PART TWO

I

There was a wait of several minutes at Frederikshald—time for a cup of coffee. Jenny hurried along the platform; then suddenly she stopped to listen. Somewhere, near by, a lark was singing overhead. Once back in her compartment she leaned back in her corner and closed her eyes, her heart heavy with longing for the south.

The train rushed past small rocks of red granite, torn as it were from the mountain range, and between them dazzling glimpses of deep-blue fjords met the eye. Spruce trees clung to the mountain-side, with the afternoon sun on their reddish trunks and dark green, shiny needles. Everything in nature seemed conspicuously clear and clean after its bath of melting snow. The naked branches of foliferous trees stood out distinctly against the thin air, and little streamlets gurgled alongside the line.

It was all so different from the southern spring, with its slow, sound breathing and softly blended colours—she missed it so much. The sharp colouring now before her eyes reminded her of other springs, when she had been filled with longing for a joy far different from her present restful happiness.

Oh! for the spring out there, with the sprouting vegetation on the immense plain and the firm, severe lines of the encircling mountains, which man has robbed of their woods, to build stone-grey cities on the spurs and plant olive groves on the slopes. For thousands of years life has been teeming on the sides of the mountain, borne by it in patience, yet it raises its crown in eternal solitude and quiet towards heaven. Its proud outlines and subdued green and silvery grey colouring, the ancient cities and the slowly advancing spring—in spite of all that can be said of the tumultuous life of the south—make one’s own life run with a calmer, healthier beat, that meets the coming of spring with greater equanimity than here, where it comes in such mighty waves.

Oh, Helge! She longed to be out there with him. It was so far away, and so long since it all happened. Not quite a week, yet it seemed almost a dream, as if she had never been away at all. But she had been there—not here to see and feel how the white, frosty, peaceful winter yielded and the dry, strong, light blue air, drenched with mist in the middle of the day, hung quivering over the ground. Every outline was blurred or broken, but the colours were vivid and sharp—naked, as it were—until evening came, when everything froze under a sky of pale green, everlasting light.

—You dear boy of mine—what are you doing now? I miss you so, and I want to be with you. I can scarcely believe that you are mine, and I can’t bear to be alone, longing for you, all this bright, long spring.—

As the train proceeded on its way the scenery changed. Strips of snow showed among the trees and along the fences; the soft, shaded brown of the faded meadows and the ploughed fields met the eye, and the intense blue of the sky toned down near the horizon. The undulating line of the forest-clad mountain slopes lay far away; the branches of detached groups of trees in the fields gave the effect of lattice-work against the sky. The old grey houses of the farms shone like silver, and the new barns were glowing red. The pine needles formed an olive green background for the purple buds of the beeches and the light green of the aspens.

Such is spring: glowing colours that last a little while, then everything turns a golden green, swelling with the sap of life, and ripens in a few weeks into full summer—spring, when no joy is great enough. Evening fell, the last long red sunrays vanished behind a ridge, and the golden light in the cloudless sky faded slowly.

When the train left Moss, the mountain ridge stood dark against the clear sky, and the reflection of it in the green fjord was black and transparent. One single large, bright star rose behind the range; its light was mirrored in a filmy golden thread on the water.

It reminded her of Francesca’s nocturnes; she was fond of reproducing the colourings after sunset. Jenny wondered how things were going with Cesca, and she felt a pang of conscience when she realized that she had seen very little of her in the two last months. Cesca was working hard and was perhaps in difficulties, but all Jenny’s intentions to have a good long talk with her had come to nothing.

It was dark when she arrived at her destination; her mother, Bodil, and Nils were at the station to meet her.

It was as if she had seen her mother a week ago, but Mrs. Berner cried when she kissed her daughter: “Welcome home, my darling child—God bless you!” Bodil had grown, and looked very smart in a long coat and skirt. Kalfatrus greeted her shyly.

As she came out of the station she smelt the odour peculiar to the railway square of Christiania—a mixture of sea-water, coal smoke, and dried herring.

The cab drove along Carl Johan, past the old familiar houses. Mrs. Berner asked about the journey, and where she had spent the night. It seemed all so commonplace to Jenny, as if she had never been away from it. The two young people on the back seat said never a word.

Outside a garden gate in Wergelandsveien a young couple stood kissing each other good-night. A few stars twinkled in the clear deep blue sky above the naked trees in the Castle gardens. A smell of mouldering leaves came through the carriage window, reminding her of melancholy springs of old.

The cab stopped at the house where they lived. There was light still in the dairy on the ground floor; the woman came out on the doorstep, when she heard the cab, and said: “Good evening; welcome back,” to Jenny. Ingeborg came rushing down the stairs to embrace her, and hurried up again, carrying her sister’s bag. Supper was laid in the sitting-room, and Jenny saw her napkin with her father’s silver ring in her old place beside Kalfatrus. Ingeborg hurried into the kitchen, and Bodil went with Jenny to her old room at the back, which had been Ingeborg’s during her absence, and still harboured some of her belongings. On the walls were some picture cards of actors; Napoleon and Madame Récamier in mahogany frames hung on either side of Jenny’s old empire mirror above the antique chest of drawers.

Jenny washed and did her hair; she felt an irritation in her skin from the journey, and passed the powder-puff a couple of times over her face. Bodil sniffed the powder to see if it was scented. They went to supper. Ingeborg had a nice hot meal ready; she had been to a cookery school that winter. In the light of the lamp Jenny saw that her young sisters had their thick curly hair tied up with silk bows. Ingeborg’s small, dark face was thinner, but she did not cough any longer. She saw, too, that mamma had grown older—or had she perhaps not noticed, when she was at home and saw her every day, that the small wrinkles in her mother’s pretty face increased, that the tall, girlish figure stooped a little, and that the shoulders lost their roundness? Since she grew up she had always been told that her mother looked like an elder and prettier sister of hers.

They spoke about everything that had happened at home during the year.

“Why didn’t we take a taxi?” said Nils suddenly. “How stupid of us to ride home in an old four-wheeler!”

“Well, it’s too late now; no good crying over spilt milk,” laughed Jenny.

The luggage arrived; her mother and sisters watched the unpacking with interest. Ingeborg and Bodil carried the things into Jenny’s room and put them in the drawers; the embroidered underlinen, which Jenny told them she had bought in Paris, was handled almost with reverence. There was great joy over the gifts to themselves: shantung for summer dresses and Italian bead necklaces. They draped themselves in the stuff before the glass, and tried the effect of the beads in their hair. Kalfatrus alone showed some interest in her pictures, trying to lift the box that contained her canvases.

“How many have you brought?”

“Twenty-six, but they are mostly small ones.”

“Are you going to have a private exhibition—all by yourself?”

“I don’t know yet—I may, some day.”

While the girls were washing up and Nils was making his bed on the sofa, Mrs. Berner and Jenny had a chat in Jenny’s room over a cup of tea and a cigarette.

“What do you think of Ingeborg?” asked Mrs. Berner anxiously.

“She looks well and bright, but, of course, she will need looking after. We must send her to live in the country till she gets quite strong again.”

“She is so sweet and good always—bright and full of fun, and so useful in the house. I am so anxious about her; I think she has been out too much last winter, dancing too much, and keeping late hours, but I had not the heart to refuse her anything. You had such a sad childhood, Jenny—I know you missed the company of other children, and I was sure you and papa would think it right to let the child have all the pleasure she could.” She sighed. “My poor little girls, they have nothing to look forward to but work and privations. What am I to do if they get ill besides? I can do so little.”

Jenny bent over her mother and kissed the tears from her pretty, childish eyes. The longing to give and to receive tenderness, the remembrance of her early childhood, and the consciousness that her mother did not know her life—its sorrows before and its happiness now—melted into a feeling of protecting love, and she gathered her mother into her arms.

“Don’t cry, mother dear. Everything will come all right. I am going to stay at home for the present, and we have still something left of Aunt Katherine’s money.”

“No, Jenny, you must keep that for yourself. I understand now that you must not be hampered in any way in your work. It was such a joy to us all when your picture at the exhibition was sold last autumn.”

Jenny smiled. The fact that she had sold a picture and had two or three lines in the papers about it made her people look upon her work in quite a different light.

“Don’t worry about me, mother. It is all right. I may be able to earn something while I am here. I must have a studio, though,” she said, after a pause, adding as an explanation: “I must finish my pictures in a studio, you see.”

“But you will live at home, won’t you?” asked the mother anxiously.

Jenny did not answer.

“It won’t do, my dear child, for a young girl to live alone in a studio.”

“Very well,” said Jenny; “I shall live at home.”

When she was alone she took out Helge’s photo and sat down to write to him. She had been home only a couple of hours, and yet everything she had lived through out there, where he was, seemed so far away and altogether apart from her life here, before or now. The letter was one single cry of yearning.

II

Jenny had hired a studio and was arranging it to her taste. Kalfatrus came in the afternoons and helped her.

“You have grown so tall that I almost thought I could not call you by the old name any longer.”

The boy laughed.

Jenny asked about all his doings while she had been away, and Nils told her of the extraordinary adventures he and two boy friends had had while they lived for some weeks in the log huts in Nordmarken. As she listened, it crossed her mind that her trips up there with him were now things of the past.

She went in the mornings to the outskirts of the city—to walk by herself in the sunshine. The fields lay yellow with dead grass, there was still snow under the pines, but tiny buds were coming out on the foliage trees and from underneath the dead leaves peeped downy shoots of the blue anemone. She read Helge’s letters again and again; she carried them about her wherever she went. She longed for him impatiently, madly—longed to see him and touch him and convince herself that he was hers.

She had been back twelve days and had not yet been to see his parents; when he asked her a third time if she had been, she made up her mind to go next day. The weather had changed in the night; a strong north wind was blowing, the sun shone with a sharp light, and clouds of dust were whirling in the streets. Then came a hail-storm so violent that she had to take refuge in a doorway. The hard white grains rebounded from the pavement on to her shoes and frivolous summer stockings. Next moment the sun came out again.

The Grams lived in Welhavensgate. At the corner Jenny stopped for a moment to look about; the two rows of grey houses stood almost completely in the raw, icy shade; on the one side a narrow strip of sun fell on the top floor; she was pleased to think that Helge’s parents lived there.

Her way to school had been along this street for four years. She knew it well—the small shops, the black marks of snow on the plaster ornaments of the front entrances, the plants in majolica pots or coloured tissue paper in the windows, the fashion-plates against the panes at the dressmaker’s, and the narrow gateway leading to dark back-yards, where small heaps of dirty snow made the air still more raw. A tramcar rolled heavily up the hill.

Close to where she stood, in the other street, was a large house with a dark yard; they had lived there when her stepfather died.

Outside a door with a brass plate, with “G. Gram” engraved on it; she stood still for a moment, her heart beating. She tried to laugh at herself for this senseless feeling of oppression each time she had to face anything new, for which she had not prepared her mind in advance. Why should she consider her future parents-in-law of such importance? They could not hurt her.... She rang the bell.

She heard somebody coming through the hall; then the door opened. It was Helge’s mother; she knew her from a photograph.

“Are you Mrs. Gram? I am Miss Winge.”

“Oh yes—please come in.”

Jenny followed her through a long, narrow hall encumbered with cupboards, boxes, and outdoor clothes.

Mrs. Gram opened the door to the drawing-room. At this moment the sun came in, showing up the moss-green plush furniture, curtains and portiéres of the same material, and the vivid colours of the carpet. The room was small and very full—photographs and sundry fancy articles stood in every possible place.

“I am afraid it is very untidy here. I have not had time to dust for several days,” said Mrs. Gram. “We don’t use this room every day, and I have no servant just now. I had to dismiss the one I had—she was so dirty and always answering back, but it’s hard to get another at all, and just as well, for they’re all alike as far as that goes. Keeping house nowadays—it’s simply dreadful. Helge told us you would be coming, but we had almost given up hope of seeing you.”

When she talked and laughed she showed big, white front teeth and a black hole on either side, where two were missing.

Jenny sat looking at the woman who was Helge’s mother—how different it all was from what she had imagined.

She had formed a picture in her mind of Helge’s home and mother from his descriptions, and she had pitied the woman whom the husband did not love and who had loved the children so much that they had rebelled and longed to get away from this tyrannic mother-love that could not bear them ever to be anything but her children. In her heart she had taken the mother’s part. Men did not understand to what extent a woman could change who loved and got no love in return except the love of small children; they could not understand what a mother would feel at seeing her children grow up and glide away from her, or how she could rise in defiance and anger against the inexorable life that let little children grow up and cease to feel their mother everything to them, while they were everything to her as long as she lived.

Jenny had wanted to love Helge’s mother—and she could not do it; on the contrary, she felt an almost physical antipathy towards Mrs. Gram as she talked on and on.

The features were the same as Helge’s—the high, slightly narrow forehead, the beautifully carved nose, and the even, dark brows, the same small mouth with thin lips, and the pointed chin. But there was an expression about her mouth as if everything she said were spiteful, and a malicious and scornful look about the fine wrinkles of the face. The remarkably well-shaped eyes, bluish in the white, were hard and piercing. They were large, dark brown eyes—much darker than Helge’s.

She had been uncommonly pretty; yet Jenny was convinced she was right in thinking that Gert Gram had not been anxious to marry her. She was no lady as far as language and manners went—but many pretty girls of the middle classes soon turned harsh and sour when they had been married some time and shut up in a home, with worries of housekeeping and servants to spoil their life.

“Mr. Gram asked me to go and see you and give you the latest news about him,” said Jenny. She felt she could not speak about him as Helge.

“I understand that he spent his time exclusively with you lately—he never mentioned anybody else in his letters. I thought he was in love with a Miss Jahrman at first.”

“Miss Jahrman is my friend—there were several of us always together at first, but she has been very busy lately working at a large picture.”

“Is she the daughter of Colonel Jahrman of Tegneby? Then I suppose she has money?”

“No; she is studying on a small inheritance from her mother. She is not on very good terms with her father—that is to say, he did not like her wanting to become an artist, so she refused to accept any help from him.”

“Very stupid of her. My daughter, Mrs. Arnesen, knows her slightly—she stayed with us at Christmas. She said there were other reasons why the Colonel did not want to have anything to do with her; she is said to be very good looking, but has a bad reputation.”

“There is not the least truth in it,” said Jenny stiffly.

“You have a good time, you artists.” Mrs. Gram sighed. “I cannot see how Helge could work at all—it seems to me he never wrote about anything else but going here and there in the Campagna with you.”

“Oh,” said Jenny. It was very painful to hear Mrs. Gram speak of things out there. “I think Mr. Gram worked very hard, and one must have a day off now and again.”

“Possibly—but we housewives must get along without it. Wait till you get married, Miss Winge. Everybody wants holidays, it seems to me. I have a niece who has just become a school teacher—she was to study medicine, but she was not strong enough, so had to give it up and begin at the seminary instead. She is always having a day off, it seems to me, and I tell her there is no danger of her being overworked.”

Mrs. Gram left the room, and Jenny rose to have a look at the pictures.

Above the sofa was a large view of the Campagna; one could easily see that Gram had studied in Copenhagen. The drawing was good and thorough, but the colouring thin and dry. The background with two Italian women in national dress and the miniature plants round the tumbled pillar was poor. The model study of a young girl below was better. She had to smile—no wonder Helge had found some difficulty in accepting Rome as it was, and had been disappointed at first, after having grown up with all this Italian romance on the walls at home.

There were several well-drawn small landscapes from Italy, with ruins and national costumes, and some copies—Correggio’s “Danaë” and Guido Reni’s “Aurora”—which were not good, and other copies of baroque pictures which she did not know, but a study of a priest was good.

There was also a large light green summer landscape—an experiment in impressionism—but thin and plain as far as colouring went. The one over the piano was better, the sun above the ridge and the air quite good. A portrait of Mrs. Gram hung beside it—very good indeed—better than any of the other things. The figure and the hands were perfectly drawn, the bright red dress, draped at the sides, the openwork black mittens, and the high black hat with a red wing were very effective; the pale face with the dark eyes below the curls on her forehead was good, but unfortunately she stood as glued on to the grey-blue background. The portrait of a child drew her attention—near the frame was written “Bamsey, four years old.” Was that pretty little frowning child in a white shirt Helge? How good he was!

Mrs. Gram returned with some cake and wine on a tray. Jenny muttered something about giving trouble:

“I have been looking at your husband’s paintings.”

“I don’t understand much about it, but I think they are beautiful. He says himself that they are no good, but it is only a way of talking, I think,” she said, with a short, harsh laugh. “My husband is pretty easy-going, you see, and painting pictures could not pay our way when we had married and had children, so he had to do something useful besides. But he was too lazy to paint as well, and that is why he pretended that he had no talent. To me his pictures are much prettier than all the modern paintings, but I suppose you think differently?”

“Your husband’s pictures are very pretty, especially your portrait, which I think beautiful.”

“Do you?—but it is not very like me, and certainly not flattering.” She laughed again, the same slightly bitter laugh. “I think he painted much better before he began to imitate those who were modern then—Thaulow and Krogh and others.”

Jenny sipped her wine in silence while Mrs. Gram went on talking.

“I should like to ask you to stay to lunch, Miss Winge, but I have to do everything myself, you see, and we were not prepared for your coming. I am sorry, but I hope you will come another time.”

Jenny understood that Mrs. Gram wished to get rid of her—it was quite natural, as she was without a servant and had to get the lunch—so she took her leave. On the stairs she met Mr. Gram—she thought so at least. As she passed him she had the impression that he looked very young and that his eyes were very blue.

III

Two days later, in the afternoon, when Jenny was painting in her studio, Helge’s father called. As he stood with his hat in his hand, she saw that his hair was grey—so grey that she could not make out what the original colour had been, but he still looked young. He was thin, and had a slight stoop—not the stoop of an old man, but rather of one too slender for his height. His eyes too were young, though sad and tired and so big and blue that they gave one a curious impression of being wide open, surprised, and at the same time suspicious.

“I was very anxious to meet you, Jenny Winge,” he said, “as you can understand for yourself. No; don’t take off your overall, and tell me if I disturb you.”

“Not in the least,” said Jenny warmly. She liked his smile and his voice. She threw her overall on a chair: “The light is almost gone already. It was very good of you to come and see me.”

“It is a very long time since I was in a studio,” said Gram, sitting down on the sofa.

“Don’t you ever see any of the other painters—your contemporaries?” asked Jenny.

“No, never,” he answered curtly.

“But”—Jenny bethought herself—“how did you find your way up here? Did you ask them at home for my address, or at the artists’ club?”

Gram laughed.

“No; I met you on the stairs the other day, and yesterday, as I was going to the office, I saw you again. I followed you. I was half a mind to stop you and introduce myself. Then I saw you go in here, and I knew there were studios in this house, so I thought I would pay you a visit.”

“Do you know,” said Jenny, with a merry laugh, “Helge too followed me in the street—I was with a friend. He had lost his way in the old streets by the rag market, and he came and spoke to us. That is how we made his acquaintance. We thought it rather cool at the time, but it seems to run in the family.”

Gram frowned, and sat quiet an instant. Jenny realized that she had said the wrong thing, and was thinking what to say next.

“May I make you some tea?” she asked, and without waiting for an answer lit the spirit-lamp under the kettle.

“Miss Winge, you must not be afraid that Helge is like me in other things. I don’t think he takes after his father in anything—fortunately.” He laughed. Jenny did not know what to say to this, and busied herself with the tea.

“It’s rather bare in here, as you see, but I live at home with my mother.”

“I see. This is a good studio, is it not?”

“I think so.”

After a moment he said: “I have been thinking of you very much lately, Miss Winge—I understood from my son’s letters that you and he....”

“Yes, Helge and I are very fond of each other,” said Jenny, looking straight at him. He took her hand and held it an instant.

“I know my son so little—his real self is almost unknown to me, but as you are fond of him you must know him far better. I have always believed that he was a good boy, and clever in a way, and the fact that you love him proves to me that I have reason to be pleased—and proud of him. Now that I know you, I can understand that he loves you, and I hope he will make you happy.”

“Thank you,” said Jenny, giving him her hand again.

“I am fond of the boy—he’s my only son—and I think he likes me too.”

“I know he does. Helge is very fond of you and of his mother.” She blushed as if she had been tactless.

“Yes, I believe so; but he must have seen long ago that his father and mother did not care for one another. Helge has not had a happy home, Jenny. I don’t mind telling you this, for if you have not already understood it, you will soon see it for yourself. You are a sensible girl. Helge’s experience of his own home will teach him, perhaps, to value your love and try to keep it.”

Jenny poured out the tea: “Helge used to come and have tea with me in the afternoon in Rome—it was really during these visits we learnt to know each other, I think.”

“And you became fond of each other?”

“No, not at once. Perhaps we were, though—even then—but we believed that we were great friends only. He came to tea afterwards too, of course.” They both smiled.

“Tell me something about Helge from the time he was a boy—when he was quite small, I mean.”

Gram smiled sadly and shook his head: “No; I cannot tell you anything about my son. He was always good and obedient, and did well at school. He was not particularly clever, but he worked steadily and diligently. He was very reserved as a boy—and later, too, for that matter—with me, anyhow. You, I am sure, have more to tell me.”

“About what?”

“About Helge, of course. Tell me what he looks like to the girl who loves him. You are no ordinary girl either—you are an artist—and I believe you are intelligent and good. Will you not tell me how you came to like him—what it was that made you choose him?”

“Well,” she said laughingly—“it is not so easy to say—we just got fond of each other.”

He laughed too. “Well, it was a stupid question, I admit. One would say I had quite forgotten what it was to be young and in love, don’t you think?”

“Don’t you think!—Helge says that so often, too. It was one of the things that made me like him. He was so young. I saw that he was very reserved, but gradually thawed a good deal.”

“I can understand he would—to you. Tell me more! Oh, but don’t look so frightened. I don’t mean that you should tell me the whole story. Only tell me something about yourself and about Helge, about your work—and about Rome. I am an old man. I want to feel again what it is like to be an artist—and free. To work at the only thing you care for—to be young—and in love—and happy.”

He stayed for two hours. When he was ready to go and stood with his hat in his hand, he said in a low voice: “It is no use trying to hide from you the state of things at home. When we meet there, it would be better if we pretended not to have met before. I don’t wish Helge’s mother to know that I have made your acquaintance in this way—for your sake, so as not to expose you to any disagreeable, malicious words from her. It is enough for her to know that I like somebody—especially if it is a woman—to turn her against them. You think it strange, I am sure, but you understand, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Jenny quietly.

“Good-bye. I am happy about you for Helge’s sake—believe me, Jenny.”

She had written to Helge the night before about her visit to his home, and when she read her letter through, she realized how very cold and poor was the part about her meeting with his mother. When writing to him that night she told him about his father’s visit, but she tore the letter up and began another. It was so difficult to tell him about his father’s call and not to mention hers to Mrs. Gram. She did not like having secrets with one from the other. She felt humiliated on Helge’s behalf at having been initiated all at once in the misery of his home, and she ended by not saying a word about it in her letter—it would be easier to explain when he came.

IV

Towards the end of May Jenny had not heard from Helge for several days, and was beginning to fear that something had happened. If no letter came the next day she would send a wire. In the afternoon, when she was in her studio, there was a knock at the door. When she opened she was seized and hugged and kissed by a man who stood on the landing.

“Helge!” She was overjoyed. “Helge! how you frightened me, you dear boy. Let me look at you. Is it really and truly you?” and she pulled the travelling-cap off his head.

“I hope it could not be anybody else,” he said laughingly.

“But what does all this mean?”

“I will tell you,” he said, pressing his face against her neck. “I wanted to give you a surprise, and so I did, it seems.”

After the first tender greetings were over they sat down hand in hand on the sofa.

“Let me look at you, Jenny—oh, how lovely you are! At home they believe I am in Berlin. I am going to an hotel for the night. I mean to stay a few days in town before telling them. Won’t it be fun! It is a pity you live at home now. We could have been together all day.”

“When you knocked I thought it was your father coming.”

“Father?”

“Yes.” She felt a little embarrassed; it seemed suddenly so difficult to explain the whole thing to him. “You see, your father came one day to call, and he has been to tea sometimes in the afternoon. We sit and talk about you.”

“But, Jenny, you never wrote a word about it; you have not even mentioned that you had met father.”

“No; I preferred to tell you. You see, your mother does not know about it; your father thought it better not to mention it.”

“Not to me?”

“Oh no, we never meant that. He believes most likely that I have told you. It was only your mother who was not to know. I thought it was—well, I did not like to write you that I had a secret from your mother. You understand?”

Helge was silent.

“I did not like it myself,” she continued. “But what could I do? He called on me, you see, and I like him very much. I am getting quite fond of your father.”

“Father can be very attractive, I know—and then you are an artist, too.”

“He likes me for your sake, dear. I know it is so.”

Helge did not answer.

“And you have only seen mother once?”

“Yes—but are you not hungry? Let me give you something to eat.”

“No, thanks. We’ll go out and have supper somewhere together.”

There was a knock at the door again. “It is your father,” whispered Jenny.

“Hush—sit still—don’t open!”

They heard retreating steps on the landing. Helge frowned.

“What is it, dear?”

“Oh, I don’t know—I hope we won’t see him. We don’t wish to be disturbed, do we? Not to see anybody.”

“No,” she kissed his mouth, and, bending his head, she kissed him again on the neck behind the ear.

After dinner, when they were having coffee and liqueurs, Jenny said suddenly: “I cannot get over this about Francesca.”

“Did you not know before? I thought she had written to you.”

Jenny shook her head.

“Never a word—you could have knocked me down with a feather when I got her letter. Only a few words: ‘Tomorrow I am going to marry Ahlin.’ I had not the least suspicion of it.”

“Neither had we. They were very much together, of course, but that they were going to marry even Heggen did not know until she asked him to give her away.”

“Have you seen them since?”

“No. They went to Rocca di Papa the same day, and they were still there when I left Rome.”

Jenny sat a while thinking.

“I thought she was all taken up with her work,” she said.

“Heggen told me she had finished the big picture of the gate, and that it was very good. She had begun several small ones too, but then she got married all of a sudden. I don’t know if they had been properly engaged even. And what about you, Jenny—you wrote you had begun a new picture?”

Jenny led him to the easel. The big canvas showed a street with a row of houses—offices and factories—in grey-green and brick-red colouring. To the right were some workshops; behind them rose the walls of some big houses against a rich blue sky, with a few departing rain clouds, leaden grey in colour, but shining white where the sun came through. There was a strong light on the shops and the wall, and on the young foliage of some trees in a yard. A few men, some wagons and fruit barrows stood about in the street.

“I don’t know much about it, but is it not very good? I think it is fine—it is beautiful.”

“When I was wandering about waiting for my own boy—after walking here so lonely and sad many a spring before—and saw the maples and the chestnuts opening out their tender leaves against the smoky houses and red walls under a golden spring sky, I wanted to paint it.”

“Where did you get the view?”

“Stenersgaten. You see, your father spoke about a picture of you as a boy, which he kept in his office. I went down there to have a look at it, and then I saw this view from his office window. They let me stand in the box factory next door to paint it, but I had to change it a bit—compose a little.”

“You have been a good deal with father, I see,” said Helge after a pause. “I suppose he is very interested in your picture?”

“Yes. He often came over to look while I was working on it, and gave me some good advice. He knows a lot about painting, of course.”

“Do you think father had any talent?” asked Helge.

“Oh yes, I believe so. The pictures hanging in your home are not particularly good, but he let me see some studies he keeps in his office, and I think they show a refined and quite original talent. He would never have been a great artist; he is too susceptible to influence, but I think it is because of his readiness to appreciate and love the good work of others. He has a great understanding and love of art.”

“Poor father!” said Helge.

“Yes”—Jenny nestled closer to him—“your father is perhaps more to be pitied than you or I understand.”

They kissed—and forgot to speak any more of Gert Gram.

“Your people don’t know about it yet?” Helge asked.

“No,” said Jenny.

“At first, when I was sending all my letters to your home address, did your mother never ask who wrote to you like that every day?”

“No. My mother is not that kind.”

“My mother,” repeated Helge hotly. “You mean to say that mother would have done so—that she is tactless. I don’t think you are just to my mother—surely, for my sake, you ought not to speak like that of her.”

“Helge! What do you mean?” Jenny looked at him, astonished. “I have not said a word about your mother.”

“You said, my mother is not like that.”

“I did not. I said my mother.”

“No; you said my mother. You may not like her—although I cannot see what reason you have so far not to—but you should remember that you speak about my mother, and that I am fond of her as she is.”

“Oh, Helge! I don’t understand how....” She stopped, as she felt tears filling her eyes. It was so strange a thing for Jenny Winge to shed tears that she felt ashamed of it, and was quiet.

But he had seen it: “Jenny, my darling, have I hurt you? Oh, my own girl—what a misery it is! You can see for yourself—no sooner have I come back, but it begins again.” He clenched his hands and cried: “I hate it—I hate my home!”

“My darling boy, you must not say so. Don’t let it upset you like that.” She took him in her arms. “Helge, dearest, listen to me—what has it to do with us?—it cannot make any difference in us”—and she kissed and petted him till he stopped crying and shivering.

V

Jenny and Helge were sitting on the sofa in his room, silent, with arms encircled. It was a Sunday in June; Jenny had been for a walk with Helge in the morning and had dined at the Grams’. After dinner they all sat in the drawing-room, struggling through the tedious afternoon, until Helge got Jenny into his own room on the pretext of reading her something he had written.

“Ugh!” said Jenny at last.

Helge did not ask why she said it. He only laid his head in her lap and let her stroke his hair; neither spoke.

Helge sighed: “It was nicer at your place in the Via Vantaggio, was it not?”

The sound of plates and of fat spluttering in a pan came from the kitchen. Mrs. Gram was getting supper. Jenny opened the window wide to let out the smell that had penetrated into the room. She stood a moment looking out on the yard. All the windows were kitchen or bedroom windows with blinds half drawn, except one large one in each corner. Ugh! How well she knew those dining-rooms with a single corner window looking on to the yard, dark and dismal, with never a glimpse of sun. Soot came in when one aired the rooms, and the smell of food was permanent. The playing of a guitar came from a servant’s room, and a high soprano voice was singing a doleful Salvation Army hymn.

The guitar reminded her of Via Vantaggio, and Cesca, and Gunnar, who used to sit on her sofa with his legs on a stool, strumming on Cesca’s guitar and singing Cesca’s Italian songs. And she was seized with a sudden, desperate longing for everything out there. Helge came to her side: “What are you thinking of?”

“Of Via Vantaggio.”

“Oh yes. What a lovely time we had there!”

She put her arm round his neck and drew his head on to her shoulder. It had struck her the moment he spoke that he was not a part of that which filled her heart with longing. She raised his head again and looked into his amber brown eyes, wishing to be reminded of all the glorious days in the Campagna, when he lay among the daisies looking at her. And she wanted to shake off the intense, sickening feeling of discomfort which always came over her when she was in his home.

Everything was unbearable here. The first evening she was invited to the house after Helge’s official arrival, when Mrs. Gram had introduced her to her husband, she had to pretend not to know him, while Helge stood looking on at this comedy, knowing they had deceived his mother. It was dreadful—but something still worse had happened. She had been left alone with Gram for a few minutes and he mentioned that he had been to the studio to see her one afternoon, but she had not been in. “No, I was not at the studio that day,” she had answered, turning very red. He looked at her in great surprise, and almost without knowing why she did so she blurted out: “I was, but I could not let you in, because there was somebody with me.” Gram had smiled and said: “Yes, I heard quite distinctly that somebody was moving in the studio.” In her confusion she had told him that it was Helge, and that he had been a few days in town incognito.

“My dear Jenny,” Gram had said, and she saw that he was hurt, “you need not have kept it secret from me. I would certainly not have intruded on you—but I will say that it would have given me much pleasure if Helge had told me.” She found nothing to say, and he continued: “I shall be careful not to tell him.”

She had never meant to keep it a secret from Helge that she had told his father, but she had not yet been able to tell him—afraid that he would not like it. She was worried and nervous about all these mysteries, one after the other.

It is true, she had not told them anything at home either, but that was quite different. She was not used to speak to her mother about anything concerning herself; she had never expected any understanding from her, and had never asked for it. Her mother, besides, was very anxious about Ingeborg just at present. Jenny had got her to rent a cottage a little way out of town; Bodil and Nils came to school by train every day, and Jenny lived in the studio.

Yet she had never been so fond of her mother and her home as she was now. Once or twice when she had been worried about things, and out of spirits, her mother had tried to help and comfort her without asking any questions. She would have blushed at the mere thought of forcing herself into the confidence of any of her children. To grow up in a home like Helge’s must have been a torture. It seemed almost as if the gloom of it hung about them even when they were together elsewhere.

“Dearest,” she said, caressing him.

Jenny had offered to help Mrs. Gram wash up and to get the supper, but she had said, with her usual smile: “No, my dear, you have not come here for that—certainly not, Miss Winge.”

Perhaps she did not mean it, but Mrs. Gram always smiled in a spiteful way when she talked to her. Poor woman, it was probably the only smile she had.

Gram came in; he had been for a walk. Jenny and Helge went to sit with him in his study. Mrs. Gram came in for an instant.

“You forgot to take your umbrella, dear—as usual. You were lucky to escape a shower. Men want such a lot of looking after, you know,” she said, turning to Miss Winge.

“You manage it very well,” said Gram. His voice and manners were always painfully polite when he spoke to his wife.

“You are sitting in here too, I see,” she said to Helge and Jenny.

“I have noticed that the study is the nicest room in every house,” said Jenny. “It was in our house, when my father was alive. I suppose it is because they are made to work in it.”

“The kitchen ought in that case to be the very nicest room in every house,” said Mrs. Gram. “Where do you think more work is done, Gert—in your room or mine?—for I suppose the kitchen is my study.”

“Undoubtedly more useful work is done in your room.”

“I believe, after all, that I must accept your kind offer of help, Miss Winge—it is getting late.”

They were at table when the bell rang. It was Mrs. Gram’s niece, Aagot Sand. Mrs. Gram introduced Jenny.

“Oh, you are the artist with whom Helge spent so much of his time in Rome. I guessed that much when I saw you in Stenersgaten one day in the spring. You were walking with Uncle Gert, and carried your painting things.”

“You must be mistaken, Aagot,” said Mrs. Gram. “When do you imagine you saw them?”

“The day before Intercession Day, as I was coming back from school.”

“It is quite true,” said Gram. “Miss Winge had dropped her paint-box in the street, and I helped her to pick the things up.”

“A little adventure, I see, which you have not confessed to your wife,” said Mrs. Gram, laughing. “I had no idea you knew each other before.”

Gram laughed too: “Miss Winge did not recognize me. It was not very flattering to me—but I did not wish to remind her. Did you not suspect when you saw me that I was the kind old gentleman who had helped you?”

“I was not sure,” said Jenny feebly, her face turning purple. “I did not think you recognized me.” She tried to smile, but she was painfully conscious of her blushing and unsteady voice.

“It was an adventure, indeed,” said Mrs. Gram. “A most peculiar coincidence.”

“Have I said something wrong again?” asked Aagot when they went into the drawing-room after supper. Mr. Gram had retired to his study and Mrs. Gram had gone into the kitchen. “It is detestable in this house. You never know when there’s going to be an explosion. Please explain. I don’t understand anything.”

“Mind your own business,” said Helge angrily.

“All right, all right—don’t bite me! Is Aunt Rebecca jealous of Miss Winge now?”

“You are the most tactless woman....”

“After your mother, yes. Uncle Gert told me so one day.” She laughed. “Have you ever heard anything so absurd! Jealous of Miss Winge.” She looked inquisitively at the two others.

“You need not bother about things that only concern us, Aagot,” said Helge curtly.

“Indeed? I only thought—but never mind; it does not matter.”

“No; it does not in the least.”

Mrs. Gram came in and lit the lamp. Jenny looked almost scared at her angry face. She stood a moment, staring with hard, glittering eyes, then she bent down and picked up Jenny’s scissors, which had fallen on the floor.

“It looks as if it were a speciality of yours to drop things. You should not let things slip through your fingers, Miss Winge. Helge is not as gallant as his father, it seems.” She laughed. “Do you want your lamp?...” She went into the study and pulled the door after her. Helge listened an instant—his mother spoke in a low but angry voice in the other room.

“Can’t you leave that wretched business alone for once?” came distinctly through the door; it was Gram speaking.

Jenny turned to Helge: “I am going home now—I have a headache.”

“Don’t go, Jenny. There will be such a scene if you go. Stay a little longer. Mother will only be more angry if you run away now.”

“I cannot stand it,” she whispered, nearly crying.

Mrs. Gram walked through the room. Gram came in and joined them.

“Jenny is tired; she is going now. I will see her home.”

“Are you going already? Can’t you stay a little longer?”

“I have a headache and I am tired,” murmured Jenny.

“Please stay a little,” he whispered to her. “She”—he indicated the kitchen with his head—“does not say anything to you, and while you are here we are spared a scene.”

Jenny sat down quietly and took up her needlework again. Aagot crocheted energetically at a hospital shawl.

Gram went to the piano. Jenny was not musical, but she understood that he was, and by and by she became calm as he played softly—all for her, she felt.

“Do you know this one, Miss Winge?”

“No.”

“Nor you either, Helge? Did you not hear it in Rome? In my time it was sung everywhere. I have some books with Italian songs.”

He rose to look for them; as he passed Jenny he whispered: “Do you like me to play?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I go on?”

“Yes, please.”

He stroked her hand: “Poor little Jenny. You had better go now—before she comes.”

Mrs. Gram brought a tray of cakes and dessert.

“How nice of you to play to us, Gert. Don’t you think my husband plays beautifully, Miss Winge? Has he played to you before?” she asked innocently.

Jenny shook her head: “I did not know that Mr. Gram played the piano.”

“What a beautiful worker you are.” She looked at Jenny’s embroidery. “I thought you artists did not condescend to do needlework. It is a lovely pattern—where did you get it? Abroad, I suppose?”

“I designed it myself.”

“Oh well, then it is easy to get nice patterns. Have you seen this, Aagot? Isn’t it pretty? You are very clever”—and she patted Jenny’s hand.

What loathsome hands she had, thought Jenny—small, short fingers, with nails broader than long, and splayed out wide.

Helge and Jenny saw Aagot to her rooms and walked slowly down Pilestaedet in the pale night of June. The chestnuts in bloom along the hospital wall smelt strongly after the afternoon shower.

“Helge,” said Jenny, “you must try and arrange so that we need not go with them the day after tomorrow.”

“It is impossible. They have asked you and you have accepted. It is for your sake they have arranged this picnic.”

“But can you not understand how miserable it will be? I wish we could go alone somewhere, you and I, as in Rome.”

“There is nothing I would like better, but if we refuse to be a party to their midsummer outing it will only make things more unpleasant at home.”

“Not more than usual, I suppose,” she said scornfully.

“Yes, much more. Can you not put up with it for my sake? Hang it all, you are not obliged to be in the midst of it always, or to live and work there!”

He was right, she thought, and reproached herself for not being patient enough. He, poor boy, had to live and work in a home she could scarcely endure for two hours. He had grown up in it and lived his whole youth in it.

“I am horrid and selfish, Helge.” She clung to him, tired, worried, and humiliated. She longed for him to kiss her and comfort her. What did it really matter to them? They had each other, and belonged somewhere far away from the air of hatred, suspicion, and anger in his home.

The scent of jessamine was wafted from the old gardens that still remained.

“We can go off by ourselves another day—just you and I,” he said, to comfort her. “But how could you be so silly?” he said suddenly. “I cannot understand it. You ought to have known that mother would get to know it—as sure as anything.”

“Of course she does not believe the story your father told,” said Jenny timidly.—Helge sniffed.—“I wish he would tell her everything just as it happened.”

“You may rest assured he won’t do that. And you cannot do it—you must just go on pretending. It was awfully stupid of you.”

“I could not help it, Helge.”

“Well—I had told you enough about things at home for you to know. You could have prevented father from coming again, and all your visits to the office—as well as the meetings in Stenersgate.”

“Meetings?—I saw the view and knew I could make a good picture of it—and so I have.”

“Yes, yes, you have. The fault, no doubt, is mostly father’s. Oh, the way he speaks of her.” Helge fumed. “You heard what he had said to Aagot—and what he said to you tonight. ‘She’”—imitating his father—“does not say anything to you! Remember it is our mother he speaks of like that.”

“I think your father is much more considerate and courteous to your mother than she is to him.”

“That consideration of father’s—I know it. Do you call it considerate the way he has won you over to his side? And his politeness—if you knew how I have suffered under it as a child, and since. He used to stand and listen very politely without saying a word, and if he spoke, it was in an icy cold, extremely civil manner. I almost prefer mother’s loud anger and scoldings. Oh, Jenny, it is all so miserable.”

“My poor, darling boy.”

“It is not all mother’s fault. Everybody prefers father. You do—quite naturally—I do myself, but I understand her being as she is. She wants to be first with everybody, and she never is. Poor mother.”

“I am sorry for her,” said Jenny, but her heart remained cold to Mrs. Gram. The air was heavy with scent from leaf and blossom as they went through the square. On the seats under the trees there was whispering and murmuring in the clear summer night.

Their solitary steps echoed on the pavement of the deserted business quarter where the tall buildings slept—the pale blue sky was reflected in the shop windows.

“May I come up?” he whispered as they stood at her entrance.

“I am tired,” said Jenny softly.

“I should like to stay a while with you—don’t you think it would be nice to be by ourselves a little?”

She said nothing, but began to walk up the stairs, and he followed.

Jenny lighted the seven-armed candlestick on her writing-table, took a cigarette, and held it to the flame: “Will you smoke?”

“Thanks.” He took the cigarette from her lips.

“The thing is, you see,” he said suddenly, “that there was once some story about father and another woman. I was twelve then, and I don’t know exactly how much truth there was in it. But mother!... it was a dreadful time. It was only because of us that they remained together—father told me so himself. God knows, I don’t thank him for it! Mother is honest at least, and admits that she means to hold on to him by hook or by crook and not let go.”

He sat down on the sofa. Jenny went and sat beside him, kissing his eyes. He sank on his knees and laid his head in her lap.

“Do you remember the last evening in Rome, when I said good-night? Do you still love me as you did then?”

She did not answer.

“Jenny?”

“We have not been happy together today—it’s the first time.”

He lifted his head: “Are you vexed with me?” he said in a low voice.

“No, not vexed.”

“What, then?”

“Nothing—only....”

“Only what?”

“Tonight”—she hesitated—“when we walked here, you said we would go somewhere alone—some other day. It was not as it was in Rome; now it is you who decide what I must do and not do.”

“Oh no, Jenny.”

“Yes—but I don’t mind; I like it so. I only think that, if such is the case, you ought to help me out of all this trouble.”

“You don’t think I did help you today?” he asked slowly.

“Ye—s. Well, I suppose there was nothing you could do.”

“Shall I go now?” he whispered after a pause, drawing her close to him.

“Do as you wish,” she said quietly.

“You know what I wish. What do you wish—most?”

“I don’t know what I want.” She burst into tears.

“Oh, Jenny darling.” He kissed her softly time after time. When she recovered herself he took her hand: “I am going now. Sleep well, dear; you are tired. You must not be cross with me.”

“Say good-night nicely to me,” she said, clinging to him.

“Good-night, my sweet, beloved Jenny.” He left, and she fell to crying again.

VI

“These are the things I wanted you to see,” said Gert Gram, rising. He had been on his knees, looking for something on the lower shelf of his safe.

Jenny pushed the sketch-books aside and pulled the electric lamp nearer. He wiped the dust from the big portfolio and placed it before her.

“I have not shown these to anybody for a great many years, or looked at them myself, but I have been wanting you to see them for some time—in fact, from the day I called on you at your studio. When you came here to look at Helge’s picture I meant to ask you if you cared to see them, and all the time you were working close by here I had it in my mind.

“It is strange to think, Jenny, that here in this little office I have buried all my dreams of youth. There in the safe they lie like corpses in their tomb, and I myself go about a dead and forgotten artist.”

Jenny said nothing. Gram sometimes used expressions that were rather too sentimental, she thought, although she knew that the bitter feelings which dictated them were real enough. In a sudden impulse she bent forward and stroked his grey hair.

Gram bowed his head as if to prolong the slight caress—and without looking at her, untied the portfolio with trembling hands.

She realized in surprise that her own hands shook as she took the first sheet from him, and she felt a strange fear and oppression at heart, as of a danger threatening. She was suddenly afraid when she realized that she did not want anybody to know of her visit and that she dared not tell Helge about it. At the mere thought of her lover she became depressed; she had long since consciously stopped analysing her real feelings for him. She did not want to heed the foreboding that crossed her mind at this moment, not to let herself be disturbed by inquiring into Gert Gram’s feelings for her.

She turned over the sheets of the portfolio with the dreams of his youth; it was a melancholy business. He had told her about this work often when they were alone, and she understood that he thought he had been born an artist for the sake of this and nothing else. The pictures hanging in his home he called the amateur work of a conscientious and diligent pupil, but these—they were his own. They were illustrations to Landstad’s Folksongs.

At first sight these big sheets with frames of Roman foliage and ornate black-letter writing were good enough. The colouring was pure and effective in most of them, in some really fine, but the figures in the vignettes and borders were without style and life, although the miniature drawings were correct in every detail. Some of them were naturalistic, others approaching Italian mediaeval art to such an extent that Jenny recognized certain Annunciation angels and madonnas in the cloaks of knights and maidens, and the leaves in gold and purple she remembered having seen, in a book of mass in the San Marco library. The words of the songs looked very strange, hand-printed in elegant monastic Latin types. In some of the larger full-page illustrations the composition was baroque, a direct copy of Roman altar pictures. It was an echo of all he had seen and lived among and loved—an echo of the melody of Gert Gram’s youth; not a single note was his own, but this melody of many notes was resounded in a particularly soft, melancholy tone.

“You don’t quite like them,” he said. “I can see you don’t.”

“Yes, I like them. There is much that is pretty and delicate about them, but, you know”—she searched for the right expression—“the effect is a little strange on us, who have seen the same subjects treated differently and so perfectly, that we cannot conceive them treated in another way.”

He sat opposite her, resting his chin in his hand. By and by he looked up, and she was sad at heart to meet his eyes.

“I seem to remember them as being much better than they are,” he said quietly, trying to smile. “I have not opened this portfolio for many a year, as I told you.”

“I have never quite understood that you were so attracted by the later renaissance and the baroque,” she said, to divert the conversation.

“I am not surprised, Jenny dear, that you don’t understand it.” He looked into her face with a melancholy smile. “There was a time when I believed in myself as an artist, but not so completely that I did not have a slight doubt sometimes, not of succeeding to express what I wanted, but as to what I really wanted to express. I saw that romantic art had had its day and was on the decline—there was decadence and falsehood all along—and yet in my heart I was devoted to romance, not in painting alone, but in real life. I wanted the Sunday-peasants of romance, although I had lived long enough in the country as a boy to know they did not exist, and when I went abroad it was to the Italy of romance I turned my steps. I know that you and your contemporaries seek beauty in things as they are, tangible and real. To me there was beauty only in the transformation of reality, which had already been done by others. In the eighties there came a new art-creed. I tried to adopt it, but the result was lip-service only, for my heart rebelled against it.”

“But reality, Gert, is not a fixed conception. It appears different to every one who sees it. An English painter once said to me: ‘There is beauty in everything; only your eyes see it or do not see it.’”

“I was not made to conceive reality, only the reflection of it in the dreams of others. I lacked entirely the capacity to form a beauty for myself out of the complexity of realities; I knew my own ineffectiveness. When I came to Italy the baroque took my heart and fancy. Can you not understand the agony of my soul on realizing my inefficiency? To have nothing new or personal wherewith to fill up form, only develop the technique in soaring fancies, break-neck foreshortenings, powerful effects of light and shade, and cunningly thought-out compositions. The emptiness of it all is to be hidden under the ecstasy—contorted faces, twisted limbs, saints, whose only true passion is the dread of their own engulfing doubt, which they try to drown in sickly exaltation. It is the despair of the good, the work of an epigon school wishing to fascinate—mostly themselves.”

Jenny nodded. “What you say, Gert, is at least your own subjective view. I am not so sure that the painters you speak of were not highly pleased with themselves.”

He laughed and said: “Perhaps they were—and perhaps this is my hobby-horse because for once I had—as you say—a subjective view.”

“But the picture of your wife in red is impressionistic, excellent. The more I look at it, the more I like it.”

“Yes, but that is a solitary instance.” After a pause “When I painted it, she was all the world to me. I was very much in love with her—and I hated her intensely already.”

“Was it because of her you gave up painting?” asked Jenny.

“No. All our misfortunes are of our own making. I know you have not what they call faith, neither have I—but I believe in a God, if you like, or a spiritual power which punishes justly.

“She was cashier in a shop in the High Street; I happened to see her there. She was remarkably pretty, as you can see still. One evening when she went home I waited for her and spoke to her. We made friends—and I seduced her,” he said in a low and harsh voice.

“And you married her because she was going to have a child?—I thought so. For twenty-seven years she has tormented you in return. Do you know what I think of the deity you believe in?—that it is rather relentless.”

He smiled wearily. “I am not quite so old-fashioned as you may think. I don’t consider it a sin if two young people, who love and believe in one another, join their lives in a lawful or unlawful way. But in my case I was the abductor. She was innocent when I met her—innocent in every way. I understood her better than she did herself. I saw that she was passionate, and would be jealous and tyrannical in her love, but I did not care. I was flattered that her passion was for me, that this beautiful girl was all mine, but I never meant to be hers alone, the way I knew she wanted it. I did not exactly mean to leave her, but I thought I should be able to arrange our life in such a way as not to share with her my interests, my work, my real life in fact, as I knew she would want to do. It was stupid of me, knowing that I was weak and she strong and ruthless. I thought that her great passion would give me, who was comparatively cold, a hold on her.

“Beyond her great faculty of loving there was nothing in her. She was vain and uneducated, envious and crude. There could be no mental fellowship between us, but I did not miss it; to possess her beauty and her passionate love was all I cared for.”

He rose and went over to the side where Jenny was sitting. He took both her hands and pressed them against his eyes.

“What else but misery could I expect from a marriage with her? But we reap as we sow, and I had to marry her. I had a dreadful time of it. At first, when she came to my studio, she was proud to be my mistress, arrogant in her denunciation of old prejudices, declaring that the only life worth living was that of free love. The moment things went wrong she changed her tone. Then it was all about her respectable family in Frederikshald, her unstained virtue, and her good reputation. Many men had wanted her, but she had not listened to anybody, and I was a scoundrel and a wretch if I did not marry her at once. I had nothing to marry on; I had neglected my studies and had learnt nothing but painting. Some months went by—at last I had to apply to my father. My people helped me through. We got married, and two months later Helge arrived.

“I had had hopes of a great artistic work—my folklore illustrations—but I had to give up my dreams for the reality of making bread and butter. Once I had to come to an agreement with my creditors. She took her share of the struggle and poverty loyally and without complaint—she would willingly have starved for me and the children. Feeling as I did towards her, it was hard to accept what she gave in working, suffering, and renouncing for my sake.

“I had to sacrifice everything I loved; she forced me to give it up inch by inch. From the very first she and my father were mortal enemies. He could not bear his daughter-in-law, and that was a blow to her vanity, so she set about to make trouble between him and me. My father was an official of the old school—a bit narrow and stiff maybe, but right-minded and loyal, noble and good at heart. You would have liked him, I am sure. We had been so much to one another, but our intimacy was put a stop to.

“As for my painting, I understood that I had not the talent I once had imagined, and I lacked energy to make continued efforts when I did not believe in myself—dead tired as I was of the struggle and of my life at her side, which became more and more of a caricature. She reproached me, but secretly she triumphed.

“She was jealous of the children too, if I was fond of them or they were fond of me. She would not share them with me nor me with them.

“Her jealousy has grown into a kind of madness as the years have gone by. You have seen it for yourself. She can scarcely bear to see me in the same room with you even when Helge is there.”

Jenny went to him and laid her hands on his shoulders:

“I cannot understand,” she said—“I really cannot—that you have been able to stand such a life.”

Gert Gram bent forward, resting his head on her shoulder:

“I don’t understand it myself.”

When he raised his head and their eyes met, she put her hand to his neck and, overwhelmed by a tender compassion, kissed him on the cheek and forehead.

She felt a sudden fear when she looked down at his face resting on her shoulder, with eyes closed, but the next moment he lifted his head and rose, saying:

“Thank you, Jenny dear.”

Gram put the drawings back in their cover and straightened the table.

“I hope you will be very, very happy. You are so bright and courageous, so energetic and gifted. Dear child, you are everything I wanted to be, but never was.” He spoke in a low, absent-minded voice.

“I think,” he said a moment later, “that when relations between two people are new, before their life is perfectly accorded, there are many small difficulties to overcome. I wish you could live elsewhere, not in this town. You should be alone, far from your own people—at first at least.”

“Helge has applied for a post in Bergen, as you know,” said Jenny, and the feeling of despair and anguish again seized her when she thought of him.

“Do you never speak to your mother about it? Why don’t you? Are you not fond of your mother?”

“Of course I am fond of her.”

“I should think it would be a good thing to talk to her about it—get her advice.”

“It is no good asking anybody’s advice—I don’t like to speak to any one about these things,” she said, wishing to dismiss the subject.

“No, you are perhaps....” He had been standing half-way turned to the window. Suddenly his face changed, and he whispered in a state of excitement:

“Jenny, she is down there in the street!”

“Who?”

“She—Rebecca!”

Jenny rose. She felt she could have screamed with exasperation and disgust. She trembled; every fibre of her body was quivering with revolt. She would not be involved in all this—these wicked, odious suspicions, quarrels, spiteful words, and scenes—no, she would not.

“Jenny, my child, you are shivering—don’t be afraid. I won’t let her hurt you.”

“Afraid? Far from it.” She steeled herself at once. “I have been here to fetch you; we have looked at your drawings, and we are now going to your house to supper.”

“She may not have noticed anything.”

“Heavens! we have nothing to hide. If she had not seen that I am here she will soon get to know it. I am going with you; we must do it for your sake as well as for mine—do you hear?”

Gram looked at her: “Yes, let us go, then.”

When they got down in the street Mrs. Gram was gone.

“Let us take the tram, Gert; it is late,” she said, adding in a sudden temper: “Oh, we must stop all this—if only for Helge’s sake.”

Mrs. Gram opened the door. Gert Gram ventured an explanation; Jenny looked frankly into the angry eyes of his wife: “I am sorry Helge is out for the evening. Do you think he will be home early?”

“I am surprised you did not remember it,” Mrs. Gram said to her husband. “It is no pleasure to Miss Winge to sit here with us two old people.”

“Oh, that is all right,” said Jenny.

“I don’t remember hearing that Helge was going out this evening,” said Gram.

“Fancy your coming without any needlework,” said Mrs. Gram, when they were sitting in the drawing-room after supper. “You are always so industrious.”

“I left the studio so late, I had no time to go home in between. Perhaps you could find me something?”

Jenny conversed with Mrs. Gram about the price of embroidery patterns at home and in Paris, and about books she had lent her. Gram was reading. Now and again she felt his eyes on her. Helge returned about eleven.

“What is the matter?” he asked, when they walked down the stairs. “Has there been a scene again?”

“No, not at all,” she replied, in a short, irritated voice. “I suppose your mother did not like my coming home with your father.”

“It seems to me, too, that you need not have done it,” said Helge humbly.

“I am going home by tram.” Overwrought, and unable to control herself, she pulled her arm out of his. “I cannot stand any more tonight, and I will not have these scenes with you every time I have been to your home. Good-night.”

“Jenny! Wait! Jenny!...” He hurried after her, but she was already at the stop when the tram came, and got in, leaving him without a word.

VII

Jenny walked listlessly about in her studio next morning and could not settle down to anything. The pouring rain was beating against the big window. She stopped to look at the wet tiles of the roofs, the black chimneys, and the telephone wires, along which the small raindrops were rolling down like pearls until they gathered into one large one and fell off, to be replaced immediately by others.

She might go to her mother and the children in the country for a few days. She must go away from all this. Or she might go to an hotel in some other town and write for Helge to come and talk things over with her quietly. If they could only be together again—they two alone! She tried to think of their spring in Rome, of the silvery haze over the mountains, and of her own happiness in it all. But she could not reconstruct the picture of Helge from that time—as he had appeared to her enamoured eyes.

Those days seemed already so far away; they were an isolated episode in her life, and although she knew they were a reality she could not connect them with her present existence.

Helge—her Helge was lost to her in the home at Welhavensgaten, and she herself could not fit in there. It seemed unthinkable that she should have anything to do with those people now and in all the time to come. Yes—Gram was right—they must go away.

And she would go at once—before Helge came, asking for an explanation of her behaviour yesterday. She packed a bag, and as she was putting on her mackintosh somebody knocked at the door—again and again—she knew it was Helge. She stood absolutely still and waited till he had gone. After a while she took her bag, locked the studio, and went. Half-way down the stairs she saw a man sitting in one of the windows. It was Helge. He had seen her too, so she went down to him. They looked at each other in silence.

“Why did you not open just now?” he asked.

Jenny did not answer.

“Did you not hear me knocking?” He looked at her bag: “Are you going to your mother?”

She hesitated a little, then said: “No; I thought of going to Holmestrand for a few days and writing to you from there to come down, so that we could be together for a time without undue interference and scenes. I should like to talk matters over with you in peace and quiet.”

“I am anxious to speak to you too. Can we not go up to your place?”

She did not answer directly.

“Is there anybody there?” he asked.

Jenny looked at him: “Anybody in my studio when I have left?”

“There might be somebody you do not wish to be seen with.”

She turned purple in the face: “Why? How could I know that you were sitting there spying on me?”

“My dear Jenny, I don’t mean to say that there was any harm in it, not on your part at least.”

Jenny said nothing, but went up the stairs again. In the studio she placed her bag on the floor, and without taking off her things stood looking at Helge while he hung up his coat and put his umbrella in the corner.

“Father told me this morning that you had been to the office and that mother had been below in the street.”

“Yes. It is a peculiar manner you people have—of spying, I mean. I must say, I find it hard to get accustomed to it.”

Helge turned very red.

“Forgive me, Jenny—I had to speak to you, and the porter said he was sure you were in. You know very well that I don’t suspect you.”

“Really, I hardly know anything,” she said, overcome with it all. “I cannot bear it any longer. All this suspicion and secrecy and discord. Good heavens, Helge!—can’t you protect me from all this?”

“My poor Jenny.” He rose and went to the window, where he remained standing with his back to her. “I have suffered more than you know. It is all so hopeless. Can you not see for yourself that mother’s jealousy is not without foundation?”

Jenny began to shiver. He turned round and saw it.

“I don’t believe father is aware of it himself. If he were, he would not give in like that to his desire to be with you. But he told me himself that we ought to go away from here, both of us. I am not so sure that your going away now is not his idea too.”

“No; I decided myself to go to Holmestrand, but he spoke to me yesterday about leaving town, when—when we got married.”

She went to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

“Dearest—if it is as you say, I will have to go away. Helge, Helge! What shall we do?”

“I am going,” he said abruptly, lifting her hands from his shoulders and pressing them against his face.

They stood a moment in silence.

“But I must go too. Can you not understand? As long as I thought your mother absurd, even common, I could keep my countenance, but now it is different. You should not have said it, Helge—even if you are mistaken. I cannot go there any more with that on my mind. Whether she is justified or not, I cannot meet her eyes. I shall not be myself, and I shall look guilty.”

“Come,” said Helge, leading her to the sofa and sitting down beside her.

“I am going to ask you a question. Do you love me, Jenny?”

“You know I do,” she said quickly, as if frightened.

He took her cold hand between both of his: “I know you did once—though, God knows, I never understood why. But I knew it was true when you said so. You were loving and kind to me, and I was happy, but I was always afraid of a time coming when you would not love me any longer.”

She looked up in his face, saying: “I am very, very fond of you, Helge.”

“I know,” he answered, with a shadow of a smile. “I don’t think you turn cold all at once to somebody you have loved—you are not that kind. I know that you don’t wish to make me suffer, and that you will suffer yourself the moment you understand that you don’t love me any longer. I love you above everything.”

He bent his head in tears. She put her arms round him.

“Helge—my own darling boy.”

He raised his head and pushed her gently away from him: “Jenny, that time in Rome I could have made you mine—you wanted it yourself, for you believed that we could only find happiness in a life together. I was not so sure, I suppose, as I did not risk it. But here at home I have been wanting you more than ever. I wanted you to be mine entirely, for I was afraid of losing you, but I saw you were frightened every time you understood that I was longing for you.”

She looked at him in awe. Yes, he was right—she had not wished to admit it, but it was so.

“If I asked you now—this moment—would you consent?”

Jenny moved her lips; then came a quick and firm “Yes.”

Helge smiled sadly, kissing her hand: “Gladly, because you wish to be mine? Because you cannot conceive of any happiness unless you are mine and I am yours? Not only because you want to be kind to me or don’t want to break your word—tell me the truth.”

She threw herself down on his knee and sobbed: “Let me go away for a time. I want to go up in the mountains. I must recover myself. I want to be your Jenny, as I was in Rome. I do want it, Helge, but I am so confused now. When I am myself again I will write you to come, and I will be your own Jenny again—yours only.”

“I am my mother’s son,” said Helge quietly. “We have got estranged from one another. Will you not convince me that I am everything in the world to you, the only man, more than anything else?—more than your work and your friends, to whom I felt you belonged more than to me—just as you feel a stranger among the people I belong to.”

“I did not feel a stranger towards your father.”

“No, but my father and I are strangers to one another. There is one interest—your work—which I cannot share with you completely, and I know now that I should be jealous of it. You see, I am her son. If I am not convinced that I am everything in the world to you, I cannot help being jealous—anxiously fearing that some day there might come another whom you could love more, who could understand you better. I am jealous by nature.”

“You must not be jealous, or everything will go to pieces. I cannot bear to be distrusted. I would rather you deceived me than doubted me—I could better forgive you that.”

“I could not”—with a bitter smile.

Jenny stroked the hair from his forehead and dried his eyes.

“We love one another, don’t we, Helge? When we get away from all this and we both wish everything to be well and right, don’t you think we can make one another happy?”

“I have seen too much. I dare not trust my good intentions or yours. Others have built their hopes on this and failed—I have seen what a hell two people can make life for each other. You will have to give me an answer to what I asked you. Do you love me? Do you wish to be mine—as you did in Rome? Do you wish it more than anything else in the world?”

“I love you very dearly, Helge,” she said, crying piteously.

“Thank you,” he said, kissing her hand. “I know you cannot help it, poor darling, that you don’t love me.”

“Helge,” she said imploringly.

“You cannot say that you wish me to stay because you would not be able to live without me. Dare you take the responsibility for everything that may happen if you say you love me—only so as not to send me away in sadness?”

Jenny sat looking down.

Helge put on his overcoat.

“Good-bye, Jenny.” He clasped her hand.

“Are you going away from me, Helge?”

“Yes. I am going.”

“And you will not come back?”

“Not unless you can say what I asked you to say.”

“I cannot say it now,” she whispered in agony.

Helge touched her hair lightly, and left.

Jenny remained on the sofa crying long and bitterly—her mind a perfect blank. Tired with crying, and worn out after all these months of petty, racking humiliation and quarrels, she felt her heart empty and cold. Helge was probably right.

After a while she began to feel hungry, and, looking at her watch, saw it was six. She had been sitting like this for four hours. When she rose to put on her coat she noticed that she had had it on all the time.

By the door she perceived a small pool of water running on to some of her pictures standing against the wall. She went for a duster to wipe it up, and, realizing suddenly that the pool was left from Helge’s umbrella, she leaned her forehead against the door and cried again.

VIII

Her dinner did not take long. She tried to read a paper to divert her mind for a moment, but it was no good. She might just as well go home and sit there.

On the upper landing a man stood waiting. He was tall and thin. She took the last steps running, calling out Helge’s name.

“It is not Helge,” came the answer. It was his father.

Jenny stood breathless before him, stretching out her hands: “Gert—what is it?—has anything happened?”

“Hush, hush!” He took her hand. “Helge has gone—he went to Kongsberg on a visit to a friend—a schoolfellow of his who lives there. Were you afraid, child, that something else had happened?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“My dear Jenny—you are quite beside yourself.”

She went past him in the passage and opened her door. There was still daylight in the studio and Gert Gram looked at her. He was pale himself.

“Do you feel it so much? Helge said—at least that is what I understood him to say—that you have agreed to—that you both think you are not suited to each other.”

Jenny was silent. Hearing somebody else say it, she wanted to protest. Up to now she had not quite realized that it was all over, but here was this man saying that they had agreed to part, and Helge had gone and her love for him was gone—she could not find it in her any more. It was all over, but, heavens! how was it possible, when she had not wanted it to end?

“Does it hurt so much?” he asked again. “Do you still love him?”

“Of course I love him.” Her voice shook. “One does not cease all at once loving somebody one has been very fond of, and one cannot be indifferent to having caused suffering.”

Gram did not speak at once; he sat down on the sofa, twisting his hat between his fingers: “I understand that it is very painful to both of you, but don’t you believe, Jenny, when you think it over, that it is for the best?”

She did not reply.

“I cannot tell you how pleased I was when I met you and saw what kind of a woman my son had won. It looked to me as if my boy had got everything that I have had to renounce in life. You were so pretty and refined, I had an impression that you were as good as you were clever, strong, and independent. And you were a talented artist as well, with no hesitation as to your aim and means. You spoke of your work with joy and tenderness and of your lover in the same way.

“Then Helge came home. You seemed to change then—in a remarkably short time. The disagreeable things which are the order of the day in our home impressed you too much; it seemed impossible that an unsympathetic future mother-in-law could completely spoil the happiness of a young loving woman. I began to fear that there was some other deeper cause that you would see for yourself later on, and that perhaps you realized your love for Helge was not so strong as you had imagined. Or that you understood you were not really suited to each other, and that it was more a temporary emotion which had brought you together. In Rome you were both alone, young and free, happy in your work; in strange circumstances, without the pressure of everyday ties, and both with the youthful longing for love in your hearts. Was that not enough to awaken a mutual sympathy and understanding even if they did not penetrate to the very inmost of your being?”

Jenny stood by the window looking at him. While he was speaking she felt an intense indignation at his words—although he might be right. Yet he did not understand, as he sat there plucking it all asunder, what it was that really hurt her:

“It does not make it easier even if there is some sense in what you say. Perhaps you are right.”

“Is it not better anyhow that you have realized it now than if it had happened later, when the bonds would be stronger, and the suffering much greater in breaking them?”

“It is not that—it is not that.” She interrupted herself suddenly: “It is that I—yes—I despise myself. I have given way to an emotional impulse—lied to myself; I ought to have known if I could keep my word before I said: I love. I have always hated that kind of levity more than anything in the world. Now—to my shame—I find I have done that very thing.”

Gram looked at her. Suddenly he turned pale—and then crimson. After a while he said, speaking with effort:

“I said it was better for two people who were not in perfect understanding to realize it before their relations had made such a change in their lives that neither of them—especially she—could ever obliterate the traces. If such be the case, they should try with some resignation and goodwill on either side to bring about harmony. Should this not be possible, then there is still the other way out. I don’t know, of course, if you and Helge—how far you are affected....”

Jenny laughed scornfully:

“I understand what you mean. To me it is just as binding that I have wanted to be his—promised it and cannot keep my promise—and just as humiliating as if I had really given myself to him—perhaps even more so.”

“You will not speak like that when once you meet the man you can love with true, deep feeling.”

Jenny shrugged her shoulders:

“Do you really believe in true and great love as you say?”

“Yes, I do. I know that you young people find the expression ludicrous, but I believe in it—for a good reason.”

“I believe that every one loves according to his individuality; those who have a greater mind and are true to themselves do not fritter themselves away in little love affairs. I thought that I myself.... But I was twenty-eight when I met Helge, and I had never yet been in love. I was tired of waiting and wanted to try it. He was in love, young, warm-blooded, and sincere—and it tempted me. I lied to myself—exactly as all other women do. His intensity warmed me, and I was ready enough to imagine that I shared it, although I knew such an illusion can only be kept alive as long as there is no claim on one to prove one’s love.

“Other women live under this illusion quite innocently, because they do not know the difference between good and bad, and go on lying to themselves, but I can plead nothing of that kind in my defence. I am really just as small and selfish and false as other women, and you may depend upon it, Gert, I shall never know what that great and true love of yours is.”

“Well, Jenny,” said Gert, with his same melancholy smile—“God knows, I am neither great nor strong, and I’ve lived in lies and abominations for twelve years. But I was ten years older than you are now when I met a woman who taught me to believe in the feeling you speak of with such scorn, and my faith in it has never been shaken.”

They were silent for a moment.

“And you remained with her?” said Jenny at last.

“We had the children. I did not understand then that I should never have any influence on my own children, when another woman than their mother possessed my whole heart and soul.

“She was married too—very unhappily. Her husband was a drunkard. She had a little girl whom she could have brought with her. But we both stayed.

“It was part of the punishment, you see, for my relations with her who only gratified my senses, but was nothing to my soul. Our love was too beautiful to live on a lie; we had to conceal it like a crime.