One says well, that a man's love or season of courtship lasts till his thirtieth year, and after that time he is ambitious; but it is not always so, and with Counsellor Bagger it was in all respects the contrary. His ambition was already, if not fully reached, yet in some degree satisfied. The faculty of love had not been at all employed, and the letter came like a spark in a powder-cask; it ran glowing through every nerve. The youthful half of his soul, which had slept within him, wakened with such sudden, revolutionary strength, that the other half soul, which until now had borne rule, became completely subject; yes, so wholly, that Counsellor Bagger went past the court-house and came down in Court-house Street without noticing it. Suddenly he missed the big building with the pillars and inscription: "With law shall Lands be built;" looked around confused, and turned back.
So much was he still at this moment Criminal Examiner, that among the first thoughts or feelings which the mysterious letter excited in him was this: It can be a trick, a foolery. But in the next moment it occurred to him, that never to any living soul had he mentioned his bold figure of the high-seat pillars, and still less revealed the mysterious, to him so valued, syllable—geb—. No doubt could exist: the fine, perfumed paper, the delicate lady handwriting, and the few significant words testified, that the billet which once in youthful, sanguine longing he had entrusted to the winds of heaven, had come to a lady, and that in one way or another she had found him out. He remembered very well, that a single time, five or six weeks before, he had in a numerous company mentioned that incident, and he did not doubt that the story had extended itself as ripples do, when one throws a stone into the water; but where in the whole town, or indeed the land, had the ripple hit the exact point? He looked again at the envelope. It bore the stamp of the Copenhagen city mail: that was all. But that showed with some probability that the writer lived in Copenhagen, and maybe at this moment she looked down upon him from one of the many windows; for now he stood by the fountain. There was something in the paper, the handwriting, or more properly perhaps in the secrecy, that made her seem young, spirited, beautiful, piquant. There was something fairy-like, exalted, intoxicating, in the feeling that the object of the longing and hope of his youth had been under the protection of a good spirit, and that the great unknown had taken care of and prepared for him a companion, a wife, just at the moment when he had become Counsellor of Justice of the Superior Court. But who was she? This was the only thing painful in the affair; but this intriguing annoyance was not to be avoided, if the lady was to remain within her sphere, surrounded by respect and esteem.
"What would I have thought of a lady, a woman, who came straight forward and handed out the billet, saying: 'Here I am'?" he asked himself, at the moment when at last he had found the court-house stairs and was ascending.
How it fared that day with the examinations is recorded in criminal and police court documents; but a veil is thrown over it in consideration of the fact, that a man only once in his life is made Counsellor of Justice in the King's Court. The day following it went better; although it is pretty sure that a horse thief went free from further reproof, because the counsellor was busy rolling that stone up the mountain: Where shall I seek her if she does not write again? Will she write again? If she would do that, why did she not write a little more at first?
A couple of weeks after the receipt of the letter, one evening about seven o'clock, the counsellor sat at home, not as before by his writing-table busy with acts, but on a corner of the sofa, with drooping arms, deeply absorbed in a mixture of anxious doubts and dreaming expectations. Hope built air-castles, and doubt then puffed them over like card-houses. One of his fancies was, that she summoned him—he would not even in thought use the expression: gave him an interview—at a masquerade. It was consequently no common masquerade, but a grand, elegant masked ball, to which a true lady could repair. The clock was at eleven, the appointed hour: he waited anxiously the pressing five minutes; then she came and extended him the fine hand in the finest straw-colored glove—
"Letter to the Counsellor of Justice," said Jens, with strong Funen accent, and short, soldierly pronunciation.
It is so uncommon that what one longs for comes just at the moment of most earnest desire; but notwithstanding the letter was from her, the Counsellor of Justice knew the superscription, would have known it among a hundred thousand. The letter read thus:
"I ought to be open towards you; and, as we shall never meet, I can be so."
Here the Counsellor of Justice stopped a moment and caught for breath. A good many of our twenty-year-old beaux, who have never been admitted to the bar, far less have been Court Counsellors, would, under similar circumstances, have said to themselves: "She writes that she will be open; that is to say, now she will fool me: we will never meet; that is to say, now I shall soon see her." But Counsellor Bagger believed every word as gospel, and his knees trembled. He read further:
"I am ashamed of the few words I last wrote you; but my apology is, that it is only two days since I learned that you are married. I have been mistaken, but more in what may be imputed to me than in what I have thought. My only comfort is, that I shall never be known by you or anybody, and that I shall be forgotten, as I shall forget."