Outside the grated gate a girl sat crocheting6. She opened to him, curtseying to thank him for the coin he gave her.
The spring air was mild and damp; in the closed green shade of the churchyard it became wet and warm as in a hothouse, and the narcissus along the border of the path gave out a hot, sickly scent7.
The old cypresses8 stood round the graves that lay, green and dark with creepers and violets, set in terraces from the ivy-clad[295] wall of the town. Above the flowers rose the monuments of the dead, little marble temples, white figures of angels, and big, heavy slabs9 of stone. Moss10 grew on them and on the trunks of the cypresses. Here and there a white or red flower still clung to the camelia trees, but most of them lay brown and faded on the black earth, exhaling11 raw, damp fumes12. He remembered something he had read: the Japanese did not like camelias because they fell off whole and fresh like heads chopped off.
Jenny Winge lay buried at the farthest end of the cemetery near the chapel13 on a grassy14 slope, covered with daisies. There were only a few graves. On the border of the slope cypresses had been planted, but they were still very small, like toy trees with their pointed15 green tops on straight brown trunks, reminding one of the pillars in a cloister16 arcade17. Her grave was a little way from the others; it was only a pale grey mound18 of earth, the grass round it having been trodden down when it was being dug. The sun shone on it and the dark cypresses formed a wall behind it.
Covering his face with his hands, Gunnar bent19 on his knees until his head rested on the faded wreaths.
The weariness of spring weighted his limbs, the blood flowed aching with sorrow and regret at every beat of his heavy heart.
Jenny—Jenny—Jenny—he heard her pretty name in every trill of the birds—and she was dead.
Lying far down in the dark. He had cut off a curl from her fair hair and carried it in his pocket-book. He took it out and held it in the sunshine—those poor little filmy threads were the only part of her luxurious20, glossy21 hair the sun could reach and warm.
She was dead and gone. There were some pictures of hers ... there had been a short notice about her in the papers. And the mother and sisters mourned her at home, but the real Jenny they had never known, and they knew nothing about her[296] life or her death. The others—those who had known—stared in despair after her, not understanding what they knew.
She who lay there was his Jenny; she belonged to him alone.
“I don’t understand anything. If you do, Heggen, I beg you to tell me. You know—will you not tell me what you know?”
He had not answered.
“There was another; she told me so. Who was it? Was it you?”
“No.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“Yes, but I am not going to tell you. It is no good your asking, Gram.”
“But I shall go mad if you don’t explain.”
“You have no right to know Jenny’s secrets.”
“But why did she do it? Was it because of me—of him—or of you?”
“No; she did it because of herself.”
He had asked Gram to leave him and had not seen him since; he had left Rome. It was in the Borghese garden, two days after the funeral, that Gram had come across him sitting in the sunshine. He was so tired; he had had to see to everything—give satisfactory explanations at the inquest, arrange for the interment, and write to Mrs. Berner that her daughter had died suddenly from heart failure. And all the time he had a kind of satisfaction in the thought that nobody knew of his own sorrow, that the real cause of her death was known only by him and for ever hidden with him. The sorrow had sunk so deep into him that it would for ever be the inmost essence of his soul, and he would never speak of it to any living being.
It would govern his whole life—and be governed by it; the[297] colour and form of it would change, but it would never be effaced23. Every hour of the day it was different, but it was always there, and always would be. On the morning when he had run for the doctor, leaving the other man alone with her, he had wanted to tell Helge Gram all he knew, and in such a way that his heart would turn to ashes like his own had done; but in the days that followed all he knew became a secret between him and the dead woman—the secret of their love. All that had happened had happened because of her being what she was, and as such he had loved her. Helge Gram was a casual, indifferent stranger to him and to her, and he had no more wish to avenge24 himself on him than he had pity for his sorrow and dread25 at the mystery.
And he understood that what had happened was natural because she was made as she was. Her mind swayed and bent for a gust26 of wind, because it had grown so upright and slender; he had thought she could grow as a tree grows, and had not understood that she was only a flower, a rich, fragile stem, springing up to be kissed by the sun and to let all the heavy, longing27 buds break into bloom. She had only been a little girl after all, and to his eternal sorrow he had not understood it until too late.
For she could not right herself again when once she had been bent; she was like a lily, that does not grow from the root again if the first stalk has been broken. There was nothing supple28 or luxuriant about her mind—but he loved her such as she was. And she was his only, for he alone knew how fair and delicate she had been—so strong in her desire to grow straight, and yet so frail29 and brittle30, and with delicate honour, from which a spot never could be washed away because it made so deep a mark. She was dead. He had been alone with his love many nights and days, and he would be alone with it all the days and nights of his life.
He had stifled31 his cries of despair many a night in his pillows.[298] She was dead, and she had never been his. He was the one she should have loved and belonged to, for she was the only one he had ever loved. He had never touched or seen her beautiful, slim, white body that enclosed her soul like a velvet32 sheath about a thin, feeble blade. Others had possessed33 it, and had not understood what a strange and rare treasure had happened to fall into their hands. It lay buried in the grave, a prey34 to ugly change until it was consumed and reduced to a handful of dust in the earth.
Others had loved her, soiled, and destroyed her, not knowing what they did—and she had never been his.
As long as he lived there would be moments when he would feel the same agony about it as now.
Yet he was the only one who owned her at the last; in his hand only would her golden hair sparkle, and she herself was living in him now; her soul and her image were reflected in him clear and firm as in still water. She was dead; she had no more sorrow—it stayed with him instead, to go on living, not to die until he died himself, and because it was living it would grow and change. What it would be like in ten years, he did not know, but it might grow to something great and beautiful.
As long as he lived there would be moments when he would feel the same strange, deep joy that it was so, as he felt now.
He remembered dimly what he had been thinking in the early morning hour when he was walking on the terrace overhead while she was ending her life. He had been enraged37 with her. How could she do it? He had begged and implored38 to be allowed to help her, to carry her away from the abyss she was nearing, but she had pushed him away and thrown herself down before his eyes—exactly in the way a woman would—an obstinate39, irresponsible, foolish way.
[299]
When he saw her lying lifeless he had been in despair and rage again, because he would not have let her go. Whatever she had done he would have exonerated40 her, helped her, offered her his love and trust.
As long as he lived there would be moments when he would reproach her for choosing to die—Jenny, you should not have done it. Yet there would be moments when he would understand that she did so, because it was in keeping with her character, and he would love her for it as long as he lived. And never would he wish that he had not loved her.
But he would cry desperately41, as he had already done, because he had not loved her long before; he would cry for the lost years when she had lived beside him as his friend and comrade and he had not understood that she was the woman who should have been his wife. And never would the day dawn when he would wish he had not understood, even if only to see that it was too late.
Gunnar rose from his knees. He took a small box from his pocket and opened it. One of Jenny’s pink crystal beads42 was in it. He had found it in the drawer of her dressing-table when he packed up her belongings44; the string had broken and he kept one of the beads. He took some earth from the grave and put it in the box. The bead43 rolled about in it and was covered with grey dust, but the clear rose colour showed through and the fine rents in the crystal glittered in the sun.
He had sent all her possessions to her mother, except the letters, which he had burnt. The child’s clothes were in a sealed cardboard box. He sent it to Francesca, remembering that Jenny had said one day she would give them to her.
He had looked through all her sketch-books and drawings before packing them and carefully cut out the leaves with the picture of the boy, hiding them in his pocket-book. They were his—all that was hers alone was his.
[300]
He remembered a spring day two years ago when he had been in Norway. He had been given a cart and a red mare46 at the posting station; the owner was an old schoolfellow of his. It was a sunny day in March; the meadows were yellow with withered47 grass, and the dung-heaps over the ploughed fields shone like pale brown velvet. They drove past the familiar farms with yellow, grey, and red houses and apple yards and lilac bushes. The forest all round was olive green, with a purple tint48 on the birch twigs49, and the air was full that day with the chirping50 of invisible birds.
Two little fair-haired children were walking in the road, carrying a can. “Where are you going, little ones?”
They stopped, looking suspiciously at him.
“Taking food to father?”
“Climb up here and I’ll give you a ride.” He helped them into the cart. “Where is father working?”
“At Brusted.”
“That’s over beyond the school, is it not?”
Thus went the conversation. A stupid, ignorant man asking and asking, as grown-up people always talk to children, and the little ones, who have such a lot of wisdom, consult each other quietly with their eyes, giving sparingly of it—as much as they think convenient.
Hand in hand they walked along beside a rushing brook52 when he put them down, and he turned his horse in the direction he wanted to go.
There was a prayer meeting that evening at his home. His sister Ingeborg was sitting by the old corner cupboard, following with a pale, ecstatic face and shining steel-blue eyes a shoemaker,[301] who spoke53 of spiritual grace; then suddenly she rose herself to bear witness.
His pretty, smart sister who once had been so fond of dancing and merriment. She loved to read and to learn; when he had got work in town he sent her books and pamphlets and the Social Democrat54 twice a week. At thirty she was “saved,” and now she “spoke in tongues.”
She had bestowed55 all her love on her nephew Anders and a little girl they had with them—an illegitimate child from Christiania. With sparkling eyes she told them about Jesus, the children’s Friend.
The next day it was snowing; he had promised to take the children to a cinema in the small neighbouring town, and they had to walk a couple of miles in the melting snow, leaving black footprints behind. He tried to talk to the children, asking questions and receiving guarded answers.
But on the way back the children were the inquisitive56 ones, and, flattered, he gave frank and detailed57 answers, anxious to give them proper information about the films they had seen—of cowboys in Arizona and cocoanut harvest in the Philippines. And he tried his best to tell them properly and answer without ever being at a loss.
Oh, spring-time!
It was on a spring day he had gone to Viterbo with Jenny and Francesca. Dressed in black, she had been sitting by the window looking out with eyes so big and grey—he remembered it well.
The stormy clouds sent showers over the brown plains of the Campagna, where there were no ruins for the tourists to go and see, only a crumbled58 wall here and there and a farm with two pines and some pointed straw-stacks near the house. The pigs herded59 together in the valley, where some trees grew beside a[302] stream. The train sped between hills and oak woods where white and blue anemones and yellow primroses60 grew among the faded leaves. She said she wanted to get out to pick them, gather them in the falling rain among the dripping leaves under the wet branches. “This is like spring at home,” she said.
It had been snowing; some of the snow was still lying grey in the ditches, and the flowers were wet and heavy, with petals61 stuck together.
Little rivulets62 rushed down the crevices63, vanishing under the railway line. A shower beat against the window and drove the smoke to earth.
Then it cleared over valleys and grove, and the water streamed down the sides of the hills.
He had had some of his things in one of the girls’ boxes. When he remembered it in the evening they had already begun to undress and were laughing and chatting when he knocked at their door. Jenny opened it a little, giving him what he asked for. She had on a light dressing-jacket with short sleeves, leaving the slender white arm bare. It tempted64 him to many kisses, but he dared only give it one single, light one. He had been in love with her then, intoxicated65 with the spring, the wine, the merry rain, and the sudden sunshine, with his own youth and the joy of life. He wanted to make her dance—that tall, fair girl, who smiled so guardedly as if she were trying a new art, something she had never yet done—she who had stared with grey, serious eyes at all the flowers they passed and that she wanted to pick.
The day they went to Montefiascone it rained too, so hard that the water was flung back from the stone bridge on to the girls’ lifted skirts and ankles. How they had laughed, all three of them, when they walked up the narrow street, the rain-water streaming towards them in small torrents66. When they reached[303] Rocca, the castle cliff in the centre of the old town, it cleared. They leaned over the rampart, looking at the lake, which lay black beneath the olive groves67 and the vineyards. The skies hung low about the hills round the lake, but across the dark water there came a silver line, which broadened, the mist rolled back into the crevices, and the mountain came into better view. The sun pierced the clouds, which sank down to rest round the small promontories68 with grey stone castles. Towards the north a distant peak became visible—Cesca said it was Monte Amiata.
The last rain-clouds rolled across the blue spring sky, melting before the sun; the bad weather fled westward69, darkening the Etrurian heights, which sloped desolately70 towards the far yellow-white strip of the Mediterranean71. The sight reminded him of the mountain scenery in his own country, in spite of the olive grove and the vineyards.
He and she had stooped behind the hedge, and he had held out his coat so that she could light her cigarette. The wind was keen up there, and she shivered a little in her wet clothes. Her cheeks were red and the sun glittered in her damp, golden hair as she stroked it away from her eyes with one hand.
He would go there tomorrow to meet the spring, the cold, naked spring, full of expectation, with all the buds wet and shivering in the wind—blossoming all the same.
She and the spring were one to him, she who stood shivering and smiled in the changing weather and wanted to gather all the flowers into her lap. Little Jenny, you were not to gather the flowers, and your dreams never came true—and now I am dreaming them for you.
And when I have lived long enough to be so full of longing as you were, perhaps I will do as you, and say to fate: Give me a few of the flowers; I will be satisfied with much less than[304] I wanted in the beginning of life. But I will not die as you did, because you could not be content. I will remember you, and kiss your head and your golden hair and think: She could not live without being the best, and claiming the best as her right; and maybe I shall say: Heaven be praised that she chose death rather than living content.
Tonight I will go to Piazza72 San Pietro and listen to the wild music of the fountain that never stops, and dream my dream. For you, Jenny, are my dream, and I have never had any other.
Dream—oh, dream!
If your child had lived he would not have been what you dreamt when you held him in your arms. He might have done something good and great, or something bad and disgraceful, but he would never have accomplished73 what you dreamt he should do. No woman has given life to the child she dreamt of when she bore it—no artist has created the work he saw before him in the moment of his inspiration. And we live summer after summer, but not one is like the one we have been longing for when we stooped to gather the wet flowers in the spring showers. And no love is what lovers dreamed when they kissed for the first time.
If you and I had lived together we might have been happy or not, we might have done good or ill to one another, but I shall never know what our love would have been if you had been mine. The only thing I know is that it would never have been what I dreamt that night when I stood with you in the moonlight while the fountain was playing.
And yet I would not have missed that dream, and I would not miss the dream I am dreaming now.
Jenny, I would give my life if you could meet me on the cliff and be as you were then, and kiss me and love me for one day, one hour. Always I am thinking of what it might have[305] been if you had lived and been mine, and it seems to me that a boundless74 joy has been wasted. Oh, you are dead, and your death has made me so poor. I have only my dream of you, but if I compare my poverty with others’ riches it is ever so much more glorious. Not to save my life would I cease to love you and dream of you and mourn you.
Gunnar Heggen did not know that in the great storm of his heart he had lifted his arms towards heaven and was whispering to himself. The anemones he had picked were still in his hand, but he did not know it.
The soldiers on the wall laughed at him, but he did not see. He pressed the flowers to his heart, and whispered gently to himself as he walked slowly from the grave toward the cypress grove.
THE END
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1
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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crocheting
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| v.用钩针编织( crochet的现在分词 )；钩编 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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cypresses
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| n.柏属植物，柏树( cypress的名词复数 ) | |
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slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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exhaling
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的现在分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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24
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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29
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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31
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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exonerated
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| v.使免罪，免除( exonerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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42
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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bead
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| n.念珠；(pl.)珠子项链；水珠 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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anemones
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| n.银莲花( anemone的名词复数 )；海葵 | |
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46
mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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47
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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48
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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50
chirping
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| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 ) | |
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51
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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53
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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54
democrat
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
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55
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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crumbled
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| （把…）弄碎， （使）碎成细屑( crumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 衰落； 坍塌； 损坏 | |
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herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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rivulets
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| n.小河，小溪( rivulet的名词复数 ) | |
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crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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promontories
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| n.岬，隆起，海角( promontory的名词复数 ) | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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desolately
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| 荒凉地，寂寞地 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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