Karl Gjellerup

“ Mrs. Hertz remained there all the time. Occasionally I went with him, but generally I remained sitting in the drawing-room curled up on a chair, a prey to dullness and irritation. I was in the house of sorrow without being able to take my share of the grief and trouble; I was unhappy myself, but could not weep. It was so late that Minna could not any longer be expected. Everything was indifferent and tedious to me. Yes, I really was wearied and had a feeling that this state of tediousness would last for ever, and grow more and more unbearable until death at last took me. ”

“ Seen from this dominating point the unnaturally broad river seemed, I won't say not to rush, but not even to hasten; one only perceived the enormous irresistible moving mass. Calm and peaceful it had in those days glided by our idyll, as the moving life, occupied with its own concerns, streams past the happy existences that desire nothing from it; it had broken into this idyll, destroying and washing it away ”

“ Even Stephensen's way of behaving, that had certainly had the appearance of spontaneity, had in its essence the same character; he had evidently given in to his jealous longing to see Minna before she was irrevocably lost, and had thought: "Let us see what I can manage. Who knows! Perhaps, after all, she will come with me."
But now? Could nothing be altered? Was there not yet time to step in with an "I will"? A marriage is not any longer an indissoluble tie, hers was an unhappy one. ”

“ I was almost ill with hunger. When I had satisfied my appetite, I thought it was too late to go down to Rathen, and I postponed it to the next day. I went down towards the Elbe by a forest path, which branches off from the descent to Rathen, but is indicated as a "forbidden path." The rough forester came into my head, and I wished I could meet him. This footpath would take me to the one that Minna and I had trodden on the way home from the stone-quarry. But the penetrating wind, which splashed the ever-increasing fall of thawing snow into my face, the farther I came down, soon made me return. ”

“ A nature like Stephensen's, in which from the beginning, after all, there were some noble seeds (without them I suppose he would not have been an artist, not even the artist he is) ; when such a nature, still young and not quite debased, feels love for a young girl, then he grows higher and nobler, and she comes to know—and to love—a different being from what he was before. ”

“ At the beginning of Bürgerwiese, my eye was attracted by a portrait, which hung in the window of a curio-shop. I rushed across: yes, indeed, it was Stephensen's pastel picture of Minna. But how dreadful it looked now! The pastel powder had fallen away in big patches, especially off the hair, but also on a spot of the forehead and on the cheek; where the one eye ought to have been, the canvas showed light through. It had been put into a worm-eaten, shabby frame in bad rococo style, and under it was written on a scrap of paper: "Unknown master, middle of the eighteenth century." ”

“ I shrugged my shoulders with the others at things that at the bottom of my heart I found noble and elevating, I tried to admire what was repulsive to my inmost self, I pretended to believe that the quality of virtue was hypocrisy and the word itself an absurdity, no, an 'indecency,' as one of Stephensen's intellectual friends said. In short, I tried to howl with the wolves I was among (after all you have wolves in Denmark, haven't you?—do you remember when you made fun of me?—but no lions) . ”

“ Stephensen remarked.
He sat on the front seat, and looked most of the time out of the window and lit one cigarette after another. When he threw in a remark or question about art in London or some such thing, Minna regarded him with an astonished and hard look, in the way one looks at a child who has been naughty, and who, without having asked pardon, tries to pretend that nothing has happened and joins in the conversation. It was evident that this treatment annoyed him very much; each time he grew silent as soon as possible. ”

“ And often I have fancied that that which I do not know of myself, because it does not appear in the little dim mirror of consciousness, and that which you—for the same reason—do not know of yourself, are in reality, if not exactly the same thing, at least two things that are very closely allied to one another, so much so, indeed, that it shall one day seem to us only a bad and mad dream that we could ever have been separated. ”

“ My one and only life was to read our great poets and cultivate music—especially Beethoven and Wagner, whose piano scores I possessed. It was a world after my own heart, and so different from all that I was doomed to come in contact with.
"You know how passionately fond of music I am, but also how strongly it affects my nervous system to play much. ”

“ It seemed to me that all that was worth reading was there, on the last sheet of note-paper.
So I mused over these "odd thoughts," which touched me deeply. Minna was quite right: they reminded me of my dear father, recalled to my mind many a ramble by his side through our great woods, rambles on which he liked to indulge in metaphysical speculations about the "will in nature," as manifesting itself in the lives of the trees and animals of the forest. ”

“ I looked sorrowfully at the summer-house in the little garden, where everything was unchanged, and I went to "zur Katze" in order to ask whether the widow Jagemann still came there. Here they knew more; Minna's mother had been dead for two years.
I walked round the town, it was to me an indispensable enjoyment to look up our precious spots; not all were untouched by time. On the terrace they had pulled down the dear little Café Torniamenti with its naïve columns, where I had got the idea to go to Rathen, and where we had met Stephensen ”

“ In the past I myself sometimes thought the same, at least not exactly like that, only that marriage and family life may do an artist good, bind him more closely to humanity and infuse warmth into his art. ”

“ If it would suit her best to live in her native town, I would try to get a situation in Dresden; if she needed a southern climate, then I would find a means to live in the south. The latter, however, was not very likely; yes, it even was most probable that England, being quite new to her, would be the most suitable place. But all this did not trouble me much. What made me shiver was the consciousness of the sword of Damocles that hung over her head. Had it perhaps at this moment already fallen? And it would remain there constantly, even when the doctor had sanctioned her departure. ”

“ Minna said nothing, but gazed out of the window.
"Funny how small the world is!" Stephensen remarked. "One always runs against one another either directly or indirectly."
"And it was then you left?" Minna suddenly asked, turning her head quickly as a bird, and giving me a penetrating look. ”

“ Minna had told Mrs. Hertz everything.
"You have acted rightly," said the old lady to me the following day. "And poor Minna! She anyhow thinks she has acted for the best. But it pains me dreadfully, and not least for her sake."
I heard from her that Stephensen was going to Denmark in a few days in order to prepare everything, and that Minna was soon to follow. With regard to myself—I only thought of getting away. My uncle had no objection to my immediate arrival, and a week after old Hertz's death I was ready to start. ”

“ One would think that when a wife has lost so much respect and love for her husband, and when hardly any relationship exists, she would be able almost with indifference to see him run after others. With me it was almost the reverse. ”

“ But just then the whole party, with the exception of Minna, began to laugh in the boisterous manner that usually follows a story more vulgar than witty, and under cover of this noise I gave my order without disclosing myself. One of the gentlemen—very likely I should have known the famous name, which I do not doubt was in his possession, had I not been such a newcomer—expressed indignation on behalf of the party at Minna's reserve. "Why do you sit like a stick amongst us, Mrs. Stephensen? Take things more lightly, and don't be a German Philistine.... Remember you are amongst artists.... ”

“ I suppose Minna has told you that I was very fond of her, more than a mere friend?"
"No, she has never even hinted at anything of the kind; altogether she has spoken very little about you, though I know she likes you. But I must admit, now you touch upon it yourself, that I have had a suspicion ..."
"You see, I never told her, I mean proposed to her, but she felt it; women always do. No, I kept my feelings to myself; I think her heart in those days did not respond to such a feeling. Her father had just died, and also there was something else, but perhaps you know more about it than I.... ”

“ Only let me sit and look after myself; I am so tired, and have a headache."—"You do not want to go home already, I suppose?" Stephensen's voice sounded, this time very morose. Minna did not answer, but yawned in her handkerchief; she leaned back and looked down sideways. She really appeared as if she was tired, not with an acute but with a chronic fatigue. ”

“ My mother, in whom I confided,—it's no good hiding anything from her, she looks straight through one, indeed, one can with truth call her a judge of human nature; mother was of the same opinion, however much she would have liked her as a daughter-in-law. ”

“ Indeed, madam! everything is relative! Even our great Stephensen is not quite absolute, therefore beware, don't take him too much au serieux!"
"You with your irony," Stephensen said. "Yes, let everything be relative, but we——"
He was then brought to silence, even he, by a laughter that seemed to freeze the whole party, and which I can never forget. It was Minna who laughed. She got up, held her handkerchief to her mouth, and burst out again as she turned from the party. ”

“ Now he has come to my view, he has learnt, he says, that he cannot be without me; he hardens, gets narrow, has nothing to live for, he stretches out his hand for me, the very hand which has pulled me up out of a moral dullness and the swamp of nothingness. And now is it possible for me to refuse him?—No, no!—You see, it is my duty and my destiny yes, my destiny!
"May God make it so that we may meet and be together, many years hence, when time has taken away the passion. The friendship it cannot touch; I know that neither of us can forget the other. But I suppose you will have to live abroad ”

“ That's capital, then you can drive with us."
"There is plenty of room," Stephensen said. "It is not a victoria. And besides, I would willingly sit on the box."
He forced his usual polite smile; the lips obeyed, but not the eyes. He was obviously irritated; but Minna either did not notice it, or did not care.
"Very likely our talk will tire you, we have so much to speak of after so many years," she said.
We started at once on the return journey. In a window of the school-building stood the master. He leaned far out and continued to follow us with his eyes. Minna laughed. ”

“ After the first nervous rapture, which the sudden sight of one's beloved infallibly produces, had calmed down, I felt a painful disappointment. The lady and her husband on a pleasure-trip together! How little did it harmonise with the relations that I had imagined between them, with the plan that had inspired me! ”

“ I got on well enough with my uncle, though I never became very intimate with him. He was pleased with my capacity for work. After two or three years he feared that I should exaggerate it, be "a business bachelor," as he called it. He tried to persuade me to take some part in social life: a man in such a position ought to form ties.
Little by little I gave in, and gradually changed my habits.
There was neither talk of cavalcades in Hyde Park nor holidays spent in country-seats, but I made the acquaintance of some nice middle-class families, almost all well-to-do factory owners. ”

“ As I had to get up early in the morning—after the German custom I was a rather industrious housewife, and had to be so to make two ends meet—this added considerably to the breaking down of my health.
"Sometimes I tried to excuse myself, which always made Stephensen most irritable. Very likely I should in the end have got my way, had it not been for one thing: my jealousy.
"How I have suffered from jealousy, I can hardly make you understand. I do not believe any man can understand it, though your sex is supposed to have produced Othellos. ”

“ In the middle of the night I had at last succumbed to a dull drowsiness, when young Hertz came in and said:
"He has recognised me. Father is conscious; do come in."
The patient faintly smiled when he saw me and said: "Dear Fenger!" "Minna!" he murmured a little while after.
"Surely she will come to-morrow," Mrs. Hertz said.
"Then she will play to you," I added, though I felt tongue-tied and could scarcely speak.
"Beethoven," the old man whispered, and closed his eyes.
Mrs. Hertz arranged the pillows more comfortably; she then took the temperature ”

“ I thought, "it will always be an advantage that no Napoleon will come to drive one out."
At sunset a signal shot sounded, which announces that the Elbe rises unusually. The next morning, when I still lay in a half-slumber, I was alarmed by a second shot, by which the danger of flood is foretold. I got up at once. As I was staying at the Bellevue Hotel, I was quite close to the river. Since last evening, the porter said, people had been on the bridge amusing themselves all the night through by watching the rising of the water, and the parapet was now quite black with the crowd. ”