Und was jüngst noch, fern und nah,
Bunt auf uns herniedersah,
Weiß sind Türme, Dächer, Zweige
Und das Jahr geht auf die Neige
Und das schönste Fest ist da.
Tag du der Geburt des Herrn
Heute bist du uns noch fern
Aber Tannen, Engel, Fahnen
Lassen uns den Tag schon ahnen
Und wir sehen schon den Stern.[1]
[1] Autumn has not yet quite gone but winter now comes striding on already, like Santa Claus, and forthwith the tinkle of the sleigh-bells rings out from amidst the snow. And everything that we last saw in all their colours near and far, towers and roofs and boughs are now white and the old year is on the turn and the loveliest feast is nigh. Day of our Lord’s birth, you are distant still today but pine trees, angels and flags lead us to expect you soon and we can even now see the star.
23
This small pre-Christmas celebration, which ended in conversation round the fireplace, with Grundtvig as the principal topic, lasted until dark and the company finally dispersed after being together for more than six hours. The Princess withdrew to her rooms and Holk once again accompanied the Schleppegrells, this time, however, as far as the town itself, and returned to his tower-room, after having given his word to visit the pastor’s house next time he was free in order to see Schleppegrell’s collection. Returning to his room, he wrote several letters, to Asta, Axel, and to Fräulein Dobschütz. He had received a note from the latter on the previous day, just before the departure of the court for Fredericksborg; in it she informed him that Christine would not be writing, as she was unwell. It cannot be claimed that this information caused Holk much disappointment. Although he was aware of his wife’s love of the truth, he said to himself: “She must be in a bad temper and calls it being unwell. If one wants, one can always become ill and enjoy the privilege of being able to justify any whim.”
Next morning was again bright and cloudless; the air was still and Holk, who was to report for duty at noon, was sitting by the window looking over to Hilleröd church with its weather-cock glittering in the sun. All the houses lay still and silent, the roofs spick and span, and but for the smoke rising from the chimney-pots, one might have thought that the whole town was under a spell. No trace of any people. “How happy one would be to live amid such quiet,” he said to himself; and then, realizing that Holkenäs was just as quiet, he added: “Yes, as quiet but not as peaceful. How I envy the pastor the life he leads! He has his parish, his prehistoric tombs, his excavations in the peat, quite apart from Herluf Trolle, and he lets the world go on its way. Hilleröd is his world. It’s true that no one can know what his inner life is like. He seems so restful, so limpid, so completely at peace, but is he? Even if it is true that three princesses fell in love with him one after the other, or perhaps all together, his present idyllic existence seems to me a doubtful sort of happiness as the outcome of it all. Marrying a princess is an even more doubtful happiness, I know, but when you have been prudent enough to avoid it and then have only the provincialism of Hilleröd as sole reward for your pains, you must often feel a sort of yearning for the past. An excellent little woman, that dumpling of a wife but quite unsuited to help a man like Schleppegrell to forget the past. After all, everyone has his particular form of vanity and pastors are said not to be deficient in this respect.”
He continued musing in this strain for a while and, while doing so, went once more over all the events and experiences of the past twenty-four hours: the walk towards Fredericksborg, the ferry with the cable to cross the moat, the wonderful view of the back of the castle with its steep roof and its towers and finally the stone inscription and his conversation with Ebba. “Ebba never speaks with any affection for the Princess, which is another proof that wit and gratitude make bad bed-fellows. If she wants to say something caustic, then she says it, and any sense of obligation is buried and forgotten. I don’t want to bring up the Stockholm affair again, it’s better to let the matter rest, although there may well be grounds for gratitude there as well; but even now, when the Princess is spoiling her so thoroughly in all that she says or does, Ebba merely takes everything for granted, not only as something quite normal, but almost as if she feels herself superior to the Princess. But she is not superior, it’s merely that the Princess is less sophisticated in her way of speaking. For example, when we were talking about old Grundtvig yesterday, how excellent were all the remarks she made, from the wealth of her wide experience—which reminds me that I might use them as a postscript for my letter to Julie, since it turned out to be a trifle thin, in any case.”
He sat down at the desk beside the window and wrote on the side that was still blank: “A short postscript, my dear Julie. Amongst other subjects of conversation yesterday was Grundtvig. Schleppegrell was trying to make him out to be a plaster-saint, in which he was supported, ironically of course, by Pentz and Fräulein Rosenberg. But the Princess took it all quite seriously and said: ‘Grundtvig is an important person whom we have a right to be proud of, as Danes. But he has one fault: he always tries to hold aloof and dissociate himself from the rest of mankind, even including the Danes, and though people say that his opinion of Denmark is so high that he seriously believes that God speaks Danish, yet I am certain that if that opinion were ever to be generally accepted, from that day forth he would endeavour to maintain and prove conclusively that God doesn’t speak Danish but Prussian. Grundtvig can’t bear to find anyone agreeing with him!’ This gives an excellent idea, my dear Julie, of the tone of our conversation at table and in the evening and I add this little postscript to my letter with all reservations, because I know how great is Christine’s interest in pastoral anecdotes and theological controversy. And the question as to God’s private language surely comes under that heading, I think. Once again, my heartiest greetings. I shall write to Christine tomorrow, if only a few lines.”
He had just placed this letter, and those to Asta and Axel, in their envelopes when there was a knock on the door. “Come in!” But the knock was merely repeated and Holk went to see who it was. Outside stood Karin, looking embarrassed, although embarrassment was the least of her accomplishments. She handed Holk some papers and letters which the postman had, in his hurry, left below with Fräulein Ebba, to save time. Fräulein Ebba sent her compliments and was planning to take a walk with Baron Pentz as far as “the stone”; the Count would know which stone she meant. Holk smiled, made his excuses, and sat down again to see what the latest post had brought. He pushed aside the newspapers as being not very promising, in view of the momentary political calm, and examined the addresses on the letters. They were all easily recognizable: one was from Petersen, another from his gardener, and the last from his brother-in-law Arne, as the Arnewieck postmark testified.
“From Alfred? What can he want? He usually interprets his free hand as major-domo broadly enough not to bother me with any queries. And it’s a good thing that he does and, in general, is the sort of man that he is, for I’ve no desire while I am here to be worried about wool-prices and how many fat sheep are to be shipped to England. That’s his business or Christine’s and both of them know more about it than I do; the Arnes have always been big farmers, which is more than I can say of the Holks; I’ve never really done much more than play at farming. So what does he want?” Realizing the pointlessness of further conjecture, he took the letter and slit open the envelope with a small ivory paper-knife, slowly because he had a premonition that the letter contained nothing very agreeable.
He read:
Dear Helmut,
As you know, I have deliberately refrained from bothering you in Copenhagen with any business matters from Holkenäs, nor has it hitherto been necessary, since your own easy-going nature makes it easy to be in charge in your stead. You not only have the happy gift of agreeing with everything that others want to do, but the even happier one, in an emergency, of allowing two and two to make five. Let me therefore say straight away,
in advance, that I am not writing to you on any pressing matters of management and even less do I wish to go over with you again all my special plans, with which you are in general already familiar: Shorthorns rather than Oldenburgers (milk production has gone too far) and Southdowns rather than Rambouillets. Why worry about wool? An out-dated conception which may suit Lüneburg heath but not us. The London cattle-market is the only one worth considering for such produce as ours. Meat, and yet more meat! But no more of that. I am writing to you on more important matters, about Christine. As Fräulein Dobschütz will already have informed you, Christine is ill, whether seriously or not depends on how you view it. She doesn’t need sending to Carlsbad or to Nice but she is none the less ill, ill in her mind, and it is you, my dear Helmut, who are responsible. What kind of letters do you imagine that you have been writing for the last six weeks, or perhaps I ought rather to say, that you have not been writing? I can’t understand you. From the beginning of our friendship, I have always accused you of not knowing anything about women and I must now repeat it, not as a joke but in bitter earnest: you really do not understand women at all and least of all your own wife, my dear Christine—I hardly dare write our dear Christine in view of your present attitude. At this juncture, I can imagine you becoming impatient and accusing me of being the chief cause and instigator of all the peculiarities of conduct that you have been perpetrating with such enthusiasm and deliberation since your departure from Holkenäs. If you wish to judge me and my advice purely according to your own lights, then I cannot deny that you have a certain justification in your accusations. It is true that I once advised you to adopt the course that you have now adopted. But, my dear Helmut, I must point out to you, as strongly as I can, the truth of est modus in rebus. Do I have to draw your attention to the fact that in all our actions, it is moderation that must decide and that the wisest advice—forgive me for seeming to put mine into that category—the wisest advice can be turned into the reverse if the person following it fails to maintain the right balance and loses all sense of proportion? That is what you have done and are still doing. I begged you to be on your guard against Christine’s wilfulness and to resist as strongly as possible the urge to dominate, which not only underlies her religiosity but is continually being fostered by it. No doubt I also advised you, en passant, to try jealousy and to make her aware that any possession is always hazardous and the best husband in the world may have a moment of weakness. Yes, my dear Helmut, I did speak to you in those terms, not out of lightness of heart but, if I may be allowed the expression, by reason of a certain academic appraisal of the situation and I have no regrets for what I said nor do I want to withdraw any of it. But what have you actually done in applying these suggestions, which I still maintain were correct? Pin-pricks that might have done good have turned into real wounds and the pins into poisoned arrows and, what is worse, instead of reluctance, which might have hinted that the execution of your scheme was involving struggle and effort on your part, instead of that, your letters revealed only indifference and an attempt—not always successful, because it was so obviously forced—an attempt to conceal this indifference under a cloak of town and court gossip. I have read your letters, which didn’t take me very long, for there weren’t many of them and none of them could be accused of excessive length; but at least half of them were concerned with the fabulous beauty of the, to say the least, somewhat peculiar Frau Brigitte Hansen and the other half with the witticisms of the equally peculiar Fräulein Ebba von Rosenberg. You barely devoted twenty lines to your wife and children, just a few questions, the answers to which, it was quite plain, hardly interested you at all. I believe, my dear Helmut, that it’s enough simply to have made you aware of all this. You are too honest to deny the truth of the charges that I have made in this letter and too kind and too generous not to want to remedy them at once. The arrival of such a letter at Holkenäs will be the signal for Christine’s recovery; you must let me hope that it will not be long delayed …
As always,
Your loving and affectionate brother-in-law,
Alfred Arne
So powerfully was Holk affected by the contents of this letter that he abandoned any thought of reading the other two: Petersen’s was probably in a similar vein. What is more, it was now time for him to present himself before the Princess and he feared that, in any case, he might have difficulty in concealing his emotion. He would certainly have failed to do so if, when he had appeared, everything had been as usual and the Princess’s eye as sharp as it normally was. Fortunately this was not the case, for she, too, had meanwhile received a letter which was greatly preoccupying her mind and which robbed her of the power to be concerned by Holk’s own behaviour.
24
The letter received by the Princess was from the gentleman-in-waiting Baron Blixen-Fineke and ran thus:
I beg most obediently to inform Your Royal Highness, in all haste, that His Majesty the King, who returned to Copenhagen today from Glücksburg, has the intention of spending the next few weeks in Fredericksborg Castle, probably until the New Year; in any case, he hopes to celebrate Christmas there. Only a few persons of his immediate entourage will accompany him; perhaps Colonel du Plat, certainly Captain Westergaard and Captain Lundbye. I thought it proper to apprise Your Royal Highness of His Majesty’s decision.
I remain,
Your Royal Highness’s most humble and obedient servant,
Blixen-Fineke
Her first thought on reading this note had been to leave the field free before the arrival of the King and return to Copenhagen within the next twenty-four hours. Once the King had arrived, such a retreat would be much more difficult, if not impossible, since, in view of the excellent personal relations between nephew and aunt, it would be too obvious that the Princess merely wished to avoid being under the same roof as the hated Countess Danner. So a rapid decision was essential and the question “departure or not” was the problem occupying the Princess and her suite, particularly Ebba, who saw more hope than fear in the possibility of an immediate return, for however finely developed her feeling for nature and however pleasant she found Schleppegrell, in spite of an occasional revulsion against his perpetual antiquarianizing, all in all the capital was considerably more to her taste; there you could hear the news at least six hours earlier and in addition have a box at the theatre every evening. The vast gallery at Fredericksborg was certainly a magnificent specimen of its style, and the play of light and shadow on the walls and ceiling was pleasantly romantic and a little uncanny, but one could hardly continue staring at Herluf Trolle with the same interest for six hours from dusk till bed-time and even less at the big naval battle and the explosion in the Immaculate.
Had it been Ebba’s choice, therefore, an immediate return would have been rapidly decided; but the Princess, who through sheer superstition was not anxious to leave a place that she had become accustomed to regard as her Christmas residence, remained hesitant in a manner quite out of character and was therefore glad when Holk remarked: “With your permission, Your Highness, is it quite definite that the countess will accompany the King? As far as I know, the King has always shown nothing but the greatest consideration for your Highness and not only knows but also respects your feelings. It’s true that he does not allow himself for that reason to be swayed in his affections nor indeed is it in his power, if people are right when they talk of a sort of witch’s spell which Danner has cast over him, but surely it’s possible for him to retain his affection for the Danner woman and still leave her behind in Skodsborg. He can then visit her every day, which perhaps suits him better than having her with him from morning till night. Surely the time must be past, even if it ever existed, when he felt the need to throw her loving glances at all hours of the day.”
“Who knows,” laughed the Princess. “You see, my dear Holk, this spell is a sort of intermittent fever and there are said to be days when he is free from it. But I don’t see it like that at all, a real spell never fails or comes to a
n end. Anyway, pass me Blixen-Fineke’s letter again, Ebba my dear, I want to read what he says carefully. He is a man who is very punctilious in his choice of words.”
Ebba passed the letter and the Princess read: “… only a few persons of his immediate entourage will accompany him; perhaps Colonel du Plat, certainly Captain Westergaard and Captain Lundbye …” “Holk is right; Blixen-Fineke knows too well how matters stand not to have given at least a hint. The countess will clearly not be coming and my nephew and I are on excellent terms: he is a very kindly soul and the nicest man in the world. In any case, there’s no need to think about leaving today. In all probability, Berling will be writing and he will express himself less diplomatically than Fineke.”
And in fact, the following day, a letter did come from the gentleman-in-waiting Berling, confirming the impending arrival of the King, but at the same time offering complete reassurance with regard to the countess. In accordance with her own wish, the countess was taking up residence in Skodsborg and would receive the King’s visits there. So all hesitation was now at an end and it was decided to stay; but even had the opposite decision been taken, an insuperable obstacle would have stood in the way of its execution, for the Princess now fell ill. The nature of her illness remained obscure but whatever it was (there was talk of a hidden non-malignant nervous fever), Dr. Bie from Hilleröd called three times a day and partook regularly of the luncheon served for those attached to the Princess’s court and of most other meals as well. This Dr. Bie was the brother of Frau Schleppegrell whose shortness, stoutness, and shrewd, friendly eyes he shared, as well as the favour of the Princess. He carried a gold-topped cane and wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which he regularly removed whenever he wished to see anything; he took one’s pulse in a loud voice, like a piano-teacher counting the beat, and he enjoyed chatting about Iceland and Greenland, where he had been ship’s doctor for fourteen years and to whose inhabitants he was in general very well disposed. “In Copenhagen people usually laugh at the Icelanders; but how about Are Marson, who discovered America five hundred years before Columbus, and Eric the Red and Ulf Squinteye and all his gallant band? Heroes and sages every one, and Icelanders every one of them. I’m only sorry that your Royal Highness has never visited the island. It is quite a strange feeling to eat an egg boiled in a geyser, perhaps at the very moment that it is spitting fire as well. The idea that Icelanders read our papers twelve months later, day for day, is merely a piece of conceit on the part of the Copenhageners; the Icelanders have their own newspapers and every other day an English or an American boat puts in and if there is an election for a town or even just a parish councillor, it’s quite as interesting as when they elect the new mayor of Copenhagen. Ah, your Highness, I am tempted to say that we should stop making all these differences between villages and palaces; wherever they live, people go on loving and hating and it makes very little difference whether a singer can hold a trill for a whole minute or a fiddler play the ‘Valiant Soldier Lad,’ at least as far as I am concerned.” With remarks such as these he could be certain of enlisting the Princess’s highly amused approval and when Pentz and Ebba asked whether her Royal Highness would really not prefer her own private doctor, Dr. Wilkins, who in any case had nothing to do and ought to be reminded, now and again, that he was drawing his salary for a mere sinecure, the Princess refused, saying: “No, I am not yet at death’s door and if I were, I don’t think Wilkins, who reads everything and knows practically nothing, would be likely to save me. Bie is doing everything a man can do for me and after I have been listening to him for half an hour and sat beside him in his reindeer sleigh or eaten raspberry fool with the missionary Dahlstrom, then I have had exactly what is meant by the expression ‘a doctor’s healing presence’; medico praesente, I believe they call it. No, Bie must stay. And what would his sister say to such an insult, my dear little pastor’s wife who considers him as famous as Boerhave and is firmly convinced that a letter addressed to Dr. Bie, Europe, from the North Pole or the South Pole, would arrive without fail at its destination.”
Irretrievable Page 19