Part 4

In order to conceal his plan he had only spoken to the owner of the boat of a pleasure-trip in the Sound. His intention was to telegraph from Landskrona and send the money due for the boat and have the boat itself towed by a steamer.

As they were putting off from shore, the boat owner stood near and watched them. But when he saw that they were directing their course to the Island Hven, he put his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Don't go too near Hven," and something else which was carried away by the wind.

"Why not Hven?" asked the baron aloud. "The shore is steep, so that there are no rocks under water."

"Yes, but if he tells us so, he must have had some reason for it," she objected.

"Don't talk nonsense! Look after the foresail!"

The wind blew a light gale on the open sea, and since there was a considerable distance between the foresail and the stern there was no need for conversation, much to the baron's relief.

Their course was directed towards the south-east corner of Hven, though at first not noticeably so. But when she at last saw whither they were going, she called out: "Don't steer for Hven!"

"Hold your----!" answered the baron and tacked.

After an hour's good run they had come abreast of the white island and a light pressure on the rudder turned the boat's prow towards Landskrona, which appeared in the north.

"Saved!" cried the steersman and lit a cigar.

At the same instant a little steamer put out from Hven and made straight for the sailing-boat.

"What is that steamer?" she asked.

"It is a custom-house boat," answered the baron who was at home on the sea.

But now the steamer hoisted a yellow flag and whistled.

"That has nothing to do with us," said the baron, and kept on his course.

But the steamer took a sweep round, signalled with the flag, and let off several short, sharp whistles like cries of distress, increasing speed at the same time. Then the baron jumped up wildly at the stern as though he intended plunging into the sea. He remembered the outbreak of cholera at Hamburg and cried: "It is the quarantine! Three days! We are lost!"

The next moment he sat down again in his place, hauling taut the main-sheet and drifting before the wind, straight towards the Sound. The chase began, but soon the steamer stood athwart the bow of the sailing-boat, which was captured.

The whole carefully-thought-out device of the baron to avoid the gaze of curious eyes was defeated, and as their sailing-boat was towed into the harbour of Hven, the unhappy pair were saluted from the bridge by hundreds of their fellow-countrymen with derisive applause and peals of laughter, though the latter did not know whom they were applauding. But the chagrin of the captured pair was greater than the others guessed, for they believed that people were ridiculing their unfortunate love affair.

To make matters worse the baron had unpardonably insulted the quarantine doctor by upbraiding him on board the steamer. Therefore no special consideration was shown them, but they were treated like all others who come from a cholera-infected port. Since their incognito was bound to be seen through sooner or later, they went about in perpetual fear of discovery. Full of suspicion, they believed every other hour that they were recognised.

No one would have the patience to read the story of the torture of those three days. So much is known, that the first day she spent in weeping for her child, while he walked about the island. The second day she enlarged upon the excellent qualities of her husband as contrasted with the execrable ones of her lover. On the third day she cursed him for having taken her away, and when she ended by calling him an idiot for not having obeyed her own and the boat-owner's advice to avoid Hven, he gave her a box on the ear.... On the fourth day when they were really discovered, and newspapers arrived with the whole story, they went into a crevice in the rocks to hide their shame.

When at last two steamers came to fetch the unfortunates, each went on board a different one. And after that day they never saw nor knew each other again.

* * * * *

It was nearly midnight when the reading was ended. An interval of silence followed, but the postmaster felt he must say something. "One generally says 'thanks'!" he remarked. "Meanwhile, after you have said all, there is not much to add: I will only ask myself, you, and everyone a general question: 'What is love?'"

"What is love? Answer: 'I don't know.' Love has been called a piece of roguery on the part of Nature. I don't believe that, for I know that Nature has neither made itself nor can it think out pieces of roguery. But if we accept that proposition, we descend to zoology, and that I do not wish to do. I do not share the theoretical veneration for woman which my contemporaries cherish; on the other hand, I instinctively place her higher than ourselves. She seems to me to be formed out of finer material than we men, but I may be wrong, for she seems to be furnished with more animal functions than we are. If I were a theosophist, I should believe she was only a kind of intermediary chrysalis stage on the way to man, only a temporary manifestation, out of which love, i.e. man's love, creates in, her possibilities of being and seeming. When he finds this really lifeless form of existence and breathes his immortal breath into it, he shares the Creator's joy on the seventh day. The process of refining, which his coarser substance hindered him bringing about in his own soul, he brings about in hers, and through reaction--no! it is too difficult for me to explain; it is like dividing an angle into three equal parts. Anyhow, the fact is certain, and my story is an illustration of it, that when a man is deceived in his love as he always is, his whole being revolts against the government of the world, which seems to him to have condescended to mock at his holiest possession, the holiest thing in all creation. If Providence is consonant with such deceit and such coarse jesting then he discovers a devil where he thought he had seen a good angel. After that what shall he trust, what shall he value, at what shall he not make a grimace? And when after marriage the veil falls, and like Adam and Eve they are naked and ashamed, then even the most unbelieving is conscious of something resembling the Fall. Then comes a fresh error and they think they have deceived each other, which they have not done. So they scourge each other for crimes which neither has committed. A second deception follows the first."

They were again silent. Then the postmaster gave the conversation another turn and descended to the earth. "You can guess that I, at any rate, recognise the lady of your story. She lives in her own little house, here on the island by the shore."

"Yes she does! I know her, and I was quarantine doctor at Hven when she was captured. Now that she is elderly she has renewed her acquaintance with me, and it is from her own mouth that I heard the story. She has been in love countless times, and declares that every time she believed she had found the right man who had been predestined for her from the foundation of the world."

"Does not reason feel its helplessness before such riddles, riddles of every day?"

"Yes and therefore ... yes, next Saturday you shall hear another story, and I think we shall approach the riddle a little more closely, i.e. we shall find its insolubility more strongly proved."

"I shall be glad to hear it. But why don't you have your stories printed?"

"Because I have been a doctor, and a woman's doctor. I have no right to reveal what I have heard in my official capacity. Sometimes I should like to be a writer with a prescriptive right to find material for his art in men's lives and destinies; but that is a calling and a task which is denied to me."

"Very well; good night till next Saturday."

When Saturday evening came round, the two old men sat in the corner room with their toddy and tobacco and a large pile of manuscript on the table. The postmaster looked a little nervously at it, as a child might at a family book of sermons.

"We can give two evenings to it," said the doctor soothingly.

"Ah no! we have the whole evening before us and to-morrow is Sunday. Fire ahead! We will have an interval for refreshments."

The doctor began to read at six o'clock and had finished when it struck eleven.

THE DOCTOR'S SECOND STORY

I

He had left his Christiania full of bitterness because a public injustice had been done him. At forty years of age he had written the best modern drama and had invented a new form of play with a new plot which answered the expectations of the generation which was growing up. But the older generation was still alive, and spectators, actors, and critics felt that their ideals were leaving them in the lurch, and that they themselves would be involved in their fall. If the public taste took a new direction which they could not follow, they would be regarded as superannuated, and be left behind. Accordingly his masterpiece had been called idiotic and had been hissed off the stage, and it had been suggested to him that he should return to America, where he had already been and left his wife, from whom he was separated.

But, instead of going to America, he went to Copenhagen. In the centre of the city he set up a restaurant where he foregathered with Swedes and Finns. After some months' delay he succeeded in getting his drama performed at a Copenhagen theatre. It was decidedly successful and his reputation was saved. He had felt that he had done with life, but now he began to wake up and to look about him. But when he did enter into life again, he did so with dull resignation and an almost fatalistic spirit which found expression in his favourite motto: "Prepared for everything!"

His dramatic success resulted in his receiving social invitations. One evening he went to a soiree at a distinguished author's, round whom the younger stars in art and literature were accustomed to gather. The supper was long and brilliant, but several unoccupied places were waiting for guests who should arrive after the theatres had closed. At half-past ten there was a stir in the company, for the expected guests came--three ladies and three men all unknown to the Norwegian. But one of the three ladies greeted him as an acquaintance and reached the stranger her hand. Immediately afterwards he asked the hostess in a whisper who it was.

"Who is it? Miss X---- of course! You talked with her at Doctor E----'s supper."

"Really! It is strange that with my good memory I cannot recall her appearance. One evening lately, in a well-lit theatre lobby, I passed her without a greeting."

"Of course you don't see that she is pretty."

"Is she?" He leant forward to look at the young lady who had taken her seat far down the table. "Yes she doesn't look bad."

"Fie! Fie! She is a celebrated beauty of the best Copenhagen type."

"Oh! Formerly I only admired blondes but latterly have confined my admiration to brunettes." Then they talked of something else. After supper the company gathered in the drawing-room and the beautiful Dane and the Norwegian sat so close together that he put her cup down for her. When she asked who would escort her home, he answered: "I of course," and his escort was accepted. When at last the company broke up, he and she found themselves in the same mysterious way so deep in conversation that a group of ladies and gentlemen formed a circle round them with a mischievous air to watch them. The pair, however, did not observe this, but continued to talk. As they went down the steps they heard a "good night!" and a ringing laugh overhead from the young and charming hostess who was leaning over the balcony-railing. They went along the shore, and past the bridges, continuing their conversation without a pause. When they came to X---- Street she invited him to supper the following evening to meet a young female artist. But she prepared him to find her surroundings very simple, as she was staying in a pension kept by a strict old lady. Then they parted as though they had been old acquaintances and colleagues.

As he walked home alone through the night, and tried to recall the events of the evening to his mind, he noticed again the curious fact that he could not remember her appearance. Yet as a former reporter, he had been so accustomed to photograph people and scenes, landscapes and interiors with his eye that he could not understand it. Moreover, he observed that she was quite a different person this evening to what she had been the first time they met. There was now no trace of "independence" about her, only a mild yieldingness, a certain melancholy, which became her well and aroused sympathy. When they talked of the unfortunate fate of a certain person, there were tears in her voice. It was the voice which he remembered more than anything else about her--somewhat deep and melancholy with a slight accent which carried one far away from the great town and awoke memories of wood and sea, the sounds of nature, shepherds' huts, and hay-rakes. He now recollected how they had really treated her like a child the previous evening, had teased her about her writings, and asked her for recommendations, at which she had only smiled. She also had the unfortunate habit of letting fall naive expressions, which were really seriously meant, but sometimes had a repellent effect.

The only one who had taken her seriously was himself, the foreigner. And he had seen that she was no child but a woman with whom he could speak of men and books and all that interested him, without once having to explain his remarks.

When he awoke the next morning, he tried to call to his mind the events and persons of the previous day. It was his habit, when he made a new acquaintance, to seek in his memory for the "corresponding number," as he called it, in order to get a clear idea of his character; i.e. he thought which of his old friends most nearly resembled the person in question. This psychical operation was often performed involuntarily, i.e. when he tried to call up the image of his new acquaintance, the figure of an old one rose up in his mind and more or less obliterated the latter. When he now recalled his yesterday's memories of Miss X---- he saw her with an elderly married cousin, to whom he had always felt indifferent. This suppressed any sentimental feeling, if any were present, and he only thought of her as a kindly woman-friend. Accordingly, in the evening, he felt perfectly calm and without a trace of that embarrassment which one sometimes feels in attempting to make oneself agreeable to a young lady. He was received with perfect frankness as an old acquaintance and led into a lady's boudoir elegantly furnished with a well-appointed writing-table, flower-plants, family portraits, carpets, and comfortable chairs.

Since the lady painter had been prevented coming, he had to be content with a _tête-à-tête_, and this somewhat jarred on his sense of propriety. But his hostess's simple and unaffected manner caused him to suppress some remarks which might have hurt her feelings.

So they sat opposite each other and talked. Her black silk dress had blue insets and was cut in the "empire style," with dark lace trimmings which hung from her shoulders like a sleigh-net. This gave her a somewhat matronly appearance, and when he noticed her tone like that of an experienced woman of the world, he thought for a moment: "She is divorced!" Her face, which he could now examine in full light, showed a flat forehead which looked as though it had been hammered smooth and betokened a determined will without obstinacy. The eyes were large and well-defined as with Southerners. The nose seemed to have altered its mind while growing, for it took a little bend in the middle and became Roman by degrees. This little unexpected "joy-ful surprise" lent a cameo-like charm to her profile.

Their conversation was still more lively this evening, for they had already amassed a small store of common experiences to discuss, acquaintances to analyse, and ideas to test. They sat there and cut out silhouettes of their friends, and as neither of them wished to seem spiteful, they cut them in handsome shapes, and not with pointed scissors.

During this innocent interchange of thought, he had glanced at a very large flower-basket full of splendid roses. She had divined his thoughts, and just as a servant brought in a bottle of wine and cigarettes, she got up and went towards the roses.

("She is engaged!" he thought and felt himself superfluous.)

"I was given these by a friend on his departure," she said.

But in order to show that she was not engaged she broke off a stem carelessly. It was fastened with wire, and she had to look for her scissors. As these were in her work-basket on the lowest shelf of her work-table, she knelt down and remained kneeling. She remained in that attitude while she fastened two of the finest roses in his buttonhole, and she only needed to stretch out an arm to reach a glass of wine and drink to his health.

"'Roses and wine!' I have used that as a refrain for a ballad," he said. He thought the situation somewhat strange but insignificant in itself.

"Oh! do repeat the ballad!"

He had forgotten it.

She rose up and sat on her chair, and he persuaded her to tell him something of her life. She had early left her parents, who lived separated without being divorced, for they were Catholics. She had been educated in convent-schools in London, Paris, Italy, and elsewhere. In Paris especially, when with English ladies, she had been bothered with religion, but had finally thrown it all overboard. She certainly felt an emptiness without it, but expected, like everyone else, that some new substitute was coming into the world. Meanwhile, like her contemporaries, she devoted her energies to the deliverance of humanity from pauperism and oppression. She had superficially studied Nietzsche among others and laid him aside again after finding in him a slight corrective to over-strained expectations of universal equality.

While she was talking, he noticed that light fell through a curtain behind her back, which screened a door apparently leading into the interior of the house. Like lightning the thought struck him that he might be the object of a joke, and was to be surprised in the ridiculous position of a woman-worshipper. Or perhaps it was only for propriety's sake that communication was kept open with the main building. This wholesome doubt kept their conversation free from all tincture of flirtation, and when supper was served he reproached himself for having suspected his hostess of evil purposes or a want of trust in him.

About half-past eight he was about to go, but she only needed to express a suspicion that he was longing for the café to make him remain. About half-past nine o'clock he was going again but was kept back.

"But," he remonstrated, "it is my part as the elder and more prudent to spare you any unpleasantness."

She understood nothing, but declared that she was independent and that the lady who kept the pension was accustomed to her suppers.

At last his instinct told him that it was a mistake to stay longer; he rose and took his leave. On his way home, he said to himself, "No, people are not so simple, and cannot be labelled by formulas, for I don't comprehend an atom of this evening or of this woman."

The next time they met it was in a museum. Her outer dress made her look like a young married woman of thirty or more. Her mouth had a tired expression and had fine little wrinkles near it, as is the case with those who laugh often. But she was melancholy, hinted at having had a breach with her father, and spoke of taking her departure shortly. She inquired regarding her friend's relations to theatres and publishers, and offered to help him with advice and influence. To-day she was mere motherly tenderness, and a certain carelessness in her toilet suggested that she did not want to please as a woman.

But when she proposed that they should go to the theatre together he declined, from a feeling that he ought not to compromise her, nor expose himself to danger, for his precarious pecuniary position did not permit him to think of a love affair.

He proposed to her instead that they should go for a stroll together, and she suggested that he should escort her from her new lodging, for she had changed her rooms.

("They have given her notice at the pension, because of me," he thought, but said nothing.)

By this time his curiosity as an author was aroused, and he wished to learn the riddle of this woman, for he had never seen any other change their appearance as she did.

When in the evening he rang at her door, he was shown into a side room and asked to wait. When she was dressed he was let out into the front hall, where they met. This, then, was a new order of things.

They went westward by an empty street which led to the Zoological Gardens, and entered a restaurant which she seemed to know well. In her fur jacket and with a kerchief on her head she looked in the dark like an old woman, and as she stooped somewhat, she seemed to have something witchlike about her. But when they entered the well-lit restaurant, and she laid aside kerchief and jacket she stood revealed all at once in her youthful beauty. A moss-green, tightly fitting dress showed the figure of a girl of eighteen, and with her hair brushed smooth, she looked like an overgrown schoolgirl. He could not conceal his astonishment at this witchery, and looked her all over as though he were seeking a concealed enemy with a searchlight. ("Eros! Now I am lost!" he thought. And from that moment he was indeed.)

She saw quite well the effect she had produced, and seemed to glisten there in a sort of phosphorescent light, sure of victory, with a triumphant expression round her mouth, for she saw that he was conquered. He felt a sudden fear. She had his soul in her pocket, and could cast it into the river or into the gutter; therefore he hated her at the same time. He saw that his only chance of safety lay in awakening a reciprocal flame in her, so that she might be as closely bound to him as he was to her. With this half-conscious purpose, he did what every man in his place would have done--insinuated himself into her confidence, made himself as little as a child and aroused her sympathy, the sympathy of a woman for a lacerated and damned soul which has no more hope of happiness. She listened to him and received his confidence as a tribute, with calm majestic motherliness, without a trace of coquetry or pleasure at hearing of another's misfortune.

When at last, after eating a cold supper, they were about to go, he rose to look up a train in a railway guide. When he returned to the table and wished to pay the bill, the waiter informed him that it had already been paid by the lady! Then he flared up, and wrongly suspecting that she thought he had no money, demanded that at any rate he should pay for himself.

"I don't know the customs of your country," he said, "but in mine a man who lets a lady pay for him is dishonoured."

"You were my guest," she answered.

"No, we went out together, and we cannot come here again. Don't you know what kind of a reputation you will give me, and by what a hateful name this waiter may call me?"