A FEW days later, Ulrik Frederik was spending the morning at Lynge. He was crawling on all fours in the little garden outside of the house where Karen Fiol lived. One hand was holding a rose wreath, while with the other he was trying to coax or drag a little white lapdog from under the hazel bushes in the corner.

“Boncoeur! Petit, petit Boncoeur! Come, you little rogue, oh, come, you silly little fool! Oh, you brute, you—Boncoeur, little dog,—you confounded obstinate creature!”

Karen was standing at the window laughing. The dog would not come, and Ulrik Frederik wheedled and swore.

sang Karen, swinging a goblet full of wine:

She was in high spirits, rather heated, and the notes of her song rose louder than she knew. At last Ulrik Frederik caught the dog. He carried it to the window in triumph, pressed the rose chaplet down over its ears, and, kneeling, presented it to Karen.

“Adorable Venus, queen of hearts, I beg you to accept from your humble slave this little innocent white lamb crowned with flowers—”

At that moment, Marie Grubbe opened the wicket. When she saw Ulrik Frederik on his knees, handing a rose garland, or whatever it was, to that red, laughing woman, she turned pale, bent down, picked up a stone, and threw it with all her might at Karen. It struck the edge of the window, and shivered the glass in fragments, which fell rattling to the ground.

Karen darted back, shrieking. Ulrik Frederik looked anxiously in after her. In his surprise he had dropped the dog, but he still held the wreath, and stood dumbfounded, angry, and embarrassed, turning it round in his fingers.

“Wait, wait!” cried Marie. “I missed you this time, but I’ll get you yet! I’ll get you!” She pulled from her hair a long, heavy steel pin set with rubies, and holding it before her like a dagger, she ran toward the house with a queer tripping, almost skipping gait. It seemed as though she were blinded, for she steered a strange meandering course up to the door.

There Ulrik Frederik stopped her.

“Go away!” she cried, almost whimpering, “you with your chaplet! Such a creature”—she went on, trying to slip past him, first on one side, then on the other, her eyes fixed on the door—“such a creature you bind wreaths for—rose-wreaths, ay, here you play the lovesick shepherd! Have you not a flute, too? Where’s your flute?” she repeated, tore the wreath from his hand, hurled it to the ground, and stamped on it. “And a shepherd’s crook—Amaryllis—with a silk bow? Let me pass, I say!” She lifted the pin threateningly.

He caught both her wrists and held her fast. “Would you sting again?” he said sharply.

Marie looked up at him.

“Ulrik Frederik!” she said in a low voice, “I am your wife before God and men. Why do you not love me any more? Come with me! Leave the woman in there for what she is, and come with me! Come, Ulrik Frederik, you little know what a burning love I feel for you, and how bitterly I have longed and grieved! Come, pray come!”

Ulrik Frederik made no reply. He offered her his arm and conducted her out of the garden to her coach, which was waiting not far away. He handed her in, went to the horses’ heads and examined the harness, changed a buckle, and called the coachman down, under pretence of getting him to fix the couplings. While they stood there he whispered: “The moment you get into your seat, you are to drive on as hard as your horses can go, and never stop till you get home. Those are my orders, and I believe you know me.”

The man had climbed into his seat, Ulrik Frederik caught the side of the coach as though to jump in, the whip cracked and fell over the horses, he sprang back, and the coach rattled on.

Marie’s first impulse was to order the coachman to stop, to take the reins herself, or to jump out, but then a strange lassitude came over her, a deep unspeakable loathing, a nauseating weariness, and she sat quite still, gazing ahead, never heeding the reckless speed of the coach.

Ulrik Frederik was again with Karen Fiol.

When Ulrik Frederik returned to the castle that evening, he was, in truth, a bit uneasy—not exactly worried, but with the sense of apprehension people feel when they know there are vexations and annoyances ahead of them that cannot be dodged, but must somehow be gone through with. Marie had, of course, complained to the King. The King would give him a lecture, and he would have to listen to it all. Marie would wrap herself in the majestic silence of offended virtue, which he would be at pains to ignore. The whole atmosphere would be oppressive. The Queen would look fatigued and afflicted—genteelly afflicted—and the ladies of the court, who knew nothing and suspected everything, would sit silently, now and then lifting their heads to sigh meekly and look at him with gentle upbraiding in large, condoning eyes. Oh, he knew it all, even to the halo of noble-hearted devotion with which the Queen’s poor groom of the chambers would try to deck his narrow head! The fellow would place himself at Ulrik Frederik’s side with ludicrous bravado, overwhelming him with polite attentions and respectfully consoling stupidities, while his small pale-blue eyes and every line of his thin figure would cry out as plainly as words: “See, all are turning from him, but I, never! Braving the King’s anger and the Queen’s displeasure, I comfort the forsaken! I put my true heart against—” Oh, how well he knew it all—everything—the whole story!

Nothing of all this happened. The King received him with a Latin proverb, a sure sign that he was in a good humor. Marie rose and held out her hand to him as usual, perhaps a little colder, a shade more reserved, but still in a manner very different from what he had expected. Not even when they were left alone together did she refer with so much as a word to their encounter at Lynge, and Ulrik Frederik wondered suspiciously. He did not know what to make of this curious silence; he would almost rather she had spoken.

Should he draw her out, thank her for not saying anything, give himself up to remorse and repentance, and play the game that they were reconciled again?

Somehow he did not quite dare to try it; for he had noticed that, now and then, she would gaze furtively at him with an inscrutable expression in her eyes, as if she were looking through him and taking his measure, with a calm wonder, a cool, almost contemptuous curiosity. Not a gleam of hatred or resentment, not a shadow of grief or reproach, not one tremulous glance of repressed sadness! Nothing of that kind, nothing at all!

Therefore he did not venture, and nothing was said. Once in a while, as the days went by, his thoughts would dwell on the matter uneasily, and he would feel a feverish desire to have it cleared up. Still it was not done, and he could not rid himself of a sense that these unspoken accusations lay like serpents in a dark cave, brooding over sinister treasures, which grew as the reptiles grew, blood-red carbuncles rising on stalks of cadmium, and pale opal in bulb upon bulb slowly spreading, swelling, and breeding, while the serpents lay still but ceaselessly expanding, gliding forth in sinuous bend upon bend, lifting ring upon ring over the rank growth of the treasure.

She must hate him, must be harboring secret thoughts of revenge; for an insult such as he had dealt her could not be forgotten. He connected this imagined lust for vengeance with the strange incident when she had lifted her hand against him and with Burrhi’s warning. So he avoided her more than ever, and wished more and more ardently that their ways might be parted.

But Marie was not thinking of revenge. She had forgotten both him and Karen Fiol. In that moment of unutterable disgust her love had been wiped out and left no traces, as a glittering bubble bursts and is no more. The glory of it is no more, and the iridescent colors it lent to every tiny picture mirrored in it are no more. They are gone, and the eye which was held by their splendor and beauty is free to look about and gaze far out over the world which was once reflected in the glassy bubble.

The number of guests in the castle increased day by day. The rehearsals of the ballet were under way, and the dancing-masters and play-actors, Pilloy and Kobbereau, had been summoned to give instruction as well as to act the more difficult or less grateful rÔles.

Marie Grubbe was to take part in the ballet and rehearsed eagerly. Since that day at Slangerup, she had been more animated and sociable and, as it were, more awake. Her intercourse with those about her had always before been rather perfunctory. When nothing special called her attention or claimed her interest, she had a habit of slipping back into her own little world, from which she looked out at her surroundings with indifferent eyes; but now she entered into all that was going on, and if the others had not been so absorbed by the new and exciting events of those days, they would have been astonished at her changed manner. Her movements had a quiet assurance, her speech an almost hostile subtlety, and her eyes observed everything. As it was, no one noticed her except Ulrik Frederik, who would sometimes catch himself admiring her as if she were a stranger.

Among the guests who came in August was Sti HÖgh, the husband of Marie’s sister. One afternoon, not long after his arrival, she was standing with him on a hillock in the woods, from which they could look out over the village and the flat, sun-scorched land beyond. Slow, heavy clouds were forming in the sky, and from the earth rose a dry, bitter smell like a sigh of drooping, withering plants for the life-giving water. A faint wind, scarcely strong enough to move the windmill at the cross-road below, was soughing forlornly in the tree-tops like a timid wail of the forest burning under summer heat and sun-glow. As a beggar bares his pitiful wound, so the parched, yellow meadows spread their barren misery under the gaze of heaven.

The clouds gathered and lowered, and a few raindrops fell, one by one, heavy as blows on the leaves and straws, which would bend to one side, shake, and then be suddenly still again. The swallows flew low along the ground, and the blue smoke of the evening meal drooped like a veil over the black thatched roofs in the village near by.

A coach rumbled heavily over the road, and from the walks at the foot of the hill came the sound of low laughter and merry talk, rustling of fans and silk gowns, barking of tiny lapdogs, and snapping and crunching of dry twigs. The court was taking its afternoon promenade.

Marie and Sti HÖgh had left the others to climb the hill, and were standing quite breathless after their hurried ascent of the steep path.

Sti HÖgh was then a man in his early thirties, tall and lean, with reddish hair and a long, narrow face. He was pale and freckled, and his thin, yellow-white brows were arched high over bright, light gray eyes, which had a tired look as if they shunned the light, a look caused partly by the pink color that spread all over the lids, and partly by his habit of winking more slowly, or rather of keeping his eyes closed longer, than other people did. The forehead was high, the temples well rounded and smooth. The nose was thin, faintly arched, and rather long, the chin too long and too pointed, but the mouth was exquisite, the lips fresh in color and pure in line, the teeth small and white. Yet it was not its beauty that drew attention to this mouth; it was rather the strange, melancholy smile of the voluptuary, a smile made up of passionate desire and weary disdain, at once tender as sweet music and bloodthirsty as the low, satisfied growl in the throat of the beast of prey when its teeth tear the quivering flesh of its victim.

Such was Sti HÖgh—then.

“Madam,” said he, “have you never wished that you were sitting safe in the shelter of convent walls, such as they have them in Italy and other countries?”

“Mercy, no! How should I have such mad fancies!”

“Then, my dear kinswoman, you are perfectly happy? Your cup of life is clear and fresh, it is sweet to your tongue, warms your blood, and quickens your thoughts? Is it, in truth, never bitter as lees, flat and stale? Never fouled by adders and serpents that crawl and mumble? If so, your eyes have deceived me.”

“Ah, you would fain bring me to confession!” laughed Marie in his face.

Sti HÖgh smiled and led her to a little grass mound, where they sat down. He looked searchingly at her.

“Know you not,” he began slowly and seeming to hesitate whether to speak or be silent, “know you not, madam, that there is in the world a secret society which I might call ‘the melancholy company’? It is composed of people who at birth have been given a different nature and constitution from others, who yearn more and covet more, whose passions are stronger, and whose desires burn more wildly than those of the vulgar mob. They are like Sunday children, with eyes wider open and senses more subtle. They drink with the very roots of their hearts that delight and joy of life which others can only grasp between coarse hands.”

He paused a moment, took his hat in his hand, and sat idly running his fingers through the thick plumes.

“But,” he went on in a lower voice as speaking to himself, “pleasure in beauty, pleasure in pomp and all the things that can be named, pleasure in secret impulses and in thoughts that pass the understanding of man—all that which to the vulgar is but idle pastime or vile revelry—is to these chosen ones like healing and precious balsam. It is to them the one honey-filled blossom from which they suck their daily food, and therefore they seek flowers on the tree of life where others would never think to look, under dark leaves and on dry branches. But the mob—what does it know of pleasure in grief or despair?”

He smiled scornfully and was silent.

“But wherefore,” asked Marie carelessly, looking past him, “wherefore name them ‘the melancholy company,’ since they think but of pleasure and the joy of life, but never of what is sad and dreary?”

Sti HÖgh shrugged his shoulders and seemed about to rise, as though weary of the theme and anxious to break off the discussion.

“But wherefore?” repeated Marie.

“Wherefore!” he cried impatiently, and there was a note of disdain in his voice. “Because all the joys of this earth are hollow and pass away as shadows. Because every pleasure, while it bursts into bloom like a flowering rosebush, in the selfsame hour withers and drops its leaves like a tree in autumn. Because every delight, though it glow in beauty and the fullness of fruition, though it clasp you in sound arms, is that moment poisoned by the cancer of death, and even while it touches your mouth you feel it quivering in the throes of corruption. Is it joyful to feel thus? Must it not rather eat like reddest rust into every shining hour, ay, like frost nip unto death every fruitful sentiment of the soul and blight it down to its deepest roots?”

He sprang up from his seat and gesticulated down at her as he spoke. “And you ask why they are called ‘the melancholy company,’ when every delight, in the instant you grasp it, sheds its slough in a trice and becomes disgust, when all mirth is but the last woeful gasp of joy, when all beauty is beauty that passes, and all happiness is happiness that bursts like the bubble!”

He began to walk up and down in front of her.

“So it is this that leads your thoughts to the convent?” asked Marie, and looked down with a smile.

“It is so indeed, madam. Many a time have I fancied myself confined in a lonely cell or imprisoned in a high tower, sitting alone at my window, watching the light fade and the darkness well out, while the solitude, silent and calm and strong, has grown up around my soul and covered it like plants of mandrake pouring their drowsy juices in my blood. Ah, but I know full well that it is naught but an empty conceit; never could the solitude gain power over me! I should long like fire and leaping flame for life and what belongs to life—long till I lost my senses! But you understand nothing of all this I am prating. Let us go, ma chÈre! The rain is upon us; the wind is laid.”

“Ah, no, the clouds are lifting. See the rim of light all around the heavens!”

“Ay, lifting and lowering.”

“I say no,” declared Marie, rising.

“I swear yes, with all deference.”

Marie ran down the hill. “Man’s mind is his kingdom. Come, now, down into yours!”

At the foot of the hill Marie turned into the path leading away from the castle, and Sti walked at her side.

“Look you, Sti HÖgh,” said Marie, “since you seem to think so well of me, I would have you know that I am quite unlearned in the signs of the weather and likewise in other people’s discourse.”

“Surely not.”

“In what you are saying—yes.”

“Nay.”

“Now I swear yes.”

“Oaths gouge no eye without fist follows after.”

“Faith, you may believe me or not, but God knows I ofttimes feel that great still sadness that comes we know not whence. Pastor Jens was wont to say it was a longing for our home in the kingdom of heaven, which is the true fatherland of every Christian soul, but I think it is not that. We long and sorrow and know no living hope to comfort us—ah, how bitterly have I wept! It comes over one with such a strange heaviness and sickens one’s heart, and one feels so tired of one’s own thoughts and wishes one had never been born. But it is not the briefness of these earthly joys that has weighed on my thoughts or caused me grief. No, never! It was something quite different—but ’tis quite impossible to give that grief a name. Sometimes I have thought it was really a grief over some hidden flaw in my own nature, some inward hurt that made me unlike other people—lesser and poorer. Ah, no, it passes everything how hard it is to find words—in just the right sense. Look you, this life—this earth—seems to me so splendid and wonderful, I should be proud and happy beyond words just to have some part in it. Whether for joy or grief matters not, but that I might sorrow or rejoice in honest truth, not in play like mummeries or shrovetide sports. I would feel life grasping me with such hard hands that I was lifted up or cast down until there was no room in my mind for aught else but that which lifted me up or cast me down. I would melt in my grief or burn together with my joy! Ah, you can never understand it! If I were like one of the generals of the Roman empire who were carried through the streets in triumphal chariots, I myself would be the victory and the triumph. I would be the pride and jubilant shouts of the people and the blasts of the trumpets and the honor and the glory—all, all in one shrill note. That is what I would be. Never would I be like one who merely sits there in his miserable ambition and cold vanity and thinks, as the chariot rolls on, how he shines in the eyes of the crowd and how helplessly the waves of envy lick his feet, while he feels with pleasure the purple wrapping his shoulders softly and the laurel wreath cooling his brow. Do you understand me, Sti HÖgh? That is what I mean by life, that is what I have thirsted after, but I have felt in my own heart that such life could never be mine, and it was borne in on me that, in some strange manner, I was myself at fault, that I had sinned against myself and led myself astray. I know not how it is, but it has seemed to me that this was whence my bitter sorrow welled, that I had touched a string which must not sound, and its tone had sundered something within me that could never be healed. Therefore I could never force open the portals of life, but had to stand without, unbidden and unsought, like a poor maimed bondwoman.”

“You!” exclaimed Sti HÖgh in astonishment; then, his face changing quickly, he went on in another voice: “Ah, now I see it all!” He shook his head at her. “By my troth, how easily a man may befuddle himself in these matters! Our thoughts are so rarely turned to the road where every stile and path is familiar, but more often they run amuck wherever we catch sight of anything that bears a likeness to a trail, and we’re ready to swear it’s the King’s highway. Am I not right, ma chÈre? Have we not both, each for herself or himself, in seeking a source of our melancholy, caught the first thought we met and made it into the one and only reason? Would not any one, judging from our discourse, suppose that I went about sore afflicted and weighed down by the corruption of the world and the passing nature of all earthly things, while you, my dear kinswoman, looked on yourself as a silly old crone, on whom the door had been shut, and the lights put out, and all hope extinguished! But no matter for that! When we get to that chapter, we are easily made heady by our own words, and ride hard on any thought that we can bit and bridle.”

In the walk below the others were heard approaching, and, joining them, they returned to the castle.

At half-past the hour of eight in the evening of September twenty-sixth, the booming of cannon and the shrill trumpet notes of a festive march announced that both their Majesties, accompanied by his Highness Prince Johan, the Elector of Saxony, and his royal mother, and followed by the most distinguished men and women of the realm, were proceeding from the castle, down through the park, to witness the ballet which was soon to begin.

A row of flambeaux cast a fiery sheen over the red wall, made the yew and box glow like bronze, and lent all faces the ruddy glow of vigorous health.

See, scarlet-clothed halberdiers are standing in double rows, holding flower-wreathed tapers high against the dark sky. Cunningly wrought lanterns and candles in sconces and candelabra send their rays low along the ground and high among the yellowing leaves, forcing the darkness back, and opening a shining path for the resplendent train.

The light glitters on gold and gilded tissue, beams brightly on silver and steel, glides in shimmering stripes down silks and sweeping satins. Softly as a reddish dew, it is breathed over dusky velvet, and flashing white, it falls like stars among rubies and diamonds. Reds make a brave show with the yellows; clear sky-blue closes over brown; streaks of lustrous sea-green cut their way through white and violet-blue; coral sinks between black and lavender; golden brown and rose, steel-gray and purple are whirled about, light and dark, tint upon tint, in eddying pools of color.

They are gone. Down the walk, tall plumes nod white, white in the dim air....

The ballet or masquerade to be presented is called Die Waldlust. The scene is a forest. Crown Prince Christian, impersonating a hunter, voices his delight in the free life of the merry greenwood. Ladies, walking about under leafy crowns, sing softly of the fragrant violets. Children play at hide and seek and pick berries in pretty little baskets. Jovial citizens praise the fresh air and the clear grape, while two silly old crones are pursuing a handsome young rustic with amorous gestures.

Then the goddess of the forest, the virginal Diana, glides forward in the person of her Royal Highness the Princess Anne Sofie. The Elector leaps from his seat with delight and throws her kisses with both hands, while the court applauds.

As soon as the goddess has disappeared, a peasant and his goodwife come forward and sing a duet on the delights of love. One gay scene follows another. Three young gentlemen are decking themselves with green boughs; five officers are making merry; two rustics come rollicking from market; a gardener’s ’prentice sings, a poet sings, and finally six persons play some sprightly music on rather fantastic instruments.

This leads up to the last scene, which is played by eleven shepherdesses, their Royal Highnesses the Princesses Anne Sofie, Friderica Amalie, and Vilhelmina Ernestina, Madam GyldenlÖve, and seven young maidens of the nobility. With much skill they dance a pastoral dance, in which they pretend to tease Madam GyldenlÖve because she is lost in thoughts of love and refuses to join their gay minuet. They twit her with giving up her freedom and bending her neck under the yoke of love, but she steps forward, and, in a graceful pas de deux which she dances with the Princess Anne Sofie, reveals to her companion the abounding transports and ecstasies of love. Then all dance forward merrily, winding in and out in intricate figures, while an invisible chorus sings in their praise to the tuneful music of stringed instruments:

This ended the ballet. The spectators dispersed through the park, promenading through well-lit groves or resting in pleasant grottos, while pages dressed as Italian or Spanish fruit-venders offered wine, cake, and comfits from the baskets they carried on their heads.

The players mingled with the crowd and were complimented on their art and skill, but all were agreed that, with the exception of the Crown Princess and Princess Anne Sofie, none had acted better than Madam GyldenlÖve. Their Majesties and the Electress praised her cordially, and the King declared that not even Mademoiselle La Barre could have interpreted the rÔle with more grace and vivacity.

Far into the night the junketing went on in the lighted park and the adjoining halls of the castle, where violins and flutes called to the dance, and groaning boards invited to drinking and carousing. From the lake sounded the gay laughter of revellers in gondolas strung with lamps. People swarmed everywhere. The crowds were densest where the light shone and the music played, more scattered where the illumination was fainter, but even where darkness reigned completely and the music was almost lost in the rustling of leaves, there were merry groups and silent couples. One lonely guest had strayed far off to the grotto in the eastern end of the garden and had found a seat there, but he was in a melancholy mood. The tiny lantern in the leafy roof of the grotto shone on a sad mien and pensive brows—yellow-white brows.

It was Sti HÖgh.

he whispered to himself.

He had not come unscathed from his four or five weeks of constant intercourse with Marie Grubbe. She had absolutely bewitched him. He longed only for her, dreamed only of her; she was his hope and his despair. He had loved before, but never like this, never so timidly and weakly and hopelessly. It was not the fact that she was the wife of Ulrik Frederik, nor that he was married to her sister, which robbed him of his courage. No, it was in the nature of his love to be faint-hearted—his calf-love, he called it bitterly. It had so little desire, so much fear and worship, and yet so much desire. A wistful, feverish languishing for her, a morbid longing to live with her in her memories, dream her dreams, suffer her sorrows, and share her sad thoughts, no more, no less. How lovely she had been in the dance, but how distant and unattainable! The round gleaming shoulders, the full bosom and slender limbs, they took his breath away. He trembled before that splendor of body, which made her seem richer and more perfect, and hardly dared to let himself be drawn under its spell. He feared his own passion and the fire, hell-deep, heaven-high, that smouldered within him. That arm around his neck, those lips pressed against his—it was madness, imbecile dreams of a madman! This mouth—

He started from the bench as with pain. No, no! He clung to his own humble longing and threw himself again in his thoughts at her feet, clutched at the hopelessness of his love, held up before his eyes the image of her indifference, and—Marie Grubbe stood there in the arched door of the grotto, fair against the outside darkness.

All that evening she had been in a strangely enraptured mood. She felt calm and sound and strong. The music and pomp, the homage and admiration of the men, were like a carpet of purple spread out for her feet to tread upon. She was intoxicated and transported with her own beauty. The blood seemed to shoot from her heart in rich, glowing jets and become gracious smiles on her lips, radiance in her eyes, and melody in her voice. Her mind held an exultant serenity, and her thoughts were clear as a cloudless sky. Her soul seemed to unfold its richest bloom in this blissful sense of power and harmony.

Never before had she been so fair as with that imperious smile of joy on her lips and the tranquillity of a queen in her eyes and bearing, and thus she stood in the arched door of the grotto, fair against the outside darkness. Looking down at Sti HÖgh, she met his gaze of hopeless adoration, and at that she bent down, laid her white hand as in pity on his hair, and kissed him. Not in love—no, no!—but as a king may bestow a precious ring on a faithful vassal as a mark of royal grace and favor, so she gave him her kiss in calm largesse.

As she did so, her assurance seemed to leave her for a moment, and she blushed, while her eyes fell. If Sti HÖgh had tried to take her then or to receive her kiss as anything more than a royal gift, he would have lost her forever, but he knelt silently before her, pressed her hand gratefully to his lips, then stepped aside reverently and saluted her deeply with head bared and neck bent. She walked past him proudly, away from the grotto and into the darkness.