Victoria: A Love Story

by Knut Hamsun

  Camilla seizes him by the arm and says, “You didn’t come! You can’t imagine what a great party we had; we waited for you till the last, but you didn’t come.”

  “I couldn’t make it,” he said.

  “Sorry I haven’t been up to see you since,” she went on. “I’ll be sure to come one of these days, after Richmond leaves. Oh, what a party we had! Victoria became ill and was taken home, did you hear? I’ll go see her soon. I dare say she’s much better now, perhaps quite well again. I’ve given Richmond a medallion nearly identical to yours. Listen, Johannes, you must promise me to look after your stove; when you’re writing you forget about everything and your room gets ice-cold. Then you must ring for the maid.”

  “All right, I’ll ring for the maid,” he replied.

  Mrs. Seier also talked to him, inquiring about his work, that piece about the spirit of life; how was it going? She was eagerly awaiting his next project.

  Johannes gave the necessary answers, made a deep bow and watched the carriage drive off. How little it all concerned him, this carriage, these people, this chatter! A cold, empty feeling invaded him; it stayed with him all the way home. In the street near his entrance a man was strolling up and down, an old acquaintance, the former tutor at the Castle.

  Johannes nodded to him.

  He was dressed in a long warm coat that had been carefully brushed, and there was a brisk and determined air about him.

  “You see before you your friend and colleague,” he said. “Give me your hand, young man. God has led me in wondrous ways since we met; I’m married, I have a home, a little garden, a wife. Miracles still happen. Do you have any comment on my last observation?”

  Johannes looks at him in astonishment.

  “That is, approved. Well, you see, I was tutoring her son. She has a son, offspring from her first marriage; she’d been married before, of course, she was a widow. Yes, I married a widow. You may object that this could not have been in the cards for me, but there it is: I married a widow. The child was there from the beginning. You see, I go around looking at the garden and the widow, thinking long and hard about the matter. Suddenly I have it, and I say to myself, ‘Oh well, it may not have been in the cards, and so on, but I’ll do it anyway, I’ll go for it; as likely as not, it’s written in the stars.’ So there, that’s how it happened.”

  “Congratulations!” Johannes said.

  “Stop! Not another word! I know what you’re going to say. And what about her, the first one, you will say, have you forgotten the eternal love of your youth? That’s exactly what you will say. May I then, on my part, ask you, sir, where my first and only eternal love ended up? Didn’t she take a captain of artillery? And besides, let me pose another little question to you: Have you ever, ever seen a man getting the one he was supposed to have? I haven’t. There is a legend about someone whose prayers God answered in this respect, he won his first and only love. But it didn’t bring him much joy. Why not? you’ll ask again, and I answer you thus: for the simple reason that she died immediately afterward—immediately afterward, do you hear, ha-ha, the very next moment. That’s the way things are. Naturally you don’t get the woman you should have; but if by some damn fluke of fair play it ever does happen, she dies immediately afterward. There’s always a catch somewhere. And so a man has no choice but to find himself another love, of the best possible quality, and he doesn’t have to die of the change. Take it from me, things are so wisely arranged by nature that he bears up extremely well. Just look at me.”

  “I can see you’re doing very well,” Johannes said.

  “Exceedingly well, so far. Listen, feel, and see! Have I foundered in a sea of cheerless sorrows? I have clothes, shoes, a house and home, a spouse, children—well, the boy, you know. But what I was going to say was this: with regard to my poetry, I’ll answer you on the spot. My dear young colleague, I’m older than you and perhaps a trifle better endowed by nature. I keep my poetic writings in my drawer. They are to be published after my death. But then you won’t derive any pleasure from them, you will remonstrate. There you’re wrong again; meanwhile, you see, I’m delighting my family with them. In the evening, when the lamp is lighted, I unlock the drawer, take out my poems and read them aloud to my wife and the boy. One is forty, the other twelve, and both are enchanted. If you drop by sometime, you’ll get supper and a hot toddy. That is an invitation. May God preserve you from death.”

  He gave Johannes his hand. Suddenly he asked, “Have you heard about Victoria?”

  “About Victoria? No. Or rather, I heard just now, a moment ago—”

  “Haven’t you seen her ailing, getting more and more gray under the eyes?”

  “I haven’t seen her since I was home in the spring. Is she still sick?”

  The tutor gave a comically harsh answer, stamping his foot: “Yes.”

  “I just heard . . . No, I certainly haven’t seen her ailing, I never happened to meet her. Is she very ill?”

  “Very. Probably dead by now. You understand?”

  Perplexed, Johannes looked at the man, at his door, wondering whether to go in or stay, then back at the man, at his long coat and his hat; he gave a pained, bewildered smile, as if in distress.

  The old tutor continued with a menacing air: “Another example, can you deny it? She didn’t get the one she should have had either, her childhood sweetheart, a gorgeous young lieutenant. He went hunting one evening, a shot hits him between the eyes and splits his head in two. There he lay, a victim of that little catch which God had prepared for him. Victoria, his bride, starts ailing, a worm was gnawing at her, riddling her heart like a sieve; we, her friends, could see it happening. Then a few days ago she went to a party at the home of some family called Seier; she told me, by the way, that you were also supposed to be there but didn’t come. To make a long story short, at this party she overtaxes her strength; memories of her beloved crowd in upon her and make her kick up her heels out of sheer bravado—she dances and dances all evening, dances like mad. Then she takes a tumble and the floor turns red underneath her; they lift her up, carry her out and drive her home. She didn’t last for very long.”

  The tutor walks right up to Johannes and says harshly, “Victoria is dead.”

  Johannes gropes with his hands like a blind man, as if trying to ward off a blow. “Dead? When did she die? Did you say Victoria is dead?”

  “She’s dead,” the tutor answers. “She died this morning, well, this forenoon.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a thick letter. “She entrusted me with this letter for you. Here it is. ‘After my death,’ she said. She’s dead. I’ve delivered the letter. My mission is accomplished.”

  And without saying good-bye, without another word, the tutor turned on his heel and strolled slowly down the street and disappeared.

  Johannes stood there with the letter in his hand. Victoria was dead. He spoke her name aloud again and again, in an emotionless, almost callous voice. He looked down at the letter and recognized the handwriting; there were capital letters and small letters, the lines were straight, and she who had written them was dead!

  He makes his way through the door and up the stairs, finds the right key and lets himself in. His room is cold and dark. He sits down by the window and, by the last remainder of daylight, reads Victoria’s letter. She wrote:Dear Johannes!

  When you read this letter I’ll be dead! Everything seems so strange to me now, I no longer feel ashamed before you and write to you as if there were no reasons not to. Before, when I was still fully alive, I would rather have suffered night and day than write to you again, but now I have begun to die and I don’t think like that any longer. Strangers have seen me bleed, the doctor has examined me and seen that I’ve only got part of one lung left, so why should I feel embarrassed about anything?

  I’ve been lying here in bed thinking about the last words I spoke to you. It was that evening in the woods. It didn’t occur to me then that they were to be my last words, or I would have said good-bye to
you then and there and thanked you. Now I won’t see you anymore, so I’m sorry I didn’t throw myself at your feet and kiss your shoes and the ground you walked on, to show you how much I loved you, more than words can express. I’ve been lying here yesterday and today wishing I was well enough to go home again, to walk in the woods and find the place where we sat when you held my hands, because then I could lie down there and see if I couldn’t find some traces of you and kiss all the heather nearby. But now I can’t go home, unless I should get a little better perhaps, as Mama thinks.

  Dear Johannes! When I think about it, how odd it seems that all I’ve managed to do is to come into the world and love you and now say good-bye to life. I cannot tell you how strange it feels to lie here and wait for the day and the hour. Step by step, I’m withdrawing from the bustle in the street, with its people and its clatter of carriages; I doubt I’ll ever see the spring again, and these houses and streets and the trees in the park will still be here when I’m gone. Today I managed to sit up in bed and look out the window for a while. Down by the corner two people met, bowed to each other and shook hands, and laughed at what they said; but then it seemed so strange to me that I who lay watching it all was going to die. And I thought: those two down there don’t know that I’m lying here awaiting my time, but even if they did they would probably say hello and chat just like now. Yesterday evening, when it was dark, I thought my last hour had come; my heart was starting to skip beats, and it was as though I could already hear eternity rushing toward me in the distance. But the next moment I returned from afar and began breathing again. It was an absolutely indescribable feeling. But Mama thinks that I was probably just remembering the sound of the river and the waterfall at home.

  Good God, if you only knew how I have loved you, Johannes! I haven’t had a chance to show you, so much has stood in the way, above all my own nature. Papa was hard on himself the same way, and I am his daughter. But now that I am to die and it is all too late, I write to you once again to let you know. I ask myself why I’m doing it, since it can’t be of any interest to you, especially since I won’t even be alive anymore; but I would like to be close to you till the end, so as not to feel more abandoned than ever. When you read this, it will be as though I can see your shoulders and your hands, and every movement you make as you hold the letter in front of you while reading it. That way we aren’t so far away from each other, I say to myself. I cannot send for you, I haven’t the right to. Mama wanted to send for you already two days ago, but I preferred to write. Also, I’d rather you remember me as I used to be, before I became ill. I remember that you . . . (here some words are missing) . . . my eyes and eyebrows; but they aren’t the same either anymore. That is another reason I didn’t want you to come. And I also want to ask you not to view me in the coffin. True, I’ll look about the same as when I was alive, only somewhat paler, and I’ll be in a yellow dress, but you would still be sorry if you came and saw me.

  I’ve been writing this letter off and on all day, and still I haven’t been able to tell you one thousandth of what I wanted to say. It’s so terrible for me to die, I don’t want to; I’m still hoping to God I might get a little better, even if only until the spring. Then the days are light and there are leaves on the trees. If I got well again, I would never be mean to you anymore, Johannes. How I’ve wept thinking about it! Oh, I would go out and stroke every cobblestone and stop and thank every step on the stairs I passed, and be kind to everybody. It wouldn’t matter how much I suffered as long as I was allowed to live. I would never again complain about anything, no, I would smile at anyone who attacked and beat me, and thank and praise God if only I might live. My life is so unlived; I have never done anything for anybody, and now this useless life is going to end. If you knew how reluctant I am to die, maybe you would do something, do everything in your power. I don’t suppose you can do anything, but I thought that if you and everyone else prayed for me and refused to let me go, then God would let me live. Oh, how grateful I would be then; I would never again hurt anyone, only smile at whatever was allotted to me, if only I were allowed to live.

  Mama is sitting here weeping. She also sat here all last night and wept for me. This does me some good, it softens the bitterness of my passing. Today I thought: how would you like it if I came right up to you in the street one day when I was nicely dressed and no longer said anything hurtful but gave you a rose I had bought beforehand? But then the next moment I thought that I can never do what I want anymore, for I suspect I’ll never get well again before I die. I cry so much, I lie still and cry without letup, inconsolably; it doesn’t hurt my chest as long as I don’t sob. Johannes, my dear, dear friend, my only beloved on earth, come to me now and stay with me for a moment when it begins to grow dark. I won’t cry then, but smile as well as I can, for sheer joy at your coming.

  Oh, where is my pride and my courage! I’m not being my father’s daughter anymore; but that’s because my strength is gone. I have suffered for a long time, Johannes, starting long before these last few days. I suffered when you were abroad, and later, since coming to the city in the spring, I have done nothing but suffer every day. I never knew before how infinitely long a night could be. I’ve seen you twice in the street during this time; once you were humming as you passed me, but you didn’t see me. I was hoping to see you at the Seiers’, but you didn’t come. I wouldn’t have spoken to you or come up to you, but been grateful just to see you at a distance. But you didn’t come. Then I thought that perhaps it was because of me that you didn’t come. At eleven o’clock I began to dance, because I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. Yes, Johannes, I have loved you, loved only you all my life. It is Victoria who is writing this, and God is reading it over my shoulder.

  And now I must say good-bye to you; it has grown almost dark and I cannot see any longer. Good-bye, Johannes, and thank you for every day. When I fly away from the earth, I’ll go on thanking you till the very end and saying your name to myself all the way. May you find happiness in life, and forgive me for the wrong I’ve done you and for not having thrown myself at your feet and asked your forgiveness. I’m doing so now, in my heart. Live happily, Johannes, and good-bye for ever. And thank you once again for every single day and hour. I cannot go on.

  Yours,

  VICTORIA

  Now the lamp has been lighted and things look much brighter. I’ve been lying in a trance and again been far away from the earth. Thank God, it wasn’t quite as dreadful this time, I even heard some music, and above all it wasn’t dark. I’m so grateful. But now I have no more strength left to write. Good-bye, my love. . . .