Marie Grubbe, Jens Peter Jacobsen [historical books to read .TXT] 📗
- Author: Jens Peter Jacobsen
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gleamed in the hand of a woman rang in his ears, and he sank to his
knees praying, for all reasonable security, all common-sense
safeguards seemed gone from this earthly life together with all human
foresight. Clearly the heavens themselves were taking sides; unknown
spirits ruled, and fate was determined by supernatural powers and
signs. Why else should she have tried to kill him? Why? Almighty God,
why, why? Because it must be—must be.
He picked up the knife almost furtively, broke the blade, and threw
the pieces into the empty grate. Still Marie did not stir. Surely she
was not wounded? No, the knife was bright, and there was no blood on
his cuffs, but she lay there as quiet as death itself. He hurried to
her and lifted her in his arms.
Marie sighed, opened her eyes, and gazed straight out before her with a
lifeless expression, then, seeing Ulrik Frederik, threw her arms around
him, kissed and fondled him still without a word. Her smile was
pleased and happy, but a questioning fear lurked in her eyes. Her
glance seemed to seek something on the floor. She caught Ulrik
Frederik’s wrist, passed her hand over his sleeve, and when she saw
that it was torn and the cuff slashed, she shrieked with horror.
“Then I really did it!” she cried in despair. “O God in highest
heaven, preserve my mind, I humbly beseech Thee! But why don’t you ask
questions? Why don’t you fling me away from you like a venomous
serpent? And yet, God knows, I have no part nor fault in what I did.
It simply came over me. There was something that forced me. I swear to
you by my hope of eternal salvation there was something that moved my
hand. Ah, you don’t believe it! How can you?” And she wept and moaned.
But Ulrik Frederik believed her implicitly, for this fully bore out
his own thoughts. He comforted her with tender words and caresses,
though he felt a secret horror of her as a poor helpless tool under
the baleful spell of evil powers. Nor could he get over this fear,
though Marie day after day used every art of a clever woman to win
bark his confidence. She had indeed sworn that first morning that she
would make Ulrik Frederik put forth all his charms and exercise all
his patience in wooing her over again, but now her behavior said
exactly the reverse. Every look implored; every word was a meek vow.
In a thousand trifles of dress and manner, in crafty surprises and
delicate attentions, she confessed her tender, clinging love every
hour of the day, and if she had merely had the memory of that
morning’s incident to overcome, she would certainly have won, but
greater forces were arrayed against her.
Ulrik Frederik had gone away an impecunious prince from a land where
the powerful nobility by no means looked upon the natural son of a
king as more than their equal. Absolute monarchy was yet young, and
the principle that a king was a man who bought his power by paying in
kind was very old. The light of demi-godhead, which in later days cast
a halo about the hereditary monarch, had barely been lit, and was yet
too faint to dazzle anyone who did not stand very near it.
From this land Ulrik Frederik had gone to the army and court of Philip
the Fourth, and there he had been showered with gifts and honors, had
been made Grand d’Espagne and put on the same footing as Don Juan of
Austria. The king made it a point to do homage in his person to
Frederik the Third, and in bestowing on him every possible favor, he
sought to express his satisfaction with the change of government in
Denmark and his appreciation of King Frederik’s triumphant efforts to
enter the ranks of absolute monarchs.
Intoxicated and elated with all this glory, which quite changed his
conception of his own importance, Ulrik Frederik soon saw that he had
acted with unpardonable folly in making the daughter of a common
nobleman his wife. Thoughts of making her pay for his mistake,
confused plans for raising her to his rank and for divorcing her
chased one another through his brain during his trip homeward. On top
of this came his superstitious fear that his life was in danger from
her, and he made up his mind that until he could see his course more
clearly, he would be cold and ceremonious in his manner to her and
repel every attempt to revive the old idyllic relation between them.
Frederik the Third, who was by no means lacking in power of shrewd
observation, soon noticed that Ulrik Frederik was not pleased with his
marriage, and he divined the reason. Thinking to raise Marie Grubbe in
Ulrik Frederik’s eyes, he distinguished her whenever he could and
showered upon her every mark of royal grace, but it was of no avail.
It merely raised an army of suspicious and jealous enemies around the
favorite.
The Royal Family spent the summer, as often before, at Frederiksborg.
Ulrik Frederik and Marie moved out there to help plan the junketings
and pageants that were to be held in September and October, when the
Elector of Saxony was coming to celebrate his betrothal with the
Princess Anne Sofie. The court was small as yet, but the circle was to
be enlarged in the latter part of August, when the rehearsals of
ballets and other diversions were to begin. It was very quiet, and
they had to pass the time as best they could. Ulrik Frederik took long
hunting and fishing trips almost every day. The King was busy at his
turning lathe or in the laboratory which he had fitted up in one of
the small towers. The Queen and the princesses were embroidering for
the coming festivities.
In the shady lane that led from the woods up to the wicket of the
little park, Marie Grubbe was wont to take her morning walk. She was
there today. Up in the lane her dress of madder-red shone against the
black earth of the walk and the green leaves. Slowly she came nearer.
A jaunty black felt hat trimmed only with a narrow pearl braid rested
lightly on her hair, which was piled up in heavy ringlets. A
silver-mounted solitaire gleamed on the rim where it was turned up on
the side. Her bodice fitted smoothly, and her sleeves were tight to
the elbow, whence they hung, deeply slashed, held together by clasps
of mother-of-pearl and lined with flesh-colored silk. Wide,
close-meshed lace covered her bare arms. The robe trailed a little
behind but was caught up high on the sides, falling in rounded folds
across the front and revealing a black and white diagonally striped
skirt which was just long enough to give a glimpse of black-clocked
stockings and pearl-buckled shoes. She carried a fan of swan’s
feathers and raven’s quills.
Near the wicket she stopped, breathed in her hollow hand, held it
first to one eye then to the other, tore off a branch, and laid the
cool leaves on her hot eyelids. Still the signs of weeping were
plainly to be seen. She went in at the wicket and started up toward
the castle, but turned back and struck into a side path.
Her figure had scarcely vanished between the dark green box hedges
when a strange and sorry couple appeared in the lane: a man who walked
slowly and unsteadily as though he had just risen from a severe
illness leaning on a woman in an old-fashioned cloth coat and with a
wide green shade over her eyes. The man was trying to go faster than
his strength would allow, and the woman was holding him back, while
she tripped along, remonstrating querulously.
“Hold, hold!” she said. “Wait a bit and take your feet with you! You’re
running on like a loose wheel going down hill. Weak limbs must be
weakly borne. Gently now! Isn’t that what she told you, the wise woman
in Lynge? What sense is there in limping along on legs that have no
more starch nor strength than an old rotten thread!”
“Alack, good Lord, what legs they are!” whimpered the sick man and
stopped, for his knees shook under him. “Now she’s all out of
sight”—he looked longingly at the wicket—“all out of sight! And
there will be no promenade today, the harbinger says, and it’s so long
till tomorrow!”
“There, there, Daniel dear, the time will pass, and you can rest
to-day and be stronger tomorrow, and then we shall follow her all
through the woods way down to the wicket, indeed we shall. But now we
must go home, and you shall rest on the soft couch and drink a good
pot of ale, and then we shall play a game of reversis, and later on,
when their highnesses have supped, Reinholdt Vintner will come, and
then you shall ask him the news, and we’ll have a good honest
lanterloo till the sun sinks in the mountains, indeed we shall, Daniel
dear, indeed we shall.”
“‘Ndeed we shall, ‘ndeed we shall!” jeered Daniel. “You with your
lanterloo and games and reversis! When my brain is burning like molten
lead, and my mind’s in a frenzy, and—Help me to the edge of the road
and let me sit down a moment—there! Am I in my right mind, Magnille?
Huh? I’m mad as a fly in a flask, that’s what I am. ‘Tis sensible in
a lowborn lout, a miserable, mangy, rickety wretch, to be eaten up with
frantic love of a prince’s consort! Oh ay, it’s sensible, Magnille, to
long for her till my eyes pop out of my head and to gasp like a fish
on dry land only to see a glimpse of her form and to touch with my
mouth the dust she has trodden—‘tis sensible, I’m saying. Oh, if it
were not for the dreams when she comes and bends over me and lays her
white hand on my tortured breast—or lies there so still and breathes
so softly and is so cold and forlorn and has none to guard her but
only me—or she flits by white as a naked lily!—but it’s empty
dreams, vapor and moonshine only, and frothy air-bubbles.”
They walked on again. At the wicket they stopped, and Daniel supported
his arms on it while his gaze followed the hedges.
“In there,” he said.
Fair and calm the park spread out under the sunlight that bathed air
and leaves. The crystals in the gravel walk threw back the light in
quivering rays. Hanging cobwebs gleamed through the air, and the dry
sheaths of the beech buds fluttered slowly to the ground, while high
against the blue sky the white doves of the castle circled with
sungold on swift wings. A merry dance-tune sounded faintly from a lute
in the distance.
“What a fool!” murmured Daniel. “Should you think, Magnille, that one
who owned the most precious pearl of all the Indies would hold it as
naught and run after bits of painted glass? Marie Grubbe and—Karen
Fiol! Is he in his right mind? And now they think he’s hunting
because forsooth, he lets the gamekeeper shoot for him, and comes back
with godwits and woodcocks by the brace and bagful, and all the while
he’s fooling and brawling down at Lynge with a town woman, a
strumpet. Faugh, faugh! Lake of brimstone, such filthy business! And
he’s so jealous of that spring ewe-lambkin he’s afraid to trust her
out of his sight for a day, while—”
The leaves rustled, and Marie Grubbe stood before him on the other
side of the wicket. After she turned into the side
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