Part 10

In despair he sat down and wrote from his notes a survey of the most important epochs of the world's history. He hoped, or in his need imagined that he might in this way strike out a new path for himself as an historian, which had been the dream of his youth, before he became an author.

His wife knew what he was writing and that it would bring in no money, but controlled herself; perhaps his ardent conviction had persuaded her that there was something in it. She did not complain, but on the contrary cheered him up and offered to translate the work into English.

A month passed, quiet, peaceful but melancholy. They felt that they were not enough for each other in this absolute loneliness. They lamented it but sought for no society. He, with wider experience than hers, hoped that the child on its arrival would be satisfying company for them both.

Meanwhile poverty approached nearer. None of his plays were performed or sold, and not one of the hopes of spring had been realised. His children by his first marriage clamoured for money, and food began to be scarce in the house. Then came deliverance in the form of an invitation to spend the winter with his wife's grandparents.

One evening in December they alighted at a little station in Jutland, and drove through woods and wild heath. Everything was new and strange. In this house he was now to live as a grandchild, just as during the past summer in her father's house he had been for eight days a child.

They reached the ferry in the twilight. The drifting of the ice had begun, but the water had also sunk so low that a sand-bank lay in the middle of the stream, and there a new boat waited for them. From thence a large, white, three-storied house was visible; it looked unfriendly, almost weird, with its projecting wings and high, illuminated windows.

They reached the land and found themselves immediately in the ghostly castle. They were conducted up whitewashed stairs over which hung dark oil-paintings in black frames. Then he found himself in a warm, well-lighted room, among her relatives, of whom he only knew his mother-in-law.

With his incredible pliability, he immediately adapted himself to his position, and behaved like the young relation who under all circumstances must show reverence to his elders.

Here in the house his right of self-determination ceased; he must conform to other people's views, wills, and habits. In order to spare himself unpleasantness, he had resolved beforehand to have no more likes and dislikes of his own, but to accept all that was offered to him, however strange or repulsive it might appear.

The old grandfather was a notary and barrister who had retired with considerable wealth, and only managed his estate as far as was necessary for domestic purposes and for his own amusement. Most of his property consisted of hunting-ground and was in that state of neglect which a townsman finds picturesque. He and his wife were both over seventy, and seemed only to be waiting for their end with the cheerful resignation of good-natured, orthodox Catholics who are free from care. They had already built for themselves a mausoleum in the garden where their bodies were to repose, and they were accustomed to show it as other people show a summer-house. It was a little whitewashed chapel, with flowers planted round it, which they used to tend as though they already stood there in memory of them.

In the house there was a superfluity of good things. After having been half-starved in Alster here they found it difficult to avoid gluttony, without vexing their host. Pheasants, hare, venison were regular standing dishes which at last became a weariness. "This is our punishment," he said, "because we complained of the manna; now we are stuffed with quails like the murmuring Israelites so that it comes out at our throats."

A stillness like that of old age supervened; there was no need of care or anxiety in this house where there were as many servants as members of the family. It was easy to live with the old people, who had outgrown special interests, views and passions, and the young pair, who had their own rooms apart, only needed to appear at meal-times.

The young wife was now altogether a mother, talked of and with the unborn child as though she knew it well; she was mild and womanly, humble and even thankful towards her husband, whose affections remained unaltered though her shape was disfigured and her beauty faded.

"How beautiful life is!" she said.

"Yes it is; but how long will it last?"

"Hush!"

"I will be silent! But you know that happiness is punished."

No one asked what he was working at; on the contrary all that he heard was: "You should do nothing but take a thorough rest after your wild rushing about."

Accordingly he sent for some books which had been given him some years previously by a rich man and which he had been obliged to send back home. Then he began a series of systematic investigations, studied and made notes. He felt a new life and fresh interests awaken; and when he now found his former hypothesis and calculations verified by synthesis and analysis he became certain that he was working by a sure method, and in the right way. This gave him such confidence that he felt justified in pursuing his investigations, but because he could not explain their significance to the uninitiated, his position became somewhat insecure. People had to take him on good faith; they did that so long as peace prevailed, but at the first sign of antipathy he would be helplessly exposed to the ridicule or contemptuous pity of the bystanders.

The grandfather was a cultivated man, and therefore curious to know what was going on in the young pair's rooms. When he inquired, he received evasive answers, but since he had been a magistrate and barrister, he required definiteness. When he heard what the Norwegian's investigations were concerned with, he confuted them with the authority of the text books. In order to put an end to fruitless strife, his young relative let him believe he was right. But the old man tried to provoke him into contradiction, assumed a superior air and became intrusive. He was allowed to be so for the present.

"Nothing for nothing!" thought the Norwegian. His wife thanked him for his yieldingness and admired his self-control. But discord was fated to come, and it came.

The lawsuit in Copenhagen about his book extended its operations here also, and one day a court officer came to summon him to appear as defendant in the court of the nearest town. Since he had from the beginning challenged the jurisdiction of the Copenhagen court, because as a Norwegian writer he was not responsible to a Danish court, on account of a translation; and since he regarded the whole proceedings as illegal, which indeed they were, he refused to appear. The old man on the other hand insisted that he should do so, especially, perhaps, because he did not like to see gendarmes coming to his house.

To put an end to the matter, the Norwegian really resolved one morning to go and present his challenge personally in court.

He therefore went at eight o'clock and followed the beautiful walk along the river. But about half-way he met the postman and received, by paying cash on its delivery, a long-expected book. This book was extremely expensive, and since he had no money, he had been obliged to devise a plan in order to secure it. After thinking about it for a month, he remembered that he had some valuables stowed away in a box in an attic in Norway. He therefore wrote to a friend and asked him to sell the things for a price equivalent to the purchase of the expensive book, to change the money into notes and to send them in an unregistered letter so that no one might know of it. He did this because he felt he was stealing from his wife and family, but it had to be done, as he wished to solve an important problem. As he now held the long-desired means for doing so in his hand, he felt a lightning flash in his soul, and turned home without thinking.

"Now, I will finish the business," he said to himself; "the gendarmes can come afterwards."

As he entered the courtyard the old man stood there, cutting up a deer which he had shot. The Norwegian sought to slip past him unperceived, but did not succeed.

"Have you already been to the judge?" asked the old man sceptically.

"No," answered the Norwegian curtly, and hurried through the house-door. He ran up the stairs to his room and bolted the door. Then he sat down to study. After half an hour he said to himself: "Is the greatest problem of modern times solved?" There was a knock at the door, and then another hard and decided. He was obliged to open it in order to get quiet.

"Why don't you go to the judge?" asked the old man.

"That's nothing to do with you," he answered and slammed the door to with a sound like a shot.

But now there was no more peace for him! He felt that a crisis had come in his destiny, and he heard voices below. His hand trembled, he felt as though paralysed and closed the book which contained what he sought. At the same moment he lost confidence and dared not face what seemed a contradictory proof of his theory.

After some minutes his mother-in-law came. She was not angry, but found it unpleasant to have to tell him that he and his wife must leave the house at once, before dinner. They could have her little one-storied cottage at the bottom of the garden and have their meals sent from the house. His little wife appeared and danced with joy at the thought that they would have a little house of their own, especially with a garden and park round it.

The change took place, and now in this cottage began the two happiest months in the life of the married pair. Their cottage of grey stone, with little iron-barred windows framed in sandstone, was quite idyllic. It was built in convent style and covered with vine-creepers. The walls of the rooms were painted white, without any hangings, and the low ceilings were supported by thick beams black with age.

He had a little room constructed like a real monk's cell, narrow and long with a single small window at the end. The walls were so thick that flower-pots could stand outside in front of the window, as well as inside on the window-ledge. The furniture was old-fashioned and suited its surroundings. Here he arranged his library, and never had he felt so comfortable before.

But now they had to prepare for the coming of the child. Husband and wife painted the window-sills and doors. Roses and clematis were planted before the cottage. The garden was dug up and sown. In order to fill up the blank spaces of the great white walls, he painted pictures on them. When all was ready they sat down and admired the work of their hands. "It is splendid," they said; "and now we can receive the child. Think how pleased it will be, to see so many pictures the first day!"

They waited and hoped; during the long spring evenings they only talked of him or her, guessed which it would be, discussed what name it should have, and speculated on its future. His wife's thoughts for the most part were occupied in wondering whether it would be fair and resemble his boy, whom she loved. She and her family were especially fond of fair people, whether because they resembled light, while the dusky-complexioned reminded one of darkness, would be difficult to say. They believed everything good of fair people and spoke ill of the Jews, although the little wife's grandmother on the paternal side was a Jewess; among her maternal relations who sprang from Schleswig-Holstein peasantry the word "Jew" was used as a term of reproach. The Norwegian's father-in-law was an anti-Semite but when he joked at the paradox involved in this, his wife said: "You must not joke at it; we will do that ourselves."

At last one day in May as the sun rose, the coming of the unknown traveller was heralded, and after twelve terrible hours it proved to be a girl who at any rate was not dark-haired.

This ought to have completed the idyll, but it seemed, on the contrary, to put an end to it. The little one did not seem to thrive in this vale of tears, but cried day and night. Nurses were engaged and nurses were dismissed. Five women filled the house and each had different views as to the rearing of the child. The father went about like a criminal and was always in the way. His wife thought that he did not love the child and this vexed her so much as to make her suffer. At the same time she herself was completely transformed into a mother to the exclusion of everything else. She had the child in her own bed, and could spend the greater part of the night sitting on a chair absorbed in contemplation of its beauty as it slept. Her husband had also to come sometimes and join in her admiration, but he thought the mother most beautiful in those moments when she forgot herself and gazed ecstatically at her child with a happy smile.

But a storm approached from without. The people of the neighbourhood were superstitious, and the child's continual crying had given rise to gossip. They began to ask whether it had been baptised.

According to law the child should be baptised in the father's religion, but since both he and the mother were indifferent in the matter, the baptism was postponed as something of no importance, especially as there was no Catholic priest in the neighbourhood.

The child's crying was really not normal, and as the popular opinion of the neighbourhood began to find expression, the grandmother came and asked them to have it baptised. "People are murmuring," she said; "and they have already threatened to stone your cottage."

The young unbelievers did not credit this, but smiled. The murmurings, however, increased; it was alleged that a peasant woman had seen the devil in the garden, and that the foreign gentleman was an atheist. There was some foundation for this report, for people who met the two heretics on the roads turned away. At last there came an ultimatum from the old man. "The child must receive Catholic baptism within twenty-four hours or the family will be deported across the Belt."

The Norwegian answered: "We Protestants are very tolerant in our belief, but if it is made a financial matter, we can be as fanatical as some Catholics." The position was serious, for the young pair had not a penny for travelling expenses. His letter was answered with a simple "Then go!"

The Norwegian replied: "To be a martyr for a faith which one does not possess is somewhat fantastic, and I did not expect that we should play the Thirty Years War over again down here. But look out! The Norwegian will come and take his daughter off with his baggage, for he is a Norwegian subject."

The grandees in the large house began to take a milder tone, but consulted and devised a stratagem. The child was announced to be ill and became worse every day. At last the grandmother came with her retinue and told the father that the child could live no longer, but he did not believe it. On his return from a long walk in the woods the same day he was met by his wife with the news that the child had received discretionary baptism at the hands of the midwife in the presence of the doctor.

"Into which faith has the child been baptised?" asked the father.

"The Protestant, of course."

"But I don't see how a Catholic midwife can give Protestant baptism." But as he saw that his wife was privy to the plot, he said no more. The next day the child was well, and there was no more talk of expelling the family. The grandees had conquered. Jesuits!

The child, which had been expected to unite the pair more closely to each other, seemed to have come to separate them. The mother thought the father cold towards the little one. "You don't love your child," she said.

"Yes I do, but as a father," he replied. "You should love her as a mother. That is the difference."

The fact was that he feared to attach himself too closely to the newly born, for he felt that a separation from the mother was in the air, and to be tied to her by means of the child he felt to be a fetter.

She on her side did not know exactly how she wished to have it. If he loved the child, it might happen that he would take it from her when he went away; if he did not love it, he would simply go by himself. For that he would go she felt sure. He had had a dramatic success at Paris in the spring, and another play of his was announced for the autumn. He therefore wished to go there, and so did she, but the child hindered her movements, and if he went alone to Paris, she felt she would never see him again. Many letters with French postmarks came for him now, and these roused her curiosity, for he burnt them at once. This last circumstance, which was quite contrary to his habit, aroused her suspicion and hatred.

"You are preparing for a journey?" she said one evening.

"Yes, naturally," he answered. "I cannot live in this uncertainty; I might be put out on the high road at any time."

"You think of deserting us?"

"I must leave you in order to do my business in Paris. A business journey is not desertion."

"Yes, then you can go," she said, betraying herself.

"I shall go as soon as I get the money for which I am waiting."

Now the Fury in her reappeared. First of all he had to move up into an attic, and although she and the child had the use of two rooms, she deliberately spoilt the remaining third room which was the dining-room and contained specially good furniture. She tore down the curtains, took away the pictures, choked up the room with child's clothes and milk bottles with the sole purpose of showing him who was master in the house. The rooms looked now as though demons had dwelt in them; crockery, kitchen utensils, and children's clothes were strewn on the beds and sofas.

She dished up bad meals and the food was often burnt. One day she set before him a plate of bones which the dogs seemed to have gnawed, and a water bottle. This last was an expression of the greatest contempt, for the cellars were full of beer, and no servant ever engaged himself without stipulating that he should have beer at meals. Accordingly he was reckoned beneath the men and maidservants. But he kept patient and silent, for he knew that the journey money would arrive. This, however, did not prevent his disgust rising to an equal height with her hatred.

He lived now in dirt, destitution, and wretchedness; heard nothing but scolding and shrieking between his wife and the nurse, his wife and the maidservant, his wife and her mother, while the child cried continually. He had an attack of fever and inflammation of the throat, and lay on his bed in the attic. She did not believe that he was ill and let him lie there. On the third day he sent for the doctor, for he could not even drink water. Then his Fury appeared in the doorway. "Have you sent for the doctor?" she asked. "Do you know what that costs?"

"Anyhow it will be cheaper than a funeral, and it may be diphtheria, which is dangerous for the child."

"Do you think of the child?"

"Yes, a little."

If she could now have dropped him into the sea, she would have done it. But she treated him as though he had the plague. The child, her child, was in danger!

"I have experienced much," he said in a whisper, "but never have I seen such intense malice in anyone." And he wept, perhaps for the first time in twenty years; wept over her unworthiness, and perhaps also over his fate and his humiliation. When he regarded his position objectively it seemed monstrous that he, a distinguished man in his own line, should, without fault of his own, lead such a wretched life that even the maidservant pitied him. Since he had entered his relative's house, his behaviour; had been unimpeachable. He did not even drink, if only for the reason that there was nothing to drink. Since his arrival, his plays had met with success, but instead of making him more respected, as success generally does in the case of ordinary mortals, it only tended to deepen hatred and studied contempt. The fact that he had accepted hospitality from very rich relatives was not bound to weigh heavily on his mind, for he was now legal heir to half the property. But as hate now raged, he was told what his expenses were, and mention was made of payment.

Again the idea he had formerly had recurred to him, that there was something more than natural in all this, and that an unseen hand was controlling his destiny. The inexplicable non-arrival of the journey money seemed especially designed to prolong his sufferings. When other letters, which he looked for, did not come, he began to suspect that his wife had a finger in the matter. He began to watch the mail-bag which the postman brought, and to write to the post office; naturally, the only result was further ignominy.

Without having any definite belief, he found himself in a kind of religious crisis. He felt how he sank in this environment where everything hinged on the material and only the animal side of things was prominent--food and excrement, nurses regarded as milch cows, cooks and decaying vegetables; then endless discussions and the display of physical necessities which are usually concealed. At the same time excessively heavy rain had flooded a corridor and two rooms; the water could not be drained off but stagnated and stank. The garden went to ruin as no one looked after it.

Then he longed that he could get far away, somewhere where there was light and purity, peace, love, and reconciliation. He dreamed again his old dream of a convent within whose walls he might be sheltered from the world's temptations and filth, where he might forget and be forgotten. But he lacked faith and the capacity for obedience.

Literature at that period had been long haunted by this idea of a convent. In Berlin the suggestion had been made to found a convent without a creed for the "intellectuals." These at a time when industrial and economical questions took the first place, were uncomfortable in the dense atmosphere of a materialism which they themselves had been seduced into preaching. He now wrote to a rich friend of his in Paris regarding the founding of such a convent; drew up a plan for the building, laid down rules, and went into details regarding the coenobitic life and tasks of the convent brothers. This was in August, 1894. The object proposed was the education of man to superman through asceticism, meditation, and the practice of science, literature, and art. Religion was not mentioned, for one did not know what the religion of the future would be, or whether it would possess one at all.

His wife noticed that he was becoming separated from her, but she believed that he was thinking of Paris with its vanities and distractions, its theatres and cafés, gallant adventures and thirst for gold. His possible plans excited her fear and envy. As regards his historical studies, her supercilious smiling had ceased after he had received words of encouragement from a great German and a famous French authority, and naturally had been obliged to show their letters in order to protect himself. Since she could no longer criticise his ideas she carried the strife on to another ground and began to plague him with insidious questions as to how much he earned by his historical studies.

When his wife was angry she went to the old people and narrated all the small and great secrets which a married pair have between themselves; she also repeated what he in moments of irritation had said about them. She was sorry afterwards, but then it was too late. The spirit of discord was aroused, and the storm could no longer be allayed.