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

thrown on land from the mouth of

the whale, and when he put his hand on them, he shuddered, declaring

he was sure to catch a cold if he should be so careless as to sit and

read with his elbows on the table.

 

When Marie questioned him, he explained that he had left Copenhagen on

account of the plague and meant to stay until it was over. He ate only

three times a day, and he could not stand salt meat or fresh bread. As

for the rest, he was a master of arts at present fellow at Borch’s

Collegium, and his name was Holberg, Ludvig Holberg.

 

Master Holberg was a very quiet man of remarkably youthful appearance.

At first glance he appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen years

old, but upon closer examination his mouth, his hands, and the

inflection of his voice showed that he must be a good deal older. He

kept to himself, spoke but little, and that little—so it seemed—with

reluctance. Not that he avoided other people, but he simply wanted

them to leave him in peace and not draw him into conversation. When

the ferry came and went with passengers or when the fishermen brought

in their catch, he liked to watch the busy life from a distance and to

listen to the discussions. He seemed to enjoy the sight of people at

work, whether it was ploughing or stacking or launching the boats, and

whenever anyone put forth an effort that showed more than common

strength, he would smile with pleasure and lift his shoulders in quiet

delight. When he had been at the Burdock House for a month, he began

to approach Marie Grubbe, or rather he allowed her to approach him,

and they would often sit talking in the warm summer evenings, for an

hour or two at a time in the common room, where they could look out

through the open door over the bright surface of the water to the

blue, hazy outlines of Moen.

 

One evening after their friendship had been well established, Marie

told him her story, and ended with a sigh because they had taken Soren

away from her.

 

“I must own,” said Holberg, “that I am utterly unable to comprehend

how you could prefer an ordinary groom and country oaf to such a

polished gentleman as his Excellency the Viceroy, who is praised by

everybody as a past master in all the graces of fashion, nay as the

model of everything that is elegant and pleasing.”

 

“Even though he had been as full of it as the book they call the

Alamodische Sittenbuch, it would not have mattered a rush, since I

had once for all conceived such an aversion and loathing for him that

I could scarce bear to have him come into my presence; and you know

how impossible it is to overcome such an aversion—so that if one had

the virtue and principles of an angel, yet this natural aversion would

be stronger. On the other hand, my poor present husband woke in me

such an instant and unlooked-for inclination that I could ascribe it

to nothing but a natural attraction which it would be in vain to

resist.”

 

“Ha! That were surely well reasoned! Then we have but to pack all

morality into a strong chest and send it to Hekkenfell and live on

according to the desires of our hearts, for then there is no lewdness

to be named but we can dress it up as a natural and irresistible

attraction, and in the same manner there is not one of all the virtues

but we can easily escape from the exercise of it; for one may have an

aversion for sobriety, one for honesty, one for modesty, and such a

natural aversion, he would say, is quite irresistible so one who feels

it is quite innocent. But you have altogether too clear an

understanding, goodwife, not to know that all this is naught but

wicked conceits and bedlam talk.”

 

Marie made no answer.

 

“But do you not believe in God, goodwife,” Master Holberg went on,

“and in the life everlasting?”

 

“Ay, God be praised, I do. I believe in our Lord.”

 

“But eternal punishment and eternal reward, goodwife?”

 

“I believe every human being lives his own life and dies his own

death; that is what I believe.”

 

“But that is no faith; do you believe we shall rise again from the

dead?”

 

“How shall I rise? As the young, innocent child I was when I first

came out among people, or as the honored and envied favorite of the

King and the ornament of the court, or as poor old hopeless Ferryman’s

Marie? And shall I answer for what the others, the child and the woman

in the fullness of life, have sinned, or shall one of them answer for

me? Can you tell me that, Master Holberg?”

 

“Yet you have had but one soul, goodwife!”

 

“Have I indeed?” asked Marie and sat musing for a while. “Let me speak

to you plainly, and answer me truly as you think. Do you believe that

one who his whole life has sinned grievously against God in heaven and

who in his last moment, when he is struggling with death, confesses

his sin from a true heart, repents, and gives himself over to the

mercy of God without fear and without doubt, do you think such a one

is more pleasing to God than another who has likewise sinned and

offended against Him but then for many years of her life has striven

to do her duty, has borne every burden without a murmur, but never in

prayer or open repentance has wept over her former life, do you think

that she who has lived as she thought was rightly lived but without

hope of any reward hereafter and without prayer, do you think God will

thrust her from Him and cast her out, even though she has never

uttered a word of prayer to Him?”

 

“That is more than any man may dare to say,” replied Master Holberg

and left her.

 

Shortly afterwards he went away.

 

In August of the following year judgment was pronounced against Soren

Ferryman, and he was sentenced to three years of hard labor in irons

at Bremerholm.

 

It was a long time to suffer, longer to wait, yet at last it was over.

Soren came home, but the confinement and harsh treatment had

undermined his health, and before Marie had nursed him for a year,

they bore him to the grave.

 

For yet another long, long year Marie had to endure this life. Then

she suddenly fell ill and died. Her mind was wandering during her

illness, and the pastor could neither pray with her nor give her the

sacrament.

 

On a sunny day in summer they buried her at Soren’s side, and over the

bright waters and the golden grain-fields sounded the hymn, as the

poor little group of mourners, dulled by the heat, sang without sorrow

and without thought:

 

“Lord God, in mercy hear our cry before Thee;

Thy bloody scourge lift from us, we implore Thee;

Turn Thou from us Thy wrath all men pursuing

For their wrongdoing.

 

“If Thou regard alone our vile offending,

If upon us true justice were descending,

Then must the earth and all upon it crumble,

Yea, proud and humble.”

 

THE END

 

NOTES

 

PREFATORY

 

The historical setting of Marie Grubbe centres around the siege of

Copenhagen, when the gallant resistance of the citizens saved the

national existence of Denmark. It was the turning point in a contest

extending over several generations. Christian the Fourth (1588—1648),

though a gifted and energetic monarch devoted throughout his long

reign to the welfare of his people and idolized by them, was unable to

stem the tide of Sweden’s advance, and by the peace of Bromsebro,

1645, the supremacy in the North passed definitely from Denmark to

Sweden. His son and successor, Frederik the Third (1648-1670), hoped

to regain what was lost, and seized the opportunity in 1657, when

Sweden was engaged elsewhere, to make the declaration of war which is

discussed in the opening chapter of Marie Grubbe, The attempt was

disastrous, and in 1658 he had to conclude the short-lived peace of

Roskilde, by which Denmark was still further shorn of her possessions.

Yet the Swedish king, Carl Gustaf, was not satisfied with the

punishment he had inflicted, and in the same year broke the peace

without warning. Kronborg fell easily into his hands, but in

Copenhagen he met unexpected resistance. Frederik the Third refused to

listen to prudent counsellors who advised him to flee. The suburbs

were burned and the ramparts hastily strengthened. For a year and a

half the citizens endured the siege and, with the aid of a mere

handful of soldiers, beat back the repeated attacks of the seasoned

Swedish warriors. Finally, after a furious fight in the night of

February 11, 1660, the enemy had to retire with great loss.

 

One effect of the war was to strengthen the King and the citizens and

to weaken correspondingly the overweening power of the nobility. The

States-General was called in September 1660, at the request of the

citizens of Copenhagen, but unfortunately they did not know how to

seize the golden moment and enact their temporary privileges into a

law of the realm. Frederik the Third, on the other hand, had his

programme ready. Egged on by his ambitious wife, the German princess

Sofie Amalie, he succeeded in making himself an absolute autocrat and

the crown hereditary in his line. He used his unlimited power wisely,

checked the nobility, and unified and strengthened the kingdom. His

policy was continued by his son, Christian the Fifth (1670—1699).

 

All the important characters in Marie Grubbe are historical, and

Jacobsen has followed the facts when known. Regarding the heroine

herself we have few data beyond what may be gleaned from the documents

in connection with her three marriages and two divorces; indeed, it

seems strange that a career so extraordinary should have elicited so

little comment from contemporaries. We do not even know how she met

her first husband, Ulrik Frederik Gyldenlove, but the fact that she,

a little country maiden from Jutland, could charm this experienced

gallant is sufficient testimony to her beauty. The bridegroom’s royal

father, Frederik the Third, was so pleased with the marriage that he

wrote a congratulatory poem in German which was printed on white

satin. We are told that she was clever in repartee and that even in

her old age she spoke French fluently. She died in 1718 “at a great

age, but in a very poor and miserable condition.” Her history has been

written by Severin Kjasr in his _Erik Grubbe til Tjele og hans tre

Dotre_ (1904), to which the translator is indebted for the notes

relating to the Grubbes and their connections. The notes about the

various old songs that occur in the text are condensed from those of

the author.

 

Page 8.

 

Tjele Manor is still standing, situated a few miles to the northeast

of Viborg. The south wing, a massive structure with walls ten feet

thick, dates from the thirteenth century. The main building was

erected in 1585 by Jorgen Skram and his wife Hilleborg Daa, whose arms

may be seen above the portal. The manor passed afterwards into the

hands of the Below family, from whom Erik Grubbe bought it in 1635.

It is a splendid edifice characterized by a stepped gable and some

interesting interior decorations. The estate at present is entailed in

the Luttichau family, and the owners have taken care to keep up and

extend the fine old garden. A lane of shade trees leads up to the

entrance.