Marie Grubbe by Jens Peter Jacobsen (parable of the sower read online txt) 📕
He was a large-boned, long-limbed man with a stoop in his broad shoulders. His hair was rough as a crow's nest, grayish and tangled, but his face was of a deep yet clear pink, seemingly out of keeping with his coarse, rugged features and bushy eyebrows.
Erik Grubbe invited him to a seat and asked about his haymaking. The conversation dwelt on the chief labors of the farm at that season and died away in a sigh over the poor harvest of last year. Meanwhile the pastor was casting sidelong glances at the mug and finally said: "Your honor is always temperate--keeping to the natural drinks. No doubt they are the healthiest. New milk is a blessed gift of heaven, good both for a weak stomach and a sore chest."
"Indeed the gifts of God are all good, whether they come from the udder or the tap. But you must taste a keg of genuine mum that we brought home from Viborg the other day. She's both good and German, though I can't see that the customs have put their mark on her."
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solitude, silent and calm and strong, has grown up around my soul and
covered it like plants of mandrake pouring their drowsy juices in my
blood. Ah, but I know full well that it is naught but an empty
conceit; never could the solitude gain power over me! I should long
like fire and leaping flame for life and what belongs to life—long
till I lost my senses! But you understand nothing of all this I am
prating. Let us go, ma chere! The rain is upon us; the wind is
laid.”
“Ah, no, the clouds are lifting. See the rim of light all around the
heavens!”
“Ay, lifting and lowering.”
“I say no,” declared Marie, rising.
“I swear yes, with all deference.”
Marie ran down the hill. “Man’s mind is his kingdom. Come, now, down
into yours!”
At the foot of the hill Marie turned into the path leading away from
the castle, and Sti walked at her side.
“Look you, Sti Hogh,” said Marie, “since you seem to think so well of
me, I would have you know that I am quite unlearned in the signs of
the weather and likewise in other people’s discourse.”
“Surely not.”
“In what you are saying—yes.”
“Nay.”
“Now I swear yes.”
“Oaths gouge no eye without fist follows after.”
“Faith, you may believe me or not, but God knows I ofttimes feel that
great still sadness that comes we know not whence. Pastor Jens was
wont to say it was a longing for our home in the kingdom of heaven,
which is the true fatherland of every Christian soul, but I think it
is not that. We long and sorrow and know no living hope to comfort
us—ah, how bitterly have I wept! It comes over one with such a
strange heaviness and sickens one’s heart, and one feels so tired of
one’s own thoughts and wishes one had never been born. But it is not
the briefness of these earthly joys that has weighed on my thoughts or
caused me grief. No, never! It was something quite different—but ‘t
is quite impossible to give that grief a name. Sometimes I have
thought it was really a grief over some hidden flaw in my own nature,
some inward hurt that made me unlike other people—lesser and poorer.
Ah, no, it passes everything how hard it is to find words—in just the
right sense. Look you, this life—this earth—seems to me so splendid
and wonderful I should be proud and happy beyond words just to have
some part in it. Whether for joy or grief matters not, but that I
might sorrow or rejoice in honest truth, not in play like mummeries or
shrovetide sports. I would feel life grasping me with such hard hands
that I was lifted up or cast down until there was no room in my mind
for aught else but that which lifted me up or cast me down. I would
melt in my grief or burn together with my joy! Ah, you can never
understand it! If I were like one of the generals of the Roman empire
who were carried through the streets in triumphal chariots, I myself
would be the victory and the triumph. I would be the pride and
jubilant shouts of the people and the blasts of the trumpets and the
honor and the glory—all, all in one shrill note. That is what I would
be. Never would I be like one who merely sits there in his miserable
ambition and cold vanity and thinks as the chariot rolls on how he
shines in the eyes of the crowd and how helplessly the waves of envy
lick his feet while he feels with pleasure the purple wrapping his
shoulders softly and the laurel wreath cooling his brow. Do you
understand me, Sti Hogh? That is what I mean by life, that is what I
have thirsted after, but I have felt in my own heart that such life
could never be mine, and it was borne in on me that, in some strange
manner I was myself at fault, that I had sinned against myself and led
myself astray. I know not how it is, but it has seemed to me that this
was whence my bitter sorrow welled, that I had touched a string which
must not sound and its tone had sundered something within me that
could never be healed. Therefore I could never force open the portals
of life but had to stand without, unbidden and unsought, like a poor
maimed bondwoman.” “You!” exclaimed Sti Hogh in astonishment; then,
his face changing quickly, he went on in another voice, “Ah, now I see
it all!” He shook his head at her. “By my troth, how easily a man may
befuddle himself in these matters! Our thoughts are so rarely turned
to the road where every stile and path is familiar, but more often
they run amuck wherever we catch sight of anything that bears a
likeness to a trail, and we’re ready to swear it’s the King’s highway.
Am I not right, ma chere? Have we not both, each for herself or
himself, in seeking a source of our melancholy, caught the first
thought we met and made it into the one and only reason? Would not
anyone, judging from our discourse, suppose that I went about sore
afflicted and weighed down by the corruption of the world and the
passing nature of all earthly things while you, my dear kinswoman,
looked on yourself as a silly old crone on whom the door had been shut
and the lights put out and all hope extinguished! But no matter for
that! When we get to that chapter, we are easily made heady by our own
words, and ride hard on any thought that we can bit and bridle.” In
the walk below the others were heard approaching, and joining them,
they returned to the castle.
At half-past the hour of eight in the evening of September
twenty-sixth, the booming of cannon and the shrill trumpet notes of a
festive march announced that both their Majesties, accompanied by his
Highness Prince Johan, the Elector of Saxony, and his royal mother and
followed by the most distinguished men and women of the realm, were
proceeding from the castle down through the park to witness the ballet
which was soon to begin.
A row of flambeaux cast a fiery sheen over the red wall, made the yew
and box glow like bronze, and lent all faces the ruddy glow of
vigorous health.
See, scarlet-clothed halberdiers are standing in double rows, holding
flower-wreathed tapers high against the dark sky. Cunningly wrought
lanterns and candles in sconces and candelabra send their rays low
along the ground and high among the yellowing leaves, forcing the
darkness back and opening a shining path for the resplendent train.
The light glitters on gold and gilded tissue, beams brightly on silver
and steel, glides in shimmering stripes down silks and sweeping
satins. Softly as a reddish dew, it is breathed over dusky velvet, and
flashing white, it falls like stars among rubies and diamonds. Reds
make a brave show with the yellows; clear sky blue closes over brown;
streaks of lustrous sea green cut their way through white and violet
blue; coral sinks between black and lavender; golden brown and rose,
steel gray and purple are whirled about, light and dark, tint upon
tint, in eddying pools of color.
They are gone. Down the walk, tall plumes nod white, white in the dim
air… .
The ballet or masquerade to be presented is called Die Waldlust. The
scene is a forest. Crown Prince Christian, impersonating a hunter,
voices his delight in the free life of the merry greenwood. Ladies
walking about under leafy crowns sing softly of the fragrant violets.
Children play at hide and seek and pick berries in pretty little
baskets. Jovial citizens praise the fresh air and the clear grape,
while two silly old crones are pursuing a handsome young rustic with
amorous gestures.
Then the goddess of the forest, the virginal Diana, glides forward in
the person of her Royal Highness the Princess Anne Sofie. The Elector
leaps from his seat with delight and throws her kisses with both hands
while the court applauds.
As soon as the goddess has disappeared, a peasant and his goodwife
come forward and sing a duet on the delights of love. One gay scene
follows another. Three young gentlemen are decking themselves with
green boughs; five officers are making merry; two rustics come
rollicking from market; a gardener’s ‘prentice sings, a poet sings,
and finally six persons play some sprightly music on rather fantastic
instruments.
This leads up to the last scene, which is played by eleven
shepherdesses: their Royal Highnesses the Princesses Anne Sofie,
Friderica Amalie, and Vilhelmina Ernestina, Madam Gyldenlove, and seven
young maidens of the nobility. With much skill they dance a pastoral
dance in which they pretend to tease Madam Gyldenlove because she is
lost in thoughts of love and refuses to join their gay minuet. They
twit her with giving up her freedom and bending her neck under the
yoke of love, but she steps forward and in a graceful pas de deux
which she dances with the Princess Anne Sofie reveals to her companion
the abounding transports and ecstasies of love. Then all dance forward
merrily, winding in and out in intricate figures, While an invisible
chorus sings in their praise to the tuneful music of stringed
instruments:
“_Ihr Numphen hochberumt, ihr sterblichen Gottinnen,
Durch deren Treff’ligkeit sich lasseh Heldensinnen
Ja auch die Gotter selbst bezwingen fur und fur,
Last nun durch diesen Tantz erblicken cure Zier
Der Glieder Hurtigkeit, die euch darum gegeben
So schon und prachtig sind, und zu den End erheben
Was an euch gottlich ist, aufF dass je mehr und mehr
Man preisen mog an euch des Schopfers Macht und Ehr_.”
This ended the ballet. The spectators dispersed through the park,
promenading through well-lit groves or resting in pleasant grottos
while pages dressed as Italian or Spanish fruit-venders offered wine,
cake, and comfits from the baskets they carried on their heads.
The players mingled with the crowd and were complimented on their art
and skill, but all were agreed that with the exception of the Crown
Princess and Princess Anne Sofie, none had acted better than Madam
Gyldenlove. Their Majesties and the Electress praised her cordially,
and the King declared that not even Mademoiselle La Barre could have
interpreted the role with more grace and vivacity.
Far into the night the junketing went on in the lighted park and the
adjoining halls of the castle, where violins and flutes called to the
dance and groaning boards invited to drinking and carousing. From the
lake sounded the gay laughter of revellers in gondolas strung with
lamps. People swarmed everywhere. The crowds were densest where the
light shone and the music played, more scattered where the illumination
was fainter, but even where darkness reigned completely and the music
was almost lost in the rustling of leaves, there were merry groups and
silent couples. One lonely guest had strayed far off to the grotto in
the eastern end of the garden and had found a seat there, but he was
in a melancholy mood. The tiny lantern in the leafy roof of the grotto
shone on a sad mien and pensive brows—yellow-white brows.
It was Sti Hogh.
“_… E di persona
Anzi grande, che no; di vista allegra,
Di bionda chioma, e colorita alquanto_,”
he whispered to himself.
He had not come unscathed from his four or five weeks of constant
intercourse with Marie Grubbe. She had absolutely bewitched him. He
longed
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