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

was a

servant. Marie was in Lucie’s confidence and was pleased and grateful

for it, but Lucie was not in her confidence. She could not tell her

troubles to the maid. Nor could she bear to have the fact of her

unfortunate position put into words or hear a servant discuss her

unhappy family affairs. She would not even brook a word of criticism

against her aunt, though she certainly did not love her father’s

kinswoman and had no reason to love her.

 

Rigitze Grubbe held the theories of her time on the salutary effects

of harsh discipline, and she set herself to bring up Marie

accordingly. She had never had any children of her own, and she was

not only a very impatient foster-mother but also clumsy, for mother

love had never taught her the useful little arts that smooth the way

for teacher and pupil. Yet a severe training might have been very good

for Marie. The lack of watchful care in her home had allowed one side

of her nature to grow almost too luxuriantly, while the other had been

maimed and stunted by capricious cruelty, and she might have felt it a

relief to be guided in the way she should go by the hard and steady

hand of one who in all common sense could wish her nothing but good.

 

Yet she was not so guided. Mistress Rigitze had so many irons in the

fire of politics and court intrigue that she was often away for days,

and when at home she would be so preoccupied that Marie did with

herself and her time what she pleased. When Mistress Rigitze had a

moment to spare for the child, the very consciousness of her own

neglect made her doubly irritable. The whole relation therefore wore

to Marie an utterly unreasonable aspect and was fitted to give her the

notion that she was an outcast whom all hated and none loved.

 

As she stood at the window looking out over the city, this sense of

forlornness came over her again. She leaned her head against the

casement and lost herself in contemplation of the slowly gliding

clouds.

 

She understood what Lucie had said about the pain of longing. It was

like something burning inside of you, and there was nothing to do but

to let it burn and burn—how well she knew it! What would come of it

all? One day just like another—nothing, nothing—nothing to look

forward to. Could it last? Yes, for a long time yet! Even when she

had passed sixteen? But things did happen to other people! At least

she wouldn’t go on wearing a child’s cap after she was sixteen; sister

Anne Marie hadn’t—she had been married. Marie remembered the noisy

carousing at the wedding long after she had been sent to bed—and the

music. Well, at least she could be married. But to whom? Perhaps to

the brother of her sister’s husband. To be sure, he was frightfully

ugly, but if there was nothing else for it—No, that certainly was

nothing to look forward to. Was there anything? Not that she could

see.

 

She left the window, sat down by the table thoughtfully, and began to

write:

 

My loving greeting always in the name of Our Lord, dear Anne Marie,

good sister and friend! God keep you always and be praised for His

mercies. I have taken upon myself to write pour vous congratuler

inasmuch as you have been fortunately delivered of child and are now

restored to good health. Dear sister, I am well and hearty. Our Aunt,

as you know, lives in much splendor, and we often have company,

chiefly gentlemen of the court, and with the exception of a few old

dames, none visit us but men folks. Many of them have known our

blessed mother and praise her beauty and virtue. I always sit at table

with the company, but no one speaks to me except Ulrik Frederik, whom

I would prefer to do without, for he is ever given to bantering and

raillerie rather than sensible conversation. He is yet young and is

not in the best repute; ‘tis said he frequents both taverns and

alehouses and the like. Now I have nothing new to tell except that

today we have an assembly, and he is coming. Whenever I speak French

he laughs very much and tells me that it is a hundred years old, which

may well be, for Pastor Jens was a mere youth at the time of his

travels. Yet he gives me praise because I put it together well, so

that no lady of the court can do it better, he says, but this I

believe to be but compliments, about which I care nothing. I have had

no word from Tjele. Our Aunt cannot speak without cursing and

lamenting of the enormity that our dear father should live as he does

with a female of such lowly extraction. I grieve sorely, but that

gives no boot for bane. You must not let Stycho see this letter, but

give him greeting from my heart. September 1657.

 

Your dear sister,

 

MARIE GRUBBE.

 

The honorable Mistress Anne Marie Grubbe, consort of Stycho Hoegh of

Gjordslev, my good friend and sister, written in all loving-kindness.

 

The guests had risen from the table and entered the drawing room,

where Lucie was passing the golden Dantzig brandy. Marie had taken

refuge in a bay window, half hidden by the full curtains. Ulrik

Frederik went over to her, bowed with exaggerated deference, and with

a very grave face expressed his disappointment at having been seated

so far from mademoiselle at the table. As he spoke, he rested his

small brown hand on the windowsill. Marie looked at it and blushed

scarlet.

 

“Pardon, Mademoiselle, I see that you are flushing with anger. Permit

me to present my most humble service! Might I make so bold as to ask

how I have had the misfortune to offend you?”

 

“Indeed I am neither flushed nor angry.”

 

“Ah, so ‘tis your pleasure to call that color white? Bien! But then I

would fain know by what name you designate the rose commonly known as

red!”

 

“Can you never say a sensible word?”

 

“Hm—let me see—ay, it has happened, I own, but rarely—

 

Doch Chloe, Chloe zurne nicht!

Toll brennet deiner Augen Licht

Mich wie das Hundsgestirn die Hunde,

Und Worte schaumen mir vom Munde

Dem Geifer gleich der Wasserscheu—”

 

“Forsooth, you may well say that!”

 

“Ach, Mademoiselle, ‘tis but little you know of the power of Eros!

Upon my word there are nights when I have been so lovesick I have

stolen down through the Silk Yard and leaped the balustrade into

Christen Skeel’s garden, and there I’ve stood like a statue among

fragrant roses and violets till the languishing Aurora has run her

fingers through my locks.”

 

“Ah, Monsieur, you were surely mistaken when you spoke of Eros; it

must have been Evan—and you may well go astray when you’re brawling

around at night-time. You’ve never stood in Skeel’s garden; you’ve

been at the sign of Mogens in Cappadocia among bottles and Rhenish

wineglasses, and if you’ve been still as a statue, it’s been something

besides dreams of love that robbed you of the power to move your

legs.”

 

“You wrong me greatly! Though I may go to the vintner’s house

sometimes, ‘tis not for pleasure nor revelry but to forget the gnawing

anguish that afflicts me.”

 

“Ah!”

 

“You have no faith in me; you do not trust to the constancy of my

amour! Heavens! Do you see the eastern louver-window in St. Nikolaj?

For three long days have I sat there gazing at your fair countenance,

as you bent over your broidery frame.”

 

“How unlucky you are! You can scarce open your mouth but I can catch

you in loose talk. I never sit with my broidery frame toward St.

Nikolaj. Do you know this rigmarole?

 

‘T was black night;

Troll was in a plight,

For man held him tight.

To the troll said he:

‘If you would be free,

Then teach me quick

Without guile or trick,

One word of perfect truth.’

 

Up spake the troll: ‘In sooth!’

Man let him go.

None on earth, I trow,

Could call troll liar for saying so.”

 

Ulrik Frederik bowed deferentially and left her without a word.

 

She looked after him as he crossed the room. He did walk gracefully.

His silk hose fitted him without fold or wrinkle. How pretty they were

at the ankle, where they met the long, narrow shoe! She liked to look

at him. She had never before noticed that he had a tiny pink scar in

his forehead.

 

Furtively she glanced at her own hands and made a slight grimace—the

fingers seemed to her too short.