PETREA.
We are all of us somewhat related to chaos; Petrea was very closely so. Momentary bursts of light and long periods of confusion alternated in her. There was a great dissimilarity between Louise and Petrea. While Louise required six drawers and more to contain her possessions, there needed scarcely half a one for the whole wardrobe of Petrea; and this said wardrobe too was always in such an ill-conditioned case, that it was, according to Louise, quite lamentable, and she not unfrequently lent a helping hand to its repair. Petrea tore her things, and gave away without bounds or discrimination, and was well known in the sisterly circle for the bad state of her affairs. Petrea had no turn for accumulation; on the contrary, she had truly, although Louise would not allow it, a certain turn for art.
She was always occupied by creations of one kind or another, either musical, or architectural, or poetical. But all her creations contained something of that which is usually called trash. At twelve years old she wrote her first romance: "Annette and Belis loved each other tenderly; they experienced adversity in their love; were at last, however, united, and lived henceforth in a charming cottage, surrounded with hedges of roses, and had eight children in one year," which we may call a very honourable beginning. A year afterwards she began a tragedy, which was to be called "Gustavus Adolphus and Ebba Brahe," and which opened with these verses spoken by one Delagardie:
Now from Germania's coast returned,
I see again the much-loved strand;
From war I come, without a wound,
Once more into my native land.
Say, Bannér say, what woe has caused these tears,
Am I not true to thee, or is it idle hope alone that will befool my years?
Whether no sheet of paper was broad enough to contain the lengthened lines, or any other cause interfered to prevent the completion of the piece, we know not; but certain it is that it was soon laid aside. Neither did a piece of a jocular nature, which was intended to emulate the fascinating muse of Madame Lenngren,[5] advance much further—the beginning was thus:
Within the lordly castle Elfvakolastie,
Which lay, in sooth, somewhere in Sverge,[6]
There lived of yore the lovely Melanie,
The only daughter of Count Stjerneberge.
At the present time Petrea was engaged on a poem, the title of which, written in large letters, ran thus—"The Creation of the World!"
The Creation of the World began thus:
CHAOS.
Once in the depths etern of darkness lying,
This mighty world
Waited expectantly the moments flying
When light should be unfurled.
The world was nothing then, which now is given
To crowds of busy men;
And all our beautiful star-spangled heaven
Was desolate darkness then;
Yet He was there, who before time existed,
Who will endure for ever.
The creation of the world ceased with this faint glimmering of light, and was probably destined under Petrea's hand never to be brought forth from chaos. Petrea had an especially great inclination for great undertakings, and the misfortune to fail in them. This want of success always wounded her deeply, but in the next moment the impulse of an irresistibly vigorous temperament raised her above misfortune in some new attempt. The blood rushed up to her young head, and filled it with a mass of half-formed thoughts, fancies, and ideas; her mind and her character were full of disquiet. At times joyous and wild beyond bounds, she became on the other hand wretched and dispirited without reason. Poor Petrea! She was wanting in every kind of self-regulation and ballast, even outwardly; she walked ill—she stood ill—she curtseyed ill—sate ill—and dressed ill; and occasioned, in consequence, much pain to her mother, who felt so acutely whatever was unpleasing; and this also was very painful to Petrea, who had a warm heart, and who worshipped her mother.
Petrea also cherished the warmest affection and admiration for Sara, but her manner even of evidencing her affection was commonly so entirely without tact, as rather to displease than please the object of it. The consciousness of this fact embittered much of Petrea's life; but it conducted her by degrees to a love in which tact and address are of no consequence, and which is never unreturned.
Sometimes Petrea was seized with a strong consciousness of the chaoticness of her state; but then, again, at other times she would have a presentiment that all this would clear itself away, and then that something which was quite out of the common way would come forth; and then she was accustomed to say, half in jest and half in earnest, to her sisters, "You'll see what I shall turn out sometime!" But in what this extraordinary turning out should consist nobody knew, and least of all poor Petrea herself. She glanced full of desire towards many suns, and was first attracted by one and then by another.
Louise had for Petrea's prophesyings great contempt, but the little Gabriele believed in them all. She delighted herself, moreover, so heartily in all that her sister began, that Petrea sacrificed to her her most beautiful gold-paper temple; her original picture of shepherdesses and altars; and her island of bliss in the middle of peaceful waters, and in the bay of which lay a little fleet of nut-shells, with rigging of silk, and laden with sugar-work, and from the motion of which, and the planting of its wonderful flowers, and glorious fruit-bearing trees, Petrea's heart had first had a foretaste of bliss.
Petrea's appearance imaged her soul;—for this too was very variable; this too had its "raptures;" and here too at times also a glimmering light would break through the chaos. If the complexion were muddled, and the nose red and swollen, she had a most ordinary appearance; but in cooler moments, and when the rose-hue confined itself merely to the cheeks, she was extremely good-looking; and sometimes too, and that even in her ugly moments, there would be a gleam in her eye, and an expression in her countenance, which had occasioned Henrik to declare that "Petrea was after all handsome!"
To a chaotic mind, the desire for controversy is in-born; it is the conflict of the elements with each other. There was no subject upon which Petrea had not her conjectures, and nothing upon which she was not endeavouring to get a clear idea; on this account she discussed all things, and disputed with every one with whom she came in contact; reasoned, or more properly made confusion, on politics, literature, human free-will, the fine arts, or anything else; all which was very unpleasant to the tranquil spirit of her mother, and which, in connexion with want of tact, especially in her zeal to be useful, made poor Petrea the laughing-stock of every one; a bitter punishment this, on earth, although before the final judgment-seat of very little, or of no consequence at all.