there was a charity fête at the athletic ground. the quadrille on horseback and the bicycle race were over and now people thronged round the tombola and the stalls.
stellan did not look up at the sky when he stepped out into the saddling yard. he did not give a thought to the balloon whose gigantic yellow silk bubble was already beginning to swell out and shimmer in the cool september sunshine. no, his looks searched anxiously amongst the scattered groups of spectators outside the ring of guard. and he suddenly muttered a half-suppressed oath at the sight of peter who, furious and massive as a bull, bore down on him from his ambush. he awaited the attack in the most deserted spot he could find. and a certain weariness appeared in the hard lines of his mouth:
“you have become damned difficult to find,” panted peter. but stellan was already prepared with a smile. it is strange that smiles can thrive so many degrees below freezing point.
“you can meet me as much as you like when you have got decent clothes—and a decent face....”
peter was unshaven. his overcoat dated from the fat and sentimental period. it now hung on him like a sack. his barge-like shoes were covered with the dirt of the bad roads of selambshof and he had in his hand, not a stick but a cudgel. and he shook the cudgel and struck the ground with it:
“you are damned smart, you are! but if i take everything 267this fine gentleman possesses perhaps he won’t be quite so smart. tomorrow i want my seventy-five thousand, or else i’ll make you bankrupt!”
stellan still smiled. he pointed to the balloon and his tone became exquisitely ironical:
“come up with me and then we can talk business.”
peter looked with a ludicrous expression of suspicion and disapproval on the expensive and dangerous ascent in which his seventy-five thousand would soar heavenwards:
“if you were at least decently insured,” he sighed. then he suddenly grew furious again and shouted, so that he was overheard by the people round about them:
“i must have the money tomorrow. i won’t wait any longer.”
stellan grew pale and came close up to his brother. it was as if he were abusing some obstinate labourer:
“you lout! you want to get hold of my last share in selambshof! but i have already put them up another spout. curse you, there are better and bigger creditors than you! yes, i have nothing but debts, so my position is really excellent. the only hope for the creditors is that the bubble won’t burst. but do you think it will improve matters for a shabby old moneylender to come and hang on to my coat tails just as i am going up? no, get away and keep quiet and i will show you something to make you think.”
stellan suddenly had an idea. he pushed aside the astonished and hesitating peter without further ceremony and went straight towards the steps of the tennis pavilion.
there miss l?hnfeldt was standing amidst a group of uniforms and allowed manne von strelert to pay her his court. both had taken part in the quadrille on horseback and she was dressed in riding breeches, which at that time was something quite new and bold, and she stood there amongst all the men, slim and slight, but with her head held high and with a proud carriage.
268stellan ploughed his way through the group. not a feature betrayed what kind of conversation he had just passed through. the lines round his mouth were gay and slightly cruel. he saluted, kissed her hand, and said aloud, so that everybody round them should hear:
“miss l?hnfeldt, do you remember i promised you a sensation? come up with me today.”
miss l?hnfeldt wanted to appear a sportwoman. she cultivated to the best of her ability the anglo-saxon style. thanks to persistent and expensive training she had really developed her little strength until she was considered a bold rider and a fairly good tennis player. she did not answer stellan at once, but bit her lip and cast a glance at the officers round her. but manne protested. one had no right to tempt charming ladies into the clouds, he thought. charming ladies might get dizzy....
stellan looked gratefully at manne, certain that his words would only egg her on. she was not a coward, or at least she was more vain than she was afraid. and a crowd is a bellows to vanity. elvira l?hnfeldt was one of those women who are excited by a crowd. the thought of some kind of notoriety always occupied her thoughts. in every crowd the desire to be noticed, spoken of, praised and envied, worked like a stinging poison in her veins. when she now looked at the group around her it was in order to measure the effect of the proposal! it would surely create a sensation if she went up, a real sensation....
she did not say “yes” straight out. she answered by the eternal feminine question:
“but what shall i put on?”
“my military fur coat,” said stellan. “besides, your riding costume is most suitable. but come along, it is twelve o’clock and the people are waiting.”
she took his arm and they stepped out into the open space. the group behind them applauded. manne was teased at the cavalry being outdistanced by the air force. 269there were several people there who were interested in seeing the two friends’ position improved. the balloon was already filled. stellan turned away a poor journalist who had had half a promise to be allowed to go up with him, and amidst a murmur of surprise from the crowd he lifted miss l?hnfeldt very chivalrously over the edge of the gondola. but he did not give the order to let go at once. he did not grudge his partner a few moments of exquisite joy in the polite and encouraging exclamations of the gentlemen and the little cries of alarm from her lady friends.
then the attendants let go the ropes and the balloon rose. there was a flutter of white handkerchiefs from the dark group below in the grey oval of the cycle course.
as you know, one need not rise very high before everything down below looks small.
“what mites,” said miss l?hnfeldt. and her voice sounded a little malicious.
stellan cast a side-glance at her in order to gauge the effect of the increasing depth beneath them. she looked down with an expression which seemed to say; “this is nothing much.”
“wait a bit, my dear,” thought stellan. “you will get as much as you can stand.” he had already made up his mind that this would not be a pleasure trip, but an adventure.
the wind was west south-west. the balloon had not had time to rise much before they were out over liding?n. below him stellan saw the shining green roof of the hills’ villa.
hedvig ... yes, he would have to try there too if everything else went wrong. if only percy had been alive.... but hedvig alone, no, there wasn’t much chance....
the balloon began to sink very suddenly. one must always be careful when passing over forests, where the air is warmer and lighter. but stellan purposely neglected 270to cast out any ballast till they almost swept over the tops of the trees. that was a trick that used to impress beginners. stellan looked again at his partner. she was perhaps a little paler than before and held on a little more tightly to the edge of the gondola. but if he had hoped for any frightened screams and looks of anxious appeal he was doomed to disappointment.
“the balloon must man?uvre badly,” she said.
stellan flung out ballast, perhaps more than was necessary and they rose quickly into silent and radiant space over the bright and dazzling autumn coast landscape. it was really wonderfully beautiful with the spray of gold that the leafy trees made amongst the dark pines and the deep solemn september blue of the water in the bays—which to the far-penetrating gaze of those above shivered in iridescence of alg?-green, seaweed-brown and shimmering gneiss-red nearer inshore in the shallower water. in a narrow smooth belt of calm water a toy steamer drew behind it a silver shimmering fan of dwarf-like waves. and far away in the east along the strangely banked up horizon the sea stretched like a low endless blue ridge.
but most wonderful of all was the silence and the stillness, the incomparable, mighty calm in a balloon that moved with the wind and in which a candle flame would burn as steadily as in a closed room.
“strange ... it is like sitting in a glass cupboard,” said miss l?hnfeldt in a low voice and there was after all involuntary admiration in her voice. but then she added: “though i must say i thought it would be more exciting....”
stellan bit his lip: he was not in the mood for enjoying anything beautiful just now. he felt like a stage manager who is responsible for effect before a critical and spoilt public. he thought of peter, his affairs, marriage—without any enthusiasm for the last.... he felt almost hostile to the woman by his side. her affected indifference 271irritated him. he could not manage to pay her any sort of attention. he felt like a partner who dances out of time and has nothing to whisper into his partner’s ear. annoyed, he tapped the barometer. it sank, though the balloon was sinking slowly. it was already three o’clock in the afternoon. the sun suddenly disappeared. behind them in the west the sky was clouded. the air began to grow a cold, whitish grey, and clouded over, they no longer saw the earth below them. in an incredibly short time they had become enveloped in a dense cloud.
stellan did not descend, as was his duty with an approaching storm when he was so near the sea. he was a desperado. miss l?hnfeldt was going to have an experience, that was all. he threw out several sacks of ballast, which disappeared in long brown streaks in the fog below them.
his man?uvring was not quite planless. he had observed that the wind in the upper strata was several degrees more southerly and he began to think of the ?land islands.
now they were suddenly out in the sunshine again, in the cold dazzling sunlight over an enormous shimmering sea of cloud. they soared alone in a dazzling white, ever changing, chaos of snow mountains and lakes of fog—millions of years before human life existed....
“i have seen this before in switzerland,” said miss l?hnfeldt shivering with cold.
the balloon had risen rapidly and lost much gas. it soon began to sink again through the cloud world, which now grew grey. when it cleared up below them they were already out over a nasty grey, white-crested sea. a very strong wind was blowing.
then the first feminine exclamation escaped from miss l?hnfeldt:
“but, good heavens, how shall we get back?”
stellan bowed for the first time with a polite and amiable smile:
272“by steamer,” he said. “we will sleep at mariehamn tonight.”
as a matter of fact he was not so sure of it. the wind higher up had evidently been a few degrees more in the west than he had counted on. in its present quarter they would pass south of ?land. but the storm lower down might draw them south ... otherwise ... well what otherwise? well, otherwise they would go to hell....
what does a man like captain stellan selamb feel when he mutters to himself that he might “go to hell”? nothing really. he has never properly conceived death. his egoism is so hard and polished that the thought of death slips off everywhere.
if you want an opinion of a man, try to find out his views of death. death comes in life and not after life. and it is what happens in life that makes us really alive. what else are we but our conception of, our defiance of, our struggle against, and our victory over, death? yes, because there is a real, a living courage which conquers death....
stellan had the gambler’s courage. it is always better than cowardice. but it is really very superficial. a hard frozen surface with no resilience beneath. clear but shallow thoughts that have never penetrated to the depths of life. an inner reflection of a blind, pitiless fate.... how much of the courage that meets us in the wild and bloody history of the world is not of this kind? the great gamblers! minds and souls are only cards to them, playing cards or trumps in the wild gamble of politics and war. they only know themselves even as trumps in the game. even their own terrible egoism is really only a mirage. for death has not made them alive....
the balloon drove eastwards with the gale. stellan sailed low and saved his ballast. in the north they could see ?land and lernland and lumparland. the waves washed heavily in the apparent stillness around them. 273they were sinking lower and lower. the last sack of ballast went over. the balloon began to shrink round the valve. there must be a leakage. now a giant roaring wave attempted to grab the gondola.
stellan had to throw out everything loose, the ballast sacks themselves, ropes, fur coats, stethoscopes and barometer. he used the momentary respite to assist miss l?hnfeldt up into the rigging where she sat as on a trapeze and held on to the cordage. she was very pale and looked as if she might faint any moment, so he thought it best to make her fast.
“this is abominable,” she mumbled, as if she had been exposed to some clumsiness on the part of a vulgar partner. but she did not whimper.
they swept in over the breakers and rocks of the wild and deserted skerries of k?kars. the gondola was already trailing in the water, and the balloon began to swing and jerk to and fro. stellan also climbed up into the rigging. he took the anchor with him. with violent jerks they trailed over a stony rocky island on the skerries. then again they were carried over an empty roaring bay. but now the wind had really turned into the south and there was some wooded country ahead of them. stellan cut away the gondola, as it made the balloon dip. then it rose for the last time. they sat as in a swing over the surging water. phew! now they were rushing in towards the land. a jetty and a few red-painted outhouses were visible in the grey twilight. stellan dropped anchor in a damp marshy meadow so that the balloon might trail a little and reduce speed. it caught in an alder with a terrible jerk. quick as lightning he tore open one of the gores—and the balloon partly fell and was partly flung down into a copse of young birches.
stellan freed himself at once. he hastened to drag out his fellow passenger from below the torn, flapping and billowing balloon cloth. she had fainted....
274some people came running up and he made them carry her in. they had had the luck to land just beside a country house. then he rushed to the telephone and arranged for telegrams....
miss l?hnfeldt lay ill for a few days, till stellan one day stepped in to her with a bundle of swedish newspapers full of highly coloured descriptions of the unique and adventurous balloon flight of the well-known tennis player and rider, miss l?hnfeldt.
for the first time she looked at stellan with gratitude and approval.
stellan was invited to the autumn shoot at trefvinge. he gave a low whistle when he saw the name of miss l?hnfeldt and not her father on the invitation card. he understood that the invitation was from her and not from her father.
but he also whistled, though in another key, when he heard from the coachman that captain von strelert had already arrived. for it was equally evident that manne, baron manne von strelert was the guest of the count.
count l?hnfeldt had, as a matter of fact, been extremely angry over his daughter’s rash action. busybodies, of course, telephoned at once to trefvinge to tell him that his daughter had gone up in a balloon with captain selamb. in a balloon! it seemed almost indecent to him. he could not remember any really aristocratic ladies who had gone up in a balloon. and with that captain selamb into the bargain! from selambshof ... brother of peter selamb...!
when, later in the day, there came a telephone message from furusund that the balloon had been driven out to sea in the gale, then he regarded the information as a confirmation of his view that captain selamb was not the sort of gentleman that the daughter of count l?hnfeldt should 275go up in the air with. he was so extremely vexed that he scarcely felt any anxiety for the life of his only child.
towards evening he calmed down a little when he received a wire that they had landed at a quite respectable finnish-swedish country house. and when the following day he read in the papers of the brave and sporting action of a lady moving in the highest circles, and of the courage and the self-control of miss l?hnfeldt, daughter of the well-known count l?hnfeldt of the magnificent seat at trefvinge, well, then he thought at last that perhaps his daughter’s eccentricity had something aristocratic in it after all.
but from that admission to the approval of captain selamb as in any sort of capacity suitable company for his daughter was a long step,—so far stellan had not yet come, in spite of his well arranged stage management and press advertisement. it was therefore with measured dignity and a rather chilly expression that the lord of trefvinge received him. and this occurred in the largest and most splendid room of the castle, the great tapestry hall, which might well have subdued even the boldest.
“good-morning, captain selamb! my daughter is just dressing for a ride with baron von strelert.”
“yes, i heard that manne had promised to come for a few days,” answered stellan in a light, almost insolent, tone. he read the master of the house quite clearly, so clearly indeed that he sometimes was afraid of not being able to keep a straight face.
count l?hnfeldt was a very short man, in spite of the high heels and extra soles on his shoes. he had an extremely neat face. his words and his gestures were dignified, slow, and heraldically stiff. but his eyes showed a continual nervousness, the nervousness of the actor: “do i make an impression—do you believe in me?” they seemed to say.
alas, nobody believed at all in him. people made most 276impudent fun of him behind his back. he was generally called count loanfeldt, and the reason was known to everybody.
the owner of trefvinge was the son of an unmarried actress, but whilst still very young he married the extremely wealthy widow of a brewer, who died when his only daughter was born. the title of count was portuguese. he had received it from king charles, of the house of bragan?a, after having on a certain delicate occasion lent him a hundred thousand crowns. this happened in vienna whilst the monarch was still only crown prince. l?hnfeldt, who had quite early begun to imagine that his unknown father was a high-born aristocrat, did everything to correct the unjust fate that had given him a plebeian name, and when travelling he always used to try to come into contact with royalty. and now he had managed to procure rooms at the hotel adjoining the suite of the crown prince, charles. it struck him at once that the crown prince received a lot of people who did not behave with becoming reverence at all. when he questioned the porters, he shrugged his shoulders. the callers were simply creditors. a gentleman of his highness’ suite had gambled away all the funds, and for some incomprehensible reason no money arrived from home. he could not even pay his hotel bill.
herman bogislaus l?hnfeldt needed no more. he decided to intervene at once for the salvation of the monarchic principle. bowing, he stepped up to the crown prince charles and begged that an old admirer of the house of bragan?a might be allowed to hand over to its present august representative an humble gift of a hundred thousand crowns to be used for some charitable purpose.
the crown prince received the cheque with an amazed but gracious smile.
about half a year later, l?hnfeldt received two large letters with seals of state and portuguese stamps. one 277contained an account of the use to which his money had been put in an orphanage in lisbon, the other letter contained the letters patent of his title.
he rushed down to lisbon and threw himself at the feet of the newly crowned king charles. then he rushed home again to buy an estate as a background to his new dignity. and now he sat here at trefvinge, the ancestral home of the oxenstierna family, and tried to fill out the magnificent frame.
such was count l?hnfeldt’s history.
he had one great grief. the title was not hereditary. already in elvira’s childhood he would look at the little plebeian with compassion and melancholy. and when she grew up his only hope lay in a suitable marriage for her.
“you must marry, elvira,” he preached. “if you don’t marry you will remain plain ‘miss’ all your life.”
but it had not pleased miss elvira to marry yet. she was already nearing thirty. some suitors she had turned away herself, others had withdrawn of their own accord, to the great astonishment of all but the initiated.
neither stellan nor manne belonged to the initiated. but both were in such miserable circumstances. and they knew only too well each other’s business at trefvinge. all the same, they kept countenance when they met out in the sunshine on the steps, at least stellan did. manne was not quite so happy. the poor boy had of course arrived first at the mill but it hurt him all the same to stand in the way of an old friend. so he cast timid and remorseful glances at stellan when he helped miss elvira into the saddle.
she, on the other hand, seemed in excellent spirits this morning.
“come on, captain selamb,” she said with a little side-glance at her father. “c?sar ii is free. we are riding towards the sand pit.”
stellan’s voice sounded cold:
278“thank you, but i am too much handicapped.”
she shrugged her shoulders and gave her black mare a light cut with her whip. but manne sat still and looked as if he could not get going. stellan was cruel enough to wave a glove, with a meaning wink, to remind his friend of his faithlessness to “the glove.”
never before in his life had manne looked so lost on horseback. he suddenly set his bay to a gallop and followed his companion, who was already disappearing through the park gates.
stellan had settled on an entirely different plan of action to manne. he had made up his mind to be indifferent to miss l?hnfeldt so as to excite her spirit of contradiction, and to try to win the father instead. for that reason he at once began to display immense interest in the history of the castle. faithfully and indefatigably he accompanied the count, as he rattled out a whole armoury of dates, and roamed around like a parody of greatness in the many splendid apartments. patiently he sat for hours in the library amongst peerages, pedigrees, genealogies, and gotha-almanacs and listened to the anecdotes of the lord of the castle. count l?hnfeldt knew every anecdote concerning a prince.... then they walked outside and down the steps, and stellan duly admired the oxenstierna coat of arms cut in sandstone over the proud renaissance doorway. he sat with a becoming thrill of reverence on the seat round the giant oak which axel oxenstierna had planted with his own hand and in the shadow of which the count, like the previous owners of the castle, used to sit and marvel at “the small amount of wisdom that the world is ruled with” and grow horrified at the tendency of the time to level us all “like pigs’ feet.” stellan was surprised at himself that he need not sit silent at the feast but was also able to say something about oxenstierna. the moment before he had not suspected his knowledge. it had been the same at school long ago when lazy stellan 279always knew an answer after all. perhaps it was some kind of thought reading....
the count by and by worked himself up into stammering enthusiasm. oxenstierna! oxenstierna! it sounded as if he were speaking of his own ancestor. well, who knows if he had not some such thoughts. then he took stellan’s arm and drew him to the small chapel, of which he had the patronage, whose white-washed gable shone under the yellowing birches on the other side of the garden wall. he took the rather large key of the crypt out of a case he always carried in his pocket, and staggered in front of stellan down into the dusky vault. and over the richly carved oak and copper coffins he mumbled reverently a string of names of which most were well known in history, and stopped at last in front of a gigantic open coffin of porphyry, the lid of which was leaning against the wall.
“this,” he said, caressing the carvings on the lid, which depicted a bear with a little child on its back, “is the l?hnfeldt coat of arms. and here i shall one day rest my weary bones.”
you could hear from his tone that death had lost its bitterness for him since he would enter such distinguished company.
after all this the count was a little tired, and, excusing himself on the plea of important correspondence, he went up to take his little snooze before dinner, just like any ordinary human being.
stellan wandered about alone with his hands behind his back in the stately park of trefvinge. around him this september day he heard from the high tree tops a sharp sound, as from an over-tense string. in the clear transparent air a dry leaf floated slowly down to his feet with a fine even motion. it was a motion as symmetrical and regular as the shape of the leaf itself. he pondered for a moment on the static problem. then it struck him that 280even in his youth he had felt irritated that wealth and secure luxury should chase shadows and idle fancies in order to obtain a little excitement. he suddenly shivered with a light but penetrating dread. he realised here in the silence of the park in a way that he had never done before, that he, stellan selamb, was on the verge of ruin. “if i don’t succeed in this,” he thought, “there is no other way out than the revolver....”
stellan stood there with twitching face and a queer helpless movement of his right hand. what was the matter, were his nerves already giving way? “well, of course, one does not lead a life like mine without being punished for it,” he muttered. “strange that it comes like this in the stillness and not in the balloon out there over the sea, for instance....”
he took a few steps but halted again suddenly amongst the sunny patches on the hard dry road. the thought that she, elvira l?hnfeldt, was now riding by manne’s side irritated him like a noxious poison. he saw her suddenly in the light of anxious and trembling hope. he saw her as she had sat in the sunshine, light, straight, elegant on her nervous jet black horse. her assurance and her recklessness were thorns in his side. for a moment he found her really beautiful and desirable in her cool refinement. the brittle, overstrung elements in her character seemed to him to be in wonderful harmony with the beautiful autumn day. fancy if he might lead a calm and exquisite life together with this child of luxury and taste with her the joys of a satisfied ambition! even the thought of her secret infirmity seemed to him at this moment an additional refinement, a promise of a painless, concentrated life of pleasure.
stellan pulled himself up as if at a word of command. “damn it, i am not falling in love, i hope,” he thought. but the next moment his thought was: “no, dash it all, the fact is i have not slept for several nights!” he struck 281his leg with his stick: “keep cool! if you get sentimental, all is lost. she is nothing but a whimsical and obstinate child and you must conquer her through her whims and her obstinacy.”
for a moment stellan felt his head swim and the ground give way under his feet. this made him doubly reckless. partly from a kind of cruel sensuousness and partly to give himself courage, he began in imagination to undress her and lay bare her infirmity. “it is not the softest women who are the weakest,” he thought. “with all her arrogance and all her sport she is really a poor, delicate, and enfeebled creature. she is suffering from the disease of wealth, the sapping of strength of those who do not need to do anything for their living. and she can’t have children. the future is cut out of her body. whence can she derive any strong instincts difficult to conquer? no, she is really a very easy victim to one who is wise and reckless....”
stellan already smiled to himself. “no, my dear manne, you are too good natured,” he thought. “even from behind one can see when you are lying....”
then he hurried in to dress for dinner.
the evening of that same day, stellan and manne were standing out in the moonlight on the narrow balcony that ran outside their two rooms on the first floor. the host and hostess had already withdrawn and everything was quiet in the big house behind them.
stellan scrutinized his old friend. manne’s face was pale over his big white shirt front. there was really not much left of the old irrepressible manne von strelert.
“the old man isn’t exactly exciting,” stellan mumbled, pointing with his thumb towards the house. manne answered with unusual vehemence:
“why can’t he realize that he is behind the times with his aristocracy! that sort of thing originated in the middle ages, damn it all! and how he chews my poor ‘baron.’ 282heavens above, it makes me wish i were a grocer.”
stellan was amazed that manne should get excited so easily. he felt a strange cold satisfaction and continued pitilessly:
“my dear manne, you have not much respect for your prospective father-in-law.”
manne started as if he had been struck. he was unguarded and had no repartee ready. he put his hand on stellan’s arm and mumbled almost tenderly:
“stellan ... don’t let us talk about that any more....”
for a moment they stood silent, looking out into the blue shimmering night which was full of small fluttering creatures. below them the apple trees in the orchard were bowed down with fruit. further away a thin veil of mist lay over a meadow in which were some grazing cows whose white spots shone like newly washed clothes in the moonlight. and beyond the bright edging of yellow reeds the bay of lake m?lar lay dreaming with a narrow silver streak upon it that leapt into life when a breeze passed. still further there were reflections of the moon constantly appearing and disappearing where the water seemed to repose as calm as a mirror but was all the same stirred by a faint ground swell.
the whole atmosphere seemed full of the delicious coolness of rich ripe fruits, and full of the peace and calm of possession and ownership.
“fancy that there are people who lead quiet and happy lives,” mumbled manne.
stellan imitated his tone:
“yes, why are we not innocent vegetarians, feeding on carrots and staring at the moon.... nonsense! manne! nonsense! there are people who lead dull lives, and people who don’t. let us as long as possible belong to the latter! now is the hour of lovers and gamblers.”
he suddenly made a gesture embracing the castles and the acres of trefvinge.
283“look here, manne, all this that seems so safe and still—shall we cut through the pack for it tonight?”
when these words escaped stellan he had still no second thought. it looked as if manne did not at first understand what he meant. he remained silent for a long time, but then he mumbled too:
“yes. let’s cut for it.”
there was a strange dull note of relief in his voice. it was as if his friend had relieved him of the burden of willing and choosing for himself.
thoughts flashed quick as lightning through stellan’s brain. it was now that he began to feel a strange assurance that he would somehow win. his words came quick, like rapier thrusts:
“i have an unopened pack of cards with me. we will simply back our luck. he who draws the highest heart stays. the other leaves early tomorrow morning on the clear understanding that he does not intend to come back.”
manne was paler than ever and had a vacant look in his eyes:
“right you are!”
stellan ran inside to his room and searched for the cards. the lamp was not lit. he had to search for a long time in his suit case. meanwhile he was thinking swift as lightning. “manne must not draw the highest heart,” he thought, “no, not this time. for then all is over with me....” the shiver and the dizziness he had felt in the park returned. “no, manne must not draw the highest card....” at last he found the pack of cards, picked it up with trembling hands and pressed his thumb nail hard into the edge of the ace of hearts as it peeped out through the round hole in the wrapper. there must be quite a noticeable mark on the other side ... stellan had not premeditated this, had never before done anything of the kind. he felt something approaching surprise.
284“well, that is what we selambs do,” he muttered to himself. quickly he went back to manne’s room and flung the pack on the table:
“you open the pack and shuffle!”
manne took up the pack and shuffled slowly, almost indifferently. stellan sat down opposite him.
“we must avoid misunderstandings,” he said. “the two is lowest and the ace highest, isn’t that so?”
“good!”
with a gesture indicative of long practice manne spread the cards out fan-like on the polished surface of the mahogany table:
“you draw first, as i shuffled.”
stellan’s eyes looked searchingly at the fan for the marked card. no, he could not see it. he must gain time. he opened his cigarette case:
“let us smoke a cigarette together, before we draw. it will be the most exquisite cigarette we ever smoked together. a cigarette with fate....”
“all right!”
the cigarettes were finished. stellan had to draw. now he saw the ace on the extreme right. the little mark on the back of the card was noticeable in a tiny reflection from the lamp. stellan had a feeling of being lifted off the floor, of soaring. but he did not dare to draw the ace at once. that would have looked too strange. he had to minimize the risk.
“look here, manne,” he said, smilingly. “supposing i draw a low heart straight off and you draw a club. then it would be sudden death. that would be idiotic extravagance with our precious excitement. we will continue to draw till each of us has at least one heart and after that the highest wins.”
“all right,” said manne. his tone had become more and more obviously indifferent.
stellan drew the nine of clubs. he saw manne’s hand 285hovering over the cards with cold excitement. but it stopped at the harmless end and drew the ace of spades.
next draw. not even now could stellan make up his mind to take the ace of hearts. he drew a card beside it, thinking that manne, in obedience to some psychological law, would try his luck at the other end. he drew the two of clubs.
manne drew the knave of hearts. a cry escaped him. it sounded as if he had hurt himself.
stellan had not drawn a heart yet. now he had to take it. he felt strangely frightened. it seemed as if he were about to put his hand into somebody else’s purse. he felt as if all his fellow officers were sitting round him staring at his fingers. “no, damn it, what am i really doing,” he thought. then he pulled himself together. “bah—you must throw out ballast—keep afloat. and nobody knows!”
he turned up the ace.
manne leaned back in his chair with a little tired smile, a smile of sad, weary, pathetic relief.
“congratulations,” he muttered, “congratulations. fate was right that time, perfectly right.”
they smoked for a moment in silence. stellan wanted to say something encouraging but could not get the words over his lips. it was manne who took up the thread again:
“i say, stellan, don’t you sometimes shudder at life ... and yourself?”
“when some excitement is over, i sometimes feel discomfort....”
manne’s voice sounded childishly pleading:
“yes, but stellan, have you never experienced moments when you really shudder at yourself ... at all the miserable and damnable things one has done?”
“no, i have never permitted myself that luxury.”
marine looked at him with a mien in which for the first time there was something of a stranger.
286“you are a bit of a barbarian after all, my dear stellan,” he mumbled, “you have a queer insensibility on which to fall back. i am damned if i know how it is but i have never been able to will anything when i have been with you. but i will tell you this much, i should never have entered into this folly if i had not made up my mind beforehand to escape from it all. it’s disquieting to play for a living human being.... no, away with it all....”
“my dear manne, i can’t help it if you only drew a knave of hearts,” mumbled stellan coldly.
“no, old boy, of course you can’t, but that’s not the point. i have felt the whole time that this was impossible. you don’t understand what a human being can feel like, stellan. i played only because you proposed it. for twenty years i have not done anything else but what you proposed. i am a wretch. and you, stellan, what are you? imagine! i have known you for so long and yet i don’t even know that. it’s strange, but tonight ... i almost seem to catch a glimpse of you, after all. yes, you are one of those who succeed in everything. you remain a selamb. and all the same i am somehow sorry for you, stellan. yes, i feel damned sorry for you, because, you see, there is something in life that you would never understand if you lived to be a hundred....”
manne had never been known to make so long a speech before. stellan stood up and patted him on the shoulders.
“my dear manne, now you are ready for a rest,” he said.
“that’s right ... ready for a rest,” muttered manne, and gave stellan a hand which at first was limp, but afterwards pressed hard the hand of his friend.
thus they separated.
if manne had realized, about ten years earlier, all he realized that night, his life would perhaps have been shaped differently.
stellan did not go to bed immediately. the genial mists of sleep seemed to have flown into the infinite distance. he 287stood in the moonlight leaning against the stone parapet of the balcony and felt how its chill mounted from his hands to his chest. his thoughts multiplied mechanically and spread like hoar frost. he thought of his own life. “i have been an incurable gambler,” he thought. “well, what of it—it requires courage after all, that flirtation with fate. you can say what you like but i have been a dare-devil. chance has been my god and i have not betrayed him....”
cold and penetrating a voice returned the answer he had expected all the time: “not until tonight. you marked the cards. you were frightened, stellan selamb, frightened....”
stellan was not, for the moment, thinking of manne, whom he had seduced into gambling, from whom he had won, and whom he now knew to be destitute. no, he only heard the voice that had called him afraid: so cold and selfish can conscience be.
“no, i was not at all frightened,” he protested. “the fact is that i at last perceived my own stupidity. what the devil is the use of relying on chance. chance is the fool of necessity, nothing else. and we have been the fools of the fool. if everything is a mathematical certainty what the deuce does it matter if i dig my nail into an ace of hearts!”
but it is dangerous to betray one’s god even if he is a fool. the pitiless voice was not silenced: “you stole your friend’s last chance, stellan selamb, you are no longer a gambler, you are a thief, a cowardly thief.”
stellan shuddered. that is the worst that can happen to a man of his stamp—to doubt his own courage. he discovers all at once all the things he has neglected to be afraid of. the stone parapet felt dreadfully cold. it positively made his hands stiff. but he could not let go. the moon seemed to breathe a silent, cold threat. what lies were told about the moon? a dead world! the death’s 288head from space grinned into his face. stellan suddenly looked round with an uncertain look. behind him rose the high white fa?ade like a wall of snow. it struck a chill into his back. and behind it slept the woman without a future, the woman whose bosom was a tomb. was it not almost suicide to take such a half dead creature to wife?
“why do i stand here in the moonlight,” he thought. “am i alive or am i only a ghost?”
yes, the moment of agony had come to stellan selamb as it comes to everybody. he felt a cruel fear. but it was not the fear that is the beginning of wisdom. he had gracefully skated on the outside edge on the smooth ice of prejudices and fictions. but now he had fallen through into deep reality. “ugh—this seems to be bottomless! yes, the world is as deep as my fears.”
stellan came down late the following morning and found count l?hnfeldt in an evident bad temper at captain von strelert’s sudden and unceremonious departure.
but out on the parapet of the steps elvira sat already impatiently waiting for her ride. she laughed and shrugged her shoulders:
“the baron has already run away,” she said. “it was not an orderly retreat, it was precipitate flight.”
the morning sun and the ride helped stellan to recover himself. after the ghostly visions of the night he enjoyed feeling c?sar’s fine shoulders working beneath him. the coolness of the rushing air around his forehead and temples mingled exquisitely with the gentle innocent warmth of the beautiful, gleaming body of the horse. stellan did not feel exactly tired, only strangely unsubstantial and fragile.
they were riding in silence and he kept a little behind. he could not understand his feelings yesterday in the park. no, today he looked at her more critically than 289ever. even during the ride when she appeared to greater advantage than otherwise he found in her something attenuated, tense, unsexed, that left his instincts cold and unmoved. but that did not worry him now. it was rather a relief. it somehow made the thing easier. for one always feels it is easier to reach a goal that one does not long for too intensely. and it was high time. tomorrow the rest of the shooting party was due to arrive, and then it might be difficult to find an opportunity.
stellan tried to imagine how his rejected predecessors had behaved under similar circumstances. of course they had stopped her in a narrow concealed forest path where the horses had been forced close together and were caressing each other’s noses in the twilight of the pines. and then they had avowed their intentions in the traditional style and received a shrug of the shoulders for an answer.
stellan made up his mind that she should hear something different.
he chose a moment when they were stopped by a floating bridge which was open to let pass a sand barge that was just being slowly towed through. his tone was as cold as possible:
“miss l?hnfeldt, what would you say to a shoot in africa?”
she really looked surprised.
“a shoot in africa?”
“yes, up the nile, for instance. to shoot hippopotamuses, crocodiles, lions. you get a licence in cairo and hire a boat, a comfortable house-boat, and a few niggers.”
“well ... yes ... perhaps it would be an idea ... since we can’t go to the moon....”
“and how do you think i would be as manager and courier then?”
“well ... perhaps....”
“would you like to try it with me?”
“i am afraid it would be a bit difficult to arrange.”
290“not if we got married....”
she suddenly looked straight at him, defiantly, nervously. her voice was hard, almost shrill.
“i am ... an invalid....”
“and i am ruined....”
a moment before stellan had never meant to say anything of the kind; he only had a clear feeling that he must be absolutely unsentimental. but he did not regret it. a brutal sincerity may sometimes be the most refined of lies.
the barge had at last passed through and sailed on. stellan continued in a different and more passionate tone:
“i don’t seek any repetition of my life’s former adventures. what is most exquisite in you, elvira, is that you are ... free. heaven protect me from those women who only breathe the nursery. no, there is a different and more robust air about you, an air in which one can breathe. i have never dreamt of such courage in a woman as you showed up in the rigging of the balloon. i sincerely believe that we together might do something bold and great with our lives.”
“to begin with, we should make father furious,” she said in a voice that did not sound at all distressed at the prospect. then she suddenly turned her horse and started off homewards at a sharp gallop.
stellan followed silent and pale, with lips pressed tight together, without knowing what to think. it was exactly the same feeling as he had in the presence of the roulette ball. through his head a ridiculous thought flashed. “be bold and take your courage in both hands. i never talked about courage till i began to doubt it. and now just because i am afraid i shall fling down my courage as if it were the ace of trumps in the highest suit. it will be a continuation of yesterday’s little cheating game.”
291and he felt how chill self-contempt was beginning to grow up out of the events of the night....
not until they had arrived at the broad steps did the whirling ball stop. then the princess of the palace reined in her horse and graciously stretched out her hand with a quick nervous smile:
“well, all right then....”
stellan did not kiss her riding glove. in front of the groom he bent quickly forward and pressed his lips to her cheek.
she kept her countenance.
“well, one can still live, even with a little self-contempt,” he thought, when of her own accord she put her arm through his on the steps. he was right. nothing really improves your chances better in the game of life.
elvira was right in saying her father would be furious. the little man positively swelled with wounded dignity, when stellan came to ask for his daughter’s hand. elvira hastened to point out that she was of age and could do as she liked, but then he threatened to cast her off, to disinherit her. yes, he would give all he possessed to the house of nobles. she tore his heart to pieces when she reminded him in a dry tone that all he possessed came from her mother and that she had her own inheritance from her mother. to be the head of the noble family of l?hnfeldt, and to hear such words from a degenerate plebeian daughter was truly terrible. he summoned to his assistance all the great departed of the castle to fight his fight against his blind and irreverent daughter. he painted in wonderful colours the brilliant and distinguished future she was thoughtlessly flinging away. he threatened to descend on her wedding day into the big porphyry coffin in the crypt below the church.
goodness only knows if elvira would have had the strength to struggle on, had not the old man’s mad and 292obstinate resistance suddenly received a blow. a few weeks later a scandal occurred in society that put the count’s superstitious belief in the aristocrat to a severe test.
his own choice, baron manne von strelert, captain of the horse guards, had shot himself after having forged count l?hnfeldt’s signature on a bill for twenty thousand crowns. then the lord of trefvinge at last gave in, sighing. poor manne had served stellan even unto death....
where manne had hidden those lost twenty thousand crowns was never quite cleared up. but amongst his fellow officers there was some talk about “the glove,” having taken fine new business premises immediately after his death and having considerably increased her business.
stellan was married at the end of november. there was a splendid ceremony in church with many decorations and uniforms. peter was promised higher interest on his loans on the condition that he was ill and absent from the celebrations.
the general opinion was that the bridegroom looked a little stiff and aged.
the pair set out immediately for africa for their shoot.
while the rice pattered against the window of the reserved carriage decorated with flowers, people outside on the platform whispered to each other that there was not much risk in this couple penetrating into africa, as everybody knew that nothing could happen to the bride.
