Marie Grubbe, a Lady of the Seventeenth Century

by J. P. Jacobsen

Sometimes, when she stood at the open window, leaning against the casement and looking down into the paved court below, she would feel an overmastering impulse to throw herself down, merely to do it. But in that very second she seemed to have actually made the leap in her imagination and to have felt the cool, incisive tingling that accompanies a jump from a height. She darted back from the window to the inmost corner of the room, shaking with horror, the image of herself lying in her own blood on the hard stones so vivid in her mind that she had to go back to the window again and look down in order to drive it away.

Less dangerous and of a somewhat different nature was the fancy that would seize her when she looked at her own bare arm and traced, in a kind of fascination, the course of the blue and deep-violet veins under the white skin. She wanted to set her teeth in that white roundness, and she actually followed her impulse, biting like a fierce little animal mark upon mark, till she felt the pain and would stop and begin to fondle the poor maltreated arm.

At other times, when she was sitting quietly, she would be suddenly moved to go in and undress, only that she might wrap herself in a thick quilt of red silk and feel the smooth, cool surface against her skin, or put an ice-cold steel blade down her naked back. Of such whims she had many.

Finally, after an absence of fourteen months, Ulrik Frederik returned. It was a July night, and Marie lay sleepless, listening to the slow soughing of the wind, restless with anxious thoughts. For the last week she had been expecting Ulrik Frederik every hour of the day and night, longing for his arrival and fearing it. Would everything be as in olden times—fourteen months ago? Sometimes she thought no, then again yes. The truth was, she could not quite forgive him for that trip to Spain. She felt that she had aged in this long time, had grown timid and listless, while he would come fresh from the glamor and stir, full of youth and high spirits, finding her pale and faded, heavy of step and of mind, nothing like her old self. At first he would be strange and cold to her; she would feel all the more cast down, and he would turn from her, but she would never forsake him. No, no, she would watch over him like a mother, and when the world went against him he would come back to her, and she would comfort him and be kind to him, bear want for his sake, suffer and weep, do everything for him. At other times she thought that as soon as she saw him all must be as before; yes, they romped through the rooms like madcap pages; the walls echoed their laughter and revelry, the corners whispered of their kisses—

With this fancy in her mind she fell into a light sleep. Her dreams were of noisy frolic, and when she awoke the noise was still there. Quick steps sounded on the stairs, the street door was thrown open, doors slammed, coaches rumbled, and horses’ hoofs scraped the cobblestones.

There he is! she thought, sprang up, caught the large quilt, and wrapping it round her, ran through the rooms. In the large parlor she stopped. A tallow dip was burning in a wooden candlestick on the floor, and a few of the tapers had been lit in the sconces, but the servant in his flurry had run away in the midst of his preparations. Some one was speaking outside. It was Ulrik Frederik’s voice, and she trembled with emotion.

The door was opened, and he rushed in, still wearing his hat and cloak. He would have caught her in his arms, but got only her hand, as she darted back. He looked so strange in his unfamiliar garb. He was tanned and stouter than of old, and under his cloak he wore a queer dress, the like of which she had never seen. It was the new fashion of long waistcoat and fur-bordered coat, which quite changed his figure and made him still more unlike his old self.

“Marie!” he cried, “dear girl!” and he drew her to him, wrenching her wrist till she moaned with pain. He heard nothing. He was flustered with drink; for the night was not warm, and they had baited well in the last tavern. Marie’s struggles were of no avail, he kissed and fondled her wildly, immoderately. At last she tore herself away and ran into the next room, her cheeks flushed, her bosom heaving, but thinking that perhaps this was rather a queer welcome, she came back to him.

Ulrik Frederik was standing in the same spot, quite bewildered between his efforts to make his fuddled brain comprehend what was happening and his struggles to unhook the clasps of his cloak. His thoughts and his hands were equally helpless. When Marie went to him and unfastened his cloak, it occurred to him that perhaps it was all a joke, and he burst into a loud laugh, slapped his thigh, writhed and staggered, threatened Marie archly, and laughed with maudlin good nature. He was plainly trying to express something funny that had caught his fancy, started but could not find the words, and at last sank down on a chair, groaning and gasping, while a broad, fatuous smile spread over his face.

Gradually the smile gave place to a sottish gravity. He rose and stalked up and down in silent, displeased majesty, planted himself by the grate in front of Marie, one arm akimbo, the other resting on the mantel, and—still in his cups—looked down at her condescendingly. He made a long, potvaliant speech about his own greatness and the honor that had been shown him abroad, about the good fortune that had befallen Marie when she, a common nobleman’s daughter, had become the bride of a man who might have brought home a princess of the blood. Without the slightest provocation, he went on to impress upon Marie that he meant to be master of his own house, and she must obey his lightest nod, he would brook no gainsaying, no, not a word, not one. However high he might raise her, she would always be his slave, his little slave, his sweet little slave, and at that he became as gentle as a sportive lynx, wept and wheedled. With all the importunity of a drunken man he forced upon her gross caresses and vulgar endearments, unavoidable, inescapable.