Books: Mogens and Other Stories
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Jens Peter Jacobsen >> Mogens and Other Stories
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A few days later the "rainman" started on his way to Cape Trafalgar. He
met a peasant driving a load of rye straw, and received permission to
ride with him. Then he lay down on his back in the straw and gazed at
the cloudless sky. The first couple of miles he let his thoughts come
and go as they listed, besides there wasn't much variety in them. Most
of them would come and ask him how a human being possibly could be so
wonderfully beautiful, and they marveled that it really could be an
entertaining occupation for several days to recall the features of a
face, its changes of expression and coloring, the small movements of a
head and a pair of hands, and the varying inflections in a voice. But
then the peasant pointed with his whip towards the slate-roof about a
mile away and said that the councilor lived over there, and the good
Mogens rose from the straw and stared anxiously towards the roof. He
had a strange feeling of oppression and tried to make himself believe
that nobody was at home, but tenaciously came back to the conception
that there was a large party, and he could not free himself from that
idea, even though he counted how many cows "Country-joy" had on the
meadow and how many heaps of gravel he could see along the road. At
last the peasant stopped near a small path leading down to the
country-house, and Mogens slid down from the cart and began to brush
away the bits of straw while the cart slowly creaked away over the
gravel on the road.
He approached the garden-gate step by step, saw a red shawl disappear
behind the balcony windows, a small deserted white sewing-basket on
the edge of the balcony, and the back of a still moving empty
rocking-chair. He entered the garden, with his eyes fixed intently on
the balcony, heard the councilor say good-day, turned his head toward
the sound, and saw him standing there nodding, his arms full of empty
flowerpots. They spoke of this and that, and the councilor began to
explain, as one might put it, that the old specific distinction
between the various kinds of trees had been abolished by grafting, and
that for his part he did not like this at all. Then Camilla slowly
approached wearing a brilliant glaring blue shawl. Her arms were
entirely wrapped up in the shawl, and she greeted him with a slight
inclination of the head and a faint welcome. The councilor left with
his flower-pots, Camilla stood looking over her shoulders towards the
balcony; Mogens looked at her. How had he been since the other day?
Thank you, nothing especial had been the matter with him. Done much
rowing? Why, yes, as usual, perhaps not quite as much. She turned her
head towards him, looked coldly at him, inclined her head to one side
and asked with half-closed eyes and a faint smile whether it was the
beautiful Magelone who had engrossed his time. He did not know what
she meant, but he imagined it was. Then they stood for a while and
said nothing. Camilla took a few steps towards a corner, where a
bench and a garden-chair stood. She sat down on the bench and asked
him, after she was seated, looking at the chair, to be seated; he must
be very tired after his long walk. He sat down in the chair.
Did he believe anything would come of the projected royal alliance?
Perhaps, he was completely indifferent? Of course, he had no interest
in the royal house. Naturally he hated aristocracy? There were very
few young men who did not believe that democracy was, heaven only knew
what. Probably he was one of those who attributed not the slightest
political importance to the family alliances of the royal house?
Perhaps he was mistaken. It had been seen. . . . She stopped suddenly,
surprised that Mogens who had at first been somewhat taken aback at
all this information, now looked quite pleased. He wasn't to sit
there, and laugh at her! She turned quite red.
"Are you very much interested in politics?" she asked timidly.
"Not in the least."
"But why do you let me sit here talking politics eternally?"
"Oh, you say everything so charmingly, that it does not matter what
you are talking about."
"That really is no compliment."
"It certainly is," he assured her eagerly, for it seemed to him she
looked quite hurt.
Camilla burst out laughing, jumped up, and ran to meet her father,
took his arm, and walked back with him to the puzzled Mogens.
When dinner was through and they had drunk their coffee up on the
balcony, the councilor suggested a walk. So the three of them went
along the small way across the main road, and along a narrow path with
stubble of rye on both sides, across the stile, and into the woods.
There was the oak and everything else; there even were still
convolvuluses on the hedge. Camilla asked Mogens to fetch some for
her. He tore them all off, and came back with both hands full.
"Thank you, I don't want so many," she said, selected a few and let the
rest fall to the ground. "Then I wish I had let them be," Mogens said
earnestly.
Camilla bent down and began to gather them up. She had expected him to
help her and looked up at him in surprise, but he stood there quite
calm and looked down at her. Now as she had begun, she had to go on,
and gathered up they were; but she certainly did not talk to Mogens
for a long while. She did not even look to the side where he was. But
somehow or other they must have become reconciled, for when on their
way back they reached the oak again, Camilla went underneath it and
looked up into its crown. She tripped from one side to the other,
gesticulated with her hands and sang, and Mogens had to stand near the
hazelbushes to see what sort of a figure he had cut. Suddenly Camilla
ran towards him, but Mogens lost his cue, and forgot both to shriek
and to run away, and then Camilla laughingly declared that she was
very dissatisfied with herself and that she would not have had the
boldness to remain standing there, when such a horrible creature--and
she pointed towards herself--came rushing towards her. But Mogens
declared that he was very well satisfied with himself.
When towards sunset he was going home the councilor and Camilla
accompanied him a little way. And as they were going home she said to
her father that perhaps they ought to invite that lonesome young man
rather frequently during the month, while it was still possible to
stay in the country. He knew no one here about, and the councilor said
"yes," and smiled at being thought so guileless, but Camilla walked
along and looked so gentle and serious, that one would not doubt but
that she was the very personification of benevolence itself.
The autumn weather remained so mild that the councilor stayed on at
Cape Trafalgar for another whole month, and the effect of the
benevolence was that Mogens came twice the first week and about every
day the third.
It was one of the last days of fair weather.
It had rained early in the morning and had remained overclouded far
down into the forenoon; but now the sun had come forth. Its rays were
so strong and warm, that the garden-paths, the lawns and the branches
of the trees were enveloped in a fine filmy mist. The councilor walked
about cutting asters. Mogens and Camilla were in a corner of the
garden to take down some late winter apples. He stood on a table with
a basket on his arm, she stood on a chair holding out a big white
apron by the corners.
"Well, and what happened then?" she called impatiently to Mogens, who
had interrupted the fairy-tale he was telling in order to reach an
apple which hung high up.
"Then," he continued, "the peasant began to run three times round
himself and to sing: 'To Babylon, to Babylon, with an iron ring
through my head.' Then he and his calf, his great-grandmother, and his
black rooster flew away. They flew across oceans as broad as Arup
Vejle, over mountains as high as the church at Jannerup, over
Himmerland and through the Holstein lands even to the end of the
world. There the kobold sat and ate breakfast; he had just finished
when they came.
"'You ought to be a little more god-fearing, little father,' said the
peasant, 'otherwise it might happen that you might miss the kingdom of
heaven.'"
"Well, he would gladly be god-fearing."
"'Then you must say grace after meals,' said the peasant. . . ."
"No, I won't go on with the story," said Mogens impatiently.
"Very well, then don't," said Camilla, and looked at him in surprise.
"I might as well say it at once," continued Mogens, "I want to ask you
something, but you mustn't laugh at me."
Camilla jumped down from the chair.
"Tell me--no, I want to tell you something myself--here is the table
and there is the hedge, if you won't be my bride, I'll leap with the
basket over the hedge and stay away. One!"
Camilla glanced furtively at him, and noticed that the smile had
vanished from his face.
"Two!"
He was quite pale with emotion.
"Yes," she whispered, and let go the ends of her apron so that the
apples rolled toward all corners of the world and then she ran. But
she did not run away from Mogens.
"Three," said she, when he reached her, but he kissed her nevertheless.
The councilor was interrupted among his asters, but the
district-judge's son was too irreproachable a blending of nature and
civilization for the councilor to raise objections.
* * *
It was late winter; the large heavy cover of snow, the result of a
whole week's uninterrupted blowing, was in the process of rapidly
melting away. The air was full of sunlight and reflection from the
white snow, which in large, shining drops dripped down past the
windows. Within the room all forms and colors had awakened, all lines
and contours had come to life. Whatever was flat extended, whatever
was bent curved, whatever was inclined slid, and whatever was broken
refracted the more. All kinds of green tones mingled on the
flower-table, from the softest dark-green to the sharpest
yellow-green. Reddish brown tones flooded in flames across the surface
of the mahogany table, and gold gleamed and sparkled from the
knick-knacks, from the frames and moldings, but on the carpet all the
colors broke and mingled in a joyous, shimmering confusion.
Camilla sat at the window and sewed, and she and the Graces on the
mantle were quite enveloped in a reddish light from the red curtains
Mogens walked slowly up and down the room, and passed every moment in
and out of slanting beams of light of pale rainbow-colored dust.
He was in talkative mood.
"Yes," he said, "they are a curious kind of people, these with whom you
associate. There isn't a thing between heaven and earth which they
cannot dispose of in the turn of a hand. This is common, and that is
noble; this is the most stupid thing that has been done since the
creation of the world, and that is the wisest; this is so ugly, so
ugly, and that is so beautiful it cannot be described. They agree so
absolutely about all this, that it seems as if they had some sort of a
table or something like that by which they figured things out, for
they always get the same result, no matter what it may be. How alike
they are to each other, these people! Every one of them knows the same
things and talks about the same things, and all of them have the same
words and the same opinions."
"You don't mean to say," Camilla protested, "that Carlsen and Ronholt
have the same opinions."
"Yes, they are the finest of all, they belong to different parties!
Their fundamental principles are as different as night and day. No,
they are not. They are in such agreement that it is a perfect joy.
Perhaps there may he some little point about which they don't agree;
perhaps, it is merely a misunderstanding. But heaven help me, if it
isn't pure comedy to listen to them. It is as if they had prearranged
to do everything possible not to agree. They begin by talking in a
loud voice, and immediately talk themselves into a passion. Then one
of them in his passion says something which he doesn't mean, and then
the other one says the direct opposite which he doesn't mean either,
and then the one attacks that which the other doesn't mean, and the
other that which the first one didn't mean, and the game is on."
"But what have they done to you?"
"They annoy me, these fellows. If you look into their faces it is just
as if you had it under seal that nothing especial is ever going to
happen in the world in the future." Camilla laid down her sewing, went
over and took hold of the corners of his coat collar and looked
roguishly and questioningly at him.
"I cannot bear Carlsen," he said angrily, and tossed his head.
"Well, and then."
"And then you are very, very sweet," he murmured with a comic
tenderness.
"And then?"
"And then," he burst out, "he looks at you and listens to you and talks
to you in a way I don't like. He is to quit that, for you are mine and
not his. Aren't you? You are not his, not his in any way. You are
mine, you have bonded yourself to me as the doctor did to the devil;
you are mine, body and soul, skin and bones, till all eternity."
She nodded a little frightened, looked trustfully at him; her eyes
filled with tears, then she pressed close to him and he put his arms
around her, bent over her, and kissed her on the forehead.
The same evening Mogens went to the station with the councilor who had
received a sudden order in reference to an official tour which he was
to make. On this account Camilla was to go to her aunt's the next
morning and stay there until he returned,
When Mogens had seen his future father-in-law off, he went home,
thinking of the fact that he now would not see Camilla for several
days. He turned into the street where she lived. It was long and
narrow and little frequented. A cart rumbled away at the furthest end;
in this direction, too, there was the sound of footsteps, which grew
fainter and fainter. At the moment he heard nothing but the barking of
a dog within the building behind him. He looked up at the house in
which Camilla lived; as usual the ground-floor was dark. The
white-washed panes received only a little restless life from the
flickering gleam of the lantern of the house next door. On the second
story the windows were open and from one of them a whole heap of
planks protruded beyond the window-frame. Camilla's window was dark,
dark also was everything above, except that in one of the attic
windows there shimmered a white-golden gleam from the moon. Above the
house the clouds were driving in a wild flight. In the houses on both
sides the windows were lighted.
The dark house made Mogens sad. It stood there so forlorn and
disconsolate; the open windows rattled on their hinges; water ran
monotonously droning down the rainpipe; now and then a little water
fell with a hollow dull thud at some spot which he could not see; the
wind swept heavily through the street. The dark, dark house! Tears
came into Mogen's eyes, an oppressive weight lay on his chest, and he
was seized by a strange dark sensation that he had to reproach himself
for something concerning Camilla. Then he had to think of his mother,
and he felt a great desire of laying his head on her lap and weeping
his fill.
For a long while he stood thus with his hand pressed against his
breast until a wagon went through the street at a sharp pace; he
followed it and went home. He had to stand for a long time and rattle
the front door before it would open, then he ran humming up the
stairs, and when he had entered the room he threw himself down on the
sofa with one of Smollett's novels in his hand, and read and laughed
till after midnight. At last it grew too cold in the room, he leaped
up and went stamping up and down to drive away the chill. He stopped
at the window. The sky in one corner was so bright, that the
snow-covered roofs faded into it. In another corner several long-drawn
clouds drifted by, and the atmosphere beneath them had a curious
reddish tinge, a sheen that wavered unsteadily, a red smoking fog. He
tore open the window, fire had broken out in the direction of the
councilor's. Down the stairs, down the street as fast as he could;
down a cross-street, through a side-street, and then straight ahead.
As yet he could not see anything, but as he turned round the corner he
saw the red glow of fire. About a score of people clattered singly
down the street. As they ran past each other, they asked where the
fire was. The answer was "The sugar-refinery." Mogens kept on running
as quickly as before, but much easier at heart. Still a few streets,
there were more and more people, and they were talking now of the
soap-factory. It lay directly opposite the councilor's. Mogens ran on
as if possessed. There was only a single slanting cross-street left.
It was quite filled with people: well-dressed men, ragged old women
who stood talking in a slow, whining tone, yelling apprentices,
over-dressed girls who whispered to each other, corner-loafers who
stood as if rooted to the spot and cracked jokes, surprised drunkards
and drunkards who quarreled, helpless policemen, and carriages that
would go neither forwards nor backwards. Mogens forced his way through
the multitude. Now he was at the corner; the sparks were slowly
falling down upon him. Up the street; there were showers of sparks,
the window-panes on both sides were aglow, the factory was burning,
the councilor's house was burning and the house next door also. There
was nothing but smoke, fire and confusion, cries, curses, tiles that
rattled down, blows of axes, wood that splintered, window-panes that
jingled, jets of water that hissed, spluttered, and splashed, and amid
all this the regular dull sob-like throb of the engines. Furniture,
bedding, black helmets, ladders, shining buttons, illuminated faces,
wheels, ropes, tarpaulin, strange instruments; Mogens rushed into
their midst, over, under it all, forward to the house.
The facade was brightly illuminated by the flames from the burning
factory, smoke issued from between the tiles of the roof and rolled
out of the open windows of the first story. Within the fire rumbled
and crackled. There was a slow groaning sound, that turned into a
rolling and crashing, and ended in a dull boom. Smoke, sparks, and
flames issued in torment out of all the openings of the house. And
then the flames began to play and crackle with redoubled strength and
redoubled clearness. It was the middle part of the ceiling of the
first floor that fell. Mogens with both hands seized a large
scaling-ladder which leaned against the part of the factory which was
not yet in flames. For a moment he held it vertically, but then it
slipped away from him and fell over toward the councilor's house where
it broke in a window-frame on the second story. Mogens ran up the
ladder, and in through the opening. At first he had to close his eyes
on account of the pungent wood-smoke, and the heavy suffocating fumes
which rose from the charred wood that the water had reached took his
breath away. He was in the dining-room. The living-room was a huge
glowing abyss; the flames from the lower part of the house, now and
then, almost reached up to the ceiling; the few boards that had
remained hanging when the floor fell burned in brilliant
yellowish-white flames; shadows and the gleam of flames flooded over
the walls; the wall-paper here and there curled up, caught fire, and
flew in flaming tatters down into the abyss; eager yellow flames
licked their way up on the loosened moldings and picture-frames.
Mogens crept over the ruins and fragments of the fallen wall towards
the edge of the abyss, from which cold and hot blasts of air
alternately struck his face; on the other side so much of the wall had
fallen, that he could look into Camilla's room, while the part that
hid the councilor's office still stood. It grew hotter and hotter; the
skin of his face became taut, and he noticed, that his hair was
crinkling. Something heavy glided past his shoulder and remained lying
on his back and pressed him down to the floor; it was the girder which
slowly had slipped out of place. He could not move, breathing became
more and more difficult, his temples throbbed violently; to his left a
jet of water splashed against the wall of the dining-room, and the
wish rose in him, that the cold, cold drops, which scattered in all
directions might fall on him. Then he heard a moan on the other side
of the abyss, and he saw something white stir on the floor in
Camilla's room. It was she. She lay on her knees, and while her hips
were swaying, held her hands pressed against each side of her head.
She rose slowly, and came towards the edge of the abyss. She stood
straight upright, her arms hung limply down, and the head went to and
fro limply on the neck. Very, very slowly the upper part of her body
fell forward, her long, beautiful hair swept the floor; a short
violent flash of flame, and it was gone, the next moment she plunged
down into the flames.
Mogens uttered a moaning sound, short, deep and powerful, like the
roar of a wild beast, and at the same time made a violent movement, as
if to get away from the abyss. It was impossible on account of the
girder. His hands groped over the fragments of wall, then they
stiffened as it were in a mighty clasp over the debris, and he began
to strike his forehead against the wreckage with a regular beat, and
moaned: "Lord God, Lord God, Lord God."
Thus he lay. In the course of a little while, he noticed that there
was something standing beside him and touching him. It was a fireman
who had thrown the girder aside, and was about to carry him out of the
house. With a strong feeling of annoyance, Mogens noticed that he was
lifted up and led away. The man carried him to the opening, and then
Mogens had a clear perception that a wrong was being committed against
him, and that the man who was carrying him had designs on his life. He
tore himself out of his arms, seized a lathe that lay on the floor,
struck the man over the head with it so that he staggered backward; he
himself issued from the opening and ran erect down the ladder, holding
the lathe above his head. Through the tumult, the smoke, the crowd of
people, through empty streets, across desolate squares, out into the
fields. Deep snow everywhere, at a little distance a black spot, it
was a gravel-heap, that jutted out above the snow. He struck at it
with the lathe, struck again and again, continued to strike at it; he
wished to strike it dead, so that it might disappear; he wanted to run
far away, and ran round about the heap and struck at it as if
possessed. It would not, would not disappear; he hurled the lathe far
away and flung himself upon the black heap to give it the finishing
stroke. He got his hands full of small stones, it was gravel, it was a
black heap of gravel. Why was he out here in the field burrowing in a
black gravel-heap?--He smelled the smoke, the flames flashed round
him, he saw Camilla sink down into them, he cried out aloud and rushed
wildly across the field. He could not rid himself of the sight of the
flames, he held his eyes shut: Flames, flames! He threw himself on the
ground and pressed his face down into the snow: Flames! He leaped up,
ran backward, ran forward, turned aside: Flames everywhere! He rushed
further across the snow, past houses, past trees, past a terror-struck
face, that stared out through a window-pane, round stacks of grain and
through farm-yards, where dogs howled and tore at their chains. He ran
round the front wing of a building and stood suddenly before a
brightly, restlessly lighted window. The light did him good, the
flames yielded to it; he went to the window and looked in. It was a
brew-room, a girl stood at the hearth and stirred the kettle. The
light which she held in her hand had a slightly reddish sheen on
account of the dense fumes. Another girl was sitting down, plucking
poultry, and a third was singeing it over a blazing straw-fire. When
the flames grew weaker, new straw was put on, and they flared up
again; then they again became weaker and still weaker; they went out.
Mogens angrily broke a pane with his elbow, and slowly walked away.
The girls inside screamed. Then he ran again for a long time with a
low moaning. Scattered flashes of memory of happy days came to him,
and when they had passed the darkness was twice as black. He could
not bear to think of what had happened. It was impossible for it to
have happened. He threw himself down on his knees and raised his hands
toward heaven, the while he pleaded that that which had happened might
be as though it had not occurred. For a long time he dragged himself
along on his knees with his eyes steadfastly fixed on the sky, as if
afraid it might slip away from him to escape his pleas, provided he
did not keep it incessantly in his eye. Then pictures of his happy
time came floating toward him, more and more in mist-like ranks. There
were also pictures that rose in a sudden glamor round about him, and
others flitted by so indefinite, so distant, that they were gone
before he really knew what they were. He sat silently in the snow,
overcome by light and color, by light and happiness, and the dark fear
which he had had at first that something would come and extinguish all
this had gone. It was very still round about him, a great peace was
within him, the pictures had disappeared, but happiness was here. A
deep silence! There was not a sound, but sounds were in the air. And
there came laughter and song and low words came and light and
footsteps and dull sobbing of the beats of the pumps. Moaning he ran
away, ran long and far, came to the lake, followed the shore, until he
stumbled over the root of a tree, and then he was so tired that he
remained lying.
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