“What a fool!” murmured Daniel. “Should you think, Magnille, that one who owned the most precious pearl of all the Indies would hold it as naught and run after bits of painted glass? Marie Grubbe and—Karen Fiol! Ishein his right mind? And now they think he’s hunting, because forsooth he lets the gamekeeper shoot for him, and comes back with godwits and woodcocks by the brace and bagful, and all the while he’s fooling and brawling down at Lynge with a town-woman, a strumpet. Faugh, faugh! Lake of brimstone, such filthy business! And he’s so jealous of that spring ewe-lambkin, he’s afraid to trust her out of his sight for a day, while—”
The leaves rustled, and Marie Grubbe stood before him on the other side of the wicket. After she turned into the side-path, she had gone down to the place where the elks and Esrom camels were kept, and thence back to a little arbor near the gate. There she had overheard what Daniel said to Magnille, andnow—
“Who are you?” she asked, “and were they true, the words you spoke?”
Daniel grasped the wicket and could hardly stand for trembling.
“Daniel Knopf, your ladyship, mad Daniel,” he replied. “Pay no heed to his talk, it runs from his tongue, sense and nonsense, as it happens, brain-chaff and tongue-threshing, tongue-threshing and naught else.”
“You lie, Daniel.”
“Ay, ay, good Lord, I lie; I make no doubt I do; for in here, your ladyship”—he pointed to his forehead—“’tis like the destruction of Jerusalem. Courtesy, Magnille, and tell her ladyship, Madam Gyldenlöve, how daft I am. Don’t let that put you out of countenance. Speak up, Magnille! After all we’re no more cracked than the Lord made us.”
“Is he truly mad?” Marie asked Magnille.
Magnille, in her confusion, bent down, caught a fold of Marie’s dress through the bars of the wicket, kissed it, and looked quite frightened. “Oh, no, no, indeed he is not, God be thanked.”
“She too”—said Daniel, waving his arm. “We take care of each other, we two mad folks, as well as we can. ’Tis not the best of luck, but good Lord, though mad we be yet still we see, we walk abroad and help each other get under the sod. But no one rings over our graves; for that’s not allowed. I thank you kindly for asking. Thank you, and God be with you.”
“Stay,” said Marie Grubbe. “You are no more mad than you make yourself. You must speak, Daniel. Would you have me think so ill of you as to take you for a go-between of my lord and her you mentioned? Would you?”
“A poor addle-pated fellow!” whimpered Daniel, waving his arm apologetically.
“God forgive you, Daniel! ’Tis a shameful game you are playing; and I believed so much better of you—so very much better.”
“Did you? Did you truly?” he cried eagerly, his eyes shining with joy. “Then I’m in my right mind again. You’ve but to ask.”
“Was it the truth what you said?”
“As the gospel, but—”
“You are sure? There is no mistake?”
Daniel smiled.
“Is—he there to-day?”
“Is he gone hunting?”
“Yes.”
“Then, yes.”
“What manner”—Marie began after a short pause—“what manner of woman is she, do you know?”
“Small, your ladyship, quite small, round and red as a pippin, merry and prattling, laughing mouth and tongue loose at both ends.”
“But what kind of people does she come from?”
“’Tis now two years ago or two and a half since she was the wife of a Frenchvalet de chambre, who fled the country and deserted her, but she didn’t grieve long for him; she joined her fate with an out-at-elbows harp-player, went to Paris with him, and remained there and at Brussels, until she returned here last Whitsun. In truth, she has a natural good understanding and a pleasing manner, except at times when she is tipsy. This is all the knowledge I have.”
“Daniel!” she said and stopped uncertainly.
“Daniel,” he replied with a subtle smile, “is as faithful to you now and forever as your own right hand.”
“Then will you help me? Can you get me a—a coach and coachman who is to be trusted, the instant I give the word?”
“Indeed and indeed I can. In less than an hour from the moment you give the word the coach shall hold in Herman Plumber’s meadow hard by the old shed. You may depend on me, your ladyship.”
Marie stood still a moment and seemed to consider. “I will see you again,” she said, nodded kindly to Magnille, and left them.
“Is she not the treasure house of all beauties, Magnille?” cried Daniel, gazing rapturously up the walk where she had vanished. “And so peerless in her pride!” he went on triumphantly. “Ah, she would spurn me with her foot, scornfully set her foot on my neck, and softly tread me down in the deepest dust, if she knew how boldly Daniel dares dream of her person—So consuming beautiful and glorious! My heart burned in me with pity to think that she had to confide in me, to bend the majestic palm of her pride—But there’s ecstasy in that sentiment, Magnille, heavenly bliss, Magnilchen!”
And they tottered off together.
The coming of Daniel and his sister to Frederiksborg had happened in this wise. After the meeting in the Bide-a-Wee Tavern, poor Hop-o’-my-Thumb had been seized with an insane passion for Marie. It was a pathetic, fantastic love, that hoped nothing, asked nothing, and craved nothing but barren dreams. No more at all. The bit of reality that he needed to give his dreams a faint color of life he found fully in occasional glimpses of her near by or flittingpast in the distance. When Gyldenlöve departed, and Marie never went out, his longing grew apace, until it made him almost insane, and at last threw him on a sick-bed.
When he rose again, weak and wasted, Gyldenlöve had returned. Through one of Marie’s maids, who was in his pay, he learned that the relation between Marie and her husband was not the best, and this news fed his infatuation and gave it new growth, the rank unnatural growth of fantasy. Before he had recovered enough from his illness to stand steadily on his feet, Marie left for Frederiksborg. He must follow her; he could not wait. He made a pretence of consulting the wise woman in Lynge, in order to regain his strength, and urged his sister Magnille to accompany him and seek a cure for her weak eyes. Friends and neighbors found this natural, and off they drove, Daniel and Magnille, to Lynge. There he discovered Gyldenlöve’s affair with Karen Fiol, and there he confided all to Magnille, told her of his strange love, declared that for him light and the breath of life existed only where Marie Grubbe was, and begged her to go with him to the village of Frederiksborg that he might be near her who filled his mind so completely.
Magnille humored him. They took lodgings at Frederiksborg and had for days been shadowing Marie Grubbe on her lonely morning walks. Thus the meeting had come about.
A FEW days later, Ulrik Frederik was spending the morning at Lynge. He was crawling on all fours in the little garden outside of the house where Karen Fiol lived. One hand was holding a rose wreath, while with the other he was trying to coax or drag a little white lapdog from under the hazel bushes in the corner.
“Boncœur! Petit, petit Boncœur! Come, you little rogue, oh, come, you silly little fool! Oh, you brute, you—Boncœur, little dog,—you confounded obstinate creature!”
Karen was standing at the window laughing. The dog would not come, and Ulrik Frederik wheedled and swore.
“Amy des morceaux délicats,”
“Amy des morceaux délicats,”
sang Karen, swinging a goblet full of wine:
“Et de la débauche polieViens noyer dans nos Vins MuscatsTa soif et ta mélancolie!”
“Et de la débauche polieViens noyer dans nos Vins MuscatsTa soif et ta mélancolie!”
She was in high spirits, rather heated, and the notes of her song rose louder than she knew. At last Ulrik Frederik caught the dog. He carried it to the window in triumph, pressed the rose chaplet down over its ears, and, kneeling, presented it to Karen.
“Adorable Venus, queen of hearts, I beg you to accept from your humble slave this little innocent white lamb crowned with flowers—”
At that moment, Marie Grubbe opened the wicket. When she saw Ulrik Frederik on his knees, handing a rose garland, or whatever it was, to that red, laughing woman, sheturned pale, bent down, picked up a stone, and threw it with all her might at Karen. It struck the edge of the window, and shivered the glass in fragments, which fell rattling to the ground.
Karen darted back, shrieking. Ulrik Frederik looked anxiously in after her. In his surprise he had dropped the dog, but he still held the wreath, and stood dumbfounded, angry, and embarrassed, turning it round in his fingers.
“Wait, wait!” cried Marie. “I missed you this time, but I’ll get you yet! I’ll get you!” She pulled from her hair a long, heavy steel pin set with rubies, and holding it before her like a dagger, she ran toward the house with a queer tripping, almost skipping gait. It seemed as though she were blinded, for she steered a strange meandering course up to the door.
There Ulrik Frederik stopped her.
“Go away!” she cried, almost whimpering, “you with your chaplet! Such a creature”—she went on, trying to slip past him, first on one side, then on the other, her eyes fixed on the door—“such a creature you bind wreaths for—rose-wreaths, ay, here you play the lovesick shepherd! Have you not a flute, too? Where’s your flute?” she repeated, tore the wreath from his hand, hurled it to the ground, and stamped on it. “And a shepherd’s crook—Amaryllis—with a silk bow? Let me pass, I say!” She lifted the pin threateningly.
He caught both her wrists and held her fast. “Would you sting again?” he said sharply.
Marie looked up at him.
“Ulrik Frederik!” she said in a low voice, “I am your wife before God and men. Why do you not love me any more? Come with me! Leave the woman in there for whatshe is, and come with me! Come, Ulrik Frederik, you little know what a burning love I feel for you, and how bitterly I have longed and grieved! Come, pray come!”
Ulrik Frederik made no reply. He offered her his arm and conducted her out of the garden to her coach, which was waiting not far away. He handed her in, went to the horses’ heads and examined the harness, changed a buckle, and called the coachman down, under pretence of getting him to fix the couplings. While they stood there he whispered: “The moment you get into your seat, you are to drive on as hard as your horses can go, and never stop till you get home. Those are my orders, and I believe you know me.”
The man had climbed into his seat, Ulrik Frederik caught the side of the coach as though to jump in, the whip cracked and fell over the horses, he sprang back, and the coach rattled on.
Marie’s first impulse was to order the coachman to stop, to take the reins herself, or to jump out, but then a strange lassitude came over her, a deep unspeakable loathing, a nauseating weariness, and she sat quite still, gazing ahead, never heeding the reckless speed of the coach.
Ulrik Frederik was again with Karen Fiol.
When Ulrik Frederik returned to the castle that evening, he was, in truth, a bit uneasy—not exactly worried, but with the sense of apprehension people feel when they know there are vexations and annoyances ahead of them that cannot be dodged, but must somehow be gone through with. Marie had, of course, complained to the King. The King would give him a lecture, and he would have to listen to it all. Marie would wrap herself in the majestic silence ofoffended virtue, which he would be at pains to ignore. The whole atmosphere would be oppressive. The Queen would look fatigued and afflicted—genteelly afflicted—and the ladies of the court, who knew nothing and suspected everything, would sit silently, now and then lifting their heads to sigh meekly and look at him with gentle upbraiding in large, condoning eyes. Oh, he knew it all, even to the halo of noble-hearted devotion with which the Queen’s poor groom of the chambers would try to deck his narrow head! The fellow would place himself at Ulrik Frederik’s side with ludicrous bravado, overwhelming him with polite attentions and respectfully consoling stupidities, while his small pale-blue eyes and every line of his thin figure would cry out as plainly as words: “See, all are turning from him, butI, never! Braving the King’s anger and the Queen’s displeasure, I comfort the forsaken! I put my true heart against—” Oh, how well he knew it all—everything—the whole story!
Nothing of all this happened. The King received him with a Latin proverb, a sure sign that he was in a good humor. Marie rose and held out her hand to him as usual, perhaps a little colder, a shade more reserved, but still in a manner very different from what he had expected. Not even when they were left alone together did she refer with so much as a word to their encounter at Lynge, and Ulrik Frederik wondered suspiciously. He did not know what to make of this curious silence; he would almost rather she had spoken.
Should he draw her out, thank her for not saying anything, give himself up to remorse and repentance, and play the game that they were reconciled again?
Somehow he did not quite dare to try it; for he hadnoticed that, now and then, she would gaze furtively at him with an inscrutable expression in her eyes, as if she were looking through him and taking his measure, with a calm wonder, a cool, almost contemptuous curiosity. Not a gleam of hatred or resentment, not a shadow of grief or reproach, not one tremulous glance of repressed sadness! Nothing of that kind, nothing at all!
Therefore he did not venture, and nothing was said. Once in a while, as the days went by, his thoughts would dwell on the matter uneasily, and he would feel a feverish desire to have it cleared up. Still it was not done, and he could not rid himself of a sense that these unspoken accusations lay like serpents in a dark cave, brooding over sinister treasures, which grew as the reptiles grew, blood-red carbuncles rising on stalks of cadmium, and pale opal in bulb upon bulb slowly spreading, swelling, and breeding, while the serpents lay still but ceaselessly expanding, gliding forth in sinuous bend upon bend, lifting ring upon ring over the rank growth of the treasure.
She must hate him, must be harboring secret thoughts of revenge; for an insult such as he had dealt her could not be forgotten. He connected this imagined lust for vengeance with the strange incident when she had lifted her hand against him and with Burrhi’s warning. So he avoided her more than ever, and wished more and more ardently that their ways might be parted.
But Marie was not thinking of revenge. She had forgotten both him and Karen Fiol. In that moment of unutterable disgust her love had been wiped out and left no traces, as a glittering bubble bursts and is no more. The glory of it is no more, and the iridescent colors it lent to every tiny picture mirrored in it are no more. They aregone, and the eye which was held by their splendor and beauty is free to look about and gaze far out over the world which was once reflected in the glassy bubble.
The number of guests in the castle increased day by day. The rehearsals of the ballet were under way, and the dancing-masters and play-actors, Pilloy and Kobbereau, had been summoned to give instruction as well as to act the more difficult or less grateful rôles.
Marie Grubbe was to take part in the ballet and rehearsed eagerly. Since that day at Slangerup, she had been more animated and sociable and, as it were, more awake. Her intercourse with those about her had always before been rather perfunctory. When nothing special called her attention or claimed her interest, she had a habit of slipping back into her own little world, from which she looked out at her surroundings with indifferent eyes; but now she entered into all that was going on, and if the others had not been so absorbed by the new and exciting events of those days, they would have been astonished at her changed manner. Her movements had a quiet assurance, her speech an almost hostile subtlety, and her eyes observed everything. As it was, no one noticed her except Ulrik Frederik, who would sometimes catch himself admiring her as if she were a stranger.
Among the guests who came in August was Sti Högh, the husband of Marie’s sister. One afternoon, not long after his arrival, she was standing with him on a hillock in the woods, from which they could look out over the village and the flat, sun-scorched land beyond. Slow, heavy clouds were forming in the sky, and from the earth rose a dry, bitter smell like a sigh of drooping, withering plants for thelife-giving water. A faint wind, scarcely strong enough to move the windmill at the cross-road below, was soughing forlornly in the tree-tops like a timid wail of the forest burning under summer heat and sun-glow. As a beggar bares his pitiful wound, so the parched, yellow meadows spread their barren misery under the gaze of heaven.
The clouds gathered and lowered, and a few raindrops fell, one by one, heavy as blows on the leaves and straws, which would bend to one side, shake, and then be suddenly still again. The swallows flew low along the ground, and the blue smoke of the evening meal drooped like a veil over the black thatched roofs in the village near by.
A coach rumbled heavily over the road, and from the walks at the foot of the hill came the sound of low laughter and merry talk, rustling of fans and silk gowns, barking of tiny lapdogs, and snapping and crunching of dry twigs. The court was taking its afternoon promenade.
Marie and Sti Högh had left the others to climb the hill, and were standing quite breathless after their hurried ascent of the steep path.
Sti Högh was then a man in his early thirties, tall and lean, with reddish hair and a long, narrow face. He was pale and freckled, and his thin, yellow-white brows were arched high over bright, light gray eyes, which had a tired look as if they shunned the light, a look caused partly by the pink color that spread all over the lids, and partly by his habit of winking more slowly, or rather of keeping his eyes closed longer, than other people did. The forehead was high, the temples well rounded and smooth. The nose was thin, faintly arched, and rather long, the chin too long and too pointed, but the mouth was exquisite, the lips fresh in color and pure in line, the teeth small and white. Yet it was notits beauty that drew attention to this mouth; it was rather the strange, melancholy smile of the voluptuary, a smile made up of passionate desire and weary disdain, at once tender as sweet music and bloodthirsty as the low, satisfied growl in the throat of the beast of prey when its teeth tear the quivering flesh of its victim.
Such was Sti Högh—then.
“Madam,” said he, “have you never wished that you were sitting safe in the shelter of convent walls, such as they have them in Italy and other countries?”
“Mercy, no! How should I have such mad fancies!”
“Then, my dear kinswoman, you are perfectly happy? Your cup of life is clear and fresh, it is sweet to your tongue, warms your blood, and quickens your thoughts? Is it, in truth, never bitter as lees, flat and stale? Never fouled by adders and serpents that crawl and mumble? If so, your eyes have deceived me.”
“Ah, you would fain bring me to confession!” laughed Marie in his face.
Sti Högh smiled and led her to a little grass mound, where they sat down. He looked searchingly at her.
“Know you not,” he began slowly and seeming to hesitate whether to speak or be silent, “know you not, madam, that there is in the world a secret society which I might call ‘the melancholy company’? It is composed of people who at birth have been given a different nature and constitution from others, who yearn more and covet more, whose passions are stronger, and whose desires burn more wildly than those of the vulgar mob. They are like Sunday children, with eyes wider open and senses more subtle. They drink with the very roots of their hearts that delight and joy of life which others can only grasp between coarse hands.”
He paused a moment, took his hat in his hand, and sat idly running his fingers through the thick plumes.
“But,” he went on in a lower voice as speaking to himself, “pleasure in beauty, pleasure in pomp and all the things that can be named, pleasure in secret impulses and in thoughts that pass the understanding of man—all that which to the vulgar is but idle pastime or vile revelry—is to these chosen ones like healing and precious balsam. It is to them the one honey-filled blossom from which they suck their daily food, and therefore they seek flowers on the tree of life where others would never think to look, under dark leaves and on dry branches. But the mob—what does it know of pleasure in grief or despair?”
He smiled scornfully and was silent.
“But wherefore,” asked Marie carelessly, looking past him, “wherefore name them ‘the melancholy company,’ since they think but of pleasure and the joy of life, but never of what is sad and dreary?”
Sti Högh shrugged his shoulders and seemed about to rise, as though weary of the theme and anxious to break off the discussion.
“But wherefore?” repeated Marie.
“Wherefore!” he cried impatiently, and there was a note of disdain in his voice. “Because all the joys of this earth are hollow and pass away as shadows. Because every pleasure, while it bursts into bloom like a flowering rosebush, in the selfsame hour withers and drops its leaves like a tree in autumn. Because every delight, though it glow in beauty and the fullness of fruition, though it clasp you in sound arms, is that moment poisoned by the cancer of death, and even while it touches your mouth you feel it quivering in the throes of corruption. Is it joyful to feel thus? Must itnot rather eat like reddest rust into every shining hour, ay, like frost nip unto death every fruitful sentiment of the soul and blight it down to its deepest roots?”
He sprang up from his seat and gesticulated down at her as he spoke. “And you ask why they are called ‘the melancholy company,’ when every delight, in the instant you grasp it, sheds its slough in a trice and becomes disgust, when all mirth is but the last woeful gasp of joy, when all beauty is beauty that passes, and all happiness is happiness that bursts like the bubble!”
He began to walk up and down in front of her.
“So it is this that leads your thoughts to the convent?” asked Marie, and looked down with a smile.
“It is so indeed, madam. Many a time have I fancied myself confined in a lonely cell or imprisoned in a high tower, sitting alone at my window, watching the light fade and the darkness well out, while the solitude, silent and calm and strong, has grown up around my soul and covered it like plants of mandrake pouring their drowsy juices in my blood. Ah, but I know full well that it is naught but an empty conceit; never could the solitude gain power over me! I should long like fire and leaping flame for life and what belongs to life—long till I lost my senses! But you understand nothing of all this I am prating. Let us go,ma chère! The rain is upon us; the wind is laid.”
“Ah, no, the clouds are lifting. See the rim of light all around the heavens!”
“Ay, lifting and lowering.”
“I say no,” declared Marie, rising.
“I swear yes, with all deference.”
Marie ran down the hill. “Man’s mind is his kingdom. Come, now, down into yours!”
At the foot of the hill Marie turned into the path leading away from the castle, and Sti walked at her side.
“Look you, Sti Högh,” said Marie, “since you seem to think so well of me, I would have you know that I am quite unlearned in the signs of the weather and likewise in other people’s discourse.”
“Surely not.”
“In what you are saying—yes.”
“Nay.”
“Now I swear yes.”
“Oaths gouge no eye without fist follows after.”
“Faith, you may believe me or not, but God knows I ofttimes feel that great still sadness that comes we know not whence. Pastor Jens was wont to say it was a longing for our home in the kingdom of heaven, which is the true fatherland of every Christian soul, but I think it is not that. We long and sorrow and know no living hope to comfort us—ah, how bitterly have I wept! It comes over one with such a strange heaviness and sickens one’s heart, and one feels so tired of one’s own thoughts and wishes one had never been born. But it is not the briefness of these earthly joys that has weighed on my thoughts or caused me grief. No, never! It was something quite different—but ’tis quite impossible to give that grief a name. Sometimes I have thought it was really a grief over some hidden flaw in my own nature, some inward hurt that made me unlike other people—lesser and poorer. Ah, no, it passes everything how hard it is to find words—in just the right sense. Look you, this life—this earth—seems to me so splendid and wonderful, I should be proud and happy beyond words just to have some part in it. Whether for joy or grief matters not, but that I might sorrow orrejoice in honest truth, not in play like mummeries or shrovetide sports. I would feel life grasping me with such hard hands that I was lifted up or cast down until there was no room in my mind for aught else but that which lifted me up or cast me down. I would melt in my grief or burn together with my joy! Ah, you can never understand it! If I were like one of the generals of the Roman empire who were carried through the streets in triumphal chariots, I myself would be the victory and the triumph. I would be the pride and jubilant shouts of the people and the blasts of the trumpets and the honor and the glory—all, all in one shrill note. That is what I would be. Never would I be like one who merely sits there in his miserable ambition and cold vanity and thinks, as the chariot rolls on, how he shines in the eyes of the crowd and how helplessly the waves of envy lick his feet, while he feels with pleasure the purple wrapping his shoulders softly and the laurel wreath cooling his brow. Do you understand me, Sti Högh? That is what I mean by life, that is what I have thirsted after, but I have felt in my own heart that such life could never be mine, and it was borne in on me that, in some strange manner, I was myself at fault, that I had sinned against myself and led myself astray. I know not how it is, but it has seemed to me that this was whence my bitter sorrow welled, that I had touched a string which must not sound, and its tone had sundered something within me that could never be healed. Therefore I could never force open the portals of life, but had to stand without, unbidden and unsought, like a poor maimed bondwoman.”
“You!” exclaimed Sti Högh in astonishment; then, his face changing quickly, he went on in another voice: “Ah, now I see it all!” He shook his head at her. “By my troth,how easily a man may befuddle himself in these matters! Our thoughts are so rarely turned to the road where every stile and path is familiar, but more often they run amuck wherever we catch sight of anything that bears a likeness to a trail, and we’re ready to swear it’s the King’s highway. Am I not right,ma chère? Have we not both, each for herself or himself, in seeking a source of our melancholy, caught the first thought we met and made it into the one and only reason? Would not any one, judging from our discourse, suppose that I went about sore afflicted and weighed down by the corruption of the world and the passing nature of all earthly things, while you, my dear kinswoman, looked on yourself as a silly old crone, on whom the door had been shut, and the lights put out, and all hope extinguished! But no matter for that! When we get to that chapter, we are easily made heady by our own words, and ride hard on any thought that we can bit and bridle.”
In the walk below the others were heard approaching, and, joining them, they returned to the castle.
At half-past the hour of eight in the evening of September twenty-sixth, the booming of cannon and the shrill trumpet notes of a festive march announced that both their Majesties, accompanied by his Highness Prince Johan, the Elector of Saxony, and his royal mother, and followed by the most distinguished men and women of the realm, were proceeding from the castle, down through the park, to witness the ballet which was soon to begin.
A row of flambeaux cast a fiery sheen over the red wall, made the yew and box glow like bronze, and lent all faces the ruddy glow of vigorous health.
See, scarlet-clothed halberdiers are standing in doublerows, holding flower-wreathed tapers high against the dark sky. Cunningly wrought lanterns and candles in sconces and candelabra send their rays low along the ground and high among the yellowing leaves, forcing the darkness back, and opening a shining path for the resplendent train.
The light glitters on gold and gilded tissue, beams brightly on silver and steel, glides in shimmering stripes down silks and sweeping satins. Softly as a reddish dew, it is breathed over dusky velvet, and flashing white, it falls like stars among rubies and diamonds. Reds make a brave show with the yellows; clear sky-blue closes over brown; streaks of lustrous sea-green cut their way through white and violet-blue; coral sinks between black and lavender; golden brown and rose, steel-gray and purple are whirled about, light and dark, tint upon tint, in eddying pools of color.
They are gone. Down the walk, tall plumes nod white, white in the dim air....
The ballet or masquerade to be presented is calledDie Waldlust. The scene is a forest. Crown Prince Christian, impersonating a hunter, voices his delight in the free life of the merry greenwood. Ladies, walking about under leafy crowns, sing softly of the fragrant violets. Children play at hide and seek and pick berries in pretty little baskets. Jovial citizens praise the fresh air and the clear grape, while two silly old crones are pursuing a handsome young rustic with amorous gestures.
Then the goddess of the forest, the virginal Diana, glides forward in the person of her Royal Highness the Princess Anne Sofie. The Elector leaps from his seat with delight and throws her kisses with both hands, while the court applauds.
As soon as the goddess has disappeared, a peasant andhis goodwife come forward and sing a duet on the delights of love. One gay scene follows another. Three young gentlemen are decking themselves with green boughs; five officers are making merry; two rustics come rollicking from market; a gardener’s ’prentice sings, a poet sings, and finally six persons play some sprightly music on rather fantastic instruments.
This leads up to the last scene, which is played by eleven shepherdesses, their Royal Highnesses the Princesses Anne Sofie, Friderica Amalie, and Vilhelmina Ernestina, Madam Gyldenlöve, and seven young maidens of the nobility. With much skill they dance a pastoral dance, in which they pretend to tease Madam Gyldenlöve because she is lost in thoughts of love and refuses to join their gay minuet. They twit her with giving up her freedom and bending her neck under the yoke of love, but she steps forward, and, in a gracefulpas de deuxwhich she dances with the Princess Anne Sofie, reveals to her companion the abounding transports and ecstasies of love. Then all dance forward merrily, winding in and out in intricate figures, while an invisible chorus sings in their praise to the tuneful music of stringed instruments:
“Ihr Nümphen hochberühmt, ihr sterblichen Göttinnen,Durch deren Treff’ligkeit sich lassen HeldensinnenJa auch die Götter selbst bezwingen für und für,Last nun durch diesen Tantz erblicken eure ZierDer Glieder Hurtigkeit, die euch darum gegebenSo schön und prächtig sind, und zu den End erhebenWas an euch göttlich ist, auff dass je mehr und mehrMan preisen mög an euch des Schöpfers Macht und Ehr.”
“Ihr Nümphen hochberühmt, ihr sterblichen Göttinnen,Durch deren Treff’ligkeit sich lassen HeldensinnenJa auch die Götter selbst bezwingen für und für,Last nun durch diesen Tantz erblicken eure ZierDer Glieder Hurtigkeit, die euch darum gegebenSo schön und prächtig sind, und zu den End erhebenWas an euch göttlich ist, auff dass je mehr und mehrMan preisen mög an euch des Schöpfers Macht und Ehr.”
This ended the ballet. The spectators dispersed throughthe park, promenading through well-lit groves or resting in pleasant grottos, while pages dressed as Italian or Spanish fruit-venders offered wine, cake, and comfits from the baskets they carried on their heads.
The players mingled with the crowd and were complimented on their art and skill, but all were agreed that, with the exception of the Crown Princess and Princess Anne Sofie, none had acted better than Madam Gyldenlöve. Their Majesties and the Electress praised her cordially, and the King declared that not even Mademoiselle La Barre could have interpreted the rôle with more grace and vivacity.
Far into the night the junketing went on in the lighted park and the adjoining halls of the castle, where violins and flutes called to the dance, and groaning boards invited to drinking and carousing. From the lake sounded the gay laughter of revellers in gondolas strung with lamps. People swarmed everywhere. The crowds were densest where the light shone and the music played, more scattered where the illumination was fainter, but even where darkness reigned completely and the music was almost lost in the rustling of leaves, there were merry groups and silent couples. One lonely guest had strayed far off to the grotto in the eastern end of the garden and had found a seat there, but he was in a melancholy mood. The tiny lantern in the leafy roof of the grotto shone on a sad mien and pensive brows—yellow-white brows.
It was Sti Högh.
“. . . E di personaAnzi grande, che no; di vista allegra,Di bionda chioma, e colorita alquanto,”
“. . . E di personaAnzi grande, che no; di vista allegra,Di bionda chioma, e colorita alquanto,”
he whispered to himself.
He had not come unscathed from his four or five weeks of constant intercourse with Marie Grubbe. She had absolutely bewitched him. He longed only for her, dreamed only of her; she was his hope and his despair. He had loved before, but never like this, never so timidly and weakly and hopelessly. It was not the fact that she was the wife of Ulrik Frederik, nor that he was married to her sister, which robbed him of his courage. No, it was in the nature of his love to be faint-hearted—his calf-love, he called it bitterly. It had so little desire, so much fear and worship, and yet so much desire. A wistful, feverish languishing for her, a morbid longing to live with her in her memories, dream her dreams, suffer her sorrows, and share her sad thoughts, no more, no less. How lovely she had been in the dance, but how distant and unattainable! The round gleaming shoulders, the full bosom and slender limbs, they took his breath away. He trembled before that splendor of body, which made her seem richer and more perfect, and hardly dared to let himself be drawn under its spell. He feared his own passion and the fire, hell-deep, heaven-high, that smouldered within him. That arm around his neck, those lips pressed against his—it was madness, imbecile dreams of a madman! Thismouth—
“Paragon di dolcezza!· · · · · · ·. . . bocca beata,. . . bocca gentil, che può ben dirsiConca d’ Indo odorataDi perle orientali e pellegrine:E la porta, che chiudeEd apre il bel tesoro,Con dolcissimo mel porpora mista.”
“Paragon di dolcezza!· · · · · · ·. . . bocca beata,. . . bocca gentil, che può ben dirsiConca d’ Indo odorataDi perle orientali e pellegrine:E la porta, che chiudeEd apre il bel tesoro,Con dolcissimo mel porpora mista.”
He started from the bench as with pain. No, no! He clung to his own humble longing and threw himself again in his thoughts at her feet, clutched at the hopelessness of his love, held up before his eyes the image of her indifference, and—Marie Grubbe stood there in the arched door of the grotto, fair against the outside darkness.
All that evening she had been in a strangely enraptured mood. She felt calm and sound and strong. The music and pomp, the homage and admiration of the men, were like a carpet of purple spread out for her feet to tread upon. She was intoxicated and transported with her own beauty. The blood seemed to shoot from her heart in rich, glowing jets and become gracious smiles on her lips, radiance in her eyes, and melody in her voice. Her mind held an exultant serenity, and her thoughts were clear as a cloudless sky. Her soul seemed to unfold its richest bloom in this blissful sense of power and harmony.
Never before had she been so fair as with that imperious smile of joy on her lips and the tranquillity of a queen in her eyes and bearing, and thus she stood in the arched door of the grotto, fair against the outside darkness. Looking down at Sti Högh, she met his gaze of hopeless adoration, and at that she bent down, laid her white hand as in pity on his hair, and kissed him. Not in love—no, no!—but as a king may bestow a precious ring on a faithful vassal as a mark of royal grace and favor, so she gave him her kiss in calm largesse.
As she did so, her assurance seemed to leave her for a moment, and she blushed, while her eyes fell. If Sti Högh had tried to take her then or to receive her kiss as anything more than a royal gift, he would have lost her forever, but he knelt silently before her, pressed her hand gratefullyto his lips, then stepped aside reverently and saluted her deeply with head bared and neck bent. She walked past him proudly, away from the grotto and into the darkness.
IN January of sixteen hundred and sixty-four, Ulrik Frederik was appointed Viceroy of Norway, and in the beginning of April the same year, he departed for his post. Marie Grubbe went with him.
The relation between them had not improved, except in so far as the lack of mutual understanding and mutual love had, as it were, been accepted by both as an unalterable fact, and found expression in the extremely ceremonious manner they had adopted toward each other.
For a year or more after they had moved to Aggershus, things went on much in the same way, and Marie, for her part, desired no change. Not so Ulrik Frederik; for he had again become enamored of his wife.
On a winter afternoon, in the gloaming, Marie Grubbe sat alone in the little parlor known from olden time as the Nook. The day was cloudy and dark, with a raw, blustering wind. Heavy flakes of melting snow were plastered into the corners of the tiny window-panes, covering almost half the surface of the greenish glass. Gusts of wet, chilly wind went whirling down between the high walls, where they seemed to lose their senses and throw themselves blindly upon shutters and doors, rattling them fiercely, then flying skyward again with a hoarse, dog-like whimper. Powerful blasts came shrieking across the roofs opposite and hurled themselves against windows and walls, pounding like waves, then suddenly dying away. Now and again a squall would come roaring down the chimney. The flames ducked their frightened heads, and the white smoke, timidly curling toward the chimney like the comb of a breaker, would shrink back, ready to throw itself out into the room. Ah,in the next instant it is whirled, thin and light and blue, up through the flue, with the flames calling after it, leaping and darting, and sending sputtering sparks by the handful right in its heels. Then the fire began to burn in good earnest. With grunts of pleasure it spread over glowing coals and embers, boiled and seethed with delight in the innermost marrow of the white birch wood, buzzed and purred like a tawny cat, and licked caressingly the noses of blackening knots and smouldering chunks of wood.
Warm and pleasant and luminous the breath of the fire streamed through the little room. Like a fluttering fan of light it played over the parquet floor and chased the peaceful dusk which hid in tremulous shadows to the right and the left behind twisted chair-legs, or shrank into corners, lay thin and long in the shelter of mouldings, or flattened itself under the large clothes-press.
Suddenly the chimney seemed to suck up the light and heat with a roar. Darkness spread boldly across the floor on every board and square, to the very fire, but the next moment the light leaped back again and sent the dusk flying to all sides, with the light pursuing it, up the walls and doors, above the brass latch. Safety nowhere! The dusk sat crouching against the wall, up under the ceiling, like a cat in a high branch, with the light scampering below, back and forth like a dog, leaping, running at the foot of the tree. Not even among the flagons and tumblers on the top of the press could the darkness be undisturbed, for red ruby-glasses, blue goblets, and green Rhenish wineglasses lit iridescent fires to help the light search them out.
The wind blew and the darkness fell outside, but within the fire glowed, the light played, and Marie Grubbe was singing. Now and again, she would murmur snatches of thewords as they came to her mind, then again hum the melody alone. Her lute was in her hand, but she was not playing it, only touching the strings sometimes and calling out a few clear, long-sounding notes. It was one of those pleasant little pensive songs that make the cushions softer and the room warmer; one of those gently flowing airs that seem to sing themselves in their indolent wistfulness, while they give the voice a delicious roundness and fullness of tone. Marie was sitting in the light from the fire, and its beams played around her, while she sang in careless enjoyment, as if caressing herself with her own voice.
The little door opened, and Ulrik Frederik bent his tall form to enter. Marie stopped singing instantly.
“Ah, madam!” exclaimed Ulrik Frederik in a tone of gentle remonstrance, making a gesture of appeal, as he came up to her. “Had I known that you would allow my presence to incommode you—”
“No, truly, I was but singing to keep my dreams awake.”
“Pleasant dreams?” he asked, bending over the firedogs before the grate and warming his hands on the bright copper balls.
“Dreams of youth,” replied Marie, passing her hand over the strings of the lute.
“Ay, that was ever the way of old age,” and he smiled at her.
Marie was silent a moment, then suddenly spoke: “One may be full young and yet have old dreams.”
“How sweet the odor of musk in here! But was my humble person along in these ancient dreams, madam?—if I may make so bold as to ask.”
“Ah, no!”
“And yet there was a time—”
“Among all other times.”
“Ay, among all other times there was once a wondrously fair time when I was exceeding dear to you. Do you bring to mind a certain hour in the twilight, a sennight or so after our nuptials? ’Twas storming and snowing—”
“Even as now.”
“And you were sitting before the fire—”
“Even as now.”
“Ay, and I was lying at your feet, and your dear hands were playing with my hair.”
“Yes, then you loved me.”
“Oh, even as now! And you—you bent down over me and wept till the tears streamed down your face, and you kissed me and looked at me with such tender earnestness, it seemed you were saying a prayer for me in your heart, and then all of a sudden—do you remember?—you bit my neck.”
“Ah, merciful God, what love I did bear to you, my lord! When I heard the clanging of your spurs on the steps the blood pounded in my ears, and I trembled from head to foot, and my hands were cold as ice. Then when you came in and pressed me in your arms—”
“De grace, madam!”
“Why, it’s naught but dead memories of anamourthat is long since extinguished.”
“Alas, extinguished, madam? Nay, it smoulders hotter than ever.”
“Ah, no, ’tis covered by the cold ashes of too many days.”
“But it shall rise again from the ashes as the bird Phenix, more glorious and fiery than before—pray, shall it not?”
“No, love is like a tender plant; when the night frosttouches its heart, it dies from the blossom down to the root.”
“No, love is like the herb named the rose of Jericho. In the dry months it withers and curls up, but when there is a soft and balmy night, with a heavy fall of dew, all its leaves will unfold again, greener and fresher than ever before.”
“It may be so. There are many kinds of love in the world.”
“Truly there are, and ours was such a love.”
“That yours was such you tell me now, but mine—never, never!”
“Then you have never loved.”
“Never loved? Now I shall tell you how I have loved. It was at Frederiksborg—”
“Oh, madam, you have no mercy!”
“No, no, that is not it at all. It was at Frederiksborg. Alas, you little know what I suffered there. I saw that your love was not as it had been. Oh, as a mother watches over her sick child and marks every little change, so I kept watch over your love with fear and trembling, and when I saw in your cold looks how it had paled, and felt in your kisses how feeble was its pulse, it seemed to me I must die with anguish. I wept for this love through long nights; I prayed for it, as if it had been the dearly loved child of my heart that was dying by inches. I cast about for aid and advice in my trouble and for physics to cure your sick love, and whatever secret potions I had heard of, such as love-philtres, I mixed them, betwixt hope and fear, in your morning draught and your supper wine. I laid out your breast-cloth under three waxing moons and read the marriage psalm over it, and on your bedstead I first painted with my own blood thirteen hearts in a cross, but all to no avail,my lord, for your love was sick unto death. Faith, that is the way you were loved.”
“No, Marie, my love is not dead, it is risen again. Hear me, dear heart, hear me! for I have been stricken with blindness and with a mad distemper, but now, Marie, I kneel at your feet, and look, I woo you again with prayers and beseechings. Alack, my love has been like a wilful child, but now it is grown to man’s estate. Pray give yourself trustingly to its arms, and I swear to you by the cross and the honor of a gentleman that it will never let you go again.”
“Peace, peace, what help is in that!”
“Pray, pray believe me, Marie!”
“By the living God, I believe you. There is no shred nor thread of doubt in my soul. I believe you fully, I believe that your love is great and strong, but mine you have strangled with your own hands. It is a corpse, and however loudly your heart may call, you can never wake it again.”
“Say not so, Marie, for those of your sex—I know there are among you those who when they love a man, even though he spurn them with his foot, come back ever and ever again; for their love is proof against all wounds.”
“’Tis so indeed, my lord, and I—I am such a woman, I would have you know, but you—are not the right kind of man.”
May God in his mercy keep you, my dearly beloved sister, and be to you a good and generous giver of all those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as for the soul, that I wish you from my heart.
To you, my dearly beloved sister, my one faithful friend from the time of my childhood, will I now relate what fine fruits I have of my elevation, which may it be cursedfrom the day it began; for it has, God knows, brought me naught but trouble and tribulation in brimming goblets.
Ay, it was an elevation for the worse, as you, my dearly beloved sister, shall now hear, and as is probably known to you in part. For it cannot fail that you must have learned from your dear husband how, even at the time of our dwelling in Sjælland, there was a coolness between me and my noble lord and spouse. Now here at Aggershus, matters have in no way mended, and he has used me scurvily that it is past all belief, but is what I might have looked for in so dainty ajunker. Not that I care a rush about his filthy gallantries; it is all one to me, and he may run amuck with the hangman’s wife, if so be his pleasure. All I ask is that he do not come too near me with his tricks, but that is precisely what he is now doing, and in such manner that one might fain wonder whether he were stricken with madness or possessed of the devil. The beginning of it was on a day when he came to me with fair words and fine promises and would have all be as before between us, whereas I feel for him naught but loathing and contempt, and told him in plain words that I held myself far too good for him. Then hell broke loose, forwenn’s de Düvel friert, as the saying is,macht er sein Hölle glühn, and he made it hot for me by dragging into the castle swarms of loose women and filthy jades and entertaining them with food and drink in abundance, ay, with costly sweetmeats and expensive stand-dishes as at any royal banquet. And for this my flowered damask tablecloths, which I have gotten after our blessed mother, and my silk bolsters with the fringes were to have been laid out, but that did not come to pass, inasmuch as I put them all under lock and key, and he had to go borrowing in the town for wherewithal to deck both board and bench.
My own dearly beloved sister, I will no longer fatigue you with tales of this vile company, but is it not shameful that such trulls, who if they were rightly served should have the lash laid on their back at the public whipping-post, now are queening it in the halls of his Majesty the King’s Viceroy? I say, ’tis so unheard of and so infamous that if it were to come to the ears of his Majesty, as with all my heart and soul I wish that it may come, he would talk tomein guten Ulrik Friederichin such terms as would give him but little joy to hear. The finest of all his tricks I have yet told you nothing of, and it is quite new, for it happened only the other day that I sent for a tradesman to bring me some Brabantian silk lace that I thought to put around the hem of a sack, but the man made answer that when I sent the money he would bring the goods, for the Viceroy had forbidden him to sell me anything on credit. The same word came from the milliner, who had been sent for, so it would appear that he has stopped my credit in the entire city, although I have brought to his estate thousands and thousands of rix-dollars. No more to-day. May we commit all unto the Lord, and may He give me ever good tidings of you.
Ever your faithful sister,
MARIE GRUBBE.
At Aggershus Castle, 12 December, 1665.The Honorable Mistress Anne Marie Grubbe, Styge Högh’s, Magistrate of Laaland, my dearly beloved sister, graciously to hand.
At Aggershus Castle, 12 December, 1665.
The Honorable Mistress Anne Marie Grubbe, Styge Högh’s, Magistrate of Laaland, my dearly beloved sister, graciously to hand.
God in his mercy keep you, my dearest sister, now and forever, is my wish from a true heart, and I pray for you that you may be of good cheer and not let yourself be utterly cast down, for we have all our allotted portion of sorrow, and we swim and bathe in naught but misery.
Your letter, M. D. S., came to hand safe and unbroken in every way, and thence I have learned with a heavy heart what shame and dishonor your husband is heaping upon you, which it is a grievous wrong in his Majesty’s Viceroy to behave as he behaves. Nevertheless, it behooves you not to be hasty, my duck; for you have cause for patience in that high position in which you have been placed, which it were not well to wreck, but which it is fitting you should preserve with all diligence. Even though your husband consumes much wealth on his pleasures, yet is it of his own he wastes, while my rogue of a husband has made away with his and mine too. Truly it is a pity to see a man who should guard what God hath entrusted to us instead scattering and squandering it. If ’twere but the will of God to part me from him, by whatever means it might be, that would be the greatest boon to me, miserable woman, for which I could never be sufficiently thankful; and we might as well be parted, since we have not lived together for upward of a year, for which may God be praised, and would that it might last! So you see, M. D. S., that neither is my bed decked with silk. But you must have faith that your husband will come to his senses in time and cease to waste his goods on wanton hussies and filthy rabble, and inasmuch as his office gives him a large income, you must not let your heart be troubled with his wicked wastefulness nor by his unkindness. God will help, I firmly trust. Farewell, my duck! I bid you a thousand good-nights.
Your faithful sister while I live,
ANNE MARIE GRUBBE.
At Vang, 6 February, 1666.Madam Gyldenlöve, my good friend and sister, written in all loving kindness.
At Vang, 6 February, 1666.
Madam Gyldenlöve, my good friend and sister, written in all loving kindness.
May God in his mercy keep you, my dearly beloved sister, and be to you a good and generous giver of all those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as for the soul, that I wish you from my heart.
My dearly beloved sister, the old saying that none is so mad but he has a glimmer of sense between St. John and Paulinus, no longer holds good, for my mad lord and spouse is no more sensible than he was. In truth, he is tenfold, nay a thousandfold more frenzied than before, and that whereof I wrote you was but as child’s play to what has now come to pass, which is beyond all belief. Dearest sister, I would have you know that he has been to Copenhagen, and thence—oh, fie, most horrid shame and outrage!—he has brought one of his oldcanaillewomen named Karen, whom he forthwith lodged in the castle, and she is set over everything and rules everything, while I am let stand behind the door. But, my dear sister, you must now do me the favor to inquire of our dear father whether he will take my part, if so be it that I can make my escape from here, as he surely must, for none can behold my unhappy state without pitying me, and what I suffer is so past all endurance that I think I should but be doing right in freeing myself from it. It is no longer ago than the Day of the Assumption of Our Lady that I was walking in our orchard, and when I came in again, the door of my chamber was bolted from within. I asked the meaning of this and was told that Karen had taken for her own that chamber and the one next to it, and my bed was moved up into the western parlor, which is cold as a church when the wind is in that quarter, full of draughts, and the floor quite rough and has even great holes in it. But if I were to relate at length all the insults that are heaped upon me here, it would be as long as any Lenten sermon,and if it is to go on much longer, my head is like to burst. May the Lord keep us and send me good tidings of you.
Ever your faithful sister,
MARIE GRUBBE.
The Honorable Mistress Anne Marie Grubbe, Sti Högh’s, Magistrate of Laaland, my dearly beloved sister, graciously to hand.
The Honorable Mistress Anne Marie Grubbe, Sti Högh’s, Magistrate of Laaland, my dearly beloved sister, graciously to hand.
Ulrik Frederik, if the truth were told, was as tired of the state of affairs at the castle as Marie Grubbe was. He had been used to refining more on his dissipations. They were sorry boon companions, these poor, common officers in Norway, and their soldiers’ courtesans were not to be endured for long. Karen Fiol was the only one who was not made up of coarseness and vulgarity, and even her he would rather bid good-by to-day than to-morrow.
In his chagrin at being repulsed by Marie Grubbe, he had admitted these people into his company, and for a while they amused him, but when the whole thing began to pall and seem rather disgusting, and when furthermore he felt some faint stirrings of remorse, he had to justify himself by pretending that such means had been necessary. He actually made himself believe that he had been pursuing a plan in order to bring Marie Grubbe back repentant. Unfortunately, her penitence did not seem to be forthcoming, and so he had recourse to harsher measures in the hope that, by making her life as miserable as possible, he would beat down her resistance. That she had really ceased to love him he never believed for a moment. He was convinced that in her heart she longed to throw herself into his arms, though she used his returning love as a good chance to avenge herself for his faithlessness. Nor did he begrudge her this revenge; he was pleased that she wanted it, if shehad only not dragged it out so long. He was getting bored in this barbarous land of Norway!
He had a sneaking feeling that it might have been wiser to have let Karen Fiol stay in Copenhagen, but he simply could not endure the others any longer; moreover, jealousy was a powerful ally, and Marie Grubbe had once been jealous of Karen, that he knew.
Time passed, and still Marie Grubbe did not come. He began to doubt that she ever would, and his love grew with his doubt. Something of the excitement of a game or a chase had entered into their relation. It was with an anxious mind and with a calculating fear that he heaped upon her one mortification after another, and he waited in suspense for even the faintest sign that his quarry was being driven into the right track, but nothing happened.
Ah, at last! At last something came to pass, and he was certain that it was the sign, the very sign he had been waiting for. One day when Karen had been more than ordinarily impudent, Marie Grubbe took a good strong bridle rein in her hand, walked through the house to the room where Karen just then was taking her after-dinner nap, fastened the door from within, and gave the dumbfounded strumpet a good beating with the heavy strap, then went quietly back to the western parlor, past the speechless servants who had come running at the sound of Karen’s screams.
Ulrik Frederik was downtown when it happened. Karen sent a messenger to him at once, but he did not hurry, and it was late afternoon before Karen, anxiously waiting, heard his horse in the courtyard. She ran down to meet him, but he put her aside, quietly and firmly, and went straight up to Marie Grubbe.
The door was ajar—then she must be out. He stuck hishead in, sure of finding the room empty, but she was there, sitting at the window asleep. He stepped in as softly and carefully as he could; for he was not quite sober.
The low September sun was pouring a stream of yellow and golden light through the room, lending color and richness to its poor tints. The plastered walls took on the whiteness of swans, the brown timbered ceiling glowed as copper, and the faded curtains around the bed were changed to wine-red folds and purple draperies. The room was flooded with light; even in the shadows it gleamed as through a shimmering mist of autumn yellow leaves. It spun a halo of gold around Marie Grubbe’s head and kissed her white forehead, but her eyes and mouth were in deep shadow cast by the yellowing apple-tree which lifted to the window branches red with fruit.
She was asleep, sitting in a chair, her hands folded in her lap. Ulrik Frederik stole up to her on tiptoe, and the glory faded as he came between her and the window.
He scanned her closely. She was paler than before. How kind and gentle she looked, as she sat there, her head bent back, her lips slightly parted, her white throat uncovered and bare! He could see the pulse throbbing on both sides of her neck, right under the little brown birthmark. His eyes followed the line of the firm, rounded shoulder under the close-fitting silk, down the slender arm to the white, passive hand. And that hand was his! He saw the fingers closing over the brown strap, the white blue-veined arm growing tense and bright, then relaxing and softening after the blow it dealt Karen’s poor back. He saw her jealous eyes gleaming with pleasure, her angry lips curling in a cruel smile at the thought that she was blotting out kiss after kiss with the leather rein. And she was his! He had beenharsh and stern and ruthless; he had suffered these dear hands to be wrung with anguish and these dear lips to open in sighing.
His eyes took on a moist lustre at the thought, and he felt suffused with the easy, indolent pity of a drunken man. He stood there staring in sottish sentimentality, until the rich flood of sunlight had shrunk to a thin bright streak high among the dark rafters of the ceiling.
Then Marie Grubbe awoke.
“You!” she almost screamed, as she jumped up and darted back so quickly that the chair tumbled along the floor.
“Marie!” said Ulrik Frederik as tenderly as he could, and held out his hands pleadingly to her.
“What brings you here? Have you come to complain of the beating your harlot got?”
“No, no, Marie; let’s be friends—good friends!”
“You are drunk,” she said coldly, turning away from him.
“Ay, Marie, I’m drunk with love of you—I’m drunk and dizzy with your beauty, my heart’s darling.”
“Yes, truly, so dizzy that your eyesight has failed you, and you have taken others for me.”
“Marie, Marie, leave your jealousy!”
She made a contemptuous gesture as if to brush him aside.
“Indeed, Marie, you were jealous. You betrayed yourself when you took that bridle rein, you know. But now let the whole filthy rabble be forgotten as dead and given over to the devil. Come, come, cease playing unkind to me as I have played the faithless rogue to you with all these make-believe pleasures and gallantries. We do nothing butprepare each other a pit of hell, whereas we might have an Eden of delight. Come, whatever you desire, it shall be yours. Would you dance in silks as thick as chamlet, would you have pearls in strings as long as your hair, you shall have them, and rings, and tissue of gold in whole webs, and plumes, and precious stones, whatever you will—nothing is too good to be worn by you.”
He tried to put his arm around her waist, but she caught his wrist and held him away from her.
“Ulrik Frederik,” she said, “let me tell you something. If you could wrap your love in ermine and marten, if you could clothe it in sable and crown it with gold, ay, give it shoes of purest diamond, I would cast it away from me like filth and dung, for I hold it less than the ground I tread with my feet. There’s no drop of my blood that’s fond of you, no fibre of my flesh that doesn’t cry out upon you. Do you hear? There’s no corner of my soul where you’re not called names. Understand me aright! If I could free your body from the pangs of mortal disease and your soul from the fires of hell by being as yours, I would not do it.”
“Yes, you would, woman, so don’t deny it!”
“No, and no, and more than no!”
“Then begone! Out of my sight in the accursed name of hell!”
He was white as the wall and shook in every limb. His voice sounded hoarse and strange, and he beat the air like a madman.
“Take your foot from my path! Take your—take your—take your foot from my path, or I’ll split your skull! My blood’s lusting to kill, and I’m seeing red. Begone—out of the land and dominion of Norway, and hell-fire go with you! Begone—”
For a moment, Marie stood looking at him in horror, then ran as fast as she could out of the room and away from the castle.
When the door slammed after her, Ulrik Frederik seized the chair in which she had been sitting when he came in and hurled it out of the window, then caught the curtains from the bed and tore the worn stuff into shreds and tatters, storming round the room all the while. He threw himself on the floor and crawled around, snarling like a wild beast, and pounding with his fists till the knuckles were bloody. Exhausted at last, he crept over to the bed and flung himself face downward in the pillows, called Marie tender names, and wept and sobbed and cursed her, then again began to talk in low, wheedling tones, as if he were fondling her.
That same night Marie Grubbe, for fair words and good pay, got a skipper to sail with her to Denmark.
The following day Ulrik Frederik turned Karen Fiol out of the castle, and a few days later he himself left for Copenhagen.