He was silent for a while. Then he turned his face towards her:
 
“He does not live in his first eager for the trysting-hour, but confidently seeks his accustomed couch by her side. Custom has gently bound the two people into one family. Is that not beautiful, Adelheid? And good?”
 
[89]“Yes,” she said. “It is beautiful, as you tell it. But it is not youth.”
 
“Then what is youth, Adelheid?”
 
“Youth is not rest.”
 
“Then one should not marry before one is old,” said Cordt. “For marriage is rest. Deep, powerful, happy ... generating rest.”
 
“No more one should,” replied Fru Adelheid. “And that is why I could wish I were your mistress.”
 
She looked at him, as she said this, and he at her.
 
Then he stood up and laid his hand on the back of her chair and close down to her:
 
“How far from each other we have become!” he said.
 
And Fru Adelheid nodded sadly and Cordt crossed the room and stood by the fire again:
 
“In vain I pitch my call in every key,”[90] he said. “It has availed me nothing that my ancestor built this room ... his heirs have borne witness here, generation after generation, to no purpose.”
 
A of wind came and blew the balcony-door open.
 
Fru Adelheid and looked that way, while Cordt went and closed it. Then he remained by the globe and pressed the spring:
 
“I so often think of the poor man who placed this toy up here,” he said. “He was a man who could not be content with the circle in which he moved. So he lost his reason and himself to playing with the stars.... For us modern people it is different ... the other way round. We go mad because the circle in which we move is too large. We leave the stars to the babies. We play ball with bigger things. We try a fall with God Himself, if the fancy takes us ... provided[91] that we have not that plaything too! We dare not speak of love and we smile at marriage. We despise courage and do not believe in honesty and each of us has his own opinion about .”
 
She heard what he said even as people listen to music when it does not so very much matter if they catch every note.
 
“Then it happens that we long for a point in our lives ... just one point. Something that cannot be pulled to pieces and discussed. And something that is not past.”
 
Cordt sat and moved about in his chair and could not settle down:
 
“If I were to put anything in this room,” he said, “it would be a little tiny house ... from far away in the country. There would be only one door and two windows and it would be evening and the smoke would rise up gently from the[92] chimney. The house would have to be as small as could be; but that would show that there was no room for doubt inside it. Husband and wife would go in and out of the door to the end of their days.”
 
Now she heard what he said and looked at him.
 
“That is what my marriage ought to be, Adelheid. If I had had any talent, I daresay it would have been different. Or if I had to work for my bread.... And I am no different from other men of to-day ... no stronger, no braver. I know nothing about God and I have no excessive belief in men.”
 
He had lowered his voice and without looking at her. But she understood that he was listening for a word from her and her heart wept because she had nothing to say to him.
 
“My fixed point,” he said.
 
[93]Then he was silent for a little. But, soon after, he rose and stood with his arm on the back of her chair and spoke again:
 
“There was also something in what I used to see at home. Father and mother were so kind ... and so strong. I see them before me now, as they used to kiss each other after dinner, however numerous the company might be. And they kissed each other good-morning and good-night until they died. And when father and his brother met in the street, they always kissed ... people used to laugh ... and it was such a pretty habit.”
 
While he spoke, she sought for an opportunity to interrupt him.
 
“My family-feeling has always been too strong,” he said. “Until now. And yet ... I once had a sweetheart....”
 
He stopped. Fru Adelheid sat up and looked at him. Her eyes shone.
 
[94]“Or a connection, if you like....”
 
“You never told me about that!” she said.
 
Cordt raised his head and looked at her and she lowered her eyes.
 
“There is nothing to tell,” he said.
 
Then he said no more, but went to the window and stood there.
 
And Fru Adelheid again felt small and ill at ease in the big old chair.
 
 
 
He listened, with his face turned to the fire.
 
“I am sure that there is not a man who can understand that,” she said.
 
And then she lay down on the floor, with her chin on the fender ... and her eyes shone:
 
[77]“A woman is young for so short a time,” she said. “And she is always that it will pass. Can’t you understand, when she suddenly suspects that there is something greater than the greatest ... and then, when she is sad and afraid ... that then it may suddenly dawn upon her that all is not over yet?”
 
Cordt laughed:
 
“It is a poor pleasure to be the greatest when there is something greater still,” he said.
 
But Fru Adelheid shook her head:
 
“It’s not like that, Cordt,” she said.
 
He pushed back his chair and walked up a............