Seven Gothic Tales

by Isak Dinesen

  She lifted the Venus’s lower hand just a little and held it toward him, slowly, as if it had been a heavy weight. He stretched out his hand and touched her finger tip. It was exactly the gesture of the Creator of Michelangelo transmitting divine life to young Adam. Such various reproductions of high classic art were moving about, in the evening, in the kitchen garden of La Liberté.

  They heard the Councilor stirring in his seat, laying away his book and gazing up into the crown of the tree. Slowly, without a word, Fransine turned and walked along the terrace toward him, and Anders followed her with the basket of lettuce and peas.

  The Councilor still had a finger in the book, at the page where he had last been reading. “Ah, Fransine,” he said, “here I have been smuggling into the academy of refinement of La Liberté a little sans-culotte of literature. The young author has been put into prison for it in Germany. That is right. Punish the flesh and let the spirit fly. Since the professors of universities have confiscated the poet, we may enjoy his poetry. I am speaking frivolously, my dear,” he went on, “but upon an evening like this, the moralist cuts a poor figure. And what really captivated me was a curious incident, a very minor matter. For it seems to me that Gutzkow gives, in the meeting place of the rash young lovers, an accurate description of your own little temple of friendship, at La Liberté, down in the beech wood.”

  With these words he got up, and went to have tea with his bride, leaving the book on the seat under the linden.

  Upon the last day before his wedding the Councilor paid no visit to La Liberté. This is considered the correct thing in Denmark. The bride is given the last day to meditate in peace upon the past and the future, and the bridal couple meet again only in church. The Councilor also had much to do, and spent his day going through papers and making arrangements with his subordinates, so as not to have the first days of his honeymoon disturbed by prosaic matters. But he sent over young Anders with a large bouquet of roses. It was a fine summer day.

  In the evening, after sunset, Anders took his gun and went out to shoot duck. The Councilor, also, found no rest in his rooms, and started for a long walk, as may a bridegroom, filled with sentiments. He took the road across the fields to La Liberté, to roam, unnoticed by the world and by her, in the nearness of his bride.

  The sky of that summer night was a clear candid blue, like the petal of a periwinkle. Large silvery clouds were towered up all around the horizon; the big trees were holding up their severe dark crowns against them. The long wet grass was of a luminous green. All the colors of the day were within the landscape, no less bright than in daytime, but changed, as if revealing a new side of their being, as if the whole world of color had been transposed from a major to a minor key. The stillness and silence of the night was filled with a deep life, as if within a moment the universe would give up its secret. As the old Councilor looked up, he was surprised to see the full summer moon standing in the middle of the sky. Its shining disc threw a narrow bridge of gold across the iron-gray plane of the sea, as if a shoal of many hundred little fishes were playing in the surface; and still it did not seem to spread much light, as if no more light were needed.

  Now that he knew them to be there, however, he began to distinguish the transparent pools of shadow under the trees, which the moon was making, and the narrow little puddles along the road, just at the edge of the long, wet, and fragrant grass.

  The Councilor found that he had been standing for some time, looking at the moon. She was a long way off, he knew, but there was nothing between her and him but the diaphanous air, thinner, he had been told, the higher you got up. How was it that he had never been able to write a poem to the moon? He had much to say to her. She was so white and round, and the white and round things he had always loved.

  Suddenly it seemed to him that the moon had as much to say to him as he to her. More, or at least she expressed it with more power. Old, yes, he was old; so was she, older than he. It is not a bad thing to be old, he thought; you see and enjoy things better than when you are young. It is not only in the old wine that the bouquet lies; it wants an old palate as well.

  But was this powerful communication from the moon a warning? He remembered the nursery tale of the thief who has stolen a fat sheep and is eating it in the moonlight. Mockingly he holds up a bit of fat mutton to the moon, crying:

  See, my dear,

  What I here

  Can with pleasure offer.

  And the moon replies:

  Thief! I beware!

  Key, with care,

  Burn that stupid scoffer.

  Whereupon a red-hot key comes flying through the air and brands the face of the thief. That story must have been told him by his old nurse fifty years ago. Everything was in the night. Life, yes, and death, a memento mori somewhere. “Take care, death is here!” the moon said. Must he let himself be warned?

  Or was it a promise? Was his old self to be lifted now, like to Endymion, to be rewarded for the trouble of life by an everlasting sleep, sweet as this night? Would the world then have a statue erected to him, here in the hayfield of La Liberté, in memory of his apotheosis?

  What strange fancies were these? The dripping-wet, heavy-headed, honey-sweet clover brushed against his shins. He had a curious sensation of walking a little above the ground. There were cows lying or walking in it somewhere; he could not distinguish them in the moonlight, but their deep sweet fragrance was in the air.

  Suddenly he remembered something that had happened more than forty years before. Young Peter Mathiesen, a reserved, speculative boy then, had been staying with his uncle, the parson at Mols, and in the same house a little girl, a farmer’s daughter, was being prepared for her confirmation. His uncle had been a well-read man who talked about everything—God, love, life everlasting—and who was an enthusiast about the new romantic literature. They used to read poetry in the evening at the parsonage, and one night, because the little girl’s name was Nanna, it had amused the pastor to make the children take part in the recital of the tragedy Death of Baldur, and to address to each other the burning, passion-sick verses of Baldur and Nanna. With his glasses pushed back the old parson had listened, transported, with that kind of shamelessness which also makes old maids grow hyacinths in tall glasses so that they may watch the roots, and had not known that the country children were burning and turning pale under the sound of their own voices. When bed time came the boy had not been able to go to bed. Hot and bewildered, he had wandered about the farm buildings, seeking for something which might wash off this touch, and he had come down to the stables. It was a moonlight, misty night in early spring. Leaning against the wall, he had felt terribly lonely, and not only lonely, but betrayed, as if something were lying in wait for him. Then he had come to think of the cows inside, and of their imperturbability in the darkness. There was one big white cow, by the name of Rosa, which had been a favorite with the children. He had felt that she might give him comfort. Within her stall, his chest against the side of the reposing, gently chewing animal, a sweetly penetrating calm and balance had come upon him, and he had made up his mind to sleep with her all night. But hardly had he lain down in the straw when the stable door was opened gently, and a soft step approached. As he peeped over Rosa’s back he saw the little girl come in, dim and light in the dim moonlight. She had been unhappy like him, he thought, and had felt that only a cud-chewing animal would have power to give her back her peace of heart. The moon shone in through the little stable window—that same moon—turning the white-washed wall milk white where it struck it. The girl’s fair hair glittered under its touch, but he was in the dark, and he kept very still, like a fugitive in danger of discovery. He watched her kneeling down in the straw, so close to him, breathing so hard. He was not sure that she was not sobbing a little to herself. They had lain there for several hours of the short spring night, sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake, with the tranquil, sweet-smelling Rosa between them like the two-edged sword in the poem of chivalry. Many thoughts, many pretty
and strong pictures had run through the boy’s head When he had slept he had dreamed of Nanna, and when he had woke up and had raised himself to look at her, she was still there, unaware of his presence. Very early in the morning she got up, brushed the straw from her skirt, and was gone, and he had never told her that he had been there with her.

  The Councilor walked on, pleased. He thought of Count Schimmelmann’s quotation: “He is the fool who knows not the half to be more than the whole.” This long-forgotten incident was a little flower in his life, in the garland of his life, a field flower, a wild forget-me-not. There were not a few flowers, violets, pansies, in his life. Would this night put a rose into the garland?

  A little way from the garden of La Liberté, in the hayfield, there was a beech grove. In the corner of it, upon a mound, a lady of the manor who had, a hundred years before, been partial to the quiet and sweet solemnity of the spot, had had a little summer house erected, a temple to friendship. There were five wooden pillars which carried a domed roof. Two steps led up to it, and a seat ran along the inner side of the columns, in a half circle. From here you could see the sea. Later on, since the climate of Denmark is not always in harmony with Greek architecture, the one side of the building had been thatched to give shelter to the meditator. The whole place was now dilapidated, and in the daytime a little tristful, but below the full moon it looked romantic.

  He turned his steps toward the little temple as a harmonious spot for the dreams of a bridegroom, but he walked slowly and with prudence, for his young bride might have had the same fancy, and if so he would not frighten or disturb her. As he came nearer, however, voices coming from the mound made him first stand stock-still, then move along quietly, following the sound. For the second time a lurker in the grounds of La Liberté, he took care to approach without a sound, behind the thatched wall.

  Anders and Fransine were together in the temple, speaking softly. The young man sat on the seat, immobile. The young woman stood up opposite him, her back against a pillar. The moon was shining on them; the whole world around them was light, like a landscape under snow. But the old Councilor was in the deep shade of his hiding place. Indeed, he was like that statue of himself about which he had recently been dreaming. Statues also, sometimes, see a lot.

  The young woman had on an outlandish garment, a sort of black domino or opera cloak, which he had never seen in her possession, and which she was holding closely together about her. Her dark hair hung down, a live, odorous mantle, and her face within it was like a white rose, dew-cool, in the night air. He had never seen her look so lovely. He had indeed never seen any human being look so lovely before. It was as if the whole summer night had brought forth one flower, the epitome of its beauty. She seemed to sway a little, like a flexible branch, too heavy with the weight of its white roses.

  There was a long silence. Then Fransine gave a low laugh of happiness, as soft and sweet as a dove’s cooing.

  “They are all lying down,” she said, “like dead people in a churchyard. Only you and I are afoot. Is it not stupid to lie down?” She twisted a little in her cloak. “Oh, I am tired of them,” she exclaimed, passionately, “talking, talking always. I wish to God they would lie forever, so that we could be left alone in the world a little.” The sweetness of the thought seemed to overwhelm her. She drew in her breath. She stood still, waiting for him to move or answer her. After a while she asked him, her voice still filled with laughter and tenderness: “Anders, what is the matter?”

  Anders was a long time in answering her, then he spoke very slowly: “Yes,” he said, “you may well ask, Fransine. It is important. The spirit we need not talk about; it is not dangerous. But what is the matter? It has many strange things about it. It is the phlogiston of our bodies, being of negative weight, you might say. That is easy to understand, of course, but it gives you such great pain when it is demonstrated upon you. First we are treated by fire—burned, or roasted slowly, that comes to the same thing—and even then we cannot fly.”

  Now the cause of the lover’s immobility became clear to the old listener. This young man was dead drunk. He could just manage to keep himself, sealed, in balance, but could make no further movement. He was pale as a corpse; the sweat kept pouring down his face; and he kept his eyes on the face of the girl as if it would have caused him infinite pain to move them away from it. The Councilor, who had been repeating to himself his little aphorism, “the half to be more than the whole,” here had the theory proved straight in his face.

  Fransine smiled at the young man. Like many women, she did not recognize the symptoms of drunkenness in a man. “Oh, Anders,” she said, “you do not know it, so I will tell you: I can fly. Or nearly. Old ballet-master Basso said to me: ‘The other girls I have to whip up, but I shall have to tie two stones to your legs soon, or you will fly away from me.’ These old men are mad, and they want strange things of you. I do not mind now. I will show you soon that I can fly, like the flying fishes with which the sea children made ducks and drakes.”

  “You see, my girl,” said Anders, “you are like a cook who kills a whole, good, live duck just for making a giblet soup. You may use me for a giblet soup if you like, but you must come and cut out the bits you want yourself. The birds do not themselves know the places of their liver and heart. That is woman’s work, Fransine.”

  Fransine thought this over for a little while. She was sure that every one of his words was wise, and kind to her. “My mother,” she said, “came from the ghetto of Rome. You did not know that. Nobody knows that. There I saw her kill the birds in the right way, so that no blood was left in them. That ghetto, Anders, that is the place, you can be sure, where people suffer, where you have to be careful, or else you are robbed and hurt. Hanged, even. I have seen people hanged. My grandfather was hanged there. The world has been hard to me, Anders, and to you as well. But then it is even sweeter still to be happy.” She paused a moment. “To be happy,” she said. “Do you not think so?”

  “But it is too late,” Anders said. “Things happen, even when you are not there. That is the trouble. That is what you do not know. The cocks are crowing, though we cannot hear them here.” Quoting an old ditty of the charcoal burners, he said, slowly and gently:

  Early at midsummer-dawn the cock was crowing,

  Twenty-nine cradles had I set a-going.

  “No, they are not crowing,” she said. “It is not daylight, Anders. It is not even midnight.” She stood still before him.

  “There are two,” said Anders, “who will take me whole, as I sit here. Abelone will take me whole. She wants to keep a public house at Elsinore, and me to marry her and be landlord to the seamen. The sea, also, will take me whole. When one of the two has been at you, you will have had your bones well picked.”

  The Councilor, even though absorbed in their talk, here got a small shock. Had his housekeeper been entertaining such prospects, and not said a word to him? Had she, perhaps, even, perceived in Fransine a rival of her own dignities, and in this shown more insight than he himself had?

  Fransine stood staring at Anders, bewildered. “Anders,” she said, “do not speak like that. Listen. At the fairs, when I danced to them, they cried: ‘Again! Again!’ They said: ‘It is like seeing the stars dancing, the hearts burning.’ Do you not believe that I can make you happy?”

  “Oh, my lass,” said he, “let us be good. Let us behave like good people. Let me pay you what the seamen pay the girls at Elsinore. I have not much to give you, and that is a great pity. The other night I spent a lot of my savings on beer for the people at the inn, and that was bad of me. But fifty specie-dollars I have still laid aside. Do take them now, for God’s sake. I do not ask you this for my own sake, I swear to you, for I am going to die sooner or later in any case, but for yours, you poor, pretty girl. It is always a good thing for a girl to have fifty specie-dollars. Go buy yourself a shift, and do not run about naked in the cold nights.”

  There was much strength in Fransine. Upon this she made a movement to
wards him. Her tightly drawn cloak and long hair followed it. Within her self-luminous face her two big dark eyes were fixed upon his face. She looked like a young witch under the moon. “Anders, Anders!” she said, “do you not love me?”

  “Oh, God’ ” he said. “That was coming, I knew. I can answer that, from practice, quite well. I love you, my pretty vixen. Your hair, now, is like a little red flame in the dark, a cloven tongue of fire, a little marsh fire to show people the wrong way, the way to hell.”

  The young woman was trembling from her head to her feet. “Did you not,” she said, wringing her hands, “want me to come, here, to you, tonight?”

  He sat silent for a moment. “Well,” he said, “if you are asking me my honest opinion, Madame Fransine, No. I should like to be by myself.”

  Fransine turned and ran away. Her long cloak of Naples, trailing in her wake, hindered her. Still she held it closely wrapped about her. Thus fled Arethusa, when, long ago, she was changed into a river, and loudly lamenting, hurled herself through the myrtle groves.

  Anders sat for a long time like a dead man. Then, with the slow and uncertain movement of drunken people, he took up his gun and got onto his feet. He turned around, and in so doing was brought face to face with the Councilor.

  He did not seem at all surprised to see him. Perhaps he had thought of him, or had felt his presence, somehow, in the atmosphere of his rendezvous. He only grinned, when he set eyes on him, as if he had been shown the solution of a crafty riddle. The Councilor felt the moment more awkward. For a few seconds the two stared at each other. Then, with a smile such as a boy might show in playing a bad prank on somebody, Anders half lifted his gun, and without taking aim fired it off straight into the body of the old man. The retort boomed and echoed far away in the summer night.