diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/68837-0.txt | 4501 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/68837-0.zip | bin | 84260 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/68837-h.zip | bin | 662912 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/68837-h/68837-h.htm | 6543 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/68837-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 577799 -> 0 bytes |
8 files changed, 17 insertions, 11044 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..257a825 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #68837 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68837) diff --git a/old/68837-0.txt b/old/68837-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 35dcad9..0000000 --- a/old/68837-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4501 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elsie Lindtner, by Karin Michaëlis -Stangeland - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Elsie Lindtner - A sequel to "The Dangerous Age" - -Author: Karin Michaëlis Stangeland - -Translator: Beatrice Marshall - -Release Date: August 25, 2022 [eBook #68837] - -Language: English - -Produced by: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/American - Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELSIE LINDTNER *** - - - - - - -ELSIE LINDTNER - - - - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - -THE DANGEROUS AGE - -_Letters and Fragments from a Woman’s Diary_ - - - - - ELSIE LINDTNER - - A Sequel to “The Dangerous Age” - - BY - KARIN MICHAËLIS - STANGELAND - - _AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION_ - BY - BEATRICE MARSHALL - - NEW YORK - JOHN LANE COMPANY - MCMXII - - Copyright, 1912, by - JOHN LANE COMPANY - - - - -PREFACE - - -Readers and admirers of “The Dangerous Age”—and their name is legion—will -find themselves perfectly at home in the following story. To them, Elsie -Lindtner’s rambling aphorisms, her Bashkirtseffian revelations of soul, -the remarkably frank letters which she delights to write to her friends, -among whom she numbers her divorced husband; above all, her rather -preposterous obsession with regard to the dangers of middle age, will be -familiar as a twice-told tale. - -Doubtless many will be charmed to meet Elsie Lindtner again, when she has -passed through the dreaded furnace of her “forties,” and is still keeping -the spark of inextinguishable youthfulness alive within her, by gambling -at Monte Carlo, travelling in Greece with Jeanne of the flaming hair, -fencing in London, riding in New York, and finally finding happiness and -salvation in the adoption of a small offscouring of the streets. - -But for those who may have missed reading the little masterpiece of -modern femininity which only a short time ago set a whole continent by -the ears, some sort of key is, possibly, necessary to the enjoyment of -“Elsie Lindtner.” - -In “The Dangerous Age” Elsie Lindtner writes an autobiographical letter -to Joergen Malthe, the rising young architect, who has been her ardent -admirer. She tells him now that her mother died when she was born, and -her father was bankrupt, and lived disgraced in retirement, while she was -left to the care of a servant girl. - -From her she learnt that lack of money was the cause of their sordid -life, and from that moment she worshipped money. - -“I sometimes buried a coin that had been given me,” she writes, “as a dog -buries a bone.” - -When she went to school little Elsbeth Bugge was soon informed that she -was “the prettiest girl in the school”; that a pretty face was worth a -fortune. - -“From that moment I entered upon the accursed cult of my person which -absorbed the rest of my childhood and all my first youth.... I avoided -the sun lest I should get freckles; I collected rain water for washing; -I slept with gloves, and though I adored sweets, I refrained from eating -them on account of my teeth. I spent hours brushing my hair.” - -One day when she came home she found the only big mirror in the house had -been transferred from her father’s room and hung in her own. - -“I made myself quite ill with excitement, and the maid had to put me to -bed. But later on, when the house was quiet, I got up and lit my lamp. I -spent hours gazing at myself in the glass. There I sat till the sun rose.” - -Then follows an account of how this child, scarcely in her teens, -positively set her cap at a rich, elderly widower, because he had a fine -house. - -“My brain reeled as I said to myself, ‘Some day I will live in that house -as wife of the Chief Magistrate.’” - -The precociousness of Marie Bashkirtseff who fell in love with a -duke when she ought to have been playing with her dolls, pales into -insignificance beside this confession. - -Elsie left school and went back to Denmark engaged to Herr von Brincken, -the Chief Magistrate, but he had heart disease and she did not marry him. -Instead she married Richard Lindtner, a wealthy Dane, and made her home -with him in the Old Market Place at Copenhagen, where for twenty-two -years she was, to outward appearances, a happy and contented wife. - -“I allowed my senses to be inflamed while my mind remained cold and my -heart contracted with disgust. I consciously profaned the sacred words -of love by applying them to a man whom I chose for his money. Meanwhile, -I developed into the frivolous society woman everybody took me to be. -Every woman wears the mask which best suits her purpose. My mask was my -smile....” - -It is only in this book, the second instalment of Elsie Lindtner’s -fragmentary diary and correspondence, that she gives us a reason for -leaving her husband after twenty-two years of married life, the wish that -he should have children. In “The Dangerous Age” she hints at other and -various reasons. To her friend and cousin, Lili Rothe, the perfect wife -and mother of “lanky daughters,” who could love another man passionately -without ceasing to love her husband, she writes, when announcing her -divorce, “There is no special reason ... none at least that is explicable -to the world. As far as I know Richard has no entanglements, and I have -no lover. There is no shadow of a scandal connected with our separation -beyond that which must inevitably arise when two middle-aged partners -throw down their cards in the middle of a rubber.... My real reason is so -simple and clear that few will be content to accept it.... You know that -Richard and I have got on as well as two people of opposite sex can do. -There has never been an angry word between us. But one day the impulse—or -whatever you like to call it—took possession of me that I must live -alone—quite alone, and all to myself. Call it an absurd idea ... call it -hysteria—which, perhaps, it is—I must get right away from everybody and -everything. Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little villa for me in -the belief that it was for some one else. The house is on an island, the -name of which I will keep to myself for the present.” - -In her self-communings, however, she never disguises the fact that escape -from boredom was the main motive of her returning to the White Villa. - -“Richard is still travelling, and entertains me scrupulously with -accounts of the sights he sees and his lonely nights.... As in the -past, he bores me with his interminable descriptions, and his whole -middle-class outlook....” - -Richard’s neatness and tidy ways bored her; his correctness in the -convenances; even his way of eating, and “to watch him eat was a daily -torture.” - -“Sundays were no better in the Old Market Place. There I had Richard from -morning till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be bored in the society -of one other person is much worse. To think that Richard never noticed -it! His incessant talk reminded me of a mill-wheel, and I felt as though -all the flour were blowing into my eyes.” - -In another place she says: “I am now sure that even if the difference -in our own age did not exist, I could never marry Malthe.... I could do -foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I loved with all my -heart.... But set up a home with Joergen Malthe—never!” - -The terrible part of home-life is that every piece of furniture in the -house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long after -love has died out—if indeed it ever existed. Two human beings—who differ -as much as two human beings always must do—are forced to adopt the same -tastes, the same outlook. The home is built upon this incessant conflict. - -“How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration -masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel.... What -a profound contempt I felt for his tastes and, without saying so, how -he disapproved of mine. No, his home was not mine, although we lived in -it like an ideal couple. My person for his money—that was the bargain -crudely but truthfully expressed.” - - * * * * * - -Even in her White Villa, on its island with a forest of her very own, -Elsie Lindtner, to her intense disappointment, was bored. She lived there -with two servants, Torp, the cook (a delightful figure), who believed -in spooks, and whose teeth chattered when she told ghost stories; and -Jeanne, the mysterious young housemaid with “amber eyes” and hair that -glowed like red fungi against the snow, who wore silk stockings, and won -Elsie’s heart by admiring and dressing Elsie’s own wonderful hair. Jeanne -became the salient interest in Elsie’s hermit life on the island, and -was promoted to the intimacy of companion and confidante. It was Jeanne -who arranged the flowers artistically with her “long, pointed fingers,” -and picked up her skirts disdainfully when she passed the flirtatious -gardener, to whose fascinations Torp, the cook, became a hapless prey. -Torp “made herself thin in collecting fat chickens for him,” and he -played cards with her in the basement kitchen. - -Jeanne rowed hard in the little white boat across the lake to catch the -last post with Elsie’s fatal invitation to Malthe. “I will never part -with Jeanne,” Elsie said as she watched her. Then she wandered at random -in the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed to feel the ground under her -feet. The flowers smelt so sweet, and she was so deeply moved. - -“How can I sleep? I feel I must stay awake until my letter is in his -hands.... Now it is speeding to him through the quiet night. The letter -yearns towards him as I do myself.... I am young again, yes, young, -young! How blue the night is.” - -But she could not, alas, young as she felt, get into the white -embroidered muslin which used to become her so well, and Malthe’s first -glance told her all. - -“He cast down his eyes so that he might not hurt me again.” One reads of -tears of blood. “... During the few hours he spent in my house I think we -smiled ‘smiles of blood.’” - -Malthe left the White Villa the same night, and said at parting, “I feel -like the worst of criminals.” - -After this shattering blow Elsie in her despair craved for even the -boring society of the husband she had deserted. She was, to use her own -expression, “greedy of Richard’s caresses,” and invited him, too, to -visit her on her island. But Richard declined altogether. He had just -become engaged to a girl, “a mere chit of nineteen.” - -“He has made a fool of me! I am done for. Nothing is left to me but to -efface myself as soon as possible.” - -Elsie Lindtner’s method of effacing herself for the second time was to -quit her desert island, and take a Cook’s tour round the world with -Jeanne. - -Thus it happens that we renew acquaintance with her breaking the bank -at Monte Carlo in the first pages of this book to which she has given -her own name, though it might just as appropriately have been entitled -“More Dangerous Age Reflections.” For here, again, the “transition” is -the absorbing topic of Elsie Lindtner’s thoughts and correspondence; one -might almost say it is “the bee in her bonnet.” Even when she has emerged -triumphantly, as she boasts afterwards, from its perils, and has found -a new source of interest and happiness in the street arab whom she has -adopted, she seems unable to keep the subject out of her conversation and -letters. She goes so far as to warn strangers of the “stealthy footsteps -of the approaching years,” and disputes with her dear friend, the -extraordinary widow, Magna Wellmann, which of them came through those -years, “when we are all more or less mad,” with the greatest _éclat_. - -In “Elsie Lindtner” we miss the _mise en scène_ of the White Villa on -the island, with its forest and lake, for when Elsie re-visits it with -Kelly, it hardly seems the same place, with no Torp and no gardener.... -We miss, too, the first, fine, careless rapture of feminine revolt which -characterises “The Dangerous Age,” and the Jeanne of these pages is not -so vivid as the Jeanne of the former book. In compensation we have more -of Magna, and we have Lili Rothe’s love-letters—which were addressed but -never sent to the man she loved. Also, as in the previous volume, we -have Elsie Lindtner’s letters, with their strange, pathetic eloquence, -marvellously revealing a woman’s complicated soul. Their literary merit -and their value as a picture of life cannot fail to impress all readers. - - BEATRICE MARSHALL. - - - - -ELSIE LINDTNER - - - - -_Elsie Lindtner_ - - - - - MONTE CARLO. - -DEAR RICHARD, - - -Thank you for the money, and forgive my audacious telegram. I am -directing this letter to your office, as it has nothing to do with -domestic affairs. - -You really must help me. We, Jeanne and I, are stranded here like a pair -of adventuresses, and don’t know what to do. I have wired to my lawyer, -who has simply replied with an unconditional “No.” The creature seems to -think he has the right to manage my fortune as well as myself. Naturally, -I find it far from pleasant to be obliged to apply to you, but you are -the only person I can think of to whom I can turn without risking a -refusal. - -I have been gambling, winning and losing, finally losing. I am -overdrawn, and the last draft which Riise had the grace to send me is -gone. - -Your money kept me going for two hours, but now that is gone, too. I -have pawned the few valuables I possessed, but I am determined to win -everything back. So please don’t give me good advice; instead, go and -talk to Riise. Explain to him that it is urgent, and I _must_ have the -money. I am quite indifferent as to what becomes of the capital. I don’t -mind paying dearly for this spree—or whatever you like to call it—and -being poor afterwards in consequence. If the matter goes awry, you’ll -hear nothing more of Elsie Lindtner. I shall neither take poison nor -shoot myself. There is a more comfortable way out of it. A Brazilian, -whom I don’t like, has lent me a big sum of money. If I borrow any more -of him, it’ll have to come to a bargain. Make Riise sell the stock, even -at a heavy loss, I must have money. Meanwhile send me all you can spare -at the moment by cheque. I hope you continue to be as happy as ever. - -With many thanks in advance, - - Yours, - - ELSIE. - - - - - MONTE CARLO. - -DEAR RICHARD, - - -A friend in need is a friend indeed. Accept my thanks for your prompt and -ready help. All the same, I could not wait till it came, and borrowed -again from the Brazilian. His obnoxious money has brought me luck. If it -had been the other way about—well, never mind. It was a mad, desperate -plunge on my part. Now that it is over I cannot understand how I could -nerve myself for it. But I have won. The night before last I raked in two -hundred and fifty thousand francs besides all that I had lost. After that -I laid down to sleep. Your money has just arrived. I shall send it back -at once with what you sent me before, and the amount I have wrung out of -Riise. Jeanne has started packing. - -To-morrow we leave here. We are going for Jeanne’s sake. She has taken my -gambling too much to heart. - -Now, if you possibly can, forget this little episode. I wasn’t completely -myself. It’s all over, and too late to repent. We intend to spend the -rest of the winter in Tangiers and Cairo, and probably in Helvan. Jeanne -wants to go to India, and I have no objection so long as the journey is -not too difficult. At all events, we shall spend a few weeks in Paris, -just to fit ourselves out stylishly. - -It is positively disgraceful of me that I have forgotten to congratulate -you on the birth of your son and heir. How I should like to see your -paternal countenance—you might send me a photograph of yourself with the -Crown Prince, and now, farewell, till circumstances throw us together -again. - - ELSIE. - - * * * * * - -How long can things go on like this? We wander hither and thither, and -have no abiding place, as if we were fugitives condemned to be eternally -on the move. And we feign enjoyment of this perpetual unsettlement. -Jeanne has long ago seen through the pitiable farce, but she continues -to play her part loyally out of gratitude for the small kindness I have -shown her. We get on quite well together. Jeanne reads in my face when it -is best to speak, and when to be silent. - -She is happiest on shore with terra firma beneath her feet, while I -like best the gliding days and nights on board ship; the sky above, the -sea beneath me, my brain vacant, and all my senses lulled to sleep. It -reminds me of the early days on my solitary island, when every trifling -incident was an affair of huge importance. The flight of a seagull, the -top of a mast above the horizon—a ship sailing by in the night. We spend -the day on our deck chairs, half dozing over a book, or conversing in -a company voice; but at night we throw ulsters over our nightgowns and -pace the deck, our natures expanding like flowers which only shed their -perfume after dark. - -I have become very fond of Jeanne. Her poor, withered heart, too early -developed, too soon faded, awakes a certain gentle compassion within -me. All my opinions are accepted by her eagerly as golden rules for the -ordering of life. If only I could forget! existence might be bearable. -But I cannot forget. The glance which showed me the corpse of his love -follows me continually everywhere. The humiliation in that glance! I -don’t love him, and I don’t hate him. I am getting too lukewarm to hate. -But contempt rankles—Jeanne is careful to say nothing that can hurt me, -and yet sometimes she hurts me by being too tactfully silent! I don’t -want to be pitied, so we while away hours over our toilette. - -How long can it go on? - - ATHENS. - -Here it is as nice as anywhere else. I struggle bravely to let myself be -enchanted with Greece’s past, but in reality I care as little about it as -I care for the potshares on the Keramaikos. - -We are attending Professor Dörpfeld’s lectures on “The Acropolis,” and I -am more interested in the way the man says things than in concentrating -my mind on what he says. He has made himself so thoroughly familiar with -the plastic beauty of the world, that finally the invisible words that -fall from his lips seem to have become plastic, too. I take no interest -in why the pillars are thickest in the middle. It is the olive groves, -and the lights and shadows flitting over Athens, that charm and engross -me. - -Jeanne takes it all in like a gaping-mouthed schoolgirl; she studies -the history of art in the hotel. I have given her leave to go on an -excavating expedition, but without me. I strongly object to riding -through snow up to my waist, sleeping in tents on the bare ground, and -living on mutton and canned goods. My laziness is growing. - - LUXOR. - -I am uneasy about Jeanne. She is strung up to a state of enthusiasm -which alienates me. Is it travelling that has developed her, or are her -hitherto dormant abilities awakening? We are simply travelling to kill -time, but she takes everything with the same tremendous seriousness as -that day in Berlin when she first heard Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She -regards me as if it were long ago an accepted fact that we each exist for -ourselves, alone in our separate worlds. She skips half the meals to roam -about among the temples. To-night we sat on top of the great pylon and -watched the sun go down. For me it was just like a beautiful decorative -effect at the theatre. I couldn’t help thinking of “Aïda.” She wouldn’t -come in when I did, and when I suggested that the night air was chilly -she answered quite snappishly, “I wish to see the moon illumine the -classic sea.” Of course, I left her alone, but I couldn’t sleep, and at -about midnight I heard her come back. My door was open, and I called her -in. She sat down on the end of my bed and was crying. What can be the -matter with her? - -I am not going to torment her with questions. She shall be free to -come and go as she chooses—so long as she spares me the paeans of an -enthusiasm which I cannot share. It is all very well here but I prefer -myself in the Paris boulevards, Unter den Linden, and Bond Street. I feel -so poverty-stricken when I see others full of emotional _élan_. - -Yes, that is it. That is why I am nervous about Jeanne’s enthusiasm for -art. She reminds me of old days when Malthe, in my yellow room looking -over the market-place, told me of his travels, and I deluded myself into -imagining I understood what he was talking about.... - -And so this phase has come to an end, too! I had quite thought that -Jeanne had sold herself to me for life. But it was not to be, after all. -I might have prevented it. Perhaps she was waiting for a word from me. -Still, it is best that we should part. Let her put her abilities to the -test, by all means. She will soon have had enough of work, and I am in -a position of being able to wait. Now I shall go to America, and if I -find that bores me, too, God only knows if I shan’t give in and accept -the Brazilian. His method of courtship, at least, is as systematic as a -persecution. And at bottom I am flattered, that still—_still_; but for -how much longer? I am deemed desirable. I ask myself in moments of doubt -whether I should be even that, without the aid of Poiret and Worth. - - - - -DEAR JEANNE,—Little travelling companion. - - -So our paths separate—temporarily, or for ever—neither of us can say -which. But I feel that it is best to part, and I am not at all sad -or hurt. Two years is a good long time for two people to have lived -together, and we have both derived some profit from those years. For me -the profit lies also in their coming to an end, for you that you have -found life worth living. As I said before, I strongly advise you to go -through the whole training, which will prove whether you have creative -talent, or your art is merely suited to commercial purposes. I shouldn’t -be surprised, indeed, if you became a designer of buildings—architect -is, I suppose, too ambitious a word to apply to a woman—and as Greek -and Egyptian temples are likely to be your speciality, you are hardly -destined to be popular. - -Now we have discussed all the practical points. I think you know that I -wish you absolutely to enjoy your time in Paris. Enjoy it to the full, -but don’t commit any irrevocable follies! - -You will get these lines from London, where I am amusing myself by a -short obesity cure. Imagine us fencing, like small children in black -satin knickerbockers and white sweaters! Several ladies from Court -take part in the “class.” Afterwards we have a brisk but delightful -hip-massage, and that alone makes it worth the trouble. Directly I am -satisfied with the slimness of my exterior, I start for New York. You -were never very happy over there, but for me that city has a peculiar -fascination. I don’t know myself what it consists in. - -I beg you, from my heart, Jeanne, that you will always consider me as -a friend to whom you can comfortably tell everything, and come to for -sympathy and advice, whether in sorrow or happiness. You will, Jeanne, -won’t you? and don’t neglect your appearance. Work may absorb you for a -time, but that kind of thing is a transitory craze in a woman of your -disposition. Your heritage is your appearance, remember. - -Good-bye for the present, and “good luck,” little travelling companion. - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - - - -DEAREST JEANNE, - - -Your last letter—to put it mildly—is very exaggerated. Frankly, it is -positively hysterical. Why should you harp to me on your “guilt,” or your -everlasting gratitude, on your privilege of making some sacrifice for me. -I don’t understand a word of the whole rigmarole, not a single word. I -don’t see the point of it in the least. Here I am perfectly content in -my own solitary way, which is not a bit misanthropic, and my own desire -is that you should feel content, too. Don’t you like Paris? You really -needn’t be afraid to say so—or is it the work that you are sick of? If -so, it is only what I have long expected. - -According to my opinion, you belong to those human luxuries whose -presence in the world are quite superfluous, but who have a certain -genius through their mere existence alone of making life more tolerable -for others. Your place is either this, or in the midst of a _grande -passion_ (heaven forbid) in which you would screw yourself into a bread -pellet, to be held in some one else’s mouth. I can see you like _The -Princess on the Pea_, scorning everything, or I can see you on your knees -scouring steps for the man you love. - -But I should like to see the man you were able to love. - -Perhaps you are in love? That idea has suddenly occurred to me, though it -seems highly improbable. Now, however, that I have read through your last -nonsensical letter again, I believe that I have really hit on the right -solution. - -You are in love, and out of feelings of mistaken gratitude, you do not -like to tell me. Jeanne, Jeanne! Will you for my sake be an old maid? -It is very sweet of you, but a little too much to expect. Besides, it -is quite unnecessary. I am not going to lie, and pretend that it will -not cost me something to give up my little fairy-tale princess with the -beautiful hands. Not only my hair, but my shamefully overcultivated taste -is missing you, with whom I was able to exchange ideas. An empty place on -my balcony that will never be filled again till the aforesaid maiden sits -in it with the sunlight shining on her and on the river, and on the town -which is the town of all others. - -But, Jeanne, our paths have diverged, and they can never again unite. -You are not in the least fit to be in my company. You don’t want me, but -life, and joyousness. May you find it, no matter whether, like me, you -sell yourself, and are shut up in a golden cage, whether you live your -own fairy-tale, and realise the mirage of your dreams, or whether you -develop into an artist. Only with me you would have no peace. - -I noticed how you beat your wings when we were together, how you pined -and tortured yourself to adopt the pose that pleased me. How for my sake -you acted a part. - -Instead of writing sheets, I send you these lines, and entreat you to -answer by telegram so that you may tell me in the fewest possible words -what has happened to you. - -I am, God knows, so curious that I should like to send you a wire a yard -long. But I must rule my spirit so as to take this modern city of New -York. - - Your - - ELSIE. - - - - -JEANNE, JEANNE, JEANNE! - - -Only that! Thank God, only that. How infinitely comforting a telegram -with its few concise words can be. - -Don’t let this matter worry you further. Of course, I’ll take the child -to my heart; or still better, I will adopt the child. - -After all, it’s much the same to me whether I have a camera, cacti, or a -little child for a hobby. You needn’t be afraid that I shall plant it in -a flower-pot like a cutting, or pin it into my lace collection. It shall, -I promise you, be properly cared for, not by me, but through me. I will -engage the best nurse money can procure. If you like, too, I will sail -with the nurse over the whole width of the Atlantic to receive the little -eel in person. The more I think it over, the more excellent the plan -seems to me. You will have no bother, will not be interrupted in your -career, and I shall add to the long list of my crazes one more item. To -prevent there being any sort of misunderstanding about it, I am perfectly -confident that providing for the little legacy will be a source of new -enjoyment to me. - -I only make one condition, and that is, if the affair becomes too -complete I may be allowed to put “our child” out to nurse. - -It is to be hoped that the father has not won a fraction of your heart. -I can well imagine that he is some young artist whom you have met at the -class. He gazed at your hair till he was sick, which is not at all to be -wondered at, and you forgot momentarily that you had long ago abjured all -folly. - -Write me more details as to whether you approve; when “it” is expected, -and so on. I needn’t advise you, of course, to leave Paris before the -change in your exterior attracts notice. I am thinking a great deal of -you, Jeanne, little Jeanne. - - Your - - ELSIE. - - - - -DEAR MAGNA WELLMANN, - - -And I am the woman who thought you had forgotten me, or that you still -bore me a grudge for that letter which I wrote you four—no, it is already -five—years ago. - -Now I sit here and ponder whether the greatest transformation has been -worked in you, or in me. You, at all events, are not the same, and I -believe that I am not. But at our age, one is long past growing and -developing. - -You who of old were like a dry autumn leaf whirled before the wind, -have proved yourself all at once to have a strength and courage which -make me ashamed. Who has lulled your senses so to rest? The one “great” -love? No, I will not ask questions, though a whole host of them pulsate -within me. And you are not a bit afraid? You speak of it as if it were -a mere frolic. You wonderful human creature, Magna. Other women suffer -intolerably during the nine months of pregnancy, and grow irritable and -ugly. But you are blooming as if it were the most perfectly natural -condition to be in. What a contrast to your ordinary mood and your old -escapades. You are not in the least afraid to bring a child into the -world at your age; and in such circumstances every line of your letter -breathes freshness and health, and there is no disguising it. - -Do you know, your letter awoke in me the first longing for Denmark since -I packed my boxes and went out into the wide world. - -I have become an alien. Five years is not such a very long time, though -long enough to render a person countryless. Richard in his pleasant way, -keeps me _au courant_ with what he calls the “main movements” of our -circle, so I know that you have been banned and ostracised. I cannot -say that I think it is altogether undeserved. You know that I insist on -good form outwardly as well as inwardly, and, really, Magna, I cannot -picture myself behaving as you have done, any more than I can picture -myself going out in society in a nightdress with my hair hanging down in -a pigtail. But, of course, it is your affair. - -For the most part I take no interest in what goes on at home. It reminds -me too much of looking at a drop of water through a microscope. If, by -any chance, I come across a Danish newspaper, I read nothing but the -obituaries, and even they do not rouse a shadow of emotion in my soul. - -Yet there are fates which, out of curiosity or fellow-feeling, appeal to -me. And yours is one of them. When Richard wrote, “Frau Wellmann’s latest -makes her ‘impossible’ in this part of the world,” I could not help -smiling. You made yourself impossible years ago. It is true, Professor -Wellmann’s name and social status have sheltered and held a restraining -hand over you, that is to say, up till now. - -But now it has come to an actual scandal. You parade your shame on the -housetops of Copenhagen, instead of going away and hushing it up. - -By the bye, how many small _affairs_ were there not year after year -_hushed up_ in our set? The dear ladies even were not afraid to whisper -about them to each other. And you, you even, delight in having a child of -the peculiar kind that we call illegitimate. Magna, Magna! I am not going -to suppose that behind it all is a spark of malicious joy in challenging -the _crême de la crême_. That would be a poor joke. Neither can I believe -that your motive has anything to do with _love_ for the father of your -illegitimate child. - -You write so beautifully about the feeling that life is growing within -you. In this respect, I am a stranger, and absolutely blind. I have -never felt the smallest sensation of longing to feel that life is growing -within me. Perhaps I am even incapable of understanding your expression. -Yet it touches me. - -You were entering on a period of severe trial for yourself and for the -children, and the time of trial will not end with your confinement. -There will most certainly have to be an explanation, and preferably an -explanation that will bring as little injury as possible to the children. -Have you thought of this? Don’t put off the inevitable too long, or -others may be before you. The children cannot—it would be terrible if -they could—understand the whole, so the question is how to invent a fable -which will best lull their reflection. - -Many will judge you because you have done what is not customary and -defied the usages of society; others will judge you out of envy, because -they have not had the courage to do it themselves. Every one who has -refrained through fear of disgrace and shame, will hurl a stone at you. -Likewise the childless women. If I were still in the Old Market Place, -I should flout you, too. Still, there are a whole lot of free-thinking -human creatures who will judge you not on account of the child, but for -the _children’s_ sake. You may shrug your shoulders at the others, but -you can’t get away from the shadow which you are casting on the children. - -Well, now that I have discoursed to you in this extremely reasonable -manner, I may with a clear conscience extend my hands across the ocean -and say, “Good luck, Magna.” - -When the atmosphere becomes too hot to hold you, then take refuge with -me. I live here, fourteen storeys high, on Riverside Drive. My name is on -the door in characters as small as those on a postage stamp. It is the -fashion here, and the letters are delivered to the porter. The house is -magnificently arranged, and is as light as a studio. I steadily believe -that I shall rest my bones in some peaceful burial ground here. And as -it’s the custom to adorn and paint the dead till they look twenty or -thirty years younger than when they were alive, you will comprehend how -that appeals to the vanity of one who has warded off the burden of age. -I should just like to know how any woman devoid of vanity could exist in -this city of light and sunshine. I belong to two or three clubs where -ladies of seventy and eighty congregate, with porcelain complexions, -powdered coiffures, and Gainsborough hats. Don’t imagine for a moment -that they are ludicrous. They possess a dignity and joy in existence -which makes me think that they must pass their nights in a bath of youth. - -There is a glamour of festivity hanging over this place. Not in the -slums; but there of course, you needn’t go. New York’s poor have a -totally different aspect and manner of behaviour from the poor of -European cities, where they rub against travellers with their sores and -crutches. In all these years I have only seen two human beings who didn’t -belong to Fifth Avenue. An Italian and his wife lay and sunned themselves -on the curb and ate dirty vegetables out of a rusty tin. No one sent them -off, but the whole traffic of the street gave them a wide berth, as if -they had been a pair of plague-stricken patients. - -I ride on horseback every day till I am dead tired, in a salmon-coloured -habit and a slouch hat over my eyebrows. My master—a pitiful wreck of -a once brilliant Scottish nobleman—at first objected to my riding _en -cavalier_. But as I remained obstinate, he left me to my fate till one -fine day he was seized with admiration for my mastery of the horse, and -now we are good friends. We ride alternately in Central Park, which is -indescribably lovely when all the beds are aglow with rhododendrons -in bloom, and in New Jersey, which is still unspoilt Nature. Sundays, -as a rule, we form quite a cavalcade, and then we amuse ourselves -like children. These people who are outwardly stiff and reserved, and -inwardly do not overburden their souls with super-culture, have a wholly -remarkable and infectious capacity for sucking honey out of the most -trifling banalities of existence. We chat about the sun, moon and stars, -about our horses, our ravenous appetites, and the recently discovered -Rembrandt, and never about our neighbours. We never backbite. - -At the end of such a day, when I am resting after my bath, I seem to -myself like a being with life all before me. - -In truth, I have found congenial calm. I play bridge through the long -winter mornings at the Astor Hotel Club, or go to lectures on psychology, -followed by luxurious luncheons during which Madame Homer and Signor -Caruso sing to us, not in the intervals, but while we eat! - -The waiters go round pouring out coffee the whole time, while we sit -in a rosy twilight. Every one pays every one else little choice and -sincerely-meant compliments. Call it an empty life, if you like, and I -won’t deny that it is. - -You ask what I have been doing since I took flight from my now desolate -and dilapidated villa. If I only knew myself I would tell you. It all -seems so long ago I travelled about with Jeanne, my young housemate and -friend, and we really did nothing but kill time. - -Rumours of my Monte Carlo period have no doubt penetrated to Denmark. I -admit it was an ugly experience. Never in all my life had I imagined that -I could become the prey of this passion, but I caught the fever so badly -that I conducted myself as shamelessly as the most hardened professional -gamblers. I certainly believe that during those days I was scarcely -responsible. If the tide of fortune had not turned I should have gambled -away every farthing I possess. But things went so well that I am living -to-day on my winnings, without touching my dividends. - -Jeanne is still in Paris, where she has been for the last two years. She -intends to qualify for some industrial art, for she has an indisputable -and highly original talent. Lately I have had a very significant letter -from her, but I may not divulge its contents. If things turn out, as at -present seems likely, my life may undergo a complete re-arrangement. - -I must tell you about my latest craze. I have had quite a dozen little -crazes in this one year alone. It is a splendid distraction. Well, -my latest is collecting dwarf cacti and Japanese dwarf trees, which -you hardly ever see in Denmark. They are only a few inches high, and -incredibly old. You buy them in fat boxes, miniature imitations of -Japanese gardens with rivers, bridges, and porcelain cupolas and -tea-houses. They are entrancing. Fortunately, a gardener tends them; -otherwise they would die of neglect. The care of plants is no more in my -line than the care of children, or any other live things. If I had the -gift I should have a choice little aquarium with goldfishes and electric -light and illuminations. - -Imagine Richard a paterfamilias and domestic tyrant! Yes, indeed, Magna, -everything is changed. - -Now, I really have told you all about myself. I don’t believe there is a -single craving of my soul that I have not disclosed to you. It’s not my -fault that the result of these disclosures appears so miserably poor. How -old is Jarl now? Sixteen or more? It is a good thing that Agnete is soon -to be married. Write again soon, Magna. I promise to answer. - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - - - -DEAR JEANNE, - - -It may be the consequence of your condition, but really, I am getting -quite concerned about your letters. I thought everything was settled -for good when I promised to relieve you of responsibility by taking the -child. And now you begin posing new riddles. - -What secret is it that you cannot betray? Why do you talk about hiding -yourself in the remotest desert? From whom should you hide? For what -reason? Why do you speak of desecration, and say you wish you could die -before the child is born? You hate to do it a wrong? What wrong? - -Is this man married? If so, his wife needn’t know that you are going to -give birth to a child. You don’t want to marry him; or do you? - -If I may advise you, Jeanne, I should suggest your leaving the future to -take care of itself, till you are established in peace and quietness in -some pretty neighbourhood. What do you say to Provence? At the moment you -are nothing but a bundle of nerves, and I have half a mind to come across -and do what I can to help you. But I am too lazy. To do anything to help -people when it involves trouble, is not my _métier_; for you, even, I -cannot take trouble, though I love you. - -But if there is anything on your mind, please let me know what it is, -for, as I said before, I am unable to make sense out of the nonsense -you have written. Write as often and at as great length as you like, -and the day will come, I hope, when I shall at last grasp your meaning. -Is it a human being that is lacking, one with whom you can really talk? -I am experiencing every day a crowd of little stupid things, that keep -me going in a most agreeable fashion. But I am chiefly taken up with -cherishing and cultivating my own precious appearance. Altogether, I -was much more alive when we two sat together in our White Villa on the -island, and saw the leaves falling from the trees. - - Your - - ELSIE. - - * * * * * - -Jeanne ... Malthe ... Jeanne ... Malthe. - -Jeanne and he ... he and Jeanne.... - -I must try to understand it. Those two.... - -And, it was the child of these two, their child, I wanted to adopt.... - - * * * * * - -Two days have passed, but I am no nearer understanding. I go round and -round in an empty circle, and say to myself, “Jeanne and Malthe—Malthe -and Jeanne.” And I expect to be overcome by a heart-rending agony. But -so far as I can judge, neither my heart nor my mind are affected. My -nerves, too, are perfectly composed. I am, in fact, only petrified with -astonishment. - - * * * * * - -Why don’t I suffer? What has become of the love I once felt. Where is -it?—or—I understand those two so exactly. It’s myself that I don’t -understand. I can give them my blessing with the easiest and most -serene conscience in the world. I can even rejoice that these two, just -these two, have found each other so futile; then am I so inexplicably, -egregiously futile? - - * * * * * - -I have begun to take delight in travelling by the Subway. People there -don’t pose. They are in too great a hurry to put on masks. Extraordinary -how impressive breeding is when it is united with good clothes. The -train can be so full that there is often a double row extending from one -end of the car to the other, hanging on to the round leather rings with -coarse, toil-worn, or delicate kid-gloved hands. Some one always makes -room for me, but I also take my time to form the desired expression on my -face. To-day a poor woman sat next to me with two or three little wreaths -on her lap. She wore a dusty mourning veil thrown over her hair. - -She cried the whole way; the veil was so shabby that I calculated the -child must have died a long time ago. Her grief was still fresh. Mine has -never existed. I had thought my life at least contained what is called a -great sorrow. But I have only draped an empty space with the trappings of -sorrow.... - -I must write to Jeanne. - - * * * * * - - - - -DEAR LITTLE TRAVELLING COMPANION, - - -This letter might be written in twenty different ways, but only one is -the right way, and now I begin writing to you in the same style as I -write in my own poor, dull diary. You know it is only lazy people who can -bear to record the barrenness of their daily life in a diary. - -Accept my warmest and most sincere congratulations, dear Jeanne, and -don’t shed any more tears on my account. You have not transgressed -anything, you dear child, with your refined humanity. Neither has he. -Yet you fancy that your letters—your “confession,” has caused me pain. -Oh, no! Alas! it has done nothing of the kind. I say, alas! because I -should so like to believe myself, that I had once in my life loved with -my whole heart. Now I see it must have been all imagination. It can’t -be explained otherwise—a delusion, a myth—anything you like. Perhaps a -charming dream. - -Well, the dream is over; that is the only thing I am certain about. All -that remains of it is the memory of a good friend who, by a truly magical -freak of fate, has found the one woman, in my opinion, suited to him. - -Jeanne, I am not disguising the facts. This is the first and the last -time, too, for that matter—that the subject of Malthe and myself is -mentioned between us. - -The whole time you and I were knocking about the world like homeless -vagrants, you never referred to it, or let drop a hint, that you knew the -whole humiliating connection. Though _I knew that you knew_, and that -raised you in my esteem as a human creature to an extraordinary degree. I -think so highly of Malthe that you alone seem to me good enough for him. -So you see what you write about committing a “robbery” has no point. And -more than that, I can tell you I am one of those women ill adapted to -_live with_, much less _to love_, another human being. I am quite clear -now about this. You, on the contrary, in compensation for your joyless -youth, are endowed with the capacity for self-sacrifice and yielding. For -you it will be a positive delight to abandon your _ego_, and let it be -absorbed by his. For me such a thing is inconceivable. - -There is no necessity to recur any more to the past—at least as far as I -am concerned. On your behalf we unfortunately have to do it. Much more -than the news itself, does your question, shall you speak or be silent, -perplex my brain and excite my emotions. - -If my position was now what it once was, and my views of life what they -once were, I should answer decidedly: Keep your lips closed, and the -secret that concerns only you, locked in your heart! But now there are -other factors to consider. I am changed. Time and life—I scarcely know -what—have changed me—and you are not like the majority of women, and -Malthe is not a man like other men. - -You may perhaps cause him a never-ending torment by speaking. Be clear -on this, or you may cause yourself no less pain by keeping silent, and -letting what is past and over for ever be forgotten. I know you, Jeanne; -every day and every hour you will despise yourself more and more because -his belief in you is so boundless. - -You can’t be silent. You will be compelled to lie. What to ninety-nine -people out of a hundred would be simple and natural enough will undermine -not only your self-respect, but your joy in life. On the other hand, -you have never loved. The thing you call your past, has really had no -significance for you. Why should it be unearthed now, and dragged into -the glare of day? Why should something that meant nothing but words -to you, be made crucial? Are you two, you and he, to spend the most -beautiful years of your love in exhuming corpses and taking them about -with you wherever you go? - -Joergen Malthe is not as other men are. He will never reproach you, but -he will grieve, and you will grieve with him. - -You see, I am unable to advise you. Perhaps I have no right to take the -responsibility upon me. I have often talked by the hour to your future -husband. But as far as I can remember, we never touched on the topic of -woman in the abstract. Thus it comes about that I am ignorant of what -Malthe’s views are. - -And yet—Malthe is the father of your child. The father of your unborn -child. - -Speak, Jeanne, speak openly and without fear. It will be setting up no -defence for having yielded to his inclinations, but he will find in it -a means of explaining and defending what happened before his time; for -Joergen Malthe is not like other men. - -If he has thought it right and natural that the woman he loves should -become his in the way you have become his, he will think it right and -natural that you should have exercised the sovereignty over your person -before you knew him. All you have got to tell him afterwards is that you -love him and that you have never loved any one but him. - -I seem to myself at this moment so very ancient. Such an eternity lies -between then and now, but that is as it should be. - -Little travelling companion with the red hair, let me see you helping him -now in the prime of his manhood to build up his reputation, so that his -name will become immortal. You understand how to see—how to enjoy. Pack -your infant when it is born in a little trunk with perforated lid, and -take it about with you, or leave it behind. Don’t let it be a hindrance -or a barrier between you two in your joint lives. - -There is a great deal more that I should like to write, but now I must go -and dress. You know “Tristan and Isolde” always was my favourite opera. - -I was going to urge you not to show this letter to Malthe, but, after -all, I leave you a free hand in the matter. - -For many reasons I believe that if he saw it the consequences would not -be disastrous. - -With many embraces. I wish you a happiness that will last through life. - - Your - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - * * * * * - -You need not trouble to find me more lace patterns. I have presented my -whole collection to the Metropolitan Museum. My new craze, dwarf cacti, -amuses me far more—they can’t be enclosed in letters and newspapers -unfortunately. - -When did they first meet? It is no concern of mine, but I can’t help -thinking much about it. Did they know each other before? Yes, of course. -He looked after her when she passed through the room. From me he looked -across at her—and compared. And after—yes, what after? Did he think -continually of Jeanne as before he thought of me? Or is it merely because -chance has thrown them together in Paris? Or is it possible that they did -not recognise each other at first, and only discovered later where they -had met for the first time? Have I played any part in their conversation? -Have they clasped hands over my memory, as over a grave? - - * * * * * - -I don’t grudge them their happiness. Jeanne is the right woman for him, -and only a Joergen Malthe could satisfy and supplement Jeanne’s whole -nature. - -How has it come about that everything in me has gone to rest? I feel like -a heap of faded leaves lying down somewhere in a deep hollow, where not a -breath of wind reaches it, and it lulls itself to sleep. - -I don’t live now as I used to live, and I have no goal to strive for; but -I have no cares, much less do I feel in despair about anything. Truly, I -am very comfortable in mind and body. I should not mind living for ever -this sort of life. Yet at the same time I should feel no alarm if some -one came and said, “You must die to-night.” - - * * * * * - -When I consider it in broad daylight, I have a heap of enjoyments, small -and insignificant, but perfectly unclouded enjoyments. - - * * * * * - -Yes, here I am laid up with measles—at my age—a fiery rash, and -everything else. Perhaps I shall get whooping-cough next? It would be -much the best plan if one could have every childish complaint at once -and have done with it. It is boring in this magnificent carbolic-scented -clinic; but the nursing is good, and it is said to be healthy to be -bored. I always fancied the much spoken about self-sacrifice nurses to be -an old wives’ tale. - -In the room next mine, there is the most passionate little monster of a -boy nine months old, and no one would believe it, but all the nurses are -willing to give up their sorely needed night’s rest for his sake. I, for -my part, wish he was in a hot place. - -And then they actually ask me if I wouldn’t like to have him “in my bed -for a little.” Heaven protect me and my well-conditioned intellect! -Oh! I pity the poor women who have several little children at the -same time! I’d like to know how many mothers really feel for their -children—_because_ it is their children. - -Richard will get it with that wonder of a child. He boasts about his -teeth, but he says nothing about the pain getting those teeth has cost -him. - - * * * * * - -Yesterday I had a visit from a convalescent, who went round paying visits -to the patients who were still lying in bed. I shall make friends with -her. She amuses me. How well I understood that there can be a certain -charm in studying bacteria and bacilli—small causes, huge results. - -Frankly, I thought at first that she had been in a reformatory. There -was something about her that gave the impression that she must have been -under restraint. I was quite prepared that she would confess to having -committed some crime. But no, that wasn’t it. - -She had only been in all innocence a nun for twenty-two years. Twenty-two -years a nun! Think of it! There were the years, too, that she was pupil -and novice, making altogether twenty-six years behind the walls of a -convent, subjected to the convent discipline and the weary convent habit. -And now she has broken loose, like a prisoner who makes a rope of his -bedclothes to escape over walls to freedom. - -She had compelled—how, she did not disclose—the Church to set her at -liberty, and now was beginning to live her own life for the first time. -The life which she left at sixteen she has now taken up again at the age -of forty-two. She looks like a person of sixty. - -I could not forbear putting the indiscreet question, why she had broken -away? And she replied, what was evidently the truth, that when she -noticed she was beginning to grow old, a doubt arose within her as to -whether the life in the world outside was not richer than the life -behind the convent walls. She has given all her large fortune to the -Church, and now lives on a scanty allowance grudgingly doled out to her -by one of the sisters. - -But she is happy as a queen in two little rooms, where she is her own -mistress, able to eat and drink when she wants to, and as much as she -likes. And she can serve her God unbidden by the ding-dong of the chapel -bell—for she has not abjured her faith. - -The one desire of her heart now is to find a man who’ll marry her. Her -modesty is certainly touching. She doesn’t mind who he is, or what he -looks like, if only she may be granted the wonderful happiness of having -a husband. I lied my utmost to comfort her. - -And if she can’t get a husband, she intends to adopt a child. - -A really sick, starving, miserable child. I said tamely, that if I -cherished—as God forbid that I should—such a fad, I would, at all events, -seek out a healthy, pretty, and well-nourished infant. Whereupon she -answered, “I don’t want a child to live for my sake; I want to live for -the sake of a child.” She is a fine, but rather queer creature. And she -has promised to come and see me every day. - - * * * * * - -Sister Ethel has bet me a palm—she has obviously an empty tub in her -room—that if once I had the little boy next door with me for an hour, I -should take him to my heart. - -I would rather give her the palm straight off, and have nothing to do -with the little boy; but still, if it gives her any pleasure, well, I’ll -have him this afternoon, but directly the hour is over, clean sheets. - - * * * * * - -To my eternal shame I am bound to confess that I have lost the palm. It -may be that all the nun’s sentimental gabble has affected my brain! I, -who abhor the scent of little children, and shudder to touch them. - -He lay perfectly still and squinted up at me, sucking a finger. It was -the little finger. I really shouldn’t mind losing another palm, but my -pride, God be praised, prevents my giving expression to the wish. - - * * * * * - -He doesn’t cry when he is with me. Nobody can understand it. In the night -when he was crying, I, foolish old person, rose from my bed of measles, -and went to look in on him. I thought the nurse had gone away. It was -rather a painful situation. - - - - -DEAR PROFESSOR ROTHE,[1] - - -Your letter was such a shock to me that I could not answer it at once.... -That is why I sent you the brief telegram in reply, the words of which I -am sorry I must repeat, “I know nothing about the matter.” Lili has never -spoken of it to me, or made the least allusion which could cause me to -suspect such a thing. I may truthfully say that I never heard her mention -the name of Director Schlegel. My first idea was that Lili had gone out -of her mind, and I was surprised that you, a medical man, should not have -come to the same conclusion. - -But, after thinking it over for the last two days, I have changed my -opinion. I think I am beginning to understand what has happened, and I -beg you to hold me alone responsible for what I am going to say.... I -am only making suppositions. Lili has not broken her marriage vows. Any -suspicion of such a thing is out of the question, her nature was too -upright, too loyal.... If she appeared to you and the world happy in her -married life, it was because she really was so. I entreat you to believe -this. - -Lili, who never told even a conventional lie, who watched over her -children like an old-fashioned mother, careful of what they read and -what plays they saw—how could she carry on an intrigue unknown to you -and them? Perfectly impossible, my dear Professor. I don’t say that she -didn’t speak the words you heard, but that you must have put a wrong -interpretation on them. - -Not once, but thousands of times, Lili has talked about you to me. She -loved and honoured you. You were her ideal man, husband, and father. - -She used literally to become eloquent on the subject of your -operations.... She studied Latin in order that she might understand your -scientific books, while, in spite of her natural repulsion from the sight -of such things, she attended your anatomy classes and demonstrations. - -When Lili said, “I love Schlegel and have loved him for years,” her words -did not mean, “And all that time my love for you was extinct.” - -No, Lili cared for Schlegel, and for you, too.... Probably you are saying -to yourself, “A woman must love one man or the other.” - -With some show of reason you will argue, “In leaving my house, at any -rate, she proved that Schlegel alone claimed her affection.” - -Nevertheless I maintain that you are wrong. - -Lili showed every sign of a sane, well-balanced nature. Well, her famous -serenity and calmness deceived us all. Behind this serene exterior was -the most feminine of all feminine qualities—the fanciful imagination of -the visionary. Do you or I know anything about her first girlish dreams? -Have you, in spite of your happy life together, ever really understood -her innermost soul? Forgive me, but I do not think you have. - -When a man possesses a woman as completely as you possessed Lili, he -thinks himself quite safe. You never doubted for a moment that, having -you, she could wish for anything else. - -You are not only a clever and capable man, you are kind, and an -entertaining companion; in short, you have many excellent qualities which -Lili exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical; you are, -in fact, rather prosaic, and only believe what you see. - -Contrast this with Lili’s immense forbearance. You remember how we used -to laugh when she defended some criminal who was beyond all defence or -apology. Something intense and far-seeing came into her expression, -and her heart, prompted such a line of argument which reason could not -support. She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing cold and incredulous -people. - -Then recollect the pleasure it gave her to discuss religious and -philosophical questions. - -She was not “religious” in the common acceptation of the word. But she -liked to get at the bottom of things, and to use her imagination. We -others were indifferent or frankly bored. - -And Lili was so gentle she gave way to us. - -Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She felt a physical pang to see cut -flowers with their stalks out of water. Once I saw her buy up a flower -girl’s whole stock, because the poor things wanted water. You and your -children have no love of flowers. As a doctor, you are inclined to think -it unhealthy to have plants in your rooms; consequently there were none -and Lili never grumbled. - -Lili did not care for modern music. César Franck wearied her, and Wagner -gave her a headache. An old-fashioned harpsichord would be her favourite -instrument, whereas at home her daughters thundered out Rubinstein and -Wagner upon a concert grand, and you, dear Professor, when in a good -humour, strode about the house whistling horribly out of tune. - -Finally, Lili liked quiet, musical speech, and she was surrounded by -people who talked at the top of their voices. - -... She was happy because she willed to be happy. She had made up -her mind that she was the luckiest woman in existence ... happy in -everything, and she was deeply grateful to you. But in the depths of her -heart—so deep down that it never rose to the surface even as a dream—lay -that secret trouble which has caused the present mischief. - -I know nothing of her relations to Schlegel, but I think I may venture to -say that they were chiefly limited to intercourse of the soul; ... and so -were fatal. Have you ever noticed the _timbre_ of Schlegel’s voice? He -spoke slowly and so softly; I can quite believe it attracted your wife in -the beginning; and that afterwards gradually, and almost imperceptibly, -she gravitated towards him. - -The man is now at death’s door, and can never explain what passed between -them—even admitting that there was anything wrong. As far as I know, -Schlegel was infatuated with a totally different woman. Had he been -really in love with Lili, would he have been content with a few words and -an occasional pressure of her hand? - -Why, then, has Lili left you, and why does she refuse to give you an -explanation? Why does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions? - -I will tell you. Lili is in love with two men at the same time. Their -different personalities and natures satisfy both sides of her character. -If Schlegel had not fallen from his horse and broken his back, thereby -losing all his faculties, Lili would have remained with you and continued -to be a model wife and mother. - -In the same way, had you been the victim of the accident, she would have -forgotten all about Schlegel, and would have lived for you alone. - -... Lili had not the strength to fight the first sharp anguish. The -shock bewildered her, and the love of her imagination seemed to her at -the moment the true one. She felt she was betraying you, Schlegel, and -herself; and since self-sacrifice had become the law of her life, she was -prepared to renounce everything as a proof of her love. - -You, Professor Rothe, have acted very foolishly. You have done just what -any average conventional man would have done. Your hurt vanity silenced -the voice of your heart. - -You had the choice of thinking two things: either Lili was mad, or she -was responsible for her actions. You were convinced that she was sane, -and playing you false in cold blood.... - -You write that you have only taken your two elder daughters into your -confidence. How could you have found it in your heart to do this...? - -Lili knew you better than I supposed. She knew that behind your apparent -kindness there lurked a cold, self-satisfied nature. She understood that -she would be accounted a stranger and a sinner in your house the moment -you discovered in her a thought or sentiment that was not subordinate to -your will. - -You have let her go, believing that she had been playing a pretty part -behind your back, and that I was her confidante, and perhaps also the -instigator of her wicked deeds. - -Lili has taken refuge with her children’s old nurse. - -How significant! Lili, who had so many friends, knows by a subtler -instinct that none of them would befriend her in her misfortune. If you, -Professor Rothe, were a generous-hearted man, you would explain to the -chief doctor at the Infirmary Lili’s great desire to stay near Schlegel -until the end comes. - -She loves you, and it would fill her with grateful joy.... If Lili had -your consent to be near Schlegel she would certainly not refuse to come -back to her wifely duties as soon as he was dead. At first she might not -be able to conceal her grief, and then it would be your task to help her -to regain her peace of mind.... Schlegel was a man, but had he been a -portrait or a character in a novel, Lili would have fallen in love with -him just the same, because her love was purely of the imagination. - -You must do what you please. But one thing I wish you to understand.... -If you are not going to act in the matter I shall act. I confess openly -that I am a selfish woman, but I am very fond of Lili, and if you abandon -her in this cruel and senseless way I shall have her to live with me -here, and shall do my best to console her for the loss of an ungrateful -husband, and a pack of stupid, undemonstrative children. - -One of Lili’s tears is worth more than all your masculine ebulitions of -wrath. - -One word more before I finish. Lili, so far as I can remember, is a -year older than I am. Could you not, woman’s specialist as you are, -have found some excuse for her in this fact? Had Lili been fifty-eight -or thirty-five, all this would never have happened. I do not care for -strangers to look into my personal affairs, and although you are my -cousin’s husband, you are practically a stranger to me. Nevertheless, -I may remind you that women at our time of life pass through critical -moments, as I know by daily experiences. A week or two ago it might have -been impossible to write a letter such as this. I should probably have -reeled off pages of incoherent abuse. - -Show Lili that your love was not selfishness pure and simple. - -With kind regards. - - Sincerely yours, - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - -[1] Extracts from an earlier letter of Elsie Lindtner’s to Professor -Rothe, in “The Dangerous Age,” are given here again, as they throw light -on the episode which follows. - - - - -DEAR PROFESSOR ROTHE, - - -Lili has closed her eyes never to open them again. It will scarcely be a -great blow to you and yours after what has passed; much more will it be a -relief. For her, indeed, it was so. - -I feel it my duty to Lili, not to you, to write this letter. You may -make what use you please of it. It was I who procured Lili the sleeping -draught, for which she had such a burning desire. With my hand in hers -I sat beside her till she was cold, and I do not repent that I had the -courage to commit what you, as a physician, will call a crime. - -A few days before she fell asleep Lili entrusted a packet of letters to -my care. I read them in the night, and now lay them in the coffin under -her head. These letters were not to be read by the unauthorised, and you -have become in relation to Lili one of the unauthorised. - -You have called hers a harlot-nature—not in a moment of excitement, -but because, after weighty consideration, you arrived at a conclusion -to which the word was appropriate. It is not in my power to give you -the satisfaction which you deserve, but I wish that the hour may come -in which you will see what a desperate wrong you and your abominable -children have done Lili. - -Harlot-nature, indeed! You can say that of Lili to whom you were married -for twenty years—Lili, the purest of beings! - -You say, “She married me, she bore me children, she professed to love -me, and all the time she had a lover behind my back. So she was of a -harlot-nature!” - -Professor Rothe, permit me to accompany you into your most private -consulting room, the room in which you examine the most modest of your -lady patients. Let me have it out with you, and inquire into your secret -motives. It is possible that your modesty will be shocked, but you shall -hear what I have to say on Lili’s behalf, and on those words, “Judge not -that ye be not judged.” - -When you married her your choice was made according to the dictates of -your heart, and fell on a very young girl who lived on the blue heights -of idealism. She was your wife, your friend, the mother of your children, -the good angel of your home. And would you dare add that she was your -love also? Yes. You think that because she loved you, and you loved her, -and because you took her in your arms as your wife, that she was, of -course your love.... - -But I tell you Lili was never your love, and that she never had a lover. -And the whole time you have known it perfectly well. Answer me, if you -like, “There are thousands and thousands of women who, like Lili, are -without feeling in this respect ... still she loved another, and so -deceived me.” - -Is a rose less red and fragrant, because there are thousands of other red -sweet-smelling roses? - -But Lili’s nature was so pure, so refined, that this deficiency as you -would call it, did not exist for her. She knew what it meant, for she -was not ignorant. She understood in others what she did not recognise -in herself. She lived for you, her children, and her household, her own -beautiful world, so essential was it for her to shed light and spread joy -around her. - -From this arose that wonderful harmony of her being, making of the -non-waking of what was dormant within her, neither a trial nor a -renunciation. If Lili had been blind she would have had the same happy -nature, and would have learned the beauty of joyousness through the eyes -of every seeing soul. - -There never arose within her, as in the case of so many poor women, a -conscious renunciation of the fire of the senses. - -How infinitely she must have loved and reverenced you, to have been -able to tolerate without complaint, without abhorrence and a sense of -renunciation, the position of being your wife for so many years. - -Schlegel was not her lover, though she loved him, and she was more -intimate with him than I thought at first ... and, listen, she loved him -with unlimited abandon, because he did not possess a husband’s rights to -lord it over her, and did not assume them. This _she_ was unconscious of. -But there existed a ... a difference between her feelings for you and for -him. He personified all that she had dreamed in her childish years of -“Love,” and continued to personify it till her last hour. - -Once she loved you thus, too, and would have gone on loving you in the -same way if you had not desecrated her without awakening the woman -within her. - -Lili was the Sleeping Beauty who slumbered eternally. No knight ever -roused her from her sleep. But you, the man to whom she presented her -life’s happiness, called her harlot-natured! - -Her last days were given up to a despairing desire for death and pardon -for the sin which she had never committed. - -The Lili who came over here was so changed that I hardly knew her. My -first thought as she touched me and uttered my name was, “Who is to blame -for this?” It was not only a broken-hearted woman, but a detested and -ill-treated human creature who flew from the pursuit of her persecutors -to die, deserted, in a foreign land. - -The Lili I once knew used to come into a room as the sunshine penetrates -a wood, like joy itself. Every one could see through her radiant -exterior right into the floor of her pure, white soul. - -But the Lili who came over here trembled in every limb and dared not meet -the eyes of anybody. Schlegel lies in his grave. When he lived I regarded -him as indifferently as I should any stranger. Now my thoughts go out to -him full of thankfulness. - -And Lili came home to you and ate the bread of humiliation for four long -years in your house, while people admired you because you had pardoned -her so magnanimously. Your abominable children looked down on their -mother and behaved to her as to one not responsible for her actions. -Dancing went on in your house, Professor Rothe, and Lili sat upstairs -alone in her room. Betrothal festivities were celebrated by your family, -while the mistress of the house was said to be ill, so that her pale, -grief-stricken face should not cast a shadow on the festive scene. - -I did the little I could, all that was in my power to win back the old, -dear Lili, but it was too late. One cannot say that her mind was under a -cloud, but she brooded day and night over a problem which she could not -solve. Mostly she sat looking down on her hands, which were never still. -Sometimes she talked of the children. She had once overheard Edmée say -to one of the maids, it would be much better if mother were sent to an -institution. Those words she could never forget. - -Professor Rothe! Time after time unhappy women have come to you to be -consoled, and helped by your explaining to them that the dangerous years -of transition may affect the brain of even the steadiest and most normal -of women. - -You could treat others with consideration and give them shrewd and kind -advice. But for Lili’s dangerous period you did not concern yourself. You -allowed fate to shatter her beautiful existence. You never stretched out -a hand to protect her. For Lili’s sake I cannot help hoping that there is -a resurrection after death, a place “where nothing is dishonoured, where -all is love.” To such a place Lili belongs. I have chosen a grave for -her, looking south, where flowers will flourish, and have done it in my -name. - -To-morrow, I shall send you the necessary business details—a death -certificate referring to heart disease—even if I have to write it myself. - -I have opened the window. The river is as blue as it used to be at home -in light nights. Here it is the moon that makes it blue. If only I had -the power I would lay Lili in a boat and let her drift out to sea. - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - - - -LETTERS FROM LILI ROTHE TO THE MAN SHE LOVED - - -I have accumulated so many letters from you. To-day another has come—a -letter from you to me! - -Thus I know that you still think of me. And it does me good to know it. I -go about thinking of you always and always, and it makes me happy. I want -nothing different and nothing else but to be allowed to love you. - -The letter ... in my hand, in my possession ... you, who understand what -it is to love, will know how it is when one loves. Every trifling thing -becomes a heaven and an earth. - -The letter in my hand ... that means holding minutes of your time. -Time is life. So I possess a bit of your life. For you the minutes -have vanished, like raindrops sunk in the ground; for me they have -imperishable qualities; they are like seeds that send up shoots and more -shoots, to be nourished by the sun and moisture of my love. - -And what was there in the letter? I am not ashamed to answer, only word -after word, like footprint after footprint on a muddy path. The written -sheets contain hardly more than the blank ones. But I did not expect that -they would, how could I expect it? - -For you I am simply one among many. No, perhaps a little more, a tiny bit -more. You said the first time we were alone together ... not to me ... -that my nature was congenial to you. That meant you liked to be in my -neighbourhood—my poor little neighbourhood. I feel such pity for myself -when we are together. It is like being two people, one of whom has to -do and say the very opposite of what the other would like to say and -do.... Only when I go away from you and your glance follows me like a -living shadow, that doesn’t belong to me, I feel frightened and ashamed -as a child. I am nervous about my walk, my figure, my movements, lest -they should jar on you, and then I try to appear nonchalant. I talk and -laugh, and am two people at once, one of whom watches the gaucheries of -the other with sad eyes; the other who is quite at sea how she shall act -to please you. And that is I myself, I, who in every one else’s society, -feel as free as the pollen of the buttercups as it flies over the fields. -I talk on and on as if I must fill space with my words, fearful that the -embarrassment of silence will turn my features to stone, fearful, too, of -discovering a glint of boredom in your glance. Your glance! It is like a -dark, slowly flowing river that bears your soul towards me. - -When you look at me, a new world is born within and around me. It is -as on that day when the Lord said, “Let there be light, and there was -light.” Your glance has divided me inwardly into light and darkness, -which are a greater contrast than night and sun. - -Your glance penetrates every drop of blood in my veins, as the sunshine -soaks into the sleeping earth, and awakes to life its slumbering powers. - -I know when your glance is resting on me like a tired hand on the arm -of a chair. When you contemplate me without seeing me, because you are -thinking of those cares which I divine, though I know nothing about them, -something cries out within me, not from one place but from a thousand. -Then warm founts of pity and grief overflow my inward being. - -But don’t be afraid, my friend, that I shall speak of what I suspect. -If you would rather no one should know, I will be silent—like a flower -at evening I will close my eyes, compelled by the darkness in which you -envelop yourself. - -And I will go on seeming to understand nothing, nothing at all. But your -mouth, beloved, your mouth, and your dear, beautiful hands betray you. - -There is a quiver and trembling round the corners of your mouth as if the -unspoken words lay there in ambush—and your hands look so helpless. - -Your hands, whose grasp can be so majestically firm and strong, hang -limply down, but you are not aware of it. At times your hands appear to -me so full of “sin, sorrow, and peril,” that I feel as if my soul were -responsible for yours. - -I talk to you like this, beloved, because you will never know. There are -other days when your glance, as you look at me, is like a blue flower -that blossoms in the sacred garden of dreams, but only because you are -happy in yourself, only because of that. You have had some pleasant -experience, or built up some new hope.... I think, then, that you have -derived strength from the glance that is life to you, as yours is my own -life’s fountain. - -At those times your glance flashes towards me, and a smile comes and -goes on your lips. It comes from the foundation of your being, and is -astonished at itself. At those times your figure is upright and elastic, -and if you walk across a room you move with a rhythm that touches me like -a song. - -But, beloved ... you have yet another, a third look ... and this I recall -when it grows dark. I fear it the most and love it the most. It’s when -you realise I am a woman ... suddenly, as if a mask fell from my face, -you realise that I am a woman, and not only a woman, but a woman meant -for you. And the smile that then encloses me like a snare has not its -origin in your consciousness and knowledge of my love, but its origin is -in me because I am a woman. And then, of course, because in the kindness -of your heart you are glad to give me the pleasure of remembering that I -am a woman, your eyes fill with a misty twilight, and into this twilight -I sink as into an everlasting night. - -I feel your arm supporting my neck, your cheek’s melancholy pressure. -Shuddering we stand leaning against each other, like two pines of the -forest, that for a short space a hurricane of storm wind has flung -together only to separate them again. - -All the time your smile is cold and meditative, and your glance is -extinguished like a lamp that has consumed its last drop of oil. My poor -heart tells me the reason—you are wondering at yourself for giving way to -a mood which means so little to you. - -But when, saddened, I try to move away, you again offer me your mouth as -a friendly almsgiving.... The letter, the barren letter I hold it to my -heart. I leave my house and go into the deepest part of the wood till I -find a place solitary enough to lie down in. The letter has filled me -with a joy that resembles the pungent fragrance of the pine needles -carpeting the ground. - -I open my letter, contemplate the two unwritten sides, and read once -more the written sheets.... I begin a deliberate juggle with the words; -I transpose them over and over again, read each letter separately, as if -there were some sweet secret hidden in each, and a caress in every stroke -of the pen. I can’t help thinking there must be somewhere between the -lines one single little word all for myself, that concerns me only. - -Yet my joy goes down with the sun; the leaves cease to glow, and the -darkness gathers in, and I sit with nothing but despondency in my lap. - -Beloved, beloved! how kind you are! - -I have lain awake all night with these words ringing in my head like a -song through the darkness. How kind you are! - -You gave me a whole evening. Don’t deny it, for you know I collect all -the minutes that you can spare from your superfluity. I glean them -together, as Ruth gleaned wheat on Boaz’s fertile acres. I hadn’t dared -to hope; not dared, you must believe me. I left the house alone with -thoughts about you, but without the slightest shadow of a hope of seeing -you. Then when I asked you imploringly, “Come to the meeting,” you shook -your head and answered, “I can’t manage it.” - -But while I made my way through the lighted, busy streets, my heart -became suddenly so heavy that I felt I couldn’t go on. Yet I dragged -myself there. - -Many people greeted me, and said they were glad to see me.... I stood in -the centre of a little group. Then all at once I felt _your_ presence. I -heard you coming ... your step ... it seemed as if you walked straight up -to my very heart’s door. - -Smiling, you held out your hand to me ... that alone was enough to gild -my evening, but you stayed with me, stayed with _me_. We sat together, -_we two_. The whole evening we sat together. While others discussed -what they had come together to discuss, I sat apart and let myself be -enthralled by a happiness which was almost more than I could bear. - -Several times you leaned close to me to whisper something, and we both -laughed and chatted about the others. - -You are very fond of me as a friend with whom you can talk or be silent -at your pleasure. If I were to cease to exist one day, you would—if only -for a few minutes—feel the loss. Therefore I know that my life has not -been lived in vain. - -So, gradually, I have gained ground, step by step, and I don’t worry you. -That is true, is it not? I don’t worry you? Rather than be a burden to -you I would give up the joy that lies for me in seeing you now and then, -and being sometimes where you are. It is that I long for nothing else, -but to be allowed to love you. - -Sometimes when my thoughts soar to the cloudy pinnacles of bliss I have -asked myself, what if the impossible were to happen, if you were to love -me! - -The clouds float on high, but when they are heavy with the moisture of -earth, they weep till they are light again, and their tears water into -fruitfulness the woods and meadows, while they themselves sail on yonder -through the chill ether. - -The clouds aspire to reach the height of the stars as my thoughts aspire -to your love. But they know perfectly well that they are striving after -the unattainable. - -And when my thoughts have tarried a while up there in the sky, they -become weighed down with depression and float softly earthwards, where -they properly belong, and my heart itself drops like an anchor into the -deep, quiet waters of sorrow. - -But why do I talk of sorrow, I who am the happiest of the happy?... I -didn’t mean it, no, I didn’t mean it in the least. - -But if the impossible were to happen, the impossible.... - -If it could happen that you would love me? If your glance told me so just -once. - -I know what I should do—yes, I know. I should shut my eyes on that -glance, so as never to let it go from me. I should leave my home, and -my children, and go away. I should take leave of life, and fall asleep -quietly, oh, so quietly, never to awake. - -The darkness of the grave would have to be round me, so that not a sound -disturbed my happiness. - -To live and know that you loved me! I could not do it. My strength would -be lacking. I can only love. - -Henry said one day, “Don’t touch any of my little bottles.” I was staring -at them so hard. Each of the little bottles contained the peace of the -grave. But I must go on living for the sake of my little children, for -Henry’s sake. And why should I not go on living? I have no reason to wish -to do otherwise. Yet I am not with them, though in their midst. When I -move about in my rooms, when I talk to the children and Henry, I am not -there. My eyes are seeking _him_, my ears strain after _him_.... - -From the first moment we met, my _beloved_, you and I—I became a stranger -amongst my own people. But no one knows it, except myself. And I feel -that if I was bound by a thousand ties, I should break them all, where -you, my love, were concerned. - -I am so very much of a dreamer that it is difficult for me to write -distinctly just what the relations are between us. Other thoughts -perpetually throng upon me, and I have to strive hard not to pervert -things or fabricate. And you will understand that I have not a jot or -tittle of desire to fabricate.... - -You must know how poor I am, in spite of my having home and family, and -how rich, on the contrary, you make me, so that eternally I must love -you. You must be told everything. You must be told how very well I know -you don’t care whether you are told or not, but I write not for your -sake, but for the sake of my own love.... You are so unspeakably good and -kind.... - -There was another evening, the evening of the fête. I asked you to give -me a moment, one little moment for me alone, and in the middle of the -revel and music we sat down in a corner together, at a little table. One -gets distinct in calculating when the means are so sparingly few. - -I seated myself at an angle, from which I could, to my heart’s content, -and eye’s satisfaction, gaze right into your soul without any one seeing -what I was doing. - -You, you looked at me as if you were glad at my joy. You talked of all -sorts of things. But every word that you let fall with a confidential -emphasis as if it were between you and me alone, was like pure gold—a -treasure to be added to my heart. - -Not for long were we allowed to sit together undisturbed. Other people -came up to us and jokingly teased us. They said that we too obviously -sought each other’s company. How stupid of them to say that, when it is -only I who seek yours. And yet—don’t be vexed with me—I liked them to say -it. So I do. - -And then it was that we came to discuss goodness, and I said so that -every one could hear, that you were the best and finest of all the men -I knew. My own husband stood near and smiled. He was so sure of me.... -You, as well as the others, declared that there were men who might -compare favourably with you. I could not bear to hear that. Softly in -an undertone, I begged you to confess that you were the best, and you -whispered, using “thou” for the first time, “For _thee_ I am best.” - -But it is not true that you are only best for me. You are wonderfully -good—your whole manner of life bears witness to it. Every one knows it, -and every one knows that you suffer. No one can protect you from its -being common knowledge that you have suffered deeply. Your heart lies in -ruins. I ought to learn from you to forget myself, and never to speak of -love which to you can never mean anything again. But I don’t speak in -words. - -It was that evening you clasped me close to you, not because you loved -me, but because you were so kind. While your lips sought mine I asked, -“Then it is true that you love me a little?” and you answered in your -infinite goodness, “Yes, it is true, you are very, very dear to me.” - -But suppose I had then said, “Do you love me?” and you in your infinite -goodness had replied, “Yes, I love you.” What then? What then? - -I dread the moment when I shall put this question to you. It lies in -the womb of the future, waiting to reveal itself. May I have the power -granted me never to speak, but if I do speak, may I understand absolutely -that your answer is prompted by infinite goodness alone. Yet between us -there is something that is all yours and mine. Something greater than -love, for love aims at a goal, and sooner or later comes to a standstill. -But that which exists between you and me revolves on and on like a silent -star in its own distant sphere. Nobody and nothing can check its progress. - -... I am not exigent. Your love will, I know, never be my possession. I -don’t expect it, and don’t wish it. It is my greatest happiness that I -have met you too late to be one of the many who have passed out of your -heart into the cold, and everlasting yearning. - - * * * * * - -To-day is my birthday, and each one is emulating the other to give me -pleasure. The rooms are crammed with flowers and presents. Yet I am not -joyous, and the whole affair seems very childish. How should you be able -to remember that to-day is my birthday? _You_ who know such heaps of -people! - -You will come to-night! I did not tell you intentionally that it was my -birthday.... Perhaps because I hoped that you yourself would recollect -the date. Last year I met you in the street on my birthday, and you told -me that it was the anniversary of your father’s death, and then I said -that it was my birthday. You asked if you might send me some flowers, and -I said no. How could I have explained it, receiving flowers from _you_ -who had never been in our house. And now, this evening you are coming!! - -At first you did not wish to come, and it was sweet of you not to wish -it. But as you don’t—don’t love me there is no reason why you should mind -meeting my husband. - -You are coming this evening. You are coming! Every time the bell rings my -heart begins to beat faster, and every time I am disappointed. It is like -standing in a brilliantly lighted room that becomes suddenly dark. - -Once I received flowers from you which I never thanked you for. You -know nothing about these flowers. Shall I tell you their story? But you -mustn’t laugh. - -I always feel happy when I think of them. It is almost as if the flowers -were standing again in the window, and I lying in my hypnotic sleep, -unable to open my eyes but knowing all the time that your yellow orchids, -trembling like a swarm of golden butterflies on their delicate stalks -were standing there in the window. I don’t suppose you gave a thought to -whether they would reach me before or after the operation. Perhaps you -merely rang up a florist on the telephone and ordered something specially -beautiful to be sent to the Nursing Home on one or other of the days. And -I am modest with good reason about questioning you. - -I was in bed. No one was with me. The doctor had just been here and—as -he considered his duty—explained for me, what my dear Henry had been so -carefully keeping from me, that it was a matter of life and death. He had -very little hope. But I was not afraid. I lay there and thought of you, -of Henry and the children, and then again of you. I thought of how I had -told you that I had to undergo that severe operation. I was bound to tell -you—then, in case I died, I had to say good-bye to you. - -You tried to turn it off with a joke, but in a few minutes you grew -grave. You asked if I was nervous, and I begged you, if matters did not -go well, to visit my grave, just once. Only once. It was very childish -of me, but you did not laugh. You merely said, “To satisfy you I will -promise, but I know you will live to visit my grave....” - -I have the power when I like, of bringing you before me in the flesh, -so very much in the flesh, that I at times can hardly bear other people -to be in the room. I want to be alone with you. After I came out of the -operating theatre, I was alone with you every evening and every night. - -I talked to you, I talked ... and you were silent. I never was able to -put many words into your mouth. But your attentive eyes rested on me ... -and you were there. - -When the doctor had gone, I lay by myself for a long time. The nurse -supposed naturally that I needed rest after my conversation with the -doctor. I thought of you. I was so curiously restless, a sort of joyous, -expectant restlessness. I kept looking at the door, as if every minute I -should see you coming in. - -I didn’t really expect you. I knew, of course, that it was impossible, -for many reasons. It would not occur to you to call on me. You might -easily imagine that visits so shortly before the operation would not be -permitted. There had been flowers in my room, sent by my friends, and -many of Henry’s patients. - -But they had been taken away, because I must not be excited by their -scent. I lay there and gazed at the door; my heart began to beat -violently—no, not exactly to beat, but it felt as if something was -entering it. You must not think, beloved, that I imagined all this -afterwards. I felt—I could feel distinctly that some great joy was on -its way to me. I heard the footsteps approaching in my heart, and then I -heard them outside on the stairs. Nurses and visitors were coming and -going all day on the stairs, but, nevertheless, I sat up in bed pressing -my hand on my heart, for I knew, I knew, that this concerned you. - -My nurse came in with a parcel. It seemed as if she, too, understood that -this was something which I ought to see at once. She came quite close up -to me with the box and, smiling, opened it deliberately, so deliberately -that it looked as if she were teasing me.... “Let me open it,” I begged, -but no, she insisted on doing it herself. - -I felt how the blood deserted my face.... “Give them to me!” I implored -as if I were praying for my life. She handed me the long spray from which -the flowers hung like gold sunbeams, and fluttered over the whiteness of -the sheet. I held the spray in my hand. - -When she was gone, I kissed every one of the sensitive flowers. And you -were with me. All your steadfast calm was infused into my blood. Now I -could die happy. The flowers were put in water and placed in the window. -They were to stay there all night, I said, and no one objected. I had a -light burning the whole night through, as if I were afraid of the dark. I -dozed and woke, and dozed and woke. The flowers did not sleep, and they -did not fly away. - -You, you were with me! - -Even if you never thought of me at all that night you were still with -me. And, maybe, you dreamed of me. Men often dream of things that they -haven’t been thinking about. And you forgot your dream before you awoke. - -The next morning when they came to fetch me, I besought so earnestly -that my orchids might stand beside the bed. I submitted calmly to the -anæsthetic. While the mask was being drawn over my face I thought of you, -and it seemed as if the yellow, dewy petals began to dance over me. - -Deeply I breathed in the fragrance, and I felt as if the flowers filled -the room. They had increased from a swarm to countless swarms, and -become a singing ocean of gold. And in the ocean I saw _your eyes_. You -were with me, even if in thought you did not accompany me, yet you were -there. - -I woke up and my gaze met yours. My eyes were too tired to see much. Yet -I saw the yellow flowers swaying on their stalks. They had come back. -They had, with their loving souls, borne me company at the time, and -now they had come back. Close to my eyes they seemed to be perpetually -singing and making music. Yes, you were with me. - -When the pain was most acute it was just as if they flew away, and -dispersed at the sound of my groans. I quite understood it. They were -like you. You, too, hate the thought of sickness. You, too, cannot bear -people to be ill. So I tried to smile at them, and to act as if I did not -feel the pain. - -... Your flowers ... your exquisite, blessed flowers.... - -To-day is my birthday, and you are coming, yet I am not happy. - -All my best friends are coming. I shall sit at the same table as you! You -will sit on my right hand, for you are the only one who comes for the -first time. It is not wrong, it cannot be wrong. But if it is wrong, then -punish me, let me suffer for it; I am ready. - -I said that I must rest before the guests arrive. I must be alone for a -little to collect myself for the joy that is greater than joy. - -For my joy is more than bliss. There is nothing so great, there cannot be -anything greater than my joy. - -The flowers are risen from the dead. The yellow butterfly blossoms. - - * * * * * - -I almost wish it was over. I don’t know myself what it is, but I wish it -was over. - -_That_, I wish over, and I don’t know what it is. I see something beyond -the barrier, and I don’t see it. It is not death, but there is something -that hurts more than death. - -And the evening was the happiest of my life. - -Perhaps it is nothing at all. Perhaps it is only my heart breaking for -happiness, but can it hurt so much when one’s heart breaks for happiness? - -It was at the moment when you went out at the door. Magna Wellmann turned -her head and said, “That was _the_ evening of the year,” and you nodded. -Then was it. It felt as if all my joy had suddenly been hemmed up in -a coffin and couldn’t breathe. Henry asked, “Are you ill, you look so -strange, and you have been beaming the whole evening as if you had light -inside you....” That was true. I had light, yes, light burning within me, -and now it is extinguished. - -I must gather myself together. I must cherish and hoard my happy evening. -It is wrong to think such things, but I am glad that Henry had to read -the treatise this evening. I mean.... - - * * * * * - -You led me to the table. You sat on my right, and you were so calm. You -are always so calm. Why should you not be calm, you are not in love. - -You invited me to drink, and I who never drink wine, drank with you, only -a sip. It was ... no, I cannot speak of it. But now I understand that -clergymen really believe it when they say, “This is the body and blood of -Christ.” - -No one could read my thoughts. - -Now I know what it is that I have lacked hitherto, and I am glad that I -have lacked it. - -You made a speech in my honour. It was so natural that you should. You -led me to the table, and it was my birthday. For me it was a sacred -miracle. The words you spoke have gone to sleep in my heart. When I die -one day in my coffin, and my children weep over me, they will arise and -whisper and sing as your yellow flowers sang when I was ill. - -I hold so fast to my happiness. But my hands are weak, and it slips -through them like running sand. - -The hours go as they came. - -Why do you rend my dream in twain? Why do you thrust a knife in my heart? -I have never thought of being your mistress. I only grant you every -delight there is. But why in this night, in this night, when I woke and -clung to my happiness! When Magna Wellmann telephoned me to-day, I knew -everything. She said nothing and I asked no questions. - -My yellow orchids hang on their stalks like dead butterflies. I have -forgotten to give them water. - -Forgive me! I am not. I won’t be like this, and now it is over. It hurts -no longer. I am well, like the little boy who was run over the day -before yesterday. He cried and moaned that he was going to die, and all -the time was quite unhurt. - -You walked over my heart, and I thought it must die, but there is nothing -the matter with it. - - * * * * * - -It is months since I wrote to you last; I simply felt I couldn’t. I have -been like one scared. Why do people speak so often without thinking? One -lets fall a word quite indifferently, that stabs the heart of another -like a poisoned arrow. I have been half distracted by anxiety. I have -listened to all the gossip. I am sick from disquietude. My youngest child -has been ill, days and nights. I have watched beside him, expecting every -hour that death would come, and yet in the middle of my fear of death my -thoughts have been incessantly with you. - -I wouldn’t believe it.... But if it is true.... Beloved, I am so -saddened, I don’t know whether I ought to tell you why, or whether you -would tolerate my intruding into the habits of your daily life. But I am -not only depressed, for if that was all I could bear it in silence. No, I -am frightened, frightened, frightened. I cannot sleep for anxiety. - -You wrote last year to tell me yourself that your doctor had forbidden -you to resort to the strong remedy which had become a necessity to you; -that you were obeying, but suffering horrible pain in consequence. That -first awakened my anxiety. Many, many times I felt as if I were running -my head against the blank wall which separates life from death.... And -yet, it seemed to me that there was strength in the touch of your hands, -strength that could grapple with any illness, strength in your hands, -your glance, your smile. Then one day something happened that it took -weeks to get out of my head. I sat with you and between us was built -the usual bridge of kindness and confidence. Your smile came over the -bridge and met mine. We played with words as children in a meadow play -with flowers. Your hand lay on mine so firmly and tenderly. I grasped at -that moment why men honour so much the idea of a foundation stone. I felt -my hand, too, was the corner-stone in an eternal building. So proud was -I that your hand rested on mine, so sure, firmly and tenderly, and then -suddenly, with such terrible suddenness, that my heart nearly stopped -beating, your smile froze and died; your eyes became vacant, glazed; your -face was not only strange—would it had only been that—it was so changed -that you wouldn’t have recognised it yourself in the looking-glass. - -In that moment—I can’t say whether they were moments or minutes—you -were not master of your body, neither were you ruler of your soul. And -then you came to yourself. But I left you and cried. My tears were cold -and made me freeze. Soon after I had to go away on a journey. Beloved, -beloved, how full of pain love is! Every day, every hour when I strolled -in the garden among my flowers which I planted there myself, which stand -there mysteriously waiting and watching for your coming, I saw before me -a shadow that proceeded from my own distraught mind ... your dear face -with the relaxed expression, and the glazed, fixed eye. - -The pain which I experienced then has been carried about in my heart for -years, and was day by day increased and nourished by my anxiety. - -But then your letters came, like stars dropping from the sky in the -still, dark night ... and once more I gained strength and courage to look -life in the face. _Life_—that is what _you_ are for me. - -I could fancy every one dying round me, even my own darling children, all -that was near and dear to me; all that peoples the earth, and I could -fancy the houses falling, day and night ceasing—but I cannot picture -life without you. - -I cannot, and I _will not_.... - - * * * * * - -The summer passed, and with the falling leaves I returned to your -neighbourhood. You were, to all appearances the same, only rather paler, -rather softer in your manner. Your hands were the same, your lips sought -mine. I asked you no questions. Dare any one call to the man walking on -a rope over the abyss, whether he feels giddy? I asked you nothing. But -others talked about you to me. And all, all said the same. Don’t you see -how changed he is? And they spoke of the strong remedy that had become -indispensable to you, of the remedy by the help of which you maintain -your mask of mental equilibrium, a mask through whose holes your own -tormented soul stares out into vacancy. - -Now I have come to it. I have come to it. Please do not be angry, or -hurt, but let me say what I can no longer carry about with me unsaid. -Try if you cannot, slowly and by degrees, break yourself of the habit -of resorting to means which, instead of strengthening, undermine your -health. In the name of my love I ask you to do this, and you must not -think that I ask for my sake alone. Then if it happened that I was going -to die, and knew that I was going to die to-day, so that I should never -see you, or hear your voice again, I should still make the same request. -Why will you be kind to every one but to yourself? A doctor said to me -about you—No, those are words that may not be repeated.... - -Now say with a smile that I am conjuring up bogies, that my feelings have -got the better of me, and perhaps you are right, but, beloved, death is -not the worst. Do you understand me now? - -I sit here and write in the bright sunshine. My children play round my -skirts, and chatter and ask me why I am crying.... - -Well, now it is said, and now that I have said it, I dare not let you -read what I have written. - -But I will keep this letter with the rest of _your_ letters, with the -letters which you have never received. Should the day ever come when I -have sufficient courage you shall read it. - -Only this one, of all the letters. - - - - -AN UNSENT LETTER FROM LILI ROTHE TO PROFESSOR ROTHE. - - -Henry, I had on my mind to write to you and, for the last time, ask you -to forgive me, but I know that it is no use. Perhaps your forgiveness -could do me no good now. It is too late. I have suffered so much. I -cannot bear more. But this letter contains nothing but the truth, and it -is the last letter that I shall write. - -Henry, I have never denied my love for you. I have never forgotten you, -and never deceived you. If I am to die now, because I long for the sleep, -which while I live, cannot mercifully be granted to me, you must believe -my poor last words. - -I don’t know whither I am going, but even if I knew for certain that -I should reach the open gates of Paradise, I could not cross the -threshold. So long as you had not forgiven me in your heart, eternal -peace would not encompass me. And if I knew, he for whose sake I have -caused you such great trouble that it casts a shadow behind and dims all -that was once radiant and happy, if I knew that he was standing ready to -receive me with those words which up till this hour I have never heard -him utter, “Welcome, my beloved,” it would be impossible for me to follow -him into everlasting bliss. Consciousness of guilt would prevent it. - -In the years when I loved you alone, I was happy; when he came into my -life and I loved you both, my happiness increased with my love, and I did -not feel guilty. I was so unspeakably happy. I loved you, and I loved -him. You are a doctor, and when women are ill you can make them well, but -for my sickness you had no panacea to prescribe. - -And I cannot do what you desire of me; I cannot say that my love for him -is dead. Love cannot die, when once it has lived. - -Henry, when you took me back, I entreated you to ask me no questions, and -you asked none. But your eyes asked and the walls asked, and everything -round me asked questions. I do not wish to have any more secrets from -you. Yet you never can understand what I am now going to say. - -He did not know me when I came to him, and he died without having -recognised me. But it made me happy to be with him. When the others were -asleep, and it was all quiet, I heard him mention a name. Not my name. -He did not love me, you see. Every time he mentioned that other name I -felt I was expiating some of my guilt towards you. I sat and listened, -the nights were so long, but my name never came. The name of the one he -loved, the names of others, but mine never. - -One night I fell asleep and dreamed that he called me. I awoke, and he -lay dead. And now I shall never find out whether that was only a dream -or something more. - -I have thought so much over the question whether other women are the same -as I am. Were I strong enough I would go about and look till I found one -who could tell me truthfully that she had loved two men, loved both with -her whole heart and soul. I would then beg her to go to you and explain -how that is something one cannot help, cannot fight against, and cannot -kill. - - - - -My nun has espoused a husband, and I have been to call on the young -couple. He has only one eye, is superannuated, and has warts in his ears. -He is a hod carrier. When she contemplates him she feels as if heaven -were opening before her. - -She comes from a good family, and has had a good education; he is -ignorant and stupid, but he seems to appreciate her adoration. I had a -ticket for “Lohengrin” this evening, but I am not inclined to go. - -After all, I can understand it. Once I should have thought it silly, but -my ideas have undergone a change. When I reflect on it there is really -only one condition that can be called unhappy, and that is loneliness. -Loneliness on a desert island, loneliness in a great city, loneliness in -married life.... Loneliness. - -For this reason all living beings crowd together. The animals seek each -other. The faded leaves, as they flutter down from the trees, wed in the -hour of their destruction. - -She feels that she has been cheated for all the years of her convent -life, has loved without an object. She has cast off her shackles, and -achieved her liberty. The thought of a joint life with some one, that she -may have pined for vaguely in the convent, became, out in the world, the -highest thing to aim at. In her excessive modesty she humbly accepted the -first thing that offered. Surely there is nothing ridiculous in that. - -But I am alone. I am solitary. - - * * * * * - -God in heaven, what have I done? There he lies asleep, as if he were -never going to wake. Such a little gnome. But I couldn’t do anything -else, and behind all my anxiety and fidgetting I have a feeling that for -the first time in my life I have done what is right. - -For it was not unpremeditated, or was it? Do I know? A transformation has -been going on lately within me. But when did it begin, and where will it -lead me? If I only had some one whom I could consult, but there is no -one. I have broken all my old ties. I stand quite alone. Even Jeanne.... -Jeanne must be told as soon as possible, but, of course, she will think -it is nothing except one of my whims in which I indulge to kill time. - -When I ask myself deep down in my heart why I did it, there is no answer, -and, meanwhile, the boy is lying in my bed. I have slept an hour or two -here on this chair without knowing it. The windows are wide open, yet -every minute I inhale a horrible smell of spirits ... a little boy of -seven! How am I to know whether he is seven, five, or nine? - -I must collect myself. This hour may decide the whole course of my life. -I have only to hold the telephone receiver to my ear, and directly the -house-porter will call in the police. Before noon the boy will be gone, -and I shall never see him again. - - * * * * * - -Why should it concern me? It would be sheer folly if I gave way to a -sickly sentimentality and wished to keep this small tramp. Small as he -is, he seems to be endowed with every vice. - -I feel as if I had dreamed it all, and not seen it with my eyes.... And -it all comes of my freak of using the subway under the river instead of -taking a motor. What induced me to waste time in that fashion? I who, of -all others, detest subterranean zigzagging? - -Was it a presentment? Did I expect a sensation, and wish to gloat -over the sight of roofless night-wanderers, who for five cents travel -backwards and forwards by this route all day? One’s way of living and -thinking is different in New York from what it is in great European -capitals. We don’t follow each other like sheep. We think more for -ourselves. - -I felt so tired inwardly on the journey, so utterly without an anchor. I -tried to fall asleep before we reached the river to escape hearing the -ghastly rushing sound in the air behind. The boy had seen me at once. I -believe I inspired him with a certain awe. My clothes probably were too -smart for him. - -He hurled himself past me without calling out rude words, or making -grimaces. I could not take my eyes off him. At first I thought it was one -of the dwarfs out of the Hippodrome, and I squirmed with disgust. Then -I saw that it was a child. A child sick with a fever which his senses -could not master. I, like the other passengers, thought him mad, till we -grasped what was the matter with him. - -He jumped on ladies’ laps, and spat in their faces; he kicked gentlemen’s -legs violently with his heels. When the guard caught hold of his wrists -and commanded him to be quiet, he bit the man so hard he was obliged to -let him go. At the next station he was ejected. But directly the train -was in motion again, he swung himself on to the car, and this process was -repeated at every station. No one knew how to cope with him; no one knew -where he came from, or to whom he belonged. Suddenly he began to sing, -what, I couldn’t understand, but from the expression on the faces of the -men present, and from his own gestures, I gathered that it was something -indecent. - -How shall I describe my feelings? Were they prompted by horror, -repulsion, or compassion? I must try to analyse them clearly.... I felt -as if I had brought this wretched creature into the world, as if I were -responsible for him. I experienced a mother’s agony and a mother’s -boundless tenderness. - -Directly it became plain to me that the child was not speaking in the -delirium of fever, but of drunkenness, I had to bite my lips till they -bled, so as not to cry out. Then the boy came to me, and threw himself -across my lap. There he stayed, nestling his head against me, and went to -sleep. - - * * * * * - -Were I to act now sensibly and as common reason demanded, I should send -the child back whence he came, though I don’t know in the least where -that is.... The child who has awakened the most sacred feeling in my -poor, withered heart.... The child who is to blame for my having shed, -for the first time in my life, tears of joy. - -When I offered to take Jeanne’s child, I had my reasons at my fingers’ -ends, but they were not honourable ones. I wanted to start for myself -an interest in life. I started from the hypothesis that what filled the -lives of so many women might equally well fill mine. I wanted to take -Jeanne’s child, in the same way as five years before I had taken her ... -as an experiment, a distraction. - -But it was not so to-night. This small boy had kissed my hands, and I had -blessed him. - -I have heard somewhere of a holy man who met once a little child who was -tired. He lifted him on to his shoulders and carried him over a river, -but on the way the child grew and became heavier and heavier, while the -man sank deeper and deeper.... All that, however, doesn’t matter. - -I took him home with me. Here you can do what you like. My proceeding -excited no remark. A stranger asked if he should fetch me a carriage, and -we drove home. - -I must, of course, make inquiries about his antecedents. He says nothing -himself. He woke up when I struck a light, but he wouldn’t tell me -his name even. The people in the train thought he was one of those -outcast children without parents who live from hand to mouth by selling -newspapers, and stealing from the banana carts, and who pass the night -on the river’s bank or in empty wagons. - -I haven’t succeeded yet in getting his boots off. Though they have -evidently once belonged to a grown-up, they are so tightly laced on his -little legs that they can only be moved by cutting. He must have worn -them day and night for months. - - * * * * * - -What will be the end of it? I daren’t think, and I daren’t act. I keep -saying to myself without ceasing, the same thing, “Suppose he is taken -away from me?” and I seem to see into the future, his life ending in -crime, his death taking place in prison. - -I intend to sacrifice my own life for this child’s ... but is that -sufficient? Can that avert his fate? - -My beautiful, beautiful boy! He is asleep. I have locked both doors -and sit with the key in my pocket. Every quarter of an hour I look in -at him; he smiles in his sleep as only innocent children smile. Then -suddenly he clenches his little fists and his mouth becomes so distorted -and ugly that I have to turn away. What can he be dreaming about? - -Help me, help! To whom am I praying? I, who am without faith, and without -hope. But I am not without love. No longer without love; for I love this -poor, miserable child. - -Could I but give him back his innocence!... Has he never been innocent -like other children? Was he contaminated from the first by the two -creatures who gave him life? Is it in my power to atone for others’ sins -against him? - -I wonder why he tried to run away to-day? Where did he want to go, and -what was in his mind? If I had not got him back, God knows, I could not -have faced another day. - - * * * * * - -I sat with him on my lap, and he looked up at me as if he would ask, -“What are you going to do with me?” - -His childish gaze was so suspicious and hard. I told him that I wanted to -be his mother and to live for nothing else but to make him happy. All the -time his little hands were feeling about to find my pocket. I pretended -not to see, and smiling angelically, he plunged his hand after my purse, -and began to fidget with it till it opened. My heart beat so that I could -hear it distinctly resound in my ears. - -Is it to be wondered at that he steals? He has known what it is to -starve. But now I give him everything that heart can desire. I have -bought him a little purse of his own, and filled it with money. Yet still -his tiny face retains its expression of desperate greed when he sees me -take out money. When will this alter? - -And he asks me if I have bought him. Or have been given money to keep -him. He does not remember that blessed, thousandfold blessed, night when -he took my heart by storm, and transformed me into a real human being.... - -I wanted to test him, so to-day I went without lunch, explaining to him -that I had no more money, but he was to eat, I could go without it. He -nodded, and without troubling about me at all, ate up his lunch. - - * * * * * - -Kelly. That’s his name. Kelly! or he says it’s his name. He has been with -me now for six days, and only to-day he told me what he was called. Well, -it is at least a beginning. I am thankful for little. - -I dare not hesitate any longer. If I could, I would travel off with him -like a thief with his booty, even if somewhere a mother sat and wept -for him. No, no! I wouldn’t rob a mother of her child. But I needn’t be -afraid. Kelly’s whole bearing tells me that he has been for a long, long -time alone in the world. Enquiries will be only a matter of form, and -then I can adopt him properly. He will be mine by law. - - * * * * * - -It is quite a matter of indifference to me if people shake their heads at -my insane action. How should they know that Kelly alone, only this boy -with the vicious little face and criminal glance is the source of all -my bliss and riches in this life? But it distresses me when people talk -about it in his presence, and I cannot prevent them shaking their heads. -Kelly understands what they mean. He seems conscious that his brow is -branded with the mark of Cain. - - * * * * * - -To-morrow we are going to the Children’s Court; I have written to Mr. -Rander. He is said to be one of the cleverest child-psychologists in -America. - -He has replied that I need cherish no fears. So long as my love is -sufficiently great ... my love.... Yes, my love is great enough to bear -the strain. - - * * * * * - -Why had that to happen just to-day, when I was feeling in such good -heart? It’s only a trifle, certainly. He may not have thought what he was -doing. - -It’s a necessity of children’s nature to be destructive. They are cruel -without being conscious of it. What, after all, do I care about the -stupid cacti? I would have made him a present of all of them. But it was -the glance of his! The sly, uncanny glance when I said, “But, Kelly, why -have you cut my flowers in pieces?” - - * * * * * - -I am doing it entirely on my own responsibility. I should do it, even if -the whole world cried out, “Leave it alone, it will prove your ruin!” I -should do it. Even if I could see into the future, and behold my boy a -full-fledged criminal sentenced to death.... I consecrate my life to him, -my poor, squandered life. But it isn’t poor now. I am rich. I am a mother! - - * * * * * - -Mr. Rander meant well, I daresay, when he said, “Don’t do it. Take any of -them, only not him!” And he related what he knew. - -As if a single spoken phrase could dissolve the bond my heart has entered -into voluntarily. - -“Born, double-dyed criminal.” Nevertheless, I will educate myself to be a -worthy mother to him. - - - - -DEAR MAGNA WELLMANN, - - -“From earth thou comest, to earth thou shalt return....” These words of -Scripture occurred to me when I read your letter. That is the eternal -circle ... in this case the circle of your family. Your grandfather was a -renegade from the calling of his forefathers when he became a townsman. -Your father degenerated, and now you have gone back to the land. - -Magna, Magna, I admire you. Of course, I am heart and soul for the -enterprise. In this manner my money will become a breathing, living -entity, doing its own work, and reaping its own reward. Don’t talk about -being cautious. I am running no risks. I know what I am about. Your -lawyer’s letter informs me in business language that the undertaking is -“sound,” besides I am not giving the whole or even half the capital. - -I need no assurances that you will carry the thing through. But read -before you begin a little book by Flaubert. I don’t mind betting you have -never heard of it. It is called, “Bouvard et Pécuchet.” A prospective -agriculturist can learn a good deal from it. It’s splendid that Jarl is -so keen on farming. But you won’t surely let him put his hand to the -plough, and work in the fields from the start, will you? The boy is only -seventeen, and I hope, too, that his mother isn’t going to begin at once -digging turnips and milking cows. I should not care to set foot in a -cow-shed—it’s a thing I have never done. But all the same I shall enjoy -having letters yards long about all your first experiments and blunders. - -You mustn’t take it too much to heart that Agnete is cool towards you. -The poor child has a dash of prudishness in her, inherited from her -mother! When she has children of her own she will be different. - -Your account of the scandal was rich! Especially do I like that remark -of a friend, “She might at least have had the tact to say that it was an -adopted child.” I read between the lines that you have not passed through -this humiliation without it’s having left scars behind. But, Magna, -nothing is in vain. You can afford to pay the cost of your happiness. -I am reminded of a little story about you which used to be told in our -“set.” It related to the way in which you conquered Professor Wellmann’s -heart. You were at a party, and had been so bored you had spoken to no -one. There was something to drink in big, tall glasses. Suddenly in an -ebullition of superfluous strength you bit the glass with your teeth and -bit a piece out of it. Professor Wellmann sat with distended eyes and -open mouth, and watched you. - -And on his way out of the house he remarked to a not very discreet -friend, “She, the girl who bit the glass, shall be my wife!” - -The story may or may not be true, but it is characteristic of you all the -same. - -I can see you in hobnail boots, and a smock, tramping over the fields, -superintending the plough and the breeding of cattle. - -I have very little to tell about myself. Since I linked my fate to -Kelly’s I live in a new world. Every day that goes by I come nearer to -myself, but I cannot write about it. It is too sacred a subject. Troubles -which were unknown to me before have taken up their continued abode -within me, but joys which were equally strange keep watch over me with -drawn swords. Magna, I ask you, can the woman who has brought her own -child into the world experience greater bliss and greater torment than I, -to whom my boy was given by chance? - -With a thousand loving remembrances, - - Your - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - - - - THE WHITE VILLA. - -DEAR JEANNE, - - -As you will see from this heading, we are now at home again. - -_We_, and at _home_ again! - -My home is where Kelly is, and Denmark was never his home. But for his -sake, I have uprooted once more. I did not think such a big, big town was -good for him. The island here is certainly small enough. - -Oh, if you could see how it looks now! I was determined to be the first -with Kelly to enter the house, since you and I left it together, how many -years ago? - -The carpets were in tatters. The window panes were beaten in, either by -the wind or vagabonds. Dead leaves and dead flies lay about the floors. -My beautiful pieces of furniture were mildewed from damp ... one or two -of the chairs had collapsed; the chintz coverings were moth-eaten. My -bedroom—my ridiculous bedroom—was the most deplorable of all. It must -have been struck by lightning, otherwise I don’t understand how the -mirrors got smashed, and the rain and snow lay congealed on my bed. - -Kelly laughed, and rushed from room to room, and in the end I laughed, -too. Then Kelly got hold of the mad idea that instead of putting up -at the inn, we should turn in here the first night. I half think he -contemplated a sort of burglarious attempt on the deserted house. I -yielded, of course. Never in my life have I seen any one more industrious -and handy than this boy when he likes. He ran about pumping water and -sweeping floors, and made all straight, God knows how. Tea was prepared! -ante-diluvian sugar and a canister of Albert biscuits. He ushered me into -the large parlour where my piano, my poor, wretched, beautiful piano, -had been standing all these years, the prey of wind and rain, till it -hasn’t a sound left in its body from hoarseness—and then he brought in -the tea. I won’t go so far as to say that it tasted clean or nice, and -the biscuits were musty, but Kelly’s hand had prepared it. - -And we slept together in the same bed, in your bed, Jeanne, in yours! It -was the only one in which the blankets were dry. I wanted to lie on a -sofa with a rug, but Kelly would cuddle up beside me. - -Jeanne, I—really I, your fond, old travelling companion, am now once more -“at home,” and I lay awake the whole night thinking over my happiness. - -Kelly slept in my arm, and my arm, of course, went to sleep, but no other -part of me slept ... and Kelly woke with my arm round him. - -Then we went to “The Jug,” and put up there for a fortnight till the -whole place was made habitable. I have no Jeanne—I do my own hair, and -make myself beautiful for my boy. Alack! it is hard work to inspire him -with any desire to make himself presentable. - -I am thinking of finding a tutor for him. He ought not to be allowed to -run wild and devour sensational American novelettes—of which there are -none in Denmark—and remain ignorant of all other subjects. - -Forgive me, Jeanne, but I have only one thought, and that is Kelly. He -fills my life at all points, so that everything else now has to give way -to him. - -He has a craze for collecting snails and slugs, which he brings into -the house and lets crawl about on the white window-sills. I must own it -makes a horrible mess, but Kelly may do anything. Only I draw the line at -helping him to collect his snails, for, much as I should like to oblige -him, it is too disgusting. - -Now in exchange for these confidences, tell me all your news. It was -indeed a piece of good fortune that Malthe’s design took the prize. And -in Paris, too! You will, I suppose, stay there the two years. Or are -you still the incorrigible nomads who prefer to travel about with your -houses on your backs, with your trunks and perambulator—to settling down -quietly in a refined, comfortable home. Don’t work yourself to shreds, -Jeanne. Remember that life is long, and that you mustn’t grow old and -ugly. I concluded that you are doing everything in your power fairly to -spoil your excellent husband. You go to market. You pack the boxes, take -the tickets, and accompany your husband to the museums where you make -drawings for him, and you look after the children. Jeanne! Jeanne! take -thought for your hair, and be careful of your hands. - -And don’t forget your happy _home_-flown friend, - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - * * * * * - -DEAR GOOD MAGNA, - -That this notion should have occurred to you, and that you should have -the courage to carry it out—. But ought I to offer up this sacrifice -to you, and can I relinquish Kelly? The last few nights have been long -and sleepless; only when dawn begins to glimmer can I bring my confused -thoughts into any order, and then it seems as if I had found a solution -which is the right one. I fall asleep, and when I wake up again, -everything is as unsettled as ever. - -I don’t know my way in or out. Magna, it’s not selfishness which makes me -dread letting Kelly out of my hands—the day does not seem far off when I -shall be forced to live under another roof from that which shelters him, -and that is why I don’t want to die. - -My every thought is dedicated to him for whom and with whom I now live, -and so I will continue to live without complaint so long as life -is granted me. I have looked it all in the face, and have recoiled, -shuddering, at the petrifying horror of impossibilities, but I have made -my resolve. So long as I inhabit the earth Kelly has a human being who -stands in the place of mother to him. - -I am not afraid to make any sacrifices. I shrink only from the thought -of shirking the responsibility. From the day Kelly came into my life -I have made myself answerable for his actions and conduct. Would it -not be cowardice and treachery if I now said, “The yoke has become too -burdensome, now I will shunt it on to the shoulders of another”? - -And yet, Magna, your plan seems to me the one possibility of salvation. - -Before I express my hearty thanks, and confide my boy to your care, I -must tell you something which I have been compelled to keep to myself -till now. Kelly has before been taken care of by others. By force of -circumstances. He tried—remember he was only nine years old—to burn -me. Of course no one suspected him, otherwise the police would not have -been asked to investigate the affair, but then it was brought to light, -and he was taken away from me. I could have murdered them for taking -him.... It is hard, even now, years after, to talk about it. My one idea -was to find a means of getting him back. In America everything possible -is done to save children whose feet are set on the downward path to -crime. And it is done with a tenderness and love which is marvellous, -but I didn’t know it. I thought of what I had read in the papers at home -about reformatories for children, about floggings and starvation, and -lockings-up in dark cellars. I was ready to help Kelly to escape till the -first time that they gave me permission to visit him. - -There was no wall round the institution, not even a railing. The main -building abutted on the high road, and from there you could see the -heaps of smaller red houses resembling a town of villas. - -As I came up to the inspector’s dwelling, I was almost run down by a -crowd of boys headed by a small negro, who were having a race. - -Just as I entered the door, I heard an outcry which made my heart -stand still. I thought it was one of the boys being punished. But the -inspector showed me from the window what the noise meant. The boys were -playing at fire, and at that moment they were letting the hose play on -the inspector’s house. My little Kelly—in oilskins and a helmet on his -head—held the hose. - -And I was told that of the six hundred boys who are in the reformatory -many of them on account of gross misconduct, for which but for their -tender years, they would have been sentenced to a long period of -imprisonment, not a single one had been guilty of doing anything wrong -during his detention here. Punishments such as thrashing and being put -on bread and water and under arrest, simply do not exist. The boys live -in their little villas, twelve in a batch, under the supervision of a -pair of foster-parents. The only punishment is that a boy who has been -disobedient or lazy gets no cake at five o’clock tea, and is not given -permission to sit with the others at the large flower-decked table, but -has to sit alone at a small table. And he mayn’t lie before the fire at -dusk and listen to fairy-tales. - -No mother could have had more delightful letters from her child than I -had from Kelly during that year. If I had only been as wise then as I am -now, I should have let him stay there as long as the inspector would have -kept him. - -All the small “prisoners” were taught in succession various industries -which they might choose themselves. I saw them baking, ironing, washing, -carving, carpentering, binding books, making clothes, and toys, and I -saw them planting trees, ploughing, and, Magna, I saw them milking cows. -But I was a foolish mother. I didn’t want my boy brought up to a trade; -I imagined it was my duty to develop his great gifts in a different -direction. - -So after a year he was sent back to me. But the inspector warned me that -there would be a lapse. In two months it came. Kelly disappeared. I tore -about like a maniac hunting for him everywhere. I don’t believe there -was a beer-cellar, a common lodging-house, or a thieves’ kitchen that -I didn’t search. He was traced through the scar on his forehead, and I -recovered him. But how? - -The Kelly who for twelve months had been living a model life among six -hundred little abandoned chaps, had plotted with a group of homeless -playmates to commit a crime so diabolical and remorseless that at first I -refused to believe his brain could have hatched it. By the train between -Philadelphia and New York travels every day a crowd of millionaires who -come to do their business on the Stock Exchange. The other boys were, -through all sorts of tricks, to distract the attention of the signalman -while Kelly was to switch on the signals so that another train would come -into collision with the train from Philadelphia. After the collision they -meant to plunder the dead bodies! - -It’s true, Magna; now say, no! you dare not take Kelly under your roof -to associate with Oluf. I can’t help it, it was my duty to tell you all. -My friend, Judge Rander, in Children’s Court, helped me in every way. He -procured for me leave to travel with Kelly out of the country on a verbal -and written oath that I would never bring him back. That is why I lived -two years, summer and winter, in my White Villa with Kelly and a tutor. -I was afraid to let him come near the town, and yet the child needed -companions. So at last I ventured to migrate to a town, with the result -that Kelly in two years was expelled from three schools. Can you still -have the courage, Magna, to let the innocent child, offspring of your -heart, become Kelly’s playfellow? And if you are so courageous, how shall -I be able to exonerate myself if you come to me one day and say, “Kelly -has corrupted my boy”? - -I put the words into your mouth, Magna. - -Say no, while there is still time. You are strong, stronger than any -other woman I know, since you have found yourself again through strenuous -exertion and labour. But there are powers that the strongest cannot -conquer. - -Behind my fears about your saying yes, lies the burning wish that you -will, but how shall I ever find words to thank you? - -Of course, I realise what it will mean if Kelly from now onwards takes -up his abode with you, and directly after his confirmation leaves off -school. It’s not what Kelly is to be, but _how_ he becomes what he is, -that is going to be for me the main question. I fold my hands in my lap, -and I confess my powerlessness. - -Make Kelly a man. Make Kelly a good man. - -You will understand, Magna, that I could not say all this if we stood -face to face. While I have been writing Kelly has been several times to -the door. He wants to know what I am doing. Every time I feel tempted to -lay down my pen to enjoy his society. He asked me the other day, “Mother, -do you believe that people’s fate is pre-ordained?” What could he have -meant by it? I dared not ask him. He went on his knees, buried his head -in my lap, and cried bitterly. - -Magna, don’t keep me long in uncertainty. At least promise me that. - - Your - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - * * * * * - -I have begun to darn Kelly’s stockings. Why did I never think of it -before? - -He was whitewashing the attic with Magna, and I saw that one of his -stockings was without a heel. I actually blushed, I felt so ashamed. The -boy, of course, doesn’t trouble about such trifles, and Magna, splendid -creature, has enough to do. I don’t believe she would mind a bit going -about with holes in her own stockings. - -In the country it doesn’t matter so much, but still— - -She simply laughed at me when I asked to be allowed to look after his -clothes, and I didn’t quite know how to explain why I wanted to do it. -But Magna is so clever, and when I was seated comfortably she brought -me out a whole bundle. She has done the same for her own children. I am -convinced that she would not let any one else darn Oluf’s stockings. - -I don’t find it easy. I have quite forgotten the proper way of doing it, -which I learnt at school. And I haven’t thought anything about darning -stockings since. - -But I take no end of trouble, and it is a wonderful feeling to sit out -here on the balcony with a whole pile of big, big stockings in front of -me—Kelly has positively a gigantic foot. My dear little balcony. It’s to -me what an airship is for young, impatient folks. I sit so serenely in my -charming, soft seat, between sweet-peas and nasturtiums, and beneath me -streams by the current of life with its men and beasts. - - * * * * * - -It amuses me to see how skilfully Richard’s eldest can drive an -automobile. If only he can avoid accidents. - -Richard himself is aging, but his little wife sits so upright in the car. -She wears well. - -Since Richard caught sight of me one day by chance he always looks up -and bows, and then we all bow, ... I overhear the lanky youth say, “Papa, -we are passing your old wife,” and then they laugh. - -Yes, I should like to see the home in the old Market Place once more. -Probably I should hardly recognise it, or perhaps Richard, from long -habit, has kept things much the same. - -The eldest son is to succeed to the business, of course, but the second -looks to me so dandified. I know this for certain that none of Richard’s -sons will ever work out in the fields in clogs and woollen shirts. And -their mother will never have the joy of darning stockings with holes in -them as big as goose’s eggs. While I sit with a pair of these coarse, -huge, manly socks in which my hand is absolutely drowned, I feel to the -full extent a mother’s glorious rights. I only wish the holes were double -the size, so that the time they take to mend lasted longer. - -I have been and bought the pan for cooking oxeyes in, and I have -promised Kelly and Oluf that every time they come they shall have oxeyes -baked in butter. Magna requires nothing but her horrid nut-suet which has -no flavour. She alone can eat it. Dear, dear boys. - - * * * * * - -DEAR AGNETE, - -It was well that you wrote to me this time, and not to your mother. You -are not to trouble her with your unhappy affairs, do you understand? -Every time that she gets a letter from you she shuts herself up and -cries. Lately I have read quite a number of your letters, and I must -confess that I was not pleased with them. - -At one time you presumed to sit in judgment on your mother’s life, and -now you blame her because yours is a failure. You have no right to do it. - -You cannot justly lay your married wretchedness at either your mother’s -or your husband’s door. Its origin is to be sought in a train of -circumstances. You must know, though you seem to have forgotten it, that -it was not your mother who gave in to your desire to go to the French -Convent School. It was my doing that you went. I sent you for her peace -of mind’s sake. - -That you have married a Catholic while you yourself are a Protestant is -no one’s fault but your own, as you did not ask anybody’s permission. -Unfortunately you have inherited from your mother a hysterical -temperament, and from your father a certain matter-of-factness which -prevents your enjoying life. - -I feel compelled to act like a surgeon who undertakes a necessary -operation, in spite of the patient’s objection to scars. - -The only time your husband was here on a visit I was able to get a -certain impression of his character. You are right in saying that he is -“dangerous to women through the animal magnetism which radiates from his -person, attracting to him adults and children alike.” And you might -add, “through his natural amiability and his kindliness.” He makes no -disguise of his vanity, but when you plume yourself on being his only -chick because you alone resist him, you are adopting a dangerous line. -The man who wishes to be worshipped will not be discouraged by superior -airs, especially when these are put on, and you merely feign opposition -in order to annoy him, and to conceal how much you are in love. - -Owing to the position he holds he is the centre of much attention. He -is unable, like most men, to diverge from the high road. Every movement -of his is noticed, and may cause him unpleasantness. Thus his position -forces him to be cautious. Yet you as his loving wife accuse him of -giving to every woman what ought to be your position alone. - -Your want of trust puts him on the rack. You pluck his nerves to pieces, -and dissect his secret thoughts. You hate him for not being unfaithful -to you in deed in that you suspect continually that he is unfaithful to -you in thought. You hurt him by telling him constantly that your mutual -life is animal and savage, that he lacks soul, and does not comprehend -what it is to love with the soul as you do. He retorts by calling you -hysterical. - -Then a young girl comes to stay in your house. She falls in love with -your husband, and he is in love with her. You say, “She made a dead set -at him.” Instead of deciding to remove her immediately you watch for -proofs of the criminal relations which you suspect. I don’t condemn you -for getting hold of your husband’s letters by any means honourable or the -reverse, because jealous wives are as irresponsible for their actions as -patients with a temperature of a hundred and six. You triumph and cause -yourself diabolical torments by revelling in the stolen love-letters. You -find in them the “psychological” impulse that you have missed in your -husband’s love. - -What ought you to do now? Either you must go, as you cannot stay with a -man who is in love with another; or you must remain and leave him and his -feelings in peace. Nonsense! Instead you thrust a dagger into his heart -and turn it in the wound. If he moans, you ask, “Do you still love her?” - -You think that love can be wrenched out of a man’s life as easily as a -tooth is drawn, root and all. - -Agony brings your husband to reason and his senses, he belies what he -feels and cries, “I love no one but you!” But even then can you leave him -alone? Certainly not. You now insist on his telling everything, betraying -and deceiving. You know, as a Catholic, he cannot claim a divorce, and -yet you ask if he will marry her in the case of your retiring? Not a word -of this offer do you intend seriously. You want to humiliate and torment -him. - -Next you make a scene with the girl, pervert his words about her, -misapply your knowledge, and use such expressions as “Impurity, lies, -vulgarity.” But she only answers, “I love him, I cannot do anything -else.” And you find this exasperating. - -Not once has it occurred to you to set your husband free. He belongs to -you, he is in your power. You begin all over again. You haven’t an hour’s -rest because you must spy on all his actions. You reproach him for being -a Catholic. His baseness is trebled because he is Catholic—as if lies had -anything to do with articles of faith. - -You are leading a pretty life! Then your husband falls ill. For a long -time he has complained of a tumour in his chest. “If it grows it’ll have -to be removed for it may be cancer.” This is a trifling matter, or you -inwardly triumph over it as “a judgment.” - -One morning he leaves the house on business. He takes leave of you -tenderly and comes back over and over again to kiss you with emotion. You -at once suspect deceit, and heap reproaches on him for intending to do -something behind your back. He smiles sadly and says, “If that is so you -will soon hear what it is.” - -At mid-day you have a “vision,” if what you write is true. You see him -lying on the operating table. You telephone to the hospital and learn -that the operation has taken place. You hurry there and meet the girl. - -To you he has not spoken of the serious ordeal in store for him. But he -has sent for her. - -This is the last drop that overflows your cup of anguish. You take your -sick husband home. You torture him till he says, “Death would be better -than this.” - -And now you ask me what you ought to do. - -It would be much simpler to tell you what you ought not to have done. - -But it is too late for that now. All the same, I will, to the best of -my poor abilities, give you advice and the benefit of my experience, -gathered from contemplation of many wretched and foolish cases in which -people tread happiness under foot, and then instantly lament what they -have lost. - -First and foremost, Agnete, you must look into yourself, and get rid of -the lie which like an octopus has caught you in its embrace and smothers -the best within you. - -The lie about your husband’s deficiency. Your expressions of longing for -a harmony of souls is a lie, just as your pretension to love with the -soul and not with the senses is a lie. - -You are one of the many women who, for reasons which I fail to -understand, find no salvation in your relations to a man. What for him -was the highest enjoyment, for you was only a torturing excitement. -A physical shortcoming in yourself would in him appear a crime in -your eyes. Instead of honestly and frankly explaining to him the state -of things and the cause of your unhappy condition, you try to seek -satisfaction by making scenes. - -Don’t you see, dear child, a clever woman never makes scenes. It isn’t -politic. A scene that lasts an hour does fourteen days’ detriment to her -appearance. - -Your question, “What ought I to do now?” really means, “How can I punish -him further?” - -Rather you should ask, “What can I do to heal his wounded soul?” And this -is my answer, Agnete, “You can do it by confessing your own mistakes, and -forgetting his.” - -You must not ape humility, and let something cry within you, “See what a -sacrifice I am making!” - -No, you must acknowledge your wrongdoing and not let it out of sight. -Take it in both hands, hold it tightly like a costly goblet, and keep -your eyes fixed on it. You should remember that it is no credit to you -that you have not betrayed him because there has been no necessity; for -you know nothing of the mad impulse that can arise between two human -creatures, suddenly, like a storm in the thickest part of the wood. - -Above all things, recognise that at the time your husband summoned his -mistress to his side when he thought he was going to die, he acted from -the greatest and most primitive of instincts—the instinct of love. - -Tell him that you have been wrong. Show him your love. Give him your -best. Not for an hour or a day, but every hour and every day. That is the -only way to his heart, and to your own peace of mind. And then the time -will come when mutual forgiveness has performed its miracle. - -Try to understand what I mean. - -Hearty good wishes from your mother’s old friend. If you like you may -show your husband this letter. - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - * * * * * - -It is certainly a very fine trait in Magna’s character, that she who used -to be—well, never mind, I won’t say what—has never breathed the name of -her child’s father to any living soul. - -The man must have been good and strong, and I am fortunate indeed that my -Kelly has found a protector in the little fellow. Oluf doesn’t like Kelly -drinking schnaps. So Kelly doesn’t drink schnaps. Oluf wants Kelly’s -moustache to grow, so Kelly lets it grow. - -“So long as I have Oluf, who takes care of me, you need not be afraid of -me.” Those words are close to my heart. - -And yet I have still some anxiety. The world is so big, and here things -are reduced to such a groove. I notice the effect on Oluf when Kelly -tells him about America. Who knows if the day will not come when the pair -come to bid me and Magna farewell to go off on adventures? - -Oluf was making plans the other day for travelling to Canada, and camping -in the great forests far away from civilisation. The boy had fixed it -all up. They were to live in the trees, and live by hunting and fishing. -Perched up on the highest branches they would spread out their nets, and -catch fish out of the great river that rolls through the forest. They -would only enter a town twice a year to sell the skins of the beasts they -had caught. - -Oluf is not too small for such dreams, but Kelly— - -I am so unwilling to budge from here till Kelly has taken root in the -soil so that he can’t tear himself away. He promises to stay here always, -but what is a promise? - - * * * * * - -DEAR MAGNA, - -I must really tell you without delay. Richard has been to see me. When -Lucie brought in his card I was dumbfounded. But the moment he entered -the room, thank God I got over my feeling of embarrassment. We stood and -looked at each other, and were at a loss how to begin the conversation, -till it occurred to Richard to say something about Kelly. He knew, of -course, the whole story. - -It did one good to see the dear fellow, to speak to him again. He -said he could only stay a few minutes, and he stayed two hours. In -reality, it was his little wife who sent him to see me. She thought it -so extraordinary that she should not know me, who had played such an -important part for so many years in Richard’s life. - -We spoke a great deal of our respective children, and were both equally -proud. - -Now Richard has promised to visit me next Sunday with his family. -You and our boys come, too. In the course of the week I shall return -Richard’s call. - -Do you know, Magna, I intend to make it quite a festive occasion, and -there shall be no feeling in the matter that I am a divorced wife. You -will have to lend me a few things as most of my china is over in the -villa, and I shall order the food to be sent in from Palace Street. One -can be certain of getting it good there, or would you advise going to an -hotel? I have got so out of the habit of entertaining that I feel nervous -at the thought of it. - -Anyhow, you must come, Magna, and take care that Kelly is properly -attired. Also see to his hands. - -When Richard was gone, I sat a long time and meditated in retrospect on -how very nicely he and I had once got on together. The one drawback was -that we had no children. On that account I made the sacrifice and left -him. I have been royally rewarded for it, through my Kelly. - -Richard’s wife plays a good game of bridge, and we have already started -a society for the winter. The report of your enormous pluck has reached -the old Market Place, for Richard spoke of you in terms of the warmest -admiration and esteem. At parting we both positively had tears in our -eyes. - -May I, without hurting you, give a hint? Please put on your silk dress, -Magna. I shall have a new one made, I think, as quickly as possible. You -see, this is to be a very important event in my life. - -Embrace my boy for me, and remember what I said about his hands. - - ELSIE. - - - - -DEAR JEANNE, - - -It is wrong of me to have been so lazy lately about writing. But I have -had so much to do. I have, as a matter of fact, moved house. It happened -in a twinkling. This habitation became to let through a death, and mine -was taken by a young married couple. - -Now I am living on the beach road so far out that I am hardly to be -reckoned as belonging to Copenhagen. Can you guess why I have moved? -Simply to be nearer the farm, so childish does one become with advancing -age. Magna advised me strongly to come out altogether, but I am not -inclined to do that. I am always and shall be a child of towns, though -in the year that Kelly has been learning to be a farmer I have taken an -almost incredible interest in cows, pigs, winter crops, and all the rest -of it. My life is so full of richness and light, I have nearly more joy -than I can bear, and no troubles at all. - -Magna manages our “estate,” as she always calls it to please me, most -admirably. And how well she understands the art of setting others to work! - -My Kelly and her little Oluf are now, as they always have been, -inseparable, and I believe that the blue-eyed little comrade exercises -a most beneficent influence on Kelly. Magna told me one day that she -had heard Oluf saying—the boy lay in a hay-cock and didn’t know that -Magna was on the other side of it taking her after-dinner nap—“I have no -father, for my father died ten years before I was born. But if you like -to be my father, I shall be quite content to have no other.” - -Magna visits me every time that she has anything to do in the town. -When the window is open I can hear the crack of her whip above all the -rest. And will you believe it, Jeanne, my heart begins to beat at the -sound, for it means that the boys are with her, or that Magna is coming -to tell me about them. You should just see her sitting rosy and upright -in the dog-cart, her head hidden in a hood, with an old sealskin on, -all rubbed the wrong way, the same that twenty years ago formed a topic -of conversation the whole winter through, because it had cost her poor, -struggling husband goodness knows how many thousands. - -Magna is now getting on for sixty. But no one would think it. She beams -as if the whole world were at her feet. I look at least ten years older, -although, God knows, I take a lot of trouble over my hair, and touch up -my cheeks a little, as I always did. She makes a fuss about getting out -of the cart as if the coachman could not look after the butter and eggs. - -Just think, she gets up at four in summer and at six in winter, and works -for two. There is no work that she considers is too menial. - -Lately she and Kelly painted all the four buildings for Whitsun. And they -did it like the wind, so that one could hardly believe one’s own eyes. I -sat out on the verandah and watched, and was nearly sick with delight. - -Then we had roast ribs and oxeyes for dinner. How Kelly eats! You -can have no conception of his appetite. It’s not elegant, but oh, so -splendid! And after they have been slaughtering Kelly brings me lambs’ -fry, black puddings, and liver sausages. What I once couldn’t tolerate -now tastes to me better than the finest Astrakhan caviare. - -How I chat on all about my own affairs. But I don’t forget my little -fellow-traveller on that account, and her troubles are mine. Still, I -am not going to make them such a serious matter as you do, for they are -not worth it. You have arrived at a stage when everything looks to you -black, and must look so. I should be deeply pained if I had not long ago -seen what the cause of it is. You are now just about the age I was when -we first met each other; that age which for women is so difficult and -dangerous. And the inexplicable happiness is not granted to every woman -to come through the time unscathed and triumphant as I did. - -I have thought about it, and wondered what the reason could be why I, -contrary to every one else, should remain during those years much the -same as always; and I have come to the conclusion that it was because I -lived so superficially at that time, and without any deep feeling for -other people. - -But you, little Jeanne, since you linked your fate so fortunately with -Malthe’s, have been a sheer compost of love-worship and self-sacrifice. -I could have foretold long ago that your transition age would be a hard -time. But now try yourself to make it easier. Review the circumstances, -sift, and explain them to yourself. - -You have something to be thankful for that does not fall to the lot of -one woman in ten thousand. Your husband continues to love you as much -to-day as when you first became his. Does that not counter-balance -everything? Are the little cosmopolitan godless angels of children really -so hard to bring up as you think? They have, of course, the artistic -temperament, and you attempt to model them into normal human beings. You -will never succeed. - -And is Malthe’s depression of spirits of any great significance? There is -cause for it. He has of late, with justice or injustice, been overlooked, -and younger powers have been preferred before him; his name has no longer -the _cachet_ it once had, and even his talent seems to have taken a back -seat. But, dear Jeanne, you are greatly to blame for this. You have -loved your husband so blindly and fondly that you have not set him on -a pedestal, but you have built a castle of air far up in the highest -clouds, and there you have placed him like a golden ball on the most -inaccessible pinnacle, with no one above him and no one near him.... You -have fed his ambition and stifled your own natural, critical faculty, -instead of standing at his side and being helpful to him in deciding -between good and mediocre, and now you complain that you cannot console, -and that he spurns you. You are ashamed to say so, but I read between the -lines that you are very, very unhappy.... And it is all because you are -not well, dear Jeanne, and your despondency is likely to last some years. - -But I could hit, I think, on ways and means of putting your cares to -flight; if only you will at once make up your mind to bring your little -flock northwards, so that I may take them with me to the Villa this -summer, and teach the little goose-herds, the Parisian, the Sicilian, -and the Smyrna child, indifferent Danish, while you and your Malthe close -the house, store your furniture, and trot round the globe. - -Don’t let the thought of money stand in your way. Tell Joergen from me -that he may with an easy hand use the money which he would set aside as a -dowry for his daughters. - -He must be ashamed of himself if he has not that opinion about his own -flesh and blood, that it will be a pure joy to any one to take over the -girls, even if they come without a rag to their backs or clothed in flour -sacks. - -Besides, I have made my will, and, dear Jeanne, if I once played _la -banque_ at Monte Carlo, I am not likely to do it again. - -What a glorious summer it will be over there in the White Villa with your -chicks. And we’ll borrow Magna’s Oluf and my Kelly for a week, too. What -does my old travelling companion say to this? - -Much love to you and to your husband, and the whole small flock, from - - Yours always, - - ELSIE LINDTNER. - - * * * * * - -Poor Jeanne and poor Joergen.... So it fares worse with you than I -thought. - -I have the greatest desire to travel over to them and mediate, but in -these days my heart is too touchy and my neuralgia a consideration. I -ought not by rights to sit out on the balcony in the cool evening air, -but I never could be careful. - -But it shall not happen; it would be too foolish and irresponsible a -step—people don’t separate in a hurry like that without a ghost of a -real reason. All very well if Malthe had another string to his bow, or -if Jeanne was in love with another man, but, good Lord! one of them -couldn’t live without the other, and yet she talks of having “weighed” -the matter, and thoroughly thought it out. I am so angry my hands tremble. - -Jeanne must really collect herself, and understand that all this is -nothing but a transition. When I think of it, I can recall no case among -the many I have known—except, of course, my own—of a single woman who -has managed to get through these years without a slight rumpus of some -kind. Afterwards they have taken endless trouble to patch up the wounds -they have inflicted. Now, Jeanne has been more than unreasonable in this -respect. There isn’t a man in the world who can stand such an everlasting -adoration. - -It was certainly brutal of him to say, “Mind yourself, your house, and -your children, but don’t meddle with my work.” - -But he meant nothing more by it than a child in a temper does when it -vents its anger in trampling on a favourite toy. Yet the words rankled -in Jeanne as a reproach—a reproach for what? - -He has lost faith in his talent. Therefore he is irritable and dejected, -and Jeanne, who all these years has had enough to do in bringing children -into the world, and caring for them and him, now stands suddenly still, -looks round and behind her, and feels disillusioned. Now is the time when -she wants the tenderest words he has ever lavished on her, but he, with -his head full of building plans, sees no sense or object in two people -talking of love—two people who have proved their love with their whole -life. - -One of them ought to fall sick unto death ... so that the other should -forget his small grievances. - -Well, we shall see. If Jeanne listens to my advice, and lets the children -come up here, all will be well.... A little air and freedom is what they -need; otherwise I shall have to sacrifice myself and for the second time -knock about the world with my little travelling companion. - - * * * * * - -So I have been in my old home once more! Weeks will have to go by before -I get over the re-visiting of it. Every trace of me had been removed—with -a scrupulous care and thoroughness as if every piece of furniture, -every hanging and picture had been dangerously infected. Doors had been -obliterated, and new ones cut in walls which used to be doorless. Not -even the peaceful white fireplaces were there any longer, but instead -gilded radiators. Had I never inhabited the rooms they could not have -seemed more strange. I looked in vain for Richard’s oak bookcase, and the -panels from his grandmother’s country place. - -I had to see everything. My namesake—she who bears the name by right, -not courtesy—led me from one room to another. It was as if she asked me -incessantly, “Isn’t there anything that reminds you of your reign?” No, -nothing, not the very least thing. - -And then when we sat round the table at which Richard and I used to sit -alone with the servants waiting behind our chairs, all the vacant places -were filled with children whose appearance in the world was one of the -conditions of my departure. Wonderful, wonderful! and a little sad. - -I noticed how Richard exerted himself that I should feel at ease. But he, -too, I think, was moved by the oddness of the situation. - -She calls me Madame Elsie, and I call her Madame Beathe. - -Involuntarily I glanced round for the big portrait Kröyer in his day -painted of me, the portrait which Richard simply idolised. He saw what I -was looking for, and cast down his eyes. I felt inclined to say, “Dearest -friend, don’t let us be sentimental. What was once is no longer. But the -picture was a true work of art, and for that reason you should have let -it hang where it was.” - -One thinks such things, but doesn’t say them. - -I was shown, too, the daughters’ bedroom upstairs, and there—there hung -my picture among photographs of actresses and school friends. Finally it -will land in the attic unless it occurs to some one to make money out of -it. - -Why is it I cannot get rid of a feeling of bitterness and humiliation? -They were all very kind and considerate. But when Madame Beathe joking -suggested a match between her Annelisa and my Kelly, I felt near to -crying. Annelisa is a thoroughly nice girl, it is true. But I cannot -endure the thought of Kelly being looked down on, because of his country -manners. And she does look down on him. - -The little mistress has one fault. She is too immaculately tidy. I -noticed that all the carpets had dusting sheets over them, and naturally -supposed their removal had been forgotten, till I saw that every single -article on her dressing-table was covered in the middle of the day -with gauze, and I heard her scolding one of the maids for not washing -her hands before beginning to lay the cloth after touching some books. -Richard, I am sure, finds it trying. - -When he smokes a cigar she sits on pins and needles for fear he shall -scatter the ash about. And God knows that for a man Richard is tidy -enough. She discovered a mark on the white window-ledge, only a raindrop, -I believe, but got up twenty times at least to scrub, brush, and breathe -on the spot. - -It gives me food for thought. It is not for me to judge what she does and -how she acts. But I can’t get over it. I feel bound to criticise her. And -somehow the idea will bother me that this is my home she is fussing about -in, and not the other way about. - -Annelisa kissed me at parting, and asked if she might soon come to see -me. But she shall not come when Kelly is at home. That is certain. - -And now they have invited me to a grand dinner-party. - - * * * * * - -Kelly must have a tail-coat, there is no question of that. - - * * * * * - -No, Kelly shall not have a dress suit. Kelly won’t come with me to the -dinner-party at Richard’s. I am going alone. - - * * * * * - -Pah! I am positively excited! It was a grand occasion. And it did me good -to hear pretty speeches made about my appearance. The orchids certainly -did go well with my mauve silk. They couldn’t have come from anywhere -but Paris, of course. - -Annelisa and I became great friends. She took me up to her room and -confided in me that she and her mother don’t get on. - -You were afraid to move almost for fear of being told you were making -things in a mess. And the child betrayed, by the way, the little domestic -secret that her mother now had a bedroom to herself, because her father -was so untidy in shaving. When no one was looking her mother went about -with a duster and wiped away the marks left by the soles of your boots. -Wasn’t it too awful? But it didn’t seem so dreadful to me, for all at -once I saw plainly what it meant, and I consoled the child by telling her -that in a year or two the scouring demon would be cleaned away. - -Richard seems quite unconcerned. He doesn’t dream of complaining. But if -he has any memory, it must occur to him in looking back, how in the years -that I was passing through the phase, everything inwardly and outwardly -went on the same as usual. - -Richard plays a brilliant game of bridge. But I must say I was utterly -unprepared for Professor Rothe making the third. He behaved as if nothing -whatever had passed between us. And Lili’s name was not mentioned. - -Richard said when I rose to go, “You have been the Queen of the Feast!” -God knows I blushed. - -Maybe that in his secret heart he recognises the great sacrifice I -made for him. It was, undoubtedly, no easy matter to leave him and the -beautiful house. But my exemplary conscience was sufficient reward, even -if I had not afterwards received the guerdon of Kelly. - - * * * * * - -I believe I shall succeed in having a chat with Madame Beathe about her -_tic doloreux_. If one broaches the subject tactfully, it’s possible -to achieve a great deal; and it is only a matter of getting her to see -herself that her malady is an appendage of her years. - - * * * * * - -What holes Kelly wears his stockings into, and how black he makes -his pocket-handkerchiefs! I do believe the boy uses them to wash the -cart-wheels. - - * * * * * - -Kelly said yesterday, “And if you hadn’t adopted me, I should have been -in the gutter all my life.” How he looks at me! - - * * * * * - -I suppose I had better have left it alone. I was told that for others -such a period of incapability might exist, but not for her. She knew -the duties of a proper housewife, and did not attend to a fifth part of -things and leave the rest in dirt and disorder. - -It was a little too much that I should not only come and interfere in her -housekeeping, but ascribe to her a fictitious illness that only existed -in my imagination.... And then followed a long story which to listen -to was enough to make one laugh and weep together. Goodness! she had -actually been jealous of my former régime, and had no peace till she had -turned the whole house topsy-turvy. She didn’t intend that I should know -this. But the storm burst when she thought to-day I had been taking my -revenge. Her one object in life was to live for her husband, her home, -and her children, and she had no notions about posing as a beauty, and be -painted by famous artists. And so on.... - -She was so beside herself finally, that I was obliged to cave in, and -say that I had made a mistake, she was not at the dangerous age, and her -scouring mania was a perfectly natural instinct, and it was a pity that -all housewives did not follow her example. - -And then we were good friends again, and she told me that she was very -glad I was really quite old. - -Any woman so old and harmless, of course didn’t count. - -No, I shall not burn my fingers again. It is most curious how forgetful -one becomes with the flight of years. - -But forgetful is not exactly the right word. It is much more a sort of -half-unconscious perversion of actual facts. The same kind of thing as -parents making out to their children and almost believing it themselves, -that when they were children they were absolute angels. - -Magna, for instance, is capable of self-delusion and lying with regard -to the miseries of her dangerous age. Magna, usually the soul of -truthfulness, who never tries to make herself out better than she is, -apparently believes that she got over those difficult years easily and -calmly. Good God! - -For once we nearly grew angry with one another. I maintained that it was -nothing to be ashamed of, but rather an honour, that she had afterwards -matured into the magnificent, vigorous creature she now is. - -But she wouldn’t hear of it. The only thing she would admit was Oluf, and -she only did that because he is flesh and blood. - -We both became vehement, and in the end Magna went the length of -asserting in her excitement that I had been far more affected by the -critical years than she and Lili Rothe put together! - -It was useless to protest against such a ludicrous mis-statement of -facts. But we very soon made it up again, and played our game of Friday -bridge. Unfortunately Kelly had not come in with Magna. - -He and Oluf had to sit up all night with a sick cow. It would have -sufficed if one of them had done it, but where Kelly is there Oluf will -be also. - -God bless Magna for her way of chatting about the two boys. I devour the -words as they fall from her lips. It is so splendid to hear her. Magna -thinks it will be a good thing for Kelly if he marries in a year or two -... it seems almost as if she had fixed on some one already. What if it -should be to the new dairy-maid? Well, I should not mind, so long as it -was for my boy’s happiness. In that event we must think of taking a farm -for Kelly, for Kelly and Oluf. - - * * * * * - -It would interest me to prove to Magna who was right. If I could bring -myself to reading through once more what I wrote down in those days ... -yes, I will to-morrow. - - * * * * * - -I am ashamed, oh, how ashamed I am! It is not fancy or forgery. I wrote -every word of it in circumstances which bear witness to the honesty of -the writer. I can never look either Magna or Jeanne in the face again ... -or in my boy’s. - -Not I who have a thousand times dreamed and wished with all my heart that -I had brought him into the world! I can only hang my head now and be -thankful that he never had such a person for his mother. - -I, I, who strutted about like a peacock, proud of my own perfections; -I, who pointed the finger of scorn at others; I, who presumed with the -rights of a judge to condemn or pardon others, inwardly jubilating -triumphantly, “Thank God I am not as other men are.” - -_That_ can never be erased, never made good. - -Now that I have reached the evening of my days, and my one occupation is -to sit and look out of the window at the people who pass, and dream happy -dreams for my boy, I commit no thought or deed that needs the veil of -oblivion. - -But then, when I was in my prime ... when I might have applied my gifts -for usefulness and pleasure—I was such a.... - -The memory of it can never be wiped out. It can never be made good. - -And I had thought that Kelly was to read it all after my death, so that -he might learn to know what I really was; learn to despise me as I lay -in my grave.... I have had the fire lit though it is summer. I intend to -destroy every line. Every line! - -But will that prevent Kelly beholding me in all my pitiableness? Am I -such a coward? Such a coward?... No, Kelly _shall_ read it, every scrap -when I am dead. - -Then he shall see what a deplorable, wretched creature I was till love -entered my life, when he did. Then he shall know the great miracle which -love wrought. - -Kelly has a claim to me in bad as well as good.... - -I feel to-day so ineffably tired. It seems as if this day were to be my -last. The day of judgment, when I am to stand face to face with myself. - -But the day of judgment is to be followed by regeneration. Kelly is to be -my regeneration. Not for myself do I pray to be granted a year, an hour; -I pray for Kelly’s sake alone, that our meeting that night may not have -been in vain. This prayer throbs from my lips into Eternity. - -Will it be heard? - - * * * * * - -There are bells chiming for vespers. Now Kelly is coming home from work, -so tall, strong, and healthy. They are busy with the spring ploughing, -and to-morrow will be Sunday. Then I shall see him, have him to -myself.... - -Kelly, Kelly ... why aren’t you here at this hour? Kelly, I want to see -you, and to thank you. - -Be good ... be happy.... - - - - -THE DANGEROUS AGE - -BY - -Karin Michaëlis - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.20 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - - -“One can hardly fail to be heartily in accord with Marcel Prevost in -regard to the literary value of the story, the artistic insight, the -skill, and the peculiarly feminine flavor that it displays. As a piece -of fiction of unique form and substance, written with unusual skill and -artistic feeling, the book is worth reading.”—_New York Times_ - -“The book will have a powerful appeal for a great many women.”—_New York -Herald_ - -“An admirable piece of workmanship, both subtle and sincere.... Fine -literary taste and an artistic reticence are characteristics of this -Danish woman’s method.”—_New York Sun_ - -“An extraordinary document, and reveals the feminine soul of all -time.”—_Boston Evening Herald_ - -“It is not a record of deeds, but of thoughts; as such it will attract -many who think, and who have had experience with life.”—_Cincinnati -Times-Star_ - -“The author’s great success came with ‘The Dangerous Age,’ in -which she bares the very soul of a woman with the relentless -sternness of the surgeon and the power of expression of the literary -artist.”—_Philadelphia Public Ledger_ - -“The book is sure to appeal to women and those interested in the study of -feminism.”—_Detroit News_ - -“The book is admirably written, never extreme, always chaste in language, -but fascinatingly leaving much to the imagination. Will interest all -readers.”—_Pittsburg Dispatch_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -AN UNOFFICIAL HONEYMAN - -BY - -Dolf Wyllarde - -Author of “The Rat Trap,” “The Riding Master,” etc. - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - - -“A strong story in more senses than literary, and well worth the -reading.”—_New York Times_ - -“A distinct achievement in the realm of fiction, and should add to -the laurels the writer has already won. The theme is an old one—a man -and a woman cast upon an uninhabited island—but the handling of it is -new and in Miss Wyllarde’s best style. The descriptions are vivid and -realistic.... The story is told with unusual vigor. It is human, simple, -convincing and absorbing.”—_Boston Herald_ - -“As interesting as the first sea story ever written; a fresh, -vividly-told tale.”—_Baltimore Evening News_ - -“A highly entertaining story for the lover of adventure, a sort of -modernized Robinson Crusoe, with a heroine to take the place of Goodman -Friday.”—_Chicago Evening Post_ - -“Brilliant writing and realistic psychology.”—_New York Sun_ - -“The book is more than an entertaining story.”—_Boston Globe_ - -“Miss Wyllarde invests this tale with a keenly attractive -quality.”—_Washington Evening Star_ - -“Miss Wyllarde has ability above the average, and the gift of -characterization to a marked degree.”—_Providence Journal_ - -“There is a fascination in reading the book that comes to one but rarely -in any other contingent circumstance that is brought up in the present -day pages of romance.”—_Cincinnati Press Leader_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -THE UNKNOWN WOMAN - -BY - -Anne Warwick - -Author of “Compensation” - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - -Frontispiece and Jacket Illustration by Will Grefé - - -“From start to finish an interesting story. It is entertaining because -the incidents keep the reader in some suspense, and—even more—because -of the author’s undoubted mastery in reproducing a certain modern -atmosphere.”—_New York Times_ - -“An exceptionally good piece of work, planned on a large scale and -executed with an able, firm hand. A tale of one of the most interesting -phases of the life of contemporary New York—of the line where art and -intellect and wealth meet.”—_New York Tribune_ - -“There are clever and original things here; the book is well -written.”—_New York Sun_ - -“Holds the interest very well.”—_New York Evening Globe_ - -“Brilliant and charming bits of life.”—_Washington Evening Star_ - -“Its conversational parts are lively and entertaining and its -descriptions interesting.”—_Buffalo Commercial_ - -“A strong, vital story of the artistic and business life of New -York.”—_Brooklyn Eagle_ - -“The person who likes dialogue will find the book fascinating. The author -has a genuinely sincere purpose in her method of depicting life. A -handsome frontispiece in color by Will Grefé enhances the appearance of -the book.”—_Cincinnati Times-Star_ - -“There is a Bohemian atmosphere about the story, which is laid in -Rome and New York, that is most appealing, and it is so dramatic and -interesting in treatment and theme, and the plot itself is so absorbing, -that ‘The Unknown Woman’ is quite one of the most remarkable books of the -year.”—_Salt Lake City Herald_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -WINGS OF DESIRE - -BY - -M. P. Willcocks - -Author of “A Man of Genius,” “The Way Up,” etc. - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - - -“So far as it deals with the problems of the modern woman, or rather, -with the modern woman’s new way of facing a problem that is as old as -life—that of love—the book is curiously revelatory.”—_New York Tribune_ - -“The story of the woman who forces herself on the weakling to save him -from himself is good work.”—_New York Sun_ - -“The story is so remarkable for its analytical power, its minute -observation, its sense of background, its delicate style as literature, -that it arrests and holds, and calls the reader back again and -again.”—_Boston Evening Transcript_ - -“The right of woman to her own individuality is the book’s chief -inspiration. It is for serious minds, and to such provides much food for -thought.”—_Springfield Republican_ - -“The author handles her characters as might a true mother her -children—knowing, yet not specially noting, the faults and virtues of -all. The style is clear and terse to incisiveness, and almost every -page has its sage or witty saying. It isn’t an easy story to lay aside -unfinished.”—_Chicago Record Herald_ - -“Much of beauty and truth, with occasional instances of vivid -strength.”—_Chicago Evening Post_ - -“There is in all Miss Willcocks’ stories a certain quality that makes -for the heights. She has a precious vocabulary. The realism that -distinguishes her never for a moment extinguishes her grace of style or -charm. She is essentially an artist who offends neither by useless detail -nor disappoints by leaving too much to the reader’s imagination. Always -she handles her wisdom and wit perfectly, while she presents her stories -powerfully. This is a book to read and keep.”—_Philadelphia Record_ - -“Her technique is good, her details are exceedingly well handled, and her -study of types is most delightful.”—_Louisville Post_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -HECTOR GRAEME - -BY - -Evelyn Brentwood - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.25 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - - -“A tale which carries conviction with it. The story is well told and the -conception of the central character is extremely interesting.”—_New York -Times_ - -“A remarkable book. The study of that virile character, Hector Graeme, is -exceedingly powerful. The gripping power of the novel is undeniable and -its psychology sure-based.”—_Boston Evening Transcript_ - -“One of the most convincing novels of military life ever -written.”—_Rochester Post Express_ - -“One of the strongest pieces of fiction to reach this desk for many a -month. It is a character study of the sort that may be honestly described -as unusual.”—_Cleveland Plain Dealer_ - - -SEKHET - -BY - -Irene Miller - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.25 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - -“A novel of genuine dramatic power. Its pages are marked by a strong, -cumulative interest. It is a long while since a novel of greater dramatic -force has claimed our attention.”—_New York Herald_ - -“To those aweary of novels that are not novel, and stories that lack -blood and bone and sinew, ‘Sekhet’ will seem as manna to hungry palates. -It is as human a document as one might find. Its characters live today, -and love and sin and die, just as surely as the author relates. A better -sermon than is often preached, a better novel than is often written, -describes the book exactly.”—_Philadelphia Record_ - -“A powerfully written tale with marvellous descriptive bits and very -strong character drawing—a story which grips the emotions from the -start.”—_Nashville American_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -EARTH - -BY - -Muriel Hine - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.25 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - -“A readable story.”—_Boston Evening Transcript_ - -“The story is well told and is without an uninteresting paragraph in all -its pages.”—_Boston Globe_ - -“The story is pleasantly told.”—_Washington Evening Star_ - -“The tale is well written and has a good plot and the character -delineation is well done.”—_San Francisco Call_ - - -HALF IN EARNEST - -BY - -Muriel Hine - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.25 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - -“The story compels interest from first to last.”—_New York Times_ - -“The real interest of the book—and it is a very real interest—lies in the -conflict of character and will between the two protagonists.”—_New York -Evening Post_ - -“A well built, well written tale.”—_Washington Evening Star_ - -“Holds the interest, being well constructed and smoothly -told.”—_Washington Herald_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -THE STORY OF A PLOUGHBOY - -BY - -James Bryce - -With an Introduction by Edwin Markham - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.25 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - - -“A big story, bearing the blood prints of reality.”—_Edwin Markham_ - -“Whoever reads this story will get so keen a sense of actuality, will -feel so strongly the grip of a living, human hand through all its pages -that he can hardly help rejoicing, as for a friend, that the lad lives -true to his vision and the man to his final glimpse of the solidarity of -mankind.”—_New York Times_ - -“This ‘Story of a Ploughboy’ ought to rouse people to the degrading -effects on men of unremitting, unregulated, unsweetened, unenlightened -toil, and also to the fact that it is the ploughboys of the world who -make the fortunes of the rich. It is a most unusual story and makes a -good impression.”—_New York Evening Globe_ - -“Three of the greatest merits that any book can have cannot be denied to -this story: it is a book of good faith; it is a book of vital actuality, -and it is a book for men.”—_New York Herald_ - -“The pictures of life and labor are admirably well done, and if the book -does preach socialism, it preaches it logically and convincingly.”—_James -L. Ford in New York Herald_ - -“To read this story that quivers with the pathos and passion of life is -to get a keener and kindlier vision of our mortal existence.”—_Buffalo -Commercial_ - -“Those who are interested in stories with a sociological trend will be -charmed with this history, minute and graphic, of a ploughboy.”—_Buffalo -Express_ - -“A record of a young man’s life—one of the most popular themes of today. -The story has pathos, sincerity of intention, and all the multiplied -details of realism that make happy the heart of the reader on Socialistic -problems.”—_Baltimore Evening News_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -AWAKENING - -BY - -Maud Diver - -Author of “Candles in the Wind,” “Captain Desmond, V.C.” and “The Great -Amulet” - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - - -“A story of very human interest, a careful study well thought out in all -its possibilities.”—_Boston Evening Transcript_ - -“A most delightful and enjoyable story.”—_Boston Times_ - -“This is a story told with a good deal of poesy and power, a story -disclosing and suggesting much of the inner life of two great -civilizations.”—_New York American_ - -“Apart from its romantic interest the book has good literary style.”—_New -York Herald_ - -“Mrs. Diver’s sympathetic appreciation of the Indian point of view is -remarkable and could only come from long experience.”—_Providence Journal_ - -“Even the most enthusiastic admirer of Maud Diver’s previous works will -not hesitate to say that ‘Awakening’ is the greatest book she has yet -given us.”—_Cleveland Town Topics_ - -“The author is a word painter and her story gives her plenty of -opportunity to show her talent. Many of the situations are exquisitely -tendered and are brought out with a delicacy of touch that is worthy of a -poet.”—_Albany Argus_ - -“Like the other works by the same author, ‘Awakening’ is marked by -excellent diction and delicate touch of descriptive powers.”—_Chicago -Journal_ - -“The story is engrossing.”—_Detroit Free Press_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -THE BEACON - -BY - -Eden Phillpotts - -Author of “The Thief of Virtue,” “Demeter’s Daughter,” etc. - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - - -“One is lost in the beauty of imagination of the word paintings of -Dartmoor, and absorbed by the thoughtful study of human nature.”—_The -Outlook_ - -“The book has the usual excellences of clearness and -picturesqueness.”—_The Nation_ - -“We seldom see such strong buffets of wit in present day stories. The -book has greatly pleased us.”—_New York Sun_ - -“The dramatic power of plot and characters of the tale are undeniable. -Mr. Phillpotts remains an admirable artist in the maturity of his -powers.”—_New York Tribune_ - -“The tale in its mingled tragedy and comedy is admirable and holds -the attention. The people are alive and interesting. This book ranks -high.”—_New York Herald_ - -“No one who has once begun to read ‘The Beacon’ will fail to read eagerly -to the end.”—_New York Evening Mail_ - -“As a prose poem of great beauty, those parts that sing the beauty of -Cosdon will delight the reader.”—_Chicago Evening Post_ - -“A problem worked out in a way that must fascinate any thoughtful -reader.”—_Chicago Record Herald_ - -“There is a flavor of a whole portion of humanity in Mr. Phillpotts’ men -of the soil that makes his novels much more than passing fiction. There -is also the aroma, the color, the austerity of the moors that creates -an atmosphere long remembered. Both will be found at their best in ‘The -Beacon.’”—_Boston Herald_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -MANALIVE - -BY - -Gilbert K. Chesterton - -Author of “The Innocence of Father Brown,” “Heretics,” “Orthodoxy,” etc. - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - -Frontispiece and Jacket Illustration by Will Foster - - -“Mr. Chesterton has undertaken in this quaint narrative to make burlesque -the vehicle of a sermon and a philosophy. It is all a part of the -author’s war upon artificial attitudes which enclose the living men like -a shell and make for human purposes a dead man of him. He speaks here in -a parable—a parable of his own kind, having about it a broad waggishness -like that of Mr. Punch and a distinct flavor of that sort of low comedy -which one finds in Dickens and Shakespeare. You are likely to find, -before you are done with the parable, that there has been forced upon -your attention a possible view of the life worth living. ‘Manalive’ is a -‘Peterpantheistic’ novel full of Chestertonisms.”—_New York Times_ - -“One of the oddest books Mr. Chesterton has yet given us.”—_New York -Evening Globe_ - -“The fun of the book (and there is plenty of it) comes quite as much -from the extraordinary and improbable characters as from the situations. -Epigrams, witticisms, odd fancies, queer conceits, singular whimsies, -follow after one another in quick succession.”—_Brooklyn Eagle_ - -“One of the most humorous tales of modern fiction, combined with a very -tender and appealing love story.”—_Cleveland Plain Dealer_ - -“The book is certain to have a wide circulation, not only because of -the name of the author attached to it, but because of its own intrinsic -worth.”—_Buffalo Commercial_ - -“There can be no doubt as to the iridescent brilliance of the book. -Page after page—full of caustic satire, humorous sally and profound -epigram—fairly bristles with merriment. The book is a compact mass of -scintillating wit.”—_Philadelphia Public Ledger_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN - -BY - -Gilbert K. Chesterton - -Author of “Manalive,” “Orthodoxy,” “Heretics,” etc. - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - -Illustrations by Will Foster - - -“Mr. Chesterton writes extremely good detective stories—detective stories -the more fascinating because if there is about them a hint of irony, -there is also more than a hint of poetry and a shadow—or, if you will, a -glow—of the mystic and the supernatural.”—_New York Times_ - -“The stories are entertaining; the mysteries and their solutions are -ingenius and interesting.”—_New York Sun_ - -“The stories are vastly entertaining, and excellent specimens of literary -craftsmanship at the same time.”—_The Outlook_ - -“Never were philosophy, ethics and religion preached in a more unusual -manner.”—_Chicago Tribune_ - -“In their own Chestertonic realm, the stories are personal and -convincing; full, too, of the charm of landscape. The author arranges -his scenes and marshals his characters with an artistic eye worthy of a -Poe.”—_Chicago Evening Post_ - -“The stories have a charming variety, and interest in them is awakened -more insidiously than in the average story dealing with the detection of -crime.”—_Chicago Record Herald_ - -“Throughout these meteoric adventures there is, of course, besides Father -Brown a lot of Mr. Chesterton himself, scintillating along the way, to -the fascination and bedazzlement of the reader.”—_Washington Evening Star_ - -“The stories are of the dashing and brilliant kind that Stevenson -invented—exciting tales told in an artistic manner.”—_Albany Argus_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - - - - -THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA - -BY - -William J. Locke - -Author of “The Belovèd Vagabond,” “Simon the Jester,” etc. - - _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ - -Illustrations by Arthur I. Keller - - -“Mr. Locke has succeeded in uniting with the firm carefulness of his -early work the rapid, fluent, vibrating style that makes his later -books so delightful; therefore it is easy to make the deduction that -‘Clementina’ is the best piece of work he has done.”—_New York Evening -Sun_ - -“Among the novels of the past five years no books have more consistently -produced an effect at once certain, satisfactory and delightful than -those of William J. Locke. This latest addition to his shelf is full of -life and laughter and the love not only of man for woman but of man for -man and for humanity. Mr. Locke is a born story-teller and a master of -the art of expression.”—_The Outlook_ - -“The book contains a mass of good material, with original -characterization, and is written in a style piquant and clever.”—_The -Literary Digest_ - -“A story containing the essence of humanity, with an abundance of -sensible and sensitive, casual and unobtrusive commentary upon life and -man, and especially upon woman.”—_Boston Evening Transcript_ - -“It contains even more of the popular qualities than are usually -associated with the writings of this noted author.”—_Boston Times_ - -“Mr. Locke’s flights into the realms of fancy have been a delight to -many readers. He has a lightness of touch that is entirely captivating, -and his remarkable characterization of inconsequent people gives them a -reality that is very insistent.”—_Baltimore Evening Sun_ - -“Never has he drawn so deeply from that well that is the human heart; -never so near those invisible heights which are the soul; and, if we are -not altogether mistaken, ‘The Glory of Clementina’ will also prove to be -that of its author.”—_Baltimore News_ - -“A fascinating story with delicate, whimsical touches.”—_Albany -Times-Union_ - -“The book seems destined to live longer than any written by the author -to date, because it is so sane and so fundamentally true.”—_Philadelphia -Enquirer_ - -JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELSIE LINDTNER *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this eBook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that: - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/68837-0.zip b/old/68837-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 1e232a3..0000000 --- a/old/68837-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68837-h.zip b/old/68837-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 703e972..0000000 --- a/old/68837-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/68837-h/68837-h.htm b/old/68837-h/68837-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index d4fc203..0000000 --- a/old/68837-h/68837-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6543 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta charset="UTF-8" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elsie Lindtner, by Karin Michaëlis. - </title> - - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover" /> - - <style> /* <![CDATA[ */ - -a { - text-decoration: none; -} - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -h2.nobreak { - page-break-before: avoid; -} - -hr.chap { - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - clear: both; - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -div.chapter { - page-break-before: always; - margin-top: 4em; -} - -p { - margin-top: 0.5em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -p.dropcap { - text-indent: 0em; -} - -p.dropcap:first-letter { - float: left; - margin: 0.1em 0.1em 0em 0em; - font-size: 250%; - line-height: 0.85em; -} - -.advert { - border-top: 3px solid black; - border-bottom: 5px solid black; - margin: 2em auto; - padding-top: 0.25em; - max-width: 35em; -} - -.advert-inner { - border-top: 1px solid black; - border-bottom: 1px solid black; -} - -.border-thick { - margin: auto; - max-width: 25em; - border-top: 2px solid black; - border-bottom: 2px solid black; -} - -.border-thin { - margin: 0.25em auto; - width: 100%; - border-top: 1px solid black; - border-bottom: 1px solid black; -} - -.box { - margin: auto; - max-width: 25em; -} - -.box-top { - border: 1px solid black; - padding: 0.5em; -} - -.box-mid { - border-left: 1px solid black; - border-right: 1px solid black; - border-bottom: 1px solid black; - padding: 0.5em; -} - -.box-bottom { - border-left: 1px solid black; - border-right: 1px solid black; - border-bottom: 1px solid black; - border-top: double black; - padding: 0.5em; -} - -.center { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.footnotes { - margin-top: 1em; - border: dashed 1px; -} - -.footnote { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - font-size: 0.9em; -} - -.footnote .label { - position: absolute; - right: 84%; - text-align: right; -} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: none; -} - -.larger { - font-size: 150%; -} - -.noindent { - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - right: 4%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; -} - -.right { - text-align: right; - margin-right: 1em; -} - -.smaller { - font-size: 80%; -} - -.smcap { - font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal; -} - -.spacer1 { - margin-left: 2em; - margin-right: 1em; -} - -.spacer2 { - margin-left: 1em; - margin-right: 2em; -} - -.tb { - margin-top: 2em; -} - -.titlepage { - text-align: center; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.x-ebookmaker img { - max-width: 100%; - width: auto; - height: auto; -} - -.x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { - float: none; - margin: 0; - font-size: 100%; -} - /* ]]> */ </style> - </head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elsie Lindtner, by Karin Michaëlis Stangeland</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Elsie Lindtner</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em;'>A sequel to "The Dangerous Age"</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Karin Michaëlis Stangeland</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Beatrice Marshall</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 25, 2022 [eBook #68837]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELSIE LINDTNER ***</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p> - -<div class="border-thick"> -<div class="border-thin"> -<p class="center larger">ELSIE LINDTNER</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE DANGEROUS AGE</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Letters and Fragments from<br /> -a Woman’s Diary</i></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p> - -<div class="box"> - -<div class="box-top"> - -<p class="center larger">ELSIE LINDTNER</p> - -<p class="center">A Sequel to “The Dangerous Age”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="box-mid"> - -<p class="center"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br /> -KARIN MICHAËLIS<br /> -STANGELAND</p> - -</div> - -<div class="box-mid"> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller"><i>AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION</i><br /> -BY</span><br /> -BEATRICE MARSHALL</p> - -</div> - -<div class="box-bottom"> - -<p class="center">NEW YORK<br /> -JOHN LANE COMPANY<br /> -MCMXII</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span></p> - -<p class="titlepage">Copyright, 1912, by<br /> -JOHN LANE COMPANY</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2> - -</div> - -<p class="dropcap">Readers and admirers of “The Dangerous -Age”—and their name is -legion—will find themselves perfectly -at home in the following story. To them, -Elsie Lindtner’s rambling aphorisms, her -Bashkirtseffian revelations of soul, the remarkably -frank letters which she delights to write -to her friends, among whom she numbers her -divorced husband; above all, her rather preposterous -obsession with regard to the dangers -of middle age, will be familiar as a twice-told -tale.</p> - -<p>Doubtless many will be charmed to meet -Elsie Lindtner again, when she has passed -through the dreaded furnace of her “forties,” -and is still keeping the spark of inextinguishable -youthfulness alive within her, by gambling<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span> -at Monte Carlo, travelling in Greece -with Jeanne of the flaming hair, fencing in -London, riding in New York, and finally -finding happiness and salvation in the adoption -of a small offscouring of the streets.</p> - -<p>But for those who may have missed reading -the little masterpiece of modern femininity -which only a short time ago set a whole continent -by the ears, some sort of key is, possibly, -necessary to the enjoyment of “Elsie -Lindtner.”</p> - -<p>In “The Dangerous Age” Elsie Lindtner -writes an autobiographical letter to Joergen -Malthe, the rising young architect, who has -been her ardent admirer. She tells him now -that her mother died when she was born, and -her father was bankrupt, and lived disgraced -in retirement, while she was left to the care -of a servant girl.</p> - -<p>From her she learnt that lack of money was -the cause of their sordid life, and from that -moment she worshipped money.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span></p> - -<p>“I sometimes buried a coin that had been -given me,” she writes, “as a dog buries a -bone.”</p> - -<p>When she went to school little Elsbeth -Bugge was soon informed that she was “the -prettiest girl in the school”; that a pretty face -was worth a fortune.</p> - -<p>“From that moment I entered upon the -accursed cult of my person which absorbed -the rest of my childhood and all my first -youth.... I avoided the sun lest I should -get freckles; I collected rain water for washing; -I slept with gloves, and though I adored -sweets, I refrained from eating them on account -of my teeth. I spent hours brushing -my hair.”</p> - -<p>One day when she came home she found -the only big mirror in the house had been -transferred from her father’s room and hung -in her own.</p> - -<p>“I made myself quite ill with excitement, -and the maid had to put me to bed. But<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span> -later on, when the house was quiet, I got up -and lit my lamp. I spent hours gazing at -myself in the glass. There I sat till the sun -rose.”</p> - -<p>Then follows an account of how this child, -scarcely in her teens, positively set her cap -at a rich, elderly widower, because he had a -fine house.</p> - -<p>“My brain reeled as I said to myself, ‘Some -day I will live in that house as wife of the -Chief Magistrate.’”</p> - -<p>The precociousness of Marie Bashkirtseff -who fell in love with a duke when she ought -to have been playing with her dolls, pales into -insignificance beside this confession.</p> - -<p>Elsie left school and went back to Denmark -engaged to Herr von Brincken, the -Chief Magistrate, but he had heart disease -and she did not marry him. Instead she married -Richard Lindtner, a wealthy Dane, and -made her home with him in the Old Market -Place at Copenhagen, where for twenty-two<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span> -years she was, to outward appearances, a -happy and contented wife.</p> - -<p>“I allowed my senses to be inflamed while -my mind remained cold and my heart contracted -with disgust. I consciously profaned -the sacred words of love by applying them to -a man whom I chose for his money. Meanwhile, -I developed into the frivolous society -woman everybody took me to be. Every -woman wears the mask which best suits her -purpose. My mask was my smile....”</p> - -<p>It is only in this book, the second instalment -of Elsie Lindtner’s fragmentary diary -and correspondence, that she gives us a reason -for leaving her husband after twenty-two -years of married life, the wish that he should -have children. In “The Dangerous Age” -she hints at other and various reasons. To -her friend and cousin, Lili Rothe, the perfect -wife and mother of “lanky daughters,” who -could love another man passionately without -ceasing to love her husband, she writes, when<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span> -announcing her divorce, “There is no special -reason ... none at least that is explicable to -the world. As far as I know Richard has no -entanglements, and I have no lover. There -is no shadow of a scandal connected with our -separation beyond that which must inevitably -arise when two middle-aged partners throw -down their cards in the middle of a rubber.... -My real reason is so simple and clear -that few will be content to accept it.... You -know that Richard and I have got on as well -as two people of opposite sex can do. There -has never been an angry word between us. -But one day the impulse—or whatever you -like to call it—took possession of me that -I must live alone—quite alone, and all to -myself. Call it an absurd idea ... call it -hysteria—which, perhaps, it is—I must get -right away from everybody and everything. -Joergen Malthe has planned and built a little -villa for me in the belief that it was for some -one else. The house is on an island, the name<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span> -of which I will keep to myself for the -present.”</p> - -<p>In her self-communings, however, she never -disguises the fact that escape from boredom -was the main motive of her returning to the -White Villa.</p> - -<p>“Richard is still travelling, and entertains -me scrupulously with accounts of the sights -he sees and his lonely nights.... As in -the past, he bores me with his interminable -descriptions, and his whole middle-class -outlook....”</p> - -<p>Richard’s neatness and tidy ways bored her; -his correctness in the convenances; even his -way of eating, and “to watch him eat was a -daily torture.”</p> - -<p>“Sundays were no better in the Old Market -Place. There I had Richard from morning -till night. To be bored alone is bad; to be -bored in the society of one other person is -much worse. To think that Richard never -noticed it! His incessant talk reminded me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span> -of a mill-wheel, and I felt as though all the -flour were blowing into my eyes.”</p> - -<p>In another place she says: “I am now sure -that even if the difference in our own age did -not exist, I could never marry Malthe.... -I could do foolish, even mean things for the -sake of the one man I loved with all my heart.... -But set up a home with Joergen Malthe—never!”</p> - -<p>The terrible part of home-life is that every -piece of furniture in the house forms a link in -the chain which binds two married people -long after love has died out—if indeed it ever -existed. Two human beings—who differ as -much as two human beings always must do—are -forced to adopt the same tastes, the same -outlook. The home is built upon this incessant -conflict.</p> - -<p>“How often Richard and I gave way to -each other with a consideration masking an -annoyance that rankled more than a violent -quarrel.... What a profound contempt I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span> -felt for his tastes and, without saying so, how -he disapproved of mine. No, his home was -not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal -couple. My person for his money—that was -the bargain crudely but truthfully expressed.”</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Even in her White Villa, on its island with -a forest of her very own, Elsie Lindtner, to -her intense disappointment, was bored. She -lived there with two servants, Torp, the cook -(a delightful figure), who believed in spooks, -and whose teeth chattered when she told ghost -stories; and Jeanne, the mysterious young -housemaid with “amber eyes” and hair that -glowed like red fungi against the snow, who -wore silk stockings, and won Elsie’s heart by -admiring and dressing Elsie’s own wonderful -hair. Jeanne became the salient interest in -Elsie’s hermit life on the island, and was promoted -to the intimacy of companion and confidante. -It was Jeanne who arranged the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span> -flowers artistically with her “long, pointed -fingers,” and picked up her skirts disdainfully -when she passed the flirtatious gardener, to -whose fascinations Torp, the cook, became a -hapless prey. Torp “made herself thin in -collecting fat chickens for him,” and he played -cards with her in the basement kitchen.</p> - -<p>Jeanne rowed hard in the little white boat -across the lake to catch the last post with -Elsie’s fatal invitation to Malthe. “I will -never part with Jeanne,” Elsie said as she -watched her. Then she wandered at random -in the woods and fields, and scarcely seemed -to feel the ground under her feet. The flowers -smelt so sweet, and she was so deeply -moved.</p> - -<p>“How can I sleep? I feel I must stay -awake until my letter is in his hands.... -Now it is speeding to him through the quiet -night. The letter yearns towards him as I do -myself.... I am young again, yes, young, -young! How blue the night is.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span></p> - -<p>But she could not, alas, young as she felt, -get into the white embroidered muslin which -used to become her so well, and Malthe’s first -glance told her all.</p> - -<p>“He cast down his eyes so that he might not -hurt me again.” One reads of tears of blood. -“... During the few hours he spent in my -house I think we smiled ‘smiles of blood.’”</p> - -<p>Malthe left the White Villa the same night, -and said at parting, “I feel like the worst of -criminals.”</p> - -<p>After this shattering blow Elsie in her despair -craved for even the boring society of the -husband she had deserted. She was, to use -her own expression, “greedy of Richard’s -caresses,” and invited him, too, to visit her on -her island. But Richard declined altogether. -He had just become engaged to a girl, “a -mere chit of nineteen.”</p> - -<p>“He has made a fool of me! I am done -for. Nothing is left to me but to efface myself -as soon as possible.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span></p> - -<p>Elsie Lindtner’s method of effacing herself -for the second time was to quit her desert -island, and take a Cook’s tour round the world -with Jeanne.</p> - -<p>Thus it happens that we renew acquaintance -with her breaking the bank at Monte -Carlo in the first pages of this book to which -she has given her own name, though it might -just as appropriately have been entitled “More -Dangerous Age Reflections.” For here, -again, the “transition” is the absorbing topic -of Elsie Lindtner’s thoughts and correspondence; -one might almost say it is “the bee in -her bonnet.” Even when she has emerged -triumphantly, as she boasts afterwards, from -its perils, and has found a new source of interest -and happiness in the street arab whom -she has adopted, she seems unable to keep the -subject out of her conversation and letters. -She goes so far as to warn strangers of the -“stealthy footsteps of the approaching years,” -and disputes with her dear friend, the extraordinary<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span> -widow, Magna Wellmann, which of -them came through those years, “when we are -all more or less mad,” with the greatest <i>éclat</i>.</p> - -<p>In “Elsie Lindtner” we miss the <i>mise en -scène</i> of the White Villa on the island, with -its forest and lake, for when Elsie re-visits it -with Kelly, it hardly seems the same place, -with no Torp and no gardener.... We miss, -too, the first, fine, careless rapture of feminine -revolt which characterises “The Dangerous -Age,” and the Jeanne of these pages is not so -vivid as the Jeanne of the former book. In -compensation we have more of Magna, and -we have Lili Rothe’s love-letters—which were -addressed but never sent to the man she loved. -Also, as in the previous volume, we have -Elsie Lindtner’s letters, with their strange, -pathetic eloquence, marvellously revealing a -woman’s complicated soul. Their literary -merit and their value as a picture of life cannot -fail to impress all readers.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Beatrice Marshall.</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span></p> - -<div class="border-thick"> -<div class="border-thin"> -<p class="center larger">ELSIE LINDTNER</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span></p> - -<h1><i>Elsie Lindtner</i></h1> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Monte Carlo.</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Richard</span>,</p> - -<p>Thank you for the money, and forgive -my audacious telegram. I am -directing this letter to your office, as it has -nothing to do with domestic affairs.</p> - -<p>You really must help me. We, Jeanne and -I, are stranded here like a pair of adventuresses, -and don’t know what to do. I have -wired to my lawyer, who has simply replied -with an unconditional “No.” The creature -seems to think he has the right to manage my -fortune as well as myself. Naturally, I find -it far from pleasant to be obliged to apply to -you, but you are the only person I can think -of to whom I can turn without risking a -refusal.</p> - -<p>I have been gambling, winning and losing,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span> -finally losing. I am overdrawn, and the last -draft which Riise had the grace to send me is -gone.</p> - -<p>Your money kept me going for two hours, -but now that is gone, too. I have pawned the -few valuables I possessed, but I am determined -to win everything back. So please -don’t give me good advice; instead, go and -talk to Riise. Explain to him that it is -urgent, and I <i>must</i> have the money. I am -quite indifferent as to what becomes of the -capital. I don’t mind paying dearly for this -spree—or whatever you like to call it—and -being poor afterwards in consequence. If the -matter goes awry, you’ll hear nothing more of -Elsie Lindtner. I shall neither take poison -nor shoot myself. There is a more comfortable -way out of it. A Brazilian, whom I -don’t like, has lent me a big sum of money. -If I borrow any more of him, it’ll have to -come to a bargain. Make Riise sell the stock, -even at a heavy loss, I must have money.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span> -Meanwhile send me all you can spare at the -moment by cheque. I hope you continue to -be as happy as ever.</p> - -<p>With many thanks in advance,</p> - -<p class="center">Yours,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span></p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Monte Carlo.</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Richard</span>,</p> - -<p>A friend in need is a friend indeed. -Accept my thanks for your prompt -and ready help. All the same, I could not -wait till it came, and borrowed again from the -Brazilian. His obnoxious money has brought -me luck. If it had been the other way about—well, -never mind. It was a mad, desperate -plunge on my part. Now that it is over I -cannot understand how I could nerve myself -for it. But I have won. The night before -last I raked in two hundred and fifty thousand -francs besides all that I had lost. After that -I laid down to sleep. Your money has just -arrived. I shall send it back at once with -what you sent me before, and the amount I -have wrung out of Riise. Jeanne has started -packing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span></p> - -<p>To-morrow we leave here. We are going -for Jeanne’s sake. She has taken my gambling -too much to heart.</p> - -<p>Now, if you possibly can, forget this little -episode. I wasn’t completely myself. It’s all -over, and too late to repent. We intend to -spend the rest of the winter in Tangiers and -Cairo, and probably in Helvan. Jeanne -wants to go to India, and I have no objection -so long as the journey is not too difficult. At -all events, we shall spend a few weeks in Paris, -just to fit ourselves out stylishly.</p> - -<p>It is positively disgraceful of me that I -have forgotten to congratulate you on the -birth of your son and heir. How I should -like to see your paternal countenance—you -might send me a photograph of yourself with -the Crown Prince, and now, farewell, till circumstances -throw us together again.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie.</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span></p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>How long can things go on like this? We -wander hither and thither, and have no abiding -place, as if we were fugitives condemned -to be eternally on the move. And we feign -enjoyment of this perpetual unsettlement. -Jeanne has long ago seen through the pitiable -farce, but she continues to play her part loyally -out of gratitude for the small kindness I -have shown her. We get on quite well together. -Jeanne reads in my face when it is -best to speak, and when to be silent.</p> - -<p>She is happiest on shore with terra firma -beneath her feet, while I like best the gliding -days and nights on board ship; the sky above, -the sea beneath me, my brain vacant, and all -my senses lulled to sleep. It reminds me of -the early days on my solitary island, when -every trifling incident was an affair of huge -importance. The flight of a seagull, the top -of a mast above the horizon—a ship sailing -by in the night. We spend the day on our -deck chairs, half dozing over a book, or conversing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span> -in a company voice; but at night we -throw ulsters over our nightgowns and pace -the deck, our natures expanding like flowers -which only shed their perfume after dark.</p> - -<p>I have become very fond of Jeanne. Her -poor, withered heart, too early developed, too -soon faded, awakes a certain gentle compassion -within me. All my opinions are accepted -by her eagerly as golden rules for the -ordering of life. If only I could forget! existence -might be bearable. But I cannot forget. -The glance which showed me the corpse -of his love follows me continually everywhere. -The humiliation in that glance! I don’t love -him, and I don’t hate him. I am getting too -lukewarm to hate. But contempt rankles—Jeanne -is careful to say nothing that can hurt -me, and yet sometimes she hurts me by being -too tactfully silent! I don’t want to be pitied, -so we while away hours over our toilette.</p> - -<p>How long can it go on?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span></p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Athens.</span></p> - -<p>Here it is as nice as anywhere else. I -struggle bravely to let myself be enchanted -with Greece’s past, but in reality I care as -little about it as I care for the potshares on the -Keramaikos.</p> - -<p>We are attending Professor Dörpfeld’s -lectures on “The Acropolis,” and I am -more interested in the way the man says -things than in concentrating my mind on -what he says. He has made himself so thoroughly -familiar with the plastic beauty of the -world, that finally the invisible words that fall -from his lips seem to have become plastic, -too. I take no interest in why the pillars are -thickest in the middle. It is the olive groves, -and the lights and shadows flitting over -Athens, that charm and engross me.</p> - -<p>Jeanne takes it all in like a gaping-mouthed -schoolgirl; she studies the history of art in the -hotel. I have given her leave to go on an<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span> -excavating expedition, but without me. I -strongly object to riding through snow up to -my waist, sleeping in tents on the bare ground, -and living on mutton and canned goods. My -laziness is growing.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Luxor.</span></p> - -<p>I am uneasy about Jeanne. She is strung -up to a state of enthusiasm which alienates -me. Is it travelling that has developed her, -or are her hitherto dormant abilities awakening? -We are simply travelling to kill time, -but she takes everything with the same tremendous -seriousness as that day in Berlin -when she first heard Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. -She regards me as if it were long -ago an accepted fact that we each exist for -ourselves, alone in our separate worlds. She -skips half the meals to roam about among the -temples. To-night we sat on top of the great -pylon and watched the sun go down. For -me it was just like a beautiful decorative<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span> -effect at the theatre. I couldn’t help thinking -of “Aïda.” She wouldn’t come in when I -did, and when I suggested that the night air -was chilly she answered quite snappishly, “I -wish to see the moon illumine the classic sea.” -Of course, I left her alone, but I couldn’t -sleep, and at about midnight I heard her come -back. My door was open, and I called her -in. She sat down on the end of my bed and -was crying. What can be the matter with -her?</p> - -<p>I am not going to torment her with questions. -She shall be free to come and go as -she chooses—so long as she spares me the -paeans of an enthusiasm which I cannot share. -It is all very well here but I prefer myself in -the Paris boulevards, Unter den Linden, and -Bond Street. I feel so poverty-stricken when -I see others full of emotional <i>élan</i>.</p> - -<p>Yes, that is it. That is why I am nervous -about Jeanne’s enthusiasm for art. She reminds -me of old days when Malthe, in my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span> -yellow room looking over the market-place, -told me of his travels, and I deluded myself -into imagining I understood what he was -talking about....</p> - -<p>And so this phase has come to an end, too! -I had quite thought that Jeanne had sold herself -to me for life. But it was not to be, after -all. I might have prevented it. Perhaps -she was waiting for a word from me. Still, -it is best that we should part. Let her put -her abilities to the test, by all means. She -will soon have had enough of work, and I -am in a position of being able to wait. Now -I shall go to America, and if I find that bores -me, too, God only knows if I shan’t give in -and accept the Brazilian. His method of -courtship, at least, is as systematic as a persecution. -And at bottom I am flattered, that -still—<i>still</i>; but for how much longer? I am -deemed desirable. I ask myself in moments -of doubt whether I should be even that, without -the aid of Poiret and Worth.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Jeanne</span>,—Little travelling companion.</p> - -<p>So our paths separate—temporarily, -or for ever—neither of us can say which. -But I feel that it is best to part, and I am not -at all sad or hurt. Two years is a good long -time for two people to have lived together, -and we have both derived some profit from -those years. For me the profit lies also in -their coming to an end, for you that you have -found life worth living. As I said before, I -strongly advise you to go through the whole -training, which will prove whether you have -creative talent, or your art is merely suited to -commercial purposes. I shouldn’t be surprised, -indeed, if you became a designer of -buildings—architect is, I suppose, too ambitious -a word to apply to a woman—and as -Greek and Egyptian temples are likely to be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span> -your speciality, you are hardly destined to be -popular.</p> - -<p>Now we have discussed all the practical -points. I think you know that I wish you -absolutely to enjoy your time in Paris. Enjoy -it to the full, but don’t commit any irrevocable -follies!</p> - -<p>You will get these lines from London, -where I am amusing myself by a short obesity -cure. Imagine us fencing, like small children -in black satin knickerbockers and white -sweaters! Several ladies from Court take -part in the “class.” Afterwards we have a -brisk but delightful hip-massage, and that -alone makes it worth the trouble. Directly I -am satisfied with the slimness of my exterior, -I start for New York. You were never very -happy over there, but for me that city has a -peculiar fascination. I don’t know myself -what it consists in.</p> - -<p>I beg you, from my heart, Jeanne, that you -will always consider me as a friend to whom<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span> -you can comfortably tell everything, and come -to for sympathy and advice, whether in sorrow -or happiness. You will, Jeanne, won’t -you? and don’t neglect your appearance. -Work may absorb you for a time, but that -kind of thing is a transitory craze in a woman -of your disposition. Your heritage is your -appearance, remember.</p> - -<p>Good-bye for the present, and “good luck,” -little travelling companion.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dearest Jeanne</span>,</p> - -<p>Your last letter—to put it mildly—is -very exaggerated. Frankly, it -is positively hysterical. Why should you -harp to me on your “guilt,” or your everlasting -gratitude, on your privilege of making -some sacrifice for me. I don’t understand a -word of the whole rigmarole, not a single -word. I don’t see the point of it in the least. -Here I am perfectly content in my own solitary -way, which is not a bit misanthropic, and -my own desire is that you should feel content, -too. Don’t you like Paris? You really -needn’t be afraid to say so—or is it the work -that you are sick of? If so, it is only what -I have long expected.</p> - -<p>According to my opinion, you belong to -those human luxuries whose presence in the -world are quite superfluous, but who have a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span> -certain genius through their mere existence -alone of making life more tolerable for others. -Your place is either this, or in the midst of -a <i>grande passion</i> (heaven forbid) in which -you would screw yourself into a bread pellet, -to be held in some one else’s mouth. I can -see you like <i>The Princess on the Pea</i>, scorning -everything, or I can see you on your knees -scouring steps for the man you love.</p> - -<p>But I should like to see the man you were -able to love.</p> - -<p>Perhaps you are in love? That idea has -suddenly occurred to me, though it seems -highly improbable. Now, however, that I -have read through your last nonsensical letter -again, I believe that I have really hit on the -right solution.</p> - -<p>You are in love, and out of feelings of mistaken -gratitude, you do not like to tell me. -Jeanne, Jeanne! Will you for my sake be -an old maid? It is very sweet of you, but a -little too much to expect. Besides, it is quite<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span> -unnecessary. I am not going to lie, and pretend -that it will not cost me something to give -up my little fairy-tale princess with the beautiful -hands. Not only my hair, but my -shamefully overcultivated taste is missing -you, with whom I was able to exchange ideas. -An empty place on my balcony that will never -be filled again till the aforesaid maiden sits -in it with the sunlight shining on her and on -the river, and on the town which is the town -of all others.</p> - -<p>But, Jeanne, our paths have diverged, and -they can never again unite. You are not in -the least fit to be in my company. You don’t -want me, but life, and joyousness. May you -find it, no matter whether, like me, you sell -yourself, and are shut up in a golden cage, -whether you live your own fairy-tale, and -realise the mirage of your dreams, or whether -you develop into an artist. Only with me -you would have no peace.</p> - -<p>I noticed how you beat your wings when<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span> -we were together, how you pined and tortured -yourself to adopt the pose that pleased -me. How for my sake you acted a part.</p> - -<p>Instead of writing sheets, I send you these -lines, and entreat you to answer by telegram -so that you may tell me in the fewest possible -words what has happened to you.</p> - -<p>I am, God knows, so curious that I should -like to send you a wire a yard long. But I -must rule my spirit so as to take this modern -city of New York.</p> - -<p class="center">Your</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne!</span></p> - -<p>Only that! Thank God, only that. -How infinitely comforting a telegram -with its few concise words can be.</p> - -<p>Don’t let this matter worry you further. -Of course, I’ll take the child to my heart; or -still better, I will adopt the child.</p> - -<p>After all, it’s much the same to me whether -I have a camera, cacti, or a little child for a -hobby. You needn’t be afraid that I shall -plant it in a flower-pot like a cutting, or pin -it into my lace collection. It shall, I promise -you, be properly cared for, not by me, but -through me. I will engage the best nurse -money can procure. If you like, too, I will -sail with the nurse over the whole width of -the Atlantic to receive the little eel in person. -The more I think it over, the more excellent -the plan seems to me. You will have no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span> -bother, will not be interrupted in your career, -and I shall add to the long list of my crazes -one more item. To prevent there being any -sort of misunderstanding about it, I am perfectly -confident that providing for the little -legacy will be a source of new enjoyment to -me.</p> - -<p>I only make one condition, and that is, -if the affair becomes too complete I may -be allowed to put “our child” out to -nurse.</p> - -<p>It is to be hoped that the father has not won -a fraction of your heart. I can well imagine -that he is some young artist whom you have -met at the class. He gazed at your hair till -he was sick, which is not at all to be wondered -at, and you forgot momentarily that you had -long ago abjured all folly.</p> - -<p>Write me more details as to whether you -approve; when “it” is expected, and so on. -I needn’t advise you, of course, to leave Paris -before the change in your exterior attracts<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span> -notice. I am thinking a great deal of you, -Jeanne, little Jeanne.</p> - -<p class="center">Your</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Magna Wellmann</span>,</p> - -<p>And I am the woman who thought -you had forgotten me, or that you -still bore me a grudge for that letter which -I wrote you four—no, it is already five—years -ago.</p> - -<p>Now I sit here and ponder whether the -greatest transformation has been worked in -you, or in me. You, at all events, are not the -same, and I believe that I am not. But at -our age, one is long past growing and developing.</p> - -<p>You who of old were like a dry autumn -leaf whirled before the wind, have proved -yourself all at once to have a strength and -courage which make me ashamed. Who has -lulled your senses so to rest? The one -“great” love? No, I will not ask questions, -though a whole host of them pulsate within<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span> -me. And you are not a bit afraid? You -speak of it as if it were a mere frolic. You -wonderful human creature, Magna. Other -women suffer intolerably during the nine -months of pregnancy, and grow irritable and -ugly. But you are blooming as if it were the -most perfectly natural condition to be in. -What a contrast to your ordinary mood and -your old escapades. You are not in the least -afraid to bring a child into the world at your -age; and in such circumstances every line of -your letter breathes freshness and health, and -there is no disguising it.</p> - -<p>Do you know, your letter awoke in me the -first longing for Denmark since I packed my -boxes and went out into the wide world.</p> - -<p>I have become an alien. Five years is not -such a very long time, though long enough to -render a person countryless. Richard in his -pleasant way, keeps me <i>au courant</i> with what -he calls the “main movements” of our circle, -so I know that you have been banned and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span> -ostracised. I cannot say that I think it is altogether -undeserved. You know that I insist -on good form outwardly as well as inwardly, -and, really, Magna, I cannot picture myself -behaving as you have done, any more than -I can picture myself going out in society in -a nightdress with my hair hanging down in a -pigtail. But, of course, it is your affair.</p> - -<p>For the most part I take no interest in what -goes on at home. It reminds me too much -of looking at a drop of water through a microscope. -If, by any chance, I come across a -Danish newspaper, I read nothing but the -obituaries, and even they do not rouse a -shadow of emotion in my soul.</p> - -<p>Yet there are fates which, out of curiosity -or fellow-feeling, appeal to me. And yours is -one of them. When Richard wrote, “Frau -Wellmann’s latest makes her ‘impossible’ in -this part of the world,” I could not help -smiling. You made yourself impossible years -ago. It is true, Professor Wellmann’s name<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span> -and social status have sheltered and held a -restraining hand over you, that is to say, up -till now.</p> - -<p>But now it has come to an actual scandal. -You parade your shame on the housetops of -Copenhagen, instead of going away and hushing -it up.</p> - -<p>By the bye, how many small <i>affairs</i> were -there not year after year <i>hushed up</i> in our -set? The dear ladies even were not afraid -to whisper about them to each other. And -you, you even, delight in having a child of -the peculiar kind that we call illegitimate. -Magna, Magna! I am not going to suppose -that behind it all is a spark of malicious joy -in challenging the <i>crême de la crême</i>. That -would be a poor joke. Neither can I believe -that your motive has anything to do -with <i>love</i> for the father of your illegitimate -child.</p> - -<p>You write so beautifully about the feeling -that life is growing within you. In this respect,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span> -I am a stranger, and absolutely blind. -I have never felt the smallest sensation of -longing to feel that life is growing within -me. Perhaps I am even incapable of understanding -your expression. Yet it touches me.</p> - -<p>You were entering on a period of severe -trial for yourself and for the children, and -the time of trial will not end with your confinement. -There will most certainly have to -be an explanation, and preferably an explanation -that will bring as little injury as possible -to the children. Have you thought of -this? Don’t put off the inevitable too long, -or others may be before you. The children -cannot—it would be terrible if they could—understand -the whole, so the question is how -to invent a fable which will best lull their -reflection.</p> - -<p>Many will judge you because you have -done what is not customary and defied the -usages of society; others will judge you out -of envy, because they have not had the courage<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span> -to do it themselves. Every one who has refrained -through fear of disgrace and shame, -will hurl a stone at you. Likewise the childless -women. If I were still in the Old Market -Place, I should flout you, too. Still, there -are a whole lot of free-thinking human -creatures who will judge you not on account -of the child, but for the <i>children’s</i> sake. You -may shrug your shoulders at the others, but -you can’t get away from the shadow which -you are casting on the children.</p> - -<p>Well, now that I have discoursed to you in -this extremely reasonable manner, I may with -a clear conscience extend my hands across the -ocean and say, “Good luck, Magna.”</p> - -<p>When the atmosphere becomes too hot to -hold you, then take refuge with me. I live -here, fourteen storeys high, on Riverside -Drive. My name is on the door in characters -as small as those on a postage stamp. -It is the fashion here, and the letters are delivered -to the porter. The house is magnificently<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span> -arranged, and is as light as a studio. -I steadily believe that I shall rest my bones -in some peaceful burial ground here. And -as it’s the custom to adorn and paint the dead -till they look twenty or thirty years younger -than when they were alive, you will comprehend -how that appeals to the vanity of one -who has warded off the burden of age. I -should just like to know how any woman -devoid of vanity could exist in this city of -light and sunshine. I belong to two or three -clubs where ladies of seventy and eighty -congregate, with porcelain complexions, -powdered coiffures, and Gainsborough hats. -Don’t imagine for a moment that they -are ludicrous. They possess a dignity and joy -in existence which makes me think that -they must pass their nights in a bath of -youth.</p> - -<p>There is a glamour of festivity hanging -over this place. Not in the slums; but there -of course, you needn’t go. New York’s poor<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span> -have a totally different aspect and manner of -behaviour from the poor of European cities, -where they rub against travellers with their -sores and crutches. In all these years I have -only seen two human beings who didn’t belong -to Fifth Avenue. An Italian and his wife -lay and sunned themselves on the curb and -ate dirty vegetables out of a rusty tin. No -one sent them off, but the whole traffic of the -street gave them a wide berth, as if they had -been a pair of plague-stricken patients.</p> - -<p>I ride on horseback every day till I am -dead tired, in a salmon-coloured habit and a -slouch hat over my eyebrows. My master—a -pitiful wreck of a once brilliant Scottish -nobleman—at first objected to my riding <i>en -cavalier</i>. But as I remained obstinate, he -left me to my fate till one fine day he was -seized with admiration for my mastery of the -horse, and now we are good friends. We -ride alternately in Central Park, which is indescribably -lovely when all the beds are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span> -aglow with rhododendrons in bloom, and in -New Jersey, which is still unspoilt Nature. -Sundays, as a rule, we form quite a cavalcade, -and then we amuse ourselves like children. -These people who are outwardly stiff and reserved, -and inwardly do not overburden their -souls with super-culture, have a wholly remarkable -and infectious capacity for sucking -honey out of the most trifling banalities of -existence. We chat about the sun, moon and -stars, about our horses, our ravenous appetites, -and the recently discovered Rembrandt, and -never about our neighbours. We never backbite.</p> - -<p>At the end of such a day, when I am resting -after my bath, I seem to myself like a being -with life all before me.</p> - -<p>In truth, I have found congenial calm. I -play bridge through the long winter mornings -at the Astor Hotel Club, or go to lectures -on psychology, followed by luxurious luncheons -during which Madame Homer and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span> -Signor Caruso sing to us, not in the intervals, -but while we eat!</p> - -<p>The waiters go round pouring out coffee -the whole time, while we sit in a rosy twilight. -Every one pays every one else little -choice and sincerely-meant compliments. -Call it an empty life, if you like, and I won’t -deny that it is.</p> - -<p>You ask what I have been doing since I -took flight from my now desolate and dilapidated -villa. If I only knew myself I would -tell you. It all seems so long ago I travelled -about with Jeanne, my young housemate and -friend, and we really did nothing but kill -time.</p> - -<p>Rumours of my Monte Carlo period have -no doubt penetrated to Denmark. I admit -it was an ugly experience. Never in all my -life had I imagined that I could become the -prey of this passion, but I caught the fever -so badly that I conducted myself as shamelessly -as the most hardened professional gamblers.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span> -I certainly believe that during those -days I was scarcely responsible. If the tide -of fortune had not turned I should have gambled -away every farthing I possess. But -things went so well that I am living to-day on -my winnings, without touching my dividends.</p> - -<p>Jeanne is still in Paris, where she has been -for the last two years. She intends to qualify -for some industrial art, for she has an indisputable -and highly original talent. Lately I -have had a very significant letter from her, -but I may not divulge its contents. If things -turn out, as at present seems likely, my life -may undergo a complete re-arrangement.</p> - -<p>I must tell you about my latest craze. I -have had quite a dozen little crazes in this one -year alone. It is a splendid distraction. -Well, my latest is collecting dwarf cacti and -Japanese dwarf trees, which you hardly ever -see in Denmark. They are only a few inches -high, and incredibly old. You buy them in -fat boxes, miniature imitations of Japanese<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span> -gardens with rivers, bridges, and porcelain -cupolas and tea-houses. They are entrancing. -Fortunately, a gardener tends them; otherwise -they would die of neglect. The care of -plants is no more in my line than the care -of children, or any other live things. If I -had the gift I should have a choice little -aquarium with goldfishes and electric light -and illuminations.</p> - -<p>Imagine Richard a paterfamilias and domestic -tyrant! Yes, indeed, Magna, everything -is changed.</p> - -<p>Now, I really have told you all about myself. -I don’t believe there is a single craving -of my soul that I have not disclosed to you. -It’s not my fault that the result of these disclosures -appears so miserably poor. How -old is Jarl now? Sixteen or more? It is a -good thing that Agnete is soon to be married. -Write again soon, Magna. I promise to answer.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Jeanne</span>,</p> - -<p>It may be the consequence of your -condition, but really, I am getting -quite concerned about your letters. I -thought everything was settled for good when -I promised to relieve you of responsibility by -taking the child. And now you begin posing -new riddles.</p> - -<p>What secret is it that you cannot betray? -Why do you talk about hiding yourself in the -remotest desert? From whom should you -hide? For what reason? Why do you speak -of desecration, and say you wish you could die -before the child is born? You hate to do it -a wrong? What wrong?</p> - -<p>Is this man married? If so, his wife -needn’t know that you are going to give birth -to a child. You don’t want to marry him; or -do you?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span></p> - -<p>If I may advise you, Jeanne, I should suggest -your leaving the future to take care of -itself, till you are established in peace and -quietness in some pretty neighbourhood. -What do you say to Provence? At the moment -you are nothing but a bundle of nerves, -and I have half a mind to come across and do -what I can to help you. But I am too lazy. -To do anything to help people when it involves -trouble, is not my <i>métier</i>; for you, -even, I cannot take trouble, though I love you.</p> - -<p>But if there is anything on your mind, -please let me know what it is, for, as I said -before, I am unable to make sense out of the -nonsense you have written. Write as often -and at as great length as you like, and the day -will come, I hope, when I shall at last grasp -your meaning. Is it a human being that is -lacking, one with whom you can really talk? -I am experiencing every day a crowd of little -stupid things, that keep me going in a most -agreeable fashion. But I am chiefly taken up<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span> -with cherishing and cultivating my own -precious appearance. Altogether, I was -much more alive when we two sat together in -our White Villa on the island, and saw the -leaves falling from the trees.</p> - -<p class="center">Your</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie</span>.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Jeanne ... Malthe ... Jeanne ... Malthe.</p> - -<p>Jeanne and he ... he and Jeanne....</p> - -<p>I must try to understand it. Those -two....</p> - -<p>And, it was the child of these two, their -child, I wanted to adopt....</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Two days have passed, but I am no nearer -understanding. I go round and round in an -empty circle, and say to myself, “Jeanne and -Malthe—Malthe and Jeanne.” And I expect -to be overcome by a heart-rending agony.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span> -But so far as I can judge, neither my heart nor -my mind are affected. My nerves, too, are -perfectly composed. I am, in fact, only petrified -with astonishment.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Why don’t I suffer? What has become of -the love I once felt. Where is it?—or—I understand -those two so exactly. It’s myself -that I don’t understand. I can give them my -blessing with the easiest and most serene conscience -in the world. I can even rejoice that -these two, just these two, have found each -other so futile; then am I so inexplicably, -egregiously futile?</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I have begun to take delight in travelling -by the Subway. People there don’t pose. -They are in too great a hurry to put on masks. -Extraordinary how impressive breeding is -when it is united with good clothes. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span> -train can be so full that there is often a double -row extending from one end of the car to the -other, hanging on to the round leather rings -with coarse, toil-worn, or delicate kid-gloved -hands. Some one always makes room for me, -but I also take my time to form the desired -expression on my face. To-day a poor -woman sat next to me with two or three little -wreaths on her lap. She wore a dusty mourning -veil thrown over her hair.</p> - -<p>She cried the whole way; the veil was so -shabby that I calculated the child must have -died a long time ago. Her grief was still -fresh. Mine has never existed. I had -thought my life at least contained what is -called a great sorrow. But I have only -draped an empty space with the trappings of -sorrow....</p> - -<p>I must write to Jeanne.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span></p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Little Travelling Companion</span>,</p> - -<p>This letter might be written in -twenty different ways, but only one is -the right way, and now I begin writing to you -in the same style as I write in my own poor, -dull diary. You know it is only lazy people -who can bear to record the barrenness of their -daily life in a diary.</p> - -<p>Accept my warmest and most sincere congratulations, -dear Jeanne, and don’t shed any -more tears on my account. You have not -transgressed anything, you dear child, with -your refined humanity. Neither has he. -Yet you fancy that your letters—your “confession,” -has caused me pain. Oh, no! Alas! -it has done nothing of the kind. I say, alas! -because I should so like to believe myself, -that I had once in my life loved with my -whole heart. Now I see it must have been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span> -all imagination. It can’t be explained otherwise—a -delusion, a myth—anything you like. -Perhaps a charming dream.</p> - -<p>Well, the dream is over; that is the only -thing I am certain about. All that remains -of it is the memory of a good friend who, -by a truly magical freak of fate, has found -the one woman, in my opinion, suited to -him.</p> - -<p>Jeanne, I am not disguising the facts. This -is the first and the last time, too, for that matter—that -the subject of Malthe and myself is -mentioned between us.</p> - -<p>The whole time you and I were knocking -about the world like homeless vagrants, you -never referred to it, or let drop a hint, that -you knew the whole humiliating connection. -Though <i>I knew that you knew</i>, and that raised -you in my esteem as a human creature to an -extraordinary degree. I think so highly of -Malthe that you alone seem to me good -enough for him. So you see what you write<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span> -about committing a “robbery” has no point. -And more than that, I can tell you I am one -of those women ill adapted to <i>live with</i>, much -less <i>to love</i>, another human being. I am -quite clear now about this. You, on the contrary, -in compensation for your joyless youth, -are endowed with the capacity for self-sacrifice -and yielding. For you it will be a positive -delight to abandon your <i>ego</i>, and let it be -absorbed by his. For me such a thing is inconceivable.</p> - -<p>There is no necessity to recur any more to -the past—at least as far as I am concerned. -On your behalf we unfortunately have to do -it. Much more than the news itself, does -your question, shall you speak or be silent, -perplex my brain and excite my emotions.</p> - -<p>If my position was now what it once was, -and my views of life what they once were, I -should answer decidedly: Keep your lips -closed, and the secret that concerns only you, -locked in your heart! But now there are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span> -other factors to consider. I am changed. -Time and life—I scarcely know what—have -changed me—and you are not like the majority -of women, and Malthe is not a man like -other men.</p> - -<p>You may perhaps cause him a never-ending -torment by speaking. Be clear on this, or you -may cause yourself no less pain by keeping -silent, and letting what is past and over for -ever be forgotten. I know you, Jeanne; -every day and every hour you will despise -yourself more and more because his belief in -you is so boundless.</p> - -<p>You can’t be silent. You will be compelled -to lie. What to ninety-nine people -out of a hundred would be simple and natural -enough will undermine not only your self-respect, -but your joy in life. On the other -hand, you have never loved. The thing you -call your past, has really had no significance -for you. Why should it be unearthed now, -and dragged into the glare of day? Why<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span> -should something that meant nothing but -words to you, be made crucial? Are you two, -you and he, to spend the most beautiful -years of your love in exhuming corpses and -taking them about with you wherever you -go?</p> - -<p>Joergen Malthe is not as other men are. -He will never reproach you, but he will -grieve, and you will grieve with him.</p> - -<p>You see, I am unable to advise you. Perhaps -I have no right to take the responsibility -upon me. I have often talked by the hour to -your future husband. But as far as I can remember, -we never touched on the topic of -woman in the abstract. Thus it comes about -that I am ignorant of what Malthe’s views -are.</p> - -<p>And yet—Malthe is the father of your -child. The father of your unborn child.</p> - -<p>Speak, Jeanne, speak openly and without -fear. It will be setting up no defence for having -yielded to his inclinations, but he will find<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span> -in it a means of explaining and defending -what happened before his time; for Joergen -Malthe is not like other men.</p> - -<p>If he has thought it right and natural that -the woman he loves should become his in the -way you have become his, he will think it -right and natural that you should have exercised -the sovereignty over your person before -you knew him. All you have got to tell him -afterwards is that you love him and that you -have never loved any one but him.</p> - -<p>I seem to myself at this moment so very -ancient. Such an eternity lies between then -and now, but that is as it should be.</p> - -<p>Little travelling companion with the red -hair, let me see you helping him now in the -prime of his manhood to build up his reputation, -so that his name will become immortal. -You understand how to see—how to enjoy. -Pack your infant when it is born in a little -trunk with perforated lid, and take it about -with you, or leave it behind. Don’t let it be<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span> -a hindrance or a barrier between you two in -your joint lives.</p> - -<p>There is a great deal more that I should -like to write, but now I must go and dress. -You know “Tristan and Isolde” always was -my favourite opera.</p> - -<p>I was going to urge you not to show this letter -to Malthe, but, after all, I leave you a free -hand in the matter.</p> - -<p>For many reasons I believe that if he saw -it the consequences would not be disastrous.</p> - -<p>With many embraces. I wish you a happiness -that will last through life.</p> - -<p class="center">Your</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner</span>.</p> - -<p class="tb">You need not trouble to find me more lace -patterns. I have presented my whole collection -to the Metropolitan Museum. My new -craze, dwarf cacti, amuses me far more—they -can’t be enclosed in letters and newspapers -unfortunately.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span></p> - -<p>When did they first meet? It is no concern -of mine, but I can’t help thinking much -about it. Did they know each other before? -Yes, of course. He looked after her when -she passed through the room. From me he -looked across at her—and compared. And -after—yes, what after? Did he think continually -of Jeanne as before he thought of me? -Or is it merely because chance has thrown -them together in Paris? Or is it possible that -they did not recognise each other at first, and -only discovered later where they had met -for the first time? Have I played any part -in their conversation? Have they clasped -hands over my memory, as over a grave?</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I don’t grudge them their happiness. -Jeanne is the right woman for him, and only a -Joergen Malthe could satisfy and supplement -Jeanne’s whole nature.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span></p> - -<p>How has it come about that everything in -me has gone to rest? I feel like a heap of -faded leaves lying down somewhere in a deep -hollow, where not a breath of wind reaches -it, and it lulls itself to sleep.</p> - -<p>I don’t live now as I used to live, and I have -no goal to strive for; but I have no cares, -much less do I feel in despair about anything. -Truly, I am very comfortable in mind and -body. I should not mind living for ever this -sort of life. Yet at the same time I should -feel no alarm if some one came and said, “You -must die to-night.”</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>When I consider it in broad daylight, I -have a heap of enjoyments, small and insignificant, -but perfectly unclouded enjoyments.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Yes, here I am laid up with measles—at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span> -my age—a fiery rash, and everything else. -Perhaps I shall get whooping-cough next? -It would be much the best plan if one could -have every childish complaint at once and -have done with it. It is boring in this magnificent -carbolic-scented clinic; but the nursing -is good, and it is said to be healthy to be -bored. I always fancied the much spoken -about self-sacrifice nurses to be an old wives’ -tale.</p> - -<p>In the room next mine, there is the most -passionate little monster of a boy nine months -old, and no one would believe it, but all the -nurses are willing to give up their sorely -needed night’s rest for his sake. I, for my -part, wish he was in a hot place.</p> - -<p>And then they actually ask me if I wouldn’t -like to have him “in my bed for a little.” -Heaven protect me and my well-conditioned -intellect! Oh! I pity the poor women who -have several little children at the same time! -I’d like to know how many mothers really<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span> -feel for their children—<i>because</i> it is their -children.</p> - -<p>Richard will get it with that wonder of a -child. He boasts about his teeth, but he says -nothing about the pain getting those teeth has -cost him.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Yesterday I had a visit from a convalescent, -who went round paying visits to the patients -who were still lying in bed. I shall make -friends with her. She amuses me. How -well I understood that there can be a certain -charm in studying bacteria and bacilli—small -causes, huge results.</p> - -<p>Frankly, I thought at first that she had been -in a reformatory. There was something -about her that gave the impression that she -must have been under restraint. I was quite -prepared that she would confess to having -committed some crime. But no, that wasn’t -it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span></p> - -<p>She had only been in all innocence a nun -for twenty-two years. Twenty-two years a -nun! Think of it! There were the years, -too, that she was pupil and novice, making -altogether twenty-six years behind the walls -of a convent, subjected to the convent discipline -and the weary convent habit. And now -she has broken loose, like a prisoner who -makes a rope of his bedclothes to escape over -walls to freedom.</p> - -<p>She had compelled—how, she did not disclose—the -Church to set her at liberty, and -now was beginning to live her own life for the -first time. The life which she left at sixteen -she has now taken up again at the age of forty-two. -She looks like a person of sixty.</p> - -<p>I could not forbear putting the indiscreet -question, why she had broken away? And -she replied, what was evidently the truth, that -when she noticed she was beginning to grow -old, a doubt arose within her as to whether -the life in the world outside was not richer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span> -than the life behind the convent walls. She -has given all her large fortune to the Church, -and now lives on a scanty allowance grudgingly -doled out to her by one of the sisters.</p> - -<p>But she is happy as a queen in two little -rooms, where she is her own mistress, able to -eat and drink when she wants to, and as much -as she likes. And she can serve her God unbidden -by the ding-dong of the chapel bell—for -she has not abjured her faith.</p> - -<p>The one desire of her heart now is to find -a man who’ll marry her. Her modesty is certainly -touching. She doesn’t mind who he is, -or what he looks like, if only she may be -granted the wonderful happiness of having a -husband. I lied my utmost to comfort her.</p> - -<p>And if she can’t get a husband, she intends -to adopt a child.</p> - -<p>A really sick, starving, miserable child. I -said tamely, that if I cherished—as God forbid -that I should—such a fad, I would, at all -events, seek out a healthy, pretty, and well-nourished<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span> -infant. Whereupon she answered, -“I don’t want a child to live for my sake; I -want to live for the sake of a child.” She is -a fine, but rather queer creature. And she -has promised to come and see me every day.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Sister Ethel has bet me a palm—she has obviously -an empty tub in her room—that if -once I had the little boy next door with me -for an hour, I should take him to my heart.</p> - -<p>I would rather give her the palm straight -off, and have nothing to do with the little boy; -but still, if it gives her any pleasure, well, I’ll -have him this afternoon, but directly the hour -is over, clean sheets.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>To my eternal shame I am bound to confess -that I have lost the palm. It may be that all -the nun’s sentimental gabble has affected my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span> -brain! I, who abhor the scent of little children, -and shudder to touch them.</p> - -<p>He lay perfectly still and squinted up at me, -sucking a finger. It was the little finger. I -really shouldn’t mind losing another palm, -but my pride, God be praised, prevents my -giving expression to the wish.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>He doesn’t cry when he is with me. Nobody -can understand it. In the night when -he was crying, I, foolish old person, rose from -my bed of measles, and went to look in on him. -I thought the nurse had gone away. It was -rather a painful situation.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Professor Rothe</span>,<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p>Your letter was such a shock to me -that I could not answer it at once.... -That is why I sent you the brief telegram in -reply, the words of which I am sorry I must -repeat, “I know nothing about the matter.” -Lili has never spoken of it to me, or made the -least allusion which could cause me to suspect -such a thing. I may truthfully say that I -never heard her mention the name of Director -Schlegel. My first idea was that Lili had -gone out of her mind, and I was surprised -that you, a medical man, should not have -come to the same conclusion.</p> - -<p>But, after thinking it over for the last two -days, I have changed my opinion. I think -I am beginning to understand what has happened,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span> -and I beg you to hold me alone -responsible for what I am going to say.... -I am only making suppositions. Lili -has not broken her marriage vows. Any -suspicion of such a thing is out of the question, -her nature was too upright, too loyal.... -If she appeared to you and the world -happy in her married life, it was because -she really was so. I entreat you to believe -this.</p> - -<p>Lili, who never told even a conventional -lie, who watched over her children like an -old-fashioned mother, careful of what they -read and what plays they saw—how could -she carry on an intrigue unknown to you -and them? Perfectly impossible, my dear -Professor. I don’t say that she didn’t -speak the words you heard, but that you -must have put a wrong interpretation on -them.</p> - -<p>Not once, but thousands of times, Lili has -talked about you to me. She loved and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span> -honoured you. You were her ideal man, -husband, and father.</p> - -<p>She used literally to become eloquent on -the subject of your operations.... She -studied Latin in order that she might understand -your scientific books, while, in spite of -her natural repulsion from the sight of such -things, she attended your anatomy classes and -demonstrations.</p> - -<p>When Lili said, “I love Schlegel and have -loved him for years,” her words did not mean, -“And all that time my love for you was extinct.”</p> - -<p>No, Lili cared for Schlegel, and for you, -too.... Probably you are saying to yourself, -“A woman must love one man or the -other.”</p> - -<p>With some show of reason you will argue, -“In leaving my house, at any rate, she proved -that Schlegel alone claimed her affection.”</p> - -<p>Nevertheless I maintain that you are -wrong.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span></p> - -<p>Lili showed every sign of a sane, well-balanced -nature. Well, her famous serenity -and calmness deceived us all. Behind this -serene exterior was the most feminine of all -feminine qualities—the fanciful imagination -of the visionary. Do you or I know anything -about her first girlish dreams? Have you, in -spite of your happy life together, ever really -understood her innermost soul? Forgive me, -but I do not think you have.</p> - -<p>When a man possesses a woman as completely -as you possessed Lili, he thinks himself -quite safe. You never doubted for a moment -that, having you, she could wish for -anything else.</p> - -<p>You are not only a clever and capable man, -you are kind, and an entertaining companion; -in short, you have many excellent qualities -which Lili exalted to the skies. But your -nature is not very poetical; you are, in fact, -rather prosaic, and only believe what you see.</p> - -<p>Contrast this with Lili’s immense forbearance.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span> -You remember how we used to laugh -when she defended some criminal who was -beyond all defence or apology. Something -intense and far-seeing came into her expression, -and her heart, prompted such a line of -argument which reason could not support. -She stood all alone in her sympathy, facing -cold and incredulous people.</p> - -<p>Then recollect the pleasure it gave her -to discuss religious and philosophical questions.</p> - -<p>She was not “religious” in the common -acceptation of the word. But she liked to -get at the bottom of things, and to use her -imagination. We others were indifferent or -frankly bored.</p> - -<p>And Lili was so gentle she gave way to us.</p> - -<p>Recall, too, her passion for flowers. She -felt a physical pang to see cut flowers with -their stalks out of water. Once I saw her -buy up a flower girl’s whole stock, because the -poor things wanted water. You and your<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span> -children have no love of flowers. As a doctor, -you are inclined to think it unhealthy to -have plants in your rooms; consequently there -were none and Lili never grumbled.</p> - -<p>Lili did not care for modern music. César -Franck wearied her, and Wagner gave her -a headache. An old-fashioned harpsichord -would be her favourite instrument, whereas -at home her daughters thundered out Rubinstein -and Wagner upon a concert grand, and -you, dear Professor, when in a good humour, -strode about the house whistling horribly out -of tune.</p> - -<p>Finally, Lili liked quiet, musical speech, -and she was surrounded by people who talked -at the top of their voices.</p> - -<p>... She was happy because she willed -to be happy. She had made up her mind that -she was the luckiest woman in existence -... happy in everything, and she was -deeply grateful to you. But in the depths of -her heart—so deep down that it never rose<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span> -to the surface even as a dream—lay that secret -trouble which has caused the present mischief.</p> - -<p>I know nothing of her relations to Schlegel, -but I think I may venture to say that they -were chiefly limited to intercourse of the -soul; ... and so were fatal. Have you ever -noticed the <i>timbre</i> of Schlegel’s voice? He -spoke slowly and so softly; I can quite believe -it attracted your wife in the beginning; and -that afterwards gradually, and almost imperceptibly, -she gravitated towards him.</p> - -<p>The man is now at death’s door, and can -never explain what passed between them—even -admitting that there was anything wrong. -As far as I know, Schlegel was infatuated with -a totally different woman. Had he been -really in love with Lili, would he have been -content with a few words and an occasional -pressure of her hand?</p> - -<p>Why, then, has Lili left you, and why does -she refuse to give you an explanation? Why<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span> -does she allow you to draw the worst conclusions?</p> - -<p>I will tell you. Lili is in love with two -men at the same time. Their different personalities -and natures satisfy both sides of her -character. If Schlegel had not fallen from -his horse and broken his back, thereby losing -all his faculties, Lili would have remained -with you and continued to be a model wife -and mother.</p> - -<p>In the same way, had you been the victim -of the accident, she would have forgotten all -about Schlegel, and would have lived for you -alone.</p> - -<p>... Lili had not the strength to fight the -first sharp anguish. The shock bewildered -her, and the love of her imagination seemed -to her at the moment the true one. She felt -she was betraying you, Schlegel, and herself; -and since self-sacrifice had become the law of -her life, she was prepared to renounce everything -as a proof of her love.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span></p> - -<p>You, Professor Rothe, have acted very -foolishly. You have done just what any -average conventional man would have done. -Your hurt vanity silenced the voice of your -heart.</p> - -<p>You had the choice of thinking two things: -either Lili was mad, or she was responsible -for her actions. You were convinced that -she was sane, and playing you false in cold -blood....</p> - -<p>You write that you have only taken your -two elder daughters into your confidence. -How could you have found it in your heart -to do this...?</p> - -<p>Lili knew you better than I supposed. She -knew that behind your apparent kindness -there lurked a cold, self-satisfied nature. She -understood that she would be accounted a -stranger and a sinner in your house the moment -you discovered in her a thought or -sentiment that was not subordinate to your -will.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span></p> - -<p>You have let her go, believing that she had -been playing a pretty part behind your back, -and that I was her confidante, and perhaps -also the instigator of her wicked deeds.</p> - -<p>Lili has taken refuge with her children’s -old nurse.</p> - -<p>How significant! Lili, who had so many -friends, knows by a subtler instinct that none -of them would befriend her in her misfortune. -If you, Professor Rothe, were a generous-hearted -man, you would explain to the -chief doctor at the Infirmary Lili’s great desire -to stay near Schlegel until the end comes.</p> - -<p>She loves you, and it would fill her with -grateful joy.... If Lili had your consent to -be near Schlegel she would certainly not -refuse to come back to her wifely duties as -soon as he was dead. At first she might not -be able to conceal her grief, and then it would -be your task to help her to regain her peace -of mind.... Schlegel was a man, but had -he been a portrait or a character in a novel,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span> -Lili would have fallen in love with him just -the same, because her love was purely of the -imagination.</p> - -<p>You must do what you please. But one -thing I wish you to understand.... If you -are not going to act in the matter I shall act. -I confess openly that I am a selfish woman, -but I am very fond of Lili, and if you abandon -her in this cruel and senseless way I shall -have her to live with me here, and shall do -my best to console her for the loss of an ungrateful -husband, and a pack of stupid, undemonstrative -children.</p> - -<p>One of Lili’s tears is worth more than all -your masculine ebulitions of wrath.</p> - -<p>One word more before I finish. Lili, so -far as I can remember, is a year older than -I am. Could you not, woman’s specialist as -you are, have found some excuse for her in -this fact? Had Lili been fifty-eight or thirty-five, -all this would never have happened. I -do not care for strangers to look into my personal<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span> -affairs, and although you are my cousin’s -husband, you are practically a stranger to me. -Nevertheless, I may remind you that women -at our time of life pass through critical moments, -as I know by daily experiences. A -week or two ago it might have been impossible -to write a letter such as this. I should -probably have reeled off pages of incoherent -abuse.</p> - -<p>Show Lili that your love was not selfishness -pure and simple.</p> - -<p>With kind regards.</p> - -<p class="center">Sincerely yours,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner</span>.</p> - -<div class="footnotes"> -<div class="footnote"> -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Extracts from an earlier letter of Elsie Lindtner’s to Professor -Rothe, in “The Dangerous Age,” are given here again, -as they throw light on the episode which follows.</p> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Professor Rothe</span>,</p> - -<p>Lili has closed her eyes never to -open them again. It will scarcely be -a great blow to you and yours after what has -passed; much more will it be a relief. For -her, indeed, it was so.</p> - -<p>I feel it my duty to Lili, not to you, to -write this letter. You may make what use -you please of it. It was I who procured Lili -the sleeping draught, for which she had such -a burning desire. With my hand in hers I -sat beside her till she was cold, and I do not -repent that I had the courage to commit what -you, as a physician, will call a crime.</p> - -<p>A few days before she fell asleep Lili entrusted -a packet of letters to my care. I read -them in the night, and now lay them in the -coffin under her head. These letters were -not to be read by the unauthorised, and you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span> -have become in relation to Lili one of the unauthorised.</p> - -<p>You have called hers a harlot-nature—not -in a moment of excitement, but because, -after weighty consideration, you arrived at a -conclusion to which the word was appropriate. -It is not in my power to give you the -satisfaction which you deserve, but I wish -that the hour may come in which you will -see what a desperate wrong you and your -abominable children have done Lili.</p> - -<p>Harlot-nature, indeed! You can say that -of Lili to whom you were married for twenty -years—Lili, the purest of beings!</p> - -<p>You say, “She married me, she bore me -children, she professed to love me, and all -the time she had a lover behind my back. So -she was of a harlot-nature!”</p> - -<p>Professor Rothe, permit me to accompany -you into your most private consulting room, -the room in which you examine the most -modest of your lady patients. Let me have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span> -it out with you, and inquire into your secret -motives. It is possible that your modesty -will be shocked, but you shall hear what -I have to say on Lili’s behalf, and on -those words, “Judge not that ye be not -judged.”</p> - -<p>When you married her your choice was -made according to the dictates of your heart, -and fell on a very young girl who lived on -the blue heights of idealism. She was your -wife, your friend, the mother of your children, -the good angel of your home. And -would you dare add that she was your love -also? Yes. You think that because she -loved you, and you loved her, and because you -took her in your arms as your wife, that she -was, of course your love....</p> - -<p>But I tell you Lili was never your love, and -that she never had a lover. And the whole -time you have known it perfectly well. Answer -me, if you like, “There are thousands -and thousands of women who, like Lili, are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span> -without feeling in this respect ... still she -loved another, and so deceived me.”</p> - -<p>Is a rose less red and fragrant, because -there are thousands of other red sweet-smelling -roses?</p> - -<p>But Lili’s nature was so pure, so refined, -that this deficiency as you would call it, did -not exist for her. She knew what it meant, -for she was not ignorant. She understood in -others what she did not recognise in herself. -She lived for you, her children, and her -household, her own beautiful world, so essential -was it for her to shed light and spread -joy around her.</p> - -<p>From this arose that wonderful harmony -of her being, making of the non-waking of -what was dormant within her, neither a trial -nor a renunciation. If Lili had been blind -she would have had the same happy nature, -and would have learned the beauty of joyousness -through the eyes of every seeing soul.</p> - -<p>There never arose within her, as in the case<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span> -of so many poor women, a conscious renunciation -of the fire of the senses.</p> - -<p>How infinitely she must have loved and -reverenced you, to have been able to tolerate -without complaint, without abhorrence and a -sense of renunciation, the position of being -your wife for so many years.</p> - -<p>Schlegel was not her lover, though she -loved him, and she was more intimate with -him than I thought at first ... and, listen, -she loved him with unlimited abandon, because -he did not possess a husband’s rights to -lord it over her, and did not assume them. -This <i>she</i> was unconscious of. But there existed -a ... a difference between her feelings -for you and for him. He personified all that -she had dreamed in her childish years of -“Love,” and continued to personify it till her -last hour.</p> - -<p>Once she loved you thus, too, and would -have gone on loving you in the same way if<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span> -you had not desecrated her without awakening -the woman within her.</p> - -<p>Lili was the Sleeping Beauty who slumbered -eternally. No knight ever roused her -from her sleep. But you, the man to whom -she presented her life’s happiness, called her -harlot-natured!</p> - -<p>Her last days were given up to a despairing -desire for death and pardon for the sin -which she had never committed.</p> - -<p>The Lili who came over here was so -changed that I hardly knew her. My first -thought as she touched me and uttered my -name was, “Who is to blame for this?” It -was not only a broken-hearted woman, but a -detested and ill-treated human creature who -flew from the pursuit of her persecutors to -die, deserted, in a foreign land.</p> - -<p>The Lili I once knew used to come into a -room as the sunshine penetrates a wood, like -joy itself. Every one could see through her<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span> -radiant exterior right into the floor of her -pure, white soul.</p> - -<p>But the Lili who came over here trembled -in every limb and dared not meet the eyes of -anybody. Schlegel lies in his grave. When -he lived I regarded him as indifferently as -I should any stranger. Now my thoughts go -out to him full of thankfulness.</p> - -<p>And Lili came home to you and ate the -bread of humiliation for four long years in -your house, while people admired you because -you had pardoned her so magnanimously. -Your abominable children looked down on -their mother and behaved to her as to one not -responsible for her actions. Dancing went -on in your house, Professor Rothe, and -Lili sat upstairs alone in her room. Betrothal -festivities were celebrated by your -family, while the mistress of the house was -said to be ill, so that her pale, grief-stricken -face should not cast a shadow on the festive -scene.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span></p> - -<p>I did the little I could, all that was in my -power to win back the old, dear Lili, but it -was too late. One cannot say that her mind -was under a cloud, but she brooded day and -night over a problem which she could not -solve. Mostly she sat looking down on her -hands, which were never still. Sometimes she -talked of the children. She had once overheard -Edmée say to one of the maids, it would -be much better if mother were sent to an institution. -Those words she could never forget.</p> - -<p>Professor Rothe! Time after time unhappy -women have come to you to be consoled, -and helped by your explaining to them that -the dangerous years of transition may affect -the brain of even the steadiest and most normal -of women.</p> - -<p>You could treat others with consideration -and give them shrewd and kind advice. But -for Lili’s dangerous period you did not concern -yourself. You allowed fate to shatter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span> -her beautiful existence. You never stretched -out a hand to protect her. For Lili’s sake -I cannot help hoping that there is a resurrection -after death, a place “where nothing -is dishonoured, where all is love.” To such -a place Lili belongs. I have chosen a grave -for her, looking south, where flowers will -flourish, and have done it in my name.</p> - -<p>To-morrow, I shall send you the necessary -business details—a death certificate referring -to heart disease—even if I have to write it -myself.</p> - -<p>I have opened the window. The river is -as blue as it used to be at home in light nights. -Here it is the moon that makes it blue. If -only I had the power I would lay Lili in a -boat and let her drift out to sea.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">LETTERS FROM LILI ROTHE TO -THE MAN SHE LOVED</h2> - -<p class="dropcap">I have accumulated so many letters from -you. To-day another has come—a letter -from you to me!</p> - -<p>Thus I know that you still think of me. -And it does me good to know it. I go about -thinking of you always and always, and it -makes me happy. I want nothing different -and nothing else but to be allowed to love -you.</p> - -<p>The letter ... in my hand, in my possession -... you, who understand what it is to -love, will know how it is when one loves. -Every trifling thing becomes a heaven and an -earth.</p> - -<p>The letter in my hand ... that means -holding minutes of your time. Time is life. -So I possess a bit of your life. For you the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span> -minutes have vanished, like raindrops sunk -in the ground; for me they have imperishable -qualities; they are like seeds that send up -shoots and more shoots, to be nourished by the -sun and moisture of my love.</p> - -<p>And what was there in the letter? I am -not ashamed to answer, only word after word, -like footprint after footprint on a muddy -path. The written sheets contain hardly -more than the blank ones. But I did not expect -that they would, how could I expect it?</p> - -<p>For you I am simply one among many. -No, perhaps a little more, a tiny bit more. -You said the first time we were alone together -... not to me ... that my nature -was congenial to you. That meant you liked -to be in my neighbourhood—my poor little -neighbourhood. I feel such pity for myself -when we are together. It is like being two -people, one of whom has to do and say the -very opposite of what the other would like to -say and do.... Only when I go away from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span> -you and your glance follows me like a living -shadow, that doesn’t belong to me, I feel -frightened and ashamed as a child. I am -nervous about my walk, my figure, my movements, -lest they should jar on you, and then -I try to appear nonchalant. I talk and -laugh, and am two people at once, one of -whom watches the gaucheries of the other -with sad eyes; the other who is quite at sea -how she shall act to please you. And that is -I myself, I, who in every one else’s society, feel -as free as the pollen of the buttercups as it flies -over the fields. I talk on and on as if I must -fill space with my words, fearful that the embarrassment -of silence will turn my features -to stone, fearful, too, of discovering a glint -of boredom in your glance. Your glance! -It is like a dark, slowly flowing river that -bears your soul towards me.</p> - -<p>When you look at me, a new world is born -within and around me. It is as on that day -when the Lord said, “Let there be light, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span> -there was light.” Your glance has divided -me inwardly into light and darkness, which -are a greater contrast than night and sun.</p> - -<p>Your glance penetrates every drop of blood -in my veins, as the sunshine soaks into the -sleeping earth, and awakes to life its slumbering -powers.</p> - -<p>I know when your glance is resting on me -like a tired hand on the arm of a chair. -When you contemplate me without seeing -me, because you are thinking of those cares -which I divine, though I know nothing about -them, something cries out within me, not -from one place but from a thousand. Then -warm founts of pity and grief overflow my -inward being.</p> - -<p>But don’t be afraid, my friend, that I shall -speak of what I suspect. If you would -rather no one should know, I will be silent—like -a flower at evening I will close my eyes, -compelled by the darkness in which you envelop -yourself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span></p> - -<p>And I will go on seeming to understand -nothing, nothing at all. But your mouth, beloved, -your mouth, and your dear, beautiful -hands betray you.</p> - -<p>There is a quiver and trembling round the -corners of your mouth as if the unspoken -words lay there in ambush—and your hands -look so helpless.</p> - -<p>Your hands, whose grasp can be so majestically -firm and strong, hang limply down, -but you are not aware of it. At times your -hands appear to me so full of “sin, sorrow, -and peril,” that I feel as if my soul were -responsible for yours.</p> - -<p>I talk to you like this, beloved, because you -will never know. There are other days when -your glance, as you look at me, is like a blue -flower that blossoms in the sacred garden of -dreams, but only because you are happy in -yourself, only because of that. You have -had some pleasant experience, or built up -some new hope.... I think, then, that you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span> -have derived strength from the glance that is -life to you, as yours is my own life’s fountain.</p> - -<p>At those times your glance flashes towards -me, and a smile comes and goes on your lips. -It comes from the foundation of your being, -and is astonished at itself. At those times -your figure is upright and elastic, and if you -walk across a room you move with a rhythm -that touches me like a song.</p> - -<p>But, beloved ... you have yet another, a -third look ... and this I recall when it -grows dark. I fear it the most and love it -the most. It’s when you realise I am a -woman ... suddenly, as if a mask fell from -my face, you realise that I am a woman, and -not only a woman, but a woman meant for -you. And the smile that then encloses me -like a snare has not its origin in your consciousness -and knowledge of my love, but its -origin is in me because I am a woman. And -then, of course, because in the kindness of -your heart you are glad to give me the pleasure<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span> -of remembering that I am a woman, your -eyes fill with a misty twilight, and into this -twilight I sink as into an everlasting night.</p> - -<p>I feel your arm supporting my neck, your -cheek’s melancholy pressure. Shuddering -we stand leaning against each other, like two -pines of the forest, that for a short space a -hurricane of storm wind has flung together -only to separate them again.</p> - -<p>All the time your smile is cold and meditative, -and your glance is extinguished like a -lamp that has consumed its last drop of oil. -My poor heart tells me the reason—you are -wondering at yourself for giving way to a -mood which means so little to you.</p> - -<p>But when, saddened, I try to move away, -you again offer me your mouth as a friendly -almsgiving.... The letter, the barren letter -I hold it to my heart. I leave my house and -go into the deepest part of the wood till I find -a place solitary enough to lie down in. The -letter has filled me with a joy that resembles<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span> -the pungent fragrance of the pine needles carpeting -the ground.</p> - -<p>I open my letter, contemplate the two unwritten -sides, and read once more the written -sheets.... I begin a deliberate juggle with -the words; I transpose them over and over -again, read each letter separately, as if there -were some sweet secret hidden in each, and -a caress in every stroke of the pen. I can’t -help thinking there must be somewhere between -the lines one single little word all for -myself, that concerns me only.</p> - -<p>Yet my joy goes down with the sun; the -leaves cease to glow, and the darkness gathers -in, and I sit with nothing but despondency in -my lap.</p> - -<p>Beloved, beloved! how kind you are!</p> - -<p>I have lain awake all night with these -words ringing in my head like a song through -the darkness. How kind you are!</p> - -<p>You gave me a whole evening. Don’t deny -it, for you know I collect all the minutes that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span> -you can spare from your superfluity. I glean -them together, as Ruth gleaned wheat on -Boaz’s fertile acres. I hadn’t dared to hope; -not dared, you must believe me. I left the -house alone with thoughts about you, but -without the slightest shadow of a hope of seeing -you. Then when I asked you imploringly, -“Come to the meeting,” you shook your -head and answered, “I can’t manage it.”</p> - -<p>But while I made my way through the -lighted, busy streets, my heart became suddenly -so heavy that I felt I couldn’t go on. -Yet I dragged myself there.</p> - -<p>Many people greeted me, and said they -were glad to see me.... I stood in the -centre of a little group. Then all at once I -felt <i>your</i> presence. I heard you coming ... -your step ... it seemed as if you walked -straight up to my very heart’s door.</p> - -<p>Smiling, you held out your hand to me ... -that alone was enough to gild my evening, but -you stayed with me, stayed with <i>me</i>. We sat<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span> -together, <i>we two</i>. The whole evening we sat -together. While others discussed what they -had come together to discuss, I sat apart and -let myself be enthralled by a happiness which -was almost more than I could bear.</p> - -<p>Several times you leaned close to me to -whisper something, and we both laughed and -chatted about the others.</p> - -<p>You are very fond of me as a friend with -whom you can talk or be silent at your pleasure. -If I were to cease to exist one day, you -would—if only for a few minutes—feel the -loss. Therefore I know that my life has not -been lived in vain.</p> - -<p>So, gradually, I have gained ground, step -by step, and I don’t worry you. That is true, -is it not? I don’t worry you? Rather than be -a burden to you I would give up the joy that -lies for me in seeing you now and then, and -being sometimes where you are. It is that I -long for nothing else, but to be allowed to -love you.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span></p> - -<p>Sometimes when my thoughts soar to the -cloudy pinnacles of bliss I have asked myself, -what if the impossible were to happen, if you -were to love me!</p> - -<p>The clouds float on high, but when they -are heavy with the moisture of earth, they -weep till they are light again, and their tears -water into fruitfulness the woods and meadows, -while they themselves sail on yonder -through the chill ether.</p> - -<p>The clouds aspire to reach the height of -the stars as my thoughts aspire to your love. -But they know perfectly well that they are -striving after the unattainable.</p> - -<p>And when my thoughts have tarried a -while up there in the sky, they become -weighed down with depression and float -softly earthwards, where they properly belong, -and my heart itself drops like an anchor -into the deep, quiet waters of sorrow.</p> - -<p>But why do I talk of sorrow, I who am the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span> -happiest of the happy?... I didn’t mean -it, no, I didn’t mean it in the least.</p> - -<p>But if the impossible were to happen, the -impossible....</p> - -<p>If it could happen that you would love me? -If your glance told me so just once.</p> - -<p>I know what I should do—yes, I know. I -should shut my eyes on that glance, so as -never to let it go from me. I should leave -my home, and my children, and go away. I -should take leave of life, and fall asleep -quietly, oh, so quietly, never to awake.</p> - -<p>The darkness of the grave would have to -be round me, so that not a sound disturbed -my happiness.</p> - -<p>To live and know that you loved me! I -could not do it. My strength would be lacking. -I can only love.</p> - -<p>Henry said one day, “Don’t touch any of -my little bottles.” I was staring at them so -hard. Each of the little bottles contained -the peace of the grave. But I must go on<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span> -living for the sake of my little children, for -Henry’s sake. And why should I not go on -living? I have no reason to wish to do otherwise. -Yet I am not with them, though in -their midst. When I move about in my -rooms, when I talk to the children and Henry, -I am not there. My eyes are seeking <i>him</i>, -my ears strain after <i>him</i>....</p> - -<p>From the first moment we met, my <i>beloved</i>, -you and I—I became a stranger amongst my -own people. But no one knows it, except -myself. And I feel that if I was bound by a -thousand ties, I should break them all, where -you, my love, were concerned.</p> - -<p>I am so very much of a dreamer that it is -difficult for me to write distinctly just what -the relations are between us. Other thoughts -perpetually throng upon me, and I have to -strive hard not to pervert things or fabricate. -And you will understand that I have not a jot -or tittle of desire to fabricate....</p> - -<p>You must know how poor I am, in spite of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span> -my having home and family, and how rich, -on the contrary, you make me, so that eternally -I must love you. You must be told everything. -You must be told how very well I -know you don’t care whether you are told or -not, but I write not for your sake, but for the -sake of my own love.... You are so unspeakably -good and kind....</p> - -<p>There was another evening, the evening of -the fête. I asked you to give me a moment, -one little moment for me alone, and in the -middle of the revel and music we sat down -in a corner together, at a little table. One -gets distinct in calculating when the means are -so sparingly few.</p> - -<p>I seated myself at an angle, from which I -could, to my heart’s content, and eye’s satisfaction, -gaze right into your soul without any -one seeing what I was doing.</p> - -<p>You, you looked at me as if you were glad -at my joy. You talked of all sorts of things.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span> -But every word that you let fall with a confidential -emphasis as if it were between you -and me alone, was like pure gold—a treasure -to be added to my heart.</p> - -<p>Not for long were we allowed to sit together -undisturbed. Other people came up -to us and jokingly teased us. They said that -we too obviously sought each other’s company. -How stupid of them to say that, when -it is only I who seek yours. And yet—don’t -be vexed with me—I liked them to say it. So -I do.</p> - -<p>And then it was that we came to discuss -goodness, and I said so that every one could -hear, that you were the best and finest of all -the men I knew. My own husband stood -near and smiled. He was so sure of me.... -You, as well as the others, declared that there -were men who might compare favourably -with you. I could not bear to hear that. -Softly in an undertone, I begged you to confess<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span> -that you were the best, and you whispered, -using “thou” for the first time, “For -<i>thee</i> I am best.”</p> - -<p>But it is not true that you are only best -for me. You are wonderfully good—your -whole manner of life bears witness to it. -Every one knows it, and every one knows that -you suffer. No one can protect you from its -being common knowledge that you have suffered -deeply. Your heart lies in ruins. I -ought to learn from you to forget myself, and -never to speak of love which to you can never -mean anything again. But I don’t speak in -words.</p> - -<p>It was that evening you clasped me close -to you, not because you loved me, but because -you were so kind. While your lips sought -mine I asked, “Then it is true that you love -me a little?” and you answered in your infinite -goodness, “Yes, it is true, you are very, -very dear to me.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span></p> - -<p>But suppose I had then said, “Do you love -me?” and you in your infinite goodness had -replied, “Yes, I love you.” What then? -What then?</p> - -<p>I dread the moment when I shall put this -question to you. It lies in the womb of the -future, waiting to reveal itself. May I have -the power granted me never to speak, but if I -do speak, may I understand absolutely that -your answer is prompted by infinite goodness -alone. Yet between us there is something -that is all yours and mine. Something -greater than love, for love aims at a goal, and -sooner or later comes to a standstill. But that -which exists between you and me revolves on -and on like a silent star in its own distant -sphere. Nobody and nothing can check its -progress.</p> - -<p>... I am not exigent. Your love will, I -know, never be my possession. I don’t expect -it, and don’t wish it. It is my greatest happiness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span> -that I have met you too late to be one of -the many who have passed out of your heart -into the cold, and everlasting yearning.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>To-day is my birthday, and each one is -emulating the other to give me pleasure. -The rooms are crammed with flowers and -presents. Yet I am not joyous, and the whole -affair seems very childish. How should you -be able to remember that to-day is my birthday? -<i>You</i> who know such heaps of people!</p> - -<p>You will come to-night! I did not tell you -intentionally that it was my birthday.... -Perhaps because I hoped that you yourself -would recollect the date. Last year I met -you in the street on my birthday, and you told -me that it was the anniversary of your father’s -death, and then I said that it was my birthday. -You asked if you might send me some flowers, -and I said no. How could I have explained -it, receiving flowers from <i>you</i> who had never<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span> -been in our house. And now, this evening -you are coming!!</p> - -<p>At first you did not wish to come, and it -was sweet of you not to wish it. But as you -don’t—don’t love me there is no reason why -you should mind meeting my husband.</p> - -<p>You are coming this evening. You are -coming! Every time the bell rings my heart -begins to beat faster, and every time I am disappointed. -It is like standing in a brilliantly -lighted room that becomes suddenly -dark.</p> - -<p>Once I received flowers from you which I -never thanked you for. You know nothing -about these flowers. Shall I tell you their -story? But you mustn’t laugh.</p> - -<p>I always feel happy when I think of them. -It is almost as if the flowers were standing -again in the window, and I lying in my hypnotic -sleep, unable to open my eyes but knowing -all the time that your yellow orchids, -trembling like a swarm of golden butterflies<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span> -on their delicate stalks were standing there in -the window. I don’t suppose you gave a -thought to whether they would reach me before -or after the operation. Perhaps you -merely rang up a florist on the telephone and -ordered something specially beautiful to be -sent to the Nursing Home on one or other of -the days. And I am modest with good reason -about questioning you.</p> - -<p>I was in bed. No one was with me. The -doctor had just been here and—as he considered -his duty—explained for me, what my -dear Henry had been so carefully keeping -from me, that it was a matter of -life and death. He had very little hope. -But I was not afraid. I lay there and -thought of you, of Henry and the children, -and then again of you. I thought of how I -had told you that I had to undergo that severe -operation. I was bound to tell you—then, in -case I died, I had to say good-bye to you.</p> - -<p>You tried to turn it off with a joke, but in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span> -a few minutes you grew grave. You asked -if I was nervous, and I begged you, if matters -did not go well, to visit my grave, just -once. Only once. It was very childish of -me, but you did not laugh. You merely said, -“To satisfy you I will promise, but I know -you will live to visit my grave....”</p> - -<p>I have the power when I like, of bringing -you before me in the flesh, so very much in the -flesh, that I at times can hardly bear other -people to be in the room. I want to be alone -with you. After I came out of the operating -theatre, I was alone with you every evening -and every night.</p> - -<p>I talked to you, I talked ... and you were -silent. I never was able to put many words -into your mouth. But your attentive eyes -rested on me ... and you were there.</p> - -<p>When the doctor had gone, I lay by myself -for a long time. The nurse supposed naturally -that I needed rest after my conversation -with the doctor. I thought of you. I was so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span> -curiously restless, a sort of joyous, expectant -restlessness. I kept looking at the door, as if -every minute I should see you coming in.</p> - -<p>I didn’t really expect you. I knew, of -course, that it was impossible, for many reasons. -It would not occur to you to call on -me. You might easily imagine that visits so -shortly before the operation would not be permitted. -There had been flowers in my room, -sent by my friends, and many of Henry’s patients.</p> - -<p>But they had been taken away, because I -must not be excited by their scent. I lay -there and gazed at the door; my heart began -to beat violently—no, not exactly to beat, but -it felt as if something was entering it. You -must not think, beloved, that I imagined all -this afterwards. I felt—I could feel distinctly -that some great joy was on its way to -me. I heard the footsteps approaching in my -heart, and then I heard them outside on the -stairs. Nurses and visitors were coming and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span> -going all day on the stairs, but, nevertheless, -I sat up in bed pressing my hand on my heart, -for I knew, I knew, that this concerned you.</p> - -<p>My nurse came in with a parcel. It -seemed as if she, too, understood that this was -something which I ought to see at once. She -came quite close up to me with the box and, -smiling, opened it deliberately, so deliberately -that it looked as if she were teasing me.... -“Let me open it,” I begged, but no, she insisted -on doing it herself.</p> - -<p>I felt how the blood deserted my face.... -“Give them to me!” I implored as if I were -praying for my life. She handed me the -long spray from which the flowers hung like -gold sunbeams, and fluttered over the whiteness -of the sheet. I held the spray in my -hand.</p> - -<p>When she was gone, I kissed every one of -the sensitive flowers. And you were with me. -All your steadfast calm was infused into my -blood. Now I could die happy. The<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span> -flowers were put in water and placed in the -window. They were to stay there all night, -I said, and no one objected. I had a light -burning the whole night through, as if I were -afraid of the dark. I dozed and woke, and -dozed and woke. The flowers did not sleep, -and they did not fly away.</p> - -<p>You, you were with me!</p> - -<p>Even if you never thought of me at all that -night you were still with me. And, maybe, -you dreamed of me. Men often dream of -things that they haven’t been thinking about. -And you forgot your dream before you awoke.</p> - -<p>The next morning when they came to fetch -me, I besought so earnestly that my orchids -might stand beside the bed. I submitted -calmly to the anæsthetic. While the mask was -being drawn over my face I thought of you, -and it seemed as if the yellow, dewy petals -began to dance over me.</p> - -<p>Deeply I breathed in the fragrance, and I -felt as if the flowers filled the room. They<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span> -had increased from a swarm to countless -swarms, and become a singing ocean of gold. -And in the ocean I saw <i>your eyes</i>. You were -with me, even if in thought you did not accompany -me, yet you were there.</p> - -<p>I woke up and my gaze met yours. My -eyes were too tired to see much. Yet I saw -the yellow flowers swaying on their stalks. -They had come back. They had, with their -loving souls, borne me company at the time, -and now they had come back. Close to my -eyes they seemed to be perpetually singing -and making music. Yes, you were with me.</p> - -<p>When the pain was most acute it was just as -if they flew away, and dispersed at the sound -of my groans. I quite understood it. They -were like you. You, too, hate the thought of -sickness. You, too, cannot bear people to be -ill. So I tried to smile at them, and to act -as if I did not feel the pain.</p> - -<p>... Your flowers ... your exquisite, -blessed flowers....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span></p> - -<p>To-day is my birthday, and you are coming, -yet I am not happy.</p> - -<p>All my best friends are coming. I shall sit -at the same table as you! You will sit on my -right hand, for you are the only one who -comes for the first time. It is not wrong, it -cannot be wrong. But if it is wrong, then -punish me, let me suffer for it; I am ready.</p> - -<p>I said that I must rest before the guests arrive. -I must be alone for a little to collect -myself for the joy that is greater than joy.</p> - -<p>For my joy is more than bliss. There is -nothing so great, there cannot be anything -greater than my joy.</p> - -<p>The flowers are risen from the dead. The -yellow butterfly blossoms.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I almost wish it was over. I don’t know -myself what it is, but I wish it was over.</p> - -<p><i>That</i>, I wish over, and I don’t know what -it is. I see something beyond the barrier,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span> -and I don’t see it. It is not death, but there -is something that hurts more than death.</p> - -<p>And the evening was the happiest of my -life.</p> - -<p>Perhaps it is nothing at all. Perhaps it -is only my heart breaking for happiness, but -can it hurt so much when one’s heart breaks -for happiness?</p> - -<p>It was at the moment when you went out -at the door. Magna Wellmann turned her -head and said, “That was <i>the</i> evening of the -year,” and you nodded. Then was it. It -felt as if all my joy had suddenly been -hemmed up in a coffin and couldn’t breathe. -Henry asked, “Are you ill, you look so -strange, and you have been beaming the -whole evening as if you had light inside -you....” That was true. I had light, yes, -light burning within me, and now it is extinguished.</p> - -<p>I must gather myself together. I must -cherish and hoard my happy evening. It is<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span> -wrong to think such things, but I am glad that -Henry had to read the treatise this evening. -I mean....</p> - -<p class="tb">You led me to the table. You sat on my -right, and you were so calm. You are always -so calm. Why should you not be calm, you -are not in love.</p> - -<p>You invited me to drink, and I who never -drink wine, drank with you, only a sip. It -was ... no, I cannot speak of it. But now -I understand that clergymen really believe it -when they say, “This is the body and blood of -Christ.”</p> - -<p>No one could read my thoughts.</p> - -<p>Now I know what it is that I have lacked -hitherto, and I am glad that I have lacked it.</p> - -<p>You made a speech in my honour. It was -so natural that you should. You led me to -the table, and it was my birthday. For me it -was a sacred miracle. The words you spoke -have gone to sleep in my heart. When I die<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span> -one day in my coffin, and my children weep -over me, they will arise and whisper and sing -as your yellow flowers sang when I was ill.</p> - -<p>I hold so fast to my happiness. But my -hands are weak, and it slips through them -like running sand.</p> - -<p>The hours go as they came.</p> - -<p>Why do you rend my dream in twain? -Why do you thrust a knife in my heart? I -have never thought of being your mistress. I -only grant you every delight there is. But why -in this night, in this night, when I woke and -clung to my happiness! When Magna Wellmann -telephoned me to-day, I knew everything. -She said nothing and I asked no -questions.</p> - -<p>My yellow orchids hang on their stalks like -dead butterflies. I have forgotten to give -them water.</p> - -<p>Forgive me! I am not. I won’t be like -this, and now it is over. It hurts no longer. -I am well, like the little boy who was run<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span> -over the day before yesterday. He cried and -moaned that he was going to die, and all the -time was quite unhurt.</p> - -<p>You walked over my heart, and I thought -it must die, but there is nothing the matter -with it.</p> - -<p class="tb">It is months since I wrote to you last; I -simply felt I couldn’t. I have been like one -scared. Why do people speak so often without -thinking? One lets fall a word quite indifferently, -that stabs the heart of another like a -poisoned arrow. I have been half distracted -by anxiety. I have listened to all the gossip. -I am sick from disquietude. My youngest -child has been ill, days and nights. I have -watched beside him, expecting every hour that -death would come, and yet in the middle of -my fear of death my thoughts have been incessantly -with you.</p> - -<p>I wouldn’t believe it.... But if it is true.... -Beloved, I am so saddened, I don’t know<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span> -whether I ought to tell you why, or whether -you would tolerate my intruding into the -habits of your daily life. But I am not only -depressed, for if that was all I could bear it -in silence. No, I am frightened, frightened, -frightened. I cannot sleep for anxiety.</p> - -<p>You wrote last year to tell me yourself that -your doctor had forbidden you to resort to -the strong remedy which had become a necessity -to you; that you were obeying, but suffering -horrible pain in consequence. That first -awakened my anxiety. Many, many times I -felt as if I were running my head against the -blank wall which separates life from death.... -And yet, it seemed to me that there was -strength in the touch of your hands, strength -that could grapple with any illness, strength -in your hands, your glance, your smile. Then -one day something happened that it took -weeks to get out of my head. I sat with you -and between us was built the usual bridge of -kindness and confidence. Your smile came<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span> -over the bridge and met mine. We played -with words as children in a meadow play with -flowers. Your hand lay on mine so firmly and -tenderly. I grasped at that moment why men -honour so much the idea of a foundation stone. -I felt my hand, too, was the corner-stone in -an eternal building. So proud was I that -your hand rested on mine, so sure, firmly and -tenderly, and then suddenly, with such terrible -suddenness, that my heart nearly stopped -beating, your smile froze and died; your eyes -became vacant, glazed; your face was not only -strange—would it had only been that—it was -so changed that you wouldn’t have recognised -it yourself in the looking-glass.</p> - -<p>In that moment—I can’t say whether they -were moments or minutes—you were not master -of your body, neither were you ruler of -your soul. And then you came to yourself. -But I left you and cried. My tears were cold -and made me freeze. Soon after I had to go -away on a journey. Beloved, beloved, how<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span> -full of pain love is! Every day, every hour -when I strolled in the garden among my -flowers which I planted there myself, which -stand there mysteriously waiting and watching -for your coming, I saw before me a -shadow that proceeded from my own distraught -mind ... your dear face with the -relaxed expression, and the glazed, fixed -eye.</p> - -<p>The pain which I experienced then has been -carried about in my heart for years, and was -day by day increased and nourished by my -anxiety.</p> - -<p>But then your letters came, like stars dropping -from the sky in the still, dark night ... -and once more I gained strength and courage -to look life in the face. <i>Life</i>—that is what -<i>you</i> are for me.</p> - -<p>I could fancy every one dying round me, -even my own darling children, all that was -near and dear to me; all that peoples the earth, -and I could fancy the houses falling, day and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span> -night ceasing—but I cannot picture life without -you.</p> - -<p>I cannot, and I <i>will not</i>....</p> - -<p class="tb">The summer passed, and with the falling -leaves I returned to your neighbourhood. -You were, to all appearances the same, only -rather paler, rather softer in your manner. -Your hands were the same, your lips sought -mine. I asked you no questions. Dare any -one call to the man walking on a rope over -the abyss, whether he feels giddy? I asked -you nothing. But others talked about you to -me. And all, all said the same. Don’t you -see how changed he is? And they spoke of -the strong remedy that had become indispensable -to you, of the remedy by the help of -which you maintain your mask of mental -equilibrium, a mask through whose holes your -own tormented soul stares out into vacancy.</p> - -<p>Now I have come to it. I have come to -it. Please do not be angry, or hurt, but let<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span> -me say what I can no longer carry about with -me unsaid. Try if you cannot, slowly and by -degrees, break yourself of the habit of resorting -to means which, instead of strengthening, -undermine your health. In the name of my -love I ask you to do this, and you must not -think that I ask for my sake alone. Then if it -happened that I was going to die, and knew -that I was going to die to-day, so that I should -never see you, or hear your voice again, I -should still make the same request. Why will -you be kind to every one but to yourself? A -doctor said to me about you—No, those are -words that may not be repeated....</p> - -<p>Now say with a smile that I am conjuring -up bogies, that my feelings have got the better -of me, and perhaps you are right, but, -beloved, death is not the worst. Do you understand -me now?</p> - -<p>I sit here and write in the bright sunshine. -My children play round my skirts, and chatter -and ask me why I am crying....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span></p> - -<p>Well, now it is said, and now that I have -said it, I dare not let you read what I have -written.</p> - -<p>But I will keep this letter with the rest of -<i>your</i> letters, with the letters which you have -never received. Should the day ever come -when I have sufficient courage you shall read -it.</p> - -<p>Only this one, of all the letters.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">AN UNSENT LETTER FROM LILI -ROTHE TO PROFESSOR ROTHE.</h2> - -<p class="dropcap">Henry, I had on my mind to write to -you and, for the last time, ask you to -forgive me, but I know that it -is no use. Perhaps your forgiveness could -do me no good now. It is too late. I have -suffered so much. I cannot bear more. But -this letter contains nothing but the truth, and -it is the last letter that I shall write.</p> - -<p>Henry, I have never denied my love for -you. I have never forgotten you, and never -deceived you. If I am to die now, because -I long for the sleep, which while I live, cannot -mercifully be granted to me, you must -believe my poor last words.</p> - -<p>I don’t know whither I am going, but even -if I knew for certain that I should reach the -open gates of Paradise, I could not cross the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span> -threshold. So long as you had not forgiven -me in your heart, eternal peace would not encompass -me. And if I knew, he for whose -sake I have caused you such great trouble that -it casts a shadow behind and dims all that was -once radiant and happy, if I knew that he was -standing ready to receive me with those words -which up till this hour I have never heard -him utter, “Welcome, my beloved,” it would -be impossible for me to follow him into everlasting -bliss. Consciousness of guilt would -prevent it.</p> - -<p>In the years when I loved you alone, I -was happy; when he came into my life and I -loved you both, my happiness increased with -my love, and I did not feel guilty. I was so -unspeakably happy. I loved you, and I loved -him. You are a doctor, and when women -are ill you can make them well, but for -my sickness you had no panacea to prescribe.</p> - -<p>And I cannot do what you desire of me;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span> -I cannot say that my love for him is dead. -Love cannot die, when once it has lived.</p> - -<p>Henry, when you took me back, I entreated -you to ask me no questions, and you asked -none. But your eyes asked and the walls -asked, and everything round me asked questions. -I do not wish to have any more secrets -from you. Yet you never can understand -what I am now going to say.</p> - -<p>He did not know me when I came to him, -and he died without having recognised me. -But it made me happy to be with him. When -the others were asleep, and it was all quiet, I -heard him mention a name. Not my name. -He did not love me, you see. Every time he -mentioned that other name I felt I was expiating -some of my guilt towards you. I sat -and listened, the nights were so long, but my -name never came. The name of the one he -loved, the names of others, but mine never.</p> - -<p>One night I fell asleep and dreamed that -he called me. I awoke, and he lay dead.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span> -And now I shall never find out whether that -was only a dream or something more.</p> - -<p>I have thought so much over the question -whether other women are the same as I am. -Were I strong enough I would go about and -look till I found one who could tell me truthfully -that she had loved two men, loved both -with her whole heart and soul. I would then -beg her to go to you and explain how that -is something one cannot help, cannot fight -against, and cannot kill.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap">My nun has espoused a husband, and I -have been to call on the young couple. -He has only one eye, is superannuated, -and has warts in his ears. He is a -hod carrier. When she contemplates him she -feels as if heaven were opening before her.</p> - -<p>She comes from a good family, and has had -a good education; he is ignorant and stupid, -but he seems to appreciate her adoration. I -had a ticket for “Lohengrin” this evening, but -I am not inclined to go.</p> - -<p>After all, I can understand it. Once I -should have thought it silly, but my ideas have -undergone a change. When I reflect on it -there is really only one condition that can be -called unhappy, and that is loneliness. Loneliness -on a desert island, loneliness in a great -city, loneliness in married life.... Loneliness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span></p> - -<p>For this reason all living beings crowd together. -The animals seek each other. The -faded leaves, as they flutter down from the -trees, wed in the hour of their destruction.</p> - -<p>She feels that she has been cheated for all -the years of her convent life, has loved without -an object. She has cast off her shackles, -and achieved her liberty. The thought of a -joint life with some one, that she may have -pined for vaguely in the convent, became, out -in the world, the highest thing to aim at. In -her excessive modesty she humbly accepted -the first thing that offered. Surely there is -nothing ridiculous in that.</p> - -<p>But I am alone. I am solitary.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>God in heaven, what have I done? There -he lies asleep, as if he were never going to -wake. Such a little gnome. But I couldn’t -do anything else, and behind all my anxiety -and fidgetting I have a feeling that for the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span> -first time in my life I have done what is right.</p> - -<p>For it was not unpremeditated, or was it? -Do I know? A transformation has been going -on lately within me. But when did it -begin, and where will it lead me? If I only -had some one whom I could consult, but there -is no one. I have broken all my old ties. I -stand quite alone. Even Jeanne.... Jeanne -must be told as soon as possible, but, of course, -she will think it is nothing except one of my -whims in which I indulge to kill time.</p> - -<p>When I ask myself deep down in my heart -why I did it, there is no answer, and, meanwhile, -the boy is lying in my bed. I have -slept an hour or two here on this chair without -knowing it. The windows are wide open, -yet every minute I inhale a horrible smell of -spirits ... a little boy of seven! How am I -to know whether he is seven, five, or nine?</p> - -<p>I must collect myself. This hour may decide -the whole course of my life. I have only -to hold the telephone receiver to my ear, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span> -directly the house-porter will call in the police. -Before noon the boy will be gone, and -I shall never see him again.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Why should it concern me? It would be -sheer folly if I gave way to a sickly sentimentality -and wished to keep this small tramp. -Small as he is, he seems to be endowed with -every vice.</p> - -<p>I feel as if I had dreamed it all, and not -seen it with my eyes.... And it all comes of -my freak of using the subway under the river -instead of taking a motor. What induced me -to waste time in that fashion? I who, of all -others, detest subterranean zigzagging?</p> - -<p>Was it a presentment? Did I expect a sensation, -and wish to gloat over the sight of -roofless night-wanderers, who for five cents -travel backwards and forwards by this route -all day? One’s way of living and thinking -is different in New York from what it is in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span> -great European capitals. We don’t follow -each other like sheep. We think more for -ourselves.</p> - -<p>I felt so tired inwardly on the journey, so -utterly without an anchor. I tried to fall -asleep before we reached the river to escape -hearing the ghastly rushing sound in the air -behind. The boy had seen me at once. I believe -I inspired him with a certain awe. My -clothes probably were too smart for him.</p> - -<p>He hurled himself past me without calling -out rude words, or making grimaces. I could -not take my eyes off him. At first I thought -it was one of the dwarfs out of the Hippodrome, -and I squirmed with disgust. Then -I saw that it was a child. A child sick with -a fever which his senses could not master. I, -like the other passengers, thought him mad, -till we grasped what was the matter with -him.</p> - -<p>He jumped on ladies’ laps, and spat in their -faces; he kicked gentlemen’s legs violently<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span> -with his heels. When the guard caught hold -of his wrists and commanded him to be quiet, -he bit the man so hard he was obliged to let -him go. At the next station he was ejected. -But directly the train was in motion again, he -swung himself on to the car, and this process -was repeated at every station. No one knew -how to cope with him; no one knew where he -came from, or to whom he belonged. Suddenly -he began to sing, what, I couldn’t understand, -but from the expression on the faces of -the men present, and from his own gestures, -I gathered that it was something indecent.</p> - -<p>How shall I describe my feelings? Were -they prompted by horror, repulsion, or compassion? -I must try to analyse them clearly.... -I felt as if I had brought this wretched -creature into the world, as if I were responsible -for him. I experienced a mother’s -agony and a mother’s boundless tenderness.</p> - -<p>Directly it became plain to me that the -child was not speaking in the delirium of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span> -fever, but of drunkenness, I had to bite my -lips till they bled, so as not to cry out. Then -the boy came to me, and threw himself across -my lap. There he stayed, nestling his head -against me, and went to sleep.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Were I to act now sensibly and as common -reason demanded, I should send the child -back whence he came, though I don’t know in -the least where that is.... The child who -has awakened the most sacred feeling in my -poor, withered heart.... The child who is -to blame for my having shed, for the first time -in my life, tears of joy.</p> - -<p>When I offered to take Jeanne’s child, I -had my reasons at my fingers’ ends, but they -were not honourable ones. I wanted to start -for myself an interest in life. I started from -the hypothesis that what filled the lives of so -many women might equally well fill mine. I -wanted to take Jeanne’s child, in the same way<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span> -as five years before I had taken her ... as -an experiment, a distraction.</p> - -<p>But it was not so to-night. This small boy -had kissed my hands, and I had blessed him.</p> - -<p>I have heard somewhere of a holy man who -met once a little child who was tired. He -lifted him on to his shoulders and carried him -over a river, but on the way the child grew -and became heavier and heavier, while the -man sank deeper and deeper.... All that, -however, doesn’t matter.</p> - -<p>I took him home with me. Here you can -do what you like. My proceeding excited no -remark. A stranger asked if he should fetch -me a carriage, and we drove home.</p> - -<p>I must, of course, make inquiries about his -antecedents. He says nothing himself. He -woke up when I struck a light, but he wouldn’t -tell me his name even. The people in the -train thought he was one of those outcast children -without parents who live from hand to -mouth by selling newspapers, and stealing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span> -from the banana carts, and who pass the night -on the river’s bank or in empty wagons.</p> - -<p>I haven’t succeeded yet in getting his boots -off. Though they have evidently once belonged -to a grown-up, they are so tightly laced -on his little legs that they can only be moved -by cutting. He must have worn them day -and night for months.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>What will be the end of it? I daren’t -think, and I daren’t act. I keep saying to myself -without ceasing, the same thing, “Suppose -he is taken away from me?” and I seem -to see into the future, his life ending in crime, -his death taking place in prison.</p> - -<p>I intend to sacrifice my own life for this -child’s ... but is that sufficient? Can that -avert his fate?</p> - -<p>My beautiful, beautiful boy! He is asleep. -I have locked both doors and sit with the key -in my pocket. Every quarter of an hour I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span> -look in at him; he smiles in his sleep as only -innocent children smile. Then suddenly he -clenches his little fists and his mouth becomes -so distorted and ugly that I have to turn away. -What can he be dreaming about?</p> - -<p>Help me, help! To whom am I praying? -I, who am without faith, and without hope. -But I am not without love. No longer without -love; for I love this poor, miserable child.</p> - -<p>Could I but give him back his innocence!... -Has he never been innocent like other -children? Was he contaminated from the -first by the two creatures who gave him life? -Is it in my power to atone for others’ sins -against him?</p> - -<p>I wonder why he tried to run away to-day? -Where did he want to go, and what was in his -mind? If I had not got him back, God -knows, I could not have faced another day.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span></p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I sat with him on my lap, and he looked up -at me as if he would ask, “What are you going -to do with me?”</p> - -<p>His childish gaze was so suspicious and -hard. I told him that I wanted to be his -mother and to live for nothing else but to -make him happy. All the time his little -hands were feeling about to find my pocket. -I pretended not to see, and smiling angelically, -he plunged his hand after my purse, and -began to fidget with it till it opened. My -heart beat so that I could hear it distinctly -resound in my ears.</p> - -<p>Is it to be wondered at that he steals? He -has known what it is to starve. But now I -give him everything that heart can desire. I -have bought him a little purse of his own, and -filled it with money. Yet still his tiny face -retains its expression of desperate greed when -he sees me take out money. When will this -alter?</p> - -<p>And he asks me if I have bought him. Or<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span> -have been given money to keep him. He -does not remember that blessed, thousandfold -blessed, night when he took my heart by -storm, and transformed me into a real human -being....</p> - -<p>I wanted to test him, so to-day I went without -lunch, explaining to him that I had no -more money, but he was to eat, I could go -without it. He nodded, and without troubling -about me at all, ate up his lunch.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Kelly. That’s his name. Kelly! or he -says it’s his name. He has been with me now -for six days, and only to-day he told me what -he was called. Well, it is at least a beginning. -I am thankful for little.</p> - -<p>I dare not hesitate any longer. If I could, -I would travel off with him like a thief with -his booty, even if somewhere a mother sat and -wept for him. No, no! I wouldn’t rob a -mother of her child. But I needn’t be afraid.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span> -Kelly’s whole bearing tells me that he has -been for a long, long time alone in the world. -Enquiries will be only a matter of form, and -then I can adopt him properly. He will be -mine by law.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>It is quite a matter of indifference to me if -people shake their heads at my insane action. -How should they know that Kelly alone, only -this boy with the vicious little face and criminal -glance is the source of all my bliss and -riches in this life? But it distresses me when -people talk about it in his presence, and I -cannot prevent them shaking their heads. -Kelly understands what they mean. He seems -conscious that his brow is branded with the -mark of Cain.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>To-morrow we are going to the Children’s -Court; I have written to Mr. Rander. He<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span> -is said to be one of the cleverest child-psychologists -in America.</p> - -<p>He has replied that I need cherish no fears. -So long as my love is sufficiently great ... -my love.... Yes, my love is great enough -to bear the strain.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Why had that to happen just to-day, when -I was feeling in such good heart? It’s only a -trifle, certainly. He may not have thought -what he was doing.</p> - -<p>It’s a necessity of children’s nature to be destructive. -They are cruel without being conscious -of it. What, after all, do I care about -the stupid cacti? I would have made him a -present of all of them. But it was the glance -of his! The sly, uncanny glance when I said, -“But, Kelly, why have you cut my flowers in -pieces?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span></p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I am doing it entirely on my own responsibility. -I should do it, even if the whole -world cried out, “Leave it alone, it will prove -your ruin!” I should do it. Even if I could -see into the future, and behold my boy a full-fledged -criminal sentenced to death.... I -consecrate my life to him, my poor, squandered -life. But it isn’t poor now. I am rich. -I am a mother!</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Mr. Rander meant well, I daresay, when he -said, “Don’t do it. Take any of them, only -not him!” And he related what he knew.</p> - -<p>As if a single spoken phrase could dissolve -the bond my heart has entered into voluntarily.</p> - -<p>“Born, double-dyed criminal.” Nevertheless, -I will educate myself to be a worthy -mother to him.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Magna Wellmann</span>,</p> - -<p>“From earth thou comest, to earth -thou shalt return....” These words -of Scripture occurred to me when I read your -letter. That is the eternal circle ... in this -case the circle of your family. Your grandfather -was a renegade from the calling of his -forefathers when he became a townsman. -Your father degenerated, and now you have -gone back to the land.</p> - -<p>Magna, Magna, I admire you. Of course, -I am heart and soul for the enterprise. In -this manner my money will become a breathing, -living entity, doing its own work, and -reaping its own reward. Don’t talk about being -cautious. I am running no risks. I -know what I am about. Your lawyer’s letter -informs me in business language that the undertaking -is “sound,” besides I am not giving -the whole or even half the capital.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span></p> - -<p>I need no assurances that you will carry the -thing through. But read before you begin -a little book by Flaubert. I don’t mind betting -you have never heard of it. It is called, -“Bouvard et Pécuchet.” A prospective -agriculturist can learn a good deal from it. -It’s splendid that Jarl is so keen on farming. -But you won’t surely let him put his hand to -the plough, and work in the fields from the -start, will you? The boy is only seventeen, -and I hope, too, that his mother isn’t going -to begin at once digging turnips and milking -cows. I should not care to set foot in a cow-shed—it’s -a thing I have never done. But -all the same I shall enjoy having letters yards -long about all your first experiments and -blunders.</p> - -<p>You mustn’t take it too much to heart that -Agnete is cool towards you. The poor child -has a dash of prudishness in her, inherited -from her mother! When she has children of -her own she will be different.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span></p> - -<p>Your account of the scandal was rich! Especially -do I like that remark of a friend, -“She might at least have had the tact to say -that it was an adopted child.” I read between -the lines that you have not passed -through this humiliation without it’s having -left scars behind. But, Magna, nothing is in -vain. You can afford to pay the cost of your -happiness. I am reminded of a little story -about you which used to be told in our “set.” -It related to the way in which you conquered -Professor Wellmann’s heart. You were at a -party, and had been so bored you had spoken -to no one. There was something to drink in -big, tall glasses. Suddenly in an ebullition -of superfluous strength you bit the glass with -your teeth and bit a piece out of it. Professor -Wellmann sat with distended eyes and -open mouth, and watched you.</p> - -<p>And on his way out of the house he remarked -to a not very discreet friend, “She, the -girl who bit the glass, shall be my wife!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span></p> - -<p>The story may or may not be true, but it -is characteristic of you all the same.</p> - -<p>I can see you in hobnail boots, and a smock, -tramping over the fields, superintending the -plough and the breeding of cattle.</p> - -<p>I have very little to tell about myself. -Since I linked my fate to Kelly’s I live in a -new world. Every day that goes by I come -nearer to myself, but I cannot write about it. -It is too sacred a subject. Troubles which -were unknown to me before have taken up -their continued abode within me, but joys -which were equally strange keep watch over -me with drawn swords. Magna, I ask you, -can the woman who has brought her own -child into the world experience greater bliss -and greater torment than I, to whom my boy -was given by chance?</p> - -<p>With a thousand loving remembrances,</p> - -<p class="center">Your</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner</span>.</p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span></p> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The White Villa.</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Jeanne</span>,</p> - -<p>As you will see from this heading, -we are now at home again.</p> - -<p><i>We</i>, and at <i>home</i> again!</p> - -<p>My home is where Kelly is, and Denmark -was never his home. But for his sake, I have -uprooted once more. I did not think such -a big, big town was good for him. The island -here is certainly small enough.</p> - -<p>Oh, if you could see how it looks now! I -was determined to be the first with Kelly to -enter the house, since you and I left it together, -how many years ago?</p> - -<p>The carpets were in tatters. The window -panes were beaten in, either by the wind or -vagabonds. Dead leaves and dead flies lay -about the floors. My beautiful pieces of -furniture were mildewed from damp ...<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span> -one or two of the chairs had collapsed; the -chintz coverings were moth-eaten. My bedroom—my -ridiculous bedroom—was the most -deplorable of all. It must have been struck -by lightning, otherwise I don’t understand -how the mirrors got smashed, and the rain and -snow lay congealed on my bed.</p> - -<p>Kelly laughed, and rushed from room to -room, and in the end I laughed, too. Then -Kelly got hold of the mad idea that instead of -putting up at the inn, we should turn in here -the first night. I half think he contemplated -a sort of burglarious attempt on the deserted -house. I yielded, of course. Never in my -life have I seen any one more industrious and -handy than this boy when he likes. He ran -about pumping water and sweeping floors, -and made all straight, God knows how. Tea -was prepared! ante-diluvian sugar and a canister -of Albert biscuits. He ushered me into -the large parlour where my piano, my poor, -wretched, beautiful piano, had been standing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span> -all these years, the prey of wind and rain, till -it hasn’t a sound left in its body from -hoarseness—and then he brought in the tea. -I won’t go so far as to say that it tasted clean -or nice, and the biscuits were musty, but -Kelly’s hand had prepared it.</p> - -<p>And we slept together in the same bed, in -your bed, Jeanne, in yours! It was the only -one in which the blankets were dry. I -wanted to lie on a sofa with a rug, but Kelly -would cuddle up beside me.</p> - -<p>Jeanne, I—really I, your fond, old travelling -companion, am now once more “at -home,” and I lay awake the whole night -thinking over my happiness.</p> - -<p>Kelly slept in my arm, and my arm, of -course, went to sleep, but no other part of me -slept ... and Kelly woke with my arm -round him.</p> - -<p>Then we went to “The Jug,” and put up -there for a fortnight till the whole place was -made habitable. I have no Jeanne—I do my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span> -own hair, and make myself beautiful for my -boy. Alack! it is hard work to inspire him -with any desire to make himself presentable.</p> - -<p>I am thinking of finding a tutor for him. -He ought not to be allowed to run wild and -devour sensational American novelettes—of -which there are none in Denmark—and remain -ignorant of all other subjects.</p> - -<p>Forgive me, Jeanne, but I have only one -thought, and that is Kelly. He fills my life -at all points, so that everything else now has -to give way to him.</p> - -<p>He has a craze for collecting snails and -slugs, which he brings into the house and lets -crawl about on the white window-sills. I -must own it makes a horrible mess, but Kelly -may do anything. Only I draw the line at -helping him to collect his snails, for, much -as I should like to oblige him, it is too disgusting.</p> - -<p>Now in exchange for these confidences, tell -me all your news. It was indeed a piece of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span> -good fortune that Malthe’s design took the -prize. And in Paris, too! You will, I suppose, -stay there the two years. Or are you -still the incorrigible nomads who prefer to -travel about with your houses on your backs, -with your trunks and perambulator—to -settling down quietly in a refined, comfortable -home. Don’t work yourself to shreds, -Jeanne. Remember that life is long, and that -you mustn’t grow old and ugly. I concluded -that you are doing everything in your power -fairly to spoil your excellent husband. You -go to market. You pack the boxes, take the -tickets, and accompany your husband to the -museums where you make drawings for him, -and you look after the children. Jeanne! -Jeanne! take thought for your hair, and be -careful of your hands.</p> - -<p>And don’t forget your happy <i>home</i>-flown -friend,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner</span>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span></p> - -<p class="tb noindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Good Magna</span>,</p> - -<p>That this notion should have occurred to -you, and that you should have the courage to -carry it out—. But ought I to offer up this -sacrifice to you, and can I relinquish Kelly? -The last few nights have been long and sleepless; -only when dawn begins to glimmer can -I bring my confused thoughts into any order, -and then it seems as if I had found a solution -which is the right one. I fall asleep, and -when I wake up again, everything is as unsettled -as ever.</p> - -<p>I don’t know my way in or out. Magna, -it’s not selfishness which makes me dread letting -Kelly out of my hands—the day does not -seem far off when I shall be forced to live under -another roof from that which shelters him, -and that is why I don’t want to die.</p> - -<p>My every thought is dedicated to him for -whom and with whom I now live, and so I -will continue to live without complaint so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span> -long as life is granted me. I have looked it -all in the face, and have recoiled, shuddering, -at the petrifying horror of impossibilities, but -I have made my resolve. So long as I inhabit -the earth Kelly has a human being who -stands in the place of mother to him.</p> - -<p>I am not afraid to make any sacrifices. I -shrink only from the thought of shirking the -responsibility. From the day Kelly came -into my life I have made myself answerable -for his actions and conduct. Would it not be -cowardice and treachery if I now said, “The -yoke has become too burdensome, now I will -shunt it on to the shoulders of another”?</p> - -<p>And yet, Magna, your plan seems to me the -one possibility of salvation.</p> - -<p>Before I express my hearty thanks, and confide -my boy to your care, I must tell you something -which I have been compelled to keep to -myself till now. Kelly has before been taken -care of by others. By force of circumstances. -He tried—remember he was only nine years<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span> -old—to burn me. Of course no one suspected -him, otherwise the police would -not have been asked to investigate the affair, -but then it was brought to light, and he was -taken away from me. I could have murdered -them for taking him.... It is hard, -even now, years after, to talk about it. My -one idea was to find a means of getting him -back. In America everything possible is -done to save children whose feet are set on -the downward path to crime. And it is done -with a tenderness and love which is marvellous, -but I didn’t know it. I thought of what -I had read in the papers at home about reformatories -for children, about floggings and -starvation, and lockings-up in dark cellars. -I was ready to help Kelly to escape till the -first time that they gave me permission to visit -him.</p> - -<p>There was no wall round the institution, -not even a railing. The main building -abutted on the high road, and from there you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span> -could see the heaps of smaller red houses resembling -a town of villas.</p> - -<p>As I came up to the inspector’s dwelling, I -was almost run down by a crowd of boys -headed by a small negro, who were having a -race.</p> - -<p>Just as I entered the door, I heard an outcry -which made my heart stand still. I -thought it was one of the boys being punished. -But the inspector showed me from the window -what the noise meant. The boys were -playing at fire, and at that moment they were -letting the hose play on the inspector’s house. -My little Kelly—in oilskins and a helmet on -his head—held the hose.</p> - -<p>And I was told that of the six hundred boys -who are in the reformatory many of them on -account of gross misconduct, for which but -for their tender years, they would have been -sentenced to a long period of imprisonment, -not a single one had been guilty of doing anything -wrong during his detention here. Punishments<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span> -such as thrashing and being put on -bread and water and under arrest, simply do -not exist. The boys live in their little villas, -twelve in a batch, under the supervision of -a pair of foster-parents. The only punishment -is that a boy who has been disobedient or -lazy gets no cake at five o’clock tea, and is not -given permission to sit with the others at the -large flower-decked table, but has to sit alone -at a small table. And he mayn’t lie before -the fire at dusk and listen to fairy-tales.</p> - -<p>No mother could have had more delightful -letters from her child than I had from -Kelly during that year. If I had only been -as wise then as I am now, I should have let -him stay there as long as the inspector would -have kept him.</p> - -<p>All the small “prisoners” were taught in -succession various industries which they -might choose themselves. I saw them baking, -ironing, washing, carving, carpentering, -binding books, making clothes, and toys, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span> -I saw them planting trees, ploughing, and, -Magna, I saw them milking cows. But I was -a foolish mother. I didn’t want my boy -brought up to a trade; I imagined it was my -duty to develop his great gifts in a different -direction.</p> - -<p>So after a year he was sent back to me. -But the inspector warned me that there would -be a lapse. In two months it came. Kelly -disappeared. I tore about like a maniac hunting -for him everywhere. I don’t believe -there was a beer-cellar, a common lodging-house, -or a thieves’ kitchen that I didn’t -search. He was traced through the scar on -his forehead, and I recovered him. But -how?</p> - -<p>The Kelly who for twelve months had been -living a model life among six hundred little -abandoned chaps, had plotted with a group -of homeless playmates to commit a crime so -diabolical and remorseless that at first I refused -to believe his brain could have hatched<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span> -it. By the train between Philadelphia and -New York travels every day a crowd of millionaires -who come to do their business on the -Stock Exchange. The other boys were, -through all sorts of tricks, to distract the attention -of the signalman while Kelly was to -switch on the signals so that another train -would come into collision with the train from -Philadelphia. After the collision they meant -to plunder the dead bodies!</p> - -<p>It’s true, Magna; now say, no! you dare not -take Kelly under your roof to associate with -Oluf. I can’t help it, it was my duty to tell -you all. My friend, Judge Rander, in Children’s -Court, helped me in every way. He -procured for me leave to travel with Kelly -out of the country on a verbal and written -oath that I would never bring him back. -That is why I lived two years, summer and -winter, in my White Villa with Kelly and a -tutor. I was afraid to let him come near the -town, and yet the child needed companions.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span> -So at last I ventured to migrate to a town, -with the result that Kelly in two years was expelled -from three schools. Can you still have -the courage, Magna, to let the innocent child, -offspring of your heart, become Kelly’s playfellow? -And if you are so courageous, how -shall I be able to exonerate myself if you -come to me one day and say, “Kelly has corrupted -my boy”?</p> - -<p>I put the words into your mouth, Magna.</p> - -<p>Say no, while there is still time. You are -strong, stronger than any other woman I -know, since you have found yourself again -through strenuous exertion and labour. But -there are powers that the strongest cannot conquer.</p> - -<p>Behind my fears about your saying yes, lies -the burning wish that you will, but how shall -I ever find words to thank you?</p> - -<p>Of course, I realise what it will mean if -Kelly from now onwards takes up his abode -with you, and directly after his confirmation<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span> -leaves off school. It’s not what Kelly is -to be, but <i>how</i> he becomes what he is, that is -going to be for me the main question. I fold -my hands in my lap, and I confess my powerlessness.</p> - -<p>Make Kelly a man. Make Kelly a good -man.</p> - -<p>You will understand, Magna, that I could -not say all this if we stood face to face. -While I have been writing Kelly has been -several times to the door. He wants to know -what I am doing. Every time I feel tempted -to lay down my pen to enjoy his society. He -asked me the other day, “Mother, do you believe -that people’s fate is pre-ordained?” -What could he have meant by it? I dared -not ask him. He went on his knees, buried -his head in my lap, and cried bitterly.</p> - -<p>Magna, don’t keep me long in uncertainty. -At least promise me that.</p> - -<p class="center">Your</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner</span>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span></p> - -<p class="tb">I have begun to darn Kelly’s stockings. -Why did I never think of it before?</p> - -<p>He was whitewashing the attic with -Magna, and I saw that one of his stockings -was without a heel. I actually blushed, I -felt so ashamed. The boy, of course, doesn’t -trouble about such trifles, and Magna, splendid -creature, has enough to do. I don’t believe -she would mind a bit going about with -holes in her own stockings.</p> - -<p>In the country it doesn’t matter so much, -but still—</p> - -<p>She simply laughed at me when I asked to -be allowed to look after his clothes, and I -didn’t quite know how to explain why I -wanted to do it. But Magna is so clever, and -when I was seated comfortably she brought -me out a whole bundle. She has done the -same for her own children. I am convinced -that she would not let any one else darn Oluf’s -stockings.</p> - -<p>I don’t find it easy. I have quite forgotten<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span> -the proper way of doing it, which I learnt at -school. And I haven’t thought anything -about darning stockings since.</p> - -<p>But I take no end of trouble, and it is a -wonderful feeling to sit out here on the -balcony with a whole pile of big, big stockings -in front of me—Kelly has positively a -gigantic foot. My dear little balcony. It’s -to me what an airship is for young, impatient -folks. I sit so serenely in my charming, soft -seat, between sweet-peas and nasturtiums, and -beneath me streams by the current of life with -its men and beasts.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>It amuses me to see how skilfully Richard’s -eldest can drive an automobile. If only he -can avoid accidents.</p> - -<p>Richard himself is aging, but his little -wife sits so upright in the car. She wears -well.</p> - -<p>Since Richard caught sight of me one day<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span> -by chance he always looks up and bows, and -then we all bow, ... I overhear the lanky -youth say, “Papa, we are passing your old -wife,” and then they laugh.</p> - -<p>Yes, I should like to see the home in the old -Market Place once more. Probably I should -hardly recognise it, or perhaps Richard, from -long habit, has kept things much the same.</p> - -<p>The eldest son is to succeed to the business, -of course, but the second looks to me so dandified. -I know this for certain that none of -Richard’s sons will ever work out in the fields -in clogs and woollen shirts. And their -mother will never have the joy of darning -stockings with holes in them as big as goose’s -eggs. While I sit with a pair of these coarse, -huge, manly socks in which my hand is absolutely -drowned, I feel to the full extent a -mother’s glorious rights. I only wish the -holes were double the size, so that the time -they take to mend lasted longer.</p> - -<p>I have been and bought the pan for cooking<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span> -oxeyes in, and I have promised Kelly and -Oluf that every time they come they shall -have oxeyes baked in butter. Magna -requires nothing but her horrid nut-suet which -has no flavour. She alone can eat it. Dear, -dear boys.</p> - -<p class="tb noindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Agnete</span>,</p> - -<p>It was well that you wrote to me this time, -and not to your mother. You are not to -trouble her with your unhappy affairs, do you -understand? Every time that she gets a letter -from you she shuts herself up and cries. -Lately I have read quite a number of your -letters, and I must confess that I was not -pleased with them.</p> - -<p>At one time you presumed to sit in judgment -on your mother’s life, and now you -blame her because yours is a failure. You -have no right to do it.</p> - -<p>You cannot justly lay your married wretchedness -at either your mother’s or your husband’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span> -door. Its origin is to be sought in a -train of circumstances. You must know, -though you seem to have forgotten it, that it -was not your mother who gave in to your desire -to go to the French Convent School. It -was my doing that you went. I sent you for -her peace of mind’s sake.</p> - -<p>That you have married a Catholic while -you yourself are a Protestant is no one’s fault -but your own, as you did not ask anybody’s -permission. Unfortunately you have inherited -from your mother a hysterical temperament, -and from your father a certain matter-of-factness -which prevents your enjoying life.</p> - -<p>I feel compelled to act like a surgeon who -undertakes a necessary operation, in spite of -the patient’s objection to scars.</p> - -<p>The only time your husband was here on a -visit I was able to get a certain impression of -his character. You are right in saying that -he is “dangerous to women through the animal -magnetism which radiates from his person, attracting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span> -to him adults and children alike.” -And you might add, “through his natural -amiability and his kindliness.” He makes no -disguise of his vanity, but when you plume -yourself on being his only chick because you -alone resist him, you are adopting a dangerous -line. The man who wishes to be worshipped -will not be discouraged by superior airs, -especially when these are put on, and you -merely feign opposition in order to annoy -him, and to conceal how much you are in love.</p> - -<p>Owing to the position he holds he is the -centre of much attention. He is unable, like -most men, to diverge from the high road. -Every movement of his is noticed, and may -cause him unpleasantness. Thus his position -forces him to be cautious. Yet you as his -loving wife accuse him of giving to every -woman what ought to be your position alone.</p> - -<p>Your want of trust puts him on the rack. -You pluck his nerves to pieces, and dissect -his secret thoughts. You hate him for not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span> -being unfaithful to you in deed in that you -suspect continually that he is unfaithful to -you in thought. You hurt him by telling him -constantly that your mutual life is animal and -savage, that he lacks soul, and does not comprehend -what it is to love with the soul -as you do. He retorts by calling you hysterical.</p> - -<p>Then a young girl comes to stay in your -house. She falls in love with your husband, -and he is in love with her. You say, “She -made a dead set at him.” Instead of deciding -to remove her immediately you watch for -proofs of the criminal relations which you -suspect. I don’t condemn you for getting -hold of your husband’s letters by any means -honourable or the reverse, because jealous -wives are as irresponsible for their actions as -patients with a temperature of a hundred and -six. You triumph and cause yourself diabolical -torments by revelling in the stolen -love-letters. You find in them the “psychological”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span> -impulse that you have missed in your -husband’s love.</p> - -<p>What ought you to do now? Either you -must go, as you cannot stay with a man who -is in love with another; or you must remain -and leave him and his feelings in peace. -Nonsense! Instead you thrust a dagger -into his heart and turn it in the wound. If -he moans, you ask, “Do you still love -her?”</p> - -<p>You think that love can be wrenched out -of a man’s life as easily as a tooth is drawn, -root and all.</p> - -<p>Agony brings your husband to reason and -his senses, he belies what he feels and cries, -“I love no one but you!” But even then can -you leave him alone? Certainly not. You -now insist on his telling everything, betraying -and deceiving. You know, as a Catholic, he -cannot claim a divorce, and yet you ask if he -will marry her in the case of your retiring? -Not a word of this offer do you intend seriously.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span> -You want to humiliate and torment -him.</p> - -<p>Next you make a scene with the girl, pervert -his words about her, misapply your -knowledge, and use such expressions as “Impurity, -lies, vulgarity.” But she only answers, -“I love him, I cannot do anything else.” -And you find this exasperating.</p> - -<p>Not once has it occurred to you to set your -husband free. He belongs to you, he is in -your power. You begin all over again. You -haven’t an hour’s rest because you must spy -on all his actions. You reproach him for -being a Catholic. His baseness is trebled because -he is Catholic—as if lies had anything -to do with articles of faith.</p> - -<p>You are leading a pretty life! Then your -husband falls ill. For a long time he has -complained of a tumour in his chest. “If it -grows it’ll have to be removed for it may be -cancer.” This is a trifling matter, or you -inwardly triumph over it as “a judgment.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span></p> - -<p>One morning he leaves the house on business. -He takes leave of you tenderly and -comes back over and over again to kiss you -with emotion. You at once suspect deceit, -and heap reproaches on him for intending to -do something behind your back. He smiles -sadly and says, “If that is so you will soon -hear what it is.”</p> - -<p>At mid-day you have a “vision,” if what -you write is true. You see him lying on the -operating table. You telephone to the hospital -and learn that the operation has taken -place. You hurry there and meet the girl.</p> - -<p>To you he has not spoken of the serious -ordeal in store for him. But he has sent for -her.</p> - -<p>This is the last drop that overflows your -cup of anguish. You take your sick husband -home. You torture him till he says, “Death -would be better than this.”</p> - -<p>And now you ask me what you ought to -do.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span></p> - -<p>It would be much simpler to tell you what -you ought not to have done.</p> - -<p>But it is too late for that now. All the -same, I will, to the best of my poor abilities, -give you advice and the benefit of my experience, -gathered from contemplation of many -wretched and foolish cases in which people -tread happiness under foot, and then instantly -lament what they have lost.</p> - -<p>First and foremost, Agnete, you must look -into yourself, and get rid of the lie which like -an octopus has caught you in its embrace and -smothers the best within you.</p> - -<p>The lie about your husband’s deficiency. -Your expressions of longing for a harmony of -souls is a lie, just as your pretension to love -with the soul and not with the senses is a lie.</p> - -<p>You are one of the many women who, for -reasons which I fail to understand, find -no salvation in your relations to a man. -What for him was the highest enjoyment, for -you was only a torturing excitement. A<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span> -physical shortcoming in yourself would in -him appear a crime in your eyes. Instead -of honestly and frankly explaining to him the -state of things and the cause of your unhappy -condition, you try to seek satisfaction by making -scenes.</p> - -<p>Don’t you see, dear child, a clever woman -never makes scenes. It isn’t politic. A -scene that lasts an hour does fourteen days’ -detriment to her appearance.</p> - -<p>Your question, “What ought I to do now?” -really means, “How can I punish him -further?”</p> - -<p>Rather you should ask, “What can I do to -heal his wounded soul?” And this is my -answer, Agnete, “You can do it by confessing -your own mistakes, and forgetting his.”</p> - -<p>You must not ape humility, and let something -cry within you, “See what a sacrifice -I am making!”</p> - -<p>No, you must acknowledge your wrongdoing -and not let it out of sight. Take it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span> -in both hands, hold it tightly like a costly -goblet, and keep your eyes fixed on it. You -should remember that it is no credit to you -that you have not betrayed him because there -has been no necessity; for you know nothing -of the mad impulse that can arise between two -human creatures, suddenly, like a storm in the -thickest part of the wood.</p> - -<p>Above all things, recognise that at the time -your husband summoned his mistress to his -side when he thought he was going to die, he -acted from the greatest and most primitive -of instincts—the instinct of love.</p> - -<p>Tell him that you have been wrong. Show -him your love. Give him your best. Not -for an hour or a day, but every hour and every -day. That is the only way to his heart, and -to your own peace of mind. And then the -time will come when mutual forgiveness has -performed its miracle.</p> - -<p>Try to understand what I mean.</p> - -<p>Hearty good wishes from your mother’s old<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span> -friend. If you like you may show your husband -this letter.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner.</span></p> - -<p class="tb">It is certainly a very fine trait in Magna’s -character, that she who used to be—well, -never mind, I won’t say what—has never -breathed the name of her child’s father to -any living soul.</p> - -<p>The man must have been good and strong, -and I am fortunate indeed that my Kelly has -found a protector in the little fellow. Oluf -doesn’t like Kelly drinking schnaps. So -Kelly doesn’t drink schnaps. Oluf wants -Kelly’s moustache to grow, so Kelly lets it -grow.</p> - -<p>“So long as I have Oluf, who takes care of -me, you need not be afraid of me.” Those -words are close to my heart.</p> - -<p>And yet I have still some anxiety. The -world is so big, and here things are reduced -to such a groove. I notice the effect on Oluf<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span> -when Kelly tells him about America. Who -knows if the day will not come when the pair -come to bid me and Magna farewell to go off -on adventures?</p> - -<p>Oluf was making plans the other day for -travelling to Canada, and camping in the -great forests far away from civilisation. The -boy had fixed it all up. They were to live -in the trees, and live by hunting and fishing. -Perched up on the highest branches they -would spread out their nets, and catch fish out -of the great river that rolls through the forest. -They would only enter a town twice a year -to sell the skins of the beasts they had caught.</p> - -<p>Oluf is not too small for such dreams, but -Kelly—</p> - -<p>I am so unwilling to budge from here till -Kelly has taken root in the soil so that he can’t -tear himself away. He promises to stay here -always, but what is a promise?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span></p> - -<p class="tb noindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Magna</span>,</p> - -<p>I must really tell you without delay. -Richard has been to see me. When Lucie -brought in his card I was dumbfounded. -But the moment he entered the room, thank -God I got over my feeling of embarrassment. -We stood and looked at each other, and were -at a loss how to begin the conversation, till -it occurred to Richard to say something about -Kelly. He knew, of course, the whole story.</p> - -<p>It did one good to see the dear fellow, to -speak to him again. He said he could only -stay a few minutes, and he stayed two hours. -In reality, it was his little wife who sent him -to see me. She thought it so extraordinary -that she should not know me, who had played -such an important part for so many years in -Richard’s life.</p> - -<p>We spoke a great deal of our respective -children, and were both equally proud.</p> - -<p>Now Richard has promised to visit me next<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span> -Sunday with his family. You and our boys -come, too. In the course of the week I shall -return Richard’s call.</p> - -<p>Do you know, Magna, I intend to make -it quite a festive occasion, and there shall be -no feeling in the matter that I am a divorced -wife. You will have to lend me a few things -as most of my china is over in the villa, and -I shall order the food to be sent in from -Palace Street. One can be certain of getting -it good there, or would you advise going to an -hotel? I have got so out of the habit of entertaining -that I feel nervous at the thought -of it.</p> - -<p>Anyhow, you must come, Magna, and take -care that Kelly is properly attired. Also see -to his hands.</p> - -<p>When Richard was gone, I sat a long time -and meditated in retrospect on how very -nicely he and I had once got on together. -The one drawback was that we had no children. -On that account I made the sacrifice<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span> -and left him. I have been royally rewarded -for it, through my Kelly.</p> - -<p>Richard’s wife plays a good game of -bridge, and we have already started a society -for the winter. The report of your enormous -pluck has reached the old Market Place, for -Richard spoke of you in terms of the warmest -admiration and esteem. At parting we both -positively had tears in our eyes.</p> - -<p>May I, without hurting you, give a hint? -Please put on your silk dress, Magna. I -shall have a new one made, I think, as quickly -as possible. You see, this is to be a very important -event in my life.</p> - -<p>Embrace my boy for me, and remember -what I said about his hands.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie.</span></p> - -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span></p> - -<p class="dropcap"><span class="smcap">Dear Jeanne</span>,</p> - -<p>It is wrong of me to have been so -lazy lately about writing. But I have -had so much to do. I have, as a matter of -fact, moved house. It happened in a twinkling. -This habitation became to let through -a death, and mine was taken by a young married -couple.</p> - -<p>Now I am living on the beach road so far -out that I am hardly to be reckoned as belonging -to Copenhagen. Can you guess why I -have moved? Simply to be nearer the farm, -so childish does one become with advancing -age. Magna advised me strongly to come -out altogether, but I am not inclined to do -that. I am always and shall be a child of -towns, though in the year that Kelly has been -learning to be a farmer I have taken an almost -incredible interest in cows, pigs, winter<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span> -crops, and all the rest of it. My life is so full -of richness and light, I have nearly more joy -than I can bear, and no troubles at all.</p> - -<p>Magna manages our “estate,” as she always -calls it to please me, most admirably. And -how well she understands the art of setting -others to work!</p> - -<p>My Kelly and her little Oluf are now, as -they always have been, inseparable, and I believe -that the blue-eyed little comrade exercises -a most beneficent influence on Kelly. -Magna told me one day that she had heard -Oluf saying—the boy lay in a hay-cock and -didn’t know that Magna was on the other side -of it taking her after-dinner nap—“I have no -father, for my father died ten years before -I was born. But if you like to be my father, -I shall be quite content to have no other.”</p> - -<p>Magna visits me every time that she has -anything to do in the town. When the window -is open I can hear the crack of her whip -above all the rest. And will you believe it,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span> -Jeanne, my heart begins to beat at the sound, -for it means that the boys are with her, or that -Magna is coming to tell me about them. -You should just see her sitting rosy and upright -in the dog-cart, her head hidden in a -hood, with an old sealskin on, all rubbed the -wrong way, the same that twenty years ago -formed a topic of conversation the whole winter -through, because it had cost her poor, -struggling husband goodness knows how -many thousands.</p> - -<p>Magna is now getting on for sixty. But -no one would think it. She beams as if the -whole world were at her feet. I look at least -ten years older, although, God knows, I take -a lot of trouble over my hair, and touch up -my cheeks a little, as I always did. She -makes a fuss about getting out of the cart as -if the coachman could not look after the -butter and eggs.</p> - -<p>Just think, she gets up at four in summer -and at six in winter, and works for two.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span> -There is no work that she considers is too -menial.</p> - -<p>Lately she and Kelly painted all the four -buildings for Whitsun. And they did it like -the wind, so that one could hardly believe -one’s own eyes. I sat out on the verandah -and watched, and was nearly sick with delight.</p> - -<p>Then we had roast ribs and oxeyes for dinner. -How Kelly eats! You can have no -conception of his appetite. It’s not elegant, -but oh, so splendid! And after they have -been slaughtering Kelly brings me lambs’ fry, -black puddings, and liver sausages. What I -once couldn’t tolerate now tastes to me better -than the finest Astrakhan caviare.</p> - -<p>How I chat on all about my own affairs. -But I don’t forget my little fellow-traveller -on that account, and her troubles are mine. -Still, I am not going to make them such a serious -matter as you do, for they are not worth -it. You have arrived at a stage when everything<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span> -looks to you black, and must look so. I -should be deeply pained if I had not long ago -seen what the cause of it is. You are now -just about the age I was when we first met -each other; that age which for women is so -difficult and dangerous. And the inexplicable -happiness is not granted to every woman -to come through the time unscathed and triumphant -as I did.</p> - -<p>I have thought about it, and wondered -what the reason could be why I, contrary to -every one else, should remain during those -years much the same as always; and I have -come to the conclusion that it was because I -lived so superficially at that time, and without -any deep feeling for other people.</p> - -<p>But you, little Jeanne, since you linked -your fate so fortunately with Malthe’s, have -been a sheer compost of love-worship and -self-sacrifice. I could have foretold long ago -that your transition age would be a hard time. -But now try yourself to make it easier. Review<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span> -the circumstances, sift, and explain them -to yourself.</p> - -<p>You have something to be thankful for that -does not fall to the lot of one woman in ten -thousand. Your husband continues to love -you as much to-day as when you first became -his. Does that not counter-balance everything? -Are the little cosmopolitan godless -angels of children really so hard to bring up -as you think? They have, of course, the artistic -temperament, and you attempt to model -them into normal human beings. You will -never succeed.</p> - -<p>And is Malthe’s depression of spirits of any -great significance? There is cause for it. -He has of late, with justice or injustice, been -overlooked, and younger powers have been -preferred before him; his name has no longer -the <i>cachet</i> it once had, and even his talent -seems to have taken a back seat. But, dear -Jeanne, you are greatly to blame for this. -You have loved your husband so blindly and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span> -fondly that you have not set him on a pedestal, -but you have built a castle of air far up in the -highest clouds, and there you have placed -him like a golden ball on the most inaccessible -pinnacle, with no one above him and no -one near him.... You have fed his ambition -and stifled your own natural, critical -faculty, instead of standing at his side and being -helpful to him in deciding between good -and mediocre, and now you complain that you -cannot console, and that he spurns you. You -are ashamed to say so, but I read between the -lines that you are very, very unhappy.... -And it is all because you are not well, dear -Jeanne, and your despondency is likely to last -some years.</p> - -<p>But I could hit, I think, on ways and means -of putting your cares to flight; if only you -will at once make up your mind to bring your -little flock northwards, so that I may take -them with me to the Villa this summer, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span> -teach the little goose-herds, the Parisian, -the Sicilian, and the Smyrna child, indifferent -Danish, while you and your Malthe close the -house, store your furniture, and trot round the -globe.</p> - -<p>Don’t let the thought of money stand in -your way. Tell Joergen from me that he -may with an easy hand use the money which -he would set aside as a dowry for his daughters.</p> - -<p>He must be ashamed of himself if he has -not that opinion about his own flesh and -blood, that it will be a pure joy to any -one to take over the girls, even if they come -without a rag to their backs or clothed in -flour sacks.</p> - -<p>Besides, I have made my will, and, dear -Jeanne, if I once played <i>la banque</i> at Monte -Carlo, I am not likely to do it again.</p> - -<p>What a glorious summer it will be over -there in the White Villa with your chicks.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span> -And we’ll borrow Magna’s Oluf and my -Kelly for a week, too. What does my old -travelling companion say to this?</p> - -<p>Much love to you and to your husband, and -the whole small flock, from</p> - -<p class="center">Yours always,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Elsie Lindtner</span>.</p> - -<p class="tb">Poor Jeanne and poor Joergen.... So it -fares worse with you than I thought.</p> - -<p>I have the greatest desire to travel over to -them and mediate, but in these days my heart -is too touchy and my neuralgia a consideration. -I ought not by rights to sit out on the -balcony in the cool evening air, but I never -could be careful.</p> - -<p>But it shall not happen; it would be too -foolish and irresponsible a step—people don’t -separate in a hurry like that without a ghost -of a real reason. All very well if Malthe -had another string to his bow, or if Jeanne -was in love with another man, but, good<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span> -Lord! one of them couldn’t live without the -other, and yet she talks of having “weighed” -the matter, and thoroughly thought it out. I -am so angry my hands tremble.</p> - -<p>Jeanne must really collect herself, and understand -that all this is nothing but a transition. -When I think of it, I can recall no case -among the many I have known—except, of -course, my own—of a single woman who has -managed to get through these years without -a slight rumpus of some kind. Afterwards -they have taken endless trouble to patch -up the wounds they have inflicted. Now, -Jeanne has been more than unreasonable in -this respect. There isn’t a man in the world -who can stand such an everlasting adoration.</p> - -<p>It was certainly brutal of him to say, “Mind -yourself, your house, and your children, but -don’t meddle with my work.”</p> - -<p>But he meant nothing more by it than a -child in a temper does when it vents its anger -in trampling on a favourite toy. Yet the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span> -words rankled in Jeanne as a reproach—a reproach -for what?</p> - -<p>He has lost faith in his talent. Therefore -he is irritable and dejected, and Jeanne, who -all these years has had enough to do in bringing -children into the world, and caring for -them and him, now stands suddenly still, looks -round and behind her, and feels disillusioned. -Now is the time when she wants the tenderest -words he has ever lavished on her, but he, -with his head full of building plans, sees no -sense or object in two people talking of love—two -people who have proved their love with -their whole life.</p> - -<p>One of them ought to fall sick unto death -... so that the other should forget his small -grievances.</p> - -<p>Well, we shall see. If Jeanne listens to my -advice, and lets the children come up here, all -will be well.... A little air and freedom is -what they need; otherwise I shall have to sacrifice -myself and for the second time knock<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span> -about the world with my little travelling companion.</p> - -<p class="tb">So I have been in my old home once more! -Weeks will have to go by before I get over -the re-visiting of it. Every trace of me had -been removed—with a scrupulous care and -thoroughness as if every piece of furniture, -every hanging and picture had been dangerously -infected. Doors had been obliterated, -and new ones cut in walls which used to be -doorless. Not even the peaceful white fireplaces -were there any longer, but instead -gilded radiators. Had I never inhabited the -rooms they could not have seemed more -strange. I looked in vain for Richard’s oak -bookcase, and the panels from his grandmother’s -country place.</p> - -<p>I had to see everything. My namesake—she -who bears the name by right, not courtesy—led -me from one room to another. It was -as if she asked me incessantly, “Isn’t there<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span> -anything that reminds you of your reign?” -No, nothing, not the very least thing.</p> - -<p>And then when we sat round the table at -which Richard and I used to sit alone with -the servants waiting behind our chairs, all the -vacant places were filled with children whose -appearance in the world was one of the conditions -of my departure. Wonderful, wonderful! -and a little sad.</p> - -<p>I noticed how Richard exerted himself -that I should feel at ease. But he, too, I -think, was moved by the oddness of the situation.</p> - -<p>She calls me Madame Elsie, and I call her -Madame Beathe.</p> - -<p>Involuntarily I glanced round for the big -portrait Kröyer in his day painted of me, the -portrait which Richard simply idolised. He -saw what I was looking for, and cast down -his eyes. I felt inclined to say, “Dearest -friend, don’t let us be sentimental. What -was once is no longer. But the picture was a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span> -true work of art, and for that reason you -should have let it hang where it was.”</p> - -<p>One thinks such things, but doesn’t say -them.</p> - -<p>I was shown, too, the daughters’ bedroom -upstairs, and there—there hung my picture -among photographs of actresses and school -friends. Finally it will land in the attic unless -it occurs to some one to make money out -of it.</p> - -<p>Why is it I cannot get rid of a feeling of -bitterness and humiliation? They were all -very kind and considerate. But when -Madame Beathe joking suggested a match between -her Annelisa and my Kelly, I felt near -to crying. Annelisa is a thoroughly nice girl, -it is true. But I cannot endure the thought -of Kelly being looked down on, because of his -country manners. And she does look down -on him.</p> - -<p>The little mistress has one fault. She is -too immaculately tidy. I noticed that all the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span> -carpets had dusting sheets over them, and -naturally supposed their removal had been -forgotten, till I saw that every single article -on her dressing-table was covered in the -middle of the day with gauze, and I heard -her scolding one of the maids for not washing -her hands before beginning to lay the -cloth after touching some books. Richard, I -am sure, finds it trying.</p> - -<p>When he smokes a cigar she sits on pins and -needles for fear he shall scatter the ash about. -And God knows that for a man Richard is -tidy enough. She discovered a mark on the -white window-ledge, only a raindrop, I believe, -but got up twenty times at least to scrub, -brush, and breathe on the spot.</p> - -<p>It gives me food for thought. It is not for -me to judge what she does and how she acts. -But I can’t get over it. I feel bound to -criticise her. And somehow the idea will -bother me that this is my home she is fussing -about in, and not the other way about.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span></p> - -<p>Annelisa kissed me at parting, and asked if -she might soon come to see me. But she shall -not come when Kelly is at home. That is -certain.</p> - -<p>And now they have invited me to a grand -dinner-party.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Kelly must have a tail-coat, there is no -question of that.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>No, Kelly shall not have a dress suit. -Kelly won’t come with me to the dinner-party -at Richard’s. I am going alone.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Pah! I am positively excited! It was a -grand occasion. And it did me good to hear -pretty speeches made about my appearance. -The orchids certainly did go well with my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span> -mauve silk. They couldn’t have come from -anywhere but Paris, of course.</p> - -<p>Annelisa and I became great friends. She -took me up to her room and confided in me -that she and her mother don’t get on.</p> - -<p>You were afraid to move almost for fear -of being told you were making things in a -mess. And the child betrayed, by the way, -the little domestic secret that her mother now -had a bedroom to herself, because her father -was so untidy in shaving. When no one was -looking her mother went about with a duster -and wiped away the marks left by the soles of -your boots. Wasn’t it too awful? But it -didn’t seem so dreadful to me, for all at once -I saw plainly what it meant, and I consoled -the child by telling her that in a year or two -the scouring demon would be cleaned away.</p> - -<p>Richard seems quite unconcerned. He -doesn’t dream of complaining. But if he has -any memory, it must occur to him in looking -back, how in the years that I was passing<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span> -through the phase, everything inwardly and -outwardly went on the same as usual.</p> - -<p>Richard plays a brilliant game of bridge. -But I must say I was utterly unprepared for -Professor Rothe making the third. He behaved -as if nothing whatever had passed between -us. And Lili’s name was not mentioned.</p> - -<p>Richard said when I rose to go, “You have -been the Queen of the Feast!” God knows I -blushed.</p> - -<p>Maybe that in his secret heart he recognises -the great sacrifice I made for him. It was, -undoubtedly, no easy matter to leave him and -the beautiful house. But my exemplary conscience -was sufficient reward, even if I had -not afterwards received the guerdon of Kelly.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I believe I shall succeed in having a chat -with Madame Beathe about her <i>tic doloreux</i>. -If one broaches the subject tactfully, it’s possible<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span> -to achieve a great deal; and it is only a -matter of getting her to see herself that her -malady is an appendage of her years.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>What holes Kelly wears his stockings into, -and how black he makes his pocket-handkerchiefs! -I do believe the boy uses them to -wash the cart-wheels.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>Kelly said yesterday, “And if you hadn’t -adopted me, I should have been in the gutter -all my life.” How he looks at me!</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I suppose I had better have left it alone. -I was told that for others such a period of incapability -might exist, but not for her. She -knew the duties of a proper housewife, and -did not attend to a fifth part of things and -leave the rest in dirt and disorder.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span></p> - -<p>It was a little too much that I should not -only come and interfere in her housekeeping, -but ascribe to her a fictitious illness that only -existed in my imagination.... And then -followed a long story which to listen to was -enough to make one laugh and weep together. -Goodness! she had actually been jealous of -my former régime, and had no peace till she -had turned the whole house topsy-turvy. -She didn’t intend that I should know this. -But the storm burst when she thought to-day -I had been taking my revenge. Her one object -in life was to live for her husband, her -home, and her children, and she had no notions -about posing as a beauty, and be painted -by famous artists. And so on....</p> - -<p>She was so beside herself finally, that I was -obliged to cave in, and say that I had made -a mistake, she was not at the dangerous age, -and her scouring mania was a perfectly natural -instinct, and it was a pity that all housewives -did not follow her example.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span></p> - -<p>And then we were good friends again, and -she told me that she was very glad I was -really quite old.</p> - -<p>Any woman so old and harmless, of course -didn’t count.</p> - -<p>No, I shall not burn my fingers again. It -is most curious how forgetful one becomes -with the flight of years.</p> - -<p>But forgetful is not exactly the right word. -It is much more a sort of half-unconscious -perversion of actual facts. The same kind -of thing as parents making out to their children -and almost believing it themselves, that -when they were children they were absolute -angels.</p> - -<p>Magna, for instance, is capable of self-delusion -and lying with regard to the miseries -of her dangerous age. Magna, usually the -soul of truthfulness, who never tries to make -herself out better than she is, apparently believes -that she got over those difficult years -easily and calmly. Good God!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span></p> - -<p>For once we nearly grew angry with one -another. I maintained that it was nothing -to be ashamed of, but rather an honour, that -she had afterwards matured into the magnificent, -vigorous creature she now is.</p> - -<p>But she wouldn’t hear of it. The only -thing she would admit was Oluf, and she only -did that because he is flesh and blood.</p> - -<p>We both became vehement, and in the end -Magna went the length of asserting in her excitement -that I had been far more affected by -the critical years than she and Lili Rothe put -together!</p> - -<p>It was useless to protest against such a ludicrous -mis-statement of facts. But we very -soon made it up again, and played our game -of Friday bridge. Unfortunately Kelly had -not come in with Magna.</p> - -<p>He and Oluf had to sit up all night with a -sick cow. It would have sufficed if one of -them had done it, but where Kelly is there -Oluf will be also.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span></p> - -<p>God bless Magna for her way of chatting -about the two boys. I devour the words as -they fall from her lips. It is so splendid to -hear her. Magna thinks it will be a good -thing for Kelly if he marries in a year or two -... it seems almost as if she had fixed on -some one already. What if it should be to the -new dairy-maid? Well, I should not mind, -so long as it was for my boy’s happiness. In -that event we must think of taking a farm for -Kelly, for Kelly and Oluf.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>It would interest me to prove to Magna -who was right. If I could bring myself to -reading through once more what I wrote -down in those days ... yes, I will to-morrow.</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>I am ashamed, oh, how ashamed I am! It -is not fancy or forgery. I wrote every word<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span> -of it in circumstances which bear witness to -the honesty of the writer. I can never look -either Magna or Jeanne in the face again -... or in my boy’s.</p> - -<p>Not I who have a thousand times dreamed -and wished with all my heart that I had -brought him into the world! I can only -hang my head now and be thankful that he -never had such a person for his mother.</p> - -<p>I, I, who strutted about like a peacock, -proud of my own perfections; I, who pointed -the finger of scorn at others; I, who presumed -with the rights of a judge to condemn -or pardon others, inwardly jubilating triumphantly, -“Thank God I am not as other men -are.”</p> - -<p><i>That</i> can never be erased, never made -good.</p> - -<p>Now that I have reached the evening of my -days, and my one occupation is to sit and look -out of the window at the people who pass, and -dream happy dreams for my boy, I commit<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span> -no thought or deed that needs the veil of -oblivion.</p> - -<p>But then, when I was in my prime ... -when I might have applied my gifts for usefulness -and pleasure—I was such a....</p> - -<p>The memory of it can never be wiped out. -It can never be made good.</p> - -<p>And I had thought that Kelly was to read -it all after my death, so that he might learn to -know what I really was; learn to despise me -as I lay in my grave.... I have had the fire -lit though it is summer. I intend to destroy -every line. Every line!</p> - -<p>But will that prevent Kelly beholding me -in all my pitiableness? Am I such a coward? -Such a coward?... No, Kelly <i>shall</i> read it, -every scrap when I am dead.</p> - -<p>Then he shall see what a deplorable, -wretched creature I was till love entered my -life, when he did. Then he shall know the -great miracle which love wrought.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span></p> - -<p>Kelly has a claim to me in bad as well as -good....</p> - -<p>I feel to-day so ineffably tired. It seems -as if this day were to be my last. The day of -judgment, when I am to stand face to face -with myself.</p> - -<p>But the day of judgment is to be followed -by regeneration. Kelly is to be my regeneration. -Not for myself do I pray to be granted -a year, an hour; I pray for Kelly’s sake alone, -that our meeting that night may not have been -in vain. This prayer throbs from my lips -into Eternity.</p> - -<p>Will it be heard?</p> - -<p class="center">⁂ ⁂ ⁂ </p> - -<p>There are bells chiming for vespers. -Now Kelly is coming home from work, -so tall, strong, and healthy. They are busy -with the spring ploughing, and to-morrow<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span> -will be Sunday. Then I shall see him, have -him to myself....</p> - -<p>Kelly, Kelly ... why aren’t you here at -this hour? Kelly, I want to see you, and to -thank you.</p> - -<p>Be good ... be happy....</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">THE DANGEROUS AGE</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Karin Michaëlis</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.20 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“One can hardly fail to be heartily in accord with Marcel -Prevost in regard to the literary value of the story, the artistic -insight, the skill, and the peculiarly feminine flavor that it displays. -As a piece of fiction of unique form and substance, -written with unusual skill and artistic feeling, the book is worth -reading.”—<i>New York Times</i></p> - -<p>“The book will have a powerful appeal for a great many -women.”—<i>New York Herald</i></p> - -<p>“An admirable piece of workmanship, both subtle and sincere.... -Fine literary taste and an artistic reticence are characteristics -of this Danish woman’s method.”—<i>New York Sun</i></p> - -<p>“An extraordinary document, and reveals the feminine soul -of all time.”—<i>Boston Evening Herald</i></p> - -<p>“It is not a record of deeds, but of thoughts; as such it -will attract many who think, and who have had experience -with life.”—<i>Cincinnati Times-Star</i></p> - -<p>“The author’s great success came with ‘The Dangerous Age,’ -in which she bares the very soul of a woman with the relentless -sternness of the surgeon and the power of expression of the -literary artist.”—<i>Philadelphia Public Ledger</i></p> - -<p>“The book is sure to appeal to women and those interested -in the study of feminism.”—<i>Detroit News</i></p> - -<p>“The book is admirably written, never extreme, always chaste -in language, but fascinatingly leaving much to the imagination. -Will interest all readers.”—<i>Pittsburg Dispatch</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">AN UNOFFICIAL HONEYMAN</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Dolf Wyllarde</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “The Rat Trap,” “The Riding Master,” etc.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“A strong story in more senses than literary, and well -worth the reading.”—<i>New York Times</i></p> - -<p>“A distinct achievement in the realm of fiction, and should -add to the laurels the writer has already won. The theme is -an old one—a man and a woman cast upon an uninhabited island—but -the handling of it is new and in Miss Wyllarde’s best -style. The descriptions are vivid and realistic.... The story -is told with unusual vigor. It is human, simple, convincing and -absorbing.”—<i>Boston Herald</i></p> - -<p>“As interesting as the first sea story ever written; a fresh, -vividly-told tale.”—<i>Baltimore Evening News</i></p> - -<p>“A highly entertaining story for the lover of adventure, a -sort of modernized Robinson Crusoe, with a heroine to take -the place of Goodman Friday.”—<i>Chicago Evening Post</i></p> - -<p>“Brilliant writing and realistic psychology.”—<i>New York Sun</i></p> - -<p>“The book is more than an entertaining story.”—<i>Boston -Globe</i></p> - -<p>“Miss Wyllarde invests this tale with a keenly attractive -quality.”—<i>Washington Evening Star</i></p> - -<p>“Miss Wyllarde has ability above the average, and the gift -of characterization to a marked degree.”—<i>Providence Journal</i></p> - -<p>“There is a fascination in reading the book that comes to -one but rarely in any other contingent circumstance that is -brought up in the present day pages of romance.”—<i>Cincinnati -Press Leader</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">THE UNKNOWN WOMAN</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Anne Warwick</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “Compensation”</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p class="center">Frontispiece and Jacket Illustration by Will Grefé</p> - -<p>“From start to finish an interesting story. It is entertaining -because the incidents keep the reader in some suspense, and—even -more—because of the author’s undoubted mastery in reproducing -a certain modern atmosphere.”—<i>New York Times</i></p> - -<p>“An exceptionally good piece of work, planned on a large -scale and executed with an able, firm hand. A tale of one of -the most interesting phases of the life of contemporary New -York—of the line where art and intellect and wealth meet.”—<i>New -York Tribune</i></p> - -<p>“There are clever and original things here; the book is well -written.”—<i>New York Sun</i></p> - -<p>“Holds the interest very well.”—<i>New York Evening Globe</i></p> - -<p>“Brilliant and charming bits of life.”—<i>Washington -Evening Star</i></p> - -<p>“Its conversational parts are lively and entertaining and its -descriptions interesting.”—<i>Buffalo Commercial</i></p> - -<p>“A strong, vital story of the artistic and business life of -New York.”—<i>Brooklyn Eagle</i></p> - -<p>“The person who likes dialogue will find the book fascinating. -The author has a genuinely sincere purpose in her method -of depicting life. A handsome frontispiece in color by Will -Grefé enhances the appearance of the book.”—<i>Cincinnati -Times-Star</i></p> - -<p>“There is a Bohemian atmosphere about the story, which is -laid in Rome and New York, that is most appealing, and it is -so dramatic and interesting in treatment and theme, and the -plot itself is so absorbing, that ‘The Unknown Woman’ is quite -one of the most remarkable books of the year.”—<i>Salt -Lake City Herald</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">WINGS OF DESIRE</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">M. P. Willcocks</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “A Man of Genius,” “The Way Up,” etc.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“So far as it deals with the problems of the modern woman, -or rather, with the modern woman’s new way of facing -a problem that is as old as life—that of love—the book is curiously -revelatory.”—<i>New York Tribune</i></p> - -<p>“The story of the woman who forces herself on the weakling -to save him from himself is good work.”—<i>New York Sun</i></p> - -<p>“The story is so remarkable for its analytical power, its -minute observation, its sense of background, its delicate style as -literature, that it arrests and holds, and calls the reader back -again and again.”—<i>Boston Evening Transcript</i></p> - -<p>“The right of woman to her own individuality is the book’s -chief inspiration. It is for serious minds, and to such provides -much food for thought.”—<i>Springfield Republican</i></p> - -<p>“The author handles her characters as might a true mother -her children—knowing, yet not specially noting, the faults and -virtues of all. The style is clear and terse to incisiveness, and -almost every page has its sage or witty saying. It isn’t an easy -story to lay aside unfinished.”—<i>Chicago Record Herald</i></p> - -<p>“Much of beauty and truth, with occasional instances of -vivid strength.”—<i>Chicago Evening Post</i></p> - -<p>“There is in all Miss Willcocks’ stories a certain quality that -makes for the heights. She has a precious vocabulary. The -realism that distinguishes her never for a moment extinguishes -her grace of style or charm. She is essentially an artist who offends -neither by useless detail nor disappoints by leaving too -much to the reader’s imagination. Always she handles her wisdom -and wit perfectly, while she presents her stories powerfully. -This is a book to read and keep.”—<i>Philadelphia Record</i></p> - -<p>“Her technique is good, her details are exceedingly well -handled, and her study of types is most delightful.”—<i>Louisville -Post</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">HECTOR GRAEME</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Evelyn Brentwood</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.25 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“A tale which carries conviction with it. The story is well -told and the conception of the central character is extremely -interesting.”—<i>New York Times</i></p> - -<p>“A remarkable book. The study of that virile character, -Hector Graeme, is exceedingly powerful. The gripping power -of the novel is undeniable and its psychology sure-based.”—<i>Boston -Evening Transcript</i></p> - -<p>“One of the most convincing novels of military life ever -written.”—<i>Rochester Post Express</i></p> - -<p>“One of the strongest pieces of fiction to reach this desk for -many a month. It is a character study of the sort that may be -honestly described as unusual.”—<i>Cleveland Plain Dealer</i></p> - -<p class="center larger">SEKHET</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Irene Miller</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.25 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“A novel of genuine dramatic power. Its pages are marked -by a strong, cumulative interest. It is a long while since a -novel of greater dramatic force has claimed our attention.”—<i>New -York Herald</i></p> - -<p>“To those aweary of novels that are not novel, and stories -that lack blood and bone and sinew, ‘Sekhet’ will seem as manna -to hungry palates. It is as human a document as one might -find. Its characters live today, and love and sin and die, just -as surely as the author relates. A better sermon than is often -preached, a better novel than is often written, describes the -book exactly.”—<i>Philadelphia Record</i></p> - -<p>“A powerfully written tale with marvellous descriptive bits -and very strong character drawing—a story which grips the -emotions from the start.”—<i>Nashville American</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">EARTH</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Muriel Hine</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.25 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“A readable story.”—<i>Boston Evening Transcript</i></p> - -<p>“The story is well told and is without an uninteresting paragraph -in all its pages.”—<i>Boston Globe</i></p> - -<p>“The story is pleasantly told.”—<i>Washington Evening Star</i></p> - -<p>“The tale is well written and has a good plot and the character -delineation is well done.”—<i>San Francisco Call</i></p> - -<p class="center larger">HALF IN EARNEST</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Muriel Hine</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.25 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“The story compels interest from first to last.”—<i>New York Times</i></p> - -<p>“The real interest of the book—and it is a very real interest—lies -in the conflict of character and will between the two -protagonists.”—<i>New York Evening Post</i></p> - -<p>“A well built, well written tale.”—<i>Washington Evening Star</i></p> - -<p>“Holds the interest, being well constructed and smoothly -told.”—<i>Washington Herald</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">THE STORY OF A PLOUGHBOY</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">James Bryce</p> - -<p class="center">With an Introduction by Edwin Markham</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.25 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“A big story, bearing the blood prints of reality.”—<i>Edwin -Markham</i></p> - -<p>“Whoever reads this story will get so keen a sense of actuality, -will feel so strongly the grip of a living, human hand -through all its pages that he can hardly help rejoicing, as for -a friend, that the lad lives true to his vision and the man to -his final glimpse of the solidarity of mankind.”—<i>New -York Times</i></p> - -<p>“This ‘Story of a Ploughboy’ ought to rouse people to the -degrading effects on men of unremitting, unregulated, unsweetened, -unenlightened toil, and also to the fact that it is the ploughboys -of the world who make the fortunes of the rich. It is a -most unusual story and makes a good impression.”—<i>New -York Evening Globe</i></p> - -<p>“Three of the greatest merits that any book can have cannot -be denied to this story: it is a book of good faith; it is a -book of vital actuality, and it is a book for men.”—<i>New -York Herald</i></p> - -<p>“The pictures of life and labor are admirably well done, -and if the book does preach socialism, it preaches it logically and -convincingly.”—<i>James L. Ford in New York Herald</i></p> - -<p>“To read this story that quivers with the pathos and passion -of life is to get a keener and kindlier vision of our mortal existence.”—<i>Buffalo -Commercial</i></p> - -<p>“Those who are interested in stories with a sociological -trend will be charmed with this history, minute and graphic, of -a ploughboy.”—<i>Buffalo Express</i></p> - -<p>“A record of a young man’s life—one of the most popular -themes of today. The story has pathos, sincerity of intention, -and all the multiplied details of realism that make happy the -heart of the reader on Socialistic problems.”—<i>Baltimore -Evening News</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">AWAKENING</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Maud Diver</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “Candles in the Wind,” “Captain Desmond, -V.C.” and “The Great Amulet”</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“A story of very human interest, a careful study well -thought out in all its possibilities.”—<i>Boston Evening Transcript</i></p> - -<p>“A most delightful and enjoyable story.”—<i>Boston Times</i></p> - -<p>“This is a story told with a good deal of poesy and power, -a story disclosing and suggesting much of the inner life of two -great civilizations.”—<i>New York American</i></p> - -<p>“Apart from its romantic interest the book has good literary -style.”—<i>New York Herald</i></p> - -<p>“Mrs. Diver’s sympathetic appreciation of the Indian point -of view is remarkable and could only come from long experience.”—<i>Providence -Journal</i></p> - -<p>“Even the most enthusiastic admirer of Maud Diver’s previous -works will not hesitate to say that ‘Awakening’ is the -greatest book she has yet given us.”—<i>Cleveland Town Topics</i></p> - -<p>“The author is a word painter and her story gives her plenty -of opportunity to show her talent. Many of the situations are -exquisitely tendered and are brought out with a delicacy of touch -that is worthy of a poet.”—<i>Albany Argus</i></p> - -<p>“Like the other works by the same author, ‘Awakening’ is -marked by excellent diction and delicate touch of descriptive -powers.”—<i>Chicago Journal</i></p> - -<p>“The story is engrossing.”—<i>Detroit Free Press</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">THE BEACON</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Eden Phillpotts</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “The Thief of Virtue,” “Demeter’s -Daughter,” etc.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p>“One is lost in the beauty of imagination of the word paintings -of Dartmoor, and absorbed by the thoughtful study of human -nature.”—<i>The Outlook</i></p> - -<p>“The book has the usual excellences of clearness and picturesqueness.”—<i>The -Nation</i></p> - -<p>“We seldom see such strong buffets of wit in present day -stories. The book has greatly pleased us.”—<i>New York Sun</i></p> - -<p>“The dramatic power of plot and characters of the tale are -undeniable. Mr. Phillpotts remains an admirable artist in the -maturity of his powers.”—<i>New York Tribune</i></p> - -<p>“The tale in its mingled tragedy and comedy is admirable -and holds the attention. The people are alive and interesting. -This book ranks high.”—<i>New York Herald</i></p> - -<p>“No one who has once begun to read ‘The Beacon’ will fail -to read eagerly to the end.”—<i>New York Evening Mail</i></p> - -<p>“As a prose poem of great beauty, those parts that sing the -beauty of Cosdon will delight the reader.”—<i>Chicago Evening Post</i></p> - -<p>“A problem worked out in a way that must fascinate any -thoughtful reader.”—<i>Chicago Record Herald</i></p> - -<p>“There is a flavor of a whole portion of humanity in Mr. -Phillpotts’ men of the soil that makes his novels much more -than passing fiction. There is also the aroma, the color, the austerity -of the moors that creates an atmosphere long remembered. -Both will be found at their best in ‘The Beacon.’”—<i>Boston -Herald</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">MANALIVE</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Gilbert K. Chesterton</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “The Innocence of Father Brown,” -“Heretics,” “Orthodoxy,” etc.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p class="center">Frontispiece and Jacket Illustration by Will Foster</p> - -<p>“Mr. Chesterton has undertaken in this quaint narrative to -make burlesque the vehicle of a sermon and a philosophy. It -is all a part of the author’s war upon artificial attitudes which -enclose the living men like a shell and make for human purposes -a dead man of him. He speaks here in a parable—a parable of -his own kind, having about it a broad waggishness like that of -Mr. Punch and a distinct flavor of that sort of low comedy which -one finds in Dickens and Shakespeare. You are likely to find, -before you are done with the parable, that there has been forced -upon your attention a possible view of the life worth living. -‘Manalive’ is a ‘Peterpantheistic’ novel full of Chestertonisms.”—<i>New -York Times</i></p> - -<p>“One of the oddest books Mr. Chesterton has yet given us.”—<i>New -York Evening Globe</i></p> - -<p>“The fun of the book (and there is plenty of it) comes quite -as much from the extraordinary and improbable characters as -from the situations. Epigrams, witticisms, odd fancies, queer -conceits, singular whimsies, follow after one another in quick -succession.”—<i>Brooklyn Eagle</i></p> - -<p>“One of the most humorous tales of modern fiction, combined -with a very tender and appealing love story.”—<i>Cleveland -Plain Dealer</i></p> - -<p>“The book is certain to have a wide circulation, not only -because of the name of the author attached to it, but because -of its own intrinsic worth.”—<i>Buffalo Commercial</i></p> - -<p>“There can be no doubt as to the iridescent brilliance of the -book. Page after page—full of caustic satire, humorous sally and -profound epigram—fairly bristles with merriment. The book is -a compact mass of scintillating wit.”—<i>Philadelphia Public Ledger</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">Gilbert K. Chesterton</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “Manalive,” “Orthodoxy,” “Heretics,” etc.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p class="center">Illustrations by Will Foster</p> - -<p>“Mr. Chesterton writes extremely good detective stories—detective -stories the more fascinating because if there is about -them a hint of irony, there is also more than a hint of poetry -and a shadow—or, if you will, a glow—of the mystic and the -supernatural.”—<i>New York Times</i></p> - -<p>“The stories are entertaining; the mysteries and their solutions -are ingenius and interesting.”—<i>New York Sun</i></p> - -<p>“The stories are vastly entertaining, and excellent specimens -of literary craftsmanship at the same time.”—<i>The Outlook</i></p> - -<p>“Never were philosophy, ethics and religion preached in a -more unusual manner.”—<i>Chicago Tribune</i></p> - -<p>“In their own Chestertonic realm, the stories are personal -and convincing; full, too, of the charm of landscape. The author -arranges his scenes and marshals his characters with an artistic -eye worthy of a Poe.”—<i>Chicago Evening Post</i></p> - -<p>“The stories have a charming variety, and interest in them -is awakened more insidiously than in the average story dealing -with the detection of crime.”—<i>Chicago Record Herald</i></p> - -<p>“Throughout these meteoric adventures there is, of course, -besides Father Brown a lot of Mr. Chesterton himself, scintillating -along the way, to the fascination and bedazzlement of the -reader.”—<i>Washington Evening Star</i></p> - -<p>“The stories are of the dashing and brilliant kind that -Stevenson invented—exciting tales told in an artistic manner.”—<i>Albany -Argus</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div class="advert"> - -<div class="advert-inner"> - -<p class="center larger">THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA</p> - -<p class="center">BY</p> - -<p class="center">William J. Locke</p> - -<p class="center">Author of “The Belovèd Vagabond,” “Simon the -Jester,” etc.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Cloth</i> <span class="spacer1"><i>12mo</i></span> -<span class="spacer2"><i>$1.30 net</i></span> <i>Postage 12 cents</i></p> - -<p class="center">Illustrations by Arthur I. Keller</p> - -<p>“Mr. Locke has succeeded in uniting with the firm carefulness -of his early work the rapid, fluent, vibrating style that -makes his later books so delightful; therefore it is easy to make -the deduction that ‘Clementina’ is the best piece of work he has -done.”—<i>New York Evening Sun</i></p> - -<p>“Among the novels of the past five years no books have more -consistently produced an effect at once certain, satisfactory and -delightful than those of William J. Locke. This latest addition -to his shelf is full of life and laughter and the love not only of -man for woman but of man for man and for humanity. Mr. -Locke is a born story-teller and a master of the art of expression.”—<i>The -Outlook</i></p> - -<p>“The book contains a mass of good material, with original -characterization, and is written in a style piquant and clever.”—<i>The -Literary Digest</i></p> - -<p>“A story containing the essence of humanity, with an abundance -of sensible and sensitive, casual and unobtrusive commentary -upon life and man, and especially upon woman.”—<i>Boston -Evening Transcript</i></p> - -<p>“It contains even more of the popular qualities than are usually -associated with the writings of this noted author.”—<i>Boston -Times</i></p> - -<p>“Mr. Locke’s flights into the realms of fancy have been a -delight to many readers. He has a lightness of touch that is -entirely captivating, and his remarkable characterization of inconsequent -people gives them a reality that is very insistent.”—<i>Baltimore -Evening Sun</i></p> - -<p>“Never has he drawn so deeply from that well that is the -human heart; never so near those invisible heights which are -the soul; and, if we are not altogether mistaken, ‘The Glory of -Clementina’ will also prove to be that of its author.”—<i>Baltimore -News</i></p> - -<p>“A fascinating story with delicate, whimsical touches.”—<i>Albany -Times-Union</i></p> - -<p>“The book seems destined to live longer than any written -by the author to date, because it is so sane and so fundamentally -true.”—<i>Philadelphia Enquirer</i></p> - -</div> - -<p class="center larger">JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK</p> - -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELSIE LINDTNER ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. -</div> - -<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person -or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the -Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when -you share it without charge with others. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work -on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the -phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: -</div> - -<blockquote> - <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most - other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions - whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms - of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online - at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you - are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws - of the country where you are located before using this eBook. - </div> -</blockquote> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg™ License. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format -other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain -Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -provided that: -</div> - -<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation.” - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ - works. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. - </div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right -of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread -public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state -visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. -</div> - -</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/68837-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/68837-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 72aacbb..0000000 --- a/old/68837-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null |
