Chapter 14

She sat down before the piano and began to play. It was a squeaking instrument that reminded one of the rattling of loose teeth.

“What shall I sing?” she asked, turning round on the music-stool.

“You know, darling,” he replied, not daring to meet her eyes.

“Your song! Very well, if I can remember it.” And she sang: “Where is the blessed country where my beloved dwells?”

But alas! Her voice was thin and shrill and emotion made her sing out of tune. At times it sounded like a cry from the bottom of a soul which feels that noon is past and evening approaching. The fingers which had done hard work strayed on the wrong keys. The instrument, too, had seen its best days; the cloth on the hammers had worn away; it sounded as if the springs touched the bare wood.

When she had finished her song, she sat for a while without turning round, as if she expected him to come and speak to her. But he didn’t move; not a sound broke the deep silence. When she turned round at last, she saw him sitting on the sofa, his cheeks wet with tears. She felt a strong impulse to jump up, take his head between her hands and kiss him as she had done in days gone by, but she remained where she was, immovable, with downcast eyes.

He held a cigar between his thumb and first finger. When the song was finished, he bit off the end and struck a match.

“Thank you, Lily,” he said, puffing at his cigar, “will you have your coffee now?”

They drank their coffee, talked of summer holidays in general and suggested two or three places where they might go next summer. But their conversation languished and they repeated themselves.

At last he yawned openly and said: “I’m off to bed.”

“I’m going, too,” she said, getting up. “But I’ll get a breath of fresh air first, on the balcony.”

He went into the bed-room. She lingered for a few moments in the dining-room, and then talked to the landlady for about half an hour of spring-onions and woollen underwear.

When the landlady had left her she went into the bedroom and stood for a few minutes at the door, listening. No sound came from within. His boots stood in the corridor. She opened the door gently and went in. He was asleep.

He was asleep!

* * * * *

At breakfast on the following morning he had a headache, and she fidgeted.

“What horrible coffee,” he said, with a grimace.

“Brazilian,” she said, shortly.

“What shall we do to-day?” he asked, looking at his watch.

“Hadn’t you better eat some bread and butter, instead of grumbling at the coffee?” she said.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he answered, “and I’ll have a liqueur at the same time. That champagne last night, ugh!”

He asked for bread and butter and a liqueur and his temper improved.

“Let’s go to the Pilot’s Hill and look at the view.”

They rose from the breakfast table and went out.

The weather was splendid and the walk did them good. But they walked slowly; she panted, and his knees were stiff; they drew no more parallels with the past.

They walked across the fields. The grass had been cut long ago, there wasn’t a single flower anywhere. They sat down on some large stones.

He talked of the Board of Prisons and his office. She talked of the children.

Then they walked on in silence. He looked at his watch.

“Three hours yet till dinner time,” he said. And he wondered how they could kill time on the next day.

They returned to the hotel. He asked for the papers. She sat down by the side of him with a smile on her lips.

They talked little during dinner. After dinner she mentioned the servants.

“For heaven’s sake, leave the servants alone!” he exclaimed.

“Surely we haven’t come here to quarrel!”

“Am I quarrelling?”

“Well, I’m not!”

An awkward pause followed. He wished somebody would come. The children! Yes! This tête-à-tête embarrassed him, but he felt a pain in his heart when he thought of the bright hours of yesterday.

“Let’s go to Oak Hill,” she said, “and gather wild strawberries.”

“There are no wild strawberries at this time of the year, it’s autumn.”

“Let’s go all the same.”

And they went. But conversation was difficult. His eyes searched for some object on the roadside which would serve for a peg on which to hang a remark, but there was nothing. There was no subject which they hadn’t discussed. She knew all his views on everything and disagreed with most of them. She longed to go home, to the children, to her own fireside. She found it absurd to make a spectacle of herself in this place and be on the verge of a quarrel with her husband all the time.

After a while they stopped, for they were tired. He sat down and began to write in the sand with his walking stick. He hoped she would provoke a scene.

“What are you thinking of?” she asked at last.

“I?” he replied, feeling as if a burden were falling off his shoulders, “I am thinking that we are getting old, mother: our innings are over, and we have to be content with what has been. If you are of the same mind, we’ll go home by the night boat.”

“I have thought so all along, old man, but I wanted to please you.”

“Then come along, we’ll go home. It’s no longer summer, autumn is here.”

They returned to the hotel, much relieved.

He was a little embarrassed on account of the prosaic ending of the adventure, and felt an irresistible longing to justify it from a philosophical standpoint.

“You see, mother,” he said, “my lo--h’m” (the word was too strong) “my affection for you has undergone a change in the course of time. It has developed, broadened; at first it was centred on the individual, but later on, on the family as a whole. It is not now you, personally, that I love, nor is it the children, but it is the whole....

“Yes, as my uncle used to say, children are lightning conductors!”

After his philosophical explanation he became his old self again. It was pleasant to take off his frock coat; he felt, as if he were getting into his dressing-gown.

When they entered the hotel, she began at once to pack, and there she was in her element.

They went downstairs into the saloon as soon as they got on board. For appearance sake, however, he asked her whether she would like to watch the sunset; but she declined.

At supper he helped himself first, and she asked the waitress the price of black bread.

When he had finished his supper, he remained sitting at the table, lingering over a glass of porter. A thought which had amused him for some time, would no longer be suppressed.

“Old fool, what?” he said, lifting his glass and smiling at his wife who happened to look at him at the moment.

She did not return his smile but her eyes, which had flashed for a second, assumed so withering an expression of dignity that he felt crushed.

The spell was broken, the last trace of his old love had vanished; he was sitting opposite the mother of his children; he felt small.

“No need to look down upon me because I have made a fool of myself for a moment,” she said gravely. “But in a man’s love there is always a good deal of contempt; it is strange.”

“And in the love of a woman?”

“Even more, it is true! But then, she has every cause.”

“It’s the same thing--with a difference. Probably both of them are wrong. That which one values too highly, because it is difficult of attainment, is easily underrated when one has obtained it.”

“Why does one value it too highly?”

“Why is it so difficult of attainment?”

The steam whistle above their heads interrupted their conversation.

They landed.

When they had arrived home, and he saw her again among her children, he realised that his affection for her had undergone a change, and that her affection for him had been transferred to and divided amongst all these little screamers. Perhaps her love for him had only been a means to an end. His part had been a short one, and he felt deposed. If he had not been required to earn bread and butter, he would probably have been cast off long ago.

He went into his study, put on his dressing-gown and slippers, lighted his pipe and felt at home.

Outside the wind lashed the rain against the window panes, and whistled in the chimney.

When the children had been put to bed, his wife came and sat by him.

“No weather to gather wild strawberries,” she said.

“No, my dear, the summer is over and autumn is here.”

“Yes, it is autumn,” she replied, “but it is not yet winter, there is comfort in that.”

“Very poor comfort if we consider that we live but once.”

“Twice when one has children; three times if one lives to see one’s grandchildren.”

“And after that, the end.”

“Unless there is a life after death.”

“We cannot be sure of that! Who knows? I believe it, but my faith is no proof.”

“But it is good to believe it. Let us have faith! Let us believe that spring will come again! Let us believe it!”

“Yes, let us believe it,” he said, gathering her to his breast.

COMPULSORY MARRIAGE

His father died early and from that time forth he was in the hands of a mother, two sisters and several aunts. He had no brother. They lived on an estate in the Swedish province, Soedermanland, and had no neighbours with whom they _could be_ on friendly terms. When he was seven years old, a governess was engaged to teach him and his sisters, and about the same time a girl cousin came to live with them.

He shared his sisters’ bedroom, played their games and went bathing with them; nobody looked upon him as a member of the other sex. Before long his sisters took him in hand and became his schoolmasters and tyrants.

He was a strong boy to start with, but left to the mercy of so many doting women, he gradually became a helpless molly-coddle.

Once he made an attempt to emancipate himself and went to play with the boys of the cottagers. They spent the day in the woods, climbed the trees, robbed the birds’ nests and threw stones at the squirrels. Frithiof was as happy as a released prisoner, and did not come home to dinner. The boys gathered whortle-berries, and bathed in the lake. It was the first really enjoyable day of his life.

When he came home in the evening, he found the whole house in great commotion. His mother though anxious and upset, did not conceal her joy at his return; Aunt Agatha, however, a spinster, and his mother’s eldest sister, who ruled the house, was furious. She maintained that it would be a positive crime not to punish him. Frithiof could not understand why it should be a crime, but his aunt told him that disobedience was a sin. He protested that he had never been forbidden to play with the children of the cottagers. She admitted it but said that, of course, there could never have been two questions about it. And she remained firm, and regardless of his mother’s pleading eyes, took him away to give him a whipping in her own room. He was eight years old and fairly big for his age.

When the aunt touched his waist-belt to unbutton his knickers, a cold shiver ran down his back; he gasped and his heart thumped against his ribs. He made no sound, but stared, horror-struck, at the old woman who asked him, almost caressingly, to be obedient and not to offer any resistance. But when she laid hands on his shirt, he grew hot with shame and fury. He sprang from the sofa on which she had pushed him, hitting out right and left. Something unclean, something dark and repulsive, seemed to emanate from this woman, and the shame of his sex rose up in him as against an assailant.

But the aunt, mad with passion, seized him, threw him on a chair and beat him. He screamed with rage, pain he did not feel, and with convulsive kicks tried to release himself; but all of a sudden he lay still and was silent.

When the old woman let him go, he remained where he was, motionless.

“Get up!” she said, in a broken voice.

He stood up and looked at her. One of her cheeks was pale, the other crimson. Her eyes glowed strangely and she trembled all over. He looked at her curiously, as one might examine a wild beast, and all of a sudden a supercilious smile raised his upper lip; it seemed to him as if his contempt gave him an advantage over her. “She-devil!” He flung the word, newly acquired from the children of the cottagers, into her face, defiantly and scornfully, seized his clothes and flew downstairs to his mother, who was sitting in the dining-room, weeping.

He wanted to open his heart to her and complain of his aunt’s treatment, but she had not the courage to comfort him. So he went into the kitchen where the maids consoled him with a handful of currants.

From this day on he was no longer allowed to sleep in the nursery with his sisters, but his mother had his bed removed to her own bedroom. He found his mother’s room stuffy and the new arrangement dull; she frequently disturbed his sleep by getting up and coming to his bed in the night to see whether he was covered up; then he flew into a rage and answered her questions peevishly.

He was never allowed to go out without being carefully wrapped up by someone, and he had so many mufflers that he never knew which one to put on. Whenever he tried to steal out of the house, someone was sure to see him from the window and call him back to put on an overcoat.

By and by his sisters’ games began to bore him. His strong arms no longer wanted to play battledore and shuttlecock, they longed to throw stones. The squabbles over a petty game of croquet, which demanded neither muscle nor brain, irritated him.

The governess was another one of his trials. She always spoke to him in French and he invariably answered her in Swedish. A vague disgust with his whole life and surroundings began to stir in him.

The free and easy manner in which everybody behaved in his presence offended him, and he retaliated by heartily loathing all with whom he came in contact. His mother was the only one who considered his feelings to a certain extent: she had a big screen put round his bed.

Ultimately the kitchen and the servants’ hall became his refuge; there everything he did was approved of. Occasionally, of course, matters were discussed there which might have aroused a boy’s curiosity, but for him there were no secrets. On one occasion, for instance, he had accidentally come to the maids’ bathing-place. The governess, who was with him, screamed, he could not understand why, but he stopped and talked to the girls who were standing or lying about in the water. Their nudity made no impression upon him.

He grew up into a youth. An inspector was engaged to teach him farming for he was, of course, to take over the management of the estate in due time. They chose an old man who held the orthodox faith. The old man’s society was not exactly calculated to stimulate a young man’s brain, but it was an improvement on the old conditions. It opened new points of view to him and roused him to activity. But the inspector received daily and hourly so many instructions from the ladies, that he ended by being nothing but their mouth-piece.

At the age of fifteen Frithiof was confirmed, received a present of a gold watch and was allowed to go out on horseback; he was not permitted, however, to realise his greatest ambition, namely to go shooting. True, there was no longer any fear of a whipping from his arch-enemy, but he dreaded his mother’s tears. He always remained a child, and never managed to throw off the habit of giving way to the judgment of other people.

The years passed; he had attained his twentieth year. One day he was standing in the kitchen watching the cook, who was busy scaling a perch. She was a pretty young woman with a delicate complexion. He was teasing her and finally put his hand down her back.

“Do behave yourself, now, Mr. Frithiof,” said the girl.

“But I am behaving myself,” he replied, becoming more and more familiar.

“If mistress should see you!”

“Well supposing she did?”

At this moment his mother passed the open kitchen door; she instantly turned away and walked across the yard.

Frithiof found the situation awkward and slunk away to his bed-room.

A new gardener entered their service. In their wisdom, anxious to avoid trouble with the maids, the ladies had chosen a married man. But, as misfortune would have it, the gardener had been married long enough to be the father of an exceedingly pretty young daughter.

Frithiof quickly discovered the sweet blossom among the other roses in the garden, and poured out all the good-will which lay stored up in his heart for _that_ half of humanity to which he did not belong, on this young girl, who was rather well developed and not without education.

He spent a good deal of his time in the garden and stopped to talk to her whenever he found her working at one of the flower-beds or cutting flowers. She did not respond to his advances, but this only had the effect of stimulating his passion.

One day he was riding through the wood, haunted, as usual, by visions of her loveliness which, in his opinion, reached the very pinnacle of perfection. He was sick with longing to meet her alone, freed from all fear of incurring some watcher’s displeasure. In his heated imagination the desire of being near her had assumed such enormous proportions, that he felt that life without her would be impossible.

He held the reins loosely in his hand, and the horse picked his way leisurely while its rider sat on its back wrapped in deep thought. All of a sudden something light appeared between the trees and the gardener’s daughter emerged from the underwood and stepped out on the footpath.

Frithiof dismounted and took off his hat. They walked on, side by side, talking, while he dragged his horse behind him. He spoke in vague words of his love for her; but she rejected all his advances.

“Why should we talk of the impossible?” she asked.

“What is impossible?” he exclaimed.

“That a wealthy gentleman like you should marry a poor girl like me.”

There was no denying the aptitude of her remark, and Frithiof felt that he was worsted. His love for her was boundless, but he could see no possibility of bringing his doe safely through the pack which guarded house and home; they would tear her to pieces.

After this conversation he gave himself up to mute despair.

In the autumn the gardener gave notice and left the estate without giving a reason. For six weeks Frithiof was inconsolable, for he had lost his first and only love; he would never love again.

In this way the autumn slowly passed and winter stood before the door. At Christmas a new officer of health came into the neighbourhood. He had grown-up children, and as the aunts were always ill, friendly relations were soon established between the two families. Among the doctor’s children was a young girl and before long Frithiof was head over ears in love with her. He was at first ashamed of his infidelity to his first love, but he soon came to the conclusion that love was something impersonal, because it was possible to change the object of one’s tenderness; it was almost like a power of attorney made out on the holder.

As soon as his guardians got wind of this new attachment, the mother asked her son for a private interview.

“You have now arrived at that age,” she began, “when a man begins to look out for a wife.”

“I have already done that, my dear mother,” he replied.

“I’m afraid you’ve been too hasty,” she said. “The girl of whom, I suppose, you are thinking, doesn’t possess the moral principles which an educated man should demand.”

“What? Amy’s moral principles! Who has anything to say against them?”

“I won’t say a word against the girl herself, but her father, as you know, is a freethinker.”

“I shall be proud to be related to a man who can think freely, without considering his material interests.”

“Well, let’s leave him out of the question; you are forgetting, my dear Frithiof, that you are already bound elsewhere.”

“What? Do you mean....”

“Yes; you have played with Louisa’s heart.”

“Are you talking of cousin Louisa?”

“I am. Haven’t you looked upon yourselves as fiancés since your earliest childhood? Don’t you realise that she has put all her faith and trust in you?”

“It’s you who have played with us, driven us together, not I!” answered the son.

“Think of your old mother, think of your sisters, Frithiof. Do you want to bring a stranger into this house which has always been our home, a stranger who will have the right to order us about?”

“Oh! I see; Louisa is the chosen mistress!”

“There’s no chosen mistress, but a mother always has a right to choose the future wife of her son; nobody is so well fitted to undertake such a task. Do you doubt my good faith? Can you possibly suspect me, your mother, of a wish to injure you?”

“No, no! but I--I don’t love Louisa; I like her as a sister, but....”

“Love? Nothing in all the world is so inconstant as love! It’s folly to rely on it, it passes away like a breath; but friendship, conformity of views and habits, similar interests and a long acquaintanceship, these are the surest guarantees of a happy marriage. Louisa is a capable girl, domesticated and methodical, she will make your home as happy as you could wish.”

Frithiof’s only way of escape was to beg his mother for time to consider the matter.

Meanwhile all the ladies of the household had recovered their health, so that the doctor was no longer required. Still he called one day, but he was treated like a burglar who had come to spy out the land. He was a sharp man and saw at once how matters stood. Frithiof returned his call but was received coldly. This was the end of their friendly relations.

Frithiof came of age.

Frantic attempts were now made to carry the fortress by storm. The aunts cringed before the new master and tried to prove to him that they could not be dispensed with, by treating him as if he were a child. His sisters mothered him more than ever, and Louisa began to devote a great deal of attention to her dress. She laced herself tightly and curled her hair. She was by no means a plain girl, but she had cold eyes and a sharp tongue.

Frithiof remained indifferent; as far as he was concerned she was sexless; he had never looked at her with the eyes of a man. But now, after the conversation with his mother, he could not help a certain feeling of embarrassment in her presence, especially as she seemed to seek his society. He met her everywhere; on the stairs, in the garden, in the stables even. One morning, when he was still in bed, she came into his room to ask him for a pin; she was wearing a dressing-jacket and pretended to be very shy.

He took a dislike to her, but nevertheless she was always in his mind.

In the meantime the mother had one conversation after another with her son, and aunt and sisters never ceased hinting at the anticipated wedding.

Life was made a burden to him. He saw no way of escape from the net in which he had been caught. Louisa was no longer his sister and friend, though he did not like her any the better for it; his constant dwelling on the thought of marrying her had had the result of making him realise that she was a woman, an unsympathetic woman, it was true, but still a woman. His marriage would mean a change in his position, and, perhaps, delivery from bondage. There were no other girls in the neighbourhood, and, after all, she was probably as good as any other young woman.

And so he went one day to his mother and told her that he had made up his mind. He would marry Louisa on condition that he should have an establishment of his own in one of the wings of the house, and his own table. He also insisted that his mother should propose for him, for he could not bring himself to do it.