The Dangerous Age Part 12

We have eaten ravenously, like wolves. For the first time Jeanne sat at table with me and shared my meal. For the first and probably for the last time. Torp opened her eyes very wide, but she was careful to make no observations.

My fit of madness to-night has taught me that the sooner I have a man of some kind to protect the house the better.

Jeanne has confided in me. She was too upset to sleep, and came knocking at my bedroom door, asking if she might come in. I gave her permission, although I was already in bed. She sat at the foot of my bed and told me her story. It is so remarkable that I must set in down on paper.

Now I understand her nice hands and all her ways. I understand, too, how it came about that I found her one day turning over the pages of a volume by Anatole France, as though she could read French.

Her parents had been married twelve years when she was born. When she was thirteen they celebrated their silver wedding. Until that moment in her life she had grown up in the belief that they were a perfectly united couple. The father was a chemist in a small town, and they lived comfortably. The silver wedding festivities took place in their own house. At dinner the girl drank some wine and felt it had gone to her head. She left the table, saying to her mother, "I am going to lie down in my room for a little while." But on the way she turned so giddy that she went by mistake into a spare room that was occupied by a cavalry officer, a cousin of her mother's. Too tired to go a step farther, she fell asleep on a sofa in the darkened room. A little later she woke, and heard the sounds of music and dancing downstairs, but felt no inclination to join in the gaiety. Presently she dropped off again, and when she roused for the second time she was aware of whispers near her couch. In the first moment of awakening she felt ashamed of being caught there by some of the guests. She held her breath and lay very still.

Then she recognized her mother's voice. After a few minutes she grasped the truth.... Her mother, whom she wors.h.i.+pped, and this officer, whom she admired in a childish way!

They lit the candles. She forced herself to lie motionless, and feigned to be fast asleep. She heard her mother's exclamation of horror: "Jeanne!" And the captain's words:

"Thank goodness she is sleeping like a log!"

Her mother rearranged her disordered hair, and they left the room.

After a few minutes she returned with a lamp, calling out:

"Jeanne, where are you, child? We have been searching all over the house!"

Her pretended astonishment when she discovered the girl made the whole scene more painful to Jeanne. But gathering up her self-control as best she could, she succeeded in replying:

"I am so tired: let me have my sleep out."

Her mother bent over her and kissed her several times. The child felt as though she would die while submitting to these caresses.

This one hour, with its cruel enlightenment, sufficed to destroy Jeanne's joy in life for ever. At the same time it filled her mind with impure thoughts that haunted her night and day. She matured precociously in the atmosphere of her own despair.

There was no one in whom she could confide; alone she bore the weight of a double secret, either of which was enough to crush her youth.

She could not bear to look her mother in the face. With her father, too, she felt ill at ease, as though she had in some way wronged him.

Everything was soiled for her. She had but one desire; to get away from home.

About two years later her mother was seized with fatal illness. Jeanne could not bring herself to show her any tenderness. The piteous glance of the dying woman followed all her comings and goings, but she pretended not to see it. Once, when her father was out of the room, her mother called Jeanne to the bedside:

"You know?" she asked.

Jeanne only nodded her head in reply.

"Child, I am dying, forgive me."

But Jeanne moved away from the bed without answering the appeal.

No sooner had the doctor p.r.o.nounced life to be extinct than she felt a strange anxiety. In her great desire to atone in some way for her past harshness, the girl resolved that, no matter what befell her, she would do her best to hide the truth from her father.

That night she entered the room where the dead woman lay, and ransacked every box and drawer until she found the letters she was seeking. They were at the bottom of her mother's jewel-case. Quickly she took possession of them; but just as she was replacing the case in its accustomed place, her father came in, having heard her moving about. She could offer no explanation of her presence, and had to listen in silence to his bitter accusation: "Are you so crazy about trinkets that you cannot wait until your poor mother is laid in her grave?"

In the course of that year one of the chemist's apprentices seduced her.

But she laughed in his face when he spoke of marriage. Later on she ran away with a commercial traveller, and neither threats nor persuasion would induce her to return home.

After this, more than once she sought in some fleeting connection a happiness which never came to her. The only pleasure she got out of her adventures was the power of dressing well. When at last she saw that she was not made for this disorderly life, she obtained a situation in a German family travelling to the south of Europe.

There she remained until homesickness drove her back to Denmark. Her complete lack of ambition accounts for her being contented in this modest situation.

She never made any inquiries about her father, and only knows that he left his money to other people, which does not distress her in the least. Her sole reason for going on living is that she shrinks from seeking death voluntarily.

I wonder if there exists a man who could save her? A man who could make her forget the bitterness of the past? She a.s.sures me I am the only human being who has ever attracted her. If I were a man she would be devoted to me and sacrifice everything for my sake.

It is a strange case. But I am very sorry for the girl. I have never come across such a peculiar mixture of coldness and ardour.

When she had finished her story she went away very quietly. And I am convinced that to-morrow things will go on just as before. Neither of us will make any further allusion to the fog, nor to all that followed it.

SPRING.

I am driven mad by all this singing and playing! One would think the steamboats were driven by the force of song, and that atrocious orchestras were a new kind of motive power. From morning till night there is no cessation from patriotic choruses and folk-songs.

Sometimes The Sound looks like a huge drying-ground in which all these red and white sails are spread out to air.

How I wish these pleasure-boats were birds! I would buy a gun and practise shooting, in the hopes of killing a few. But this is the close season.... The princ.i.p.al thoroughfares of a large town could hardly be more bustling than the sea just now--the sea that in winter was as silent and deserted as a graveyard.

People begin to trespa.s.s in my forest and to prowl round my garden. I see their inquisitive faces at my gates. I think I must buy a dog to frighten them away. But then I should have to put up with his howling after some dear and distant female friend.

How that gardener enrages me! His eyes literally twinkle with sneaky thoughts. I would give anything to get rid of him.

But he moves so well! Never in my life have I seen a man with such a walk, and he knows it, and knows too that I cannot help looking at him when he pa.s.ses by.

Torp is bewitched. She prepares the most succulent viands in his honour.

Her French cookery book is daily in requisition, and, judging from the savoury smells which mount from the bas.e.m.e.nt, he likes his food well seasoned.

Fortunately he is nothing to Jeanne, although she does notice the way he walks from his hips, and his fine carriage.

Midday is the pleasantest hour now. Then the sea is quiet and free from trippers. Even the birds cease to sing, and the gardener takes his sleep. Jeanne sits on the verandah, as I have given her permission to do, with some little piece of sewing. She is making artificial roses with narrow pink ribbon; a delightful kind of work.

DEAR PROFESSOR ROTHE,