“Just as I am your property, your husband, at whom no other woman is allowed to look if she wants to keep her eyes in her head; your husband, who made a present of himself to you, or rather, gave himself to you in exchange. Are we not quits?”
“But we have trifled away our lives! Have we ever had any higher interests, William?”
“Yes, the very highest, Gurli; we have not always been playing, we have had grave hours, too. Have we not called into being generations to come? Have we not both bravely worked and striven for the little ones, who are to grow up into men and women? Have you not faced death four times for their sakes? Have you not robbed yourself of your nights’ rest in order to rock their cradle, and of your days’ pleasures, in order to attend to them? Couldn’t we now have a large six-roomed flat in the main street, and a footman to open the door, if it were not for the children? Wouldn’t you be able to wear silk dresses and pearls? And I, your old Pal, wouldn’t have crows’ nests in my knees, if it hadn’t been for the kiddies. Are we really no better than dolls? Are we as selfish as old maids say? Old maids, rejected by men as no good. Why are so many girls unmarried? They all boast of proposals and yet they pose as martyrs! Higher interests! Latin! To dress in low neck dresses for charitable purposes and leave the children at home, neglected! I believe that my interests are higher than Ottilia’s, when I want strong and healthy children, who will succeed where we have failed. But Latin won’t help them! Goodbye, Gurli! I have to go back on board. Are you coming?”
But she remained sitting on the stone and made no answer. He went with heavy footsteps, very heavy footsteps. And the blue sea grew dark and the sun ceased shining.
“Pal, Pal, where is this to lead to?” he sighed, as he stepped over the fence of the cemetery. “I wish I lay there, with a wooden cross to mark my place, among the roots of the trees. But I am sure I couldn’t rest, if I were there without her! Oh! Gurli! Gurli!
“Everything has gone wrong, now, mother,” said the captain on a chilly autumn day to his mother-in-law, to whom he was paying a visit.
“What’s the matter, Willy, dear?”
“Yesterday they met at our house. On the day before yesterday at the Princess’s. Little Alice was suddenly taken ill. It was unfortunate, of course, but I didn’t dare to send for Gurli, for fear she might think that it was done on purpose to annoy her! Oh! when once one has lost faith.... I asked a friend at the Admiralty yesterday whether it was legal in Sweden to kill one’s wife’s friends with tobacco smoke. I was told it wasn’t, and that even if it were it was better not to do it, for fear of doing more harm than good. If only it happened to be an admirer! I should take him by the neck and throw him out of the window. What am I to do?”
“It’s a difficult matter, Willy, dear, but we shall be able to think of a way out of it. You can’t go on living like a bachelor.”
“No, of course, I can’t.”