Then the stately house on the square was lit up with gayety.
The horses trampled in the gateway and the servants ran up and down
the carpeted stairs. The great drawing-rooms streamed with lights and
flowers and music and the floor was filled with dancers.
It was a wealth and splendor even greater than in the old days, for now
the master of the house was a more lavish host than he had ever been
before. He could never have things fine enough, luxurious enough. He
saw to everything, was everywhere and moved among his guests so that
they could see that he delighted in them.
The entertainments at Cordt’s house became legendary. And all that were
rich and beautiful and noble and intelligent came when he invited them
and came gratefully and were glad to stay.
The men gathered close about the lady of the house, who was charming in
her white gown, with her white hair.
Those who had paid her their homage in the old days raised their grey
heads when she passed them and followed her tall figure with a gleam
of their youthful fire in their eyes. And those who were now young
wondered when they heard the old ones tell that she was once a thousand
times prettier.
Or not prettier, perhaps. But such that every man on whom her eyes fell
was, from that moment, hers and that every glance she vouchsafed was
remembered for all time.
Now she was more remote in her smiles. Her glance was deeper, but
it was as though it did not see. Her red mouth no longer promised
happiness as it used to. Any one would think it a happiness to win her.
But no one would believe it possible.
And, while they saw her thus in the light of their youth, they wondered
what could have happened in the years that had passed and why the house
had so long been closed and why it had now so suddenly opened its doors
wide to the world which holds revel daily.
But their thoughts never grew to the shadow of a slander.
They asked her to sing. And, as she sat at the piano and looked through
the room with her great, strange eyes, the old friends of the house
remembered the glowing songs of her youth, which had set their blood
aflame as she exulted and wept in them with desire and love.
But now, when she sang, the young ones listened, enraptured with her
voice, which was so bright and so clear and so wonderfully still:
The wildest water on earth to-day
(God grant me His grace consoling!)
Flows deep and dreary through gorges grey,
But whither and whence they alone can say
Who first set its wild waves rolling.
For no ship ever its tideway knew,
Its marge bore never a blossom.
And never a bird from the beaches flew,
And never a mirrored star it drew
From Heav’n to its own black bosom.
It wells from eyes that are glazed with pain
(God shield me in all disaster!)
When a man has rent like a rag in twain
His own life’s bliss, by his own hand slain,
Being never his fortune’s master.
There was a brief silence when she ceased. Then they crowded round her
in admiration and with endless requests for more.
Fru Adelheid rose. She talked and smiled and thanked them. But her
glance wandered far beyond all these people, who meant nothing to her,
to Cordt, who stood at the far end of the room and was talking to some
one and did not see her and had not heard her.
But Finn had heard her. And Finn had seen her great, humble, plaintive
look.
He did not take his eyes off her and strange thoughts hurried through
his head. He now understood what had happened in this house. He knew
why Fru Adelheid had come to him so seldom, lately, in the old room.
Why she had sat so silent, steeped in distant thoughts ... why her
glance had been so uncertain and so timid, her words so wavering, her
hand so slack in his.
And he felt that the last bond was broken that bound him to mankind.
He had lost his mother, now that he was pushing hardest towards her.
When she came to him now, it was Cordt she looked for. Were he to go to
her now and lie down before her with his cheek on her hand, as he had
so often done, she would lift him up and bid him go out into the world
and live.
He had a feeling as though he had been betrayed, but, at the same time,
he wept with her in his heart. He looked at his father and thought
how much more of a man he was than she suspected in her poor, tardy
repentance. He looked at his mother and felt a curious loving contempt
for her ... such as men feel for a woman who comes to them and begs for
something a thousand times less important than what she once possessed
and despised.
Then he had to go into the crowd of people, who offered him their
smiles and asked for his.
And so strong was the feeling of loneliness in him that he mingled
readily with the guests of the house and was more cheerful than usual
and more talkative.
He was as pleased to move about these bright rooms as elsewhere,
because he was no longer at home anywhere. He might just as well
exchange a few words with these smartly-dressed ladies and gentlemen,
since he had to talk and since he could no longer tell any one what was
passing within him and since no one could tell him what he wanted to
hear.
The women crowded round him as the men did round Fru Adelheid. They
wound a circle of white arms and bright eyes round the young heir of
the house, who was so pale and so handsome and such that women longed
for that which he did not show. They met him with charming, flattering
words and smiled upon him and he did not hear the words and broke
through the circle without a trouble and without a sigh.
The men offered him their friendship and he shook their hands and
talked to them and went away and forgot their faces. Cordt found him
in every corner, where he had hidden for a moment without intending
to or thinking about it, and carried him smilingly and teasingly and
jestingly into the throng. And he smiled to his father and went with
him and remained always alone.
He saw himself and only himself. He seized upon every thought that
arose in him and discussed it as if it had been thought by another. He
contemplated every mood that welled up in his soul as if he had read it
in a book.
He climbed high up the peaks upon which men cannot live ... the peaks
whence they topple down one day or where they perish in the bright
frost. For there is no sound up there and no air, no day and no paths.
Only light and always light.
But, when it happened that Cordt’s glance fell upon him, without his
knowing it, the loneliness was suddenly extinguished in his soul.
Then he knew who he was and where he was and the pain of life gnawed
into his soul. For he constantly read the eternal, hopeless, fond
question in his father’s eyes. He realized what he had forgotten, that
the house was making holiday for his sake and his sake alone. Every
strain that sounded, every rose that blushed, every pretty woman who
moved across the floor: they were all his father’s servants, who came
to him with message after message that life’s banquet was served if he
would but take his seat at the board and drain its golden cup.
Then he thought sadly of his tranquil, beautiful mother, who had gone
from him, out into life, which did not touch him. How good it would
have been if they could sit together now and talk and be silent, while
the fountain rippled in the square and the queer things in the old room
whispered their strange and mighty legend!
It would have been good for him. And good for her, he thought. And best
of all, perhaps, for Cordt, who did not see her.
His thoughts gathered in love for Cordt, who was struggling to the
death in his hopeless fight. He felt as though his father were a hero
in the wars and wished that he were his meanest page to buckle on his
armor for him and bathe his wounds and sit beside him with his lute,
when he would sleep.
But the rout ran its course and it was late before the gate closed
behind the last carriage.
It fell heavily and harshly as though it were striking angrily at
the guests’ heels. It grated its hinges long and shook its bolts as
though it thought of never opening again, but of shutting out the
world for ever from that old house, in which no light could drive away
the increasing gloom, no joyous trumpets drown the hoarse voices that
threatened in the corners.
Then they sat together for a while longer, they three who dwelt in the
house, and talked with empty words and empty eyes.
Fru Adelheid it was who first ceased, because her thoughts were the
strongest. And Finn it was who said the most ... as though to expiate
the fault that oppressed him.
But it was Cordt who was bitterest in his care, while indifferent words
passed between those who stood as close together as it was possible
for mortals to stand and who feared the silence and who had nothing
more to say to each other.
Then Cordt said good-night and Finn. But Fru Adelheid told the servants
to leave her for a little and the candles burnt where the rout had been.
Restlessly she wandered about the room and again thought of the days
that were gone and could never return. And she readily surrendered
herself to her fancies, for there was in her now but one hope and one
faith and one repentance.
She fancied that one of the long evenings was over in which gay
acquaintances filled her rich house and Cordt and she exchanged glances
which only they understood.
She had been to the nursery and leant over her little boy, who was
sleeping with red cheeks. Now she would take the reddest flower there
was and then go up the secret stair ... up to where the old room
stood, in its wonderful glory.
There he sat and waited for her.
She saw him as she entered ... he raised his face to her and nodded and
then lapsed again into his heavy thoughts. And she stood silent at the
window, where the red flowers blushed before her feet and the square
lay below her in the darkness of the night and the fountain sang its
refrain, which never begins and never stops.
Then she rose and crossed the room. She heard his voice when he talked
to her, as he so often talked ... ever the same judgment upon the dance
that passed over the world, the same mighty song in praise of great
marriage, the same passionate, loving prayer that she would only see it
while there was yet time and let those dance who had nothing better to
do and take the proud place which he offered her by his side ... in
the old chair, in which people became so small and so strong, because
they sat with their feet on an altar that was raised in faith and built
up of faith and fenced in with faith throughout the changing times.
Then, when he had said that and sat by the chimney, where the fire
glowed and the candles shed their rays sparingly in the corners of the
old room ... she would stand for a little at the window, while all was
silent in the room, and look at him, who was the man in her life and
had never ceased to be so. And then she would go up to him ... slowly
and quietly, because she honored the ground she trod on ... kneel down
where he sat and raise to him the eyes whose beauty he had loved, whose
glance he had sought in such great hope and such great fear.
Then she would tell him exactly how it was ... how strong it was and
how silent:
“Cordt ... you strong, you irresistible man ... I love you as you would
be loved. I thank you, because you talked to me and never grew weary.
Because you always besought me. Because you waited for me and trusted
that the day would come when the silence of the old room should turn to
gladsome song in my soul and all the other sounds in the world like a
distant buzz in the woods. Now I am here ... Cordt ... you strong, you
irresistible man. Now I am yours, as I was before, and I am yours in
the old room. There is nothing threatening or gloomy now in the strange
things up here from the vanished days. I can sing to the old spinet
so that no strings snap and no memories are mortally startled, for I
sing only of you and of my boy and of my happiness. I can cherish the
thread upon great-grandmother’s spinning-wheel because I have woven
the cloth of happiness in my own room. I can lovingly hide the wax
doll in the folds of the curtain, because I have lived to see the day
when I went gladly and readily to the secret chamber of the house and
sat there long and was contented.... But the jar with the naked man
writhing through thorns: I set that up here when I was not yet what
I am. It shall stand here in memory of the evil time that pulled at
Fru Adelheid’s soul and lured her desires with sounds from the square
outside.... And our little boy, who sleeps with red cheeks, shall grow
to man’s estate and come up here one day, when you and I are dead, and
sit with his wife in the chairs in which we sat. Then he shall know
that his mother was tempted, it is true, but not destroyed.”
Fru Adelheid sat in her corner and dreamt in the silent, empty rooms.
Her white gown spread over the floor about her feet. Her eyes shone.
* * * * *
But high up, on the balcony of the old room, stood Finn and stared into
the night that stretched round about him like a waveless sea.
It was silent. He did not think, did not dream. His soul mingled with
the darkness, which was not evil and not good ... only silent.
He was like a dead man who had been put on guard on the brink of the
tower and who still stood there, staring with glazed eyes. The fountain
rippled ... it was as though the water rose over the edge of the basin
and would rise and rise until it reached the dead man up there and
washed him away.
Then a man came across the square.
He walked and sang, until he set eyes upon the man who stood up there,
high and dark and motionless. Then he stopped and looked at him and
shouted something.
And the man on the balcony answered with a shout. And the man below was
seized with fear and ran away and vanished in the darkness.