VI

“These are the things I wanted you to see,” said Gert Gram, rising. He

had been on his knees, looking for something on the lower shelf of his

safe.

Jenny pushed the sketch-books aside and pulled the electric lamp nearer.

He wiped the dust from the big portfolio and placed it before her.

“I have not shown these to anybody for a great many years, or looked at

them myself, but I have been wanting you to see them for some time—in

fact, from the day I called on you at your studio. When you came here to

look at Helge’s picture I meant to ask you if you cared to see them, and

all the time you were working close by here I had it in my mind.

“It is strange to think, Jenny, that here in this little office I have

buried all my dreams of youth. There in the safe they lie like corpses in

their tomb, and I myself go about a dead and forgotten artist.”

Jenny said nothing. Gram sometimes used expressions that were rather too

sentimental, she thought, although she knew that the bitter feelings

which dictated them were real enough. In a sudden impulse she bent

forward and stroked his grey hair.

Gram bowed his head as if to prolong the slight caress—and without

looking at her, untied the portfolio with trembling hands.

She realized in surprise that her own hands shook as she took the first

sheet from him, and she felt a strange fear and oppression at heart, as

of a danger threatening. She was suddenly afraid when she realized that

she did not want anybody to know of her visit and that she dared not tell

Helge about it. At the mere thought of her lover she became depressed;

she had long since consciously stopped analysing her real feelings for

him. She did not want to heed the foreboding that crossed her mind at

this moment, not to let herself be disturbed by inquiring into Gert

Gram’s feelings for her.

She turned over the sheets of the portfolio with the dreams of his youth;

it was a melancholy business. He had told her about this work often when

they were alone, and she understood that he thought he had been born

an artist for the sake of this and nothing else. The pictures hanging

in his home he called the amateur work of a conscientious and diligent

pupil, but these—they were his own. They were illustrations to Landstad’s

Folksongs.

At first sight these big sheets with frames of Roman foliage and ornate

black-letter writing were good enough. The colouring was pure and

effective in most of them, in some really fine, but the figures in the

vignettes and borders were without style and life, although the miniature

drawings were correct in every detail. Some of them were naturalistic,

others approaching Italian mediaeval art to such an extent that Jenny

recognized certain Annunciation angels and madonnas in the cloaks of

knights and maidens, and the leaves in gold and purple she remembered

having seen, in a book of mass in the San Marco library. The words of

the songs looked very strange, hand-printed in elegant monastic Latin

types. In some of the larger full-page illustrations the composition was

baroque, a direct copy of Roman altar pictures. It was an echo of all he

had seen and lived among and loved—an echo of the melody of Gert Gram’s

youth; not a single note was his own, but this melody of many notes was

resounded in a particularly soft, melancholy tone.

“You don’t quite like them,” he said. “I can see you don’t.”

“Yes, I like them. There is much that is pretty and delicate about them,

but, you know”—she searched for the right expression—“the effect is a

little strange on us, who have seen the same subjects treated differently

and so perfectly, that we cannot conceive them treated in another way.”

He sat opposite her, resting his chin in his hand. By and by he looked

up, and she was sad at heart to meet his eyes.

“I seem to remember them as being much better than they are,” he said

quietly, trying to smile. “I have not opened this portfolio for many a

year, as I told you.”

“I have never quite understood that you were so attracted by the later

renaissance and the baroque,” she said, to divert the conversation.

“I am not surprised, Jenny dear, that you don’t understand it.” He looked

into her face with a melancholy smile. “There was a time when I believed

in myself as an artist, but not so completely that I did not have a

slight doubt sometimes, not of succeeding to express what I wanted, but

as to what I really wanted to express. I saw that romantic art had had

its day and was on the decline—there was decadence and falsehood all

along—and yet in my heart I was devoted to romance, not in painting

alone, but in real life. I wanted the Sunday-peasants of romance,

although I had lived long enough in the country as a boy to know they

did not exist, and when I went abroad it was to the Italy of romance I

turned my steps. I know that you and your contemporaries seek beauty in

things as they are, tangible and real. To me there was beauty only in the

transformation of reality, which had already been done by others. In the

eighties there came a new art-creed. I tried to adopt it, but the result

was lip-service only, for my heart rebelled against it.”

“But reality, Gert, is not a fixed conception. It appears different to

every one who sees it. An English painter once said to me: ‘There is

beauty in everything; only your eyes see it or do not see it.’”

“I was not made to conceive reality, only the reflection of it in the

dreams of others. I lacked entirely the capacity to form a beauty for

myself out of the complexity of realities; I knew my own ineffectiveness.

When I came to Italy the baroque took my heart and fancy. Can you not

understand the agony of my soul on realizing my inefficiency? To have

nothing new or personal wherewith to fill up form, only develop the

technique in soaring fancies, break-neck foreshortenings, powerful

effects of light and shade, and cunningly thought-out compositions. The

emptiness of it all is to be hidden under the ecstasy—contorted faces,

twisted limbs, saints, whose only true passion is the dread of their

own engulfing doubt, which they try to drown in sickly exaltation. It

is the despair of the good, the work of an epigon school wishing to

fascinate—mostly themselves.”

Jenny nodded. “What you say, Gert, is at least your own subjective view.

I am not so sure that the painters you speak of were not highly pleased

with themselves.”

He laughed and said: “Perhaps they were—and perhaps this is my

hobby-horse because for once I had—as you say—a subjective view.”

“But the picture of your wife in red is impressionistic, excellent. The

more I look at it, the more I like it.”

“Yes, but that is a solitary instance.” After a pause “When I painted it,

she was all the world to me. I was very much in love with her—and I hated

her intensely already.”

“Was it because of her you gave up painting?” asked Jenny.

“No. All our misfortunes are of our own making. I know you have not what

they call faith, neither have I—but I believe in a God, if you like, or a

spiritual power which punishes justly.

“She was cashier in a shop in the High Street; I happened to see her

there. She was remarkably pretty, as you can see still. One evening when

she went home I waited for her and spoke to her. We made friends—and I

seduced her,” he said in a low and harsh voice.

“And you married her because she was going to have a child?—I thought so.

For twenty-seven years she has tormented you in return. Do you know what

I think of the deity you believe in?—that it is rather relentless.”

He smiled wearily. “I am not quite so old-fashioned as you may think.

I don’t consider it a sin if two young people, who love and believe in

one another, join their lives in a lawful or unlawful way. But in my

case I was the abductor. She was innocent when I met her—innocent in

every way. I understood her better than she did herself. I saw that she

was passionate, and would be jealous and tyrannical in her love, but I

did not care. I was flattered that her passion was for me, that this

beautiful girl was all mine, but I never meant to be hers alone, the way

I knew she wanted it. I did not exactly mean to leave her, but I thought

I should be able to arrange our life in such a way as not to share with

her my interests, my work, my real life in fact, as I knew she would

want to do. It was stupid of me, knowing that I was weak and she strong

and ruthless. I thought that her great passion would give me, who was

comparatively cold, a hold on her.

“Beyond her great faculty of loving there was nothing in her. She

was vain and uneducated, envious and crude. There could be no mental

fellowship between us, but I did not miss it; to possess her beauty and

her passionate love was all I cared for.”

He rose and went over to the side where Jenny was sitting. He took both

her hands and pressed them against his eyes.

“What else but misery could I expect from a marriage with her? But we

reap as we sow, and I had to marry her. I had a dreadful time of it.

At first, when she came to my studio, she was proud to be my mistress,

arrogant in her denunciation of old prejudices, declaring that the only

life worth living was that of free love. The moment things went wrong

she changed her tone. Then it was all about her respectable family in

Frederikshald, her unstained virtue, and her good reputation. Many

men had wanted her, but she had not listened to anybody, and I was a

scoundrel and a wretch if I did not marry her at once. I had nothing to

marry on; I had neglected my studies and had learnt nothing but painting.

Some months went by—at last I had to apply to my father. My people helped

me through. We got married, and two months later Helge arrived.

“I had had hopes of a great artistic work—my folklore illustrations—but

I had to give up my dreams for the reality of making bread and butter.

Once I had to come to an agreement with my creditors. She took her share

of the struggle and poverty loyally and without complaint—she would

willingly have starved for me and the children. Feeling as I did towards

her, it was hard to accept what she gave in working, suffering, and

renouncing for my sake.

“I had to sacrifice everything I loved; she forced me to give it up inch

by inch. From the very first she and my father were mortal enemies. He

could not bear his daughter-in-law, and that was a blow to her vanity,

so she set about to make trouble between him and me. My father was an

official of the old school—a bit narrow and stiff maybe, but right-minded

and loyal, noble and good at heart. You would have liked him, I am sure.

We had been so much to one another, but our intimacy was put a stop to.

“As for my painting, I understood that I had not the talent I once had

imagined, and I lacked energy to make continued efforts when I did not

believe in myself—dead tired as I was of the struggle and of my life at

her side, which became more and more of a caricature. She reproached me,

but secretly she triumphed.

“She was jealous of the children too, if I was fond of them or they were

fond of me. She would not share them with me nor me with them.

“Her jealousy has grown into a kind of madness as the years have gone by.

You have seen it for yourself. She can scarcely bear to see me in the

same room with you even when Helge is there.”

Jenny went to him and laid her hands on his shoulders:

“I cannot understand,” she said—“I really cannot—that you have been able

to stand such a life.”

Gert Gram bent forward, resting his head on her shoulder:

“I don’t understand it myself.”

When he raised his head and their eyes met, she put her hand to his neck

and, overwhelmed by a tender compassion, kissed him on the cheek and

forehead.

She felt a sudden fear when she looked down at his face resting on her

shoulder, with eyes closed, but the next moment he lifted his head and

rose, saying:

“Thank you, Jenny dear.”

Gram put the drawings back in their cover and straightened the table.

“I hope you will be very, very happy. You are so bright and courageous,

so energetic and gifted. Dear child, you are everything I wanted to be,

but never was.” He spoke in a low, absent-minded voice.

“I think,” he said a moment later, “that when relations between two

people are new, before their life is perfectly accorded, there are many

small difficulties to overcome. I wish you could live elsewhere, not in

this town. You should be alone, far from your own people—at first at

least.”

“Helge has applied for a post in Bergen, as you know,” said Jenny, and

the feeling of despair and anguish again seized her when she thought of

him.

“Do you never speak to your mother about it? Why don’t you? Are you not

fond of your mother?”

“Of course I am fond of her.”

“I should think it would be a good thing to talk to her about it—get her

advice.”

“It is no good asking anybody’s advice—I don’t like to speak to any one

about these things,” she said, wishing to dismiss the subject.

“No, you are perhaps....” He had been standing half-way turned to the

window. Suddenly his face changed, and he whispered in a state of

excitement:

“Jenny, she is down there in the street!”

“Who?”

“She—Rebecca!”

Jenny rose. She felt she could have screamed with exasperation and

disgust. She trembled; every fibre of her body was quivering with revolt.

She _would_ not be involved in all this—these wicked, odious suspicions,

quarrels, spiteful words, and scenes—no, she would _not_.

“Jenny, my child, you are shivering—don’t be afraid. I won’t let her hurt

you.”

“Afraid? Far from it.” She steeled herself at once. “I have been here to

fetch you; we have looked at your drawings, and we are now going to your

house to supper.”

“She may not have noticed anything.”

“Heavens! we have nothing to hide. If she had not seen that I am here she

will soon get to know it. I am going with you; we must do it for your

sake as well as for mine—do you hear?”

Gram looked at her: “Yes, let us go, then.”

When they got down in the street Mrs. Gram was gone.

“Let us take the tram, Gert; it is late,” she said, adding in a sudden

temper: “Oh, we must stop all this—if only for Helge’s sake.”

* * * * *

Mrs. Gram opened the door. Gert Gram ventured an explanation; Jenny

looked frankly into the angry eyes of his wife: “I am sorry Helge is out

for the evening. Do you think he will be home early?”

“I am surprised you did not remember it,” Mrs. Gram said to her husband.

“It is no pleasure to Miss Winge to sit here with us two old people.”

“Oh, that is all right,” said Jenny.

“I don’t remember hearing that Helge was going out this evening,” said

Gram.

* * * * *

“Fancy your coming without any needlework,” said Mrs. Gram, when they

were sitting in the drawing-room after supper. “You are always so

industrious.”

“I left the studio so late, I had no time to go home in between. Perhaps

you could find me something?”

Jenny conversed with Mrs. Gram about the price of embroidery patterns at

home and in Paris, and about books she had lent her. Gram was reading.

Now and again she felt his eyes on her. Helge returned about eleven.

“What is the matter?” he asked, when they walked down the stairs. “Has

there been a scene again?”

“No, not at all,” she replied, in a short, irritated voice. “I suppose

your mother did not like my coming home with your father.”

“It seems to me, too, that you need not have done it,” said Helge humbly.

“I am going home by tram.” Overwrought, and unable to control herself,

she pulled her arm out of his. “I cannot stand any more tonight, and I

will not have these scenes with you every time I have been to your home.

Good-night.”

“Jenny! Wait! Jenny!...” He hurried after her, but she was already at the

stop when the tram came, and got in, leaving him without a word.