of belonging together had disappeared. They were able to talk about
what they were going to do next week, next month, or even the month
following, but it did not interest them as though it had to do with days
out of their own lives. It was merely a time of waiting, which somehow
or other had to be endured, for all three mentally asked themselves: And
what then? They felt no solid foundation in their lives; there was no
ground to build upon before this, which had separated them, was settled.
Every day that passed the children forgot more and more what their
mother had meant to them, in the fashion in which children who believe
themselves wronged will forget a thousand benefactions for the sake of
one injustice.
Tage was the most sensitive of them, but also the one who was hurt
most deeply, because he had loved most. He had wept through long nights
because of his mother whom he could not retain in the way in which he
wanted. There were times when the memory of her love almost deafened all
other feelings in his heart. One day he even went to her and beseeched
and implored her that she might belong to them, to them alone, and not
to any other one, and the answer had been a “no.” And this “no” had made
him hard and cold. At first he had been afraid of this coldness, because
it was accompanied by a frightful emptiness.
The case with Elinor was different. In a strange way she had felt that
it was an injustice toward her father, and she began to worship him like
a fetish. Even though she but dimly remembered him, she recreated him
for herself in most vivid fashion by becoming absorbed in everything
she had ever heard about him. She asked Kastager about him and Tage,
and every morning and night she kissed a medallion-portrait of his which
belonged to her. She longed with a somewhat hysterical desire for some
letters from him which she had left at home, and for things which had
once belonged to him.
In proportion as the father in this way rose in her estimation, the
mother sank. The fact that she had fallen in love with a man harmed
her less in her daughter’s eyes; but she was no lenger the mother, the
unfailing, the wisest, the supreme, most beautiful. She was a woman like
other women; not quite, but just because not quite, it was possible to
criticize and judge her and to find weaknesses and faults in her. Elinor
was glad that she had not confided her unhappy love to her mother; but
she did not know how much it was due to her mother that she had not done
so.
One day passed like another, and their life became more and more
unendurable. All three felt that it was useless; instead of bringing
them together, it only drove them further apart.
Mrs. Kastager had now recovered. Though she had not played an active
part in anything that had happened, she knew more about the situation
than any one else, because everything had been told her. One day she
had a long talk with Mrs. Fonss who was glad that there was some one who
would quietly listen to her plans for the future. In this conversation
Mrs. Kastager suggested that the children go with her to Nice, while
they sent for Thorbrogger to come to Avignon, so that they might be
married. Kastager could stay on as witness.
Mrs. Fonss wavered a little while longer, for she had been unable to
discover what her children’s reaction would be. When they were told,
they accepted it with proud silence, and when they were pressed for
answer, they merely said that they would, of course, adjust themselves
to whatever she decided to do.
So things turned out as Mrs. Kastager had proposed. She said good-by to
the children, and they left; Thorbrogger came, and they were married.
Spain became their home; Thorbrogger chose it for the sake of
sheep-farming.
Neither of them wished to return to Denmark.
And they lived happily in Spain.
She wrote several times to her children, but in their first violent
anger that she had left them, they returned the letters. Later they
regretted it; they were unable, however, to admit this to their mother
and to write to her; for that reason all communication between them
ceased. But now and then in round about ways they heard about each
other’s lives.
For five years Thorbrogger and his wife lived happily, but then she
suddenly fell ill. It was a disease whose course ran swiftly and whose
end was necessarily fatal. Her strength dwindled hourly, and one day
when the grave was no longer far away she wrote to her children.
“Dear children,” she wrote, “I know that you will read this letter, for
it will not reach you until after my death. Do not be afraid, there are
no reproaches in these lines; would that I might make them bear enough
love.
“When people love, Tage and Elinor, little Elinor, the one who loves
most must always humble himself, and therefore I come to you once more,
as in my thoughts I shall come to you every hour as long as I am able.
One who is about to die, dear children, is very poor; I am very poor,
for all this beautiful world, which for so many years has been my
abundant and kindly home, is to be taken from me. My chair will stand
here empty, the door will close behind me, and never again will I set my
foot here. Therefore I look at everything with the prayer in my eye that
it shall hold me in kind memory. Therefore I come to you and beg that
you will love me with all the love which once you had for me; for
remember that not to be forgotten is the only part in the living world
which from now on is to be mine; just to be remembered, nothing more.
“I have never doubted your love; I knew very well that it was your great
love, that caused your great anger; had you loved me less, you would
have let me go more easily. And therefore I want to say to you, that
should some day it happen that a man bowed down with sorrow come to your
door to speak with you concerning me, to talk about me to relieve his
sorrow, then remember that no one has loved me as he has, and that all
the happiness which can radiate from a human heart has come from him to
me. And soon in the last great hour he will hold my hand in his when the
darkness comes, and his words will be the last I shall hear....
“Farewell, I say it here, but it is not the farewell which will be the
last to you; it I will say as late as I dare, and all my love will be
in it, and all the longings for so many, many years, and the memories
of the time when you were small, and a thousand wishes and a thousand
thanks. Farewell Tage, farewell Elinor, farewell until the last
farewell.
“YOUR MOTHER.”
End of Project Gutenberg’s Mogens and Other Stories, by Jens Peter Jacobsen