heggen had left; the colonel and borghild had returned and gone again to pay a visit to a married sister of francesca’s. jenny and cesca were alone, and they went about by themselves, deep in their own thoughts.
jenny was convinced now of her condition, but she had not been able to realize what it all meant; if she tried to think of the future, her imagination stood still. she was, on the whole, in a better frame of mind now than in the first desperate weeks when she was waiting anxiously for her suspicions to be disproved.
[217]
she told herself that there would be a way out of it for her as for so many other women. fortunately she had spoken of going abroad since last autumn. she had not made up her mind about telling gert or not, but she thought she would not do it.
when she was not thinking of herself she thought of cesca. there was something the matter—something that was not as it ought to be. she was sure cesca was fond of ahlin. did he not care for her any longer?
cesca had had a bad time of it this first year of her married life; there had been serious money troubles. cesca looked so small and dejected. hour after hour of an evening she would sit on jenny’s bed telling her about all her household worries. everything was so expensive in stockholm, and cheap food was bad, especially when one had not learnt to cook. housework was all so difficult when one was brought up in such an idiotic way as she had been, and the worst of it was that it had to be done over and over again. she had scarcely finished cleaning the house before it was in an awful state again, and the moment she had finished a meal there was the washing up—and so it went on indefinitely, cooking things, soiling plates, and washing up again. lennart tried to help her, but he was just as clumsy and unpractical as she was. then, too, she worried about him. the commission for the monument had been given to some one else after all; he was never appreciated, and yet he was so gifted, but far too proud, both individually and as an artist. it could not be helped—and she would not have had him different. in the spring he had had a long illness, being confined to bed for two months with scarlet fever, pneumonia, and subsequent complications—it had been a very trying time for cesca.
but there was something else—jenny felt it distinctly—that cesca did not tell her, and she knew she could not be to[218] cesca now what she had been in the old days. she had no longer the tranquil heart and open mind, ready to receive the sorrows of others and able to give comfort; and it hurt her to feel that she could no longer help.
cesca had gone to moss one day to do some shopping. jenny preferred to stay at home, and was spending the day in the garden reading, so as not to think. then, when she found that she could not pay attention to her book, she started knitting, but soon lost count of her stitches, pulled them out, and went on again, trying to be more attentive. cesca did not come back to dinner as she had promised, and jenny dined alone, killing the afternoon by smoking cigarettes which she did not enjoy, and knitting, though her work constantly dropped on to her lap.
at last, about ten o’clock cesca came driving up the avenue; jenny had gone to meet her, and the moment she sat down beside her in the cart she saw that something had happened, but neither of them said a word.
later, when francesca had had something to eat and they were having a cup of tea, she said quietly without looking at jenny:
“can you guess whom i met in town today?”
“no.”
“hans hermann. he is on a visit at the island and living with a rich woman who seems to have taken him up.”
“is his wife with him?” asked jenny.
“no; they are divorced. i saw in the papers that they had lost their little boy in the spring. i am sorry for her”—and cesca began to talk of other things.
when jenny was in bed cesca came quietly into her room, sitting down at the foot end of the bed and pulling her nightdress[219] well over her feet. she sat with her arms folded round her knees, her little dark head making a black shadow on the curtain.
“jenny, i am going home tomorrow. i will send a wire to lennart early in the morning and leave in the afternoon. you must stay here as long as you like, and don’t think me very inconsiderate, but i dare not stay. i must go at once.” she was breathing heavily. “i cannot understand it, jenny. i have seen him. he kissed me, and i did not strike him. i listened to all he had to say, and i did not strike him in the face as i ought to have done. i don’t care for him—i know that now—and yet he has power over me. i am afraid. i dare not stay, because i don’t know what he might make me do. when i think of him now i hate him, but when he speaks to me i seem to get petrified; and i could not believe that anybody could be so cynical, so brutal, so shameless.
“it seems as if he does not understand there is such a thing as honour or shame; they do not exist for him, and he does not believe that anybody else cares for them either. his point of view is that our talking of right and wrong is only speculation, and when i hear him speak i seem to get hypnotized. i have been with him all the afternoon, listening to his talk. he said that as i was married now i need not be so careful about my virtue any longer, or something to that effect, and he alluded to his being free again, so as to give me some hope, i suppose. he kissed me in the park and i wanted to scream, but could not make a sound. oh, i was so afraid. he said he would come here the day after tomorrow—they were going to have a party tomorrow—and all the time he smiled at me with that same smile i was always so afraid of in the old days.
“don’t you think i ought to go home when i feel like this?”
“yes; i think so.”
“i am a goose, i know. i cannot rely upon myself, as you[220] see, but you can be certain of one thing: if i had been false to lennart, i would go straight to him and tell him, and kill myself the same instant before his eyes.”
“do you love your husband?” asked jenny.
francesca was silent a moment.
“i don’t know. if i loved him really as one ought to love, i suppose i should not be afraid of hans hermann. do you think i should have let hans behave like he did and kiss me?
“but i know, anyhow, that if i did wrong to lennart i could not go on living. you understand, don’t you? while i was francesca jahrman i was not very careful about my good name, but now i am francesca ahlin, and if i let fall the very faintest shadow of a suspicion on that name—his name—i should deserve to be shot down like a mad dog. lennart would not do it, but i would do it myself.”
she dropped her arms suddenly and crept into the bed, nestling close to jenny.
“you believe in me, don’t you? do you think i could live if i had done anything dishonourable?”
“no, cesca.” jenny put her arms round her and kissed her. “i don’t think you could.”
“i don’t know what lennart thinks; he does not understand me. when i get home i will tell him everything just as it is, and leave it to him.”
“cesca,” said jenny, but checked herself. she would not ask, after all, if she was happy. but cesca began to tell by herself:
“i have had many difficulties since i married, i must tell you, and i have not been very happy, but then i was so foolish and ignorant in many ways.
“i married lennart because hans began to write to me when he was divorced, saying that he was determined to have[221] me, and i was afraid of him and did not want to have anything to do with him. i told lennart everything; he was so kind and sympathetic and understood me, and i thought he was the most wonderful man in the world—and so he is, i know.
“but i did something awful. lennart cannot understand it, and i know that he has not forgiven me. perhaps i am wrong in telling you, but i must ask somebody if it is really so that a man can never forgive it, and you must answer me frankly—tell me if you think that it is impossible ever to get over it.
“we went to rocca di papa in the afternoon when we were married. you know how dreadfully afraid i have always been of marriage, and when lennart took me into our room in the evening, i began to cry. lennart was such a dear to me.
“this was on a saturday. we did not have a particularly pleasant time—i mean lennart did not, for i would have been delighted to be married like that, and every morning when i awoke i was so grateful to him, but i was scarcely allowed to kiss my husband.
“on the wednesday we had gone to the top of monte cavo, and it was marvellously beautiful up there. it was in the end of may and the day was glorious. the chestnut wood was light green, the leaves had just come out, the broom was blossoming madly in the crevices, and along the road grew heaps of white flowers and lilies. there was a haze in the air, for it had rained earlier in the day, and the nemi and albano lakes were lying silvery white below, with all the little white villages round. the whole campagna and rome were wrapped in a thin veil of mist, and farther out the mediterranean shone like a golden line on the horizon.
“oh, it was such a day! and life seemed wonderfully beautiful to me—but lennart was sad. to me he was the most perfect man in the world, and i was immensely fond of him.[222] all of a sudden it seemed so silly of me to make a fuss, and i put my arms round his neck and said: ‘i want to be yours, for i love you.’”
cesca was silent a second, taking a deep breath.
“oh, jenny—how happy he was, poor boy!” she swallowed her tears. “he was so pleased. ‘now?’ said he—‘here?’ and took me in his arms, but i resisted. i don’t know really why i did it. it would have been beautiful in the deep forest and the sunshine.
“he rushed out and stayed away all night. i lay awake. i was anxious, wondering what he had done, where he had gone. next day we went back to rome and stayed at an hotel. lennart had taken two rooms. i went to him in his room—but there was no beauty in it. we have never been quite happy since. i know that i have offended him frightfully, but tell me, jenny, if you think it a thing a man never can forget or forgive?”
“he ought to have realized afterwards that you did not understand what it was you were doing—how it would hurt him.”
“no.” cesca was shivering. “but i do now. i see that it was something pure and beautiful that i soiled, but i did not understand it then. jenny, do you think a man’s love could ever get over that?”
“it ought to. you have proved since that you want to be a good and faithful wife to him. last winter you worked so hard and suffered without complaining, and in the spring when he was ill you nursed him week after week, watching night after night by his bedside.”
“that is nothing to speak of,” said cesca eagerly. “he was so good and patient, and he helped me in the house as much as he could. when he was ill some of our friends came sometimes to help me to sit up with him in the night. that[223] week when he was near death we had a nurse, but i sat up just the same because i wanted to—although i was not really needed.”
jenny kissed cesca’s forehead.
“there is one thing i have not told you, jenny. you warned me, you remember, to be more careful with men, and said i had no instincts. gunnar used to scold me, and miss linde said once, don’t you remember, that if you make a man excited that way he goes to somebody else.”
jenny felt quite cold with fright for what was coming next.
“well, i asked him something about that on this first morning.”
jenny could not say a word. “i understand that he cannot forget it and perhaps not forgive, but i wish he would find an excuse for me, remember how very stupidly i looked at it all.” she hesitated, searching for words. “our life has been so horrid ever since. he does not really wish to kiss me—if he ever does, it is almost against his will, and he is angry afterwards with himself and with me. i have tried to explain, but it is no good. to be quite honest, i don’t know what to make of it all, but i do not mind anything any longer if i could only make him happy. anything that makes lennert happy is good and beautiful to me. he thinks that i sacrifice myself, but it is no sacrifice—quite the contrary. oh, i have cried for nights and days in my room because i saw that he was longing for my love, and i have tried to kiss him, but he pushes me away.
“i am very fond of him, jenny. tell me, can’t one love a man in that way too?—can i not say that i love lennart?”
“yes, cesca.”
“you cannot think how desperate i have been. but i cannot help being as i am. when we are out of an evening with other artists i see that he is in a bad humour; he does not say[224] anything, but i see he thinks i flirt with them. it is true, perhaps, for i get into good spirits when i can have a meal out and need not cook and wash up once for a change, and not be afraid of spoiling the food when lennart has to eat it all the same because we cannot afford to throw it away. sometimes i was glad, too, of not having to be alone with lennart, though i am fond of him and he is of me—i know he is. if i ask him about it he says, ‘you know it quite well,’ and smiles in a queer way, but he does not trust me because i cannot love with my senses and yet like to flirt. once he said i had not a notion of what love really meant and that it was his fault for not being able to awaken it in me, but there would probably be another man some day who could. o god, how i cried!
“you know we are ever so poor. well, in the spring gunnar managed to get my still-life picture sold—the one i had at the exhibition three years ago. we got three hundred kroner for it and we lived on it for several months, but lennart did not like spending the money i had earned. i cannot see what difference it makes when we are fond of each other, but he talked about having brought me into misery and so on. we have got debts too, of course, so i wanted to write to father asking him for a few hundreds, but he would not let me. i thought it so ridiculous. borghild and helga have lived at home or abroad all these years and had everything given to them, whereas i have saved and pinched with the little i had from mother since i came of age, because i did not want to take anything from papa after what he said to me when i broke my engagement with kaasen and there was all the talk about hans and me. father has since admitted that i was right. it was mean of kaasen and of them at home to try and force me to marry him because he had beguiled me into an engagement when i was only seventeen, and did not know that marriage[225] meant anything else but what you read in silly girl stories. when i began to understand, i knew i would rather kill myself than marry him. if they had succeeded in forcing me to it, i would have led them a life, taking all the lovers i could get just out of spite and to pay them out. papa sees it now, and he says i can have money whenever i want it.
“lennart was very weak after his illness, and the doctor said he must go into the country—and i myself was tired and overworked, so i said i ought to go away for a change and a rest as i was going to have a baby. i got his permission to write to papa for money. we got it and went to w?rmland, having a lovely time. lennart was getting well and strong, and i took up my painting again. when he understood i was not expecting a child really, he asked if i had not made a mistake, and i told him i had tricked him, not wanting to lie to him. but he is angry with me for it, and i can see that he does not quite believe me. if he understood my nature, don’t you think he would believe in me?”
“yes, cesca dear.”
“you see, i had told him the same thing once before—about the baby, i mean—in the autumn, when he was so sad and we were not happy. i wanted him to be pleased and to be kind to me, and he was. it was a lovely time. i had really lied, but i began to believe it myself at last, for i thought god would make it true, so that i need not disappoint him. but god did not do it.
“i am so unhappy because i can’t have one. do you think it is true—some people say it is so,” she whispered emotionally—“that a woman cannot have a child if she cannot feel—passionate?”
“no,” said jenny sharply. “i am sure it is only nonsense.”
“i am sure everything would come all right then, for lennart wishes it so very much. and i—oh, i think i should be[226] so good—an angel for joy at having a dear little child of my own. can you imagine anything more wonderful?”
“no,” whispered jenny, confused, “when you love each other. it would help you to get over many difficulties.”
“yes, it would. if it were not so awkward i would go and see a doctor. don’t you think i ought to? i think i will some day, but i am so stupid about it—i feel so shy. i suppose it really is my duty as i am married. i might go to a lady doctor—one who is married and has children of her own.
“think of it! a tiny little creature all your own; lennart would be so happy!”
jenny set her teeth in the dark.
“don’t you think i ought to go home tomorrow?”
“yes.”
“i will tell lennart everything. i don’t know if he will understand me—i don’t myself, but i am going to tell him the truth always. should i not, jenny?”
“when you think it is right you should do so. one must always do what one thinks right, and never do anything one is not absolutely sure about.”
“good-night, jenny dear.” she embraced her friend with sudden earnestness. “thank you! it is so lovely to have you to talk to; you are so good, and you know how to take me. you and gunnar always get me on to the right way. i don’t know what i should do if it weren’t for you.”
then, standing by the bed, she said: “won’t you come through stockholm when you go abroad this autumn? please, do! you could stay with us. i am getting a thousand kroner from father because he is going to give borghild the same for her trip to paris.”
“thanks, i should like to, but i don’t know yet what i am going to do.”
[227]
“do come if you can! are you sleepy? do you want me to go now?”
“i am a little tired,” and, pulling cesca’s head down, she kissed her. “god bless you, darling.”
“thank you.” cesca went across the floor on her bare feet; at the door she turned, saying in a sad, childish voice: “i do wish lennart and i could be happy!”
