Marie Grubbe, a Lady of the Seventeenth Century

by J. P. Jacobsen

From this land Ulrik Frederik had gone to the army and court of Philip the Fourth, and there he had been showered with gifts and honors, had been made Grand d’Espagne and put on the same footing as Don Juan of Austria. The king made it a point to do homage in his person to Frederik the Third, and in bestowing on him every possible favor he sought to express his satisfaction with the change of government in Denmark and his appreciation of King Frederik’s triumphant efforts to enter the ranks of absolute monarchs.

Intoxicated and elated with all this glory, which quite changed his conception of his own importance, Ulrik Frederik soon saw that he had acted with unpardonable folly in making the daughter of a common nobleman his wife. Thoughts of making her pay for his mistake, confused plans for raising her to his rank and for divorcing her chased one another through his brain during his trip homeward. On top of this came his superstitious fear that his life was in danger from her, and he made up his mind that until he could see his course more clearly, he would be cold and ceremonious in his manner to her and repel every attempt to revive the old idyllic relation between them.

Frederik the Third, who was by no means lacking in power of shrewd observation, soon noticed that Ulrik Frederik was not pleased with his marriage, and he divined the reason. Thinking to raise Marie Grubbe in Ulrik Frederik’s eyes, he distinguished her whenever he could and showered upon her every mark of royal grace, but it was of no avail. It merely raised an army of suspicious and jealous enemies around the favorite.

The Royal Family spent the summer, as often before, at Frederiksborg. Ulrik Frederik and Marie moved out there to help plan the junketings and pageants that were to be held in September and October, when the Elector of Saxony was coming to celebrate his betrothal with the Princess Anne Sofie. The court was small as yet, but the circle was to be enlarged in the latter part of August, when the rehearsals of ballets and other diversions were to begin. It was very quiet, and they had to pass the time as best they could. Ulrik Frederik took long hunting and fishing trips almost every day. The King was busy at his turning-lathe or in the laboratory which he had fitted up in one of the small towers. The Queen and the princesses were embroidering for the coming festivities.

In the shady lane that led from the woods up to the wicket of the little park, Marie Grubbe was wont to take her morning walk. She was there to-day. Up in the lane, her dress of madder-red shone against the black earth of the walk and the green leaves. Slowly she came nearer. A jaunty black felt hat trimmed only with a narrow pearl braid rested lightly on her hair, which was piled up in heavy ringlets. A silver-mounted solitaire gleamed on the rim where it was turned up on the side. Her bodice fitted smoothly, and her sleeves were tight to the elbow, whence they hung, deeply slashed, held together by clasps of mother-of-pearl and lined with flesh-colored silk. Wide, close-meshed lace covered her bare arms. The robe trailed a little behind, but was caught up high on the sides, falling in rounded folds across the front, and revealing a black and white diagonally striped skirt, which was just long enough to give a glimpse of black-clocked stockings and pearl-buckled shoes. She carried a fan of swan’s feathers and raven’s quills.

Near the wicket she stopped, breathed in her hollow hand, held it first to one eye then to the other, tore off a branch and laid the cool leaves on her hot eyelids. Still the signs of weeping were plainly to be seen. She went in at the wicket and started up toward the castle, but turned back and struck into a side-path.

Her figure had scarcely vanished between the dark green box-hedges when a strange and sorry couple appeared in the lane: a man who walked slowly and unsteadily as though he had just risen from a severe illness, leaning on a woman in an old-fashioned cloth coat and with a wide green shade over her eyes. The man was trying to go faster than his strength would allow, and the woman was holding him back, while she tripped along, remonstrating querulously.

“Hold, hold!” she said. “Wait a bit and take your feet with you! You’re running on like a loose wheel going down hill. Weak limbs must be weakly borne. Gently now! Isn’t that what she told you, the wise woman in Lynge? What sense is there in limping along on legs that have no more starch nor strength than an old rotten thread!”

“Alack, good Lord, what legs they are!” whimpered the sick man and stopped; for his knees shook under him. “Now she’s all out of sight”—he looked longingly at the wicket—“all out of sight! And there will be no promenade to-day, the harbinger says, and it’s so long till to-morrow!”