Books: Mogens and Other Stories
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Jens Peter Jacobsen >> Mogens and Other Stories
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"Listen," Thora said gayly, "I think, I am now beginning to understand
what you said the other day on the hill about form and color."
"And you understood nothing besides?" Mogens asked softly and
seriously.
"No," she whispered, looked quickly at him, dropped the glance, and
grew red, "not then."
"Not then," Mogens repeated softly and kneeled down before her, "but
now, Thora?" She bent down toward him, gave him one of her hands, and
covered her eyes with the other and wept. Mogens pressed the hand
against his breast, as he rose; she lifted her head, and he kissed her
on the forehead. She looked up at him with radiant, moist eyes, smiled
and whispered: "Heaven be praised!"
Mogens stayed another week. The arrangement was that the wedding was
to take place in midsummer. Then he left, and winter came with dark
days, long nights, and a snowstorm of letters.
* * *
All the windows of the manor-house were lighted, leaves and flowers
were above every door, friends and acquaintances in a dense crowd
stood on the large stone stairway, all looking out into the dusk.--
Mogens had driven off with his bride.
The carriage rumbled and rumbled. The closed windows rattled. Thora
sat and looked out of one of them, at the ditch of the highway, at the
smith's hill where primroses blossomed in spring, at Bertel Nielsen's
huge elderberry bushes, at the mill and the miller's geese, and the
hill of Dalum where not many years ago she and William slid down on
sleighs, at the Dalum meadows, at the long, unnatural shadows of the
horses that rushed over the gravel-heaps, over the turf-pits and
rye-field. She sat there and wept very softly; from time to time when
wiping the dew from the pane, she looked stealthily over towards
Mogens. He sat bowed forward, his traveling-cloak was open, his hat
lay and rocked on the front seat; his hands he held in front of his
face. All the things he had to think of! It had almost robbed him of
his courage. She had had to say good-by to all her relatives and
friends and to an infinity of places, where memories lay ranged in
strata, one above the other, right up to the sky, and all this so that
she might go away with him. And was he the right sort of a man to
place all one's trust in, he with his past of brutalities and
debaucheries! It was not even certain that all this was merely his
past. He had changed, it is true, and he found it difficult to
understand what he himself had been. But one never can wholly escape
from one's self, and what had been surely still was there. And now
this innocent child had been given him to guard and protect. He had
managed to get himself into the mire till over his head, and doubtless
he would easily succeed in drawing her down into it too. No, no, it
shall not be thus--no, she is to go on living her clear, bright girl's
life in spite of him. And the carriage rattled and rattled. Darkness
had set in, and here and there he saw through the thickly covered
panes, lights in the houses and yards past which they drove. Thora
slumbered. Toward morning they came to their new home, an estate that
Mogens had bought. The horses steamed in the chill morning air; the
sparrows twittered on the huge linden in the court, and the smoke rose
slowly from the chimneys. Thora looked smiling and contented at all
this after Mogens had helped her out of the carriage; but there was no
other way about, she was sleepy and too tired to conceal it. Mogens
took her to her room and then went into the garden, sat down on a
bench, and imagined that he was watching the sunrise, but he nodded
too violently to keep up the deception. About noon he and Thora met
again, happy and refreshed. They had to look at things and express
their surprise; they consulted and made decisions; they made the
absurdest suggestions; and how Thora struggled to look wise and
interested when the cows were introduced to her; and how difficult it
was not to be all too unpractically enthusiastic over a small shaggy
young dog; and how Mogens talked of drainage and the price of grain,
while he stood there and in his heart wondered how Thora would look
with red poppies in her hair! And in the evening, when they sat in
their conservatory and the moon so clearly drew the outline of the
windows on the floor, what a comedy they played, he on his part
seriously representing to her that she should go to sleep, really go
to sleep, since she must be tired, the while he continued to hold her
hand in his; and she on her part, when she declared he was
disagreeable and wanted to be rid of her, that he regretted having
taken a wife. Then a reconciliation, of course, followed, and they
laughed, and the hour grew late. Finally Thora went to her room, but
Mogens remained sitting in the conservatory, miserable that she had
gone. He drew black imaginings for himself, that she was dead and
gone, and that he was sitting here all alone in the world and weeping
over her, and then he really wept. At length he became angry at
himself and stalked up and down the floor, and wanted to be sensible.
There was a love, pure and noble, without any coarse, earthly passion;
yes, there was, and if there was not, there was going to be one.
Passion spoiled everything, and it was very ugly and unhuman. How he
hated everything in human nature that was not tender and pure, fine
and gentle! He had been subjugated, weighed down, tormented, by this
ugly and powerful force; it had lain in his eyes and ears, it had
poisoned all his thoughts.
He went to his room. He intended to read and took a book; he read, but
had not the slightest notion what--could anything have happened to
her! No, how could it? But nevertheless he was afraid, possibly there
might have--no, he could no longer stand it. He stole softly to her
door; no, everything was still and peaceful. When he listened intently
it seemed as if he could hear her breathing--how his heart throbbed,
it seemed, he could hear it too. He went back to his room and his
book. He closed his eyes; how vividly he saw her; he heard her voice,
she bent down toward him and whispered--how he loved her, loved her,
loved her! It was like a song within him; it seemed as if his thoughts
took on rhythmic form, and how clearly he could see everything of
which he thought! Still and silent she lay and slept, her arm beneath
the neck, her hair loosened, her eyes were closed, she breathed very
softly--the air trembled within, it was red like the reflection of
roses. Like a clumsy faun, imitating the dance of the nymphs, so the
bed-cover with its awkward folds outlined her delicate form. No, no,
he did not want to think of her, not in that way, for nothing in all
the world, no; and now it all came back again, it could not be kept
away, but he would keep it away, away! And it came and went, came and
went, until sleep seized him, and the night passed.
* * *
When the sun had set on the evening of the next day, they walked about
together in the garden. Arm in arm they walked very slowly and very
silently up one path and down the other, out of the fragrance of
mignonettes through that of roses into that of jasmine. A few moths
fluttered past them; out in the grain-field a wild duck called,
otherwise most of the sounds came from Thora's silk dress.
"How silent we can be," exclaimed Thora.
"And how we can walk!" Mogens continued, "we must have walked about
four miles by now."
Then they walked again for a while and were silent.
"Of what are you thinking now?" she asked.
"I am thinking of myself."
"That's just what I am doing."
"Are you also thinking of yourself?"
"No, of yourself--of you, Mogens."
He drew her closer. They were going up to the conservatory. The door
was open; it was very light in there, and the table with the
snowy-white cloth, the silver dish with the dark red strawberries, the
shining silver pot and the chandelier gave quite a festive impression.
"It is as in the fairy-tale, where Hansel and Gretel come to the
cake-house out in the wood," Thora said.
"Do you want to go in?"
"Oh, you quite forget, that in there dwells a witch, who wants to put
us unhappy little children into an oven and eat us. No, it is much
better that we resist the sugar-panes and the pancake-roof, take each
other by the hand, and go back into the dark, dark wood."
They walked away from the conservatory. She leaned closely toward
Mogens and continued: "It may also be the palace of the Grand Turk and
you are the Arab from the desert who wants to carry me off, and the
guard is pursuing us; the curved sabers flash, and we run and run, but
they have taken your horse, and then they take us along and put us
into a big bag, and we are in it together and are drowned in the
sea.-- Let me see, or might it be . . .?"
"Why might it not be, what it is?"
"Well, it might be that, but it is not enough. ... If you knew how I
love you, but I am so unhappy--I don't know what it is--there is such
a great distance between us--no--"
She flung her arms round his neck and kissed him passionately and
pressed her burning cheek against his:
"I don't know how it is, but sometimes I almost wish that you beat
me--I know it is childish, and that I am very happy, very happy, and
yet I feel so unhappy!"
She laid her head on his breast and wept, and then she began while her
tears were still streaming, to sing, at first very gently, but then
louder and louder:
"In longing
In longing! live!"
"My own little wife!" and he lifted her up in his arms and carried her
in.
In the morning he stood beside her bed. The light came faintly and
subdued through the drawn blinds. It softened all the lines in the
room and made all the colors seem sated and peaceful. It seemed to
Mogens as if the air rose and fell with her bosom in gentle
rarifications. Her head rested a little sidewise on the pillow, her
hair fell over her white brow, one of her cheeks was a brighter red
than the other, now and then there was a faint quivering in the
calmly-arched eyelids, and the lines of her mouth undulated
imperceptibly between unconscious seriousness and slumbering smiles.
Mogens stood for a long time and looked at her, happy and quiet. The
last shadow of his past had disappeared. Then he stole away softly and
sat down in the living-room and waited for her in silence. He had sat
there for a while, when he felt her head on his shoulder and her cheek
against his.
* * *
They went out together into the freshness of the morning. The sunlight
was jubilant above the earth, the dew sparkled, flowers that had
awakened early gleamed, a lark sang high up beneath the sky, swallows
flew swiftly through the air. He and she walked across the green field
toward the hill with the ripening rye; they followed the footpath
which led over there. She went ahead, very slowly and looked back over
her shoulder toward him, and they talked and laughed. The further they
descended the hill, the more the grain intervened, soon they could no
longer be seen.
THE PLAGUE IN BERGAMO
Old Bergamo lay on the summit of a low mountain, hedged in by walls and
gates, and New Bergamo lay at the foot of the mountain, exposed to all
winds.
One day the plague broke out in the new town and spread at a terrific
speed; a multitude of people died and the others fled across the
plains to all four corners of the world. And the citizens in Old
Bergamo set fire to the deserted town in order to purify the air, but
it did no good. People began dying up there too, at first one a day,
then five, then ten, then twenty, and when the plague had reached its
height, a great many more.
And they could not flee as those had done, who lived in the new town.
There were some, who tried it, but they led the life of a hunted
animal, hid in ditches and sewers, under hedges, and in the green
fields; for the peasants, into whose homes in many places the first
fugitives had brought the plague, stoned every stranger they came
across, drove him from their lands, or struck him down like a mad dog
without mercy or pity, in justifiable self-defense, as they believed.
The people of Old Bergamo had to stay where they were, and day by day
it grew hotter; and day by day the gruesome disease became more
voracious and more grasping. Terror grew to madness. What there had
been of order and good government was as if the earth had swallowed
it, and what was worst in human nature came in its stead.
At the very beginning when the plague broke out people worked together
in harmony and concord. They took care that the corpses were duly and
properly buried, and every day saw to it that big bonfires were
lighted in squares and open places so that the healthful smoke might
drift through the streets. Juniper and vinegar were distributed among
the poor, and above all else, the people sought the churches early and
late, alone and in processions. Every day they went with their prayers
before God and every day when the sun was setting behind the
mountains, all the churchbells called wailingly towards heaven from
hundreds of swinging throats. Fasts were ordered and every day holy
relics were set out on the altars.
At last one day when they did not know what else to do, from the
balcony of the town hall, amid the sound of trumpets and horns, they
proclaimed the Holy Virgin, podesta or lordmayor of the town now and
forever.
But all this did not help; there was nothing that helped.
And when the people felt this and the belief grew stronger that heaven
either would not or could not help, they not only let their hands lie
idly in the lap, saying, "Let there come what may." Nay, it seemed, as
if sin had grown from a secret, stealthy disease into a wicked, open,
raging plague, which hand in hand with the physical contagion sought
to slay the soul as the other strove to destroy the body, so
incredible were their deeds, so enormous their depravity! The air was
filled with blasphemy and impiety, with the groans of the gluttons and
the howling of drunkards. The wildest night hid not greater debauchery
than was here committed in broad daylight.
"To-day we shall eat, for to-morrow we die!"--It was as if they had
set these words to music, and played on manifold instruments a
never-ending hellish concert. Yea, if all sins had not already been
invented, they would have been invented here, for there was no road
they would not have followed in their wickedness. The most unnatural
vices flourished among them, and even such rare sins as necromancy,
magic, and exorcism were familiar to them, for there were many who
hoped to obtain from the powers of evil the protection which heaven
had not vouchsafed them.
Whatever had to do with mutual assistance or pity had vanished from
their minds; each one had thoughts only for himself. He who was sick
was looked upon as a common foe, and if it happened that any one was
unfortunate enough to fall down on the street, exhausted by the first
fever-paroxysm of the plague, there was no door that opened to him,
but with lance-pricks and the casting of stones they forced him to
drag himself out of the way of those who were still healthy.
And day by day the plague increased, the summer's sun blazed down upon
the town, not a drop of rain fell, not the faintest breeze stirred.
From corpses that lay rotting in the houses and from corpses that were
only half-buried in the earth, there was engendered a suffocating
stench which mingled with the stagnant air of the streets and
attracted swarms and clouds of ravens and crows until the walls and
roofs were black with them. And round about the wall encircling the
town sat strange, large, outlandish birds from far away with beaks
eager for spoil and expectantly crooked claws; and they sat there and
looked down with their tranquil greedy eyes as if only waiting for the
unfortunate town to turn into one huge carrion-pit.
It was just eleven weeks since the plague had broken out, when the
watchman in the tower and other people who were standing in high
places saw a strange procession wind from the plain into the streets
of the new town between the smoke-blackened stone walls and the black
ash-heaps of the wooden houses. A multitude of people! At least, six
hundred or more, men and women, old and young, and they carried big
black crosses between them and above their heads floated wide banners,
red as fire and blood. They sing as they are moving onward and
heartrending notes of despair rise up into the silent sultry air.
Brown, gray, and black are their clothes, but all wear a red badge on
their breast. A cross it proves to be, as they draw nearer. For all
the time they are drawing nearer. They press upward along the steep
road, flanked by walls, which leads up to the old town. It is a throng
of white faces; they carry scourges in their hands. On their red
banners a rain of fire is pictured. And the black crosses sway from
one side to the other in the crowd.
From the dense mass there rises a smell of sweat, of ashes, of the
dust of the roadway, and of stale incense.
They no longer sing, neither do they speak, nothing is audible but the
tramping, herd-like sound of their naked feet.
Face after face plunges into the darkness of the tower-gate, and
emerges into the light on the other side with a dazed, tired
expression and half-closed lids.
Then the singing begins again: a miserere; they grasp their scourges
more firmly and walk with a brisker step as if to a war-song.
They look as if they came from a famished city, their cheeks are
hollow, their bones stand out, their lips are bloodless, and they have
dark rings beneath their eyes.
The people of Bergamo have flocked together and watch them with
amazement--and uneasiness. Red dissipated faces stand contrasted with
these pale white ones; dull glances exhausted by debauchery are
lowered before these piercing, flaming eyes; mocking blasphemers stand
open-mouthed before these hymns.
And there is blood on their scourges.
A feeling of strange uneasiness filled the people at the sight of
these strangers.
But it did not take long, however, before they shook off this
impression. Some of them recognized a half-crazy shoemaker from
Brescia among those who bore crosses, and immediately the whole mob
through him became a laughingstock. Anyhow, it was something new, a
distraction amid the everyday, and when the strangers marched toward
the cathedral, everybody followed behind as they would have followed a
band of jugglers or a tame bear.
But as they pushed their way forward they became embittered; they felt
so matter-of-fact in comparison with the solemnity of these people.
They understood very well, that those shoemakers and tailors had come
here to convert them, to pray for them, and to utter the words which
they did not wish to hear. There were two lean, gray-haired
philosophers who had elaborated impiety into a system; they incited
the people, and out of the malice of their hearts stirred their
passions, so that with each step as they neared the church the
attitude of the crowd became more threatening and their cries of anger
wilder. It would not have taken much to have made them lay violent
hands on those unknown flagellants. Not a hundred steps from the
church entrance, the door of a tavern was thrown open, and a whole
flock of carousers tumbled out, one on top of the other. They placed
themselves at the head of the procession and led the way, singing and
bellowing with grotesquely solemn gestures--all except one who turned
handsprings right up the grass-grown stones of the church-steps.
This, of course, caused laughter, and so all entered peacefully into
the sanctuary.
It seemed strange to be here again, to pass through this great cool
space, in this atmosphere pungent with the smell of old drippings from
wax candles--across the sunken flag-stones which their feet knew so
well and over these stones whose worn-down designs and bright
inscriptions had so often caused their thoughts to grow weary. And
while their eyes half-curiously, half-unwillingly sought rest in the
gently subdued light underneath the vaults or glided over the dim
manifoldness of the gold-dust and smoke-stained colors, or lost
themselves in the strange shadows of the altar, there rose in their
hearts a longing which could not be suppressed.
In the meantime those from the tavern continued their scandalous
behavior upon the high altar. A huge, massive butcher among them, a
young man, had taken off his white apron and tied it around his neck,
so that it hung down his back like a surplice, and he celebrated mass
with the wildest and maddest words, full of obscenity and blasphemy.
An oldish little fellow with a fat belly, active and nimble in spite
of his weight, with a face like a skinned pumpkin was the sacristan
and responded with the most frivolous refrains. He kneeled down and
genuflected and turned his back to the altar and rang the bell as
though it were a jester's and swung the censer round like a wheel. The
others lay drunk on the steps at full length, bellowing with laughter
and hiccoughing with drunkenness.
The whole church laughed and howled and mocked at the strangers. They
called out to them to pay close attention so that they might know what
the people thought of their God, here in Old Bergamo. For it was not
so much their wish to insult God that made them rejoice in the tumult;
but they felt satisfaction in knowing that each of their blasphemies
was a sting in the hearts of these holy people.
They stopped in the center of the nave and groaned with pain, their
hearts boiling with hatred and vengeance. They lifted their eyes and
hands to God, and prayed that His vengeance might fall because of the
mock done to Him here in His own house. They would gladly go to
destruction together with these fool-hardy, if only He would show His
might. Joyously they would let themselves be crushed beneath His heel,
if only He would triumph, that cries of terror, despair, and
repentance, that were too late, might rise up toward Him from these
impious lips.
And they struck up a miserere. Every note of it sounded like a cry for
the rain of fire that overwhelmed Sodom, for the strength which Samson
possessed when he pulled down the columns in the house of the
Philistines. They prayed with song and with words; they denuded their
shoulders and prayed with their scourges. They lay kneeling row after
row, stripped to their waist, and swung the sharp-pointed and knotted
cords down on their bleeding backs. Wildly and madly they beat
themselves so that the blood clung in drops on their hissing whips.
Every blow was a sacrifice to God. Would that they might beat
themselves in still another way, would that they might tear themselves
into a thousand bloody shreds here before His eyes! This body with
which they had sinned against His commandments had to be punished,
tortured, annihilated, that He might see how hateful it was to them,
that He might see how they became like unto dogs in order to please
Him, lower than dogs before His will, the lowliest of vermin that ate
the dust beneath the soles of His feet! Blow upon blow--until their
arms dropped or until cramps turned them to knots. There they lay row
on row with eyes gleaming with madness, with foam round their mouths,
the blood trickling down their flesh.
And those who watched this suddenly felt their hearts throb, noticed
how hotness rose into their cheeks and how their breathing grew
difficult. It seemed as if something cold was growing out beneath
their scalps, and their knees grew weak. It seized hold of them; in
their brains was a little spot of madness which understood this
frenzy.
To feel themselves the slaves of a harsh and powerful deity, to thrust
themselves down before His feet; to be His, not in gentle piety, not
in the inactivity of silent prayer, but madly, in a frenzy of
self-humiliation, in blood, and wailing, beneath wet gleaming
scourges--this they were capable of understanding. Even the butcher
became silent, and the toothless philosophers lowered their gray heads
before the eyes that roved about.
And it became quite still within the church; only a slight wave-like
motion swept through the mob.
Then one from among the strangers, a young monk, rose up and spoke. He
was pale as a sheet of linen, his black eyes glowed like coals, which
are just going to die out, and the gloomy, pain-hardened lines around
his mouth were as if carven in wood with a knife, and not like the
folds in the face of a human being.
He raised his thin, sickly hands toward heaven in prayer, and the
sleeves of his robe slipped down over his lean, white arms.
Then he spoke.
Of hell he spoke, that it is infinite as heaven is infinite, of the
lonely world of torments which each one of the condemned must endure
and fill with his wails. Seas of sulphur were there, fields of
scorpions, flames that wrap themselves round a person like a cloak,
and silent flames that have hardened and plunged into the body like a
spear twisted round in a wound.
It was quite still; breathlessly they listened to his words, for he
spoke as if he had seen it with his own eyes, and they asked
themselves: is he one of the condemned, sent up to us from the caverns
of hell to bear witness before us?
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