a society for the winter. The report of your enormous pluck has reached
the old Market Place, for Richard spoke of you in terms of the warmest
admiration and esteem. At parting we both positively had tears in our
eyes.
May I, without hurting you, give a hint? Please put on your silk dress,
Magna. I shall have a new one made, I think, as quickly as possible. You
see, this is to be a very important event in my life.
Embrace my boy for me, and remember what I said about his hands.
ELSIE.
DEAR JEANNE,
It is wrong of me to have been so lazy lately about writing. But I have
had so much to do. I have, as a matter of fact, moved house. It happened
in a twinkling. This habitation became to let through a death, and mine
was taken by a young married couple.
Now I am living on the beach road so far out that I am hardly to be
reckoned as belonging to Copenhagen. Can you guess why I have moved?
Simply to be nearer the farm, so childish does one become with advancing
age. Magna advised me strongly to come out altogether, but I am not
inclined to do that. I am always and shall be a child of towns, though
in the year that Kelly has been learning to be a farmer I have taken an
almost incredible interest in cows, pigs, winter crops, and all the rest
of it. My life is so full of richness and light, I have nearly more joy
than I can bear, and no troubles at all.
Magna manages our “estate,” as she always calls it to please me, most
admirably. And how well she understands the art of setting others to work!
My Kelly and her little Oluf are now, as they always have been,
inseparable, and I believe that the blue-eyed little comrade exercises
a most beneficent influence on Kelly. Magna told me one day that she
had heard Oluf saying—the boy lay in a hay-cock and didn’t know that
Magna was on the other side of it taking her after-dinner nap—“I have no
father, for my father died ten years before I was born. But if you like
to be my father, I shall be quite content to have no other.”
Magna visits me every time that she has anything to do in the town.
When the window is open I can hear the crack of her whip above all the
rest. And will you believe it, Jeanne, my heart begins to beat at the
sound, for it means that the boys are with her, or that Magna is coming
to tell me about them. You should just see her sitting rosy and upright
in the dog-cart, her head hidden in a hood, with an old sealskin on,
all rubbed the wrong way, the same that twenty years ago formed a topic
of conversation the whole winter through, because it had cost her poor,
struggling husband goodness knows how many thousands.
Magna is now getting on for sixty. But no one would think it. She beams
as if the whole world were at her feet. I look at least ten years older,
although, God knows, I take a lot of trouble over my hair, and touch up
my cheeks a little, as I always did. She makes a fuss about getting out
of the cart as if the coachman could not look after the butter and eggs.
Just think, she gets up at four in summer and at six in winter, and works
for two. There is no work that she considers is too menial.
Lately she and Kelly painted all the four buildings for Whitsun. And they
did it like the wind, so that one could hardly believe one’s own eyes. I
sat out on the verandah and watched, and was nearly sick with delight.
Then we had roast ribs and oxeyes for dinner. How Kelly eats! You
can have no conception of his appetite. It’s not elegant, but oh, so
splendid! And after they have been slaughtering Kelly brings me lambs’
fry, black puddings, and liver sausages. What I once couldn’t tolerate
now tastes to me better than the finest Astrakhan caviare.
How I chat on all about my own affairs. But I don’t forget my little
fellow-traveller on that account, and her troubles are mine. Still, I
am not going to make them such a serious matter as you do, for they are
not worth it. You have arrived at a stage when everything looks to you
black, and must look so. I should be deeply pained if I had not long ago
seen what the cause of it is. You are now just about the age I was when
we first met each other; that age which for women is so difficult and
dangerous. And the inexplicable happiness is not granted to every woman
to come through the time unscathed and triumphant as I did.
I have thought about it, and wondered what the reason could be why I,
contrary to every one else, should remain during those years much the
same as always; and I have come to the conclusion that it was because I
lived so superficially at that time, and without any deep feeling for
other people.
But you, little Jeanne, since you linked your fate so fortunately with
Malthe’s, have been a sheer compost of love-worship and self-sacrifice.
I could have foretold long ago that your transition age would be a hard
time. But now try yourself to make it easier. Review the circumstances,
sift, and explain them to yourself.
You have something to be thankful for that does not fall to the lot of
one woman in ten thousand. Your husband continues to love you as much
to-day as when you first became his. Does that not counter-balance
everything? Are the little cosmopolitan godless angels of children really
so hard to bring up as you think? They have, of course, the artistic
temperament, and you attempt to model them into normal human beings. You
will never succeed.
And is Malthe’s depression of spirits of any great significance? There is
cause for it. He has of late, with justice or injustice, been overlooked,
and younger powers have been preferred before him; his name has no longer
the _cachet_ it once had, and even his talent seems to have taken a back
seat. But, dear Jeanne, you are greatly to blame for this. You have
loved your husband so blindly and fondly that you have not set him on
a pedestal, but you have built a castle of air far up in the highest
clouds, and there you have placed him like a golden ball on the most
inaccessible pinnacle, with no one above him and no one near him.... You
have fed his ambition and stifled your own natural, critical faculty,
instead of standing at his side and being helpful to him in deciding
between good and mediocre, and now you complain that you cannot console,
and that he spurns you. You are ashamed to say so, but I read between the
lines that you are very, very unhappy.... And it is all because you are
not well, dear Jeanne, and your despondency is likely to last some years.
But I could hit, I think, on ways and means of putting your cares to
flight; if only you will at once make up your mind to bring your little
flock northwards, so that I may take them with me to the Villa this
summer, and teach the little goose-herds, the Parisian, the Sicilian,
and the Smyrna child, indifferent Danish, while you and your Malthe close
the house, store your furniture, and trot round the globe.
Don’t let the thought of money stand in your way. Tell Joergen from me
that he may with an easy hand use the money which he would set aside as a
dowry for his daughters.
He must be ashamed of himself if he has not that opinion about his own
flesh and blood, that it will be a pure joy to any one to take over the
girls, even if they come without a rag to their backs or clothed in flour
sacks.
Besides, I have made my will, and, dear Jeanne, if I once played _la
banque_ at Monte Carlo, I am not likely to do it again.
What a glorious summer it will be over there in the White Villa with your
chicks. And we’ll borrow Magna’s Oluf and my Kelly for a week, too. What
does my old travelling companion say to this?
Much love to you and to your husband, and the whole small flock, from
Yours always,
ELSIE LINDTNER.
* * * * *
Poor Jeanne and poor Joergen.... So it fares worse with you than I
thought.
I have the greatest desire to travel over to them and mediate, but in
these days my heart is too touchy and my neuralgia a consideration. I
ought not by rights to sit out on the balcony in the cool evening air,
but I never could be careful.
But it shall not happen; it would be too foolish and irresponsible a
step—people don’t separate in a hurry like that without a ghost of a
real reason. All very well if Malthe had another string to his bow, or
if Jeanne was in love with another man, but, good Lord! one of them
couldn’t live without the other, and yet she talks of having “weighed”
the matter, and thoroughly thought it out. I am so angry my hands tremble.
Jeanne must really collect herself, and understand that all this is
nothing but a transition. When I think of it, I can recall no case among
the many I have known—except, of course, my own—of a single woman who
has managed to get through these years without a slight rumpus of some
kind. Afterwards they have taken endless trouble to patch up the wounds
they have inflicted. Now, Jeanne has been more than unreasonable in this
respect. There isn’t a man in the world who can stand such an everlasting
adoration.
It was certainly brutal of him to say, “Mind yourself, your house, and
your children, but don’t meddle with my work.”
But he meant nothing more by it than a child in a temper does when it
vents its anger in trampling on a favourite toy. Yet the words rankled
in Jeanne as a reproach—a reproach for what?
He has lost faith in his talent. Therefore he is irritable and dejected,
and Jeanne, who all these years has had enough to do in bringing children
into the world, and caring for them and him, now stands suddenly still,
looks round and behind her, and feels disillusioned. Now is the time when
she wants the tenderest words he has ever lavished on her, but he, with
his head full of building plans, sees no sense or object in two people
talking of love—two people who have proved their love with their whole
life.
One of them ought to fall sick unto death ... so that the other should
forget his small grievances.
Well, we shall see. If Jeanne listens to my advice, and lets the children
come up here, all will be well.... A little air and freedom is what they
need; otherwise I shall have to sacrifice myself and for the second time
knock about the world with my little travelling companion.
* * * * *
So I have been in my old home once more! Weeks will have to go by before
I get over the re-visiting of it. Every trace of me had been removed—with
a scrupulous care and thoroughness as if every piece of furniture,
every hanging and picture had been dangerously infected. Doors had been
obliterated, and new ones cut in walls which used to be doorless. Not
even the peaceful white fireplaces were there any longer, but instead
gilded radiators. Had I never inhabited the rooms they could not have
seemed more strange. I looked in vain for Richard’s oak bookcase, and the
panels from his grandmother’s country place.
I had to see everything. My namesake—she who bears the name by right,
not courtesy—led me from one room to another. It was as if she asked me
incessantly, “Isn’t there anything that reminds you of your reign?” No,
nothing, not the very least thing.
And then when we sat round the table at which Richard and I used to sit
alone with the servants waiting behind our chairs, all the vacant places
were filled with children whose appearance in the world was one of the
conditions of my departure. Wonderful, wonderful! and a little sad.
I noticed how Richard exerted himself that I should feel at ease. But he,
too, I think, was moved by the oddness of the situation.
She calls me Madame Elsie, and I call her Madame Beathe.
Involuntarily I glanced round for the big portrait Kröyer in his day
painted of me, the portrait which Richard simply idolised. He saw what I
was looking for, and cast down his eyes. I felt inclined to say, “Dearest
friend, don’t let us be sentimental. What was once is no longer. But the
picture was a true work of art, and for that reason you should have let
it hang where it was.”
One thinks such things, but doesn’t say them.
I was shown, too, the daughters’ bedroom upstairs, and there—there hung
my picture among photographs of actresses and school friends. Finally it
will land in the attic unless it occurs to some one to make money out of
it.
Why is it I cannot get rid of a feeling of bitterness and humiliation?
They were all very kind and considerate. But when Madame Beathe joking
suggested a match between her Annelisa and my Kelly, I felt near to
crying. Annelisa is a thoroughly nice girl, it is true. But I cannot
endure the thought of Kelly being looked down on, because of his country
manners. And she does look down on him.
The little mistress has one fault. She is too immaculately tidy. I
noticed that all the carpets had dusting sheets over them, and naturally
supposed their removal had been forgotten, till I saw that every single
article on her dressing-table was covered in the middle of the day
with gauze, and I heard her scolding one of the maids for not washing
her hands before beginning to lay the cloth after touching some books.
Richard, I am sure, finds it trying.
When he smokes a cigar she sits on pins and needles for fear he shall
scatter the ash about. And God knows that for a man Richard is tidy
enough. She discovered a mark on the white window-ledge, only a raindrop,
I believe, but got up twenty times at least to scrub, brush, and breathe
on the spot.
It gives me food for thought. It is not for me to judge what she does and
how she acts. But I can’t get over it. I feel bound to criticise her. And
somehow the idea will bother me that this is my home she is fussing about
in, and not the other way about.
Annelisa kissed me at parting, and asked if she might soon come to see
me. But she shall not come when Kelly is at home. That is certain.
And now they have invited me to a grand dinner-party.
* * * * *
Kelly must have a tail-coat, there is no question of that.
* * * * *
No, Kelly shall not have a dress suit. Kelly won’t come with me to the
dinner-party at Richard’s. I am going alone.
* * * * *
Pah! I am positively excited! It was a grand occasion. And it did me good
to hear pretty speeches made about my appearance. The orchids certainly
did go well with my mauve silk. They couldn’t have come from anywhere
but Paris, of course.
Annelisa and I became great friends. She took me up to her room and
confided in me that she and her mother don’t get on.
You were afraid to move almost for fear of being told you were making
things in a mess. And the child betrayed, by the way, the little domestic
secret that her mother now had a bedroom to herself, because her father
was so untidy in shaving. When no one was looking her mother went about
with a duster and wiped away the marks left by the soles of your boots.
Wasn’t it too awful? But it didn’t seem so dreadful to me, for all at
once I saw plainly what it meant, and I consoled the child by telling her
that in a year or two the scouring demon would be cleaned away.
Richard seems quite unconcerned. He doesn’t dream of complaining. But if
he has any memory, it must occur to him in looking back, how in the years
that I was passing through the phase, everything inwardly and outwardly
went on the same as usual.
Richard plays a brilliant game of bridge. But I must say I was utterly
unprepared for Professor Rothe making the third. He behaved as if nothing
whatever had passed between us. And Lili’s name was not mentioned.
Richard said when I rose to go, “You have been the Queen of the Feast!”
God knows I blushed.
Maybe that in his secret heart he recognises the great sacrifice I
made for him. It was, undoubtedly, no easy matter to leave him and the
beautiful house. But my exemplary conscience was sufficient reward, even
if I had not afterwards received the guerdon of Kelly.
* * * * *
I believe I shall succeed in having a chat with Madame Beathe about her
_tic doloreux_. If one broaches the subject tactfully, it’s possible
to achieve a great deal; and it is only a matter of getting her to see
herself that her malady is an appendage of her years.
* * * * *
What holes Kelly wears his stockings into, and how black he makes
his pocket-handkerchiefs! I do believe the boy uses them to wash the
cart-wheels.
* * * * *
Kelly said yesterday, “And if you hadn’t adopted me, I should have been
in the gutter all my life.” How he looks at me!
* * * * *
I suppose I had better have left it alone. I was told that for others
such a period of incapability might exist, but not for her. She knew
the duties of a proper housewife, and did not attend to a fifth part of
things and leave the rest in dirt and disorder.
It was a little too much that I should not only come and interfere in her
housekeeping, but ascribe to her a fictitious illness that only existed
in my imagination.... And then followed a long story which to listen
to was enough to make one laugh and weep together. Goodness! she had
actually been jealous of my former régime, and had no peace till she had
turned the whole house topsy-turvy. She didn’t intend that I should know
this. But the storm burst when she thought to-day I had been taking my
revenge. Her one object in life was to live for her husband, her home,
and her children, and she had no notions about posing as a beauty, and be
painted by famous artists. And so on....
She was so beside herself finally, that I was obliged to cave in, and
say that I had made a mistake, she was not at the dangerous age, and her
scouring mania was a perfectly natural instinct, and it was a pity that
all housewives did not follow her example.
And then we were good friends again, and she told me that she was very
glad I was really quite old.
Any woman so old and harmless, of course didn’t count.
No, I shall not burn my fingers again. It is most curious how forgetful
one becomes with the flight of years.
But forgetful is not exactly the right word. It is much more a sort of
half-unconscious perversion of actual facts. The same kind of thing as
parents making out to their children and almost believing it themselves,
that when they were children they were absolute angels.
Magna, for instance, is capable of self-delusion and lying with regard
to the miseries of her dangerous age. Magna, usually the soul of
truthfulness, who never tries to make herself out better than she is,
apparently believes that she got over those difficult years easily and
calmly. Good God!
For once we nearly grew angry with one another. I maintained that it was
nothing to be ashamed of, but rather an honour, that she had afterwards
matured into the magnificent, vigorous creature she now is.
But she wouldn’t hear of it. The only thing she would admit was Oluf, and
she only did that because he is flesh and blood.
We both became vehement, and in the end Magna went the length of
asserting in her excitement that I had been far more affected by the
critical years than she and Lili Rothe put together!
It was useless to protest against such a ludicrous mis-statement of
facts. But we very soon made it up again, and played our game of Friday
bridge. Unfortunately Kelly had not come in with Magna.
He and Oluf had to sit up all night with a sick cow. It would have
sufficed if one of them had done it, but where Kelly is there Oluf will
be also.
God bless Magna for her way of chatting about the two boys. I devour the
words as they fall from her lips. It is so splendid to hear her. Magna
thinks it will be a good thing for Kelly if he marries in a year or two
... it seems almost as if she had fixed on some one already. What if it
should be to the new dairy-maid? Well, I should not mind, so long as it
was for my boy’s happiness. In that event we must think of taking a farm
for Kelly, for Kelly and Oluf.
* * * * *
It would interest me to prove to Magna who was right. If I could bring
myself to reading through once more what I wrote down in those days ...
yes, I will to-morrow.
* * * * *
I am ashamed, oh, how ashamed I am! It is not fancy or forgery. I wrote
every word of it in circumstances which bear witness to the honesty of
the writer. I can never look either Magna or Jeanne in the face again ...
or in my boy’s.
Not I who have a thousand times dreamed and wished with all my heart that
I had brought him into the world! I can only hang my head now and be
thankful that he never had such a person for his mother.
I, I, who strutted about like a peacock, proud of my own perfections;
I, who pointed the finger of scorn at others; I, who presumed with the
rights of a judge to condemn or pardon others, inwardly jubilating
triumphantly, “Thank God I am not as other men are.”
_That_ can never be erased, never made good.
Now that I have reached the evening of my days, and my one occupation is
to sit and look out of the window at the people who pass, and dream happy
dreams for my boy, I commit no thought or deed that needs the veil of
oblivion.
But then, when I was in my prime ... when I might have applied my gifts
for usefulness and pleasure—I was such a....
The memory of it can never be wiped out. It can never be made good.
And I had thought that Kelly was to read it all after my death, so that
he might learn to know what I really was; learn to despise me as I lay
in my grave.... I have had the fire lit though it is summer. I intend to
destroy every line. Every line!
But will that prevent Kelly beholding me in all my pitiableness? Am I
such a coward? Such a coward?... No, Kelly _shall_ read it, every scrap
when I am dead.
Then he shall see what a deplorable, wretched creature I was till love
entered my life, when he did. Then he shall know the great miracle which
love wrought.
Kelly has a claim to me in bad as well as good....
I feel to-day so ineffably tired. It seems as if this day were to be my
last. The day of judgment, when I am to stand face to face with myself.
But the day of judgment is to be followed by regeneration. Kelly is to be
my regeneration. Not for myself do I pray to be granted a year, an hour;
I pray for Kelly’s sake alone, that our meeting that night may not have
been in vain. This prayer throbs from my lips into Eternity.
Will it be heard?
* * * * *
There are bells chiming for vespers. Now Kelly is coming home from work,
so tall, strong, and healthy. They are busy with the spring ploughing,
and to-morrow will be Sunday. Then I shall see him, have him to
myself....
Kelly, Kelly ... why aren’t you here at this hour? Kelly, I want to see
you, and to thank you.
Be good ... be happy....
THE DANGEROUS AGE
BY
Karin Michaëlis
_Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.20 net_ _Postage 12 cents_
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Herald_
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literary taste and an artistic reticence are characteristics of this
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JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK
AN UNOFFICIAL HONEYMAN
BY
Dolf Wyllarde
Author of “The Rat Trap,” “The Riding Master,” etc.
_Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_
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