Karl Gjellerup

“ Minna still stood close to the window with her back turned towards it, leaning on an old-fashioned chest of drawers that was covered with cheap knick-knacks and faded and soiled photographs. She supported herself on the edge with both hands and looked down on the floor.
"I am to be unhappy and to make others unhappy, too," she murmured, as if she was speaking to herself. ”

“ Nothing of all this; everything here was sketchy, and the whole thing done in a careless sort of way in order to blur it in the indistinct fashion of the moment, affecting an artistic "vue" rather than giving a human aspect. The more I looked at this portrait the stronger became my disgust and fury against this man, who had painted Minna in such a way, this artist, who so boldly had prepared a picture after the last recipe, who had taken his beloved as a "subject" and had dodged all the difficulties, and indeed everything that should have been made clear. ”

“ I was surprised at the instinctive sense of art in Minna and the originality of her criticisms. She was amused over the "Æginets'" set smile, whether they killed or were killed, but at the same time remarked how advanced art already was in the treatment of the body and its movements. It struck her for the first time that an art can be at such a standard that its technique is almost perfect in certain directions, while there is something higher towards which it is moving with the uncertain footsteps of a child. ”

“ Jagemann, who saw what I was looking at, began at once to praise the portrait.
"Yes, that's a portrait of my Minna, as you can see. It is really very good, almost as good as a photograph. Oh dear me, yes! What wonderful skill! What they can do nowadays, Mr. Fenger! In America they can now take photographs in colours, so the papers say. My goodness, what will happen to the poor painters? What are they to do? Art moves on, the one flies higher than the other, one's death is the other's bread, as the saying is. ”

“ A pastel portrait of Minna and a pencil drawing of a middle-aged man with a high forehead, a straight nose and small, compressed lips—which combined with overhanging brows and deep-set eyes gave him a discontented and bitter look—thin hair and big whiskers, that did not conceal a small but firmly shaped and clean-shaven chin. ”

“ Minna implored me not to insist, but I pulled her to the piano. It was still light enough for her to see the music. She opened a Schubert album and played one of the "Moments Musicaux," not without feeling, but nervously, as if she feared to touch the notes.
"It is awful," she exclaimed, just as she played the final chord. "May I not stop? You cannot pretend that it is a pleasure to listen."
"Yes, I can, and also you ought to be ashamed of being nervous before me."
"Nervous? I am trembling all over!"
"You cannot see properly any longer. I will fetch the lamp." ”

“ Minna was also privileged to unlock a drawer in the writing-table and reveal the most precious of all the treasures; it was a snuff-box which Schiller had sent to Kant, a rather big, circular-shaped box, on the cover of which was painted a beautifully designed miniature copy of the Schiller portrait by Graff. Hertz found in it a resemblance to my most unworthy self—especially in the long neck and nose, a discovery which made Minna so delighted that she kissed him. ”

“ I interrupted.
"Indeed, Harald, I shall do so."
"But why, dearest friend? Nothing but pain for all of us can come out of it. Put an end to this correspondence, it has already lasted too long."
"Then one more letter would not hurt, it will be the last one."
"I beg this much of you, Minna! Leave it off for my sake. I cannot explain to you, I myself don't know why, but it alarms me." ”

“ She laughed as if by a sudden inspiration. "Do you know, if ever I should wish to get rid of the little sense I have, I think I could play it away."
"What an idea!"
"Indeed, that was also a way to commit suicide. It was the mode of Frants Moor, 'to destroy the body through the mind,' applied to suicide."
"Minna, you must not speak like that—it's a bad joke."
"Anyhow, it is a truly "practical joke" when it is put into execution. But one doesn't know what tricks one might need in life. ”

“ Minna was also tired after the journey, and when the hideous alabaster-columned clock on the chest of drawers, after a long threatening rumble, had made up its mind to strike four strokes, which echoed in the piano with a long note, thereby calling our attention to the fact that the time was really ten o'clock, I insisted that she should go to bed. ”

“ I have at least been able to paint a portrait of her, that anyhow can be recognised, and which every one will see represents a pretty girl, and in which an artist would see talent.... Maintenant à vous, monsieur. Take colour and canvas and place yourself, with your 'self-forgetting,' losing of yourself in the object, 'your love realism,' and then see what kind of a fright you will get out of it! But never mind, try all the same: they are very agreeable hours, I assure you; you have the sweet girl sitting in front of you, and can look at her to your heart's content ”

“ I said.
"A blessed evening it has been for me," answered Minna," though I at that time had no notion of it. It is strange to think how quite an unknown human being's decision can so completely alter one's whole life. ”

“ Minna must have shared my feelings, for, while she buttoned the top of her blouse, she shrugged her shoulders and murmured with a comical resentment—
"The old woman always comes creeping in at the wrong moment." ”

“ How does he think he can produce art worth anything, when he is such a chicken-hearted fool, who does not dare to face life, and how can he expect to put real feeling into his pictures, when he plays with himself and with you? ”

“ Dark acacias, glittering silver poplars, transparent birch tops, massive domes of plane, lime foliage, and copper beach, mixed with numerous varieties of rare bushes and trees, towered on both sides over railings, hedges, and low walls. Here and there the white limbs of a statue shone between flowers and leaves, or the fine spray of a fountain mounted and descended with gentle splashing in the middle of a fertile mass of foliage. Villa followed villa, glorious mixtures of country seats and palaces with fine façades of yellow-grey sandstone which still possessed some of its granulated sparkle. ”

“ This constant, tender sadness in looking back on things, is it but the reaction from an idealising power which the memory itself possesses, or does it perhaps rather proceed from man's never-ceasing fear—the feeling of everlasting uncertainty with regard to the unknown fate, that by a mere mood is able to rob one of everything, except what one has experienced—an uncertainty that not only threatens from without, but also seems to warn from within, and against which perhaps only our Ego's hidden kernel in rare moments of expansion can place an equal force? ”

“ Minna bit her lip, and peeped up at me with a teasing but still caressing look. I did not understand how she could take this matter in such a way, and should surely have been as angry as a Turk, had I not had a feeling of uncertainty and a suspicion that I was making a fool of myself.
"But you are quite forgetting to examine it, Harald," she said, as I continued to hold the letter towards her.
"Oh, you are quite right," I decided, without deigning to look at the letter, which I threw upon the floor. ”

“ It was, in short, a commonplace Dresden home of the regulation citizen type.
The garden was joined on all three sides to other gardens, and these again to neighbouring ones, so that they formed a big garden square, surrounded by rather low two-storeyed houses. By this plan the Dresdeners gained air and light, even in the old, narrow parts of the town. The sinking afternoon sun beamed over the various trees, while the pathways and small lawns lay in monotonous shadow. In a neighbouring garden some young boys were running to and fro, in another several little girls were playing ”

“ The steep slopes are intersected by the terraces and walls of the vineyards, and here and there high-roofed country houses, encircled by Italian poplars, are interspersed, while on the heights above are dotted the little cottages of the vineyard workmen, looking like small watch towers. All these details continually repeated themselves, dwindling and becoming less clear and closer to one another, until they melted into an almost indefinite tone of colour at the point where the brow of the hills sloped down towards the plain. ”

“ In spite of 'all, her playing was artistic, because she was quite lost in it; she played as a musician who has got a difficult manuscript on the music-stand; now and then she grumbled with disgust at having stumbled, sometimes when she had struck a wrong chord she sent an exclamation after the false note, which was not far from a little oath, and when her hands dragged behind the inspired will, then she loudly sang the melody as if to make the fingers ashamed and force them to follow. ”

“ I remember a gloomy day when the sun in the last minute broke through the bank of clouds, and the sudden illumination of the windows gleamed down over the stream; it was as if Mother Elbe had unveiled her banqueting hall—a colonnade of twisted columns embossed in the purest gold. ”

“ But she had scarcely taken her hands off the notes, before she took down the "Sonatas" of Beethoven from the top of the piano.
"If it has to be, let it be," she exclaimed gaily. "One might just as well be bold. I should like you to fetch the lamp, Harald, so that I can see all my dropped notes lying upon the floor." ”

“ The reason was, that when I had pictured the future and imagined the happiness of bringing a beloved woman home as bride, I had always shuddered at the thought of a mother-in-law, and had been terrified by the prospect of marrying into a family which might provide me with a tail of brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, and a new outfit of aunts and uncles, and so forth. ”

“ For that reason I do not envy the rich at all; on the contrary, it pleases me that others, who are better fitted for them, should have such luxuries. But when I am in a selfish mood I imagine that all this is there for my sake, in order that I should have so many nice things to look at when walking with you, and so that we may have an excuse for such a foolish conversation. ”

“ The two-storeyed houses only vary a little in grey or yellowish colour; but now and again a low building extends, the big sunken roof of which peeps down on the street through many of those real Saxonian lattice windows, which are shaped like half-closed eyes and, when placed close together, give to the tiled roof the impression of a long wavy movement. ”

“ Several of these houses have stucco ornaments of flower garlands, or draperies made of stone, hanging down from their windows; now and then, too, one comes upon a frieze with enormously stout angels, so thick with paint that at a casual glance one might take the whole thing for a piece of natura morte of cabbages, apples, and big branches. ”

“ We have lodgers, otherwise we could not keep the flat going, you know, and when one is accustomed to good living.... But it has its disadvantages, as now, this tobacco smoke. Of course one can get lodgers who smoke less, or who are not so much at home ... there are even those who do not smoke at all, but there might be other objections. Dear me, Mr. Fenger, there are so many bad men in the world! As, for instance, this lodger, there is not much to say against him. He always pays me, even if he is sometimes a month late, but, good gracious, there are also those who do not pay at all. ”

“ Behind the glass doors of the bookcase there was no show of any special binding, but the outwardly homely-looking company, which displayed sulky, leather-covered backs and torn or dirty bits of cardboard, consisted only of original editions, among which—on the middle shelf—were many of Goethe's and all Schiller's works, from Zwoote verbesserte Auflage, of The Robbers with the lion rampant as vignette, and the inscription, "In tirannos," to a William Tell with a dedication written by Schiller himself. ”

“ Minna, too, was well educated, it was quite different in my time, but the young people nowadays.... Won't you take a seat? You really must sit down."
I placed a chair close to the table, and when I saw that she thought of offering me some refreshment, I hastened to anticipate her.
"You really are too kind. Indeed I don't know, perhaps for company's sake, but only a small glass, please. I suppose you drink many glasses. Young people! Dear Jagemann was also a heavy beer drinker ... from the student days, you know. Do you drink much beer in Denmark?" ”

“ In the Exchange an old-fashioned custom ordained that the bankrupt had to sit on a sort of stool of repentance, while a doom bell was sounded, a sort of moral execution.
"One laughs at such old symbolic customs and finds them barbaric," he said, "but perhaps they have also had something good in them. How distinctly I remember the day when Moses Meyer had to stop his payments. He was chief in one of the two richest Jewish commercial firms, and had ruined himself by rivalry with Wolff—they had always been enemies. ”

“ Minna never mentioned it, and I dared not propose it for fear of bringing back painful recollections. But we often went to see the excellent collection of plaster casts, in which antique art is so well represented in all its stages. ”