Seven Gothic Tales

by Isak Dinesen

  As we drove on, the road became steeper and the snow more fierce. Our coachman and groom were unable to see six feet in front of them. Suddenly the coach gave a particularly bad jump, and stopped altogether. The coachman, descending from his box, tore open the carriage door to a great gust of wind and snow, and, himself all covered with snow, roared in, infuriated, that it was impossible to get out of the drift in which the coach was stuck.

  We held a short consultation inside, which meant nothing to any of us, as no one would give up the journey. We tumbled out, buttoning our coats and turning up the collars, and, doubling over like old men, we took up the pursuit.

  It had stopped snowing. The sky was almost clear. The moon, running along behind thin clouds, showed us the way. But the wind was terrible here. I remembered, just as I got out of the coach, a fairy tale, which I had been told as a child, in which an old witch keeps all the winds of heaven imprisoned in a sack. This pass, I thought, must be the sack. The locked-up winds were raging wildly in it, jumping down straight, like fighting dogs chained by their collars. Sometimes they seemed to beat down vertically upon our heads, again they rose from the ground, whirling the snow sky-high. In the carriage it had been cold, but here, as we were already high up in the mountains, the air felt as frigid as if someone had emptied a bucket of iced water over our heads. We could hardly breathe in it. But all this wildness of the elements did me good. In such a world and night I should find her, and she would need me.

  The figures of my fellow travelers, even at arm’s length dim and vague like shadows on the snowy road, were insignificant to me. This search I felt to be mine alone, and soon I was a good bit in front of them. Pilot dropped out of sight. The Baron kept fairly close to me, but did not reach me.

  Suddenly, after perhaps an hour’s walk, as the road turned around a rock, a large square object, slanting on the edge of the track, loomed like a large tower in front of me. It was Olalla’s carriage. It was standing there, stuck like our own and half upset, and there were neither horses nor coachman with it. I jerked open the door, and a woman inside gave a terrible shriek. It was the maid whom I had seen in the hotel. She was crouching on the carriage floor with shawls pulled over her. She was alone, and when she saw that I did not mean to kill or rob her, she cried to me that the coachman had unhitched the horses to get them into a shelter, after he had had to give up, like our own coachman, the hope of getting any farther. But where, I cried back to her, was her mistress? She had, the maid told me, gone ahead on foot. The girl was horribly scared, and in describing her lady’s flight and danger she sobbed and cried, and could hardly get her words out. I tore myself loose from her, for she did not want to let me go, and banged the door upon her. What terror, what danger, I thought, had there been in that coach to drive a woman out of it, alone, in the dead of the night and amongst wild mountains? What could it be that threatened her at the hands of the old Jew of Amsterdam?

  I had stopped beside the coach for a quarter of an hour, perhaps, and this had enabled the Baron to catch up with me. The two lanterns on the coach were still burning, and as he came up behind me and spoke to me it was curious to see, in the moon-cold night, his face appear, flaming scarlet in the light of them. In the shelter of the coach we exchanged a few words. We started again, going for a while side by side.

  At a place where the road got steeper, through the mist of the loose whirling snow which was driven along the ground like the smoke from a cannon, I caught sight of a dark shadow in front of me, not a hundred yards away, which might be a human figure. At first it seemed to disappear and to appear again, and it was difficult in the night and in the storm to keep your eyes fixed upon it. But after a time, although I got no nearer, my eyes became used to their task, and I could follow her steadily. She walked, on this steep and heavy road, as quickly as I myself did, and my old fancy about her, that she could fly if she would, came back. The wind whirled her clothes about. Sometimes it filled them and stretched them out, so that she looked like an angry owl on a branch, her wings spread out. At other times it screwed them up all around her, so that on her long legs she was like a crane when it runs along the ground to catch the wind and get on the wing.

  At the sight of her I felt the Baron’s nearness intolerable. If I had chased Olalla for six months, to run her down in this mountain pass, I must have her alone to myself. It would be of no use to try to explain this to him. I stopped, and as he stopped with me, I seized him by the front of his cloak and threw him back. He was tired by our climb. He was breathing heavily, and had stopped a couple of times. But he came to life at my grip and on seeing the expression of my face. Now he would by no means let me go on alone. His eyes and teeth glinted at me. We had a few minutes’ fight on the stony road, and he knocked off my hat, which rolled away. But, still gripping his clothes with my left hand, I struck him a strong blow in the face, which made him lose his balance. The road was slippery, and he fell and rolled backwards. As he fell he had taken hold of a muffler around my neck, and had nearly strangled me. Cursing the delay, I sprang on, hot and shaking from the effort.

  Alone again, and certain now to catch Olalla in the end here in the high hills, I was filled both with great happiness and with that fear which had first taken hold of me beside the coach. Both drove me forth with equal strength. I thought again, as I ran along down here on the dark ground, like the moon up in the sky, that I was very likely mad. It was indeed a maddening situation, suitable for an extravaganza for the theaters of Rome. Here was I, out after a woman whom I loved, and she fleeing before me in the night as fast as her legs would take her, in the belief that I was that same old enemy of hers and mine who had first parted us, and whom I longed to kill. She did not turn her head a single time, and it would have been quite hopeless to shout to her against the wind. Also, we were, both of us, exerting ourselves to our utmost strength in the flight and pursuit; and even at that, going along, as we were, bent double like old people, we could cover only about two miles to the hour. But the strangest thing of all, and the one which worried me most, was how she could possibly take me to be the old Jew. In the streets of Rome and in the room of Andermatt he had been walking very slowly on a stick. I was a young man and a good athlete, and yet she could mistake me for him. He must be, in reality, a devil, or he must have it in his power to dispatch devils on his errands. I began to feel myself as his messenger, sent on by him. Was I, perhaps, without knowing it, already in his power, and was I, against my will, the familiar of the old wizard of Amsterdam?

  While all this had been running through my head I had been gaining on her. And then, spurred on by her nearness, quite mad to catch and hold her, I made a few last long leaps. Suddenly her long cloak, swept backwards, blew against my face, and in the next moment I was at her side, I leaped past her, and, spinning around, stopped her. She ran on straight into my arms and would have fallen had I not caught her. In a moment we were under the wild winter moon, in a tight embrace. Pressed to each other by the elements themselves, we both panted for breath.

  Do you know, Mira, it is a great thing, the foolishness of human beings. I had run for my life, sure that the moment I caught her up, my happiness of Rome should be caught again. I do not remember now what I had meant to do—to lift her up, make love to her there, or kill her, perhaps, so that she should not make me unhappy again. I did have one moment of it, too, just as I held her in my arms and felt her breath on my face, and her long-missed form on my own body. That was a very short time to have, surely. Her bonnet, like my hat, had blown off and away. Her upturned face, white as bone, with its big eyes like two pools, was quite close to me. I saw now that she was terrified of me. It was not from the Jew that she had run—it was from me.

  Many years later, on crossing the Mediterranean in a storm, I looked, for one moment, into the face of a falcon which had tried many times in vain to hook itself to the rigging of my ship, before it was blown off and down into the sea for good. That was again the face of Olalla in the mountain pass. That bird
, too, was wild and mad with fear, broken by overstrain, without hope.

  I suppose that I stared at her, just as terrified as she was herself, when I understood, and cried her name into her face two or three times. She herself had no breath left to speak, and I do not know if she heard me.

  Now that I was sheltering her from the wind her long dark hair and dark clothes sank down all around her. She seemed to change her form, and to be transformed into a pillar in my arms. After we had stood there for a little while I said to her: “Why do you run away from me?” She looked at me. “Who are you?” she said at last. I held her closer to me and kissed her twice. Her face was quite cold and fresh. She stood still and let me kiss her. It might as well have been the snowflakes and the wild air pressing themselves upon her lips as my face and mouth. “Olalla,” I said, “I have sought you all over this world my whole life. Can we not be together here now?”

  “I am all alone here,” she said after a little time. “You frightened me. Who are you?”

  By this time I had been chased all around the compass, and thought that it might be enough just for the present. So I stood still to think the situation over. I could not leave her alone in the night and wind. I released her a little, still supporting her with my right arm.

  “Madame,” I said, “I am an Englishman, traveling in these cursed mountains. My name is Lincoln Forsner. It is not right that a lady should be out alone on this bad road, at this time of the night. If you will therefore allow me to escort you to the monastery I shall feel much honored.”

  This she thought over, and she seemed to lean with a good grace on my arm. But she said: “I cannot possibly walk any farther.”

  It was clear that she could not. If I had not held her she would have fallen. What were we to do? She herself looked all around her, and up at the moon. When she had regained her balance a little, she said: “Let me rest a little. Let us sit down here and rest ourselves; then I can go with you to the monastery.”

  I looked around for a place of shelter, and saw one that was not too bad, close to where we stood, under a great rock which projected over the road. The snow had been whirled in there, but into the hook of it the wind could not quite get. It was perhaps ten yards away. I led or carried her to that place. I took off my cloak, and the muffler with which the Baron had come near to strangling me, and made her as comfortable as I could. The night grew clearer at the same time. The whole great landscape was quite white and bright, except when from time to time a cloud passed over the moon. I sat beside her, and hoped that we might be left in peace for a little, up here.

  Olalla sat close to me, her shoulder even touching mine, calm and perfectly friendly. I felt again the same thing about her that I have talked of before: that pain and suffering did not affect her, but that all things were in some way the same to her. She sat in the cold, waste, mountain pass as a little girl would sit in a flower meadow, her skirt filled with the flowers she had picked.

  After a time I said to her: “What brings you up in these mountains, Madame? I am traveling myself in search of something, but I have no luck. I wanted, also, to assist you, and am sorry that I frightened you, because it makes it more difficult for me to be of any help.”

  “Yes,” she said, after a silence, “it is not easy to live, for any of you. That was so, too, with Madame Nanine. She wanted to keep her girls well disciplined, and at the same time she did not like to crush our spirits, for then we should have been no good to the house.”

  “Madame Nanine was the woman who ran the house in Rome of which I have spoken. This she said to me in a friendly way, as if to show me a courtesy. She evidently thought that since I had been kind enough to admit that she was a perfect stranger to me, she would make me a return by admitting that we had known each other long ago.

  I said to her: “It is only here that it is so cold. Tomorrow, when you descend the pass, you will meet the spring winds. In Italy it is spring now, and in Rome, I think, the swallows are back.”

  “Is it spring there?” she said. “No, not yet. But it will be soon, and that will be very pleasant to you, who are so young.”

  “Do you know, Mira,” Lincoln said, interrupting himself in his tale, “that this is the first time that I have thought at all of that hour up there? I only remember it now step by step, so to say, as I tell you of it. I do not know why I have not thought of it before. Does this moon remember it perhaps? She was there, too.”

  “Madame,” I said to her, “if we were now in my own country I should prepare for you a drink, when we arrive at a house, which would revive you—yes, and ginger should be hot in the mouth, too.” I described to her our strong spirits and how one comes home on a winter day, with fingers and toes frozen, and drinks them in front of the fire. We came to talk about drinks and food, and of how we should manage if we were left up here forever. It was pleasant that here one could speak and be heard without shouting. Altogether, this cave under the rock was very much like a house to her and me, such as we had never before owned between us. It seemed to me that everything would fit in well here, that even ray father, could I have conjured forth his ghost, would have joined us with pleasure and pride. She did not say much, but laughed a little at me Neither did I speak all the time. We sat there, I believe, for three-quarters of an hour or so. I knew that it would be dangerous to go to sleep.

  Just then I caught sight of a light on the road, and of two doleful figures advancing in it, pausing from time to time. It was Pilot, dead tired and sore from his climb, with the Baron leaning on his arm and limping along the heavy road in the moonlight. I learned afterward that the Swede had sprained his ankle in his fall, and that Pilot, coming up behind him, had helped him up and assisted him. The Baron had sent the other back to take off the one lantern which was then still burning on Olalla’s coach. This they carried with them, with much trouble, and they were both benumbed with the cold.

  My bad luck had it that they stopped to gather up strength to go on with their journey, and put down their lantern on the ground just beside our refuge. Pilot did not see us; he never saw anything of the world around him. But the Baron, even limping, his face white with pain, was watchful and quick of eye as a lynx. He turned around, pulling Pilot with him. I had got up at the sight of them. I thought that it might perhaps be as well that they had come; they might help me to bring Olalla to the house.

  I do not think that the Baron wanted to fight me once more, but he was in a rage against me. It was probably always difficult to get him out in a fight with anyone as strong as himself. But here he felt, I think, that he had got Pilot with him. He must have described our encounter to him, and made me out a madman or dead drunk.

  “Hullo,” he cried, “the chase is up and the Englishman has won. He has improved the occasion at once, and that at ten degrees of frost. We ought not to have told him of so many attractions. He has seen only the women of his own country till now, and we drove him mad straight away. Let us have a look at the lady now ourselves, Fritz.”

  They looked like two big birds of ill omen as they came upon us. Pilot had turned the lantern around, so that the light fell upon Olalla. She had got up, and stood by my side, but she did not lean upon me at all now.

  The Baron stared at her. So did Pilot. “So it is you, indeed, my sainted Rosalba,” said the former, “pausing a moment on your way to heaven. I wish you luck in the more pleasant career.”

  I could see that at his words Olalla could with difficulty keep from laughing. In fact every time she looked at the Swede she was tempted to laugh. But she was very pale, and with every minute she grew paler.

  Now Pilot, who had been holding the lantern, and had stood as if he was himself blinded by the light, made a step nearer to us and stared into her face. “Madame Lola,” he cried, “is it you?”

  “No, that is not I,” said she. “You are making a mistake.”

  This confused Pilot terribly. He pulled his hair. I believed that he would go mad then and there. “Do not deceive me, I beg you,�
� he said, “tell me who you are, then.”

  “That would not mean anything to you,” she said. “I do not know you at all.”

  “I know that you are angry with me,” he cried, “for having told our story to other people. But I did not know what to do. Indeed, since I saw you last, I have not known what to do at all. I am unhappy, Madame Lola. Tell me who you are.”

  By the light of the lantern I saw that Olalla’s clothes were stiff and shining with frozen snow, her shoes thickly covered with it. But still I did not drag her away, but stood on and listened.

  Suddenly Pilot dropped on his knees, in the snow, before her. “Madame Lola,” he cried, “save me. You are the only person in the world who can do it. Those weeks of Lucerne were the only time of my life that I have been happy. And all the things which I was to do! I myself have forgotten what they were. Tell me who you are!”

  The Baron snatched the lantern, which Pilot had dropped, and held it high. I think that he was upset at seeing his partner brought so low. “That Madame Rosalba,” he cried, “elle se moque des gens! I was told that from the first. But not for a long time of little Arvid Guildenstern. That holy lady has on her back a little brown mole. We can find out quickly enough about that, between us, to know who she is.”

  Again I saw Olalla restrain herself from laughing at him. But she spoke to Pilot gently. “If I had ever known you,” she said to him, “I should have done you no harm. I should have tried to give you a little pleasure. But I do not know you. Now let me go.”

  She turned to me, slowly, and looked at me, as if she were confident that I would be on her side. So I should have been, against all the world, ten minutes before, but it is extraordinary how quickly one is corrupted in bad company. When I heard these other people talking of their old acquaintance with her, I myself, who stood so much closer than the others, turned toward her, staring into her face. “Tell them,” I cried. “Tell them who you are!”