Chapter 11

They went out together, arm in arm. But they did not talk much; and what they said were words uttered for the sake of concealing their thoughts more than for the sake of exchanging ideas.

They passed the little cholera cemetery and took the road leading to the Swiss Valley. A faint breeze rustled through the pine trees and glimpses of the blue sea flashed through the dark branches.

They sat down on a stone. He threw himself on the turf at her feet. Now the storm is going to burst, he thought, and it did.

“Have you thought at all about our marriage?” she began.

“No,” he replied, with every appearance of having fully considered the matter, “I have merely felt about it. In my opinion love is a matter of sentiment; one steers by landmarks and makes port; take compass and chart and you are sure to founder.”

“Yes, but our home has been nothing but a doll’s house.”

“Excuse me, but this is not quite true. You have never forged a bill; you have never shown your ankles to a syphilitic doctor of whom you wanted to borrow money against security _in natura_; you have never been so romantically silly as to expect your husband to give himself up for a crime which his wife had committed from ignorance, and which was not a crime because there was no plaintiff; and you have never lied to me. I have treated you every bit as honestly as Helmer treated his wife when he took her into his full confidence and allowed her to have a voice in the banking business; tolerated her interference with the appointment of an employee. We have therefore been husband and wife according to all conceptions, old and new-fashioned.”

“Yes, but I have been your housekeeper!”

“Pardon me, you are wrong. You have never had a meal in the kitchen, you have never received wages, you have never had to account for money spent. I have never scolded you because one thing or the other was not to my liking. And do you consider my work: to reckon and to brace, to ease off and call out ‘Present arms,’ count herrings and measure rum, weigh peas and examine flour, more honourable than yours: to look after the servants, cater for the house and bring up the children?”

“No, but you are paid for your work! You are your own master! You are a man!”

“My dear child, do you want me to give you wages? Do you want to be my housekeeper in real earnest? That I was born a man is an accident. I might almost say a pity, for it’s very nearly a crime to be a man now-a-days, but it isn’t my fault. The devil take him who has stirred up the two halves of humanity, one against the other! He has much to answer for. Am I the master? Don’t we both rule? Have I ever decided any important matter without asking for your advice? What? But you--you bring up the children exactly as you like! Don’t you remember that I wanted you to stop rocking them to sleep because I said it produced a sort of intoxication? But you had your own way! Another time I had mine, and then it was your turn again. There was no compromise possible, because there was no middle course to steer between rocking and not rocking. We got on very well until now. But you have thrown me over for Ottilia’s sake!”

“Ottilia! always Ottilia! Didn’t you yourself send her to me?”

“No, not her personally! But there can be no doubt that it is she who rules now.”

“You want to separate me from all I care for!”

“Is Ottilia all you care for? It almost looks like it!”

“But I can’t send her away now that I have engaged her to teach the girls pedagogics and Latin.”

“Latin! Great Scott! Are the girls to be ruined?”

“They are to know everything a man knows, so that when the time comes, their marriage will be a true marriage.”

“But, my love, all husbands don’t know Latin! I don’t know more than one single word, and that is ‘ablative.’ And we have been happy in spite of it. Moreover, there is a movement to strike off Latin from the plan of instruction for boys, as a superfluous accomplishment. Doesn’t this teach you a lot? Isn’t it enough that the men are ruined, are the women to be ruined, too? Ottilia, Ottilia, what have I done to you, that you should treat me like this!”

“Supposing we dropped that matter.--Our love, William, has not been what it should be. It has been sensual!”

“But, my darling, how could we have had children, if it hadn’t? And it has not been sensual only.”

“Can a thing be both black and white? Tell me that!”

“Of course, it can. There’s your sunshade for instance, it is black outside and white inside.”

“Sophist!”

“Listen to me, sweetheart, tell me in your own way the thoughts which are in your heart; don’t talk like Ottilia’s books. Don’t let your head run away with you; be yourself again, my sweet, darling little wife.”

“Yours, your property, bought with your labour.”

“Just as I am your property, your husband, at whom no other woman is allowed to look if she wants to keep her eyes in her head; your husband, who made a present of himself to you, or rather, gave himself to you in exchange. Are we not quits?”

“But we have trifled away our lives! Have we ever had any higher interests, William?”

“Yes, the very highest, Gurli; we have not always been playing, we have had grave hours, too. Have we not called into being generations to come? Have we not both bravely worked and striven for the little ones, who are to grow up into men and women? Have you not faced death four times for their sakes? Have you not robbed yourself of your nights’ rest in order to rock their cradle, and of your days’ pleasures, in order to attend to them? Couldn’t we now have a large six-roomed flat in the main street, and a footman to open the door, if it were not for the children? Wouldn’t you be able to wear silk dresses and pearls? And I, your old Pal, wouldn’t have _crows’ nests_ in my knees, if it hadn’t been for the kiddies. Are we really no better than dolls? Are we as selfish as old maids say? Old maids, rejected by men as no good. Why are so many girls unmarried? They all boast of proposals and yet they pose as martyrs! Higher interests! Latin! To dress in low neck dresses for charitable purposes and leave the children at home, neglected! I believe that my interests are higher than Ottilia’s, when I want strong and healthy children, who will succeed where we have failed. But Latin won’t help them! Goodbye, Gurli! I have to go back on board. Are you coming?”

But she remained sitting on the stone and made no answer. He went with heavy footsteps, very heavy footsteps. And the blue sea grew dark and the sun ceased shining.

“Pal, Pal, where is this to lead to?” he sighed, as he stepped over the fence of the cemetery. “I wish I lay there, with a wooden cross to mark my place, among the roots of the trees. But I am sure I couldn’t rest, if I were there without her! Oh! Gurli! Gurli!

“Everything has gone wrong, now, mother,” said the captain on a chilly autumn day to his mother-in-law, to whom he was paying a visit.

“What’s the matter, Willy, dear?”

“Yesterday they met at our house. On the day before yesterday at the Princess’s. Little Alice was suddenly taken ill. It was unfortunate, of course, but I didn’t dare to send for Gurli, for fear she might think that it was done on purpose to annoy her! Oh! when once one has lost faith.... I asked a friend at the Admiralty yesterday whether it was legal in Sweden to kill one’s wife’s friends with tobacco smoke. I was told it wasn’t, and that even if it were it was better not to do it, for fear of doing more harm than good. If only it happened to be an admirer! I should take him by the neck and throw him out of the window. What am I to do?”

“It’s a difficult matter, Willy, dear, but we shall be able to think of a way out of it. You can’t go on living like a bachelor.”

“No, of course, I can’t.”

“I spoke very plainly to her, a day or two ago. I told her that she would lose you if she didn’t mend her ways.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said you had a right to do as you liked with your body.”

“Indeed! And she, too? A fine theory! My hair is fast turning grey, mother!”

“It’s a good old scheme to make a wife jealous. It’s generally kill or cure, for if there is any love left, it brings it out.”

“There is, I know, there is!”

“Of course, there is. Love doesn’t die suddenly; it gets used up in the course of the years, perhaps. Have a flirtation with Ottilia, and we shall see!”

“Flirt with Ottilia? With Ottilia?”

“Try it. Aren’t you up in any of the subjects which interest her?”

“Well, yes! They are deep in statistics, now. Fallen women, infectious diseases. If I could lead the conversation to mathematics! I am well up in that!”

“There you are! Begin with mathematics--by and by put her shawl round her shoulders and button her overshoes. Take her home in the evening. Drink her health and kiss her when Gurli is sure to see it. If necessary, be a little officious. She won’t be angry, believe me. And give her a big dose of mathematics, so big that Gurli has no option but to sit and listen to it quietly. Come again in a week’s time and tell me the result.”

The captain went home, read the latest pamphlets on immorality and at once started to carry out his scheme.

A week later he called on his mother-in-law, serene and smiling, and greatly enjoying a glass of good sherry. He was in high spirits.

“Now tell me all about it,” said the old woman, pushing her spectacles up on her forehead.

“It was difficult work at first,” he began, “for she distrusted me. She thought I was making fun of her. Then I mentioned the effect which the computation of probabilities had had on the statistics of morality in America. I told her that it had simply been epoch-making. She knew nothing about it, but the subject attracted her. I gave her examples and proved in figures that it was possible to calculate with a certain amount of probability the percentage of women who are bound to fall. She was amazed. I saw that her curiosity was aroused and that she was eager to provide herself with a trump-card for the next meeting. Gurli was pleased to see that Ottilia and I were making friends, and did everything to further my scheme. She pushed her into my room and closed the door; and there we sat all afternoon, making calculations. The old witch was happy, for she felt that she was making use of me, and after three hours’ work we were fast friends. At supper my wife found that such old friends as Ottilia and I ought to call one another by their Christian names. I brought out my good old sherry to celebrate the occasion. And then I kissed her on the lips, may God forgive me for my sins! Gurli looked a little startled, but did not seem to mind. She was radiant with happiness. The sherry was strong and Ottilia was weak. I wrapped her in her cloak and took her home. I gently squeezed her arm and told her the names of the stars. She became enthusiastic! She had always loved the stars, but had never been able to remember their names. The poor women were not allowed to acquire any knowledge. Her enthusiasm grew and we parted as the very best of friends who had been kept apart through misunderstanding each other for such a long, long time.

“On the next day more mathematics. We worked until supper time. Gurli came in once or twice and gave us an encouraging nod. At supper we talked of nothing but stars and mathematics, and Gurli sat there, silently, listening to us. Again I took her home. On my way back I met a friend. We went to the Grand Hotel and drank a glass of punch. It was one o’clock when I came home. Gurli was still up waiting for me.

“‘Where have you been all this time, William?’ she asked.

“Then the devil entered into my soul and I replied:

“‘We had such a lot to talk about that I forgot all about the time.’

“_That_ blow struck home.

“‘I don’t think it’s nice to run about half the night with a young woman,’ she said.

“I pretended to be embarrassed and stammered:

“‘If one has so much to say to one another, one forgets sometimes what is nice and what is not.’

“‘What on earth did you talk about?’ asked Gurli, pouting. “‘I really can’t remember.’

“You managed very well, my boy,” said the old woman. “Go on!”

“On the third day,” continued the captain, “Gurli came in with her needlework and remained in the room until the lesson in mathematics was over. Supper was not quite as merry as usual, but on the other hand, very astronomical. I assisted the old witch with her overshoes, a fact which made a great impression on Gurli. When Ottilia said good-night, she only offered her cheek to be kissed. On the way home I pressed her arm and talked of the sympathy of souls and of the stars as the home of the souls. I went to the Grand Hotel, had some punch and arrived home at two o’clock. Gurli was still up; I saw it, but I went straight to my room, like the bachelor I was, and Gurli did not like to follow me and ply me with questions.

“On the following day I gave Ottilia a lesson in astronomy. Gurli declared that she was much interested and would like to be present; but Ottilia said we were already too far advanced and she would instruct her in the rudiments later on. This annoyed Gurli and she went away. We had a great deal of sherry for supper. When Ottilia thanked me for a jolly evening, I put my arm round her waist and kissed her. Gurli grew pale. When I buttoned her overshoes, I ... I....”

“Never mind me,” said the old lady, “I am an old woman.”

He laughed. “All the same, mother, she’s not so bad, really she isn’t. But when I was going to put on my overcoat, I found to my astonishment the maid waiting in the hall, ready to accompany Ottilia home. Gurli made excuses for me; she said I had caught a cold on the previous evening, and that she was afraid the night air might do me harm. Ottilia looked self-conscious and left without kissing Gurli.

“I had promised to show Ottilia some astronomical instruments at the College at twelve o’clock on the following day. She kept her appointment, but she was much depressed. She had been to see Gurli, who had treated her very unkindly, so she said. She could not imagine why. When I came home to dinner I found a great change in Gurli. She was cold and mute as a fish. I could see that she was suffering. Now was the time to apply the knife.

“‘What did you say to Ottilia?’ I commenced. ‘She was so unhappy.’”

‘What did I say to her? Well, I said to her that she was a flirt. That’s what I said.’

‘How could you say such a thing?’ I replied. ‘Surely, you’re not jealous!’

‘I! Jealous of her!’ she burst out.

‘Yes, that’s what puzzles me, for I am sure an intelligent and sensible person like Ottilia could never have designs on another woman’s husband!’

‘No,’ (she was coming to the point) ‘but another woman’s husband might have designs on her.’

‘Huhuhu!’ she went for me tooth and nail. I took Ottilia’s part; Gurli called her an old maid; I continued to champion her. On this afternoon Ottilia did not turn up. She wrote a chilly letter, making excuses and winding up by saying she could see that she was not wanted. I protested and suggested that I should go and fetch her. That made Gurli wild! She was sure that I was in love with Ottilia and cared no more for herself. She knew that she was only a silly girl, who didn’t know anything, was no good at anything, and--huhuhu!--could never understand mathematics. I sent for a sleigh and we went for a ride. In a hotel, overlooking the sea, we drank mulled wine and had an excellent little supper. It was just as if we were having our wedding day over again, and then we drove home.”

“And then--?” asked the old woman, looking at him over her spectacles.

“And then? H’m! May God forgive me for my sins! I seduced my own little wife. What do you say now, granny?”

“I say that you did very well, my boy! And then?”

“And then? Since then everything has been all right, and now we discuss the education of the children and the emancipation of women from superstition and old-maidishness, from sentimentality and the devil and his ablative, but we talk when we are alone together and that is the best way of avoiding misunderstandings. Don’t you think so, old lady?”

“Yes, Willy, dear, and now I shall come and pay you a call.”

“Do come! And you will see the dolls dance and the larks and the woodpeckers sing and chirrup; you will see a home filled with happiness up to the roof, for there is no one there waiting for miracles which only happen in fairy tales. You will see a real doll’s house.”

PHOENIX

The wild strawberries were getting ripe when he met her for the first time at the vicarage. He had met many girls before, but when he saw _her_ he knew; this was she! But he did not dare to tell her so, and she only teased him for he was still at school.

He was an undergraduate when he met her for the second time. And as he put his arms round her and kissed her, he saw showers of rockets, heard the ringing of bells and bugle calls, and felt the earth trembling under his feet.

She was a woman at the age of fourteen. Her young bosom seemed to be waiting for hungry little mouths and eager baby fists. With her firm and elastic step, her round and swelling hips, she looked fit to bear at any moment a baby under her heart. Her hair was of a pale gold, like clarified honey, and surrounded her face like an aureole; her eyes were two flames and her skin was as soft as a glove.

They were engaged to be married and billed and cooed in the wood like the birds in the garden under the lime trees; life lay before them like a sunny meadow which the scythe had not yet touched. But he had to pass his examinations in mining first, and that would take him,--including the journey abroad--ten years. Ten years!

He returned to the University. In the summer he came back to the vicarage and found her every bit as beautiful. Three summers he came--and the fourth time she was pale. There were tiny red lines in the corners of her nose and her shoulders drooped a little. When the summer returned for the sixth time, she was taking iron. In the seventh she went to a watering-place. In the eighth she suffered from tooth-ache and her nerves were out of order. Her hair had lost its gloss, her voice had grown shrill, her nose was covered with little black specks; she had lost her figure, dragged her feet, and her cheeks were hollow. In the winter she had an attack of nervous fever, and her hair had to be cut off. When it grew again, it was a dull brown. He had fallen in love with a golden-haired girl of fourteen--brunettes did not attract him--and he married a woman of twenty-four, with dull brown hair, who refused to wear her dresses open at the throat.

But in spite of all this he loved her. His love was less passionate than it had been; it had become calm and steadfast. And there was nothing in the little mining-town which could disturb their happiness.

She bore him two boys, but he was always wishing for a girl. And at last a fair-haired baby girl arrived.

She was the apple of his eye, and as she grew up she resembled her mother more and more. When she was eight years old, she was just what her mother had been. And the father devoted all his spare time to his little daughter.

The housework had coarsened the mother’s hands. Her nose had lost its shape and her temples had fallen in. Constant stooping over the kitchen range had made her a little round-shouldered. Father and mother met only at meals and at night. They did not complain, but things had changed.

But the daughter was the father’s delight. It was almost as if he were in love with her. He saw in her the re-incarnation of her mother, his first impression of her, as beautiful as it had been fleeting. He was almost self-conscious in her company and never went into her room when she was dressing. He worshipped her.

But one morning the child remained in bed and refused to get up. Mama put it down to laziness, but papa sent for the doctor. The shadow of the angel of death lay over the house: the child was suffering from diphtheria. Either father or mother must take the other children away. He refused. The mother took them to a little house in one of the suburbs and the father remained at home to nurse the invalid. There she lay! The house was disinfected with sulphur which turned the gilded picture frames black and tarnished the silver on the dressing-table. He walked through the empty rooms in silent anguish, and at night, alone in his big bed, he felt like a widower. He bought toys for the little girl, and she smiled at him as he sat on the edge of the bed trying to amuse her with a Punch and Judy show, and asked after mama and her little brothers. And the father had to go and stand in the street before the house in the suburbs, and nod to his wife who was looking at him from the window, and blow kisses to the children. And his wife signalled to him with sheets of blue and red paper.

But a day came when the little girl took no more pleasure in Punch and Judy, and ceased smiling; and ceased talking too, for Death had stretched out his long bony arm and suffocated her. It had been a hard struggle.

Then the mother returned, full of remorse because she had deserted her little daughter. There was great misery in the home, and great wretchedness. When the doctor wanted to make a post mortem examination, the father objected. No knife should touch her, for she was not dead to him; but his resistance was overborne. Then he flew into a passion and tried to kick and bite the doctor.

When they had bedded her into the earth, he built a monument over her grave, and for a whole year he visited it every day. In the second year he did not go quite so often. His work was heavy and he had little spare time. He began to feel the burden of the years; his step was less elastic; his wound was healing. Sometimes he felt ashamed when he realised that he was mourning less and less for his child as time went by; and finally he forgot all about it.

Two more girls were born to him, but it was not the same thing; the void left by the one who had passed away could never be filled.

Life was a hard struggle. The young wife who had once been like--like no other woman on earth, had gradually lost her glamour; the gilding had worn off the home which had once been so bright and beautiful. The children had bruised and dented their mother’s wedding presents, spoiled the beds and kicked the legs of the furniture. The stuffing of the sofa was plainly visible here and there, and the piano had not been opened for years. The noise made by the children had drowned the music and the voices had become harsh. The words of endearment had been cast off with the baby clothes, caresses had deteriorated into a sort of massage. They were growing old and weary. Papa was no longer on his knees before mama, he sat in his shabby armchair and asked her for a match when he wanted to light his pipe. Yes, they were growing old.

When papa had reached his fiftieth year, mama died. Then the past awoke and knocked at his heart. When her broken body, which the last agony had robbed of its few remaining charms, had been laid in its grave, the picture of his fourteen-year-old sweetheart arose in his memory. It was for her, whom he had lost so long ago that he mourned now, and with his yearning for her came remorse. But he had never been unkind to the old mama; he had been faithful to the fourteen-year-old vicar’s daughter whom he had worshipped on his knees but had never led to the altar, for he had married an anaemic young woman of twenty-four. If he were to be quite candid, he would have to confess that it was she for whom he mourned; it was true, he also missed the good cooking and unremitting care of the old mama, but that was a different thing.

He was on more intimate terms with his children, now; some of them had left the old nest, but others were still at home.