"Did you regret your bargain?"
She looked me straight in the face:
"I don't know. I only thought about my stockings."
Naturally such conversations are rather risky; I shall avoid them in
future. But the riddle is more puzzling than ever. What brought Jeanne
to share my solitude on this island?
* * * * *
Now we have a man about the place. Torp got him. He digs in the garden
and chops wood. But the odour impregnates Torp and even reaches me.
He makes eyes at Jeanne, who looks at me and smiles. Torp makes a fuss
of him, and every night I smell his pipe in the basement.
* * * * *
I have shut myself upstairs and played patience. The questions I put to
the cards come from that casket of memories the seven keys of which I
believed I had long since thrown into the sea. A wretched form of
amusement! But the piano makes me feel sad, and there is nothing else to
do.
Malthe's letter is still intact. I wander around it like a mouse round a
trap of which it suspects the danger. My heart meanwhile yearns to know
what words he uses.
He and I belong to each other for the rest of our lives. We owe that to
my wisdom. If he never sees me, he will never be able to forget me.
* * * * *
How could I suppose it for a single moment! There is no possibility of
remaining alone with oneself! No degree of seclusion, nor even life in a
cell, would suffice. Strong as is the call of freedom, the power of
memory is stronger; so that no one can ever choose his society at will.
Once we have lived with our kind, and become filled with the knowledge
of them, we are never free again.
A sound, a scent--and behold a person, a scene, or a destiny, rises up
before us. Very often the phantoms that come thronging around me are
those of people whose existence is quite indifferent to me. But they
appear all the same--importunate, overbearing, inevitable.
We may close our doors to visitors in the flesh; but we are forced to
welcome these phantoms of the memory; to notice them and converse with
them without reserve.
People become like books to me. I read them through, turn the pages
lightly, annotate them, learn them by heart. Sometimes I am at fault; I
see them in a new light. Things that were not clear to me become plain;
what was apparently incomprehensible becomes as straightforward as a
commercial ledger.
It might be a fascinating occupation if I could control the entire
collection of these memories; but I am the slave of those that come
unbidden. In the town it was just the reverse; one impression effaced
another. I did not realise that thought might become a burden.
* * * * *
The time draws on. The last few days my nerves have made me feverish and
restless; to-day for no special reason I opened and read all my letters,
except his. It was like reading old newspapers; yet my heart beat faster
with each one I opened.
Life there in the city runs its course, only it has nothing more to do
with me, and before long I shall have dropped out of memory like one
long dead. All these hidden fears, all this solicitude, these good
wishes, preachings and forebodings--there is not a single genuine
feeling among the whole of them!
Margethe Ernst is the only one of my old friends who is sincere and
does not let herself be carried away by false sentiment. She writes
cynically, brutally even: "An injection of morphia would have had just
the same effect on you; but everyone to his own taste."
As to Lillie, with her simple, gushing nature, she tries to write
lightly and cheerfully, but one divines her tears between the lines. She
wishes me every happiness, and assures me she will take Malthe under her
motherly wing.
"He is quiet and taciturn, but fortunately much engrossed with his plans
for the new hospital which will keep him in Denmark for some years to
come."
His work absorbs him; he is young enough to forget.
As to the long accounts of deaths, accidents and scandals, a year or two
ago they might have stirred me in much the same way as the sight of a
fire or a play. Now it amuses me quite as much to watch the smoke from
my chimney, as it ascends and seems to get caught in the tops of the
trees.
Richard is still travelling with his grief, and entertains me
scrupulously with accounts of all the sights he sees and of his lonely
sleepless nights. Are they always as lonely as he makes out?
As in the past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions and his
whole middle-class outlook. Yet for many years he dominated my senses,
which gives him a certain hold over me still. I cannot make up my mind
to take the brutal step which would free me once and for all from him. I
must let him go on believing that our life together was happy.
Why did I read all these letters? What did I expect to find? A certain
vague hope stirred within me that if I opened them I should discover
something unexpected.
The one remaining letter--shall I ever find courage to open it? I _will_
not know what he has written. He does not write well I know. He is not a
good talker; his writing would probably be worse. And yet, I look upon
that sealed letter as a treasure.
Merely touching it, I feel as though I was in the same room with him.
* * * * *
Lillie's letter has really done me good; her regal serenity makes itself
apparent beneath all she undertakes. It is wonderful that she does not
preach at me like the others. "You must know what is right for yourself
better than anybody else," she says. These words, coming from her, have
brought me unspeakable strength and comfort, even though I feel that she
can have no idea of what is actually taking place within me.
Life for Lillie can be summed up in the words, "the serene passage of
the days." Happy Lillie. She glides into old age just as she glided into
marriage, smiling, tranquil, and contented. Nobody, nothing, can disturb
her quietude.
It is so when both body and soul find their repose and happiness in the
same identical surroundings.
* * * * *
Jeanne, with some embarrassment, asked permission to use the bathroom.
I gave her leave. It is quite possible that living in the basement is
not to her taste. To put a bathroom down there would take nearly a
fortnight, and during that time I shall be deprived of my own, for I
cannot share my bathroom or my bedroom with anyone, least of all a
woman....
I shall never forget the one visit I paid to the Russian baths and the
sight of Hilda Bang. Clothed, she presents rather a fine appearance,
with a good figure; but seen amid the warm steam, in nature's garb, she
seemed horrible.
I would rather walk through an avenue of naked men than appear before
another woman without clothes. This feeling does not spring from
modesty--what is it?
* * * * *
How quiet it is here! Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays the steamer for
England goes by. I know its coming by the sound of the screw, but I take
care never to see it pass. What if I were seized with an impulse to
embark on her....
If one fine morning when Jeanne brought the tea she found the bird
flown?
The time is gone by. Life is over.
I am getting used to sitting here and stitching at my seam. My work does
not amount to much, but the mechanical movement brings a kind of
restfulness.
I find I am getting rather capricious. Between meals I ring two or three
times a day for tea--like a convalescent trying a fattening cure. Jeanne
attends to my hair with indefatigable care. Without her, should I ever
trouble to do it at all?
What can any human being want more than this peace and silence?
* * * * *
If I could only lose this sense of being empty-handed, all would be
well. Yesterday I went down to the seashore and gathered little pebbles.
I carried them away and amused myself by taking them up in handfuls.
During the night I felt impelled to get up and fetch them, and this
morning I awoke with a round stone in each hand.
Hysteria takes strange forms. But who knows what is the real ground of
hysteria? I used to think it was the special malady of the unmated
woman; but, in later years, I have known many who had had a full share
of the passional life, legitimate and otherwise, and yet still suffered
from hysteria.
* * * * *
I begin to realise the fascination of the cloister; the calm, uniform,
benumbing existence. But my comparison does not apply. The nun renounces
all will and responsibility, while I cannot give up one or the other.
I have reached this point, however; only that which is bounded by my
garden hedge seems to me really worthy of consideration. The house in
the Old Market Place may be burnt down for all I care. Richard may marry
again. Malthe may....
Yes, I think I could receive the news in silence like the monk to whom
the prior announces, "One of the brethren is dead, pray for his soul."
No one present knows, nor will ever know, whether his own brother or
father has passed away.
What hopeless cowardice prevents my opening his letter!