Part 6

This must have suited her own ideas of life, for she was immediately ready to adopt this rôle. Therefore they found each other always novel, and always full of surprises. They could not take each other too seriously, and often when one of them attacked his or her own discarded views with the other's opinions of the day before, they were obliged to laugh at their own foolishness. Thus they were never clear about each other, and in really serious moments they would exclaim simultaneously: "Who are you? What are you really?" and neither of them could answer.

As he was on the point of falling asleep, he thought, "I shall make no resolve, for I have never seen a resolve lead to anything. The course of events may guide my destiny as it has done hitherto."

The next morning she came without waiting for the doctor. She had put on a wise air, as if she understood the illness thoroughly but did not wish to descend to trifles. She took a rod out of a basket she had brought with her.

"What is that?"

"That is 'the Easter rod'; to-day is Good Friday." She set up the rod at his feet, and adorned the edge of the bed with willow-branches in bloom. Like a little housewife she bustled about the room, surveying and putting it in order. Finally she sat down in an easy chair.

"Well! What is the great news?" he asked.

"We must enter on an engagement, for the papers have announced it."

"Have they, indeed? What about the old man?"

"Father has resigned himself, because the matter cannot be altered; but he is not happy. Now won't you congratulate me?"

"You should congratulate me first, for I am the elder."

"And the less intelligent."

"I have the honour to congratulate you. And what a man you have got!"

So they chatted, and soon came to the subject of their prospects. He dictated and she wrote. Such and such plays of his accepted for the stage.... That would be a thousand pounds.

"Discount thirty per cent for disappointments," she said.

"Thirty! I also reckon ninety or a hundred per cent."

"Be sober! It is serious." And then they laughed.

Divine frivolity! To look down on the ugly earnestness of life as if all one had to do was to blow at it. The poet's light-hearted way of treating economy like poetry.

"How could one bear the miseries of life, if one did not treat them as unrealities? If I took it seriously, I should have to weep the whole day, and I don't want to do that."

Dinner-time came; she laid the sofa-table, fed him, and was especially sparing with the wine.

"You have drunk enough now, and you must promise never to go to the café again, especially with Thais."

"Lais," he corrected her, but coloured. "You know that then?"

"A woman of twenty-three knows everything."

Glad to avoid a troublesome confession, he promised never to visit the café again and kept his word, for that was the only penance he could offer for his sorry behaviour. Thus they were engaged. His only social intercourse consisted in her company, while she continued to go to families which she knew, to visit theatres, and so on, for this belonged to her work as a newspaper correspondent. In case of an eventual struggle for power, she had all the advantages on her side, as she moved in an environment from which she derived moral support and fresh impulses, while he was thrown back on himself and his previous observations. They lived really like playfellows, for he never read what she wrote in the newspapers, while she had read all his writings but never referred to them. There was no consciousness shown on either side that he was a mature and well-known author and she a young critic of books and plays. They met simply as man and woman, and as her future husband he had placed himself on the same level with her, not above her.

Sometimes while they were together, he felt a prisoner, isolated and in her power. If he were to break with her now he would stand alone in the world, for he had got quite out of touch with his old friends and come to dislike the life of the café. Moreover, he felt so grown together with this woman, that he thought he would pine away if parted from her. In spite of her love she could not hide the fact that she thought she had him absolutely in her power, and sometimes she let him feel it. But then he raged like a lion in a cage, went out and sought his old friends, though he noticed he did not thrive among them and his conscience pricked him for his faithlessness. She sulked for half a day, then crept up to him, fell on her knees and was pardoned.

"At bottom," he said once, "we hate each other because we love each other. We fear to lose our individualities through the assimilating force of love, and therefore we must sometimes have a breach in order to feel that I am not you, and you are not I."

She agreed, but it was no remedy against the spirit of revolt, the struggle of the ego for self-justification. She loved him as a woman loves a man, for she thought him handsome, although he was ugly. He, for his part, demanded neither respect nor admiration but only a measure of trust, and a friendly demeanour. She was generally sparkling and cheerful, playful, without being teasing, yielding and gracious.

Once when he reflected over the various types of woman he had observed in her during the beginning of their acquaintance, he could scarcely understand how she had been able to play so many different parts. The literary independent lady with Madame de Staël's open mouth and loquacious tongue had entirely disappeared; the grand, pretentious woman of the world and the _fin-de-siècle_ lady with morbid paradoxes were also both obliterated. She saw how unpretentious he was and she became like him.

April came and it was high spring-time. At the same time his prospects had brightened; some of his plays had been accepted; a novel sold for a considerable sum; and one of his dramas was acted in Paris. An untrue report was spread that the engaged pair had gone off together. Her parents in Odense were disturbed and urged on the marriage.

"Will you marry now?" she asked.

"Certainly I will," was his reply.

So the matter was settled! But then came difficulties. She was a Catholic and could not marry a divorced man as long as his first wife lived. In order to circumvent this difficulty he devised the plan of being married in England. And so it was settled. Her sister came as a witness to the ceremony. She was married to a famous artist, was herself an authoress, and therefore understood how to value talent, even when unaccompanied with earthly goods.

Thus they began their wedding journey.

III

It was a May morning on an island off the English coast. He had gone with her to the extreme end of a promontory where the cliff descends sheer into the sea. He wished to ask her something privately but did not dare to; therefore they stood there silently staring into the blue emptiness, seeking an object where there was none.

They had stayed there six days without being able to marry because through carelessness the notice of his divorce had not been published till some months after he had obtained a decree. Accordingly it bore so late a date that the time allowed for challenging it had not yet elapsed. He had exchanged telegrams with the authorities; confusion and misunderstanding caused further delay, and his fiancée's sister became impatient.

"Do you trust me?" he asked her.

"Yes, I believe in your honesty, but you are an unlucky creature."

"And your sister?"

"What is she to believe? She does not know you. She only knows that your assurances that the documents were valid, were incorrect."

"She is right, but it is not my fault. What does she mean to do?"

"She returns to-morrow, and I must go with her."

"So then we shall be parted before we are married, and I return to life in hotels, restaurants, and night cafés."

"No, not that," and after a pause she added: "Let us jump into the sea."

He put his arm round her: "Have you ever seen a destiny like mine? Wherever I go, I bring unhappiness and destruction with me. Think! Your parents!"

"Don't talk so! With patience we shall also get out of this."

"Yes, in order to fall into something else."

"Come! shall I blow at it?" And she blew the cloud away. There was an outbreak of divine frivolity again and they raced home through the fortifications and over the mines.

In the evening the decisive telegram came, and the wedding was fixed for the next day. It took place at first at the registry office. While the oaths were being taken the bride fell into hysterical laughter which nearly rendered the whole ceremony abortive, since the registrar did not know what to make of a scene which resembled one in a lunatic asylum.

It was not a brilliant wedding-party which assembled in the evening in the clergyman's house. Besides the bride's sister, four strangers --pilots--were present as witnesses when they plighted their troth "before God."

* * * * *

Fourteen days of May had passed. Both were sitting outside the comfortable little house and watching how the migratory birds rested in the garden before continuing their journey north-ward.

"So quiet?"

"How long?"

"Eight days more. But I had not thought that marriage was such a splendid arrangement."

"Although they call me a woman-hater," he said, "I have always loved woman, and although they call me a friend of immorality, I have always held by marriage."

"Can you imagine yourself leading a lonely life after this?"

"No, the thought chokes me."

"Do you know I am so happy that I am afraid?"

"Yes, so am I. I feel as if someone were lying and spying on us. She is called Nemesis, and follows not only guilty but also happy men."

"What are you most afraid of?"

"That we should part."

"But that depends on us, I suppose."

"Would that it did! But discord comes from without with the wind, with the dew, with too long-continued sunshine, with the rain. Try to explain which of us two was to blame for our last quarrel."

"Neither!"

"Neither of us two, then it was a third. Who is this third? In order to give it a name people call it 'misunderstanding'; but both of our understandings were completely clear, not disturbed at all."

"Don't frighten me."

"No, but be sure that the same event will happen again and that we shall blame each other as on the last occasion."

"Shall we not go and write now?" she broke in.

"I cannot write."

"Nor can I; my editor is angry because he has had no article from me for two months."

"And I have not had a single new idea for a whole year. What will be the end of it?"

The fact was that they had neutralised each other, so that there was no more reaction on either side. Their life together now consisted of a comfortable silence. The need to be near each other was so great that one could not leave the room without the other following. They tried to shut themselves in their rooms in order to work, but after a short time one would knock at the other's door.

"Do you know, all this is very fine, but I am becoming an idiot?" she complained.

"You also?"

"I can neither read, think, nor write any more, and can hardly speak."

"It is too much happiness, and we must seek some society, or we shall both become silly."

The fact was that they had both ceased to converse; they were apparently so harmonious in all questions and predilections and knew each other's opinions so well that there was no further need to exchange thoughts. The same tastes, the same habits, the same naughtinesses, the same superficial scepticism had brought them together, and now they were welded into one like two pieces of the same metal. Each had lost individuality and they were one. But the memory of independence and one's own personality was still present, and a war of liberation was impending. The sense of personal self-preservation awoke, and when each wished to resume their own share, there was a strife about the pieces.

"Why don't you write?" he asked.

"I have tried, but it is always you and about you."

"Whether it is I, or someone else, it all comes to the same thing."

"You mean I have no self?"

"You are too young to have a self."

He had better have left that unsaid, for by saying it, he woke her.

* * * * *

One morning there came a paper containing a notice to the effect that a volume of his poems had appeared with a London publisher.

"Shall we go to London?" she suggested.

"Yes, gladly, though I don't believe these notices which I have read so often. Anyhow, as a business journey, it can be made to pay its own expenses."

The resolve was carried out. They saw the little island[1] disappear with the same joy with which they had before seen it rise out of the mist.

In Dover they had to stay one day at an hotel. As he returned from a walk, he found his wife sealing up six packets, all of the same shape and size.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"It is the account of your American journey, which I am sending to some papers I know in Denmark."

"But you should not cut it up into sections; you know that it forms a complete whole. Have you read it?"

"No, I have only glanced through it; but at any rate it will bring in some money."

"No, it will not; for no one will print it piecemeal. Only in a single volume would it have any value."

She paid no attention. "Come now," she said commandingly; "we will go to the post."

She meant well, but was foolish; and although experience had taught him what a dangerous adviser she was, he let her have her way, and followed.

On the stairs, he noticed that she limped, for she had bought too tight boots with high heels, such as were then only worn by cocottes.

When they reached the street, she hurried on to the post, and he followed. As he noticed how the symmetry of her little figure was impaired by the many packages which she insisted on carrying, and how she limped on the boot heel which she had trodden down, he was seized with a sort of repulsion.

It was the first time that he viewed her from behind, and he thought involuntarily of the wood-nymph of legend, who in front was a charming fairy, but behind quite hollow.

The next moment he felt a remorseful horror at himself and his thoughts. In this cruel heat the little woman was carrying the heavy load, and had already written six long letters to editors all for his sake. And she limped! But her brutal way of treating his work and cutting a manuscript to pieces without having read it; treating a literary work as a butcher does a carcass!...

Again he felt repulsion, and again remorse, mixed with that indescribable pain which a man feels when he sees his beloved ugly, badly dressed, pitiful, or ridiculous. People in the street looked after her, especially when the wind blew out her thin serge mantle, which resembled a morning coat; it swelled out like a balloon and spoilt her fine figure. He hurried forward to take the packets from her; but she only waved him off, and hastened on, cheerful and undismayed.

When she came out of the post office, she wanted to go and buy larger boots. He followed. Since the purchase of them would occupy half an hour, she told him to wait outside. When at last she came out, she walked quite comfortably for a time, but then discovered that the new boots also were too tight.

"What do you think of a shoemaker like that?" she said.

"But _he_ did not make the boots too tight for you! There were larger ones also."

That was a dangerous commencement of the conversation, and as they sat down at a table in a café, the silence was uncomfortable. They sat opposite each other and had to look one another in the eyes; they sought to avoid doing so, but could not, and when they were obliged to look at each other, they turned away.

"You would like now to be in Copenhagen with your friends," she said. It was a good guess. But even if he could have transported himself thither for a second, he would have wished himself back again at once.

Her nervousness increased, and her eyes began to sparkle, but since she was intelligent, she understood that neither of them was to blame.

"Go for a walk," she said; "we must be away from each other for a while, and then you will see it will be better."

He quite agreed with her, and they parted without any bitterness.

As he walked along by the side of the harbour, he felt his nerves become settled and quiet. He became once more conscious of himself as a separate and independent being; he no longer gave out emanations but concentrated himself; he was once more an individual in his own skin. How well he knew these symptoms, which signified nothing, but which in spite of all attempts to explain them, persisted as a constant phenomenon.

Meanwhile, since he felt a positive satisfaction in her absence, the thought stole into his mind that perpetual freedom from her would be attended by yet greater satisfaction, and as he approached the steam-boat pier the thought passed through his mind like a flash of lightning: "If I go off now, I shall be in Copenhagen in two days."

He sat down, ordered a glass of beer, lighted a cigar, and considered.

"If I go to London," he thought, "she will get the upper hand, because she can speak the language. I shall be led about by her like a deaf and dumb man and shall have to sit like an idiot among my literary friends whom she will get under her thumb. A pleasant prospect! Being patronised by her in the Danish newspapers was already sufficiently humiliating. I incurred an obligation to her...."

But in the midst of his meditations he broke off, for he knew that no character could stand such close and critical analysis. He knew also that no one could endure being gazed at from behind and judged in absence. Then a feeling of loneliness came over him and a consciousness of being faithless and ungrateful. He was drawn back to her, stood up and went quickly to the hotel. When he entered in an elevated mood and not without sentimental feelings he was greeted by a laugh, long-lasting and cheerful like the song of the grasshoppers. Dressed in silk she lay there, coiled up like an Angora cat, eating sweetmeats, and smelling of perfume.

Then they laughed both together, as though they had seen something comic in the street, which had nothing to do with them.

* * * * *

Now they were in Pimlico, between Westminster and Chelsea. They had paid one visit and that was all. Everyone was away, all the theatres were shut, and a perfectly tropical heat prevailed. One's soul felt as if it would gladly shake off its fleshly husk in order to seek for coolness up in the air. From morning to evening one felt only half alive.

The pressure of need had forced him unwillingly to set to work and write. But as he had already utilised most of his experiences, he was obliged to make use of some material which should, properly speaking, not have been employed. However, he did violence to himself, overcame his scruples, and began.

"Now I am writing," he told her triumphantly, "we are saved!"

His wife came and saw how he had filled the first sheet with letters. After an hour she came again. He was lying on the sofa lamenting: "I can do nothing! Let us then perish!"

She left the room without saying a word, and when she had shut the door, he bolted it. Then he took out of his portmanteau a green linen bag containing a quantity of sheets of paper covered with dates. These had been often spoken of by his friends and nicknamed the "Last Judgment." It was an historical work, in which, from a new and bold point of view, he treated the history of the world as a branch of natural science. He had planned it carefully, but perhaps it was destined never to be printed and would certainly never bring in any money.

After working for some time, he felt the usual restlessness which he experienced in the absence of his second self, and went down to seek her.

She sat reading a book which she made a lame attempt to hide, as he entered. By her strange manner he saw that some fateful element had entered into their common life.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"Your last book," she answered in a peculiar tone.

"It has appeared then! Don't read it; you will poison yourself."

It was a ruthless description of his first marriage, written in self-defence and as a last testament, for he had intended, after completing it, to take his life. For years the manuscript had remained sealed up in the care of a relative, and he had never intended to print it. But in the last spring and under the pressure of necessity, after he had been assailed most unjustly by gossips and in the newspapers, he had sold the book to a publisher.

And now it had appeared and fallen into the hands of the very last person who should have seen it. His first impulse was to snatch the book from her, but he was restrained by the thought: "It has happened; well, let it happen!" And with perfect calm, as though he had assisted at his own inevitable execution, he left the room. At lunch, he noticed the strange transformation which had taken place in his wife. Her face wore a new expression; her looks searched his whole person, as though she were comparing him with the man described in the book. He took for granted that his sufferings there described would not arouse her pity, for a woman always takes sides with her own sex. But what he could not understand was that she seemed to recognise herself in certain of her predecessor's characteristics. Perhaps her mind was occupied by some still unsolved problems in the question which married people instinctively avoid--the woman question. Certain it was, however, that she had learnt what her husband's views were on the subject of her sex, and they were so cynically expressed that they must give her mortal offence.

She did not say a word, but he saw in her face that now all chance of peace was gone and that this woman would never rest till she had destroyed his marriage and compelled him to shorten his life. Against this he could only oppose his motto: "Be ready for everything," and resolve to bear everything as long as possible, and finally when nothing else remained, to go his own way. Then she would devour herself in solitude for want of food for her hate.

The next day she had hatched her egg, which proved to contain a basilisk.

With an air which would fain have seemed innocent, but did not, she told him, that since he could not work, they must think of retrenching.

"Very well," he answered.

First of all they had to content themselves with one room. This meant that all possibility of being his own master, of withdrawing himself, and of collecting himself was precluded. For the future he would be confined with his tormentress in the same cage, have no more power over his own thoughts and inclinations, and above all, not be' able to work at the "Last Judgment."

"You know you cannot work!" she remarked.

When midday came, a plate with some cold bacon and bread was set before him.

"You don't like soup," she said; "and hot food isn't nice in this heat."

Then she sat down to watch him.

"Won't you eat?" he asked.

"No, I am not hungry," she answered, and continued to watch him.

Then he stood up, took his hat, and prepared to go out.

"Are you going out?" she asked; "then I will go too, and we will keep each other company."

He went forward with long strides and she followed him. In order to vex her he chose the sunny side of the street by a long white wall, where the heat was intense, and the reflected light blinded the eyes. Then he dragged her out to Chelsea, where there was no house that could give shade.

She followed like an evil spirit.