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Read books online » Fiction » Marie Grubbe by Jens Peter Jacobsen (black male authors txt) 📖

Book online «Marie Grubbe by Jens Peter Jacobsen (black male authors txt) 📖». Author Jens Peter Jacobsen



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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.

CHAPTER XI

A few days later Ulrik Frederik was spending the morning at Lynge. He

was crawling on all fours in the little garden outside of the house

where Karen Fiol lived. One hand was holding a rose wreath, while with

the other he was trying to coax or drag a little white lapdog from

under the hazel bushes in the corner.

 

Boncoeur! Petit, petit Boncoeur! Come, you little rogue, oh, come,

you silly little fool! Oh, you brute, you—_Boncoeur_, little dog—you

confounded obstinate creature!”

 

Karen was standing at the window laughing. The dog would not come, and

Ulrik Frederik wheedled and swore.

 

Amy des morceaux delicats,” sang Karen, swinging a goblet full of

wine:

 

“_Et de la debauche polie

Viens noyer dans nos Vins Muscats

Ta soif et ta melancolie_!”

 

She was in high spirits, rather heated, and the notes of her song rose

louder than she knew. At last Ulrik Frederik caught the dog. He

carried it to the window in triumph, pressed the rose chaplet down

over its ears, and kneeling, presented it to Karen.

 

“Adorable Venus, queen of hearts, I beg you to accept from your humble

slave this little innocent white lamb crowned with flowers—”

 

At that moment Marie Grubbe opened the wicket. When she saw Ulrik

Frederik on his knees, handing a rose garland, or whatever it was, to

that red laughing woman, she turned pale, bent down, picked up a

stone, and threw it with all her might at Karen. It struck the edge of

the window and shivered the glass in fragments, which fell rattling to

the ground.

 

Karen darted back shrieking. Ulrik Frederik looked anxiously in after

her. In his surprise he had dropped the dog, but he still held the

wreath and stood dumbfounded, angry and embarrassed, turning it round

in his fingers.

 

“Wait, wait!” cried Marie. “I missed you this time, but I’ll get you

yet! I’ll get you!” She pulled from her hair a long, heavy steel pin

set with rubies, and holding it before her like a dagger she ran

toward the house with a queer tripping, almost skipping gait. It

seemed as though she were blinded for she steered a strange meandering

course up to the door.

 

There Ulrik Frederik stopped her.

 

“Go away!” she cried almost whimpering, “you with your chaplet! Such a

creature”—she went on, trying to slip past him, first on one side,

then on the other, her eyes fixed on the door—“such a creature you

bind wreaths for—rose wreaths, ay, here you play the lovesick

shepherd! Have you not a flute too? Where’s your flute?” she

repeated, tore the wreath from his hand, hurled it to the ground, and

stamped on it. “And a shepherd’s crook—Amaryllis—with a silk bow?

Let me pass, I say!” She lifted the pin threateningly.

 

He caught both her wrists and held her fast. “Would you sting again?”

he said sharply.

 

Marie looked up at him.

 

“Ulrik Frederik!” she said in a low voice, “I am your wife before God

and men. Why do you not love me any more? Come with me! Leave the

woman in there for what she is, and come with me! Come, Ulrik

Frederik, you little know what a burning love I feel for you and how

bitterly I have longed and grieved! Come, pray come!”

 

Ulrik Frederik made no reply. He offered her his arm and conducted her

out of the garden to her coach, which was waiting not far away. He

handed her in, went to the horses’ heads and examined the harness,

changed a buckle, and called the coachman down under pretence of

getting him to fix the couplings. While they stood there he whispered,

“The moment you get into your seat, you are to drive on as hard as

your horses can go and never stop till you get home. Those are my

orders, and I believe you know me.”

 

The man had climbed into his seat, Ulrik Frederik caught the side of

the coach as though to jump in, the whip cracked and fell over the

horses, he sprang back, and the coach rattled on.

 

Marie’s first impulse was to order the coachman to stop, to take the

reins herself, or to jump out, but then a strange lassitude came over

her, a deep unspeakable loathing, a nauseating weariness, and she sat

quite still, gazing ahead, never heeding the reckless speed of the

coach.

 

Ulrik Frederik was again with Karen Fiol.

 

When Ulrik Frederik returned to the castle that evening he was in

truth a bit uneasy—not exactly worried, but with the sense of

apprehension people feel when they know there are vexations and

annoyances ahead of them that cannot be dodged but must somehow be

gone through with. Marie had of course complained to the King. The

King would give him a lecture, and he would have to listen to it all.

Marie would wrap herself in the majestic silence of offended virtue,

which he would be at pains to ignore. The whole atmosphere would be

oppressive. The Queen would look fatigued and afflicted—genteelly

afflicted—and the ladies of the court who knew nothing and suspected

everything would sit silently, now and then lifting their heads to

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