Finn stood in the old room with the yellow document in his hand:
“God brought me thus far, that I was able to erect this fair house,
which shall stand till distant times, a witness to my might and that
of my race. Here shall be upright living and generous dealing; the
house shall be faithfully guarded from father to son; good men and
women shall sit in the hall and dance to the sound of flutes and
violins.
“I have placed this room in the most secret part of the house and no
one knows of it but the architect who built it and my oldest servant.
But I have sealed the architect’s tongue with a solemn oath and a
heavy fee; and my servant is true to me.
“I have decorated the room with gilt and figured leather hangings and
costly carpets from the East. I have had two great armchairs made in
Milan, whose woodwork is carved into birds and animals which grin
strangely in the dark, but cease to do so when the lights are lit.
“Then I gave my servant a key of the room and told him to care for
it faithfully. Every evening, when it grows dusk, he is to light the
candles on the mantelpiece; and he is to do this even if he know that
his master is travelling in distant lands. Every morning, he is to
adjust the room with his own hands. None but himself is ever to cross
the threshold.
“For this room shall be for me and my wife and for none other in the
world. Therefore I placed it in the most secluded part of the house,
far from the counting-house, where we work, from the passages, along
which our servants go, and from the drawing-room, where we receive our
guests, ay, even from our marriage-bed, where she sleeps by my side.
“It shall be the temple of our marriage, hallowed by our love, which
is greater than anything that we know. Here we will pray to Him Who
gave us to each other. Here we will talk gladly and earnestly, every
evening when our hearts impel us to. And, when we come to die, our son
shall bring his wife here and they shall do as we did.
“This evening, which is the first in my new house, I brought my wife
in here and told her my wish. She listened to my words in love and
gladness and I have written down in this document how it all happened
and we have set our names to it in witness for those who come after
us.”
Finn read their names and the names of those who had taken possession
of the room after the builder and his wife. Last of all stood Cordt’s
name and Fru Adelheid’s, which were struck out again.
Then he put the document back in its place and locked it up and looked
round the room.
The old room stood again as it used to stand, built high over the
square, long and deep and silent, like a spot where there is no life.
The balcony was white with snow and the sparrows hopped in the snow.
Inside, behind the colored panes, stood many red flowers and longed for
the sun. The dust had been removed from the figured-leather hangings,
which shone with a new brightness. The oriental carpet spread over the
floor like a lord returning from exile and once more taking possession
of his estates.
And all the old glories had found their places again and stood as
lawfully and restfully as though it had never been otherwise. The
spinet was there and the jar with the man writhing through thorns and
the celestial globe whose stars shone and ran: all the furniture which
the room’s different owners had set there in the course of time, each
after his own taste and heart.
Before the fireplace stood the two great, strange armchairs.
Finn felt as if he were in a cathedral where every flag was a tombstone
over a famous man. His senses drank the odor of the bygone times, his
fancy peopled the room with the men and women who had sat there and
exchanged strong and gentle words, while the house lay sleeping around
them.
With it all, he became lost in thought of those who had sat there last
and after whom no others were to come, those two who had given him the
life which he knew not what to do with.
He saw them before him in the love and struggle of their youth. He
heard their voices in the room, he saw Fru Adelheid’s red mouth and
Cordt’s steady eyes. He saw Cordt bring his wife into the room, which
was the soul of the house and its tradition and its secret chamber, and
show her the strange things which his ancestors had put there.
He saw him on the day when he stood alone by the fireplace ... in the
empty room ... and struck out his own name and Fru Adelheid’s from the
document and went away and left the door open behind him....
He saw all this as it had happened. But they were not his father and
mother. They were two attractive people of whom he had read in a book
and grown fond, as a man loves art, palely and with no self-seeking in
his desire.
Finn drew one of the big chairs over to the window and sat down and
sat there for long.
He was sitting there when Fru Adelheid came.
She stood in the doorway, in her white gown, with her white hair, and
nodded to him. Then she turned her face round to the room and looked at
it.
And then that happened which was only the shadow of a dream that
vanished then and there: everything came to life in the room.
The spinet sang, the queer faces on the old chairs raised themselves
on their long necks; there was a whispering and a muttering in every
corner....
Fru Adelheid shrank back against the door. She did not see Finn, did
not remember that he was there.
But Finn saw her.
He rose from his chair and his eyes beamed:
“You light up the room, mother,” he said, “and the room lights up you.”
He took her hand and kissed it and, with her hand in his, Fru Adelheid
went through the old room, which had been too narrow for her youthful
desires.
The fairy-tale was over and the dread. But the glow still lay over her
figure and made her look wonderfully pretty. Her cheeks were as pink
as a girl’s; her step was light, her eyes moist and shy. She laughed
softly and gladly, while she looked at the old things and talked about
them and touched them.
She told the story of the woman who used to sing when she was sad and
who had brought the old spinet there; and her hands shook as she struck
a chord and the slender, beautiful notes sounded through the room. Of
the spinning-wheel, which had whirred merrily every evening for many a
good year and which stood as it was, with thread upon the spindle. Of
the celestial globe, which had been the toy of the man whose intellect
was obscured. Of the doll with the vacant face, which stood there in
memory of the lady who dreaded the deep silence of the room and never
entered it but once; but her son, who loved her, had hidden the doll
in the curtain. Of Fru Lykke, whose portrait had hung where the light
stain was, but hung there no longer, because her marriage had been
dissolved.
Of the jar with the man writhing through thorns, which she herself had
brought as her gift, she said nothing. She passed her hand over its
bright surface and was silent.
Finn’s eyes clung to her.
Never had he seen his beautiful mother so beautiful. He did not know
that look, or that smile on her mouth, or that clear ring in her voice.
At times, he added something to what she was telling and spoke with
such profound intelligence that she was quite surprised and frightened.
Now he guessed her words before she uttered them. Then he knew
something which she had never suspected.
Secretly, her fear increased as to what Cordt could have told him.
But Finn was lost in his delight.
And, fascinated by her beauty and the strange things he had seen and
heard and the deep silence of the room, he forgot that the seal of the
old room was broken and wished to play the game as vividly as possible.
He drew the second of the two big chairs across to the window and made
her sit down and sat himself beside her:
“Now you are not my mother,” he said. “You are my young bride. I have
brought you into the sanctuary to-day and now I will initiate you into
the mysteries.”
Fru Adelheid turned very pale and Finn took her hand penitently:
“Have I hurt you, mother?”
She shook her head and forced herself to smile.
Then he walked into the room again and rejoiced at all this and talked
about it. But she remained sitting with knitted brow.
She was heavy at heart, because it seemed to her, all at once, that
she was not his mother, as they sat talking here in the secret chamber
of the house. The old days came in their great might; and their strong
memories and impressive words drowned the bells which had rung her into
another world.
It was the echo here, in the old room, of Cordt’s words and of his
love ... of the strong faith and great happiness of the race which
had sprouted in the good mould of tradition and produced flower after
flower in the times that passed.
Fru Adelheid thought--for a moment--that it would have been well had
things happened as Cordt wished.
But, at the same instant, she was seized by a thought that suddenly
made her rebellious and young, as when she was here last, many years
ago.
She thrust her chair back hard and looked with sparkling eyes round the
room where everything and every memory was hostile to her.
She looked at Finn, who was standing by the celestial globe and trying
to set it going, but could not, because the spring was rusty and
refused to work.
She wondered, when the time came for Finn to take a wife ... would he
try to revive the tradition and bring her here and sit down with her in
the old chairs?
Then Finn’s son and his son after him would read her name, which was
written on the yellow document and struck out again. She would be like
one of those who were branded in that family.... Legends would grow
about her love of going out and her hunt after happiness which did not
exist....
“Come and help me, mother,” said Finn.
She went over and pressed hard on the spring and the clockwork hummed.
“See how you let loose the magic,” he said.
He went on talking, delighted with the stars, which lit up and ran.
“Sit down here by me, Finn.”
She waited till he came and a little longer, as though she could not
find the words she wanted, and did not look at him while she spoke:
“Finn” she said and put her hand on his shoulder and drew it away
again immediately. “Finn ... once ... ever so many years ago, I was
alone, one evening, in the old room. I had often been here before,
you know ... with father. And I was under the power of the old room
and never happy. I was young, Finn, and it went so terribly hard with
my longing and my gladness. I could not understand that and could not
mitigate it or get over it. For father belonged to the room and it
was his and all the queer things in it and they were all against me.
Every time I came to the door, my heart stopped beating.... And once
I was inside ... it was ... it was as if my own words were taken from
my tongue and others put in their place for me to speak ... beautiful
words and good words, Finn, but not mine. But then, when I took courage
and said what I wanted to say, it sounded as if I was defying the old
room and father and God himself. And then....”
Fru Adelheid felt that she was on the point of betraying something
great and fine that had been laid in her hands. She looked round as if
she were afraid that there was some one in the room or that the room
itself would rise up against her in its venerable might.
But there was no one and it was silent.
Then she turned her face to Finn and looked at him and said, gaily:
“But that evening, Finn, I broke the spell of the old room. I tore the
veil from the Holy of Holies and saw that there was nothing behind it.
For the first time, I breathed freely in my own home.”
Fru Adelheid did not tell how, at the same moment, she had been
overcome by terror and fled from the room. But she did not gain what
she thought by her lie. For Finn looked at her sorrowfully and said:
“How could you do that, mother? How could you find it in your heart?”
“Are you also under the spell?” she asked.
There was in her tone a scorn which was stronger than she intended and
which frightened herself. But Finn simply paid no attention to it:
“The old room no longer exists,” he said. “It is nothing more than an
image, a monument ... my fancy, which father humored me in.”
She turned her face away and listened.
“But had I lived in the days of the old room,” he said, “then it would
certainly have captured me and held me captive.”
“Yes ... you have been talking to father,” she said, softly.
“Yes.”
Then he lay down before her, with his cheek on her hand, as he so often
did:
“Yes,” he repeated. “And ... mother ... I love you. You are so pretty.
But we will not talk about the old room ... ever. For I think it is
the most wonderful ... and the most beautiful and the strongest thing
I know of.... But it hurts me that I am not wholly your son ... or
father’s either, that I might devote myself to one of you in sharing
your strongest feelings. And I cannot talk to father about it ...
neither can we two, can we?”
Fru Adelheid did not answer him, but stroked his hair with her hand.
Neither of them spoke and it was quite silent in the room.
In the silence she became herself again. The many moulded years came to
their own again and the bells rang monotonously and ever more strongly
from out of the noise of the world, which had drowned them.
She marvelled at the excitement into which the old room had thrown
her. Quenched was the love which had made her its mistress and quenched
the red desire which made it too narrow. She thought of Cordt, who
had fought, she considered, for what was not worth fighting for.
Sorrowfully she looked at her tall, silent boy, whose weary thoughts
kept pace so well with her own.
She crossed her hands in her lap and the light faded in her eyes. The
glow of the old room withdrew from her face, her words became restful
as her thoughts.
Finn looked at her, but did not see this. For him, too, the fairy-tale
was over. He was sitting in his chair again with bent head and his
hands open on his knees.
And, without their doing anything or thinking of it, they came in their
usual way to talk together. It was not any interchange of thoughts and
still less a contest of opinions. They said nearly the same thing and,
wherever the thoughts of the one roamed, he found the other’s. Often
their words were solemn, but never powerful. Often the one was silent
and agreed with the other. Many times they sat long without saying
anything and thought they had told each other everything.
“Look,” said Finn, pointing out of the window. “How hideous!”
A hearse came trotting across the square.
He moved in his chair and said:
“A hearse should always drive at a foot’s pace, solemnly and
ceremoniously ... always ... as though they were only driving the
horses to water. And soldiers should always hold themselves stiff and
starched, keeping step and time, even when they are taking their shoes
to the cobbler’s. Then it would all be easier.”
He was silent for a while. Then he slowly turned his face to her:
“I was talking about it to father the other day,” he said. “I happened
to say something of the kind.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“I don’t know how it came about. But he laughed and said I ought to
write an article about it or form a society for preserving the correct
pace of hearses.”
Fru Adelheid smiled and laid her hands in her lap and looked at them.
“Then he suddenly became serious and came up to me and laid his hands
on my shoulders: ‘Hearses ought to drive fast,’ he said, ‘gallop ...
at a rousing pace. Away with the dead, Finn! Let life grow green and
blossom!’”
“Father is so masterful,” said Fru Adelheid.
Finn nodded.
Then they began to talk about Cordt. They often did so. And they were
always eager to find good words to praise him in. But under the words
there lay the consciousness, like a secret understanding between them,
that he was made of a coarser clay than they.
They never said this; but they felt a sort of patronizing pity for him,
such as one feels for a person who runs and runs, when it is good to
sit still.
But, when they talked together, Fru Adelheid knew that deep in Finn’s
soul there lay a secret yearning towards just that masterful side in
his father which frightened him.
It was so weak, only a pale reflection of her own young love, a distant
echo of the voice which had stated Cordt’s case in her own heart when
he was fighting to win her.
But it was enough to hurt her. She thought she only had her son for a
time. She traced a certain disdain in the intimacy to which he admitted
her. She thought there was something in him which was greater than
what he gave her and which was Cordt’s or would become so.
And she realized that the fight for Finn would become harder than that
which broke the seal on the door of the old room.
Finn was absorbed in what had filled his mind, the whole day, with
light and color. He was thinking now of his mother’s visit to the room
on the evening when she had broken the spell:
“I simply cannot understand how you could have the heart,” he said.
She knew at once what he meant, but said nothing.
“There ought to be some law, like that in the fairy-story, where he
who lifted the veil had to die,” he said. “And there ought to be
veils upon veils ... veils upon veils.... Can you bear to look at the
sun, mother? Women ought to go in a veil and never ... never raise it,
except when the occasion was so great that everything grew great....
And one ought not to see the people who play....”
Fru Adelheid half raised herself in her chair.
She wanted to tell him that, on that evening, she was punished for her
presumption with the greatest terror which she had ever experienced in
her life. But she could not. Then she said, quite quietly and with her
eyes looking out over the square:
“And suppose there were some one who could not ... suppose the veil
stifled one....”
Finn looked out into space like her:
“Veils upon veils.... Veils over the dead,” he said.
Fru Adelheid sighed and said nothing.
“Then one could live,” said Finn.