Stellan occasionally reproached Manne in gentle and almost flattering tones for his extravagance. He had during the course of years won somewhat large sums of money from his old messmate and childhood friend. And tonight he simply could not help winning more.
They had dined early so as not to be disturbed in their play. Manne took the hostess in. That evening she courted the army.
Laura’s manner varied entirely according to the category of guests in which she happened to be moving. She preferred to take her financiers one by one, and whatever was said openly had often a hard metallic ring about it. But with her officer friends she displayed a special abandon. With them she was the personification of reckless gaiety. Her playful coquetry, and her lighthearted, infectious laughter at once threw open the gates to a paradise of irresponsibility and golden unconcern. Yes, she could be quite delightfully gay, Laura, a veritable saute marquis and vogue la galère.
Finance did not mind this apparent neglect and watched for an opportunity to grind its own little axe.
Manne von Strelert was not the man to resist any kind of seduction, least of all Laura’s. He soon began to drink her health, in all sorts of drinks, and to make a series of perfectly absurd little speeches in her honour.
Laura frankly enjoyed the admiration, both coarse and refined, of her hair and shoulders, of these connoisseurs of horses and women. But in the midst of the laughter and toasts her eyes now and then searched Levy and Stellan. Nothing had been arranged beforehand. But it so happened that they had every reason to be pleased with her. There was surely—hang it all—no harm in her enjoying herself to the full with dear old Manne, who at this moment seized an opportunity of pressing her hand under the table.
Dinner was over and the party was just rising from the table when Manne noticed some little pink shells that had been brought in as ashtrays. He filled one with the last drops of his champagne:
“One more toast,” he exclaimed! “A toast for the little pink shell and the eternal line of curve.”
And with his hand Manne indicated round his lady a very significant wave line.
Laura pushed back her chair and stood there with her bare white shoulders and a seductive smile. She lifted her soft arms as if waltzing.
“Yes, I appeal to you, gentlemen, am I not round?”
“Indeed, indeed,” sighed Manne and kissed her shoulders.
“Then you must see how one of our youngest Parisian painters has imagined me,” she laughed. “I made a little trip there a few weeks ago. …”
All eyes turned upon Levy for a second. They knew that he also had been to Paris a few weeks ago. He looked quite unconcerned.
“The most modern art is like an unshelled chestnut,” he said. “Green and full of prickles.”
“I look like a starved green skeleton with mauve-coloured frost bites,” Laura interposed, eagerly, with her cheeks a little flushed.
“I told the great master that it was not kind of him to make me so angular. Then he bowed and said: ‘Art is free, Madame, and on this occasion it has not been able to take any notice of your roundness.’ Yes, that’s what he said. But come with me and look at the masterpiece for yourselves.”
With the whole troop of laughing men after her Laura ran through the yellow drawing room into her little reading and writing room where she had hung the curiosity. She opened the door quickly and almost stumbled over something that lay across the threshold.
It was Georg. He had crept out of bed to peep at the party through the keyhole and had fallen asleep at his post. He lay there dressed only in his outgrown nightshirt and with black streaks across his knees from his stockings. There was an air of sad neglect and helplessness over the whole emaciated little figure.
“Who the deuce is that kid?” laughed one of the men, who did not know that Laura had a child.
Laura grew rigid for a moment, but quickly recovered herself and assumed as well as she could the pose of the tenderhearted mother. She lifted up the boy, wrapped him up as decoratively as possible in her shawl, and kissed his cheek. And at this kiss from his mother Georg awoke in the midst of the glorious party. Still half asleep, he threw his arms round her neck and whispered something out of his dreams: “Mummie … princess all the same.”
Everybody politely applauded the group. Only Levy was silent. He stood alone and stared obstinately at the famous picture, which nevertheless was tame compared with the geometrical excesses of some later schools.
“Hm … frost bites,” he mumbled in a low voice. “Perhaps there is something in the frost bites all the same. …”
His voice sounded quite impersonal, as if he had not known what he was saying.
Laura carried off the boy quickly. She did not stop in the nursery. From there they might hear. No, she went all the way to her own bedroom. There she let loose her anger. There she suddenly began to pinch and beat the disobedient child who had torn away the veil, betrayed, and exposed her. It was as if she had wished to take her revenge for all the annoyance, and all the worries he had caused her from the moment that she was first conscious of his presence in her womb. It was as if she wished to take her revenge for all the memories from Ekbacken, which seemed to her unspeakably oppressive and outworn.
“You were told to stay in bed!” she panted. “Why don’t you
