he was silent for a while. then he turned his face towards her:
“he does not live in his first eager longing for the trysting-hour, but confidently seeks his accustomed couch by her side. custom has gently bound the two people into one family. is that not beautiful, adelheid? and good?”
[89]“yes,” she said. “it is beautiful, as you tell it. but it is not youth.”
“then what is youth, adelheid?”
“youth is not rest.”
“then one should not marry before one is old,” said cordt. “for marriage is rest. deep, powerful, happy ... generating rest.”
“no more one should,” replied fru adelheid. “and that is why i could wish i were your mistress.”
she looked at him, as she said this, and he at her.
then he stood up and laid his hand on the back of her chair and bent close down to her:
“how far estranged from each other we have become!” he said.
and fru adelheid nodded sadly and cordt crossed the room and stood by the fire again:
“in vain i pitch my call in every key,”[90] he said. “it has availed me nothing that my ancestor built this room ... his heirs have borne witness here, generation after generation, to no purpose.”
a gust of wind came and blew the balcony-door open.
fru adelheid shuddered and looked that way, while cordt went and closed it. then he remained standing by the celestial globe and pressed the spring:
“i so often think of the poor man who placed this toy up here,” he said. “he was a man who could not be content with the circle in which he moved. so he lost his reason and devoted himself to playing with the stars.... for us modern people it is different ... the other way round. we go mad because the circle in which we move is too large. we leave the stars to the babies. we play ball with bigger things. we try a fall with god himself, if the fancy takes us ... provided[91] that we have not outgrown that plaything too! we dare not speak of love and we smile at marriage. we despise courage and do not believe in honesty and each of us has his own opinion about virtue.”
she heard what he said even as people listen to music when it does not so very much matter if they catch every note.
“then it happens that we long for a fixed point in our lives ... just one point. something that cannot be pulled to pieces and discussed. and something that is not past.”
cordt sat and moved about in his chair and could not settle down:
“if i were to put anything in this room,” he said, “it would be a little tiny house ... from far away in the country. there would be only one door and two windows and it would be evening and the smoke would rise up gently from the[92] chimney. the house would have to be as small as could be; but that would show that there was no room for doubt inside it. husband and wife would go in and out of the door to the end of their days.”
now she heard what he said and looked at him.
“that is what my marriage ought to be, adelheid. if i had had any talent, i daresay it would have been different. or if i had to work for my bread.... and i am no different from other men of to-day ... no stronger, no braver. i know nothing about god and i have no excessive belief in men.”
he had lowered his voice and spoke without looking at her. but she understood that he was listening for a word from her and her heart wept because she had nothing to say to him.
“my fixed point,” he said.
[93]then he was silent for a little. but, soon after, he rose and stood with his arm on the back of her chair and spoke again:
“there was also something in what i used to see at home. father and mother were so kind ... and so strong. i see them before me now, as they used to kiss each other after dinner, however numerous the company might be. and they kissed each other good-morning and good-night until they died. and when father and his brother met in the street, they always kissed ... people used to laugh ... and it was such a pretty habit.”
while he spoke, she sought for an opportunity to interrupt him.
“my family-feeling has always been too strong,” he said. “until now. and yet ... i once had a sweetheart....”
he stopped. fru adelheid sat up and looked at him. her eyes shone.
[94]“or a connection, if you like....”
“you never told me about that!” she said.
cordt raised his head and looked at her and she lowered her eyes.
“there is nothing to tell,” he said.
then he said no more, but went to the window and stood there.
and fru adelheid again felt small and ill at ease in the big old chair.
he listened, with his face turned to the fire.
“i am sure that there is not a man who can understand that,” she said.
and then she lay down on the floor, with her chin on the fender ... and her eyes shone:
[77]“a woman is young for so short a time,” she said. “and she is always dreading that it will pass. can’t you understand, when she suddenly suspects that there is something greater than the greatest ... and then, when she is sad and afraid ... that then it may suddenly dawn upon her that all is not over yet?”
cordt laughed:
“it is a poor pleasure to be the greatest when there is something greater still,” he said.
but fru adelheid shook her head:
“it’s not like that, cordt,” she said.
he pushed back his chair and walked up and down many times and it was silent in the room. then he sat down again beside her and said:
“what you say is true. but it was in you and i am glad i showed it to you. i could not do differently, when i once[78] saw it. i cannot go and wait until another man knocks at the secret door of your heart and offers you the greatest of all.”
she laid her cheek against the fender and looked at him:
“no, cordt,” she said. “if it is like that, then what i said was not true.”
he waved his hand and shook his head impatiently:
“not to-day or to-morrow,” he said. “but in a year, or two years, or ten. and, if it does not happen, then it is only an accident.”
then she moved nearer to him and laid her head on his knee. she looked up to see if he minded. but he was far away in his thoughts and did not notice it.
she suddenly felt peaceful and contented. she was glad that she had got it said. she felt as if it was removed to a distance ... perhaps it was quite gone[79] ... she could not understand why he continued to speak of it.
and what he said about another man seemed so far to her and so impossible. she thought about it as though it concerned somebody else:
“i love you, cordt,” she said. “and, if, one day, another man came and i loved him ... could i help it?”
he sprang up so suddenly that she had to seize the arm of the chair lest she should fall:
“no,” he said, scornfully. “you could not.”
he rushed through the room and repeated his words three or four times. fru adelheid rose from the floor and sat down in her chair and closed her eyes.
“the man who hit upon that excuse did a fine day’s work,” said cordt. “he drove out of the world a great portion of men’s strength to live their lives.”
[80]he threw himself so violently into his chair that fru adelheid started. then he sat long quiet and she was glad that he was silent.
“why should one not be able to control one’s heart?” he said, at last. “suppose i have a wife and child; and my wife is she whom i myself chose. then, one day, i meet another woman, who rouses my desires. i meet her at a party, where there are lights and wine and music ... we are not ourselves, she and i ... we are in another mood than usual ... everything is done to lead us from the way by which we go on ordinary days. but why should i not be able to step aside, in loyal gratitude for that which i possess?”
she opened her eyes at intervals and closed them again. she heard what he said, but did not realize that he was speaking to her.
[81]“who is it that placed love outside the laws? if i take it into my head to kill a fellow-creature, there is no doubt but that i am indulging a most criminal fancy. if i have given my word and think of breaking it, i am no gentleman. but my heart may do as it pleases.”
“yes,” said fru adelheid.
she was thinking of nothing when she spoke and he did not hear her.
“there are people, we know, who have the right to send thousands to their death,” he said. “there are people whose passion rises skywards in red flames and devours the poor chattels that stand in its way and lights up all the land. poets sing about it and a wax taper burns before its image in every human heart. but, if a man plays the napoleon in the store bröndstræde, we hang him ... why should every second woman be entitled to look upon herself as an héloïse?”
[82]he sank into his chair and stared before him:
“i am not sure either whether the radiance of the one great flame makes up for the thousand tiny lights that are put out. does any one know, i wonder? can any one measure it?”
fru adelheid moved and cordt turned his face to her and looked at her attentively. her eyes were soft and dreamy; she smiled faintly, like a drowsy child.
“and if that be so,” he said, in a subdued voice, “if it be the case that i am not able to control my heart....” he let his head fall heavily on the arm of the chair. “if it be the case that love makes me happy and confident, so that i build my life and the life of my family upon it ... if it can then expire, without my knowing how or why, and i have to look for the mother of my children in a strange man’s bed, then why do i let[83] my wife go out in the street unveiled? why do i not lock her up, as the turk does? or why do we not kill the mother when the child is born?”
he rose and walked round the room and grew calmer as he walked:
“but it is not so,” he said. “let the great keep their greatness ... let the poets celebrate them and the puny moderns ape them in their wretched way. and may there always be women who cannot give themselves more than once and men who love them.”
he stood by the fire and looked through the room. it was still on every side; the church-clock struck two.
“see, adelheid,” he said, “how life passes more and more into law’s domain. every day, the liberty of the one is taken for an encroachment upon the rights of the other. every day, land, hitherto free of law, is regulated by law. flowers beget[84] no flowers without the gardener’s consent; animals no longer select their own mates. but no one can control his heart; and human beings pair like dogs in the street.”
the fire had burnt out when cordt woke from his musings.
he saw that fru adelheid was asleep. he stood before her a long time, sick with compassion for her and for himself.
then he stroked her gently on the hair:
“it is late ... adelheid.”
