“In your case, I meant it in a different way. Even if your happiness proved to be of a passing nature, it was pure and guiltless while it lasted, because you believed in it implicitly and enjoyed it without any mental reservation. You deceived nobody but yourself.”
Jenny did not speak. She would have had a great deal to say in opposition, but she felt dimly that he would not understand her.
“Don’t you remember Ibsen’s words:
“ ‘Though I ram my ship aground, it was grand to sail the seas’?”
“I am surprised at you, Gert, for repeating those idiotic words. Nowadays we have too great a feeling of responsibility and too much self-esteem, most of us, to accept that kind of reasoning. If I am wrecked and sink, I will try not to wince, if I know that I have not run my ship aground myself. As far as I understand, the best sailors prefer to go down with their ship if the fault is theirs, rather than survive the disaster.”
“I am of the opinion that, as a rule, one can thank oneself for every misfortune,” said Gram, smiling, “but that one can nearly always draw some spiritual benefit out of it.”
“I agree with you on the first point—and on the second on the condition that the misfortune does not consist in the diminution of one’s self-esteem.”
“You should not take this so seriously. You are quite excited and bitter. I remember what you said on the day Helge left, but, my dear child, you cannot really mean that one should quench every affection at its birth unless one can guarantee the moment it comes into life that it will last until one’s death, endure all adversity, be ready for every sacrifice, and that it will understand the personality of its object as in a vision, show up its most sacred depths to prevent later change of opinion about him or her.”
“Yes,” said Jenny sharply.
“Have you ever felt this yourself?” asked Gram.
“No, but I know it, all the same. I have always known that it should be so. But when I was twenty-eight and still an old maid, longing to love and be loved, and Helge came and fell in love with me, I laid aside all claims on myself and my love, taking what I could get—to a certain extent in good faith. It will be all right, I thought—I am sure it will—although I did not feel assured in my inmost heart that nothing else could be possible. Let me tell you what my friend Heggen told me the other day. He despises women truly and honestly—and he is right. We have no self-esteem, and we are so lazy that we can never make up our mind in earnest to shape our life and happiness ourselves, and to work with that purpose. Secretly we all nourish the hope that a man will come and offer us happiness, so that we need not make any effort ourselves. The most womanly of us, who by happiness mean only idleness and finery, hang on to the man who can give them plenty of it. If amongst us there are a few who really have the right feelings and are longing to become good and strong, and making efforts in that direction—we still hope to meet a man on the way and to become what we want to be through his love.
“We can work for a time pretty honestly and seriously, and take a pleasure in it too, but in our hearts we are waiting for a still greater joy, which we cannot acquire by our work, but must receive as a gift. We women can never get to the point where our work is everything to us.”
“Do you believe work alone is enough for a man? Never,” said Gram.
“It is for Gunnar. You may depend on it that he will keep women in their right place in his life—as trifles.”
Gram laughed: “How old is your friend Heggen? I hope for the man’s own sake that he will change his opinion some day about the most conclusive influence in life.”
“I don’t,” said Jenny vehemently, “but I hope I, too, shall learn some day to put this nonsense about love in its right place.”
“My dear Jenny, you speak as if—as if you had no sense, I was going to say, but I know you have,” said Gram, with a melancholy smile. “Shall I tell you something of what I know about love, little one? If I did not believe in it, I should not have the least particle of faith in men—or in myself. Do you believe that it is only women who think life meaningless, and find their hearts empty and frozen if they have nothing but their work to love or to depend upon? Do you believe there is a single soul living who has not moments of doubt in himself? You must have somebody in whose keeping you can give the best in you—your love and your trust.
“When I say that my own life since my marriage has been a hell, I am not using too strong words, and if I have been able to stand it in a way it is because I think the love Rebecca has for me partly exonerates her. I know that her feelings of mean pleasure at having the power to torment and humiliate me with her jealousy and rage are a caricature of betrayed love, and it is a kind of satisfaction to my sense of justice that there is a reason for my unhappiness. I betrayed her when I took her love without giving her mine—intending secretly to give her only crumbs—the small coin of love—in payment for the best of herself she offered me. If life punishes every sin against the sacredness of love so ruthlessly, it proves to me
