Ida Brandt

by Herman Bang

  “I’ve got enough,” he said and seemed almost to shake himself.

  But Ida stroked his hair.

  “He is very charming,” she said.

  Karl laughed:

  “He’s one of those who start behaving like a woman when they are in love.”

  Karl continued to laugh. “And it’s damned obvious he’s in love,” he said.

  Knuth returned with Ellingsen carrying the port wine, and Karl said:

  “We’ re laughing at you, Knuth.”

  “What for?” said Knuth.

  “Cheers,” was all Karl said, and he emptied his glass while Ida, too, said: “Your health, Count Knuth,” and Knuth drank his wine, jerkily as before. “Thank you, Miss Brandt,” he said. Karl laughed again, winking at Ida and stretching his legs out:

  “It’s lovely here, by Gad. To hell with the ride.”

  Ida poured more coffee, taking the cups and handing them round. The sun fell on the tablecloth and on her hair as she bent down, and she started to talk about Jutland. About Aarhus, where “Count Knuth used to live, of course.”

  She had been there the year before last, for two days with Franck and Olivia, during the holidays. Oh, it was so beautiful in Riis Forest.

  As she herself started to drink, Ida went on talking about her visit to Aarhus and about the Francks and about the esplanade. She probably did not herself realise that she was perhaps looking to these memories as though for a little social support.

  “Yes,” she said, “it was lovely on the esplanade. We used to go there in the evenings, Olivia and I.”

  “Oh,” said Karl. “Now we’ve got to Olivia.”

  But Knuth, who probably did not hear much apart from the sound of her voice – as his eyes seemed to confirm – and for whom the mention of Aarhus only produced a vision of the dry, sun-drenched cobblestones in front of the cathedral, said quite absent-mindedly:

  “Aye, I spent a couple of years in that place.”

  Karl, sat rocking astride his chair, in front of the two of them, with his cigarette between his lips, glancing at Knuth and winking at Ida.

  Then he said:

  “By Gad, you’ re quite one for the ladies, Knuth,” and he laughed in a profound sense of wellbeing.

  Ida blushed but managed to smile as she hurried to say:

  “But we didn’t get as far as Marselisborg.”

  And Knuth, who was perhaps blushing more than she, said:

  “Aye, we often went there from the barracks.”

  Karl went on rocking on his chair, his eyes directed contentedly across the table at Ida, who was shading herself a little from the sun with her hand; there was always a maidenly beauty about her when she talked about the Francks.

  And Karl, suddenly nodding and pursing his lips at the same time as his eyes were smiling, said:

  “Mais il n’ a pas tort, monsieur le comte; madame est bien jolie.”

  She did not realise it, but a cloud suddenly passed over Ida’s face at the sound of the French words (Karl had been using so many French expressions recently), but then she smiled again, happy in front of Karl’s eyes, which “encompassed” her, and she raised her glass and took a sip with her eyes lost in his.

  Until (after all three had been silent for a moment) she spoke again, the final three syllables came suddenly and with an almost melancholy ring:

  “But that was so long ago.” She had again been thinking of Aarhus.

  Karl, who was also lost in a completely different train of thought, was brought back by the mention of Aarhus and, blowing out his smoke through his nose, said:

  “But those Aarhus merchants are a damned clever bunch.”

  Ida did not register this, but she turned a pair of radiant eyes towards Karl and said:

  “I wonder where the next holiday will be.”

  And, as the smile returned to his eyes, Karl replied:

  “Aye. God knows.”

  But Ida had to go. It was getting far too late. Knuth rose. “Thank you, Miss Brandt,” he said, chinking his glass against Ida’s. There was something strange about Knuth’s movements, almost those of a jumping jack, when he was suddenly called back from whatever was preoccupying him.

  Karl, too, rose.

  “Oh well, allez-y,” he said, and while he helped Ida on with her coat, he said to Knuth, perhaps continuing the train of thought from Aarhus or perhaps simply because of the French expression:

  “Hell, the way she made Beauté jump yesterday in the Deer Park.”

  He stood there with his cigarette hanging from his lips.

  “Aye, she’s got steel in her back, by Gad.”

  Knuth went out into the corridor, and Karl put his overcoat on. He held Ida before him for a moment. “Well, chick,” he said and his voice suddenly became tender when he saw the expression in her eyes: “That was a lovely day.”

  “Yes.”

  She leant against him.

  “If only you come,” she said, and with a smile she whispered, though the corners of her mouth were trembling a little:

  “Because it is so difficult to go out of that door when I have been waiting here alone.”

  It was almost as though Karl suddenly blushed. But all he said, very gently, was:

  “Thank you for a lovely time today, chick.”

  And quickly, with the same look of fear in her eyes as before (but perhaps only because they were each going off in their own direction now), Ida flung her arms round his neck.

  “Oh Karl…”

  Then they went out. In the street they all three walked side by side. Ida was pale, as could clearly be seen now she was out in the open. But Karl, who was whistling gently as he walked, said happily:

  “Now we could have a look at the flat.”

  Ida blushed and made no reply; but Karl continued in the same tone:

  “Miss Brandt has rented a flat. We could go up and have a look at it now.”

  “It’s not been done up,” said Ida; her voice so harsh that it broke; Karl looked at her in amazement:

  “All right, then we can leave it.”

  They separated soon after this.

  “Thank you Miss Brandt,” said Knuth as he released her hand.

  Karl and he walked along the pavement side by side. Karl was smoking and Knuth was chewing at his walking stick.

  “You’ re a fortunate man, Eichbaum,” the lieutenant said.

  Karl puffed his cigarette smoke out, but Knuth said in the same dreamy tone:

  “You see, it’s the gentle girls one should have.”

  Karl went on a bit before saying:

  “Aye, they’ re probably the best to have.” He placed a hesitant emphasis on “have” as though he was stopping before some unspoken “but” and they went on a little before he said in that drawling voice of his:

  “But damn it all, you’ re a dreamer Knuth and you just worship women.”

  “Well, what else is there?” he said.

  “There’s life as well,” said Karl, screwing up his nose. “And so we have to work things out, unfortunately.”

  Knuth walked on, looking straight ahead.

  “Yes,” he said: “We work them out all right but I don’t know, at times I feel almost as though someone else were adding the figures up.”

  “Are you a philosopher as well?” asked Karl dully.

  But Knuth walked on and continued to stare ahead and, still in the same tone, said:

  “But I ought to have gone in the navy.”

  And a little later:

  “For then I could at least have gone to Siam. And there they fight.”

  “Knuth, you’ re drunk, damn it,” said Karl, throwing away his cigarette. And, following his own train of thought, he said as he stopped at the corner:

  “You see, you don’t take a girl for all eternity.”

  “And that’s that,” he said decisively, waving goodbye with his whip.

  Karl arrived at the office far too late, and the bookkeeper had a few unpleasant things to sa
y to him. This he had had plenty of reason to do recently. But Karl made no reply and simply sat at his desk, where he opened his ledger. It was full of designs for the stables in Ludvigsbakke on all the blotting paper:

  “Oh hell, he was going dancing again that evening.”

  He suddenly smiled. He was thinking of Knuth.

  “When he gets near a skirt he looks like that chap who swam across to his girlfriend.”

  And suddenly he had a sense of longing, a purely physical longing for Ida, stronger than he had felt for a long time.

  Ida had gone up to her flat and taken off her outdoor clothes. All the new furniture was there and the old as well, wrapped in canvas: she would have to set to work. But suddenly, surrounded by the old furniture, the edges of which could be seen protruding from behind canvas and cords, she threw herself down on her new bed and with her face buried in the pillows and her arms outstretched as though they were nailed to this new, wide couch, she wept and wept.

  Karl had been with her that day, during the afternoon, up in her room; and now he was to go and he was in love and excited now, too.

  Ida stood with her arms around his neck.

  “What are you going to do this evening?” she said.

  “Stay at home.”

  He scarcely knew he was lying before he had said these words.

  “Goodbye, chick,” he said, kissing her hair.

  And then he went.

  Ida remained seated for a long time on the disordered bed.

  But when she came down into the tea room, Nurse Kjær said:

  “What’s wrong with you? Your eyes are all red.”

  From behind the urn, Nurse Helgesen said something about the gentleman in Ward A. Now the professor would surely soon have to make up his mind.

  “The patient has now worked out,” said Nurse Helgesen, “that there are just as many people every year who write a T instead of an F.”

  And Nurse Friis, who was ostentatiously darning black silk stockings, one of which she had pulled high up on her arm like a glove, said:

  “Ugh, that horrible man, he’s just like a ghost.”

  Looking into the gas ring on the table, Nurse Kjær said:

  “No, that’s not right but there is something about him as though he knew that he would get the better of us after all.”

  But Nurse Øverud, who was making sandwiches, said on the subject of the red eyes:

  “They are the result of being awake so much at night. I have the same problem. But I have a remedy to use against it.

  Ida went to her night duty.

  ∞∞∞

  Julius opened the carriage door at the station, and the general’s wife emerged.

  She went through the main hall into the waiting-room, where she found Mrs Mourier sitting on a sofa.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Oh it’s dreadfully raw this morning.”

  But Mrs Mourier, who every moment had tears in her eyes, said that she had not had a wink of sleep all night. “For just imagine her in that bunk, Lotte, listening to every stroke of that steam engine.”

  She was thinking all the time of Aline, whom they had come to meet.

  “And then, you know,” she said, “we can’t be too kind to her either.”

  “My dear Vilhelmine,” said the general’s wife, sitting down beside Mrs Mourier: “I say the same as Emilie: We will get over that problem mainly by taking things quietly and pretending throughout that nothing has happened.” But, without realising it, the general’s wife smoothed her Randers leather gloves up from her wrists, thereby showing the whole shape of her nails.

  “Yes, my dear,” said Mrs Mourier shaking her head a little, “but one thinks of her nevertheless.”

  And in a slighter harsher and quite decisive tone, the general’s wife said:

  “But, my dear Mine, if she has gone, she will have to come back home.”

  She started to talk about the change in climate that Emilie after all would encounter when she heard a slightly out-of-breath Mrs Schleppegrell arriving with Fanny in her wake. “My dears, what dreadful weather. I can feel the damp going right through me in spite of my French vest.”

  A torrent of words came from the admiral’s wife as she seated herself: “But as I said to Vilhelm today, we are meeting…”

  Fanny had taken up a position by the door to the platform. She was wearing the expression she had when on behalf of the admiral’s wife she made her weekly visit to the welfare association and remained at a distance from the others.

  The admiral’s wife started to talk of the chocolate she had received and about Emilie, who was always so considerate, until she suddenly looked around at the walls (perhaps she realised that no one was listening to her) and said:

  “My dears, how unpleasant it is in here. It is as though we were waiting in a criminal court of some kind.”

  “Yes,” said the general’s wife, “this waiting-room really is a scandal in a city like Copenhagen.”

  They fell silent again, and suddenly Kate and Karl, dressed in their riding clothes, were out there on the platform in front of the glass door.

  “There we have the young ones,” said the general’s wife, and they all smiled as they nodded out there, while Fanny looked at them through her lorgnette.

  Kate nodded back, again with her riding cloak over her arm.

  “Voilà l’ église triomphante,” she said, pouting her lips, a habit she had caught from Karl.

  “Aye, there we have the aunts, by Gad,” said Karl. He walked with both hands in his riding breeches as they sauntered on.

  But suddenly Kate turned back and shook the waiting-room door.

  “Hang it all, I’m going in to see them,” she said.

  She made to go inside, but the door was locked. “Oh,” she said abandoning the attempt. “The hordes will come out here.” Karl, who was also looking in at the aunts, laughed aloud. The distance and the fact that the two of them were unable to hear the conversation meant that there seemed to be something about the whole group slightly reminiscent of a stage performance.

  They continued to look in through the glass doors and, standing close together, they both laughed at the family in happy understanding with each other.

  There came symptoms of noise and disturbance, and ladies and gentlemen put their heads in through the doors when the admiral arrived. He had a cold and greeted the ladies before sitting down close to Mrs Mourier and blowing his nose.

  “Ah, my dear,” he said, “here we are now, provided with both lifebelts and a gangplank.”

  “Oh yes, indeed, admiral,” said Mrs Mourier. It was as though she had expected more response from him. “I’m all of a tremble.”

  The heavy baggage trolleys started to rumble along the platform, and unfamiliar ladies and gentlemen congregated by the doors, though not by Fanny’ s: she had an ability to establish an invisible circle around herself creating an empty space in her vicinity when the conductors came and opened the doors.

  “There they are,” said the admiral’s wife, leaping up from her chair as though she were leading a charge.

  The general’s wife had almost convulsively grasped Mrs Mourier’s arm and said in a voice that was suddenly trembling with emotion and which she was struggling to calm down again:

  “Oh heavens above, Mine, this is such a happy occasion.”

  They had all gone over to the door.

  “Fanny,” said the admiral’s wife: “Are you coming?”

  And corpulent and with the energy of someone arranging a party, she said to the general’s wife:

  “We ought to be together. Where are the young ones?”

  “Here comes the cavalry,” said Karl.

  The admiral brought up the rearguard, with a look on his face as though, from some elevated position in Frederiksberg, he was “following” some highly-placed colleague representative of the infantry.

  People crowded on to the platform, where the flock herded by the general’s wife was standing, rather nervousl
y watching the locomotive glide forward, while the admiral’s wife twice moved her arms as though she was already opening them to embrace the two who were returning home, and Mrs Mourier made the most of the opportunity to dry her eyes.

  “Can you see them?”

  “Can you see them?” said the general’s wife as compartment after compartment moved slowly past them. “Are you there, Vilhelm?” said the admiral’s wife.

  Kate flicked Karl with her switch. “Just look at the court masseuse,” she whispered. There was not the slightest movement in Fanny’s face as she surveyed the first class compartments through her lorgnette.

  “Kate,” called Mrs Mourier, who was quite overcome with emotion and wanted to have her daughter with her.

  “There she is,” said the general’s wife and she started to wave, and then they saw Mrs von Eichbaum sitting erect in her compartment.

  They were all waiting to see the other face as they waved. Mrs Mourier did not know that two large tears were running down her cheeks.

  “Now,” whispered Kate to Karl.

  “You are not expecting Aline, surely?” said Mrs von Eichbaum in a loud voice from the compartment. They had all started to move along with the gliding train as though drawn by a string and suddenly they came to a standstill. No one said anything until, after a second’s hesitation, the general’s wife again started to wave her hands and the train came to a standstill.

  “She left the train at Ringsted,” (Mrs von Eichbaum’s first glance had sought Karl and found him in his riding clothes alongside Kate) “and went home in the landau with Feddersen.”

  Kate had turned on her heel. “Quelle blague,” she said to Karl, “I won!”

  “Doesn’t count.”

  “Oh? Never mind, wasn’t the bet supposed to be about your mother putting her foot on the ground?”

  And suddenly they heard the admiral’s wife, who had required a moment to gather herself, say: “Good heavens, Emilie, it’s for your sake we have come.” And the general’s wife all at once started to weep as she embraced Mrs von Eichbaum, and Mrs Mourier said: “Oh, then she will be at home by now.”

  All of a sudden they started to talk in loud voices, quite loud voices, about the journey and the chocolate and the steamship, as though Aline had never existed, while Mrs von Eichbaum stood in front of Kate for a moment holding both her hands in hers.