fru adelheid laid her hands over cordt’s book:

“may i talk to you a little? may i tell you something? may i tell you that what you are doing is madness?”

he moved her hands from his book and looked up:

“sit down, adelheid,” he said wearily. “sit down in that chair.”

but she took the book from him and threw it on the floor:

“you are ill, cordt. you have become ill up here in this dreadful room.”

“have you a household remedy?” he asked.

“how can you have the heart to make a jest of it?”

[72]“it would be a bitter jest, if it were one,” he said. “but it was not a jest. i believe in the old household remedies.”

fru adelheid sat down in her chair and stared helplessly before her:

“of course you do,” she said. “and in old books and in everything that has ceased to exist.”

he said nothing, but yawned wearily.

“and god shall be set on his throne again and i shall sit at the spinning-wheel and we shall enjoy a blessed married life and be happy ever after.”

cordt crossed his legs and looked at his nails:

“yes ... that is my programme,” he said quietly. “something like that. and you have stated it in your usual affectionate manner.”

“cordt, how can you have the heart?”

she swung her body to and fro; her hands lay folded in her lap, her eyes were[73] moist. she wanted to say something, but could not, because the tears prevented her. she could not understand that he did not help her. then she said:

“things are going badly with us, cordt.”

and, as he was still silent, she pulled herself together with an effort and spoke with closed eyes, constantly rocking to and fro:

“we must obey the law under which we were born ... must we not, cordt? after all, we are modern people ... both of us. tired, empty people, if you like. but we do think and feel otherwise than people did when ... when they were the sort of people whom you like. and we cannot alter ourselves. but we can be as happy as it is possible to be ... nowadays, being what we are. why should we not be happy, cordt?”

“i am not happy.”

[74]“oh, cordt!”

she pressed her hands together and wrung them and bent over them so that her tears fell upon them. then she turned her wet face to him and asked, softly:

“then am i no longer pretty, cordt?”

he stood up and kissed her white forehead:

“that you are,” he said. “but that won’t help us any longer.”

he began to walk up and down. fru adelheid wept hard and silently. a little later, she said:

“you are driving me away from you, cordt. i do so want to tell you this, while there is still time, if only i could find the right words. won’t you sit down a little, cordt? my head aches so.”

he sat down in the chair. then she rose and put some wood on the fire and sat down again:

[75]“i am so afraid of myself when we talk together, cordt,” she said. “it is not only that i am wicked and say what i do not mean. i do that, too. but you are so good. and you show me thoughts in my mind which are not there before you utter them. but then they come and i think that you are right and that they have been there always. that is so terrible, cordt.”

they sat silent. fru adelheid closed her eyes; cordt moved restlessly in his chair:

“adelheid,” he said.... “you told me that evening....”

“you must not say that ... you must not.”

“do you remember, you said ... about the wild, red love ... that it was not the love which you have?”

she shook his hand and pressed it:

“that is just it,” she said. “i am[76] grateful to you because you were so good. and because you did not take it ill. but that was not in me, cordt. i did not know it. but then you said it ... and made me say ... what i said. but then, at that very moment, i understood that it was so. and that made me feel so terribly bad ... as i did. but then i felt a sort of secret joy ... a secret treasure. it seemed to me that i was richer than before. i was no longer afraid of what may come ... for women sometimes think of that, cordt, while they are young, how empty everything will be, when that is past.”