IV
Fru Edgren was one of those proud, straightforward women who would never dream of allowing any one to commiserate them. She made no attempt to suit her actions to please the world; her sole ambition was to show herself as she really was. When she wished to do a thing, she did it as quickly as possible, and without any one’s help. She wrote under the influence of her personal impressions, her personal judgment, and her personal opinions; whatever she might attain to in the future, she was determined to have no one but herself to thank for it. But she was a woman. Though usually possessed of a clear judgment, she did not sufficiently realize what it means for a woman to enter upon a literary career by herself. She succeeded in her literary career; but in doing so she sacrificed the best part of her life, and was obliged to suppress her best and truest aspirations, thereby destroying a large amount of real artistic talent.
There are few things that afford me more genuine pleasure than the books of modern authors. I enjoy them less on account of what they tell me than for that which they have been unable to conceal. When they write their books, they write the history of their inner life. You open a book and you read twenty lines, and in the tone and character of those twenty lines you seem to feel the beating of the writer’s pulse. In the same way as a fine musical ear can distinguish a single false note in an orchestra, a fine psychological instinct can discern the true from the false, and can tell where the author describes his own feelings and where he is only pretending—can discern his true character from among the multitude of conscious and unconscious masks, and can say: This is good metal, and that a worthless composition, wherewith he makes a dupe of himself and of others.
The woman who attempts to write without a man to shield her, to throw a protecting arm around her, is an unfortunate, incongruous being. That which sets her soul aglow—which calls loudly within her—she dare not say. When a man wishes to be a great writer, he defies conventionalism and compels it to become subservient to him; but for a lonely woman, conventionalism is her sole support, not only outwardly, but inwardly also. It forms a part of her womanly modesty; it is the guide of her life, from which naught but love can free her; that is why the more talented a woman is, the more absolutely love must be her pilot.
Fru Edgren’s best play and her two most interesting stories are “The Elf,” “Aurora Bunge,” and “Love and Womanhood.” None of her other works can be said to equal these in depth of feeling, and none strike a more melancholy note. There is an emotional, nervous life in them which presents an attractive contrast to the cold irony of her other works. She has put her whole being into these writings, with something of her womanly power to charm; while in the others we meet with the clear insight, the critical faculty, and the rare sarcasm to which they owe their reputation.
Yet in these three works we notice how very much she is hedged in on all sides by conventionalism. “The Elf,” “Love and Womanhood,” and “Aurora Bunge” make us think of a large and beautiful bird that cannot fly because its long, swift wings have been broken by a fall from the nest.
The “elf” is the wife of the respected mayor of a small country town. Her father was a Swedish artist, whose whole life was spent in travelling, because every time that he came home he was driven away by the narrow social life of Sweden. When he is lying on his deathbed, he leaves his penniless child to the care of his younger friend, the Mayor, who knows no better way of providing for her than by making her his wife. He is universally considered the best son, the best partner in business, and the best man—in the town. The elf wanders about the woods, and becomes the subject of much gossip, likewise of envy, among the smart ladies of the town.
One evening when they are giving a party, and she forgets to play the part of hostess, their neighbor, a Baron, arrives with his sister. Both, no longer young, free from illusions, liberal in thought and speech, seem to carry with them a breath from a bigger world; their mere presence serves to make the elf thoughtlessly happy, and from henceforward she sits daily to the Baron for a picture representing Undine when the knight carries her through the wood, and her soul awakes within her. The elf’s soul—i.e., love—is also awakened. She feels herself drawn towards this man, who has sufficient fire to awaken her womanhood with a kiss. She does not wish, she does not think, but she would not like to be separated from him; he lives in an atmosphere that suits her, and in which she thrives. She is still a child; but the child would like to wake. It is true that her conscience reproaches her with regard to the Mayor, but here the circumstances are related as though she were not quite married,—that is a mistake which nearly all Teutonic authoresses make.
The Baron tells her the story of Undine. The knight finds her at the moment when the brook stretches forth his long white arm to draw her back, but he does not let her go; he takes her in his arms and carries her away, and she looks up at him with a half anxious expression—there is something new in this expression. She is no longer Undine. She loves. She has a soul.
In this drama, Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler, the future leader of the woman’s rights movement, makes the confession that a woman’s soul is—love. She is the only Swedish woman writer who would have owned as much.