Elsie Lindtner / A sequel to "The Dangerous Age"

by Karin Michaëlis

You who of old were like a dry autumn leaf whirled before the wind, have proved yourself all at once to have a strength and courage which make me ashamed. Who has lulled your senses so to rest? The one “great” love? No, I will not ask questions, though a whole host of them pulsate within me. And you are not a bit afraid? You speak of it as if it were a mere frolic. You wonderful human creature, Magna. Other women suffer intolerably during the nine months of pregnancy, and grow irritable and ugly. But you are blooming as if it were the most perfectly natural condition to be in. What a contrast to your ordinary mood and your old escapades. You are not in the least afraid to bring a child into the world at your age; and in such circumstances every line of your letter breathes freshness and health, and there is no disguising it.

Do you know, your letter awoke in me the first longing for Denmark since I packed my boxes and went out into the wide world.

I have become an alien. Five years is not such a very long time, though long enough to render a person countryless. Richard in his pleasant way, keeps me au courant with what he calls the “main movements” of our circle, so I know that you have been banned and ostracised. I cannot say that I think it is altogether undeserved. You know that I insist on good form outwardly as well as inwardly, and, really, Magna, I cannot picture myself behaving as you have done, any more than I can picture myself going out in society in a nightdress with my hair hanging down in a pigtail. But, of course, it is your affair.

For the most part I take no interest in what goes on at home. It reminds me too much of looking at a drop of water through a microscope. If, by any chance, I come across a Danish newspaper, I read nothing but the obituaries, and even they do not rouse a shadow of emotion in my soul.

Yet there are fates which, out of curiosity or fellow-feeling, appeal to me. And yours is one of them. When Richard wrote, “Frau Wellmann’s latest makes her ‘impossible’ in this part of the world,” I could not help smiling. You made yourself impossible years ago. It is true, Professor Wellmann’s name and social status have sheltered and held a restraining hand over you, that is to say, up till now.

But now it has come to an actual scandal. You parade your shame on the housetops of Copenhagen, instead of going away and hushing it up.

By the bye, how many small affairs were there not year after year hushed up in our set? The dear ladies even were not afraid to whisper about them to each other. And you, you even, delight in having a child of the peculiar kind that we call illegitimate. Magna, Magna! I am not going to suppose that behind it all is a spark of malicious joy in challenging the crême de la crême. That would be a poor joke. Neither can I believe that your motive has anything to do with love for the father of your illegitimate child.

You write so beautifully about the feeling that life is growing within you. In this respect, I am a stranger, and absolutely blind. I have never felt the smallest sensation of longing to feel that life is growing within me. Perhaps I am even incapable of understanding your expression. Yet it touches me.

You were entering on a period of severe trial for yourself and for the children, and the time of trial will not end with your confinement. There will most certainly have to be an explanation, and preferably an explanation that will bring as little injury as possible to the children. Have you thought of this? Don’t put off the inevitable too long, or others may be before you. The children cannot—it would be terrible if they could—understand the whole, so the question is how to invent a fable which will best lull their reflection.

Many will judge you because you have done what is not customary and defied the usages of society; others will judge you out of envy, because they have not had the courage to do it themselves. Every one who has refrained through fear of disgrace and shame, will hurl a stone at you. Likewise the childless women. If I were still in the Old Market Place, I should flout you, too. Still, there are a whole lot of free-thinking human creatures who will judge you not on account of the child, but for the children’s sake. You may shrug your shoulders at the others, but you can’t get away from the shadow which you are casting on the children.