Marie Grubbe, a Lady of the Seventeenth Century

by J. P. Jacobsen

The relation between them had not improved, except in so far as the lack of mutual understanding and mutual love had, as it were, been accepted by both as an unalterable fact, and found expression in the extremely ceremonious manner they had adopted toward each other.

For a year or more after they had moved to Aggershus, things went on much in the same way, and Marie, for her part, desired no change. Not so Ulrik Frederik; for he had again become enamored of his wife.

On a winter afternoon, in the gloaming, Marie Grubbe sat alone in the little parlor known from olden time as the Nook. The day was cloudy and dark, with a raw, blustering wind. Heavy flakes of melting snow were plastered into the corners of the tiny window-panes, covering almost half the surface of the greenish glass. Gusts of wet, chilly wind went whirling down between the high walls, where they seemed to lose their senses and throw themselves blindly upon shutters and doors, rattling them fiercely, then flying skyward again with a hoarse, dog-like whimper. Powerful blasts came shrieking across the roofs opposite and hurled themselves against windows and walls, pounding like waves, then suddenly dying away. Now and again a squall would come roaring down the chimney. The flames ducked their frightened heads, and the white smoke, timidly curling toward the chimney like the comb of a breaker, would shrink back, ready to throw itself out into the room. Ah, in the next instant it is whirled, thin and light and blue, up through the flue, with the flames calling after it, leaping and darting, and sending sputtering sparks by the handful right in its heels. Then the fire began to burn in good earnest. With grunts of pleasure it spread over glowing coals and embers, boiled and seethed with delight in the innermost marrow of the white birch wood, buzzed and purred like a tawny cat, and licked caressingly the noses of blackening knots and smouldering chunks of wood.

Warm and pleasant and luminous the breath of the fire streamed through the little room. Like a fluttering fan of light it played over the parquet floor and chased the peaceful dusk which hid in tremulous shadows to the right and the left behind twisted chair-legs, or shrank into corners, lay thin and long in the shelter of mouldings, or flattened itself under the large clothes-press.

Suddenly the chimney seemed to suck up the light and heat with a roar. Darkness spread boldly across the floor on every board and square, to the very fire, but the next moment the light leaped back again and sent the dusk flying to all sides, with the light pursuing it, up the walls and doors, above the brass latch. Safety nowhere! The dusk sat crouching against the wall, up under the ceiling, like a cat in a high branch, with the light scampering below, back and forth like a dog, leaping, running at the foot of the tree. Not even among the flagons and tumblers on the top of the press could the darkness be undisturbed, for red ruby-glasses, blue goblets, and green Rhenish wineglasses lit iridescent fires to help the light search them out.

The wind blew and the darkness fell outside, but within the fire glowed, the light played, and Marie Grubbe was singing. Now and again, she would murmur snatches of the words as they came to her mind, then again hum the melody alone. Her lute was in her hand, but she was not playing it, only touching the strings sometimes and calling out a few clear, long-sounding notes. It was one of those pleasant little pensive songs that make the cushions softer and the room warmer; one of those gently flowing airs that seem to sing themselves in their indolent wistfulness, while they give the voice a delicious roundness and fullness of tone. Marie was sitting in the light from the fire, and its beams played around her, while she sang in careless enjoyment, as if caressing herself with her own voice.

The little door opened, and Ulrik Frederik bent his tall form to enter. Marie stopped singing instantly.

“Ah, madam!” exclaimed Ulrik Frederik in a tone of gentle remonstrance, making a gesture of appeal, as he came up to her. “Had I known that you would allow my presence to incommode you—”

“No, truly, I was but singing to keep my dreams awake.”

“Pleasant dreams?” he asked, bending over the firedogs before the grate and warming his hands on the bright copper balls.