Niels Lyhne

by J. P. Jacobsen

Mrs. Claudi was not called on to bear such trials. Nevertheless her marriage was not without its sorrows; for it was a matter of common knowledge in Fjordby that the Consul was not, or at least had not been until a few years ago, the most faithful husband, and that he had several illegitimate children in the neighborhood. This was, of course, a bitter grief to her, and it had not been easy to keep her heart steadfast through the tumult of jealousy, scorn and anger, shame and sickening fear, which had made her feel as though the ground were slipping away under her feet. But she stood firm. Not only did she never allow a reproachful word to pass her lips, but she warded off any confession on the part of her husband, any direct prayer for forgiveness, and anything that might seem like a repentant vow. She felt that if it were ever put into words, they might sweep her along and away from him. Silently she would bear it, and in the silence she tried to make herself believe that she was in part to blame for her husband’s crime, because of the barrier she had built around herself, which her love had not been strong enough to break down. She succeeded in magnifying this sin until she felt an indistinct need of forgiveness, and in course of time she brought herself to the point where she gave rise to a rumor that the girls whom Consul Claudi had seduced and their children were taken care of in other ways than with money; it seemed that a hidden woman’s hand must be sheltering them, keeping them from harm, supporting and guiding them.

So it came to pass that evil was turned into good, and a sinner and a saint each made the other better.

The Claudis had two children, a son who was in a merchant’s office in Hamburg and a nineteen-year-old daughter named Fennimore after the heroine in St. Roche, one of Frau von Palzow’s novels which had been very popular in the time of Mrs. Claudi’s girlhood.

Fennimore and the Consul came down to meet the steamer on the day it brought Niels and Erik to Fjordby. Niels was pleasantly surprised to see that his cousin was pretty, for hitherto he had known her only from a terrible old family daguerreotype, where she appeared in a misty atmosphere, forming a group with her brother and her parents, all with hectic crimson on their cheeks and bright gilding on their jewelry. And now he found her simply lovely as she stood there in her light morning dress and her dainty little shoes with their black ribbons crossing a white-stockinged instep. She was resting one foot on the plank at the edge of the pier, and bent forward smiling to give him her parasol-handle for a handshake and a welcome, before the steamer was made fast. Her lips were so red and her teeth so white, and her forehead and temples so delicately outlined under the wide brim of her Eugenie hat, from which shadowing edges of deep black lace fell weighted with bright jet.

At last the gangplank was let down, and the Consul started off with Erik. He had already introduced himself with twelve feet of water between them and, still shouting, had drawn Erik into a humorous conversation about the agonies of sea-sickness, which he carried on with a wizened hatter’s widow on board. Now he was calling on him to admire the large linden trees outside of the revenue collector’s house and the new schooner standing ready to be launched from Thomas Rasmussen’s shipyard.

Niels walked with Fennimore. She pointed to the flag flying in the garden in honor of him and his friend, and then they began to discuss the Neergaards in Copenhagen. They quickly agreed that Mrs. Neergaard was a little—a very little—they would not say the word, but Fennimore smiled primly and made a cat-like movement with her hand. The characterization was evidently plain enough to them both, for they smiled and quickly became serious again. Silently they walked on, each wondering how he or she appeared in the other’s eyes.

Fennimore had imagined Niels Lyhne taller, more distinguished, and of an individuality more marked—like an underscored word. He, on the other hand, had found much more than he expected. He thought her charming, almost alluring, in spite of her dress which savored too much of small town elegance. When they had entered the hall, and she stood looking down with a preoccupied air, as she took off her hat and smoothed her hair with wonderfully soft, languid, graceful turns of hand and wrist, he felt as grateful as if her movements had been caresses. This almost puzzling sense of gratitude did not leave him either that day or the next, and sometimes it welled up so strong and warm that he felt it would have been the greatest happiness if he might have thanked her in words for being so pretty and so sweet.

Very soon Erik as well as Niels felt quite at home in the Consul’s hospitable house. Before many days they had slipped into that pleasantly arranged idling which is the real vacation life and which it is so difficult to guard against the friendly encroachments of well-meaning people. They had to use all their diplomacy to avoid the stuffy evening parties, large boating excursions, summer balls, and amateur theatricals which were constantly threatening their peace. They were ready to wish that the Consul’s house and garden had been on a desert island; and Robinson Crusoe was not more agitated by fear on finding the footsteps in the sand than they were at the sight of strange paletots in the hall or unfamiliar reticules on the sitting-room table. They much preferred to be by themselves; for they had scarcely passed the middle of the first week before they were both in love with Fennimore. It was not the mature passion which must and will know its fate and longs to have and to hold and to be assured. As yet it was only the first dawn of love like a hint of spring in the air, instinct with a longing akin to sadness and with an unrest that is gently pulsing joy. The heart is so tender and yielding and easily moved. A light on the water, a rustling in the leaves, a flower unfolding its petals—all seem to have a strange new power. Vague hopes without a name burst out, suddenly flooding the earth with sunlight and as suddenly vanishing again: weak despondency sails like a broad cloud over the glory, churning the flashes of hope down into its own gray wake.—Then hopelessness, melting hopelessness; bittersweet resignation to fate, a heart full of self-pity, renunciation gazing at its own reflection in quiet elegies and fainting in a sigh that is half dissembled.... But again there is the whispering of roses: a dreamland rises from the mist with golden haze over soft beech crowns and with fragrant summer darkness under leafy boughs arched over paths that lead no one knows whither.

One evening after tea they were all gathered in the sitting-room. The garden and all outdoor amusements were barred, for the rain was pouring down; but no one seemed to mind. The sense of being shut in gave the room something of the snug comfort of a winter evening, and moreover the rain was a blessing. Everything had been so parched and dry, but now the water streamed down, and when the heavy drops rattled against the frame of the reflector in the window the sound called up vague, fleeting glimpses of luscious green meadows and freshened foliage. Now and then some one would say under his breath: “How it pours!” and glance at the window-panes with a little gleam of pleasure and a half-conscious luxuriating in fellow-feeling with everything out of doors. Erik had fetched the mandolin he had brought with him from Italy and sang about Napoli and the bright stars. Then a young lady who had been to tea sat down at the piano and accompanied her own rendering of “My little nook among the mountains,” in Swedish, making the ah’s very broad to get the right Swedish effect.

Niels, who was not particularly musical, let himself be soothed into a gentle melancholy and sat lost in his own thoughts, until Fennimore began to sing.