Marie Grubbe by Jens Peter Jacobsen (parable of the sower read online txt) 📕

grass lay flat on the ground,

and the white bloom of the spirea rose and fell froth-like upon the

light green, shifting waves of the foliage.

 

There was a moment of stillness. Everything seemed to straighten and

hang breathlessly poised, still quivering in suspense, but the next

instant the wind came shrieking again and caught the garden in a wild

wave of rustling and glittering and mad rocking and endless shifting

as before.

 

“In a boat sat Phyllis fair;

Corydon beheld her there,

Seized his flute, and loudly blew it.

Many a day did Phyllis rue it;

For the oars dropped from her hands,

And aground upon the sands, And aground—”

 

Ulrik Frederik was approaching from the other end of the garden. Sofie

looked up for a moment in surprise, then bent her head over her work

and went on humming. He strolled slowly up the walk, sometimes

stopping to look at a flower, as though he had not noticed that there

was anyone else in the garden. Presently he turned down a side-path,

paused a moment behind a large white syringa to smooth his uniform and

pull down his belt, took off his hat and ran his fingers through his

hair, then walked on. The path made a turn and led straight to Sofie’s

seat.

 

“Ah, Mistress Sofie! Good-day!” he exclaimed as though in surprise.

 

“Good-day!” she replied with calm friendliness. She carefully disposed

of her needle, smoothed her embroidery with her hands, looked up with

a smile, and nodded. “Welcome, Lord Gyldenlove!”

 

“I call this blind luck,” he said, bowing. “I expected to find none

here but your uncle, madam.”

 

Sofie threw him a quick glance and smiled. “He’s not here,” she said,

shaking her head.

 

“I see,” said Ulrik Frederik, looking down.

 

There was a moment’s pause. Then Sofie spoke, “How sultry it is

today!”

 

“Ay, we may get a thunderstorm, if the wind goes down.”

 

“It may be,” said Sofie, looking thoughtfully toward the house.

 

“Did you hear the shot this morning?” asked Ulrik Frederik, drawing

himself up as though to imply that he was about to leave.

 

“Ay, and we may look for heart-rending times this summer. One may

well-nigh turn light-headed with the thought of the danger to life and

goods, and for me, with so many kinsmen and good friends in this

miserable affair, who are like to lose both life and limb and all they

possess, there’s reason enough for falling into strange and gloomy

thoughts.”

 

“Nay, sweet Mistress Sofie! By the living God, you must not shed

tears!? You paint all in too dark colors—

 

Tousiours Mars ne met pas au jour

Des objects de sang et de larmes,

Mais”—

 

and he seized her hand and lifted it to his lips—

 

“… tousiours l’Empire d’amour

Est plein de troubles et d’alarmes.”

 

Sofie looked at him innocently. How lovely she was! The intense,

irresistible night of her eyes, where day welled out in myriad light

points like a black diamond flashing in the sun, the poignantly

beautiful arch of her lips, the proud lily paleness of her cheeks

melting slowly into a rose-golden flush like a white cloud kindled by

the morning glow, the delicate temples, blue veined like

flower-petals, shaded by the mysterious darkness of her hair …

 

Her hand trembled in his, cold as marble. Gently she drew it away, and

her eyelids dropped. The embroidery slipped from her lap. Ulrik

Frederik stooped to pick it up, bent one knee to the ground, and

remained kneeling before her.

 

“Mistress Sofie!” he said.

 

She laid her hand over his mouth and looked at him with gentle

seriousness, almost with pain.

 

“Dear Ulrik Frederik,” she begged, “do not take it ill that I beseech

you not to be led by a momentary sentiment to attempt a change in the

pleasant relations that have hitherto existed between us. It serves no

purpose but to bring trouble and vexation to us both. Rise from this

foolish position and take a seat in mannerly fashion here on this

bench so that we may converse in all calmness.”

 

“No, I want the book of my fate to be sealed in this hour,” said Ulrik

Frederik without rising.” You little know the great and burning

passion I feel for you, if you imagine I can be content to be naught

but your good friend. For the bloody sweat of Christ, put not your

faith in anything so utterly impossible! My love is no smouldering

spark that will flame up or be extinguished according as you blow hot

or cold on it. Par dleu! ‘Tis a raging and devouring fire, but it’s

for you to say whether it is to run out and be lost in a thousand

flickering flames and will-o’-the-wisps, or burn forever, warm and

steady, high and shining toward heaven.”

 

“But, dear Ulrik Frederik, have pity on me! Don’t draw me into a

temptation that I have no strength to withstand! You must believe that

you are dear to my heart and most precious, but for that very reason I

would to the uttermost guard myself against bringing you into a false

and foolish position that you cannot maintain with honor. You are

nearly six years younger than I, and that which is now pleasing to you

in my person, age may easily mar or distort to ugliness. You smile,

but suppose that when you are thirty, you find yourself saddled with

an old wrinkled hag of a wife who has brought you but little fortune,

and not otherwise aided in your preferment! Would you not then wish

that at twenty you had married a young royal lady, your equal in age

and birth, who could halve advanced you better than a common

gentlewoman? Dear Ulrik Frederik, go speak to your noble kinsmen;

they will tell you the same. But what they cannot tell you is this: if

you brought to your home such a gentlewoman, older than yourself, she

would strangle you with her jealousy. She would suspect your every

look, nay, the innermost thoughts of your heart. She would know how

much you had given up for her sake, and therefore she would strive the

more to have her love be all in all to you. Trust me, she would

encompass you with her idolatrous love as with a cage of iron, and if

she perceived that you longed to quit it for a single instant, she

would grieve day and night and embitter your life with her despondent

sorrow.”

 

She rose and held out her hand. “Farewell, Ulrik Frederik! Our

parting is bitter as death, but after many years, when I am a faded

old maid or the middle-aged wife of an aged man, you will know that

Sofie Urne was right. May God the Father keep thee! Do you remember

the Spanish romance book where it tells of a certain vine of India

which winds itself about a tree for support, and goes on encircling

it, long after the tree is dead and withered, until at last it holds

the tree that else would fall? Trust me, Ulrik Frederik; in the same

manner my soul will be sustained and held up by your love long after

your sentiment shall be withered and vanished.”

 

She looked straight into his eyes and turned to go, but he held her

hand fast.

 

“Would you make me raving mad? Then hear me! Now I know that thou

lovest me, no power on earth can part us! Does nothing tell thee that

‘tis folly to speak of what thou wouldst or what I would when my blood

is drunk with thee and I am bereft of all power over myself! I am

possessed with thee, and if thou turnest a way thy heart from me in

this very hour, thou shouldst yet be mine in spite of thee, in spite

of me! I love thee with a love like hatred—I think nothing of thy

happiness. Thy weal or woe is nothing to me—only that I be in thy

joy, I be in thy sorrow, that I—”

 

He caught her to him violently and pressed her against his breast.

 

Slowly she lifted her face and looked long at him with eyes full of

tears. Then she smiled. “Have it as thou wilt, Ulrik Frederik,” and

she kissed him passionately.

 

Three weeks later their betrothal was celebrated with much pomp. The

King had readily given his consent, feeling that it was time to make

an end of Ulrik Frederik’s rather too convivial bachelorhood.