you to resort to the strong remedy which had become a necessity to you;
that you were obeying, but suffering horrible pain in consequence. That
first awakened my anxiety. Many, many times I felt as if I were running
my head against the blank wall which separates life from death.... And
yet, it seemed to me that there was strength in the touch of your hands,
strength that could grapple with any illness, strength in your hands,
your glance, your smile. Then one day something happened that it took
weeks to get out of my head. I sat with you and between us was built
the usual bridge of kindness and confidence. Your smile came over the
bridge and met mine. We played with words as children in a meadow play
with flowers. Your hand lay on mine so firmly and tenderly. I grasped at
that moment why men honour so much the idea of a foundation stone. I felt
my hand, too, was the corner-stone in an eternal building. So proud was
I that your hand rested on mine, so sure, firmly and tenderly, and then
suddenly, with such terrible suddenness, that my heart nearly stopped
beating, your smile froze and died; your eyes became vacant, glazed; your
face was not only strange—would it had only been that—it was so changed
that you wouldn’t have recognised it yourself in the looking-glass.
In that moment—I can’t say whether they were moments or minutes—you
were not master of your body, neither were you ruler of your soul. And
then you came to yourself. But I left you and cried. My tears were cold
and made me freeze. Soon after I had to go away on a journey. Beloved,
beloved, how full of pain love is! Every day, every hour when I strolled
in the garden among my flowers which I planted there myself, which stand
there mysteriously waiting and watching for your coming, I saw before me
a shadow that proceeded from my own distraught mind ... your dear face
with the relaxed expression, and the glazed, fixed eye.
The pain which I experienced then has been carried about in my heart for
years, and was day by day increased and nourished by my anxiety.
But then your letters came, like stars dropping from the sky in the
still, dark night ... and once more I gained strength and courage to look
life in the face. _Life_—that is what _you_ are for me.
I could fancy every one dying round me, even my own darling children, all
that was near and dear to me; all that peoples the earth, and I could
fancy the houses falling, day and night ceasing—but I cannot picture
life without you.
I cannot, and I _will not_....
* * * * *
The summer passed, and with the falling leaves I returned to your
neighbourhood. You were, to all appearances the same, only rather paler,
rather softer in your manner. Your hands were the same, your lips sought
mine. I asked you no questions. Dare any one call to the man walking on
a rope over the abyss, whether he feels giddy? I asked you nothing. But
others talked about you to me. And all, all said the same. Don’t you see
how changed he is? And they spoke of the strong remedy that had become
indispensable to you, of the remedy by the help of which you maintain
your mask of mental equilibrium, a mask through whose holes your own
tormented soul stares out into vacancy.
Now I have come to it. I have come to it. Please do not be angry, or
hurt, but let me say what I can no longer carry about with me unsaid.
Try if you cannot, slowly and by degrees, break yourself of the habit
of resorting to means which, instead of strengthening, undermine your
health. In the name of my love I ask you to do this, and you must not
think that I ask for my sake alone. Then if it happened that I was going
to die, and knew that I was going to die to-day, so that I should never
see you, or hear your voice again, I should still make the same request.
Why will you be kind to every one but to yourself? A doctor said to me
about you—No, those are words that may not be repeated....
Now say with a smile that I am conjuring up bogies, that my feelings have
got the better of me, and perhaps you are right, but, beloved, death is
not the worst. Do you understand me now?
I sit here and write in the bright sunshine. My children play round my
skirts, and chatter and ask me why I am crying....
Well, now it is said, and now that I have said it, I dare not let you
read what I have written.
But I will keep this letter with the rest of _your_ letters, with the
letters which you have never received. Should the day ever come when I
have sufficient courage you shall read it.
Only this one, of all the letters.
AN UNSENT LETTER FROM LILI ROTHE TO PROFESSOR ROTHE.
Henry, I had on my mind to write to you and, for the last time, ask you
to forgive me, but I know that it is no use. Perhaps your forgiveness
could do me no good now. It is too late. I have suffered so much. I
cannot bear more. But this letter contains nothing but the truth, and it
is the last letter that I shall write.
Henry, I have never denied my love for you. I have never forgotten you,
and never deceived you. If I am to die now, because I long for the sleep,
which while I live, cannot mercifully be granted to me, you must believe
my poor last words.
I don’t know whither I am going, but even if I knew for certain that
I should reach the open gates of Paradise, I could not cross the
threshold. So long as you had not forgiven me in your heart, eternal
peace would not encompass me. And if I knew, he for whose sake I have
caused you such great trouble that it casts a shadow behind and dims all
that was once radiant and happy, if I knew that he was standing ready to
receive me with those words which up till this hour I have never heard
him utter, “Welcome, my beloved,” it would be impossible for me to follow
him into everlasting bliss. Consciousness of guilt would prevent it.
In the years when I loved you alone, I was happy; when he came into my
life and I loved you both, my happiness increased with my love, and I did
not feel guilty. I was so unspeakably happy. I loved you, and I loved
him. You are a doctor, and when women are ill you can make them well, but
for my sickness you had no panacea to prescribe.
And I cannot do what you desire of me; I cannot say that my love for him
is dead. Love cannot die, when once it has lived.
Henry, when you took me back, I entreated you to ask me no questions, and
you asked none. But your eyes asked and the walls asked, and everything
round me asked questions. I do not wish to have any more secrets from
you. Yet you never can understand what I am now going to say.
He did not know me when I came to him, and he died without having
recognised me. But it made me happy to be with him. When the others were
asleep, and it was all quiet, I heard him mention a name. Not my name.
He did not love me, you see. Every time he mentioned that other name I
felt I was expiating some of my guilt towards you. I sat and listened,
the nights were so long, but my name never came. The name of the one he
loved, the names of others, but mine never.
One night I fell asleep and dreamed that he called me. I awoke, and he
lay dead. And now I shall never find out whether that was only a dream
or something more.
I have thought so much over the question whether other women are the same
as I am. Were I strong enough I would go about and look till I found one
who could tell me truthfully that she had loved two men, loved both with
her whole heart and soul. I would then beg her to go to you and explain
how that is something one cannot help, cannot fight against, and cannot
kill.
My nun has espoused a husband, and I have been to call on the young
couple. He has only one eye, is superannuated, and has warts in his ears.
He is a hod carrier. When she contemplates him she feels as if heaven
were opening before her.
She comes from a good family, and has had a good education; he is
ignorant and stupid, but he seems to appreciate her adoration. I had a
ticket for “Lohengrin” this evening, but I am not inclined to go.
After all, I can understand it. Once I should have thought it silly, but
my ideas have undergone a change. When I reflect on it there is really
only one condition that can be called unhappy, and that is loneliness.
Loneliness on a desert island, loneliness in a great city, loneliness in
married life.... Loneliness.
For this reason all living beings crowd together. The animals seek each
other. The faded leaves, as they flutter down from the trees, wed in the
hour of their destruction.
She feels that she has been cheated for all the years of her convent
life, has loved without an object. She has cast off her shackles, and
achieved her liberty. The thought of a joint life with some one, that she
may have pined for vaguely in the convent, became, out in the world, the
highest thing to aim at. In her excessive modesty she humbly accepted the
first thing that offered. Surely there is nothing ridiculous in that.
But I am alone. I am solitary.
* * * * *
God in heaven, what have I done? There he lies asleep, as if he were
never going to wake. Such a little gnome. But I couldn’t do anything
else, and behind all my anxiety and fidgetting I have a feeling that for
the first time in my life I have done what is right.
For it was not unpremeditated, or was it? Do I know? A transformation has
been going on lately within me. But when did it begin, and where will it
lead me? If I only had some one whom I could consult, but there is no
one. I have broken all my old ties. I stand quite alone. Even Jeanne....
Jeanne must be told as soon as possible, but, of course, she will think
it is nothing except one of my whims in which I indulge to kill time.
When I ask myself deep down in my heart why I did it, there is no answer,
and, meanwhile, the boy is lying in my bed. I have slept an hour or two
here on this chair without knowing it. The windows are wide open, yet
every minute I inhale a horrible smell of spirits ... a little boy of
seven! How am I to know whether he is seven, five, or nine?
I must collect myself. This hour may decide the whole course of my life.
I have only to hold the telephone receiver to my ear, and directly the
house-porter will call in the police. Before noon the boy will be gone,
and I shall never see him again.
* * * * *
Why should it concern me? It would be sheer folly if I gave way to a
sickly sentimentality and wished to keep this small tramp. Small as he
is, he seems to be endowed with every vice.
I feel as if I had dreamed it all, and not seen it with my eyes.... And
it all comes of my freak of using the subway under the river instead of
taking a motor. What induced me to waste time in that fashion? I who, of
all others, detest subterranean zigzagging?
Was it a presentment? Did I expect a sensation, and wish to gloat
over the sight of roofless night-wanderers, who for five cents travel
backwards and forwards by this route all day? One’s way of living and
thinking is different in New York from what it is in great European
capitals. We don’t follow each other like sheep. We think more for
ourselves.
I felt so tired inwardly on the journey, so utterly without an anchor. I
tried to fall asleep before we reached the river to escape hearing the
ghastly rushing sound in the air behind. The boy had seen me at once. I
believe I inspired him with a certain awe. My clothes probably were too
smart for him.
He hurled himself past me without calling out rude words, or making
grimaces. I could not take my eyes off him. At first I thought it was one
of the dwarfs out of the Hippodrome, and I squirmed with disgust. Then
I saw that it was a child. A child sick with a fever which his senses
could not master. I, like the other passengers, thought him mad, till we
grasped what was the matter with him.
He jumped on ladies’ laps, and spat in their faces; he kicked gentlemen’s
legs violently with his heels. When the guard caught hold of his wrists
and commanded him to be quiet, he bit the man so hard he was obliged to
let him go. At the next station he was ejected. But directly the train
was in motion again, he swung himself on to the car, and this process was
repeated at every station. No one knew how to cope with him; no one knew
where he came from, or to whom he belonged. Suddenly he began to sing,
what, I couldn’t understand, but from the expression on the faces of the
men present, and from his own gestures, I gathered that it was something
indecent.
How shall I describe my feelings? Were they prompted by horror,
repulsion, or compassion? I must try to analyse them clearly.... I felt
as if I had brought this wretched creature into the world, as if I were
responsible for him. I experienced a mother’s agony and a mother’s
boundless tenderness.
Directly it became plain to me that the child was not speaking in the
delirium of fever, but of drunkenness, I had to bite my lips till they
bled, so as not to cry out. Then the boy came to me, and threw himself
across my lap. There he stayed, nestling his head against me, and went to
sleep.
* * * * *
Were I to act now sensibly and as common reason demanded, I should send
the child back whence he came, though I don’t know in the least where
that is.... The child who has awakened the most sacred feeling in my
poor, withered heart.... The child who is to blame for my having shed,
for the first time in my life, tears of joy.
When I offered to take Jeanne’s child, I had my reasons at my fingers’
ends, but they were not honourable ones. I wanted to start for myself
an interest in life. I started from the hypothesis that what filled the
lives of so many women might equally well fill mine. I wanted to take
Jeanne’s child, in the same way as five years before I had taken her ...
as an experiment, a distraction.
But it was not so to-night. This small boy had kissed my hands, and I had
blessed him.
I have heard somewhere of a holy man who met once a little child who was
tired. He lifted him on to his shoulders and carried him over a river,
but on the way the child grew and became heavier and heavier, while the
man sank deeper and deeper.... All that, however, doesn’t matter.
I took him home with me. Here you can do what you like. My proceeding
excited no remark. A stranger asked if he should fetch me a carriage, and
we drove home.
I must, of course, make inquiries about his antecedents. He says nothing
himself. He woke up when I struck a light, but he wouldn’t tell me
his name even. The people in the train thought he was one of those
outcast children without parents who live from hand to mouth by selling
newspapers, and stealing from the banana carts, and who pass the night
on the river’s bank or in empty wagons.
I haven’t succeeded yet in getting his boots off. Though they have
evidently once belonged to a grown-up, they are so tightly laced on his
little legs that they can only be moved by cutting. He must have worn
them day and night for months.
* * * * *
What will be the end of it? I daren’t think, and I daren’t act. I keep
saying to myself without ceasing, the same thing, “Suppose he is taken
away from me?” and I seem to see into the future, his life ending in
crime, his death taking place in prison.
I intend to sacrifice my own life for this child’s ... but is that
sufficient? Can that avert his fate?
My beautiful, beautiful boy! He is asleep. I have locked both doors
and sit with the key in my pocket. Every quarter of an hour I look in
at him; he smiles in his sleep as only innocent children smile. Then
suddenly he clenches his little fists and his mouth becomes so distorted
and ugly that I have to turn away. What can he be dreaming about?
Help me, help! To whom am I praying? I, who am without faith, and without
hope. But I am not without love. No longer without love; for I love this
poor, miserable child.
Could I but give him back his innocence!... Has he never been innocent
like other children? Was he contaminated from the first by the two
creatures who gave him life? Is it in my power to atone for others’ sins
against him?
I wonder why he tried to run away to-day? Where did he want to go, and
what was in his mind? If I had not got him back, God knows, I could not
have faced another day.
* * * * *
I sat with him on my lap, and he looked up at me as if he would ask,
“What are you going to do with me?”
His childish gaze was so suspicious and hard. I told him that I wanted to
be his mother and to live for nothing else but to make him happy. All the
time his little hands were feeling about to find my pocket. I pretended
not to see, and smiling angelically, he plunged his hand after my purse,
and began to fidget with it till it opened. My heart beat so that I could
hear it distinctly resound in my ears.
Is it to be wondered at that he steals? He has known what it is to
starve. But now I give him everything that heart can desire. I have
bought him a little purse of his own, and filled it with money. Yet still
his tiny face retains its expression of desperate greed when he sees me
take out money. When will this alter?
And he asks me if I have bought him. Or have been given money to keep
him. He does not remember that blessed, thousandfold blessed, night when
he took my heart by storm, and transformed me into a real human being....
I wanted to test him, so to-day I went without lunch, explaining to him
that I had no more money, but he was to eat, I could go without it. He
nodded, and without troubling about me at all, ate up his lunch.
* * * * *
Kelly. That’s his name. Kelly! or he says it’s his name. He has been with
me now for six days, and only to-day he told me what he was called. Well,
it is at least a beginning. I am thankful for little.
I dare not hesitate any longer. If I could, I would travel off with him
like a thief with his booty, even if somewhere a mother sat and wept
for him. No, no! I wouldn’t rob a mother of her child. But I needn’t be
afraid. Kelly’s whole bearing tells me that he has been for a long, long
time alone in the world. Enquiries will be only a matter of form, and
then I can adopt him properly. He will be mine by law.
* * * * *
It is quite a matter of indifference to me if people shake their heads at
my insane action. How should they know that Kelly alone, only this boy
with the vicious little face and criminal glance is the source of all
my bliss and riches in this life? But it distresses me when people talk
about it in his presence, and I cannot prevent them shaking their heads.
Kelly understands what they mean. He seems conscious that his brow is
branded with the mark of Cain.
* * * * *
To-morrow we are going to the Children’s Court; I have written to Mr.
Rander. He is said to be one of the cleverest child-psychologists in
America.
He has replied that I need cherish no fears. So long as my love is
sufficiently great ... my love.... Yes, my love is great enough to bear
the strain.
* * * * *
Why had that to happen just to-day, when I was feeling in such good
heart? It’s only a trifle, certainly. He may not have thought what he was
doing.
It’s a necessity of children’s nature to be destructive. They are cruel
without being conscious of it. What, after all, do I care about the
stupid cacti? I would have made him a present of all of them. But it was
the glance of his! The sly, uncanny glance when I said, “But, Kelly, why
have you cut my flowers in pieces?”
* * * * *
I am doing it entirely on my own responsibility. I should do it, even if
the whole world cried out, “Leave it alone, it will prove your ruin!” I
should do it. Even if I could see into the future, and behold my boy a
full-fledged criminal sentenced to death.... I consecrate my life to him,
my poor, squandered life. But it isn’t poor now. I am rich. I am a mother!
* * * * *
Mr. Rander meant well, I daresay, when he said, “Don’t do it. Take any of
them, only not him!” And he related what he knew.
As if a single spoken phrase could dissolve the bond my heart has entered
into voluntarily.
“Born, double-dyed criminal.” Nevertheless, I will educate myself to be a
worthy mother to him.
DEAR MAGNA WELLMANN,
“From earth thou comest, to earth thou shalt return....” These words of
Scripture occurred to me when I read your letter. That is the eternal
circle ... in this case the circle of your family. Your grandfather was a
renegade from the calling of his forefathers when he became a townsman.
Your father degenerated, and now you have gone back to the land.
Magna, Magna, I admire you. Of course, I am heart and soul for the
enterprise. In this manner my money will become a breathing, living
entity, doing its own work, and reaping its own reward. Don’t talk about
being cautious. I am running no risks. I know what I am about. Your
lawyer’s letter informs me in business language that the undertaking is
“sound,” besides I am not giving the whole or even half the capital.
I need no assurances that you will carry the thing through. But read
before you begin a little book by Flaubert. I don’t mind betting you have
never heard of it. It is called, “Bouvard et Pécuchet.” A prospective
agriculturist can learn a good deal from it. It’s splendid that Jarl is
so keen on farming. But you won’t surely let him put his hand to the
plough, and work in the fields from the start, will you? The boy is only
seventeen, and I hope, too, that his mother isn’t going to begin at once
digging turnips and milking cows. I should not care to set foot in a
cow-shed—it’s a thing I have never done. But all the same I shall enjoy
having letters yards long about all your first experiments and blunders.
You mustn’t take it too much to heart that Agnete is cool towards you.
The poor child has a dash of prudishness in her, inherited from her
mother! When she has children of her own she will be different.
Your account of the scandal was rich! Especially do I like that remark
of a friend, “She might at least have had the tact to say that it was an
adopted child.” I read between the lines that you have not passed through
this humiliation without it’s having left scars behind. But, Magna,
nothing is in vain. You can afford to pay the cost of your happiness.
I am reminded of a little story about you which used to be told in our
“set.” It related to the way in which you conquered Professor Wellmann’s
heart. You were at a party, and had been so bored you had spoken to no
one. There was something to drink in big, tall glasses. Suddenly in an
ebullition of superfluous strength you bit the glass with your teeth and
bit a piece out of it. Professor Wellmann sat with distended eyes and
open mouth, and watched you.
And on his way out of the house he remarked to a not very discreet
friend, “She, the girl who bit the glass, shall be my wife!”
The story may or may not be true, but it is characteristic of you all the
same.
I can see you in hobnail boots, and a smock, tramping over the fields,
superintending the plough and the breeding of cattle.
I have very little to tell about myself. Since I linked my fate to
Kelly’s I live in a new world. Every day that goes by I come nearer to
myself, but I cannot write about it. It is too sacred a subject. Troubles
which were unknown to me before have taken up their continued abode
within me, but joys which were equally strange keep watch over me with
drawn swords. Magna, I ask you, can the woman who has brought her own
child into the world experience greater bliss and greater torment than I,
to whom my boy was given by chance?
With a thousand loving remembrances,
Your
ELSIE LINDTNER.
THE WHITE VILLA.
DEAR JEANNE,
As you will see from this heading, we are now at home again.
_We_, and at _home_ again!
My home is where Kelly is, and Denmark was never his home. But for his
sake, I have uprooted once more. I did not think such a big, big town was
good for him. The island here is certainly small enough.
Oh, if you could see how it looks now! I was determined to be the first
with Kelly to enter the house, since you and I left it together, how many
years ago?
The carpets were in tatters. The window panes were beaten in, either by
the wind or vagabonds. Dead leaves and dead flies lay about the floors.
My beautiful pieces of furniture were mildewed from damp ... one or two
of the chairs had collapsed; the chintz coverings were moth-eaten. My
bedroom—my ridiculous bedroom—was the most deplorable of all. It must
have been struck by lightning, otherwise I don’t understand how the
mirrors got smashed, and the rain and snow lay congealed on my bed.
Kelly laughed, and rushed from room to room, and in the end I laughed,
too. Then Kelly got hold of the mad idea that instead of putting up
at the inn, we should turn in here the first night. I half think he
contemplated a sort of burglarious attempt on the deserted house. I
yielded, of course. Never in my life have I seen any one more industrious
and handy than this boy when he likes. He ran about pumping water and
sweeping floors, and made all straight, God knows how. Tea was prepared!
ante-diluvian sugar and a canister of Albert biscuits. He ushered me into
the large parlour where my piano, my poor, wretched, beautiful piano,
had been standing all these years, the prey of wind and rain, till it
hasn’t a sound left in its body from hoarseness—and then he brought in
the tea. I won’t go so far as to say that it tasted clean or nice, and
the biscuits were musty, but Kelly’s hand had prepared it.
And we slept together in the same bed, in your bed, Jeanne, in yours! It
was the only one in which the blankets were dry. I wanted to lie on a
sofa with a rug, but Kelly would cuddle up beside me.
Jeanne, I—really I, your fond, old travelling companion, am now once more
“at home,” and I lay awake the whole night thinking over my happiness.
Kelly slept in my arm, and my arm, of course, went to sleep, but no other
part of me slept ... and Kelly woke with my arm round him.