by Isak Dinesen
Because to all of his blood, physical and mental nature were one, his longing for her was burning up his young body. His blood was escheated to Adelaide; his limbs and entrails were pledged to her; his eyes, lips, palate and tongue were devoured with the fever of her. Then again his existence held hours of incredible sweetness: she turned her half-closed smiling eyes to him; she let him button her glove, one afternoon, when she had declared that all the world was deadly dull; she had for a moment, yawning, laid her face on his shoulder.
In the end, this last autumn, he had taken a week’s leave and had traveled home to Ballegaard. He had sat with his father, talking about actual, authentic things and matters; he had looked up the people of his childhood who remembered his mother and had learned from them how reluctant they had been to distress or disappoint her. He had walked out to his mother’s grave. Over here, on a stormy and rainy evening, when he had been out in the fields with his old dog, which had been wild with delight to see him, an idea had come to him. He would leave the country to enlist in the army of the French, who seemed to be on the verge of a war with Germany. He had found the plan easier to hold onto than he had expected, and had seen this fact as the first lucky thing that had happened to him for a long time. But when he applied for permission, his application was turned down.
The Danish Government, in the present situation, had to keep up the strictest neutrality, even in direct opposition to the feeling of the Danish people. The volunteering of a Danish officer for the French Army, at a moment when a Franco-Prussian War seemed inevitable, would be looked upon by the Prussians as a breach of neutrality which might have fatal consequences.
For a whole day a sweet, poisonous temptation dwelt in Ib’s mind: he had done what he could; he might stay at home and see Adelaide as before. But in the evening he cried to it, “Get thee behind me.” He would not have lb Angel turned into a mollusk. And still less would he himself cause the innocent Adelaide to take on the look of a Calypso. Moreover, this resolution of his had been made at Ballegaard. He would now have to resign his commission as a Danish officer; then he would be free to go wherever he liked.
Such a step would mean that he could not, in the future, return to Denmark. It did not much matter; he did not intend to return. So he made his preparations, considering in a strange way both past and future.
In order to fill out this period, he adopted a habit hitherto unknown to him: he began to pay calls and to put in an appearance on the reception days of the ruling ladies of Copenhagen. Only he himself knew that these were visits pour prendre congé, paid in a kind of gratitude, or in a kind of remorse, toward his Copenhagen existence. Old hostesses with an eye for a particular brightness in the boy, who till now had heard him described as a wild young person, smiled on his social conversion, and in their minds put him down as a husband for a grandniece out of a big number of sisters. His gay young friends followed his course with jesting comments and believed him to be out to hook an heiress.
On this fashionable pilgrimage of his he became skilled in balancing sword and cap, with white gloves in it, and a teacup, and there had all the looks of a gentle wild animal with big soft paws, patiently and conscientiously going through his series of tricks in a circus. In the salons he occasionally met Adelaide under the chaperonage of her beautiful and imposing mother, and amid the general talk of the groups caught her laughter and her sweet, low, clear conversation voice. It was both happiness and agony; it was, yet, a little more happiness than agony, or he would not have gone on paying visits. In a strange and vague way it did him good to see that other people were now taking in her face and figure as vividly as he himself, and for a short span of time to feel confident that he was not mad. On his way to these social functions she would also from time to time pass him in the street, in her father’s carriage and with Drude by her side, on active service to the mystic rite of leaving cards, an honor shown one noble household by another entirely by means of carriage and pair, coachman and footman, in which the young daughters of the houses took part, so to say invisible and never setting foot outside the carriage. She would smile at him then in a secretive way, might even in such a way blow him a very small quick kiss, stolen too, since she was invisible.
In the reception rooms he watched her surrounded by a throng of admirers, but it did not affect him. In his love for her there was a kind of dignity which rejected jealousy: he knew his passion to be of a different quality to that of any other man.
Toward the end of this season Ib unexpectedly found himself the hero of the day in Copenhagen. One morning after a gay night, he had fought a duel with sabres with the Military Attaché to Sweden and Norway, and blood, if only in modest quantity, had been shed on both sides. Duels were prohibited, and he was sentenced to a week’s barracks arrest. He was not sorry to withdraw from the world for a while; he was not proud of his exploit, for neither he himself nor Leopold, who had been his second, nor his adversary clearly remembered how the quarrel had arisen. He came out of seclusion to find that Copenhagen society, when unable to get information from the chief actors, had on its own set a series of exciting tales running, and to grin back a little, in a manner to make the tale still more exciting.
A great old lady received on Fridays.
In the square in front of her house a long line of carriages had drawn up; one by one they swung through the gate to turn in the court and swing out again, leaving room for the next in the queue. Spring was in the air today in spite of a sharp little wind running through the streets and chasing bits of paper and straw before it. The sky was a pale blue with light white clouds in it; when the ladies had left the carriages the stolid coachmen themselves sat gazing up at it. The big airy hall of the house was warm; there were oleander trees in pots on the broad stairs leading to the reception rooms, and incense was being burnt—a specialty of the house, the smell of which many years later brought back the idea of Arcadia to the guests now walking up and down. The stair itself today had become a reception room, alive with greetings, and with the rustling of silk frocks and an occasional ring of spurs.
The social functions of the epoch differed from those of later times by the circumstance that here all generations met. Pretty lively-glancing girls steered in like cygnets in the wake of heavier mother swans, and white-haired or bald gentlemen kissed the hands of young married women and cooed to debutantes. Very old ladies, whom the years had rendered small and light as dolls, displayed their wit and charm to timid youths or to ambitious young men who kept in mind the fairy tale in which the hero, when granted one wish, opts for the friendship of all old women. The wide span of age in the assembly made up for its uniformity of class and ideas.
Ib came up the stairs in his cousin Leopold’s company. Out in the square the two young men had been discussing a supper party which Ib’s regiment was giving to a pretty French singer on tour to Copenhagen. But the spring weather had gone to Ib’s heart in a sudden little pang. He saw that the blue shadows of trees on the pavement had changed; their delicate netting was growing fuller as the buds were swelling. In the country, he thought, the coltsfoot by now would be out by the roadside, the fields, light-brown in the light air, were being harrowed, and as one rode along, the cloud of dust behind the harrow, hard and cold and with particles of manure in it, would be blown into one’s eyes and mouth. One might hear the lark. He lost interest in the supper party and became silent.
On the landing the young men for a moment were held back by a mature beauty turning herself before the mirrors, and reflecting, as she shook the fringes of her mantilla into order: “Nay, mirrors are not what they used to be,” then sailing on through the doors.
In the first salon a small group, encircling the wife of the Danish Minister to Paris home on a holiday, discussed the probability of a French-German war. “But can we be quite certain about Italy?” an old court functionary asked the lady. The Ministresse laughed, so to say in French. “My friend,” she exclaimed, “of what are you speaking? Count Nigra is one of the E
mpress’ most ardent admirers.”
In the inner, red salon the old hostess herself, by the fireside and the samovar, while entertaining an elderly Prince of the Royal House, caught sight of Ib and, unexpectedly, in a little bright twinkle ordered him to her side. Then she held him as hostage, behind a cup of tea, for later use.
In the window recess a number of ladies had gathered round a small gentleman, a painter of European fame. He had once declared all artistic greatness to be only a higher degree of amiability, and the theory might hold good as to his own art, which was inspired by delight in taking in, and in dealing out, the beauty of the visible world. Since it seemed incongruous that such a brilliant person should have a little pink full-moon face with no hair, features or expression to speak of, and most of all like the posterior of an infant, his pupils, who idolized him, had formed the theory that there had been a shifting about in his anatomy, and that he had got an eminently expressive face in the other place. He was feted in society, but feared as well, because he would at times sit without saying a word, taking in the face and figure of a lady until she felt that she had no clothes on, and at other times, when once set upon a theme, would go on talking forever.
At the moment the group was discussing progress. The idea of evolution was in the air: Professor Darwin had made the air of England vibrate, and sent waves of echo across the North Sea. The nobility of Denmark was stirred and intrigued by his doctrine—shocked by the assumption that one’s ancestors were no better than oneself, attracted by the statement that a high rank in the universe was in itself the proof of genuine fitness for that rank.
“I am with you, Eulalia, my pet,” said the artist, speaking as ever very slowly, in a small creaking voice and with a series of small grimaces to make up for his lack of expression. “The world is progressing; we are all progressing and in a hundred years will be nearer a state of perfection than we are now. Still, I tell you, while we march on so gaily, improving all over, certain little traits in our nature will, so to say on their own, reach the acme of perfection to be again shed and dropped and to be gone forever. I shall name to you the one part of us, which at this very moment has reached its climax and is about to become a rudiment. We may in times to come witness wonders of scientific and social improvement. But we shall never again set eyes on a gathering of such noses as the ones which we see round us. There is not one of them that has not taken five hundred years to produce. You realize, in this salon, that the nose is the pointe of the whole human personality, and that the true mission of our legs, lungs and hearts is to carry about our noses.”
A pretty lady of the circle here, with a glance at the speaker’s own diminutive nose, burst into a little laughter, was embarrassed and held her handkerchief to her mouth.
“There are here,” the artist unconcernedly continued, “muzzles of antelopes and gazelles and snouts of panthers and foxes. And as to beaks, my dear, as to beaks! There are eagles’ beaks and cockatoos’, small strong owls’ beaks almost hidden in the soft fullness of the cheeks, pelicans’ beaks with provident pouches beneath them, and long beaks of gentle, inquisitive snipes.
“Contemplate, now, the nose of our eminent hostess. There is none more delicate or refined in all Copenhagen; it will take in everything within sniffing distance with the accuracy of a seismograph. At the same time it has the strength of an elephant’s trunk, which lifts up the heaviest timber of the jungle. It has lifted up the lady’s own imposing purple velvet bust to the level of her chin, and is holding it there. It may at its pleasure lift up the obscurest among us into the full glare of social limelight, or it may—God help us—if disapproving of our individual smell, heave up any of us from her own shining floors, swing us about and drop us into the abyss of social darkness. And all the time,” he concluded, “nobly immovable.”
“But shall we really,” asked a stout lady in magnificent magenta, “come to drop our good noses like so many autumn leaves? I feel my own to be quite safely nailed on.” She pensively touched her nose with a short plump finger.
“It may look so,” said the old man. “But it is an easy thing to drop a nose, and I have got the Punchinellos of all ages with me. Or what other particular of its anatomy has humanity to such an extent agreed to view as a detachable part?”
“Dear Master,” said a thin lady in gray, “you have made me feel sinister, like a kind of werewolf running about, in the morning light of civilization, with the nose of a carnivore of the dark past. Your characterization of our noses was hardly complimentary.”
“It was meant to be complimentary,” said the old artist dejectedly. “Only, as you all know, I am sadly poor in words. Had I my brush here I should touch all the tips of your delicate noses with it and make myself clear in a moment. But let me tell you, in my few sorry words, that the five senses—and among them the sense of smell surely holds a high rank—make up the savoir vivre of wild animals and primitive people. When, in the course of progress, these innocents are blessed with a bit of security and comfort, and with a bit of education, nosing out things becomes an extravagant undertaking, noses will deteriorate and grow blunt, and with them good manners. Our domestic animals, which are used in the progress of civilization and so are procured for and somewhat educated, have lost the keenness of their senses, and our pigsties and duck yards display but little manners. The middle classes of our civilization have obtained security and a bit of education—and where, my dears, are now their noses? With them the word of smell, even, has become an unseemly word. It is only when one gets up to your own lofty social level that one will again meet with keenness of the senses as with savoir vivre. For what is the end of all higher education? Regained naïveté. Therefore, also, among all our domestic animals the one which comes nearest to the wild animal is the one most highly bred and educated: the thoroughbred, our édition de luxe of the horse.
“And look now,” he went on, “at that almost luminous blonde in olive-green velvet who is talking to Count Leopold. Her knees and thighs, and that gallant back of hers, all very frankly and candidly express her nature. But is not her nose the true pointe of it? Alive, piquant, with a brave little tilt to it and almost circular nostrils, it can be traced back directly to the audacious and loyal profile of the Arab mare. She will not fail her rider. But one will have ‘to look round well to find a horseman worthy of her.”
“She is Drude Angel,” said a lady in a toupee. “A cousin of Leopold’s and Adelaide’s. It has been much discussed this season whether she or Adelaide is the better-looking. And she is one of those Angel children for whom once, at Ballegaard, you predicted a future of tragedy.”
The old artist at these words gave the young girl a long, deep glance, then said no more about her.
“Count Leopold,” the stout lady commented, taking up her lorgnette, “in the competition seems to me to be backing his cousin.”
“Ah, tragedy,” said a lady who was taking a fresh cup of tea from a footman. She was a little hard of hearing and like most such people was in the habit of sticking to a particular word in the conversation after others had left it behind. “Who among us escapes tragedy? As I was getting into my carriage to go here I was handed a telegram that my poor niece at Lolland has been delivered of her ninth daughter. Tragedies of the stage are but half as exacting as those of real life. My unfortunate Anna—you all know her husband—will now have to start on the tenth act of hers.”
“But surely, Charlotte,” the thin lady said admonishingly, “you will keep in mind that tragedy is the outcome of the fall of man, and thus cannot possibly be easy to do away with. Our great-grandchildren will have obtained many things, but they will have no more hope than we ourselves of eliminating tragedy from human existence.”
“Alas, no,” said the lady who was hard of hearing.
“Alas, yes!” said the artist. “Tragedy will be an easy thing to do away with, as easy almost as the nose. I close my eyes,” he went on, and actually closed his little lashless eyes, “and I see before me in a hundred
years from now a gathering, just like ours, of your great-grandchildren. They will be very pleasant people, justly proud of having achieved great things in science and social conditions and, except for their noses, very nice people to look at. They will be able to fly to the moon. But not one of them, to save his life, will be able to write a tragedy.
“For tragedy,” he continued, “far from being the outcome of the fall of man is on the contrary the countermeasure taken by man against the sordid and dull conditions brought upon him by his fall. Flung from heavenly glory and enjoyment into necessity and routine, in one supreme effort of his humanity he created tragedy. How pleasantly surprised was not then the Lord. This creature,’ He exclaimed, ‘was indeed worthy of being created. I have done well in making him, for he can make things for me which without him I cannot make.’ ”
“Preserve me!” the stout lady exclaimed. “You are very mysterious—or is it mystical? for I have never been able quite to distinguish the two words from each other—and we beg you to express yourself in plainer words. In my young days I have created a sensation on my entrance into a ballroom, and this last season, God help me, by the aid of various rare spices I have created the recipe for a Cumberland sauce. But how does one create a tragedy?”
The old man sat for a while in silence, stirring a little in his chair as if he were, in accordance with his pupils’ theory, now thoughtfully and gently scratching his forehead.
“Not being good at direct answers,” he said at length, “I shall answer you in riddles:
“What is it that man has not got and would on no account accept if it was offered him, and that is still the object of his adoration and desire? The divine female bust, Mesdames.
“And what is it,” he asked again, “that old Professor Sivertsen has not got, and would not accept if it was offered him for himself, and that yet to him is the most picturesque attribute of a human being? What is it that to him is an absurd and preposterous thing, a ridiculous thing to carry about with you in life, and which is at the same time the rare spice by the aid of which tragedy is created? I shall give you the answer such as you want it, in plain words. It is named honor, Madame, the idea of honor.