CHAPTER VIII
“I couldwish we were not married, Cordt,” said Fru Adelheid.
She laid her arms across her breast and looked at him with deep, dark eyes:
“I could wish I were your mistress. If it meant that, all would be over and done with in the morning. Then there would be no more of this unpleasantness. And no fear, either. And the joys we have would be all the fairer.”
He stood by the fire and played with the keys in his pocket.
“Then your forehead would be smooth and your eyes bright, Cordt, for then you would be making love to me.”
He looked up and said gently:
“Don’t I make love to you, Adelheid?”
She sighed and said nothing. Cordt sat down in his chair and time passed. Then he asked:
“Do you hear what I say, Adelheid?”
“I am longing to hear what you will say next.”
“I read something similar to what you have been saying in a book lately,” he said. “I forget what the book was called. I was looking into it ... just where the author railed against marriage, with its security and its habits and all that. I have read exactly the same thing in a hundred books, I think.”
“Yes ... they all sing the same song,” she replied. “It is not particularly entertaining. But it is true enough, I daresay.”
Cordt struck his hands together lightly:
“It is curious how little imagination the poets have nowadays,” he said. “One would think there were only half a dozenwomen, whom they have all kissed and married and run away from. I wonder that it never occurs to one of them to glorifycustom.”
Cordt pulled his chair forward and sat with his head in his hands and looked into the fire:
“If I were a poet, I would sing a song in honour of sacred custom,” he said.
“Would you, Cordt?”
“Yes, yes ... that I would.”
He laid his head back and listened to the gale whistling in the chimney:
“Now just look, Adelheid, at two people thrown into each other’s arms by the strongest power on earth. For them there exists neither day nor night, neither time nor place. The whole earth is fragrant with violets. Their joy is terror and their terror is full of exultant gladness. Then a child lies in her lap and the light in her eyes is deeper than before. And thenthe years go by ... there are fewer violets on the earth as the years go by, Adelheid. She bears her children in pain. And the pain sears her cheek. The children have sucked her breast dry; her eyes are weary with the night-watches. The stranger who passes the house sees only the faded woman. But he who drank intoxication from her young eyes and kissed the strength of her bosom ... he does not see it. He has grownaccustomedto that woman. She has quenched the longing of his youth and given him peaceful happiness instead.”
He was silent for a while. Then he turned his face towards her:
“He does not live in his first eager longing for the trysting-hour, but confidently seeks his accustomed couch by her side. Custom has gently bound the two people into one family. Is that not beautiful, Adelheid? And good?”
“Yes,” she said. “It is beautiful, as you tell it. But it is not youth.”
“Then what is youth, Adelheid?”
“Youth is not rest.”
“Then one should not marry before one is old,” said Cordt. “For marriage is rest. Deep, powerful, happy ... generating rest.”
“No more one should,” replied Fru Adelheid. “And that is why I could wish I were your mistress.”
She looked at him, as she said this, and he at her.
Then he stood up and laid his hand on the back of her chair and bent close down to her:
“How far estranged from each other we have become!” he said.
And Fru Adelheid nodded sadly and Cordt crossed the room and stood by the fire again:
“In vain I pitch my call in every key,”he said. “It has availed me nothing that my ancestor built this room ... his heirs have borne witness here, generation after generation, to no purpose.”
A gust of wind came and blew the balcony-door open.
Fru Adelheid shuddered and looked that way, while Cordt went and closed it. Then he remained standing by the celestial globe and pressed the spring:
“I so often think of the poor man who placed this toy up here,” he said. “He was a man who could not be content with the circle in which he moved. So he lost his reason and devoted himself to playing with the stars.... For us modern people it is different ... the other way round. We go mad because the circle in which we move is too large. We leave the stars to the babies. We play ball with bigger things. We try a fall with God Himself, if the fancy takes us ... providedthat we have not outgrown that plaything too! We dare not speak of love and we smile at marriage. We despise courage and do not believe in honesty and each of us has his own opinion about virtue.”
She heard what he said even as people listen to music when it does not so very much matter if they catch every note.
“Then it happens that we long for a fixed point in our lives ... just one point. Something that cannot be pulled to pieces and discussed. And something that is not past.”
Cordt sat and moved about in his chair and could not settle down:
“If I were to put anything in this room,” he said, “it would be a little tiny house ... from far away in the country. There would be only one door and two windows and it would be evening and the smoke would rise up gently from thechimney. The house would have to be as small as could be; but that would show that there was no room for doubt inside it. Husband and wife would go in and out of the door to the end of their days.”
Now she heard what he said and looked at him.
“That is what my marriage ought to be, Adelheid. If I had had any talent, I daresay it would have been different. Or if I had to work for my bread.... And I am no different from other men of to-day ... no stronger, no braver. I know nothing about God and I have no excessive belief in men.”
He had lowered his voice and spoke without looking at her. But she understood that he was listening for a word from her and her heart wept because she had nothing to say to him.
“My fixed point,” he said.
Then he was silent for a little. But, soon after, he rose and stood with his arm on the back of her chair and spoke again:
“There was also something in what I used to see at home. Father and mother were so kind ... and so strong. I see them before me now, as they used to kiss each other after dinner, however numerous the company might be. And they kissed each other good-morning and good-night until they died. And when father and his brother met in the street, they always kissed ... people used to laugh ... and it was such a pretty habit.”
While he spoke, she sought for an opportunity to interrupt him.
“My family-feeling has always been too strong,” he said. “Until now. And yet ... I once had a sweetheart....”
He stopped. Fru Adelheid sat up and looked at him. Her eyes shone.
“Or a connection, if you like....”
“You never told me about that!” she said.
Cordt raised his head and looked at her and she lowered her eyes.
“There is nothing to tell,” he said.
Then he said no more, but went to the window and stood there.
And Fru Adelheid again felt small and ill at ease in the big old chair.