diseases. If I could lead the conversation to mathematics! I am well
up in that!”
“There you are! Begin with mathematics--by and by put her shawl round
her shoulders and button her overshoes. Take her home in the evening.
Drink her health and kiss her when Gurli is sure to see it. If necessary,
be a little officious. She won’t be angry, believe me. And give her a
big dose of mathematics, so big that Gurli has no option but to sit and
listen to it quietly. Come again in a week’s time and tell me the
result.”
The captain went home, read the latest pamphlets on immorality and at
once started to carry out his scheme.
A week later he called on his mother-in-law, serene and smiling, and
greatly enjoying a glass of good sherry. He was in high spirits.
“Now tell me all about it,” said the old woman, pushing her spectacles
up on her forehead.
“It was difficult work at first,” he began, “for she distrusted me.
She thought I was making fun of her. Then I mentioned the effect which
the computation of probabilities had had on the statistics of morality
in America. I told her that it had simply been epoch-making. She knew
nothing about it, but the subject attracted her. I gave her examples
and proved in figures that it was possible to calculate with a certain
amount of probability the percentage of women who are bound to fall.
She was amazed. I saw that her curiosity was aroused and that she was
eager to provide herself with a trump-card for the next meeting. Gurli
was pleased to see that Ottilia and I were making friends, and did
everything to further my scheme. She pushed her into my room and
closed the door; and there we sat all afternoon, making calculations.
The old witch was happy, for she felt that she was making use of me,
and after three hours’ work we were fast friends. At supper my wife
found that such old friends as Ottilia and I ought to call one another
by their Christian names. I brought out my good old sherry to
celebrate the occasion. And then I kissed her on the lips, may God
forgive me for my sins! Gurli looked a little startled, but did not
seem to mind. She was radiant with happiness. The sherry was strong
and Ottilia was weak. I wrapped her in her cloak and took her home. I
gently squeezed her arm and told her the names of the stars. She
became enthusiastic! She had always loved the stars, but had never
been able to remember their names. The poor women were not allowed to
acquire any knowledge. Her enthusiasm grew and we parted as the very
best of friends who had been kept apart through misunderstanding each
other for such a long, long time.
“On the next day more mathematics. We worked until supper time. Gurli
came in once or twice and gave us an encouraging nod. At supper we
talked of nothing but stars and mathematics, and Gurli sat there,
silently, listening to us. Again I took her home. On my way back I met
a friend. We went to the Grand Hotel and drank a glass of punch. It
was one o’clock when I came home. Gurli was still up waiting for me.
“‘Where have you been all this time, William?’ she asked.
“Then the devil entered into my soul and I replied:
“‘We had such a lot to talk about that I forgot all about the time.’
“_That_ blow struck home.
“‘I don’t think it’s nice to run about half the night with a young
woman,’ she said.
“I pretended to be embarrassed and stammered:
“‘If one has so much to say to one another, one forgets sometimes what
is nice and what is not.’
“‘What on earth did you talk about?’ asked Gurli, pouting. “‘I really
can’t remember.’
“You managed very well, my boy,” said the old woman. “Go on!”
“On the third day,” continued the captain, “Gurli came in with her
needlework and remained in the room until the lesson in mathematics
was over. Supper was not quite as merry as usual, but on the other
hand, very astronomical. I assisted the old witch with her overshoes,
a fact which made a great impression on Gurli. When Ottilia said
good-night, she only offered her cheek to be kissed. On the way home I
pressed her arm and talked of the sympathy of souls and of the stars
as the home of the souls. I went to the Grand Hotel, had some punch
and arrived home at two o’clock. Gurli was still up; I saw it, but I
went straight to my room, like the bachelor I was, and Gurli did not
like to follow me and ply me with questions.
“On the following day I gave Ottilia a lesson in astronomy. Gurli
declared that she was much interested and would like to be present;
but Ottilia said we were already too far advanced and she would
instruct her in the rudiments later on. This annoyed Gurli and she
went away. We had a great deal of sherry for supper. When Ottilia
thanked me for a jolly evening, I put my arm round her waist and
kissed her. Gurli grew pale. When I buttoned her overshoes, I ...
I....”
“Never mind me,” said the old lady, “I am an old woman.”
He laughed. “All the same, mother, she’s not so bad, really she isn’t.
But when I was going to put on my overcoat, I found to my astonishment
the maid waiting in the hall, ready to accompany Ottilia home. Gurli
made excuses for me; she said I had caught a cold on the previous
evening, and that she was afraid the night air might do me harm.
Ottilia looked self-conscious and left without kissing Gurli.
“I had promised to show Ottilia some astronomical instruments at the
College at twelve o’clock on the following day. She kept her
appointment, but she was much depressed. She had been to see Gurli,
who had treated her very unkindly, so she said. She could not imagine
why. When I came home to dinner I found a great change in Gurli. She
was cold and mute as a fish. I could see that she was suffering. Now
was the time to apply the knife.
“‘What did you say to Ottilia?’ I commenced. ‘She was so unhappy.’”
‘What did I say to her? Well, I said to her that she was a flirt.
That’s what I said.’
‘How could you say such a thing?’ I replied. ‘Surely, you’re not
jealous!’
‘I! Jealous of her!’ she burst out.
‘Yes, that’s what puzzles me, for I am sure an intelligent and sensible
person like Ottilia could never have designs on another woman’s husband!’
‘No,’ (she was coming to the point) ‘but another woman’s husband might
have designs on her.’
‘Huhuhu!’ she went for me tooth and nail. I took Ottilia’s part; Gurli
called her an old maid; I continued to champion her. On this afternoon
Ottilia did not turn up. She wrote a chilly letter, making excuses and
winding up by saying she could see that she was not wanted. I protested
and suggested that I should go and fetch her. That made Gurli wild! She
was sure that I was in love with Ottilia and cared no more for herself.
She knew that she was only a silly girl, who didn’t know anything, was
no good at anything, and--huhuhu!--could never understand mathematics.
I sent for a sleigh and we went for a ride. In a hotel, overlooking the
sea, we drank mulled wine and had an excellent little supper. It was just
as if we were having our wedding day over again, and then we drove home.”
“And then--?” asked the old woman, looking at him over her spectacles.
“And then? H’m! May God forgive me for my sins! I seduced my own little
wife. What do you say now, granny?”
“I say that you did very well, my boy! And then?”
“And then? Since then everything has been all right, and now we discuss
the education of the children and the emancipation of women from
superstition and old-maidishness, from sentimentality and the devil
and his ablative, but we talk when we are alone together and that is
the best way of avoiding misunderstandings. Don’t you think so, old
lady?”
“Yes, Willy, dear, and now I shall come and pay you a call.”
“Do come! And you will see the dolls dance and the larks and the
woodpeckers sing and chirrup; you will see a home filled with
happiness up to the roof, for there is no one there waiting for
miracles which only happen in fairy tales. You will see a real doll’s
house.”
PHOENIX
The wild strawberries were getting ripe when he met her for the first
time at the vicarage. He had met many girls before, but when he saw
_her_ he knew; this was she! But he did not dare to tell her so, and
she only teased him for he was still at school.
He was an undergraduate when he met her for the second time. And as he
put his arms round her and kissed her, he saw showers of rockets, heard
the ringing of bells and bugle calls, and felt the earth trembling under
his feet.
She was a woman at the age of fourteen. Her young bosom seemed to be
waiting for hungry little mouths and eager baby fists. With her firm
and elastic step, her round and swelling hips, she looked fit to bear
at any moment a baby under her heart. Her hair was of a pale gold,
like clarified honey, and surrounded her face like an aureole; her
eyes were two flames and her skin was as soft as a glove.
They were engaged to be married and billed and cooed in the wood like
the birds in the garden under the lime trees; life lay before them
like a sunny meadow which the scythe had not yet touched. But he had
to pass his examinations in mining first, and that would take
him,--including the journey abroad--ten years. Ten years!
He returned to the University. In the summer he came back to the
vicarage and found her every bit as beautiful. Three summers he
came--and the fourth time she was pale. There were tiny red lines in
the corners of her nose and her shoulders drooped a little. When the
summer returned for the sixth time, she was taking iron. In the
seventh she went to a watering-place. In the eighth she suffered from
tooth-ache and her nerves were out of order. Her hair had lost its
gloss, her voice had grown shrill, her nose was covered with little
black specks; she had lost her figure, dragged her feet, and her
cheeks were hollow. In the winter she had an attack of nervous fever,
and her hair had to be cut off. When it grew again, it was a dull
brown. He had fallen in love with a golden-haired girl of
fourteen--brunettes did not attract him--and he married a woman of
twenty-four, with dull brown hair, who refused to wear her dresses open
at the throat.
But in spite of all this he loved her. His love was less passionate
than it had been; it had become calm and steadfast. And there was
nothing in the little mining-town which could disturb their happiness.
She bore him two boys, but he was always wishing for a girl. And at
last a fair-haired baby girl arrived.
She was the apple of his eye, and as she grew up she resembled her
mother more and more. When she was eight years old, she was just what
her mother had been. And the father devoted all his spare time to his
little daughter.
The housework had coarsened the mother’s hands. Her nose had lost its
shape and her temples had fallen in. Constant stooping over the kitchen
range had made her a little round-shouldered. Father and mother met only
at meals and at night. They did not complain, but things had changed.
But the daughter was the father’s delight. It was almost as if he were
in love with her. He saw in her the re-incarnation of her mother, his
first impression of her, as beautiful as it had been fleeting. He was
almost self-conscious in her company and never went into her room when
she was dressing. He worshipped her.
But one morning the child remained in bed and refused to get up. Mama
put it down to laziness, but papa sent for the doctor. The shadow of
the angel of death lay over the house: the child was suffering from
diphtheria. Either father or mother must take the other children away.
He refused. The mother took them to a little house in one of the suburbs
and the father remained at home to nurse the invalid. There she lay!
The house was disinfected with sulphur which turned the gilded picture
frames black and tarnished the silver on the dressing-table. He walked
through the empty rooms in silent anguish, and at night, alone in his
big bed, he felt like a widower. He bought toys for the little girl,
and she smiled at him as he sat on the edge of the bed trying to amuse
her with a Punch and Judy show, and asked after mama and her little
brothers. And the father had to go and stand in the street before the
house in the suburbs, and nod to his wife who was looking at him from
the window, and blow kisses to the children. And his wife signalled to
him with sheets of blue and red paper.
But a day came when the little girl took no more pleasure in Punch and
Judy, and ceased smiling; and ceased talking too, for Death had
stretched out his long bony arm and suffocated her. It had been a hard
struggle.
Then the mother returned, full of remorse because she had deserted her
little daughter. There was great misery in the home, and great
wretchedness. When the doctor wanted to make a post mortem examination,
the father objected. No knife should touch her, for she was not dead to
him; but his resistance was overborne. Then he flew into a passion and
tried to kick and bite the doctor.
When they had bedded her into the earth, he built a monument over her
grave, and for a whole year he visited it every day. In the second
year he did not go quite so often. His work was heavy and he had little
spare time. He began to feel the burden of the years; his step was less
elastic; his wound was healing. Sometimes he felt ashamed when he
realised that he was mourning less and less for his child as time went
by; and finally he forgot all about it.
Two more girls were born to him, but it was not the same thing; the
void left by the one who had passed away could never be filled.
Life was a hard struggle. The young wife who had once been like--like
no other woman on earth, had gradually lost her glamour; the gilding
had worn off the home which had once been so bright and beautiful. The
children had bruised and dented their mother’s wedding presents, spoiled
the beds and kicked the legs of the furniture. The stuffing of the sofa
was plainly visible here and there, and the piano had not been opened
for years. The noise made by the children had drowned the music and the
voices had become harsh. The words of endearment had been cast off with
the baby clothes, caresses had deteriorated into a sort of massage. They
were growing old and weary. Papa was no longer on his knees before mama,
he sat in his shabby armchair and asked her for a match when he wanted
to light his pipe. Yes, they were growing old.
When papa had reached his fiftieth year, mama died. Then the past
awoke and knocked at his heart. When her broken body, which the last
agony had robbed of its few remaining charms, had been laid in its
grave, the picture of his fourteen-year-old sweetheart arose in his
memory. It was for her, whom he had lost so long ago that he mourned
now, and with his yearning for her came remorse. But he had never been
unkind to the old mama; he had been faithful to the fourteen-year-old
vicar’s daughter whom he had worshipped on his knees but had never led
to the altar, for he had married an anaemic young woman of twenty-four.
If he were to be quite candid, he would have to confess that it was she
for whom he mourned; it was true, he also missed the good cooking and
unremitting care of the old mama, but that was a different thing.
He was on more intimate terms with his children, now; some of them had
left the old nest, but others were still at home.
When he had bored his friends for a whole year with anecdotes of the
deceased, an extraordinary coincidence happened. He met a young girl
of eighteen, with fair hair, and a striking resemblance to his late
wife, as she had been at fourteen. He saw in this coincidence the
finger of a bountiful providence, willing to bestow on him at last the
first one, the well-beloved. He fell in love with her because she
resembled the first one. And he married her. He had got her at last.
But his children, especially the girls, resented his second marriage.
They found the relationship between their father and step-mother
improper; in their opinion he had been unfaithful to their mother. And
they left his house and went out into the world.
He was happy! And his pride in his young wife exceeded even his
happiness.
“Only the aftermath!” said his old friends.
When a year had gone by, the young wife presented him with a baby.
Papa, of course, was no longer used to a baby’s crying, and wanted his
night’s rest. He insisted on a separate bed-room for himself, heedless
of his wife’s tears; really, women were a nuisance sometimes. And,
moreover, she was jealous of his first wife. He had been fool enough
to tell her of the extraordinary likeness which existed between the
two and had let her read his first wife’s love-letters. She brooded
over these facts now that he neglected her. She realised that she had
inherited all the first one’s pet names, that she was only her
understudy, as it were. It irritated her and the attempt to win him
for herself led her into all sorts of mischief. But she only succeeded
in boring him, and in silently comparing the two women, his verdict
was entirely in favour of the first one. She had been so much more
gentle than the second who exasperated him. The longing for his
children, whom he had driven from their home increased his regret, and
his sleep was disturbed by bad dreams for he was haunted by the idea
that he had been unfaithful to his first wife.
His home was no longer a happy one. He had done a deed, which he would
much better have left undone.
He began to spend a good deal of time at his club. But now his wife
was furious. He had deceived her. He was an old man and he had better
look out! An old man who left his young wife so much alone ran a certain
risk. He might regret it some day!
“Old? She called him old? He would show her that he was not old!”
They shared the same room again. But now matters were seven times
worse. He did not want to be bothered with the baby at night. The
proper place for babies was the nursery. No! he hadn’t thought so in
the case of the first wife.
He had to submit to the torture.
Twice he had believed in the miracle of Phoenix rising from the ashes
of his fourteen year old love, first in his daughter, then in his
second wife. But in his memory lived the first one only, the little
one from the vicarage, whom he had met when the wild strawberries were
ripe, and kissed under the lime trees in the wood, but whom he had
never married.
But now, as his sun was setting and his days grew short, he saw in his
dark hours only the picture of the old mama, who had been kind to him
and his children, who had never scolded, who was plain, who cooked the
meals and patched the little boys’ knickers and the skirts of the little
girls. His flush of victory being over, he was able to see facts clearly.
He wondered whether it was not, after all, the old mama who had been the
real true Phoenix, rising, calm and beautiful, from the ashes of the
fourteen year old bird of paradise, laying its eggs, plucking the
feathers from its breast to line the nest for the young ones, and
nourishing them with its life-blood until it died.
He wondered ... but when at last he laid his weary head on the pillow,
never again to lift it up, he was convinced that it was so.
ROMEO AND JULIA
One evening the husband came home with a roll of music under his arm
and said to his wife:
“Let us play duets after supper!”
“What have you got there?” asked his wife.
“Romeo and Julia, arranged for the piano. Do you know it?”
“Yes, of course I do,” she replied, “but I don’t remember ever having
seen it on the stage.”
“Oh! It’s splendid! To me it is like a dream of my youth, but I’ve
only heard it once, and that was about twenty years ago.”
After supper, when the children had been put to bed and the house lay
silent, the husband lighted the candles on the piano. He looked at the
lithographed title-page and read the title: Romeo and Julia.
“This is Gounod’s most beautiful composition,” he said, “and I don’t
believe that it will be too difficult for us.”
As usual his wife undertook to play the treble and they began. D major,
common time, _allegro giusto_.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” asked the husband, when they had finished
the overture.
“Y--es,” admitted the wife, reluctantly.
“Now the martial music,” said the husband; “it is exceptionally fine.
I can remember the splendid choruses at the Royal Theatre.”
They played a march.
“Well, wasn’t I right?” asked the husband, triumphantly, as if he had
composed “Romeo and Julia” himself.
“I don’t know; it rather sounds like a brass band,” answered the wife.
The husband’s honour and good taste were involved; he looked for the
Moonshine Aria in the fourth act. After a little searching he came
across an aria for soprano. That must be it.
And he began again.
Tram-tramtram, tram-tramtram, went the bass; it was very easy to play.
“Do you know,” said his wife, when it was over, “I don’t think very
much of it.”
The husband, quite depressed, admitted that it reminded him of a barrel
organ.
“I thought so all along,” confessed the wife.
“And I find it antiquated, too. I am surprised that Gounod should be
out of date, already,” he added dejectedly. “Would you like to go on
playing? Let’s try the Cavatina and the Trio; I particularly remember
the soprano; she was divine.”
When they stopped playing, the husband looked crestfallen and put the
music away, as if he wanted to shut the door on the past.
“Let’s have a glass of beer,” he said. They sat down at the table and
had a glass of beer.
“It’s extraordinary,” he began, after a little while, “I never
realised before that we’ve grown old, for we really must have vied
with Romeo and Julia as to who should age faster. It’s twenty years
ago since I heard the opera for the first time. I was a newly fledged
undergraduate then, I had many friends and the future smiled at me. I
was immensely proud of the first down on my upper lip and my little
college cap, and I remember as if it were to-day, the evening when
Fritz, Phil and myself went to hear this opera. We had heard ‘Faust’
some years before and were great admirers of Gounod’s genius. But
Romeo beat all our expectations. The music roused our wildest
enthusiasm. Now both my friends are dead. Fritz, who was ambitious,
was a private secretary when he died, Phil a medical student; I who
aspired to the position of a minister of state have to content myself
with that of a regimental judge. The years have passed by quickly and
imperceptibly. Of course I have noticed that the lines under my eyes
have grown deeper and that my hair has turned grey at the temples, but
I should never have thought that we had travelled so far on the road
to the grave.”
“Yes, my dear, we’ve grown old; our children could teach us that. And
you must see it in me too, although you don’t say anything.”
“How can you say that!”
“Oh! I know only too well, my dear,” continued the wife, sadly; “I
know that I am beginning to lose my good looks, that my hair is
growing thin, that I shall soon lose my front teeth....”
“Just consider how quickly everything passes away”--interrupted her
husband. “It seems to me that one grows old much more rapidly now-a-days,
than one used to do. In my father’s house Haydn and Mozart were played
a great deal, although they were dead long before he was born. And
now--now Gounod has grown old-fashioned already! How distressing it is
to meet again the ideals of one’s youth under these altered
circumstances! And how horrible it is to feel old age approaching!”
He got up and sat down again at the piano; he took the music and turned
over the pages as if he were looking for keepsakes, locks of hair,
dried flowers and ends of ribbon in the drawer of a writing-table.
His eyes were riveted on the black notes which looked like little birds
climbing up and down a wire fencing; but where were the spring songs,
the passionate protestations, the jubilant avowals of the rosy days of
first love? The notes stared back at him like strangers; as if the
memory of life’s spring-time were grown over with weeds.
Yes, that was it; the strings were covered with dust, the sounding board
was dried up, the felt worn away.
A heavy sigh echoed through the room, heavy as if it came from a hollow
chest, and then silence fell.
“But all the same, it is strange,” the husband said suddenly, “that
the glorious prologue is missing in this arrangement. I remember
distinctly that there was a prologue with an accompaniment of harps
and a chorus which went like this.”