Marie Grubbe, a Lady of the Seventeenth Century

by J. P. Jacobsen

It was partly Marie’s own fault that such thoughts could rise in him, for her love, if she did love, was of a strangely proud, almost insolent nature. It would be but a halting image to say that her love for the late Ulrik Christian had been like a lake whipped and tumbled by a storm, while her love for Ulrik Frederik was the same water in the evening, becalmed, cold, and glassy, stirred but by the breaking of frothy bubbles among the dark reeds of the shore. Yet the simile would have some truth, for not only was she cold and calm toward her lover, but the bright myriad dreams of life that thronged in the wake of her first passion had paled and dissolved in the drowsy calm of her present feeling.

She loved Ulrik Frederik after a fashion, but might it not be chiefly as the magic wand opening the portals to the magnificent pageant of life, and might it not be the pageant that she really loved? Sometimes it would seem otherwise. When she sat on his knee in the twilight and sang little airs about Daphne and Amaryllis to her own accompaniment, the song would die away, and while her fingers played with the strings of the cithern, she would whisper in his waiting ear words so sweet and warm that no true love owns them sweeter, and there were tender tears in her eyes that could be only the dew of love’s timid unrest. And yet—might it not be that her longing was conjuring up a mere mood, rooted in the memories of her past feeling, sheltered by the brooding darkness, fed by hot blood and soft music,—a mood that deceived herself and made him happy? Or was it nothing but maidenly shyness that made her chary of endearments by the light of day, and was it nothing but girlish fear of showing a girl’s weakness that made her eyes mock and her lips jeer many a time when he asked for a kiss or, vowing love, would draw from her the words all lovers long to hear? Why was it, then, that when she was alone, and her imagination had wearied of picturing for the thousandth time the glories of the future, she would often sit gazing straight before her hopelessly, and feel unutterably lonely and forsaken?

In the early afternoon of an August day Marie and Ulrik Frederik were riding, as often before, along the sandy road that skirted the Sound beyond East Gate. The air was fresh after a morning shower, the sun stood mirrored in the water, and blue thunder-clouds were rolling away in the distance.

They cantered as quickly as the road would allow them, a lackey in a long crimson coat following closely. They rode past the gardens where green apples shone under dark leaves, past fish-nets hung to dry with the raindrops still glistening in their meshes, past the King’s fisheries with red-tiled roof, and past the glue-boiler’s house, where the smoke rose straight as a column out of a chimney. They jested and laughed, smiled and laughed, and galloped on.

At the sign of the Golden Grove they turned and rode through the woods toward Overdrup, then walked their horses through the underbrush down to the bright surface of the lake. Tall beeches leaned to mirror their green vault in the clear water. Succulent marsh-grass and pale pink feather-foil made a wide motley border where the slope, brown with autumn leaves, met the water. High in the shelter of the foliage, in a ray of light that pierced the cool shadow, mosquitoes whirled in a noiseless swarm. A red butterfly gleamed there for a second, then flew out into the sunlight over the lake. Steel-blue dragon-flies made bright streaks through the air, and the darting pike drew swift wavy lines over the surface of the water. Hens were cackling in the farm-yard beyond the brushwood, and from the other side of the lake came a note of wood-doves cooing under the domes of the beech-trees in Dyrehaven.

They slackened their speed and rode out into the water to let their horses dabble their dusty hoofs and quench their thirst. Marie had stopped a little farther out than Ulrik Frederik, and sat with reins hanging in order to let her mare lower its head freely. She was tearing the leaves from a long branch in her hand, and sent them fluttering down over the water, which was beginning to stir in soft ripples.

“I think we may get a thunder-storm,” she said, her eyes following the course of a light wind that went whirling over the lake, raising round, dark, roughened spots on the surface.

“Perhaps we had better turn back,” suggested Ulrik Frederik.

“Not for gold!” she answered and suddenly drove her mare to the shore. They walked their horses round the lake to the road and entered the tall woods.

“I would I knew,” said Marie, when she felt the cool air of the forest fan her cheeks and drew in its freshness in long, deep breaths. “I would I knew—” She got no further, but stopped and looked up into the green vault with shining eyes.