Chapter III

Johannes went back to town. And days and years passed, a long, eventful time of work and dreams, of lectures and verse. He was getting on well, he had succeeded in writing a poem about Esther, "a Jew Girl who was made Queen of Persia," a work which was printed and for which he got paid. A second poem, "Love's Labyrinth," which he put into the mouth of Friar Vendt, made his name known.

Ah, what was Love? A breeze whispering in the roses; no, a yellow phosphorescence in the blood. Love was a music hot as hell which stirs even old men's hearts to dance. It was like the daisy that opens wide to the coming of night, and it was like the anemone that closes at a breath and dies at a touch.

Such a thing was Love.

It might ruin its man, raise him up again and brand him anew; it might love me today, you tomorrow and him tomorrow night, so inconstant was it. But again it might hold like an unbreakable seal and burn with an unquenchable flame even to the hour of death, for so eternal was it. How then was Love?

Oh, Love is the summer night with stars in the sky and fragrance on the earth. But why does it make the youth seek hidden paths and why does it make the greybeard stand tiptoe in his lonely chamber? Ah, Love turns the heart of man to a garden of fungus, a luxuriant and shameless garden wherein mysterious and immodest toadstools raise their heads.

Does it not lead the friar to slink into closed gardens and glue his eyes to the windows of the sleepers at night? And does it not possess the nun with folly and darken the understanding of the princess? It casts the king's head to the ground so that his hair sweeps all the dust of the highway, and he whispers unseemly words to himself the while and laughs and puts out his tongue.

Such was Love.

No, no, it was again something very different and it was like nothing else in the whole world. It came to earth one spring night when a youth saw two eyes, two eyes. He gazed and saw. He kissed a mouth, and then it was as though two lights met in his heart, a sun flashing towards a star. He fell into an embrace, and then he heard and saw no more in all the world.

Love is the first word of God, the first thought that sailed through his brain. He said: Let there be light! and then Love was. And all that he had made was very good and he wished none of it unmade again. And Love became the origin of the world and its ruler; but all its ways are full of blossoms and blood, blossoms and blood.

* * * * *

A September day.

This out-of-the-way street was his daily walk; he went up and down it as in his own room, because he never met any one and it had gardens on both sides and trees with red and yellow leaves.

Why was Victoria walking here? how could this lie in her way? He was not mistaken, it was she, and perhaps it was she who had been walking here the evening before when he looked out of his window.

His heart beat violently. He knew Victoria was in town, he had heard so; but she mixed in circles which were closed to the Miller's son. He never met Ditlef either.

He pulled himself together and went to meet the lady. Didn't she know him? She walked on, serious and full of her thoughts, carrying her head proudly on her long neck.

He bowed.

"Good afternoon," she said, quite low.

She made no sign of stopping and he passed by in silence. His legs gave a jerk. At the end of the little road he turned round, as he always did. I shall keep my eyes fixed on the pavement and not look up, he thought. Not till he had gone a dozen paces did he look up.

She had stopped in front of a window.

Should he steal away, into the next street? What was she standing there for? The window was a poor one, a little shop-window which showed some crass bars of red soap, a glass jar of meal, and some foreign stamps for sale.

Perhaps he could go on another dozen paces and then turn.

Then she looked at him and suddenly came towards him again. She walked quickly, as though she had plucked up courage, and when she spoke her breath came with difficulty. She smiled nervously.

"Good afternoon. I'm so glad to meet you."

Heavens, what a struggle there was in his heart; it wasn't beating, it shivered. He tried to say something but didn't succeed, only his lips moved. A fragrance issued from her clothes, her yellow dress, or perhaps it was from her mouth. At that moment he had no clear impression of her face; but he recognized her fine shoulders and her long, slender hand on the handle of her parasol. It was her right hand. There was a ring on it.

For the first few seconds he did not reflect upon this and had no feeling of disaster. But her hand was wonderfully beautiful.

"I've been a whole week in town," she went on; "but I haven't seen you. Oh yes, I saw you once in the street; somebody told me it was you. You've grown so much."

He muttered:

"I knew you were in town. Are you staying long?"

"A few days. No, not long. I'm going home again."

"Thank you for stopping to talk to me," said he.

Pause.

"Oh, by the bye, I've lost my way," she said again. "I'm staying at the Chamberlain's; how do I get there from here?"

"I'll take you there if you'll let me."

They began to walk.

"Is Otto at home?" he asked for the sake of saying something.

"Yes, he's at home," she answered shortly.

Some men came out of a doorway carrying a piano between them and barring the pavement. Victoria turned off to the left, leaning her whole side against her companion. Johannes looked at her.

"I beg your pardon," she said.

A voluptuous feeling swept through him at the contact; for an instant her breath came straight against his cheek.

"I see you're wearing a ring," he said. And he smiled and put on an air of indifference. "Perhaps I am to congratulate you?"

What would she answer? He did not look at her, but held his breath.

"And you?" she answered, "haven't you a ring? No? I'm sure somebody told me.... One hears so much about you nowadays, your name is in the papers."

"It's some poems I have written," he answered. "But you won't have seen them."

"Wasn't it a whole book? I thought...."

"Yes, there was a little book too."

They came to a square, she was in no hurry though she had to go to the Chamberlain's; she sat down on a seat. He stood in front of her.

Then she suddenly put out her hand to him and said:

"Sit down too."

And only when he had sat down did she release his hand.

Now or never! he thought. He made another attempt to assume a light and indifferent tone, he smiled, looked up into the air. Good.

"So then you're engaged and won't even tell me. And I'm your neighbor at home."

She thought a moment.

"That was not exactly what I wanted to talk to you about today," she answered.

He at once became serious and said in a low voice:

"Well well, I dare say I know all about it."

Pause.

He began again:

"Of course I knew all the time that it couldn't be any use ... I mean, that it was not I who ... I was only the Miller's son, and you.... Of course that is so. And I can't even make out how I dare sit here beside you and hint at it. I ought to stand before you, or kneel over there, on the ground. That's how it ought to be. But somehow.... And then all these years I have been away have made a difference. I seem to have more confidence now. For I know that I'm no longer a child and I know that you can't throw me into prison, if you wanted to. That gives me courage to speak. But you mustn't be angry with me; I'd rather keep it to myself."

"No, go on. Say what you want to say."

"May I? What I want to say? If you mean that, then your ring is not to stop me."

"No," she said in a low voice, "it is not to stop you. No."

"What? Well, but what does it mean? Oh, God bless you, Victoria, can I be right?" He sprang up and leaned over to look her in the face. "Tell me, doesn't the ring mean anything?"

"Sit down again."

He sat down.

"Oh, but if you knew how much I have thought about you; heavens, has there ever been another scrap of thought in my heart? Of all the people I saw or heard of there was nobody in the world but you. I simply couldn't have any thought but this--Victoria is the most beautiful, the most glorious of all, and I know her! _Miss_ Victoria, you always were to me. Though of course I saw that no one was farther from you than I; but I knew you were there--and that meant so much to me--that there you were, alive, and perhaps you remembered me sometimes. Of course you did not remember me; but I have sat in my chair so often in the evening and thought perhaps you remembered me sometimes. Do you know, that seemed to throw heaven open to me, Miss Victoria, and then I wrote poems to you and bought flowers for you with all I possessed and brought them home and put them in vases. All my poems are to you, there are only a few that are not, and they are not printed. But you won't have read those that are printed either. Now I've begun on a big book. God, how thankful I am to you, for I am so full of you and that is all my joy. At every moment of the day, at night too, I see or hear something that reminds me of you. I have written your name on the ceiling and I lie and look at it; but the girl who does my room can't see it, I have written it so small to keep it to myself. It brings me a kind of joy."

She turned away, opened the bosom of her dress and took out a paper.

"Look here!" she said, breathing heavily. "I cut it out and kept it. You may as well know it, I read it at night. Papa showed it me first and I took it to the window to read. 'Where is it? I can't find it,' I said and turned over the paper. But I had found it and read it at once. And I was so glad."

The paper was fragrant of her bosom; she opened it herself and showed it to him, one of his first poems, four little verses addressed to her, to the Lady on the White Horse. It was a heart's simple and passionate confession, an outburst not to be restrained, which flashed out from the lines like stars at evening.

"Yes," he said, "I wrote that. It was a long time ago, one night when there was such a rustling in the poplars outside my window, that was when I wrote it. No, are you really going to keep it? Thanks I You have kept it. Oh!" he broke out in sudden rapture, and his voice was quite low, "to think that you are sitting so close to me now. I feel your arm against mine, I feel a warmth from you. Many a time when I have been alone and thought of you I've shivered with emotion; but now I am warm. When I was home last you were lovely, but you are lovelier now. It is your eyes and your eye-brows, your smile--oh, I don't know, it's everything, everything about you."

She smiled and looked at him with half-closed eyes, there was a dark-blue gleam under the long lashes. A warm tinge was over her. She seemed to be a prey to the most intense joy, and with an unconscious movement she felt for his hand.

"Thanks!" she said.

"No, Victoria, don't thank me," he answered. All his soul welled out to her and he wanted to say more, say more; nothing came but confused and broken outbursts, he was as though intoxicated. "Ah but, Victoria, if you care for me a little ... I don't know, but say you do even if it is not so. Do, please! Oh, I promise you I would do things, great things, unheard-of things almost. You have no idea what I could do; I ponder over it sometimes and feel that I am simply full of things to be done. Often and often it pours out of me, at night I swing up and down my room because I am so full of visions. There's a man in the room next to me, he can't sleep, he knocks on the wall. When it begins to dawn he comes into my room and he's furious. That doesn't matter, I don't worry about him, for then I have thought so long about you that you seem to be with me. I go to the window and sing, it begins to get light, the poplars are rustling outside. Good-night! I say to the day. That is for you. Now she's asleep, I think, good-night, God bless her! Then I go to bed. So it is night after night. But I have never thought you were so lovely as you are. Now I shall remember you like this when you have gone; as you are now. I shall remember you so clearly...."

"Are you not coming home?"

"No. I'm not ready. Yes, I'll come. I shall leave now. I'm not ready, but I'll do anything in the world. Do you sometimes stroll in the garden at home now? Do you ever go out in the evening? I might see you, I might be able to greet you perhaps, nothing more. But if you care for me a little, if you can bear me, if you don't hate me, then say ... let me have that comfort.... Do you know, there is a palm that flowers only once in its lifetime, though it lives seventy years--the talipot palm. But it only flowers once. Now is my flowering time. Yes, I'll get some money and go home. I'll sell what I've written; I'm writing a big book, you know, and I'll sell it now, tomorrow morning, all I have finished. I shall get a lot for it. Do you want me to come home?"

"Yes."

"Thanks, thanks! Forgive me if I hope too much, believe too much; it is so lovely to believe beyond all bounds. This is the happiest day I have known...."

He took his hat off and laid it beside him.

Victoria looked about her, a lady was coming down the street and farther off a woman with a basket. Victoria grew uneasy, she took out her watch.

"Must you go now?" he asked. "Say something before you go, let me hear your.... I love you and tell you so now. It will depend on your answer whether I ... I am so utterly in your hands. What is your answer?"

Pause.

He dropped his head.

"No, don't say it!" he begged.

"Not here," she answered. "When we get there."

They walked on.

"They say you're going to marry that little girl, that girl whose life you saved; what was her name?"

"Camilla, do you mean?"

"Camilla Seier. They say you are going to marry her."

"Do they? Why do you ask that? She is not grown up. I have been to her home, it is a big, fine house, a castle like your own; I have been there many times. No, she is not grown up."

"She is fifteen. I have met her, we have been together. I was much taken with her. How charming she is!"

"I am not going to marry her," he said.

"Indeed."

He looked at her. His face twitched.

"But why do you say that now? Is it because you want to call my attention to another?"

She went on with rapid steps and did not answer. They found themselves outside the Chamberlain's. She took his hand and drew him into the gateway and up the stairs.

"I'm not going in," he said, half surprised.

She pressed the bell, then turned to him, and her bosom was heaving.

"I love you," she said. "Do you understand? It is you I love."

Suddenly she drew him downstairs again, quickly, three or four steps, threw her arms around him and kissed him. She trembled against him.

"It is you I love," she said.

The hall door opened above. She tore herself from him and hurried up the stairs.