Books: Mogens and Other Stories
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Jens Peter Jacobsen >> Mogens and Other Stories
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The reason for this was that he was full of fire and given to
extraordinary enthusiasms; he was frankly ingenuous, boisterous, and
communicative, and nowadays it requires a great deal of tact to be
lavish with enthusiasm. But Mrs. Fonss could not bear the thought
that Tage's father-in-law should be mentioned with a twinkle in the
eye and a smile round the mouth, and for that reason she exhibited a
certain coldness toward the family to the great sorrow of the enamored
Tage.
* * *
On the morning of the following day Tage and his mother had gone to
look at the little museum of the town. They found the gate open, but
the doors to the collection locked; ringing the bell proved fruitless.
The gateway, however, gave admission to the not specially large court
which was surrounded by a freshly whitewashed arcade whose short squat
columns had black iron bars between them.
They walked about and looked at the objects placed along the wall:
Roman sepulchral monuments, pieces of sarcophagi, a headless draped
figure, the dorsal vertebra of a whale, and a series of architectural
details.
On all the objects of interest there were fresh traces of the masons'
brushes.
By now they had come back to their starting point.
Tage ran up the stairs to see if there might not be people somewhere
in the house, and Mrs. Fonss in the meantime walked up and down the
arcade.
As she was on the turn toward the gate a tall man with a bearded,
tanned face, appeared at the end of the passage directly in front of
her. He had a guide-book in his hand; he listened for something, and
then looked forward, straight at her.
The Englishman of yesterday immediately came to her mind.
"Pardon me?" he began interrogatively, and bowed.
"I am a stranger," Mrs. Fonss replied, "nobody seems to be at home, but
my son has just run upstairs to see whether. . . ."
These words were exchanged in French.
At this moment Tage arrived. "I have been everywhere," he said, "even
in the living quarters, but didn't find as much as a cat."
"I hear," said the Englishman, this time in Danish, "that I have the
pleasure of being with fellow-countrymen."
He bowed again and retreated a couple of steps, as if to indicate that
he had merely said this to let them know that he understood what they
were saying. Suddenly he stepped closer than before with an intent,
eager expression on his face, and said to Mrs. Fonss, "is it possible
that you and I are old acquaintances?"
"Are you Emil Thorbrogger?" exclaimed Mrs. Fonss, and held out her
hand.
He seized it. "Yes, I am he," he said gayly, "and you are she?"
His eyes almost filled with tears as he looked at her.
Mrs Fonss introduced Tage as her son.
Tage had never in his life heard mention of Thorbrogger, but that was
not his thoughts; he thought only of the fact that this gaucho turned
out to be a Dane; when a pause set in, and some one had to say
something he could not help exclaiming, "and I who said yesterday that
you reminded me of a gaucho!"
"Well," replied Thorbrogger, "that wasn't far from the truth; for
twenty-one years I have lived in the plains of La Plata, and in those
years certainly spent more time on horse-back than on foot."
And now he had come back to Europe!
Yes, he had sold his land and his sheep and had come back to have a
look around in the old world where he belonged, but to his shame he
had to confess that he often found it very much of a bore to travel
about merely for pleasure.
Perhaps, he was homesick for the prairies?
No, he had never had any special feeling for places and countries; he
thought it was only his daily work which he missed.
In that way they went on talking for a while. At last the custodian
appeared, hot and out of breath, with heads of lettuce under his arms
and a bunch of scarlet tomatoes in his hand, and they were admitted
into the small, stuffy collection of paintings, where they gained only
the vaguest impression of the yellow thunder-clouds and black waters
of old Vernet, but on the contrary told each other with considerable
detail of their lives and the happenings during all the years since
they had parted.
For it was he whom she had loved, at the time when she married
another. In the days which now followed they were much together, and
the others thinking that such old friends must have much to say to
each other left them often alone. In those days both soon noticed that
however much they might have changed during the course of the years,
their hearts had forgotten nothing.
Perhaps it was he who first became aware of this, for all the
uncertainty of youth, its sentimentality and its elegiac mood came
upon him simultaneously, and he suffered under it. It seemed out of
place to the mature man, that he should so suddenly be robbed of his
peace of life and the self-possession which he had acquired during the
course of time, and he wanted his love to bear a different stamp,
wished it to be graver, more subdued.
She did not feel herself younger, but it seemed to her as if a
fountain of tears that had been obstructed and dammed had burst open
again and begun to flow. There was great happiness and relief in
crying, and these tears gave her a feeling of richness; it was as if
she had become more precious, and everything had become more precious
to her--in short it was a feeling of youth after all.
* * *
On an evening of one of these days Mrs. Fonss sat alone at home,
Elinor had gone to bed early, and Tage had gone to the theater with
the Kastagers. She had been sitting in the dull hotel-room and had
dreamed in the half light of a couple of candles. At length her dreams
had come to a stop after their incessant coming and going; she had
grown tired, but with that mild and smiling weariness which wraps
itself round us, when happy thoughts are falling asleep in our mind.
She could not go on sitting here, staring in front of her, the whole
evening long without so much as a book. It was still over an hour
before the theater let out. So she began to walk up and down the room,
stood in front of the mirror, and arranged her hair.
She would go down into the reading-room, and look over the illustrated
papers. At this time of the evening it was always empty there.
She threw a large black lace shawl over her head and went down.
The room was empty.
The small room, overfull with furniture, was brilliantly illuminated
by half a dozen large gas-flames; it was hot and the air was almost
painfully dry.
She drew the shawl down around the shoulders.
The white papers there on the table, the portfolios with their large
gilt letters, the empty plush chairs, the regular squares of the
carpet and the even folds of the rep curtains--all this looked dull
under the strong light.
She was still dreaming, and dreaming she stood, and listened to the
long-drawn singing of the gas-flames.
The heat was such as almost to make one dizzy.
To support herself she slowly reached out for a large, heavy bronze
vase which stood on a bracket fixed in the wall, and grasped the
flower-decorated edge.
It was comfortable to stand thus, and the bronze was gratefully cool
to the touch of her hand. But as she stood thus, there came another
feeling also. She began to feel a contentment in her limbs, in her
body, because of the plastically beautiful position which she had
assumed. She was conscious of how becoming it was to her, of the
beauty which was hers at the moment, and even of the physical
sensation of harmony. All this gathered in a feeling of triumph, and
streamed through her like a strange festive exultation.
She felt herself so strong at this hour, and life lay before her like
a great, radiant day; no longer like a day declining toward the calm,
melancholy hours of dusk. It seemed to her like an open, wide-awake
space of time, with hot pulses throbbing every second, with joyous
light, with energy and swiftness and an infinity without and within.
And she was thrilled with the fullness of life, and longed for it with
the feverish eagerness with which a traveler sets out on a journey.
For a long time she stood thus, wrapped in her thoughts, forgetting
everything around her. Then suddenly as if she heard the silence in
the room and the long-drawn singing of the gas-flames, she let her
hand drop from the vase and sat down by the table and began to turn
over the leaves of a portfolio.
She heard steps, passing by the door, heard them turn back, and saw
Thorbrogger enter.
They exchanged a few words but as she seemed occupied with the
pictures, he also began to look at the magazines that lay in front of
him. They, however, did not interest him very much for when a little
later she looked up, she met his eyes which rested searchingly upon
her.
He looked as if he were just about to speak, and there was a nervous,
decided expression round his mouth, which told her so definitely what
his words would be that she reddened,
Instinctively, as if she wished to hold back these words, she held out
a picture across the table and pointed at some horsemen from the
pampas, who were throwing lassoes over wild steers.
He was just about to make some jesting remark about the draftsman's
naive conception of the art of throwing a lasso. It was so enticingly
easy to speak of this rather than of that which he had on his mind.
Resolutely, however, he pushed the picture aside, leaned a little ways
across the table and said,
"I have thought a great deal about you since we met again; I have
always thought a great deal about you, both long ago in Denmark and
over where I was. And I have always loved you, and if it sometimes
seems to me that it is only now that I really love you since we have
met again, it is not true, however great my love may be, for I have
always loved you, I have always loved you. And if it should happen now
that you would become mine--you cannot imagine what that would mean to
me, if you, who were taken from me for so many years, were to come
back."
He was silent for a moment, then he rose, and came closer to her.
"Oh, do say a word! I am standing here talking blindly. I speak to you
as to an interpreter, a stranger, who has to repeat what I am saying
to the heart I am speaking to. . I don't know ... to stand here and
weigh my words ... I don't know, how far or how near. I dare not put
into words the adoration which fills me--or dare I?"
He let himself sink down on a chair by her side.
"Oh, if I might, if I didn't have to be afraid--is it true! Oh, God
bless you, Paula."
"There is nothing now that need keep us apart any longer," said she,
with her hand in his, "whatever may happen I have the right to be
happy once, to live fully in accordance with my being, my desire, and
my dreams. I have never renounced. Even though happiness was not my
share, I have never believed that life was nothing but grayness and
duty. I knew that there are people who are happy."
Silently he kissed her hand.
"I know," she said sadly, "that those who will judge me least harshly
will not envy me the happiness which I shall have in having your love,
but they will also say that I should be satisfied."
"But that would not be enough for me, and you have not the right to
send me away."
"No," she said, "no."
A little later she went upstairs to Elinor.
Elinor slept.
Mrs. Fonss sat down by her bed and looked at her pale child whose
features she could only dimly distinguish under the faint yellow glow
of the night lamp.
For Elinor's sake they would have to wait. In a few days they would
separate from Thorbrogger, go to Nice, and stay there by themselves.
During the winter she would live only that Elinor might regain her
health. But to-morrow she would tell the children what had happened
and what was to be expected. However they might receive the news it
was impossible for her to live with them day in, day out, and yet be
almost separated from them by a secret like this. And they would need
time to get used to the idea, because it would mean a separation
between them, whether greater or smaller would depend on the children
themselves. The arrangement of their lives in so far as it concerned
her and him was to be left entirely to them. She would demand nothing.
It was for them to _give_.
She heard Tage's step in the sitting-room and went to him.
He was so radiant and at the same time so nervous that Mrs. Fonss knew
something had happened, and she had an intuition of what it was.
He sought for an opening to unburden his heart and sat and talked
absent-mindedly of the theater. Not until his mother went over to him
and put her hand on his forehead, forcing him to look at her, was he
able to tell her that he had wooed Ida Kastager and gained her "yes."
They talked about it for a long time, but throughout Mrs. Fonss felt a
coldness in whatever she said, which she could not overcome. She was
afraid of being too sympathetic with Tage on account of her own
emotion. Besides, in the uncertain state of her mind she was
distrustful of the idea that there might be even the faintest shadow
of an association between her kindness of to-night and what she was to
tell to-morrow. .
Tage, however, did not notice any coolness.
Mrs. Fonss did not sleep much that night; there were too many thoughts
to keep her awake. She thought how strange it was that he and she
should have met and that when they met they should love each other as
in the old days.
It was long ago, especially for her; she was no longer, could no
longer, be young. And this would show; and he would be thoughtful with
her, and grow used to the fact that it was a long time since she was
eighteen years old. But she felt young, she was so in many respects,
and yet all the while she was conscious of her years. She saw it very
clearly, in a thousand movements, in expressions and gestures, in the
way in which she would respond to a hint, in the fashion in which she
would smile at an answer. Ten times a day she would betray her age,
because she lacked the courage to be outwardly as young as she was
within.
And thoughts came and thoughts went, but through it all the same
question always rose, as to what her children would say.
On the forenoon of the following day she put the answer to the test.
They were in the sitting-room.
She said that she had something important to tell them, something that
would mean a great change in their lives, something that would be
unexpected news to them. She asked them to listen as calmly as they
could, and not to let themselves be carried away by the first
impression into thoughtlessness. They must know that what she was
about to tell them was definitely decided, and that nothing they might
say could make her alter her decision.
"I am going to marry again," she said, and told them of how she had
loved Thorbrogger, before she had known their father; how she had
become separated from him, and how they had now met again.
Elinor cried, but Tage had risen from his seat, utterly bewildered. He
then went close to her, kneeled down before her, and seized her hand.
Sobbing, half-stifled with emotion, he pressed it against his cheek
with infinite tenderness, with an expression of helplessness in every
line of his face.
"Oh, but mother, dearest mother, what have we done to you, have we not
always loved you, have we not always, both when we were with you and
when we were away from from you, wanted you as the best thing we
possessed in the world? We have never known father except through you;
it was you who taught us to love him, and if Elinor and I are so close
to each other, is it not because day after day you always pointed out
to each of us what was best in the other? And has it not been thus
with every other person to whom we became attached, do we not owe
everything to you? We owe everything to you, and we worship you,
mother, if you only knew. . . . Oh, you cannot imagine, how much we
want your love, want you beyond all bounds and limits, but there again
you have taught us to restrain our love, and we never dare to come as
close to your heart as we should like. And now you say that you are
going to leave us entirely, and put us to one side. But that is
impossible. Only one who wanted to do us the greatest harm in the
world could do anything as frightful as that, and you don't want to do
us the greatest harm, you want only what is best for us--how can it
then be possible? Say quickly that it is not true; say it is not true,
Tage, it is not true, Elinor."
"Tage, Tage, don't be so distressed, and don't make it so hard, both
for yourself and us others."
Tage rose.
"Hard," he said, "hard, hard, oh were it nothing but that, but it is
horrible--unnatural; it is enough to drive one insane, merely to think
of it. Have you any idea of the things you make me think of? My mother
loved by a strange man, my mother desired, held in the arms of another
and holding him in hers. Nice thoughts for a son, worse than the worst
insult--but it is impossible, must be impossible, must be! Are the
prayers of a son to be as powerless as that! Elinor, don't sit there
and cry, come and help me beg mother to have pity on us."
Mrs. Fonss made a restraining gesture with her hand and said: "Let
Elinor alone, she is probably tired enough, and besides I have told
you that nothing can be changed."
"I wish I were dead," said Elinor, "but, mother, everything that Tage
has said is true, and it never can be right that at our age you should
give us a step-father."
"Step-father," cried Tage, "I hope that he does not for one moment
dare. . . . You are mad. Where he enters, we go out. There isn't any
power on earth that can force me into the slightest intimacy with that
person. Mother must choose--he or we! If they go to Denmark after
their marriage, then we are exiles; if they stay here, we leave."
"And those are your intentions, Tage?" asked Mrs. Fonss.
"I don't think you need doubt that; imagine the life. Ida and I are
sitting out there on the terrace on a moonlit evening, and behind the
laurel-bushes some one is whispering. Ida asks who is whispering, and
I reply that it is my mother and her new husband.--No, no, I
shouldn't have said that; but you see the effect of it already, the
pain it causes me, and you may be sure that it won't help Elinor's
health either."
Mrs. Fonss let the children go while she remained sitting here.
No, Tage was right, it had not been good for them. How far from her
they had already gone in that short hour! How they looked at her, not
like her children, but like their father's! How quick they were to
desert her as soon as they saw that not every motion of her heart was
theirs! But she was not only Tage's and Elinor's mother alone; she was
also a human being on her own account, with a life of her own and
hopes of her own, quite apart from them. But she was, perhaps, not
quite as young as she had believed herself to be. This had come to her
in the conversation with her children. Had she not sat there, timid,
in spite of her words; had she not almost felt like one who was
trespassing upon the rights of youth? Were not all the exorbitant
demands of youth and all its naive tyranny in everything they had
said?--It is for us to love, life belongs to us, and your life it is
but to exist for us.
She began to understand that there might be a satisfaction in being
quite old; not that she wished it, but yet old age smiled faintly at
her like a far-distant peace, coming after all the agitation of recent
times, and now when the prospect of so much discord was so near. For
she did not believe that her children would ever change their mind,
and yet she had to discuss it with them over and over again before she
gave up hope. The best thing would be for Thorbrogger to leave
immediately. With his presence no longer here the children might be
less irritable, and she could try to show them how eager she was to be
as considerate as possible to them. In time the first bitterness would
disappear, and everything . . . no, she did not believe, that
everything would turn out well.
They agreed that Thorbrogger should leave for Denmark to arrange their
affairs. For the time being they would remain here. It seemed,
however, that nothing was gained by this. The children avoided her.
Tage spent all his time with Ida or her father, and Elinor stayed all
the time with the invalid, Mrs. Kastager. And when they happened to be
actually together, the old intimacy, the old feeling of comfort, was
gone. Where were the thousand subjects for conversation, and, when
finally they found one, where was the interest in it? They sat there
keeping up a conversation like people who for a while have enjoyed
each other's company, and now must part. All the thoughts of those who
are about to leave are fixed on the journey's end, and those who
remain think only of settling hack into the daily life and daily
routine, as soon as the strangers have left.
There was no longer any common interest in their life; all the feeling
of belonging together had disappeared. They were able to talk about
what they were going to do next week, next month, or even the month
following, but it did not interest them as though it had to do with
days out of their own lives. It was merely a time of waiting, which
somehow or other had to be endured, for all three mentally asked
themselves: And what then? They felt no solid foundation in their
lives; there was no ground to build upon before this, which had
separated them, was settled.
Every day that passed the children forgot more and more what their
mother had meant to them, in the fashion in which children who believe
themselves wronged will forget a thousand benefactions for the sake of
one injustice.
Tage was the most sensitive of them, but also the one who was hurt
most deeply, because he had loved most. He had wept through long
nights because of his mother whom he could not retain in the way in
which he wanted. There were times when the memory of her love almost
deafened all other feelings in his heart. One day he even went to her
and beseeched and implored her that she might belong to them, to them
alone, and not to any other one, and the answer had been a "no." And
this "no" had made him hard and cold. At first he had been afraid of
this coldness, because it was accompanied by a frightful emptiness.
The case with Elinor was different. In a strange way she had felt that
it was an injustice toward her father, and she began to worship him
like a fetish. Even though she but dimly remembered him, she recreated
him for herself in most vivid fashion by becoming absorbed in
everything she had ever heard about him. She asked Kastager about him
and Tage, and every morning and night she kissed a medallion-portrait
of his which belonged to her. She longed with a somewhat hysterical
desire for some letters from him which she had left at home, and for
things which had once belonged to him.
In proportion as the father in this way rose in her estimation, the
mother sank. The fact that she had fallen in love with a man harmed
her less in her daughter's eyes; but she was no lenger the mother, the
unfailing, the wisest, the supreme, most beautiful. She was a woman
like other women; not quite, but just because not quite, it was
possible to criticize and judge her and to find weaknesses and faults
in her. Elinor was glad that she had not confided her unhappy love to
her mother; but she did not know how much it was due to her mother
that she had not done so.
One day passed like another, and their life became more and more
unendurable. All three felt that it was useless; instead of bringing
them together, it only drove them further apart.
Mrs. Kastager had now recovered. Though she had not played an active
part in anything that had happened, she knew more about the situation
than any one else, because everything had been told her. One day she
had a long talk with Mrs. Fonss who was glad that there was some one
who would quietly listen to her plans for the future. In this
conversation Mrs. Kastager suggested that the children go with her to
Nice, while they sent for Thorbrogger to come to Avignon, so that they
might be married. Kastager could stay on as witness.
Mrs. Fonss wavered a little while longer, for she had been unable to
discover what her children's reaction would be. When they were told,
they accepted it with proud silence, and when they were pressed for
answer, they merely said that they would, of course, adjust themselves
to whatever she decided to do.
So things turned out as Mrs. Kastager had proposed. She said good-by
to the children, and they left; Thorbrogger came, and they were
married.
Spain became their home; Thorbrogger chose it for the sake of
sheep-farming.
Neither of them wished to return to Denmark.
And they lived happily in Spain.
She wrote several times to her children, but in their first violent
anger that she had left them, they returned the letters. Later they
regretted it; they were unable, however, to admit this to their mother
and to write to her; for that reason all communication between them
ceased. But now and then in round about ways they heard about each
other's lives.
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