When Cordt had finished telling the story of the old room, he sat by
the window and looked across the square, where the dusk was gathering
about the newly-lighted lamps.
The servant entered noiselessly and lit the chandelier and went out
noiselessly again. And the light filled the whole of the room and fell
upon Cordt, who sat and gazed before him, and upon Finn, who stood by
him with his eyes fixed on his face.
But Finn and Cordt were not where the light found them.
They were in the wonderful mystery of the old room. They heard the
rippling of the fountain outside in the silent square; they saw the
blaze of the red flowers on the balcony. The slender notes of the
spinet sounded in their ears; Fru Adelheid’s white gown rustled over
the floor.
And, when Cordt turned his face towards his son, he appeared to Finn
as a very big, old man; and Finn seemed to Cordt the little child that
once lay and laughed in the cradle and fought with its little fat fists.
Then Cordt stood up and took Finn’s arm and they walked to and fro,
silent, overcome with what they had seen and afraid lest they should
shatter the dream by speaking.
They walked for some time. And, when, at length, they stopped before
the window, which was dewed with the heat, so that they could see
nothing through it, Cordt remembered that there was still something
which Finn ought to know and which he could not ask about.
He looked at Finn and remembered how he had loved his mother.
It was her eyes, but more restful-looking; her mouth, but paler and
tired, as though it had tried a thousand times to say something which
it never could. He had her slender waist and he was taller than Cordt,
but carried his height like a burden. Then he also had Fru Adelheid’s
pale cheeks and forehead, but Cordt’s hair, only thicker still and
blacker.
“Finn,” said Cordt and laid his hands on his shoulders.
Finn started and could not look at him. But Cordt took him under
the chin and lifted his head and looked with a sad smile into his
frightened eyes:
“There is only one thing left to tell you, Finn.... Fru Adelheid did
not take a lover.”
His smile widened when he saw his son’s sudden and great joy; and he
drew him to him and kissed him.
But then he suddenly left him and sat down somewhere in the room, with
his back to him. Finn followed him and stood by him for a while and
thought kindly and fondly of him and could find nothing to say.
The thoughts rushed through Cordt’s head.
Now that he had lived through it all anew, the scab broke which the
silence of many years had placed upon the wound in his will. His eyes
grew hard and angry, he wanted to speak as he used to speak when he
fought his hopeless fight for Fru Adelheid.
But then his glance fell upon Finn.
He sat as he liked best to sit, with bent head and his hands open upon
his knees.
And Cordt grew gentle again and said, softly:
“You are glad, of course. For, you see, she is your mother.”
He crossed the room and came back and stood with his arm over the back
of the chair and looked at Finn, who was lost in his thoughts. It was
silent in the room and silent outside, for it was Sunday. They could
hear the bells ringing for evening service.
“She never secured the red flowers in the place of the blue which she
valued so little,” said Cordt, “I don’t know ... I often thought....”
The bells rang out.
There was one that was quite close and one that was farther away, but
louder, nevertheless. And there was a sound of distant bells which
could not be distinguished from one another, but which sang in the air.
It sounded louder than it was, because they were thinking of it; and
the ringing grew and filled the room with its deafening clamor.
Then there came a rumbling in the gateway. The carriage drove out in
the soft snow, where they could not hear it.
“That’s Fru Adelheid going to church,” said Cordt.
He sat down by his son and began to talk in a low voice and without
looking at him.
The bells rang and then suddenly stopped and increased the silence a
hundredfold.
“There was a night at Landeck when the bells caught her, a night
following upon a day of sunshine and merriment and many people. She
was the gayest of us all and, in the evening, all at once, she became
silent and tired, as so often happened, without any cause that I knew
of.... You were with us. You were ten years old then; you lay and
slept. We had been standing together by your bed and looking at you and
she began to cry and I could do nothing but hold her hand in mine and
stop speaking.”
Finn listened, as he had just listened to the bells, without making
out what the words had to tell him. He only knew that his mother was
without blame and that his father had been able to tell it him all on
that day and to leave it to him to pronounce judgment between himself
and her. His joy at this sang within him and made all the rest easy and
light and indifferent.
And Cordt continued:
“Then I went out on the verandah with my cigar and she stood in
the doorway and listened to the bell of a little chapel up in the
mountains, where we had been during the day. We had heard the story
when we were there. Once, in the old days, a pious man had built the
chapel in expiation of a sin and, since then, the bell had rung two
hours after midnight every day.... She asked whether it would go on
ringing till the end of the world and we came to talk of all the
bells that ring over the earth, by day and by night, sun up and sun
down, and comfort weary mortals.... Sometimes she was silent. But the
bell rang up there constantly. And she constantly began to talk again
and constantly about the same thing. About the bells that sounded so
eternally and so identically over the whole world ... about those who
heard them for the first time, one day when they were running like wild
heathens in the endless wood ... about those whose will suddenly broke
in the midst of the modern crowd, so that they fell on their knees and
crept away where the bells summoned them.”
Finn looked up. The words now caught his mind and he woke from his
dreams.
“I see her before me still, as she stood on the night when she carried
her soul to God. Her strange eyes lifted to the stars ... her white
face ... her hands ... and her words, which came so quickly, as
though her life depended upon their coming, and so heavily, as though
every one of them caused her pain. She never gave it a thought that I
was there: she spoke as though she were doing public penance in the
church-porch.... And then she declared that it was over.... It had
become empty around her and cold and dark to anguish and despair, there
where her glad eyes had beamed upon the lights and the crowd of the
feast. Despair had come long since and slowly and she had closed her
eyes to it and denied it. It had grown and come nearer to her and she
had run away from it, as though she were running for her life. Now it
was there and reached from earth to heaven, in her, around her, far and
wide. And, if the bells could not conquer it, then she must die.”
Cordt spoke so softly that Finn could hardly catch his words.
“Then the bell up there ceased. Soon after, the day dawned and the
sun shone on her white, moist cheeks. She was still now and silent,
but her thoughts were the same. When things began to stir around us,
in the town and at the hotel, she went out, I did not know where,
but I daresay she was at the chapel. Towards evening, she returned
and, at midnight, we sat on the verandah again and listened to the
church-bell.... A week passed thus. I often feared for her reason. She
always talked of the same thing and it was almost worse when she was
silent. I sent old Hans home with you and, the next day, we left. But
it was long before we reached home. She wanted to travel by the same
road which we had taken on the journey out. She said she wanted to pray
in every church which she had passed on her hunt for happiness through
the world.”
Finn half raised himself in his chair:
“And did you?” he asked.
“I did as she wished. It became a pilgrimage to every region where life
lies nakedest in its pleasure. Restlessly we travelled from place to
place. She omitted none, afraid lest there should remain a single sin
which she had not prayed away, a single memory which the bells had not
rung into the grave.”
“And then did you come home?”
Cordt looked at his son as if he had forgotten that he was in the room.
He suddenly awoke to the consciousness of what lay between those days
and these; and his face became so gloomy and his eyes so serious that
Finn was frightened.
“Then we came home. And then....”
He rose quickly and stood with his arms crossed on his breast and
looked at Finn:
“Then we came home. And the years passed and Fru Adelheid recovered her
peace of mind. She found herself again and became the same as in the
old days. Her thoughts waver restlessly, her desires yearn insatiably.
Her carriage now rattles through the streets as before ... only it
stops at the church instead of the theatre.”
Finn wanted to speak, but could not, because Cordt stood in front of
him and looked at him fixedly and nodded to him, once, as if to say
that he knew what it was and that it was no use.
“She goes to Heaven’s table,” said Cordt, “and Heaven comes to her
parties.”
Finn sank back in his chair.
He was surprised and ashamed that he was not grieved with his father
for saying that, nor with his mother, if it were true. He knew that he
ought to rouse himself to protest or sympathy, but could not, because
he understood it all so well.
But Cordt crossed the room with a firm stride:
“Heaven is not what Fru Adelheid thinks, nor where she seeks it,”
he said. “Perhaps you will not understand me until you have lived
longer in the world; but look here, Finn ... what I have seen of God
in my life I have seen most in those who denied Him. In their sense of
responsibility, in their humanity ... in their pride I have seen God’s
splendor. The others, those who confess His name and fill His house ...
they masked Him from me so closely, when they ought to glorify Him,
made Him so small, when they praised His might....”
He talked about this for a time. Finn sat dumb and helpless in his
chair and wished his father would cease. He felt like one who has
inadvertently witnessed something he ought not to see, or like one who
is receiving a confidence under a false pretence.
And deep down within him lay a little ironical astonishment at the fire
and authority with which his father was talking.
But, at that moment, Cordt sat down in front of him with both his hands
in his own and sad and gentle eyes and words as soft and humble as
though he were a sinner begging for peace:
“I don’t know, Finn. I cannot really tell you anything about it. I can
never talk with you about these things. A father is a poor creature,
Finn, and I am a poor father. I cannot tell you that the forest is
green and that the birds sing and that there is nothing behind the blue
sky. I dare not, Finn. I do not think I have the right to. I cannot go
to church with you, either ... nor even be glad when you go with your
mother.”
He pressed Finn’s hands nervously. They lay dead in his and Finn did
not know what to do with his eyes.
“But I must talk to you a little ... just this once ... to-day, when
I have confessed to you and made up your parents’ accounts. If you
will try to understand me ... and to forgive me ... to forgive us,
because we are not so rich as our child could expect ... since we
have a child.... You love the bells, Finn. When they ring, you fall
a-dreaming; they ring you far away from where you are. You were like
that ever since you were a little boy. And I can well understand it.
I love them, too. I am glad because they are there. But ... Finn ...
Finn, there are so many bells in the world besides those which summon
us to church. Every man has his own, which are his and his only ...
which he alone can hear, which call no one but him. There are men,
opulent, charming men, for whom the bells ring wherever they set foot.
They lead more powerful lives than we and prouder lives. They suffer
us ... those of us who love them. But there is not in the world a man
so small but that the bells call him. One has them in his work, Finn.
And one in his child ... and one in his love. For one they hang in a
neat little room where his mother lives and where he can only come for
an hour, perhaps ... on a Sunday.... It is not the same for the one as
for the other, Finn, but the bells are there always. They call their
man back when he has strayed from the way he should go, or, if that is
too late, they ring for his remorse. They ring to the banquet and they
ring their music when he is tired and sad.... But the church-bells ...
they ring for the man whose ears life has deafened ... and life makes
such a terrible noise. They ring on Sundays to remind us of that which
we have forgotten throughout the week.... And it is well that they are
there.... But ... Finn ... it is so tragic when the church-bells drive
and tumble people together who once had each his own sacred church.
It is just as when a home breaks up and the old find a refuge in the
workhouse. The sun shines through the windows and it is warm indoors
and there are flowers in the casement. But there was once something
that was better.... For your mother and me, Finn ... for us the bells
used to ring in the old room.”
He was silent and no longer looked at Finn. And Finn was at ease again
and at last found words for what he had long wanted to say:
“May I use the old room, father? May I set it up again ... all as it
was ... and live there with my books?...”
Cordt released his son’s hands and his face wore a look that made Finn
regret his request. They both rose to their feet. And, at that moment,
Cordt’s face lit up with a smile:
“That you may,” he said. “You dear child, who never asked for anything.
Let this, then, be my present to you to-day.”
* * * * *
This happened on the day when Cordt’s son completed his twenty-first
year.