Stories by Foreign Authors
V >>
Various >> Stories by Foreign Authors
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8
"So! and now?"
"Now I have presented the letter to Miss Brandt."
"You gave it away? Why?"
"Because I learned that the man, who perhaps or probably wrote it
in his youth, has spoken about it publicly, and is counsellor in
one of the courts."
"Oh, I understand," said the cousin, half audibly: "when the ideal
is found out to be a counsellor, then--"
"Then it is not an ideal any longer? No. The whole had been
spoiled by being fumbled in public. I would get away from the
temptation to think of him. Do court to him, announce myself to
him as the happy finder,--I could not."
"That I understand very well," said the cousin, putting her arm
affectionately around Ingeborg's waist; "but why did you just give
Miss Brandt the letter?"
"Because she is acquainted with the counsellor, and indeed, as far
as I could understand, feels somewhat for him. They two can get
each other; and what a wonderful consecration it will be when she
on the marriage-day gives him the letter!"
The cousin said musingly: "And such secrets can live in one whole
year, without another surmising it!" Suddenly she added: "But how
will Miss Brandt on that occasion interpret the word 'Geb'?"
"Oh! I suppose a single syllable is of no consequence; and,
besides, Miss Brandt is a judicious girl," answered Ingeborg, with
an inexpressible flash in the dark eyes.
IV.
Good fortune seldom comes singly. One morning Criminal and Court
Counsellor Bagger got, at his residence at Noerre Street, official
intelligence that from the first of next month he was transferred
to the King's Court, and in grace was promoted to be veritable
counsellor of justice there; rank, fourth-class, number three. As,
gratified by this friendly smile from above, he went out to repair
to the court-house, he met in the porch a postman, who delivered
him a letter. With thoughts yet busy with new title and court,
Counsellor Bagger broke the letter, but remained as if fixed to
the ground. In it he read:
"The high-seat pillars have come on shore.
"--'GEB.'--"
One says well, that a man's love or season of courtship lasts till
his thirtieth year, and after that time he is ambitious; but it is
not always so, and with Counsellor Bagger it was in all respects
the contrary. His ambition was already, if not fully reached, yet
in some degree satisfied. The faculty of love had not been at all
employed, and the letter came like a spark in a powder-cask; it
ran glowing through every nerve. The youthful half of his soul,
which had slept within him, wakened with such sudden,
revolutionary strength, that the other half soul, which until now
had borne rule, became completely subject; yes, so wholly, that
Counsellor Bagger went past the court-house and came down in
Court-house Street without noticing it. Suddenly he missed the big
building with the pillars and inscription: "With law shall Lands
be built;" looked around confused, and turned back.
So much was he still at this moment Criminal Examiner, that among
the first thoughts or feelings which the mysterious letter excited
in him was this: It can be a trick, a foolery. But in the next
moment it occurred to him, that never to any living soul had he
mentioned his bold figure of the high-seat pillars, and still less
revealed the mysterious, to him so valued, syllable--geb--. No
doubt could exist: the fine, perfumed paper, the delicate lady
handwriting, and the few significant words testified, that the
billet which once in youthful, sanguine longing he had entrusted
to the winds of heaven, had come to a lady, and that in one way or
another she had found him out. He remembered very well, that a
single time, five or six weeks before, he had in a numerous
company mentioned that incident, and he did not doubt that the
story had extended itself as ripples do, when one throws a stone
into the water; but where in the whole town, or indeed the land,
had the ripple hit the exact point? He looked again at the
envelope. It bore the stamp of the Copenhagen city mail: that was
all. But that showed with some probability that the writer lived
in Copenhagen, and maybe at this moment she looked down upon him
from one of the many windows; for now he stood by the fountain.
There was something in the paper, the handwriting, or more
properly perhaps in the secrecy, that made her seem young,
spirited, beautiful, piquant. There was something fairy-like,
exalted, intoxicating, in the feeling that the object of the
longing and hope of his youth had been under the protection of a
good spirit, and that the great unknown had taken care of and
prepared for him a companion, a wife, just at the moment when he
had become Counsellor of Justice of the Superior Court. But who
was she? This was the only thing painful in the affair; but this
intriguing annoyance was not to be avoided, if the lady was to
remain within her sphere, surrounded by respect and esteem.
"What would I have thought of a lady, a woman, who came straight
forward and handed out the billet, saying: 'Here I am'?" he asked
himself, at the moment when at last he had found the court-house
stairs and was ascending.
How it fared that day with the examinations is recorded in
criminal and police court documents; but a veil is thrown over it
in consideration of the fact, that a man only once in his life is
made Counsellor of Justice in the King's Court. The day following
it went better; although it is pretty sure that a horse thief went
free from further reproof, because the counsellor was busy rolling
that stone up the mountain: Where shall I seek her if she does not
write again? Will she write again? If she would do that, why did
she not write a little more at first?
A couple of weeks after the receipt of the letter, one evening
about seven o'clock, the counsellor sat at home, not as before by
his writing-table busy with acts, but on a corner of the sofa, with
drooping arms, deeply absorbed in a mixture of anxious doubts
and dreaming expectations. Hope built air-castles, and doubt
then puffed them over like card-houses. One of his fancies was,
that she summoned him--he would not even in thought use the expression:
gave him an interview--at a masquerade. It was consequently no
common masquerade, but a grand, elegant masked ball, to which
a true lady could repair. The clock was at eleven, the appointed
hour: he waited anxiously the pressing five minutes; then she came
and extended him the fine hand in the finest straw-colored glove--
"Letter to the Counsellor of Justice," said Jens, with strong
Funen accent, and short, soldierly pronunciation.
It is so uncommon that what one longs for comes just at the moment
of most earnest desire; but notwithstanding the letter was from
her, the Counsellor of Justice knew the superscription, would have
known it among a hundred thousand. The letter read thus:
"I ought to be open towards you; and, as we shall never meet, I
can be so."
Here the Counsellor of Justice stopped a moment and caught for
breath. A good many of our twenty-year-old beaux, who have never
been admitted to the bar, far less have been Court Counsellors,
would, under similar circumstances, have said to themselves: "She
writes that she will be open; that is to say, now she will fool
me: we will never meet; that is to say, now I shall soon see her."
But Counsellor Bagger believed every word as gospel, and his knees
trembled. He read further:
"I am ashamed of the few words I last wrote you; but my apology
is, that it is only two days since I learned that you are married.
I have been mistaken, but more in what may be imputed to me than
in what I have thought. My only comfort is, that I shall never be
known by you or anybody, and that I shall be forgotten, as I shall
forget."
"Never! But who can have spread the infamous slander! What
dreadful treachery of some wretch or gossiping wench, who knows
nothing about me! And how can she believe it! How in such a town
as Copenhagen can it be a matter of doubt for five minutes, if a
Superior Court Counsellor is married or not! Or maybe there is
some other Counsellor Bagger married,--a Chamber Counsellor or the
like? Or maybe she lives at a distance, in a quiet world, so that
the truth of it does not easily reach her? So there is no sunshine
more!
"If she should sometime meet me, and know that I was, am, and have
been unmarried, that meanwhile we have both become old and gray,--
can one think of anything more sad? It is enough to make the heart
cease beating! But suppose, too, that to-morrow she finds out that
she has been deceived: she has once written, 'I was mistaken,' and
cannot, as a true woman, write it again, unless she first heard
from me, and learned how I longed--and so I am cut off from her,
as if I lived in the moon. More, more! for I can meet her upon the
street and touch her arm without surmising it. It is
insupportable! Our time has mail, steamboats, railroads,
telegraphs: to me these do not exist; for of what use are they
altogether, when one knows not where to search."
A thought came suddenly, like a meteor in the dark: advertise.
What family in Copenhagen did not the Address Paper reach? He
would put in an advertisement,--but how? "Fritz Bagger is not
married."--No: that was too plain.--"F. B. is not married."--No:
that was not plain enough. As he could find no successful use for
his own name, it flashed into his mind to use hers,--geb--; and
although it was painful to him to publish this, to him, almost
sacred syllable for profane eyes to gaze upon, yet it comforted
him, that only one, she herself, would understand it. Yet he
hesitated. But one cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs;
and although the heart's finest fibres ache at the thought of
sending a message to a fairy through the Address Paper, yet one
yields to this rather than lose the fairy.
At last, after numerous efforts he stopped at this: "--geb--! It
is a mistake: he waits only for--geb--." It appeared to him to
contain the approach to a happy result, and tired out by emotion
he fell asleep on his sofa.
Some days after came a new letter with the dear handwriting: its
contents were:
"Well! appear eight days from to-day at Mrs. Canuteson's, to
congratulate her upon her birthday."
This was sunshine after thunder; this was hope's rainbow which
arched itself up to heaven from the earth, yet wet with tears.
"And so she belongs to good society," said the Counsellor of
Justice, without noticing how by these words he discovered to
himself that a doubt or suspicion had lain until now behind his
ecstasy. "But," he added, "consequently, it is my own friends who
have spread the rumor of my marriage. Friends indeed! A wife is a
man's only friend. It is hard, suicidal, to remain a bachelor."
On the appointed day he went too early. Mrs. Canuteson was yet
alone. She was surprised at his congratulatory visit; but,
however, as it was a courtesy, the surprise was mingled with
delight, and Bagger was not the man whose visit a lady would not
receive with pleasure. With that ingenuity of wit one can
sometimes have, just when the heart is full and taken possession
of, he did wonders, and entertained the lady in so lively a manner
that she did not perceive how long a time he was passing with her.
As the door at length opened, the lady exclaimed:
"Oh, that is charming! Heartily welcome! Thank you for last time,
[Footnote: In Sweden and Norway when the guest meets the host or
hostess for the first time after an entertainment, the first
greeting on the part of the former is always, "Thank you for the
last time."] and for all the good in your house! How does your
mother do? This amiable young lady's acquaintance I made last
summer when we were in the country, and at last she is so good as
to keep her promise and visit me. Counsellor Bagger--Miss Hjelm."
The Counsellor wasn't sure that it was She, but he was convinced
that it ought to be. Not to speak of Ingeborg Hjelm's being really
amiable and distinguee, his heart was now prepared, as a
photographer's glass which has received collodium, and took the
first girl picture that met it. He was quite afraid that there
would come more to choose among. Yet the fairy brightness of the
unknown had at this moment lost itself for him; for, however
brilliant it may appear to the fancy, it cannot be compared with
the warm, beautiful reality, particularly so long as this itself
is new and unknown.
He approached and spoke to Miss Hjelm with painful hidden emotion
of soul. She was friendly and open, for the name Counsellor Bagger
did not occur to her; and the idea she had formed of him did not
at all compare with the young, elegant, handsome man she was now
speaking with. True enough, his manner was somewhat peculiarly
gallant, which a lady cannot easily mistake; but this gallantry
was united with such an unmistakable respect, or more properly
awe, that he gave her the impression of a poetical, knightly
nature.
By and by there came more ladies, both married and unmarried, but
Bagger had almost forgotten what errand they could have with him.
At last Miss Brandt came also, accompanied by her sister. As she
opened the door, and saw Bagger by the side of Miss Hjelm, she
gave a little, a very little, cry, or, more properly, gasped aloud
for breath, and made a movement, as if something kept her back.
"Oh! my dress caught," she said, arranged it a little, and then
approached Mrs. Canuteson, with smiling face, to offer her
congratulation.
Bagger looked at the watch: he had been there two hours! After yet
lingering to exchange a few polite words with Miss Brandt, he took
leave. His visit had in all respects been so unusual, and had
given occasion for so much comment, that it required more time
than could be given there; and his name was not at all mentioned
after he left.
V.
Now it is certainly true, that whenever Counsellor Bagger was seen
for quite a time, he was mostly dreaming and suffering; and people
who have not themselves experienced something similar, or have not
a fancy for putting themselves in his place, will say, perhaps,
that they could have managed themselves better. But, at all
events, it cannot be said, that from this time forward he was
unpractical; for within eight days from Mrs. Canuteson's birthday
he had not only learned where Miss Hjelm lived, but had
established himself in a tavern close by the farm, and obtained
admittance to the house, which last was not so difficult, since
Mrs. Hjelm was a friendly, hospitable lady, and since neither her
daughter nor niece thought they ought to prejudice her against
him.
In this manner four or five days passed away, which, to judge from
Bagger's appearance, were to him very pleasant. He wrote to his
colleagues in the Superior Court, that one could only value an
autumn in Nature's lap after so laborious and health-destroying
work as his life for many years had been. Then one day he received
a letter from the unknown, reading thus:
"Be more successful than last time, at Mrs. Emmy Lund's on
Tuesday, two o'clock. Please notice, two o'clock precisely."
"Does she mean so? Is she really coquettish? Yet I think I have
been successful so far," said Bagger to himself, and waited for
the Tuesday with comparative ease; in truth he did not at all
understand why he should be troubled to go to town.
As early on Tuesday forenoon as proper, he went over to the farm,
and was somewhat surprised that there was to be seen no
preparation for a town journey. Ingeborg, in her usual morning
dress, was seated at the sewing-table. He waited until towards
twelve o'clock, calculating that two hours was the least she
needed in which to dress and drive to town. The long hand
threatened to touch the short hand at the number twelve, without
any appearance of Ingeborg's noticing it. She only now and then
cast a stealthy look at him, for it had not escaped her, nor the
others, that he was in expectancy and excitement. When the clock
struck twelve,--he was just alone with her,--he asked suddenly, in
a quick, trembling voice:
"Miss Hjelm, you know I am Superior Court Counsellor?"
"No: that I did not know," she said almost with dread, and arose.
"No: that I have never known!"
"But allow me, dear lady, so you know it now," he said, surprised
that the title or profession produced so strong an effect.
"Yes, now I know it," she said, and held her hand upon her heart.
"Why do you tell me that? What does that signify?"
"Nothing else, Miss Hjelm, than that you may understand that I
don't believe in witchcraft."
A speaker's physiognomy is often more intelligible than his words;
and as Miss Hjelm saw the both hearty and spirited or jovial
expression in the counsellor's face, she had not that inclination,
which she under other circumstances would have had, quickly to
break off the conversation and go away. It is possible, also, that
his situation as Superior Court Counsellor--as that counsellor
mentioned by Miss Brandt--did not, after a moment's consideration,
appear to her so dreadful as at the first moment of surprise. So
she answered:
"But, Mr. Counsellor, is there then anybody who has accused you of
believing in witchcraft?"
"No, dear madam; but for all that I can assure you, that at the
moment the clock struck twelve I thought that you, by two o'clock,
most fly away in the form of a bird."
"As the clock struck twelve now, at noon?--not at midnight?"
"No, just a little since."
"That is remarkable. Can you satisfy my curiosity, and tell me
why?"
"Because under ordinary circumstances it appears to me impossible
for a lady to make her toilette and drive ten miles in less than
two hours."
"That is quite true, Mr. Counsellor; but neither do I intend to
drive ten miles to-day."
"It was for that reason that I said, fly."
"Neither fly. And to convince you and quite certainly rid you of
the idea of witchcraft, you can stay here, if you please, until--
what time was it?"
"Two o'clock."
"That is two long hours; but the Counsellor can, if he please, lay
that offering upon the altar of education."
"Oh! I know another altar, upon which I would rather offer the two
only all too short hours"--.
"Let it now be upon that of education. You promised my cousin and
me that you would read to us about popular science of nature and
interesting facts in the life of animals."
"Yes, dear madam; but _I_ cannot fly: my carriage stands waiting
at the tavern."
"Oh, I beg pardon! an agreeable journey, Mr. Counsellor."
"Yes; but I don't understand why I shall drive the ten miles."
"Every one knows his own concerns best."
"Oh, yes! that is true. But I at least don't know mine."
Miss Hjelm made no answer to this, and there was a little pause.
"I would," continued the counsellor, somewhat puzzled, "take the
great liberty to propose that you should ride with me."
"I have already told the Counsellor that I did not intend to go to
town to-day," answered Miss Hjelm, coldly.
"Yes," continued Bagger, following his own ideas, "and so I
thought, also, that we could as well stay here."
At this moment Bagger was so earnest and impassioned, that
Ingeborg, in hearing words so very wide of what she regarded as
reasonable, began to suspect his mind of being a little
disordered, and with an inquiring anxiousness looked at him.
Meeting the look from these eyes, Bagger could no longer continue
the inquisition which he had carried on for the sake of involving
Miss Hjelm in self-contradiction and bringing her to confession.
He himself came to confession, and exclaimed:
"Miss Ingeborg, I ask you for Heaven's sake have pity on me, and
tell me if you expect me at two o'clock to-day at Mrs. Lund's!"
"I expect you at Mrs. Lund's!" exclaimed Miss Hjelm.
"Is it not you, then, who have written me that--"
"I have never written to you!" cried Ingeborg, and almost tore
away the hand which Bagger tried to hold.
"For God's sake, don't go, Miss--! My dear madam, you must forgive
me: you shall know all!"
And now he began to tell his tale, not according to rules of
rhetoric and logic, but on the contrary in a way which certainly
showed how little even our abler lawyers are educated to
extemporize.
But, however, there was in his words a certain almost wild
eloquence; and, beside, Miss Hjelm had some foreknowledge, that
helped her to understand and fill up what was wanting under the
counsellor's restless eloquence. At last he came to the point;
while his words were of whirlwind and letters, his tone and eye
spoke, unconsciously to him, a true, honest, though fanciful
language of passion; and however comical a disinterested spectator
might have found it, it sounded very earnest to her who was the
object and sympathetic listener.
"Yes; but what then?" at last asked Ingeborg, with a soft smile
and not withdrawing the hand that Bagger had seized. "The proper
meaning of what you have told me is that your troth is plighted to
another, unknown lady."
"No: that isn't the proper meaning--"
"But yet it is a fact. At the moment when you stand at the altar
with one, another can step forward and claim you."
"Oh, that kind of a claim! A piece of paper without signature,
sent away in the air! In law it has no validity at all, and
morally it has no power, when I love another as I love you,
Ingeborg!"
"That I am not sure of. It appears to me there is something
painful in not being faithful to one's youth and its promises, and
in the consciousness of having deceived another."
"You say this so earnestly, Ingeborg, that you make me desperate.
I confess that there is something ... something I would wish
otherwise ... but for Heaven's sake, make it not so earnest!"
As Ingeborg knew so well about it, she could not regard the matter
as earnestly as her words denoted; but for another reason she had
suddenly conceived or felt an earnestness. It would not do to have
a husband with so much fancy as Bagger, always having something
unknown, fairy-like, lying out upon the horizon, holding claim
upon him from his youth; and on the other hand it was against her
principles, notwithstanding her confidence in his silence, to
convey to him the knowledge that it was Miss Brandt who played
fairy.
She said to him, "You must have your letter, your obligation, your
marriage promise back."
"Yes," he answered with a sigh of discouragement: "it is true
enough I ought; but where shall I turn? That is just the
immeasurable difficulty."
"Write by the same mail as before."
"Which?"
"Let the whirlwind, that brought the first letter to its
destination, also take care of this, in which you demand your word
back."
"Oh, that you do not mean! Or, if you mean it, then I may honestly
confess that I am not young any more or have not received another
youth. I have not courage to write anything, for fear it should
come to others than to you."
"So I see that, after all, I may act as witch to-day. Write, and I
will take care of the letter: do you hesitate?"
"No: only it took me a moment to comprehend the promise involved
in this that you will take care of my letter. I obey you blindly;
but what shall I write?"
"Write: 'Dear fairy,--Since I woo Miss Hjelm's hand and heart,'--"
"Oh, you acknowledge it! O Ingeborg, the Lord's blessing upon
you!" said Bagger, and would rise.
"'I ask you to send me my billet back.'--Have you that?"
"Yes, Ingeborg, my Ingeborg, my unspeakably loved Ingeborg! How
poor language is, when the heart is so full!"
"Now, name, date, and address. Have you that? 'Postscriptum. I
give you my word of honor, that I neither know who you are, or how
this letter shall reach you.'--Have you that?"
"That I can truly give. I am as blind as"...
"Let me add the witch-formulae."
"O Ingeborg, you will write upon the same paper with me, in a
letter where I have written your name!"
"Hand me the pen. We must have the letter sent to the mail before
two o'clock."
"Two o'clock. How queer! The last letter reads: 'Take notice of
the striking two.'"
"That we will," said Ingeborg.
She wrote: "Dear Miss Brandt, I, too, ask you to send the
Counsellor his billet, and I pray you to write upon it: 'Given me
by Miss Hjelm.' It is best for all parties that the fun does not
come out in gossip. You shall, by return of mail, receive back
your letters."
VI.
It is allowed to charitable minds to remain in doubt about what
had really been Miss Brandt's design. Perhaps she only wished to
make roguish psychological experiments, to convince herself to how
many forenoon congratulatory visits a Counsellor of Justice of the
Superior Court could be brought to appear. The emotion she almost
exposed, when at Mrs. Canuteson's she saw Bagger by Miss Hjelm's
side, may have been pure surprise at the working of the affair.
Every one of the rest of us who have been conversant with the
whirlwind, the letter, and Ingeborg's relinquishment of the same,
would also have been surprised at seeing her and the letter-writer
brought together notwithstanding, and would not, perhaps, have
been able with as much ease and success to hide our surprise. The
letter to Bagger, in which Miss Brandt, contrary to her better
knowledge, spoke of him as married, may have been a sincere
attempt to end the whole in a way which repentance and anxiety
quickly seized upon to put an insurmountable hindrance before
herself; but it may surely enough have had also the aim to see how
far Bagger had gone and how much spirit and fancy he had to carry
the intrigue out. The more one thinks upon it, the less one feels
able to give either of the two interpretations absolute
preference. Yet one will have remarked, that Ingeborg herself in
her little note mentioned the matter as "fun." On the other side,
if it was earnestness, if she had felt "somewhat" for Counsellor
Bagger, then let us take comfort in the fact that Miss Brandt was
a well-cultivated girl, and that her intellect held dominion over
her heart. She could with one eye see that the campaign had ended,
and further, that she, by receiving peace pure and simple, had
certainly not gained any conquest, but obtained the status quo
ante bellum, which often between antagonists has been considered
so respectable, that both parties officially have sung Te Deum,
although surely only one could sing it from the heart. Now it is
and may remain undecided what the real state of the case was: from
either point of view there was a plain and even line drawn for
her, and she followed it. Next day the letter came in an envelope
directed to the counsellor.
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8