Jenny’s son lived six weeks—exactly forty-four days and a half, she said
bitterly to herself, thinking again and again of the short time she had
felt really happy.
She did not cry for the first days after his death, but she could not
leave the dead child, and sat moaning deep down in her throat and taking
it in her arms to caress it:
“Darling little boy—mother’s pretty little boy, you must not go—I cannot
let you go. Can’t you see I want you so?”
The child was tiny and feeble at birth, but Jenny and Mrs. Schlessinger
had both thought he was thriving and making good progress. Then one
morning he fell ill, and by midday it was all over.
After the funeral she started to cry, and could not stop; for weeks
afterwards she sobbed unceasingly night and day. She fell ill herself
too; inflammation of the breasts developed, and Mrs. Schlessinger had to
send for the doctor, who performed an operation. The despair of her soul,
together with the pains of her body, gave her many a dreadful, delirious
night.
Mrs. Schlessinger slept in the adjoining room, and on hearing her cries
of agony, rushed in and sat down by the bed, comforting her, stroking her
thin, clammy hands with her own fat, warm ones, and coaxing and lecturing
her a little. It was God’s will, and was probably much better for the boy
and for her too—still so young as she was. Mrs. Schlessinger had lost two
children herself—little Bertha when she was two years old, and Wilhelm at
fourteen, such a dear boy too—yet they were born in wedlock and should
have been the support and comfort of her old age. But this little one
would only have been a chain round the feet of the Fräulein who was so
young and pretty. He had been very dear and sweet, the little angel, and
it was very hard....
Mrs. Schlessinger had lost her husband too, and many of the young ladies
who had stayed in her house had seen their little ones die; some of them
had been pleased, others had put their babies out to nurse at once so as
to get rid of them. It was not nice, of course, but what could one do?
Some had cried and wailed as Jenny did, but they got over it in time,
and married and settled down happily afterwards. But a despair like
Fräulein’s she had never yet witnessed.
Mrs. Schlessinger suspected in her heart that her patient’s despair was
caused to a great extent by the departure of the cousin first to Dresden
and then to Italy just about the time the boy died. But that is exactly
what they always did—the men.
The memory of those maddening, agonizing nights was ever afterwards
associated with the picture of Mrs. Schlessinger sitting on the stool by
her bed while the light rays from the lamp were refracted in the tears
dropping from her small, kind eyes on to her round red cheeks. And her
mouth, which did not stop talking for a second, her little grey plait of
hair, the white night-jacket trimmed with pointed lace, and her petticoat
of grey and pink stripped flannel scalloped at the bottom. And the small
room with plaster medallions in brass frames.
She had written to Heggen about her great joy, and he had replied saying
he would have loved to come and have a look at the boy, but the journey
was long and expensive and he was on the point of starting for Italy.
He sent his best wishes to her and the little prince, hoping to welcome
them both in Italy soon. At the time of the child’s death Heggen was in
Dresden and sent her a long and sympathetic letter.
As soon as she was well enough to write she sent a few lines to Gert,
giving him her address, but asking him not to come and see them until the
spring, when baby would be big and pretty. Only his mother could see now
that he was lovely. She wrote him a longer letter when she was up and
about again.
On the day the child was buried she wrote telling Gram in a few words of
her loss, informing him of her intention to go south the same evening,
and asking him not to expect to hear from her until she was more like
herself again. “Do not worry about me,” she wrote. “I am fairly composed
now, but hopelessly miserable, of course.”
Her letter crossed one from Gert, who wrote:
“MY DEAREST JENNY,—Thank you for your last letter. I see that
you reproach yourself because of your relations to me; my dear
little girl, I have nothing to reproach you for, so you must
not do it yourself. You have never been anything but kind and
sweet and loving to your friend, and I shall never forget
your tenderness and affection during the short time you loved
me—your charming youth, your gentle devotion in the days of our
short happiness.
“We ought to have known, both of us, that it would be
short. I certainly ought to have understood, and if you had
reflected you might have known too, but do two people, who
are attracted by one another, ever reflect? Do you think I
reproach you because one day you ceased to love me and caused
me the greatest suffering in my far from happy life—a twofold
suffering when I learnt simultaneously that our relations would
have consequences which you would have to bear all through life?
“From your letter I see too that those consequences, which
have probably been a much greater source of despair to me than
to you, in spite of all you may have experienced of worry and
bodily suffering, have brought a deeper joy and happiness than
anything else in all your life—that the joy of being a mother
gives you peace, satisfaction, and courage to live, and that
with your child in your arms you think you will have strength
to meet all difficulties, economic as well as social, which the
future may place in the way of a young woman in your position.
It gives me more pleasure than you think to read it. It is to
me a fresh proof that the eternal justice, which I have never
doubted, exists. To you, who made a mistake because your heart
was warm and tender and thirsting for love, this very mistake,
which has caused you so many agonizing hours, will in the end
bring you all you have sought, in a better, finer, and purer
degree than ever you dreamt of, now that your heart is filled
with love for your child. And it will increase as he grows and
begins to know his mother, to cling to her, and to return her
love with a stronger, more profound and conscious affection as
the years go by.
“And to me, who received your love, although I should have
known that love between us was impossible and unnatural, to me
these months have brought indescribable suffering and sorrow
and—emptiness. You have no idea, Jenny, how I miss you, your
youth, your beauty, the bliss of your love; and every memory of
it all is embittered by repentance, an insistent questioning:
How could I let her do it? How could I accept it—how believe in
the possibility of happiness for myself with her? I did believe
it, Jenny, however mad it may sound, because I felt young when
I was with you. Remember that I forfeited my own youth when
I was much younger than you; the happiness of work and the
happiness of love in youth have never been mine, and it was all
my own fault. And this was retribution! My dead youth came back
to life when I met you; in my heart I did not feel older than
you. Nothing is more terrible in life than for a man to be old
while his heart is still young.
“You write that you wish me to come some day when the boy has
grown a little, to see you and our child. What a preposterous
thought—our child! Do you know what constantly comes into my
mind? The old Joseph on the Italian altar paintings. You will
remember that he is always standing in the background, or on
one side, sadly and tenderly contemplating the Divine Child and
its young and beautiful mother, who are absorbed in each other
and do not notice his presence. Don’t misunderstand me, dear
Jenny; I know that the little child lying in your lap is also
flesh and blood of mine, but, when I think of you as a mother,
I cannot help feeling myself out in the cold like poor old
Joseph.
“You must not hesitate to accept my name as my wife and the
protection it would give you and the child any more than Mary
hesitated to submit herself to the care of Joseph. And I do
not consider it quite right towards the child to rob it of its
father’s name, to which it has a right, however much confidence
you may have in yourself. It goes without saying that in such
a marriage you would remain as free and independent as before,
and that it could be legally dissolved whenever you wished. I
beg of you to think it over. We might go through the ceremony
abroad, and a few months afterwards steps might be taken to
obtain a divorce, if that is your wish; you need not come back
to Norway, nor even live under the same roof with me at all.
“There is not much to tell about myself. I have two small rooms
in this part of the country, not far from the place where I
was born and lived till I was ten years old. From my window I
can see the tops of the two big chestnut trees standing at the
entrance to the home of my childhood. They look very much the
same as they did then. Up here the evenings are beginning to be
long and light and spring like, and their naked brown branches
stand outlined against the pale green sky, where a few solitary
stars glitter in the sharp, clear air. Evening after evening I
sit by my window staring in the same direction, dreaming and
recalling to memory my whole life. How could I ever forget,
Jenny dear, that between you and me there was a whole life
almost twice as long as yours, and more than half of it spent
in incessant humiliation, defeat, and sorrow?
“That you think of me without anger and bitterness is more than
I dared to hope and expect, and to read your joy between every
line of your letter has given me the greatest satisfaction. May
God bless and help you and the child, and grant you all the
happiness I wish for both of you.
“My fondest love is yours, dear Jenny—you who were once
mine.—Your devoted,