Next day she sat to him after lunch until it grew dark; in the rests,
they exchanged some insignificant words while he went on painting the
background or washed his brushes.
“There,” he said, putting down the palette and tidying up his paint-box.
“That will do for today.”
She came to look at the picture.
“The black is good, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think it is very effective.”
He looked at his watch:
“It is almost time to go out and get something to eat—shall we dine
together?”
“All right. Will you wait for me while I put on my things?”
A moment later when he knocked at her door she was ready, standing before
the glass to fasten her hat.
How good looking she was, he thought, when she turned round. Slim
and fair in her tight-fitting steel-grey dress, she looked very
ladylike—discreet, cold, and stylish. What he had thought of her
yesterday seemed quite impossible today.
“Did you not promise to go to Miss Schulin this afternoon to see her
paintings?”
“Yes, but I am not going.” She blushed. “Honestly I don’t care to
encourage an acquaintance with her, and I suppose there is not much in
her paintings either.”
“I should not think so. I cannot understand your putting up with her
advances last night. Personally, I would rather do anything—eat a
plateful of live worms.”
Jenny smiled, and said seriously:
“Poor thing, I daresay she is not happy at all.”
“Pooh! not happy. I met her in Paris in 1905. I don’t think she is
perverse by nature—only stupid and full of vanity. It was all put on.
If it were the fashion now to be virtuous she would sit up darning
children’s stockings, and would have been the best of housewives.
Possibly painting roses with dewdrops on as a recreation. But once
she got away from her moorings she wanted to see life—free as an
artist, she thought she ought to get herself a lover for the sake of
her self-respect. But unfortunately she got hold of a duffer who was
old-fashioned enough to want her to marry him in the old non-modern way
when things had gone wrong, and expected her to look after the child and
the house.”
“It may be Paulsen’s fault that she ran away—you never know.”
“Of course it was his fault. He was of the old school, wanting happiness
in his home, and he gave her probably too little love and still less
cudgelling.”
Jenny smiled sadly:
“I know, Gunnar, that you believe life’s difficulties are easily solved.”
Heggen sat down astride on a chair with his arms on the back.
“There is so much of life that we don’t know anything about, that what
we know is easy enough to manage. Have to make your aims and dreams
accordingly, and tackle the unexpected as best you can.”
Jenny sat down in the sofa, resting her head in her hands:
“I can no longer feel that there is anything in life I am so sure about
that I could make it a foundation for my judgment or the aim of my
exertions,” she said placidly.
“I don’t think you mean it.”
She only smiled.
“Not always,” said Gunnar.
“I suppose there is nobody who means the same thing always.”
“Yes, always when one is sober. You were right last night in saying that
sometimes one isn’t sober even if one hasn’t been drinking.”
“At present—when I am sober once in a while, I——” She broke off and
remained silent.
“You know what I think about life, and I know you have always thought the
same. What happens to you is, on the whole, the result of your own will.
As a rule, you are the maker of your own fate. Now and then there are
circumstances which you cannot master, but it is a colossal exaggeration
to say it happens often.”
“God knows I did not will my fate, Gunnar. Yet I have willed for many
years and lived accordingly, too.”
Both were quiet a moment.
“One day,” she said slowly, “I changed my course an instant. I found
it so severe and hard to live the life I considered the most worthy—so
lonely, you see. I left the road for a bit, wanting to be young and
to play, and thus came into a current that carried me away, ending in
something I never for a second had thought could possibly happen to me.”
After a moment’s silence Heggen said:
“Rossetti says—and you know he is a much better poet than painter:
“‘Was that the landmark? What—the foolish well
Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink
But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink
In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell.
(And mine own image, had I noted well!)—
Was that my point of turning?—I had thought
The stations of my course should raise unsought,
As altarstone or ensigned citadel.
But lo! The path is missed, I must go back,
And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring
Which once I stained, which since may have grown black.
Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing
As here I turn, I’ll thank God, hastening,
That the same goal is still on the same track.’”
Jenny said nothing—and Gunnar repeated: “That the same goal is still on
the same track.”
“Do you think it is easy to find the track to the goal again?” asked
Jenny.
“No, but ought one not to try?” he said, almost in a childish way.
“But what goal did I have at all?” she said, with sudden vehemence. “I
wanted to live in such a way that I need never be ashamed of myself
either as a woman or as an artist. Never to do a thing I did not think
right myself. I wanted to be upright, firm, and good, and never to have
any one else’s sorrow on my conscience. And what was the origin of the
wrong—the cause of it all? It was that I yearned for love without there
being any particular man whose love I wanted. Was there anything strange
in it, or that I wanted to believe that Helge, when he came, was the one
I had been longing for—wanting it so much that at last I really believed
it? That was the beginning of what led to the rest. Gunnar, I did believe
that I could make them happy—and yet I did only harm.”
She had risen and was pacing up and down the floor.
“Do you believe that the well you speak of will ever be pure and clear
again to one who knows she has muddied it herself? Do you think it is
easier for me to resign now? I longed for the same that all girls long
for, and I long for it now, but I know that I have now a past which makes
it impossible for me to accept the only happiness I care for. Pure,
unspoilt, and sound it should be—but none of these conditions can I ever
fulfil—not now. My experiences of these two last years are what I must be
satisfied to call my life—and for the rest of it I shall just have to go
on longing for the impossible.”
“Jenny,” said Gunnar, “I am sure I am right in saying again that it
depends on yourself if these memories are going to spoil your life, or
if you will consider them a lesson, however hard it may be, and still
believe that the aim you once set for yourself is the only right one for
you.”
“But can you not see it is impossible? It has sunk too deep; it has
eaten into me like a corrosive acid, and I feel that what was once my
inmost self is crumbling to pieces. Yet I don’t want it—I don’t want
it. Sometimes I am inclined to—I don’t know really what—to stop all the
thoughts at once. Either to die—or to live a mad, awful life—drown in a
misery still greater than the present one. To go down in the mud so deep
and so thoroughly that nothing but the end will come of it. Or”—she spoke
low, with a wild, stifled voice—“to throw myself under a train—to know in
the last second that now—just now—my whole body, nerves, heart, and brain
will be made into one single shivering blood-stained heap.”
“Jenny,” he cried, white in the face, “I cannot bear to hear you speak
like this!”
“I am hysterical,” she said soothingly, but she went to the corner where
her canvases stood and almost flung them against the wall, with the
painting turned out:
“Is it worth living to go about making things like those? Smearing oil
paint on canvas? You can see for yourself that it is nothing now but a
mess of paint. Yet you saw how I worked the first months—like a slave.
Good God! I cannot even paint any more.”
Heggen looked at the pictures. He felt he had a firm ground to stand upon
again.
“I should really like to have your frank opinion on—that piggish stuff,”
she said provokingly.
“I must admit that they are not particularly good.” He stood with his
hands in his trouser pockets looking at them. “But that happens to every
one of us—I mean that there are certain times when you cannot produce
anything, and you ought to know that it is only for a time. I don’t think
one can lose one’s talent even if one has been ever so unhappy. You have
left off painting for such a long time, besides; you will have to work
it up again—to master the means of action, so to say. Take life study,
for instance—I am sure it is three years since you drew a live model. One
cannot neglect those things without being punished for it. I know from my
own experience.”
He went to a shelf and searched among Jenny’s sketch-books:
“You ought to remember how much you improved in Paris—let me show you.”
“No, no, not that one,” said Jenny, reaching her hand for it.
Heggen stood with the book in his hand, looking amazed at her. She turned
her face away:
“I don’t mind if you look at it—I tried to draw the boy one day.”
Heggen turned the leaves slowly. Jenny was sitting in the sofa again. He
looked at the pencil sketches of the sleeping infant for a moment, then
put the book carefully away.
“It was a great pity that you lost your little boy,” he said gently.
“Yes. If he had lived, all the rest would not have mattered. You speak
about will, but when one’s will cannot keep one’s child alive, what is
the good of it? I don’t care to try to make anything of my life now,
because it seemed to me the only thing I was good for and cared about was
to be a mother to my little boy. Oh, I could have loved him! I suppose I
am an egoist at heart, for whenever I tried to love the others, my own
self rose like a wall between us. But the boy was mine alone. I could
have worked if he had been spared to me. I could have worked hard.
“I had made so many plans. On the way down here they all came back to my
mind. I had decided to live in Bavaria with him in the summer, because I
was afraid the sea air would be too strong for him. He was going to lie
in his pram under the apple trees while I painted. There is not a place
in the world I could go to where I have not been in my dreams with the
boy. There is nothing good or beautiful in all the world that I did not
think, while I had him, he should learn and see. I have not a thing that
was not his too. I used to wrap him up in the red rug I have. The black
dress you are painting me in was made in Warnemünde when I was out of bed
again, and I had it cut so that it would be easy to nurse him.
“I cannot work because I am so full of him—the longing for him paralyses
me. In the night I cuddle the pillow in my arms and sob for my baby-boy.
I call him and talk to him when I am alone. I should have painted him, to
have a picture of him at every age. He would have been a year old now,
would have had teeth and been able to take hold of things, to stand up,
and perhaps to walk a little. Every month, every day I think of him—how
he would have grown and what he would be like. When I see a woman with a
_bambino_ on her arm, or the children in the street, I always think of
him and how he would look at their age.”
She stopped talking for a moment.
“I did not think you felt it like that, Jenny,” said Heggen gently. “It
was sad for you, of course—I quite understood that—but I thought, on the
whole, it was better he was taken. If I had known you were so distressed
about it, I should have come to see you.”
She did not answer, but went on in the same strain: “And he died—such a
tiny, tiny little thing. It is only selfishness on my part to grudge him
death before he had begun to feel and to understand. He could only look
at the light and cry when he was hungry or wanted to be changed; he did
not know me even—not really, anyhow. Some vague glimpses of reason had
possibly begun to awaken in his little head, but, think of it, he never
knew that I was his mother.
“Never a name had he, poor darling, only mother’s baby-boy, and I have
nothing to remember him by, except just material things.”
She lifted her hands as if holding the child to her heart, then let them
fall empty and lifeless on the table.
“I remember so distinctly my impression when I first touched him, felt
his skin against mine. It was so soft, a little damp—the air had scarcely
touched it yet, you see. People think a newborn child is not nice to
feel, and perhaps it is so when it is not your own flesh and blood. And
his eyes—they were no special colour, only dark, but I think they would
have been grey-blue. A baby’s eyes are so strange—almost mysterious. And
his tiny head was so pretty, when he was feeding and pressing his little
nose against me. I could see the pulse beating and the thin, downy hair;
he had quite a lot of it—and dark—when he was born.
“Oh, that little body of his! I can never think of anything else—I can
feel it lying in my hands. He was so round and fat, and every bit of him
was so pretty—my own sweet little boy!
“But he died! I was looking forward so much to all that was going to
happen that it seems to me now I did not pay enough attention to things
when I had him, or kissed him or looked at him enough, though I did
nothing else in those weeks.
“When he was gone there was nothing left but the yearning for him. You
cannot understand what I felt. My whole body ached with it. I fell ill,
and the fever and the pain seemed to be my longing materialized. I missed
him from my arms, between my hands, and at my cheek. Once or twice in the
last week of his life he clutched my finger when I put it in his hand.
Once he had somehow got hold of a little of my hair—oh, the sweet, sweet
little hands....”
She lay prostrate over the table, sobbing violently, her whole form
shivering.
Gunnar had got up and stood hesitating, emotion rising in his throat.
Then he went to her and, bending down over her head, he touched her hair
lightly with a shy, gentle kiss.
She continued crying, in the same position, for a little while. At last
she got up and went to the washstand to bathe her face.
“Oh, how I miss him,” she repeated, and he could not find anything to say
but “Jenny, if I had known that you felt it so much.”
She came back to where he was and, putting her hands on his shoulders,
said:
“Gunnar, you must not pay any attention to what I said a while ago.
Sometimes I am not quite myself, but you will understand that, for the
sake of the boy, if for no other reason, I am not going to throw myself
entirely into a life of dissipation. At heart I really want to make the
best I can of my life—you know that. I mean to try and work again, even
if the result is poor in the beginning. I have always the comfort of
knowing that one need not live longer than one cares to.”
She put on her hat again, finding a veil for her tear-stained face:
“Let us go and have something to eat—you must be starving by this time—it
is very late.”
Gunnar Heggen blushed all over his face. Now she mentioned it, he felt
awfully hungry, and was ashamed of himself for admitting it at such a
moment as this. He dried the tears from his wet, hot cheeks and took his
hat from the table.
X
By tacit agreement they passed the restaurant where they usually had
their meals and where there were always a number of their countrymen,
and, continuing their way in the twilight towards the Tiber, they crossed
the bridge into the old Borgo quarters. In a corner by the Piazza San
Pietro there was a small _trattoria_ where they had dined after going to
the Vatican, and they went there.
They ate in silence. When she had finished Jenny lit a cigarette, and sat
sipping her claret and rubbing her fingers with the fragrant tangerine
peel. Heggen smoked, staring in front of him. They were almost alone in
the place.
“Would you like to read a letter I got from Cesca the other day?” asked
Jenny suddenly.
“Yes. I saw there was a letter for you from her—from Stockholm, is it
not?”
“Yes; they are back there and going to stay the winter.” Jenny took the
letter out of her bag and handed it to him.
“DEAR, SWEET JENNY MINE,—You must not be angry with me for not
answering your last letter before. Every day I meant to write,
but it never came off. I am so pleased that you are back in
Rome and are working, and have Gunnar to be with.
“We are back in Stockholm living in the old place. It was quite
impossible to stay in the cottage when it got cold; it was so
draughty that we could only get warm in the kitchen. We would
buy it if we could afford it, but it would cost too much; it
wants so much done to it. The garret would have to be made
into a studio for Lennart, stoves would be wanted, and lots
of other things—but we have rented it for next summer, and I
am so happy about it, for there is no place in the world I
love more. You cannot imagine anything more beautiful than the
west coast; it is so bleak and poor and weather-worn—the grey
cliffs with scraggy copse in the crevices, the woodbine, the
poor little cottages, the sea, and the wonderful sky. I have
made some pictures out there and people say they are good, and
Lennart and I have enjoyed it so much. We are always friends
now, and when he thinks I am good, he kisses me and calls me
a little mermaid and all kinds of nice names, and I suppose I
shall grow very fond of him in time. We are back in town again
and our journey to Paris will not come off this time, but I
don’t mind a bit. It seems almost heartless of me to write
about it to you, for you are so much better than I, and it was
so dreadfully sad that you should lose your little boy—and I
don’t think I really deserve to be so happy and get what I have
wished for more than anything—but I am going to have a baby.
I have only five months to wait. I could scarcely believe it
at first, but now it is certain enough. I tried to hide it
from Lennart as long as possible—you see, I was so ashamed of
myself for having deceived him twice, and I was afraid of being
mistaken. When he began to suspect it I denied it first, but I
had to confess to it later. I cannot realize that I am to have
a little boy—Lennart says he would rather have another little
Cesca, but I think he says it only to console me beforehand in
case it is, for I am sure in his heart he wants a boy. However,
if it is a girl, we shall be just as fond of her—and once we
have got one child we might get some more.
“I am so happy that I don’t mind where we are, and I don’t long
for Paris. Fancy Mrs. L. asking me if I was not angry because
the baby spoilt my journey abroad—can you understand it from
a mother of two of the handsomest boys in the world? But they
are not taken the slightest notice of, except when they are
with us, and Lennart says she would willingly make us a present
of them. If I could afford it I would take them, so that baby
would have two darling big brothers to play with when he comes.
It will be such fun to show them their little cousin—they call
me auntie, you see. I think it is nice. But I must close now.
Do you know I am very pleased also, because Lennart cannot be
jealous now—can he? and I don’t think he ever will be any more,
for he knows quite well that I have never been really fond of
anybody but him.
“Do you think it unkind of me to write so much about this to
you and that I am so happy? I know you don’t grudge me my luck.
“Remember me kindly to all my friends—to Gunnar first and
foremost. You may tell him what I have written if you like.
Every good wish to yourself and welcome to us next summer.—Much
love from your sincere and devoted little friend,