Marie Grubbe, Jens Peter Jacobsen [historical books to read .TXT] 📗
- Author: Jens Peter Jacobsen
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Jens proceeded to the man at the folding table, who settled his face
in solemn folds and said, “I, Master Herman Koppen, executioner in the
town of Aarhus, take you in the presence of these honest men a
journeyman to be and a journeyman’s work to perform to the glory of
God, your own preferment, and the benefit of myself and the honorable
office of executioner,” and as he made this unnecessarily pompous
speech, which seemed to give him immense satisfaction, he pressed the
bright earnest-penny into Jens’s hand. Then he rose, took off his hat,
bowed, and asked whether he might not have the honor of offering the
honest men who had acted as witnesses a drink of half and half.
The three men at the long table looked inquiringly at one another,
then nodded as with one accord.
The barefoot girl brought a clumsy earthenware cruse and three green
glasses on which splotches of red and yellow stars were still visible.
She set the cruse down before Jens and the glasses before Soren and
the bear-baiters and fetched a large wooden mug from which she filled
first the glasses of the three honest men, then the earthenware cruse,
and finally Master Herman’s private goblet.
Rasmus drew his glass toward him and spat, the two others followed
suit, and they sat a while looking at one another as if none of them
liked to begin drinking. Meanwhile, Marie Grubbe came up to Soren and
whispered something in his ear to which he replied by shaking his
head. She tried to whisper again, but Soren would not listen. For a
moment she stood uncertain, then caught up the glass and emptied the
contents on the floor, saying that he mustn’t drink the hangman’s
liquor. Soren sprang up, seized her arm in a hard grip, and pushed her
out of the door, gruffly ordering her to go upstairs. Then he called
for a half pint of brandy and resumed his place.
“I’d like to ha’ seen my Abelone—God rest her soul—try a thing like
that on me,” said Rasmus, drinking.
“Ay,” said Salmand, “she can thank the Lord she isn’t my woman; I’d
ha’ given her somethin’ else to think o’ besides throwin’ the gifts o’
God in the dirt.”
“But look ‘ee, Salmand,” said Rasmus with a sly glance in Master
Herman’s direction, “your wife she isn’t a fine lady of the gentry;
she’s only a poor common thing like the rest of us, and so she gets
her trouncin’ when she needs it, as the custom is among common people;
but if instead she’d been one of the quality, you’d never ha’ dared
to flick her noble back; you’d ha’ let her spit you in the face if she
pleased.”
“No, by the Lord Harry, I wouldn’t,” swore Salmand; “I’d ha’ dressed
her down till she couldn’t talk or see, and I’d ha’ picked the
maggots out o’ her. You just ask mine if she knows the thin strap
bruin’s tied up in—you’ll see it’ll make her back ache just to
think of it. But if she’d tried to come as I’m sitting here and pour
my liquor on the floor, I’d ha’ trounced her if she was the emperor’s
own daughter, as long’s I could move a hand or there was breath in my
body. What is she thinking about,—the fine doll—does she think she
‘s better than anybody else’s wife since she’s got the impudence to
come here and put shame on her husband in the company of honest men?
Does she s’pose it ‘ud hurt her if you came near her after drinkin’
the liquor of this honorable man? Mind what I say, Soren, and”—he
made a motion as if he were beating someone—“or else you’ll never in
the wide world get any good out of her.”
“If he only dared,” teased Rasmus, looking at Soren.
“Careful, Squint, or I’ll tickle your hide.”
With that he left them. When he came into the room where Marie was, he
closed the door after him with a kick and began to untie the rope that
held their little bundle of clothing.
Marie was sitting on the edge of the rough board frame that served as
a bed. “Are you angry, Soren?” she said.
“I’ll show you,” said Soren.
“Have a care, Soren! No one yet has offered me blows since I came of
age, and I will not bear it.”
He replied that she could do as she pleased; he meant to beat her.
“Soren, for God’s sake, for God’s sake don’t lay violent hands on me;
you will repent it!”
But Soren caught her by the hair and beat her with the rope. She did
not cry out but merely moaned under the blows.
“There!” said Soren, and threw himself on the bed.
Marie lay still on the floor. She was utterly amazed at herself. She
expected to feel a furious hatred against Soren rising in her soul, an
implacable, relentless hatred, but no such thing happened. Instead
she felt a deep, gentle sorrow, a quiet regret at a hope that had
burst—how could he?
In May of sixteen hundred and ninety-five Erik Grubbe died at the age
of eighty-seven. The inheritance was promptly divided among his three
daughters, but Marie did not get much as the old man before his death
had issued various letters of credit in favor of the other two, thus
withdrawing from the estate the greater part of his property to the
disadvantage of Marie.
Even so, her portion was sufficient to make her and her husband
respectable folk instead of beggars, and with a little common sense
they might have secured a fair income to the end of their days.
Unluckily Soren made up his mind to become a horse-dealer, and it was
not long before he had squandered most of the money. Still there was
enough left so they could buy the Burdock House at the Falster ferry.
In the early days they had a hard time, and Marie often had to lend a
hand at the oars, but later on her chief task was to mind the alehouse
which was a part of the ferry privileges. On the whole, they were very
happy, for Marie still loved her husband above everything else in the
world, and though he would sometimes get drunk and beat her, she did
not take it much to heart. She realized that she had enrolled in a
class where such things were an everyday matter, and though she would
sometimes feel irritated, she would soon get over it by telling
herself that this man who could be so rough and hard was the same
Soren who had once shot a human being for her sake.
The people they ferried over were generally peasants and cattlemen,
but occasionally there would come someone who was a little higher up
in the world. One day Sti Hogh passed that way. Marie and her husband
rowed him across, and he sat in the stern of the boat where he could
talk with Marie, who had the oar nearest him. He recognized her at
once but showed no signs of surprise; perhaps he had known that he
would find her there. Marie had to look twice before she knew him,
for he was very much changed. His face was red and bloated, his eyes
were watery; his lower jaw dropped as if the corners of his mouth were
paralyzed, his legs were thin and his stomach hung down—in short, he
bore every mark of a life spent in stupefying debauchery of every
kind, and this had, as a matter of fact, been his chief pursuit ever
since he left Marie. As far as the external events went, he had for a
time been gentilhomme and maitre d’ hotel in the house of a royal
cardinal in Rome, had gone over to the Catholic Church, had joined his
brother, Just Hogh, then ambassador to Nimeguen, had been converted
back to the Lutheran religion again and returned to Denmark, where he
was living on the bounty of his brother.
“Is this,” he asked nodding in the direction of Soren—“is this the
one I foretold was to come after me?”
“Ay, he is the one,” said Marie hesitating a little, for she would
have preferred not to reply.
“And he is greater than I—was?” he went on, straightening himself in
his seat.
“Nay, you can’t be likened to him, your lordship,” she answered,
affecting the speech of a peasant woman.
“Oh, ay, so it goes—you and I have indeed cheapened ourselves—we’ve
sold ourselves to life for less pay than we had thought to, you in one
manner, I in another.”
“But your lordship is surely well enough off?” asked Marie in the same
simple tone.
“Well enough,” he laughed, “well enough is more than half ill; I am
indeed well enough off. And you, Marie?”
“Thank you kindly for asking; we’ve got our health, and when we keep
tugging at the oars every day, we’ve got bread and brandy too.”
They had reached land, and Sti stepped out and said good-by.
“Lord,” said Marie looking after him pityingly, “he’s certainly been
shorn of crest and wings too.”
Peacefully and quietly the days passed at the Burdock House with daily
work and daily gain. Little by little the pair improved their
condition, hired boatmen to do the ferrying, carried on a little
trade, and built a wing on their old house. They lived to the end of
the old century and ten years into the new. Marie turned sixty, and
she turned sixty-five, and still she was as brisk and merry at her
work as if she had been on the sunny side of sixty. But then it
happened, on her sixty-eighth birthday in the spring of seventeen
hundred and eleven, that Soren accidentally shot and killed a skipper
from Dragor under very suspicious circumstances and in consequence was
arrested.
This was a hard blow to Marie. She had to endure a long suspense for
judgment was not pronounced until midsummer of the following year, and
this, together with her anxiety lest the old affair of his attempt on
the life of Anne Trinderup should be taken up again, aged her very
much.
One day in the beginning of this period of waiting, Marie went down to
meet the ferry just as it was landing. There were two passengers on
board, and one of these, a journeyman, absorbed her attention by
refusing to show his passport, declaring that he had shown it to the
boatmen when he went on board, which they, however, denied. When she
threatened to charge him full fare unless he would produce his
passport as proof of his right as a journeyman to travel for half
price, he had to give in. This matter being settled, Marie turned to
the other passenger, a little slender man who stood pale and shivering
after the seasickness he had just endured, wrapped in his mantle of
coarse, greenish-black stuff and leaning against the side of a boat
that had been dragged up on the beach. He asked in a peevish voice
whether he could get lodgings in the Burdock House, and Marie replied
that he might look at their spare room.
She showed him a little chamber which besides bed and chair, contained
a barrel of brandy with funnel and waste-cup, some large kegs of
molasses and vinegar, and a table with legs painted in pearl-color and
a top of square tiles on which scenes from the Old and New Testament
were drawn in purplish black. The stranger at once noticed that three
of the tiles represented Jonah being
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