Marie Grubbe, a Lady of the Seventeenth Century

by J. P. Jacobsen

All were speaking of him. Nearly every day some fresh story of his valor was noised abroad. She had heard and read that he was a hero, and the murmur of enthusiasm that went through the crowds in the streets, as he rode past, had given her an unforgettable thrill.

The hero-name lifted him high above the ranks of ordinary human beings. She had never supposed that a hero could be like other people. King Alexander of Macedonia, Holger the Dane, and Chevalier Bayard were tall, distant, radiant figures—ideals rather than men. Just as she had never believed, in her childhood, that any one could form letters with the elegance of the copy-book, so it had never occurred to her that one could become a hero. Heroes belonged to the past. To think that one might meet a flesh-and-blood hero riding in Store-Færgestræde was beyond anything she had dreamed of. Life suddenly took on a different aspect. So it was not all dull routine! The great and beautiful and richly colored world she had read of in her romances and ballads was something she might actually see with her own eyes. There was really something that one could long for with all one’s heart and soul; all these words that people and books were full of had a meaning. They stood for something. Her confused dreams and longings took form, since she knew that they were not hers alone, but that grown people believed in such things. Life was rich, wonderfully rich and radiant.

It was nothing but an intuition, which she knew to be true, but could not yet see or feel. He was her only pledge that it was so, the only thing tangible. Hence her thoughts and dreams circled about him unceasingly. She would often fly to the window at the sound of horse’s hoofs, and, when out walking, she would persuade the willing Lucie to go round by the castle, but they never saw him.

Then came a day toward the end of October, when she was plying her bobbins by the afternoon light, at a window in the long drawing-room where the fireplace was. Mistress Rigitze sat before the fire, now and then taking a pinch of dried flowers or a bit of cinnamon bark from a box on her lap and throwing it on a brazier full of live coals that stood near her. The air in the low-ceilinged room was hot and close and sweet. But little light penetrated between the full curtains of motley, dark-flowered stuff. From the adjoining room came the whirr of a spinning-wheel, and Mistress Rigitze was nodding drowsily in her cushioned chair.

Marie Grubbe felt faint with the heat. She tried to cool her burning cheeks against the small, dewy window-pane and peeped out into the street, where a thin layer of new-fallen snow made the air dazzlingly bright. As she turned to the room again, it seemed doubly dark and oppressive. Suddenly Ulrik Christian came in through the door, so quickly that Mistress Rigitze started. He did not notice Marie, but took a seat before the fire. After a few words of apology for his long absence, he remarked that he was tired, leaned forward in his chair, his face resting on his hand, and sat silent, scarcely hearing Mistress Rigitze’s lively chatter.

Marie Grubbe had turned pale with excitement, when she saw him enter. She closed her eyes for an instant with a sense of giddiness, then blushed furiously and could hardly breathe. The floor seemed to be sinking under her, and the chairs, tables, and people in the room falling through space. All objects appeared strangely definite and yet flickering, for she could hold nothing fast with her eyes, and moreover everything seemed new and strange.

So this was he. She wished herself far away or at least in her own room, her peaceful little chamber. She was frightened and could feel her hands tremble. If he would only not see her! She shrank deeper into the window recess and tried to fix her eyes on her aunt’s guest.

Was this the way he looked?—not very, very much taller? And his eyes were not fiery black, they were blue—such dear blue eyes, but sad—that was something she could not have imagined. He was pale and looked as if he were sorry about something. Ah, he smiled, but not in a really happy way. How white his teeth were, and what a nice mouth he had, so small and finely formed!