Footsteps approaching.
A man, with a dark fire smouldering in his eyes, entered in--the pale
bride followed him.
The man walked up and down the room with heavy strides, biting his
lip and frowning angrily. Suddenly he stopped, and stood by the
table against the farther wall, with a cold, piercing glance at the
pale-faced girl.
She had been standing silent and thoughtful by the window--now she
approached him with hesitant step.
"Olof," she murmured, her voice quivering with tender
anxiety--"Olof--dearest, what does it mean?"
"Dearest?" He snapped out the word between clenched teeth like the
rattle of hail against a window-pane. His voice trembled with tears
and laughter, cutting scorn and bitterness. He grasped her roughly by
the shoulders.
"Keep away!" he cried, boiling with rage, and thrust her from him with
such violence that she stumbled and sank down on a sofa.
There she sat in the same position, struck helpless by the suddenness
of the blow. Then she rose and, flushing slightly, walked resolutely
up to him again.
"Olof, what does all this mean?" she asked. There was tenderness still
in her voice, but beneath it a steely ring plain to be heard.
Olof felt his blood boiling in his veins--that she, guilty as she was,
should dare to stand there with uplifted head, and look him calmly in
the face! His eye fell on the myrtle wreath which she wore--emblem
of bridal purity--and it seemed to mock him anew. He felt an almost
irresistible impulse to fall on her and tear her in pieces.
"It means," he cried, stepping threateningly towards her, "that you
have no right to wear that wreath--that you are an infamous cheat!"
And with a violent movement he tore the wreath and veil from her head,
and trampled them underfoot, till the wires of the framework curled
like serpents on the floor. "Liar--liar and hypocrite!" he cried.
Kyllikki did not move; she stood there still silent, only the red
flush in her cheeks deepened.
Nothing was left of the wreath now but some strands of wire and a few
loose leaves--Olof spurned it aside, and the veil after it. Then he
drew himself up, and looked at Kyllikki with the eyes of a man who has
crushed one foe and prepares to meet another.
"Will you be good enough to tell me what all this means?" said
Kyllikki, calmly as ever, but with a new note in her voice that almost
amazed herself.
"Tell you? Ay, by Heaven. If I had my pistol here, I'd answer you so
that you should never ask again!"
Kyllikki shuddered--a chill sense of utter helplessness came over her.
She was shamed and insulted, her bridal wreath trampled underfoot, and
she herself here alone with a man who raved and threatened furiously.
She looked at him earnestly, as if trying to read him through. And she
felt that here was indeed something great and terrible, on which her
future--their future--depended; a single word or gesture on her part
might be fatal. Suddenly a thought crossed her mind and the blood
rushed to her head.... Could he dare?... Was his anger greater than
his love?
Swiftly she decided--now or never, it must be done, or all would be
lost. Stepping across to a chest, she opened the lowest drawer and
felt for something there ... no ... and she tried the next. A moment
after, she rose to her feet and walked firmly over to where Olof
stood.
A large, old-fashioned revolver was in her hand; the dark barrel
glinted in the light as she laid it on the table.
"There is the thing you wanted. It is loaded. Now, answer me, if you
please."
She spoke slowly, putting forth all her strength to keep her voice
from trembling. Then stepping back, she stood waiting, her face pale,
her eyes fixed on Olof's face.
It was the critical moment. To Kyllikki it seemed endless, as she
stood there stiffly, dreading with every breath lest she should fall.
Olof stood motionless, staring at her as at a vision. Once before he
had seen her thus--during the ordeal with her father. A stifling fear
came over him as he marked the similarity.
"What do you mean--are you trying to drive me mad?" he cried in a
choking voice. And tearing his hair, he rushed violently towards the
door.
Kyllikki felt the blood coursing warmly through her veins once more.
Olof strode furiously up and down, then came to a standstill before
her. His rage flamed up again, and he set himself to play the part of
a judge.
"Defy me, would you?" he shouted, pale with anger. "Do you know what
you are? A liar, a perjured hypocrite! Do you know what you have done?
You have cheated me! You have ruined my wedding night, trampled on my
happiness and my future--you have shamed me in the eyes of the world.
You are no pure and innocent girl, but a...."
He stopped, breathless, and stood gasping for a moment, then went on
brokenly: "But now it is out. Now you shall answer for it all. Do you
know a fellow who was here to-night--a wretched little worm with a red
rosette in his coat? You know who I mean well enough--deny it if you
dare!"
"Yes, I know him well. What of it?"
"Ah, you know him--yes...." He gave a hoarse, nervous laugh. "That
ghastly little abortion came to me to-night and told me...."
He stopped, on purpose to torture her the more.
"What did he tell you?" asked Kyllikki breathlessly.
"You know well enough ... _that you had given him long ago what should
have been mine to-night!_"
He stood enjoying the effect of his words: Kyllikki staggered as if
struck--exactly as he had intended.
The girl was trembling in every limb. She felt a loathing for the man
before her--and for all his sex. These men, that lied about women,
or cried out about what was _theirs_ on their wedding night, raved of
_their_ happiness, demanding purity and innocence of others, but
not of themselves ... she felt that there could be no peace, no
reconciliation between them now, only bitterness and the ruin of all
they had hoped for together.
"And what then?" she asked coldly, with lifted head.
"What then?" cried Olof wildly. "What...."
"Yes. Go on. That was only one. Are there no more who have told you
the same thing?"
"More? My God--I could kill you now!"
"Do!" She faced him defiantly, and went on with icy calm: "And how
many girls are there who can say the same of you?"
Olof started as if he had been stabbed. He put his hands to his head,
and strode violently up and down, muttering wildly: "Kill you--yes,
kill you and myself too, kill, kill, kill...."
So he went on for a while, then, flinging himself down on the sofa, he
tore open his coat, snatched off the white rosette he wore, and threw
it down, crying out in agony: "Why must I suffer like this? Was there
ever such a wedding night? It is hell, hell...!"
Kyllikki stood calmly watching him. She was gradually feeling more
sure of herself now. At last she moved towards him.
"Do you want me to love you?" she said quietly. "Or must I hate you
and despise you? You listen to the stories of a drunken fool, instead
of asking the one person in the world you should trust; you give me no
explanation when I ask you. Is it any wonder, after all, that the man
should have said what he did--to let you taste for once a drop of the
poison you have poured out for who knows how many others? As for him,
I knew him when we were children--there was some talk of our being
married, years ago. He was five years older than I, and was too young
then to know of any harm in an occasional caress. More than that
never--though it seems in his drunken wickedness he tried to make out
there was."
"Kyllikki, is it true?" cried Olof, springing to his feet.
"It is true. _I_ am still pure, but you--have you the right to ask a
pure woman to be your wife?"
"Have I the right...." he began haughtily; but the words died on his
lips, and he sank back on the sofa, covering his face with his hands,
as if to keep out visions of dread.
"It would have been only just," Kyllikki went on, "if it had been as
you believed--yes, it should have been so! And you knew it--and _so_
you stormed and threatened to kill me!"
She paused for a moment; Olof quailed under her glance.
"Pure and innocent," she continued; "yes, that is what you ask, that
is your right. But have you for one moment thought of me? I, _who am
innocent and pure_--what is given to me in return?"
"You are torturing me," answered Olof, wringing his hands. "I know, I
know--and I have thought of you too.... Oh...."
"Thought of me?--yes, perhaps you have, now and again. There was
something of it in your letter--you felt it then. And I took it as a
prayer for forgiveness, and I could have faced it all as it was--I was
thinking more of you than of myself. But now...."
"O God--this is madness!" cried Olof, his voice choking with sobs.
"Is this the end?... And this night, this night that I have looked
forward to in my brightest dreams--this new dawn that was to be
... crushed, crushed, a trampled wreath and veil ... and this is my
wedding night!"
He flung himself face downward on the sofa, sobbing violently.
"Your wedding night?" said Kyllikki softly. "_Your_ wedding night? How
many such have you not had before? But mine...." Her voice broke. "Oh,
mine has never been, and never will be, never...."
She burst into a violent fit of weeping, and sank trembling to a seat.
And the bridal chamber echoed with sounds of woe, with utterances of
misery that might have called the very walls to pity.
* * * * *
Olof wakened with a start; moving blindly, he had stumbled against
her, and at the touch of her body he flung himself on his knees before
her and hid his face in her lap.
"Kill me!" he moaned. "Forgive me and then kill me and make an end."
His passionate outburst seemed to calm her; she sat still, and her
tears subsided.
"Speak to me!" cried Olof again. "If you cannot forgive me, then kill
me, at least--or must I do it myself?"
But Kyllikki made no answer, only bent forward and, slipping her hands
beneath his arms, drew him up, softly and slowly, and pressed him
closer to her.
A sudden warmth filled him, and he threw his arms round her
gratefully, as a child might do.
"Crush me, then, crush me to death, and I have all I asked for!"
But she did not speak, only held him closer. And so they lay in each
other's arms, like children, worn out with weeping.
"Olof," said Kyllikki at last, freeing herself, "when you wrote, you
said you did not ask me to share joy and happiness, but to work and
suffer with you."
"Ay, then," said Olof bitterly. "And even then I still hoped for
happiness."
"But, don't you see.... To-night, it is just that. Our first suffering
together."
"It has ruined all!"
"Not all--only what we had hoped for to-night. All the rest is as it
was."
"No, no, do not try to deceive yourself and me. And for myself--what
do I care now? I have deserved it all--but you, you...."
"Say no more, Olof. Let this be ended now and never speak of it again.
See, I have forgotten it already."
"All ... you...."
"Yes, all--for your sake. Oh, let us be content! No one in all the
world can ever have all they hoped and wished for. And if we cannot
have our wedding night as lovers--let us at least be friends and
comrades now."
"Comrades? ... yes, in misery," sighed Olof. And they drew together
in a close embrace; two suffering creatures, with no refuge but each
other.
* * * * *
"Olof," whispered Kyllikki after a while, "we must go to rest now--you
are worn out."
Both glanced at the white bridal bed--and each turned in dismay to the
other, reading each other's thought.
"Can't we--can't we sleep here on the sofa?--it's nearly morning,"
said Kyllikki timidly.
Olof grasped her hand and pressed it to his lips without a word.
Kyllikki went to fetch some coverings. As she did so, she caught sight
of something lying on the table, and keeping her back turned to Olof,
she picked up the thing and put it back in the drawer. Olof's eyes
followed her with a grateful glance.
But as she touched the pillows and the white linen she had worked with
such hopes and kisses and loving thoughts for this very night, she
broke down, and stood with quivering shoulders, fumbling with the
bedclothes to hide her emotion.
Olof felt his eyelids quivering, warm drops fell on his cheek. He rose
and stepped softly to her side.
"Kyllikki," he whispered entreatingly, "have you forgiven
me--everything?"
"Yes, everything," she answered, smiling through her tears, and threw
her arms round his neck. "It was childish of me to cry."
Gratefully, and with a new delight, he pressed her to his heart....
* * * * *
"Olof, don't put out the light yet--let it burn till the morning."
Kyllikki lay stretched on the sofa. Olof nodded, and laid himself down
with his head in her lap and his feet on a chair by the side.
And two pairs of darkly glistening eyes fell to whispering together,
like lonely stars in a dark autumn sky, while the earth sighed through
the gloom.