Part 9

A second book appeared the same year, called “Two Friends.” It is the story of a sailing vessel of the same name, which travels backwards and forwards between Bergen and Jamaica, and Sjur Gabriel’s grandson is the cabin boy on board. This book offers such a truthful representation of the life, tone of conversation, and work on board a Norwegian sailing vessel, that it would do credit to an old sea captain. The tone is true, the characters are life-like, and the humor which pervades the whole is thoroughly seamanlike. The description of how the entire crew, including the captain, land at Kingston one hot summer night to sacrifice to the Black Venus, and the description of the storm, and the shipwreck of the “Two Friends” on the Atlantic Ocean, the gradual destruction of the ship, the state of mind of the crew, and the captain’s suddenly awakened piety;--it is all so perfectly life-like, so characteristically true of the sailor class, and so full of local Norwegian coloring, that we ask ourselves how a woman ever came to write it,--not only to experience it, but to describe it at all, describe as she does with such masterly confidence and such plain expressions, without any affectation, prudery, or conceit, and without any trace of that dilettantism of style and subject which has hitherto been regarded as inseparable from the writings of Scandinavian women.

IV

Whence comes this sudden change from the dilettante book, “Constance Ring,” with its Björnson-like reflections, to the matured style of “Sjur Gabriel” and “Two Friends”?

I could not understand it all at first, but the day came when I understood. Amalie Skram as a woman and an author had come on to the sunny side.

I have often wondered why it is that so few people come on to the sunny side. I have studied life until I became the avowed enemy of all superficial pessimism and superficial naturalism. I have discovered a secret attraction between happiness and individualism,--an attraction deeper than Zola is able to apprehend; it is the complete human beings who, with wide-opened tentacles, are able to appropriate to their own use everything that their inmost being has need of; but whether a person is or is not a complete human being, that fate decides for them before they are born.

Fru Amalie Skram was, in her way, one of these complete women. She passed unscathed through a girl’s education, was perhaps scarcely influenced by it, and with sparkling eyes and glowing cheeks she gazed upon the world and society with the look of a barbaric Northern woman, who retains the full use of her instinct. When quite young she married the captain of a ship, by whom she had two sons. She went with him on a long sea voyage round the world; she saw the Black Sea, the Sea of Azof, and the shores of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. She saw life on board ship, and life on land,--man’s life. Her mind was like a photographic plate that preserves the impressions received until they are needed; and when she reproduced them, they were as fresh and complete as at the moment when they were first taken. These impressions were not the smallware of a lady’s drawing-room; they represented the wide horizon, the rough ocean of life with its many dangers. It was the kind of life that brings with it freedom from all prejudice, the kind of life which is no longer found on board a modern steamer going to and fro between certain places at certain intervals.

But it was not to be expected that the monotony of the life could satisfy her. She separated herself from her husband, and remained on shore, where she became interested in various social problems, and wrote “Constance Ring.”

It was then that she made the acquaintance of Erik Skram.

The man with the head of Gustavus Adolphus is Denmark’s most Danish critic. His name is little known elsewhere, and he cannot be said to have a very great reputation; but this may be partly accounted for by the fact that he has no ambition, and partly because he has one of those profound natures that are rendered passive by the depth of their intellect. He is a man of one book, a novel called “Gertrude Colbjörnson,” and he is never likely to write another. But he contributes to newspapers and periodicals, where his spontaneous talent is accompanied by that quiet, delicate, easy-going style which is one of the forms of expression peculiar to the Danish sceptics.

Fru Amalie Müller became Fru Amalie Skram, and the bold Bergen woman, who was likewise the dissatisfied lady reformer of Christiania, became the wife of a born critic, and went to live at Copenhagen. She was an excitable little _brunette_, he a fair, phlegmatic man, and together they entered upon the struggle for the mastery, which marriage always is.

In this struggle Fru Amalie Skram was beaten; every year she became more of an artist, more natural, more simple, more herself, and more of all that a woman never can become when she is left to herself. Her husband’s superior culture liberated her fresh, wild, primitive nature from the parasites of social problems; the experienced critic saw that her strength lay in her keen observation, her happy incapacity for reasoning and moralizing, her infallible memory for the impressions of the senses and emotions, and her good spirits, which are nothing more than the result of physical health. He cautiously pushed her into the direction to which she is best suited, to the naturalism which is natural to her. Her books were no longer drawn out, neither were they as poor in substance as books by women generally are, even the best of them; they grew to be more laconic than the majority of men’s books, but clear and vivid; there was nothing in them to betray the woman. And after he had done this much for her, the experienced man did yet one thing more,--he gave her the courage of her recollections.

V

Amalie Skram’s talent culminated in “Lucie.” In this book we see her going about in an untidy, dirty, ill-fitting morning gown, and she is perfectly at home. It would scandalize any lady. Authoresses who struggle fearlessly after honest realism--like Frau von Ebner-Eschenbach and George Eliot--might perhaps have touched upon it, but with very little real knowledge of the subject. Amalie Skram, on the other hand, is perfectly at home in this dangerous borderland. She is much better informed than Heinz Tovote, for instance, and he is a poet who sings of women who are not to be met with in drawing-rooms. She describes the pretty ballet girl with genuine enjoyment and true sympathy; but the book falls into two halves, one of which has succeeded and the other failed. Everything that concerns Lucie is a success, including the part about the fine, rather weak-kneed gentleman who supports her, and ends by marrying her, although his love is not of the kind that can be called “ennobling.” All that does not concern Lucie and her natural surroundings is a failure, especially the fine gentleman’s social circle, into which Lucie enters after her marriage, and where she seems to be as little at home as Amalie Skram herself. Many an author and epicurean would have hesitated before writing such a book as “Lucie.” But Amalie Skram’s naturalism is of such an honest and happy nature that any secondary considerations would not be likely to enter her mind, and in the last chapter the brutal naturalism of the story reaches its highest pitch. In the whole of Europe there are only two genuine and honest naturalists, and they are Emile Zola and Amalie Skram.

Her later books--take, for instance, her great Bergen novel, “S. G. Myre,” “Love in North and South,” “Betrayed,” etc.--are not to be compared with the three that we have mentioned. They are naturalistic, of course; their naturalism is of the best kind; they are still _unco in de la nature_, but they are no longer entirely _vu à travers un tempérament_. They are no longer quite Amalie Skram.

Norwegian naturalism--we might almost say Teutonic naturalism--culminated in Amalie Skram, this off-shoot of the Gallic race. Compared with her, Fru Leffler and Fru Ahlgren are good little girls, in their best Sunday pinafores; Frau von Ebner is a maiden aunt, and George Eliot a moralizing old maid. All these women came of what is called “good family,” and had been trained from their earliest infancy to live as became their position. All the other women whom I have sketched in this book belonged to the upper classes, and like all women of their class, they only saw one little side of life, and therefore their contribution to literature is worthless as long as it tries to be objective. Naturalism is the form of artistic expression best suited to the lower classes, and to persons of primitive culture, who do not feel strong enough to eliminate the outside world, but reflect it as water reflects an image. They feel themselves in sympathy with their surroundings, but they have not the refined instincts and awakened antipathies which belong to isolation. Where the character differs from the individual consciousness, they do not think of sacrificing their soul as a highway for the multitude, any more than their body--_à la_ Lucie--to the _commune bonum_.

V

_A Young Girl’s Tragedy_

I

It seldom happens that a genuine confession penetrates through the intense loneliness in which a person’s inner life is lived; with women, hardly ever. It is rare when a woman leaves any written record of her life at all, and still more rare when her record is of any psychological interest; it is generally better calculated to lead one astray. A woman is not like a man, who writes about himself from a desire to understand himself. Even celebrated women, who are scarce, and candid women, who are perhaps scarcer still, have no particular desire to understand themselves. In fact, I have never known a woman who did not wish, either from a good or bad motive, to remain a _terra incognita_ to her own self, if only to preserve the instinctive element in her actions, which might otherwise have perished. There is also another reason for this reticence. A woman does not live the inner life to anything like the same extent as a man; her instincts, occupations, needs, and interests lie outside herself; whereas a man is more self-contained,--his entire being is developed from within. Woman is spiritually and mentally an empty vessel, which must be replenished by man. She knows nothing about herself, or about man, or about the great silent inflexibility of life, until it is revealed to her consciousness by man. But the woman of our time--and many of the best women, too--manifests a desire to dispense with man altogether; and she whom Nature has destined to be a vessel out of which substance shall grow, wishes to be a substance in herself, out of which nothing can grow, because the substance wherewith she endeavors to fill the void is unorganical, rational, and foreign to her nature. The mistake is tragic, but there is nothing impressive about it; it is merely hopeless, chaotic, heart-rending; and because it is chaotic in itself, it creates a void for the woman who falls into it,--a void in which she perishes. The more talented she is, and the more womanly, the worse it will be for her. And yet it is generally the talented woman who is most strongly attracted by it, and man remains to her both inwardly and outwardly as much a stranger as though he were a being from another planet. What can be the origin of this devastating principle at the core of woman’s being? Among all the learned and celebrated women whom I have attempted to depict in this book, there is not one in whom it has not shown itself, either in a lasting or spasmodic form; but neither is there one who did not suffer acutely on account of it. How did it begin in these women, who were so richly endowed, whose natures were so productive? Was it developed by means of outward suggestion? Or does it mark a state of transition between old and new? It is possible that it is not found only amongst women, but that there is something corresponding to it in men. I shall return to this subject afterwards.

Of all the books which women have written about themselves, I only know of two that are written with the unalloyed freshness of spontaneity, and which are therefore genuine to a degree that would be otherwise impossible; these are Mrs. Carlyle’s diary and Marie Bashkirtseff’s journal. The contents of both books consist chiefly of the cries of despair which issue from the mouths of two women who feel themselves captured and ill-used, and are consequently tired of life, though they do not know the reason nor who is to blame. Mrs. Carlyle was an imbittered woman, unwilling to complain of, yet always indirectly abusing, that disagreeable oddity, Thomas Carlyle; he was an egotistical boor, who required everything and gave nothing in return, and was certainly not the right husband for her. The two books stand side by side: one is the writing of a discontented woman of a much older generation, whose long-suppressed wrath, annoyance, and indignation, combined with bodily and spiritual thirst, resulted in a nervous disease; while the other is far more extraordinary and difficult to comprehend, as it is the writing of a young girl who is rich, talented, and pretty, and who belongs entirely to the present generation of women, since she would be only thirty-four years of age were she living now. Both books are confessions _d’outre tombe_, and they are both the result of a desire to be silent,--a desire not often felt by women.

Mrs. Carlyle maintained this silence all her life long towards her husband, and it was not until after her death that he discovered, by means of the diary, how little he had succeeded in making her happy; his surprise was great. Marie Bashkirtseff also maintained silence towards an all too affectionate family, consisting of women only. They both possessed a strength of mind which is rare in women, and it was owing to this that they did not confide their troubles to any one; theirs was the pride that belongs to solitude, for they had neither women friends nor confidants, and it was only when they were no longer able to contain themselves that some of their best and worst feelings overflowed into these books,--in Mrs. Carlyle’s case in a few bittersweet drops, but with Marie Bashkirtseff they were more like a foaming torrent filled with thundering whirlpools, with here and there a few quiet places where the stream widens out into a beautiful clear lake, and thin willows bend over the still waters. The one felt that she had not developed into a full-grown woman by her marriage; the other was a young girl who never grew to be a woman; but both are less interesting on account of what they tell us than on account of that which they have not known how to tell. Marie Bashkirtseff’s book, which in the course of ten years has run through almost as many editions, is especially interesting in the latter respect, and is a perfect gold mine for all that has to do with the psychology of young girls.

II

Marie Bashkirtseff was descended from one of those well-guarded sections of society from whence nearly all the women have sprung who have taken any active part in the movements of their time during the latter half of our century. Hers was more than ordinarily happily situated. The two families from whose union she sprang, the Bashkirtseffs and Babanins, were both branches of old South-Russian nobility; but for some reason or other, which she appears never to have ascertained, the marriage between her parents was an unhappy one. They separated after having been married for a couple of years, during which time two children, a son and a daughter, were born, and her mother returned to her old home, accompanied by little Marie. Petted and spoiled by her grandparents, her mother, her aunt, and the governesses, who, even at that early age, were greatly impressed by her numerous talents and determined will, she spent the first years of her life on her grandparents’ property; but in May, 1870, the whole family went abroad, including the mother, aunt, grandfather, Marie, her brother, her little cousin, a family doctor, and a large retinue of servants.

For two years they wandered from place to place, staying at Vienna, Baden-Baden, Geneva, and Paris, and finally settling at Nice. It was there that Marie, who was then twelve years of age, began the journal, published after her death at four-and-twenty, which was to be her real life work.

She has bequeathed other tokens of her labor to posterity. They hang in the Luxembourg museum, in the division reserved for pictures by artists of the present day which have been purchased by the State. If we go into one of the smaller side rooms, we are suddenly confronted by a picture of dogs barking in a desert place; there is something so real and vivid about it that the rest of the State-rewarded industry seems pale and lifeless in comparison. A bit of nature in the corner attracts, while it makes us shiver; it is large, bold, brutal,--and what does it represent? Only a couple of street urchins talking to each other as they stand in front of a wooden paling. There is no doubt but that the influence of Bastien Lepage has been at work here. There is something that reminds us of him in the hot, gray, sunless sky; but there is also a certain Russian atmosphere about it that gives a dry look that contrasts strangely with the French landscapes. And where would Bastien Lepage get these contours? We have never seen lines more carelessly drawn, and yet so true; there is real genius in them. This picture is a primitive bit of Russian nature, child-like in its honesty, and the painter is Marie Bashkirtseff.

Near the door hangs a little portrait of a young woman dressed in fur. She has the typical Russian face, with thick, irregular eyebrows, from under which a pair of Tartar eyes look at you straight in the face with a curious expression. What can it be? Is it indifference, or defiance; or is it nothing more than physical well-being?

Among all the pictures painted by women that I have ever seen, I do not remember anywhere the temperament and individuality of the artist are revealed with greater force. The touch is so primitive, so uncultured in the best and worst sense of the word, that it surprises us to think that it is the work of a woman, half child, who belongs to the best society; it would seem rather to suggest the claws of a lioness.

Yet Marie Bashkirtseff was a thorough lady, not only by birth and education, but in her heart as well; she was a lady to the tips of her fingers, to an extreme that was almost absurd; she was not merely a fashionable lady, in the way that certain clever young men take a half ironical pleasure in appearing fashionable, but a lady in real earnest, with all the intensity of a religious bigot.

She had been educated by ladies, by a gentle and refined though rather shallow mother, by an aunt whose vocation seems to have consisted in self-sacrifice for others, a domineering grandmother, two governesses,--one Russian and the other French,--and an “angelical” doctor who lived in the house, and always travelled with them, and who seems to have become somewhat of a woman himself from having lived amongst so many women.

She was no more than twelve years old when she discovered that her governesses were insupportably stupid, and that the only thing that they understood was how to make her waste her precious youth. There was no time for that. She was already aware of the shortness of time, and it was her anxiety to make the most of it that afterwards hurried her short life to its close. She was possessed of an intense thirst for everything,--life, knowledge, enjoyment, sympathy. But although her grandfather had been “Byronic” in his youth, the family passed their lives vegetating with true Russian indolence; there was no help for it; she knew that nothing better was to be expected of them. And accordingly she hunted her governesses out of the house and took her education into her own hands. A tutor was engaged, and a list was made from which no branch of learning was excluded. The tutor nearly fainted with astonishment when it was shown to him, but he was still more astonished at Marie’s progress afterwards. Drawing was the only lesson in which the future great artist did not succeed; it bored her, and nothing came of it.

Her inner life, meanwhile, is stirred with tumultuous passions. She is in love, as passionately and as truly in love as any matured woman. And, after all, this thirteen-year-old girl is a matured woman; she is more developed, more truly woman-like than the worn-out woman of three-and-twenty, who only lived with half her strength. The man whom she loves is a very distinguished Englishman, who had bought a villa at Nice, where he spent a few months with his mistress every year,--but this circumstance does not affect Marie in the very least; she is experienced in her knowledge of the world, and by no means bourgeois in her way of thinking. There is another reason, however, that causes her intolerable suffering,--the handsome English duke is too grand for her. She is troubled, not only because he pays her no attention at present, but because she thinks that he is never likely to esteem her sufficiently to wish to marry her, unless, indeed, she could do something to make herself a name, and become celebrated. Marie Bashkirtseff, accordingly, wishes to become celebrated. She would like to be a great singer, who is at the same time a great actress; she would like to have the whole world at her feet, including the duke, and be able to choose between royal dukes and princes, and then she would choose him. For a couple of years or more she lives upon this dream, studies, reads, cries, and suffers that unnecessary overplus of secret pain and anxiety which usually accompanies the development of richly gifted natures.

She has a lovely voice and great dramatic talent, but the former is not fully developed, and cannot be trained for some years to come. She buys cart-loads of books; but as there is no one to guide her choice, and her social intercourse does not diverge a hairbreadth outside her family and a small circle of friends, consisting chiefly of compatriots, it is only natural that her reading should be confined to Dumas _père_, Balzac, Octave Feuillet, and such literary tallow candles as Ohnet, and others like him. Her taste remains uncultivated, her horizon bounded by the family, and her knowledge continues to be a mixture of ancient superstitions combined with the newest shibboleths.

Her most familiar converse is between herself and her Creator, whom her imagination pictures as a kind of superior great-grandfather, very grand and powerful, and the only One in whom she can confide. To Him she lays bare her heart, beseeching Him to give her that which is a necessity of life to her, and she makes numerous promises, to be fulfilled only on condition that her prayers are granted; she respects what she conceives to be His wishes with regard to prayer and almsgiving, and overwhelms Him with reproaches if these are of no avail. And they are of no avail. Her voice, which has been tried and praised by the highest musical authorities in Paris, is being gradually undermined by a disease of the throat, and the duke marries; thus her hopes of becoming famous and of gaining a great love are gone, gone forever.

Those were the first and second cruel wounds wherewith life made its presence felt in this sensitive soul; they were wounds which never healed, and which imparted hidden veins of venom to the healthy parts of her being.