My second schoolboy fancy dated from my last few months at school. It
was a natural enough outcome of the attraction towards the other sex
which, never yet encouraged, was lurking in my mind; but it was not
otherwise remarkable for its naturalness. It had its origin partly in
my love of adventure, partly in my propensity for trying my powers,
but, as love, was without root, inasmuch as it was rooted neither in my
heart nor in my senses.
The object of it was again a girl from another country. Her name and
person had been well known to me since I was twelve years old. We had
even exchanged compliments, been curious about one another, gone so far
as to wish for a lock of each other's hair. There was consequently a
romantic background to our first meeting. When I heard that she was
coming to Denmark I was, as by chance, on the quay, and saw her arrive.
She was exactly the same age as I, and, without real beauty, was very
good-looking and had unusually lovely eyes. I endeavoured to make her
acquaintance through relatives of hers whom I knew, and had no
difficulty in getting into touch with her. An offer to show her the
museums and picture galleries in Copenhagen was accepted. Although I
had very little time, just before my matriculation examination, my new
acquaintance filled my thoughts to such an extent that I did not care
how much of this valuable time I sacrificed to her. In the Summer, when
the girl went out near Charlottenlund, whereas my parents were staying
much nearer to the town, I went backwards and forwards to the woods
nearly every day, in the uncertain but seldom disappointed hope of
seeing her. Sometimes I rowed her about in the Sound.
Simple and straightforward though the attraction I felt might seem, the
immature romance I built up on it was anything but simple.
It was, as stated, not my senses that drew me on. Split and divided up
as I was just then, a merely intellectual love seemed to me quite
natural; one might feel an attraction of the senses for an altogether
different woman. I did not wish for a kiss, much less an embrace; in
fact, was too much a child to think of anything of the sort.
But neither was it my heart that drew me on; I felt no tenderness,
hardly any real affection, for this young girl whom I was so anxious to
win. She only busied my brain.
In the condition of boyish self-inquisition in which I then found
myself, this acquaintance was a fresh element of fermentation, and the
strongest to which my self-examination had hitherto been subjected. I
instinctively desired to engage her fancy; but my attitude was from
myself through her to myself. I wanted less to please than to dominate
her, and as it was only my head that was filled with her image, I
wholly lacked the voluntary and cheerful self-humiliation which is an
element of real love. I certainly wished with all my heart to fascinate
her; but what I more particularly wanted was to hold my own, to avoid
submission, and retain my independence. My boyish pride demanded it.
The young foreigner, whose knowledge of the world was hardly greater
than my own, had certainly never, during her short life, come in
contact with so extraordinary a phenomenon; it afforded matter for
reflection. She certainly felt attracted, but, woman-like, was on her
guard. She was of a quiet, amiable disposition, innocently coquettish,
naturally adapted for the advances of sound common sense and
affectionate good-will, not for the volts of passion; she was,
moreover, femininely practical.
She saw at a glance that this grown-up schoolboy, who almost staggered
her with his eloquence, his knowledge, his wild plans for the future,
was no wooer, and that his advances were not to be taken too seriously.
Next, with a woman's unfailing intuition, she discovered his empty love
of power. And first involuntarily, and then consciously, she placed
herself in an attitude of defence. She did not lack intelligence. She
showed a keen interest in me, but met me with the self-control of a
little woman of the world, now and then with coolness, on one occasion
with well-aimed shafts of mockery.
Our mutual attitude might have developed into a regular war between the
sexes, had we not both been half-children. Just as I, in the midst of a
carefully planned assault on her emotions, occasionally forgot myself
altogether and betrayed the craving to be near her which drove me
almost every day to her door, she also would at times lose the
equilibrium she had struggled for, and feverishly reveal her agitated
state of mind. But immediately afterwards I was again at the assault,
she once more on the alert, and after the lapse of four months our ways
separated, without a kiss, or one simple, affectionate word, ever
having passed between us.
In my morbid self-duplication, I had been busy all this time fixing in
my memory and writing down in a book all that I had said to her or she
to me, weighing and probing the scope and effect of the words that had
been uttered, laying plans for future methods of advance, noting actual
victories and defeats, pondering over this inanity, bending over all
this abnormality, like a strategist who, bending over the map, marks
with his nail the movements of troops, the carrying or surrender of a
fortified position.
This early, unsatisfactory and not strictly speaking erotic experience
had the remarkable effect of rendering me for the next seven years
impervious to the tender passion, so that, undisturbed by women or
erotic emotions, I was able to absorb myself in the world of varied
research that was now opening up to me.