She, too, dreads the transition years. She tries in vain to cheat old
age. Lately she adopted a "court mourning" style of dress, and wore
little, neat, respect-impelling mantillas round her thin,
Spanish-looking face. One of these days, when she is close upon fifty,
we shall see her return to all the colours of the rainbow and to ostrich
plumes. She lives in hopes of a new springtide in life. Shall I invite
her here?
She would come, of course, by the first train, scenting the air with
wide nostrils, like a stag, and an array of trunks behind her!
No! To ask her would be a lamentable confession of failure.
* * * * *
The last few days I have arrived at a condition of mind which occasions
great self-admiration. I am now sure that, even if the difference in our
ages did not exist, I could never marry Malthe.
I could do foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I have
loved with all my heart. I could humble myself to be his mistress; I
could die with him. But set up a home with Joergen Malthe--never!
The terrible part of home life is that every piece of furniture in the
house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long
after love has died out--if, indeed, it ever existed between them. Two
human beings--who differ as much as two human beings always must do--are
compelled to adopt the same tastes, the same outlook. The home is built
upon this incessant conflict. The struggle often goes on in silence, but
it is not the less bitter, even when concealed.
How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration
masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel would have
done.... What a profound contempt I felt for his tastes; and, without
saying it in words, how he disapproved of mine!
No! His home was not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal couple,
at one on all points. My person for his money--that was the bargain,
crudely but truthfully expressed.
* * * * *
Just as one arranges the scenery for a _tableau vivant_, I prepared my
"living grave" in this house, which Malthe built in ignorance of its
future occupant. And here I have learnt that joy of possession which
hitherto I have only known in respect of my jewellery.
This house is really my home. My first and only home. Everything here is
dear to me, because it _is_ my own.
I love the very earthworms because they do good to my garden. The birds
in the trees round about the house are my property. I almost wish I
could enclose the sky and clouds within a wall and make them mine.
In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I
left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body.
Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger
to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine.
I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me
before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I
shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the
bare deal table, the dusty books, the trunk covered with a travelling
rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor.
Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over
me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured
to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth
interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air
with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their
touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his passion, and yet he
went on discussing this wretched dome--about which I cared as little as
for the inkstains on his table.