Then the stately house on the square was lit up with gayety.  
The horses trampled in the gateway and the servants ran up and down the carpeted stairs. The great drawing-rooms streamed with lights and flowers and music and the floor was filled with dancers.
 
It was a wealth and splendor even greater than in the old days, for now the master of the house was a more lavish host than he had ever been before. He could never have things fine enough, luxurious enough. He saw to everything, was everywhere and moved among his guests so that they could see that he delighted in them.
 
[285]The entertainments at Cordt’s house became legendary. And all that were rich and beautiful and noble and intelligent came when he invited them and came gratefully and were glad to stay.
 
The men gathered close about the lady of the house, who was charming in her white gown, with her white hair.
 
Those who had paid her their homage in the old days raised their grey heads when she passed them and followed her tall figure with a gleam of their youthful fire in their eyes. And those who were now young wondered when they heard the old ones tell that she was once a thousand times prettier.
 
Or not prettier, perhaps. But such that every man on whom her eyes fell was, from that moment, hers and that every glance she vouchsafed was remembered for all time.
 
Now she was more remote in her smiles.[286] Her glance was deeper, but it was as though it did not see. Her red mouth no longer promised happiness as it used to. Any one would think it a happiness to win her. But no one would believe it possible.
 
And, while they saw her thus in the light of their youth, they wondered what could have happened in the years that had passed and why the house had so long been closed and why it had now so suddenly opened its doors wide to the world which holds revel daily.
 
But their thoughts never grew to the shadow of a slander.
 
They asked her to sing. And, as she sat at the piano and looked through the room with her great, strange eyes, the old friends of the house remembered the glowing songs of her youth, which had set their blood aflame as she exulted and wept in them with desire and love.
 
But now, when she sang, the young[287] ones listened, enraptured with her voice, which was so bright and so clear and so wonderfully still:
 
The wildest water on earth to-day
(God grant me His grace consoling!)
Flows deep and dreary through gorges grey,
But whither and whence they alone can say
Who first set its wild waves rolling.
For no ship ever its tideway knew,
Its marge bore never a blossom.
And never a bird from the beaches flew,
And never a mirrored star it drew
From Heav’n to its own black bosom.
It wells from eyes that are glazed with pain
(God shield me in all disaster!)
When a man has rent like a rag in twain
His own life’s bliss, by his own hand slain,
Being never his fortune’s master.
There was a brief silence when she ceased. Then they crowded round her in admiration and with endless requests for more.
 
[288]Fru Adelheid rose. She talked and smiled and thanked them. But her glance wandered far beyond all these people, who meant nothing to her, to Cordt, who stood at the far end of the room and was talking to some one and did not see her and had not heard her.
 
But Finn had heard her. And Finn had seen her great, humble, plaintive look.
 
He did not take his eyes off her and strange thoughts hurried through his head. He now understood what had happened in this house. He knew why Fru Adelheid had come to him so seldom, lately, in the old room. Why she had sat so silent, steeped in distant thoughts ... why her glance had been so uncertain and so timid, her words so wavering, her hand so slack in his.
 
And he felt that the last bond was broken that bound him to mankind.
 
He had lost his mother, now that he[289] was pushing hardest towards her. When she came to him now, it was Cordt she looked for. Were he to go to her now and lie down before her with his cheek on her hand, as he had so often done, she would lift him up and bid him go out into the world and live.
 
He had a feeling as though he had been betrayed, but, at the same time, he wept with her in his heart. He looked at his father and thought how much more of a man he was than she suspected in her poor, tardy repentance. He looked at his mother and felt a curious loving contempt for her ... such as men feel for a woman who comes to them and begs for something a thousand times less important than what she once possessed and despised.
 
Then he had to go into the crowd of people, who offered him their smiles and asked for his.
 
[290]And so strong was the feeling of loneliness in him that he mingled readily with the guests of the house and was more cheerful than usual and more talkative.
 
He was as pleased to move about these bright rooms as elsewhere, because he was no longer at home anywhere. He might just as well exchange a few words with these smartly-dressed ladies and gentlemen, since he had to talk and since he could no longer tell any one what was passing within him and since no one could tell him what he wanted to hear.
 
The women crowded round him as the men did round Fru Adelheid. They wound a circle of white arms and bright eyes round the young heir of the house, who was so pale and so handsome and such that women longed for that which he did not show. They met him with charming, flattering words and smiled upon him and he did not hear the[291] words and broke through the circle without a trouble and without a sigh.
 
The men offered him their friendship and he shook their hands and talked to them and went away and forgot their faces. Cordt found him in every corner, where he had hidden for a moment without intending to or thinking about it, and carried him smilingly and teasingly and jestingly into the throng. And he smiled to his father and went with him and remained always alone.
 
He saw himself and only himself. He seized upon every thought that arose in him and discussed it as if it had been thought by another. He contemplated every mood that welled up in his soul as if he had read it in a book.
 
He climbed high up the peaks upon which men cannot live ... the peaks whence they topple down one day or where they perish in the bright frost. For[292] there is no sound up there and no air, no day and no paths. Only light and always light.
 
But, when it happened that Cordt’s glance fell upon him, without his knowing it, the loneliness was suddenly extinguished in his soul.
 
Then he knew who he was and where he was and the pain of life gnawed into his soul. For he constantly read the eternal, hopeless, fond question in his father’s eyes. He realized what he had forgotten, that the house was making holiday for his sake and his sake alone. Every strain that sounded, every rose that blushed, every pretty woman who moved across the floor: they were all his father’s servants, who came t............