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

had admitted

these people into his company, and for a while they amused him, but

when the whole thing began to pall and seem rather disgusting and when

furthermore he felt some faint stirrings of remorse, he had to justify

himself by pretending that such means had been necessary. He actually

made himself believe that he had been pursuing a plan in order to

bring Marie Grubbe back repentant. Unfortunately, her penitence did

not seem to be forthcoming, and so he had recourse to harsher measures

in the hope that, by making her life as miserable as possible, he

would beat down her resistance. That she had really ceased to love him

he never believed for a moment. He was convinced that in her heart she

longed to throw herself into his arms, though she used his returning

love as a good chance to avenge herself for his faithlessness. Nor did

he begrudge her this revenge; he was pleased that she wanted it, if

she had only not dragged it out so long. He was getting bored in this

barbarous land of Norway!

 

He had a sneaking feeling that it might have been wiser to have let

Karen Fiol stay in Copenhagen, but he simply could not endure the

others any longer; moreover, jealousy was a powerful ally, and Marie

Grubbe had once been jealous of Karen; that he knew.

 

Time passed, and still Marie Grubbe did not come. He began to doubt

that she ever would, and his love grew with his doubt. Something of

the excitement of a game or a chase had entered into their relation.

It was with an anxious mind and with a calculating fear that he heaped

upon her one mortification after another, and he waited in suspense

for even the faintest sign that his quarry was being driven into the

right track, but nothing happened.

 

Ah, at last! At last something came to pass, and he was certain that

it was the sign, the very sign he had been waiting for. One day when

Karen had been more than ordinarily impudent, Marie Grubbe took a good

strong bridle rein in her hand, walked through the house to the room

where Karen just then was taking her after-dinner nap, fastened the

door from within, and gave the dumbfounded strumpet a good beating

with the heavy strap, then went quietly back to the western parlor

past the speechless servants who had come running at the sound of

Karen’s screams.

 

Ulrik Frederik was downtown when it happened. Karen sent a messenger

to him at once, but he did not hurry, and it was late afternoon before

Karen, anxiously waiting, heard his horse in the courtyard. She ran

down to meet him, but he put her aside quietly and firmly and went

straight up to Marie Grubbe.

 

The door was ajar—then she must be out. He stuck his head in, sure of

finding the room empty, but she was there, sitting at the window

asleep. He stepped in as softly and carefully as he could, for he was

not quite sober.

 

The low September sun was pouring a stream of yellow and golden light

through the room, lending color and richness to its poor tints. The

plastered walls took on the whiteness of swans, the brown timbered

ceiling glowed as copper, and the faded curtains around the bed were

changed to wine-red folds and purple draperies. The room was flooded

with light; even in the shadows it gleamed as through a shimmering

mist of autumn yellow leaves. It spun a halo of gold around Marie

Grubbe’s head and kissed her white forehead, but her eyes and mouth

were in deep shadow cast by the yellowing apple tree which lifted to

the window branches red with fruit.

 

She was asleep sitting in a chair, her hands folded in her lap. Ulrik

Frederik stole up to her on tiptoe, and the glory faded as he came

between her and the window.

 

He scanned her closely. She was paler than before. How kind and gentle

she looked as she sat there, her head bent back, her lips slightly

parted, her white throat uncovered and bare! He could see the pulse

throbbing on both sides of her neck, right under the little brown

birthmark. His eyes followed the line of the firm, rounded shoulder

under the close-fitting silk, down the slender arm to the white,

passive hand. And that hand was his! He saw the fingers closing over

the brown strap, the white blue-veined arm growing tense and bright,

then relaxing and softening after the blow it dealt Karen’s poor back.

He saw her jealous eyes gleaming with pleasure, her angry lips curling

in a cruel smile at the thought that she was blotting out kiss after

kiss with the leather rein. And she was his! He had been harsh and

stern and ruthless; he had suffered these dear hands to be wrung with

anguish and these dear lips to open in sighing.

 

His eyes took on a moist lustre at the thought, and he felt suffused

with the easy, indolent pity of a drunken man. He stood there staring

in sottish sentimentality until the rich flood of sunlight had shrunk

to a thin bright streak high among the dark rafters of the ceiling.

 

Then Marie Grubbe awoke.

 

“You!” she almost screamed as she jumped up and darted back so quickly

that the chair tumbled along the floor.

 

“Marie!” said Ulrik Frederik as tenderly as he could, and held out his

hands pleadingly to her.

 

“What brings you here? Have you come to complain of the beating your

harlot got?”

 

“No, no, Marie; let’s be friends—good friends!”

 

“You are drunk,” she said coldly, turning away from him.

 

“Ay, Marie, I’m drunk with love of you—I’m drunk and dizzy with

your beauty, my heart’s darling.”

 

“Yes, truly, so dizzy that your eyesight has failed you, and you have

taken others for me.”

 

“Marie, Marie, leave your jealousy!”

 

She made a contemptuous gesture as if to brush him aside.

 

“Indeed, Marie, you were jealous. You betrayed yourself when you took

that bridle rein, you know. But now let the whole filthy rabble be

forgotten as dead and given over to the devil. Come, come, cease

playing unkind to me as I have played the faithless rogue to you with

all these make-believe pleasures and gallantries. We do nothing but

prepare each other a pit of hell whereas we might have an Eden of

delight. Come, whatever you desire, it shall be yours. Would you dance

in silks as thick as chainlet, would you have pearls in strings as

long as your hair, you shall have them, and rings, and tissue of gold

in whole webs, and plumes, and precious stones, whatever you

will—nothing is too good to be worn by you.”

 

He tried to put his arm around her waist, but she caught his wrist and

held him away from her.

 

“Ulrik Frederik,” she said, “let me tell you something. If you could

wrap your love in ermine and marten, if you could clothe it in sable

and crown it with gold, ay, give it shoes of purest diamond, I would

cast it away from me like filth and dung, for I hold it less than the

ground I tread with my feet. There’s no drop of my blood that’s fond

of you, no fibre of my flesh that doesn’t cry out upon you. Do you

hear? There’s no corner of my soul where you’re not called names.

Understand me aright! If I could free your body from the pangs of

mortal disease and your soul from the fires of hell by being as yours,

I would not do it.”

 

“Yes, you would, woman, so don’t deny it!”

 

“No, and no, and more than no!”

 

“Then begone! Out of my sight in the accursed name of hell!”

 

He was white as the wall and shook in every limb. His voice sounded

hoarse and strange, and he beat the air like a madman.

 

“Take your foot from my path! Take your—take your—take your foot

from my path, or I’ll split your skull! My blood’s lusting to kill,

and I’m seeing red. Begone—out of the land and dominion of Norway,

and hell-fire go with you! Begone—”

 

For a moment Marie stood looking at him in horror, then ran as fast as

she could out of the room and away from the castle.

 

When the door slammed after her, Ulrik Frederik seized the chair in

which she had been sitting when he came in and hurled it out of the

window, then caught the curtains from the bed and tore the worn stuff

into shreds and tatters, storming round the room all the while. He

threw himself on the floor and crawled around, snarling like a wild

beast, and pounding with his fists till the knuckles were bloody.

Exhausted at last, he crept over to the bed and flung himself face

downward in the pillows, called Marie tender names, and wept and

sobbed and cursed her, then again began to talk in low, wheedling

tones as if he were fondling her.

 

That same night Marie Grubbe for fair words and good pay got a skipper

to sail with her to Denmark.

 

The following day Ulrik Frederik turned Karen Fiol out of the castle,

and a few days later he himself left for Copenhagen.