Marie Grubbe - Jens Peter Jacobsen (best english novels for beginners .txt) 📗

danger that

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