Marie Grubbe by Jens Peter Jacobsen (black male authors txt) 📖

path, she had gone

down to the place where the elks and Esrom camels were kept and thence

back to a little arbor near the gate. There she had overheard what

Daniel said to Magnille, and now—

 

“Who are you?” she asked, “and were they true, the words you spoke?”

 

Daniel grasped the wicket and could hardly stand for trembling.

 

“Daniel Knopf, your ladyship, mad Daniel,” he replied. “Pay no heed

to his talk, it runs from his tongue, sense and nonsense, as it

happens, brain-chaff and tongue-threshing, tongue-threshing and naught

else.”

 

“You lie, Daniel.”

 

“Ay, ay, good Lord, I lie; I make no doubt I do, for in here, your

ladyship”—he pointed to his forehead—“‘tis like the destruction of

Jerusalem. Courtesy, Magnille, and tell her ladyship, Madam

Gyldenlove, how daft I am. Don’t let that put you out of countenance.

Speak up. Magnille! After all we’re no more cracked than the Lord

made us.”

 

“Is he truly mad?” Marie asked Magnille.

 

Magnille in her confusion bent down, caught a fold of Marie’s dress

through the bars of the wicket, kissed it, and looked quite

frightened. “Oh, no, no, indeed he is not, God be thanked.”

 

“She too,” said Daniel, waving his arm. “We take care of each other,

we two mad folks, as well as we can. ‘Tis not the best of luck, but

good Lord, though mad we be, still we see, we walk abroad and help

each other get under the sod. But no one rings over our graves, for

that’s not allowed. I thank you kindly for asking. Thank you, and God

be with you.”

 

“Stay,” said Marie Grubbe. “You are no more mad than you make

yourself. You must speak, Daniel. Would you have me think so ill of

you as to take you for a go-between of my lord and her you mentioned?

Would you?”

 

“A poor addle-pated fellow!” whimpered Daniel waving his arm

apologetically.

 

“God forgive you, Daniel! ‘Tis a shameful game you are playing; and I

believed so much better of you—so very much better.”

 

“Did you? Did you truly?” he cried eagerly, his eyes shining with joy.

“Then I’m in my right mind again. You’ve but to ask.”

 

“Was it the truth what you said?”

 

“As the gospel, but—”

 

“You are sure? There is no mistake?”

 

Daniel smiled.

 

“Is—he there today?”

 

“Is he gone hunting?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then yes.”

 

“What manner”—Marie began after a short pause—“what manner of woman

is she, do you know?”

 

“Small, your ladyship, quite small, round and red as a pippin, merry

and prattling, laughing mouth and tongue loose at both ends.”

 

“But what kind of people does she come from?”

 

“‘Tis now two years ago or two and a half since she was the wife of a

French valet de chambre who fled the country and deserted her, but she

didn’t grieve long for him; she joined her fate with an out-at-elbows

harp player, went to Paris with him, and remained there and at

Brussels, until she returned here last Whitsun. In truth, she has a

natural good understanding and a pleasing manner, except at times when

she is tipsy. This is all the knowledge I have.”

 

“Daniel!” she said and stopped uncertainly.

 

“Daniel,” he replied with a subtle smile, “is as faithful to you now

and forever as your own right hand.”

 

“Then will you help me? Can you get me a—a coach and coachman who is

to be trusted the instant I give the word?”

 

“Indeed and indeed I can. In less than an hour from the moment you

give the word the coach shall hold in Herman Plumber’s meadow hard by

the old shed. You may depend on me, your ladyship.”

 

Marie stood still a moment and seemed to consider. “I will see you

again,” she said, nodded kindly to Magnille, and left them.

 

“Is she not the treasure house of all beauties, Magnille?” cried

Daniel gazing rapturously up the walk where she had vanished. “And so

peerless in her pride!” he went on triumphantly. “Ah, she would spurn

me with her foot, scornfully set her foot on my neck, and softly tread

me down in the deepest dust if she knew how boldly Daniel dares dream

of her person—so consuming beautiful and glorious! My heart burned in

me with pity to think that she had to confide in me, to bend the

majestic palm of her pride—But there’s ecstasy in that sentiment,

Magnille, heavenly bliss, Magnilchen!”

 

And they tottered off together.

 

The coming of Daniel and his sister to Frederiksborg had happened in

this wise. After the meeting in the Bide-a-Wee Tavern, poor

Hop-o’-my-Thumb had been seized with an insane passion for Marie. It

was a pathetic, fantastic love that hoped nothing, asked nothing, and

craved nothing but barren dreams. No more at all. The bit of reality

that he needed to give his dreams a faint color of life he found fully

in occasional glimpses of her near by or flitting past in the

distance. When Gyldenlove departed and Marie never went out his

longing grew apace, until it made him almost insane and at last threw

him on a sick-bed.

 

When he rose again, weak and wasted, Gyldenlove had returned. Through

one of Marie’s maids who was in his pay, he learned that the relation

between Marie and her husband was not the best, and this news fed his

infatuation and gave it new growth, the rank unnatural growth of

fantasy. Before he had recovered enough from his illness to stand

steadily on his feet, Marie left for Frederiksborg. He must follow

her; he could not wait. He made a pretence of consulting the wise

woman in Lynge in order to regain his strength and urged his sister

Magnille to accompany him and seek a cure for her weak eyes. Friends

and neighbors found this natural, and off they drove, Daniel and

Magnille, to Lynge. There he discovered Gyldenlove’s affair with Karen

Fiol, and there he confided all to Magnille, told her of his strange

love, declared that for him light and the breath of life existed only

where Marie Grubbe was, and begged her to go with him to the village

of Frederiksborg that he might be near her who filled his mind so

completely.

 

Magnille humored him. They took lodgings at Frederiksborg and had for

days been shadowing Marie Grubbe on her lonely morning walks. Thus the

meeting had come about.