Gunnar Heggen and Jenny Winge were to have an exhibition together in
November. He came to town for that purpose. He had been in the country
that summer, painting red granite, green pines, and blue sky, and had
lately been to Stockholm, where he had sold a picture.
“How is Cesca?” asked Jenny, when Heggen was in her studio one morning
having a drink.
“Cesca is all right.” Gunnar took a gulp from his glass, smoked, and
looked at Jenny, and she looked at him.
It was so nice to be together again and talk about people and things she
had got so far away from. It seemed almost as if it had been in a remote
country beyond all oceans that she had known him and Cesca, lived and
worked with them, and been happy with them.
She looked at his open sunburnt face and crooked nose; it had been broken
when he was a child. Cesca once said that the blow had saved Gunnar’s
face from being the most perfect fashion-plate type.
There was some truth in it. Looking at his features separately, they were
exactly those of a rustic Adonis. His brown hair curled over a low, broad
forehead and big steely blue eyes; the mouth was red, with full lips
and beautiful white teeth. His face and his strong neck were tanned by
the sun, and his broad, somewhat short body with well-knit muscles was
almost brutally well shaped. But the sensual mouth and heavy eyelids had
a peculiarly innocent and unaffected expression, and his smile could be
most refined. The hands were regular working hands, with short fingers
and strong joints, but the way he moved them was particularly graceful.
He had grown thinner, but looked very well and contented, while she
herself felt tired and dissatisfied. He had been working the whole
summer, reading Greek tragedies and Keats and Shelley when he was not
painting.
“I should like to read the tragedies in the original,” said Gunnar, “and
I am going to learn Greek and Latin.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed Jenny. “I am afraid there are so many things you
will want to study before you get any peace in your mind that you will
end by not painting at all—except in your holidays.”
“I have to learn those two languages because I am going to write some
articles.”
“You!” cried Jenny, laughing. “Are you going to write articles too?”
“Yes; a long series of them about many different things. Amongst others,
that we must introduce Latin and Greek into our schools again; we must
see that we get some culture up here. We cannot go on like this any
longer. Our national emblem will be a wooden porringer with painted roses
on it and some carving, which is supposed to be a clumsy imitation of the
poorest of all European styles, the rococo. That is how we are national
up here in Norway. You know that the best praise they can give anybody
in this country—artist or other decent fellow—is that he has broken
away—broken away from school, tradition, customary manners, and ordinary
civilized people’s conception of seemly behaviour and decency.
“I should like to point out for once that, considering our circumstances,
it would be much more meritorious if somebody tried to get into touch
with, appropriate, exchange, and bring home to this hole of ours some of
the heaped-up treasures in Europe that are called culture.
“What we do is to detach a small part from a connective whole—a single
ornament of a style, literally speaking—and carve and chip such an ugly
and clumsy copy of it that it becomes unrecognizable. Then we boast
that it is original or nationally Norwegian. And it is the same with
spiritual movements.”
“Yes, but those sins were committed even when classical education was the
official foundation of all education.”
“Quite so. But it was only a small part of the classics—a detached piece.
A little Latin grammar and so on. We have never had a complete picture
among the stories of our valued ancestors of what you might call the
classical spirit. As long as we cannot have that, we are outside Europe.
If we do not consider Greek and Roman history as the oldest history of
our own culture, we have not got European culture. It does not matter
what that history was in reality, but the version of it matters. The war
between Sparta and Messene, for instance, was in fact only the fights
between some half-savage tribes a very long time ago, but in the delivery
of it, as we know it, it is the classic expression for an impulse which
makes a sound people let themselves be killed to the last man rather than
lose their individuality or the right to live their own life.
“Bless you, for many a hundred years we have not fought for our honour;
we have lived merely to nurse our insides. The Persian wars were really
trifles, but for a vigorous people Salamis, Thermopylæ, and the Acropolis
mean the bloom of all the noblest and soundest instincts, and as long as
these instincts are valued, and a people believes that it has certain
qualities to uphold, and a past, a present, and a future to be proud of,
these names will be surrounded by a certain glamour. And a poet can write
a poem on Thermopylæ and imprint it with the feelings of his own time, as
Leopardi has done in his ‘Ode to Italy.’ Do you remember I read it to you
in Rome?”
Jenny nodded.
“It is a bit rhetorical, but beautiful, is it not? Do you remember the
part about Italia, the fairest of women, who sits in the dust chained
and with loosened hair, her tears dropping into her lap? And how he
wishes to be one of the young Greeks who go to meet death at Thermopylæ,
fearless and merry as if going to dance? Their names are sacred, and
Simonides in dying sings songs of praise from the top of Antelos.
“And all the old beautiful tales, symbols, and parables that will never
grow old. Think of Orpheus and Eurydice—so simple; the faith of love
conquers death even; a single instant of doubt and everything is lost.
But in this country they know only that it is the book of an opera.
“The English and the French have used the old symbols in making new and
living art. Abroad, in certain good periods, there were people born with
instincts and feelings so highly cultivated that they could be developed
into an ability to make the fate of the Atrides understood and moving as
a reality. The Swedes, too, have living connections with the classics—but
we have never had them. What kind of books do we read here—and
write?—feminine novels about sexless fancy-figures in empire dress, and
dirty Danish books, which do not interest any man above sixteen, unless
he is obliged to wear an electric belt. Or about some green youth,
prattling of the mysterious eternal feminine to a little chorus girl who
is impertinent to him and deceives him, because he has not sense enough
to understand that the riddle can be solved by means of a good caning.”
Jenny laughed. Gunnar was walking up and down the door.
“Hjerrild, I think, is working at a book on the ‘Sphinx’ at present. As
it happens, I also knew the lady once. It never went so far that I soiled
my hands by giving her a thrashing, but I had been fond enough of her to
feel it rather badly when I discovered her deceit. I have worked it off,
you see. I don’t think there is anything you cannot get over in time by
your own effort.”
Jenny sat silent for a second, then said: “Tell me about Cesca.”
“Well, I don’t think Cesca has touched a paint-brush since she married.
When I went to see them she opened the door; they have no servant. She
wore a big apron and had a broom in her hand. They have a studio and two
small rooms; they cannot both work in the studio, of course, and her
whole time is taken up with the house, she said. The first morning I was
there she sprawled on the floor the whole time. Ahlin was out. First she
swept, then she crept round and poked under the furniture with a brush
for those little tufts of dust, you know, that stick in the corners. Then
she scrubbed the floor and dusted the room, and you should have seen how
awkwardly she did it all. We went out to buy food together; I was to
lunch with them. When Ahlin came home she retired to the kitchen, and
when the lunch was ready at last, all her little curls were damp—but the
food was not bad. She washed up in the most unpractical way, going to the
sink with every article to rinse it under the tap. Ahlin and I helped
her, and I gave her some good advice, you know.
“I asked them to dine with me, and Cesca, poor thing, was very pleased at
not having to cook and wash up.
“If there are going to be children—as I suppose there are—you may depend
upon it that Cesca has done with painting, and it would be a great pity.
I cannot help thinking it’s sad.”
“I don’t know. Husband and children always hold the first place with a
woman; sooner or later she will long to have them.”
Gunnar looked at her—then sighed:
“If they are fond of one another, that is to say.”
“Do you think Cesca is happy with Ahlin?”
“I don’t really know. I think she is very fond of him. Anyhow it was
‘Lennart thinks’ and ‘Will you?’ and ‘Shall I?’ and ‘Do you think the
sauce is all right, Lennart?’ and so on the whole time. She has taken
to speaking a shocking mixture of Swedish and Norwegian. I must say
that I don’t quite understand their relations. He was very much in
love with her, you remember, and he is not despotic or brutal—quite
the contrary—but she has become so cowed and humble, our little Cesca.
It cannot be housekeeping worries only, although they seemed to weigh
heavily on her. She has no talent in that direction, but she is a
conscientious little thing in her way, and they are rather badly off, I
understand.
“Perhaps she has made some great mistake, profited by the wedding night,
for instance, to tell him about Hans Hermann, Norman Douglas, and
Hjerrild, and all the rest of her achievements from one end to the other.
It might have been just a little overwhelming.”
“Cesca has never concealed anything about her doings. I am sure he knew
all her story before.”
“H’m,” said Gunnar, mixing himself a fresh drink. “There might have been
one or two points she has kept quiet so far, and thought she ought to
tell her husband.”
“For shame, Gunnar,” said Jenny.
“Well—you never really know what to think about Cesca. Her version of
the Hans Hermann business is very peculiar, though I am sure Cesca has
not done anything that I would call wrong. I cannot—on the whole—see
what difference it makes to a man if his wife has had a liaison—or
several—before, provided she had been true and loyal while it lasted.
This claim of physical innocence is crude. If a woman has been really
fond of a man and has accepted his love, it is rather mean of her to
leave him without spending a gift on him.
“Naturally I should prefer my wife never to have loved anybody else
before, so, perhaps, when it is your own wife you may think differently.
Old prejudices and selfish vanity may count for something.”
Jenny sipped at her drink, and was on the point of saying something when
she checked herself. Gunnar had stopped by the window, standing with his
back to her, his hands in his trouser pockets:
“Oh, I think it is sad, Jenny—I mean when once in a while you meet a
woman who is really gifted in one way or another and takes a pleasure in
developing her gift by energetic work—feels that she is an individual
who can decide for herself what is right or wrong, and has the will
to cultivate faculties and instincts that are good and valuable and
eradicate others which are bad and unworthy of her; and then one fine
day she throws herself away on a man, gives up everything, work,
development—herself for the sake of a wretched male. Don’t you think it
sad, Jenny?”
“It is. But that is how we are made—all of us.”
“I don’t understand it. We men never do understand you, and I think it is
because we cannot get it into our heads that individuals who are supposed
to be reasonable beings are so completely devoid of self-esteem, for that
is what you are. Woman has no soul—that is a true word. You admit more or
less openly that love affairs are the only things that really interest
you.”
“There are men who do the same—at least in their behaviour.”
“Yes, but a decent man has no respect for those effeminates. Officially
at least we do not wish it to be considered anything but a natural
diversion beside our work. Or a capable man wishes to have a family
because he knows he can provide for more than himself, and wants somebody
to continue his work.”
“But surely woman has other missions in life.”
“That is mere talk—unless she wants to be a reasonable being and work,
and not content herself with being a female only. What is the good of
producing a lot of children if they are not meant to grow up for any
other purpose than continued production—if the raw material is not to be
used?”
“It may be true to a certain extent,” Jenny said, smiling.
“I know it is. I have seen enough of women to know, ever since I was a
youngster and went to the workers’ academy. I remember a girl at one of
the English classes; she wanted to learn the language to be able to talk
to the sailors on the foreign men-of-war. The only aim of the girls that
counted for anything was to get a situation in England or America. We
boys studied because we wanted to learn something for the sake of mental
gymnastics and to complete as much as possible what we had learnt at
school. The girls read novels.
“Take socialism, for instance. Do you think any woman has an idea what
it really means, unless she has a husband who has taught her to see? Try
to explain to a woman why the community must arrive at such a stage that
every child born must have the opportunity to cultivate its faculties,
if it has any, and to live its life in liberty and beauty—if it can bear
liberty and has a sense of beauty. Women believe that liberty means no
work and no restrictions as to their behaviour. Sense of beauty they
have none; they only want to dress up in the ugliest and most expensive
things, because they are the fashion. Look at the homes they arrange. The
richer, the uglier. Is there any fashion, be it ever so ugly or indecent,
that they don’t adopt if they can afford it? You cannot deny it.
“I won’t mention their morals, because they haven’t any. Let alone your
treatment of us men, the way you treat one another is disgusting.”
Jenny smiled. She thought he was right in some things and wrong in
others, but she was not inclined to discuss them. Yet she felt she ought
to say something:
“Aren’t you rather hard on us?” she ventured.
“You shall see it all in print one day,” he said complacently.
“There is something in it, but all women are not alike; there is a
difference even if it be only a difference in degree.”
“Certainly, but what I have said applies to a certain extent to all of
you, and do you know why? Because the principal thing to all of you is a
man—one you have or one you miss. The only thing in life which is serious
and worth anything—I mean work—is never a serious thing to you. To the
best of you it is so for a short time, and I believe it is because you
are sure when you are young and pretty that ‘he’ will come along. But as
time goes and he does not turn up, and you get on in years, you get slack
and weary and dissatisfied.”
Jenny nodded.
“Look here, Jenny. I have always placed you on the same level as a
first-class man. You will soon be twenty-nine, and that is about the
right age to begin independent work. You don’t mean to say that now, when
you should begin your individual life in earnest, you wish to encumber
yourself with husband, children, housekeeping, and all those things which
would only be so many ties and a hindrance in your work?”
Jenny laughed softly.
“If you had all those things and were going to die, surrounded by husband
and kiddies and all that, and you felt you had not attained what you knew
you might have done, don’t you think you would repent and regret? I am
sure you would.”
“Yes, but if I had reached the farthest goal of my abilities and I knew,
when dying, that my life and my work would live a long time after I had
gone—and I were alone, with no living soul belonging to me, don’t you
think I should regret and repent then too?”
Heggen was silent a moment.
“Yes. Celibacy, of course, is not the same to women as to men. It often
means that they are kept outside all those things in life which people
make the most fuss about—simply that whole groups of organs, mental as
well as physical, are wasting away unused. Ugh! Sometimes I almost wish
you would be a little frivolous for once and have done with it all, so
that you could work in peace and quiet afterwards.”
“Women who have been a little frivolous, as you say, are not done with
it. If they were disappointed the first time, they hope for better luck
the next. One does not settle down disappointed, and before you know it
you have had many a try.”
“Not you,” he said quickly.
“Thanks. It is quite new to hear you speak like that. You have always
said that when women begin such a life they invariably end by being
dragged down completely.”
“Most of them do. But there must be some exceptions. It applies to those
who have no other instincts in life than a man—not to those who are
something by themselves and not only of female sex. Why should you, for
instance, not be true and loyal to a man even if you both saw that you
could not give up everything to tie yourself down as his wife for the
rest of your life? Love always dies sooner or later. Don’t let yourself
be deceived on that point.”
“Yes; we know it—but still we won’t believe it.” She laughed. “No, my
friend—either we love and believe it is the only thing worth living for,
or we do not love—and are unhappy because we don’t.”
“Jenny, I don’t like to hear you speak like that. No; to feel oneself in
full vigour, with all faculties alert, ready to adopt and appropriate, to
adapt and produce, make the utmost possible of oneself—work—that is the
only thing worth living for, believe me.”
X
Jenny bent over Gert Gram’s chrysanthemums: “I am so glad you like my
pictures.”
“Yes, I like them very much, especially the one of the young girl with
the corals—as I told you already.”
Jenny shook her head.
“I think the colouring is so lovely,” said Gram.
“It is not well finished. The scarf and the dress should have been more
thoroughly worked up, but when I was painting it both Cesca and I were
distracted by other things.”
After a while she asked:
“Do you hear from Helge? How is he?”
“He does not write much. He is working at the essay for his doctor of
science degree—you know he prepared himself for it in Rome. He says he is
all right. He does not write to his mother at all, and she, of course, is
very vexed about it. She has not improved as a companion, I am sorry to
say, but she is not happy, poor thing, at present.”
Jenny moved the flowers to her writing-table and began to arrange them:
“I am glad Helge is working again. He did not get much done in the
summer.”
“Neither did you, dear.”
“No, it is true, and the worst of it is that I have not been able to
start yet. But I don’t feel the least inclined to, and I was going to
begin etching this winter, but....”
“Don’t you think it quite natural that a disappointment like yours should
take some time to get over? Your exhibition is a success, and has been
well spoken of in the papers. Don’t you think that is enough to make
you want to work again? You have got a bid for the Aventine picture
already—are you going to accept it?”
She shrugged her shoulders:
“Of course. I am obliged to accept. They always need money at home, as
you know. Besides, I must go abroad; it is not good for me to stay here
long.”
“Do you want to go abroad?” said Gram gently, looking down. “Well, I
suppose you are; it is only natural.”
“Oh, this exhibition,” said Jenny, sitting down in the rocking-chair—“all
my pictures were painted such a long time ago, it seems to me, even the
recent ones. The sketch of the Aventine was finished the day I met Helge,
and I painted the picture while we were together—that of Cesca as well.
And the one from Stenersgaten in your place, while I was waiting for him
to come home. I have done nothing since. Ugh! So Helge is at work again?”
“It is only natural, my dear, that an experience like yours should leave
deeper traces in a woman.”
“Oh yes, yes—a woman; that is the whole misery of it. It is just like a
woman to become uninterested and utterly lazy because of a love that does
not even exist.”
“My dear Jenny,” said Gram, “I think it quite natural that it should take
some time for you to get over it—to get beyond it, as it were; one always
does, and then one understands that the experience has not been in vain,
but that one’s soul is the richer for it in some way or other.”
Jenny did not reply.
“I am sure there is much you would not like to have missed—all the happy,
warm, sunny days with your friend in that beautiful country. Am I not
right?”
“Will you tell me one thing, Gert?—is it your own personal experience
that you have been able to enrich your soul, as you say, by the incidents
of your life?”
He gave a start as if hurt and surprised at her brutality; it was a
moment before he answered her:
“It is quite a different thing. The experiences which are the results
of sin—I don’t mean sin in the orthodox sense, but the consequences of
acting contrary to your understanding—are always far from sweet. I mean
that my experiences have made my life in a way richer and deeper than a
lesser misfortune might have done—since it was my fate not to attain the
greatest happiness. I have a feeling that once it will be the case in a
still higher degree, and will help me to understand the real meaning of
life.
“In your case, I meant it in a different way. Even if your happiness
proved to be of a passing nature, it was pure and guiltless while it
lasted, because you believed in it implicitly and enjoyed it without any
mental reservation. You deceived nobody but yourself.”
Jenny did not speak. She would have had a great deal to say in
opposition, but she felt dimly that he would not understand her.
“Don’t you remember Ibsen’s words:
“‘Though I ram my ship aground, it was grand to sail the seas’?”
“I am surprised at you, Gert, for repeating those idiotic words. Nowadays
we have too great a feeling of responsibility and too much self-esteem,
most of us, to accept that kind of reasoning. If I am wrecked and sink,
I will try not to wince, if I know that I have not run my ship aground
myself. As far as I understand, the best sailors prefer to go down with
their ship if the fault is theirs, rather than survive the disaster.”
“I am of the opinion that, as a rule, one can thank oneself for every
misfortune,” said Gram, smiling, “but that one can nearly always draw
some spiritual benefit out of it.”
“I agree with you on the first point—and on the second on the condition
that the misfortune does not consist in the diminution of one’s
self-esteem.”
“You should not take this so seriously. You are quite excited and bitter.
I remember what you said on the day Helge left, but, my dear child, you
cannot really mean that one should quench every affection at its birth
unless one can guarantee the moment it comes into life that it will last
until one’s death, endure all adversity, be ready for every sacrifice,
and that it will understand the personality of its object as in a vision,
show up its most sacred depths to prevent later change of opinion about
him or her.”
“Yes,” said Jenny sharply.
“Have you ever felt this yourself?” asked Gram.
“No, but I know it, all the same. I have always known that it should be
so. But when I was twenty-eight and still an old maid, longing to love
and be loved, and Helge came and fell in love with me, I laid aside
all claims on myself and my love, taking what I could get—to a certain
extent in good faith. It will be all right, I thought—I am sure it
will—although I did not feel assured in my inmost heart that nothing else
could be possible. Let me tell you what my friend Heggen told me the
other day. He despises women truly and honestly—and he is right. We have
no self-esteem, and we are so lazy that we can never make up our mind in
earnest to shape our life and happiness ourselves, and to work with that
purpose. Secretly we all nourish the hope that a man will come and offer
us happiness, so that we need not make any effort ourselves. The most
womanly of us, who by happiness mean only idleness and finery, hang on to
the man who can give them plenty of it. If amongst us there are a few who
really have the right feelings and are longing to become good and strong,
and making efforts in that direction—we still hope to meet a man on the
way and to become what we want to be through his love.
“We can work for a time pretty honestly and seriously, and take a
pleasure in it too, but in our hearts we are waiting for a still greater
joy, which we cannot acquire by our work, but must receive as a gift. We
women can never get to the point where our work is everything to us.”
“Do you believe work alone is enough for a man? Never,” said Gram.
“It is for Gunnar. You may depend on it that he will keep women in their
right place in his life—as trifles.”
Gram laughed: “How old is your friend Heggen? I hope for the man’s own
sake that he will change his opinion some day about the most conclusive
influence in life.”
“I don’t,” said Jenny vehemently, “but I hope I, too, shall learn some
day to put this nonsense about love in its right place.”
“My dear Jenny, you speak as if—as if you had no sense, I was going to
say, but I know you have,” said Gram, with a melancholy smile. “Shall I
tell you something of what I know about love, little one? If I did not
believe in it, I should not have the least particle of faith in men—or in
myself. Do you believe that it is only women who think life meaningless,
and find their hearts empty and frozen if they have nothing but their
work to love or to depend upon? Do you believe there is a single soul
living who has not moments of doubt in himself? You must have somebody in
whose keeping you can give the best in you—your love and your trust.
“When I say that my own life since my marriage has been a hell, I am not
using too strong words, and if I have been able to stand it in a way it
is because I think the love Rebecca has for me partly exonerates her. I
know that her feelings of mean pleasure at having the power to torment
and humiliate me with her jealousy and rage are a caricature of betrayed
love, and it is a kind of satisfaction to my sense of justice that there
is a reason for my unhappiness. I betrayed her when I took her love
without giving her mine—intending secretly to give her only crumbs—the
small coin of love—in payment for the best of herself she offered me. If
life punishes every sin against the sacredness of love so ruthlessly, it
proves to me that there is nothing holier in life, and that he who is
true to his ideal of love will reap his recompense in the greatest and
purest bliss.
“I told you once that I learnt to know and to love a woman when it was
too late. She had loved me from the time we were children without my
knowing, or caring to know it. When she heard of my marriage she accepted
a man who vowed that she could save and raise him if she married him. I
know you would scorn any such means of saving, but you don’t know, child,
how you would act yourself, if you knew the being you loved with your
whole soul was in the arms of another, and found your life not worth
living, and if you heard an erring human being ask you to give him the
life you did not value and save him thereby.
“Helene was unhappy, and so was I. Later we met, understood one another,
and it came to an explanation which, however, did not result in what
people call happiness. We were both bound by ties we dared not break, and
I must admit that my love for her changed as the hope of making her my
wife slowly died, but the memory of her is the greatest treasure of my
life. She is now living in another part of the world, devoting her life
to her children and trying to lessen for them the misery of having to
live with a father who is a drunkard and a moral wreck. For her sake I
have held on to my faith in the purity of the human soul, in its beauty
and its strength—and in love, and I know, too, that the remembrance of me
inspires Helene with the strength to struggle on and to suffer because
she loves me today as she did in our childhood, and believes in me, in
my talent, my love, and that I was worthy of a better fate. I am still
something to her, don’t you think?”
Jenny did not answer.
“The happiness in life is not only to be loved, Jenny; the greatest
happiness is to love.”
“H’m. A very poor sort of happiness, I should say, to love when your love
is not returned.”
He sat quiet for a while, looking down; then said almost in a whisper:
“Great or small, it is happiness to know somebody of whom one thinks only
good, about whom one can say: God give her happiness, for she deserves
it—give her all that I never had. She is pure and beautiful, warm-hearted
and sweet, talented and kind. It means happiness to me, dear Jenny, to be
able to pray like this for you. No; it is nothing to be afraid of, little
one.”
He had risen, and she rose too, making a movement as if she were afraid
he would come nearer. Gram stopped and smiled:
“How could you help seeing it—you who are so clever. I thought you saw it
before I understood it myself. It has come quite naturally. My life is
running its course towards old age, inactivity, darkness, death, and I
knew that I should never reach what I have longed for all my life. Then I
met you. You are to me the most glorious woman I have ever known; you had
the same ideals I once had, and you were on the way to attain them. How
could I help crying out in my heart: God help her to succeed. Do not let
her be wasted as I have been!
“You were so sweet to me; you came to see me in my den, and you told me
about yourself. You listened to me, you understood, and your beautiful
eyes were so full of sympathy, so soft and loving. Dearest, are you
crying?” He seized both her hands and pressed them passionately to his
lips:
“Don’t cry, dear; you must not. Why do you cry? You are shivering—tell me
why you are crying like this?”
“It is all so sad,” she sobbed.
“Sit down here.” He was on his knees before her—for a second he rested
his forehead against her knee.
“Do not cry because of me. Do you think for a moment I wish that I had
never met you? If you have loved, and you wish it had never been, you
have not really loved. Believe me, it is so. No, Jenny, not for anything
in the world would I miss what I feel for you!
“And you must not cry about yourself. You will be happy. I know it. Of
all the men who will love you, one will lie at your feet some day, as I
do now, and say that to him it is life itself to be there, and you will
think so too. You will understand that to sit thus with him is the only
happiness to you, even if it were a brief moment of rest after a day
full of toil and hardships, and in the poorest of cottages—a far greater
happiness than if you became the greatest artist that ever existed and
enjoyed the highest measure of fame and praise. Is not that what you
believe yourself?”
“Yes,” she whispered, exhausted with weeping.
“You must not despair of winning that happiness some day. All the time
you are striving to become a true artist and a good and able woman, you
are longing to meet some one who thinks that all you have done to attain
your aim is right and that he loves you for it—is it not so, Jenny?”
She nodded, and Gram kissed her hands reverently.
“You have already reached the goal. You are everything that is good and
refined, proud and lovely. I say it, and one day a younger, better, and
stronger man will say the same—and you will be happy to listen. Are you
not a little pleased to hear me say that you are the best and sweetest
and most wonderful little girl in the world?—look at me, Jenny. Can I not
give you a little pleasure by saying that I believe you will have all
possible happiness because you deserve it?”
She looked down into his face, trying to smile; then, bending her head,
she passed her hands over his hair:
“Oh, Gert, I could not help it—could I? I did not want to do you any
harm.”
“Do not grieve about it, little one! I love you because you are what you
want to be—what I once hoped to be. You must not be sad for my sake,
even if you think you have caused me pain; there are sorrows that are
good, full of blessing, I assure you.”
She went on crying softly.
Presently he whispered:
“May I come and see you now and again? Will you not send for me when you
are sad? I should so like to try and be of some help to my dear little
girl.”
“I dare not, Gert.”
“Dear child, I am an old man; remember, I might be your father.”
“For—for your sake, I mean. It is not right.”
“Oh yes, Jenny. Do you believe that I think less about you when I don’t
see you? I ask only to see you, talk to you, to try and do something for
you. Won’t you let me? Do let me come.”
“I don’t know—I don’t know what to say, but please go now. I cannot bear
any more today—it is all so terrible. Won’t you go, dear?”
He rose slowly:
“I will. Good-bye! Jenny, dear child, you are quite beside yourself.”
“Yes”—in a whisper.
“I will go now, but I want to see you before you go away. I shall come
back when you are yourself again and not frightened of me; there is no
reason for that, dear.”
She was quiet for a little, then suddenly drew him close to her for a
second, brushing his cheek with her lips.
“Go now, Gert.”
“Thank you. God bless you, Jenny.”
* * * * *
When he was gone she paced up and down the floor, shivering without
knowing why. In her heart she felt a certain pleasure in remembering his
words when he was on his knees before her. She had always looked upon
Gert as a weak man, as one who had suffered himself to be dragged down
and been trodden upon as those who are down always will be. And now he
had suddenly revealed himself to her as possessing a great fortitude
of soul, and a being rich enough and willing to help, while she was
bewildered, distracted, and sick with longing in her inmost heart behind
the shield of opinions and thoughts which she had made for herself.
She had asked him to go. Why? Because she was so miserably poor herself
and had complained of her need to him who, she thought, was just as
poor as she herself, and he had showed her that he was rich, offering
gladly to help her out of his abundance. It was no doubt because she felt
humiliated that she asked him to go.
To accept anything from an affection to which she could not respond had
always seemed mean to her, but then she never imagined that she would be
in need of such help.
He had not been allowed to continue the work to which he was devoted; the
love he had borne in his heart was never to live. Yet he did not despair.
That was probably the advantage of having faith—it did not matter so much
what one believed, provided there was somebody beside oneself one could
trust, for it is impossible to live with only oneself to love and trust.
She was quite familiar with the thought of voluntary death. If she died
now there were a few she cared for and who would be sorry, but none who
could not do without her, nor any one to whom she was so necessary that
she would feel it her duty to prolong her life for their sake. Provided
they did not know she had done it herself, her mother and sisters would
mourn her for a year and then remember her with gentle melancholy. Cesca
and Gunnar would be more sorry than anybody else, because they would
understand that she had been unhappy, but she was outside their life.
The one who loved her most would miss her most, but as she had nothing
to give him he might love her just as well dead. To love her was his
happiness; he had the capacity in him to be happy, but if she had not,
it was no good living. Work could not fill her life to such an extent
that she would not long for anything else besides. Why then go on living
because they said she had talent? Nobody had more pleasure of her art
than she had in exercising it, and the pleasure was not great enough to
satisfy her.
Gunnar was not right in what he had once said, rather brutally, that she
was a martyr to her own virtue. That could easily be remedied, but she
dared not, because she was always afraid of meeting later what she had
been longing for. And the least satisfactory of all would be to live
close to another human being and yet in one’s inmost soul be just as
lonely as before. Oh no—no. She would not belong to a man and submit to
all the physical and mental intimacies as the consequence of it, and then
discover one day that she did not know him, and that he had never known
her—that the one had never understood the language of the other.
She lived because she was waiting; she did not want a lover, because she
was expecting a master, and she did not wish to die—not now while she was
waiting.
No, she was not going to throw away her life either this way or that;
she could not die so poor that she had not a single beloved thing to bid
farewell to. She dared not, because she wanted to believe that some day
things would be different.
There was nothing else to do but to take up painting again, although it
would probably not be much good now, love-sick as she was. She laughed.
That was just what she was—love-sick. The object did not exist at
present, but the love was there.
Jenny went to the window and looked out. In the gathering darkness the
sky looked almost violet, and the tiled roofs, the chimney-pots, and the
telephone wires all melted together into one grey tint in the twilight.
A reddish light rose from the streets, colouring the frosty haze. The
rolling of carriages and the screech of a tram on the rails sounded
clearly on the frozen ground.
She did not feel inclined to go home to dinner, but, having promised her
mother to come, she put the stove out and left.
The cold was raw and damp; the fog smelt of soot and gas and frozen
dust. What a dull street it was where her studio lay. It led down from
the centrum, with its noise and traffic, its shops with brilliant show
windows and people streaming in and out, and its course ended by the
lifeless grey walls of the fort. The houses on either side looked grey
and deserted: the new buildings of stone and glass, where business
fluttered in and out on paper, prepared by busy young people in the
strong white light behind big windows, and people talked to each other
by telephone—and the old ones remaining from the time the town was small
were low and brown, with shiny fronts and linen blinds in the office
windows. Here and there behind a small pane with curtains and flower-pots
was a humble home—strangely solitary dwellings in this thoroughfare,
where the houses mostly were deserted at night. The shops were not of the
kind that people rush in and out of. Some of them had wall-paper, plaster
ornaments for ceilings, and stoves for sale; others were furniture
stores, with the windows full of empty mahogany beds and varnished oak
chairs that looked as if nobody would ever sit on them.
In a gateway a child was standing—a little boy, blue in the face from
cold with a big basket on his arm. He was looking at two dogs fighting in
the centre of the street and making the frozen dust fly about. He started
when the dogs came tumbling near the place where he was standing.
“Are you afraid?” asked Jenny. As the boy did not answer, she continued:
“Would you like me to see you past them?” He came to her side
immediately, but did not speak.
“Which way are you going? Where do you live?”
“In Voldgata.”
“Did you come on an errand all the way here, such a little boy?—it was
very brave of you.”
“We deal with Aases in this street because father knows him,” was the
boy’s answer. “This basket is so heavy.”
Jenny looked about her; the street was nearly empty:
“Give it to me. I will carry it for you a bit of the way.”
The boy gave her the basket reluctantly.
“Take my hand till we have got past those dogs. How cold your hands are!
Have you no gloves?”
The boy shook his head.
“Put your other hand in my muff. You won’t? You think it a silly thing
for a boy to carry a muff—is that it?”
She remembered Nils when he was small; she had often longed for him. He
was big now and had many friends; he was at an age when it was no fun
to walk about with an elder sister. He came seldom to her studio now.
The year she had been abroad and the months she had spent with Helge had
changed their relations; perhaps when he got older they would be friends
again as before. They probably would, for they were fond of each other,
but just now he was happy without her. She wished he were a small boy
now, so that she could take him on her lap and tell him stories full of
adventures while she washed and undressed him and kissed him—or a little
bigger, as in the time when they went out together for excursions in
Nordmarken, and the road to the butcher’s was long and full of remarkable
happenings.
“What is you name, little boy?”
“Ausjen Torstein Mo.”
“How old are you?”
“Six.”
“I suppose you don’t go to school yet?”
“No, but I shall in April.”
“Do you think it will be nice?”
“No—the teacher is so strict. Oscar goes to school, but we shan’t be
together, for he is being moved into the second form.”
“Is Oscar your friend?” asked Jenny.
“Yes; we live in the same house.”
After a short pause Jenny spoke again: “Aren’t you sorry there is no
snow? You have got the hill by the bay where you can toboggan. Have you
got a sled?”
“No, but I have snowshoes and ski.”
They had turned into another street. Jenny let go the boy’s hand and
looked at the basket. It was so heavy, and Ausjen was so small—so she
kept it, although she did not like to be seen with a poor little urchin
in a good street. She would have like to take him to the confectioner’s,
but thought it would be rather awkward if she met any one she knew there.
In the dark Voldgata she took his hand again and carried the basket to
the house where he lived, giving him a coin as a parting gift.
On her way through the town she bought chocolates and a pair of red
woollen gloves to send to Ausjen. It was nice to be able to give somebody
an unexpected pleasure. She might try to get him for a model, but he was
very small to sit so long. Poor little hand; it had got warm in hers, and
it seemed as if it had been good for her to hold it. Yes, she wanted to
try and paint him; he had a queer little face. She would give him milk
with a little coffee in it and a nice roll and butter, and she would work
and talk to Ausjen....