Niels Lyhne

were fluted and had knobs of shining brass in the shape of dolphins. The windows of small square panes were curtained with filmy net, white as snow, its fullness caught up and fastened with coquettish bows of colored ribbon, like the curtains of a bridal bed for Corydon and Phyllis. In the windowsill the flowers of bygone days bloomed in motley green crocks; there were blue agapanthus, blue Canterbury bells, fine-leaved myrtles, fiery red verbenas, and butterfly bright geraniums. But it was, after all, chiefly the furniture that gave character to the rooms: immovable tables with wide expanse of darkened mahogany; chairs with backs that curled round your figure; cabinets of every conceivable form, gigantic dressers inlaid with mythological scenes in light yellow wood⁠—Daphne, Arachne, and Narcissus⁠—or small secretaries with thin twisted legs and on every tiny drawer a mosaic of dendrite marble representing a lovely square house with a tree near by⁠—all from the time before Napoleon. There were mirrors, too, the glass painted in white or bronze with designs of rushes and lotus plants floating on a bright sea. As for the sofa, it was not one of your trifling things on four legs designed for two persons; no, solid and massive it rose from the floor to form a veritable spacious terrace; flanking it on either side and built in one with the sofa, was a console-cupboard, on top of which a smaller cabinet rose with architectonic effect to the height of a man and held a precious old jar above the reach of careless hands. It was no wonder there were so many old things in the Consul’s house, for his father and grandfather had rested and enjoyed the good things of life within these walls in the intervals of their work in lumber yard and office.

The grandfather, Berendt Berendtsen Claudi, whose name the firm still bore, had built the houses and had interested himself chiefly in the retail and produce trade. The father had worked up the lumber yard, bought farmland, built the hayloft, and laid out the two gardens. The present Claudi had developed the grain trade and built the warehouse. He united with his mercantile business the activities of the English and the Hanoverian vice-consulates as well as a Lloyd’s agency; and the grain and the Western Sea kept him so busy he could give only a very cursory supervision to the other branches of the work. He therefore divided the responsibility between an insolvent cousin and an old unmanageable steward, who would drive the Consul into a corner every little while by declaring that, whatever happened to the store, the farm must be attended to, and when he wanted to plough, they could take horses for hauling lumber wherever they pleased⁠—his they couldn’t have, so help him. But as the man was capable, there was nothing to be done but to put up with him.

Consul Claudi was in the early fifties, a man of substantial presence. His regular features, strong to the point of coarseness, would as readily harden to an expression of energy and cool astuteness as they would relax into a look almost lickerish as though relishing a savory tidbit; and he was, in fact, equally at home whether driving a bargain with shrewd peasants or arguing with a stubborn salvage gang, or whether sitting with gray-bearded sinners over the last bottle of port wine, listening to stories more than salacious or telling them with the picturesque frankness for which he was noted.

This, however, was not all of the man.

His training naturally made him feel that he was on alien ground when he ventured outside of purely practical questions, but he never therefore scoffed at what he did not understand or tried to conceal his ignorance. Much less did it ever occur to him to give his opinion and demand that it be respected for the reason that he was a citizen of mature years and practical experience and a large taxpayer. On the contrary, he would often listen with a reverence that was almost touching when ladies and young men discussed such matters; now and then he would venture a modest question prefaced by elaborate excuses, which almost always elicited a scrupulously painstaking answer, and then he would express his thanks with all the courtesy which is so gracious in an older man thanking his juniors.

At certain favorable moments there could be something surprisingly fine about Consul Claudi, a wistful look in his clear brown eyes, a melancholy smile around his strong lips, a seeking, reminiscent note in his voice, as though he yearned for another and in his own eyes better world than that to which his friends and acquaintances consigned him, hide and hair.

The messenger between himself and this better world was his wife. She was one of those pale, gentle, virginal natures who have not the courage, or perhaps not the impulse, to give out their love in such fullness that there is no shred of self left in their innermost soul. Even in the most fleeting moment they can never be so carried away by their feeling that they throw themselves in blind rapture under the chariot wheels of their idol. They cannot do it, but all else they can do for the beloved; they can fulfil the heaviest duties, are ready for the most grievous sacrifices, and do not flinch from any humiliation whatsoever. This is true of the best among them.

Mrs. Claudi was not called on to bear such trials. Nevertheless her marriage was not without its sorrows; for it was a matter of common knowledge in Fjordby that the Consul was not, or at least had not been until a few years ago, the most faithful husband, and that he had several illegitimate children in the neighborhood. This was, of course, a bitter grief to her, and it had not been easy to keep her heart steadfast through the tumult of jealousy, scorn and anger, shame and sickening fear, which had made