Ida Brandt

by Herman Bang

  But Mrs von Eichbaum, appeared not to have heard, for she simply rose and said:

  “And now all that remains for Julius is to light the lamps.”

  The general’s wife also rose, but over by the door Mrs von Eichbaum stopped.

  “And then I would also,” she said, rather more slowly, “like Aline to come a little earlier, for Lotte, (Mrs von Eichbaum performed a gesture with her hands as though she were putting something in place) then it would be as though she is really here.”

  The general’s wife nodded as Mrs von Eichbaum opened the door.

  “But good heavens my dear, the young ones are coming after dinner.”

  They went down the corridor to the general’s wife’s kitchen.

  “Those screens, Lotte,” said Mrs von Eichbaum as she went through the kitchen, where some grey screens both concealed and adorned the kitchen table and the stove, “those screens are a blessing.”

  They separated, and Mrs von Eichbaum went over to her own small corridor where, in a rather commanding voice, she said to Julius, who had his gloves hanging to dry on a cord over by the stove:

  “And Julius, I suppose you will take care of the visiting butler.”

  Julius appeared, smelling slightly of petrol, and said he would take care of him.

  Mrs von Eichbaum went in. She did not speak to Ane before the dinner.

  The three rooms made a quietly comfortable impression, and the coal, which had been put on rather sparingly, was burning gently. Mrs von Eichbaum settled down in the sofa. She was going to make lace until it was time to dress. The bed curtain would soon be finished – within a few weeks. But Kate, that dear child, had really also been an eager lace-maker during the evenings and she did it very competently.

  It really was as though those beautiful fingers had quietened down.

  The lace bobbins slipped out of Mrs von Eichbaum’s hands, and she became lost in thought. The rooms were beginning to grow darker. Mrs von Eichbaum thought of so many things, of this winter and the many winters before it, of Aline and Kate and Karl. And suddenly she thought of one of the sermons preached by the chaplain to the royal household.

  The subject had been faithfulness and a day’s work and the peace that was its reward.

  Mrs von Eichbaum suddenly became very emotional, and she took out her handkerchief in the half light. Her eyes had alighted on Mr von Eichbaum’s picture above the desk. He was still visible in the half light.

  His widow had folded her hands.

  Then she was awakened from her thoughts. She had heard Karl. He opened the door from the dining room and came in.

  “Have you dressed, mother?” he asked.

  “No, I’ve simply been sitting in my corner for a while,” said Mrs von Eichbaum from the darkness: “But everything is ready.”

  “Are we having Christensen then?” said Karl, who had collapsed on to a chair.

  “Yes.”

  They sat for a while in silence, until Mrs von Eichbaum said:

  “And I have invited Miss Brandt.”

  She had perhaps expected some comment from the gloom, but the word did not come, and all that was heard by either of them was the ticking of the clock.

  “She’s been here a good deal during the winter after all,” came the voice from the sofa.

  And Mrs von Eichbaum’s tone changed almost imperceptibly: “And so I have thought of this as a kind of final visit.”

  The clock went on ticking perhaps for a minute.

  “Will you light the lamp in the corner,” said Mrs von Eichbaum.

  Karl lit the lap, and Mrs von Eichbaum rose.

  “It is probably about time,” she said, and as she went past her son she suddenly laid her arm on his shoulder:

  “I have been sitting here looking at the portrait of your father.”

  Karl could feel she was trembling.

  And suddenly moved, like her, he said:

  “You are so kind, mother.” And he kissed her forehead.

  “And now we must dress,” said Mrs von Eichbaum: “Julius has put the seating arrangements on your table.”

  Karl stood in his room studying the “seating arrangements”. He felt something of a relief: Ida, who was to have the research student next to her at table, had been placed on the same side of the table as he himself.

  Over in the dining room, Julius had finished lighting the lamps when Mourier’s Mr Christensen arrived with his dress shirt covered for protection by a velvet cloth. Julius treated the stranger with a great deal of ceremony and said that he “might perhaps be allowed to explain the situation to him”.

  He took Mr Christensen into the general’s wife’s guest room beside the dining room, and Mr Christensen divested himself of his outer garments while looking at the two beds.

  “This is where we dish up,” said Julius.

  Julius had been thinking that Mr Christensen could pour the wine.

  Mr Christensen – who wore gold cufflinks and had three square gold buttons on his shirt front, had served in the guards and during Mr Mourier’s annual visit to Karlsbad had zealously trained in the international style – studied the bottles.

  “Of white wine,” said Julius,” we usually pour twelve glasses per bottle.”

  Mr Christensen, who looked like a man who would not be surprised by anything, started arranging the bottles with a pair of very well-groomed hands. He wore a broad gold ring on the little finger of his left hand.

  Mrs von Eichbaum had dressed and now sprinkled the rooms with “just a drop” of eau de Cologne.

  The porter had taken up his post in front of the gate so as to give orders to the carriages. They were to stay on in the street. The “courtyard” between the two parts of the building was too narrow to allow them to turn with ease.

  But the first guest came on foot. This was the student who was regularly given a meal here. He always came first because of an excessive fear of arriving too late, and as he divested himself of an array of strange garments he said to Julius:

  “I suppose no one has arrived.”

  Then, his head slightly bowed, he went in to Mrs von Eichbaum. Mrs von Eichbaum rose and said: “How nice to see you, Henrik; I take it you are reasonably well.” The student seated himself and thanked her. When sitting in the middle of a room, he looked as though he had been put in a corner, and he kept his legs curiously close to each other as though he had them in a foot muff. Hearing someone out in the corridor, Mrs von Eichbaum said:

  “Yes, spring is a bad time for ailments of that sort.”

  The research student’s “ailment” was a stomach upset.

  “But have you had a lambskin rug under your table during the winter?”

  Mrs von Eichbaum got up without waiting for an answer. The Schleppegrell family was making its entry into the small drawing room.

  “Good lord, my dear,” said Mrs Schleppegrell, who was quite out of breath: “Fancy our being so early and I have been rushing around for hours.”

  Mrs Schleppegrell had spent four hours of her day in the custom house, as she immediately told everyone.

  The admiral had greeted the research student – in roughly the same way as he would have addressed a ship’s cook – and Mrs Schleppegrell moved across to the general’s wife, who usually came when she had heard the first carriage and had perhaps been hoping it was Aline. Karl, who had come in and was going round bowing and clicking his patent leather heels, had stopped before Fanny, who had a lace veil over an older salmon-coloured robe from a court ball, and, as a contribution to the conversation, Mrs von Eichbaum called across the room:

  “I suppose you went to Father Dominique this morning, Fanny? What did he talk about?”

  The priest had spoken on the subject of authority.

  The admiral, who was truly religious every Sunday and attended service in the Naval Church with the Roskilde hymn book in his pocket, said:

  “I don’t like all this enthusiasm for Catholic churches…”

  “Good Heavens, Schl
eppegrell,” said the general’s wife – there was a certain staccato quality to the conversation – “for someone so firm in her faith as Fanny, it can only broaden the mind.”

  And Mrs von Eichbaum, rising again, said:

  “No, Schleppegrell, I can’t agree with you in that either – we are just talking about Catholics, Emmy – after all Catholics have a breadth of vision that is a source of inspiration.”

  And hearing the door to the small drawing room open again, the general’s wife added as Fanny armed herself with her lorgnette:

  “After all, there is a quality of permanence to Catholicism.”

  For a second, while everyone was speaking, all eyes had lighted on Madame Aline, who had appeared in the doorway.

  “Good morning, Aline,” said Mrs von Eichbaum, reaching out both her hands to her, and Mrs Feddersen, dressed in silk, without a word and supported by her walking stick, entered the room. Mrs von Eichbaum remained by her side as her friend shook hands with everybody – while shaking hands, Mrs Falkenberg instinctively stuck out her arm like a child learning to waltz – and the admiral (who was still talking about Catholicism) was heard to say:

  “Well, damn it all, I don’t think it’s healthy.”

  Mrs Schleppegrell had risen to embrace Aline, while over by the étagère Lieutenant Colonel Falkenberg was heard to say to the student: “Yes, that’s as it is, you go out in the sunshine, and then you find a cold wind blowing.” And the general’s wife, taking Mrs Feddersen’s walking stick, said:

  “Sit here, Aline.”

  While Mrs Feddersen was seating herself it was as though the group closed around her in the corner of the sofa.

  But Mrs von Eichbaum, returning to the door to the small drawing room, said with a laugh:

  “Yes, of course, the fine folk are the ones to come late.”

  The Mouriers and Miss Rosenfeld had arrived together.

  “No, Andreas,” Mrs. Mourier had said at home, “I do not wish to be there to see her arrive.”

  Now, not having the courage to go in, she stood in the cabinet whence she could see Aline in the corner of the sofa.

  “Good Lord, but she has gone grey,” she said to Fanny, who was standing closest to her, and Mrs Mourier had tears in her eyes.

  “Who?” asked Fanny.

  Karl, going past the end of the table, suddenly found Ida, behind the others, over in the corner by the rubber plant.

  “So this is where you are, Miss Brandt?” he said, clicking his heels, slightly pale.

  And Mrs von Eichbaum, who had completely forgotten her, but had extremely sharp ears, came towards her. “Good day, dear Miss Brandt,” she said and introduced her to a couple of those closest to her. Mrs Lindholm suddenly sailed into the small drawing room in front of her distinguished husband who was redolent of eau de Lubin, so there was quite a squeeze, while Kate, in a tone suggesting she was standing at the entrance to the Ark, said, as she tapped Karl’s arm with her fan:

  “Well, there are eighteen of us now.”

  They were already beginning to move out of the living room, while Mourier continued to shake hands heartily with all, and they went out through the doors, couple after couple. The research student bowed to Ida, whom he had never met before, and they were the last to go in.

  But as they went in past the screens, Karl, accompanying Mrs Lindholm, scraped past Ida and, as though there were not sufficient room, put a hand on her waist for a moment.

  “We are bringing up the rearguard,” he said.

  And Mrs Lindholm, who was the daughter of the Purveyor of Glass to His Majesty, said with a glance at the screens:

  “It is so convenient that you live in the same house as your aunt.”

  “Yes,” said Karl, who had followed her eye: “The screens are one of the family treasures; I think we inherited them.”

  Mrs Lindholm laughed and, as they went along the corridor, raised her skirts a little as though crossing a farmyard. When they reached the dining room, Karl cast a host’s eye over the table. It was as though his face suddenly became older and adopted a certain official look.

  They were all seated, the mother at the bottom end of the table, the admiral at the top, with his symbol of knighthood around his neck, alongside Madame Aline.

  Julius started to serve the soup as solemnly as though he were bearing a pair of sacrificial vessels.

  The conversation centred on dining rooms and on seating.

  “We have enough room here, thank God,” said Mr Mourier, who was tying his serviette around his ample chest.

  The conversation built up, though still on the subject of dining rooms, and, while Mrs Mourier bent forward to hide Madame Aline, whose hands were trembling so that she was spilling her soup when raising her spoon to her mouth, Mrs von Eichbaum said:

  “But there is no dining room to rival that at Korsgaard.”

  And Madame Aline, speaking as it were in a deeper tone than the others, said:

  “It is cool there at least.”

  Miss Rosenfeld had for a moment listened to the timbre of Madame Aline’s voice, and she gave an absent-minded answer to a question put to her by Lindholm:

  “Yes, we have a hundred pupils in the school now.”

  Which gave the admiral’s wife the occasion to raise her bosom in a rather splendidly low-cut dress as she said:

  “Yes, it is incredible; everyone has to have something to do nowadays.”

  But the general’s wife said:

  “Good Lord, it’s just a result of all this impatience. There is no one these days who is calm enough to sit quietly somewhere and knit a sock.”

  Mr Mourier declared that it was an excellent halibut, and while Mr Christensen, who had removed the ring from his little finger before serving, poured the white wine, Lieutenant Colonel Falkenberg caught the word “calm” and said:

  “Yes, but what is the reason for that madam? We (and the lieutenant colonel’s voice became sharper), we have two opposition newspapers in our house. If it were up to me, they would never be allowed inside the door.”

  Mrs Falkenberg, who only ate a little but was constantly looking up at Madame Aline as though staring at a miracle taking place close to her, said:

  “But, Falkenberg, we cannot prevent the children from reading.”

  “But we don’t have to discuss things with them,” replied the lieutenant colonel.

  Almost as though to place herself between the two of them, Mrs von Eichbaum said:

  “Well, Emmy, there I agree with Falkenberg: these everlasting discussions give rise to nothing but disagreement.”

  Mourier, who was still eating, was of the general opinion that it was necessary to know what those people were thinking: Damn it all, he reads the “Social Democrat”.

  “My dear Mourier,” said Mrs von Eichbaum, who now, with some relief, could hear Madame Aline talking in a brighter voice about her home at Sølyst: “I think that wrong…”

  Mrs von Eichbaum meant “for the sake of the example it gives”. It was dreadful the way things were going at the moment:

  “Just imagine the other day, I discovered that Ane and Julius – just imagine Ane – subscribe to one of those little newspapers. It is difficult to understand where they get it from.”

  Mourier laughed, but the conversation on journalists had now reached Lindholm, who said that those people were sometimes seen in the theatre, and he often wondered about it. “For they are really well dressed,” he said in a tone suggesting he had expected that everyone writing in a newspaper would turn up with holes in their jacket elbows.

  The admiral told how he had once had a gentleman from a newspaper on board the “Heligoland”, and he had spoken quite sensibly by Gad, but the admiral’s wife, who had continued with her argument that everyone felt a need to do something, said across the table to Mrs Mourier, speaking of the daughter of one in their circle:

  “My dear Mine, didn’t you know – yes, she wants to start as a midwife.”

  The research stude
nt, who had eaten his fish without sauce because of his diet (he was the son of a famous figure from the middle of the century and had for ten years been busy arranging his father’s “Memoirs” while growing ever thinner), said to Ida:

  “It must be a very rewarding task to be able to lessen other people’s suffering.”

  “Yes,” said Ida, and her partner’s conversation came to an end again. She had acquired two red patches, one over each eyebrow, as though she had just come straight from a frying pan.

  Mrs von Eichbaum looked out across the table with her hostess’ eye.

  “Oh, Miss Brandt, dear, would you take that dish and pass it on.”

  Ida gave a start. She had only heard all the conversation as an alien hum, and now she heard Karl’s voice addressing Miss Mourier again.

  “Yes,” she said, and took the dish.

  “Thank you,” said Mrs von Eichbaum.

  Mrs Lindholm spoke to Fanny Schleppegrell about the princes: one of them had given her a paperknife. And the conversation in general came to centre on the royal family.

  As the conversation became increasingly animated and the admiral had approached as it were a little closer to Mrs Feddersen, the general’s wife and Lieutenant Colonel Falkenberg spoke about a family friend who was the prince’s governor and was preparing him for an examination.

  “But he is very constrained,” said the general’s wife, “having to sleep in the room front.”

  The lieutenant colonel replied with some words on the excellent example this was and turned to Miss Rosenfeld.

  “Well,” he said: “You are naturally a radical like my wife.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean by that word,” said Miss Rosenfeld, “but I am actually very fond of the king because I consider him a very noble person.”

  Karl and Kate started to laugh at the word “person”, and the general’s wife said to Miss Rosenfeld:

  “My dear Betty, that is presumably not the only thing about him.”

  But Mrs Falkenberg, who had two red patches on her cheeks – she easily acquired them, as though they were the result of a suppressed or secret agitation – said without addressing her words to anyone in particular, though they were probably intended for the lieutenant colonel: