Karl Gjellerup

“ Having developed to something from nothing, why should it not be able to become everything? Certainties exist, which to us seem so incontestable that they are almost argued away, when we are brought to dispute about them at all; for together with their indisputability their inmost being seems to disappear.
What can be a more certain possession, more remote from any danger, than a faithful woman's love? I felt that Minna loved me, I knew that hers was, as Stephensen also had said, a faithful nature. ”

“ What was Stephensen here? A sick, perhaps dying, old man's blessing would seal her pact with me. My conscience had forbidden me to make her seek advice from the old folk in her trouble, but it surely permitted me to take advantage of a coincidence, which seemed to me a finger of fate.
"Yes, write, dear friend! But you must try not to exaggerate the danger, for her sake also, the dear child! She will take it to heart! She will judge best herself what to do, therefore do not urge her too much to come—perhaps her cousin needs her still more." ”

“ At the same time I believe that you always had a calmer mind and more balanced temperament than Minna, and therefore in your youth suffered less from such a separation."
"Yes, that's true," said Hertz,—"for Minna, it will be more difficult.... But we must all struggle, each one with his burden, and it is well for everybody that it should be so."
"Anyhow it is not in those kind of struggles that one succumbs," said Mrs. Hertz cheerfully. "I do not think one need even fear a wound, and the hardships one is sure to get over. ”

“ But then, as the image of Minna appeared very vividly before my mind's eye on this background, which brought out its unpretentious and simple grace, as a dimly seen tapestry of fantastic, luxurious Gobelin that the effect-seeking hand of an artist has painted behind the portrait study of a dark and calm woman's form—these dreams at once dissolved into nothingness. ”

“ With delight I inhaled the fresh evening air; my stick sounded on the pavement, and my firm steps echoed in the empty street. A man whose boots creaked audibly kept pace with me on the opposite pavement. Only a couple of lamps lighted the whole street, and both of them were on my side; I glanced in vain at the stranger, who very likely had witnessed the tender little scene. Suddenly he crossed the road, cleared his throat, and lifted his hat. I was startled to recognise Stephensen. ”

“ The outer door had, of course, been closed long before. Minna had to go down with me and open it. In the cool cellar-like corridor we gave one another a long embrace. I was not to detain her when she opened the door, but quickly slip out so that no passer-by or late neighbour should see her. But the draught blew the folds of her skirt out as she was about to bang the door, and while I helped to free her, I couldn't resist the temptation to steal one more kiss, in spite of the fact that I had seen a man on the opposite pavement. ”

“ An intimation in her first letter to Stephensen came into my mind, and certainly confirmed this supposition. I lowered my eyes, bewildered by his inquisitive glance.
"The favourable conditions, the loneliness have done something, and then, what I do not at all doubt, many excellent and lovable qualities in yourself——"
"Shall we not now leave off this rubbish!" I burst out, and got up suddenly. "I understand quite well your ideas, but what the dickens do I care about them? I do not recognise that you have any right to act as Minna's guardian." ”

“ I do not doubt that Minna has most of these esteemed prejudices, which are the chief ornaments of the weaker sex. Indeed, I mean it seriously: I, for my part, would not be without these prejudices in women, though no doubt it would make life easier and more agreeable. It is an extravagant luxury, but what are we to do? Modern nature contains such contradictions.... Therefore, it is very likely that Minna is inclined to consider this engagement as a bond for time and eternity. She is not exactly what one would call a character, but she certainly is a nature—and a faithful nature ”

“ I sighed, smiling, pressed her hand tenderly and kissed it, grateful that her unerring instinct spared us an unnecessary pain, perhaps the bitterest of all; because by touching the magic symbol the full meaning of the pledge is realised. How many a knight has felt the announcement of the dishonouring doom less terrible than the breaking of his shield by the hands of the executioner.
"Are you not coming, Harald? Engaged or not, we are after all the same."
"Dearest Minna, imagine for yourself how much determination it will take to remain away. ”

“ The voices in the billiard-room had grown more noisy; the musical member sang with sentimental tremor on the long notes: "Gute Nacht, du mein 'he-rz-iges Kind," and several voices joined in, howling the syllable "herz" in a prolonged discord. Stephensen smiled, passed his hand over his eyes, and then looked at me vacantly.
"You do not understand me," he began, and his lisping voice had again attained its gentle, rather sugary tone. "What was it you remarked? I see, that she had only used her liberty, and that it ought not to annoy me. But this is not the point! I do not feel at all wronged. ”

“ Behind a group of acacias, with leaning trunks, a street-lamp, that was struggling with the last ray of daylight, spread a dull yellowish misty glare, out of which the dainty Gothic sandstone portal of the Sophie-Church appeared, while its slim open-work spires stood phantomlike over the dark summits of the trees against a twilight sky, that was almost colourless but for a couple of sloping feathery clouds still beaming in a rosy glow. ”

“ There I lay on my bed—the sofa was too much of a wreck—and kept reviewing these numerous, closely united remembrances, like a dying Alexander who is bidding good-bye to his soldiers; they haunted me on my afternoon walk like a hearse, new crowds joining on at each new street, road, and pathway, and when I at last went to sleep, it was in the shadow of the banners borne by the death-watch. ”

“ Perhaps my nature has something to do with it, but I also think that the parting by death looks much more terrifying to a young person than to one who anyhow can only have a short time to survive and to miss. You are now thinking to yourself, 'If I had the danger of losing Minna, how different and heartbroken should I be—after all she must have a cold heart.'"
I looked down, and the whole room seemed to swim. How did she get this idea? Why did just these words come to her lips, that in quite a different way than she could suspect were exactly upon the track of my most secret thoughts? ”

“ The third, to whom you would do the greatest harm, is to you only a stranger, yes, even a man you hate.... Then consider how dreadful this choice must be for me, as I know that to whichever side I turn, I must cause unhappiness to one I love."
"It is just that which makes it so difficult for me to put myself in your place. I do not understand this.... You say you love me, I feel it, I will not doubt it, but at the same time you mean that you love Stephensen. It is a problem to me. ”

“ This kind Philemon and Baucis couple were so intimately interwoven in the peaceful idyll of our love, that it needed only this meeting to refresh its colours and infuse them with a life-like light that drove away all fear of an impending tragic shadow. ”

“ The drawing was only lightly sketched, but firm and true in the lines. As one does not know oneself in profile, I could not have much opinion as to the likeness. But Minna was satisfied, and it secretly pleased me that she had taken a small part in the finishing touches. Stephensen's smile betrayed the childish pleasure that an artist always feels when he has succeeded in something. ”

“ I had often seen the place in this fascinating light during my evening walks, and now, to my disgust, it was Stephensen who pointed it out and in a way adopted it with his artist's authority.
"Just look how delicately it stands there; it is a pure Van der Neer."
"Oh, one sees beautiful light effects here," I remarked. "The other day we saw 'a real Poussin' out in Saxonian Switzerland."
Minna bit her lip. Stephensen, who could not have had any notion of the reference, felt that I mocked at artists' expressions.
"Yes, I quite believe it. One comes upon subjects at every turn. ”

“ Stephensen said. "It's more natural to me to think of the art value, but there is much in what you have just said."
"Quite true," I remarked. "It is the way of getting a likeness which always has existed, and it has not only the aristocracy of many ancestors, but is also free from the tiresome democratic point, that Jack and Tom have the same picture which is precious to us."
"Oh dear me, yes!" Mrs. Jagemann exclaimed. "The world has been progressing since I was young! Photography is indeed a wonderful invention, and it produces better likenesses than anything else." ”

“ I thought, "supposing he dies after all, and I lose Minna!"
Mrs. Hertz, who could not, of course, have any idea of such a thought, regarded my evident emotion as a pure sign of sympathy and friendship for her husband; she thanked me with a grateful look, as she answered—
"Danger there might well be in such an illness for an old and feeble man. I must be prepared for the worst." She sat down on the sofa, and asked me to sit beside her. ”

“ Minna lighted us out to the stairs. The front door was still open.
I let him step out first. He turned, and lifting his hat, held his right hand towards me.
"You said yesterday evening, Mr. Fenger, that we parted as enemies. Just look, now we have spent quite a friendly evening together. In reality, we cannot hate one another; for whichever of us is going to be the favoured one the other is bound to wish him happiness—for her sake."
"You are right, Mr. Stephensen. But our paths lie in different directions. Farewell!" ”

“ An artist must live and breathe in artistic surroundings. I feel it every time I get out of Copenhagen: one degenerates there. Don't you agree with me that Copenhagen is a dreadful town? "
"Detestable," I answered, though I had never thought much about it; but I wanted if possible to overtrump him.
"All the same it drew you back when you were there," Minna remarked without lifting her eyes from the broad stone steps down which we slowly walked.
"What can one do? A fellow must live, Minna!"
"But you have just said that an artist must live in a place like this in order to be creative." ”

“ It was evident that if the worst happened, if the bond between Minna and me should be broken, then nothing could be more desirable—if wishes and hopes could then any longer be spoken of—than this arrangement. I should at once be removed from these surroundings that would be so lull of heart-rending associations, and where, perhaps, for some time I should be likely to meet her, in order to be thrown into work under new conditions which would require me to strain my energies to the utmost. ”

“ We have not sufficient imagination to decorate life, therefore we only copy it and then pretend that we do it out of reverence and love of life. Nonsense! To begin with we are pessimists, so we have neither reverence nor love of life; and besides, even if we still have these—for we are also inconsequent—la vie c'est une femme, and they always like to be flattered. By the way, all art is originally decorative, and Apollo is in reality a maître de plaisir in Olympus. ”

“ At all events, I quite see what leads you astray. Of course you look upon the expression 'marriage of convenience' as something depreciatory, and forget that I do not share this particular Danish prejudice, nor even all cosmopolitan ones. On the contrary I consider, taken as a whole, that the so-called 'marriages of convenience' are those matches which have most chance of happiness, not forgetting that matrimony altogether is—I won't say a curse—but an anomaly.... ”

“ You are very sensitive—unusually so, but don't be ashamed of that, at least not towards a woman; you will be a good husband. How can I believe it? Because it is natural for you to think that. But if you had lived a married life with Minna, and you both had grown old in love—for one can do that without love degenerating, believe me—then you would look on death quite differently. ”

“ In Germany it is not so unusual as it is in Denmark for young girls and young men—brothers' friends, distant relations, or even acquaintances—to call one another by their Christian names; and therefore Minna could not feel that Stephensen, by still taking advantage of this privilege after she was engaged to a countryman of his, meant to emphasise to me the nature of their intimacy and to equalise our positions. ”

“ I do not think that what you feel now for Stephensen is love at all, but only remembrance of past love, and that certainly is too frail ground on which to build a matrimonial life, and especially so, when a new passion has sprung up in opposition to the old one. ”

“ Work cannot be controlled, controlled by our inclinations.... First duty, work the sooner the better. Man's love works—woman's abides."
"You must not talk so much, it strains you," Mrs. Hertz told her husband. "But it is like that, we two old ones have known it too, once upon a time.... Don't worry too much over it. Minna is a sensible girl and a faithful soul, she will also have confidence in you.... Be sure she will get through the waiting time more easily than you now imagine." ”