“Never a name had he, poor darling, only mother’s baby-boy, and I have nothing to remember him by, except just material things.”
She lifted her hands as if holding the child to her heart, then let them fall empty and lifeless on the table.
“I remember so distinctly my impression when I first touched him, felt his skin against mine. It was so soft, a little damp—the air had scarcely touched it yet, you see. People think a newborn child is not nice to feel, and perhaps it is so when it is not your own flesh and blood. And his eyes—they were no special colour, only dark, but I think they would have been grey-blue. A baby’s eyes are so strange—almost mysterious. And his tiny head was so pretty, when he was feeding and pressing his little nose against me. I could see the pulse beating and the thin, downy hair; he had quite a lot of it—and dark—when he was born.
“Oh, that little body of his! I can never think of anything else—I can feel it lying in my hands. He was so round and fat, and every bit of him was so pretty—my own sweet little boy!
“But he died! I was looking forward so much to all that was going to happen that it seems to me now I did not pay enough attention to things when I had him, or kissed him or looked at him enough, though I did nothing else in those weeks.
“When he was gone there was nothing left but the yearning for him. You cannot understand what I felt. My whole body ached with it. I fell ill, and the fever and the pain seemed to be my longing materialized. I missed him from my arms, between my hands, and at my cheek. Once or twice in the last week of his life he clutched my finger when I put it in his hand. Once he had somehow got hold of a little of my hair—oh, the sweet, sweet little hands. …”
She lay prostrate over the table, sobbing violently, her whole form shivering.
Gunnar had got up and stood hesitating, emotion rising in his throat. Then he went to her and, bending down over her head, he touched her hair lightly with a shy, gentle kiss.
She continued crying, in the same position, for a little while. At last she got up and went to the washstand to bathe her face.
“Oh, how I miss him,” she repeated, and he could not find anything to say but “Jenny, if I had known that you felt it so much.”
She came back to where he was and, putting her hands on his shoulders, said:
“Gunnar, you must not pay any attention to what I said a while ago. Sometimes I am not quite myself, but you will understand that, for the sake of the boy, if for no other reason, I am not going to throw myself entirely into a life of dissipation. At heart I really want to make the best I can of my life—you know that. I mean to try and work again, even if the result is poor in the beginning. I have always the comfort of knowing that one need not live longer than one cares to.”
She put on her hat again, finding a veil for her tear-stained face:
“Let us go and have something to eat—you must be starving by this time—it is very late.”
Gunnar Heggen blushed all over his face. Now she mentioned it, he felt awfully hungry, and was ashamed of himself for admitting it at such a moment as this. He dried the tears from his wet, hot cheeks and took his hat from the table.
X
By tacit agreement they passed the restaurant where they usually had their meals and where there were always a number of their countrymen, and, continuing their way in the twilight towards the Tiber, they crossed the bridge into the old Borgo quarters. In a corner by the Piazza San Pietro there was a small trattoria where they had dined after going to the Vatican, and they went there.
They ate in silence. When she had finished Jenny lit a cigarette, and sat sipping her claret and rubbing her fingers with the fragrant tangerine peel. Heggen smoked, staring in front of him. They were almost alone in the place.
“Would you like to read a letter I got from Cesca the other day?” asked Jenny suddenly.
“Yes. I saw there was a letter for you from her—from Stockholm, is it not?”
“Yes; they are back there and going to stay the winter.” Jenny took the letter out of her bag and handed it to him.
“Dear, Sweet Jenny Mine—You must not be angry with me for not answering your last letter before. Every day I meant to write, but it never came off. I am so pleased that you are back in Rome and are working, and have Gunnar to be with.
“We are back in Stockholm living in the old place. It was quite impossible to stay in the cottage when it got cold; it was so draughty that we could only get warm in the kitchen. We would buy it if we could afford it, but it would cost too much; it wants so much done to it. The garret would have to be made into a studio for Lennart, stoves would be wanted, and lots of other things—but we have rented it for next summer, and I am so happy about it, for there is no place in the world I love
