[1]Intimate friends thus address each other in Swedish.
[1]Intimate friends thus address each other in Swedish.
[2]VideHorace.
[2]VideHorace.
The autumn brought what the spring had promised, but not fulfilled. They lived in a good boarding-house, high up certainly, but with a view over the sea. Each of them kept up a slight intercourse with former friends so that they were not alwaystête-à-tête. The sun shone, money came in, and life was easy. This lasted for two unforgettable months without a cloud. There was boundless confidence on both sides, without a trace of jealousy. On one occasion, when she had tried mischievously to arouse his, he had said to her: "Don't play with madness! Be sure that with such play you only arouse my abhorrence and my hatred at the same time, when you introduce into my mental pictures of you the image of another man."
But she herself was jealous, even of his male friends, and drove Ilmarinen away. There were ladies at the table d'hôte, and each time that he addressed one of them, she became so indisposed that she had to get up and go. There was no occasion to mistrust his faithfulness to her, but her imperiousness was so boundless, that she could not endure his imparting his thoughts to another, man or woman. When she conducted some business transactions for him with publishers she exceeded her authority and acted rather as his guardian than as his helper. He had to warn her: "Remember what I said! If you misuse the power I have given you, I will overthrow you like a tyrant." He did not doubt her goodwill but her want of insight and exaggerated ideas of his capacities caused him inconvenience, and even loss of money. When he took away from her the authority to act for him, she behaved like a naughty child, brought everything into confusion and threw it away as worthless. Accordingly, the way was prepared for the inevitable result.
One Sunday morning they had a disagreement on an important subject, and at last he had shut the door between their two rooms. Then he went out. On his return, he found a letter from his wife saying she had gone to a family which they knew in the country, and would be back in the evening. In order to let her feel what solitude is like he made an engagement for the evening with some friends. The evening came. He went out, but about ten o'clock, thinking it cruel to remain longer, he returned home. When he tried to open his door, he found it shut from within.
"Aha!" he thought. "This is her plan to make me listen to a curtain-lecture in her room." He rang for the servant. "Is my wife at home?"
"No, she came home at nine, but went out again, in order to meet you, sir."
"Very well, open the door of my wife's room." That was done, but the door of his room remained locked, as he had locked it himself in the morning. Then he made his decision, closed the outer door of the flat, and took possession of his wife's room. After an hour she came and knocked. Her husband answered through the closed door: "You can take my room; I hope you can open it."
When she found she could not she began to form suspicions and thought he had shut himself in with someone. She naturally would not endure the scandal but sent for the police, on the pretext that a thief had been there, and perhaps was still in the room. The police came; the Norwegian dressed himself and admitted them, and they broke open the door between the two rooms. At the same time the door leading to the corridor was opened. A servantmaid said she thought she had heard steps inside the room. Before the open window stood a chair so placed as though someone had stood on it in order to climb on the roof. A thief then (or a woman) had clambered on the roof. The police went on it with lanterns, and some of the inmates of the boarding-house followed. A shadow moved by a chimney. A cry rose: "There he is!" The police declared that they could not climb the steep slate roof, and advised them to send for the fire brigade. "But that costs fifty crowns," objected the Norwegian. His wife signed a requisition for it, but her husband tore it in two. Meanwhile a crowd had collected in the street; the neighbouring roofs were also full of spectators. A cry was raised: "There he is!" They had seized a fellow who had joined the searchers with the good intention of catching the thief. A maid recollected that in the afternoon a traveller had arrived and was sleeping in a neighbouring attic from which he could have easily got into the room. The police made their way into the attic, searched through his papers and found nothing. All the attics were ransacked without result, and at midnight the police departed.
Then the young wife wished to begin with a whole series of explanations, but her husband was tired of the whole nonsense and could explain nothing. Therefore, since nothing more was to be done, he carried his wife into her room and shut the door between them for the second time that day!
This demoniacal adventure was never cleared up. The Norwegian did not believe there had been a thief, for nothing was missing from the rooms; he thought that his young wife, who had seen many plays, had stuck something in the lock, and that then devils had continued the performance of the comedy. He did not try to elicit what his wife thought, for then he would have been entangled in a web of necessary lies. He therefore made a stroke of erasure through the whole affair. The next morning they were again good friends, but not quite so good as before.
How disunion between a married pair arises has not yet been explained. They love one another, only flourish in each other's society, have not different opinions, and suffer when they are separated; their whole united self-interest enjoins them to keep the peace, because it is they especially who suffer when it is not kept. Nevertheless, a little cloud arises, one knows not whence; all merits are transformed into faults, beauty becomes ugliness and they confront each other like two hissing snakes; they wish each other miles away, although they know that if they are separated for a moment there begins the pain of longing, which is greater than any other pain in life.
Here physiology and psychology are non-plussed. Swedenborg in his "Conjugal Love" is the only one who has even approached the solution of the problem, and he has seen that for that purpose higher factors must be taken into consideration than come into the mental purview of most people.
This is why a married pair who love each other are obliged again and again to wonder why they hate one another, i.e. why they flee one another although they seek one another. Married people who are slightly acquainted with Ganot's "Physics" may note the resemblance of this phenomenon to that of the electricised elder-pith balls, but this will not make them either wiser or happier. Love indeed presents all the symptoms of lunacy, hallucination, or seeing beauty where none exists; profoundest melancholy, varying with extreme hilarity without any transition stage; unreasonable hate; distortions of each other's real opinions (so-called "misunderstandings"); persecution mania, when one believes the other is setting spies and laying snares; sometimes indeed attempts on each other's life, especially with poison. All this has reasons which lie below the surface. The question arises, whether through a married pair's living together, the evil thoughts of one, while still unripened, are not quite clearly apprehended and interpreted by the other, as though they had already entered into consciousness, with the express purpose of being carried into action. Nothing annoys a man more than to have his secret thoughts read, and that only a married pair can do to each other. They cannot conceal their dark secrets; one anticipates the other's intentions, and therefore they easily form the idea that they spy on each other, as indeed they actually do. Therefore they fear no one's look so much as each other's, and are so defenceless against one another. Each is accompanied by a judge who condemns the evil desire while yet in the germ, although no one is answerable for his thoughts to the civic law.
Accordingly, in marrying, one enters into a relation which stands a grade higher than ordinary life, makes severer demands, more exacting claims, and operates with more finely developed spiritual resources. Therefore the Christian Church made marriage a sacrament, and regarded it rather as a purgatory than a pleasure. Swedenborg in his explanation of it, also inclines this way.
A married pair are ostensibly one, but cannot be really so. As a punishment they are condemned to feel thorns when they wish to gather roses. According to the proverb: "Omnia vincit amor" the power of love is so boundless, that if it were allowed uncontrolled sway, the order of the universe would be endangered. It is a crime to be happy, and therefore happiness must be chastised.
Our frivolous friends must have felt something of this, for when they had had a tiff, they reconciled themselves without explanations and without alleging reasons, as though it was not they who were to blame for the discord but a third unknown person who had brought about all the confusion.
They did so on this occasion also, but the peace did not last long. Some days afterwards an indisputable fact was apparent, which in ordinary marriages is accepted with mixed feelings, but in this one met with decided disapproval. The wife was beside herself: "Now you have ruined my career; I shall sink down to the level of a nurse and how shall we support ourselves?"
There awoke in her a personal grudge against her husband which degenerated into hatred. She was an example of the "independent" woman who protests against the supposed injustice of Nature in assigning all the discomfort to her. She forgets that this brief period of pain is followed by an extreme and long-lasting joy which is quite unknown to men.
Here reasonable considerations were naturally of no avail, and when there were no more smiles, the situation became serious. The scenes between them assumed a tragic character, and just at this crisis an action was brought against him for his last-published book, which was confiscated at the same time. Autumn passed, and one felt that the sun had gone. The cheerful top-floor room changed into a never-tidied sick-room—became narrow.
Her hatred increased continually; she could not go into society, nor to theatres, and hardly on the street. What most annoyed her was the fact that the doctor who had been summoned to declare that she had a dangerous disease, hitherto unknown, only smiled, saying that all the symptoms were normal, and ordered soda-water. Instead of an intelligent friend, the Norwegian found a malicious, spoilt, unreasonable child at his side, and longed to be out of all this wretchedness. All conversation ceased, and they only carried on communications by writing. But there is a kind of malice bordering on the disgraceful and infamous, which is hard to define but easy to recognise. That is the original sin in human nature, the positive wish to injure without cause, and without being justified in taking vengeance or exacting retribution. This kind of malice is hardly forgivable.
One day he received a scrap of paper on which something was written which prevented him going to her room again. Then came her ultimatum; she resolved to go to her relations the next day.
"I wish you a happy journey," he answered. In the dusk of the early morning a white form stood by his bedside stretching out its arms pleadingly for forgiveness. He did not move but let it stand there. Then she fell to the ground, and he let her lie, like an overthrown statue.
Whence the soft-hearted man, who was always ready to forgive, derived this firmness, this inhuman hardness, he could not understand, but it seemed to him to be imposed on him from without like a duty, or a fiery ordeal which he must go through. He went to sleep again. Then he awoke and dressed. He entered the empty room and was conscious of the void. Everything was irrevocably at an end!
A severe agitation was needed to bring his ego uppermost, and he resolved to drain a draught which was unsurpassed for bitterness. He went back to his native land, from which he had been banished.
When he got on the steamer for Christiania, he wrote a farewell letter to the captain, went on deck with his revolver, and thought of finding his grave in the Kattegat. Why did he not carry out this intention? Let him say who can! At last he found himself in a small provincial hotel. But why had it to be precisely the one in which Lais's friends and relations lived and dominated the social circle in which he must move? He could only regard that as a mean stroke on the part of Destiny, for on this occasion he was not to blame at all.
Meanwhile he sat as on an ant-heap in an alien and hostile environment. For three days long he asked himself: "What have I got to do here?" And he answered: "What indeed have you to do anywhere?" So he remained. For three days he asked himself: "What have you to do in life?" and questioned of the where, whence and whither. As an answer, the revolver lay on the table.
Hamburg, London, and Rügen began to shine like pleasant memories in comparison with this place of exile. It was so dreadful that he was astonished at the inventiveness of Destiny in devising new tortures which ever increased in severity. His room in the hotel was a suicide's room, i.e. a combination of discomfort and uncanniness. He was again haunted by the old idea he used to have: "I shall not get alive out of this room; here I must end my days." His capacity for hoping was exhausted. He seemed to be dropping downwards towards the empty void which began to close round him like the last darkness.
On the fourth day he received a letter from his sister-in-law in which she told him that his little wife was going on well. At the same time she proposed that he and his wife should spend the winter in a little town in Alster, so that her relations could now and then visit his wife who, in her present condition, needed help and advice.
It was, then, not at an end! And these pains of death had been endured in vain; he had not needed them in order to be taught to miss his wife. It was not over yet, and he began to live again.
As a proof that he had completely come to the end of himself it may be mentioned that the papers in those days contained a notice of his death. He wrote to contradict this in a vein of gloomy irony. He was tormented for three days more by having to run about to collect the journey money.
When the train at last stopped at the little station, he saw first of all his wife's pale face. It looked certainly somewhat exhausted by suffering, but beamed at the same time with some of that glorifying radiance which motherhood bestows. When her eyes discovered him, her face lit up.
"She loves me," he said to himself. And he began to live again literally not figuratively.
"Are you well?" he asked almost shyly.
"Yes I am," she whispered, burying like a child her face in his great cloak and kissing the edge of it.
"What are you doing? What are you doing?"
And she hid her face in his mantle in order not to show the emotion, of which she was always ashamed.
They had engaged two very inferior rooms; one was dark and the other uncomfortable, looking out on a factory. His wife worked in the kitchen and resigned herself to her fate, for her maternal feelings were aroused, though not yet completely. He suffered when he saw her toiling the whole day at the kitchen-range and in the scullery, and sometimes felt a twinge of conscience.
When he wished to help her to carry something heavy, she refused to be helped, for she insisted strongly that he should not be seen engaged in any feminine occupation, nor would she allow him to wait on her or to do her any small service. All storms were over now; a quiet stillness prevailed; the days passed one after the other in unvaried monotony. They lived alone together and had no social intercourse nor distractions.
But poverty came. The trial about his book had frightened the publishers and theatres. But the worst of all was that he could not write.
And what he could write, he did not wish to, for the plot of the story affected a family to whom he owed a debt of gratitude. Now when he would soon have two families to provide for, he trembled before the future with its increased duties, for a growing dislike to exercise his calling as an author had finally culminated in disgust.
What an occupation—to flay his fellow-creatures and offer their skins for sale. Like a hunter who, when pressed hard by hunger, cuts off his dog's tail, eats the flesh, and gives the bone—its own bone—to the dog. What an occupation to spy out people's secrets, expose the birth-marks of his best friend, dissect his wife like a rabbit for vivisection, and act like a Croat, cutting down, violating, burning, and selling. Fie!
In despair he sat down and wrote from his notes a survey of the most important epochs of the world's history. He hoped, or in his need imagined that he might in this way strike out a new path for himself as an historian, which had been the dream of his youth, before he became an author.
His wife knew what he was writing and that it would bring in no money, but controlled herself; perhaps his ardent conviction had persuaded her that there was something in it. She did not complain, but on the contrary cheered him up and offered to translate the work into English.
A month passed, quiet, peaceful but melancholy. They felt that they were not enough for each other in this absolute loneliness. They lamented it but sought for no society. He, with wider experience than hers, hoped that the child on its arrival would be satisfying company for them both.
Meanwhile poverty approached nearer. None of his plays were performed or sold, and not one of the hopes of spring had been realised. His children by his first marriage clamoured for money, and food began to be scarce in the house. Then came deliverance in the form of an invitation to spend the winter with his wife's grandparents.
One evening in December they alighted at a little station in Jutland, and drove through woods and wild heath. Everything was new and strange. In this house he was now to live as a grandchild, just as during the past summer in her father's house he had been for eight days a child.
They reached the ferry in the twilight. The drifting of the ice had begun, but the water had also sunk so low that a sand-bank lay in the middle of the stream, and there a new boat waited for them. From thence a large, white, three-storied house was visible; it looked unfriendly, almost weird, with its projecting wings and high, illuminated windows.
They reached the land and found themselves immediately in the ghostly castle. They were conducted up whitewashed stairs over which hung dark oil-paintings in black frames. Then he found himself in a warm, well-lighted room, among her relatives, of whom he only knew his mother-in-law.
With his incredible pliability, he immediately adapted himself to his position, and behaved like the young relation who under all circumstances must show reverence to his elders.
Here in the house his right of self-determination ceased; he must conform to other people's views, wills, and habits. In order to spare himself unpleasantness, he had resolved beforehand to have no more likes and dislikes of his own, but to accept all that was offered to him, however strange or repulsive it might appear.
The old grandfather was a notary and barrister who had retired with considerable wealth, and only managed his estate as far as was necessary for domestic purposes and for his own amusement. Most of his property consisted of hunting-ground and was in that state of neglect which a townsman finds picturesque. He and his wife were both over seventy, and seemed only to be waiting for their end with the cheerful resignation of good-natured, orthodox Catholics who are free from care. They had already built for themselves a mausoleum in the garden where their bodies were to repose, and they were accustomed to show it as other people show a summer-house. It was a little whitewashed chapel, with flowers planted round it, which they used to tend as though they already stood there in memory of them.
In the house there was a superfluity of good things. After having been half-starved in Alster here they found it difficult to avoid gluttony, without vexing their host. Pheasants, hare, venison were regular standing dishes which at last became a weariness. "This is our punishment," he said, "because we complained of the manna; now we are stuffed with quails like the murmuring Israelites so that it comes out at our throats."
A stillness like that of old age supervened; there was no need of care or anxiety in this house where there were as many servants as members of the family. It was easy to live with the old people, who had outgrown special interests, views and passions, and the young pair, who had their own rooms apart, only needed to appear at meal-times.
The young wife was now altogether a mother, talked of and with the unborn child as though she knew it well; she was mild and womanly, humble and even thankful towards her husband, whose affections remained unaltered though her shape was disfigured and her beauty faded.
"How beautiful life is!" she said.
"Yes it is; but how long will it last?"
"Hush!"
"I will be silent! But you know that happiness is punished."
No one asked what he was working at; on the contrary all that he heard was: "You should do nothing but take a thorough rest after your wild rushing about."
Accordingly he sent for some books which had been given him some years previously by a rich man and which he had been obliged to send back home. Then he began a series of systematic investigations, studied and made notes. He felt a new life and fresh interests awaken; and when he now found his former hypothesis and calculations verified by synthesis and analysis he became certain that he was working by a sure method, and in the right way. This gave him such confidence that he felt justified in pursuing his investigations, but because he could not explain their significance to the uninitiated, his position became somewhat insecure. People had to take him on good faith; they did that so long as peace prevailed, but at the first sign of antipathy he would be helplessly exposed to the ridicule or contemptuous pity of the bystanders.
The grandfather was a cultivated man, and therefore curious to know what was going on in the young pair's rooms. When he inquired, he received evasive answers, but since he had been a magistrate and barrister, he required definiteness. When he heard what the Norwegian's investigations were concerned with, he confuted them with the authority of the text books. In order to put an end to fruitless strife, his young relative let him believe he was right. But the old man tried to provoke him into contradiction, assumed a superior air and became intrusive. He was allowed to be so for the present.
"Nothing for nothing!" thought the Norwegian. His wife thanked him for his yieldingness and admired his self-control. But discord was fated to come, and it came.
The lawsuit in Copenhagen about his book extended its operations here also, and one day a court officer came to summon him to appear as defendant in the court of the nearest town. Since he had from the beginning challenged the jurisdiction of the Copenhagen court, because as a Norwegian writer he was not responsible to a Danish court, on account of a translation; and since he regarded the whole proceedings as illegal, which indeed they were, he refused to appear. The old man on the other hand insisted that he should do so, especially, perhaps, because he did not like to see gendarmes coming to his house.
To put an end to the matter, the Norwegian really resolved one morning to go and present his challenge personally in court.
He therefore went at eight o'clock and followed the beautiful walk along the river. But about half-way he met the postman and received, by paying cash on its delivery, a long-expected book. This book was extremely expensive, and since he had no money, he had been obliged to devise a plan in order to secure it. After thinking about it for a month, he remembered that he had some valuables stowed away in a box in an attic in Norway. He therefore wrote to a friend and asked him to sell the things for a price equivalent to the purchase of the expensive book, to change the money into notes and to send them in an unregistered letter so that no one might know of it. He did this because he felt he was stealing from his wife and family, but it had to be done, as he wished to solve an important problem. As he now held the long-desired means for doing so in his hand, he felt a lightning flash in his soul, and turned home without thinking.
"Now, I will finish the business," he said to himself; "the gendarmes can come afterwards."
As he entered the courtyard the old man stood there, cutting up a deer which he had shot. The Norwegian sought to slip past him unperceived, but did not succeed.
"Have you already been to the judge?" asked the old man sceptically.
"No," answered the Norwegian curtly, and hurried through the house-door. He ran up the stairs to his room and bolted the door. Then he sat down to study. After half an hour he said to himself: "Is the greatest problem of modern times solved?" There was a knock at the door, and then another hard and decided. He was obliged to open it in order to get quiet.
"Why don't you go to the judge?" asked the old man.
"That's nothing to do with you," he answered and slammed the door to with a sound like a shot.
But now there was no more peace for him! He felt that a crisis had come in his destiny, and he heard voices below. His hand trembled, he felt as though paralysed and closed the book which contained what he sought. At the same moment he lost confidence and dared not face what seemed a contradictory proof of his theory.
After some minutes his mother-in-law came. She was not angry, but found it unpleasant to have to tell him that he and his wife must leave the house at once, before dinner. They could have her little one-storied cottage at the bottom of the garden and have their meals sent from the house. His little wife appeared and danced with joy at the thought that they would have a little house of their own, especially with a garden and park round it.
The change took place, and now in this cottage began the two happiest months in the life of the married pair. Their cottage of grey stone, with little iron-barred windows framed in sandstone, was quite idyllic. It was built in convent style and covered with vine-creepers. The walls of the rooms were painted white, without any hangings, and the low ceilings were supported by thick beams black with age.
He had a little room constructed like a real monk's cell, narrow and long with a single small window at the end. The walls were so thick that flower-pots could stand outside in front of the window, as well as inside on the window-ledge. The furniture was old-fashioned and suited its surroundings. Here he arranged his library, and never had he felt so comfortable before.
But now they had to prepare for the coming of the child. Husband and wife painted the window-sills and doors. Roses and clematis were planted before the cottage. The garden was dug up and sown. In order to fill up the blank spaces of the great white walls, he painted pictures on them. When all was ready they sat down and admired the work of their hands. "It is splendid," they said; "and now we can receive the child. Think how pleased it will be, to see so many pictures the first day!"
They waited and hoped; during the long spring evenings they only talked of him or her, guessed which it would be, discussed what name it should have, and speculated on its future. His wife's thoughts for the most part were occupied in wondering whether it would be fair and resemble his boy, whom she loved. She and her family were especially fond of fair people, whether because they resembled light, while the dusky-complexioned reminded one of darkness, would be difficult to say. They believed everything good of fair people and spoke ill of the Jews, although the little wife's grandmother on the paternal side was a Jewess; among her maternal relations who sprang from Schleswig-Holstein peasantry the word "Jew" was used as a term of reproach. The Norwegian's father-in-law was an anti-Semite but when he joked at the paradox involved in this, his wife said: "You must not joke at it; we will do that ourselves."
At last one day in May as the sun rose, the coming of the unknown traveller was heralded, and after twelve terrible hours it proved to be a girl who at any rate was not dark-haired.
This ought to have completed the idyll, but it seemed, on the contrary, to put an end to it. The little one did not seem to thrive in this vale of tears, but cried day and night. Nurses were engaged and nurses were dismissed. Five women filled the house and each had different views as to the rearing of the child. The father went about like a criminal and was always in the way. His wife thought that he did not love the child and this vexed her so much as to make her suffer. At the same time she herself was completely transformed into a mother to the exclusion of everything else. She had the child in her own bed, and could spend the greater part of the night sitting on a chair absorbed in contemplation of its beauty as it slept. Her husband had also to come sometimes and join in her admiration, but he thought the mother most beautiful in those moments when she forgot herself and gazed ecstatically at her child with a happy smile.
But a storm approached from without. The people of the neighbourhood were superstitious, and the child's continual crying had given rise to gossip. They began to ask whether it had been baptised.
According to law the child should be baptised in the father's religion, but since both he and the mother were indifferent in the matter, the baptism was postponed as something of no importance, especially as there was no Catholic priest in the neighbourhood.
The child's crying was really not normal, and as the popular opinion of the neighbourhood began to find expression, the grandmother came and asked them to have it baptised. "People are murmuring," she said; "and they have already threatened to stone your cottage."
The young unbelievers did not credit this, but smiled. The murmurings, however, increased; it was alleged that a peasant woman had seen the devil in the garden, and that the foreign gentleman was an atheist. There was some foundation for this report, for people who met the two heretics on the roads turned away. At last there came an ultimatum from the old man. "The child must receive Catholic baptism within twenty-four hours or the family will be deported across the Belt."
The Norwegian answered: "We Protestants are very tolerant in our belief, but if it is made a financial matter, we can be as fanatical as some Catholics." The position was serious, for the young pair had not a penny for travelling expenses. His letter was answered with a simple "Then go!"
The Norwegian replied: "To be a martyr for a faith which one does not possess is somewhat fantastic, and I did not expect that we should play the Thirty Years War over again down here. But look out! The Norwegian will come and take his daughter off with his baggage, for he is a Norwegian subject."
The grandees in the large house began to take a milder tone, but consulted and devised a stratagem. The child was announced to be ill and became worse every day. At last the grandmother came with her retinue and told the father that the child could live no longer, but he did not believe it. On his return from a long walk in the woods the same day he was met by his wife with the news that the child had received discretionary baptism at the hands of the midwife in the presence of the doctor.
"Into which faith has the child been baptised?" asked the father.
"The Protestant, of course."
"But I don't see how a Catholic midwife can give Protestant baptism." But as he saw that his wife was privy to the plot, he said no more. The next day the child was well, and there was no more talk of expelling the family. The grandees had conquered. Jesuits!
The child, which had been expected to unite the pair more closely to each other, seemed to have come to separate them. The mother thought the father cold towards the little one. "You don't love your child," she said.
"Yes I do, but as a father," he replied. "You should love her as a mother. That is the difference."
The fact was that he feared to attach himself too closely to the newly born, for he felt that a separation from the mother was in the air, and to be tied to her by means of the child he felt to be a fetter.
She on her side did not know exactly how she wished to have it. If he loved the child, it might happen that he would take it from her when he went away; if he did not love it, he would simply go by himself. For that he would go she felt sure. He had had a dramatic success at Paris in the spring, and another play of his was announced for the autumn. He therefore wished to go there, and so did she, but the child hindered her movements, and if he went alone to Paris, she felt she would never see him again. Many letters with French postmarks came for him now, and these roused her curiosity, for he burnt them at once. This last circumstance, which was quite contrary to his habit, aroused her suspicion and hatred.
"You are preparing for a journey?" she said one evening.
"Yes, naturally," he answered. "I cannot live in this uncertainty; I might be put out on the high road at any time."
"You think of deserting us?"
"I must leave you in order to do my business in Paris. A business journey is not desertion."
"Yes, then you can go," she said, betraying herself.
"I shall go as soon as I get the money for which I am waiting."
Now the Fury in her reappeared. First of all he had to move up into an attic, and although she and the child had the use of two rooms, she deliberately spoilt the remaining third room which was the dining-room and contained specially good furniture. She tore down the curtains, took away the pictures, choked up the room with child's clothes and milk bottles with the sole purpose of showing him who was master in the house. The rooms looked now as though demons had dwelt in them; crockery, kitchen utensils, and children's clothes were strewn on the beds and sofas.
She dished up bad meals and the food was often burnt. One day she set before him a plate of bones which the dogs seemed to have gnawed, and a water bottle. This last was an expression of the greatest contempt, for the cellars were full of beer, and no servant ever engaged himself without stipulating that he should have beer at meals. Accordingly he was reckoned beneath the men and maidservants. But he kept patient and silent, for he knew that the journey money would arrive. This, however, did not prevent his disgust rising to an equal height with her hatred.
He lived now in dirt, destitution, and wretchedness; heard nothing but scolding and shrieking between his wife and the nurse, his wife and the maidservant, his wife and her mother, while the child cried continually. He had an attack of fever and inflammation of the throat, and lay on his bed in the attic. She did not believe that he was ill and let him lie there. On the third day he sent for the doctor, for he could not even drink water. Then his Fury appeared in the doorway. "Have you sent for the doctor?" she asked. "Do you know what that costs?"
"Anyhow it will be cheaper than a funeral, and it may be diphtheria, which is dangerous for the child."
"Do you think of the child?"
"Yes, a little."
If she could now have dropped him into the sea, she would have done it. But she treated him as though he had the plague. The child, her child, was in danger!
"I have experienced much," he said in a whisper, "but never have I seen such intense malice in anyone." And he wept, perhaps for the first time in twenty years; wept over her unworthiness, and perhaps also over his fate and his humiliation. When he regarded his position objectively it seemed monstrous that he, a distinguished man in his own line, should, without fault of his own, lead such a wretched life that even the maidservant pitied him. Since he had entered his relative's house, his behaviour; had been unimpeachable. He did not even drink, if only for the reason that there was nothing to drink. Since his arrival, his plays had met with success, but instead of making him more respected, as success generally does in the case of ordinary mortals, it only tended to deepen hatred and studied contempt. The fact that he had accepted hospitality from very rich relatives was not bound to weigh heavily on his mind, for he was now legal heir to half the property. But as hate now raged, he was told what his expenses were, and mention was made of payment.
Again the idea he had formerly had recurred to him, that there was something more than natural in all this, and that an unseen hand was controlling his destiny. The inexplicable non-arrival of the journey money seemed especially designed to prolong his sufferings. When other letters, which he looked for, did not come, he began to suspect that his wife had a finger in the matter. He began to watch the mail-bag which the postman brought, and to write to the post office; naturally, the only result was further ignominy.
Without having any definite belief, he found himself in a kind of religious crisis. He felt how he sank in this environment where everything hinged on the material and only the animal side of things was prominent—food and excrement, nurses regarded as milch cows, cooks and decaying vegetables; then endless discussions and the display of physical necessities which are usually concealed. At the same time excessively heavy rain had flooded a corridor and two rooms; the water could not be drained off but stagnated and stank. The garden went to ruin as no one looked after it.
Then he longed that he could get far away, somewhere where there was light and purity, peace, love, and reconciliation. He dreamed again his old dream of a convent within whose walls he might be sheltered from the world's temptations and filth, where he might forget and be forgotten. But he lacked faith and the capacity for obedience.
Literature at that period had been long haunted by this idea of a convent. In Berlin the suggestion had been made to found a convent without a creed for the "intellectuals." These at a time when industrial and economical questions took the first place, were uncomfortable in the dense atmosphere of a materialism which they themselves had been seduced into preaching. He now wrote to a rich friend of his in Paris regarding the founding of such a convent; drew up a plan for the building, laid down rules, and went into details regarding the coenobitic life and tasks of the convent brothers. This was in August, 1894. The object proposed was the education of man to superman through asceticism, meditation, and the practice of science, literature, and art. Religion was not mentioned, for one did not know what the religion of the future would be, or whether it would possess one at all.
His wife noticed that he was becoming separated from her, but she believed that he was thinking of Paris with its vanities and distractions, its theatres and cafés, gallant adventures and thirst for gold. His possible plans excited her fear and envy. As regards his historical studies, her supercilious smiling had ceased after he had received words of encouragement from a great German and a famous French authority, and naturally had been obliged to show their letters in order to protect himself. Since she could no longer criticise his ideas she carried the strife on to another ground and began to plague him with insidious questions as to how much he earned by his historical studies.
When his wife was angry she went to the old people and narrated all the small and great secrets which a married pair have between themselves; she also repeated what he in moments of irritation had said about them. She was sorry afterwards, but then it was too late. The spirit of discord was aroused, and the storm could no longer be allayed.
When he happened to have money and offered to contribute towards domestic expenses, they were annoyed at his want of tact in wishing to pay rich relatives for inviting him; when he had no money then they uttered jeremiads over the dearness of everything and sent him the doctor's bill. In a word, nothing could be done with such uncontrolled and incorrigible people.
He often thought of going on foot and seeking some fellow-countrymen with whose help he might proceed farther. But every time he made the attempt he turned back, as though he had been enchanted and spellbound, to the little stream where the cottage stood. He had spent some happy days there, and the memory of these held him fast. Moreover, he was thankful for the past and felt love to the child, though he dared not show it, for then the little one would have become a lime-twig to fetter his wings.
One day he had taken a longer walk than usual among the picturesque flooded meadows where the deer sported; the pheasants shot out of the bushes like rockets, their feathers shining with a metallic gleam; the storks fished in the marsh and the loriots piped in the poplars. Here he felt well, for it was a lonely landscape where no one ventured to build a house for fear of the great floods.
For three-quarters of a year he had come here alone every morning. He did not even let his wife accompany him, for he wished to have this landscape for himself, to see it exclusively with his eyes, and to hear no one else's voice there. If he ever saw this horizon again, he did not wish to be reminded of anyone else.
Here, accordingly, he was accustomed to find himself again himself and no one else. Here he obtained his great thoughts and here he held his devotions. The incomprehensible events of the last weeks and his deep suffering had caused him to change the word "destiny" for "Providence," meaning thereby that a conscious personal Being guided his course. In order to have a name, he now called himself a Providentialist—in other words he believed in God without being able to define more distinctly what he meant by that belief.
To-day he felt a pang of melancholy shoot through him as though he were saying farewell to these meadows and thickets. Something was impending which he foreboded and feared.
On coming home, he found the house empty; his wife and child were gone. When he at last discovered the maidservant and asked where his wife was, she answered impertinently: "She has gone away."
"Where?"
"To Odense."
He did not know whether he believed it or not. But he found a great charm in the silence and emptiness. He breathed unpoisoned air, enjoyed the solitude, and went to his work with the imperturbable calm of a Buddha. His travelling-bag was already packed, and the journey money might come any day.
The afternoon passed. As he looked out of the window, he noticed an unusual stillness round the great house; none of the family were to be seen. But a maidservant was going to and fro between the cottage and the house as though she were giving information. Once she asked if he wished for anything. "I wish for nothing," he answered. And that was the truth, for his last wish to get out of all this misery had been fulfilled without his having taken a step towards it. He ate his supper alone and enjoyed it; then remained sitting at the table and smoked. His mind accepted this fortunate equipoise of the scales, ready to sink on whichever side it pleased. He guarded himself from forming any wish, fearing lest his wish might be crossed.
But he expected something. "If I know women rightly," he said to himself, "she will not be able to sleep to-night without sending a messenger to see whether the victim is suffering according to her calculations."
And sure enough his mother-in-law came. "Good evening," she said; "are you sitting here alone, my son?"
With the stoicism of an Indian before the fire which is to roast him, he answered: "Yes, I am sitting alone."
"And what are you thinking of doing now?"
"Of going, naturally."
"You seem to take this matter very quietly."
"Why not?"
"Maria intends to seek for a separation."
"I can imagine it."
"Then you don't love her."
"You wish that I should love her in order that I may suffer more."
"Can you suffer—you?"
"You would be glad if I could."
"When are you thinking of going?"
"When I get the journey money."
"You have said that so often."
"You don't want to put me out on the high road to-night?"
"Grandmother is much excited."
"Then she should read her evening prayers attentively."
"One doesn't get far with you."
"No, why should I allow it?"
"Good night." Then she went.
He slept well and deeply as if after an event which he had long expected.
The next morning he woke up with the distinct idea: "She has not gone; she is keeping somewhere in the neighbourhood."
When he went out, he saw the maid getting into the ferry-boat with some of the child's things.
"Ha, ha," then he understood. She was waiting on the other side of the stream. The maid came back soon, after he had watched her manoeuvres on the other side through his opera-glass. "If I only keep quiet now," he thought, "the imperialists are routed."
His mother-in-law came and looked uneasy but yielding. "Well, now you are alone my son and will never see her any more."
"Is she then so far away?"
"Yes."
He laughed and looked over the water.
"Well," said the old woman, "since you know it, go after her."
"No, I won't do that."
"But she won't come first."
"First or last, it is all the same to me."
The boat went to and fro with messages the whole day.
In the afternoon his mother-in-law came again. "You must take the first step," she said. "Maria is desperate and will be ill if you don't write to her and ask her to come again."
"How do you know that I want to have her again? A wife who remains a night out of her house has forfeited her conjugal rights and injured her husband's honour."
This was an expected parry, and his mother-in-law beat a sudden retreat. She crossed over in the ferry-boat and remained there till evening.
He was sitting in his room and writing when his wife entered with an air as though she were sorry for his trouble and came in response to his pressing call. He could have laid her prostrate but did not do so, being magnanimous towards the conquered. When he had his wife and child back in the house he found it just as good as when they were away, perhaps even a little better.
In the evening the journey money came. His position was now altered, and he had the keys to the dungeon in his hand. At the same moment his wife saw the matter from another point of view. "Do you know," she said, "this life is killing me; I have not read a single book since the child came, and I have not written an article for a year. I will go with you to Paris."
"Let me go in front," he said, "and spy out the land."
"Then I shall never get away."
He persuaded her to remain, without having formed any distinct purpose of leaving her; he only longed to feel himself free for a time at any rate.
But she was now ready to leave her child, "the most important person of all," as she called it, in order to come out into the world and play a part there. She knew well that he was not going to seek an uncertain fortune but to reap the fruits of a success which he had already gained. The ambitious and independent woman again came into view, perhaps also the envious rival, for she had moments in which she regarded herself as an author, superior to him. That was when her friends in a letter had called her a "genius"; this letter she left lying about that it might be read.
Fortunately it was not possible for her to travel just now, because her parents held her back; she had to content herself with the fact that he, who might be considered as expelled, was leaving her. She became mild, emotional, and sensitive, so that the parting was really painful.
So he went out into the world again. As the steamer in the beautiful autumn evening worked its way up the river, he saw again the cottage, whose windows were lit up. All the evil and ugliness he had seen there was now obliterated; he hardly felt a fleeting joy at having escaped this prison in which he had suffered so terribly. Only feelings of gratitude and melancholy possessed him. For a moment the bond which united him to wife and child drew him so strongly that he wanted to throw himself into the water. But the steamer paddles made some powerful forward strokes, the bond stretched itself, stretched itself, and broke!
"That was an infernal story," exclaimed the postmaster when the reading was over. "What can one say about it, except what you yourself have said in it? But do you think, generally speaking, that marriage will continue to exist?"
"Although I regard wife, child and home as desirable objects," answered the doctor, "I do not think lifelong marriages will be long possible" for in our days the individual—man or woman—is too egotistic and desirous of independence. You see yourself the direction which social evolution is taking. We hear of nothing but discontent and divorce. I grant that conjugal life demands consideration and yieldingness, but to live suppressing one's innermost wishes in an atmosphere of contradiction and contrariety, can only end in producing Furies. You have been married?"
The question came somewhat suddenly and the answer was only given with hesitation: "Yes, I have been married but am not a widower."
"Divorced then?"
"Yes! and you?"
"Divorced."
"If anyone asked us why, neither you nor I could give a reason."
"A reason—no. I only know that if we had continued to live together, I should have ended as a homicide, and she as a murderess. Isn't that enough?"
"Quite enough."
And they took their supper.
"What is love? Desire, of course," the young Count answered his old preceptor, as they both sat below in the cabin and beguiled the time by talking while waiting off Elfsnabben for a favourable wind for their journey to the University of Prague.
"No, young sir," answered Magister Franciscus Olai. "Love is something quite different and something more, which neither high theology nor deep philosophy have been able to express. Our over-wise time believes too little, but that is because our fathers believed too much. I was present at the beginning of this period, young sir; I helped to pull down old venerable buildings, ancient, decayed temples of pride and selfishness; I tore pages out of the holy books and pictures from the walls of the churches; I was present, young sir, and helped to shut up the convents, and to announce the abolition of the old faith, but, sir, there are things which all-powerful Nature herself has founded, and which we had better not attempt to pull down. I wish to speak now of Amor or Love, whose fire burns unquenchably when it is rightly bestowed, but when wrongly, can soon be quenched, or even turn to hate when things go quite wrong."
"When then is it rightly bestowed? It cannot be so very often," answered the Count, settling himself more comfortably on the couch.
"Often or not, love is like a flash from heaven when it comes, and then it surpasses all our will and all our understanding, but it is different with different people, whether it lasts or not. For in this respect men are born with different dispositions and characters, like birds or other creatures. Some are like the wood grouse and black cock who must have a whole seraglio like the grand Turk; why it is so we know not, but it is so, and that is their nature. Others are like the small birds which take a mate for each year and then change. Others again are amiable like doves and build their nests together for life, and when one of them dies, the other no longer desires to live."
"Have you seen any human beings corresponding to doves?" asked the Count doubtfully.
"I have seen many, dear sir. I have seen wood cocks who have paired with doves, and the doves have been very unhappy; I have seen male doves who have wedded a cuckoo, and the cuckoo is the worst of all birds, for it likes the pleasure of love, but not the trouble of children, and therefore turns its children out of the nest; but I have also seen wedded doves, sir."
"Who never pecked each other?"
"Yes, I have seen them peck when the nest was narrow, and there was trouble about food, but still they were good friends, and that is love. There is also a sea-bird called 'svärt,' sir, which always flies in pairs. If you shoot one, the other descends and lets itself be shot too, and therefore the 'svärt' is called the stupidest of all birds."
"That is in the pairing time, venerable preceptor."
"No, young sir, they keep together the whole year round and their pairing time is in spring. In the winter when they have no young ones with them, but are alone, they eat together, hunt together, and sleep together. That is not desire, but love, and if this charming feeling can exist among soulless creatures, why can it not among men?"
"Yes, I have heard of its being found among men, but that it departs after marriage."
"That is mere sensual pleasure, which partly goes, but then love comes."
"That is only friendship when there is any."
"Quite right, noble sir, but friendship between those of opposite sex is just love. But there are so many things and so many sides to everything. If you like, I will relate a story which I have seen myself, and from which you may learn something or other. It happened in my youth, forty years ago, but I remember every detail as though it happened yesterday. Shall I relate it?"
"Certainly, preceptor. Time goes slowly when one waits for a favourable wind. But bring a light and wine before you begin, for I think your story will not keep one awake."
"Very likely not you, sir, but it has kept me awake many nights," answered Franciscus, and went to fetch what was required. When he had returned and they sat down again on their berths, he began as follows:
"This is the story of Herr Bengt's wife. She was born of noble parentage at the beginning of this century. She was strictly brought up, and, when her parents died, her guardian placed her in a convent. There she distinguished herself by her intense religious zeal; she scourged herself on Fridays and fasted on all the greater saint's days. When she reached the age of puberty, her condition became more serious, and she actually attempted to starve herself to death, believing it consistent with the duty of a Christian to kill the flesh and to live with God in Christ. Then two circumstances contributed to bring about a crisis in her life. Her guardian fled the country after having squandered her property, and the convent authorities changed their behaviour towards her, for it was a worldly institution which did not at all open its gates for the poor and wretched. When she saw that, she began to be assailed by doubts. Doubt was the disease of that time and she had a strong attack of it. Her fellow-nuns believed nothing and her superiors not much.
"One day she was sent from the convent to visit a sick person. On the way, a beautiful lonely forest path, she met a Knight, young, strong, and handsome. She stood and stared at him as though he had been a vision; he was the first man she had seen for five years, and the first man she had seen since she was a woman. He stopped his horse for a moment, greeted her, and rode on. After that day she was tired of the convent, and life enticed her. Life with its beauty and attraction drew her away from Christ; she had attacks of temptation and outbreaks, and had to spend most of her time in the punishment cell. One day she received a letter smuggled in by the gardener. It was from the Knight. He lived on the other side of the lake and she could see his castle from the window of the cell. The correspondence continued. Faint rumours began to be circulated that a great change in ecclesiastical affairs was about to take place and that even the convents were about to be abolished and the nuns released from their vows.
"Then hope awoke in her, but at the same time that she learnt that one could be released from vows, she lost faith in the sanctity of the vow itself, and at one stroke all restraint gave way. She believed now rather in the everlasting rights of her instincts in the face of all social and ecclesiastical laws!
"At last she was betrayed by a false friend, and the discovery of the correspondence led to her being condemned to corporal punishment. But Fate had ordered otherwise, and on the day that the punishment was to be carried out a messenger came from the King and estates of the realm with the command that the convent was to be closed. The messenger was no other than the Knight. He opened for her the doors of the convent in order to offer her freedom and his hand. That closed the first part of her career."
"The first?" remarked the Count, as he lifted the jar of Rhine wine. "Isn't the story over? They were married."
"No, sir. That is how stories usually end, but the real beginning is just there. And I remember the day after the marriage. I had married them and was her domestic chaplain. The breakfast-table was laid and she came out of her room, beaming as though the whole earth danced on her account, and the sun was only set in the sky to give them light. He was full of courage and felt capable of bearing the whole world on his shoulders. All his thoughts were intent on making life as kind and beautiful for her as he could; and she was so happy that she could neither eat nor drink; she wished only to forget, the existence of the sinful earth. Well! she had her fancies, springing from the old time when heaven was all, and earth was nothing; he was a child of the new age who knew that one must live on earth in order to be able to enter heaven afterwards."
"And so things came to a crisis?" interrupted the Count.
"They came to a crisis, as you say. I remember how he ate at the breakfast-table like a hungry man, and she only sat and watched him; but when she talked of birds' songs he talked of roast veal. Then he noticed how she had thrown her clothes the evening before on a chair in the dining-room, and reminded her that one must be orderly in a house."
"Then of course there was hell in the house."
"No, it was not so dangerous as that. But it brought a cloud over her sun, and she felt that a breach was opened between them. Still she shut her eyes in order not to see it, as one does when near a precipice. Then the sky clouded over again. He had secret, melancholy thoughts for his harvest-sheaves were on the field, and he knew that his income depended on them. He wished to take her out to see them, but she begged him to stay at home and not to talk of earth on that day."
"Earth! What an idiot!"
"Yes, yes! She was brought up like that; it was the fault of the convent which had taught her to despise God's creation. So her husband remained with her, and proposed that they should go hunting; she accepted the proposal with joy."
"A proposal to kill! That was nice!"
"Yes, according to the views of the period, sir; every period has its own views. But the sky clouded over once more, for this day was not a lucky one for the young Knight. The King's bailiff called and desired a special interview with him. The interview was granted and the Knight was informed that he would lose his rank as a noble if he did not supply the quota of arms due from him as the King's vassal, which he had neglected to do for five years. The Knight had no means of meeting this demand but the bailiff offered to procure him an advance in money in exchange for a mortgage on his estate. So the matter was arranged. But then the question arose how far he should take his wife into his confidence with regard to this matter. He summoned me in order to hear my advice. I thought it was a pity that the young wife should be torn so suddenly out of her dreams of happiness and joy, and I was short-sighted enough to advise that she should not be told the real state of affairs till the first year was over."
"In that you were right! Why should women mix in business? It would only lead to trouble and confusion and their poor husbands would never have peace."
"No, sir, I was wrong, for in a true marriage husband and wife should have full confidence in each other and be one. And what was the result in this case? During the year they grew apart from one another. She lived in her rose-garden and he in the fields; he had secrets concealed from her and worked desperately without having her as his adviser; he lived his own life apart and she, hers. When they met, he had to pretend to be cheerful, and so their whole life became false. Finally he became tired and withdrew into himself and so did she."
"And so it was all over with their love."
"No, sir; it might have been so, but true love goes through worse fires than these. They loved each other still and that was destined to be proved by the tests which they were to pass through.
"Her child came, and with it commenced a new stage of their life journey. She needed her husband less now for her time was occupied by looking after the child, and her husband felt freer, for so many claims were not made on his tenderness as before. She threw herself heart and soul into the new occupations which absorbed her; she watched through the nights and toiled through the days and would never give up the child to a nurse The contact with reality and the little affairs of life seemed at first to have an intoxicating effect upon her empty soul and she began to find a certain satisfaction in talking with her husband about his fields and their cultivation. But this could not last long. Education lies behind us like the seeds of weeds which may remain in the ground for a year or two, but which only need proper cultivation in order to spring up again. One day she looked in the glass and found that she had become pale, thin, and ugly. She saw that the bloom of her youth was past, and her charms decayed. Then the woman awoke in her or rather one side of the mysterious being which is called a woman: and then came the longing to be beautiful, to please, to feel herself ruling through her beauty. She was now no longer so eagerly occupied with the child as before, and she began to spend more care on her own person. Her husband saw this change with joy, for strange to say although he had at first been glad to observe her desperate zeal about the child and the house, yet when he saw his heart's queen dressed negligently, and marked how pale and wretched she looked, it cut him to the heart. He wished to have back again the charming fairy who had waited with longing at the window for his return home, and at whose feet he wished to worship. So strange is man's heart, and so much leaven does it still retain from the old times of chivalry when woman was regarded as a Madonna.
"But now came something else. During the first period of her confinement he had become a little tired and careless in his habits; he came and went with his hat on, ate his meals at a corner of the table, and took no pains about his dress. And when his wife began to return to the ways of everyday life he forgot to follow her, and to alter his habits. His wife, who was still somewhat sickly, thought she saw in the relaxing of these courtesies a want of love, and an unfortunate chance afforded her an apparent proof that he was tired of her.
"It was an unlucky day! The year was approaching its end when the chief payments would be made. The harvest promised to be bountiful but its overplus could not cover everything. The Knight had to find other means of raising money, and he found them. He ordered some fine timber-trees round the courtyard to be cut down, but in so doing, they came too near the house, so that his wife's favourite lime-tree was also cut down. The Knight did not know that she had a special liking for it, and the act was quite unintentional. His wife had been ill for a week or two, and when she came into the dining-room she saw that the lime-tree had disappeared; she at once believed that it had been cut down to annoy her. She also noticed that her rose-bushes had withered, for no one had had time to think of such trifles amid all the bustle of bringing in the harvest. This seemed to her another act of unkindness and she sent all the available horses and oxen to fetch water.
"Now there intervened a new circumstance to hasten the coming misfortune. The bailiff had come to the castle to wait for the bringing in of the harvest, and had an interview with the Knight's wife just after she had made the two above-mentioned discoveries. They found that they had known each other as children, and a confidential chat followed, which afforded her some amusement. She liked her visitor's rustic but courteous manners, and the comparison she made between his politeness and her husband's boorishness, was not to the advantage of the latter. She forgot that her husband could be as polite as the bailiff when paying a formal visit, and that the bailiff could be as brusque as he in everyday business.
"Thus everything was in train for what should happen when her husband came home. The bailiff had gone and left her alone with her thoughts. When her husband came in, he was cheerful, being pleased to see his wife up again, and because the continued dry weather was good for the harvest, which was all now ready cut and could be brought in in a single day. But his wife, depressed by her thoughts, felt annoyed by his cheerfulness, and now the shots went off, one after the other. She asked about her lime-tree, and he said he had cut it down because he required timber; she then asked why he must cut down 'just' the lime-tree which shaded her window; he answered that he had not cut down just that one, but all of them together.
"Then she began about the rose-bushes. He replied that he had never promised to water them. She, having no answer to this, discovered that he was wearing greased boots, and immediately remarked upon it. He acknowledged his inadvertence and was about to repair it on the spot by drawing them off, but she became furious at such an act of discourtesy. Hard words passed between them and she declared that he loved her no more. Then the Knight answered somewhat in this way: 'I don't love you, you say, because I work for you and don't sit and gossip by your embroidery frame; I don't love you because I am hungry through neglecting food; I don't love you because I don't change my boots when I come for a minute into the room. I don't love you, you say! Oh, if you only knew how much I loved you!'
"To this his wife replied: 'before we married you loved me and at the same time gossiped by my embroidery frame, took off your boots when you came in, and showed me politeness. What has happened then, to make you change your behaviour?'
"Her husband answered: 'We are married now.' His wife thought he meant that marriage had given him a proprietary right over her, and that he wished to show this by his free-and-easy demeanour, but this last was simply due to his unshakeable trust in her vow to love him through joy and sorrow, and in her forbearance, if, in order to avoid loss of time, he dropped a number of little empty ceremonies. He was on the point of telling her that it was in order to stave off ruin that he worked in the fields, thought only of crops, tramped in the mud, and brought dirt into the house, but he kept silence, for he thought that in her weak state, she could not bear the shock, and he knew that in twenty-four hours all danger would be passed and the house would be saved. He asked her to forgive him, and they forgave one another, and spoke gently together again. But then came a shock! The steward rushed in and announced that a storm was approaching. The Knight's wife was glad that the roses would get rain, but he was not. It seemed to him like the finger of God, and he told his wife everything but bade her at the same time be of good courage. He then gave orders that all the oxen should be yoked and the harvest brought in at once. He was told that they had been sent to fetch water. Who had sent them? 'I did,' answered his wife. 'I wanted water for my flowers, which you allowed to be dried up, while I was ill.'
"'Aren't you ashamed to say you did?' asked the Knight.
"She answered: 'You plume yourself on having deceived me for a whole year. I have no need to be ashamed of telling the truth, since I have committed no fault, but only met with a misfortune.' Then he became furious, went to her with upraised hand, and struck her."
"And served her devilish right!" said the Count.
"Fie! Fie! young sir! To strike a weak woman!"
"Why should one not strike a woman, when one strikes children?"
"Because woman is weaker, sir."
"Another reason! One cannot get at the stronger, and one must not strike the weaker: Whom shall one strike then?"
"One should not strike at all, my friend. Fie! Fie! What sentiments you utter, and you wish to be a soldier!"
"Yes! What happens in war? The stronger strikes and the weaker is struck. Isn't that logic?"
"It may be logic, but it is not morality. But do you want to hear the continuation?"
"Wasn't it over then, with their love at any rate?"
"No, sir! not by a long way! Love does not depart so easily. Well! she believed now just as you do, that it was all over with love, and she asked the bailiff, who came in just then, to make an appeal for separation in her name to the King."
"And she wanted to leave her child?"
"No, she thought she could take it with her. Her pride was wounded to the quick, and she felt crushed under the ruins of her beautiful castle in the air."
"And her husband?"
"He was pulverised! His dream of wedded love was over, and he was ruined besides, for the rainstorm had carried away and destroyed the whole of his harvest. And when he saw that it was she whom he loved who was the cause of his misfortune he felt resentment in his heart against her, but he loved her still? when his anger had been allayed."
"Still?"