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diff --git a/6765.txt b/6765.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0298857 --- /dev/null +++ b/6765.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3393 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Mogens and Other Stories, by Jens Peter Jacobsen + +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: Mogens and Other Stories + Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss + +Author: Jens Peter Jacobsen + +Translator: Anna Grabow, 1921 + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6765] +Posting Date: April 21, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOGENS AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred + + + + + +MOGENS AND OTHER STORIES + +(1882) + + +By Jens Peter Jacobsen + +(1847-1885) + + +Translated from the Danish By Anna Grabow + +(1921) + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION + + MOGENS + + THE PLAGUE AT BERGAMO + + THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ROSES + + MRS. FONSS + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +In the decade from 1870 to 1880 a new spirit was stirring in the +intellectual and literary world of Denmark. George Brandes was +delivering his lectures on the _Main Currents of Nineteenth Century +Literature_; from Norway came the deeply probing questionings of the +granitic Ibsen; from across the North Sea from England echoes of the +evolutionary theory and Darwinism. It was a time of controversy and +bitterness, of a conflict joined between the old and the new, both going +to extremes, in which nearly every one had a share. How many of the +works of that period are already out-worn, and how old-fashioned the +theories that were then so violently defended and attacked! Too much +logic, too much contention for its own sake, one might say, and too +little art. + +This was the period when Jens Peter Jacobsen began to write, but he +stood aside from the conflict, content to be merely artist, a creator +of beauty and a seeker after truth, eager to bring into the realm of +literature "the eternal laws of nature, its glories, its riddles, its +miracles," as he once put it. That is why his work has retained its +living colors until to-day, without the least trace of fading. + +There is in his work something of the passion for form and style +that one finds in Flaubert and Pater, but where they are often hard, +percussive, like a piano, he is soft and strong and intimate like a +violin on which he plays his reading of life. Such analogies, however, +have little significance, except that they indicate a unique and +powerful artistic personality. + +Jacobsen is more than a mere stylist. The art of writers who are too +consciously that is a sort of decorative representation of life, a +formal composition, not a plastic composition. One element particularly +characteristic of Jacobsen is his accuracy of observation and minuteness +of detail welded with a deep and intimate understanding of the human +heart. His characters are not studied tissue by tissue as under a +scientist's microscope, rather they are built up living cell by living +cell out of the author's experience and imagination. He shows how they +are conditioned and modified by their physical being, their inheritance +and environment, Through each of his senses he lets impressions from +without pour into him. He harmonizes them with a passionate desire for +beauty into marvelously plastic figures and moods. A style which grows +thus organically from within is style out of richness; the other is +style out of poverty. + +In a letter he once stated his belief that every book to be of real +value must embody the struggle of one or more persons against all those +things which try to keep one from existing in one's own way. That is the +fundamental ethos which runs through all of Jacobsen's work. It is in +Marie Grubbe, Niels Lyhne, Mogens, and the infinitely tender Mrs. Fonss. + +They are types of the kind he has described in the following passage: +"Know ye not that there is here in this world a secret confraternity, +which one might call the Company of Melancholiacs? That people there +are who by natural constitution have been given a different nature and +disposition than the others; that have a larger heart and a swifter +blood, that wish and demand more, have stronger desires and a yearning +which is wilder and more ardent than that of the common herd. They are +fleet as children over whose birth good fairies have presided; their +eyes are opened wider; their senses are more subtile in all their +perceptions. The gladness and joy of life, they drink with the roots of +their heart, the while the others merely grasp them with coarse hands." + +He himself was one of these, and in this passage his own art and +personality is described better than could be done in thousands of words +of commentary. + +Jens Peter Jacobsen was born in the little town of Thisted in Jutland, +on April 7, 1847. In 1868 he matriculated at the University of +Copenhagen, where he displayed a remarkable talent for science, winning +the gold medal of the university with a dissertation on Seaweeds. +He definitely chose science as a career, and was among the first in +Scandinavia to recognize the importance of Darwin. He translated +the Origin of Species and Descent of Man into Danish. In 1872 while +collecting plants he contracted tuberculosis, and as a consequence, +was compelled to give up his scientific career. This was not as great +a sacrifice, as it may seem, for he had long been undecided whether to +choose science or literature as his life work. + +The remainder of his short life--he died April 30, 1885--was one of +passionate devotion to literature and a constant struggle with ill +health. The greater part of this period was spent in his native town of +Thisted, but an advance royalty from his publisher enabled him to visit +the South of Europe. His journey was interrupted at Florence by a severe +hemorrhage. + +He lived simply, unobtrusively, bravely. His method of work was slow +and laborious. He shunned the literary circles of the capital with their +countless intrusions and interruptions, because he knew that the time +allotted him to do his work was short. "When life has sentenced you to +suffer," he has written in Niels Lyhne, "the sentence is neither a fancy +nor a threat, but you are dragged to the rack, and you are tortured, and +there is no marvelous rescue at the last moment," and in this book there +is also a corollary, "It is on the healthy in you you must live, it +is the healthy that becomes great." The realization of the former has +given, perhaps, a subdued tone to his canvasses; the recognition of the +other has kept out of them weakness or self-pity. + +Under the encouragement of George Brandes his novel Marie Grubbe was +begun in 1873, and published in 1876. His other novel Niels Lyhne +appeared in 1880. Excluding his early scientific works, these two books +together with a collection of short stories, Mogens and Other Tales, +published in 1882, and a posthumous volume of poems, constitute +Jacobsen's literary testament. The present volume contains Mogens, the +story with which he made his literary debut, and other characteristic +stories. + +The physical measure of Jacobsen's accomplishment was not great, but +it was an important milestone in northern literature. It is hardly +an exaggeration to say that in so far as Scandinavia is concerned he +created a new method of literary approach and a new artistic prose. +There is scarcely a writer in these countries, since 1880, with any +pretension toward literary expression who has not directly or indirectly +come under Jacobsen's influence. + +O. F. THEIS. + + + + +MOGENS + + +SUMMER it was; in the middle of the day; in a corner of the enclosure. +Immediately in front of it stood an old oaktree, of whose trunk one +might say, that it agonized in despair because of the lack of harmony +between its fresh yellowish foliage and its black and gnarled branches; +they resembled most of all grossly misdrawn old gothic arabesques. +Behind the oak was a luxuriant thicket of hazel with dark sheenless +leaves, which were so dense, that neither trunk nor branches could be +seen. Above the hazel rose two straight, joyous maple-trees with gayly +indented leaves, red stems and long dangling clusters of green fruit. +Behind the maples came the forest--a green evenly rounded slope, where +birds went out and in as elves in a grasshill. + +All this you could see if you came wandering along the path through the +fields beyond the fence. If, however, you were lying in the shadow of +the oak with your back against the trunk and looking the other way--and +there was a some one, who did that--then you would see first your own +legs, then a little spot of short, vigorous grass, next a large +cluster of dark nettles, then the hedge of thorn with the big, white +convolvulus, the stile, a little of the ryefield outside, finally the +councilor's flagpole on the hill, and then the sky. + +It was stifling hot, the air was quivering with heat, and then it was +very quiet; the leaves were hanging from the trees as if asleep. Nothing +moved except the lady-birds and the nettles and a few withered leaves +that lay on the grass and rolled themselves up with sudden little jerks +as if they were shrinking from the sunbeams. + +And then the man underneath the oak; he lay there gasping for air and +with a melancholy look stared helplessly towards the sky. He tried to +hum a tune, but gave it up; whistled, then gave that up too; turned +round, turned round again and let his eyes rest upon an old mole-hill, +that had become quite gray in the drought. Suddenly a small dark spot +appeared upon the light-gray mold, another, three, four, many, still +more, the entire mole-hill suddenly was quite dark-gray. The air was +filled with nothing but long, dark streaks, the leaves nodded and swayed +and there rose a murmur which turned into a hissing--rain was pouring +down. Everything gleamed, sparkled, spluttered. Leaves, branches, +trunks, everything shone with moisture; every little drop that fell on +earth, on grass, on the fence, on whatever it was, broke and scattered +in a thousand delicate pearls. Little drops hung for a while and became +big drops, trickled down elsewhere, joined with other drops, formed +small rivulets, disappeared into tiny furrows, ran into big holes and +out of small ones, sailed away laden with dust, chips of wood and ragged +bits of foliage, caused them to run aground, set them afloat, whirled +them round and again caused them to ground. Leaves, which had been +separated since they were in the bud, were reunited by the flood; moss, +that had almost vanished in the dryness, expanded and became soft, +crinkly, green and juicy; and gray lichens which nearly had turned to +snuff, spread their delicate ends, puffed up like brocade and with a +sheen like that of silk. The convolvuluses let their white crowns be +filled to the brim, drank healths to each other, and emptied the water +over the heads of the nettles. The fat black wood-snails crawled forward +on their stomachs with a will, and looked approvingly towards the +sky. And the man? The man was standing bareheaded in the midst of the +downpour, letting the drops revel in his hair and brows, eyes, nose, +mouth; he snapped his fingers at the rain, lifted a foot now and again +as if he were about to dance, shook his head sometimes, when there was +too much water in the hair, and sang at the top of his voice without +knowing what he was singing, so pre-occupied was he with the rain: + + Had I, oh had I a grandson, trala, + And a chest with heaps and heaps of gold, + Then very likely had I had a daughter, trala, + And house and home and meadows untold. + + Had I, oh had I a daughter dear, trala, + And house and home and meadows untold, + Then very like had I had a sweetheart, trala. + And a chest with heaps and heaps of gold. + +There he stood and sang in the rain, but yonder between the dark +hazelbushes the head of a little girl was peeping out. A long end of +her shawl of red silk had become entangled in a branch which projected +a little beyond the others, and from time to time a small hand went +forward and tugged at the end, but this had no other result, further +than to produce a little shower of rain from the branch and its +neighbors. The rest of the shawl lay close round the little girl's head +and hid half of the brow; it shaded the eyes, then turned abruptly and +became lost among the leaves, but reappeared in a big rosette of folds +underneath the girl's chin. The face of the little girl looked very +astonished, she was just about to laugh; the smile already hovered +in the eyes. Suddenly he, who stood there singing in the midst of the +downpour, took a few steps to the side, saw the red shawl, the face, the +big brown eyes, the astonished little open mouth; instantly his position +became awkward, in surprise he looked down himself; but in the same +moment a small cry was heard, the projecting branch swayed violently, +the red end of the shawl disappeared in a flash, the girl's face +disappeared, and there was a rustling and rustling further and further +away behind the hazelbushes. Then he ran. He did not know why, he did +not think at all. The gay mood, which the rainstorm had called forth, +welled up in him again, and he ran after the face of the little girl. +It did not enter his head that it was a person he pursued. To him it +was only the face of a little girl. He ran, it rustled to the right, it +rustled to the left, it rustled in front, it rustled behind, he rustled, +she rustled, and all these sounds and the running itself excited him, +and he cried: "Where are you? Say cuckoo!" Nobody answered. When he +heard his own voice, he felt just a little uneasy, but he continued +running; then a thought came to him, only a single one, and he murmured +as he kept on running: "What am I going to say to her? What am I +going to say to her?" He was approaching a big bush, there she had hid +herself, he could just see a corner of her skirt. "What am I going to +say to her? What am I going to say to her?" he kept on murmuring while +he ran. He was quite near the bush, then turned abruptly, ran on still +murmuring the same, came out upon the open road, ran a distance, stopped +abruptly and burst out laughing, walked smiling quietly a few paces, +then burst out laughing loudly again, and did not cease laughing all the +way along the hedge. + +It was on a beautiful autumn day; the fall of the foliage was going +on apace and the path which led to the lake was quite covered with the +citron-yellow leaves from the elms and maples; here and there were spots +of a darker foliage. It was very pleasant, very clean to walk on this +tigerskin-carpet, and to watch the leaves fall down like snow; the birch +looked even lighter and more graceful with its branches almost bare and +the roan-tree was wonderful with its heavy scarlet cluster of berries. +And the sky was so blue, so blue, and the wood seemed so much bigger, +one could look so far between the trunks. And then of course one could +not help thinking that soon all this would be of the past. Wood, field, +sky, open air, and everything soon would have to give way to the time of +the lamps, the carpets, and the hyacinths. For this reason the councilor +from Cape Trafalgar and his daughter were walking down to the lake, +while their carriage stopped at the bailiff's. + +The councilor was a friend of nature, nature was something quite +special, nature was one of the finest ornaments of existence. The +councilor patronized nature, he defended it against the artificial; +gardens were nothing but nature spoiled; but gardens laid out in +elaborate style were nature turned crazy. There was no style in nature, +providence had wisely made nature natural, nothing but natural. Nature +was that which was unrestrained, that which was unspoiled. But with the +fall of man civilization had come upon mankind; now civilization had +become a necessity; but it would have been better, if it had not +been thus. The state of nature was something quite different, quite +different. The councilor himself would have had no objection to +maintaining himself by going about in a coat of lamb-skin and shooting +hares and snipes and golden plovers and grouse and haunches of venison +and wild boars. No, the state of nature really was like a gem, a perfect +gem. + +The councilor and his daughter walked down to the lake. For some time +already it had glimmered between the trees, but now when they turned the +corner where the big poplar stood, it lay quite open before them. There +it lay with large spaces of water clear as a mirror, with jagged tongues +of gray-blue rippled water, with streaks that were smooth and streaks +that were rippled, and the sunlight rested on the smooth places and +quivered in the ripples. It captured one's eye and drew it across its +surface, carried it along the shores, past slowly rounded curves, past +abruptly broken lines, and made it swing around the green tongues of +land; then it let go of one's glance and disappeared in large bays, but +it carried along the thought--Oh, to sail! Would it be possible to hire +boats here? + +No, there were none, said a little fellow, who lived in the white +country-house near by, and stood at the shore skipping stones over the +surface of the water. Were there really no boats at all? + +Yes, of course, there were some; there was the miller's, but it could +not be had; the miller would not permit it. Niels, the miller's son, had +nearly gotten a spanking when he had let it out the other day. It was +useless to think about it; but then there was the gentleman, who lived +with Nicolai, the forest-warden. He had a fine boat, one which was black +at the top and red at the bottom, and he lent it to each and every one. + +The councilor and his daughter went up to Nicolai's, the forest-warden. +At a short distance from the house they met a little girl. She was +Nicolai's, and they told her to run in and ask if they might see the +gentleman. She ran as if her life depended on it, ran with both arms and +legs, until she reached the door; there she placed one leg on the high +doorstep, fastened her garter, and then rushed into the house. She +reappeared immediately afterwards with two doors ajar behind her and +called long before she reached the threshold, that the gentleman would +be there in a moment; then she sat down on the doorstep, leaned against +the wall, and peered at the strangers from underneath one of her arms. + +The gentleman came, and proved to be a tall strongly-built man of some +twenty years. The councilor's daughter was a little startled, when she +recognized in him the man, who had sung during the rainstorm. But he +looked so strange and absentminded; quite obviously he had just been +reading a book, one could tell that from the expression in his eyes, +from his hair, from the abstracted way in which he managed his hands. + +The councilor's daughter dropped him an exuberant courtesy and said +"Cuckoo," and laughed. + +"Cuckoo?" asked the councilor. Why, it was the little girl's face! The +man went quite crimson, and tried to say something when the councilor +came with a question about the boat. Yes, it was at his service. But who +was going to do the rowing? Why, he of course, said the girl, and paid +no attention to what her father said about it; it was immaterial whether +it was a bother to the gentleman, for sometimes he himself did not mind +at all troubling other people. Then they went down to the boat, and on +the way explained things to the councilor. They stepped into the boat, +and were already a good ways out, before the girl had settled herself +comfortably and found time to talk. + +"I suppose it was something very learned you were reading," she said, +"when I came and called cuckoo and fetched you out sailing?" + +"Rowing, you mean. Something learned! It was the 'History of Sir Peter +with the Silver Key and the Beautiful Magelone.'" + +"Who is that by?" + +"By no one in particular. Books of that sort never are. 'Vigoleis +with the Golden Wheel' isn't by anybody either, neither is 'Bryde, the +Hunter.'" + +"I have never heard of those titles before." + +"Please move a little to the side, otherwise we will list.--Oh no, that +is quite likely, they aren't fine books at all; they are the sort you +buy from old women at fairs." + +"That seems strange. Do you always read books of that kind?" + +"Always? I don't read many books in the course of a year, and the kind I +really like the best are those that have Indians in them." + +"But poetry? Oehlenschlager, Schiller, and the others?" + +"Oh, of course I know them; we had a whole bookcase full of them at +home, and Miss Holm--my mother's companion--read them aloud after lunch +and in the evenings; but I can't say that I cared for them; I don't like +verse." + +"Don't like verse? You said had, isn't your mother living any more?" + +"No, neither is my father." + +He said this with a rather sullen, hostile tone, and the conversation +halted for a time and made it possible to hear clearly the many little +sounds created by the movement of the boat through the water. The girl +broke the silence: + +"Do you like paintings?" + +"Altar-pieces? Oh, I don't know." + +"Yes, or other pictures, landscapes for instance?" + +"Do people paint those too? Of course they do, I know that very well." + +"You are laughing at me?" + +"I? Oh yes, one of us is doing that" + +"But aren't you a student?" + +"Student? Why should I be? No, I am nothing." + +"But you must be something. You must do something?" + +"But why?" + +"Why, because--everybody does something!" + +"Are you doing something?" + +"Oh well, but you are not a lady." + +"No, heaven be praised." + +"Thank you." + +He stopped rowing, drew the oars out of the water, looked her into the +face and asked: + +"What do you mean by that?--No, don't be angry with me; I will tell you +something, I am a queer sort of person. You cannot understand it. You +think because I wear good clothes, I must be a fine man. My father was a +fine man; I have been told that he knew no end of things, and I daresay +he did, since he was a district-judge. I know nothing because mother and +I were all to each other, and I did not care to learn the things they +teach in the schools, and don't care about them now either. Oh, you +ought to have seen my mother; she was such a tiny wee lady. When I was +no older than thirteen I could carry her down into the garden. She was +so light; in recent years I would often carry her on my arm through the +whole garden and park. I can still see her in her black gowns with the +many wide laces...." + +He seized the oars and rowed violently. The councilor became a little +uneasy, when the water reached so high at the stern, and suggested, that +they had better see about getting home again; so back they went. + +"Tell me," said the girl, when the violence of his rowing had decreased +a little. "Do you often go to town?" + +"I have never been there." + +"Never been there? And you only live twelve miles away?" + +"I don't always live here, I live at all sorts of places since my +mother's death, but the coming winter I shall go to town to study +arithmetic." + +"Mathematics?" + +"No, timber," he said laughingly, "but that is something you don't +understand. I'll tell you, when I am of age I shall buy a sloop and sail +to Norway, and then I shall have to know how to figure on account of the +customs and clearance." + +"Would you really like that?" + +"Oh, it, is magnificent on the sea, there is such a feeling of being +alive in sailing--here we are at the landing-stage!" + +He came alongside; the councilor and his daughter stepped ashore after +having made him promise to come and see them at Cape Trafalgar. Then +they returned to the bailiff's, while he again rowed out on the lake. At +the poplar they could still hear the sounds of the oars. + +"Listen, Camilla," said the councilor, who had been out to lock the +outer door, "tell me," he said, extinguishing his hand-lamp with the +bit of his key, "was the rose they had at the Carlsens a Pompadour or +Maintenon?" + +"Cendrillon," the daughter answered. + +"That's right, so it was,--well, I suppose we had better see that we get +to bed now; good night, little girl, good night, and sleep well." + +When Camilla had entered her room, she pulled up the blind, leaned +her brow against the cool pane, and hummed Elizabeth's song from "The +Fairy-hill." At sunset a light breeze had begun to blow and a few tiny, +white clouds, illumined by the moon, were driven towards Camilla. For +a long while she stood regarding them; her eye followed them from a +far distance, and she sang louder and louder as they drew nearer, kept +silent a few seconds while they disappeared above her, then sought +others, and followed them too. With a little sigh she pulled down the +blind. She went to the dressing table, rested her elbows against her +clasped hands and regarded her own picture in the mirror without really +seeing it. + +She was thinking of a tall young man, who carried a very delicate, +tiny, blackdressed lady in his arms; she was thinking of a tall man, +who steered his small ship in between cliffs and rocks in a devastating +gale. She heard a whole conversation over again. She blushed: Eugene +Carlson might have thought that you were paying court to him! With a +little jealous association of ideas she continued: No one would ever run +after Clara in a wood in the rainstorm, she would never have invited +a stranger--literally asked him--to sail with her. "Lady to her +fingertips," Carlson had said of Clara; that really was a reprimand +for you, you peasant-girl Camilla! Then she undressed with affected +slowness, went to bed, took a small elegantly bound book from the +bookshelf near by and opened the first page. She read through a short +hand-written poem with a tired, bitter expression on her face, then let +the book drop to the floor and burst into tears; afterwards she tenderly +picked it up again, put it back in its place and blew out the candle; +lay there for a little while gazing disconsolately at the moonlit blind, +and finally went to sleep. + +A few days later the "rainman" started on his way to Cape Trafalgar. He +met a peasant driving a load of rye straw, and received permission to +ride with him. Then he lay down on his back in the straw and gazed at +the cloudless sky. The first couple of miles he let his thoughts come +and go as they listed, besides there wasn't much variety in them. Most +of them would come and ask him how a human being possibly could be so +wonderfully beautiful, and they marveled that it really could be an +entertaining occupation for several days to recall the features of a +face, its changes of expression and coloring, the small movements of a +head and a pair of hands, and the varying inflections in a voice. But +then the peasant pointed with his whip towards the slate-roof about a +mile away and said that the councilor lived over there, and the good +Mogens rose from the straw and stared anxiously towards the roof. He had +a strange feeling of oppression and tried to make himself believe that +nobody was at home, but tenaciously came back to the conception that +there was a large party, and he could not free himself from that idea, +even though he counted how many cows "Country-joy" had on the meadow +and how many heaps of gravel he could see along the road. At last the +peasant stopped near a small path leading down to the country-house, and +Mogens slid down from the cart and began to brush away the bits of straw +while the cart slowly creaked away over the gravel on the road. + +He approached the garden-gate step by step, saw a red shawl disappear +behind the balcony windows, a small deserted white sewing-basket on the +edge of the balcony, and the back of a still moving empty rocking-chair. +He entered the garden, with his eyes fixed intently on the balcony, +heard the councilor say good-day, turned his head toward the sound, and +saw him standing there nodding, his arms full of empty flowerpots. They +spoke of this and that, and the councilor began to explain, as one might +put it, that the old specific distinction between the various kinds of +trees had been abolished by grafting, and that for his part he did not +like this at all. Then Camilla slowly approached wearing a brilliant +glaring blue shawl. Her arms were entirely wrapped up in the shawl, +and she greeted him with a slight inclination of the head and a faint +welcome. The councilor left with his flower-pots, Camilla stood looking +over her shoulders towards the balcony; Mogens looked at her. How had +he been since the other day? Thank you, nothing especial had been the +matter with him. Done much rowing? Why, yes, as usual, perhaps not quite +as much. She turned her head towards him, looked coldly at him, inclined +her head to one side and asked with half-closed eyes and a faint smile +whether it was the beautiful Magelone who had engrossed his time. He did +not know what she meant, but he imagined it was. Then they stood for a +while and said nothing. Camilla took a few steps towards a corner, where +a bench and a garden-chair stood. She sat down on the bench and asked +him, after she was seated, looking at the chair, to be seated; he must +be very tired after his long walk. He sat down in the chair. + +Did he believe anything would come of the projected royal alliance? +Perhaps, he was completely indifferent? Of course, he had no interest +in the royal house. Naturally he hated aristocracy? There were very few +young men who did not believe that democracy was, heaven only knew what. +Probably he was one of those who attributed not the slightest political +importance to the family alliances of the royal house? Perhaps he was +mistaken. It had been seen.... She stopped suddenly, surprised +that Mogens who had at first been somewhat taken aback at all this +information, now looked quite pleased. He wasn't to sit there, and laugh +at her! She turned quite red. + +"Are you very much interested in politics?" she asked timidly. + +"Not in the least." + +"But why do you let me sit here talking politics eternally?" + +"Oh, you say everything so charmingly, that it does not matter what you +are talking about." + +"That really is no compliment." + +"It certainly is," he assured her eagerly, for it seemed to him she +looked quite hurt. + +Camilla burst out laughing, jumped up, and ran to meet her father, took +his arm, and walked back with him to the puzzled Mogens. + +When dinner was through and they had drunk their coffee up on the +balcony, the councilor suggested a walk. So the three of them went along +the small way across the main road, and along a narrow path with stubble +of rye on both sides, across the stile, and into the woods. There was +the oak and everything else; there even were still convolvuluses on the +hedge. Camilla asked Mogens to fetch some for her. He tore them all off, +and came back with both hands full. + +"Thank you, I don't want so many," she said, selected a few and let the +rest fall to the ground. "Then I wish I had let them be," Mogens said +earnestly. + +Camilla bent down and began to gather them up. She had expected him to +help her and looked up at him in surprise, but he stood there quite +calm and looked down at her. Now as she had begun, she had to go on, and +gathered up they were; but she certainly did not talk to Mogens for a +long while. She did not even look to the side where he was. But somehow +or other they must have become reconciled, for when on their way back +they reached the oak again, Camilla went underneath it and looked up +into its crown. She tripped from one side to the other, gesticulated +with her hands and sang, and Mogens had to stand near the hazelbushes to +see what sort of a figure he had cut. Suddenly Camilla ran towards him, +but Mogens lost his cue, and forgot both to shriek and to run away, and +then Camilla laughingly declared that she was very dissatisfied with +herself and that she would not have had the boldness to remain +standing there, when such a horrible creature--and she pointed towards +herself--came rushing towards her. But Mogens declared that he was very +well satisfied with himself. + +When towards sunset he was going home the councilor and Camilla +accompanied him a little way. And as they were going home she said to +her father that perhaps they ought to invite that lonesome young man +rather frequently during the month, while it was still possible to stay +in the country. He knew no one here about, and the councilor said "yes," +and smiled at being thought so guileless, but Camilla walked along and +looked so gentle and serious, that one would not doubt but that she was +the very personification of benevolence itself. + +The autumn weather remained so mild that the councilor stayed on at Cape +Trafalgar for another whole month, and the effect of the benevolence was +that Mogens came twice the first week and about every day the third. + +It was one of the last days of fair weather. + +It had rained early in the morning and had remained overclouded far +down into the forenoon; but now the sun had come forth. Its rays were +so strong and warm, that the garden-paths, the lawns and the branches +of the trees were enveloped in a fine filmy mist. The councilor walked +about cutting asters. Mogens and Camilla were in a corner of the garden +to take down some late winter apples. He stood on a table with a basket +on his arm, she stood on a chair holding out a big white apron by the +corners. + +"Well, and what happened then?" she called impatiently to Mogens, who +had interrupted the fairy-tale he was telling in order to reach an apple +which hung high up. + +"Then," he continued, "the peasant began to run three times round +himself and to sing: 'To Babylon, to Babylon, with an iron ring through +my head.' Then he and his calf, his great-grandmother, and his black +rooster flew away. They flew across oceans as broad as Arup Vejle, over +mountains as high as the church at Jannerup, over Himmerland and through +the Holstein lands even to the end of the world. There the kobold sat +and ate breakfast; he had just finished when they came. + +"'You ought to be a little more god-fearing, little father,' said the +peasant, 'otherwise it might happen that you might miss the kingdom of +heaven.'" + +"Well, he would gladly be god-fearing." + +"'Then you must say grace after meals,' said the peasant...." + +"No, I won't go on with the story," said Mogens impatiently. + +"Very well, then don't," said Camilla, and looked at him in surprise. + +"I might as well say it at once," continued Mogens, "I want to ask you +something, but you mustn't laugh at me." + +Camilla jumped down from the chair. + +"Tell me--no, I want to tell you something myself--here is the table and +there is the hedge, if you won't be my bride, I'll leap with the basket +over the hedge and stay away. One!" + +Camilla glanced furtively at him, and noticed that the smile had +vanished from his face. + +"Two!" + +He was quite pale with emotion. + +"Yes," she whispered, and let go the ends of her apron so that the +apples rolled toward all corners of the world and then she ran. But she +did not run away from Mogens. + +"Three," said she, when he reached her, but he kissed her nevertheless. + +The councilor was interrupted among his asters, but the district-judge's +son was too irreproachable a blending of nature and civilization for the +councilor to raise objections. + +***** + +It was late winter; the large heavy cover of snow, the result of a whole +week's uninterrupted blowing, was in the process of rapidly melting +away. The air was full of sunlight and reflection from the white snow, +which in large, shining drops dripped down past the windows. Within the +room all forms and colors had awakened, all lines and contours had come +to life. Whatever was flat extended, whatever was bent curved, whatever +was inclined slid, and whatever was broken refracted the more. All kinds +of green tones mingled on the flower-table, from the softest dark-green +to the sharpest yellow-green. Reddish brown tones flooded in flames +across the surface of the mahogany table, and gold gleamed and sparkled +from the knick-knacks, from the frames and moldings, but on the carpet +all the colors broke and mingled in a joyous, shimmering confusion. + +Camilla sat at the window and sewed, and she and the Graces on the +mantle were quite enveloped in a reddish light from the red curtains +Mogens walked slowly up and down the room, and passed every moment in +and out of slanting beams of light of pale rainbow-colored dust. + +He was in talkative mood. + +"Yes," he said, "they are a curious kind of people, these with whom +you associate. There isn't a thing between heaven and earth which they +cannot dispose of in the turn of a hand. This is common, and that +is noble; this is the most stupid thing that has been done since the +creation of the world, and that is the wisest; this is so ugly, so +ugly, and that is so beautiful it cannot be described. They agree so +absolutely about all this, that it seems as if they had some sort of a +table or something like that by which they figured things out, for they +always get the same result, no matter what it may be. How alike they are +to each other, these people! Every one of them knows the same things and +talks about the same things, and all of them have the same words and the +same opinions." + +"You don't mean to say," Camilla protested, "that Carlsen and Ronholt +have the same opinions." + +"Yes, they are the finest of all, they belong to different parties! +Their fundamental principles are as different as night and day. No, they +are not. They are in such agreement that it is a perfect joy. Perhaps +there may be some little point about which they don't agree; perhaps, +it is merely a misunderstanding. But heaven help me, if it isn't +pure comedy to listen to them. It is as if they had prearranged to do +everything possible not to agree. They begin by talking in a loud voice, +and immediately talk themselves into a passion. Then one of them in his +passion says something which he doesn't mean, and then the other one +says the direct opposite which he doesn't mean either, and then the one +attacks that which the other doesn't mean, and the other that which the +first one didn't mean, and the game is on." + +"But what have they done to you?" + +"They annoy me, these fellows. If you look into their faces it is just +as if you had it under seal that nothing especial is ever going to +happen in the world in the future." Camilla laid down her sewing, +went over and took hold of the corners of his coat collar and looked +roguishly and questioningly at him. + +"I cannot bear Carlsen," he said angrily, and tossed his head. + +"Well, and then." + +"And then you are very, very sweet," he murmured with a comic +tenderness. + +"And then?" + +"And then," he burst out, "he looks at you and listens to you and talks +to you in a way I don't like. He is to quit that, for you are mine and +not his. Aren't you? You are not his, not his in any way. You are mine, +you have bonded yourself to me as the doctor did to the devil; you are +mine, body and soul, skin and bones, till all eternity." + +She nodded a little frightened, looked trustfully at him; her eyes +filled with tears, then she pressed close to him and he put his arms +around her, bent over her, and kissed her on the forehead. + +The same evening Mogens went to the station with the councilor who had +received a sudden order in reference to an official tour which he was to +make. On this account Camilla was to go to her aunt's the next morning +and stay there until he returned. + +When Mogens had seen his future father-in-law off, he went home, +thinking of the fact that he now would not see Camilla for several days. +He turned into the street where she lived. It was long and narrow and +little frequented. A cart rumbled away at the furthest end; in this +direction, too, there was the sound of footsteps, which grew fainter and +fainter. At the moment he heard nothing but the barking of a dog within +the building behind him. He looked up at the house in which Camilla +lived; as usual the ground-floor was dark. The white-washed panes +received only a little restless life from the flickering gleam of the +lantern of the house next door. On the second story the windows were +open and from one of them a whole heap of planks protruded beyond the +window-frame. Camilla's window was dark, dark also was everything above, +except that in one of the attic windows there shimmered a white-golden +gleam from the moon. Above the house the clouds were driving in a wild +flight. In the houses on both sides the windows were lighted. + +The dark house made Mogens sad. It stood there so forlorn and +disconsolate; the open windows rattled on their hinges; water ran +monotonously droning down the rainpipe; now and then a little water fell +with a hollow dull thud at some spot which he could not see; the wind +swept heavily through the street. The dark, dark house! Tears came into +Mogen's eyes, an oppressive weight lay on his chest, and he was +seized by a strange dark sensation that he had to reproach himself for +something concerning Camilla. Then he had to think of his mother, and he +felt a great desire of laying his head on her lap and weeping his fill. + +For a long while he stood thus with his hand pressed against his breast +until a wagon went through the street at a sharp pace; he followed it +and went home. He had to stand for a long time and rattle the front door +before it would open, then he ran humming up the stairs, and when he +had entered the room he threw himself down on the sofa with one of +Smollett's novels in his hand, and read and laughed till after midnight. +At last it grew too cold in the room, he leaped up and went stamping up +and down to drive away the chill. He stopped at the window. The sky in +one corner was so bright, that the snow-covered roofs faded into it. In +another corner several long-drawn clouds drifted by, and the atmosphere +beneath them had a curious reddish tinge, a sheen that wavered +unsteadily, a red smoking fog. He tore open the window, fire had broken +out in the direction of the councilor's. Down the stairs, down the +street as fast as he could; down a cross-street, through a side-street, +and then straight ahead. As yet he could not see anything, but as he +turned round the corner he saw the red glow of fire. About a score of +people clattered singly down the street. As they ran past each other, +they asked where the fire was. The answer was "The sugar-refinery." +Mogens kept on running as quickly as before, but much easier at heart. +Still a few streets, there were more and more people, and they +were talking now of the soap-factory. It lay directly opposite the +councilor's. Mogens ran on as if possessed. There was only a +single slanting cross-street left. It was quite filled with people: +well-dressed men, ragged old women who stood talking in a slow, whining +tone, yelling apprentices, over-dressed girls who whispered to each +other, corner-loafers who stood as if rooted to the spot and cracked +jokes, surprised drunkards and drunkards who quarreled, helpless +policemen, and carriages that would go neither forwards nor backwards. +Mogens forced his way through the multitude. Now he was at the corner; +the sparks were slowly falling down upon him. Up the street; there +were showers of sparks, the window-panes on both sides were aglow, the +factory was burning, the councilor's house was burning and the house +next door also. There was nothing but smoke, fire and confusion, cries, +curses, tiles that rattled down, blows of axes, wood that splintered, +window-panes that jingled, jets of water that hissed, spluttered, and +splashed, and amid all this the regular dull sob-like throb of the +engines. Furniture, bedding, black helmets, ladders, shining buttons, +illuminated faces, wheels, ropes, tarpaulin, strange instruments; Mogens +rushed into their midst, over, under it all, forward to the house. + +The facade was brightly illuminated by the flames from the burning +factory, smoke issued from between the tiles of the roof and rolled +out of the open windows of the first story. Within the fire rumbled and +crackled. There was a slow groaning sound, that turned into a rolling +and crashing, and ended in a dull boom. Smoke, sparks, and flames issued +in torment out of all the openings of the house. And then the flames +began to play and crackle with redoubled strength and redoubled +clearness. It was the middle part of the ceiling of the first floor that +fell. Mogens with both hands seized a large scaling-ladder which leaned +against the part of the factory which was not yet in flames. For a +moment he held it vertically, but then it slipped away from him and fell +over toward the councilor's house where it broke in a window-frame on +the second story. Mogens ran up the ladder, and in through the opening. +At first he had to close his eyes on account of the pungent wood-smoke, +and the heavy suffocating fumes which rose from the charred wood that +the water had reached took his breath away. He was in the dining-room. +The living-room was a huge glowing abyss; the flames from the lower part +of the house, now and then, almost reached up to the ceiling; the few +boards that had remained hanging when the floor fell burned in brilliant +yellowish-white flames; shadows and the gleam of flames flooded over the +walls; the wall-paper here and there curled up, caught fire, and flew +in flaming tatters down into the abyss; eager yellow flames licked their +way up on the loosened moldings and picture-frames. Mogens crept over +the ruins and fragments of the fallen wall towards the edge of the +abyss, from which cold and hot blasts of air alternately struck his +face; on the other side so much of the wall had fallen, that he could +look into Camilla's room, while the part that hid the councilor's office +still stood. It grew hotter and hotter; the skin of his face became +taut, and he noticed, that his hair was crinkling. Something heavy +glided past his shoulder and remained lying on his back and pressed him +down to the floor; it was the girder which slowly had slipped out of +place. He could not move, breathing became more and more difficult, his +temples throbbed violently; to his left a jet of water splashed against +the wall of the dining-room, and the wish rose in him, that the cold, +cold drops, which scattered in all directions might fall on him. Then he +heard a moan on the other side of the abyss, and he saw something white +stir on the floor in Camilla's room. It was she. She lay on her knees, +and while her hips were swaying, held her hands pressed against each +side of her head. She rose slowly, and came towards the edge of the +abyss. She stood straight upright, her arms hung limply down, and the +head went to and fro limply on the neck. Very, very slowly the upper +part of her body fell forward, her long, beautiful hair swept the floor; +a short violent flash of flame, and it was gone, the next moment she +plunged down into the flames. + +Mogens uttered a moaning sound, short, deep and powerful, like the roar +of a wild beast, and at the same time made a violent movement, as if to +get away from the abyss. It was impossible on account of the girder. His +hands groped over the fragments of wall, then they stiffened as it were +in a mighty clasp over the debris, and he began to strike his forehead +against the wreckage with a regular beat, and moaned: "Lord God, Lord +God, Lord God." + +Thus he lay. In the course of a little while, he noticed that there was +something standing beside him and touching him. It was a fireman who had +thrown the girder aside, and was about to carry him out of the house. +With a strong feeling of annoyance, Mogens noticed that he was lifted up +and led away. The man carried him to the opening, and then Mogens had a +clear perception that a wrong was being committed against him, and that +the man who was carrying him had designs on his life. He tore himself +out of his arms, seized a lathe that lay on the floor, struck the man +over the head with it so that he staggered backward; he himself issued +from the opening and ran erect down the ladder, holding the lathe above +his head. Through the tumult, the smoke, the crowd of people, through +empty streets, across desolate squares, out into the fields. Deep snow +everywhere, at a little distance a black spot, it was a gravel-heap, +that jutted out above the snow. He struck at it with the lathe, struck +again and again, continued to strike at it; he wished to strike it dead, +so that it might disappear; he wanted to run far away, and ran round +about the heap and struck at it as if possessed. It would not, would not +disappear; he hurled the lathe far away and flung himself upon the black +heap to give it the finishing stroke. He got his hands full of small +stones, it was gravel, it was a black heap of gravel. Why was he out +here in the field burrowing in a black gravel-heap?--He smelled the +smoke, the flames flashed round him, he saw Camilla sink down into them, +he cried out aloud and rushed wildly across the field. He could not +rid himself of the sight of the flames, he held his eyes shut: Flames, +flames! He threw himself on the ground and pressed his face down into +the snow: Flames! He leaped up, ran backward, ran forward, turned aside: +Flames everywhere! He rushed further across the snow, past houses, past +trees, past a terror-struck face, that stared out through a window-pane, +round stacks of grain and through farm-yards, where dogs howled and tore +at their chains. He ran round the front wing of a building and stood +suddenly before a brightly, restlessly lighted window. The light did him +good, the flames yielded to it; he went to the window and looked in. It +was a brew-room, a girl stood at the hearth and stirred the kettle. The +light which she held in her hand had a slightly reddish sheen on account +of the dense fumes. Another girl was sitting down, plucking poultry, and +a third was singeing it over a blazing straw-fire. When the flames grew +weaker, new straw was put on, and they flared up again; then they again +became weaker and still weaker; they went out. Mogens angrily broke a +pane with his elbow, and slowly walked away. The girls inside screamed. +Then he ran again for a long time with a low moaning. Scattered flashes +of memory of happy days came to him, and when they had passed the +darkness was twice as black. He could not bear to think of what had +happened. It was impossible for it to have happened. He threw himself +down on his knees and raised his hands toward heaven, the while he +pleaded that that which had happened might be as though it had not +occurred. For a long time he dragged himself along on his knees with his +eyes steadfastly fixed on the sky, as if afraid it might slip away from +him to escape his pleas, provided he did not keep it incessantly in his +eye. Then pictures of his happy time came floating toward him, more and +more in mist-like ranks. There were also pictures that rose in a sudden +glamor round about him, and others flitted by so indefinite, so distant, +that they were gone before he really knew what they were. He sat +silently in the snow, overcome by light and color, by light and +happiness, and the dark fear which he had had at first that something +would come and extinguish all this had gone. It was very still round +about him, a great peace was within him, the pictures had disappeared, +but happiness was here. A deep silence! There was not a sound, but +sounds were in the air. And there came laughter and song and low words +came and light and footsteps and dull sobbing of the beats of the pumps. +Moaning he ran away, ran long and far, came to the lake, followed the +shore, until he stumbled over the root of a tree, and then he was so +tired that he remained lying. + +With a soft clucking sound the water ran over the small stones; +spasmodically there was a soft soughing among the barren limbs; now and +then a crow cawed above the lake; and morning threw its sharp bluish +gleam over forest and sea, over the snow, and over the pallid face. + +At sunrise he was found by the ranger from the neighboring forest, and +carried up to the forester Nicolai; there he lay for weeks and days +between life and death. + +***** + +About the time when Mogens was being carried up to Nicolai's, a crowd +collected around a carriage at the end of the street where the councilor +lived. The driver could not understand why the policeman wanted to +prevent him from carrying out his legitimate order, and on that account +they had an argument. It was the carriage which was to take Camilla to +her aunt's. + +***** + +"No, since poor Camilla lost her life in that dreadful manner, we have +not seen anything of him!" + +"Yes, it is curious, how much may lie hidden in a person. No one would +have suspected anything, so quiet and shy, almost awkward. Isn't it so? +You did not suspect anything?" + +"About the sickness! How can you ask such a question! Oh, you mean--I +did not quite understand you--you mean it was in the blood, something +hereditary?--Oh, yes, I remember there was something like that, they +took his father to Aarhus. Wasn't it so, Mr. Carlsen?" + +"No! Yes, but it was to bury him, his first wife is buried there. No, +what I was thinking of was the dreadful--yes, the dreadful life he has +been leading the last two or two and a half years." + +"Why no, really! I know nothing about that." + +"Well, you see, of course, it is of the things one doesn't like to talk +about.... You understand, of course, consideration for those nearest. +The councilor's family...." + +"Yes, there is a certain amount of justice in what you say--but on the +other hand--tell me quite frankly, isn't there at present a false, +a sanctimonious striving to veil, to cover up the weaknesses of our +fellow-men? As for myself I don't understand much about that sort of +thing, but don't you think that truth or public morals, I don't mean +this morality, but--morals, conditions, whatever you will, suffer under +it?" + +"Of course, and I am very glad to be able to agree so with you, and in +this case... the fact simply is, that he has given himself to all sorts +of excesses. He has lived in the most disreputable manner with the +lowest dregs, people without honor, without conscience, without +position, religion, or anything else, with loafers, mountebanks, +drunkards, and--and to tell the truth with women of easy virtue." + +"And this after having been engaged to Camilla, good heavens, and after +having been down with brain-fever for three months!" + +"Yes--and what tendencies doesn't this let us suspect, and who knows +what his past may have been, what do you think?" + +"Yes, and heaven knows how things really were with him during the time +of their engagement? There always was something suspicious about him. +That is my opinion. + +"Pardon me, and you, too, Mr. Carlsen, pardon me, but you look at the +whole affair in rather an abstract way, very abstractedly. By chance I +have in my possession a very concrete report from a friend in Jutland, +and can present the whole affair in all its details." + +"Mr. Ronholt, you don't mean to...?" + +"To give details? Yes, that is what I intend. Mr. Carlsen, with the +lady's permission. Thank you! He certainly did not live as one should +live after a brain-fever. He knocked about from fair to fair with a +couple of boon-companions, and, it is said, was somewhat mixed up with +troupes of mountebanks, and especially with the women of the company. +Perhaps it would be wisest if I ran upstairs, and got my friend's +letter. Permit me. I'll be back in a moment." + +"Don't you think, Mr. Carlsen, that Ronholt is in a particularly good +humor to-day?" + +"Yes, but you must not forget that he exhausted all his spleen on an +article in the morning paper. Imagine, to dare to maintain--why, that is +pure rebellion, contempt of law, for him...." + +"You found the letter?" + +"Yes, I did. May I begin? Let me see, oh yes: 'Our mutual friend whom we +met last year at Monsted, and whom, as you say, you knew in Copenhagen, +has during the last months haunted the region hereabouts. He looks just +as he used to, he is the same pale knight of the melancholy mien. He is +the most ridiculous mixture of forced gayety and silent hopelessness, +he is affected--ruthless and brutal toward himself and others. He is +taciturn and a man of few words, and doesn't seem to be enjoying himself +at all, though he does nothing but drink and lead a riotous life. It +is as I have already said, as if he had a fixed idea that he received +a personal insult from destiny. His associates here were especially a +horse-dealer, called "Mug-sexton," because he does nothing but sing and +drink all the time, and a disreputable, lanky, over-grown cross +between a sailor and peddler, known and feared under the name of Peter +"Rudderless," to say nothing of the fair Abelone. She, however, recently +has had to give way to a brunette, belonging to a troupe of mountebanks, +which for some time has favored us with performances of feats of +strength and rope-dancing. You have seen this kind of women with +sharp, yellow, prematurely-aged faces, creatures that are shattered by +brutality, poverty, and miserable vices, and who always over-dress in +shabby velvet and dirty red. There you have his crew. I don't understand +our friend's passion. It is true that his fiancee met with a horrible +death, but that does not explain the matter. I must still tell you how +he left us. We had a fair a few miles from here. He, "Rudderless," the +horse-dealer, and the woman sat in a drinking-tent, dissipating until +far into the night. At three o'clock or thereabouts they were at last +ready to leave. They got on the wagon, and so far everything went all +right; but then our mutual friend turns off from the main road and +drives with them over fields and heath, as fast as the horses can go. +The wagon is flung from one side to the other. Finally things get too +wild for the horse-dealer and he yells that he wants to get down. After +he has gotten off our mutual friend whips up the horses again, and +drives straight at a large heather-covered hill. The woman becomes +frightened and jumps off, and now up the hill they go and down on the +other side at such a terrific pace that it is a miracle the wagon did +not arrive at the bottom ahead of the horses. On the way up Peter had +slipped from the wagon, and as thanks for the ride he threw his big +clasp-knife at the head of the driver.'" + +"The poor fellow, but this business of the woman is nasty." + +"Disgusting, madam, decidedly disgusting. Do you really think, Mr. +Ronholt, that this description puts the man in a better light?" + +"No, but in a surer one; you know in the darkness things often seem +larger than they are." + +"Can you think of anything worse?" + +"If not, then this is the worst, but you know one should never think the +worst of people." + +"Then you really mean, that the whole affair is not so bad, that there +is something bold in it, something in a sense eminently plebeian, which +pleases your liking for democracy." + +"Don't you see, that in respect to his environment his conduct is quite +aristocratic?" + +"Aristocratic? No, that is lather paradoxical. If he is not a democrat, +then I really don't know what he is." + +"Well, there are still other designations." + +***** + +White alders, bluish lilac, red hawthorn, and radiant laburnum were in +flower and gave forth their fragrance in front of the house. The windows +were open and the blinds were drawn. Mogens leaned in over the sill and +the blinds lay on his back. It was grateful to the eye after all the +summer-sun on forest and water and in the air to look into the subdued, +soft, quiet light of a room. A tall woman of opulent figure stood +within, the back toward the window, and was putting flowers in a large +vase. The waist of her pink morning-gown was gathered high up below, +the bosom by a shining black leather-belt; on the floor behind her lay a +snow-white dressing-jacket; her abundant, very blond hair was hanging in +a bright-red net. + +"You look rather pale after the celebration last night," was the first +thing Mogens said. + +"Good-morning," she replied and held out without turning around her +hand with the flowers in it towards him. Mogens took one of the flowers. +Laura turned the head half towards him, opened her hand slightly and +let the flowers fall to the floor in little lots. Then she again busied +herself with the vase. + +"Ill?" asked Mogens. + +"Tired." + +"I won't eat breakfast with you to-day." + +"No?" + +"We can't have dinner together either." + +"You are going fishing?" + +"No--Good-by!" + +"When are you coming back?" + +"I am not coming back." + +"What do you mean by that?" she asked arranging her gown; she went to +the window, and there sat down on the chair. + +"I am tired of you. That's all." + +"Now you are spiteful, what's the matter with you? What have I done to +you?" + +"Nothing, but since we are neither married nor madly in love with each +other, I don't see anything very strange in the fact, that I am going my +own way." + +"Are you jealous?" she asked very softly. + +"Of one like you! I haven't lost my senses!" + +"But what is the meaning of all this?" + +"It means that I am tired of your beauty, that I know your voice and +your gestures by heart, and that neither your whims nor your stupidity +nor your craftiness can any longer entertain me. Can you tell me then +why I should stay?" + +Laura wept. "Mogens, Mogens, how can you have the heart to do this? +Oh, what shall I, shall I, shall I, shall I do! Stay only today, only +to-day, Mogens. You dare not go away from me!" + +"Those are lies, Laura, you don't even believe it yourself. It is not +because you think such a terrible lot of me, that you are distressed +now. You are only a little bit alarmed because of the change, you are +frightened because of the slight disarrangement of your daily habits. +I am thoroughly familiar with that, you are not the first one I have +gotten tired of." + +"Oh, stay with me only to-day, I won't torment you to stay a single hour +longer. + +"You really are dogs, you women! You haven't a trace of fine feelings in +your body. If one gives you a kick, you come crawling back again." + +"Yes, yes, that's what we do, but stay only for to-day--won't +you--stay!" + +"Stay, stay! No!" + +"You have never loved me, Mogens!" + +"No!" + +"Yes, you did; you loved me the day when there was such a violent wind, +oh, that beautiful day down at the sea-shore, when we sat in the shelter +of the boat." + +"Stupid girl!" + +"If I only were a respectable girl with fine parents, and not such a one +as I am, then you would stay with me; then you would not have the heart +to be so hard--and I, who love you so!" + +"Oh, don't bother about that." + +"No, I am like the dust beneath your feet, you care no more for me. Not +one kind word, only hard words; contempt, that is good enough for me." + +"The others are neither better nor worse than you. Good-by, Laura!" + +He held out his hand to her, but she kept hers on her back and wailed: +"No, no, not good-by! not good-by!" + +Mogens raised the blind, stepped back a couple of paces and let it +fall down in front of the window. Laura quickly leaned down over the +window-sill beneath it and begged: "Come to me! come and give me your +hand." + +"No." + +When he had gone a short distance she cried plaintively: + +"Good-by, Mogens!" + +He turned towards the house with a slight greeting. Then he walked on: +"And a girl like that still believes in love!--no, she does not!" + +***** + +The evening wind blew from the ocean over the land, the strand-grass +swung its pale spikes to and fro and raised its pointed leaves a little, +the rushes bowed down, the water of the lake was darkened by thousands +of tiny furrows, and the leaves of the water-lilies tugged restlessly at +their stalks. Then the dark tops of the heather began to nod, and on +the fields of sand the sorrel swayed unsteadily to and fro. Towards the +land! The stalks of oats bowed downward, and the young clover trembled +on the stubble-fields, and the wheat rose and fell in heavy billows; the +roofs groaned, the mill creaked, its wings swung about, the smoke was +driven back into the chimneys, and the window-panes became covered with +moisture. + +There was a swishing of wind in the gable-windows, in the poplars of the +manor-house; the wind whistled through tattered bushes on the green hill +of Bredbjerg. Mogens lay up there, and gazed out over the dark earth. +The moon was beginning to acquire radiance, and mists were drifting down +on the meadow. Everything was very sad, all of life, all of life, empty +behind him, dark before him. But such was life. Those who were happy +were also blind. Through misfortune he had learned to see; everything +was full of injustice and lies, the entire earth was a huge, rotting +lie; faith, friendship, mercy, a lie it was, a lie was each and +everything; but that which was called love, it was the hollowest of all +hollow things, it was lust, flaming lust, glimmering lust, smoldering +lust, but lust and nothing else. Why had he to know this? Why had he not +been permitted to hold fast to his faith in all these gilded lies? Why +was he compelled to see while the others remained blind? He had a right +to blindness, he had believed in everything in which it was possible to +believe. + +Down in the village the lights were being lit. + +Down there home stood beside home. My home! my home! And my childhood's +belief in everything beautiful in the world.--And what if they were +right, the others! If the world were full of beating hearts and the +heavens full of a loving God! But why do I not know that, why do I know +something different? And I do know something different, cutting, bitter, +true... + +He rose; fields and meadows lay before him bathed in moonlight. He went +down into the village, along the way past the garden of the manor-house; +he went and looked over the stone-wall. Within on a grass-plot in +the garden stood a silver poplar, the moonlight fell sharply on the +quivering leaves; sometimes they showed their dark side, sometimes +their white. He placed his elbows on the wall and stared at the tree; it +looked as if the leaves were running in a fine rain down the limbs. +He believed, that he was hearing the sound which the foliage produced. +Suddenly the lovely voice of a woman became audible quite near by: + + "Flower in dew! Flower in dew! + Whisper to me thy dreams, thine own. + Does in them lie the same strange air + The same wonderful elfin air, + As in mine own? + Are they filled with whispers and sobbing and sighing + Amid radiance slumbering and fragrances dying, + Amid trembling ringing, amid rising singing: + In longing, + In longing, + I live." + +Then silence fell again. Mogens drew a long breath and listened +intently: no more singing; up in the house a door was heard. Now he +clearly heard the sound from the leaves of the silver poplar. He bowed +his head in his arms and wept. + +The next day was one of those in which late summer is rich. A day with +a brisk, cool wind, with many large swiftly flying clouds, with +everlasting alternations of darkness and light, according as the clouds +drift past the sun. Mogens had gone up to the cemetery, the garden of +the manor abutted on it. Up there it looked rather barren, the grass +had recently been cut; behind an old quadrangular iron-fence stood a +wide-spreading, low elder with waving foliage. Some of the graves had +wooden frames around them, most were only low, quadrangular hills; a +few of them had metal-pieces with inscriptions on them, others wooden +crosses from which the colors had peeled, others had wax wreaths, the +greater number had nothing at all. Mogens wandered about hunting for a +sheltered place, but the wind seemed to blow on all sides of the church. +He threw himself down near the embankment, drew a book out of his +pocket; but he did not get on with his reading; every time when a cloud +went past the sun, it seemed to him as though it were growing chilly, +and he thought of getting up, but then the light came again and he +remained lying. A young girl came slowly along the way, a greyhound and +a pointer ran playfully ahead of her. She stopped and it seemed as if +she wanted to sit down, but when she saw Mogens she continued her walk +diagonally across the cemetery out through the gate. Mogens rose and +looked after her; she walked down on the main road, the dogs still +played. Then he began reading the inscription on one of the graves; +it quickly made him smile. Suddenly a shadow fell across the grave and +remained lying there, Mogens looked sideways. A tanned, young man stood +there, one hand in his game-bag, in the other he held his gun. + +"It isn't really half bad," he said, indicating the inscription. + +"No," said Mogens and straightened up from his bent position. + +"Tell me," continued the hunter, and looked to the side, as if seeking +something, "you have been here for a couple of days, and I have been +going about wondering about you, but up to the present didn't come near +you. You go and drift about so alone, why haven't you looked in on us? +And what in the world do you do to kill the time? For you haven't any +business in the neighborhood, have you?" + +"No, I am staying here for pleasure." + +"There isn't much of that here," the stranger exclaimed and laughed, +"don't you shoot? Wouldn't you like to come with me? Meanwhile I have +to go down to the inn and get some small shot, and while you are getting +ready, I can go over, and call down the blacksmith. Well! Will you +join?" + +"Yes, with pleasure." + +"Oh, by the way,--Thora! haven't you seen a girl?" he jumped up on the +embankment. + +"Yes, there she is, she is my cousin, I can't introduce you to her, +but come along, let us follow her; we made a wager, now you can he the +judge. She was to be in the cemetery with the dogs and I was to pass +with gun and game-bag, but was not to call or to whistle, and if the +dogs nevertheless went with me she would lose; now we will see." + +After a little while they overtook the lady; the hunter looked straight +ahead, but could not help smiling; Mogens bowed when they passed. The +dogs looked in surprise after the hunter and growled a bit; then +they looked up at the lady and barked, she wanted to pat them, but +indifferently they walked away from her and barked after the hunter. +Step by step they drew further and further away from her, squinted +at her, and then suddenly darted off after the hunter. And when they +reached him, they were quite out of control; they jumped up on him and +rushed off in every direction and back again. + +"You lose," he called out to her; she nodded smilingly, turned round and +went on. + +They hunted till late in the afternoon. Mogens and William got along +famously and Mogens had to promise that he would come to the manor-house +in the evening. This he did, and later he came almost every day, but in +spite of all the cordial invitations he continued living at the inn. + +Now came a restless period for Mogens. At first Thora's proximity +brought back to life all his sad and gloomy memories. Often he had +suddenly to begin a conversation with one of the others or leave, so +that his emotion might not completely master him. She was not at all +like Camilla, and yet he heard and saw only Camilla. Thora was small, +delicate, and slender, roused easily to laughter, easily to tears, and +easily to enthusiasm. If for a longer time she spoke seriously with some +one, it was not like a drawing near, but rather as if she disappeared +within her own self. If some one explained something to her or developed +an idea, her face, her whole figure expressed the most intimate trust +and now and again, perhaps, also expectancy. William and his little +sister did not treat her quite like a comrade, but yet not like +a stranger either. The uncle and the aunt, the farm-hands, the +maid-servants, and the peasants of the neighborhood all paid court to +her, but very carefully, and almost timidly. In respect to her they were +almost like a wanderer in the forest, who sees close beside him one +of those tiny, graceful song-birds with very clear eyes and light, +captivating movements. He is enraptured by this tiny, living creature, +he would so much like to have it come closer and closer, but he does not +care to move, scarcely to take breath, lest it may be frightened and fly +away. + +As Mogens saw Thora more and more frequently, memories came more and +more rarely, and he began to see her as she was. It was a time of peace +and happiness when he was with her, full of silent longing and quiet +sadness when he did not see her. Later he told her of Camilla and of +his past life, and it was almost with surprise that he looked back upon +himself. Sometimes it seemed inconceivable to him that it was he who had +thought, felt, and done all the strange things of which he told. + +On an evening he and Thora stood on a height in the garden, and watched +the sunset. William and his little sister were playing hide-and-seek +around the hill. There were thousands of light, delicate colors, +hundreds of strong radiant ones. Mogens turned away from them and +looked at the dark figure by his side. How insignificant it looked in +comparison with all this glowing splendor; he sighed, and looked up +again at the gorgeously colored clouds. It was not like a real thought, +but it came vague and fleeting, existed for a second and disappeared; it +was as if it had been the eye that thought it. + +"The elves in the green hill are happy now that the sun has gone down," +said Thora. + +"Oh--are they?" + +"Don't you know that elves love darkness?" + +Mogens smiled. + +"You don't believe in elves, but you should. It is beautiful to believe +in all that, in gnomes and elves. I believe in mermaids too, and +elder-women, but goblins! What can one do with goblins and three-legged +horses? Old Mary gets angry when I tell her this; for to believe what +I believe, she says is not God-fearing. Such things have nothing to do +with people, but warnings and spirits are in the gospel, too. What do +you say?" + +"I, oh, I don't know--what do you really mean?" + +"You surely don't love nature?" + +"But, quite the contrary." + +"I don't mean nature, as you see it from benches placed where there is +a fine view on hills up which they have built steps; where it is like a +set scene, but nature every day, always." + +"Just so! I can take joy in every leaf, every twig, every beam of light, +every shadow. There isn't a hill so barren, nor a turf-pit so square, +nor a road so monotonous, that I cannot for a moment fall in love with +it." + +"But what joy can you take in a tree or a bush, if you don't imagine +that a living being dwells within it, that opens and closes the flowers +and smooths the leaves? When you see a lake, a deep, clear lake, don't +you love it for this reason, that you imagine creatures living deep, +deep down below, that have their own joys and sorrows, that have their +own strange life with strange yearnings? And what, for instance, is +there beautiful about the green hill of Berdbjerg, if you don't imagine, +that inside very tiny creatures swarm and buzz, and sigh when the sun +rises, but begin to dance and play with their beautiful treasure-troves, +as soon as evening comes." + +"How wonderfully beautiful that is! And you see that?" + +"But you?" + +"Yes, I can't explain it, but there is something in the color, in the +movements, and in the shapes, and then in the life which lives in them; +in the sap which rises in trees and flowers, in the sun and rain that +make them grow, in the sand which blows together in hills, and in the +showers of rain that furrow and fissure the hillsides. Oh, I cannot +understand this at all, when I am to explain it." + +"And that is enough for you?" + +"Oh, more than enough sometimes--much too much! And when shape and color +and movement are so lovely and so fleeting and a strange world lies +behind all this and lives and rejoices and desires and can express all +this in voice and song, then you feel so lonely, that you cannot come +closer to this world, and life grows lusterless and burdensome." + +"No, no, you must not think of your fiancee in that way." + +"Oh, I am not thinking of her." + +William and his sister came up to them, and together they went into the +house. + +***** + +On a morning several days later Mogens and Thora were walking in the +garden. He was to look at the grape-vine nursery, where he had not yet +been. It was a rather long, but not very high hothouse. The sun sparkled +and played over the glass-roof. They entered, the air was warm and +moist, and had a peculiar heavy aromatic odor as of earth that has just +been turned. The beautiful incised leaves and the heavy dewy grapes were +resplendent and luminous under the sunlight. They spread out beneath the +glass-cover in a great green field of blessedness. Thora stood there +and happily looked upward; Mogens was restless and stared now and then +unhappily at her, and then up into the foliage. + +"Listen," Thora said gayly, "I think, I am now beginning to understand +what you said the other day on the hill about form and color." + +"And you understood nothing besides?" Mogens asked softly and seriously. + +"No," she whispered, looked quickly at him, dropped the glance, and grew +red, "not then." + +"Not then," Mogens repeated softly and kneeled down before her, "but +now, Thora?" She bent down toward him, gave him one of her hands, +and covered her eyes with the other and wept. Mogens pressed the hand +against his breast, as he rose; she lifted her head, and he kissed her +on the forehead. She looked up at him with radiant, moist eyes, smiled +and whispered: "Heaven be praised!" + +Mogens stayed another week. The arrangement was that the wedding was to +take place in midsummer. Then he left, and winter came with dark days, +long nights, and a snowstorm of letters. + +***** + +All the windows of the manor-house were lighted, leaves and flowers were +above every door, friends and acquaintances in a dense crowd stood on +the large stone stairway, all looking out into the dusk.--Mogens had +driven off with his bride. + +The carriage rumbled and rumbled. The closed windows rattled. Thora +sat and looked out of one of them, at the ditch of the highway, at the +smith's hill where primroses blossomed in spring, at Bertel Nielsen's +huge elderberry bushes, at the mill and the miller's geese, and the hill +of Dalum where not many years ago she and William slid down on sleighs, +at the Dalum meadows, at the long, unnatural shadows of the horses that +rushed over the gravel-heaps, over the turf-pits and rye-field. She sat +there and wept very softly; from time to time when wiping the dew +from the pane, she looked stealthily over towards Mogens. He sat bowed +forward, his traveling-cloak was open, his hat lay and rocked on the +front seat; his hands he held in front of his face. All the things he +had to think of! It had almost robbed him of his courage. She had had +to say good-by to all her relatives and friends and to an infinity of +places, where memories lay ranged in strata, one above the other, right +up to the sky, and all this so that she might go away with him. And was +he the right sort of a man to place all one's trust in, he with his past +of brutalities and debaucheries! It was not even certain that all +this was merely his past. He had changed, it is true, and he found it +difficult to understand what he himself had been. But one never can +wholly escape from one's self, and what had been surely still was there. +And now this innocent child had been given him to guard and protect. +He had managed to get himself into the mire till over his head, and +doubtless he would easily succeed in drawing her down into it too. No, +no, it shall not be thus--no, she is to go on living her clear, bright +girl's life in spite of him. And the carriage rattled and rattled. +Darkness had set in, and here and there he saw through the thickly +covered panes, lights in the houses and yards past which they drove. +Thora slumbered. Toward morning they came to their new home, an estate +that Mogens had bought. The horses steamed in the chill morning air; the +sparrows twittered on the huge linden in the court, and the smoke rose +slowly from the chimneys. Thora looked smiling and contented at all this +after Mogens had helped her out of the carriage; but there was no other +way about, she was sleepy and too tired to conceal it. Mogens took her +to her room and then went into the garden, sat down on a bench, and +imagined that he was watching the sunrise, but he nodded too violently +to keep up the deception. About noon he and Thora met again, happy and +refreshed. They had to look at things and express their surprise; they +consulted and made decisions; they made the absurdest suggestions; +and how Thora struggled to look wise and interested when the cows +were introduced to her; and how difficult it was not to be all too +unpractically enthusiastic over a small shaggy young dog; and how Mogens +talked of drainage and the price of grain, while he stood there and in +his heart wondered how Thora would look with red poppies in her hair! +And in the evening, when they sat in their conservatory and the moon so +clearly drew the outline of the windows on the floor, what a comedy they +played, he on his part seriously representing to her that she should +go to sleep, really go to sleep, since she must be tired, the while +he continued to hold her hand in his; and she on her part, when she +declared he was disagreeable and wanted to be rid of her, that he +regretted having taken a wife. Then a reconciliation, of course, +followed, and they laughed, and the hour grew late. Finally Thora went +to her room, but Mogens remained sitting in the conservatory, miserable +that she had gone. He drew black imaginings for himself, that she was +dead and gone, and that he was sitting here all alone in the world and +weeping over her, and then he really wept. At length he became angry at +himself and stalked up and down the floor, and wanted to be sensible. +There was a love, pure and noble, without any coarse, earthly passion; +yes, there was, and if there was not, there was going to be one. Passion +spoiled everything, and it was very ugly and unhuman. How he hated +everything in human nature that was not tender and pure, fine and +gentle! He had been subjugated, weighed down, tormented, by this ugly +and powerful force; it had lain in his eyes and ears, it had poisoned +all his thoughts. + +He went to his room. He intended to read and took a book; he read, but +had not the slightest notion what--could anything have happened to her! +No, how could it? But nevertheless he was afraid, possibly there might +have--no, he could no longer stand it. He stole softly to her door; no, +everything was still and peaceful. When he listened intently it seemed +as if he could hear her breathing--how his heart throbbed, it seemed, he +could hear it too. He went back to his room and his book. He closed his +eyes; how vividly he saw her; he heard her voice, she bent down toward +him and whispered--how he loved her, loved her, loved her! It was like a +song within him; it seemed as if his thoughts took on rhythmic form, +and how clearly he could see everything of which he thought! Still and +silent she lay and slept, her arm beneath the neck, her hair loosened, +her eyes were closed, she breathed very softly--the air trembled within, +it was red like the reflection of roses. Like a clumsy faun, imitating +the dance of the nymphs, so the bed-cover with its awkward folds +outlined her delicate form. No, no, he did not want to think of her, not +in that way, for nothing in all the world, no; and now it all came back +again, it could not be kept away, but he would keep it away, away! And +it came and went, came and went, until sleep seized him, and the night +passed. + +***** + +When the sun had set on the evening of the next day, they walked about +together in the garden. Arm in arm they walked very slowly and very +silently up one path and down the other, out of the fragrance of +mignonettes through that of roses into that of jasmine. A few moths +fluttered past them; out in the grain-field a wild duck called, +otherwise most of the sounds came from Thora's silk dress. + +"How silent we can be," exclaimed Thora. + +"And how we can walk!" Mogens continued, "we must have walked about four +miles by now." + +Then they walked again for a while and were silent. + +"Of what are you thinking now?" she asked. + +"I am thinking of myself." + +"That's just what I am doing." + +"Are you also thinking of yourself?" + +"No, of yourself--of you, Mogens." + +He drew her closer. They were going up to the conservatory. The door +was open; it was very light in there, and the table with the snowy-white +cloth, the silver dish with the dark red strawberries, the shining +silver pot and the chandelier gave quite a festive impression. + +"It is as in the fairy-tale, where Hansel and Gretel come to the +cake-house out in the wood," Thora said. + +"Do you want to go in?" + +"Oh, you quite forget, that in there dwells a witch, who wants to put us +unhappy little children into an oven and eat us. No, it is much better +that we resist the sugar-panes and the pancake-roof, take each other by +the hand, and go back into the dark, dark wood." + +They walked away from the conservatory. She leaned closely toward Mogens +and continued: "It may also be the palace of the Grand Turk and you are +the Arab from the desert who wants to carry me off, and the guard is +pursuing us; the curved sabers flash, and we run and run, but they have +taken your horse, and then they take us along and put us into a big bag, +and we are in it together and are drowned in the sea.--Let me see, or +might it be...?" + +"Why might it not be, what it is?" + +"Well, it might be that, but it is not enough.... If you knew how I love +you, but I am so unhappy--I don't know what it is--there is such a great +distance between us--no--" + +She flung her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately and +pressed her burning cheek against his: + +"I don't know how it is, but sometimes I almost wish that you beat me--I +know it is childish, and that I am very happy, very happy, and yet I +feel so unhappy!" + +She laid her head on his breast and wept, and then she began while her +tears were still streaming, to sing, at first very gently, but then +louder and louder: + + "In longing + In longing! live!" + +"My own little wife!" and he lifted her up in his arms and carried her +in. + +In the morning he stood beside her bed. The light came faintly and +subdued through the drawn blinds. It softened all the lines in the room +and made all the colors seem sated and peaceful. It seemed to Mogens +as if the air rose and fell with her bosom in gentle rarifications. +Her head rested a little sidewise on the pillow, her hair fell over her +white brow, one of her cheeks was a brighter red than the other, now and +then there was a faint quivering in the calmly-arched eyelids, and +the lines of her mouth undulated imperceptibly between unconscious +seriousness and slumbering smiles. Mogens stood for a long time +and looked at her, happy and quiet. The last shadow of his past had +disappeared. Then he stole away softly and sat down in the living-room +and waited for her in silence. He had sat there for a while, when he +felt her head on his shoulder and her cheek against his. + +***** + +They went out together into the freshness of the morning. The sunlight +was jubilant above the earth, the dew sparkled, flowers that had +awakened early gleamed, a lark sang high up beneath the sky, swallows +flew swiftly through the air. He and she walked across the green field +toward the hill with the ripening rye; they followed the footpath which +led over there. She went ahead, very slowly and looked back over her +shoulder toward him, and they talked and laughed. The further they +descended the hill, the more the grain intervened, soon they could no +longer be seen. + + + + +THE PLAGUE IN BERGAMO + + +Old Bergamo lay on the summit of a low mountain, hedged in by walls and +gates, and New Bergamo lay at the foot of the mountain, exposed to all +winds. + +One day the plague broke out in the new town and spread at a terrific +speed; a multitude of people died and the others fled across the plains +to all four corners of the world. And the citizens in Old Bergamo set +fire to the deserted town in order to purify the air, but it did no +good. People began dying up there too, at first one a day, then five, +then ten, then twenty, and when the plague had reached its height, a +great many more. + +And they could not flee as those had done, who lived in the new town. + +There were some, who tried it, but they led the life of a hunted animal, +hid in ditches and sewers, under hedges, and in the green fields; for +the peasants, into whose homes in many places the first fugitives had +brought the plague, stoned every stranger they came across, drove him +from their lands, or struck him down like a mad dog without mercy or +pity, in justifiable self-defense, as they believed. + +The people of Old Bergamo had to stay where they were, and day by day it +grew hotter; and day by day the gruesome disease became more voracious +and more grasping. Terror grew to madness. What there had been of order +and good government was as if the earth had swallowed it, and what was +worst in human nature came in its stead. + +At the very beginning when the plague broke out people worked together +in harmony and concord. They took care that the corpses were duly and +properly buried, and every day saw to it that big bonfires were lighted +in squares and open places so that the healthful smoke might drift +through the streets. Juniper and vinegar were distributed among the +poor, and above all else, the people sought the churches early and late, +alone and in processions. Every day they went with their prayers before +God and every day when the sun was setting behind the mountains, all the +churchbells called wailingly towards heaven from hundreds of swinging +throats. Fasts were ordered and every day holy relics were set out on +the altars. + +At last one day when they did not know what else to do, from the balcony +of the town hall, amid the sound of trumpets and horns, they proclaimed +the Holy Virgin, podesta or lordmayor of the town now and forever. + +But all this did not help; there was nothing that helped. + +And when the people felt this and the belief grew stronger that heaven +either would not or could not help, they not only let their hands lie +idly in the lap, saying, "Let there come what may." Nay, it seemed, as +if sin had grown from a secret, stealthy disease into a wicked, open, +raging plague, which hand in hand with the physical contagion sought +to slay the soul as the other strove to destroy the body, so incredible +were their deeds, so enormous their depravity! The air was filled with +blasphemy and impiety, with the groans of the gluttons and the howling +of drunkards. The wildest night hid not greater debauchery than was here +committed in broad daylight. + +"To-day we shall eat, for to-morrow we die!"--It was as if they had set +these words to music, and played on manifold instruments a never-ending +hellish concert. Yea, if all sins had not already been invented, they +would have been invented here, for there was no road they would not have +followed in their wickedness. The most unnatural vices flourished among +them, and even such rare sins as necromancy, magic, and exorcism were +familiar to them, for there were many who hoped to obtain from the +powers of evil the protection which heaven had not vouchsafed them. + +Whatever had to do with mutual assistance or pity had vanished from +their minds; each one had thoughts only for himself. He who was sick +was looked upon as a common foe, and if it happened that any one was +unfortunate enough to fall down on the street, exhausted by the first +fever-paroxysm of the plague, there was no door that opened to him, +but with lance-pricks and the casting of stones they forced him to drag +himself out of the way of those who were still healthy. + +And day by day the plague increased, the summer's sun blazed down upon +the town, not a drop of rain fell, not the faintest breeze stirred. From +corpses that lay rotting in the houses and from corpses that were only +half-buried in the earth, there was engendered a suffocating stench +which mingled with the stagnant air of the streets and attracted swarms +and clouds of ravens and crows until the walls and roofs were black with +them. And round about the wall encircling the town sat strange, +large, outlandish birds from far away with beaks eager for spoil and +expectantly crooked claws; and they sat there and looked down with their +tranquil greedy eyes as if only waiting for the unfortunate town to turn +into one huge carrion-pit. + +It was just eleven weeks since the plague had broken out, when the +watchman in the tower and other people who were standing in high places +saw a strange procession wind from the plain into the streets of the new +town between the smoke-blackened stone walls and the black ash-heaps of +the wooden houses. A multitude of people! At least, six hundred or more, +men and women, old and young, and they carried big black crosses between +them and above their heads floated wide banners, red as fire and blood. +They sing as they are moving onward and heartrending notes of despair +rise up into the silent sultry air. + +Brown, gray, and black are their clothes, but all wear a red badge on +their breast. A cross it proves to be, as they draw nearer. For all the +time they are drawing nearer. They press upward along the steep road, +flanked by walls, which leads up to the old town. It is a throng of +white faces; they carry scourges in their hands. On their red banners +a rain of fire is pictured. And the black crosses sway from one side to +the other in the crowd. + +From the dense mass there rises a smell of sweat, of ashes, of the dust +of the roadway, and of stale incense. + +They no longer sing, neither do they speak, nothing is audible but the +tramping, herd-like sound of their naked feet. + +Face after face plunges into the darkness of the tower-gate, and emerges +into the light on the other side with a dazed, tired expression and +half-closed lids. + +Then the singing begins again: a miserere; they grasp their scourges +more firmly and walk with a brisker step as if to a war-song. + +They look as if they came from a famished city, their cheeks are hollow, +their bones stand out, their lips are bloodless, and they have dark +rings beneath their eyes. + +The people of Bergamo have flocked together and watch them with +amazement--and uneasiness. Red dissipated faces stand contrasted with +these pale white ones; dull glances exhausted by debauchery are +lowered before these piercing, flaming eyes; mocking blasphemers stand +open-mouthed before these hymns. + +And there is blood on their scourges. + +A feeling of strange uneasiness filled the people at the sight of these +strangers. + +But it did not take long, however, before they shook off this +impression. Some of them recognized a half-crazy shoemaker from Brescia +among those who bore crosses, and immediately the whole mob through him +became a laughingstock. Anyhow, it was something new, a distraction +amid the everyday, and when the strangers marched toward the cathedral, +everybody followed behind as they would have followed a band of jugglers +or a tame bear. + +But as they pushed their way forward they became embittered; they felt +so matter-of-fact in comparison with the solemnity of these people. They +understood very well, that those shoemakers and tailors had come here +to convert them, to pray for them, and to utter the words which they did +not wish to hear. There were two lean, gray-haired philosophers who had +elaborated impiety into a system; they incited the people, and out of +the malice of their hearts stirred their passions, so that with each +step as they neared the church the attitude of the crowd became more +threatening and their cries of anger wilder. It would not have taken +much to have made them lay violent hands on those unknown flagellants. +Not a hundred steps from the church entrance, the door of a tavern was +thrown open, and a whole flock of carousers tumbled out, one on top of +the other. They placed themselves at the head of the procession and led +the way, singing and bellowing with grotesquely solemn gestures--all +except one who turned handsprings right up the grass-grown stones of +the church-steps. This, of course, caused laughter, and so all entered +peacefully into the sanctuary. + +It seemed strange to be here again, to pass through this great cool +space, in this atmosphere pungent with the smell of old drippings from +wax candles--across the sunken flag-stones which their feet knew so well +and over these stones whose worn-down designs and bright inscriptions +had so often caused their thoughts to grow weary. And while their eyes +half-curiously, half-unwillingly sought rest in the gently subdued +light underneath the vaults or glided over the dim manifoldness of the +gold-dust and smoke-stained colors, or lost themselves in the strange +shadows of the altar, there rose in their hearts a longing which could +not be suppressed. + +In the meantime those from the tavern continued their scandalous +behavior upon the high altar. A huge, massive butcher among them, a +young man, had taken off his white apron and tied it around his neck, so +that it hung down his back like a surplice, and he celebrated mass +with the wildest and maddest words, full of obscenity and blasphemy. An +oldish little fellow with a fat belly, active and nimble in spite of +his weight, with a face like a skinned pumpkin was the sacristan +and responded with the most frivolous refrains. He kneeled down and +genuflected and turned his back to the altar and rang the bell as though +it were a jester's and swung the censer round like a wheel. The others +lay drunk on the steps at full length, bellowing with laughter and +hiccoughing with drunkenness. + +The whole church laughed and howled and mocked at the strangers. They +called out to them to pay close attention so that they might know what +the people thought of their God, here in Old Bergamo. For it was not so +much their wish to insult God that made them rejoice in the tumult; but +they felt satisfaction in knowing that each of their blasphemies was a +sting in the hearts of these holy people. + +They stopped in the center of the nave and groaned with pain, their +hearts boiling with hatred and vengeance. They lifted their eyes and +hands to God, and prayed that His vengeance might fall because of +the mock done to Him here in His own house. They would gladly go to +destruction together with these fool-hardy, if only He would show His +might. Joyously they would let themselves be crushed beneath His heel, +if only He would triumph, that cries of terror, despair, and repentance, +that were too late, might rise up toward Him from these impious lips. + +And they struck up a miserere. Every note of it sounded like a cry for +the rain of fire that overwhelmed Sodom, for the strength which +Samson possessed when he pulled down the columns in the house of the +Philistines. They prayed with song and with words; they denuded their +shoulders and prayed with their scourges. They lay kneeling row after +row, stripped to their waist, and swung the sharp-pointed and knotted +cords down on their bleeding backs. Wildly and madly they beat +themselves so that the blood clung in drops on their hissing whips. +Every blow was a sacrifice to God. Would that they might beat themselves +in still another way, would that they might tear themselves into a +thousand bloody shreds here before His eyes! This body with which +they had sinned against His commandments had to be punished, tortured, +annihilated, that He might see how hateful it was to them, that He might +see how they became like unto dogs in order to please Him, lower than +dogs before His will, the lowliest of vermin that ate the dust beneath +the soles of His feet! Blow upon blow--until their arms dropped or +until cramps turned them to knots. There they lay row on row with eyes +gleaming with madness, with foam round their mouths, the blood trickling +down their flesh. + +And those who watched this suddenly felt their hearts throb, noticed how +hotness rose into their cheeks and how their breathing grew difficult. +It seemed as if something cold was growing out beneath their scalps, +and their knees grew weak. It seized hold of them; in their brains was a +little spot of madness which understood this frenzy. + +To feel themselves the slaves of a harsh and powerful deity, to thrust +themselves down before His feet; to be His, not in gentle piety, not +in the inactivity of silent prayer, but madly, in a frenzy of +self-humiliation, in blood, and wailing, beneath wet gleaming +scourges--this they were capable of understanding. Even the butcher +became silent, and the toothless philosophers lowered their gray heads +before the eyes that roved about. + +And it became quite still within the church; only a slight wave-like +motion swept through the mob. + +Then one from among the strangers, a young monk, rose up and spoke. He +was pale as a sheet of linen, his black eyes glowed like coals, which +are just going to die out, and the gloomy, pain-hardened lines around +his mouth were as if carven in wood with a knife, and not like the folds +in the face of a human being. + +He raised his thin, sickly hands toward heaven in prayer, and the +sleeves of his robe slipped down over his lean, white arms. + +Then he spoke. + +Of hell he spoke, that it is infinite as heaven is infinite, of the +lonely world of torments which each one of the condemned must endure and +fill with his wails. Seas of sulphur were there, fields of scorpions, +flames that wrap themselves round a person like a cloak, and silent +flames that have hardened and plunged into the body like a spear twisted +round in a wound. + +It was quite still; breathlessly they listened to his words, for he +spoke as if he had seen it with his own eyes, and they asked themselves: +is he one of the condemned, sent up to us from the caverns of hell to +bear witness before us? + +Then he preached for a long time concerning the law and the power of +the law, that its every title must be fulfilled, and that every +transgression of which they were guilty would be counted against them +by grain and ounce. "But Christ died for our sins, say ye, and we are no +longer subject to the law. But I say unto you, hell will not be cheated +of a single one of you, and not a single iron tooth of the torture +wheel of hell shall pass beside your flesh. You build upon the cross of +Golgotha, come, come! Come and look at it! I shall lead you straight to +its foot. It was on a Friday, as you know, that they thrust Him out +of one of their gates and laid the heavier end of a cross upon His +shoulders. They made Him bear it to a barren and unfruitful hill without +the city, and in crowds they followed Him, whirling up the dust with +their many feet so that it seemed a red cloud was over the place. And +they tore the garments from Him and bared His body, as the lords of the +law have a malefactor exposed before the eyes of all, so that all may +see the flesh that is to be committed to torture. And they flung Him on +the cross and stretched Him out and they drove a nail of iron through +each of His resistant hands and a nail through His crossed feet. With +clubs they struck the nails till they were in to the heads. And they +raised upright the cross in a hole in the ground, but it would not stand +firm and straight, and they moved it from one side to the other, and +drove wedges and posts all around, and those who did this pulled down +the brims of their hats so that the blood from His hands might not drop +into their eyes. And He on the cross looked down on the soldiers, who +were casting lots for His unstitched garment and down on the whole +turbulent mob, for whose sake He suffered, that they might be saved; and +in all the multitude there was not one pitiful eye. + +"And those below looked up toward Him, who hung there suffering and +weak; they looked at the tablet above His head, whereon was written +'King of the Jews,' and they reviled Him and called out to Him: 'Thou +that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. +If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.' Then He, the only +begotten Son of God was taken with anger, and saw that they were not +worthy of salvation, these mobs that fill the earth. He tore free His +feet over the heads of the nails, and He clenched His hands round the +nails and tore them out, so that the arms of the cross bent like a bow. +Then He leaped down upon the earth and snatched up His garment so that +the dice rolled down the slope of Golgotha, and flung it round himself +with the wrath of a king and ascended into heaven. And the cross stood +empty, and the great work of redemption was never fulfilled. There is +no mediator between God and us; there is no Jesus who died for us on the +cross; there is no Jesus who died for us on the cross, there is no Jesus +who died for us on the cross!" + +He was silent. + +As he uttered the last words he leaned forward over the multitude and +with his lips and hands hurled the last words over their heads. A groan +of agony went through the church, and in the corners they had begun to +sob. + +Then the butcher pushed forward with raised, threatening hands, pale +as a corpse, and shouted: "Monk, monk, you must nail Him on the cross +again, you must!" and behind him there was a hoarse, hissing sound: +"Yea, yea, crucify, crucify Him!" And from all mouths, threatening, +beseeching, peremptory, rose a storm of cries up to the vaulted roof: +"Crucify, crucify Him!" + +And clear and serene a single quivering voice: "Crucify Him!" + +But the monk looked down over this wave of outstretched hands, upon +these distorted faces with the dark openings of screaming lips, where +rows of teeth gleamed white like the teeth of enraged beasts of prey, +and in a moment of ecstasy he spread out his arms toward heaven and +laughed. Then he stepped down, and his people raised their banners with +the rain of fire and their empty black crosses, and crowded their way +out of the church and again passed singing across the square and again +through the opening of the tower-gate. + +And those of Old Bergamo stared after them, as they went down the +mountain. The steep road, lined by walls, was misty in the light of the +sun setting beyond the plain, but on the red wall encircling the city +the shadows of the great crosses which swayed from side to side in the +crowd stood out black and sharply outlined. + +Further away sounded the singing; one or another of the banners still +gleamed red out of the new town's smoke-blackened void; then they +disappeared in the sun-lit plain. + + + + +THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ROSES + + +There should have been roses + +Of the large, pale yellow ones. + +And they should hang in abundant clusters over the garden-wall, +scattering their tender leaves carelessly down into the wagon-tracks on +the road: a distinguished glimmer of all the exuberant wealth of flowers +within. + +And they should have the delicate, fleeting fragrance of roses, which +cannot be seized and is like that of unknown fruits of which the senses +tell legends in their dreams. + +Or should they have been red, the roses? + +Perhaps. + +They might be of the small, round, hardy roses, and they would have to +hang down in slender twining branches with smooth leaves, red and fresh, +and like a salutation or a kiss thrown to the wanderer, who is walking, +tired and dusty, in the middle of the road, glad that he now is only +half a mile from Rome. + +Of what may he be thinking? What may be his life? + +And now the houses hide him, they hide everything on that side. They +hide one another and the road and the city, but on the other side there +is still a distant view. There the road swings in an indolent, slow +curve down toward the river, down toward the mournful bridge. And behind +this lies the immense Campagna. The gray and the green of such large +plains.... It is as if the weariness of many tedious miles rose out of +them and settled with a heavy weight upon one, and made one feel lonely +and forsaken, and filled one with desires and yearning. So it is much +better that one should take one's ease here in a corner between high +garden-walls, where the air lies tepid and soft and still--to sit on the +sunny side, where a bench curves into a niche of the wall, to sit there +end gaze upon the shimmering green acanthus in the roadside ditches, +upon the silver-spotted thistles, and the pale-yellow autumn flowers. + +The roses should have been on the long gray wall opposite, a wall full +of lizard holes and chinks with withered grass; and they should have +peeped out at the very spot where the long, monotonous flatness is +broken by a large, swelling basket of beautiful old wrought iron, a +latticed extension, which forms a spacious balcony, reaching higher than +the breast. It must have been refreshing to go up there when one was +weary of the enclosed garden. + +And this they often were. + +They hated the magnificent old villa, which is said to be within, with +its marble stair-cases and its tapestries of coarse weave; and the +ancient trees with their proud large crowns, pines and laurels, ashes, +cypresses, and oaks. During all the period of their growth they were +hated with the hatred which restless hearts feel for that which is +commonplace, trivial, uneventful, for that which stands still and +therefore seems hostile. + +But from the balcony one could at least range outside with one's eyes, +and that is why they stood there, one generation after the other, and +all stared into the distance, each one with pro and each one with his +con. Arms adorned with golden bracelets have lain on the edge of the +iron railing and many a silk-covered knee has pressed against the black +arabesques, the while colored ribbons waved from all its points as +signals of love and rendezvous. Heavy, pregnant housewives have also +stood here and sent impossible messages out into the distance. Large, +opulent, deserted women, pale as hatred... could one but kill with a +thought or open hell with a wish!... Women and men! It is always women +and men, even these emaciated white virgin souls which press against the +black latticework like a flock of lost doves and cry out, "Take us!" to +imagined, noble birds of prey. + +One might imagine a _proverbe_ here. + +The scenery would be very suitable for a _proverbe_. + +The wall there, just as it is; only the road would have to be wider and +expand into a circular space. In its center there would have to be +an old, modest fountain of yellowish tuff and with a bowl of broken +porphyry. As figure for the fountain a dolphin with a broken-off tail, +and one of the nostrils stopped up. From the other the fine jet of water +rises. On one side of the fountain a semicircular bench of tuff and +terracotta. + +The loose, grayish white dust; the reddish, molded stone, the hewn, +yellowish, porous tuff; the dark, polished porphyry, gleaming with +moisture, and the living, tiny, silvery jet of water: material and +colors harmonize rather well. + +The characters: two pages. + +Not of a definite, historical period, for the pages of reality in no +way correspond with the pages of the ideal. The pages here, however, are +pages such as dream in pictures and books. Accordingly it is merely the +costume which has a historical effect. + +The actress who is to represent the youngest of the pages wears thin +silk which clings closely and is pale-blue, and has heraldic lilies of +the palest gold woven into it. This and as much lace as can possibly be +employed are the most distinctive feature of the costume. It does +not aim at any definite century, but seeks to emphasize the youthful +voluptuousness of the figure, the magnificent blond hair, and the clear +complexion. + +She is married, but it lasted only a year and a half, when she was +divorced from her husband, and she is said to have acted in anything but +a proper fashion towards him. And that may well be, but it is impossible +to imagine anything more innocent in appearance than she. That is +to say, it is not the gracious elemental innocence which has such +attractive qualities; but it is rather the cultivated, mature innocence, +in which no one can be mistaken, and which goes straight to the heart. +It captivates one with all the power which something that has reached +completion only can have. + +The second actress in the _proverbe_ is slender and melancholy. She is +unmarried and has no past, absolutely none. There is no one who knows +the least thing about her. Yet these finely delineated, almost lean +limbs, and these amber-pale, regular features are vocal. The face is +shaded by raven-black curls, and borne on a strong masculine neck. Its +mocking smile, in which there is also hungry desire, allures. The eyes +are unfathomable and their depths are as soft and luminous as the dark +petals in the flower of the pansy. + +The costume is of pale-yellow, in the manner of a corselet with wide, +up-and-down stripes, a stiff ruff and buttons of topaz. There is +a narrow frilled stripe on the edge of the collar, and also on the +close-fitting sleeves. The trunks are short, wide-slashed, and of +a dead-green color with pale purple in the slashes. The hose is +gray.--Those of the blue page, of course, are pure white.--Both wear +barrets. + +Such is their appearance. + +And now the yellow one is standing up on the balcony, leaning over the +edge, the while the blue is sitting on the bench down by the fountain, +comfortably leaning back, with his ring-covered hands clasped around one +knee. He stares dreamily out upon the Campagna. + +Now he speaks: + +"No, nothing exists in the world but women!--I don't understand it... +there must be a magic in the lines out of which they are created, merely +when I see them pass: Isaura, Rosamond, and Donna Lisa, and the others. +When I see how their garment clings around their figure and how it +drapes as they walk, it is as if my heart drank the blood out of all +my arteries, and left my head empty and without thoughts and my limbs +trembling and without strength. It is as though my whole being were +gathered into a single, tremulous, uneasy breath of desire. What is it? +Why is it? It is as if happiness went invisibly past my door, and I +had to snatch it and hold it close, and make it my own. It is so +wonderful--and yet I cannot seize it, for I cannot see it." + +Then the other page speaks from his balcony: + +"And if now you sat at her feet, Lorenzo, and lost in her thoughts she +had forgotten why she had called you, and you sat silent and waiting, +and her lovely face were bent over you further from you in the clouds of +its dreams than the star in the heavens, and yet so near you that every +expression was surrendered to your admiration, every beauty-engendered +line, every tint of the skin in its white stillness as well as in its +soft rosy glow--would it not then be as if she who is sitting there +belonged to another world than the one in which you kneel in adoration! +Would it not be as if hers were another world, as if another world +surrounded her, in which her festively garbed thoughts are going out to +meet some goal which is unknown to you? Her love is far away from all +that is yours, from your world, from everything. She dreams of far +distances and her desires are of far distances. And it seems as if not +the slightest space could be found for you in her thoughts, however +ardently you might desire to sacrifice yourself for her, your life, your +all, to the end that that might be between her and you which is hardly a +faint glimmer of companionship, much less a belonging together." + +"Yes, you know that it is thus. But...." Now a greenish-yellow lizard +runs along the edge of the balcony. It stops and looks about The tail +moves.... + +If one could only find a stone... + +Look out, my four-legged friend. + +No, you cannot hit them, they hear the stone long before it reaches +them. Anyhow he got frightened. + +But the pages disappeared at the same moment. + +The blue one had been sitting there so prettily. And in her eyes lay +a yearning which was genuine and unconscious and in her movements a +nervousness that was full of presentiment. Around her mouth was a faint +expression of pain, when she spoke, and even more when she listened to +the soft, somewhat low voice of the yellow page, which spoke to her +from the balcony in words that were provocative and at the same time +caressing, that had a note of mockery and a note of sympathy. + +And doesn't it seem now as if both were still here! + +They are there, and have carried on the action of the _proverbe_, while +they were gone. They have spoken of that vague young love which never +finds peace but unceasingly flits through all the lands of foreboding +and through all the heavens of hope; this love that is dying to satisfy +itself in the powerful, fervent glow of a single great emotion! Of this +they spoke; the younger one in bitter complaint, the elder one with +regretful tenderness. Now the latter said--the yellow one to the +blue--that he should not so impatiently demand the love of a woman to +capture him and hold him bound. + +"For believe me," he said, "the love that you will find in the clasp of +two white arms, with two eyes as your immediate heaven and the certain +bliss of two lips--this love lies nigh unto the earth and unto the dust. +It has exchanged the eternal freedom of dreams for a happiness which is +measured by hours and which hourly grows older. For even if it always +grows young again, yet each time it loses one of the rays which in a +halo surround the eternal youth of dreams. No, you are happy." + +"No, you are happy," answered the blue one, "I would give a world, were +I as you are." + +And the blue one rises, and begins to walk down the road to the +Campagna, and the yellow one looks after him with a sad smile and says +to himself: "No, he is happy!" + +But far down the road the blue one turns round once more toward the +balcony, and raising his barret calls: "No, you are happy!" + +***** + +There should have been roses. + +And now a breath of wind might come and shake a rain of rose-leaves from +the laden branches, and whirl them after the departing page. + + + + +MRS. FONSS + + +In the graceful pleasure-gardens behind the Pope's ancient palace +in Avignon stands a bench from which one can overlook the Rhone, the +flowery banks of the Durance, hills and fields, and a part of the town. + +One October afternoon two Danish ladies were seated on this bench, Mrs. +Fonss, a widow, and her daughter Elinor. + +Although they had been here several days and were already familiar with +the view before them, they nevertheless sat there and marveled that this +was the way the Provence looked. + +And this really was the Provence! A clayey river with flakes of muddy +sand, and endless shores of stone-gray gravel; pale-brown fields without +a blade of grass, pale-brown slopes, pale-brown hills and dust-colored +roads, and here and there near the white houses, groups of black trees, +absolutely black bushes and trees. Over all this hung a whitish sky, +quivering with light, which made everything still paler, still dryer and +more wearily light; never a glimmer of luxuriant, satiated hues, nothing +but hungry, sun-parched colors; not a sound in the air, not a scythe +passing through the grass, not a wagon rattling over the roads; and the +town stretching out on both sides was also as if built of silence with +all the streets still as at noon time, with all the houses deaf and +dumb, every shutter closed, every blind drawn, each and every one; +houses that could neither see nor hear. + +Mrs. Fonss viewed this lifeless monotony with a resigned smile, but +it made Elinor visibly nervous; not actively nervous as in the case of +annoyance, but mournful and weary, as one often becomes after many days +of rain, when all one's gloomy thoughts seem to pour down upon one with +the rain; or as at the idiotically consoling tick-tack of a clock, when +one sits and grows incurably tired of one's self; or at watching the +flowers of the wall-paper, when the same chain of worn-out dreams clanks +about against one's will in the brain and the links are joined and come +apart and in a stifling endlessness are united again. It actually had a +physical effect upon her, this landscape, almost causing her to faint. +To-day everything seemed to have conspired with the memories of a +hope which was dead and of sweet and lively dreams which had become +disagreeable and nauseous; dreams which caused her to redden when she +thought of them and which yet she could not forget. And what had all +that to do with the region here? The blow had fallen upon her far from +here amid the surroundings of her home, by the edge of a sound with +changing waters, under pale green beech-trees. Yet it hovered on the +lips of every pale brown hill, and every green-shuttered house stood +there and held silence concerning it. + +It was the old sorrow for young hearts which had touched her. She had +loved a man and believed in his love for her, and suddenly he had chosen +some one else. Why? For what reason? What had she done to him? Had she +changed? Was she no longer the same? And all the eternal questions over +again. She had not said a word about it to her mother, but her mother +had understood every bit of it, and had been very concerned about her. +She could have screamed at this thoughtfulness which knew and yet should +not have known; her mother understood this also, and for that reason +they had gone traveling. + +The whole purpose of the journey was only that she might forget. + +Mrs. Fonss did not need to make her daughter feel uneasy by scrutinizing +her face in order to know where her thoughts were. All she had to do +was to watch the nervous little hand which lay beside her and with +such futile despair stroked the bars of the bench; they changed their +position every moment like a fever-patient tossing from side to side in +his hot bed. When she did this and looked at the hand, she also knew how +life-weary the young eyes were that stared out into the distance, how +pain quivered through every feature of the delicate face, how pale it +was beneath its suffering, and how the blue veins showed at the temples +beneath the soft skin. + +She was very sorry for her little girl, and would have loved to have had +her lean against her breast, and to whisper down to her all the words of +comfort she could think of, but she had the conviction that there +were sorrows which could only die away in secret and which must not +be expressed in loud words, not even between a mother and daughter. +Otherwise some day under new circumstances, when everything is building +for joy and happiness, these words may become an obstacle, something +that weighs heavily and takes away freedom. The person who has spoken +hears their whisper in the soul of the other, imagines them turned over +and judged in the thoughts of the other. + +Then, too, she was afraid of doing injury to her daughter if she made +confidences too easy. She did not wish to have Elinor blush before her; +she did want, however much of a relief it might be, to help her over the +humiliation, which lies in opening the inmost recesses of one's soul to +the gaze of another. On the contrary the more difficult it became for +both, the more she was pleased, that the aristocracy of soul which +she herself possessed was repeated in her young daughter in a certain +healthy inflexibility. + +Once upon a time--it was a time many, many years ago, when she herself +had been an eighteen-year old girl, she had loved with all her soul, +with every sense in her body, every living hope, every thought. It was +not to be, could not be. He had had nothing to offer except his loyalty +which would have involved the test of an endlessly long engagement, and +there were circumstances in her home which could not wait. So she had +taken the one whom they had given her, the one who was master over these +circumstances. They were married, then came children: Tage, the son, +who was with her in Avignon, and the daughter, who sat beside her, +Everything had turned out so much better than she could have hoped for, +both easier and more friendly. Eight years it lasted, then the husband +died, and she mourned him with a sincere heart. She had learned to love +his fine, thin-blooded nature which with a tense, egotistic, almost +morbid love loved whatever belonged to it by ties of relationship or +family, and cared nought for anything in all the great world outside, +except for what they thought, what their opinion was--nothing else. +After her husband's death she had lived chiefly for her children, but +she had not devoted herself exclusively to them; she had taken part in +social life, as was natural for so young and well-to-do a widow; and now +her son was twenty-one years old and she lacked not many days of forty. +But she was still beautiful. There was not a gray thread in her heavy +dark-blonde hair, not a wrinkle round her large, courageous eyes, and +her figure was slender with well-balanced fullness. The strong, fine +lines of her features were accentuated by the darker more deeply colored +complexion which the years had given her; the smile of her widely +sweeping lips was very sweet; an almost enigmatical youth in the dewy +luminosity of her brown eyes softened and mellowed everything again. And +yet she also had the round fullness of cheek, the strong-willed chin of +a mature woman. + +"That surely is Tage coming," said Mrs. Fonss to her daughter when she +heard laughter and some Danish exclamations on the other side of the +thick hedge of hornbeam. + +Elinor pulled herself together. + +And it was Tage, Tage and Kastager, a wholesale merchant from +Copenhagen, with his sister and daughter; Mrs. Kastager lay ill at home +in the hotel. + +Mrs. Fonss and Elinor made room for the two ladies; the men tried for +a moment to converse standing, but were lured by the low wall of +stone which surrounded the spot. They sat there and said only what was +absolutely necessary, for the newcomers were tired from a little railway +excursion they had taken into the Provence with its blooming roses. + +"Hello!" cried Tage, striking his light trousers with the flat of his +hand, "look!" + +They looked. + +Out in the brown landscape appeared a cloud of dust, over it a mantle +of dust, and between the two they caught sight of a horse. "That's +the Englishman, I told you about, who came the other day," said Tage, +turning toward his mother. + +"Did you ever see any one ride like that?" he asked, turning toward +Kastager, "he reminds me of a gaucho." + +"Mazeppa?" said Kastager, questioningly. + +The horseman disappeared. + +Then they all rose, and set out for the hotel. + +They had met the Kastagers in Belfort, and since they were pursuing the +same itinerary through southern France and along the Riviera, they for +the time being traveled together. Here in Avignon both families had made +a halt; Kastager because his wife had developed a varicose vein, the +Fonss' because Elinor obviously needed a rest. + +Tage was delighted at this living together. Day by day he fell more and +more incurably in love with the pretty Ida Kastager. Mrs. Fonss did not +especially like this. Though Tage was very self-reliant and mature for +his age, there was no reason for a hasty engagement--and there was +Mr. Kastager! Ida was a splendid little girl, Mrs. Kastager was a very +well-bred woman of excellent family, and Kastager himself was capable, +rich, and honest, but there was a hint of the absurd about him. A smile +came upon people's lips and a twinkle into their eyes when any one +mentioned Mr. Kastager. + +The reason for this was that he was full of fire and given to +extraordinary enthusiasms; he was frankly ingenuous, boisterous, and +communicative, and nowadays it requires a great deal of tact to be +lavish with enthusiasm. But Mrs. Fonss could not bear the thought that +Tage's father-in-law should be mentioned with a twinkle in the eye and +a smile round the mouth, and for that reason she exhibited a certain +coldness toward the family to the great sorrow of the enamored Tage. + +***** + +On the morning of the following day Tage and his mother had gone to +look at the little museum of the town. They found the gate open, but the +doors to the collection locked; ringing the bell proved fruitless. The +gateway, however, gave admission to the not specially large court which +was surrounded by a freshly whitewashed arcade whose short squat columns +had black iron bars between them. + +They walked about and looked at the objects placed along the wall: Roman +sepulchral monuments, pieces of sarcophagi, a headless draped figure, +the dorsal vertebra of a whale, and a series of architectural details. + +On all the objects of interest there were fresh traces of the masons' +brushes. + +By now they had come back to their starting point. + +Tage ran up the stairs to see if there might not be people somewhere in +the house, and Mrs. Fonss in the meantime walked up and down the arcade. + +As she was on the turn toward the gate a tall man with a bearded, tanned +face, appeared at the end of the passage directly in front of her. He +had a guide-book in his hand; he listened for something, and then looked +forward, straight at her. + +The Englishman of yesterday immediately came to her mind. + +"Pardon me?" he began interrogatively, and bowed. + +"I am a stranger," Mrs. Fonss replied, "nobody seems to be at home, but +my son has just run upstairs to see whether...." + +These words were exchanged in French. + +At this moment Tage arrived. "I have been everywhere," he said, "even in +the living quarters, but didn't find as much as a cat." + +"I hear," said the Englishman, this time in Danish, "that I have the +pleasure of being with fellow-countrymen." + +He bowed again and retreated a couple of steps, as if to indicate that +he had merely said this to let them know that he understood what they +were saying. Suddenly he stepped closer than before with an intent, +eager expression on his face, and said to Mrs. Fonss, "is it possible +that you and I are old acquaintances?" + +"Are you Emil Thorbrogger?" exclaimed Mrs. Fonss, and held out her hand. + +He seized it. "Yes, I am he," he said gayly, "and you are she?" + +His eyes almost filled with tears as he looked at her. + +Mrs Fonss introduced Tage as her son. + +Tage had never in his life heard mention of Thorbrogger, but that was +not his thoughts; he thought only of the fact that this gaucho turned +out to be a Dane; when a pause set in, and some one had to say something +he could not help exclaiming, "and I who said yesterday that you +reminded me of a gaucho!" + +"Well," replied Thorbrogger, "that wasn't far from the truth; for +twenty-one years I have lived in the plains of La Plata, and in those +years certainly spent more time on horse-back than on foot." + +And now he had come back to Europe! + +Yes, he had sold his land and his sheep and had come back to have a look +around in the old world where he belonged, but to his shame he had +to confess that he often found it very much of a bore to travel about +merely for pleasure. + +Perhaps, he was homesick for the prairies? + +No, he had never had any special feeling for places and countries; he +thought it was only his daily work which he missed. + +In that way they went on talking for a while. At last the custodian +appeared, hot and out of breath, with heads of lettuce under his arms +and a bunch of scarlet tomatoes in his hand, and they were admitted into +the small, stuffy collection of paintings, where they gained only the +vaguest impression of the yellow thunder-clouds and black waters of old +Vernet, but on the contrary told each other with considerable detail +of their lives and the happenings during all the years since they had +parted. + +For it was he whom she had loved, at the time when she married another. +In the days which now followed they were much together, and the others +thinking that such old friends must have much to say to each other left +them often alone. In those days both soon noticed that however much +they might have changed during the course of the years, their hearts had +forgotten nothing. + +Perhaps it was he who first became aware of this, for all the +uncertainty of youth, its sentimentality and its elegiac mood came upon +him simultaneously, and he suffered under it. It seemed out of place +to the mature man, that he should so suddenly be robbed of his peace of +life and the self-possession which he had acquired during the course of +time, and he wanted his love to bear a different stamp, wished it to be +graver, more subdued. + +She did not feel herself younger, but it seemed to her as if a fountain +of tears that had been obstructed and dammed had burst open again and +begun to flow. There was great happiness and relief in crying, and these +tears gave her a feeling of richness; it was as if she had become more +precious, and everything had become more precious to her--in short it +was a feeling of youth after all. + +***** + +On an evening of one of these days Mrs. Fonss sat alone at home, +Elinor had gone to bed early, and Tage had gone to the theater with the +Kastagers. She had been sitting in the dull hotel-room and had dreamed +in the half light of a couple of candles. At length her dreams had come +to a stop after their incessant coming and going; she had grown tired, +but with that mild and smiling weariness which wraps itself round us, +when happy thoughts are falling asleep in our mind. + +She could not go on sitting here, staring in front of her, the whole +evening long without so much as a book. It was still over an hour before +the theater let out. So she began to walk up and down the room, stood in +front of the mirror, and arranged her hair. + +She would go down into the reading-room, and look over the illustrated +papers. At this time of the evening it was always empty there. + +She threw a large black lace shawl over her head and went down. + +The room was empty. + +The small room, overfull with furniture, was brilliantly illuminated +by half a dozen large gas-flames; it was hot and the air was almost +painfully dry. + +She drew the shawl down around the shoulders. + +The white papers there on the table, the portfolios with their large +gilt letters, the empty plush chairs, the regular squares of the carpet +and the even folds of the rep curtains--all this looked dull under the +strong light. + +She was still dreaming, and dreaming she stood, and listened to the +long-drawn singing of the gas-flames. + +The heat was such as almost to make one dizzy. + +To support herself she slowly reached out for a large, heavy bronze +vase which stood on a bracket fixed in the wall, and grasped the +flower-decorated edge. + +It was comfortable to stand thus, and the bronze was gratefully cool to +the touch of her hand. But as she stood thus, there came another feeling +also. She began to feel a contentment in her limbs, in her body, because +of the plastically beautiful position which she had assumed. She was +conscious of how becoming it was to her, of the beauty which was hers +at the moment, and even of the physical sensation of harmony. All +this gathered in a feeling of triumph, and streamed through her like a +strange festive exultation. + +She felt herself so strong at this hour, and life lay before her like +a great, radiant day; no longer like a day declining toward the calm, +melancholy hours of dusk. It seemed to her like an open, wide-awake +space of time, with hot pulses throbbing every second, with joyous +light, with energy and swiftness and an infinity without and within. And +she was thrilled with the fullness of life, and longed for it with the +feverish eagerness with which a traveler sets out on a journey. + +For a long time she stood thus, wrapped in her thoughts, forgetting +everything around her. Then suddenly as if she heard the silence in the +room and the long-drawn singing of the gas-flames, she let her hand +drop from the vase and sat down by the table and began to turn over the +leaves of a portfolio. + +She heard steps, passing by the door, heard them turn back, and saw +Thorbrogger enter. + +They exchanged a few words but as she seemed occupied with the pictures, +he also began to look at the magazines that lay in front of him. They, +however, did not interest him very much for when a little later she +looked up, she met his eyes which rested searchingly upon her. + +He looked as if he were just about to speak, and there was a nervous, +decided expression round his mouth, which told her so definitely what +his words would be that she reddened. + +Instinctively, as if she wished to hold back these words, she held out +a picture across the table and pointed at some horsemen from the pampas, +who were throwing lassoes over wild steers. + +He was just about to make some jesting remark about the draftsman's +naive conception of the art of throwing a lasso. It was so enticingly +easy to speak of this rather than of that which he had on his mind. +Resolutely, however, he pushed the picture aside, leaned a little ways +across the table and said, + +"I have thought a great deal about you since we met again; I have always +thought a great deal about you, both long ago in Denmark and over where +I was. And I have always loved you, and if it sometimes seems to me that +it is only now that I really love you since we have met again, it is not +true, however great my love may be, for I have always loved you, I have +always loved you. And if it should happen now that you would become +mine--you cannot imagine what that would mean to me, if you, who were +taken from me for so many years, were to come back." + +He was silent for a moment, then he rose, and came closer to her. + +"Oh, do say a word! I am standing here talking blindly. I speak to you +as to an interpreter, a stranger, who has to repeat what I am saying to +the heart I am speaking to.. I don't know... to stand here and weigh my +words... I don't know, how far or how near. I dare not put into words +the adoration which fills me--or dare I?" + +He let himself sink down on a chair by her side. + +"Oh, if I might, if I didn't have to be afraid--is it true! Oh, God +bless you, Paula." + +"There is nothing now that need keep us apart any longer," said she, +with her hand in his, "whatever may happen I have the right to be happy +once, to live fully in accordance with my being, my desire, and my +dreams. I have never renounced. Even though happiness was not my share, +I have never believed that life was nothing but grayness and duty. I +knew that there are people who are happy." + +Silently he kissed her hand. + +"I know," she said sadly, "that those who will judge me least harshly +will not envy me the happiness which I shall have in having your love, +but they will also say that I should be satisfied." + +"But that would not be enough for me, and you have not the right to send +me away." + +"No," she said, "no." + +A little later she went upstairs to Elinor. + +Elinor slept. + +Mrs. Fonss sat down by her bed and looked at her pale child whose +features she could only dimly distinguish under the faint yellow glow of +the night lamp. + +For Elinor's sake they would have to wait. In a few days they would +separate from Thorbrogger, go to Nice, and stay there by themselves. +During the winter she would live only that Elinor might regain her +health. But to-morrow she would tell the children what had happened +and what was to be expected. However they might receive the news it was +impossible for her to live with them day in, day out, and yet be almost +separated from them by a secret like this. And they would need time to +get used to the idea, because it would mean a separation between them, +whether greater or smaller would depend on the children themselves. The +arrangement of their lives in so far as it concerned her and him was to +be left entirely to them. She would demand nothing. It was for them to +_give_. + +She heard Tage's step in the sitting-room and went to him. + +He was so radiant and at the same time so nervous that Mrs. Fonss knew +something had happened, and she had an intuition of what it was. + +He sought for an opening to unburden his heart and sat and talked +absent-mindedly of the theater. Not until his mother went over to him +and put her hand on his forehead, forcing him to look at her, was he +able to tell her that he had wooed Ida Kastager and gained her "yes." + +They talked about it for a long time, but throughout Mrs. Fonss felt +a coldness in whatever she said, which she could not overcome. She was +afraid of being too sympathetic with Tage on account of her own emotion. +Besides, in the uncertain state of her mind she was distrustful of the +idea that there might be even the faintest shadow of an association +between her kindness of to-night and what she was to tell to-morrow.. + +Tage, however, did not notice any coolness. + +Mrs. Fonss did not sleep much that night; there were too many thoughts +to keep her awake. She thought how strange it was that he and she should +have met and that when they met they should love each other as in the +old days. + +It was long ago, especially for her; she was no longer, could no longer, +be young. And this would show; and he would be thoughtful with her, and +grow used to the fact that it was a long time since she was eighteen +years old. But she felt young, she was so in many respects, and yet all +the while she was conscious of her years. She saw it very clearly, in a +thousand movements, in expressions and gestures, in the way in which she +would respond to a hint, in the fashion in which she would smile at an +answer. Ten times a day she would betray her age, because she lacked the +courage to be outwardly as young as she was within. + +And thoughts came and thoughts went, but through it all the same +question always rose, as to what her children would say. + +On the forenoon of the following day she put the answer to the test. + +They were in the sitting-room. + +She said that she had something important to tell them, something +that would mean a great change in their lives, something that would +be unexpected news to them. She asked them to listen as calmly as they +could, and not to let themselves be carried away by the first impression +into thoughtlessness. They must know that what she was about to tell +them was definitely decided, and that nothing they might say could make +her alter her decision. + +"I am going to marry again," she said, and told them of how she had +loved Thorbrogger, before she had known their father; how she had become +separated from him, and how they had now met again. + +Elinor cried, but Tage had risen from his seat, utterly bewildered. He +then went close to her, kneeled down before her, and seized her hand. +Sobbing, half-stifled with emotion, he pressed it against his cheek with +infinite tenderness, with an expression of helplessness in every line of +his face. + +"Oh, but mother, dearest mother, what have we done to you, have we not +always loved you, have we not always, both when we were with you +and when we were away from from you, wanted you as the best thing we +possessed in the world? We have never known father except through you; +it was you who taught us to love him, and if Elinor and I are so close +to each other, is it not because day after day you always pointed out +to each of us what was best in the other? And has it not been thus with +every other person to whom we became attached, do we not owe everything +to you? We owe everything to you, and we worship you, mother, if you +only knew.... Oh, you cannot imagine, how much we want your love, want +you beyond all bounds and limits, but there again you have taught us to +restrain our love, and we never dare to come as close to your heart as +we should like. And now you say that you are going to leave us entirely, +and put us to one side. But that is impossible. Only one who wanted to +do us the greatest harm in the world could do anything as frightful as +that, and you don't want to do us the greatest harm, you want only what +is best for us--how can it then be possible? Say quickly that it is not +true; say it is not true, Tage, it is not true, Elinor." + +"Tage, Tage, don't be so distressed, and don't make it so hard, both for +yourself and us others." + +Tage rose. + +"Hard," he said, "hard, hard, oh were it nothing but that, but it is +horrible--unnatural; it is enough to drive one insane, merely to think +of it. Have you any idea of the things you make me think of? My mother +loved by a strange man, my mother desired, held in the arms of another +and holding him in hers. Nice thoughts for a son, worse than the worst +insult--but it is impossible, must be impossible, must be! Are the +prayers of a son to be as powerless as that! Elinor, don't sit there and +cry, come and help me beg mother to have pity on us." + +Mrs. Fonss made a restraining gesture with her hand and said: "Let +Elinor alone, she is probably tired enough, and besides I have told you +that nothing can be changed." + +"I wish I were dead," said Elinor, "but, mother, everything that Tage +has said is true, and it never can be right that at our age you should +give us a step-father." + +"Step-father," cried Tage, "I hope that he does not for one moment +dare.... You are mad. Where he enters, we go out. There isn't any power +on earth that can force me into the slightest intimacy with that +person. Mother must choose--he or we! If they go to Denmark after their +marriage, then we are exiles; if they stay here, we leave." + +"And those are your intentions, Tage?" asked Mrs. Fonss. + +"I don't think you need doubt that; imagine the life. Ida and I are +sitting out there on the terrace on a moonlit evening, and behind the +laurel-bushes some one is whispering. Ida asks who is whispering, and +I reply that it is my mother and her new husband.--No, no, I shouldn't +have said that; but you see the effect of it already, the pain it causes +me, and you may be sure that it won't help Elinor's health either." + +Mrs. Fonss let the children go while she remained sitting here. + +No, Tage was right, it had not been good for them. How far from her they +had already gone in that short hour! How they looked at her, not like +her children, but like their father's! How quick they were to desert her +as soon as they saw that not every motion of her heart was theirs! But +she was not only Tage's and Elinor's mother alone; she was also a human +being on her own account, with a life of her own and hopes of her own, +quite apart from them. But she was, perhaps, not quite as young as she +had believed herself to be. This had come to her in the conversation +with her children. Had she not sat there, timid, in spite of her words; +had she not almost felt like one who was trespassing upon the rights of +youth? Were not all the exorbitant demands of youth and all its naive +tyranny in everything they had said?--It is for us to love, life belongs +to us, and your life it is but to exist for us. + +She began to understand that there might be a satisfaction in being +quite old; not that she wished it, but yet old age smiled faintly at +her like a far-distant peace, coming after all the agitation of recent +times, and now when the prospect of so much discord was so near. For she +did not believe that her children would ever change their mind, and yet +she had to discuss it with them over and over again before she gave up +hope. The best thing would be for Thorbrogger to leave immediately. With +his presence no longer here the children might be less irritable, and +she could try to show them how eager she was to be as considerate as +possible to them. In time the first bitterness would disappear, and +everything... no, she did not believe, that everything would turn out +well. + +They agreed that Thorbrogger should leave for Denmark to arrange their +affairs. For the time being they would remain here. It seemed, however, +that nothing was gained by this. The children avoided her. Tage spent +all his time with Ida or her father, and Elinor stayed all the time +with the invalid, Mrs. Kastager. And when they happened to be actually +together, the old intimacy, the old feeling of comfort, was gone. Where +were the thousand subjects for conversation, and, when finally they +found one, where was the interest in it? They sat there keeping up +a conversation like people who for a while have enjoyed each other's +company, and now must part. All the thoughts of those who are about to +leave are fixed on the journey's end, and those who remain think only +of settling hack into the daily life and daily routine, as soon as the +strangers have left. + +There was no longer any common interest in their life; all the feeling +of belonging together had disappeared. They were able to talk about +what they were going to do next week, next month, or even the month +following, but it did not interest them as though it had to do with days +out of their own lives. It was merely a time of waiting, which somehow +or other had to be endured, for all three mentally asked themselves: And +what then? They felt no solid foundation in their lives; there was no +ground to build upon before this, which had separated them, was settled. + +Every day that passed the children forgot more and more what their +mother had meant to them, in the fashion in which children who believe +themselves wronged will forget a thousand benefactions for the sake of +one injustice. + +Tage was the most sensitive of them, but also the one who was hurt +most deeply, because he had loved most. He had wept through long nights +because of his mother whom he could not retain in the way in which he +wanted. There were times when the memory of her love almost deafened all +other feelings in his heart. One day he even went to her and beseeched +and implored her that she might belong to them, to them alone, and not +to any other one, and the answer had been a "no." And this "no" had made +him hard and cold. At first he had been afraid of this coldness, because +it was accompanied by a frightful emptiness. + +The case with Elinor was different. In a strange way she had felt that +it was an injustice toward her father, and she began to worship him like +a fetish. Even though she but dimly remembered him, she recreated him +for herself in most vivid fashion by becoming absorbed in everything +she had ever heard about him. She asked Kastager about him and Tage, +and every morning and night she kissed a medallion-portrait of his which +belonged to her. She longed with a somewhat hysterical desire for some +letters from him which she had left at home, and for things which had +once belonged to him. + +In proportion as the father in this way rose in her estimation, the +mother sank. The fact that she had fallen in love with a man harmed +her less in her daughter's eyes; but she was no lenger the mother, the +unfailing, the wisest, the supreme, most beautiful. She was a woman like +other women; not quite, but just because not quite, it was possible to +criticize and judge her and to find weaknesses and faults in her. Elinor +was glad that she had not confided her unhappy love to her mother; but +she did not know how much it was due to her mother that she had not done +so. + +One day passed like another, and their life became more and more +unendurable. All three felt that it was useless; instead of bringing +them together, it only drove them further apart. + +Mrs. Kastager had now recovered. Though she had not played an active +part in anything that had happened, she knew more about the situation +than any one else, because everything had been told her. One day she +had a long talk with Mrs. Fonss who was glad that there was some one who +would quietly listen to her plans for the future. In this conversation +Mrs. Kastager suggested that the children go with her to Nice, while +they sent for Thorbrogger to come to Avignon, so that they might be +married. Kastager could stay on as witness. + +Mrs. Fonss wavered a little while longer, for she had been unable to +discover what her children's reaction would be. When they were told, +they accepted it with proud silence, and when they were pressed for +answer, they merely said that they would, of course, adjust themselves +to whatever she decided to do. + +So things turned out as Mrs. Kastager had proposed. She said good-by to +the children, and they left; Thorbrogger came, and they were married. + +Spain became their home; Thorbrogger chose it for the sake of +sheep-farming. + +Neither of them wished to return to Denmark. + +And they lived happily in Spain. + +She wrote several times to her children, but in their first violent +anger that she had left them, they returned the letters. Later they +regretted it; they were unable, however, to admit this to their mother +and to write to her; for that reason all communication between them +ceased. But now and then in round about ways they heard about each +other's lives. + +For five years Thorbrogger and his wife lived happily, but then she +suddenly fell ill. It was a disease whose course ran swiftly and whose +end was necessarily fatal. Her strength dwindled hourly, and one day +when the grave was no longer far away she wrote to her children. + +"Dear children," she wrote, "I know that you will read this letter, for +it will not reach you until after my death. Do not be afraid, there are +no reproaches in these lines; would that I might make them bear enough +love. + +"When people love, Tage and Elinor, little Elinor, the one who loves +most must always humble himself, and therefore I come to you once more, +as in my thoughts I shall come to you every hour as long as I am able. +One who is about to die, dear children, is very poor; I am very poor, +for all this beautiful world, which for so many years has been my +abundant and kindly home, is to be taken from me. My chair will stand +here empty, the door will close behind me, and never again will I set my +foot here. Therefore I look at everything with the prayer in my eye that +it shall hold me in kind memory. Therefore I come to you and beg that +you will love me with all the love which once you had for me; for +remember that not to be forgotten is the only part in the living world +which from now on is to be mine; just to be remembered, nothing more. + +"I have never doubted your love; I knew very well that it was your great +love, that caused your great anger; had you loved me less, you would +have let me go more easily. And therefore I want to say to you, that +should some day it happen that a man bowed down with sorrow come to your +door to speak with you concerning me, to talk about me to relieve his +sorrow, then remember that no one has loved me as he has, and that all +the happiness which can radiate from a human heart has come from him to +me. And soon in the last great hour he will hold my hand in his when the +darkness comes, and his words will be the last I shall hear.... + +"Farewell, I say it here, but it is not the farewell which will be the +last to you; it I will say as late as I dare, and all my love will be +in it, and all the longings for so many, many years, and the memories +of the time when you were small, and a thousand wishes and a thousand +thanks. Farewell Tage, farewell Elinor, farewell until the last +farewell. + +"YOUR MOTHER." + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Mogens and Other Stories, by Jens Peter Jacobsen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOGENS AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 6765.txt or 6765.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/7/6/6765/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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