luckily Richard was there! For the +same reason I could not endure Herr von Brincken to come near me--and +equally for the same reason Richard had power over my senses. + +Every time I bite the stalk of a pansy I recall the neighbourhood of +the young Englishman. + +Men ought never to use perfumes. The Creator has provided them. But with +women it is different.... + + * * * * * + +To-day is my birthday. No one here knows it. Besides, what woman would +enjoy celebrating her forty-third birthday? Only Lillie Rothe, I am +sure!... + +One day I was talking to a specialist about the thousands of women who +are saved by medical science to linger on and lead a wretched +semi-existence. These women who suffer for years physically and are +oppressed by a melancholy for which there seems to be no special cause. +At last they consult a doctor; enter a nursing home and undergo some +severe operation. Then they resume life as though nothing had happened. +Their surroundings are unchanged; they have to fulfil all the duties of +everyday life--even the conjugal life is taken up once more. And these +poor creatures, who are often ignorant of the nature of their illness, +are plunged into despair because life seems to have lost its joy and +interest. + +I ventured to observe to the doctor with whom I was conversing that it +would be better for them if they died under the anaesthetic. The surgeon +reproved me, and inquired whether I was one of those people who thought +that all born cripples ought to be put out of their misery at once. + +I did not quite see the connection of ideas; but I suppressed my desire +to close his argument by telling him of an example which is branded upon +my memory. + +Poor Mathilde Bremer! I remember her so well before and after the +operation. She was not afraid to die, because she knew her husband was +devoted to her. But she kept saying to the surgeon: + +"You must either cure me or kill me. For my own sake and for his, I will +not go on living this half-invalidish life." + +She was pronounced "cured." Two years later she left her husband, very +much against his will, but feeling she was doing the best for both of +them. + +She once said to me: "There is no torture to equal that which a woman +suffers when she loves her husband and is loved by him; a woman for whom +her husband is all in all, who longs to keep his devotion, but knows she +must fail, because physically she is no longer herself." + +The life Mathilde Bremer is now leading--that of a solitary woman +divorced from her husband--is certainly not enviable. Yet she admits +that she feels far better than she used to do. + + * * * * * + +Any one might suppose I was on the way to become a rampant champion of +the Woman's Cause. May I be provided with some other occupation! I have +quite enough to do to manage my own affairs. + +Heaven be eternally praised that I have no children, and have been +spared all the ailments which can be "cured" by women's specialists! + + * * * * * + +Ye powers! How interminable a day can be! Surely every day contains +forty-eight hours! + +I can actually watch the seconds oozing away, drop by drop.... Or +rather, they fall slowly on my head, like dust upon a polished table. My +hair is getting steadily greyer. + +It is not surprising, because I neglect it. + +But what is the use of keeping it artificially brown with lotions and +pomades? Let it go grey! + +Torp has observed that I take far more pleasure in good cooking than I +did at first. + +My dresses are getting too tight. I miss my masseuse. + + * * * * * + +To-day I inspected my linen cupboard with all the care of the lady +superior of an aristocratic convent. I delighted in the spectacle of the +snowy-white piles, and counted it all. I am careful with my money, and +yet I like to have great supplies in the house. The more bottles, cases, +and bags I see in the larder, the better pleased I am. In that respect +Torp and I are agreed. If we were cut off from the outer world by flood, +or an earthquake, we could hold out for a considerable time. + + * * * * * + +If I had more sensibility, and a little imagination--even as much as +Torp, who makes verses with the help of her hymn-book--I think I should +turn my attention to literature. Women like to wade in their memories as +one wades through dry leaves in autumn. I believe I should be very +clever in opening a series of whited sepulchres, and, without betraying +any personalities, I should collect my exhumed mummies under the general +title of, "Woman at the Dangerous Age." But besides imagination, I lack +the necessary perseverance to occupy myself for long together with other +people's affairs. + + * * * * * + +We most of us sail under a false flag; but it is necessary. If we were +intended to be as transparent as glass, why were we born with our +thoughts concealed? + +If we ventured to show ourselves as we really are, we should be either +hermits, each dwelling on his own mountain-top, or criminals down in the +valleys. + + * * * * * + +Torp has gone to evening service. Angelic creature! She has taken a +lantern with her, therefore we shall probably not see her again before +midnight. In consequence of her religious enthusiasm, we dined at +breakfast-time. Yes, Torp knows how to grease the wheels of her +existence! + +Naturally she is about as likely to attend church as I am. Her vespers +will be read by one of the sailors whose ship has been laid up near here +for the winter. Peace be with her--but I am dreadfully bored. + +I have a bitter feeling as though Jeanne and I were doing penance, each +in a dark corner of our respective quarters. The Sundays of my childhood +were not worse than this. + +In the distance a cracked, tinkling bell "tolls the knell of parting +day." Jeanne and I are depressed by it. I have taken up a dozen +different occupations and dropped them all. + +If it were only summer! I am oppressed as though I were sitting in a +close bower of jasmine; but we are in mid-winter, and I have not used a +drop of scent for months. + +But, after all, Sundays were no better in the Old Market Place. There I +had Richard from morning till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be +bored in the society of one other person is much worse. And to think +that Richard never even noticed it! His incessant talk reminded me of a +mill-wheel, and I felt as though all the flour was blowing into my eyes. + + * * * * * + +I will take a brisk constitutional. + + * * * * * + +What is the matter with me? I am so nervous that I can scarcely hold my +pen. I have never seen a fog come on so suddenly; I thought I should +never find my way back to the house. It is so thick I can hardly see the +nearest trees. It has got into the room, and seems to be hanging from +the ceiling. I am damp through and through. + +The fire has gone out, and I am freezing. It is my own fault; I ought to +have rung for Jeanne, or put on some logs myself, but I could not summon +up resolution even for that. + +What has become of Torp, that she is staying out half the day? How will +she ever find her way home? With twenty lanterns it would be impossible +to see ten yards ahead of one. My lamp burns as though water was mixed +with the oil. + +Overhead I hear Jeanne pacing up and down. I hear her, although she +walks so lightly. She too is restless and upset. We have a kind of +influence on each other, I have noticed it before. + +If only she would come down of her own accord. At least there would be +two of us. + +I feel the same cold shivers down my back that I remember feeling long +ago, when my nurse induced me to go into a churchyard. I thought I saw +all the dead coming out of their graves. That was a foggy evening, too. +How strange it is that such far-off things return so clearly to the +mind. + +The trees are quite motionless, as though they were listening for +something. What do they hear? There is not a soul here--only Jeanne and +myself. + +Another time I shall forbid Torp to make these excursions. If she must +go to church, she shall go in the morning. + +It is very uncanny living here all alone in the forest, without a +watch-dog, or a man near at hand. One is at the mercy of any passerby. + +For instance, the other day, some tipsy sailors came and tried the +handle of the front-door.... But then, I was not in the least +frightened; I even inspired Torp with courage. + +I have a feeling that Jeanne is sitting upstairs in mortal terror. I sit +here with my pen in my hand like a weapon of defence. If I could only +make up my mind to ring.... + +There, it is done! My hand is trembling like an aspen leaf, but I must +not let her see that I am frightened. I must behave as though nothing +had happened. + +Poor girl! She rushed into the room without knocking, pale as a corpse, +her eyes starting from her head. She clung to me like a child that has +just awakened from a bad dream. + +What is the matter with us? We are both terrified. The fog seems to have +affected our wits. + +I have lit every lamp and candle, and they flicker fitfully, like +Jeanne's eyes. + +The fog is getting more and more dense. Jeanne is sitting on the sofa, +her hand pressed to her heart, and I seem to hear it beating, even from +here. + +I feel as though some one were dying near me--here in the room. + +Joergen, is it you? Answer me, is it you? + +Ah! I must have gone mad.... I am not superstitious, only depressed. + +All the doors are locked and the shutters barred. There is not a sound. +I cannot hear anything moving outside. + +It is just this dead silence that frightens us.... Yes, that is what it +is.... + + * * * * * + +Now Jeanne is asleep. I can hardly see her through the fog. + +She sits there like a shadow, an apparition, and the fog floats over her +red hair like smoke over a fire. + +I know nothing whatever about her. She is as reserved about her own +concerns as I am about mine. Yet I feel as though during this hour of +intense fear and agitation I had seen into the depths of her soul. I +understand her, because we are both women. She suffers from the eternal +unrest of the blood. + +She has had a shock to her inmost feelings. At some time or other she +has been so deeply wounded that she cannot live again in peace. + +She and I have so much in common that we might be blood-relations. But +we ought not to live under the same roof as mistress and servant. + + * * * * * + +Gradually the fog is dispersing, and the lights burn brighter. I seem to +follow Jeanne's dreams as they pass beneath her brow. Her mouth has +fallen a little open, as if she were dead. Every moment she starts up; +but when she sees me she smiles and drops off again. Good heavens, how +utterly exhausted she seems after these hours of fear! + +But somebody _is_ there! Yes ... outside ... there between the trees ... +I see somebody coming.... + +It is only Torp, with her lantern, and the dressmaker from the +neighbouring village. The moment she opened the basement door and I +heard her voice I felt quite myself again. + + * * * * * + +We have eaten ravenously, like wolves. For the first time Jeanne sat at +table with me and shared my meal. For the first and probably for the +last time. Torp opened her eyes very wide, but she was careful to make +no observations. + +My fit of madness to-night has taught me that the sooner I have a man of +some kind to protect the house the better. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has confided in me. She was too upset to sleep, and came knocking +at my bedroom door, asking if she might come in. I gave her permission, +although I was already in bed. She sat at the foot of my bed and told me +her story. It is so remarkable that I must set in down on paper. + +Now I understand her nice hands and all her ways. I understand, too, how +it came about that I found her one day turning over the pages of a +volume by Anatole France, as though she could read French. + +Her parents had been married twelve years when she was born. When she +was thirteen they celebrated their silver wedding. Until that moment in +her life she had grown up in the belief that they were a perfectly +united couple. The father was a chemist in a small town, and they lived +comfortably. The silver wedding festivities took place in their own +house. At dinner the girl drank some wine and felt it had gone to her +head. She left the table, saying to her mother, "I am going to lie down +in my room for a little while." But on the way she turned so giddy that +she went by mistake into a spare room that was occupied by a cavalry +officer, a cousin of her mother's. Too tired to go a step farther, she +fell asleep on a sofa in the darkened room. A little later she woke, and +heard the sounds of music and dancing downstairs, but felt no +inclination to join in the gaiety. Presently she dropped off again, and +when she roused for the second time she was aware of whispers near her +couch. In the first moment of awakening she felt ashamed of being caught +there by some of the guests. She held her breath and lay very still. +Then she recognized her mother's voice. After a few minutes she grasped +the truth.... Her mother, whom she worshipped, and this officer, whom +she admired in a childish way! + +They lit the candles. She forced herself to lie motionless, and feigned +to be fast asleep. She heard her mother's exclamation of horror: +"Jeanne!" And the captain's words: + +"Thank goodness she is sleeping like a log!" + +Her mother rearranged her disordered hair, and they left the room. + +After a few minutes she returned with a lamp, calling out: + +"Jeanne, where are you, child? We have been searching all over the +house!" + +Her pretended astonishment when she discovered the girl made the whole +scene more painful to Jeanne. But gathering up her self-control as best +she could, she succeeded in replying: + +"I am so tired: let me have my sleep out." + +Her mother bent over her and kissed her several times. The child felt as +though she would die while submitting to these caresses. + +This one hour, with its cruel enlightenment, sufficed to destroy +Jeanne's joy in life for ever. At the same time it filled her mind with +impure thoughts that haunted her night and day. She matured +precociously in the atmosphere of her own despair. + +There was no one in whom she could confide; alone she bore the weight of +a double secret, either of which was enough to crush her youth. + +She could not bear to look her mother in the face. With her father, too, +she felt ill at ease, as though she had in some way wronged him. +Everything was soiled for her. She had but one desire; to get away from +home. + +About two years later her mother was seized with fatal illness. Jeanne +could not bring herself to show her any tenderness. The piteous glance +of the dying woman followed all her comings and goings, but she +pretended not to see it. Once, when her father was out of the room, her +mother called Jeanne to the bedside: + +"You know?" she asked. + +Jeanne only nodded her head in reply. + +"Child, I am dying, forgive me." + +But Jeanne moved away from the bed without answering the appeal. + +No sooner had the doctor pronounced life to be extinct than she felt a +strange anxiety. In her great desire to atone in some way for her past +harshness, the girl resolved that, no matter what befell her, she would +do her best to hide the truth from her father. + +That night she entered the room where the dead woman lay, and ransacked +every box and drawer until she found the letters she was seeking. They +were at the bottom of her mother's jewel-case. Quickly she took +possession of them; but just as she was replacing the case in its +accustomed place, her father came in, having heard her moving about. She +could offer no explanation of her presence, and had to listen in silence +to his bitter accusation: "Are you so crazy about trinkets that you +cannot wait until your poor mother is laid in her grave?" + +In the course of that year one of the chemist's apprentices seduced her. +But she laughed in his face when he spoke of marriage. Later on she ran +away with a commercial traveller, and neither threats nor persuasion +would induce her to return home. + +After this, more than once she sought in some fleeting connection a +happiness which never came to her. The only pleasure she got out of her +adventures was the power of dressing well. When at last she saw that she +was not made for this disorderly life, she obtained a situation in a +German family travelling to the south of Europe. + +There she remained until homesickness drove her back to Denmark. Her +complete lack of ambition accounts for her being contented in this +modest situation. + +She never made any inquiries about her father, and only knows that he +left his money to other people, which does not distress her in the +least. Her sole reason for going on living is that she shrinks from +seeking death voluntarily. + +I wonder if there exists a man who could save her? A man who could make +her forget the bitterness of the past? She assures me I am the only +human being who has ever attracted her. If I were a man she would be +devoted to me and sacrifice everything for my sake. + +It is a strange case. But I am very sorry for the girl. I have never +come across such a peculiar mixture of coldness and ardour. + +When she had finished her story she went away very quietly. And I am +convinced that to-morrow things will go on just as before. Neither of us +will make any further allusion to the fog, nor to all that followed it. + + + + + SPRING. + +I am driven mad by all this singing and playing! One would think the +steamboats were driven by the force of song, and that atrocious +orchestras were a new kind of motive power. From morning till night +there is no cessation from patriotic choruses and folk-songs. + +Sometimes The Sound looks like a huge drying-ground in which all these +red and white sails are spread out to air. + +How I wish these pleasure-boats were birds! I would buy a gun and +practise shooting, in the hopes of killing a few. But this is the close +season.... The principal thoroughfares of a large town could hardly be +more bustling than the sea just now--the sea that in winter was as +silent and deserted as a graveyard. + +People begin to trespass in my forest and to prowl round my garden. I +see their inquisitive faces at my gates. I think I must buy a dog to +frighten them away. But then I should have to put up with his howling +after some dear and distant female friend. + + * * * * * + +How that gardener enrages me! His eyes literally twinkle with sneaky +thoughts. I would give anything to get rid of him. + +But he moves so well! Never in my life have I seen a man with such a +walk, and he knows it, and knows too that I cannot help looking at him +when he passes by. + +Torp is bewitched. She prepares the most succulent viands in his honour. +Her French cookery book is daily in requisition, and, judging from the +savoury smells which mount from the basement, he likes his food well +seasoned. + +Fortunately he is nothing to Jeanne, although she does notice the way he +walks from his hips, and his fine carriage. + +Midday is the pleasantest hour now. Then the sea is quiet and free from +trippers. Even the birds cease to sing, and the gardener takes his +sleep. Jeanne sits on the verandah, as I have given her permission to +do, with some little piece of sewing. She is making artificial roses +with narrow pink ribbon; a delightful kind of work. + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAR PROFESSOR ROTHE, + +Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it +immediately, as I should have wished to do. For that reason I sent you +the brief telegram in reply, the words of which, I am sorry to say, I +must now repeat: "I know nothing about the matter." Lillie has never +spoken a word to me, or made the least allusion in my presence, which +could cause me to suspect such a thing. I think I can truly say that I +never heard her pronounce the name of Director Schlegel. + +My first idea was that my cousin had gone out of her mind, and I was +astonished that you--being a medical man--should not have come to the +same conclusion. But on mature consideration (I have thought of nothing +but Lillie for the last two days) I have changed my opinion. I think I +am beginning to understand what has happened, but I beg you to remember +that I alone am responsible for what I am going to say. I am only +dealing with suppositions, nothing more. + +Lillie has not broken her marriage vows. Any suspicion of betrayal is +impossible, having regard to her upright and loyal nature. If to you, +and to everybody else, she appeared to be perfectly happy in her married +life, it was because she really was so. I implore you to believe this. + +Lillie, who never told even a conventional falsehood, who watched over +her children like an old-fashioned mother, careful of what they read and +what plays they saw, how could she have carried on, unknown to you and +to them, an intrigue with another man? Impossible, impossible, dear +Professor! I do not say that your ears played you false as to the words +she spoke, but you must have put a wrong interpretation upon them. + +Not once, but thousands of times, Lillie has spoken to me about you. She +loved and honoured you. You were her ideal as man, husband, and father. +She was proud of you. Having no personal vanity or ambition, like so +many good women, her pride and hopes were all centred in you. + +She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your operations; +and I need hardly remind you how carefully she followed your work. She +studied Latin in order to understand your scientific books, while, in +spite of her natural repulsion from the sight of such things, she +attended your anatomy classes and demonstrations. + +When Lillie said, "I love Schlegel, and have loved him for years," her +words did not mean "And all that time my love for you was extinct." + +No, Lillie cared for Schlegel and for you too. The whole question is so +simple, and at the same time so complicated. + +Probably you are saying to yourself: "A woman must love one man or the +other." With some show of reason, you will argue: "In leaving my house, +at any rate, she proved at the moment that Schlegel alone claimed her +affection." + +Nevertheless I maintain that you are wrong. + +Lillie showed every sign of a sane, well-balanced nature. Well, her +famous equability and calm deceived us all. Behind this serene exterior +was concealed the most feminine of all feminine qualities--a fanciful, +visionary imagination. + +Do you or I know anything about her first girlish dreams? Have you--in +spite of your happy life together--ever really understood her innermost +soul? Forgive my doubts, but I do not think you have. When a man +possesses a woman as completely as you possessed Lillie, he thinks +himself quite safe. You never knew a moment's doubt, or supposed it +possible that, having you, she could wish for anything else. You +believed that you fulfilled all her requirements. + +How do you know that for years past Lillie has not felt some longings +and deficiencies in her inner life of which she was barely conscious, or +which she did not understand? + +You are not only a clever and capable man; you are kind, and an +entertaining companion; in short, you have many good qualities which +Lillie exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical. You +are, in fact, rather prosaic, and only believe what you see. Your +judgments and views are not hasty, but just and decisive. + +Now contrast all this with Lillie's immense indulgence. Whence did she +derive this if not from a sympathetic understanding of things which we +do not possess? You remember how we used to laugh when she defended some +criminal who was quite beyond defence and apology! Something intense and +far-seeking came into her expression on those occasions, and her heart +prompted some line of argument which reason could not support. + +She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing us, cold and sceptical +people. + +But how she must have suffered! + +Then recollect the pleasure it gave her to discuss religious and +philosophical questions. She was not "religious" in the common +acceptation of the word. But she liked to get to the bottom of things, +and to use her imagination. We others were indifferent, or frankly +bored, by such matters. + +And Lillie, who was so gentle and lacking in self-assertion, gave way to +us. + +Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She felt a physical pang to see +cut flowers with their stalks out of water. Once I saw her buy up the +whole stock-in-trade of a flower-girl, because the poor things wanted +water. Neither you nor your children have any love of flowers. You, as a +doctor, are inclined to think it unhealthy to have plants in your rooms; +consequently there were none, and Lillie never grumbled about it. + +Lillie did not care for modern music. Cesar Franck bored her, and Wagner +gave her a headache. Her favourite instrument was an old harpsichord, on +which she played Mozart, while her daughters thundered out Liszt and +Rubinstein upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good +humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune. + +Finally, Lillie liked quiet, musical speech, and she was surrounded by +people who talked at the top of their voices. + +"Absurd trifles," I can hear you saying. Perhaps. But they explain the +fact that although she was happy in a way, she still had many +aspirations which were not only unsatisfied, but which, without meaning +it unkindly, you daily managed to crush. + +Lillie never blamed others. When she found that you did not understand +the things she cared for, she immediately tried to think she was in the +wrong, and her well-balanced nature helped her to conquer her own +predilections. + +She was happy because she willed to be happy. Once and for all she had +made up her mind that she was the luckiest woman in existence; happy in +every respect; and she was deeply grateful to you. + +But in the depths of her heart--so deeply buried that perhaps it never +rose to the surface even in the form of a dream--lay that secret +something which led to the present misfortune. + +I know nothing of her relations with Schlegel, but I think I may venture +to say that they were chiefly limited to intercourse of the soul; and +for that reason they were so fatal. + +Have you ever observed the sound of Schlegel's voice? He spoke slowly +and so softly; I can quite believe it attracted your wife in the +beginning; and that afterwards, gradually, and almost imperceptibly, she +gravitated towards him. He possessed so many qualities that she admired +and missed. + +The man is now at death's door, and can never explain to us what passed +between them--even admitting that there was anything blameworthy. As far +as I know, Schlegel was quite infatuated with a totally different woman. +Had he really been in love with Lillie, would he have been contented +with a few words and an occasional pressure of her hand? Therefore, +since it is out of the question that your wife can have been unfaithful +to you, I am inclined to think that Schlegel knew nothing of her +feelings for him. + +You will reply that in that case it must all be gross exaggeration on +Lillie's part. But you, being a man, cannot understand how little +satisfies a woman when her love is great enough. + +Why, then, has Lillie left you, and why does she refuse to give you an +explanation? Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions? + +I will tell you: Lillie is in love with two men at the same time. Their +different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character. +If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby +losing all his faculties, Lillie would have remained with you and +continued to be a model wife and mother. In the same way, had you been +the victim of the accident, she would have clean forgotten Schlegel, and +would have lived and breathed for you alone. + +But fate decreed that the misfortune should be his. + +Lillie had not sufficient strength to fight the first, sharp anguish. +She was bewildered by the shock, and felt herself suddenly in a false +position. The love on which her imagination had been feeding seemed to +her at the moment the true one. She felt she was betraying you, +Schlegel, and herself; and since self-sacrifice has become the law of +her existence, she was prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her +love. + +As to you, Professor Rothe, you have acted very foolishly. You have +done just what any average, conventional man would have done. Your +injured vanity silenced the voice of your heart. + +You had the choice of two alternatives: either Lillie was mad, or she +was responsible for her actions. You were convinced that she was quite +sane and was playing you false in cold blood. She wished to leave you; +then let her go. What becomes of her is nothing to you; you wash your +hands of her henceforth. + +You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your +confidence. How could you have found it in your heart to do this, +instead of putting them off with any explanation rather than the true +one! + +Lillie knew you better than I supposed. She knew that behind your +apparent kindness there lurked a cold and self-satisfied nature. She +understood that she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your +house the moment you discovered that she had a thought or a sentiment +that was not subordinated to your will. + +You have let her go, believing that she had been playing a pretty part +behind your back, and that I was her confidante, and perhaps also the +instigator of her wicked deeds. + +Lillie has taken refuge with her children's old nurse. + +How significant! Lillie, who has as many friends as either of us, knows +by a subtle instinct that none of them would befriend her in her +misfortune. + +If you, Professor, were a large-hearted man, what would you do? You +would explain to the chief doctor at the infirmary Lillie's great wish +to remain near Schlegel until the end comes. + +Weigh what I am saying well. Lillie is, and will always remain the same. +She loves you, and such a line of conduct on your part would fill her +with grateful joy. What does it matter if during the few days or weeks +that she is with this poor condemned man, who can neither recognize her, +nor speak, nor make the least movement, you have to put up with some +inconvenience? + +If Lillie had your consent to be near Schlegel, she would certainly not +refuse to return to her wifely duties as soon as he was dead. It is +possible that at first she might not be able to hide her grief from you; +then it would be your task to help her win back her peace of mind. + +I know something of Schlegel; during the last few years I have seen a +good deal of him. Without being a remarkable personality, there was +something about him that attracted women. They attributed to him all the +qualities which belonged to the heroes of their dreams. Do you +understand me? I can believe that a woman who admired strength and +manliness might see in Schlegel a type of firm, inflexible manhood; +while a woman attracted by tenderness might equally think him capable of +the most yielding gentleness. The secret probably lay in the fact that +this man, who knew so many women, possessed the rare faculty of taking +each one according to her temperament. + +Schlegel was a living man; but had he been a portrait, or character in +a novel, Lillie would have fallen in love with him just the same, +because her love was purely of the imagination. + +You must do what you please. But one thing I want you to understand: if +you are not going to act in the matter, I shall do so. I willingly +confess that I am a selfish woman; but I am very fond of Lillie, and if +you abandon her in this cruel and clumsy way, I shall have her to live +with me here, and I shall do my best to console her for the loss of an +ungrateful husband and a pack of stupid, indifferent children. + +One word more before I finish my letter. Lillie, as far as I can +recollect, is a year older than I am. Could you not--woman's specialist +as you are--have found some explanation in this fact? Had Lillie been +fifty-five or thirty-five, all this would never have happened. I do not +care for strangers to look into my personal affairs, and although you +are my cousin's husband you are practically a stranger to me. +Nevertheless I may remind you that women at our time of life pass +through critical moments, as I know by my daily experiences. The letter +which I have written to you in a cool reasoning spirit might have been +impossible a week or two ago. I should probably have reeled off pages of +incoherent abuse. + +Show Lillie that your pretended love was not selfishness pure and +simple. + + With kind greetings, + Yours sincerely, + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +P.S.--I would rather not answer your personal attacks. I could not have +acted differently and I regret nothing. + + * * * * * + +To-morrow morning I will get rid of that gardener without fail. + +An extra month's wages and money for his journey--whatever is +necessary--so long as he goes. + +I wish to sleep in peace and to feel sure that my house is safely locked +up, and I cannot sleep a wink so long as I know he comes to see Torp. + +That my cook should have a man in does not shock me, but it annoys me. +It makes me think of things I wish to forget. + +I seem to hear them laughing and giggling downstairs. + +Madness! I could not really hear anything that was going on in the +basement. The birds were restless, because the night is too light to let +them sleep. The sea gleams under the silver dome of the moonlit sky. + +What is that?... Ah! Miss Jeanne going towards the forest. + +Her head looks like one of those beautiful red fungi that grow among the +fir-trees. + +If the gardener had chosen _her_.... But Torp! + +I should like to go wandering out into the woods and leave the house to +those two creatures in the basement. But if I happened to meet Jeanne, +what explanation could I give? + +It would be too ridiculous for both of us to be straying about in the +forest, because Torp was entertaining a sweetheart in the basement! + +Doors and windows are wide open, and they are two floors below me, and +yet I seem to smell the sour, disgusting odour of that man. Is it +hysteria?... + +No. I cannot sleep, and it is four in the morning. The sunrise is a +glorious sight provided one is really in the mood to enjoy it. But at +the present moment I should prefer the blackest night.... + +There he goes! Sneaking away like a thief. Not once does he look back; +and yet I am sure the hateful female is standing at the door, waving to +him and kissing her hand.... + +But what is the matter with Jeanne? Poor girl, she has hidden behind a +tree. She does not want to be seen by him; and she is quite right, it +would be paying the boor too great an honour. + + * * * * * + +Merely to watch Richard eating was--or rather it became--a daily +torture. He handled his knife and fork with the utmost refinement. Yet I +would have given anything if he would have occasionally put his elbows +on the table, or bitten into an unpeeled apple, or smacked his lips.... +Imagine Richard smacking his lips! + +His manners at table were invariably correct. + +I shall never forget the look of tender reproach he once cast upon me +when I tore open a letter with my fingers, instead of waiting until he +had passed me the paper-knife. Probably it got upon his nerves in the +same way that he got upon mine when he contemplated himself in the +looking-glass. + +A spot upon the table-cloth annoyed and distracted him. He said nothing, +but all the time he eyed the mark as though it was left from a +murderer's track. + +His mania for tidiness often forced me, against my nature, to a +counteracting negligence. I intentionally disarranged the bookshelves in +the library; but he would follow me five minutes afterwards and put +everything in its place again. + +Yet had I really cared for him, this fussiness would have been an added +charm in my eyes. + +Was Richard always faithful to me? Or, if not, did he derive any +pleasure from his lapses? Naturally enough he must have had many +temptations; and although I, as a mere woman, was hindered by a thousand +conventional reasons, he had opportunities and reasonable excuses for +taking what was offered him. + +And probably he did not lose his chances; at any rate when he was away +for long together on business. But I am convinced that his infidelities +were a sort of indirect homage to his lawful wife, and that he did not +derive much satisfaction from them. I am not afraid of being compared +with other women. + +After all, my good Richard may have remained absolutely true to me, +thanks to his mania for having all things in order. + +I am almost sorry that I never caught him in some disgraceful +infidelity. Discovery, confession, scenes, sighs, and tears! Who knows +but what it might have been a very good thing for us? The certainty of +his unceasing attentions to me was rather tame; and he did not gain much +by it in the long run, poor man. + +The only time I ever remember to have felt jealous it was not a +pleasant sensation, although I am sure there were no real grounds for +it. It was brought about by his suggestion that we should invite Edith +to go to Monaco with us. Richard went as white as a sheet when I asked +him whether my society no longer sufficed for him.... + +I cannot understand how any grown-up man can take a girl of seventeen +seriously. They irritate me beyond measure. + + * * * * * + +Malthe has come back from Vienna, they tell me. I did not know he had +been to Vienna. I thought all this time he had been at Copenhagen. + +It is strange how this news has upset me. What does it matter where he +lives? + +If he were ten years younger, or I ten years older, I might have adopted +him. It would not be the first time that a middle-aged woman has +replaced her lap-dog in that way. Then I should have found him a +suitable wife! I should have surrounded myself by a swarm of pretty +girls and chosen the pick of the bunch for him. What a fascinating +prospect! + + * * * * * + +I have never made a fool of myself, and I am not likely to begin now. + + * * * * * + +I begin to meet people in the forest--_my_ forest. They gather flowers +and break branches, and I feel as though they were robbing me. If only I +could forbid people to walk in the forest and to boat on The Sound! + +It is quite bad enough to have the gardener prowling about in my garden. +He is all over the place. The garden seems to have shrunk since he came. +And yet, in spite of myself, I often stand watching the man when he is +digging. He has such muscular strength and uses it so skilfully. He puts +on very humble airs in my presence, but his insolent eyes take in +everything. + +Torp wears herself out evolving tasty dishes for him, and in return he +plays cards with her. + +Jeanne avoids him. She literally picks up her skirts when she has to go +past him. I like to see her do this. + + * * * * * + +This morning Jeanne and I laughed like two children. I was standing on +the shore looking at the sea, and said absent-mindedly: + +"It must be splendid bathing here." + +Jeanne replied: + +"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut." + +And I, still absent-minded, murmured: + +"Yes, if we had a bathing-hut." + +Suddenly we went off into fits of laughter. We could not stop ourselves. + +Now Jeanne has gone hunting for workmen. We will make them work by the +piece, otherwise they will never finish the job. I had some experience +this autumn with the youth who was paid by the day to chop wood for us. + +When the hut is built I will bathe every day in the sunshine. + + * * * * * + +They are both master-carpenters, and seem to be very good friends. +Jeanne and I lie in the boat and watch them, and stimulate them with +beer from time to time. But it does not seem to have much effect. One +has a wife and twelve children who are starving. When they have starved +for a while, they take to begging. The man sings like a lark. He has +spent two years in America, but he assures me it is "all tommy-rot" the +way they work like steam-engines there. Consequently he soon returned to +his native land. + +"Denmark," he says, "is such a nice little country, and all this water +and the forests make it so pretty...." + +Jeanne and I laugh at all this and amuse ourselves royally. + +The day before yesterday neither of the men appeared. A child had died +on the island, and one of them, who is also a coffin-maker, had to +supply a coffin. This seemed a reasonable excuse. But when I inquired +whether the coffin was finished, he replied: + +"I bought one ready-made in the town ... saved me a lot of bother, that +did." + +His friend and colleague had been to the town with him to help him in +his choice! + +The water is clear and the sands are white and firm. I am longing to try +the bathing. Jeanne, who rows well, volunteered to take me out in the +boat. But to bathe from the boat and near these men! I would rather +wait! + + * * * * * + +Full moon. In the far distance boats go by with their white sails. They +glide through the dusk like swans on a lake. The silence is so intense +that I can hear when a fish rises or a bird stirs in its nest. The scent +of the red roses that blossomed yesterday ascends to my window here.... + +Joergen Malthe.... + +When I write his name it is as though I gave him one of those caressing +touches for which my fingers yearn and quiver.... + +Yes, a dip in the sea will calm me. + +I will undress in the house and wrap myself in my dressing-gown. Then I +can slip through the pine-trees unseen.... + + * * * * * + +It was glorious, glorious! What do I want a bathing-hut for? I go into +the sea straight from my own garden, and the sand is soft and firm to my +feet like the pine-needles under the trees. + +The sea is phosphorescent; I seemed to be dipping my arms in liquid +silver. I longed to splash about and make sparkles all around me. But I +was very cautious. I swam only as far as the stakes to which the +fishermen fasten their nets. The moon seemed to be suspended just over +my head. + +I thought of Malthe. + +Ah, for one night! Just one night! + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has given me warning. I asked her why she wished to leave. She +only shook her head and made no answer. She was very pale; I did not +like to force her to speak. + +It will be very difficult to replace her. On the other hand, how can I +keep her if she has made up her mind to go? Wages are no attraction to +her. If I only knew what she wanted. I have not inquired where she is +going. + + * * * * * + +Ah, now I understand! It is the restlessness of the senses. She wants +more life than she can get on this island. She knows I see through her, +and casts her eyes downward when I look at her. + + + + +JOERGEN MALTHE, + +You are the only man I ever loved. And now, by means of this letter, I +am digging a fathomless pit between us. I am not the woman you thought +me; and my true self you could never love. + +I am like a criminal who has had recourse to every deceit to avoid +confession, but whose strength gives way at last under the pressure of +threats and torture, and who finds unspeakable relief in declaring his +guilt. + +Joergen Malthe, I have loved you for the last ten years; as long, in +fact, as you have loved me. I lied to you when I denied it; but my heart +has been faithful all through. + +Had I remained any longer in Richard's house, I should have come to you +one day and asked you to let me be your mistress. Not your wife. Do not +contradict me. I am the stronger and wiser of the two. + +To escape from this risk I ran away. I fled from my love--I fled, too, +from my age. I am now forty-three, you know it well, and you are only +thirty-five. + +By this voluntary renunciation, I hoped to escape the curse that +advancing age brings to most women. Alas! This year has taught me that +we can neither deceive nor escape our destiny, since we carry it in our +hearts and temperaments. + +Here I am, and here I shall remain, until I have grown to be quite an +old woman. Therefore, it is very foolish of me to pour out this +confession to you, for it cannot be otherwise than painful reading. But +I shall have no peace of mind until it is done. + +My life has been poor. I have consumed my own heart. + + * * * * * + +As far as I am aware, my father, a widower, was a strictly honourable +man. Misfortune befell him, and his whole life was ruined in a moment. +An unexpected audit of the accounts of his firm revealed a deficiency. +My father had temporarily borrowed a small sum to save a friend in a +pressing emergency. Henceforward he was a marked man, at home and +abroad. We left the town where we lived. The retiring pension which was +granted to him in spite of what had happened sufficed for our daily +needs. He lived lost in his disgrace, and I was left entirely to the +care of a maid-servant. From her I gathered that our troubles were in +some way connected with a lack of money; and money became the idol of my +life. + +I sometimes buried a coin that had been given me--as a dog buries his +bone. Then I lay awake all night, fearing I should not find it again in +the morning. + +I was sent to school. A classmate said to me one day: + +"Of course, a prince will marry you, for you are the prettiest girl +here." + +I carried the words home to the maid, who nodded her approval. + +"That's true enough," she said. "A pretty face is worth a pocketful of +gold." + +"Can one sell a pretty face, then?" I asked. + +"Yes, child, to the highest bidder," she replied, laughing. + +From that moment I entered upon the accursed cult of my person which +absorbed the rest of my childhood and all my first youth. To become rich +was henceforth my one and only aim in life. I believed I possessed the +means of attaining my ends, and the thought of money was like a poison +working in my blood. + +At school I was diligent and obedient, for I soon saw it paid best in +the long run. I was delighted to see that I attracted the attention of +the masters and mistresses, simply because of my good looks. I took in +and pondered over every word of praise that concerned my appearance. But +I put on airs of modesty, and no one guessed what went on within me. + +I avoided the sun lest I should get freckles. I collected rain-water for +washing. I slept in gloves; and though I adored sweets, I refrained from +eating them on account of my teeth. I spent hours brushing my hair. + +At home there was only one looking-glass. It was in my father's room, +which I seldom entered, and was hung too high for me to use. In my +pocket-mirror I could only see one eye at a time. But I had so much +self-control that I resisted the temptation to stop and look at my +reflection in the shop windows on my way to and from school. + +I was surprised when I came home one day to find that the large mirror +in its gold frame had been given over to me by my father and was hanging +in my room. I made myself quite ill with excitement, and the maid had to +put me to bed. But later on, when the house was quiet, I got up and lit +my lamp. Then I spent hours gazing at my own reflection in the glass. + +Henceforth the mirror became my confidant. It procured me the one +happiness of my childhood. When I was indoors I passed most of my time +practising smiles, and forming my expression. I was seized with terror +lest I should lose the gift that was worth "a pocketful of gold." + +I avoided the wild and noisy games of other girls for fear of getting +scratched. Once, however, I was playing with some of my school friends +in a courtyard. We were swinging on the shafts of a cart when I fell and +ran a nail into my cheek. The pain was nothing compared to the thought +of a permanent mark. I was depressed for months, until one day I heard a +teacher say that the mark was all but gone--a mere beauty spot. + +When I sat before the looking-glass, I only thought of the future. +Childhood seemed to me a long, tiresome journey that must be got through +before I reached the goal of riches, which to me meant happiness. + +Our house overlooked the dwelling of the chief magistrate. It was a +white building in the style of a palace, the walls of which were covered +in summer-time with roses and clematis, and to my eyes it was the finest +and most imposing house in the world. + +It was surrounded by park-like grounds with trim lawns and tall trees. +An iron railing with gilded spikes divided it from the common world. + +Sometimes when the gate was standing open I peeped inside. It seemed as +though the house came nearer and nearer to me. I caught a glimpse in +the basement of white-capped serving-maids, which seemed to me the +height of elegance. It was said that the yellow curtains on the ground +floor were pure silk. As to the upstairs rooms, the shutters were +generally closed. These apartments had not been opened since the death +of Herr von Brincken's wife. He rarely entertained. + +Sometimes while I was watching the house, Herr von Brincken would come +riding home accompanied by a groom. He always bowed to me, and +occasionally spoke a few words. One day an idea took possession of me, +with such force that I almost involuntarily exclaimed aloud. My brain +reeled as I said to myself, "Some day I will marry the great man and +live in that house!" + +This ambition occupied my thoughts day and night. Other things seemed +unreal. I discovered by accident that Herr von Brincken often visited +the parents of one of my schoolmates. I took great pains to cultivate +her acquaintance, and we became inseparable. + +Although I was not yet confirmed, I succeeded in getting an invitation +to a party at which Von Brincken was to be present. At that time I +ignored the meaning of love; I had not even felt that vague, gushing +admiration that girls experience at that age. But when at table this man +turned his eyes upon me with a look of astonishment, I felt +uncomfortable, with the kind of discomfort that follows after eating +something unpleasant. Later in the the evening he came and talked to me, +and I managed to draw him on until he asked whether I should like to see +his garden. + +A few days later he called on my father, who was rather bewildered by +this honour, and asked permission to take me to the garden. He treated +me like a grown-up person, and after we had inspected the lawns and +borders, and looked at the ripening bunches in the grape-house, I felt +myself half-way to become mistress of the place. It never occurred to me +that my plans might fall through. + +At the same time it began to dawn upon me that the personality of Von +Brincken, or rather the difference of our ages, inspired me with a kind +of disgust. In spite of his style and good appearance, he had something +of the "elderly gentleman" about him. This feeling possessed me when we +looked over the house. In every direction there were lofty mirrors, and +for the first time in my life I saw myself reflected in full-length--and +by my side an old man. + +This was the beginning. A year later, after I had been confirmed, I was +sent to a finishing school at Geneva at Von Brincken's expense. I had +not the least doubt that he meant to marry me as soon as my education +was completed. + +The other girls at the school were full of spirits and enthusiastic +about the beauties of nature. I was a poor automaton. Neither lakes nor +mountains had any fascination for me. I simply lived in expectation of +the day when the bargain would be concluded. + +When two years later I returned to Denmark, our engagement, which had +been concluded by letter, was made public. His first hesitating kiss +made me shudder; but I compelled myself to stand before the +looking-glass and receive his caresses in imagination without disturbing +my artificially radiant smile. + +Sometimes I noticed that he looked at me in a puzzled kind of way, but +I did not pay much attention to it. The wedding-day was actually fixed +when I received a letter beginning: + + + "MY DEAR ELSIE, + + "I give you back your promise. You do not love me. + + "You do not realize what love is...." + +This letter shattered all my hopes for the future. I could not, and +would not, relinquish my chances of wealth and position. Henceforth I +summoned all my will-power in order to efface the disastrous impression +caused by my attitude. I assured my future husband that what he had +mistaken for want of love was only the natural coyness of my youth. He +was only too ready to believe me. We decided to hasten the marriage, and +his delight knew no bounds. + +One day I went to discuss with him some details of the marriage +settlements. We had champagne at lunch, and I, being quite unused to +wine, became very lively. Life appeared to me in a rosy light. Arm in +arm, we went over the house together. He had ordered all the lights to +be lit. At length we passed through the room that was to be our conjugal +apartment. Misled, no doubt, by my unwonted animation, and perhaps a +little excited himself by the wine he had taken, he forgot his usual +prudent reserve, and embraced me with an ardour he had never yet shown. +His features were distorted with passion, and he inspired me with +repugnance. I tried to respond to his kisses, but my disgust overcame me +and I nearly fainted. When I recovered, I tried to excuse myself on the +ground that the champagne had been too much for me. + +Von Brincken looked long and searchingly at me, and said in a sad and +tired voice, which I shall never forget: + +"Yes, you are right.... Evidently you cannot stand my champagne." + +The following morning two letters were brought from his house. One was +for my father, in which Von Brincken said he felt obliged to break off +the engagement. He was suffering from a heart trouble, and a recent +medical examination had proved to him that he would be guilty of an +unpardonable wrong in marrying a young girl. + +To me he wrote: + +"You will understand why I give a fictitious reason to your father and +to the world in general. I should be committing a moral murder were I to +marry you under the circumstances. My love for you, great as it is, is +not great enough to conquer the instinctive repugnance of your youth." + +Once again he sent me abroad at his own expense. This time, at my own +wish, I went to Paris, where I met a young artist who fell in love with +me. Had I not, in the saddest way, ruled out of my life everything that +might interfere with my ambitious projects, I could have returned his +passion. But he was poor; and about the same time I met Richard. I +cheated myself, and betrayed my first love, which might have saved me, +and changed me from an automaton into a living being. + +Under the eyes of the man who had stirred my first real emotions, I +proceeded to draw Richard on. My first misfortune taught me wisdom. This +time I had no intention of letting all my plans be shattered. + +When I look back on that time, I see that my worst sin was not so much +my resolve to sell myself for money, as my aptitude for playing the +contemptible comedy of pretended love for days and months and years. I, +who only felt a kind of indifference for Richard, which sometimes +deepened into disgust, pretended to be moved by genuine passion. Yes, I +have paid dearly, very dearly, for my golden cage in the Old Market. + +Richard is not to blame. He could not have suspected the truth.... + +It is so fatally easy for a woman to simulate love. Every intelligent +woman knows by infallible instinct what the man who loves her really +wants in return. The woman of ardent temperament knows how to appear +reserved with a lover who is not too emotional; while a cold woman can +assume a passionate air when necessary. + +I, Joergen, I, who for years cared for no one but myself, have left +Richard firmly convinced to this day that I was greedy of his caresses. + +You are an honest man, and what I have been telling you will come as a +shock. You will not understand it, or me. + +Yet I think that you, too, must have known and possessed women without +loving them. But that is not the same. If it were, my guilt would be +less. + +I allowed my senses to be inflamed, while my mind remained cold, and my +heart contracted with disgust. I consciously profaned the sacred words +of love by applying them to a man whom I chose for his money. + +Meanwhile I developed into the frivolous society woman everybody took me +to be. Every woman wears the mask which best suits her purpose. My mask +was my smile. I did not wish others to see through me. Sometimes, during +a sudden silence, I have caught the echo of my own laugh--that laugh in +which you, too, delighted--and hearing it I have shuddered. + +No! That is not quite true. I was a different woman with you. A real, +living creature lived and breathed behind the mask. You taught me to +live. You looked into my eyes, and heard my real laughter. + +How many hours we spent together, Joergen, you and I! But we did not +talk much; we never came to the exchange of ideas. I hardly remember +anything you ever said; although I often try to recall your words. How +did we pass the happy time together? + +You are the only man I ever loved. + +When we first got to know each other you were five-and-twenty. So +young--and I was eight years your senior. We fell in love with each +other at once. + +You had no idea that I cared for you. + +From that moment I was a changed woman. Not better perhaps, but quite +different. A thousand new feelings awoke in me; I saw, heard, and felt +in an entirely new way. All humanity assumed a new aspect. I, who had +hitherto been so indifferent to the weal or woe of my fellow-creatures, +began to observe and to understand them. I became sympathetic. Towards +women--not towards men. I do not understand the male sex, and this must +be my excuse for the way in which I have so often treated men. For me +there was, and is, only one man in the world: Joergen Malthe. + +At first I never gave a thought to the difference in our ages. We were +both young then. But you were poor. No one, least of all myself, guessed +that you carried a field-marshal's baton in your knapsack. Money had not +brought me happiness; but poverty still seemed to me the greatest +misfortune that could befall any human being. + +Then you received your first important commission, and I ventured to +dream dreams for us both. I never dreamt of fame and honour; what did I +care whether you carried out the restoration of the cathedral or not? +The pleasure I showed in your talent I did not really feel. It was not +to the man as artist, but as lover, that my heart went out. + +Later, you had a brilliant future before you; one day you would make an +income sufficient for us both. But you seemed so utterly indifferent to +money that I was disappointed. My dreams died out like a fire for want +of fuel. + +Had you proposed that I should become your mistress, no power on earth +would have held me back. But you were too honourable even to cherish the +thought. Besides, I let you suppose I was attached to my husband.... + +I knew well enough that the moment you became aware of my feelings for +you, you would leave no stone unturned until you could legitimately +claim me as your wife.... Such is your nature, Joergen Malthe! + +So I let happiness go by. + + * * * * * + +Two years ago Von Brincken died, leaving me a considerable share of his +fortune--- and a letter, written on the night of the day when we last +met. + +I might then have left Richard. Your constancy would have been a +sufficient guarantee for my future. + +A mere accident destroyed my illusions. A friend of my own age had +recently married an officer much younger than herself. At the end of a +year's happiness he left her; and society, far from pitying her, laughed +at her plight. + +This drove me to make my supreme resolve--to abandon, and flee from, the +one love of my life. + +Joergen, I owe you the best hours I have known: those hours in which you +showed me the plans for the "White Villa." + +I feel a bitter, yet unspeakable joy when I think that you yourself +built the walls within which I am living in solitary confinement. + +Once I longed for you with a consuming ardour. + +Now, alas, I am but a pile of burnt-out ashes. The winds of heaven have +dispersed my dreams. + +I go on living because it is not in my nature to do away with myself. I +live, and shall continue to live. + +If only you knew what goes on within me, and how low I have sunk that I +can write this confession! + +There are thoughts that a woman can never reveal to the man she +loves--even if her own life and his were at stake.... + +It is night. The stars are bright overhead. Joergen Malthe, why have I +written all this to you?... What do I really want of you?... + + * * * * * + +No, no!... never in this world.... + +You shall never read this letter. Never, never! What need you know more +than that I love you? I love you! I love you! + +I will write to you again, calmly, humbly, and tell you the simple +truth: I was afraid of the future, and of the time when you would cease +to love me. That is what I fled from. + +I still fear the future, and the time when you will love me no more. But +all my powers of resistance are shattered by this one truth: _I love_. +For the first and only time in my life. Therefore I implore you to come +to me; but now, at once. Do not wait a week or a month. My lime trees +are fragrant with blossom. I want you, Joergen, now, while the limes +are flowering. Then, what you ask of me shall be done. + +If you want me for a wife, I will follow you as the women of old +followed their lords and masters, in joyful submission. But if you only +care to have me for a time, I will prepare the house for my desired +guest. + +Whatever you decide to do will be such an immense joy that I tremble +lest anything should happen to hinder its fulfilment.... + +Then let the years go by! Then let age come to me! + +I shall have sown so many memories of you and happiness that I shall +have henceforth a forest of glad thoughts, wherein to wander and take my +rest till Death comes to claim me. + +The sun is flashing on the window-panes; the sunbeams seem to be weaving +threads of joy in rainbow tints. + +You child! How I love you!... + +Come to me and stay with me--or go when we have had our hour of delight. + + * * * * * + +The letter has gone. Jeanne has rowed to the town with it. + +She looked searchingly at me when I gave it to her and told her to hurry +so that she should not lose the evening post. Both of us had tears in +our eyes. + +I will never part with Jeanne. Her place is with me--and with him. I +stood at the window and watched her pull away in the little white boat. +She pulled so hard at the oars. If only she is strong enough to keep it +up.... It is a long way to the town. + +Never has the evening been so calm. Everything seems folded in rest and +silence. There lies a majesty on sky and earth. I wandered at random in +the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed to feel the ground beneath my +feet. The flowers smell so sweet, and I am so deeply moved. + +How can I sleep! I feel I must remain awake until my letter is in his +hands. + +Now it is speeding to him through the quiet night. The letter yearns +towards him as I do myself. + +I am young again.... Yes, young, young!... How blue is the night! Not a +single light is visible at sea. + +If this were my last night on earth I would not complain. I feel my +happiness drawing so near that my heart seems to open and drink in the +night, as thirsty plants drink up the dew. + +All that was has ceased to be. I am Elsie Bugge once more, and stand on +the threshold of life in all its expanse and beauty. + + * * * * * + +He is coming.... + +He will come by the morning train. It seems too soon. + +Why did he not wait a day or two? I want time to collect myself. There +is so much to do.... + +How my hands tremble! + + * * * * * + +I carry his telegram next my heart. Now I feel quite calm. Why will +Jeanne insist on my going to bed? I am not ill. + +She says it is useless to arrange the flowers in the vases to-night, +they will be faded by to-morrow. But can I rely on Torp's seeing that we +have enough food in the house? My head is swimming.... The grass wants +mowing, and the hedge must be cut.... Ah! What a fool I am! As though he +would notice the lawn and the hedge!... + +Jeanne asks, "Where will the gentleman sleep?" I cannot answer the +question. I see she is getting the little room upstairs ready for him. +The one that has most sun. + + * * * * * + +Has Jeanne read my thoughts? She proposes to sleep downstairs with Torp +so long as I have "company." + + * * * * * + +I have begun a long letter to Richard, and that has passed the time so +well. I wish he could find some dear little creature who would sweeten +life for him. He is a good soul. During the last few days I seem to have +started a kind of affection for him. + +We will travel a great deal, Joergen and I. Hitherto I have seen +nothing on my many trips abroad. Joergen must show me the world. We will +visit all the places he once went to alone. + +Now I understand the doubting apostle Thomas. Until my eyes behold I +dare not believe. + +Joergen has such a big powerful head! I sometimes feel as though I were +clasping it with both my hands. + + * * * * * + +Torp suggests that to-morrow we should have the same _menu_ that she +prepared when the "State Councillor" entertained Prince Waldemar. Well! +Provided she can get all she wants for her creations! She can amuse +herself at the telegraph office as far as I am concerned. I am willing +to help her; at any rate, I can stir the mayonnaise. + + * * * * * + +How stupid of me to have given Lillie my tortoiseshell combs! How can I +ask to have them back without seeming rude? Joergen was used to them; +he will miss them at once. + +I have had out all my dresses, but I cannot make up my mind what to +wear. I cannot appear in the morning in a dinner dress, and a white +frock--at my age!... After all, why not?... The white embroidered +one ... it fits beautifully. I have never worn it since Joergen's last +visit to us in the country. It has got a little yellow from lying by, +but he will never notice it. + + * * * * * + +To-night _I will_ sleep--sleep like a top. Then I shall wake, take my +bath, and go for a long walk. When I come home, I will sit in the garden +and watch until the white boat appears in the distance. + + * * * * * + +I had to take a dose of veronal, but I managed to sleep round the clock, +from 9. P.M. to 9. A.M. The gardener has gone off in the boat; and I +have two hours in which to dress. + +What is the matter with me? Now that my happiness is so close at hand, +I feel strangely depressed. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne advises a little rouge. No! Joergen loves me just as I am.... + + * * * * * + +How he will laugh at me when he hears that I cried because I cannot get +into the white embroidered dress nowadays! It is my own fault; I eat too +much and do not take enough exercise. + +I put on another white dress, but I am very disappointed, for it does +not suit me nearly as well. + + * * * * * + +I see the boat.... + + * * * * * + + + + + TWO DAYS LATER. + +He came by the morning train, and left the same evening. That was the +day before yesterday, and I have never slept since. Neither have I +thought. There is time enough before me for thought. + +He went away the same evening; so at least I was spared the night. + +I have burnt his letter unread. What could it tell me that I did not +already know? Could it hold any torture which I have not already +suffered? + +Do I really suffer? Have I not really become insensible to pain? Once +the cold moon was a burning sun; her own central fires consumed it. Now +she is cold and dead; her light a mere reflection and a falsehood. + + * * * * * + +His first glance told me all. He cast down his eyes so that he might not +hurt me again. ... And I--coward that I was--I accepted without +interrupting him the tender words he spoke, and even his caress.... + +But when our eyes met a second time we both knew that all was at an end +between us. + +One reads of "tears of blood." During the few hours he spent in my house +I think we smiled "smiles of blood." + +When we sat opposite to each other at table, we might have been sitting +each side a deathbed. We only attempted to speak when Jeanne was waiting +at table. + +When we parted, he said: + +"I feel like the worst of criminals!" + +He has not committed a crime. He loved me once, now he no longer loves +me. That is all. + + * * * * * + +But after what has happened I cannot remain here. Everything will remind +me of my hours of joyful waiting; of my hours of failure and abasement. + +Where can I go to hide my shame? + + * * * * * + +Richard.... + + * * * * * + +Would that be too humiliating? Why should it be? Did I not give him my +promise: "If I should ever regret my resolution," I said to him. + + * * * * * + +I will write to him, but first I must gather up my strength again. +Jeanne goes long walks with me. We do not talk to each other, but it +comforts me to find her so faithful. + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAR RICHARD, + +It is a long time since I wrote to you, but neither have you been quite +so zealous a correspondent this summer, so it is tit for tat. + +I often think of you, and wonder how you are really getting on in your +solitude. Whether you have been living in the country and going up to +town daily? Or if, like most of the "devoted husbands," you still only +run down to the cottage for week-ends? + +If I were not absolutely free from jealousy, in any form, I should envy +you your new car. This neighbourhood is charming, but to explore it in a +hired carriage, lined with dirty velvet, does not attract me. Now, dear +friend, don't go and send off car and chauffeur post-haste to me. That +would be like your good nature. But, of course, I am only joking. + +Send me all the news of the town. I read the papers diligently, but +there are items of interest which do not appear in the papers! Above +all, tell me how things are going with Lillie. Will she soon be coming +home? Do you think her conduct was much talked of outside her own +circle? People chatter, but they soon forget. + +Homes for nervous cases are all very well in their way; but I think our +good Hermann Rothe went to extremes when he sent her to one. He is +furious with me, because I told him what I thought in plain words. +Naturally he did not in the least understand what I was driving at. But +I think I made him see that Lillie had never been faithless to him in +the physiological meaning of the word--and that is all that matters to +men of his stamp. + +I am convinced that Lillie would not have suffered half so much if she +had really been unfaithful in the ordinary sense. + +But to return to me and my affairs. + +You cannot imagine what a wonderful business-woman the world has lost in +me. Not only have I made both ends meet--I, who used to dread my +Christmas bills--but I have so much to the good in solid coin of the +realm that I could fill a dozen pairs of stockings. And I keep my +accounts--think of that, Richard! Every Monday morning Torp appears with +her slate and account-book, and they must balance to a farthing. + +I bathe once or twice a day from my cosey little hut at the end of the +garden, and in the evening I row about in my little white boat. +Everything here is so neat and refined that I am sure your fastidious +soul would rejoice to see it. Here I never bring in any mud on my shoes, +as I used to do in the country, to your everlasting worry. And here the +books are arranged tidily in proper order on the shelves. You would not +be able to find a speck of dust on the furniture. + +Of course the gardener from Frijsenborg, about whom I have already told +you, is now courting Torp, and I am expecting an invitation to the +wedding one of these next days. Otherwise he is very competent, and my +vegetables are beyond criticism. + +Personally, I should have liked to rear chickens, but Torp is so +afflicted at the idea of poultry-fleas that she implored me not to keep +fowls. Now we get them from the schoolmaster who cannot supply us with +all we want. + +I have an idea which will please you, Richard. + +What if you paid me a short visit? Without committing either of us--you +understand? Just a brief, friendly meeting to refresh our pleasant and +unpleasant memories? + +I am dying for somebody to speak to, and who could I ask better than +yourself? + +But, just to please me, come without saying a word to anyone. Nobody +need know that you are on a visit to your former wife, need they? We are +free to follow our own fancies, but there is no need to set people +gossiping. + +Who knows whether the time may not come when I may take my revenge and +keep the promise I made you the last evening we spent together? When two +people have lived together as long as we have, separation is a mere +figure of speech. People do not separate after twenty-two years of +married life, even if each goes a different road for a time. + +But why talk of the future. The present concerns us more nearly, and +interests me far more. + +Come, then, dear friend, and I will give you such a welcome that you +will not regret the journey. + + * * * * * + +Joergen Malthe paid me a flying visit last week. Business brought him +into the neighbourhood, and he called unexpectedly and spent an hour +with me. + +I must say he has altered, and not for the better. + +I hope he will not wear himself out prematurely with all his work. + +If you should see him, do not say I mentioned his visit. It was rather +painful. He was shy, and I, too, was nervous. One cannot spend a whole +year alone on an island without feeling bewildered by the sudden +apparition of a fellow-creature.... + +Tell your chauffeur to get the car ready. Should you find the +neighbourhood very fascinating, you could always telegraph to him to +bring it at once. + +If the manufactory, or any other plans, prevent your coming, send me a +few lines. Till we meet, + + Your ELSIE, + +who perhaps after all is not suited to a hermit's life. + + * * * * * + +So he has dared!... + +So all his passion, and his grief at parting, were purely a part that he +played!... Who knows? Perhaps he was really glad to get rid of me.... + +Ah, but this scorn and contempt!... + +Elsie Lindtner, do you realise that in the same year, the same month, +you have offered yourself to two men in succession and both have +declined the honour? Luckily there is no one else to whom you can abase +yourself. + +One of these days, depend upon it, Richard will eat his heart out with +regret. But then it will be too late, my dear man, too late! + +That he should have dared to replace me by a mere chit of nineteen! + +The whole town must be laughing at him. And I can do nothing.... + +But I am done for. Nothing is left to me, but to efface myself as soon +as possible. I cannot endure the thought of being pitied by anyone, +least of all by Richard. + +How badly I have played my cards! I who thought myself so clever! + +Good heavens! I understand the women who throw vitriol in the face of a +rival. Unhappily I am too refined for such reprisals. + +But if I had her here--whoever she may be--I would crush her with a look +she could never forget. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne has agreed to go with me. + +Nothing remains but to write my letter--and depart! + + * * * * * + + + + +DEAREST RICHARD, + +How your letter amused me, and how delighted I am to hear your +interesting intelligence. You could not have given me better news. In +future I am relieved of all need of sympathetic anxiety about you, and +henceforth I can enjoy my freedom without a qualm, and dispose of life +just as I please. + +Every good wish, dear friend! We must hope that this young person will +make you very happy; but, you know, young girls have their whims and +fancies. Fortunately, you are not only a good-looking man in the prime +of life, but also an uncommonly good match for any woman. The young +girls of the present day are seldom blind to such advantages, and you +will find her devotion very lasting, I have no doubt. + +Who can she be? I have not the least idea. But I admire your +discretion--you have not changed in that respect. In any case, be +prepared, Richard, she will turn the house upside down and your work +will be cut out for you to get it straight again. + +I am sure she bikes; she will probably drop her cigarette ashes into +your best Venetian glasses; she is certain to hate goloshes and long +skirts, and will enjoy rearranging the furniture. Well, she will be able +to have fine times in your spacious, well-ordered establishment! + +I hope at any rate that you will be able to keep her so far within +bounds that she will not venture to chaff you about "number one." Do not +let her think that my taste predominates in the style and decorations of +the house.... + +Dear friend, already I see you pushing the perambulator! Do you remember +the ludicrous incident connected with the fat merchant Bang, who married +late in life and was always called "gran'pa" by his youthful progeny? Of +course, that will not happen in your case--you are a year or two younger +than Bang, so your future family will more probably treat you like a +playfellow. + +You see, I am quite carried away by my surprise and delight. + +If it were the proper thing, I should immensely like to be at the +wedding; but I know you would not allow such a breach of all the +conventions. + +Where are you going for the honeymoon? You might bring her to see me +here occasionally, in the depths of the country, so long as nobody knew. + +One of my first thoughts was: how does she dress? Does she know how to +do her hair? Because, you know, most of the girls in our particular set +have the most weird notions as regards hair-dressing and frocks. + +However, I can rely on the sureness of your taste, and if your wedding +trip takes you to Paris, she will see excellent models to copy. + +Now I understand why your letters got fewer and farther between. How +long has the affair been on hand? Did it begin early in the summer? Or +did you start it in the train between Hoerlsholm and Helsingoer, on your +way to and from the factory? I only ask--you need not really trouble to +answer. + +I can see from your letter that you felt some embarrassment, and +blushed when you wrote it. Every word reveals your state of mind; as +though you were obliged to give some account of yourself to me, or were +afraid I should take your news amiss. I have already drunk to your +happiness all by myself in a glass of champagne. + +You can tell your young lady, if you like. + +Under the circumstances you had better not accept the invitation I gave +you in my last letter; although I would give much to see your good, kind +face, rejuvenated, as it doubtless is, by this new happiness. But it +would not be wise. You know it is harder to catch and to keep a young +girl than a whole sackful of those lively, hopping little creatures +which are my horror. + +Besides, a new idea has occurred to me, and I can hardly find patience +to wait for its realisation. + +Guess, Richard!... I intend to take a trip round the world. I have +already written to Cook's offices, and am eagerly awaiting information +as to tickets, fares, etc. I shall not go alone. I have not courage +enough for that. I will take Jeanne with me. If I cannot manage it out +of my income, I shall break into my capital, even if I have to live on a +pittance hereafter. + +No--do not make any more of your generous offers of help. You must not +give any more money now to "women." Remember that, Richard! + +The White Villa will be shut up during my absence; it cannot take to +itself wings, nor eat its head off during my absence. Probably in future +I shall spend my time between this place and various big towns abroad, +so that I shall only be here in summer. + +At the same time as this letter, I am sending a wedding present for your +new bride. Girls are always crazy about jewellery. I have no further use +for a diadem of brilliants; but you need not tell her where it comes +from. You will recognise it. It was your first overwhelming gift, and on +our wedding day I was so taken up with my new splendour that I never +heard a word of the pastor's sermon. They said it was most eloquent. + +I hope you will have the tact to remove the too numerous portraits of +myself which adorn your walls. Sell them for the benefit of struggling +artists; in that way, they will serve some good purpose, and I shall not +run the risk of being disfigured by my successor. + +If I should come across any pretty china, or fine embroidery, in Japan, +I shall not forget your passion for collecting. + +Let me know the actual date of the wedding, you can always communicate +through my banker. But the announcement will suffice. Do not write. +Henceforth you must devote yourself entirely to your role of young +husband. + +You quite forgot to answer my questions about Lillie, and I conclude +from your silence that all is well with her. + +Give her my love, and accept my affectionate greetings. + + ELSIE LINDTNER. + +P.S.--As yet I cannot grapple with the problem of my future appellation. +I do not feel inclined to return to my maiden name. "Elizabeth Bugge" +makes me think of an overgrown grave in a churchyard. + +Well, you will be neither the first nor the last man with several wives +scattered about the globe. The world may be a small place, but it is +large enough to hold two "Mrs. Lindtners" without any chance of their +running across each other. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dangerous Age, by Karin Michaelis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANGEROUS AGE *** + +***** This file should be named 14187.txt or 14187.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/8/14187/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Audrey Longhurst, Melissa Er-Raqabi +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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