Jenny/Part 2, 10
Jenny bent over Gert Gram's chrysanthemums: "I am so glad you like my pictures."
"Yes, I like them very much, especially the one of the young girl with the corals—as I told you already."
Jenny shook her head.
"I think the colouring is so lovely," said Gram.
"It is not well finished. The scarf and the dress should have been more thoroughly worked up, but when I was painting it both Cesca and I were distracted by other things."
After a while she asked:
"Do you hear from Helge? How is he?"
"He does not write much. He is working at the essay for his doctor of science degree—you know he prepared himself for it in Rome. He says he is all right. He does not write to his mother at all, and she, of course, is very vexed about it. She has not improved as a companion, I am sorry to say, but she is not happy, poor thing, at present."
Jenny moved the flowers to her writing-table and began to arrange them:
"I am glad Helge is working again. He did not get much done in the summer."
"Neither did you, dear."
"No, it is true, and the worst of it is that I have not been able to start yet. But I don't feel the least inclined to, and I was going to begin etching this winter, but.…"
"Don't you think it quite natural that a disappointment like yours should take some time to get over? Your exhibition is a success, and has been well spoken of in the papers. Don't you think that is enough to make you want to work again? You have got a bid for the Aventine picture already—are you going to accept it?"
She shrugged her shoulders:
"Of course. I am obliged to accept. They always need money at home, as you know. Besides, I must go abroad; it is not good for me to stay here long."
"Do you want to go abroad?" said Gram gently, looking down. "Well, I suppose you are; it is only natural."
"Oh, this exhibition," said Jenny, sitting down in the rocking-chair—"all my pictures were painted such a long time ago, it seems to me, even the recent ones. The sketch of the Aventine was finished the day I met Helge, and I painted the picture while we were together—that of Cesca as well. And the one from Stenersgaten in your place, while I was waiting for him to come home. I have done nothing since. Ugh! So Helge is at work again?"
"It is only natural, my dear, that an experience like yours should leave deeper traces in a woman."
"Oh yes, yes—a woman; that is the whole misery of it. It is just like a woman to become uninterested and utterly lazy because of a love that does not even exist."
"My dear Jenny," said Gram, "I think it quite natural that it should take some time for you to get over it—to get beyond it, as it were; one always does, and then one understands that the experience has not been in vain, but that one's soul is the richer for it in some way or other."
Jenny did not reply.
"I am sure there is much you would not like to have missed—all the happy, warm, sunny days with your friend in that beautiful country. Am I not right?"
"Will you tell me one thing, Gert?—is it your own personal experience that you have been able to enrich your soul, as you say, by the incidents of your life?"
He gave a start as if hurt and surprised at her brutality; it was a moment before he answered her:
"It is quite a different thing. The experiences which are the results of sin—I don't mean sin in the orthodox sense, but the consequences of acting contrary to your understanding—are always far from sweet. I mean that my experiences have made my life in a way richer and deeper than a lesser misfortune might have done—since it was my fate not to attain the greatest happiness. I have a feeling that once it will be the case in a still higher degree, and will help me to understand the real meaning of life.
"In your case, I meant it in a different way. Even if your happiness proved to be of a passing nature, it was pure and guiltless while it lasted, because you believed in it implicitly and enjoyed it without any mental reservation. You deceived nobody but yourself."
Jenny did not speak. She would have had a great deal to say in opposition, but she felt dimly that he would not understand her.
"Don't you remember Ibsen's words:
"'Though I ram my ship aground, it was grand to sail the seas'?"
"I am surprised at you, Gert, for repeating those idiotic words. Nowadays we have too great a feeling of responsibility and too much self-esteem, most of us, to accept that kind of reasoning. If I am wrecked and sink, I will try not to wince, if I know that I have not run my ship aground myself. As far as I understand, the best sailors prefer to go down with their ship if the fault is theirs, rather than survive the disaster."
"I am of the opinion that, as a rule, one can thank oneself for every misfortune," said Gram, smiling, "but that one can nearly always draw some spiritual benefit out of it."
"I agree with you on the first point—and on the second on the condition that the misfortune does not consist in the diminution of one's self-esteem."
"You should not take this so seriously. You are quite excited and bitter. I remember what you said on the day Helge left, but, my dear child, you cannot really mean that one should quench every affection at its birth unless one can guarantee the moment it comes into life that it will last until one's death, endure all adversity, be ready for every sacrifice, and that it will understand the personality of its object as in a vision, show up its most sacred depths to prevent later change of opinion about him or her."
"Yes," said Jenny sharply.
"Have you ever felt this yourself?" asked Gram.
"No, but I know it, all the same. I have always known that it should be so. But when I was twenty-eight and still an old maid, longing to love and be loved, and Helge came and fell in love with me, I laid aside all claims on myself and my love, taking what I could get—to a certain extent in good faith. It will be all right, I thought—I am sure it will—although I did not feel assured in my inmost heart that nothing else could be possible. Let me tell you what my friend Heggen told me the other day. He despises women truly and honestly—and he is right. We have no self-esteem, and we are so lazy that we can never make up our mind in earnest to shape our life and happiness ourselves, and to work with that purpose. Secretly we all nourish the hope that a man will come and offer us happiness, so that we need not make any effort ourselves. The most womanly of us, who by happiness mean only idleness and finery, hang on to the man who can give them plenty of it. If amongst us there are a few who really have the right feelings and are longing to become good and strong, and making efforts in that direction—we still hope to meet a man on the way and to become what we want to be through his love.
"We can work for a time pretty honestly and seriously, and take a pleasure in it too, but in our hearts we are waiting for a still greater joy, which we cannot acquire by our work, but must receive as a gift. We women can never get to the point where our work is everything to us."
"Do you believe work alone is enough for a man? Never," said Gram.
"It is for Gunnar. You may depend on it that he will keep women in their right place in his life—as trifles."
Gram laughed: "How old is your friend Heggen? I hope for the man's own sake that he will change his opinion some day about the most conclusive influence in life."
"I don't," said Jenny vehemently, "but I hope I, too, shall learn some day to put this nonsense about love in its right place."
"My dear Jenny, you speak as if—as if you had no sense, I was going to say, but I know you have," said Gram, with a melancholy smile. "Shall I tell you something of what I know about love, little one? If I did not believe in it, I should not have the least particle of faith in men—or in myself. Do you believe that it is only women who think life meaningless, and find their hearts empty and frozen if they have nothing but their work to love or to depend upon? Do you believe there is a single soul living who has not moments of doubt in himself? You must have somebody in whose keeping you can give the best in you—your love and your trust.
"When I say that my own life since my marriage has been a hell, I am not using too strong words, and if I have been able to stand it in a way it is because I think the love Rebecca has for me partly exonerates her. I know that her feelings of mean pleasure at having the power to torment and humiliate me with her jealousy and rage are a caricature of betrayed love, and it is a kind of satisfaction to my sense of justice that there is a reason for my unhappiness. I betrayed her when I took her love without giving her mine—intending secretly to give her only crumbs—the small coin of love—in payment for the best of herself she offered me. If life punishes every sin against the sacredness of love so ruthlessly, it proves to me that there is nothing holier in life, and that he who is true to his ideal of love will reap his recompense in the greatest and purest bliss.
"I told you once that I learnt to know and to love a woman when it was too late. She had loved me from the time we were children without my knowing, or caring to know it. When she heard of my marriage she accepted a man who vowed that she could save and raise him if she married him. I know you would scorn any such means of saving, but you don't know, child, how you would act yourself, if you knew the being you loved with your whole soul was in the arms of another, and found your life not worth living, and if you heard an erring human being ask you to give him the life you did not value and save him thereby.
"Helene was unhappy, and so was I. Later we met, understood one another, and it came to an explanation which, however, did not result in what people call happiness. We were both bound by ties we dared not break, and I must admit that my love for her changed as the hope of making her my wife slowly died, but the memory of her is the greatest treasure of my life. She is now living in another part of the world, devoting her life to her children and trying to lessen for them the misery of having to live with a father who is a drunkard and a moral wreck. For her sake I have held on to my faith in the purity of the human soul, in its beauty and its strength—and in love, and I know, too, that the remembrance of me inspires Helene with the strength to struggle on and to suffer because she loves me today as she did in our childhood, and believes in me, in my talent, my love, and that I was worthy of a better fate. I am still something to her, don't you think?"
Jenny did not answer.
"The happiness in life is not only to be loved, Jenny; the greatest happiness is to love."
"H'm. A very poor sort of happiness, I should say, to love when your love is not returned."
He sat quiet for a while, looking down; then said almost in a whisper:
"Great or small, it is happiness to know somebody of whom one thinks only good, about whom one can say: God give her happiness, for she deserves it—give her all that I never had. She is pure and beautiful, warm-hearted and sweet, talented and kind. It means happiness to me, dear Jenny, to be able to pray like this for you. No; it is nothing to be afraid of, little one."
He had risen, and she rose too, making a movement as if she were afraid he would come nearer. Gram stopped and smiled:
"How could you help seeing it—you who are so clever. I thought you saw it before I understood it myself. It has come quite naturally. My life is running its course towards old age, inactivity, darkness, death, and I knew that I should never reach what I have longed for all my life. Then I met you. You are to me the most glorious woman I have ever known; you had the same ideals I once had, and you were on the way to attain them. How could I help crying out in my heart: God help her to succeed. Do not let her be wasted as I have been!
"You were so sweet to me; you came to see me in my den, and you told me about yourself. You listened to me, you understood, and your beautiful eyes were so full of sympathy, so soft and loving. Dearest, are you crying?" He seized both her hands and pressed them passionately to his lips:
"Don't cry, dear; you must not. Why do you cry? You are shivering—tell me why you are crying like this?"
"It is all so sad," she sobbed.
"Sit down here." He was on his knees before her—for a second he rested his forehead against her knee.
"Do not cry because of me. Do you think for a moment I wish that I had never met you? If you have loved, and you wish it had never been, you have not really loved. Believe me, it is so. No, Jenny, not for anything in the world would I miss what I feel for you!
"And you must not cry about yourself. You will be happy. I know it. Of all the men who will love you, one will lie at your feet some day, as I do now, and say that to him it is life itself to be there, and you will think so too. You will understand that to sit thus with him is the only happiness to you, even if it were a brief moment of rest after a day full of toil and hardships, and in the poorest of cottages—a far greater happiness than if you became the greatest artist that ever existed and enjoyed the highest measure of fame and praise. Is not that what you believe yourself?"
"Yes," she whispered, exhausted with weeping.
"You must not despair of winning that happiness some day. All the time you are striving to become a true artist and a good and able woman, you are longing to meet some one who thinks that all you have done to attain your aim is right and that he loves you for it—is it not so, Jenny?"
She nodded, and Gram kissed her hands reverently.
"You have already reached the goal. You are everything that is good and refined, proud and lovely. I say it, and one day a younger, better, and stronger man will say the same—and you will be happy to listen. Are you not a little pleased to hear me say that you are the best and sweetest and most wonderful little girl in the world?—look at me, Jenny. Can I not give you a little pleasure by saying that I believe you will have all possible happiness because you deserve it?"
She looked down into his face, trying to smile; then, bending her head, she passed her hands over his hair:
"Oh, Gert, I could not help it—could I? I did not want to do you any harm."
"Do not grieve about it, little one! I love you because you are what you want to be—what I once hoped to be. You must not be sad for my sake, even if you think you have caused me pain; there are sorrows that are good, full of blessing, I assure you."
She went on crying softly.
Presently he whispered:
"May I come and see you now and again? Will you not send for me when you are sad? I should so like to try and be of some help to my dear little girl."
"I dare not, Gert."
"Dear child, I am an old man; remember, I might be your father."
"For—for your sake, I mean. It is not right."
"Oh yes, Jenny. Do you believe that I think less about you when I don't see you? I ask only to see you, talk to you, to try and do something for you. Won't you let me? Do let me come."
"I don't know—I don't know what to say, but please go now. I cannot bear any more today—it is all so terrible. Won't you go, dear?"
He rose slowly:
"I will. Good-bye! Jenny, dear child, you are quite beside yourself."
"Yes"—in a whisper.
"I will go now, but I want to see you before you go away. I shall come back when you are yourself again and not frightened of me; there is no reason for that, dear."
She was quiet for a little, then suddenly drew him close to her for a second, brushing his cheek with her lips.
"Go now, Gert."
"Thank you. God bless you, Jenny."
When he was gone she paced up and down the floor, shivering without knowing why. In her heart she felt a certain pleasure in remembering his words when he was on his knees before her. She had always looked upon Gert as a weak man, as one who had suffered himself to be dragged down and been trodden upon as those who are down always will be. And now he had suddenly revealed himself to her as possessing a great fortitude of soul, and a being rich enough and willing to help, while she was bewildered, distracted, and sick with longing in her inmost heart behind the shield of opinions and thoughts which she had made for herself.
She had asked him to go. Why? Because she was so miserably poor herself and had complained of her need to him who, she thought, was just as poor as she herself, and he had showed her that he was rich, offering gladly to help her out of his abundance. It was no doubt because she felt humiliated that she asked him to go.
To accept anything from an affection to which she could not respond had always seemed mean to her, but then she never imagined that she would be in need of such help.
He had not been allowed to continue the work to which he was devoted; the love he had borne in his heart was never to live. Yet he did not despair. That was probably the advantage of having faith—it did not matter so much what one believed, provided there was somebody beside oneself one could trust, for it is impossible to live with only oneself to love and trust.
She was quite familiar with the thought of voluntary death. If she died now there were a few she cared for and who would be sorry, but none who could not do without her, nor any one to whom she was so necessary that she would feel it her duty to prolong her life for their sake. Provided they did not know she had done it herself, her mother and sisters would mourn her for a year and then remember her with gentle melancholy. Cesca and Gunnar would be more sorry than anybody else, because they would understand that she had been unhappy, but she was outside their life. The one who loved her most would miss her most, but as she had nothing to give him he might love her just as well dead. To love her was his happiness; he had the capacity in him to be happy, but if she had not, it was no good living. Work could not fill her life to such an extent that she would not long for anything else besides. Why then go on living because they said she had talent? Nobody had more pleasure of her art than she had in exercising it, and the pleasure was not great enough to satisfy her.
Gunnar was not right in what he had once said, rather brutally, that she was a martyr to her own virtue. That could easily be remedied, but she dared not, because she was always afraid of meeting later what she had been longing for. And the least satisfactory of all would be to live close to another human being and yet in one's inmost soul be just as lonely as before. Oh no—no. She would not belong to a man and submit to all the physical and mental intimacies as the consequence of it, and then discover one day that she did not know him, and that he had never known her—that the one had never understood the language of the other.
She lived because she was waiting; she did not want a lover, because she was expecting a master, and she did not wish to die—not now while she was waiting.
No, she was not going to throw away her life either this way or that; she could not die so poor that she had not a single beloved thing to bid farewell to. She dared not, because she wanted to believe that some day things would be different.
There was nothing else to do but to take up painting again, although it would probably not be much good now, love-sick as she was. She laughed. That was just what she was—love-sick. The object did not exist at present, but the love was there.
Jenny went to the window and looked out. In the gathering darkness the sky looked almost violet, and the tiled roofs, the chimney-pots, and the telephone wires all melted together into one grey tint in the twilight. A reddish light rose from the streets, colouring the frosty haze. The rolling of carriages and the screech of a tram on the rails sounded clearly on the frozen ground.
She did not feel inclined to go home to dinner, but, having promised her mother to come, she put the stove out and left.
The cold was raw and damp; the fog smelt of soot and gas and frozen dust. What a dull street it was where her studio lay. It led down from the centrum, with its noise and traffic, its shops with brilliant show windows and people streaming in and out, and its course ended by the lifeless grey walls of the fort. The houses on either side looked grey and deserted: the new buildings of stone and glass, where business fluttered in and out on paper, prepared by busy young people in the strong white light behind big windows, and people talked to each other by telephone—and the old ones remaining from the time the town was small were low and brown, with shiny fronts and linen blinds in the office windows. Here and there behind a small pane with curtains and flower-pots was a humble home—strangely solitary dwellings in this thoroughfare, where the houses mostly were deserted at night. The shops were not of the kind that people rush in and out of. Some of them had wallpaper, plaster ornaments for ceilings, and stoves for sale; others were furniture stores, with the windows full of empty mahogany beds and varnished oak chairs that looked as if nobody would ever sit on them.
In a gateway a child was standing—a little boy, blue in the face from cold with a big basket on his arm. He was looking at two dogs fighting in the centre of the street and making the frozen dust fly about. He started when the dogs came tumbling near the place where he was standing.
"Are you afraid?" asked Jenny. As the boy did not answer, she continued: "Would you like me to see you past them?" He came to her side immediately, but did not speak.
"Which way are you going? Where do you live?"
"In Voldgata."
"Did you come on an errand all the way here, such a little boy?—it was very brave of you."
"We deal with Aases in this street because father knows him," was the boy's answer. "This basket is so heavy."
Jenny looked about her; the street was nearly empty:
"Give it to me. I will carry it for you a bit of the way."
The boy gave her the basket reluctantly.
"Take my hand till we have got past those dogs. How cold your hands are! Have you no gloves?"
The boy shook his head.
"Put your other hand in my muff. You won't? You think it a silly thing for a boy to carry a muff—is that it?"
She remembered Nils when he was small; she had often longed for him. He was big now and had many friends; he was at an age when it was no fun to walk about with an elder sister. He came seldom to her studio now. The year she had been abroad and the months she had spent with Helge had changed their relations; perhaps when he got older they would be friends again as before. They probably would, for they were fond of each other, but just now he was happy without her. She wished he were a small boy now, so that she could take him on her lap and tell him stories full of adventures while she washed and undressed him and kissed him—or a little bigger, as in the time when they went out together for excursions in Nordmarken, and the road to the butcher's was long and full of remarkable happenings.
"What is you name, little boy?"
"Ausjen Torstein Mo."
"How old are you?"
"Six."
"I suppose you don't go to school yet?"
"No, but I shall in April."
"Do you think it will be nice?"
"No—the teacher is so strict. Oscar goes to school, but we shan't be together, for he is being moved into the second form."
"Is Oscar your friend?" asked Jenny.
"Yes; we live in the same house."
After a short pause Jenny spoke again: "Aren't you sorry there is no snow? You have got the hill by the bay where you can toboggan. Have you got a sled?"
"No, but I have snowshoes and ski."
They had turned into another street. Jenny let go the boy's hand and looked at the basket. It was so heavy, and Ausjen was so small—so she kept it, although she did not like to be seen with a poor little urchin in a good street. She would have like to take him to the confectioner's, but thought it would be rather awkward if she met any one she knew there.
In the dark Voldgata she took his hand again and carried the basket to the house where he lived, giving him a coin as a parting gift.
On her way through the town she bought chocolates and a pair of red woollen gloves to send to Ausjen. It was nice to be able to give somebody an unexpected pleasure. She might try to get him for a model, but he was very small to sit so long. Poor little hand; it had got warm in hers, and it seemed as if it had been good for her to hold it. Yes, she wanted to try and paint him; he had a queer little face. She would give him milk with a little coffee in it and a nice roll and butter, and she would work and talk to Ausjen.…