Marie Grubbe, Jens Peter Jacobsen [historical books to read .TXT] 📗

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 Grubbeby; none invited her. Because

of their ties to the royal family, some of the Grubbes were suspected

of siding with the King against the Estate, and moreover the good old

nobility cordially hated that rather numerous upper aristocracy formed

by the natural children of the kings and their relatives. Marie was

therefore slighted for a twofold reason, and as the court lived in

retirement during the session of the States-General, it offered her no

compensation.

 

It seemed hard at first, but soon it woke the latent defiance of her

nature and made her draw closer to Ulrik Frederik. She loved him more

tenderly for the very reason that she felt herself being wronged for

his sake. So when the two were quietly married on the sixteenth of

December, sixteen hundred and sixty, there was the best reason to

believe that she would live happily with the Master of the King’s

Hunt, which was the title and office Ulrik Frederik had won as his

share of the favors distributed by triumphant royalty.

 

This private ceremony was not in accordance with the original plan,

for it had long been the intention of the King to celebrate their

wedding in the castle, as Christian the Fourth had done that of Hans

Ulrik and Mistress Rigitze, but at the eleventh hour he had scruples

and decided, in consideration of Ulrik Frederik’s former marriage and

divorce to refrain from public display.

 

So now they are married and settled, and time passes, and time flies,

and all is well—and time slackened its speed, and time crawled; for

it is true, alas! that when Leander and Leonora have lived together

for half a year, the glory is often departed from Leander’s

love, though Leonora usually loves him much more tenderly than in the

days of their betrothal. She is like the small children who find the

old story new no matter how often it is told with the very same words,

the same surprises, and the selfsame “Snip, snap, snout, my tale’s

out,” while Leander is more exacting and grows weary as soon as his

feeling no longer makes him new to himself. When he ceases to be

intoxicated, he suddenly becomes more than sober. The flush and glamor

of his ecstasy, which for a while gave him the assurance of a

demigod, suddenly departs: he hesitates, he thinks and begins to doubt.

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. The

rain was pouring. It was impossible to go walking or riding, and so he

had sought his armory, as he called it, thinking he would polish and

take stock of his treasures—this was just the day for it! It occurred

to him that he had inherited a chest of weapons from Ulrik Christian;

he had ordered it brought down from the attic and sat lifting out one

piece after another.

 

There were splendid rapiers of bluish steel inlaid with gold or

silvery bright with dull engraving. 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.

 

It comes from Spain, said Ulrik Frederik to himself, for the late

owner had served in the Spanish army for nine years. Alack-a-day! He

too was to have entered foreign service with Carl Gustaf; but then

came the war, and now he supposed he would never have a chance to get

out and try his strength, and yet he was but three and twenty. To live

forever here at this tiresome little court—doubly tiresome since the

nobility stayed at home—to hunt a little, look to his estate once in

a while, some time in the future by the grace of the King to be made

Privy Councillor of the Realm and be knighted, keep on the right side

of Prince Christian and retain his office, now and then be sent on a

tedious embassy to Holland, grow old, get the rheumatism, die, and be

buried in Vor Frue Church—such was the brilliant career that

stretched before him. And now they were fighting down in Spain! There

was glory to be won, a life to be lived—that was where the rapier and

the sword-knot came from. No, he must speak to the King. It was still

raining, and it was a long way to Frederiksborg, but there was no help

for it. He could not wait; the matter must be settled.

 

The King liked his scheme. Contrary to his custom he assented at once,

much to the surprise of Ulrik Frederik, who during his whole ride had

debated with himself all the reasons that made his plan difficult,

unreasonable, impossible. But the King said, Yes, he might leave

before Christmas. By that time the preparations could be completed

and an answer received from the King of Spain.

 

The reply came in the beginning of December, but Ulrik Frederik did

not start until the middle of April, for there was much to be done.

Money had to be raised, retainers equipped, letters written. Finally

he departed.

 

Marie Grubbe was ill pleased with this trip to Spain. It is true she

saw the justice of Mistress Rigitze’s argument that it was necessary

for Ulrik Frederik to go abroad and win honor and glory in order that

the King might do something handsome for him; for although his Majesty

had been made an absolute monarch, he was sensitive to what people

said, and the noblemen had grown so captious and perverse that they

would be sure to put the very worst construction on anything the King

might do. Yet women have an inborn dread of all farewells, and in

this case there was much to fear. Even if she could forget the chances

of war and the long, dangerous journey and tell herself that a king’s

son would be well taken care of, yet she could not help her foreboding

that their life together might suffer such a break by a separation of

perhaps more than a year that it would never be the same again. Their

love was yet so lightly rooted, and just as it had begun to grow, it

was to be mercilessly exposed to ill winds and danger. Was it not

almost like going out deliberately to lay it waste? And one thing she

had learned in her brief married life: the kind of marriage she had

thought so easy in the days of her betrothal, that in which man and

wife go each their own way, could mean only misery with all darkness

and no dawn. The wedge had entered their outward life; God forbid that

it should pierce to their hearts! Yet it was surely tempting fate to

open the door by such a parting.

 

Moreover, she was sadly jealous of all the light papistical feminine

rabble in the land and dominions of Spain.

 

Frederik the Third, who, like many sovereigns of his time, was much

interested in the art of transmuting baser metals into gold, had

charged Ulrik Frederik when he came to Amsterdam to call on a renowned

alchemist, the Italian Burrhi, and to drop a hint that if he should

think of visiting Denmark, the King and the wealthy Christian Skeel of

Sostrup would make it worth his while.

 

When Ulrik Frederik arrived in Amsterdam, he therefore asked Ole Borch,

who was studying there and knew Burrhi well, to conduct him to the

alchemist. They found him a man in the fifties, below middle height,

and with a tendency to fat, but erect and springy in his movements.

His hair and his narrow moustache were black, his nose was hooked and

rather thick, his face full and yellow in color; from the corners of

his small, glittering black eyes innumerable furrows and lines spread

out like a fan, giving him an expression at once sly and goodhumored.

He wore a black velvet coat with wide collar and cuffs and

crape-covered silver buttons, black knee-breeches and silk stockings,

and shoes with large black rosettes. His taste for fine lace appeared

in the edging on his cravat and shirt bosom and in the ruffles that

hung in thick folds around his wrists and knees. His hands were small,

white, and chubby and were loaded with rings of such strange, clumsy

shapes that he could not bring the tips of his fingers together. Large

brilliants glittered even on his thumbs. As soon as they were seated,

he remarked that he was troubled with cold hands and stuck them in a

large fur muff, although it was summer.

 

The room into which he conducted Ulrik Frederik was large and spacious

with a vaulted ceiling and narrow Gothic windows set high in the

walls. Chairs were ranged around a large centre table, their wooden

seats covered with soft cushions of red silk from which hung long,

heavy tassels. The top of the table was inlaid with a silver plate on

which the twelve signs of the zodiac, the planets, and some of the

more important constellations were done in niello. Above it, a string

of ostrich eggs hung from the ceiling. The floor had been painted in a

chequered design of red and gray, and near the door a triangle was

formed by old horseshoes that had been fitted into the boards. A large

coral tree stood under one window, and a cupboard of dark carved wood

with brass mountings was placed under the other. A life-size doll

representing a Moor was set in one corner, and along the walls lay

blocks of tin and copper ore. The blackamoor held a dried palm leaf in

his hand.

 

When they were seated and the first interchange of amenities was over,

Ulrik Frederik—they were speaking in French—asked whether Burrhi

would not with his learning and experience come to the aid of the

searchers after wisdom in the land of Denmark.

 

Burrhi shook his head.

 

“‘Tis known to me,” he replied, “that the secret art has many great

and powerful votaries in Denmark, but I have imparted instruction to

so many royal gentlemen and church dignitaries and, while I will not

say that ingratitude or meagre appreciation have always been my

appointed portion, yet have I encountered so much captiousness and

lack of understanding that I am unwilling to assume again the duties

of a master to such distinguished scholars. I do not know what rule or

method the King of Denmark employs in his investigations, and my

remarks can therefore contain no disparagement of him, but I can

assure you in confidence that I have known gentlemen of the highest

nobility in the land, nay, anointed rulers and hereditary kings who

have