IV

The baron jumped into the Stockholm express at Södertälje where he had

arranged to meet her. Everything had been carefully arranged for them

to be alone together at last, but Fate had other designs. When the

baron entered the railway carriage he found his beloved sitting wedged

in tightly among strangers, so tightly that there was no room for him.

A glance in the adjoining coupe showed him that it was full also, and

he had to stand in the corridor. Rage distorted his face, and when he

tried to greet her with a secret and loving smile, he only showed his

back teeth, which she had never seen before. To make matters worse, he

had, in order not to be noticed, put on mufti. She had never seen him

in this, and his spring coat looked faded, now that it was autumn. Some

soft summer showers in the former year had caused the cloth to pucker

near the seams, so that it lay in many small wave-like folds. Since it

had been cut according to the latest fashion it gave him the appearance

of having sloping shoulders which continued the neck down to the arms

with the same ignoble outlines as those of a half-pint bottle. He

perspired with rage, and a fragment of coal had settled firmly on his

nose. She would like to have jumped up and with her lace handkerchief

wiped away the black smut but dared not. He did not like to look at her

for fear of displeasing her, and therefore remained standing in the

corridor with his back towards her.

When they reached Katrineholm they had to dine if they did not wish

to remain hungry till evening. Here the man and the hero had to show

himself, and stand the ordeal or he was lost. With trembling calves

and puckered face he followed his lady out of the train and across the

railway lines. Here he fell on his knee, so that his hat slipped to the

back of his head and remained sticking there like a military cap. But

the position which made the latter look smart did not suit the unusual

hat. In a word it was not his good day, and he had no luck.

When they entered the dining-saloon, they looked as though they had

quarrelled inwardly, as though they despised each other, were ashamed

before each other, and mutually wished themselves apart.

His nerves were entirely out of order, and he could not control a

single muscle. Without knowing what he was doing, he pushed her forward

to the table saying, "Hurry up!"

The table was already surrounded by passengers, who fell on the viands

in scattered order and therefore could not open their ranks. The baron

made a sally and finally succeeded in seizing a plate, but as he wedged

in his arm to get a fork, his hand encountered another hand which

belonged to the person he least of all wished to meet just then.

It was his senior officer, a major who presided at military

examinations.

At the same moment a whisper passed through the crowd.

They were recognised! He stood there as though naked among nettles. His

neck swelled so unnaturally and grew so red that his cheeks seemed to

form part of it. He could not understand how people's looks could have

the effect of gun-bullets. He was literally fusilladed and collapsed.

His companion vanished from his mind; he could only think of the major

and the military examination which might destroy his future.

But she had seen and understood; she turned her back on everyone and

went out. She got into the wrong coupe but it was empty. He came

afterwards and they were alone at last.

"That's a nice business, isn't it?" he hissed, striking his forehead.

"To think of my letting myself be enticed into such an adventure! And

the major too! Now my career is at an end!"

That was the theme which was enlarged on with variations till

Linköping. Hunger and thirst both contributed their part to it. It was

terrible.

After Linköping they both felt that the mutual reproaches they had

hitherto held back must find a vent. But just at the right moment they

remembered her husband and attacked him. It was his fault; he was the

tyrant, the idiot of course, "a fellow who played Wagner," a devil. It

was he who had given the major a hint, no doubt.

"Yes, I believe you," said she with the firmest conviction.

"Do you? I know it," answered the baron. "They meet on the Stock

Exchange, where they speculate in shares together. And do you know what

I begin to suspect? Your husband, the 'wretch' as we call him, has

never loved you."

The wife considered a moment. Whether it was that her husband's love

was indubitable, or that it was necessary to suppose that he loved her,

if she was to have the honour of having made a fool of him--enough, he

must have loved her, since she was so lovable.

"No! now you are unjust," she ventured to say. She felt herself

somewhat elevated by being able to speak a good word of an enemy, but

the baron took it as a reproach against himself and recommenced.

"He loved you? He who shut you up and would not accompany you to the

riding-school! He----"

The safety-conductor seemed used up, and threatened to deflect the

lightning to one side in a dangerous way. So they took up a new thread

of conversation--the question of food. Since this could not be settled

before Naujö, which was still half a day distant, they soon dropped it

again. In her extremity, and carried away by a torrent of thoughts and

emotions which she could not resist, she hazarded a conjecture as to

how her child was. To this his answer was a yawn which split his face

like a red apple to the uvula where some dark molars resembled the core

of it. Gradually he let himself slide down into a reclining attitude on

the sofa, but remembering that he ought to make some apology for his

unseemly behaviour, he yawned and said: "Excuse me, but I am so sleepy."

Immediately afterwards he went to sleep, and after a time he snored.

Since she was no longer under the influence of his looks and words, she

could reflect quietly again, see who her travelling companion was, and

began, involuntarily, to institute comparisons. Her husband had never

behaved like this; he was refined compared with the baron, and was

always well-dressed.

The baron, who had drunk much punch the day before, began now

to perspire and smelt of vinegar. Besides that, he always had a

stable-like smell about him.

She went out into the corridor, opened a window, and as though released

from enchantment, she saw the whole extent of her loss and the terrible

nature of her position. As the spring landscape swept past, a little

lake with willows and a cottage, she remembered vividly how she had

dreamt of a summer holiday with the child. Then she broke into weeping,

and tried to throw herself out but was held back. She remained standing

a long time, and stamped with her feet as though she wished to stop the

train and make it go backwards. All the time she heard his snoring,

like grunts from a pigsty at feeding-time. And for this ... creature,

she had left a good home, a beautiful child, and a husband.

The snoring ceased, and the baron began to employ his recuperated

thinking faculties in considering the situation and settling his

future. He did not know how to be sad; instead of that he became angry.

When he saw her holding her handkerchief to her eyes, he got in a rage,

and took it as a personal reproach. But quarrelling was tedious and

unpleasant; therefore assuming a light tone, and caressing her as one

might a horse, he clicked with his tongue and said: "Cheer up, Maja!"

Two such opposite moods, in colliding, cut each other and each fell on

its own side of the knife. A dead silence was the result. They were

no longer one person, but two, irrevocably two, who did not belong

together.

Yet another half-day in wretchedness and boredom; a night with changes

of train in the darkness, and at last they were in Copenhagen. There

they were unknown and had no need to feel embarrassed. But when they

entered the dining-saloon, she began to pass the "searchlight" of her

looks, as he called it, over all those present, so that when the baron

looked at her he never saw her eye except in profile. At last he became

angry and kicked her shin under the table. Then she turned away and

appealed with her eyes to the company. She could not look at him--so

hateful did he seem to her. Upstairs in their room the corks were drawn

out. They reached the stage of recriminations. His spoilt career was

her fault ... she had lost her child and home through him. So it went

on till past midnight when sleep had mercy on them.

Then next morning they sat at the breakfast-table, silent and ghastly

to look at. She remembered her honeymoon journey and very much the same

situation. They had nothing to say to each other, and he was as tedious

as her husband had been. They kept silence and were ashamed of being in

each other's presence. They were conscious of their mutual hatred, and

poisoned each other with nerve-poison.

At last the deliverer came. The waiter approached with a telegram for

the baron, who opened and read it at a glance. He seemed to consider,

cast a calculating glance at his enemy, and after a pause said: "I am

recalled by the commanding officer."

"And mean to leave me here?"

He changed his resolve in a second: "No, we will travel back together."

A plan suggested itself and he told her of it. "We will sail across to

Landskrona; there no one knows you, and you can wait for me."

The idea of sailing had a smack of the adventurous and heroic about it,

and this trifle outweighed all other considerations. She was kindled,

kindled him, and they packed at once. The prospect of leaving her, for

however short a time, restored his courage.

Accordingly, some hours later, he took his seat in a hired

sailing-boat with his beloved by the foresail and put off from Lange

Linie like a sea-robber with his bride, blustering, ostentatious and

gorgeous.

In order to conceal his plan he had only spoken to the owner of the

boat of a pleasure-trip in the Sound. His intention was to telegraph

from Landskrona and send the money due for the boat and have the boat

itself towed by a steamer.

As they were putting off from shore, the boat owner stood near and

watched them. But when he saw that they were directing their course to

the Island Hven, he put his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Don't go

too near Hven," and something else which was carried away by the wind.

"Why not Hven?" asked the baron aloud. "The shore is steep, so that

there are no rocks under water."

"Yes, but if he tells us so, he must have had some reason for it," she

objected.

"Don't talk nonsense! Look after the foresail!"

The wind blew a light gale on the open sea, and since there was a

considerable distance between the foresail and the stern there was no

need for conversation, much to the baron's relief.

Their course was directed towards the south-east corner of Hven,

though at first not noticeably so. But when she at last saw whither

they were going, she called out: "Don't steer for Hven!"

"Hold your----!" answered the baron and tacked.

After an hour's good run they had come abreast of the white island

and a light pressure on the rudder turned the boat's prow towards

Landskrona, which appeared in the north.

"Saved!" cried the steersman and lit a cigar.

At the same instant a little steamer put out from Hven and made

straight for the sailing-boat.

"What is that steamer?" she asked.

"It is a custom-house boat," answered the baron who was at home on the

sea.

But now the steamer hoisted a yellow flag and whistled.

"That has nothing to do with us," said the baron, and kept on his

course.

But the steamer took a sweep round, signalled with the flag, and let

off several short, sharp whistles like cries of distress, increasing

speed at the same time. Then the baron jumped up wildly at the stern as

though he intended plunging into the sea. He remembered the outbreak of

cholera at Hamburg and cried: "It is the quarantine! Three days! We are

lost!"

The next moment he sat down again in his place, hauling taut the

main-sheet and drifting before the wind, straight towards the Sound.

The chase began, but soon the steamer stood athwart the bow of the

sailing-boat, which was captured.

The whole carefully-thought-out device of the baron to avoid the gaze

of curious eyes was defeated, and as their sailing-boat was towed into

the harbour of Hven, the unhappy pair were saluted from the bridge by

hundreds of their fellow-countrymen with derisive applause and peals of

laughter, though the latter did not know whom they were applauding. But

the chagrin of the captured pair was greater than the others guessed,

for they believed that people were ridiculing their unfortunate love

affair.

To make matters worse the baron had unpardonably insulted the

quarantine doctor by upbraiding him on board the steamer. Therefore no

special consideration was shown them, but they were treated like all

others who come from a cholera-infected port. Since their incognito was

bound to be seen through sooner or later, they went about in perpetual

fear of discovery. Full of suspicion, they believed every other hour

that they were recognised.

No one would have the patience to read the story of the torture of

those three days. So much is known, that the first day she spent in

weeping for her child, while he walked about the island. The second day

she enlarged upon the excellent qualities of her husband as contrasted

with the execrable ones of her lover. On the third day she cursed him

for having taken her away, and when she ended by calling him an idiot

for not having obeyed her own and the boat-owner's advice to avoid

Hven, he gave her a box on the ear.... On the fourth day when they were

really discovered, and newspapers arrived with the whole story, they

went into a crevice in the rocks to hide their shame.

When at last two steamers came to fetch the unfortunates, each went on

board a different one. And after that day they never saw nor knew each

other again.

* * * * *

It was nearly midnight when the reading was ended. An interval of

silence followed, but the postmaster felt he must say something. "One

generally says 'thanks'!" he remarked. "Meanwhile, after you have

said all, there is not much to add: I will only ask myself, you, and

everyone a general question: 'What is love?'"

"What is love? Answer: 'I don't know.' Love has been called a piece

of roguery on the part of Nature. I don't believe that, for I know

that Nature has neither made itself nor can it think out pieces of

roguery. But if we accept that proposition, we descend to zoology, and

that I do not wish to do. I do not share the theoretical veneration

for woman which my contemporaries cherish; on the other hand, I

instinctively place her higher than ourselves. She seems to me to be

formed out of finer material than we men, but I may be wrong, for she

seems to be furnished with more animal functions than we are. If I were

a theosophist, I should believe she was only a kind of intermediary

chrysalis stage on the way to man, only a temporary manifestation, out

of which love, i.e. man's love, creates in, her possibilities of being

and seeming. When he finds this really lifeless form of existence and

breathes his immortal breath into it, he shares the Creator's joy on

the seventh day. The process of refining, which his coarser substance

hindered him bringing about in his own soul, he brings about in hers,

and through reaction--no! it is too difficult for me to explain; it

is like dividing an angle into three equal parts. Anyhow, the fact is

certain, and my story is an illustration of it, that when a man is

deceived in his love as he always is, his whole being revolts against

the government of the world, which seems to him to have condescended

to mock at his holiest possession, the holiest thing in all creation.

If Providence is consonant with such deceit and such coarse jesting

then he discovers a devil where he thought he had seen a good angel.

After that what shall he trust, what shall he value, at what shall he

not make a grimace? And when after marriage the veil falls, and like

Adam and Eve they are naked and ashamed, then even the most unbelieving

is conscious of something resembling the Fall. Then comes a fresh error

and they think they have deceived each other, which they have not done.

So they scourge each other for crimes which neither has committed. A

second deception follows the first."

They were again silent. Then the postmaster gave the conversation

another turn and descended to the earth. "You can guess that I, at any

rate, recognise the lady of your story. She lives in her own little

house, here on the island by the shore."

"Yes she does! I know her, and I was quarantine doctor at Hven when she

was captured. Now that she is elderly she has renewed her acquaintance

with me, and it is from her own mouth that I heard the story. She

has been in love countless times, and declares that every time she

believed she had found the right man who had been predestined for her

from the foundation of the world."

"Does not reason feel its helplessness before such riddles, riddles of

every day?"

"Yes and therefore ... yes, next Saturday you shall hear another story,

and I think we shall approach the riddle a little more closely, i.e. we

shall find its insolubility more strongly proved."

"I shall be glad to hear it. But why don't you have your stories

printed?"

"Because I have been a doctor, and a woman's doctor. I have no right to

reveal what I have heard in my official capacity. Sometimes I should

like to be a writer with a prescriptive right to find material for his

art in men's lives and destinies; but that is a calling and a task

which is denied to me."

"Very well; good night till next Saturday."

When Saturday evening came round, the two old men sat in the corner

room with their toddy and tobacco and a large pile of manuscript on the

table. The postmaster looked a little nervously at it, as a child might

at a family book of sermons.

"We can give two evenings to it," said the doctor soothingly.

"Ah no! we have the whole evening before us and to-morrow is Sunday.

Fire ahead! We will have an interval for refreshments."

The doctor began to read at six o'clock and had finished when it struck

eleven.