cordt stood on the threshold and waited, but then closed the door and went to the fire.
he was in dress-clothes and tired and pale and his eyes were bright with wine. when he had been sitting for a little while, it grew too warm for him and he drew his chair to the balcony-door. there he sat and let his hands play with the red flowers.
fru adelheid did not see him when she entered.
she moved slowly and stopped in the middle of the room, when she discovered that he was not by the fireplace. she was surprised at this, but soon forgot it, in her gayety and her lingering excitement at the evening’s entertainment, with her[96] mind full of bright and clever phrases and the lights gleaming in her great eyes.
she sat down to the spinet and laid her forehead against the keys. something was singing inside her; her foot softly beat the carpet.
then she sought among the music and sang:
lenore, my heart is wrung.
thine is so dauntless, thine is so young.
tell me, lenore, the truth confessing
(which never were mine by guessing):
whence do thy soul’s fresh fountains pour?
where the mountains dip or the valleys soar?
tell me, the truth confessing;
open to me youth’s door.
lenore, my heart is sad.
thine is so constant, thine is so glad.
teach me thine equable gait to borrow;
teach me laughter and sorrow.
my heart is a desert, sterile and bare;
my heart is thine: do thou whisper there
of a fount that shall flood to-morrow,
of a sun that shall gild god’s air.
[97]she put one hand on the music-sheet and played with the other and hummed the tune again.
then cordt clapped his hands in applause. she started and her hand fell heavily on the keyboard:
“how you frightened me, cordt!”
he came and stood beside the spinet. fru adelheid looked at his face and sighed. then she stood up, put the music away and went and sat in a chair by the fireplace:
“won’t you come here, cordt?”
cordt walked to and fro again and up and down.
“sit down here for a little,” she said.
“why should i?” he asked. “you are not here, you know.”
she looked up and met his calm eyes.
“you are still down below, among the crowd of our guests. don’t you know that, adelheid? they are all empty carriages[98] that drove out at the gate. for, as each one came to shake hands and say good-bye, you entreated him to stay a little longer.”
fru adelheid sighed and crossed her hands in her lap. he stood up by the fireplace so that he could see her face.
“i was sitting over there among the flowers, when you came in, and i saw it all. you entered with a gleam and a rustle, accompanied by the whole throng ... you were the fairest of them all. by your side went martens, supple and handsome. a long way after came his wife ... the woman who wears those tired eyes and that painful smile. she did not even look to see to whom he was offering his homage.”
she puckered her forehead and looked at him angrily.
“then he begged you to sing the song once more and they crowded round you[99] and added their entreaties to his. you crossed the floor ... with your slow, sure gait.... you always walk in the same way, adelheid ... like one who is not to be stopped. your white dress trailed behind you; there was silence in the room.”
cordt ceased for a moment. fru adelheid laid her head back in the chair and closed her eyes.
“then you sang ... his song ... the one you were singing a minute ago at the old spinet.... yes, you heard me applauding, adelheid. he stood beside you and looked at you ... deferentially, happily. and you looked at him to read in his eyes how charming you were.”
“how wicked you make it all seem!” she said.
cordt bent over her:
“look at me, adelheid.”
she looked at him and was afraid.
[100]“how dare you come up here with your retinue?” he asked. “up here ... to me ... in this room? look at me, adelheid. is there not room enough in the house besides? are there not a hundred houses in the town where you can play the game you love?”
fru adelheid stretched out her hands to him:
“cordt!”
but his eyes were large and stern and she could not bear to look into them.
then she rose and stood before him with bowed head:
“shall i go, cordt?” she asked, softly.
he did not answer, but crossed the room. and fru adelheid sat down on the edge of the big chair, as if she were not at home in the room.
“yes ... martens,” he said.
“you were not at all friendly to him this evening, cordt.”
[101]she said this in order to say something and without thinking, but regretted it at the same moment and looked at him dejectedly. but he made a gesture with his hand and answered, calmly:
“indeed i was. as friendly as he could wish and a great deal more so than i feel.”
he stood by the mantel and looked down before him. she took his hand and laid her cheek against it:
“martens is nothing to me,” she said.
“no,” said cordt. “not really. it is not the man ... it is men. it has not gone so far as that. but it has gone farther.”
“i don’t understand you,” she said, sadly.
“it is not a man, a good man or a bad one, that is wooing your heart and has won or is trying to win it. martens is not my rival. he does not love you and[102] he is not trying to make you believe that he is. he does not lie. that is not called for nowadays, except among the lower classes. with us, we rarely see so much as the shade of a scandal. whence should we derive the strength that is needed for a rupture, a separation, a flight from society? it’s a soldier that tells his girl that she is his only love ... a journeyman smith that kills his faithless sweetheart ... a farm-girl that drowns herself when her lover jilts her for another.”
he drew away his hand and folded his arms across his chest.
“martens is no don juan. it is not his passion that infatuates women, not his manly courage and strength that wins them. he carries his desires to the back-streets; he takes his meals with his wife. he cannot love. the women become his when he covets them, but he has never belonged to any woman. his eyes, his[103] words, his ditties sing love’s praises with a charming, melancholy languor which no woman can resist. then he lays his head in her lap and tells her of his perpetual yearnings and his perpetual disappointments. he unbosoms himself to her and begs her not to betray him. then she loves him. and she is his ... to any extent he pleases.”
she tried to speak; but cordt shook his head in denial and she sighed and was silent.
“he is no longer young. but that makes no difference. he was never young. his unbounded susceptibility, his eternal readiness make him young in the women’s eyes, as though he were a woman in man’s clothing. his limp sensuousness has permeated every fibre of his body and his soul ... so much so that it affects his every word, look and thought. he is destitute of will and insipid[104] and sickly and untrustworthy. he is never hungry and he is insatiable. he swallows women and spits them out again ... with morbid longings and a despondent temper and a diminished strength to live their lives.”
“cordt!... cordt!... what is he to me?... what is he to us?”
he looked at her and was silent for a moment. then he said:
“martens tends the garden in which you pluck your flowers. he is the chief gardener. but he is only one of a thousand. in the main, these passion-hunters are all alike. shall i introduce them to you?”
“no, cordt.”
“i can do so without hurting the feelings of any of them by mentioning their names,” he said. “you will recognize them all. you will recognize them at once.”
“cordt!”
[105]but cordt did not hear.
“you will remember the man of whom we all know that he has many mistresses, even though we can say nothing to his face. he often takes a new one. then he has one more ... that is all ... for he never lets go the old ones.”
“that will do, cordt.”
“then there is the man who tells his fair friends that he has only loved one woman in his life and that is his mother. have you ever observed the part which the mother plays in these worn-out men’s imaginations? in their books ... in their love ... she is the emblem for their morning head-aches, their impotent compunctions. her business it is to soothe their worm-eaten thoughts ... they whisper her name while they kiss their lady-loves. i don’t know which is the greater insult: that offered to the mother or to the mistress.”
[106]fru adelheid tried to rise, but just then he passed so close to her that she could not move. so she remained sitting, weary and racked, and he went round the room and stopped here and there while he spoke:
“these are the men to whom our wives belong,” he said. “and they do not take them away, so that we can bemoan their loss and get new wives in their stead. they are content to nibble the crest of the tree of love, which we have planted in our garden, and to leave it to stand and thrive as best it can.”
fru adelheid stood up before him with moist eyes and quivering lips:
“cordt!”
but cordt’s face was white with anger and she could not find a word to say.
“do i amuse you, adelheid?” he asked.
she went to her place by the chimney and sat down again:
[107]“you are putting out all my lights,” she said.
he walked across the room and went on talking:
“a man’s honest love goes for nothing, when one of these gentry has laid eyes on his wife. then he is degraded to the mere husband ... a dull and clumsy person ... the owner of something which he cannot own. then there awakes in my wife’s mind a longing for something which she does not possess. her peace has turned into weariness and the love which her marriage offered into an empty custom. she resigns herself. and the silly words of every silly book sing in her ears. she knows that no love endures for ever ... that marriage is odious. impatient sighs rise up in her soul, embitter her days and sadden her nights. then she changes the gold of love for small coin and fritters it away, while[108] the lights shine forth and the music strikes up.”
he folded his hands about his neck and stood by her chair and looked before him:
“adelheid,” he said ... “i cannot understand that the men who occasion this state of things are allowed to go free among us. and we honor them as the most distinguished of mankind. when we see a poor cripple, a shudder comes over us ... am i not right, adelheid? we are disgusted with a face full of pain. but these lepers beam before our eyes with a radiance and a beauty that know no equal.”
he walked up and down for a while and time passed and there was silence in the room.
then he sat down in his chair, where it stood by the balcony-door, among the red flowers.
he was tired and closed his eyes. now[109] and then, he opened them, when a carriage drove across the square or a cry sounded. then he closed them again and fell into a drowsiness in which everything was present to him and painful.
and then suddenly he started up.
fru adelheid was lying before him on the floor, with her cheek against his knee. his hand was wet with her tears.
“don’t be angry with me, cordt!”
he looked at her, but said nothing.
“cordt ... when you speak like that ... it is true ... true for me also.... it is all so good and so beautiful....”
he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet:
“be very careful what you do, adelheid,” he said. “i am not a fashionable preacher, working up your nerves and quieting them again ... not a poet, reading his last work to you. i am your husband, calling you to account.”
[110]he crossed the room and then returned and stroked her hair:
“it is beyond our strength, adelheid,” he said, sorrowfully. “god help us!”
she took his hand and laid it over her eyes, so firmly that it hurt her.
“if the old god were still here, then we could go down on our knees and fold our hands together, as they did who built this room. would that not be good, adelheid?”
“yes.”
“i call upon him, adelheid.... and upon everything in the world that is greater than my own power.... and upon the little child downstairs....”
