“God brought me thus far, that I was able to erect this fair house, which shall stand till distant times, a witness to my might and that of my race. Here shall be upright living and generous dealing; the house shall be faithfully guarded from father to son; good men and women shall sit in the hall and dance to the sound of flutes and violins.
“I have placed this room in the most secret part of the house and no one knows of it but the architect who built it and my oldest servant. But I have sealed the architect’s tongue with a solemn oath and a heavy fee; and my servant is true to me.
“I have decorated the room with gilt and figured leather hangings and costly carpets from the East. I have had two great armchairs made in Milan, whose woodwork is carved into birds and animals which grin strangely in the dark, but cease to do so when the lights are lit.
“Then I gave my servant a key of the room and told him to care for it faithfully. Every evening, when it grows dusk, he is to light the candles on the mantelpiece; and he is to do this even if he know that his master is travelling in distant lands. Every morning, he is to adjust the room with his own hands. None but himself is ever to cross the threshold.
“For this room shall be for me and my wife and for none other in the world. Therefore I placed it in the most secluded part of the house, far from the counting-house, where we work, from the passages, along which our servants go, and from the drawing-room, where we receive our guests, ay, even from our marriage-bed, where she sleeps by my side.
“It shall be the temple of our marriage, hallowed by our love, which is greater than anything that we know. Here we will pray to Him Who gave us to each other. Here we will talk gladly and earnestly, every evening when our hearts impel us to. And, when we come to die, our son shall bring his wife here and they shall do as we did.
“This evening, which is the first in my new house, I brought my wife in here and told her my wish. She listened to my words in love and gladness and I have written down in this document how it all happened and we have set our names to it in witness for those who come after us.”
Finn read their names and the names of those who had taken possession of the room after the builder and his wife. Last of all stood Cordt’s name and Fru Adelheid’s, which were struck out again.
Then he put the document back in its place and locked it up and looked round the room.
The old room stood again as it used to stand, built high over the square, long and deep and silent, like a spot where there is no life.
The balcony was white with snow and the sparrows hopped in the snow. Inside, behind the colored panes, stood many red flowers and longed for the sun. The dust had been removed from the figured-leather hangings, which shone with a new brightness. The oriental carpet spread over the floor like a lord returning from exile and once more taking possession of his estates.
And all the old glories had found their places again and stood as lawfully and restfully as though it had never been otherwise. The spinet was there and the jar with the man writhing through thorns and the celestial globe whose stars shone and ran: all the furniture which the room’s different owners had set there in the course of time, each after his own taste and heart.
Before the fireplace stood the two great, strange armchairs.
Finn felt as if he were in a cathedral where every flag was a tombstone over a famous man. His senses drank the odor of the bygone times, his fancy peopled the room with the men and women who had sat there and exchanged strong and gentle words, while the house lay sleeping around them.
With it all, he became lost in thought of those who had sat there last and after whom no others were to come, those two who had given him the life which he knew not what to do with.
He saw them before him in the love and struggle of their youth. He heard their voices in the room, he saw Fru Adelheid’s red mouth and Cordt’s steady eyes. He saw Cordt bring his wife into the room, which was the soul of the house and its tradition and its secret chamber, and show her the strange things which his ancestors had put there.