finn stood in the old room with the yellow document in his hand:
“god brought me thus far, that i was able to erect this fair house, which shall stand till distant times, a witness to my might and that of my race. here shall be upright living and generous dealing; the house shall be faithfully guarded from father to son; good men and women shall sit in the hall and dance to the sound of flutes and violins.
“i have placed this room in the most secret part of the house and no one knows of it but the architect who built it and my oldest servant. but i have sealed the architect’s tongue with a solemn oath and a heavy fee; and my servant is true to me.
[164]“i have decorated the room with gilt and figured leather hangings and costly carpets from the east. i have had two great armchairs made in milan, whose woodwork is carved into birds and animals which grin strangely in the dark, but cease to do so when the lights are lit.
“then i gave my servant a key of the room and told him to care for it faithfully. every evening, when it grows dusk, he is to light the candles on the mantelpiece; and he is to do this even if he know that his master is travelling in distant lands. every morning, he is to adjust the room with his own hands. none but himself is ever to cross the threshold.
“for this room shall be for me and my wife and for none other in the world. therefore i placed it in the most secluded part of the house, far from the counting-house, where we work, from the passages, along which our servants go, and from[165] the drawing-room, where we receive our guests, ay, even from our marriage-bed, where she sleeps by my side.
“it shall be the temple of our marriage, hallowed by our love, which is greater than anything that we know. here we will pray to him who gave us to each other. here we will talk gladly and earnestly, every evening when our hearts impel us to. and, when we come to die, our son shall bring his wife here and they shall do as we did.
“this evening, which is the first in my new house, i brought my wife in here and told her my wish. she listened to my words in love and gladness and i have written down in this document how it all happened and we have set our names to it in witness for those who come after us.”
finn read their names and the names of those who had taken possession of the[166] room after the builder and his wife. last of all stood cordt’s name and fru adelheid’s, which were struck out again.
then he put the document back in its place and locked it up and looked round the room.
the old room stood again as it used to stand, built high over the square, long and deep and silent, like a spot where there is no life.
the balcony was white with snow and the sparrows hopped in the snow. inside, behind the colored panes, stood many red flowers and longed for the sun. the dust had been removed from the figured-leather hangings, which shone with a new brightness. the oriental carpet spread over the floor like a lord returning from exile and once more taking possession of his estates.
and all the old glories had found their places again and stood as lawfully and[167] restfully as though it had never been otherwise. the spinet was there and the jar with the man writhing through thorns and the celestial globe whose stars shone and ran: all the furniture which the room’s different owners had set there in the course of time, each after his own taste and heart.
before the fireplace stood the two great, strange armchairs.
finn felt as if he were in a cathedral where every flag was a tombstone over a famous man. his senses drank the odor of the bygone times, his fancy peopled the room with the men and women who had sat there and exchanged strong and gentle words, while the house lay sleeping around them.
with it all, he became lost in thought of those who had sat there last and after whom no others were to come, those two who had given him the life which he knew not what to do with.
[168]he saw them before him in the love and struggle of their youth. he heard their voices in the room, he saw fru adelheid’s red mouth and cordt’s steady eyes. he saw cordt bring his wife into the room, which was the soul of the house and its tradition and its secret chamber, and show her the strange things which his ancestors had put there.
he saw him on the day when he stood alone by the fireplace ... in the empty room ... and struck out his own name and fru adelheid’s from the document and went away and left the door open behind him....
he saw all this as it had happened. but they were not his father and mother. they were two attractive people of whom he had read in a book and grown fond, as a man loves art, palely and with no self-seeking in his desire.
finn drew one of the big chairs over[169] to the window and sat down and sat there for long.
he was sitting there when fru adelheid came.
she stood in the doorway, in her white gown, with her white hair, and nodded to him. then she turned her face round to the room and looked at it.
and then that happened which was only the shadow of a dream that vanished then and there: everything came to life in the room.
the spinet sang, the queer faces on the old chairs raised themselves on their long necks; there was a whispering and a muttering in every corner....
fru adelheid shrank back against the door. she did not see finn, did not remember that he was there.
but finn saw her.
he rose from his chair and his eyes beamed:
[170]“you light up the room, mother,” he said, “and the room lights up you.”
he took her hand and kissed it and, with her hand in his, fru adelheid went through the old room, which had been too narrow for her youthful desires.
the fairy-tale was over and the dread. but the glow still lay over her figure and made her look wonderfully pretty. her cheeks were as pink as a girl’s; her step was light, her eyes moist and shy. she laughed softly and gladly, while she looked at the old things and talked about them and touched them.
she told the story of the woman who used to sing when she was sad and who had brought the old spinet there; and her hands shook as she struck a chord and the slender, beautiful notes sounded through the room. of the spinning-wheel, which had whirred merrily every evening for many a good year and which[171] stood as it was, with thread upon the spindle. of the celestial globe, which had been the toy of the man whose intellect was obscured. of the doll with the vacant face, which stood there in memory of the lady who dreaded the deep silence of the room and never entered it but once; but her son, who loved her, had hidden the doll in the curtain. of fru lykke, whose portrait had hung where the light stain was, but hung there no longer, because her marriage had been dissolved.
of the jar with the man writhing through thorns, which she herself had brought as her gift, she said nothing. she passed her hand over its bright surface and was silent.
finn’s eyes clung to her.
never had he seen his beautiful mother so beautiful. he did not know that look, or that smile on her mouth, or that clear ring in her voice.
[172]at times, he added something to what she was telling and spoke with such profound intelligence that she was quite surprised and frightened. now he guessed her words before she uttered them. then he knew something which she had never suspected.
secretly, her fear increased as to what cordt could have told him.
but finn was lost in his delight.
and, fascinated by her beauty and the strange things he had seen and heard and the deep silence of the room, he forgot that the seal of the old room was broken and wished to play the game as vividly as possible.
he drew the second of the two big chairs across to the window and made her sit down and sat himself beside her:
“now you are not my mother,” he said. “you are my young bride. i have brought you into the sanctuary to-day[173] and now i will initiate you into the mysteries.”
fru adelheid turned very pale and finn took her hand penitently:
“have i hurt you, mother?”
she shook her head and forced herself to smile.
then he walked into the room again and rejoiced at all this and talked about it. but she remained sitting with knitted brow.
she was heavy at heart, because it seemed to her, all at once, that she was not his mother, as they sat talking here in the secret chamber of the house. the old days came in their great might; and their strong memories and impressive words drowned the bells which had rung her into another world.
it was the echo here, in the old room, of cordt’s words and of his love ... of the strong faith and great happiness of[174] the race which had sprouted in the good mould of tradition and produced flower after flower in the times that passed.
fru adelheid thought—for a moment—that it would have been well had things happened as cordt wished.
but, at the same instant, she was seized by a thought that suddenly made her rebellious and young, as when she was here last, many years ago.
she thrust her chair back hard and looked with sparkling eyes round the room where everything and every memory was hostile to her.
she looked at finn, who was standing by the celestial globe and trying to set it going, but could not, because the spring was rusty and refused to work.
she wondered, when the time came for finn to take a wife ... would he try to revive the tradition and bring her here and sit down with her in the old chairs?
[175]then finn’s son and his son after him would read her name, which was written on the yellow document and struck out again. she would be like one of those who were branded in that family.... legends would grow about her love of going out and her hunt after happiness which did not exist....
“come and help me, mother,” said finn.
she went over and pressed hard on the spring and the clockwork hummed.
“see how you let loose the magic,” he said.
he went on talking, delighted with the stars, which lit up and ran.
“sit down here by me, finn.”
she waited till he came and a little longer, as though she could not find the words she wanted, and did not look at him while she spoke:
“finn” she said and put her hand on his[176] shoulder and drew it away again immediately. “finn ... once ... ever so many years ago, i was alone, one evening, in the old room. i had often been here before, you know ... with father. and i was under the power of the old room and never happy. i was young, finn, and it went so terribly hard with my longing and my gladness. i could not understand that and could not mitigate it or get over it. for father belonged to the room and it was his and all the queer things in it and they were all against me. every time i came to the door, my heart stopped beating.... and once i was inside ... it was ... it was as if my own words were taken from my tongue and others put in their place for me to speak ... beautiful words and good words, finn, but not mine. but then, when i took courage and said what i wanted to say, it sounded as if i was defying the old[177] room and father and god himself. and then....”
fru adelheid felt that she was on the point of betraying something great and fine that had been laid in her hands. she looked round as if she were afraid that there was some one in the room or that the room itself would rise up against her in its venerable might.
but there was no one and it was silent.
then she turned her face to finn and looked at him and said, gaily:
“but that evening, finn, i broke the spell of the old room. i tore the veil from the holy of holies and saw that there was nothing behind it. for the first time, i breathed freely in my own home.”
fru adelheid did not tell how, at the same moment, she had been overcome by terror and fled from the room. but she did not gain what she thought by her lie. for finn looked at her sorrowfully and said:
[178]“how could you do that, mother? how could you find it in your heart?”
“are you also under the spell?” she asked.
there was in her tone a scorn which was stronger than she intended and which frightened herself. but finn simply paid no attention to it:
“the old room no longer exists,” he said. “it is nothing more than an image, a monument ... my fancy, which father humored me in.”
she turned her face away and listened.
“but had i lived in the days of the old room,” he said, “then it would certainly have captured me and held me captive.”
“yes ... you have been talking to father,” she said, softly.
“yes.”
then he lay down before her, with his cheek on her hand, as he so often did:
“yes,” he repeated. “and ... mother[179] ... i love you. you are so pretty. but we will not talk about the old room ... ever. for i think it is the most wonderful ... and the most beautiful and the strongest thing i know of.... but it hurts me that i am not wholly your son ... or father’s either, that i might devote myself to one of you in sharing your strongest feelings. and i cannot talk to father about it ... neither can we two, can we?”
fru adelheid did not answer him, but stroked his hair with her hand. neither of them spoke and it was quite silent in the room.
in the silence she became herself again. the many moulded years came to their own again and the bells rang monotonously and ever more strongly from out of the noise of the world, which had drowned them.
she marvelled at the excitement into[180] which the old room had thrown her. quenched was the love which had made her its mistress and quenched the red desire which made it too narrow. she thought of cordt, who had fought, she considered, for what was not worth fighting for. sorrowfully she looked at her tall, silent boy, whose weary thoughts kept pace so well with her own.
she crossed her hands in her lap and the light faded in her eyes. the glow of the old room withdrew from her face, her words became restful as her thoughts.
finn looked at her, but did not see this. for him, too, the fairy-tale was over. he was sitting in his chair again with bent head and his hands open on his knees.
and, without their doing anything or thinking of it, they came in their usual way to talk together. it was not any interchange of thoughts and still less a contest of opinions. they said nearly[181] the same thing and, wherever the thoughts of the one roamed, he found the other’s. often their words were solemn, but never powerful. often the one was silent and agreed with the other. many times they sat long without saying anything and thought they had told each other everything.
“look,” said finn, pointing out of the window. “how hideous!”
a hearse came trotting across the square.
he moved in his chair and said:
“a hearse should always drive at a foot’s pace, solemnly and ceremoniously ... always ... as though they were only driving the horses to water. and soldiers should always hold themselves stiff and starched, keeping step and time, even when they are taking their shoes to the cobbler’s. then it would all be easier.”
he was silent for a while. then he slowly turned his face to her:
[182]“i was talking about it to father the other day,” he said. “i happened to say something of the kind.”
she looked at him in surprise.
“i don’t know how it came about. but he laughed and said i ought to write an article about it or form a society for preserving the correct pace of hearses.”
fru adelheid smiled and laid her hands in her lap and looked at them.
“then he suddenly became serious and came up to me and laid his hands on my shoulders: ‘hearses ought to drive fast,’ he said, ‘gallop ... at a rousing pace. away with the dead, finn! let life grow green and blossom!’”
“father is so masterful,” said fru adelheid.
finn nodded.
then they began to talk about cordt. they often did so. and they were always eager to find good words to praise[183] him in. but under the words there lay the consciousness, like a secret understanding between them, that he was made of a coarser clay than they.
they never said this; but they felt a sort of patronizing pity for him, such as one feels for a person who runs and runs, when it is good to sit still.
but, when they talked together, fru adelheid knew that deep in finn’s soul there lay a secret yearning towards just that masterful side in his father which frightened him.
it was so weak, only a pale reflection of her own young love, a distant echo of the voice which had stated cordt’s case in her own heart when he was fighting to win her.
but it was enough to hurt her. she thought she only had her son for a time. she traced a certain disdain in the intimacy to which he admitted her. she[184] thought there was something in him which was greater than what he gave her and which was cordt’s or would become so.
and she realized that the fight for finn would become harder than that which broke the seal on the door of the old room.
finn was absorbed in what had filled his mind, the whole day, with light and color. he was thinking now of his mother’s visit to the room on the evening when she had broken the spell:
“i simply cannot understand how you could have the heart,” he said.
she knew at once what he meant, but said nothing.
“there ought to be some law, like that in the fairy-story, where he who lifted the veil had to die,” he said. “and there ought to be veils upon veils ... veils upon veils.... can you bear to look at the sun, mother? women ought to go in a veil and never ... never raise it, except when[185] the occasion was so great that everything grew great.... and one ought not to see the people who play....”
fru adelheid half raised herself in her chair.
she wanted to tell him that, on that evening, she was punished for her presumption with the greatest terror which she had ever experienced in her life. but she could not. then she said, quite quietly and with her eyes looking out over the square:
“and suppose there were some one who could not ... suppose the veil stifled one....”
finn looked out into space like her:
“veils upon veils.... veils over the dead,” he said.
fru adelheid sighed and said nothing.
“then one could live,” said finn.
