Books: Mogens and Other Stories
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Jens Peter Jacobsen >> Mogens and Other Stories
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For five years Thorbrogger and his wife lived happily, but then she
suddenly fell ill. It was a disease whose course ran swiftly and whose
end was necessarily fatal. Her strength dwindled hourly, and one day
when the grave was no longer far away she wrote to her children.
"Dear children," she wrote, "I know that you will read this letter, for
it will not reach you until after my death. Do not be afraid, there
are no reproaches in these lines; would that I might make them bear
enough love.
"When people love, Tage and Elinor, little Elinor, the one who loves
most must always humble himself, and therefore I come to you once
more, as in my thoughts I shall come to you every hour as long as I am
able. One who is about to die, dear children, is very poor; I am very
poor, for all this beautiful world, which for so many years has been
my abundant and kindly home, is to be taken from me. My chair will
stand here empty, the door will close behind me, and never again will
I set my foot here. Therefore I look at everything with the prayer in
my eye that it shall hold me in kind memory. Therefore I come to you
and beg that you will love me with all the love which once you had for
me; for remember that not to be forgotten is the only part in the
living world which from now on is to be mine; just to be remembered,
nothing more.
"I have never doubted your love; I knew very well that it was your
great love, that caused your great anger; had you loved me less, you
would have let me go more easily. And therefore I want to say to you,
that should some day it happen that a man bowed down with sorrow come
to your door to speak with you concerning me, to talk about me to
relieve his sorrow, then remember that no one has loved me as he has,
and that all the happiness which can radiate from a human heart has
come from him to me. And soon in the last great hour he will hold my
hand in his when the darkness comes, and his words will be the last I
shall hear. . . .
"Farewell, I say it here, but it is not the farewell which will be the
last to you; it I will say as late as I dare, and all my love will be
in it, and all the longings for so many, many years, and the memories
of the time when you were small, and a thousand wishes and a thousand
thanks. Farewell Tage, farewell Elinor, farewell until the last
farewell.
"YOUR MOTHER."
THE END
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