"Don't let us talk about that."
"No, but forgive me, do you hear, be merciful! What in the world am I to do? Now there is Papa at home, walking up and down his study, it is such a terrible thing for him. It's Sunday tomorrow; he has decided that all the servants are to have the day off; that is the only thing he has decided today. He is grey in the face and he doesn't say a word, so hard has his son-in-law's death hit him. I told Mamma that I was going to you. You and I must both go to town with the Chamberlains tomorrow, she answered. I am going to Johannes, I repeated. Papa can't find the money for all three of us, he will stay here himself, she said and went on talking about other things. Then I went to the door. Mamma looked at me. Now I'm going to him, I said for the last time. Mamma followed me to the door and kissed me and said: Well well, God bless you both!"
Johannes dropped her hands and said:
"There, now you're warm."
"Thank you so much, yes, now I'm quite warm.... God bless you both, she said. I have told Mamma all, she has known it the whole time. But dear me, who is it you're in love with, child? she asked. Can you ask me that again? I answered; it is Johannes I love, it is he alone I have loved all my life, loved, loved...."
He made a movement.
"It's late. Don't you think they will be getting anxious about you at home?"
"No," she answered. "You know that it is you I love, Johannes, you must have seen that? I have longed so for you all these years, nobody knows how much. I have walked along the road here and thought to myself, now I'll go a little way into the wood by the side of the road, for that is whereheused to go. And then I did so. The day I heard you had come I put on a light dress, light yellow, I was sick with excitement and longing and I kept going in and out of all the rooms. How radiant you are today! said Mamma. I was saying to myself all the time: now he's come home again! He is glorious and now he has come back, both those things are true! The next day I could not endure it any longer, I put on my light dress again and went up to the quarry to find you. Do you remember? I found you, too, but I did not gather any flowers as I said I would, and that was not why I came either. You were no longer glad to see me again; but thanks all the same that I met you. It was getting on for three years ago. You had a twig in your hand and sat switching with it when I came; after you had gone I picked up the twig and hid it and took it home with me...."
"Yes but, Victoria," he said in a shaking voice, "you mustn't say such things to me any more."
"No," she answered uneasily, seizing his hand. "No, I mustn't. No, you don't like it, I see." She began to pat his hand nervously. "No, I can't expect you to. And besides, I have hurt you so much. Don't you think you can forgive me in time?"
"Yes, yes, everything. It isn't that."
"What is it then?"
Pause.
"I am engaged," he answered.
X
The next day—Sunday—the Master of the Castle came in person to the Miller and asked him to come up about noon and drive Lieutenant Otto's body down to the steamer. The Miller could not understand and stared at him; but the Master explained curtly that all his men had the day off and had gone to church, none of his servants were at home.
The Master could not have slept that night, he looked like a dead man and was unshaven besides. But he swung his walking-stick in his usual way and held himself erect.
The Miller put on his best coat and went. When he had put the horses in, the Master himself lent him a hand in getting the body into the carriage. It was all done quietly, almost secretly, there was nobody to look on.
The Miller drove away to the pier. After him came the Chamberlain and his Lady, besides the Lady of the Castle and Victoria. They were all on foot. The Master was seen standing alone on the steps and making repeated gestures of farewell; the wind ruffled his grey hair.
When the body was carried on board the mourners followed. From the railing the Lady of the Castle called ashore to the Miller that he was to say good-bye to the Master for her, and Victoria asked him the same.
Then the boat steamed away. The Miller stood a long while watching her. There was a stiff breeze and the bay was rough; it was a quarter of an hour before the boat disappeared behind the islands. The Miller drove home.
He put the horses in the stable, gave them a feed and was going in to deliver the message he had for the Master. The kitchen door, however, proved to be locked. He walked round the house and tried to get in by the front door; that too was locked. It's the dinner hour and the Master's asleep, he thought. But as he was a punctilious man and wished to carry out what he had undertaken, he went into the servants' hall to find somebody to whom he could give his messages. In the servants' hall there was not a soul. He went out again, looked all about, and even tried the maids' room. There was nobody there either. The whole place was deserted.
He was just going out again when he saw the glimmer of a candle in the Castle cellar. He stopped. Through the little barred windows he could plainly see a man come into the cellar with a candle in one hand and a chair upholstered in red silk in the other. It was the Master. He was shaved and dressed as though for a great occasion. Perhaps I might knock at the window and give him the Lady's message, thought the Miller, but stood still.
The Master looked about him, held out the candle and looked about him. He pulled forward a sack which seemed to be full of hay or straw and laid it against the entrance door. Then he poured some liquid over the sack from a can. After that he brought packing-cases, straw and a discarded flower-stand up to the door and poured some of the liquid over them; the Miller noticed that in doing so he was careful not to soil his fingers or his clothes. He took the little candle-end, placed it on top of the sack and carefully surrounded it with straw. Then the Master sat down on the chair.
The Miller gazed at all these preparations with increasing amazement, his eyes were glued to the cellar window and a dark suspicion fell upon his soul. The Master sat quite quietly in his chair and watched the candle burning lower and lower; he kept his hands folded. The Miller saw him flip a speck of dust from the sleeve of his dress coat and fold his arms again.
Then the terrified old Miller uttered a shriek.
The Master turned his head and looked out of the window. Suddenly he jumped up and came close to the window, where he stood staring out. It was a face in which a world of suffering was depicted. His mouth was strangely distorted, he shook both his clenched fists at the window, silently threatening; at last he only threatened with one hand as he walked backwards across the cellar floor. As he struck against the chair the candle upset. At the same instant a huge flame shot up.
The Miller shrieked and ran out. For a moment he tore about the yard quite out of his wits and not knowing what to do. He ran to the cellar window, kicked in the glass and shouted; then he stooped down, seized the iron bars in his fists and shook them, bent them, tore them out.
Then he heard a voice from the cellar, a voice without words, a groan, as from a dead man in the ground; it sounded twice, and the Miller fled terror-struck from the window, across the yard, down the road and home. He dared not look behind him.
When a few minutes later he and Johannes came to the place, the whole Castle, the big old timber house, was in flames. A couple of men from the pier had also come up; but they could not do anything either. Everything was destroyed.
But the Miller's lips were silent as the grave.
XI
Ask of some what Love is and it will be no more than a breeze murmuring among the roses and then dying away. But again it is often like an inviolable seal that lasts for life, lasts till death. God has created it of many kinds and seen it endure or perish:
Two mothers are walking along a road and talking together. One of them is dressed in gay blue garments because her lover has come home from a journey. The other is dressed in mourning. She had three daughters, two of them dark, the third fair, and the fair one died. That is ten years ago, ten whole years, and still the mother wears mourning for her.
"It is so glorious today!" cries the blue-clad mother exulting, and claps her hands. "The warmth goes to my head, love has gone to my head, I am full of happiness. I could strip myself naked here on the road and stretch out my arms to the sun and send it kisses."
But the black-clad mother is silent and neither smiles nor makes reply.
"Are you still sorrowing for your little girl?" asks the Blue one in the innocence of her heart. "Is it not ten years since she died?"
The Black one answers:
"Yes. She would have been fifteen now."
Then the Blue one says to console her:
"But you have other daughters alive, you have two left."
The Black one sobs:
"Yes. But neither of them is fair. She who died was so fair and bright."
And the two mothers part and go their several ways, each with her love....
But the same two dark daughters had also, each her love, and they loved the same man.
He came to the elder and said:
"I wish to ask your advice, for I love your sister. Yesterday I was untrue to her, she surprised me kissing your servant girl in the passage; she gave a little scream, it was like a whimper, and passed by. What am I to do now? I love your sister; for Heaven's sake speak to her and help me!"
And the elder sister paled and put her hand to her heart; but she smiled as though she would bless him and answered:
"I will help you."
The next day he went to the younger and threw himself on his knees before her and confessed his love.
She looked him up and down and answered:
"Unfortunately I can't spare more than ten shillings, if that is what you mean. But go to my sister, she has more."
With that she left him, holding her head proudly.
But when she had reached her room she threw herself upon the floor and wrung her hands with love.
It was winter and the streets were cold, with fog, dust and wind. Johannes was back in town, in his old room where he heard the creaking of the poplars against the wooden wall and from whose window he had more than once greeted the dawning day. Now the sun was gone.
His work had occupied him the whole time, the big sheets he had filled, growing and growing as the winter wore on. It was a series of fairy tales from the land of his fancy, an endless night in a crimson sunset glow.
But the days were not all alike, he had both good and bad, and sometimes when his work was going best, a thought, a pair of eyes, a word from the past might strike him and quench his inspiration at once. Then he got up and began to pace his room from wall to wall; he had done that so often that he had worn a white path across the floor and it grew whiter every day....
"Today, as I cannot work, cannot think, cannot rest for memories, I will set myself to describe what befell me one night. Dear Reader, today I have had such a terribly bad day. It is snowing outside, there are scarcely any people in the streets, everything is dismal and my soul is so fearfully desolate. I have been walking in the street and then for hours in my room and have tried to compose myself a little; but now it is afternoon, and I am no better. I who should be warm am cold and pale like a sunless day. Dear Reader, in this state I am trying to describe a bright and thrilling night. For work forces calm upon me and when a few more hours are past I shall perhaps be happy again...."
There was a knock at the door and Camilla Seier, his young secret fiancé, came in. He put down his pen and got up. They both smiled as they shook hands.
"You don't ask me about the ball," she said at once, throwing herself into a chair. "I danced every single dance. It lasted till three o'clock. I danced with Richmond."
"Thank you so much for coming, Camilla. I am so miserably depressed and you are so cheerful; that will help me. Fancy, and what did you wear at the ball?"
"Red, of course. Oh dear, I can't remember, but I must have talked a lot and laughed a lot. It was so jolly. Yes, I was in red, no sleeves, not a hint of them. Richmond is at the Legation in London."
"I see."
"His people are English, but he was born here. What have you been doing to your eyes? They're so red. Have you been crying?"
"No," he answered with a laugh; "but I have been staring into my stories and there is so much sunshine there. Camilla, if you want to be a really nice girl, don't tear up that paper any more than you have done."
"Oh I say, how absent-minded I am. Excuse me, Johannes."
"It doesn't matter; it is only some notes. But let's hear now: I suppose you had a rose in your hair?"
"Oh yes! A red rose; it was almost black. I'll tell you what, Johannes, we might go to London for our wedding trip. It isn't nearly so awful as people say and it's all nonsense about the fogs."
"Who told you that?"
"Richmond. He said so last night, and he knows. You know Richmond, don't you?"
"No, I don't know him. He once proposed my health; he had diamond studs in his shirt. That's all I remember about him."
"He's simply sweet. Oh, when he came up and bowed and said: I expect you hardly remember me.... Do you know, I gave him the rose."
"Did you though? What rose?"
"The one I had in my hair. I gave it him."
"You must have been very taken with Richmond."
She turned red and protested warmly:
"Not a bit, far from it. Surely one can like a person, think them nice, without.... For shame, Johannes, are you mad? I shall never mention his name again."
"But, bless me, my dear Camilla, I didn't mean ... you mustn't think.... On the contrary, I should like to thank him for having entertained you."
"Yes, you just do it—you dare! For my part I'll never say another word to him as long as I live."
Pause.
"Well, well, let's say no more about it," he said. "Are you going already?"
"Yes, I can't stay any longer. How far have you got with your work now? Mamma asked about it. Fancy, I haven't seen Victoria for several weeks and I met her just now."
"Just now?"
"As I was coming here. She smiled. But my goodness, how she has changed! Look here, aren't you coming to see us soon?"
"Yes, soon," he answered, jumping up. A flush had spread over his face. "Perhaps in a day or two. I have to write something first, I've just thought of it, a conclusion to my tales. Oh, I shall write something, I tell you! Imagine the world as seen from above, like a rare and splendid pontifical robe. In its folds people are walking about; they walk in couples, it is evening and calm, the hour of love. I shall call it 'The Race.' I think it will be great; I have had this vision so often, and every time I feel as if my breast would burst and I could embrace the earth. There they are, men and women, beasts and birds and all of them have their hour of love, Camilla. A wave of rapture is at hand, their eyes grow more ardent, their bosoms heave. Then a fine blush rises from the earth; it is the blush of bashfulness from all their naked hearts, and the night is stained a rosy red. But far away in the background lie the great sleeping mountains; they have seen nothing and heard nothing. And in the morning God throws his warm sun over all. 'The Race' I shall call it."
"I see."
"Yes. And then I'll come when I've finished it. Thank you so much for coming here, Camilla. And don't think any more about what I said. I didn't mean any harm by it."
"I'm not thinking about it at all. But I shall never mention his name again. Never."
The next morning Camilla came again. She was pale and in an unusual state of excitement.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked.
"Me? Nothing," she answered quickly. "It's you I am fond of. You really mustn't think there's anything the matter with me and that I'm not fond of you. No, now I'll tell you what I've been thinking: we won't go to London. What do we want there? He can't have known what he was talking about, that man, there's more fog than he thinks. You're looking at me, what makes you do that? I never mentioned his name. Such a storyteller, he filled me up with lies; we won't go to London."
He looked at her, studied her attentively.
"No, we won't go to London," he said thoughtfully.
"That's all right! So that's settled. Have you written that thing about the Race? I'm so frightfully interested. You must get it finished very quickly and come and see us, Johannes. The hour of love, wasn't that it? And a lovely papal robe with folds, and a rosy red night; heavens, how well I remember what you told me about it. I haven't been here so often lately, but now I'm going to come every day to hear whether you've finished."
"I shall soon have finished," he said, still looking at her.
"Today I fetched your books and took them into my own room. I wanted to read them over again; it won't tire me the least, I'm looking forward to it. Look here, Johannes, you might be so kind as to see me home; I don't know whether it's quite safe for me all the way home. I don't know. Perhaps there's somebody waiting for me outside here, somebody walking up and down perhaps...." Suddenly she burst into tears and stammered: "I called him a storyteller, I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry I said it. He hasn't told me lies, on the contrary he was all the time.... We're going to have some friends on Tuesday, but he's not coming, butyoumust come, do you hear? Will you promise? But all the same I didn't want to say anything bad about him. I don't know what you think of me...."
He answered:
"I am beginning to understand you."
She threw herself on his neck, hid her face on his breast, trembling with agitation.
"Oh, but I'm fond of you too," she exclaimed. "You mustn't think anything else. I don't love only him, it isn't so bad as that. When you asked me last year I was so glad; but now he has come. I don't understand it. Is it so awful of me, Johannes? Perhaps I love him a tiny bit more than you; I can't help it, it has come over me. O dear, I haven't slept for several nights since I saw him and I love him more and more. What am I to do? You are so much older, you must tell me. He walked here with me, he's standing outside waiting to see me home again and now perhaps he's cold. Do you despise me, Johannes? I haven't kissed him; no, I haven't, you must believe me; I've only given him my rose. Why don't you answer, Johannes? You must tell me what I'm to do, for I can't bear it any longer."
Johannes sat quite still and listened to her. He said:
"I have nothing to answer."
"Thanks, thanks, dear Johannes, it is so good of you not to be wild with me," she said, drying her tears. "But you mustn't think I'm not fond of you too. Goodness! I shall come and see you much oftener than I have done and do everything you want. But the only thing is that it's he I'm more fond of. It wasn't my doing. It's not my fault."
He got up in silence, put his hat on and said:
"Shall we go?"
They went downstairs.
Outside stood Richmond. He was a dark-haired young man with brown eyes that sparkled with youth and life. The frost had reddened his cheeks.
"Are you cold?" said Camilla, flying up to him.
Her voice trembled with emotion. Suddenly she hurried back to Johannes, put her arm through his and said:
"Excuse me for not asking whetheryouwere cold. You didn't put on your overcoat; shall I go up and get it? No? Well, anyhow button your jacket."
She buttoned his jacket.
Johannes offered his hand to Richmond. He was in a strangely absent mood, as though what was happening did not concern him. He gave an uncertain half-smile and muttered:
"Glad to meet you again."
Richmond showed no sign of guilt or of dissimulation. As he shook hands the pleasure of recognition flashed across his face and he made a polite bow.
"I saw one of your books the other day in a shop-window in London," he said. "It had been translated. It was so jolly to see it there, like a message from home."
Camilla walked in the middle and looked up at each of them in turn. At last she said:
"Then you'll come on Tuesday, Johannes. Oh, excuse me for thinking only of my own affairs," she added with a laugh. But the next moment she repented and turned to Richmond, asking him to come too. He would only meet people he knew, Victoria and her mother were asked, besides them only about a dozen were coming.
Suddenly Johannes stopped and said:
"After all I may just as well go back."
"See you on Tuesday," Camilla answered.
Richmond took his hand and pressed it sincerely.
So the two young people went on their way, alone and happy.
XII
The blue-clad Mother was in the most terrible suspense; every moment she expected a signal from the garden and the coast was not clear, nobody could come through it so long as her husband would not leave the house. Ah, that husband, that husband, with his forty years and his bald head! What sinister thoughts could they be that made him so pale this evening and kept him sitting in his chair, immovably, inexorably, staring at his paper?
She had not a minute's peace; now it was eleven o'clock. The children she had put to bed long ago; but the husband did not budge. What if the signal came? The door would be opened with the dear little latch-key—and two men would meet, stand face to face and look into each other's eyes! She dared not finish the thought.
She went away to the darkest corner of the room, wrung her hands, and at last said straight out:
"Now it's eleven. If youaregoing to the club you must go now."
He got up at once, even paler than before, and went out of the room, out of the house.
Outside the garden he stopped and listened to a whistle, a little signal. Steps were heard on the gravel, a key was put into the latch and turned—a moment later there were two shadows on the drawing-room blind.
And he recognized the signal, the steps and the two shadows on the blind, none of it was new to him.
He went to the club. It was open, there were lights in the windows; but he did not go in. For half an hour he roamed about the streets and in front of his garden, an endless half-hour. Let me wait another quarter of an hour, he thought, and he prolonged it to three quarters. Then he entered the garden, went up the steps and rang at his own door.
The maid came and opened it, just put her head out and said:
"Madam has long since...."
Then she stopped and saw who he was.
"I know, gone to bed," he answered. "Will you tell your mistress that her husband has come home."
And the maid went. She knocked at her mistress's room and gave the message through the closed door:
"I was to say that the master has come back."
Her mistress asked from within:
"What do you say, is your master come back? Who told you to say so?"
"The master himself. He's standing outside."
There are sounds of sore distraction in the mistress's room, hurried whispers, a door opening and closing again. Then all is still.
And the master walks in. His wife receives him with death in her heart.
"The club was shut," he says at once, from pity and compassion. "I sent you a message so as not to alarm you."
She falls into a chair, comforted, relieved, saved. The blissful feeling makes her kind heart overflow and she is solicitous about her husband:
"You are so pale. Is there anything wrong with you, dear?"
"I am not cold," he answers.
"But has anything happened? Your face looks so strangely drawn."
The husband answers:
"No, I'm smiling. This is going to be my way of smiling. I want this grimace to be my special property."
She listens to his short, hoarse words and doesn't understand them, can't make them out at all. What can he mean?
But suddenly he throws his arms around her with a grip of iron, with terrible force, and whispers close against her face:
"What do you say to giving him a pair of horns ... the man who's just gone ... give him a pair of horns, eh?"
She utters a scream and calls the maid. He lets her go with a quiet, dry laugh, with his mouth agape and slapping both his thighs.
In the morning the wife's kind heart is again uppermost and she says to her husband:
"You had an extraordinary attack last night; it's over now, but you're still pale today."
"Yes," he replies, "it takes it out of one to be witty at my age. I'll never do it again."
But, after having spoken of many kinds of Love, Friar Vendt tells of yet another kind and says:
What rapture there is inonekind of Love!
The young Lord and Lady had just come home, their long wedding tour was at an end and they settled down to rest.
A shooting star fell above their roof.
In summer the young couple walked together and never left each other's side. They plucked flowers, yellow, red and blue, and gave them to each other; they saw the grass swaying in the wind and heard the birds singing in the woods, and every word they spoke was like a caress. In winter they drove with bells on their horses and the sky was blue and high above them, the stars coursed over their everlasting plains.
Thus passed many, many years. The young couple had three children and their hearts loved one another as on the first day, in the first kiss.
Then the proud Lord fell sick, of the sickness that chained him to his bed so long and put his wife's patience to so stern a proof. The day he was well and arose from his bed he did not know himself again; the sickness had disfigured him and taken away his hair.
He suffered and brooded over it. Then one morning he said:
"Now you cannot love me any more."
But his wife threw her arms about him, blushing, and kissed him as passionately as in the springtime of their youth and answered:
"I love you, love you still. I will never forget that it was I and no other whom you chose and made so happy."
And she went into her chamber and cut off all her yellow hair, to be like her husband whom she loved.
And again many, many years went by, the young couple were now old and their children were grown up. They shared every happiness as before; in summer they still walked in the fields and saw the waving grass and in the winter they wrapped themselves in furs and drove beneath the starry sky. And their hearts continued warm and glad as with a marvellous wine.
The Lady was paralysed. The old Lady could not walk, she had to be drawn in a wheeled chair and the Lord himself drew her. But the Lady suffered so unspeakably from her misfortune and her face was deeply furrowed with sorrow.
Then she said one day:
"Now I would gladly die. I am so helpless and ugly and your face is so handsome, you cannot kiss me any more and you cannot love me as you used."
But her Lord embraced her, red with emotion, and answered:
"I love you more, more than my life, my dear one, love you as the first day, the first hour, when you gave me the rose. Do you remember? You handed me the rose and looked at me with your beautiful eyes; the rose smelt like you, you blushed like it and all my senses were intoxicated. But now I love you even more, you are more beautiful than in your youth and my heart thanks you and blesses you for every day you have been mine."
The Lord went into his chamber, threw acid on his face to disfigure it, and said to his wife:
"I have had the misfortune to get some acid on my face, my cheeks are covered with burns, and now you cannot love me any more?"
"Oh, my bridegroom, my beloved!" faltered the old woman, kissing his hands. "You are more beautiful than any man on earth, your voice kindles my heart even today and I love you till death."
XIII
Johannes met Camilla in the street; she was with her mother, her father and Young Richmond; they stopped their carriage and talked to him in a friendly way.
Camilla clutched his arm and said:
"You didn't come to our party. We had a great time, I can tell you; we were expecting you to the very last, but you didn't come."
"I was prevented," he replied.
"Excuse me for not having been to see you since," she went on. "I shall come one of these days, for certain, when Richmond has gone away. Oh, what a time we had! Victoria was taken ill, she was driven home, have you heard? I'm going up to her directly. I expect she's much better, quite well again perhaps. I've given Richmond a medallion, almost the same as yours. Look here, Johannes, you must promise me to look after your stove; when you're writing you forget everything and your room gets as cold as ice. You must ring for the girl."
"Yes, I'll ring for the girl," he answered.
Mrs. Seier spoke to him too, asked about his work, that piece about the Race, how was it getting on? She was eagerly looking forward to his next book.
Johannes gave the necessary answers, bowed very low and watched the carriage drive away. How little all this concerned him, this carriage, these people, this chatter! A cold and empty feeling came upon him and haunted him all the way home. Outside his doorway a man was walking up and down, an old acquaintance, the former Tutor at the Castle.
Johannes greeted him.
He was dressed in a long, warm overcoat which was carefully brushed and there was a brisk and decided air about him.
"Here you see your friend and colleague," he said. "Give me your hand, young man. God has guided my ways marvellously since we last met; I am married, I have a home, a little garden, a wife. The days of miracles are not yet past. Have you any observation to make on my last remark?"
Johannes looked at him in surprise.
"Agreed then. Yes, you see, I was giving lessons to her son. She has a son, a young hopeful from her first marriage; of course she has been married before, she was a widow. You see, I married a widow. You may object that this was not arranged by my fairy godmother; but there it is, I married a widow. The young hopeful she had already. It was like this, I go there and look at the garden and the widow and for a while I am absorbed in intense thought on the subject. Suddenly I have it and I say to myself: well, I dare say it wasn't promised by your fairy godmother and all that; but I'll do it all the same, I take it, for it was probably written in the book of fate. You see, that's how it came about."
"Congratulations!" said Johannes.
"Stop! not a word more. I know what you're going to say. What about the first one, you will say, have you forgotten the eternal love of your youth? That's exactly what you will say. May I then ask you, my good sir, in my turn, what became of my first, only and eternal love? Didn't she take a captain in the artillery? Moreover I will ask you another little question: have you ever, ever seen a case of a man getting the one he should have got? I haven't. There's a legend about a man whose prayers God heard in the matter, so that he was given his first and only love. But he didn't get much satisfaction out of it. Why not? you will ask again, and behold, I answer you: for the simple reason that she died immediately after—immediatelyafter, do you hear? ha-ha-ha, instantly. So it is always. Naturally one doesn't get the right woman, but if it happens once in a while out of pure cussedness, then she dies straight away. There's always some trick in it. So then the man is reduced to providing himself with another love of the best available sort and there's no reason why he should die of the change. I tell you, Nature has ordained it so wisely that he bears it remarkably well. Just look at me."
Johannes said:
"I can see that you're doing well."
"Excellently for that matter. Look, feel and listen! Has a set of unenticing troubles swept over my person? I have clothes, shoes, house and home, wife and children—well, the hopeful anyhow. What was I saying?—with regard to my poetry I'll answer the question on the spot. Oh, my young colleague, I am older than you and perhaps a little better equipped by Nature. I keep my poems in a drawer. They are to be published after my death. But then you get no pleasure out of them, you will object? You are wrong again there, for in the meantime I delight my household with them. In the evening when the lamp is lit I unlock the drawer, take out my poems and read them aloud to my wife and the hopeful. One is forty, the other twelve, they are both enchanted. If you come and see us one day you will find supper and toddy. Now I've invited you. God preserve you from death."
He gave Johannes his hand. Suddenly he asked:
"Have you heard about Victoria?"
"About Victoria? No. Oh yes, I heard just now, a moment ago...."
"Haven't you seen her declining, getting greyer and greyer under the eyes?"
"I haven't seen her since last spring at home. Is she still ill?"
The Tutor answered in a comically hard voice, stamping his foot:
"Yes."
"I heard just now.... No, I haven't seen her declining, I haven't met her. Is she very ill?"
"Very. Probably dead by now, you understand."
Johannes gave a stunned look at the man, then at his door, wondered whether he should go in or stay where he was; looked at the man again, at his long coat, his hat; and he smiled in a confused and painful way like one in distress.
The old Tutor resumed in a threatening tone:
"Another example; can you get away from it?Shedid not get the right one either, her sweet-heart from childhood's days, a splendid young Lieutenant. He went shooting one evening, a shot hit him right in the forehead and blew his head to pieces. There he lay, a victim of the little trick God had a mind to play with him. Victoria, his bride, began to decline, a worm was preying on her, cribbling her heart like a sieve; we, her friends, could see it. Then a few days ago she went to a party, to some people named Seier; by the bye, she told me you were to have been there too, but didn't come. Be that as it may, at this party she overtaxes her strength, thoughts of her beloved rush in upon her and she is lively from sheer bravado; she dances, dances the whole evening, dances like a mad person. Then she falls, the floor turns red under her; they lift her up, carry her out, drive her home. She was near the end."
The Tutor went close up to Johannes and said in a hard voice:
"Victoria is dead."
Johannes began fending vaguely with his arms just like a blind man.
"Dead? When did she die? Do you say Victoria is dead?"
"She is dead," replied the Tutor. "She died this morning, this very forenoon." He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a thick letter. "And she confided this letter to me to hand to you. Here it is. After my death, she said. She is dead. I hand you this letter. My mission is ended."
And without taking leave, without a word more, the Tutor turned and strolled slowly down the street and vanished.
Johannes was left with the letter in his hand. Victoria was dead. He spoke her name aloud again and again and his voice was without feeling, almost callous. He looked at the letter and recognized the writing; there were big and small letters, the lines were straight, and she who had written them was dead!
Then he entered his doorway, went upstairs, found the right key to put into his latch and opened his door. His room was cold and dark. He sat down in the window and read Victoria's letter by the last of the daylight.
"Dear Johannes," she wrote. "When you read this letter I shall be dead. Everything is so strange to me now, I am no longer ashamed to write to you again as though nothing had happened to prevent it. Before, while I was altogether among the living, I would rather have suffered night and day than written to you again; but now I have begun to pass away I do not think so any longer. Strangers have seen me bleed, the Doctor has examined me and found that I have only a shred of a lung left; what is there to hold me back now?"I have been thinking as I lay here in bed of the last words I said to you. It was that evening in the wood. I never thought then that they would be my last words, for then I would have said good-bye to you at the same time and thanked you. Now I shall never see you again, so now I am sorry I did not throw myself down and kiss your shoe and the ground you trod on, to show you how unspeakably I have loved you. I have lain here both yesterday and today wishing I could be just well enough to go home again and walk in the wood and find the place where we sat when you held both my hands; for then I could lie down there and see if I could find the trace of you and kiss all the heather about. But I cannot come home now, unless, as Mamma thinks, I may possibly get a little better."Dear Johannes, it is so curious to think that all I have ever been able to do was to come into the world and love you and now say good-bye to life. It is strange indeed to lie here waiting for the day and the hour. I am moving step by step away from life and the people in the street and the noise of the traffic; I shall never see spring again either, and these houses and streets and the trees in the Park I shall leave behind. Today I was allowed to sit up in bed and look out of the window a little while. Down at the corner I saw two people meet, they stopped and shook hands and laughed at what they said; but it seemed so strange to me that I who lay and watched them was to die. It made me think—of course those two people do not know that I am lying here waiting for my hour; but if they did know it they would still stop and talk just as they are doing now. Last night when it was dark I thought my last hour had come, my heart began to stand still and I seemed to hear already the distant roar of eternity coming towards me. But the next moment I was back from somewhere a long way off and began to breathe again. It was a feeling I can't describe at all. Mamma thinks it was perhaps only the river and the waterfall at home that were in my mind."O God, if you knew how I have loved you, Johannes. I have not been able to show it to you, so many things have come in my way, and above all my own nature. Papa was hard on himself in the same way and I am his daughter. But now that I am to die and it is all too late, I write to you once more and tell you so. I ask myself why I do it, as it cannot make any difference to you, especially as I shall not even be alive any more; but I want so much to be near you to the last so that I may not feel more lonely than before, at any rate. When you read this it is as though I can see your shoulders and hands and watch every movement you make as you hold the letter before you and read it. So we are not so far from each other, I think to myself. I cannot send for you, I have no right to do that. Mamma would have sent for you two days ago, but I would rather write. And I would rather you should remember me as I was once, before I began to be ill. I remember you ... [here some words are omitted] ... my eyes and eye-brows; but even they are not as they were. That is another reason why I would not have you come. And I will ask you not to see me in my coffin either. I expect I am much the same as when I was alive, only a little paler, and I am lying in a yellow dress; but still you would regret it if you came and saw me."Now I have been writing at this letter so many times today and yet I have not been able to say a thousandth part of what I wanted to say. It is so terrible for me to die, I do not want to, I am still hoping so fervently to God that perhaps I might get a little better, if only till the spring. Then the days are light and there are leaves on the trees. If I got well again now I would never be unkind to you any more, Johannes. How I have cried and thought about that! Oh, I would go out and stroke all the stones in the street and stop and thank every step of the stairs as I went by and be good to all. It would not matter how badly off I was if I might only live. I should never complain again about anything; no, I would smile at any one who attacked me and struck me and thank and praise God if I might live. My life is so unlived, I have not been able to do anything for anybody, and this failure of a life is to end now. If you knew how unwilling I was to die perhaps you would do something, do all in your power. I don't suppose you can do anything; but I thought that if you and every one else prayed for me and would not let me go then God would grant me life. Oh, how thankful I should be, I would never do harm to any one again, but smile at whatever fell to my lot, if only I were allowed to live."Mamma is sitting here crying. She sat here all night and cried for me. That does me a little good, it softens the bitterness of my going. And today I was thinking—how would you take it, I wonder, if I came straight up to you in the street one day when I was nicely dressed, and did not say anything to hurt you as I have done, but gave you a rose which I had bought on purpose? Then the next moment I remembered that I could never again do what I wanted; for I can never be well again before I die. I cry so often, I lie still and cry ceaselessly and inconsolably; it does not hurt my chest if I do not sob. Johannes, dear, dear friend, my only beloved on earth, come to me now and be here a little while when it begins to grow dark. I shall not cry then, but smile as well as I am able, from sheer joy at your coming."Ah, where are my pride and my courage! I am not my father's daughter now; but this is because my strength has left me. I have suffered for a long time, Johannes, long before these last days. When you were abroad I suffered, and afterwards, since I came to town in the spring I have done nothing but suffer every day. I have never known before how infinitely long the night can be. I have seen you twice in the street during this time; once you were humming as you passed me, but you did not see me. I had hope of seeing you at the Seiers'; but you did not come. I should not have spoken to you or come quite close to you, but should have been grateful to be able to look at you a long way off. But you did not come. Then I thought perhaps it was on my account you kept away. At eleven o'clock I began to dance because I could not bear to wait any longer. Ah, Johannes, I have loved you, loved only you all my life. It is Victoria who writes this and God is reading it over my shoulder."And now I must say good-bye, it is nearly dark and I cannot see any more. Good-bye, Johannes, thanks for every day. When I fly away from earth I shall still thank you to the last and say your name to myself all the way. Farewell, be happy all your life and forgive me the wrong I have done you and that I could not throw myself at your feet and beg your forgiveness. I do so now in my heart. Farewell, Johannes, and good-bye for ever. And thanks once more for every single day and hour. I can no more.YourVICTORIA."Now I have had the lamp lit and it is all much brighter. I have been lying in a trance and again been far away. Thank God, it was not so uncanny as before, I even heard a little music and above all it was not dark. I am so thankful. But now I have no more strength to write. Good-bye, my beloved...."
"Dear Johannes," she wrote. "When you read this letter I shall be dead. Everything is so strange to me now, I am no longer ashamed to write to you again as though nothing had happened to prevent it. Before, while I was altogether among the living, I would rather have suffered night and day than written to you again; but now I have begun to pass away I do not think so any longer. Strangers have seen me bleed, the Doctor has examined me and found that I have only a shred of a lung left; what is there to hold me back now?
"I have been thinking as I lay here in bed of the last words I said to you. It was that evening in the wood. I never thought then that they would be my last words, for then I would have said good-bye to you at the same time and thanked you. Now I shall never see you again, so now I am sorry I did not throw myself down and kiss your shoe and the ground you trod on, to show you how unspeakably I have loved you. I have lain here both yesterday and today wishing I could be just well enough to go home again and walk in the wood and find the place where we sat when you held both my hands; for then I could lie down there and see if I could find the trace of you and kiss all the heather about. But I cannot come home now, unless, as Mamma thinks, I may possibly get a little better.
"Dear Johannes, it is so curious to think that all I have ever been able to do was to come into the world and love you and now say good-bye to life. It is strange indeed to lie here waiting for the day and the hour. I am moving step by step away from life and the people in the street and the noise of the traffic; I shall never see spring again either, and these houses and streets and the trees in the Park I shall leave behind. Today I was allowed to sit up in bed and look out of the window a little while. Down at the corner I saw two people meet, they stopped and shook hands and laughed at what they said; but it seemed so strange to me that I who lay and watched them was to die. It made me think—of course those two people do not know that I am lying here waiting for my hour; but if they did know it they would still stop and talk just as they are doing now. Last night when it was dark I thought my last hour had come, my heart began to stand still and I seemed to hear already the distant roar of eternity coming towards me. But the next moment I was back from somewhere a long way off and began to breathe again. It was a feeling I can't describe at all. Mamma thinks it was perhaps only the river and the waterfall at home that were in my mind.
"O God, if you knew how I have loved you, Johannes. I have not been able to show it to you, so many things have come in my way, and above all my own nature. Papa was hard on himself in the same way and I am his daughter. But now that I am to die and it is all too late, I write to you once more and tell you so. I ask myself why I do it, as it cannot make any difference to you, especially as I shall not even be alive any more; but I want so much to be near you to the last so that I may not feel more lonely than before, at any rate. When you read this it is as though I can see your shoulders and hands and watch every movement you make as you hold the letter before you and read it. So we are not so far from each other, I think to myself. I cannot send for you, I have no right to do that. Mamma would have sent for you two days ago, but I would rather write. And I would rather you should remember me as I was once, before I began to be ill. I remember you ... [here some words are omitted] ... my eyes and eye-brows; but even they are not as they were. That is another reason why I would not have you come. And I will ask you not to see me in my coffin either. I expect I am much the same as when I was alive, only a little paler, and I am lying in a yellow dress; but still you would regret it if you came and saw me.
"Now I have been writing at this letter so many times today and yet I have not been able to say a thousandth part of what I wanted to say. It is so terrible for me to die, I do not want to, I am still hoping so fervently to God that perhaps I might get a little better, if only till the spring. Then the days are light and there are leaves on the trees. If I got well again now I would never be unkind to you any more, Johannes. How I have cried and thought about that! Oh, I would go out and stroke all the stones in the street and stop and thank every step of the stairs as I went by and be good to all. It would not matter how badly off I was if I might only live. I should never complain again about anything; no, I would smile at any one who attacked me and struck me and thank and praise God if I might live. My life is so unlived, I have not been able to do anything for anybody, and this failure of a life is to end now. If you knew how unwilling I was to die perhaps you would do something, do all in your power. I don't suppose you can do anything; but I thought that if you and every one else prayed for me and would not let me go then God would grant me life. Oh, how thankful I should be, I would never do harm to any one again, but smile at whatever fell to my lot, if only I were allowed to live.
"Mamma is sitting here crying. She sat here all night and cried for me. That does me a little good, it softens the bitterness of my going. And today I was thinking—how would you take it, I wonder, if I came straight up to you in the street one day when I was nicely dressed, and did not say anything to hurt you as I have done, but gave you a rose which I had bought on purpose? Then the next moment I remembered that I could never again do what I wanted; for I can never be well again before I die. I cry so often, I lie still and cry ceaselessly and inconsolably; it does not hurt my chest if I do not sob. Johannes, dear, dear friend, my only beloved on earth, come to me now and be here a little while when it begins to grow dark. I shall not cry then, but smile as well as I am able, from sheer joy at your coming.
"Ah, where are my pride and my courage! I am not my father's daughter now; but this is because my strength has left me. I have suffered for a long time, Johannes, long before these last days. When you were abroad I suffered, and afterwards, since I came to town in the spring I have done nothing but suffer every day. I have never known before how infinitely long the night can be. I have seen you twice in the street during this time; once you were humming as you passed me, but you did not see me. I had hope of seeing you at the Seiers'; but you did not come. I should not have spoken to you or come quite close to you, but should have been grateful to be able to look at you a long way off. But you did not come. Then I thought perhaps it was on my account you kept away. At eleven o'clock I began to dance because I could not bear to wait any longer. Ah, Johannes, I have loved you, loved only you all my life. It is Victoria who writes this and God is reading it over my shoulder.
"And now I must say good-bye, it is nearly dark and I cannot see any more. Good-bye, Johannes, thanks for every day. When I fly away from earth I shall still thank you to the last and say your name to myself all the way. Farewell, be happy all your life and forgive me the wrong I have done you and that I could not throw myself at your feet and beg your forgiveness. I do so now in my heart. Farewell, Johannes, and good-bye for ever. And thanks once more for every single day and hour. I can no more.
Your
VICTORIA.
"Now I have had the lamp lit and it is all much brighter. I have been lying in a trance and again been far away. Thank God, it was not so uncanny as before, I even heard a little music and above all it was not dark. I am so thankful. But now I have no more strength to write. Good-bye, my beloved...."
THE END
The Works ofKNUT HAMSUNWinner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1920