Marie Grubbe, a Lady of the Seventeenth Century

by J. P. Jacobsen

The stillness was that of a deep grave, save for the raindrops, falling light as thistledown, with a faint, monotonous sound like a whisper that dies and begins again and dies there behind the wet, glistening trunks.

What a strange whisper it was when one listened! How wistful!—like the beating of soft wings when old memories flock. Or was it a low rustle in the dry leaves of lost illusions? He felt lonely, drearily alone and forsaken. Among all the thousands of hearts that beat round about in the stillness of the night, not one turned in longing to him! Over all the earth there was a net of invisible threads binding soul to soul, threads stronger than life, stronger than death; but in all that net not one tendril stretched out to him. Homeless, forsaken! Forsaken? Was that a sound of goblets and kisses out there? Was there a gleam of white shoulders and dark eyes? Was that a laugh ringing through the stillness?—What then? Better the slow-dripping bitterness of solitude than that poisonous, sickly sweetness.... Oh, curses on it! I shake your dust from my thoughts, slothful life, life for dogs, for blind men, for weaklings.... As a rose! O God, watch over her and keep her through the dark night! Oh, that I might be her guard and protector, smooth every path, shelter her against every wind—so beautiful—listening like a child—as a rose!...

[CHAPTER VIII]

ADMIRED and courted though she was, Marie Grubbe soon found that, while she had escaped from the nursery, she was not fully admitted to the circles of the grown up. For all the flatteries lavished on them, such young maidens were kept in their own place in society. They were made to feel it by a hundred trifles that in themselves meant nothing, but when taken together meant a great deal. First of all, the children were insufferably familiar, quite like their equals. And then the servants—there was a well-defined difference in the manner of the old footman when he took the cloak of a maid or a matron, and the faintest shade in the obliging smile of the chambermaid showed her sense of whether she was waiting on a married or an unmarried woman. The free-and-easy tone which the half-grown younkers permitted themselves was most unpleasant, and the way in which snubbings and icy looks simply slid off from them was enough to make one despair.

She liked best the society of the younger men, for even when they were not in love with her, they would show her the most delicate attention and say the prettiest things with a courtly deference that quite raised her in her own estimation,—though to be sure it was tiresome when she found that they did it chiefly to keep in practice. Some of the older gentlemen were simply intolerable with their fulsome compliments and their mock gallantry, but the married women were worst of all, especially the brides. The encouraging, though a bit preoccupied glance, the slight condescending nod with head to one side, and the smile—half pitying, half jeering—with which they would listen to her—it was insulting! Moreover, the conduct of the girls themselves was not of a kind to raise their position. They would never stand together, but if one could humiliate another, she was only too glad to do so. They had no idea of surrounding themselves with an air of dignity by attending to the forms of polite society the way the young married women did.

Her position was not enviable, and when Mistress Rigitze let fall a few words to the effect that she and other members of the family had been considering a match between Marie and Ulrik Frederik, she received the news with joy. Though Ulrik Frederik had not taken her fancy captive, a marriage with him opened a wide vista of pleasant possibilities. When all the honors and advantages had been described to her—how she would be admitted into the inner court circle, the splendor in which she would live, the beaten track to fame and high position that lay before Ulrik Frederik as the natural son and even more as the especial favorite of the King,—while she made a mental note of how handsome he was, how courtly, and how much in love,—it seemed that such happiness was almost too great to be possible, and her heart sank at the thought that, after all, it was nothing but loose talk, schemes, and hopes.

Yet Mistress Rigitze was building on firm ground, for not only had Ulrik Frederik confided in her and begged her to be his spokesman with Marie, but he had induced her to sound the gracious pleasure of the King and Queen, and they had both received the idea very kindly and had given their consent, although the King had felt some hesitation to begin with. The match had, in fact, been settled long since by the Queen and her trusted friend and chief gentlewoman, Mistress Rigitze, but the King was not moved only by the persuasions of his consort. He knew that Marie Grubbe would bring her husband a considerable fortune, and although Ulrik Frederik held Vordingborg in fief, his love of pomp and luxury made constant demands upon the King, who was always hard pressed for money. Upon her marriage Marie would come into possession of her inheritance from her dead mother, Mistress Marie Juul, while her father, Erik Grubbe, was at that time owner of the manors of Tjele, Vinge, Gammelgaard, Bigum, Trinderup, and Nörbæk, besides various scattered holdings. He was known as a shrewd manager who wasted nothing, and would no doubt leave his daughter a large fortune. So all was well. Ulrik Frederik could go courting without more ado, and a week after midsummer their betrothal was solemnized.

Ulrik Frederik was very much in love, but not with the stormy infatuation he had felt when Sofie Urne ruled his heart. It was a pensive, amorous, almost wistful sentiment, rather than a fresh, ruddy passion. Marie had told him the story of her dreary childhood, and he liked to picture to himself her sufferings with something of the voluptuous pity that thrills a young monk when he fancies the beautiful white body of the female martyr bleeding on the sharp spikes of the torture-wheel. Sometimes he would be troubled with dark forebodings that an early death might tear her from his arms. Then he would vow to himself with great oaths that he would bear her in his hands and keep every poisonous breath from her, that he would lead the light of every gold-shining mood into her young heart and never, never grieve her.

Yet there were other times when he exulted at the thought that all this rich beauty, this strange, wonderful soul were given into his power as the soul of a dead man into the hands of God, to grind in the dust if he liked, to raise up when he pleased, to crush down, to bend.