But mostly it was with Axel Olsen that her thoughts were occupied. Brilliant, bored, elegant, urbane, cynical, worldly, he was a type entirely new to Helga Crane, familiar only, and that but little, with the restricted society of American Negroes. She was aware, too, that this amusing, if conceited, man was interested in her. They were, because he was painting her, much together. Helga spent long mornings in the eccentric studio opposite the Folkemuseum, and Olsen came often to the Dahl home, where, as Helga and the man himself knew, he was something more than welcome. But in spite of his expressed interest and even delight in her exotic appearance, in spite of his constant attendance upon her, he gave no sign of the more personal kind of concern which—encouraged by Aunt Katrina’s mild insinuations and Uncle Poul’s subtle questionings—she had tried to secure. Was it, she wondered, race that kept him silent, held him back. Helga Crane frowned on this thought, putting it furiously from her, because it disturbed her sense of security and permanence in her new life, pricked her self-assurance.
Nevertheless she was startled when on a pleasant afternoon while drinking coffee in the Hotel Vivili, Aunt Katrina mentioned, almost casually, the desirability of Helga’s making a good marriage.
“Marriage, Aunt dear!”
“Marriage,” firmly repeated her aunt, helping herself to another anchovy and olive sandwich. “You are,” she pointed out, “twenty-five.”
“Oh, Aunt, I couldn’t! I mean, there’s nobody here for me to marry.” In spite of herself and her desire not to be, Helga was shocked.
“Nobody?” There was, Fru Dahl asserted, Captain Frederick Skaargaard—and very handsome he was too—and he would have money. And there was Herr Hans Tietgen, not so handsome, of course, but clever and a good business man; he too would be rich, very rich, some day. And there was Herr Karl Pedersen, who had a good berth with the Landmands-bank and considerable shares in a prosperous cement-factory at Aalborg. There was, too, Christian Lende, the young owner of the new Odin Theater. Any of these Helga might marry, was Aunt Katrina’s opinion. “And,” she added, “others.” Or maybe Helga herself had some ideas.
Helga had. She didn’t, she responded, believe in mixed marriages, “between races, you know.” They brought only trouble—to the children—as she herself knew but too well from bitter experience.
Fru Dahl thoughtfully lit a cigarette. Eventually, after a satisfactory glow had manifested itself, she announced: “Because your mother was a fool. Yes, she was! If she’d come home after she married, or after you were born, or even after your father—er—went off like that, it would have been different. If even she’d left you when she was here. But why in the world she should have married again, and a person like that, I can’t see. She wanted to keep you, she insisted on it, even over his protest, I think. She loved you so much, she said.—And so she made you unhappy. Mothers, I suppose, are like that. Selfish. And Karen was always stupid. If you’ve got any brains at all they came from your father.”
Into this Helga would not enter. Because of its obvious partial truths she felt the need for disguising caution. With a detachment that amazed herself she asked if Aunt Katrina didn’t think, really, that miscegenation was wrong, in fact as well as principle.
“Don’t,” was her aunt’s reply, “be a fool too, Helga. We don’t think of those things here. Not in connection with individuals, at least.” And almost immediately she inquired: “Did you give Herr Olsen my message about dinner tonight?”
“Yes, Aunt.” Helga was cross, and trying not to show it.
“He’s coming?”
“Yes, Aunt,” with precise politeness.
“What about him?”
“I don’t know. What about him?”
“He likes you?”
“I don’t know. How can I tell that?” Helga asked with irritating reserve, her concentrated attention on the selection of a sandwich. She had a feeling of nakedness. Outrage.
Now Fru Dahl was annoyed and showed it. “What nonsense! Of course you know. Any girl does,” and her satin-covered foot tapped, a little impatiently, the old tiled floor.
“Really, I don’t know, Aunt,” Helga responded in a strange voice, a strange manner, coldly formal, levelly courteous. Then suddenly contrite, she added: “Honestly, I don’t. I can’t tell a thing about him,” and fell into a little silence. “Not a thing,” she repeated. But the phrase, though audible, was addressed to no one. To herself.
She looked out into the amazing orderliness of the street. Instinctively she wanted to combat this searching into the one thing which, here, surrounded by all other things which for so long she had so positively wanted, made her a little afraid. Started vague premonitions.
Fru Dahl regarded her intently. It would be, she remarked with a return of her outward casualness, by far the best of all possibilities. Particularly desirable. She touched Helga’s hand with her fingers in a little affectionate gesture. Very lightly.
Helga Crane didn’t immediately reply. There was, she knew, so much reason—from one viewpoint—in her aunt’s statement. She could only acknowledge it. “I know that,” she told her finally. Inwardly she was admiring the cool, easy way in which Aunt Katrina had brushed aside the momentary acid note of the conversation and resumed her customary pitch. It took, Helga thought, a great deal of security. Balance.
“Yes,” she was saying, while leisurely lighting another of those long, thin, brown cigarettes which Helga knew from distressing experience to be incredibly nasty tasting, “it would be the ideal thing for you, Helga.” She gazed penetratingly into the masked face of her niece and nodded, as though satisfied with what she saw there. “And you of course realize that you are a very charming and beautiful girl. Intelligent too. If you put your mind to it, there’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t—” Abruptly she stopped, leaving her implication at once suspended and clear. Behind her there were footsteps. A small gloved hand appeared on her shoulder. In the short moment before turning to
