Part 5 (1/2)

I, who like to receive confidences, have a morbid fear of giving them.

Perhaps it is because I was so much alone, so self-centred, in my childhood.

The more I reflect upon life, the more clearly I see that I have not laid out my talents to the best advantage. I have no sweet memories of infidelity; I have lived irreproachably--and now I am very tired.

I sit here and write for myself alone. I know that no one else will ever read my words; and yet I am not quite sincere, even with myself.

Life has pa.s.sed me by; my hands are empty; now it is too late.

Once happiness knocked at my door, and I, poor fool, did not rise to welcome it.

I envy every country wench or servant girl who goes off with a lover.

But I sit here waiting for old age.

Astrid Bagge.... As I write her name, I feel as though she were standing weeping behind my back; I feel her tears dropping on my neck. I cannot weep--but how I long for tears!

Autumn! Torp has made a huge fire of logs in the open grate. The burning wood gives out an intoxicating perfume and fills the house with cosey warmth. For want of something better to do I am looking after the fire myself. I carefully strip the bark from each log before throwing it on the flames. The smell of burning birch-bark goes to my head like strong wine. Dreams come and go.

Joergen Malthe, what a mere boy you are!

The garden looks like a neglected churchyard, forgotten of the living.

The virginia creeper falls in blood-red streamers from the verandah. The snails drag themselves along in the rain; their slow movements remind me of women _enceinte_. The hedge is covered with spiders' webs, and the wet clay sticks to one's shoes as one walks on the paths.

Yet there are people who think autumn a beautiful time of year!

My will is paralysed from self-disgust. I find myself involuntarily listening and watching for the postman, who brings nothing for me. There are moments when my fingers seem to be feeling the smoothness of the cream-laid ”At Home” cards which used to be showered upon us, especially at this season. Towards evening I grow restless. Formerly my day was a _crescendo_ of activity until the social hours were reached. Now the hours fall one by one in ashes before my eyes.

I am myself, yet not myself. There are moments when I envy every living creature that has the right to pair--either from hate or from habit. I am alone and shut out. What consolation is it to be able to say: ”It was my own choice!”

A letter from Malthe.

No, I will not open it. I do not wish to know what he writes.... It is a long letter.

My nerves are quiet. But I often lie awake, and my sleep is broken. The stars are s.h.i.+ning over my head, and I never before experienced such a sense of repose and calm. Is this the effect of the stars, or the letter?

I am forty-two! It cannot be helped. I cannot buy back a single day of my life. Forty-two! But during the night the thought does not trouble me. The stars above reckon by ages, not by years, and sometimes I smile to think that as soon as Richard returns home, the rooms in our house in the Old Market will be lit up, and the usual set will a.s.semble there without me.

The one thing I should like to know is whether Malthe is still in Denmark.

I would like to know where my thoughts should seek him--at home or abroad.