The Dangerous Age Part 10

The last few days I have arrived at a condition of mind which occasions great self-admiration. I am now sure that, even if the difference in our ages did not exist, I could never marry Malthe.

I could do foolish, even mean things for the sake of the one man I have loved with all my heart. I could humble myself to be his mistress; I could die with him. But set up a home with Joergen Malthe--never!

The terrible part of home life is that every piece of furniture in the house forms a link in the chain which binds two married people long after love has died out--if, indeed, it ever existed between them. Two human beings--who differ as much as two human beings always must do--are compelled to adopt the same tastes, the same outlook. The home is built upon this incessant conflict. The struggle often goes on in silence, but it is not the less bitter, even when concealed.

How often Richard and I gave way to each other with a consideration masking an annoyance that rankled more than a violent quarrel would have done.... What a profound contempt I felt for his tastes; and, without saying it in words, how he disapproved of mine!

No! His home was not mine, although we lived in it like an ideal couple, at one on all points. My person for his money--that was the bargain, crudely but truthfully expressed.

Just as one arranges the scenery for a _tableau vivant_, I prepared my "living grave" in this house, which Malthe built in ignorance of its future occupant. And here I have learnt that joy of possession which hitherto I have only known in respect of my jewellery.

This house is really my home. My first and only home. Everything here is dear to me, because it _is_ my own.

I love the very earthworms because they do good to my garden. The birds in the trees round about the house are my property. I almost wish I could enclose the sky and clouds within a wall and make them mine.

In Richard's house in the Old Market I never felt at home. Yet when I left it I felt as though all my nerves were being torn from my body.

Joergen Malthe is the man I love; but apart from that he is a stranger to me. We do not think or feel alike. He has his world and I have mine.

I should only be like a vampire to him. His work would be hateful to me before a month was past. All women in love are like Magna Wellmann. I shudder when I think of the big ugly room where he lives and works; the bare deal table, the dusty books, the trunk covered with a travelling rug, the dirty curtains and unpolished floor.

Who knows? Perhaps the sense of discomfort and poverty which came over me the day I visited his rooms was the chief reason why I never ventured to take the final step. He paced the carpetless floor and held forth interminably upon Brunelleschi's cupola. He sketched its form in the air with his hands, and all the time I was feeling in imagination their touch upon my head. Every word he spoke betrayed his pa.s.sion, and yet he went on discussing this wretched dome--about which I cared as little as for the inkstains on his table.

I expressed my surprise that he could put up with such a room.

"But I get the sunshine," he said, blushing.

I am quite sure that he often stands at his window and builds the most superb palaces from the red-gold of the sunset sky, and marble bridges from the purple clouds at evening.

Big child that you are, how I love you!

But I will never, never start a home with you!

Well, surely one gardener can hardly suffice to poison the air of the place. If he is a nuisance I shall send him packing.

The man comes from a big estate. If he is content to cultivate my cabbage patch, it must be because, besides being very ugly, he has some undiscovered faults. But I really cannot undertake to make minute inquiries into the psychical qualities of Mr. Under-gardener Jensen.

His photograph was sent by a registry office, among many others. We examined them, Jeanne, Torp, and myself, with as deep an interest as though they had been fashion plates from Paris. To my silent amus.e.m.e.nt, I watched Torp unconsciously sniffing at each photograph as though she thought smells could be photographed, too.

Prudence prompted me to select this man; he is too ugly to disturb our peace of mind. On the other hand, as I had the wisdom not to pull down the hut in which the former proprietor lived, the two rooms there will have to do for Mr. Jensen, so that we can keep him at a little distance.

Torp asked if he was to take meals in the kitchen.

Certainly! I have no intention of having him for my opposite neighbour at table. But, on the whole, he had better have his meals in his hut, then we shall not be always smelling him.

Perhaps we are really descended from dogs, for the sense of smell can so powerfully influence our senses.

I would undertake in pitch darkness to recognise every man I know by the help of my nose alone; that is, if I pa.s.sed near enough to him to sniff his atmosphere. I am almost ashamed to confess that men are the same to me as flowers; I judge them by their smell. I remember once a young English waiter in a restaurant who stirred all my sensibilities each time he pa.s.sed the back of my chair. Luckily Richard was there! For the same reason I could not endure Herr von Brincken to come near me--and equally for the same reason Richard had power over my senses.

Every time I bite the stalk of a pansy I recall the neighbourhood of the young Englishman.

Men ought never to use perfumes. The Creator has provided them. But with women it is different....

To-day is my birthday. No one here knows it. Besides, what woman would enjoy celebrating her forty-third birthday? Only Lillie Rothe, I am sure!...

One day I was talking to a specialist about the thousands of women who are saved by medical science to linger on and lead a wretched semi-existence. These women who suffer for years physically and are oppressed by a melancholy for which there seems to be no special cause.

At last they consult a doctor; enter a nursing home and undergo some severe operation. Then they resume life as though nothing had happened.

Their surroundings are unchanged; they have to fulfil all the duties of everyday life--even the conjugal life is taken up once more. And these poor creatures, who are often ignorant of the nature of their illness, are plunged into despair because life seems to have lost its joy and interest.

I ventured to observe to the doctor with whom I was conversing that it would be better for them if they died under the anaesthetic. The surgeon reproved me, and inquired whether I was one of those people who thought that all born cripples ought to be put out of their misery at once.

I did not quite see the connection of ideas; but I suppressed my desire to close his argument by telling him of an example which is branded upon my memory.

Poor Mathilde Bremer! I remember her so well before and after the operation. She was not afraid to die, because she knew her husband was devoted to her. But she kept saying to the surgeon:

"You must either cure me or kill me. For my own sake and for his, I will not go on living this half-invalidish life."

She was p.r.o.nounced "cured." Two years later she left her husband, very much against his will, but feeling she was doing the best for both of them.

She once said to me: "There is no torture to equal that which a woman suffers when she loves her husband and is loved by him; a woman for whom her husband is all in all, who longs to keep his devotion, but knows she must fail, because physically she is no longer herself."

The life Mathilde Bremer is now leading--that of a solitary woman divorced from her husband--is certainly not enviable. Yet she admits that she feels far better than she used to do.

Any one might suppose I was on the way to become a rampant champion of the Woman's Cause. May I be provided with some other occupation! I have quite enough to do to manage my own affairs.

Heaven be eternally praised that I have no children, and have been spared all the ailments which can be "cured" by women's specialists!

Ye powers! How interminable a day can be! Surely every day contains forty-eight hours!

I can actually watch the seconds oozing away, drop by drop.... Or rather, they fall slowly on my head, like dust upon a polished table. My hair is getting steadily greyer.

It is not surprising, because I neglect it.

But what is the use of keeping it artificially brown with lotions and pomades? Let it go grey!

Torp has observed that I take far more pleasure in good cooking than I did at first.

My dresses are getting too tight. I miss my ma.s.seuse.