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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gone mad one and all!”
“‘Tis said the Lord High Constable did not desire war.”
“May the devil believe that! Perhaps not—but there’s little to be
made of preaching quiet in an ant hill. Well, the war’s here, and now
it’s every man for himself. We shall have our hands full.”
The conversation turned to the journey of the morrow, passed on to the
bad roads, lingered on fatted oxen and stall-feeding, and again
reverted to the journey. Meanwhile they had not neglected the tankard.
The beer had gone to their heads, and Erik Grubbe, who was just
telling about his voyage to Ceylon and the East Indies in the “Pearl,”
had difficulty in making headway through his own laughter whenever a
new joke came to his mind.
The pastor was getting serious. He had collapsed in his chair, but
once in a while he would turn his head, look fiercely around and move
his lips as though to speak. He was gesticulating with one hand,
growing more and more excited, until at last he happened to strike the
table with his fist, and sank down again with a frightened look at
Erik Grubbe. Finally, when the squire had got himself quite tangled up
in a story of an excessively stupid scullery lad, the pastor rose and
began to speak in a hollow, solemn voice.
“Verily,” he said, “verily, I will bear witness with my mouth—with my
mouth—that you are an offence and one by whom offence cometh, that it
were better for you that you were cast into the sea—verily, with a
millstone and two barrels of malt, the two barrels of malt that you
owe me, as I bear witness solemnly with my mouth—two heaping full
barrels of malt in my own new sacks. For they were not my sacks, never
kingdom without end,‘twas your own old sacks, and my new ones you
kept—and it was rotten malt—verily! See the abomination of
desolation, and the sacks are mine, and I will repay—vengeance is
mine, I say. Do you tremble in your old bones, you old whoremonger?
You should live like a Christian, but you live with Anne Jensdaughter
and make her cheat a Christian pastor. You’re a—you’re a—Christian
whoremonger—yes—”
During the first part of the pastor’s speech, Erik Grubbe sat smiling
fatuously and holding out his hand to him across the table. He thrust
out his elbow as though to poke an invisible auditor in the ribs and
call his attention to how delightfully drunk the parson was. But at
last some sense of what was being said appeared to pierce his mind.
His face suddenly became chalky white; he seized the tankard and threw
it at the pastor, who fell backward from his chair and slipped to the
floor. It was nothing but fright that caused it, for the tankard
failed to reach its mark. It merely rolled to the edge of the table
and lay there while the beer flowed in rivulets down on the floor and
the pastor.
The candle had burned low and was flaring fitfully, sometimes lighting
the room brightly for a moment, then leaving it almost in darkness,
while the blue dawn peeped in through the windows.
The pastor was still talking, his voice first deep and threatening,
then feeble, almost whining.
“There you sit in gold and purple, and I’m laid here, and the dogs
lick my sores—and what did you drop in Abraham’s bosom? What did you
put on the contribution plate? You didn’t give so much as a silver
eightpenny bit in Christian Abraham’s bosom. And now you are in
torments—but no one shall dip the tip of his finger in water for
you,”—and he struck out with his hand in the spilled beer, “but I
wash my hands—both hands. I have warned you—hi! there you go—yes,
there you go in sackcloth and ashes—my two new sacks—malt—”
He mumbled yet a while, then dropped asleep. Meanwhile Erik Grubbe
tried to take revenge. He caught the arm of his chair firmly,
stretched to his full length, and kicked the leg of the chair with all
his might, in the hope that it was the pastor.
Presently all was still. There was no sound but the snoring of the two
old gentlemen and the monotonous drip, drip of the beer running off
the table.
Mistress Rigitze Grubbe, relict of the late lamented Hans Ulrik
Gyldenlove, owned a house on the corner of Ostergade and Pilestraede.
At that time Ostergade was a fairly aristocratic residence section.
Members of the Trolle, Sehested, Rosencrantz, and Krag families lived
there; Joachim Gersdorf was Mistress Rigitze’s neighbor, and one or
two foreign ministers usually had lodgings in Carl van Mandern’s new
red mansion. Only one side of the street was the home of fashion,
however; on the other side Nikolaj Church was flanked by low houses
where dwelt artisans, shopkeepers, and shipmasters. There were also
one or two taverns.
On a Sunday morning early in September, Marie Grubbe stood looking out
of the dormer window in Mistress Rigitze’s house. Not a vehicle in
sight! Nothing but staid footsteps, and now and then the long-drawn
cry of the oystermonger. The sunlight, quivering over roofs and
pavements, threw sharp, black, almost rectangular shadows. The
distance swam in a faint bluish heat mist.
“Attention!” called a woman’s voice behind her, cleverly mimicking
the raucous tones of one accustomed to much shouting of military
orders.
Marie turned. Her aunt’s maid, Lucie, had for some time been sitting on
the table appraising her own well-formed feet with critical eyes.
Tired of this occupation, she had called out and now sat swinging her
legs and laughing merrily.
Marie shrugged her shoulders with a rather bored smile and would have
returned to her window gazing, but Lucie jumped down from the table,
caught her by the waist, and forced her down on a small rush-bottomed
chair.
“Look here, Miss,” she said, “shall I tell you something?”
“Well?”
“You’ve forgot to write your letter, and the company will be here at
half-past one o’clock, so you’ve scarce four hours. D’you know what
they’re going to have for dinner? Clear soup, flounder or some such
broad fish, chicken pasty, Mansfeld tart, and sweet plum compote.
Faith, it’s fine, but not fat! Your sweetheart’s coming, Miss?”
“Nonsense!” said Marie crossly.
“Lord help me! It’s neither banns nor betrothal because I say so! But,
Miss, I can’t see why you don’t set more store by your cousin. He is
the prettiest, most bewitching man I ever saw. Such feet he has! And
there’s royal blood in him—you’ve only to look at his hands, so tiny
and shaped like a mould, and his nails no larger than silver groats
and so pink and round. Such a pair of legs he can muster! When he
walks it’s like steel springs, and his eyes blow sparks—”
She threw her arms around Marie and kissed her neck so passionately
and covetously that the child blushed and drew herself out of the
embrace.
Lucie flung herself down on the bed, laughing wildly.
“How silly you are today,” cried Marie. “If you carry on like this,
I’ll go downstairs.”
“Merciful! Let me be merry once in a while! Faith, there’s trouble
enough, and I’ve more than I can do with. With my sweetheart in the
war, suffering ill and worse—it’s enough to break one’s heart. What
if they’ve shot him dead or crippled! God pity me, poor maid, I’d
never get over it.” She hid her face in the bedclothes and sobbed,
“Oh, no, no, no, my own dear Lorens—I’d be so true to you if the Lord
would only bring you back to me safe and sound! Oh, Miss, I can’t bear
it!”
Marie tried to soothe her with words and caresses, and at last she
succeeded in making Lucie sit up and wipe her eyes.
“Indeed, Miss,” she said, “no one knows how miserable I am. You see, I
can’t possibly behave as I should all the time. ‘T is no use I resolve
to set no store by the young men. When they begin jesting and passing
compliments, my tongue’s got an itch to answer them back, and then ‘t
is true more foolery comes of it than I could answer for to Lorens.
But when I think of the danger he’s in, oh, then I’m more sorry than
any living soul can think. For I love him, Miss, and no one else, upon
my soul I do. And when I’m in bed, with the moon shining straight in
on the floor, I’m like another woman, and everything seems so sad,
and I weep and weep, and something gets me by the throat till I’m
like to choke—it’s terrible! Then I keep tossing in my bed and
praying to God, though I scarce know what I’m praying for. Sometimes I
sit up in bed and catch hold of my head, and it seems as if I’d lose
my wits with longing. Why, goodness me, Miss, you’re crying! Sure
you’re not longing for anyone in secret—and you so young?”
Marie blushed and smiled faintly. There was something flattering in
the idea that she might be pining for a lover.
“No, no,” she said, “but what you say is so sad. You make it seem as
if there’s naught but misery and trouble.”
“Bless me, no, there’s a little of other things too,” said Lucie,
rising in answer to a summons from below and nodding archly to Marie
as she went.
Marie sighed and returned to the window. She looked down into the
cool, green graveyard of St. Nikolaj, at the red walls of the church,
over the tarnished copper roof of the castle, past the royal dockyard
and ropewalk around to the slender spire of East Gate, past the
gardens and wooden cottages of Hallandsaas, to the bluish Sound
melting into the blue sky where softly moulded cloud masses were
drifting to the Skaane shore.
Three months had passed since she came to Copenhagen. When she left
home, she had supposed that life in the residential city must be
something vastly different from what she had found. It had never
occurred to her that she might be more lonely there than at Tjele
Manor, where in truth, she had been lonely enough. Her father had
never been a companion to her, for he was too entirely himself to be
anything to others. He never became young when he spoke to fourteen
years nor feminine when he addressed a little maid. He was always on
the shady side of fifty and always Erik Grubbe.
As for his concubine, who ruled as though she were indeed mistress of
the house, the mere sight of her was enough to call out all there was
of pride and bitterness in Marie. This coarse, domineering peasant
woman had wounded and tortured her so often that the girl could hardly
hear her step without instantly and half unconsciously hardening into
obstinacy and hatred. Little Anne, her half sister, was sickly and
spoiled, which did not make it easier to get along with her; and to
crown all, the mother made the child her excuse for abusing Marie to
Erik Grubbe.
Who, then, were her companions?
She knew every path and road in Bigum woods, every cow that pastured
in the meadows, every fowl in the hen-coop. The kindly greeting of the
servants and peasants when she met them seemed to say: Our young lady
suffers wrong, and we know it. We are sorry, and we hate the woman up
there as much as you do.
But in Copenhagen?
There was Lucie, and she was very fond of her, but after all she
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