Winter's Tales (16 page)

He turned them to the young girl, whom he had seen for the first time today. She too would be asleep now, and would be rosy in her sleep, fresh as her linen, with her eyelids firmly closed and the red hair spread over her pillow, grave, sleeping in the manner of a child, to whom sleep is a task, an earnest occupation. He thought of her for a long time, and felt that he might do so without offending her; it was not otherwise than a gardener
walking in a rose garden by night. She was free now, to wander where she chose, and he wondered what she would be dreaming of.

“Could I fall in love with her?” he asked himself. He had been in love before; that had even, in part, brought him to Baden-Baden, and he was so young that he believed he could never love again. But he wished that he were her brother, or an old friend, with a right to help her, if ever she would turn to him for help. He had been depressed, ashamed of himself, for being ill and in necessity of going to a watering place. In the night air on the terrace it seemed to him that there was hope and strength in the world still. It was as if a friend of his were asleep in the hotel behind him, and when she woke up the two would understand each other.

“And then,” he thought sadly, “we shall probably part and go each our own way without ever having spoken together. Life is like that.”

Within a few days the bees and butterflies of the watering place were humming round the new fair, fragrant rose, and the thin black prop to which it was tied. The difficulty of approach, and something pathetic in Mizzi’s own figure, called upon the daring and chivalry of the courters. Each felt like Saint George with the dragon and the captive princess. The situation would have held infinite promise of piquancy if it had been possible to lure the princess into joining her partisans and playing a trick on the dragon. But it was found that she was unswervingly loyal to her duenna, and that not a smile, not a glance could be obtained behind Miss Rabe’s back. The governess’ distinguished figure took on an appalling aspect. Of what secret power was she possessed to hold a vigorous young person so completely in submission?

The old English lady took the wiser course, and graciously patronized the governess. Her strategy brought her a surprise.
She was genuinely struck with Miss Rabe’s tact, talents and excellent principles, and proclaimed to all the world that this was the one governess within a thousand. She was also rewarded for her trouble by being for two or three days the most important person in the park of the Casino, for she could now introduce people to Mizzi. In this enterprise she unfolded the whole craft of an ancient
entremetteuse
of society, and for every favour counted herself paid in compliments and attentions. On account of their old friendship, Axel was the first young man whom she smilingly presented to the girl.

Axel, with some wonder and self irony, fell in love with Mizzi. It was a variety of love new to himself, more contemplative than possessive. He was even pleased to see her surrounded by admirers, since nothing becomes a pretty girl like success, and since she accepted the homage of the resort’s
jeunesse dorée
with so much simplicity and dignity, as if she took their competitive zeal to be the normal manner of young men with a maiden, she only allowed her own vitality to swell a little within this her true clement. His feelings also had in them an imaginative moment; he would often, dreamily, set the girl against a background of a book or a song or a familiar place in Denmark.

One thing within her in particular enchanted him—that she did blush so easily and deeply, for reasons of her own and incomprehensible to him. It was never a compliment or an ardent glance, nor a squeeze of her slim fingers at the end of a waltz, which called forth her blush. She looked her wooers quietly in the eyes, even when they themselves blushed and stuttered. But sometimes, while she sat by herself, listening to the music in the park, or while an old gentleman of the hotel entertained her with a discourse on politics, a slow, vehement flame would mount and spread all over her face, from the collar-bone to the roots of her
hair, and make it glow and burn—as if she had been standing below a crimson church window—until the fire again slowly sank back and died out. It was in itself a pretty and unusual spectacle. But to Axel it was much more: a symbol and a mystery, a manifestation of her being, a mute avowal, more significant than any declaration. What forces within her own nature did the simple and strong creature suspect or dread to make all her blood change place at the apprehension?

His fancy played with the girl’s blushes. He imagined her happy, spoiled, in the harmony of a home of her own, and wondered whether she would colour there in the same way. Over her needlework in a window, or on a walk with her husband, pausing to gaze at the view, would she suddenly redden like a morning sky? He thought: “What more divine, proud, generous, honest compliment could a newly married husband receive from his wife than this silent, unwilled rising of her blood?” It was dangerous as well. To an old husband it would be alarming; to a vain or weak man it might bode perdition. He was well aware of the hazard, since he himself, until he met her, had felt weak and worthless. And if, after five or ten years of married life, a husband should catch his wife blushing so deeply and silently at her own thoughts? What a summons, he thought, on the whole nature of a man—in a name mightier than that of the King.

At times he believed that his young girl would colour at a particularly conventional remark in the conversation, as if she were ashamed of the pretence and falsity of her surroundings. At that he rejoiced, for he had himself suffered by the sham of his world. He thought then: This fresh peach of a girl has got a ruthless respect for the truth; she is horrified at our frivolous mode of living—and longed to talk to her of the ideas that occupied his own mind.

All these were pleasing meditations. But there were other notions connected with Mizzi which made him heavy at heart. It happened, as in his mind he was moving the maiden about in the woods and the rooms of his home at Langeland, that the figure of Miss Rabe would accompany her, and refuse to leave the picture. The misgivings which that dark figure awoke in him were harder to deal with than the chimera of his day dreams, inasmuch as they were of a practical and palpable nature. For he might, he reasoned, fell the dragon and carry off Mizzi. It would be a sweet and glorious venture; it was what his rivals were all dreaming about. But he was a wise young man and looked deeper than they. When he rode away, was he sure that he would not be carrying off Miss Rabe on the pommel of his saddle?

He was an observer; it had amused him to find that the pretty girl had not lived a day, and probably was incapable of living a day, without an attendant at her heels. She had never opened a door herself, nor pulled out a chair at table or picked up her handkerchief when she dropped it, nor put on her own hat. Her absurd childish clothes, like her own dainty person, were exquisitely arranged and kept by someone else. When one day her sash became undone she tried to fix it, blushed and stood motionless until Miss Rabe hurried up and tied the bow for her. She must be, he reflected, dressed and undressed like a doll. Her helplessness was like that of a person without hands. Her whole existence was based upon the constant, watchful, indefatigable labour of slaves. Miss Rabe was the silent and omnipresent symbol of the system; therefore he dreaded her.

Axel was a wealthy young man, heir to a pleasant place in Denmark and in his own country a good match. But he was not rich according to the standard of the world in which he moved here. He decided, sadly, that he could not give his wife the slaves
which to her were a necessity of life. He wondered whether her own freedom would fully indemnify her for their loss, whether his personal love and care would make up for their service. Or would she, within his own house, so to say within his arms, yearn for Miss Rabe herself? This was a fatal thought. Besides, he distrusted and condemned the principle. It was sweet, both droll and pathetic when represented, in Mizzi’s person, in one otherwise obviously ready to meet her destiny. But it was in itself contrary to his idea of a dignified human existence.

Many of his rivals could offer her the kind of life to which she had been brought up. There was a Neapolitan Prince amongst them, and a young Hollander of great wealth, who owned, he was told, estates in the East Indies. The latter he liked, and reflected that he was better-looking than himself. Sometimes he believed that Mizzi thought so too.

He was a conscientious young man; he weighed these matters in his mind in sleepless hours. If only, he thought as he turned his head on the pillow, Mizzi would for once pick up her glove, or arrange the bouquets that he brought her, and put them in water. But she just gracefully placed them on a table, and Miss Rabe put them in water.

There was a ball given at the hotel on a Saturday night; an orchestra played the waltzes of Strauss. Axel danced with Mizzi. She looked like a flower, and he told her so. They also spoke of the stars, and he told her that there were philosophers who held them to be inhabited by live creatures, like the earth. As they were again about to take the floor they found themselves close to the Russian General. He was gazing at a waltzing couple.

“Now, consider, my young friends,” said the General, “what a strange animal is man, and how with him the half is ever more than the whole. Here are now”—and he gave the names. “They are
married a fortnight; the wedding was in all the papers. They are Romeo and Juliet! Their families have an ancient feud, and for a long time opposed the marriage. They are now on their honeymoon, at a castle in the hills, fifteen miles away. They are at last alone, free to give themselves up to the fruition of their love. And what do they do? They drive fifteen miles to dance together here because there is a fine orchestra and a good floor, and they are both famous waltzers. Some people hold that dancing is the foretaste or the substitute of love-making. Mark you, it may as well be said to be the essence of it. The half is more than the whole. But it will be so,” the General added proudly, “solely to the aristocratic mind. The bourgeois might come here from vanity. A young peasant and his wife after the first waltz would exchange the ballroom for the hayloft.”

Here Axel and Mizzi danced out. As everything delighted Axel tonight, he also thought the General’s little lecture charming. He imagined himself and Mizzi on their honeymoon in the hills, and coming to dance at the hotel because the half is more than the whole. In the midst of the waltz he found that Mizzi was looking at him, or, as with Mizzi it was not the eyes which counted most, he found her face and mouth turned straight upon him. The face was all alive, resolute, as assertive as a challenge. But as the dance was over, and he led her back to her seat by the old English lady at the other end of the ballroom, she told him in a low, gentle voice that she and Miss Rabe were leaving Baden-Baden on Thursday. The information cast Axel down from the summit of happiness; for a moment the glittering room was dark to him. Then he reasoned that he still had three days left.

About an hour’s walk from the watering place, in the hills and the pine forest, there stood a little wooden summer house, built in a romantic style, like a watch tower, with a battlement at the
top. The stairway leading up to the roof was so decayed that nobody ventured upon it, but Axel, in passing it, had reflected that there would be a fine view from up there. To this place, on Sunday, he drove out in a cab to collect his thoughts in solitude. The afternoon was so perfectly still, so golden, that he felt as if he had found his way into a picture, some classic Italian painting, that suited him well. The fresh turpentine smell of the pines heightened the illusion. When he had sent his droschke back and ascended to the top of the tower, he was disappointed in the view; the trees had grown up so high that they hid it. But looking up he saw the blue summer sky streaked with thin white clouds. Up on the platform there was a table and a couple of chairs, much worn with sun and rain. It seemed like a dream to sit up so high and the world infinitely far away. As he looked over the battlement he saw a roe gracefully walk out of the wood, across the road, and into the bracken of the other side. On the green sward below him there was a rustic seat. He took off his hat.

He had sat for a while in deep thought, from time to time taking his pencil and writing a few words, when from the forest path he heard voices which slowly came nearer. Two women were talking, but the talk was broken by the one of them sobbing pitifully, like a lost child, like Gretl in the dark wood and in the witch’s power. A few tearful words reached him out of the storm of woe. It was Mizzi’s voice. He got up. He would have rushed to her aid, and might have thrown himself from the parapet, if he had not at the next moment caught in her sobs a querulous, plaintive tone, such as he would never have expected to hear from Mizzi, like that of a child demanding to be comforted and petted. For a second he was in a storm of jealousy; then he wondered if Mizzi, in the woods, was confiding in some girl friend from the hotel. He would have liked to get away, but it was too late, now that
he had heard her weep. Perhaps, he thought, they will walk on. But they had stopped, and he gathered that they were seating themselves on the bench below. It was a strange, highly dramatic staging. He sat above them like a bird of prey, lurking over a pair of doves. He could not help listening.

“But if you love him, sweet, sweet little sister,” said the one, “that is no misfortune. He loves you. They all love you and think you lovely.”

It was Miss Rabe’s voice. But it was a voice new to him, many years younger than he had heard it before, more sonorous and freer. It came from the speaker’s heart. At the same time it was very tired.

After a silence Mizzi answered. This long pause was, all through the conversation, repeated before each of her phrases. “No,” she said, and her voice too was changed, free, coming from the heart; it was also, like the elder woman’s, tired. “I do not love him. One does not love a dupe, a gull. How can one love the people whom one is fooling? I am fooling them all, Lotti. I do not love any of them. No, not one.”