Mogens and Other Stories Part 10

Silently he kissed her hand.

"I know," she said sadly, "that those who will judge me least harshly will not envy me the happiness which I shall have in having your love, but they will also say that I should be satisfied."

"But that would not be enough for me, and you have not the right to send me away."

"No," she said, "no."

A little later she went upstairs to Elinor.

Elinor slept.

Mrs. Fonss sat down by her bed and looked at her pale child whose features she could only dimly distinguish under the faint yellow glow of the night lamp.

For Elinor's sake they would have to wait. In a few days they would separate from Thorbrogger, go to Nice, and stay there by themselves.

During the winter she would live only that Elinor might regain her health. But to-morrow she would tell the children what had happened and what was to be expected. However they might receive the news it was impossible for her to live with them day in, day out, and yet be almost separated from them by a secret like this. And they would need time to get used to the idea, because it would mean a separation between them, whether greater or smaller would depend on the children themselves. The arrangement of their lives in so far as it concerned her and him was to be left entirely to them. She would demand nothing. It was for them to _give_.

She heard Tage's step in the sitting-room and went to him.

He was so radiant and at the same time so nervous that Mrs. Fonss knew something had happened, and she had an intuition of what it was.

He sought for an opening to unburden his heart and sat and talked absent-mindedly of the theater. Not until his mother went over to him and put her hand on his forehead, forcing him to look at her, was he able to tell her that he had wooed Ida Kastager and gained her "yes."

They talked about it for a long time, but throughout Mrs. Fonss felt a coldness in whatever she said, which she could not overcome. She was afraid of being too sympathetic with Tage on account of her own emotion.

Besides, in the uncertain state of her mind she was distrustful of the idea that there might be even the faintest shadow of an a.s.sociation between her kindness of to-night and what she was to tell to-morrow..

Tage, however, did not notice any coolness.

Mrs. Fonss did not sleep much that night; there were too many thoughts to keep her awake. She thought how strange it was that he and she should have met and that when they met they should love each other as in the old days.

It was long ago, especially for her; she was no longer, could no longer, be young. And this would show; and he would be thoughtful with her, and grow used to the fact that it was a long time since she was eighteen years old. But she felt young, she was so in many respects, and yet all the while she was conscious of her years. She saw it very clearly, in a thousand movements, in expressions and gestures, in the way in which she would respond to a hint, in the fas.h.i.+on in which she would smile at an answer. Ten times a day she would betray her age, because she lacked the courage to be outwardly as young as she was within.

And thoughts came and thoughts went, but through it all the same question always rose, as to what her children would say.

On the forenoon of the following day she put the answer to the test.

They were in the sitting-room.

She said that she had something important to tell them, something that would mean a great change in their lives, something that would be unexpected news to them. She asked them to listen as calmly as they could, and not to let themselves be carried away by the first impression into thoughtlessness. They must know that what she was about to tell them was definitely decided, and that nothing they might say could make her alter her decision.

"I am going to marry again," she said, and told them of how she had loved Thorbrogger, before she had known their father; how she had become separated from him, and how they had now met again.

Elinor cried, but Tage had risen from his seat, utterly bewildered. He then went close to her, kneeled down before her, and seized her hand.

Sobbing, half-stifled with emotion, he pressed it against his cheek with infinite tenderness, with an expression of helplessness in every line of his face.

"Oh, but mother, dearest mother, what have we done to you, have we not always loved you, have we not always, both when we were with you and when we were away from from you, wanted you as the best thing we possessed in the world? We have never known father except through you; it was you who taught us to love him, and if Elinor and I are so close to each other, is it not because day after day you always pointed out to each of us what was best in the other? And has it not been thus with every other person to whom we became attached, do we not owe everything to you? We owe everything to you, and we wors.h.i.+p you, mother, if you only knew.... Oh, you cannot imagine, how much we want your love, want you beyond all bounds and limits, but there again you have taught us to restrain our love, and we never dare to come as close to your heart as we should like. And now you say that you are going to leave us entirely, and put us to one side. But that is impossible. Only one who wanted to do us the greatest harm in the world could do anything as frightful as that, and you don't want to do us the greatest harm, you want only what is best for us--how can it then be possible? Say quickly that it is not true; say it is not true, Tage, it is not true, Elinor."

"Tage, Tage, don't be so distressed, and don't make it so hard, both for yourself and us others."

Tage rose.

"Hard," he said, "hard, hard, oh were it nothing but that, but it is horrible--unnatural; it is enough to drive one insane, merely to think of it. Have you any idea of the things you make me think of? My mother loved by a strange man, my mother desired, held in the arms of another and holding him in hers. Nice thoughts for a son, worse than the worst insult--but it is impossible, must be impossible, must be! Are the prayers of a son to be as powerless as that! Elinor, don't sit there and cry, come and help me beg mother to have pity on us."

Mrs. Fonss made a restraining gesture with her hand and said: "Let Elinor alone, she is probably tired enough, and besides I have told you that nothing can be changed."

"I wish I were dead," said Elinor, "but, mother, everything that Tage has said is true, and it never can be right that at our age you should give us a step-father."

"Step-father," cried Tage, "I hope that he does not for one moment dare.... You are mad. Where he enters, we go out. There isn't any power on earth that can force me into the slightest intimacy with that person. Mother must choose--he or we! If they go to Denmark after their marriage, then we are exiles; if they stay here, we leave."

"And those are your intentions, Tage?" asked Mrs. Fonss.

"I don't think you need doubt that; imagine the life. Ida and I are sitting out there on the terrace on a moonlit evening, and behind the laurel-bushes some one is whispering. Ida asks who is whispering, and I reply that it is my mother and her new husband.--No, no, I shouldn't have said that; but you see the effect of it already, the pain it causes me, and you may be sure that it won't help Elinor's health either."

Mrs. Fonss let the children go while she remained sitting here.

No, Tage was right, it had not been good for them. How far from her they had already gone in that short hour! How they looked at her, not like her children, but like their father's! How quick they were to desert her as soon as they saw that not every motion of her heart was theirs! But she was not only Tage's and Elinor's mother alone; she was also a human being on her own account, with a life of her own and hopes of her own, quite apart from them. But she was, perhaps, not quite as young as she had believed herself to be. This had come to her in the conversation with her children. Had she not sat there, timid, in spite of her words; had she not almost felt like one who was trespa.s.sing upon the rights of youth? Were not all the exorbitant demands of youth and all its naive tyranny in everything they had said?--It is for us to love, life belongs to us, and your life it is but to exist for us.

She began to understand that there might be a satisfaction in being quite old; not that she wished it, but yet old age smiled faintly at her like a far-distant peace, coming after all the agitation of recent times, and now when the prospect of so much discord was so near. For she did not believe that her children would ever change their mind, and yet she had to discuss it with them over and over again before she gave up hope. The best thing would be for Thorbrogger to leave immediately. With his presence no longer here the children might be less irritable, and she could try to show them how eager she was to be as considerate as possible to them. In time the first bitterness would disappear, and everything... no, she did not believe, that everything would turn out well.

They agreed that Thorbrogger should leave for Denmark to arrange their affairs. For the time being they would remain here. It seemed, however, that nothing was gained by this. The children avoided her. Tage spent all his time with Ida or her father, and Elinor stayed all the time with the invalid, Mrs. Kastager. And when they happened to be actually together, the old intimacy, the old feeling of comfort, was gone. Where were the thousand subjects for conversation, and, when finally they found one, where was the interest in it? They sat there keeping up a conversation like people who for a while have enjoyed each other's company, and now must part. All the thoughts of those who are about to leave are fixed on the journey's end, and those who remain think only of settling hack into the daily life and daily routine, as soon as the strangers have left.

There was no longer any common interest in their life; all the feeling of belonging together had disappeared. They were able to talk about what they were going to do next week, next month, or even the month following, but it did not interest them as though it had to do with days out of their own lives. It was merely a time of waiting, which somehow or other had to be endured, for all three mentally asked themselves: And what then? They felt no solid foundation in their lives; there was no ground to build upon before this, which had separated them, was settled.

Every day that pa.s.sed the children forgot more and more what their mother had meant to them, in the fas.h.i.+on in which children who believe themselves wronged will forget a thousand benefactions for the sake of one injustice.

Tage was the most sensitive of them, but also the one who was hurt most deeply, because he had loved most. He had wept through long nights because of his mother whom he could not retain in the way in which he wanted. There were times when the memory of her love almost deafened all other feelings in his heart. One day he even went to her and beseeched and implored her that she might belong to them, to them alone, and not to any other one, and the answer had been a "no." And this "no" had made him hard and cold. At first he had been afraid of this coldness, because it was accompanied by a frightful emptiness.

The case with Elinor was different. In a strange way she had felt that it was an injustice toward her father, and she began to wors.h.i.+p him like a fetish. Even though she but dimly remembered him, she recreated him for herself in most vivid fas.h.i.+on by becoming absorbed in everything she had ever heard about him. She asked Kastager about him and Tage, and every morning and night she kissed a medallion-portrait of his which belonged to her. She longed with a somewhat hysterical desire for some letters from him which she had left at home, and for things which had once belonged to him.

In proportion as the father in this way rose in her estimation, the mother sank. The fact that she had fallen in love with a man harmed her less in her daughter's eyes; but she was no lenger the mother, the unfailing, the wisest, the supreme, most beautiful. She was a woman like other women; not quite, but just because not quite, it was possible to criticize and judge her and to find weaknesses and faults in her. Elinor was glad that she had not confided her unhappy love to her mother; but she did not know how much it was due to her mother that she had not done so.

One day pa.s.sed like another, and their life became more and more unendurable. All three felt that it was useless; instead of bringing them together, it only drove them further apart.

Mrs. Kastager had now recovered. Though she had not played an active part in anything that had happened, she knew more about the situation than any one else, because everything had been told her. One day she had a long talk with Mrs. Fonss who was glad that there was some one who would quietly listen to her plans for the future. In this conversation Mrs. Kastager suggested that the children go with her to Nice, while they sent for Thorbrogger to come to Avignon, so that they might be married. Kastager could stay on as witness.

Mrs. Fonss wavered a little while longer, for she had been unable to discover what her children's reaction would be. When they were told, they accepted it with proud silence, and when they were pressed for answer, they merely said that they would, of course, adjust themselves to whatever she decided to do.

So things turned out as Mrs. Kastager had proposed. She said good-by to the children, and they left; Thorbrogger came, and they were married.

Spain became their home; Thorbrogger chose it for the sake of sheep-farming.

Neither of them wished to return to Denmark.

And they lived happily in Spain.

She wrote several times to her children, but in their first violent anger that she had left them, they returned the letters. Later they regretted it; they were unable, however, to admit this to their mother and to write to her; for that reason all communication between them ceased. But now and then in round about ways they heard about each other's lives.

For five years Thorbrogger and his wife lived happily, but then she suddenly fell ill. It was a disease whose course ran swiftly and whose end was necessarily fatal. Her strength dwindled hourly, and one day when the grave was no longer far away she wrote to her children.