Heggen was silent a moment.
“Yes. Celibacy, of course, is not the same to women as to men. It often means that they are kept outside all those things in life which people make the most fuss about—simply that whole groups of organs, mental as well as physical, are wasting away unused. Ugh! Sometimes I almost wish you would be a little frivolous for once and have done with it all, so that you could work in peace and quiet afterwards.”
“Women who have been a little frivolous, as you say, are not done with it. If they were disappointed the first time, they hope for better luck the next. One does not settle down disappointed, and before you know it you have had many a try.”
“Not you,” he said quickly.
“Thanks. It is quite new to hear you speak like that. You have always said that when women begin such a life they invariably end by being dragged down completely.”
“Most of them do. But there must be some exceptions. It applies to those who have no other instincts in life than a man—not to those who are something by themselves and not only of female sex. Why should you, for instance, not be true and loyal to a man even if you both saw that you could not give up everything to tie yourself down as his wife for the rest of your life? Love always dies sooner or later. Don’t let yourself be deceived on that point.”
“Yes; we know it—but still we won’t believe it.” She laughed. “No, my friend—either we love and believe it is the only thing worth living for, or we do not love—and are unhappy because we don’t.”
“Jenny, I don’t like to hear you speak like that. No; to feel oneself in full vigour, with all faculties alert, ready to adopt and appropriate, to adapt and produce, make the utmost possible of oneself—work—that is the only thing worth living for, believe me.”
X
Jenny bent over Gert Gram’s chrysanthemums: “I am so glad you like my pictures.”
“Yes, I like them very much, especially the one of the young girl with the corals—as I told you already.”
Jenny shook her head.
“I think the colouring is so lovely,” said Gram.
“It is not well finished. The scarf and the dress should have been more thoroughly worked up, but when I was painting it both Cesca and I were distracted by other things.”
After a while she asked:
“Do you hear from Helge? How is he?”
“He does not write much. He is working at the essay for his doctor of science degree—you know he prepared himself for it in Rome. He says he is all right. He does not write to his mother at all, and she, of course, is very vexed about it. She has not improved as a companion, I am sorry to say, but she is not happy, poor thing, at present.”
Jenny moved the flowers to her writing-table and began to arrange them:
“I am glad Helge is working again. He did not get much done in the summer.”
“Neither did you, dear.”
“No, it is true, and the worst of it is that I have not been able to start yet. But I don’t feel the least inclined to, and I was going to begin etching this winter, but. …”
“Don’t you think it quite natural that a disappointment like yours should take some time to get over? Your exhibition is a success, and has been well spoken of in the papers. Don’t you think that is enough to make you want to work again? You have got a bid for the Aventine picture already—are you going to accept it?”
She shrugged her shoulders:
“Of course. I am obliged to accept. They always need money at home, as you know. Besides, I must go abroad; it is not good for me to stay here long.”
“Do you want to go abroad?” said Gram gently, looking down. “Well, I suppose you are; it is only natural.”
“Oh, this exhibition,” said Jenny, sitting down in the rocking-chair—“all my pictures were painted such a long time ago, it seems to me, even the recent ones. The sketch of the Aventine was finished the day I met Helge, and I painted the picture while we were together—that of Cesca as well. And the one from Stenersgaten in your place, while I was waiting for him to come home. I have done nothing since. Ugh! So Helge is at work again?”
“It is only natural, my dear, that an experience like yours should leave deeper traces in a woman.”
“Oh yes, yes—a woman; that is the whole misery of it. It is just like a woman to become uninterested and utterly lazy because of a love that does not even exist.”
“My dear Jenny,” said Gram, “I think it quite natural that it should take some time for you to get over it—to get beyond it, as it were; one always does, and then one understands that the experience has not been in vain, but that one’s soul is the richer for it in some way or other.”
Jenny did not reply.
“I am sure there is much you would not like to have missed—all the happy, warm, sunny days with your friend in that beautiful country. Am I not right?”
“Will you tell me one thing, Gert?—is it your own personal experience that you have been able to enrich your soul, as you say, by the incidents of your life?”
He gave a start as if hurt and surprised at her brutality; it was a moment before he answered her:
“It is quite a different thing. The experiences which are the results of sin—I don’t mean sin in the orthodox sense, but the consequences of acting contrary to your understanding—are always far from sweet. I mean that my experiences have made my life in a way richer and deeper than a lesser misfortune might have done—since it was my fate not to attain the greatest happiness. I
