The carriage rumbled and rumbled. The closed windows rattled. Thora sat and looked out of one of them, at the ditch of the highway, at the smith’s hill where primroses blossomed in spring, at Bertel Nielsen’s huge elderberry bushes, at the mill and the miller’s geese, and the hill of Dalum where not many years ago she and William slid down on sleighs, at the Dalum meadows, at the long, unnatural shadows of the horses that rushed over the gravel-heaps, over the turf-pits and rye-field. She sat there and wept very softly; from time to time when wiping the dew from the pane, she looked stealthily over towards Mogens. He sat bowed forward, his traveling-cloak was open, his hat lay and rocked on the front seat; his hands he held in front of his face. All the things he had to think of! It had almost robbed him of his courage. She had had to say good-by to all her relatives and friends and to an infinity of places, where memories lay ranged in strata, one above the other, right up to the sky, and all this so that she might go away with him. And was he the right sort of a man to place all one’s trust in, he with his past of brutalities and debaucheries! It was not even certain that all this was merely his past. He had changed, it is true, and he found it difficult to understand what he himself had been. But one never can wholly escape from one’s self, and what had been surely still was there. And now this innocent child had been given him to guard and protect. He had managed to get himself into the mire till over his head, and doubtless he would easily succeed in drawing her down into it too. No, no, it shall not be thus—no, she is to go on living her clear, bright girl’s life in spite of him. And the carriage rattled and rattled. Darkness had set in, and here and there he saw through the thickly covered panes, lights in the houses and yards past which they drove. Thora slumbered. Toward morning they came to their new home, an estate that Mogens had bought. The horses steamed in the chill morning air; the sparrows twittered on the huge linden in the court, and the smoke rose slowly from the chimneys. Thora looked smiling and contented at all this after Mogens had helped her out of the carriage; but there was no other way about, she was sleepy and too tired to conceal it. Mogens took her to her room and then went into the garden, sat down on a bench, and imagined that he was watching the sunrise, but he nodded too violently to keep up the deception. About noon he and Thora met again, happy and refreshed. They had to look at things and express their surprise; they consulted and made decisions; they made the absurdest suggestions; and how Thora struggled to look wise and interested when the cows were introduced to her; and how difficult it was not to be all too unpractically enthusiastic over a small shaggy young dog; and how Mogens talked of drainage and the price of grain, while he stood there and in his heart wondered how Thora would look with red poppies in her hair! And in the evening, when they sat in their conservatory and the moon so clearly drew the outline of the windows on the floor, what a comedy they played, he on his part seriously representing to her that she should go to sleep, really go to sleep, since she must be tired, the while he continued to hold her hand in his; and she on her part, when she declared he was disagreeable and wanted to be rid of her, that he regretted having taken a wife. Then a reconciliation, of course, followed, and they laughed, and the hour grew late. Finally Thora went to her room, but Mogens remained sitting in the conservatory, miserable that she had gone. He drew black imaginings for himself, that she was dead and gone, and that he was sitting here all alone in the world and weeping over her, and then he really wept. At length he became angry at himself and stalked up and down the floor, and wanted to be sensible. There was a love, pure and noble, without any coarse, earthly passion; yes, there was, and if there was not, there was going to be one. Passion spoiled everything, and it was very ugly and unhuman. How he hated everything in human nature that was not tender and pure, fine and gentle! He had been subjugated, weighed down, tormented, by this ugly and powerful force; it had lain in his eyes and ears, it had poisoned all his thoughts.
He went to his room. He intended to read and took a book; he read, but had not the slightest notion what—could anything have happened to her! No, how could it? But nevertheless he was afraid, possibly there might have—no, he could no longer stand it. He stole softly to her door; no, everything was still and peaceful. When he listened intently it seemed as if he could hear her breathing—how his heart throbbed, it seemed, he could hear it too. He went back to his room and his book. He closed his eyes; how vividly he saw her; he heard her voice, she bent down toward him and whispered—how he loved her, loved her, loved her! It was like a song within him; it seemed as if his thoughts took on rhythmic form, and how clearly he could see everything of which he thought! Still and silent she lay and slept, her arm beneath the neck, her hair loosened, her eyes were closed, she breathed very softly—the air trembled within, it was red like the reflection of roses. Like a clumsy faun, imitating the dance of the nymphs, so the bed-cover with its awkward folds outlined her delicate form. No, no, he did not want to think of her, not in that way, for nothing in all the world, no; and now it all came back again, it could not be kept away, but he would keep it away, away! And it came and went, came and went, until sleep seized him, and the night passed.
When the sun had set on the evening of the next day, they walked about together in the garden. Arm in arm they walked very slowly and very silently up one path and down the other, out of the fragrance of mignonettes through that of roses into that of jasmine. A few moths fluttered past them; out in the grain-field a wild duck called, otherwise most of the sounds came from Thora’s silk dress.
“How silent we can be,” exclaimed Thora.
“And how we can walk!” Mogens continued, “we must have walked about four miles by now.”
Then they walked again for a while and were silent.
“Of what are you thinking now?” she asked.
“I am thinking of myself.”
“That’s just what I am doing.”