ONE fine day, Erik Grubbe was surprised to see Madam Gyldenl?ve driving in to Tjele. He knew at once that something was wrong, since she came thus without servants or anything, and when he learned the facts, it was no warm welcome he gave her. In truth, he was so angry that he went away, slamming the door after him, and did not appear again that day. When he had slept on the matter, however, he grew more civil, and even treated his daughter with an almost respectful affection, while his manner took on some of the formal graces of the old courtier. It had occurred to him that, after all, there was no great harm done, for even though there had been some little disagreement between the young people, Marie was still Madam Gyldenl?ve, and no doubt matters could easily be brought back into the old rut again.
To be sure, Marie was clamoring for a divorce and would not hear of a reconciliation, but it would have been unreasonable to expect anything else from her, in the first heat of her anger, with all her memories like sore bruises and gaping wounds, so he did not lay much stress upon that. Time would cure it, he felt sure.
There was another circumstance from which he hoped much. Marie had come from Aggershus almost naked, without clothes or jewels, and she would soon miss the luxury which she had learned to look upon as a matter of course. Even the plain food and poor service, the whole simple mode of living at Tjele, would have its effect on her by making her long for what she had left. On the other hand, Ulrik Frederik, however angry he might be, could not well think of a divorce. His financial affairs were hardly - 175 - in such a state that he could give up Marie’s fortune; for twelve thousand rix-dollars was a large sum in ready money, and gold, landed estates, and manorial rights were hard to part with when once acquired.
For upward of six months all went well at Tjele. Marie felt a sense of comfort in the quiet country place, where day after day passed all empty of events. The monotony was something new to her, and she drank in the deep peace with dreamy, passive enjoyment. When she thought of the past, it seemed to her like a weary struggle, a restless pressing onward without a goal, in the glare of smarting, stinging light, deafened by intolerable noise and hubbub. A delicious feeling of shelter and calm stole over her, a sense of undisturbed rest in a grateful shadow, in a sweet and friendly silence, and she liked to deepen the peace of her refuge by picturing to herself the world outside, where people were still striving and struggling, while she had, as it were, slipped behind life and found a safe little haven, where none could discover her or bring unrest into her sweet twilight solitude.
As time went on, however, the silence became oppressive, the peace dull, and the shadow dark. She began to listen for sounds of living life from without. So it was not unwelcome to her when Erik Grubbe proposed a change. He wished her to reside at Kal? manor, the property of her husband, and he pointed out to her that as Ulrik Frederik had her entire fortune in his possession and yet did not send anything for her maintenance, it was but fair she should be supported from his estate. There she would be in clover; she might have a houseful of servants and live in the elegant and costly fashion to which she was accustomed, far better than at Tjele, which was quite too poor for her. Moreover, - 176 - the King, as a part of his wedding gift, had settled upon her, in case of Ulrik Frederik’s death, an income equal to that at which Kal? was rated, and in doing so he had clearly had Kal? in mind, since it was conveyed to Ulrik Frederik six months after their marriage. If they should not patch up their difference, Ulrik Frederik would very likely have to give up to her the estate intended for her dowager seat, and she might as well become familiar with it. It would be well, too, that Ulrik Frederik should get used to knowing her in possession of it; he would then the more readily resign it to her.
What Erik Grubbe really had in mind was to rid himself of the expense of keeping Marie at Tjele and to make the breach between Ulrik Frederik and his wife less evident in the eyes of the world. It was at least a step toward reconciliation, and there was no knowing what it might lead to.
So Marie went to Kal?, but she did not live in the style she had pictured to herself, for Ulrik Frederik had given his bailiff, Johan Utrecht, orders to receive and entertain Madam Gyldenl?ve, but not to give her a stiver in ready money. Besides Kal? was, if possible, even more tiresome than Tjele, and Marie would probably not have remained there long, if she had not had a visitor who was soon to become more than a visitor to her.
His name was Sti H?gh.
Since the night of the ballet in Frederiksborg Park, Marie had often thought of her brother-in-law, and always with a warm sense of gratitude. Many a time at Aggershus, when she had been wounded in some particularly galling manner, the thought of Sti’s reverent, silently adoring homage had comforted her, and he treated her in precisely the same way now that she was forgotten and forsaken as - 177 - in the days of her glory. There was the same flattering hopelessness in his mien and the same humble adoration in his eyes.
He would never remain at Kal? for more than two or three days at a time; then he would leave for a week’s visit in the neighborhood, and Marie learned to long for his coming and to sigh when he went away; for he was practically the only company she had. They became very intimate, and there was but little they did not confide to each other.
“Madam,” said Sti one day, “is it your purpose to return to his Excellency, if he make you full and proper apologies?”
“Even though he were to come here crawling on his knees,” she replied, “I would thrust him away. I have naught but contempt and loathing for him in my heart; for there’s not a faithful sentiment in his mind, not one honest drop of warm blood in his body. He is a slimy, cursed harlot and no man. He has the empty, faithless eyes of a harlot and the soulless, clammy desire of a harlot. There has never a warm-blooded passion carried him out of himself; never a heartfelt word cried from his lips. I hate him, Sti, for I feel myself besmirched by his stealthy hands and bawdy words.”
“Then, madam, you will sue for a separation?”
Marie replied that she would, and if her father had only stood by her, the case would have been far advanced, but he was in no hurry, for he still thought the quarrel could be patched up, though it never would be.
They talked of what maintenance she might look for after the divorce, and Marie said that Erik Grubbe meant to demand Kal? on her behalf. Sti thought this was ill-considered. He forecast a very different lot for her than sitting - 178 - as a dowager in an obscure corner of Jutland and at last, perhaps, marrying a country squire, which was the utmost she could aspire to if she stayed. Her r?le at court was played out, for Ulrik Frederik was in such high favor that he would have no trouble in keeping her away from it and it from her. No, Sti’s advice was that she should demand her fortune in ready money and, as soon as it was paid her, leave the country, never to set foot in it again. With her beauty and grace, she could win a fairer fate in France than here in this miserable land with its boorish nobility and poor little imitation of a court.
He told her so, and the frugal life at Kal? made a good background for the alluring pictures he sketched of the splendid and brilliant court of Louis the Fourteenth. Marie was fascinated, and came to regard France as the theatre of all her dreams.
Sti H?gh was as much under the spell of his love for Marie as ever, and he often spoke to her of his passion, never asking or demanding anything, never even expressing hope or regret, but taking for granted that she did not return his love and never would. At first Marie heard him with a certain uneasy surprise, but after a while she became absorbed in listening to these hopeless musings on a love of which she was the source, and it was not without a certain intoxicating sense of power that she heard herself called the lord of life and death to so strange a person as Sti H?gh. Before long, however, Sti’s lack of spirit began to irritate her. He seemed to give up the fight merely because the object of it was unattainable, and to accept tamely the fact that too high was too high. She did not exactly doubt that there was real passion underneath his strange words or grief behind his melancholy looks, but she wondered - 179 - whether he did not speak more strongly than he felt. A hopeless passion that did not defiantly close its eyes to its own hopelessness and storm ahead—she could not understand it and did not believe in it. She formed a mental picture of Sti H?gh as a morbid nature, everlastingly fingering himself and hugging the illusion of being richer and bigger an............