He went from London to Hamburg in the hope of finding acquaintances on
his arrival who would help him on to Rügen. But he found the place as
though under a spell of enchantment; everyone had gone to the country
or somewhere else. He had to take a room in an hotel and telegraph
first to Ilmarinen in Rügen, but the latter answered that he had no
money. Then he telegraphed to Copenhagen and Christiania and received
similar answers.
He felt now as though he had been enticed into a trap and overpowered.
Since there had been an outbreak of cholera the previous year in
Hamburg, they expected another when the heat returned, and that was
the case just now. Therefore, if he did not get away soon, he had to
expect, not death, to which he felt indifferent, but the quarantine.
The days passed slowly with terrible monotony, for he had no one to
talk to, and with the threatened cholera outbreak hanging over his
head. Helpless and in a perpetual rage against some invisible foe who
seemed to have a grudge against him, he felt paralysed. He dared not
move a finger in order to alter his destiny, for he feared failure and
renewed disappointment of his hopes.
In order to pass the time he studied historical tables and wrote dates
from morning to evening. But the days were still terribly long, and
after four days he conceived a fixed idea that he would never get away
from this infernal town where nothing but buying and selling went on.
This impression became so strong that he determined to end his life in
his uncanny bedroom. He unpacked his things and put out the photographs
of his children and other relatives on the writing-table.
Loneliness and torment made the time seem double its real length. He
began to be under the illusion that he was a native of Hamburg; he
forgot for a while his past and the fact that he was married or had
lived anywhere else than here. He regarded himself as a prisoner with
the weird feeling that he did not know what crime he had committed,
who had condemned him, or who was his jailer. But the black spectre of
cholera haunted invisibly the dirty water of the canals and watched for
him. Three times a day he asked the waiter about the cholera and always
received the same answer: "They are not sure yet."
Then at last came a letter from his wife. She cried aloud from longing,
fear, and unrest, and wished to know where he was. He answered in the
same tone and felt wild with rage at the destiny which separated them.
On the morning of the fifth day he discovered in a newspaper that his
Danish friend lived only half an hour's journey by rail from Hamburg.
If he had known that before, he would not have been obliged to undergo
all these sufferings. Now, since he could not pay the hotel bill, he
resolved to depart at once and not to return. His friend would give him
money which he would send to the hotel, and he would have his things
sent after him. He took his seat in the railway carriage with the
feelings of a liberated prisoner, cast a pitying look on Hamburg and
forgave the injuries it had done him, but vowed never to honour it with
another visit, unless compelled.
His half-hour's journey put him in a good humour, and his mouth
watered at the prospect of being able to give expression to all his
vexation and perhaps to make light of his martyrdom, and give it a
comic aspect. His divine frivolity returned, and he thought that
he must be after all a lucky fellow to find one of his friends so
unexpectedly. He stopped before the comfortable little house; the
landlord stood in the doorway; he greeted him and asked if Mr ---- were
at home.
"No; he went off this morning."
"Where?"
"To Denmark."
During the three hours which he had to wait for the train he had time
to get over the blow. When he took his seat again in the train, he
thought: "There is something wrong here; it is not the natural logic of
events. It is certainly something else."
Then the spires of Hamburg reappeared and his hatred to the place awoke
again, and rose to an incredible height when he saw a coffin at the
station. "Now the cholera is here," he thought, "and I shall be in
quarantine for fourteen days!"
But it was not the cholera, which was something to be thankful for. He
did not feel so, however, for he felt sure it would break out on the
same day that he received the money. And he calculated that he would
never get away from Hamburg in this way. The money would delay so long
till the hotel bill, which grew in geometrical progression, swallowed
up the whole amount, and nothing would be left for his travelling
expenses. In this way there would be a sort of perpetual movement which
might last till the end of the world.
That his calculations were about correct was proved two days later
when the money really came. He paid the bill, left the hotel in a cab,
and drove to the station; then a hotel servant who had followed him
expected a tip, and had, besides, a little additional bill, probably
falsified, as usual. When he came to the booking-office and inquired
the price of the ticket, he was two marks short. Accordingly he
returned to the hotel.
It is not necessary to linger over details in order to give the reader
a lively idea of what he suffered. In short, his silence cure still
lasted some days; then he got away, and the cholera had not yet broken
out.
His object in going to Rügen was partly to seek masculine society in
order to get rid of the feminine atmosphere which had enveloped him,
and partly to settle matters with Ilmarinen; but his chief purpose
was probably to talk himself out. That was precisely why, he thought,
destiny or whatever it was had relegated him to absolute silence in
Hamburg, for "destiny" always sought out his secret wishes in order to
frustrate them.
When at last he reached Rügen, hoping to have a good talk for half a
night, he found Ilmarinen altered, chilly in demeanour and embarrassed.
The latter had heard that his friend had married a lady from a rich
family, as indeed was the fact, and therefore could not understand this
sudden come down. When the new-comer asked whether they could have
supper together, the Finn excused himself by saying that he had been
invited to a birthday feast.
"I live, you know," he said, "with Lais's oldest friend, the Swede, who
was in love with her, and who came last."
"Is he here?"
"Yes, he lives here, since Lais engaged herself to the Russian who left
his wife and children."
"He hates me then also?"
"Yes, to speak the truth, your presence will certainly annoy him."
So he remained alone the first evening. Alone after a long double
loneliness with his wife and with himself!
He felt as though he were under some curse, to be so treated by this
insignificant, uncultivated Ilmarinen whom he had lifted up from
nothingness, introduced to his own circle, fed and lodged, because he
executed business matters for him with the theatres and publishers.
This employment was partly an honour for the young unknown author, and
partly an advantage, for it helped him to find openings for his own
work. Now the pupil abandoned the teacher, because he thought there was
nothing more to be gained from him, and because he considered he could
now help himself.
The days which followed were now so dreadful, that again the thought
occurred to him that this could not be natural, but that a black hand
was guiding his destiny.
Since there was only one restaurant in this third-class watering-place,
he had to sit at the same table with his countryman, who attributed
to him the loss of Lais, and with Ilmarinen, who assumed a superior
tone, because he regarded him as lost. Then the food resembled hog's
flesh from which all the goodness had been cooked out. One rose hungry
from table, and was hungry the whole day. Everything was adulterated,
even the beer. As regards the meat, the restaurant keeper's family
first cooked all the goodness out of it for themselves; the customers
only got the sinews and bones, and were fed, in fact, just like dogs.
Bitter looks, which his unfortunate fellow-countryman could not quite
suppress, did not increase the imaginary pleasures of the table.
He spent a week in Rügen without hearing anything from his wife in
London. At first he had found life on the island tolerable in contrast
to that in the Hamburg hotel; but when he woke one day and reflected on
his situation, it seemed to him simply hellish. He had hired an attic
room and the sun beat fiercely on the iron plates of the roof, which
was only a foot above his head. Sixteen years previously he had, as a
young bachelor, left his garret at the top of five flights of stairs,
in order to enter a house as a married man. Since that time it had been
one of his nightmares to find himself crawling up the five flights of
stairs to his old garret, where all the wretchedness and untidiness
of a bachelor's room awaited him. Now he was again in an attic and a
bachelor, although married. That was like a punishment after receiving
warnings. But what crime he had committed he could not say.
Moreover, the whole surrounding soil consisted of light, loose
sand, which had been so heated by the suns of midsummer that it
did not become cool at night. It made one think at first of the hot
sand-girdles which peasants use to cure inflammation of the lungs.
Later on, after searching in his memory, he thought of the scene in
Dante's Inferno where the blasphemers lie stretched out on hot sand.
But as he did not think he believed in any good God, it seemed to him
that blasphemies might be left unpunished.
After walking about for a week in the deep sand, it seemed to him
really a hellish torture to have to take half a step backward for every
one forward, and to be obliged to lift the foot six inches high in
walking. Worst of all was the feeling of sinking through the earth like
the girl in the fairy story who trod on bread. Never to find a firm
foothold, nor to be able to run a race with one's thoughts, but to drag
oneself about like an old man--that was hell. Besides this, there was a
heat in the air which never abated. His attic was burning hot by day,
and when he lay in bed at night with nothing on, he was scorched by the
iron plates of the roof. The nearness of the sea would naturally have
helped to relieve the heat, but that possibility had been carefully
guarded against, like everything else. From his boyhood he had been
accustomed to cast himself head foremost into the water because he
did not like creeping into it. In connection with this also, he was
persecuted by a frequently recurring nightmare, i.e. he used to dream
that he was overheated and must plunge into the sea. The sea was there
but was so shallow that he could not plunge into it, and when he did
crawl into it, it was still so shallow that he could not duck his head.
That was precisely the case here. "Have I come here for the fulfilment
of all my bad dreams?" he asked himself.
And with reason. Ilmarinen grew more inquisitive every day; he asked
when the Norwegian's wife was coming, and when a fortnight had passed,
believed that she had quite abandoned him. This, naturally, pleased
Lais's friend, and nothing was wanting to complete the Norwegian's
hell. For there was something very humiliating in his position as a
discarded husband. His correspondence with England had assumed such an
ominous character that he did not know himself whether he was still
married or separated. In one of his wife's letters, she dwelt on her
inextinguishable love, the pain of separation, and the martyrdom of
longing. They were, she said, Hero and Leander on opposite sides of the
sea, and if she could swim, she would fly to her Leander, even at the
risk of being washed up on his island a corpse. In her next letter she
announced that she intended opening a theatre in London, and was trying
to raise sufficient capital. At the same time she could not find enough
capital to buy a steamer-ticket. A third letter contained the news that
she was ill, and was full of complaints that the husband had left his
sick wife in a foreign land. A fourth letter said that she was in a
convent kept by English ladies, where she had been educated, and where
she found again her youth and innocence; in it she also denounced the
wickedness of the world and the hell of marriage.
It was impossible to give reasonable answers to these letters, for they
poured on him like hail and crossed his own. If he wrote a gentle reply
he received a scolding letter in answer to a previous sharp one of his,
and vice versa. Their misunderstandings arrived at such a pitch that
they bordered on lunacy, and when he ceased to write, she began to send
telegrams.
This imbroglio lasted for a month, and during that time he looked back
with longing to the hours he had spent in Hamburg; they seemed to him
like memories of an indescribably happy time when compared with this.
At last he was cut down from the gallows. A letter came from his
sister-in-law inviting him to his father-in-law's villa at Odense. His
wife had also been invited; and it was arranged that they should meet
again there.
V
Prepared for everything, even the worst, he entered on this new stage
of running the gauntlet. The most curious of all his changes awaited
him. After having been a husband and father he was to become a child
again, be incorporated into a family, and find another father and
mother many years after losing his own. The situation was rendered
more confused by the fact that his father and mother-in-law had lived
separate for seven years, and now wished to come together again on the
occasion of their daughter's marriage.
He had thus become a bond of union between them, and since the daughter
had also been at variance with her father, the family meeting promised
to take the shape of a manifold reconciliation.
But his own past was not exactly associated with family
reconciliations, and since he himself had not a clean record the
prospective idyll by the Areskov Lake began to loom before him like
a cave of snakes. How was he to explain this strange parting from
his bride after only eight weeks of marriage? To allege pecuniary
embarrassment would be the worst of all excuses, because a son-in-law
with money difficulties would be regarded as an impostor or a
legacy-hunter.
As he approached the meeting-place, he became nervous, but at the last
hour he saved his courage, as usual, by reverting to the stand-point
of the author: "If I get no honour thereby, I will at any rate get
material for a chapter in my novel."
He also regarded what happened to him from another point of view--that
of the innocent martyr. "I will see how far Destiny can go in its
meanness, and how much I can bear." When the train stopped at the
pretty little branch-line station, he looked out, naturally enough, for
faces which sought his own. A young lady leading a delicate-looking
child by the hand approached, asked his name, and introduced herself as
his father-in-law's French governess. She had been sent, she said, to
meet him.
A pretty white village whose houses had high, tent-like roofs and green
shutters lay in a valley surrounded by small hills, and enclosing a
beautiful lake, on the bank of which, outside the village, stood his
father-in-law's house. On the road under the lime-trees a bare-headed,
white-haired lady met him, embraced him and bade him welcome. It
was his wife's mother. He was immediately conscious what a strange
transmission of feelings such a simple transaction as marriage had
seemed to him, might bring about. She was his mother and he was her son.
"I have known you long before you saw my daughter," said the old
lady, with the quavering voice of a religious fanatic. "And it is as
though I had expected you. There is much evil in your writings, but
your immorality is childish, your views of women are correct, and
your godlessness is not your fault for He did not wish to make your
acquaintance, but now you will soon see Him come. You have married a
child of the world, but you will not long remain with her when you see
how she pulls you down into the trivialities of life. When you find
yourself alone, you will re-discover the first vocation of your youth."
This she said in the solemn and unembarrassed manner of a sibyl, as
though someone else spoke through her and therefore she did not fear to
have said too much.
When the conversation returned to mundane things, he asked after his
father-in-law, whose absence surprised him. She answered that he was
not here, but would come to-morrow. His sister-in-law now appeared but
she was chilly, gloomy and conventional in demeanour. He had thought
her his friend and had hoped to find a support in her presence, but
perceived now that that hope was vain, especially as she was going to
leave before her father came. Nothing more was said about his own wife,
and no one knew whether she was coming or not.
Had he been enticed into a trap? he asked himself, and was a court
martial about to be held here? Had his wife written complaints
against him from England? How was he to interpret the situation? A
mother-in-law who almost advised him to be divorced, and spoke ill of
her child--that was something very original!
Meanwhile he was conducted into the villa. It was a handsome stone
building of two stories, with many large rooms filled with ancient
furniture, tapestries, and ornaments. And this house, which could
easily contain two large families, was occupied for only six weeks
in the year by the owner during his holidays; the rest of the time
it stood empty. This suggested wealth, and gave the son-in-law the
impression that here, at any rate, one need not discuss poverty--its
causes and its cure.
The day passed in conversation with his mother-in-law, who was
unwearied in showing him attention and kindness. She was inclined
on every occasion to lead the conversation to high subjects; as a
religious mystic she was disposed to see the guiding hand of Providence
everywhere. That led her to look at things in general from a tolerant
point of view, since she regards people's actions as predestined.
In order to make himself agreeable in the most usual way he placed
himself at her point of view and searched in his past for some
premonitions of coming events.
"Yes," answered the old lady, "I said already that I had expected you;
one of those wild Northmen was to come and take my daughter. But as you
can guess, my husband was not delighted at the prospect; he has a very
violent temper but is good at heart. You will have a hard tussle with
him at first, but it will soon be over, if only you do not answer him.
It is certainly fortunate that your wife has not come, for he has a
bone to pick with her also."
"Also?"
"I don't mean anything bad; don't misunderstand me. It will be all
right when his angry fit is over."
"He will be angry then, anyhow, but I don't understand why. I have
acted in good faith, but every man may sometimes fairly plead
unmerited misfortune."
"Oh, it will be all right!"
At last the evening ended and he went up to his room. It had windows on
three sides; there were no outer blinds and the curtains could not be
drawn together. He felt himself under observation, like a patient in
quarantine.
When he lay in bed he had his father-in-law's bust to contemplate; the
face did not look friendly but quite the reverse, and being lit from
below, it assumed all manner of unpleasing expressions.
"And to-morrow I am to be lectured by this stranger who I have never
seen; scolded like a schoolboy because I have had misfortunes. Well, I
must put up with it, as with everything else."
The next morning he woke up with a distinct impression that he found
himself in a pit of snakes, into which Satan had enticed him. Therefore
it was impossible to flee, so he went out to botanise and survey the
landscape. He screwed himself up into a frivolous, poetic mood and
thought what a thrilling situation it was; a dramatic scene which no
one had hitherto passed through. "It is my own," he said to himself,
"even though it should scorch my skin."
Lunch-time came; it was not exactly cheerful at table and his
father-in-law's empty place seemed to threaten him. After lunch he
went up to his room to quiet his nerves and immediately afterwards the
Councillor's arrival was announced.
The Norwegian went down smiling, while a chill ran through him at
intervals. In the veranda stood a man who looked about forty, dressed
like a young man, with laughing and youthful eyes. What the Norwegian's
own demeanour was, he himself could not see, but it must have made a
favourable impression, for his new relative greeted him respectfully,
apologised for the lateness of his arrival, said kind things about his
books, and asked him to sit down.
However, he always addressed him with "you" instead of the more
intimate "thou." Then he talked of politics; he had just come from
Fredensborg. He spoke at length of this and that person, apparently
with the object of observing his son-in-law, who sat mute and
attentive. Then he turned to his wife, asked if she had anything to
entertain their guest with, and finally came back to him, asking if
he wished for anything. Without hesitating he stood up, went near his
father-in-law and said: "I have only one wish, that my wife's father
should call me 'thou.'"[1]
There was a sudden gleam in the other's eyes, he opened his arms and
now the doubter felt the same as he had when meeting his mother-in-law.
The invisible family-tie had been knit; he was genuinely moved, and
stood there transformed into a child.
"You are a good fellow," said his father-in-law, "I have looked into
your eyes." Then he kissed him on both cheeks. "But," he continued,
"you have got Maria, and you know what you have got, as I hear. Be good
enough never to come and complain to me. If you cannot tame her, you
must let yourself be drawn along by her. You have had your way; much
good may it do you!"
Then they drank coffee and talked like relatives and old acquaintances.
Then the Councillor went to change his clothes in order to go fishing.
He returned in a summer suit of white cashmere which made him look
still younger than before. The trousers had certainly belonged to
his Court uniform, and traces of gold thread were still visible upon
them, but that made an impression on the Bohemian. Moreover, his
father-in-law offered him cigars which he had been presented with by
princes.
The Councillor had dined at Court and was now going fishing with the
anarchist. The latter felt his conscience slightly uneasy as he had
not long previously admired the cleverness of some anarchists in
forcing open money-safes. It was strange! But the Councillor spoke
sympathetically of modern movements and of Scandinavian literature in
general. He was also thoroughly acquainted with the terrible activity
of his son-in-law, so that the latter had no need to feel embarrassed.
He especially approved of his views on the woman question and expressed
his opinion thus, "You have written all that I wished to write."
He was perhaps not quite serious, but he said it at any rate.
Then they reached the stream.
"Have you ever fished for perch?" asked his father-in-law.
"No," he replied.
"Then you had better help me."
The help consisted in placing the fish in a basket and clearing the
hook without injuring the artificial fly.
Since everything requires practice, the son-in-law showed himself
somewhat clumsy and got scolded. But he had become so accustomed to his
new position that he found it quite natural, just as natural as when he
used to go fishing formerly with his children.
At sunset the sport ceased, and the son-in-law had the honour of
carrying the fishing-rods, basket, and fish home.
The evening was cheerful, and the Councillor sent a telegram to London
with travelling expenses, telling the young wife to come at once.
"That is for your sake," he said to his son-in-law. In other words she
had not been sent for before, and he had therefore been enticed, as one
captures singing-birds.
"I have got well over it," he said to his mother-in-law as he bade her
good night.
"The worst is over, but it is not finished yet."
"Do you think we shall both get a whipping?"
It was not the end yet by a long way. The next morning he received a
letter from London in which she said farewell to him for ever (Lord
Byron!) because in the choice between her and her parents, he had
preferred the latter. Since there was no choice in question, this was a
piece of nonsense which concealed something. Another letter, addressed
to her mother, was to the same effect but expressed more violently and
concluded by wishing her "good luck." Her mother explained it thus.
"She is jealous, fears that you tell tales against her and find support
here; she is so self-willed that she cannot bear even her parents over
her. If you become good friends with her father and mother, she feels
herself in a child's position with regard to you also!"
This was possible but not quite natural, for she ought to have rejoiced
that he had made a conquest of her parents, and thus brought about a
reconciliation between her and them.
Her father became angry and serious; he telegraphed an ultimatum and
demanded an answer. Now the sky was clouded and there were no more
smiles. The Norwegian feared a collision if he remained here, and
telegraphed to his wife: "I am going to Copenhagen; if you do not come,
I will seek for a divorce." But he had to wait for an answer, and
therefore he remained. That night he could not sleep, for the situation
was grotesque enough to drive one to despair. Suppose she agreed to a
divorce, how could the family-tie which had just been formed be broken
in a moment? What would he be then, who had just entered into the
family and received their confidence? What would the old people think?
Such a hasty breach could not take place without some reason.
The next morning a telegram came from his young wife who was in
Holland. Since everything was fated to go crazily this telegram was so
badly worded that it might mean "I am coming to you," or "I am going to
Copenhagen to meet you there."
This telegram became a bone of contention, and for three whole days
the old pair and their son-in-law disputed over its interpretation.
But the young wife did not come. They listened to the whistles of the
steamboats, went down to meet the trains, came back and discussed
the telegram again. They had no more quiet, and could not carry on a
conversation without turning their heads and listening.
The next day the father's patience was exhausted, for a collateral
circumstance came in view, of great importance in his eyes--the
unavoidable scandal. The whole village knew that the son-in-law was
there, but that his wife had been lost and was sought for by telegram.
Her father therefore shut himself up all day, and when he emerged began
a ruthless discussion of the economic problem.
"Have you a sure income?" he asked.
"As sure as authors generally have," was the answer.
"Very well, then you must do like others, and write for the papers."
"No paper will print my articles."
"Then write them so that they can be printed."
That was more than a sceptic and quietist ought to have borne, but he
bore it and kept silence, firmly resolved rather to take a guitar on
his arm and go about as a wretched streetsinger rather than sell his
soul.
The old man had himself been a novelist and poet in his youth, but
had been obliged to give up the struggle in order to provide for his
family. He, therefore, had the right to say: "Do as I have had to do."
But on the other side he knew by experience how hard such a sacrifice
is. He immediately felt sympathy with his son-in-law and spoke
friendly, encouraging words. The next moment, however, his justified
suspicions awoke, and the memory of the sacrifice he had once made
made him bitter; he felt he must trample on an unfortunate who had
fallen under his feet. When he saw how the other kept silent and took
everything quietly, an evil spirit probably whispered to him that this
man could only bear everything so patiently because he hoped some day
to be heir in this house. Then he spoke of King Lear and his ungrateful
daughters who left the old man alone, waited for his death, and robbed
him of honour. So the day passed, and when the son-in-law withdrew, he
was sent for to be whipped again. Since he could put himself in other's
places, and understood how to suffer with them, he made no attempt to
defend himself. He could easily imagine himself old and set aside,
despised and neglected by his children. "You are right," he said, "but
still I feel myself innocent."
On the evening of the third day after the dispatch of the London
telegram his mother-in-law came to him. "You must go early to-morrow
morning," she said, "for he cannot bear to see you any more!"
"Very well, I will go."
"And if Maria comes now, she will not be received."
"Have you ever seen a man in such a position as mine?"
"No; my husband grants that too; it makes him suffer to see such a
worthy man as you in such a position; he suffers on your account, and
he does not want to suffer. You know my thoughts about it; it is no
one's fault and not the fault of circumstances; but you are fighting
against another who pursues and pursues you till you are so weary that
you will be compelled to seek rest in the only place where rest is to
be found. In me you will always have a friend, even if you are divorced
from my daughter, and I shall follow the course of your destiny with my
good wishes and my prayers."
When alone in his room, he felt a certain relief to think that
to-morrow there would be an end of this wretchedness which was among
the worst things he had experienced. In order to think of something
else, he took up a paper which proved to be the official Court news.
His eye flew over the first page down to the feuilleton, where a
literary essay attracted his attention. He read it, thinking that his
father-in-law had written it. At the first glance the article showed
great familiarity with literature, but it contained over-confident
judgments and was written in too artificial a style. Moreover, it
surprised him by displaying hostility to all modern literature
(including Scandinavian), while German literature was pointed to with
special emphasis as that which set the tone to, and stood highest in
the civilised world. Germany always at the head!
When he reached the end of the article, he saw that it was signed
by his wife! Now he had promised her never to read her articles and
he had kept this promise in order to avoid literary discussions in
his married life. The only reason that her written sentiments were
different from those which she expressed in daily conversation must be
that she had to write so "in order to be printed." What a double life
this woman must lead, appearing in Radical circles as an anarchist,
and in the Court paper as an old-fashioned Conservative! How one could
so change about he did not understand, and he was too tired to try to
understand it. But that explained why she could not understand his
being without occupation while there were plenty of pens and paper.
This worldly wisdom, this old-fashioned style seemed to suggest a bald
head and spectacles rather than a young, beautiful, laughing girl who
could lie on a sofa and eat sweetmeats like an odalisque.
"To think that people should be so complicated!" he said to himself.
"It is interesting at any rate! I shall remember it next time!" And
he fell asleep, thinking himself considerably wiser after these
experiences.
At seven o'clock he got up, called by a man who was to take his things
to the station. As his mother-in-law had told him the train did not
start till nearly eight, he made no hurry, but dressed quietly and went
down into the garden where he met her. They were standing and talking
of what lay before him when a rough, thundering voice was heard from a
window of the first story. It was his father-in-law.
"Haven't you gone yet?"
"No; the train doesn't go till quarter to eight!"
"What idiot told you that?"
That he could not say, as it was his mother-in-law.
"Well, hurry on to the station and see when the next train goes."
As the Norwegian hesitated, there came a sharp "Now!" like the crack
of a whip over a horse. It was quite clear to him what he had to do
now; he pressed his mother-in-law's hand and went. His firm steps
must have shown that they were the opposite to those leading to the
lion's cave,[2] going out and away but never returning, for he heard
immediately the old man's voice in a caressing, lamenting tone: "Axel!"
It felt like a stab in the departer's breast, but he had begun to move,
and went on without looking round.
He went down to the station, looked ostensibly at the railway guide,
asked about the next train without listening to the answer, saw by the
position of the sun which direction was north-east, and struck into
the nearest highway. He did this all so quietly, as though he had long
considered the plan. Soon he found himself out in the country, alone
without a home, without baggage, without an overcoat, and nothing but a
walking-stick in his hand. He felt angry with no one; his father-in-law
was right, and his last call sounded like an appeal for forgiveness for
his bad temper. Yes, he only felt guilty with regard to this man, on
whom he had brought shame and sorrow. But in himself he felt innocent,
for he had only acted according to his obligations and possibilities.
Meanwhile he was free and had left the worst hell behind him; the sun
shone, the landscape lay green and open, he had the whole world before
him. He shook off the child's clothes which he had worn for eight
days, felt himself a man again, and marched on. His plan was to reach
a certain place on foot; there to take a steamer, to telegraph for his
baggage and so to travel to Copenhagen.
"The affair is really ludicrous," he said to himself; "if it were not
tragic for the old people. It looks bad, but I have survived worse
things. I am a tramp! Very good! Then all claims to honour and respect
have ceased. It is soothing at all events to have nothing more to
lose. Hurrah!"
He marched into the next village like an old soldier and ordered wine
and tobacco. He felt hilarious, and chatted with the innkeeper. Then
he went on again. But at intervals he became sentimental; thought of
his mother-in-law's words about the wild chase; had to admit that there
was something uncanny about it, for he had never yet experienced such
a misfortune; and if other people noticed it, it could not be mere
imagination. But that was nothing strange, for he had had bad luck ever
since he was a child. But fancy placing a man in such a position! He
would not even have treated an enemy with such hellish cruelty.
Meanwhile he reached Odense, came to Korsör and soon afterwards to
Copenhagen. It was evening and he sent a messenger to the family where
his wife generally stayed. Since she had not come to the Arreskov Lake,
she must be in Copenhagen. On the visiting-card which he sent he only
wrote: "A somewhat strange question: where is my wife?"
The man who has not waited for an hour and a half on a pavement does
not know how long this time can be. But this interval of waiting was
abridged by the hope that after a silence-cure of eight days in
Hamburg, five weeks of simple imprisonment at Rügen, and a week of the
nethermost hell at Fünen, he would see his wife again. After an hour
and a half the messenger returned with another visiting-card on which
was written: "She left this morning for Fünen in order to meet you."
A miss again! "I begin to find this monotonous even when regarded as a
plot," he said to himself.
If one had used it for the plan of a novel, the reader would throw the
book away and exclaim: "No! that is too thick! And as a farce it isn't
cheerful enough!"
Nevertheless, it was a fact! The next minute he thought: "My poor,
unfortunate wife is going straight into the lion's den. Now she
will get blows." For her father's anger was now unbounded, and his
mother-in-law had said during the last days of his stay: "If she comes
now, he will beat her." Therefore he telegraphed to the old lady to say
that his wife was coming, and asked indulgence for her.
It would take four days for her to return. In order not to remain in
Copenhagen where his wedding journey had been reported in the papers,
he stayed in a village outside the town where an old friend of his
lived with his family. In the boarding-house where he stayed the same
hog's-wash regime prevailed as in Rügen. In two days he lost as much
strength as though he had had an attack of typhus. One chewed till
one's jaws were weary, went hungry to table, and rose again tired and
hungry.
His friend was not the same as before. Rendered melancholy by
disappointments he seemed to find this a favourable opportunity to
display a visible satisfaction at seeing the well-known author in such
a sorry plight. His sympathy took the heartiest, and at the same time
the most insulting forms. When the Norwegian related his adventures on
the wedding journey, his hearer stared at him in such a way that he
made a hasty end of his narrative in order not to be stigmatised as a
liar.
The village was on marshy ground, and over-shadowed by very old trees;
one became melancholy there without knowing why. When he walked down
one of the streets of the village he was astonished to see people at
the windows regarding him furtively with wild, distracted looks, and
immediately afterwards shyly hiding themselves behind the curtains.
This disquieted him and he wondered whether a false report had been
spread that he was mad. When he asked his friend about it, the latter
answered: "Don't you know where you are?"
The question sounded strangely, and might mean: "Are you so confused
that you have lost consciousness?"
"I am in X----" he answered, in order not to betray his suspicion.
"And don't you know what X---- is?"
"No!"
"It is simply a lunatic asylum; the inhabitants make a living by taking
care of mad people." And he laughed.
The Norwegian inquired no further, but he asked himself: "Have they
enticed me into a trap in order to watch me?"
He had grounds for such a suspicion, for such an occurrence had already
happened in his life.
His whole existence now became a single effort to show himself so
ordinary in his way of thinking and normal in his behaviour, that
nothing "unusual" might be noticed in him. He did not dare to give
vent to an original thought or to utter a paradox, and whenever the
temptation came to narrate something of his wedding journey he pinched
his knee.
This continual fear of being watched depressed him so much that he saw
watching eyes everywhere, and thought he noticed traps laid for him
in questions where there were none. Sensitive as he was, he believed
that the whole village exhaled the contagious atmosphere of the
lunatics; he became depressed and feared to go mad himself. But he did
not attempt to go away, partly because he feared being arrested at the
station, and partly because he had told his wife to meet him at this
village.
He had received letters from Arreskov, in which his mother-in-law
informed him what disquiet and anxiety his disappearance had caused
them. His father-in-law, who well knew what he would have done in the
unfortunate man's place, had immediately foreboded his suicide and wept
aloud. They had searched for him by the banks of the lake and in the
wood.... He stopped reading the letter and felt his conscience prick
him. The good old man had wept! How terrible his lot must be, when the
sight of it had that effect on others! The letter went on to say that
Maria had arrived, and that they would soon meet again, if he only
kept quiet, for she loved him. This was a ray of light and it gave him
strength to endure this hell, where everyone looked askance at his
neighbour to see whether he were in his senses.
But the two last days brought new tortures. The Swede whom he had met
in the Copenhagen café had accepted an invitation to come to dinner.
The Norwegian went gladly to the station to meet his best friend, who
understood him better than anyone else, and who, though poor himself,
had tried to make interest for him with rich people, and to procure
the help for him which he himself could not obtain. But now he met
a stranger who looked at him coldly and treated him as a stranger.
There was no smile of recognition on his part, no inquiry after the
Norwegian's health and especially no allusion to the past.
After dinner he took the host aside and asked: "Is the Swede angry with
me?"
"Angry? No! But you understand he has now married Lais."
"Married?"
"Yes, and therefore he does not like to be reminded that she was your
friend."
"I understand that, but it is not my fault that I was her friend before
she knew that the Swede was in existence."
"No, certainly not; but you have gossiped about her."
"I only said what everyone else said, since it was no secret. She
herself so boasted of her conquests that they were bound to become
public."
"Yes, but the fact is as I say."
The Swede remained in the hotel, and therefore the Norwegian was
relegated to solitude. In order to while away the time he made use of
the flora of the neighbourhood in order to study the biology of plants.
For this purpose he carried about with him on his walks a morphia
syringe, intending to see whether the plants were sensitive to this
nerve poison. He wished to prove by experiment that they possess a
sensitive nervous system.
One afternoon he sat drinking a glass of wine at a garden restaurant on
the outskirts of the village. Over his table hung the branches of an
apple-tree, laden with small red apples. These were suitable for his
purpose. Accordingly, he stood on his chair, made an insertion with the
morphia syringe in the twig which bore the apple, but pressed too hard,
so that it fell. At that instant he heard a cry and halloo from the
wooded slope behind him, and saw an angry man, followed by his wife and
child, come rushing towards him with uplifted stick. "There! I have him
at last!" he cried.
Him! He was mistaken for an apple stealer for whom they had been
watching.
The Norwegian summoned all his Buddhistic philosophy to his aid, got
down from the chair, and sat expecting to be led off by gendarmes as he
had been caught in the act. It was impossible to explain his conduct,
for none of the authorities could approve such an eccentric act as the
inoculation of an apple-tree with morphia.
Meanwhile a minute passed while the angry man was running along by a
fence and entering the enclosure. Like one condemned to death, the
Norwegian sat there awaiting a blow from the stick as an earnest of
what was to follow. He was firmly resolved to die like a warrior, and
did not trouble to devise useless explanations, but only thought: "This
is the most devilish experience I have had in my whole terrible life."
Sixty seconds are a long time but they pass at last!
Whether it was the Norwegian's carefully groomed exterior and expensive
suit, the wine and the best kind of cigarettes, or something quite
different which had a mollifying effect, the angry man, who had
certainly not had such a stylish customer before, bared his head, and
only asked whether the gentleman had been attended to. The Norwegian,
answering politely, noticed how the restaurant keeper stared at the
morphia syringe, the powder box and the glass of water.
With the free-and-easy tone of a man of the world, the Norwegian
explained the embarrassing situation: "I am a botanist, and was just
about to make an experiment when you surprised me in a very suspicious
position."
"Pray, doctor, do as though you were in your own house, and be quite at
your ease," was the reply.
After exchanging some remarks about the weather, the restaurant keeper
went indoors; he muttered something to the waitress which the Norwegian
thought he overheard. It caused him to take his departure, but in a
leisurely way. "He thought I was one of the lunatics," he said to
himself. "That was my deliverance. I can't come here again, however."
Several hours passed, but the impression of the sixty seconds of
humiliation and the lifted stick still remained. "That is not
mischance; that is something else," was his conclusion, as usual.
The next morning he took his walk and meditated on his destiny. "Why
haven't you shot yourself?" Let him say who can. One view was that,
finally, all difficulties are disentangled and experience shows that
the end is good. This used to be called "hope," and by means of it one
warped one's ship half an ell farther, as with a kedge anchor. Others
maintained that it was curiosity which supported people. They wanted to
see the sequel, just as when one reads a novel, or sees a play.
The Norwegian, for his part, had never found an aim in life. Religion
certainly said that one should be improved here below, but he had only
seen himself forced into situations from which he emerged worse than
before. One certainly became a little more tolerant towards one's
brother-men, but this tolerance strongly resembled moral laxity.
Those who smile indulgently at others' crimes are not far from being
criminals themselves. When in conversation it was alleged that one
should love one's fellow-men, he used to deliver himself of his final
sentiment as follows: "I neither love them nor hate them; I put up with
them as they put up with me."
The fact that he was never entirely crushed by a sorrow sprang from
his having an indistinct suspicion that life had no complete reality,
but was a dream stage, and that our actions, even the worst of them,
were carried out under the influence of some strong suggestive power
other than ourselves. He therefore felt himself to a certain extent
irresponsible. He did not deny his badness, but knew also that in his
innermost being there was an upward, striving spirit which suffered
from the humiliation of being confined in a human body. It was this
inner personality which possessed the sensitive conscience, which could
sometimes, to his alarm, press forward and become sentimental, weeping
over his or her wretchedness--which of the two, it was hard to say.
Then his second self laughed at the foolishness of the first, and this
"divine frivolity," as he called it, served him better than morbid
brooding.
When he came home from his work, he found his door shut. Full of
foreboding, he knocked and uttered his own name. When the door opened,
his young, wild wife fell on his neck. It seemed to him quite natural
and simple, as though he had left her two minutes before. She spoke not
a word of reproach, inquiry, or explanation, but only this: "Have you
much money or little?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"Because I have much, and want a good dinner in Copenhagen."
In this they were agreed, and such was their reunion. And why not? Two
months of torture were forgotten and obliterated as though they had
never been; the disgrace of a separation about which people had perhaps
already gossiped, had vanished.
"If anyone asked me," he said, "about what we had quarrelled I would
not be able to remember."
"Nor I, either. But, therefore, we will never, never part again. We
must not separate for half a day, or everything goes crazy."
This was certainly the wisest plan, he thought, and so did she. And yet
one recollection came into his mind of Dover and another of London,
when they were not apart for a moment, and just for that very reason
everything went quite crazy. But they must not be too particular.
"And how is the old father?" he asked.
"Ah, he was so fond of you that I became jealous."
"I have noticed that. How did he receive you?"
"Well, I won't talk about that. But it was for your sake, so I forgave
him." Even at that she could smile, as indeed she could at everything.
Well then, we will feast to-day, and work to-morrow.
[Footnote 1: Intimate friends thus address each other in Swedish.]
[Footnote 2: _Vide_ Horace.]