J. P. Jacobsen

“ Sti Högh grieved ceaselessly in impotent misery, dulled by his very pain against the sharpest stings of that pain, despairing like a captured animal that paces back and forth, back and forth, in its narrow cage. Marie was more like a wild creature escaped from captivity, fleeing madly, without rest or pause, driven on and ever on by frantic fear of the chain that drags clanking in its track.
She wanted to forget, but forgetfulness is like the heather: it grows of its own free will, and not all the care and labor in the world can add an inch to its height. ”

“ But what are your thoughts about love, fair Mistress Marie?”
“Mine?” she asked. “I think love is like a diamond; for as a diamond is beautiful to look upon, so is love fair, but as the diamond is poison to any one who swallows it, in the same manner love is a kind of poison and produces a baneful raging distemper in those who are infected by it—at least if one is to judge by the strange antics one may observe in amorous persons and by their curious conversation.”
“Ay,” whispered Ulrik Frederik gallantly, “the candle may well talk reason to the poor moth that is crazed by its light!” ”

“ There is no shred nor thread of doubt in my soul. I believe you fully, I believe that your love is great and strong, but mine you have strangled with your own hands. It is a corpse, and however loudly your heart may call, you can never wake it again.”
“Say not so, Marie, for those of your sex—I know there are among you those who when they love a man, even though he spurn them with his foot, come back ever and ever again; for their love is proof against all wounds.”
“’Tis so indeed, my lord, and I—I am such a woman, I would have you know, but you—are not the right kind of man.” ”

“ There was balm in seeing herself pure and holy and unsullied in the thoughts of another person. It well-nigh made her whole again to know that she could rouse that clear-eyed trust, that fair hope and noble longing which enriched the soul of him in whom they awoke. There was comfort and healing in hinting of her sorrows in shadowy images and veiled words to one who, himself untried by grief, would enter into her suffering with a serene joy, grateful to share the trouble he guessed but did not understand and yet sympathized with. ”

“ Faith, that is the way you were loved.”
“No, Marie, my love is not dead, it is risen again. Hear me, dear heart, hear me! for I have been stricken with blindness and with a mad distemper, but now, Marie, I kneel at your feet, and look, I woo you again with prayers and beseechings. Alack, my love has been like a wilful child, but now it is grown to man’s estate. Pray give yourself trustingly to its arms, and I swear to you by the cross and the honor of a gentleman that it will never let you go again.” ”

“ She learned to play on the lute, and was perfected in French; for Mistress Rigitze had her own plans.
Marie was happy. As a young prince who has been held captive is taken straight from the gloomy prison and harsh jailer to be lifted to the throne by an exultant people, to feel the golden emblem of power and glory pressed firmly upon his curls, and see all bowing before him in smiling homage, so she had stepped from her quiet chamber into the world, and all had hailed her as a queen indeed, all had bowed, smiling, before the might of her beauty. ”

“ Would you call it a sin, Colonel Gyldenlöve? No? Surely not. Does not even Holy Writ tell of witches and evil sorceries? Indeed and indeed it does. What I was about to say is that all our humors have their seat in the blood. If a man is fired with anger, can’t he feel the blood rushing up through his body and flooding his eyes and ears? And if he’s frightened o’ the sudden, does not the blood seem to sink down into his feet and grow cold all in a trice? Is it for nothing, do you think, that grief is pale and joy red as a rose? ”

“ Alas, the anguish of hell is greater than any human mind can conceive; for if one were tortured to death and woke in hell, he would long for the wheel and the red-hot pincers as for Abraham’s - 70 - bosom. ’Tis true that sickness and disease are bitter to the flesh of man when they pierce like a draught, inch by inch, through every fibre of the body, and stretch the sinews till they crack, when they burn like salted fire in the vitals, and gnaw with dull teeth in the innermost marrow! ”

“ But you have altogether too clear an understanding, goodwife, not to know that all this is naught but wicked conceits and bedlam talk.”
Marie made no answer.
“But do you not believe in God, goodwife,” Master Holberg went on, “and in the life everlasting?”
“Ay, God be praised, I do. I believe in our Lord.”
“But eternal punishment and eternal reward, goodwife?”
“I believe every human being lives his own life and dies his own death, that is what I believe.”
“But that is no faith; do you believe we shall rise again from the dead?” ”

“ Not that he will love you more than I, for that no one could, but that he will have more faith in himself and less sense of your priceless worth, Marie.”
“Why, this is a regular fortune-teller’s tale you’re giving me, Sti Högh. You are ever the same, your thoughts roam far afield. You are like children with a new toy; instead of playing with it, they must needs pull it to pieces and find out how it was made, and so spoil it. You never have time to hold and enjoy, because you are ever reaching and seeking. You cut the timber of life all up into thought-shavings.” ”

“ Marie was blunted by it. Whatever had been delicate and flowerlike in her nature, all the fair and fragrant growth which heretofore had entwined her life as with luxurious though fantastic and even bizarre arabesques, withered and died the death. Coarseness in thought as in speech, a low and slavish doubt of everything great and noble, and a shameless self-scorn were the effect of these sixteen years at Tjele. ”

“ He looks back at the chequered course of his passion, heaves a sigh, and yawns. He is beset with longing, like one who has come home after a lengthy sojourn in foreign parts, and sees the altogether too familiar though long-forgotten spots before him; as he looks at them, he wonders idly whether he has really been gone from this well-known part of the world so long.
In such a mood, Ulrik Frederik sat at home one rainy day in September. He had called in his dogs and had frolicked with them for a while, had tried to read, and had played a game of backgammon with Marie. ”

“ Pastor Jens was wont to say it was a longing for our home in the kingdom of heaven, which is the true fatherland of every Christian soul, but I think it is not that. We long and sorrow and know no living hope to comfort us—ah, how bitterly have I wept! It comes over one with such a strange heaviness and sickens one’s heart, and one feels so tired of one’s own thoughts and wishes one had never been born. But it is not the briefness of these earthly joys that has weighed on my thoughts or caused me grief. ”

“ And yet—might it not be that her longing was conjuring up a mere mood, rooted in the memories of her past feeling, sheltered by the brooding darkness, fed by hot blood and soft music,—a mood that deceived herself and made him happy? Or was it nothing but maidenly shyness that made her chary of endearments by the light of day, and was it nothing but - 102 - girlish fear of showing a girl’s weakness that made her eyes mock and her lips jeer many a time when he asked for a kiss or, vowing love, would draw from her the words all lovers long to hear? ”

“ How should I have such mad fancies!”
“Then, my dear kinswoman, you are perfectly happy? Your cup of life is clear and fresh, it is sweet to your tongue, warms your blood, and quickens your thoughts? Is it, in truth, never bitter as lees, flat and stale? Never fouled by adders and serpents that crawl and mumble? If so, your eyes have deceived me.”
“Ah, you would fain bring me to confession!” laughed Marie in his face.
Sti Högh smiled and led her to a little grass mound, where they sat down. He looked searchingly at her. ”

“ Bits of the conversation that afternoon, the motley crowds in the churchyard, Marie Grubbe’s smile, Mistress Rigitze, the Queen, the King’s favor, the King’s anger that other time,—the way Marie moved her hands, Sofie Urne, pale and far away,—yet paler and yet farther away,—the rose at the head of the bed and Marie Grubbe’s voice, the cadence of some word,—he sat listening and heard it again and again winging through the silence. ”

“ There were hunting-knives, some heavy and one-edged, some long and flexible like tongues of flame, some three-edged and sharp as needles. There were toledo blades, many toledos, light as reeds and flexible as willows, with hilts of silver and jasper agate, or of chased gold or gold and carbuncles. One had nothing but a hilt of etched steel, and for a sword-knot a little silk ribbon embroidered in roses and vines with red glass beads and green floss. It must be either a bracelet, a cheap bracelet, or—Ulrik Frederik thought—more likely a garter, and the rapier was stuck through it. ”

“ At half-past the hour of eight in the evening of September twenty-sixth, the booming of cannon and the shrill trumpet notes of a festive march announced that both their Majesties, accompanied by his Highness Prince Johan, the Elector of Saxony, and his royal mother, and followed by the most distinguished men and women of the realm, were proceeding from the castle, down through the park, to witness the ballet which was soon to begin.
A row of flambeaux cast a fiery sheen over the red wall, made the yew and box glow like bronze, and lent all faces the ruddy glow of vigorous health. ”

“ The streets were bright with throngs of noblemen and their ladies, bedizened lackeys, and richly caparisoned horses in silver-mounted harness. There was feasting and open house in the homes of the nobility. Far into the night the violin sounded from well-lit halls, telling the sleepy citizens that the best blood of the realm was warming to a stately dance over parquet floors, while the wine sparkled in ancestral goblets.
All these festivities passed Marie Grubbe by; none invited her. ”

“ No, no, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ! Say a prayer, child, make it a strong one!”
Marie folded her hands and prayed.
“Amen, amen! Pray again! I’m such a great sinner, child, it needs so much! Pray again, a long prayer with many words—many words! Oh, no, what’s that? Why is the bed turning?—Hold fast, hold fast! ’Tis turning—like a whirlwind of unthinkable woe, a dance of eternal anguish, and—ha, ha, ha! Am I drunk again? What devilry is this—what have I been drinking? Wine! Ay, of course, ’twas wine I drank, ha, ha! We’re gaily yet, we’re gaily—Kiss me, my chick! ”

“ Par dieu! ’Tis a raging and devouring fire, but it’s for you to say whether it is to run out and be lost in a thousand flickering flames and will-o’-the-wisps, or burn forever, warm and steady, high and shining toward heaven.”
“But, dear Ulrik Frederik, have pity on me! Don’t draw me into a temptation that I have no strength to withstand! You must believe that you are dear to my heart and most precious, but for that very reason I would to the uttermost guard myself against bringing you into a false and foolish position that you cannot maintain with honor. ”

“ Should not we with flaming fire and shining sword fall upon the destroyers of peace who would lay us waste? Why has God in heaven awakened valor and fearlessness in the heart of man if not for the purpose of resisting such an enemy? And, like Peter the Apostle, they would draw their glaive and smite off the ear of Malchus. But Jesus says: ‘Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’ ’Tis true, this may seem like a strange speech to the unreason of the wrathful and like foolishness to the unseeing blindness of the spiteful. ”