“Have you ever felt this yourself?” asked Gram.
“No, but I know it, all the same. I have always known that it should be so. But when I was twenty-eight and still an old maid, longing to love and be loved, and Helge came and fell in love with me, I laid aside all claims on myself and my love, taking what I could get—to a certain extent in good faith. It will be all right, I thought—I am sure it will—although I did not feel assured in my inmost heart that nothing else could be possible. Let me tell you what my friend Heggen told me the other day. He despises women truly and honestly—and he is right. We have no self-esteem, and we are so lazy that we can never make up our mind in earnest to shape our life and happiness ourselves, and to work with that purpose. Secretly we all nourish the hope that a man will come and offer us happiness, so that we need not make any effort ourselves. The most womanly of us, who by happiness mean only idleness and finery, hang on to the man who can give them plenty of it. If amongst us there are a few who really have the right feelings and are longing to become good and strong, and making efforts in that direction—we still hope to meet a man on the way and to become what we want to be through his love.
“We can work for a time pretty honestly and seriously, and take a pleasure in it too, but in our hearts we are waiting for a still greater joy, which we cannot acquire by our work, but must receive as a gift. We women can never get to the point where our work is everything to us.”
“Do you believe work alone is enough for a man? Never,” said Gram.
“It is for Gunnar. You may depend on it that he will keep women in their right place in his life—as trifles.”
Gram laughed: “How old is your friend Heggen? I hope for the man’s own sake that he will change his opinion some day about the most conclusive influence in life.”
“I don’t,” said Jenny vehemently, “but I hope I, too, shall learn some day to put this nonsense about love in its right place.”
“My dear Jenny, you speak as if—as if you had no sense, I was going to say, but I know you have,” said Gram, with a melancholy smile. “Shall I tell you something of what I know about love, little one? If I did not believe in it, I should not have the least particle of faith in men—or in myself. Do you believe that it is only women who think life meaningless, and find their hearts empty and frozen if they have nothing but their work to love or to depend upon? Do you believe there is a single soul living who has not moments of doubt in himself? You must have somebody in whose keeping you can give the best in you—your love and your trust.
“When I say that my own life since my marriage has been a hell, I am not using too strong words, and if I have been able to stand it in a way it is because I think the love Rebecca has for me partly exonerates her. I know that her feelings of mean pleasure at having the power to torment and humiliate me with her jealousy and rage are a caricature of betrayed love, and it is a kind of satisfaction to my sense of justice that there is a reason for my unhappiness. I betrayed her when I took her love without giving her mine—intending secretly to give her only crumbs—the small coin of love—in payment for the best of herself she offered me. If life punishes every sin against the sacredness of love so ruthlessly, it proves to me that there is nothing holier in life, and that he who is true to his ideal of love will reap his recompense in the greatest and purest bliss.
“I told you once that I learnt to know and to love a woman when it was too late. She had loved me from the time we were children without my knowing, or caring to know it. When she heard of my marriage she accepted a man who vowed that she could save and raise him if she married him. I know you would scorn any such means of saving, but you don’t know, child, how you would act yourself, if you knew the being you loved with your whole soul was in the arms of another, and found your life not worth living, and if you heard an erring human being ask you to give him the life you did not value and save him thereby.
“Helene was unhappy, and so was I. Later we met, understood one another, and it came to an explanation which, however, did not result in what people call happiness. We were both bound by ties we dared not break, and I must admit that my love for her changed as the hope of making her my wife slowly died, but the memory of her is the greatest treasure of my life. She is now living in another part of the world, devoting her life to her children and trying to lessen for them the misery of having to live with a father who is a drunkard and a moral wreck. For her sake I have held on to my faith in the purity of the human soul, in its beauty and its strength—and in love, and I know, too, that the remembrance of me inspires Helene with the strength to struggle on and to suffer because she loves me today as she did in our childhood, and believes in me, in my talent, my love, and that I was worthy of a better fate. I am still something to her, don’t you think?”
Jenny did not answer.
“The happiness in life is not only to be loved, Jenny; the greatest happiness is to love.”
“H’m. A very poor sort of happiness, I should say, to love when your love is not returned.”
He sat quiet for a while, looking down; then said almost in a whisper:
“Great or small, it is happiness to know somebody of whom one thinks only good, about whom one can say: God give her happiness, for she deserves it—give her all that I never had. She is pure and beautiful, warm-hearted and sweet, talented and kind. It means happiness to me, dear Jenny, to be able to pray like this for you. No; it is nothing to be afraid of, little one.”
He had risen, and she rose too, making a movement as if she were afraid he would come nearer. Gram stopped and smiled:
“How could you help seeing it—you who are so clever. I thought you saw it before I understood it myself. It has come quite naturally. My life is running its course towards old age, inactivity, darkness, death, and I knew that I should never reach what I have longed for all my life. Then I met you. You are to me the most glorious woman I have ever known; you had the same ideals I once had, and you were on the way to attain them. How could I help crying out in my heart: God help her to succeed. Do not let her be wasted as I have been!
“You were so sweet to me; you came to see me in my den, and you told me about yourself. You listened to me, you understood, and your beautiful eyes were so full of sympathy, so soft and loving. Dearest, are you crying?” He seized both her hands and pressed them passionately to his lips:
“Don’t cry, dear; you must not. Why do you cry? You are shivering—tell me why you are crying like this?”
“It is all so sad,” she sobbed.
“Sit down here.” He was on his knees before her—for a second he rested his forehead against her knee.
“Do not cry because of me. Do you think for a moment I wish that I had never met you? If you have loved, and you wish it had never been, you have not really loved. Believe me, it is so. No, Jenny, not for anything in the world would I miss what I feel for you!
“And you must not cry about yourself. You will be happy. I know it. Of all the men who will love you, one will lie at your feet some day, as I do now, and say that to him it is life itself to be there, and you will think so too. You will understand that to sit thus with him is the only happiness to you, even if it were a brief moment of rest after a day full of toil and hardships, and in the poorest of cottages—a far greater happiness than if you became the greatest artist that ever existed and enjoyed the highest measure of fame and praise. Is not that what you believe yourself?”
“Yes,” she whispered, exhausted with weeping.
“You must not despair of winning that happiness some day. All the time you are striving to become a true artist and a good and able woman, you are longing to meet some one who thinks that all you have done to attain your aim is right and that he loves you for it—is it not so, Jenny?”
She nodded, and Gram kissed her hands reverently.
“You have already reached the goal. You are everything that is good and refined, proud and lovely. I say it, and one day a younger, better, and stronger man will say the same—and you will be happy to listen. Are you not a little pleased to hear me say that you are the best and sweetest and most wonderful little girl in the world?—look at me, Jenny. Can I not give you a little pleasure by saying that I believe you will have all possible happiness because you deserve it?”
She looked down into his face, trying to smile; then, bending her head, she passed her hands over his hair:
“Oh, Gert, I could not help it—could I? I did not want to do you any harm.”
“Do not grieve about it, little one! I love you because you are what you want to be—what I once hoped to be. You must not be sad for my sake, even if you think you have caused me pain; there are sorrows that are good, full of blessing, I assure you.”
She went on crying softly.
Presently he whispered:
“May I come and see you now and again? Will you not send for me when you are sad? I should so like to try and be of some help to my dear little girl.”
“I dare not, Gert.”
“Dear child, I am an old man; remember, I might be your father.”
“For—for your sake, I mean. It is not right.”
“Oh yes, Jenny. Do you believe that I think less about you when I don’t see you? I ask only to see you, talk to you, to try and do something for you. Won’t you let me? Do let me come.”
“I don’t know—I don’t know what to say, but please go now. I cannot bear any more today—it is all so terrible. Won’t you go, dear?”
He rose slowly:
“I will. Good-bye! Jenny, dear child, you are quite beside yourself.”
“Yes”—in a whisper.
“I will go now, but I want to see you before you go away. I shall come back when you are yourself again and not frightened of me; there is no reason for that, dear.”
She was quiet for a little, then suddenly drew him close to her for a second, brushing his cheek with her lips.
“Go now, Gert.”
“Thank you. God bless you, Jenny.”
When he was gone she paced up and down the floor, shivering without knowing why. In her heart she felt a certain pleasure in remembering his words when he was on his knees before her. She had always looked upon Gert as a weak man, as one who had suffered himself to be dragged down and been trodden upon as those who are down always will be. And now he had suddenly revealed himself to her as possessing a great fortitude of soul, and a being rich enough and willing to help, while she was bewildered, distracted, and sick with longing in her inmost heart behind the shield of opinions and thoughts which she had made for herself.
She had asked him to go. Why? Because she was so miserably poor herself and had complained of her need to him who, she thought, was just as poor as she herself, and he had showed her that he was rich, offering gladly to help her out of his abundance. It was no doubt because she felt humiliated that she asked him to go.
To accept anything from an affection to which she could not respond had always seemed mean to her, but then she never imagined that she would be in need of such help.
He had not been allowed to continue the work to which he was devoted; the love he had borne in his heart was never to live. Yet he did not despair. That was probably the advantage of having faith—it did not matter so much what one believed, provided there was somebody beside oneself one could trust, for it is impossible to live with only oneself to love and trust.
She was quite familiar with the thought of voluntary death. If she died now there were a few she cared for and who would be sorry, but none who could not do without her, nor any one to whom she was so necessary that she would feel it her duty to prolong her life for their sake. Provided they did not know she had done it herself, her mother and sisters would mourn her for a year and then remember her with gentle melancholy. Cesca and Gunnar would be more sorry than anybody else, because they would understand that she had been unhappy, but she was outside their life. The one who loved her most would miss her most, but as she had nothing to give him he might love her just as well dead. To love her was his happiness; he had the capacity in him to be happy, but if she had not, it was no good living. Work could not fill her life to such an extent that she would not long for anything else besides. Why then go on living because they said she had talent? Nobody had more pleasure of her art than she had in exercising it, and the pleasure was not great enough to satisfy her.
Gunnar was not right in what he had once said, rather brutally, that she was a martyr to her own virtue. That could easily be remedied, but she dared not, because she was always afraid of meeting later what she had been longing for. And the least satisfactory of all would be to live close to another human being and yet in one’s inmost soul be just as lonely as before. Oh no—no. She would not belong to a man and submit to all the physical and mental intimacies as the consequence of it, and then discover one day that she did not know him, and that he had never known her—that the one had never understood the language of the other.
She lived because she was waiting; she did not want a lover, because she was expecting a master, and she did not wish to die—not now while she was waiting.
No, she was not going to throw away her life either this way or that; she could not die so poor that she had not a single beloved thing to bid farewell to. She dared not, because she wanted to believe that some day things would be different.
There was nothing else to do but to take up painting again, although it would probably not be much good now, love-sick as she was. She laughed. That was just what she was—love-sick. The object did not exist at present, but the love was there.
Jenny went to the window and looked out. In the gathering darkness the sky looked almost violet, and the tiled roofs, the chimney-pots, and the telephone wires all melted together into one grey tint in the twilight. A reddish light rose from the streets, colouring the frosty haze. The rolling of carriages and the screech of a tram on the rails sounded clearly on the frozen ground.
She did not feel inclined to go home to dinner, but, having promised her mother to come, she put the stove out and left.
The cold was raw and damp; the fog smelt of soot and gas and frozen dust. What a dull street it was where her studio lay. It led down from the centrum, with its noise and traffic, its shops with brilliant show windows and people streaming in and out, and its course ended by the lifeless grey walls of the fort. The houses on either side looked grey and deserted: the new buildings of stone and glass, where business fluttered in and out on paper, prepared by busy young people in the strong white light behind big windows, and people talked to each other by telephone—and the old ones remaining from the time the town was small were low and brown, with shiny fronts and linen blinds in the office windows. Here and there behind a small pane with curtains and flower-pots was a humble home—strangely solitary dwellings in this thoroughfare, where the houses mostly were deserted at night. The shops were not of the kind that people rush in and out of. Some of them had wall-paper, plaster ornaments for ceilings, and stoves for sale; others were furniture stores, with the windows full of empty mahogany beds and varnished oak chairs that looked as if nobody would ever sit on them.
In a gateway a child was standing—a little boy, blue in the face from cold with a big basket on his arm. He was looking at two dogs fighting in the centre of the street and making the frozen dust fly about. He started when the dogs came tumbling near the place where he was standing.
“Are you afraid?” asked Jenny. As the boy did not answer, she continued: “Would you like me to see you past them?” He came to her side immediately, but did not speak.
“Which way are you going? Where do you live?”
“In Voldgata.”
“Did you come on an errand all the way here, such a little boy?—it was very brave of you.”
“We deal with Aases in this street because father knows him,” was the boy’s answer. “This basket is so heavy.”
Jenny looked about her; the street was nearly empty:
“Give it to me. I will carry it for you a bit of the way.”
The boy gave her the basket reluctantly.
“Take my hand till we have got past those dogs. How cold your hands are! Have you no gloves?”
The boy shook his head.
“Put your other hand in my muff. You won’t? You think it a silly thing for a boy to carry a muff—is that it?”
She remembered Nils when he was small; she had often longed for him. He was big now and had many friends; he was at an age when it was no fun to walk about with an elder sister. He came seldom to her studio now. The year she had been abroad and the months she had spent with Helge had changed their relations; perhaps when he got older they would be friends again as before. They probably would, for they were fond of each other, but just now he was happy without her. She wished he were a small boy now, so that she could take him on her lap and tell him stories full of adventures while she washed and undressed him and kissed him—or a little bigger, as in the time when they went out together for excursions in Nordmarken, and the road to the butcher’s was long and full of remarkable happenings.
“What is you name, little boy?”
“Ausjen Torstein Mo.”
“How old are you?”
“Six.”
“I suppose you don’t go to school yet?”
“No, but I shall in April.”
“Do you think it will be nice?”
“No—the teacher is so strict. Oscar goes to school, but we shan’t be together, for he is being moved into the second form.”
“Is Oscar your friend?” asked Jenny.
“Yes; we live in the same house.”
After a short pause Jenny spoke again: “Aren’t you sorry there is no snow? You have got the hill by the bay where you can toboggan. Have you got a sled?”
“No, but I have snowshoes and ski.”
They had turned into another street. Jenny let go the boy’s hand and looked at the basket. It was so heavy, and Ausjen was so small—so she kept it, although she did not like to be seen with a poor little urchin in a good street. She would have like to take him to the confectioner’s, but thought it would be rather awkward if she met any one she knew there.
In the dark Voldgata she took his hand again and carried the basket to the house where he lived, giving him a coin as a parting gift.
On her way through the town she bought chocolates and a pair of red woollen gloves to send to Ausjen. It was nice to be able to give somebody an unexpected pleasure. She might try to get him for a model, but he was very small to sit so long. Poor little hand; it had got warm in hers, and it seemed as if it had been good for her to hold it. Yes, she wanted to try and paint him; he had a queer little face. She would give him milk with a little coffee in it and a nice roll and butter, and she would work and talk to Ausjen....
PART THREE
I
Towards evening of a clear and calm afternoon in May there was a haze over the black sites of the city; the naked walls looked reddish yellow and the factory chimneys a livery brown in the sunlight. Large and small houses, high and low roofs, stood outlined against the greyish-purple air, heavy with dust and smoke and vapours. A little tree by a red wall showed tiny greenish-yellow leaves, transparent in the sunlight.
The mould on the board walls of the workshops was bright green and the soot flakes on the factory walls jet black in some places and in others covered, as it were, with a thin, glistening silvery film.
Jenny had been walking about all the morning in the outskirts of the town, where the sky rose dark blue and hot over the olive-golden fir-tops and the amber-coloured buds of the leaf trees, but here in the city over the high houses and the net of telephone wires it was growing pale behind a thin veil of opal-white haze. This was really the prettier sight of the two, though Gert could not see it. To him the city was always ugly, grey, and dirty; it was the city they had cursed, all those young men of the eighties who had been obliged to settle down there to work. He was probably standing at his window this moment, looking out in the sun, and to him the play of light in line and colour was not worth noticing; it was merely a sunray outside his prison window.
She stopped a few steps from his door, looking up and down the street, as usual. There was nobody she knew, only business people on their way home. It was past six o’clock.
She ran up the stairs—those dreadful iron steps that echoed their movements when they stole down from his rooms late in the winter nights. The naked walls seemed ever to retain the cold, raw air.
She hurried along the corridor and gave the usual three knocks at his door. Gram opened it. He put his arm round her, and locked the door with his other hand as they kissed. Over his shoulder she could see the flowers on the little table, with wine and foreign fruits in a crystal bowl. There was a slight mist of cigarette smoke in the room, and she knew that he had been sitting there since four o’clock waiting for her.
“I could not come before,” she whispered. “I was so sorry to let you wait.” When he released her she went to the table, bending over the flowers. “I will take two and make myself nice, may I? I am getting so spoilt since I have come to you, Gert.” She stretched out her hands to him.
“When must you go?” he asked, kissing her arms tenderly.
Jenny bent her head:
“I promised to be back for supper. Mother always waits up for me, and she is so tired now; she needs me to help her in the evening with one thing or another,” she said quickly. “It is not so easy to get away from home, you see,” she whispered in excuse.
He listened to her many words with bowed head. When she came towards him he took her in his arms so that her face was hidden against his shoulder.
She could not lie, poor little thing, not so well, anyhow, that he would believe it for a single merciful second. In the winter—the very short time of their love—and in the early spring she could always be away from home.
“It is tiresome, Gert, but now I am living at home it is much more difficult to manage; you know I have to be there because mother needs the money as well as the help. You agreed with me, did you not, that I had better move home?”
Gert nodded assent. They were sitting on the sofa close together, Jenny’s head resting on his shoulder, so that she could not see his face.
“I was in the country this morning, walking where we used to go together. Let us go there again soon—the day after tomorrow if it is fine—will you? You are sorry because I have to go home so early today, are you not?”
“My dear, have I not said that thousands of times already?” She could hear from his voice that he was saying this with his melancholy smile again. “I am grateful for every second of your life that you give me.”
“Don’t speak like that, Gert,” she said, pained.
“Why should I not say it when it is true? Dearest little girl, do you think I will ever forget that all you have given me is as a princely grace, and I can never understand how you came to give it to me at all?”
“When I realized last winter that you were fond of me—how much you really loved me—I said to myself it must stop. But then I understood that I could not be without you, and so I gave myself to you. Was that a grace? When I could not let you go?”
“I call it an inconceivable grace that you ever came to love me.”
She nestled in his arms without speaking.
“My own darling ... so young and sweet you are....”
“I am not young, Gert. When you met me I was already beginning to get old without ever having been young. You seemed young to me, much younger at heart than I, because you still believed in what I called childish dreams and used to laugh at them. You have made me believe in love and tenderness and all such things.”
Gert Gram smiled, and whispered: “Perhaps my heart was not older than yours—for it seemed to me that I had never yet had any youth, and deep down in my soul I still entertained the hope that some day youth would touch me, if only for once, with his wand. But my hair has turned white meanwhile.”
Jenny raised her head and laid her hand caressingly on his head.
“Are you tired, little one? Shall I take off your shoes? Will you not lie down and rest?”
“No, let me stay as I am; it is nicer so.”
She drew her feet up under her and nestled closer in his lap. He laid one arm about her, and with the other hand he poured out some wine, holding the glass to her lips. She drank readily. He dropped cherries into her mouth and took the stones from her lips, putting them on the plate.
“More wine?”
“Thanks. I think I will stay with you. I can send a message home to say I have met Heggen—I believe he is in town—but I must go home before the trams stop.”
“I’ll go and see about it now.” He let her down gently on the sofa. “Lie still there and rest, little one.”
When he was gone she took off her shoes, drank some more wine, and lay down on the sofa with her head deep in the cushions, pulling a rug over herself.
After all, she loved him, and was glad to be with him. Sitting as she had been a moment ago, resting in his arms, she was happy. He was the only one in the world who had taken her on his knee, warming her and hiding her and calling her his little girl. He was the only being who had stood by her really—so why should she not be close to him?
When he held her close to him and hid her so that she saw nothing, but only felt that he had his arms round her and warmed her, she was contented. She could not do without him, so why not give him the little she had to give, when he gave her what she needed most of all?
He could kiss her, do with her what he liked, provided he did not speak, for then they drew so far apart. He spoke of love, but her love was not what he believed it to be, and she could not explain it in words. It was no grace or princely gift—she clung to him with a poor, begging love; she did not want him to thank her for it, only to be fond of her and say nothing.
When he came back she was lying with her eyes wide open, but she closed them under his discreet caresses, smiling a little; then she put her arms round his neck and pressed close to him. The faint scent of violet that he used was mild and agreeable. She nodded slightly when he lifted her up with questioning eyes. He wanted to say something, but she put her hand across his mouth and then kissed him so that he could not speak.
He saw her to the car. She remained an instant standing on the platform, looking after him as he walked down the street in the blue light of a May night. Then she went in and sat down.
Gram had left his wife that Christmas, and lived alone in the office building, where he had taken another room. Jenny understood that he was going to get a separation later on when Rebecca Gram had seen that he was not coming back to her. It was his way of doing it; he had not the strength to break with her at once.
Jenny dared not think of what his plans for the future might be. Did he think they would marry?
She could not deny to herself that she had never for a second thought of binding herself to him for good, and that was why she felt the bitter, hopeless humiliation and shame at the thought of him when she was not with him and could hide in his love. She had deceived him—all the time she had deceived him.
“That you have learnt to love me, Jenny, that is what I call an inconceivable grace”—was it her fault that he looked upon it in that way?
He could not have made her his mistress unless she had wanted it herself or made him feel that she wanted it. She understood that he was longing for her; it worried her every time they were together to know herself desired and to see his efforts to conceal it—he was too proud to let her see it, too proud to beg where he had once offered to give—and too proud to risk refusal. Knowing that she did not want to reject his love and to lose the only being who loved her, what else could she do, if she wished to be honest, but offer him what she had to give when she accepted from him something she could not do without?
But she had been faced with the necessity of saying words stronger and more passionate than her feelings, and he had believed them. And it happened again and again. When she came to him depressed, worried, tired of thinking what the end of it all would be, and saw that he understood, she used again the tender words, feigning more feeling than she had, and he was deceived at once.
He knew no other love than the love which was happiness in itself. Unhappiness in love came from outside, from some relentless fate, or from stern justice as a vengeance for old wrongs. She knew what his fear was—he dreaded that her love would die one day when she saw that he was too old to be her lover, but he never had a suspicion that her love was born a weakling and had in it the germ that would lead to death. It was no good trying to explain this to Gert; he would not understand. She could not tell him that she had sought shelter in his arms because he was the only one who had offered to shelter her when she was weary to death. When he offered her love and warmth she had not the strength to reject, although she knew she ought not to accept it—she was not worthy of it.
No, he was not old. It was the passion of a youth of twenty, a childish faith, a reverent worship, and the kindness and tenderness of a grown man—all the love that filled a man’s life—that flared up on the border of old age. And it should have been given to a woman who could love him in return, who could live with him for those few years the life he had dreamt of, longed and hoped for, would last—live with him so that she would be bound to him by a thousand happy memories when old age came, having been in true love the wife of his youth and manhood, and ageing with him.
But she—what could she give him if she remained? She had never been able to give him anything, only taken what he gave. If she tried to stay, she would not be able to make him believe that all her longing for life was quenched for ever in the love of their youth. He would himself tell her to go. She had loved and given; she did not love any more, and would be free. That is how he would look upon it; he would never understand that she mourned because there was nothing—nothing she had been able to give.
She could not bear to hear him speak about her gifts to him. It is true that she had brought him her pure soul when she gave herself to him. He could never forget it, and he measured, as it were, the depth and strength of her love by this fact, for she had given him the purity of her youth—of twenty years.
She had kept it as a white bridal dress, unused, unstained, and in her longing and anxiety lest she should never come to wear it, in despair over her cold solitude and her inability to love, she had clung to it, crumpled it, and soiled it with her thoughts. Was not any one who had lived the life of love purer than she, who had been brooding and spying and longing until all her faculties were paralysed by that longing?
She had given herself—and yet what a slight impression it had made on her. She was not altogether cold; sometimes she was carried away by his passion, but she feigned passion while she was cool, and when she was away from him she scarcely remembered it at all. Yet, to please him, she wrote of a longing which did not exist—yes, she had been feigning, feigning all the time before his honest passion.
There was a time when she had not been a hypocrite, or if she had lied to Gert she had also lied to herself. She had felt a storm in herself; it was perhaps pity for him and his fate and rebellion against her own—why should they both be harried by a longing for something impossible?—and in the growing anxiety for where it all would lead, she had rejoiced that she loved him, for she was forced to fall into the arms of this man, however mad she knew it to be.
She would sit in the tram when she left him of an evening, looking at all the sleepy, placid faces of the people, and rejoicing that she came from her lover—that he and she were whirled by the tempest of their fate. They had been driven into it and did not know where they were going, and she was proud of her fate because unhappiness and darkness threatened.
And now she was sitting here only wishing for it to end, planning a journey abroad to escape from it all. She had accepted an invitation to stay at Tegneby with Cesca to prepare the break. It was better for Gert that he was alone—if she could manage to end the life between them now, she could have done him some good.
Two young women were sitting opposite her. They were probably not older than she, but stupefied by a few years of marriage. Three or four years ago they had no doubt been a couple of neat office girls, who dressed attractively and sported with their admirers in Nordmarken. She knew the face of one of them, now she thought of it; she had seen her at Hakloa one Easter. Jenny had noticed her then because she was such a good ski-runner and looked so brisk and smart in her sport-suit. In a way she was not badly dressed now either; her walking habit was fashionable enough, but did not fit. The figure had no firmness; she was well covered, and at the same time the shoulders and hips were angular. The face under a big hat with ostrich feathers was old, with bad teeth, and furrows round the mouth. She was talking, and her friend listened interestedly, sitting there heavily and painfully enceinte, with knees apart and her hands in a colossal muff. The face was originally pretty, but fat and red, and with a treble chin.
“I have to lock up the cheese in the sideboard; if it goes into the kitchen only the rind is left the next day—a big piece of Gruyère costing nearly three kroner.”
“I quite believe it.”
“And then there’s another thing. She is very fond of eggs. The other day I went into her bedroom—she is such a pig and her room is very smelly; the bed had not been made for I don’t know how long. ‘Really, Solveig,’ I said, lifting the blankets, and what do you think I found? Three eggs and a paper of sugar in the bed. She said she had bought it herself—and perhaps she had.”
“I don’t think so,” said the other.
“The sugar was in a paper bag, so she may have bought it, but the eggs she had certainly taken, and I gave her a scolding. Last Saturday we were to have rice pudding. When I went into the kitchen I found the rice boiling on the gas and quite burnt, while she was sitting in her room doing needlework. I called her while I was stirring the rice, and what do you think I found in the spoon? An egg, if you please. She boils eggs for herself with the rice! I had to laugh, but did you ever hear anything so dirty? I gave her a piece of my mind. Don’t you think she deserved it?”
“Certainly. Servants are a bother. What do you think mine did the other day?...”
They had also been longing for love when they were young girls—their ideal of love was a smart, straight lad with a secure position, who could take them away from the monotonous work in office or shop and settle them in a little home, where the three rooms would hold all their belongings, and they could spread out all the pieces of needlework with embroidered roses and bluebells which they had made while dreaming their girlish day-dreams about love. They smiled at those dreams now with a superior air, and to those who still dreamed they had the satisfaction of stating that the reality was quite different. They were pleased to be among the initiated who knew what it really meant—and they were perhaps content.
But there was happiness all the same in not being content, in refusing to put up with things and be thankful when life offered things of little worth; far better to say: I believe in my dreams; I will call nothing happiness but that which I claim, and I believe it exists. If it is not to be mine, it is my own fault; it is because I have been one of the foolish virgins who did not watch and wait for the bridegroom, but the wise will see him and will enter in with rejoicing.
When Jenny came home she saw there was a light in her mother’s room, so she went in to tell her about the party at Ahlström’s studio, and how Heggen was. Ingeborg and Bodil slept farther down in the room, with their black plaits across the pillows. Jenny felt no compunction at standing there telling falsehoods to her mother. She had always done it from the time she was a schoolgirl and used to tell merry tales about the children’s parties, where she had in reality been sitting alone, watching the others dance—an unhappy and lonely little girl who could not dance or talk of anything that the boys cared for.
When Ingeborg and Bodil came home from a dance their mother sat up in bed listening and smiling and asking questions, young and rosy in the lamplight, and they could always tell the truth, because it was full of merriment and laughter. There may have been a thing or two so nice that they wanted to keep it to themselves, but it did not matter, for their smiles were true.
Jenny kissed her mother good-night. Passing through the sitting-room, she happened to pull down a photograph; she picked it up, knowing in the dark that it was a brother of her own father, with his wife and little girls. He had lived in America, and she had never seen him; he was dead, and his picture stood in its place without anybody ever thinking of it. She herself dusted it every day, yet never looked at it.
She went into her own room and began to take down her hair.
She had always lied to her mother—could she ever have been truthful to her without making her suffer, and to what purpose? Mother would never have understood. She had had happiness and sorrow since she was quite young; she had been happy with Jenny’s father and had bemoaned his death, but she had her child to live for, and learnt to be content. Then she met Nils Berner, who filled her life with fresh happiness and fresh sorrow—and again the children consoled her, inasmuch as they filled the emptiness of her life. The joy of motherhood is bought with too much suffering; it is too actual, when held living in one’s arms, for one ever to doubt its existence. To love one’s child is so natural that there is no cause for reflection. A mother never doubts that she loves her child, or that she wants it to be happy—that she does her best for it, or that it returns her love. The grace of nature is so great to mothers that children instinctively shrink from confiding their sorrows and disappointments to her; illness and money troubles are almost the only sorrows she ever gets to know. Never the irreparable, the shame, the failures in life, and were she told of them ever so emphatically by her own children, she would never believe they were irreparable.
Her mother was not to know anything about her sorrow—nature itself had raised a wall between them. Rebecca Gram would never know a tenth part of the sufferings her children had endured for her sake. And a friend of her mother’s was still mourning her handsome boy, who had been killed by an accident, and dreaming of the future that would have been his; she was the only person who did not know that he had shot himself as the only way of escape from insanity.
Love of one’s children did not exclude any other love; one or two mothers among her acquaintances had lovers, and believed that the children did not know. Some were divorced, and found happiness in new ties; only if the new love brought disappointment did they ever complain or regret. Her own mother had idolized her—yet there was room for Berner in her heart too, and she had been happy with him. Gert had been fond of his children—and a father’s affection is more understanding, more a matter of reflection and less instinctive than a mother’s—yet he had scarcely thought of Helge all last winter.
II
Jenny had been to fetch their mail bag at the station; and gave Francesca the papers and the letters, and opened the one addressed to herself. Standing on the gravel of the station platform in the blazing sun, she looked through Gert’s long effusion, reading the expressions of love at the beginning and the end and skipping the rest, which was only a mass of observations on love in general. She put it back in the envelope and placed it in her hand-bag. Ugh! those letters from Gert—she could not be bothered to read them. Every word proved to her that they did not understand one another; she felt it when they talked together, but in writing it was more painfully distinct still. Yet there was a mental relationship between them—how was it that they did not harmonize? Was he stronger or weaker than she? He had lost repeatedly, had resigned, stooped, and submitted in every way, and yet he went on hoping, living, and believing. Was it weakness or vitality? She could not make out.
Was it the difference in their ages after all? He was not old, but his youthfulness belonged to another period, when youth was more unsophisticated and had a healthier creed. Perhaps she was naïve too—with her aims and opinions—but it was in a quite different way. Words change their meanings after twenty years—was that the reason?
The gravel glittered red and purple, and the paint on the station building was blistered by the scorching sun. As she looked up everything went dark before her eyes for a moment; it was a peculiar sensation, but probably the effect of the heat, which she seemed to feel more than usual this summer.
The haze hung trembling over fields and meadows, reaching right out to where the forest lay, a dark green line under the deep blue summer sky. The foliage of the birches had already changed its colour to a darker green.
Cesca was reading a letter from her husband. Her linen dress was strikingly white against the dark gravel of the platform.
Gunnar Heggen’s luggage had been put on the pony cart, and he stood stroking the horse’s head and talking to it while he waited for the ladies. Cesca put her letter in her pocket, shaking her head as if trying to drive away a thought.
“Sorry to keep you so long, boy—now let us start.” Jenny and Cesca took the front seat; she was taking the reins herself. “I am so pleased, Gunnar, that you could come. Won’t it be nice to be together again for a few days, we three? Lennart sends his love to both of you.”
“Thanks—is he all right?”
“Oh yes—first-rate, thanks. Brilliant idea of father, wasn’t it, to go away with Borghild and leave the house to me and Jenny? Old Gina looks after us, and is ready to stand on her head for us. I call it perfectly lovely.”
“It is delightful to see you again, you two.”
He laughed and chatted with them, but Jenny imagined she noticed a touch of sadness behind his merry talk. She knew that she looked worn and tired herself, and Cesca in her cheap, ready-made costume looked like a tomboy beginning to get old without having been properly grown up. Cesca seemed to have shrunk very much in the one year they had been separated, but she chatted on as before, telling them what they were going to have for dinner, that they would have coffee in the garden, and that she had bought liqueurs and whisky and soda to celebrate the occasion of their visit.
That night, when Jenny came into her bedroom, she sat down on the window-seat to cool her face in the fresh breeze made by the fluttering curtain. She was not sober; it was an extraordinary thing, but it was a fact. She could not understand how it had happened; all she had had was one glass and a half of toddy and a couple of small liqueurs after supper. True, she had not eaten much, but she had no appetite lately. She had had strong coffee, so perhaps it was that and the cigarettes which affected her, although she smoked much less now than she used to.
Her heart beat irregularly, and hot waves were rushing over her till she felt moist all over. The landscape she was looking at from the window, the greyish fields, the soft coloured flower-beds in the garden, and the dark trees against the pale summer sky turned and twisted before her eyes, and the room seemed turning round. A taste of whisky and liqueur rose to her throat. How horrid!
She spilt the water when she poured some in the basin, and she felt unsteady on her feet. Jenny mia, this is scandalous. You will soon be done for, my girl, if you cannot stand that much. In the olden days you could have taken twice as much.
She bathed her face and her hands for a while, keeping her wrists under water; then she pulled off her clothes and squeezed the full sponge over her body. She was wondering if Cesca and Gunnar had noticed it; she had not realized it herself till she got to her room; a good thing the Colonel and Borghild had not been there.
She felt better after her wash, got into her nightdress, and went to sit by the window again. Her thoughts were wandering about confusedly, calling up fragments of conversation between Cesca and Gunnar, but all of a sudden she felt wide awake, realizing with vivid surprise that she had been drunk. Never before had she had such an experience; she used scarcely to feel it at all, even if she took quite a lot of wine.
Anyhow, it had passed off now, and, feeling limp and cold and sleepy, she went to lie down in the big bed. Fancy if she were to wake up tomorrow with a “head”—that would be a new experience.
She had scarcely settled down in the bed and closed her eyes when the disagreeable heat again stole over her, plunging her whole body in a bath of perspiration. The bed seemed to rock under her like a ship in a storm, and she felt sea-sick. Lying perfectly still, she tried to overcome the nausea, telling herself: I will not, I will not, but it was no good. Her mouth filled with water, and she had scarcely time to get up before she was overcome with sickness.
Heavens! Was she really as drunk as that? It became most embarrassing, but it ought to be over now. She tidied up, drank some water, and went to bed again, hoping to sleep it away, but after a brief moment of rest, with her eyes shut, the rocking began again and with it the heat and the nausea. It was astonishing, for her head was now quite clear—yet she had to get up once more.
Stepping back into bed, a thought suddenly struck her. Nonsense! She lay down again, pressing her neck deep into the pillows. It was impossible. She did not want to think of it, but, unable to dismiss the thought from her mind, she began a review of recent events. She had not felt quite well lately, had been tired and worn out, worried and nervous generally; that was probably why the little she had taken last night had been too much for her. She could quite understand now that people become abstemious after a few nights of the kind she had just experienced. The other matter she would not consider; if things had gone wrong she would know it in due time—it was no good worrying unnecessarily. She was going to sleep; she was so tired—but she could not keep her thoughts away from that awful subject—ugh!
At the beginning of their relations the possibility of consequences had quite naturally presented itself to her mind, and once or twice she had been in the throes of anxiety, but she had been able to master it and had forced herself to look reasonably at the matter. What if it were true? The dread of having a child is really a senseless superstition; it happens every day. Why should it be worse for her than for any poor working girl, who was able to provide for herself and her child? The anxiety was a remnant from the times when an unmarried woman in similar circumstances had to go to the father or her relations and confess that she had had a good time, and that they had to pay the expenses—with the sad prospect of never afterwards having her provided for by somebody else—a quite sufficient reason for their anger.
Nobody had any right to be angry with her. Her mother would, of course, be sorry, but when a grown-up person tried to live according to his conscience the parents had nothing to say. She had tried to help her mother as much as possible, she had never worried her with her own troubles, her reputation had never been spoilt by any tales of levity, flirtation, or revelling, but where her own opinions about right and wrong differed from that of other people, she meant to follow them, even if it would be painful to her mother to hear disagreeable things said about her.
If her relations with Gert were a sin, it did not mean that she had given too much, but too little, and whatever the consequences would be, she had to bear them without complaint.
She could provide for a child just as well as many a girl who had not a tenth part of her knowledge. There was still some money left of her inheritance—enough for her to go abroad. If the profession she had chosen was a poor one, she knew that several of her fellow-artists were able to keep wife and children with it, and she had been used to helping others from the time she was almost a child. She would, of course, prefer not to have to do it; so far everything had been all right—she would not think of it.
Gert would be in despair.
If it was true, how dreadful that it should happen now. If it had happened when she loved him, or thought she did, and she could have gone away in good faith, but now, when everything that had been between them had crumbled to pieces, torn asunder by her own thinking and pondering....
During these weeks at Tegneby she had made up her mind not to go on any longer. She was longing to go away to new conditions, new work. Yes, the longing for work had come back; she had had enough of this sickly desire of clinging to somebody, to be cuddled and petted and called little girl.
At the thought of breaking with him her heart winced with pain. She shrank from causing him sorrow, but she had kept it up as long as possible. Gert had been happy while it lasted, and he was free from the degrading slavery with his wife.
She was perfectly resigned to the thought that her life henceforth would be work and solitude only. She knew she could not obliterate the past months from her life; she would always remember them and the bitter lessons they had taught her. The love that others found enough was not enough for her—it was better for her to dispense with it altogether than to be contented.
Yes, she would remember, but as years went by the memory of the short happiness mixed with so much pain and bitter repentance would perhaps be less poignant, and she would be able partly to wipe out the memory of the man to whom she had done a deadly wrong—and whose child perhaps she bore.
No; it was impossible. Why lie here brooding over it?
But if it were true....
When Jenny at last sank into a heavy and dreamless sleep it was almost daylight, but when she awoke again with a shock, it was not much lighter. The sky was a little more yellow above the garden trees, and the birds were chirping sleepily. She was instantly wide awake, and the same thoughts returned; she would hardly get any more sleep that night, and she resigned herself to thinking them over and over again.
III
Heggen had left; the Colonel and Borghild had returned and gone again to pay a visit to a married sister of Francesca’s. Jenny and Cesca were alone, and they went about by themselves, deep in their own thoughts.
Jenny was convinced now of her condition, but she had not been able to realize what it all meant; if she tried to think of the future, her imagination stood still. She was, on the whole, in a better frame of mind now than in the first desperate weeks when she was waiting anxiously for her suspicions to be disproved.
She told herself that there would be a way out of it for her as for so many other women. Fortunately she had spoken of going abroad since last autumn. She had not made up her mind about telling Gert or not, but she thought she would not do it.
When she was not thinking of herself she thought of Cesca. There was something the matter—something that was not as it ought to be. She was sure Cesca was fond of Ahlin. Did he not care for her any longer?
Cesca had had a bad time of it this first year of her married life; there had been serious money troubles. Cesca looked so small and dejected. Hour after hour of an evening she would sit on Jenny’s bed telling her about all her household worries. Everything was so expensive in Stockholm, and cheap food was bad, especially when one had not learnt to cook. Housework was all so difficult when one was brought up in such an idiotic way as she had been, and the worst of it was that it had to be done over and over again. She had scarcely finished cleaning the house before it was in an awful state again, and the moment she had finished a meal there was the washing up—and so it went on indefinitely, cooking things, soiling plates, and washing up again. Lennart tried to help her, but he was just as clumsy and unpractical as she was. Then, too, she worried about him. The commission for the monument had been given to some one else after all; he was never appreciated, and yet he was so gifted, but far too proud, both individually and as an artist. It could not be helped—and she would not have had him different. In the spring he had had a long illness, being confined to bed for two months with scarlet fever, pneumonia, and subsequent complications—it had been a very trying time for Cesca.
But there was something else—Jenny felt it distinctly—that Cesca did not tell her, and she knew she could not be to Cesca now what she had been in the old days. She had no longer the tranquil heart and open mind, ready to receive the sorrows of others and able to give comfort; and it hurt her to feel that she could no longer help.
Cesca had gone to Moss one day to do some shopping. Jenny preferred to stay at home, and was spending the day in the garden reading, so as not to think. Then, when she found that she could not pay attention to her book, she started knitting, but soon lost count of her stitches, pulled them out, and went on again, trying to be more attentive. Cesca did not come back to dinner as she had promised, and Jenny dined alone, killing the afternoon by smoking cigarettes which she did not enjoy, and knitting, though her work constantly dropped on to her lap.
At last, about ten o’clock Cesca came driving up the avenue; Jenny had gone to meet her, and the moment she sat down beside her in the cart she saw that something had happened, but neither of them said a word.
Later, when Francesca had had something to eat and they were having a cup of tea, she said quietly without looking at Jenny:
“Can you guess whom I met in town today?”
“No.”
“Hans Hermann. He is on a visit at the island and living with a rich woman who seems to have taken him up.”
“Is his wife with him?” asked Jenny.
“No; they are divorced. I saw in the papers that they had lost their little boy in the spring. I am sorry for her”—and Cesca began to talk of other things.
When Jenny was in bed Cesca came quietly into her room, sitting down at the foot end of the bed and pulling her nightdress well over her feet. She sat with her arms folded round her knees, her little dark head making a black shadow on the curtain.
“Jenny, I am going home tomorrow. I will send a wire to Lennart early in the morning and leave in the afternoon. You must stay here as long as you like, and don’t think me very inconsiderate, but I dare not stay. I must go at once.” She was breathing heavily. “I cannot understand it, Jenny. I have seen him. He kissed me, and I did not strike him. I listened to all he had to say, and I did not strike him in the face as I ought to have done. I don’t care for him—I know that now—and yet he has power over me. I am afraid. I dare not stay, because I don’t know what he might make me do. When I think of him now I hate him, but when he speaks to me I seem to get petrified; and I could not believe that anybody could be so cynical, so brutal, so shameless.
“It seems as if he does not understand there is such a thing as honour or shame; they do not exist for him, and he does not believe that anybody else cares for them either. His point of view is that our talking of right and wrong is only speculation, and when I hear him speak I seem to get hypnotized. I have been with him all the afternoon, listening to his talk. He said that as I was married now I need not be so careful about my virtue any longer, or something to that effect, and he alluded to his being free again, so as to give me some hope, I suppose. He kissed me in the park and I wanted to scream, but could not make a sound. Oh, I was so afraid. He said he would come here the day after tomorrow—they were going to have a party tomorrow—and all the time he smiled at me with that same smile I was always so afraid of in the old days.
“Don’t you think I ought to go home when I feel like this?”
“Yes; I think so.”
“I am a goose, I know. I cannot rely upon myself, as you see, but you can be certain of one thing: if I had been false to Lennart, I would go straight to him and tell him, and kill myself the same instant before his eyes.”
“Do you love your husband?” asked Jenny.
Francesca was silent a moment.
“I don’t know. If I loved him really as one ought to love, I suppose I should not be afraid of Hans Hermann. Do you think I should have let Hans behave like he did and kiss me?
“But I know, anyhow, that if I did wrong to Lennart I could not go on living. You understand, don’t you? While I was Francesca Jahrman I was not very careful about my good name, but now I am Francesca Ahlin, and if I let fall the very faintest shadow of a suspicion on that name—his name—I should deserve to be shot down like a mad dog. Lennart would not do it, but I would do it myself.”
She dropped her arms suddenly and crept into the bed, nestling close to Jenny.
“You believe in me, don’t you? Do you think I could live if I had done anything dishonourable?”
“No, Cesca.” Jenny put her arms round her and kissed her. “I don’t think you could.”
“I don’t know what Lennart thinks; he does not understand me. When I get home I will tell him everything just as it is, and leave it to him.”
“Cesca,” said Jenny, but checked herself. She would not ask, after all, if she was happy. But Cesca began to tell by herself:
“I have had many difficulties since I married, I must tell you, and I have not been very happy, but then I was so foolish and ignorant in many ways.
“I married Lennart because Hans began to write to me when he was divorced, saying that he was determined to have me, and I was afraid of him and did not want to have anything to do with him. I told Lennart everything; he was so kind and sympathetic and understood me, and I thought he was the most wonderful man in the world—and so he is, I know.
“But I did something awful. Lennart cannot understand it, and I know that he has not forgiven me. Perhaps I am wrong in telling you, but I must ask somebody if it is really so that a man can never forgive it, and you must answer me frankly—tell me if you think that it is impossible ever to get over it.
“We went to Rocca di Papa in the afternoon when we were married. You know how dreadfully afraid I have always been of marriage, and when Lennart took me into our room in the evening, I began to cry. Lennart was such a dear to me.
“This was on a Saturday. We did not have a particularly pleasant time—I mean Lennart did not, for I would have been delighted to be married like that, and every morning when I awoke I was so grateful to him, but I was scarcely allowed to kiss my husband.
“On the Wednesday we had gone to the top of Monte Cavo, and it was marvellously beautiful up there. It was in the end of May and the day was glorious. The chestnut wood was light green, the leaves had just come out, the broom was blossoming madly in the crevices, and along the road grew heaps of white flowers and lilies. There was a haze in the air, for it had rained earlier in the day, and the Nemi and Albano lakes were lying silvery white below, with all the little white villages round. The whole Campagna and Rome were wrapped in a thin veil of mist, and farther out the Mediterranean shone like a golden line on the horizon.
“Oh, it was such a day! And life seemed wonderfully beautiful to me—but Lennart was sad. To me he was the most perfect man in the world, and I was immensely fond of him. All of a sudden it seemed so silly of me to make a fuss, and I put my arms round his neck and said: ‘I want to be yours, for I love you.’”
Cesca was silent a second, taking a deep breath.
“Oh, Jenny—how happy he was, poor boy!” She swallowed her tears. “He was so pleased. ‘Now?’ said he—‘here?’ and took me in his arms, but I resisted. I don’t know really why I did it. It would have been beautiful in the deep forest and the sunshine.
“He rushed out and stayed away all night. I lay awake. I was anxious, wondering what he had done, where he had gone. Next day we went back to Rome and stayed at an hotel. Lennart had taken two rooms. I went to him in his room—but there was no beauty in it. We have never been quite happy since. I know that I have offended him frightfully, but tell me, Jenny, if you think it a thing a man never can forget or forgive?”
“He ought to have realized afterwards that you did not understand what it was you were doing—how it would hurt him.”
“No.” Cesca was shivering. “But I do now. I see that it was something pure and beautiful that I soiled, but I did not understand it then. Jenny, do you think a man’s love could ever get over that?”
“It ought to. You have proved since that you want to be a good and faithful wife to him. Last winter you worked so hard and suffered without complaining, and in the spring when he was ill you nursed him week after week, watching night after night by his bedside.”
“That is nothing to speak of,” said Cesca eagerly. “He was so good and patient, and he helped me in the house as much as he could. When he was ill some of our friends came sometimes to help me to sit up with him in the night. That week when he was near death we had a nurse, but I sat up just the same because I wanted to—although I was not really needed.”
Jenny kissed Cesca’s forehead.
“There is one thing I have not told you, Jenny. You warned me, you remember, to be more careful with men, and said I had no instincts. Gunnar used to scold me, and Miss Linde said once, don’t you remember, that if you make a man excited that way he goes to somebody else.”
Jenny felt quite cold with fright for what was coming next.
“Well, I asked him something about that on this first morning.”
Jenny could not say a word. “I understand that he cannot forget it and perhaps not forgive, but I wish he would find an excuse for me, remember how very stupidly I looked at it all.” She hesitated, searching for words. “Our life has been so horrid ever since. He does not really wish to kiss me—if he ever does, it is almost against his will, and he is angry afterwards with himself and with me. I have tried to explain, but it is no good. To be quite honest, I don’t know what to make of it all, but I do not mind anything any longer if I could only make him happy. Anything that makes Lennert happy is good and beautiful to me. He thinks that I sacrifice myself, but it is no sacrifice—quite the contrary. Oh, I have cried for nights and days in my room because I saw that he was longing for my love, and I have tried to kiss him, but he pushes me away.
“I am very fond of him, Jenny. Tell me, can’t one love a man in that way too?—can I not say that I love Lennart?”
“Yes, Cesca.”
“You cannot think how desperate I have been. But I cannot help being as I am. When we are out of an evening with other artists I see that he is in a bad humour; he does not say anything, but I see he thinks I flirt with them. It is true, perhaps, for I get into good spirits when I can have a meal out and need not cook and wash up once for a change, and not be afraid of spoiling the food when Lennart has to eat it all the same because we cannot afford to throw it away. Sometimes I was glad, too, of not having to be alone with Lennart, though I am fond of him and he is of me—I know he is. If I ask him about it he says, ‘You know it quite well,’ and smiles in a queer way, but he does not trust me because I cannot love with my senses and yet like to flirt. Once he said I had not a notion of what love really meant and that it was his fault for not being able to awaken it in me, but there would probably be another man some day who could. O God, how I cried!
“You know we are ever so poor. Well, in the spring Gunnar managed to get my still-life picture sold—the one I had at the exhibition three years ago. We got three hundred kroner for it and we lived on it for several months, but Lennart did not like spending the money I had earned. I cannot see what difference it makes when we are fond of each other, but he talked about having brought me into misery and so on. We have got debts too, of course, so I wanted to write to father asking him for a few hundreds, but he would not let me. I thought it so ridiculous. Borghild and Helga have lived at home or abroad all these years and had everything given to them, whereas I have saved and pinched with the little I had from mother since I came of age, because I did not want to take anything from papa after what he said to me when I broke my engagement with Kaasen and there was all the talk about Hans and me. Father has since admitted that I was right. It was mean of Kaasen and of them at home to try and force me to marry him because he had beguiled me into an engagement when I was only seventeen, and did not know that marriage meant anything else but what you read in silly girl stories. When I began to understand, I knew I would rather kill myself than marry him. If they had succeeded in forcing me to it, I would have led them a life, taking all the lovers I could get just out of spite and to pay them out. Papa sees it now, and he says I can have money whenever I want it.