Her dinner did not take long. She tried to read a paper to divert her
mind for a moment, but it was no good. She might just as well go home and
sit there.
On the upper landing a man stood waiting. He was tall and thin. She took
the last steps running, calling out Helge’s name.
“It is not Helge,” came the answer. It was his father.
Jenny stood breathless before him, stretching out her hands: “Gert—what
is it?—has anything happened?”
“Hush, hush!” He took her hand. “Helge has gone—he went to Kongsberg on a
visit to a friend—a schoolfellow of his who lives there. Were you afraid,
child, that something else had happened?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“My dear Jenny—you are quite beside yourself.”
She went past him in the passage and opened her door. There was still
daylight in the studio and Gert Gram looked at her. He was pale himself.
“Do you feel it so much? Helge said—at least that is what I understood
him to say—that you have agreed to—that you both think you are not suited
to each other.”
Jenny was silent. Hearing somebody else say it, she wanted to protest. Up
to now she had not quite realized that it was all over, but here was this
man saying that they had agreed to part, and Helge had gone and her love
for him was gone—she could not find it in her any more. It was all over,
but, heavens! how was it possible, when she had not wanted it to end?
“Does it hurt so much?” he asked again. “Do you still love him?”
“Of course I love him.” Her voice shook. “One does not cease all at once
loving somebody one has been very fond of, and one cannot be indifferent
to having caused suffering.”
Gram did not speak at once; he sat down on the sofa, twisting his hat
between his fingers: “I understand that it is very painful to both of
you, but don’t you believe, Jenny, when you think it over, that it is for
the best?”
She did not reply.
“I cannot tell you how pleased I was when I met you and saw what kind of
a woman my son had won. It looked to me as if my boy had got everything
that I have had to renounce in life. You were so pretty and refined, I
had an impression that you were as good as you were clever, strong, and
independent. And you were a talented artist as well, with no hesitation
as to your aim and means. You spoke of your work with joy and tenderness
and of your lover in the same way.
“Then Helge came home. You seemed to change then—in a remarkably short
time. The disagreeable things which are the order of the day in our
home impressed you too much; it seemed impossible that an unsympathetic
future mother-in-law could completely spoil the happiness of a young
loving woman. I began to fear that there was some other deeper cause
that you would see for yourself later on, and that perhaps you realized
your love for Helge was not so strong as you had imagined. Or that you
understood you were not really suited to each other, and that it was more
a temporary emotion which had brought you together. In Rome you were both
alone, young and free, happy in your work; in strange circumstances,
without the pressure of everyday ties, and both with the youthful longing
for love in your hearts. Was that not enough to awaken a mutual sympathy
and understanding even if they did not penetrate to the very inmost of
your being?”
Jenny stood by the window looking at him. While he was speaking she felt
an intense indignation at his words—although he might be right. Yet he
did not understand, as he sat there plucking it all asunder, what it was
that really hurt her:
“It does not make it easier even if there is some sense in what you say.
Perhaps you are right.”
“Is it not better anyhow that you have realized it now than if it had
happened later, when the bonds would be stronger, and the suffering much
greater in breaking them?”
“It is not that—it is not that.” She interrupted herself suddenly:
“It is that I—yes—I despise myself. I have given way to an emotional
impulse—lied to myself; I ought to have _known_ if I could keep my word
before I said: I love. I have always hated that kind of levity more than
anything in the world. Now—to my shame—I find I have done that very
thing.”
Gram looked at her. Suddenly he turned pale—and then crimson. After a
while he said, speaking with effort:
“I said it was better for two people who were not in perfect
understanding to realize it before their relations had made such a change
in their lives that neither of them—especially she—could ever obliterate
the traces. If such be the case, they should try with some resignation
and goodwill on either side to bring about harmony. Should this not be
possible, then there is still the other way out. I don’t know, of course,
if you and Helge—how far you are affected....”
Jenny laughed scornfully:
“I understand what you mean. To me it is just as binding that I have
wanted to be his—promised it and cannot keep my promise—and just as
humiliating as if I had really given myself to him—perhaps even more so.”
“You will not speak like that when once you meet the man you can love
with true, deep feeling.”
Jenny shrugged her shoulders:
“Do you really believe in true and great love as you say?”
“Yes, I do. I know that you young people find the expression ludicrous,
but I believe in it—for a good reason.”
“I believe that every one loves according to his individuality; those
who have a greater mind and are true to themselves do not fritter
themselves away in little love affairs. I thought that I myself.... But
I was twenty-eight when I met Helge, and I had never yet been in love.
I was tired of waiting and wanted to try it. He was in love, young,
warm-blooded, and sincere—and it tempted me. I lied to myself—exactly as
all other women do. His intensity warmed me, and I was ready enough to
imagine that I shared it, although I knew such an illusion can only be
kept alive as long as there is no claim on one to prove one’s love.
“Other women live under this illusion quite innocently, because they
do not know the difference between good and bad, and go on lying to
themselves, but I can plead nothing of that kind in my defence. I am
really just as small and selfish and false as other women, and you may
depend upon it, Gert, I shall never know what that great and true love of
yours is.”
“Well, Jenny,” said Gert, with his same melancholy smile—“God knows, I
am neither great nor strong, and I’ve lived in lies and abominations
for twelve years. But I was ten years older than you are now when I met
a woman who taught me to believe in the feeling you speak of with such
scorn, and my faith in it has never been shaken.”
They were silent for a moment.
“And you remained with her?” said Jenny at last.
“We had the children. I did not understand then that I should never have
any influence on my own children, when another woman than their mother
possessed my whole heart and soul.
“She was married too—very unhappily. Her husband was a drunkard. She had
a little girl whom she could have brought with her. But we both stayed.
“It was part of the punishment, you see, for my relations with her who
only gratified my senses, but was nothing to my soul. Our love was too
beautiful to live on a lie; we had to conceal it like a crime.
“Believe me, Jenny, there is no other happiness than a great love.”
She went up to him and he rose; they stood an instant close to one
another without speaking.
“I must go now,” he said abruptly, in a strained voice. “I must be back
in time, or she will suspect something.”
Jenny nodded, and followed him to the door.
“You must not believe that your heart is beyond love,” he said; “it is a
proud heart—and a warm one. Will you still count me among your friends,
little girl?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Jenny, giving him her hand.
He bent over it and held it long to his lips—longer than ever before.