by Isak Dinesen
“ ‘Why, yes,’ I thought, ‘give me your advice, Jens Aabel,’ and I went and opened it, as if I were looking for something among the papers on the table.
“It was, that time, at the book of Ecclesiasticus that it fell open, the twenty-ninth chapter. And I shall read to you now what I read myself that evening, more than thirty years ago.”
He put on his glasses and wetted his finger to turn the pages of the book, and when he found his place he read out slowly:
“ ‘Many have reckoned a loan as a windfall, and have given trouble to those that helped them.’
“ ‘Just so,’ I thought, ‘that fits cousin Jonas, here behind my back, well enough.’ And then came further:
“ ‘And when payment is due he will prolong the time, and return words of heaviness, and complain of the times.’ ”
“ ‘Just so,’ I thought again. I was about to close the book and turn round to him, when the next verse came in as of its own accord, and it went:
“ ‘Howbeit with a man in poor estate be long suffering, and let him not wait for thine alms. Lose thy money for a brother and friend, and it shall profit thee more than gold.’
“Then for a moment I stood stock-still. ‘Say you that? Say you that, Jens Aabel?’ I asked.
“And now, my girl, I can finish off my tale by telling you that this good ship The Attempt, which Jonas and I bought together, on her very first trip made an exceptional catch of herring and paid me my money back then and there.
“But on her second journey,” the old man concluded after a short silence, and with a new expression running over his face, or indeed with a new face, the story-teller’s face, “it happened that cousin Jonas went overboard off Bodoe after a merry evening ashore. His mother in this way was spared any further distress on his account.”
The old gentleman for a while sat lost in his recollections.
“You will bear the book back where it belongs, Malli,” he said, “for Arndt, too, must be able to find advice in it one day, when somebody wants to trick him, and all the same with a person in poor estate he should be long-suffering.”
Fru Hosewinckel’s gaze again rose to Malli’s young figure, as she stood up, and followed it through the door.
A few minutes later husband and wife in the drawing room heard a heavy fall to the floor in the next room. They found the girl lying in front of the table as if she were dead, and the book open upon it.
Fru Hosewinckel never forgot that in that moment she seemed to hear her son’s voice: “Is this what you wanted?”
They lifted up Malli and laid her on the horse-hair-covered sofa. She opened her eyes, but appeared to see nothing. In a while she raised her hand and stroked the old man’s face. “I felt dizzy, Arndt,” she whispered.
Fru Hosewinckel rang for the maids and with their help supported Malli upstairs and had her put to bed.
When she came down into the office again her husband stood where she had left him, gazing into the candle by the open Bible on the table. He looked up at her and closed the book. She made a movement to stop him, but he went on to fasten the heavy clasp.
XVI. Pupil and Master
Early next morning, before the Hosewinckel household was awake, Malli got up quietly, dressed and went down the back-stairs, and through the back-door out into the side street. As late as the day before she would have had to look round for the way to Herr Soerensen’s hotel, now she steered straight to it like a homing-pigeon to its cote.
For many long hours of the night she had longed for dawn. As now she hurried along she saw the world about her slowly regain light and color. Scents met her, and a gentle breeze, and she thought: “Everything here is different to what it was when I first came; that is because spring has come. Later comes summer.” She suddenly called to mind, almost word for word, Arndt’s plan of how in the summer, in one of his father’s ships, he and she would go north to where the sun never sets.
While her thoughts ran thus, she had come through the gateway of the hotel and up Herr Soerensen’s small staircase, and without knocking, as if she had known she was expected, had opened the door.
Herr Soerensen as usual was up before other people and busy with his meticulous morning toilet. When he saw Malli enter he withdrew behind a screen and from there instructed her to sit down on a chair by the window. She did not, however, settle down at once, but looked round the room, at a picture of the coronation of King Carl Johan and at Herr Soerensen’s old carpetbag propped against a wardrobe. Then she slowly took off her hat and coat as if to show that she had come to stay, and sank down on the chair pointed out to her.
Herr Soerensen popped his head over the screen three times in various stages of lathering and shaving, observing her attentively. But he said not a word.
In the end he came out into the room freshly shaved and with his wig on, in a dressing-gown of which the wadding stuck out here and there. Malli got up and threw herself in his arms; she was trembling so violently that she could not speak. Herr Soerensen made no attempt to calm her and did not even put his arms round her, but let her cling to him like a drowning person to a piece of timber.
During the conversation that followed she in turn drew back from him in order to watch his face, and again pressed against him as if she sought a dark shelter where she did not need to see anything.
She first of all cried out lowly and hoarsely at his breast: “Ferdinand is dead!”
“Yes,” Herr Soerensen said gently and gravely. “Yes, he is dead.”
“Did you know?” she cried out as before. “Had you heard of it? Did you believe it?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I did so.”
She steadied herself and regained control of her voice, let go of him and stood back a step.
“Arndt Hosewinckel loves me!” she cried in full, ringing tones.
Herr Soerensen’s glance followed the change in her face.
“And do you love him too?” he asked. Because the question lay close to a line in a beloved tragedy, he repeated it, this second time in the tragedy’s own words:
“And lovest thou him too, pure maiden?”
The tragedy’s cues were also retained in Malli’s heart, she immediately cried back to him with great force:
“—sun and moon,
The starry host, the angels, God himself and men may hear it: I am steadfast in my love for him!”
“Well,” said Herr Soerensen.
“Well,” he said again after a silence. “And what now, Malli?”
“Now?” Malli wailed in a cry of distress like a seabird in the breakers. “Now I must go away. God, I must go away before I make them all unhappy.”
She wrung her hands hanging down before her.
“I will not make people unhappy,” she said. “I will not! I will not! God himself knows that I was not aware I was doing so! I thought, Herr Soerensen, that I had told no lies, and made no mistakes!
“Now I must go away; I cannot stay here any longer,” she cried again, abruptly, as if it were some quite new decision of which she was informing him. “I cannot, you know that I cannot, go back into that house on the square, unless I know that soon, as soon as I can, I shall be leaving it again. For I have been shown the door of it, Herr Soerensen. A righteous man, who has never made wrong use of his scales or his measure, showed me the door yesterday evening. Righteous people can halt a gale, so that it changes from northwest to due north. But I!” she lamented. “Our gale of Kvasefjord came straight to where I was. Yet I never prayed God to send it, I swear that I never did.
“My old grandmother’s sister,” she suddenly began, as if she was seeking a fresh course of thought, but once more found herself up against the misery of the preceding one, “was so angry with Mother for marrying Father, she would not set foot in her house. But one day she met me in the street, made me come into her room, and spoke to me of Father. She said: ‘Your father, Malli, did not come from Scotland, and was no normal seaman. He was one of whom many people have heard, and for
whom they have a name. He was The Flying Dutchman.’—Do you think that is true, Herr Soerensen?”
After some consideration Herr Soerensen answered: “No, I don’t.”
Malli for a moment seemed to find consolation in his assurance, then a returning wave of despair again engulfed her.
“All the same,” she cried, “I betray them all, as Father betrayed Mother!”
Again Herr Soerensen considered for a while, then said: “Whom have you betrayed, Malli?”
“Ferdinand!” cried Malli. “Arndt!
“When I am far away,” she said, “then I shall have the courage to write to Arndt how matters stand with me. But I cannot, I dare not tell him to his face.”
At the thought of this face she grew silent for a while. Then she once more wrung her hands.
“I must go away,” she said. “If I do not go away I shall bring misfortune upon him. Oh, misfortune and misery, Herr Soerensen!”
Here she took one of her short steps backwards and looked him in the face with clear, wide-open eyes.
“You may well believe me, Herr Soerensen,” she said, “for I speak as one that has a familiar spirit, out of the ground.”
There was a long silence in the room.
“Well, yes,” said Herr Soerensen. “I can believe you all right, Malli. For see you, little Malli, I have been married myself.”
“Married?” Malli repeated in surprise.
“Yes,” he said. “In Denmark. To a good, lovable woman.”
“Where is she now?” Malli asked and looked around bewildered, as if the lost Madam Soerensen could be found in the small room.
“Thanks be to God,” said Herr Soerensen. “Thanks be to God, she is married now. To a good man. In Denmark. They have children together. She and I had no children.
“I went away,” he continued, “without letting her know, in secret. The last evening we sat together in our little home—we had a beautiful little home, Malli, with curtains and a carpet—she said to me: ‘Everything you do in life, Valdemar, you do to make me happy. That is so sweet of you.’ ”
“Oh, yes,” the girl cried out, as if struck to the heart. “That is how they talk to us, that is what they believe about us.”
Herr Soerensen for the third time stood deep in thought, then took Malli’s hand, said: “My girl,” and was silent as before.
“Let us sit down and talk together,” he at last said, and led her to a small sofa with broken webbing. They sat down side by side without it coming to any talk between them. But after a while Malli in her need of human sympathy and as if to appease a judge, or as in an attempt to comfort another unhappy person under the same sentence as herself, began to fumble over Herr Soerensen’s shoulders, neck and head. She let her fingers run through his wig, so that a lock or two of it stood right on end. And as, while beseeching or caressing him, she did not look up at him, in order to avoid getting the imploring fingers in his eyes or his mouth he had to take aim with his head and butt it gently in the air to the right and left.
Herr Soerensen, who was accustomed to being obeyed and admired, but not to being caressed, allowed the situation to prolong itself for several minutes, and remained sitting as before, even after Malli had let fall her hands. He at first felt that their group was taking form like that of the old unhappy king and his loving daughter. But presently the center of gravity was shifted and he became fully conscious of his authority and responsibility: he was no fugitive, it was his young disciple who had fled to him for help. He once more became the man powerful above others: Prospero. And with Prospero’s mantle round his shoulders, without lessening his pity of the despairing girl by his side, he was aware of a growing, happy consciousness of fulfillment and reunion. He was not to abandon his precious possession, but she was still his and would remain with him, and he was to see his life’s great project realized.
At long last he spoke:
“… now I arise.
Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.”
He rose, and erect and with firm steps walked to a small rickety table by the other window in the room, which served him as writing-table. He took papers out of the drawer and buried himself in them, sorting them, making notes, putting some of them back and taking out others. It lasted a long time, and when Malli stirred, he beckoned her off without turning his head. In the end he pushed his papers and pencils aside, but remained sitting with his back to her.
“I shall,” he said, “give up my performances in Christianssand.”
There was no answer from Malli.
“Ay,” he continued in a firm voice. “Ay. I shall have it announced to the town that I cancel the performances and am moving on to Bergen. Why, of course,” he declared as if she had been raising objections, “it will be at a cost. We might have had a big, a singular success in this town. On your account, my poor girl. It will be a loss. But not so big a loss as I had feared. The collection of the townsfolk will make up for it not a little. And in life, Malli, one must keep one’s profit-and-loss account open.
“I myself, and you,” he said, “will go away from here first, secretly. The others, on my instructions, will follow later.”
He heard Malli get up, take a step toward him and stop.
“When will you be going?” her trembling voice asked behind his back.
Herr Soerensen answered: “I am fairly sure there is a ship on Wednesday.” And briefly, with the authority of an admiral on his deck, he repeated: “On Wednesday.”
“On Wednesday,” came from Malli like a long sorrowful echo in the fells.
“Yes,” said Herr Soerensen.
“The day after tomorrow!” came in the same manner from her.
“The day after tomorrow,” from him.
As he gave his orders he still felt his own figure to be expanding, but he was at the same time sensitive to her deep silence behind him, and silence was ever a difficult thing for him to bear. As if he had had a pair of keen eyes at the back of his head he saw her standing in the middle of the small room, deathly pale from long hardships, as on the evening after the shipwreck, in the boat. Within this conflict between his consciousness of power and his compassion, he for some moments wavered in spirit, and also rocked a little in his chair. Finally he spun right round, and laid his arms on the back of the chair and his chin on his arms, ready to face the sight of the whole world’s distress.
Malli stepped away from the spot on the floor where she was standing, and came toward him, tardily but with great strength, like a wave running toward the coast. Everything in the following conversation came from her very slowly, with each sentence slower, not loudly but with the clear, profound ring of a bell. She said:
“I prithee
Remember, I have done thee worthy service;
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv’d
Without or grudge or grumblings:”
Herr Soerensen sat perfectly still, he thought: “God preserve me, how that girl’s eyes shine. She is not looking at me, perhaps she does not see me at all. But her eyes shine!”
There was a short pause, then she slowly continued:
“All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl’d clouds: to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.”
Another pause. And then again:
“the elements
Of whom your swords are temper’d, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock’d-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that’s in my plume”
Herr Soerensen was in no way taken aback by Malli skipping from one place in the text of the drama to another; he was as much at home in the text as she and could skip in it himself.
Now she looked straight at him, altogether collected in glance and voice, and again spoke, so sweetly, meekly and straight
forwardly that Herr Soerensen’s heart melted in his breast and came into his eyes as clear tears:
“Full fathom five my body lies,
Of my bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were my eyes,
Nothing of me that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring my knell.
Hark! now I hear them—ding dong bell.”
There was a last and very long silence.
But Herr Soerensen could not let himself be beaten in the exchange like this. He raised his head, stretched his right arm straight toward her above the back of the chair and, slowly as she herself, spoke:
“My Ariel, chick, then to the elements
be free, and fare thou well!”
Malli stood on awhile, then looked about her for her cloak and put it on, and he noticed that it was her old cloak from home. When she had buttoned it she turned toward him.
“But why,” she asked him, “must things go with us like that?”
“Why?” Herr Soerensen repeated.
“Why must things go with us so disastrously, Herr Soerensen?” she said.
Herr Soerensen was mightily exalted and inspired after Prospero’s last words; he was conscious that he must now answer her out of his experience of a long life, and said:
“O girl, be silent. We must never question—it is the others shall come questioning us—it is our noble privilege to answer—o answers fine and clear, o wondrous answers!—the questions of a baffled and divided—humanity. And ne’er ourselves to ask.”
“Yes,” said Malli after a moment or two. “And what do we get for it?”
“What do we get for it?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said again. “What do we get in return, Herr Soerensen?”
Herr Soerensen looked back over their conversation, then looked further back over that long life out of which he was to answer her.
