by Isak Dinesen
“ ‘That is how it happened,’ said the stranger. ‘But then you tell me that Phares is now in paradise.’
“ ‘All this,’ said Peter, who had, though, been listening only with half an ear, ‘I hold to be very brave of you, and it was well done to risk your life for your friend.’ At that he sighed deeply. ‘Oh, I have lived too long in the woods to be frightened of an owl,’ said the stranger. ‘Has anybody told you of me that I was the sort that runs away from danger?’
“ ‘No,’ said Peter. ‘But then you tell me,’ he said after a moment, ‘that you, too, were made prisoner. Still, since you are here, you got off somehow?’
“ ‘Yes; I got off,’ said the man, and gave Peter a strange deep glance. ‘I meant, then, to revenge Phares’s death. But since he is in paradise I do not see that I need to worry. And now I do not know what to do. Shall I dig up this hogshead of the tetrarch’s wine and drink it?’
“ ‘It will be sad to you without your friend,’ said Peter, and his eyes filled with such tears as were still left in him after this last week. He thought that he ought perhaps to reproach the man with the theft of the tetrarch’s wine, but too many recollections welled up in his own heart.
“ ‘No, it is not that of which I am thinking,’ said the stranger, ‘but if that wine also has gone bad and gives me no pleasure, what am I to do then?’
“Peter sat for a little while in his own thoughts. ‘Friend,’ he said, ‘there are other things in life to give you pleasure than the wine of the tetrarch.’
“ ‘Yes, I know,’ said the stranger, ‘but what if the same thing has happened to them? I have two lovely wives waiting for me at home, and just before this happened I purchased a virgin of twelve years. I have not seen her since. I could try them, if I chose. But the earthquake may have affected them as well, so that they may have neither flavor nor body, and what shall I do then?’
“Now Peter began to wish that this man would stop his complaints and leave him to himself. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘do you come to me about this?’
“ ‘You remind me,’ said the stranger. ‘I will tell you. I have been informed that your Rabbi, on the night before he died, gave a party to his followers, and that at that time a special wine was served, which was very rare and had some highly precious body in it. Have you, now, any more of this wine, and will you consent to sell it to me? I will give you your price.’
“Peter stared at the stranger. ‘Oh, God, oh, God,’ he cried, so highly affected that he upset his wine, which ran onto the floor, ‘you do not know what you are saying. This wine which we drank on Thursday night, the Emperor of Rome cannot pay for one drop of it.’ His heart was so terribly wrung that he rocked to and fro in his seat. Still, in the midst of his grief the words of the Lord, that he was to be a fisher of men, were brought back to him, and he reflected that it might be his duty to help this man, who seemed in some deep distress. He turned to him again, but as he was looking at him it came over him that of all people in the world, this young man was the one whom he could not help. To strengthen himself he called up one of the words of the Lord himself.
“ ‘My son,’ he said kindly and gravely, ‘take up thine cross and follow him.’ The stranger, just at the same moment as the Apostle, had been about to speak. Now he stopped and looked very darkly at Peter. ‘My cross!’ he cried. ‘Where is my cross? Who is to take up my cross?’
“ ‘No one but yourself can take up your cross,’ said Peter, ‘but He will help you to carry it. Have patience and strength. I will tell you much more about all this.’
“ ‘What have you to tell me about it?’ said the stranger. ‘It seems to me that you know nothing of it. Help? Who is it who wants help to carry the sort of cross which the carpenters of Jerusalem make in these days? Not I, you may be sure. That bow-legged Cyrenean would never have had the opportunity to exhibit his strength on my behalf. You talk of strength and patience,’ he went on after a moment, still highly agitated, ‘but I have never known a man as strong as myself. Look,’ he said, and pulling back his cloak he showed Peter his chest and shoulders, crossed by many terrible deep white scars. ‘My cross! The cross of Phares was to the right, and the cross of the man Achaz, who was never worth much, to the left. I should have taken up my cross better than any of them. Do you not think that I should have lasted more than six hours? I do not think much of that, I tell you. Wherever I have been, I have been a leader of men, and they have looked to me. Do not believe, because now I do not know what to do, that I have not been used to telling others to come and go as I liked.’
“At the disdainful tone of this speech Peter was about to lose his patience with the stranger, but he had promised himself, since he cut off Malchus’s ear, to control his temper, so he said nothing.
“After a while the man looked at him, as if impressed by his silence. ‘And you,’ he said, ‘who are a follower of this Prophet, what do you think is likely to happen to yourself now?’ Peter’s face, marred by sorrow, cleared and softened. His whole countenance radiated hope. ‘I trust and believe,’ he said, ‘that my faith, though it be tried with fire, be found unto praise and honor. I hope that it may be granted to me to suffer and die for my Lord. Sometimes, even, in these last nights,’ he went on, speaking in a low voice, ‘I have thought that at the end of the road a cross might await me.’ Having spoken thus he dared not look up to meet the other’s eyes. He added quickly, ‘Although you may think that I am boasting, and that I am too low for that.’
“ ‘No,’ said the stranger, ‘I think it very likely that all this of which you have spoken will indeed happen to you.’
“This confidence in his own hopes struck Peter as a most unexpected and generous piece of friendliness in the stranger. His heat melted with gratitude. He blushed like a young bride. For the first time he felt a real interest in his companion, and it seemed to him that he ought to do something for him in return for the lovely things that he had said to him. ‘I am sorry,’ he said gently, ‘that I have not been able to help you in what weighs upon your soul. But indeed I am hardly in command of myself, so much has happened to me in these last days.’
“ ‘Oh,’ said the stranger, ‘I hardly expected anything better.’
“In the course of our talk,’ Peter said, ‘you said a couple of times that you did not know what to do. Tell me in what matter it is that you are in such doubts. Even about this wine, of which you speak, I will try to advise you.’ The stranger looked at him. ‘I have not been talking of any particular matter,’ he said. ‘I do not know what to do at all. I do not know where such wine is found that will gladden my heart again. But I suppose,’ he went on, after a little while, ‘that I had better go and dig up that wine of the tetrarch’s, and sleep with this girl that I told you of. I may as well try.’
“With these words he got up from the table and draped his cloak around him.
“ ‘Do not go yet,’ Peter said. ‘It seems to me that there are many things of which we ought to talk together.’
“ ‘I have to go in any case,’ said the man. ‘There is a transport of oil on its way from Hebron, which I must meet.’
“ ‘Are you trading in oil, then?’ Peter asked. ‘In a way,’ said the man.
“ ‘But tell me, before you go,’ said Peter, ‘what is your name? For we might speak again together, some time, if I knew where to find you?’ The stranger was already standing in the door. He turned around and looked at Peter with hauteur and a slight scorn. He looked a magnificent figure. ‘Did you not know my name?’ he asked him. ‘My name was cried all over the town. There was not one of the tame burghers of Jerusalem who did not shout it with all his might. “Barabbas,” they cried, “Barabbas! Barabbas! Give us Barabbas.” My name is Barabbas. I have been a great chief, and, as you said yourself, a brave man. My name shall be remembered.’
“And with these words he walked away.”
As the Cardinal had finished his tale, Jonathan got up and changed the tallow candle in the lantern, for it had burned q
uite down, and was now flickering wildly up and down in its last convulsions.
He had no sooner done this than the girl at his side became deadly pale. Her eyes closed, and her whole figure seemed to sink together. Miss Malin asked her kindly if she felt sleepy, but she denied it with great energy, and might well do so. She had lived during this night as she had never lived before. She had faced death and had thrown herself nobly into the jaws of danger for the sake of her fellow-creatures. She had been the center of a brilliant circle, and she had even been married. She did not want to miss a single moment of these pregnant hours. But during the next ten minutes she fell asleep time after time in spite of her efforts to keep awake, her young head rocking forward and back.
She at last consented to lie down to rest for a moment, and her husband arranged a couch for her in the hay, and took off his coat to spread over her. Still holding his hand she sank down, and looked, on the dark ground, like a lovely marble figure of the angel of death. The dog, which had stayed near her for the last hour, at once followed her, and, curling itself up, pressed close to her, its head on her knees.
Her young husband sat for some time watching her sleep, but after a little while he could no longer keep awake himself, and lay down at a little distance from her, but close enough so that he could still hold her hand. For a while he did not sleep, but looked sometimes at her, and sometimes at the erect figures of Miss Malin and the Cardinal. When he did at last fall asleep, in his sleep he made a sudden movement, thrusting himself forward, so that his head nearly touched the head of the girl, and their hair, upon the pillow of the hay, was mingled together. A moment later he sank into the same slumber as had his wife.
The two old people sat silent before the light of the new candle, which, to begin with, burned only feebly. Miss Malin, who now looked as if she were not going to sleep for all eternity, regarded the sleepers with the benevolence of a successful creator. The Cardinal looked at her for a moment and then he evaded her eyes. After a while he began to undo the bandages around his head, and in doing so he kept his eyes fixed upon the face of the old lady in a strange stare.
“I had better get rid of these,” he said, “now that morning is almost here.”
“But will it not hurt you?” Miss Malin asked anxiously.
“No,” he said, and went on with his occupation. After a moment he added: “It is not even my blood. You, Miss Nat-og-Dag, who have such an eye for the true noble blood, you ought to recognize the blue blood of Cardinal Hamilcar.”
Miss Malin did not move, but her white face changed a little.
“The blood of Cardinal Hamilcar?” she asked in a slightly less steady voice. “Yes,” he said, “the blood of that noble old man. On my head. And on my hands as well. For I struck him on the head with a beam which had fallen down, before the boat arrived to rescue us early this morning.”
For quite two or three minutes there was a deep silence in the hayloft. Only the dog stirred, whining a little in its sleep as it poked its head further into the clothes of the young girl. The bandaged man and the old woman did not let go the hold of each other’s eyes. He slowly finished taking off the long, red-stained linen strips, and laid them down. Freed of these, he had a broad, red, puffed face, and dark hair.
“God rest the soul of that noble man,” said Miss Malin at last. “And who are you?”
The man’s face changed a little at her words. “Is that what you ask me?” he said. “Is it of me that you are thinking, and not of him?”
“Oh, we need not think of him, you and I,” she said. “Who are you?”
“My name,” said the man, “is Kasparson. I am the Cardinal’s valet.”
“You must tell me more,” said Miss Malin with firmness. “I still want to know with whom I have passed the night.”
“I will tell you much more, if it amuses you,” Kaparson said, “for I have been to many continents, and I myself like to dwell in the past.
“I am an actor, Madame, as you are a Nat-og-Dag; that is, we remain so whatever else we take on, and fall back upon this one thing when the others fail us.
“But when I was a child I danced in ballet, and when I was thirteen years old I was taken up—because of being so extraordinarily graceful, and particularly because I had to an unusual extent what in the technique of the ballet is termed ballon, which means the capacity for soaring, for rising above the ground and the laws of gravitation—by the great elderly noblemen of Berlin. My stepfather, the famous tenor, Herr Eunicke, introduced me to them, and believed that I was to be a gold mine to him. For five years I have known what it is to be a lovely woman, fed upon dainties, dressed in silks and a golden turban, whose caprices are law to everyone. But Herr Eunicke, like all tenors, forgot to reckon with the laws of passing time. Age stole upon us before we dreamed of it, and my career as a courtesan was a short one.
“Then I went to Spain, and became a barber. I was a barber in Seville for seven years, and I liked that, for I have always had a partiality toward soap and toilet waters, and have liked all sorts of clean and neat things. For this reason it often surprised me in the Cardinal that he did not object to dirtying his hands with his black and red inks. I became, Madame, a very good barber indeed.
“But I have also been a printer of revolutionary papers in Paris, a dog-seller in London, a slavetrader in Algiers, and the lover of a dowager principezza of Pisa. Through her I came to travel with Professor Rosellini, and the great French orientalist Champollion, upon their Egyptian expedition. I have been to Egypt, Madame. I have stood in the great triangular shadow of the great pyramid, and from the top of it four thousand years gazed down upon me.”
Miss Malin, outshone as a world traveler by the valet, quickly took refuge in the wide world of her imagination. “Ah,” she said, “in Egypt, in the great triangular shadow of the great pyramid, while the ass was grazing, St. Joseph said to the Virgin: ‘Oh, my sweet young dear, could you not just for a moment shut your eyes and make believe that I am the Holy Ghost?’ ”
Kasparson went on with his account. “I have even lived in Copenhagen,” he said, “but toward the end I had but a poor time of it. I became a hostler in the night-lodgings of the fat old man called Bolle Bandeat—which means, with your permission, the cursed, or damned—where, for the fee of a penny, you could sleep on the floor, and for a halfpenny standing up, with a rope under your arms. When at last I had to flee from the hands of the law there, I changed my name to that of Kasparson, in remembrance of that proud and unfortunate boy of Nurnberg who stabbed himself to death in order to make Lord Stanhope believe that he was the illegitimate son of Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden.
“But if it be about my family that you want to hear, I have the honor to inform you that I am a bastard of the purest bastard blood extant. My mother was a true daughter of the people, an honest artisan’s child, that lovely actress Johanna Handel-Schutz, who made all the classic ideals live upon the stage. She had a melancholy disposition nevertheless. Of my sixteen brothers and sisters, five have committed suicide. But if I tell you who was my father, that will be sure to interest you. When Johanna came to Paris, sixteen years old, to study art, she found favor in the eyes of a great lord.
“I am the son of that Duke of Orléans—who shortly after took up with the people in still another way—who insisted on being addressed as a citoyen, voted for the death of the King of France, and changed his name to that of Egalité. The bastard of Egalité! Can one be more bastard than that, Madame?”
“No,” said the old woman, with white and stiff lips, unable to give a word of comfort to the pale man before her.
“That poor King Louis Philippe,” said Kasparson, “for whom I feel sorry, and about whom I regret having spoken so harshly tonight—he is my little brother.”
Miss Malin, even face to face with the greatest misfortunes, was never speechless for long. She said after a silence:
“Tell me now, for we may not have much time, first, why did you murder the Cardinal? And secondly, w
hy did you take the trouble to deceive me, after you came here with me, and to make a fool of me on what may be the last night of my life? You were in no danger here. Did you think that I had not sufficient spirit myself, or sympathy with the dark places of the heart, to understand you?”
“Ah,” said Kasparson, “why did I not tell you? That moment, in which I killed the Cardinal, that was the mating of my soul with destiny, with eternity, with the soul of God. Do we not still impose silence at the threshold of the nuptial chamber? Or even, does the Emperor demand publicity, may not Pythagoras have a taste for decorum?
“And why did I kill my master?” he went on. “Madame, there was little hope that both of us could be saved, and he would have sacrificed his life for mine. Should I have lived on as the servant for whom the lord had died, or should I have been simply drowned and lost, a sad adventurer?
“I told you: I am an actor. Shall not an actor have a rôle? If all the time the manager of the theater holds back the good rôles from us, may we not insist upon understudying the stars? The proof of our undertaking is in the success or fiasco. I have played the part well. The Cardinal would have applauded me, for he was a fine connoisseur of the art. Sir Walter Scott, Madame, took much pleasure in Wilibald Alexis’s novel, Walladmor, which he published in his name, and which he called the most delightful mystery of the century. The Cardinal would have recognized himself in me. Quoting the great tragedy, Axel and Walborg, he said, slowly:
