The chair stopped. “I am engaged.”
“Are you engaged? But how—why—Mrs. Boye?”
“Oh, don’t call me Mrs. Boye, and don’t begin to be unreasonable right away!” She leaned against the back of the rocking-chair with a little air of defiance. “Surely you can understand that it isn’t the pleasantest thing in the world for me to stand here and explain to you. I will do it, but you might at least help me.”
“What do you mean? Are you engaged, or are you not?”
“I have just told you that I am,” she replied with gentle impatience, looking up.
“Then may I be allowed to wish you joy, Mrs. Boye, and to thank you very much for the time we have known each other.” He had risen to his feet and bowed sarcastically several times.
“And you can part from me like this, quite calmly? I am engaged, and then we are done, and everything that has been between us two is just a stupid old story which mustn’t be brought to mind any more. Past is past, and that is all—Niels, all the precious days—will the memory of them be silent from now on? Will you never, never think of me, never miss me? Won’t you call the dream forth again, on many a quiet evening, and give it the colors it might have glowed with? Can you keep from loving it all back to life again in your thoughts and ripening it to the fullness it might have had? Can you? Can you put your foot on it and crush it all out of existence, every bit of it? Niels!”
“I hope so; you have shown me that it can be done.—But this is nonsense, pure, unmitigated nonsense from beginning to end. Why did you arrange this comedy? I have no shadow of a right to reproach you. You have never loved me, never said that you loved me. You have given me leave to love you, that is all, and now you withdraw your permission. Or perhaps you will allow me to go on, though you have given yourself to another? I don’t understand you, if you can imagine that to be possible. We are not children. Or are you afraid I shall forget you too soon? Never fear. You are not one to be blotted easily out of a man’s life. But take care! A love like mine does not come to a woman twice in her life; take care that you do not bring misfortune upon yourself by casting me off! I don’t wish you any harm, no, no! May you never know want and sickness, and may you have all the happiness that comes with wealth, admiration, and social success, in measure full and overflowing, that is my wish for you. May all the world stand open to you, all but one little door, one single little door, however much you knock and try to open it—but otherwise everything as fully and widely as it is possible to wish it.”
He spoke slowly, almost sadly, not bitterly, but with a strangely tremulous note in his voice, a note that was new to her and moved her. She had grown a little pale and stood leaning stiffly against the chair. “Niels,” she said, “don’t predict misfortune! Remember you were not here, Niels, and my love—I did not know how real it was; it seemed more like something that just interested me. It breathed through my life like a delicate spiritual poem, it never caught me in strong arms; it had wings—only wings. At least I thought so. I did not know better until now, or until the moment I had done it—said Yes and all that. Everything was so difficult, there were so many things all at once and so many people to consider.... It began with my brother, Hardenskjold, the one who was in the West Indies, you know. He had been rather wild when he was here, but over there he settled down and became so sensible and went into partnership with some one and made a lot of money, and married a rich widow, a sweet little thing, I assure you, and he and father made up, for Hardie was so changed, oh, he is so respectable there is no end to it, and so susceptible to what people say—terribly bourgeoise, oh! Of course, he thought I ought to be taken up in the bosom of the family again, and every time he came here he lectured me and pleaded and palavered, and you see father is an old man now, and so at last I did it, and everything was just as in the old days.”
She paused for a moment and began to take off first her mantilla and then her hat and gloves, and, busy with all this, she turned a little away from Niels, while she went on talking.