Book: Invisible Links

S >> Selma Lagerlof >> Invisible Links




He looks at her, a little offended. "This once!--as if I were a
tyrant over you. No, do you see. I cannot; just for that word I
think that I ought not to yield."

"Do not cling to a word, Maurits. This means more than polite
phrases. I think it is not well of you to wish to cheat Uncle now
when he has been so good to us."

"Be quiet, Anne-Marie, be quiet! What do you understand of
business?" His whole manner is now irritatingly calm and superior.
He looks at her as a schoolmaster looks at a good pupil who is
making a fool of himself at his examination.

"That you do not at all understand what is at stake!" she cries.
And she strikes out despairingly with her hands.

"I really must talk to Uncle now," says Maurits, "if for nothing
else, to show him that there is no question of any deceit. You
behave so that Uncle can believe that I and my father are veritable
cheats."

And he comes forward to his uncle and explains to him what these
shares which his father wishes to sell him are. Uncle Theodore
listens to him as well as he can. He understands instantly that
his brother has made a bad speculation and wishes to protect
himself from loss. But what of it, what of it? He is accustomed to
render to the whole family connection such services. But he is not
thinking of that, but of Downie. He wonders what is the meaning of
that look of resentment she casts upon Maurits. It was not exactly
love.

And so in the midst of his despair over the sacrifice he has to
make, a faint glimmer of hope begins to rise up before him. He
stands and stares at it like a man who is sleeping in a haunted
room and sees a light mist rise from the floor and condense and
grow and become a tangible reality.

"Come with me into my room, Maurits," he says; "you shall have the
money immediately."

But while he speaks his eyes rest on Downie to see if the ghost can
be prevailed upon to speak. But as yet he sees only dumb despair in
her.

But he has hardly sat down by the desk in his room when the door
opens and Anne-Marie comes in.

"Uncle Theodore," she says, very firmly and decidedly, "do not buy
those papers!"

Ah, such courage, Downie! Who would have believed it of you who had
seen you three days ago, when you sat at Maurits's side in the
chaise and seemed to shrink and grow smaller for every word he said.

Now she needs all her courage, for Maurits is angry in earnest.

"Hold your tongue!" he hisses at her, and then roars to make
himself heard by Uncle Theodore, who is sitting at his desk and
counting notes.

"What is the matter with you? The shares give no interest now; I
have told Uncle that; but Uncle knows as well as I that they will
pay. Do you think Uncle will let himself be cheated by one like me?
Uncle surely understands those things better than any of us. Has it
ever been my intention to give out these shares as good? Have I
said anything but that for him who can wait it may be a good affair?"

Uncle Theodore says nothing; he only hands a package of notes to
Maurits. He wonders if this will make the ghost speak.

"Uncle," says the little intractable proclaimer of the truth, for
it is a known fact that no one can be more intractable than those
soft, delicate creature when they are in the right, "these shares
are not worth a shilling and will never be. We all know it at home
there."

"Anne-Marie, you make me out a scoundrel!"

She surveys him all over as if her eyes were the moving blades of a
pair of scissors, and she cuts off him bit by bit everything in
which she had clothed him; and when at last she sees him in all the
nakedness of egotism and selfishness, her terrible little tongue
passes sentence upon him:--

"What else are you?"

"Anne-Marie!"

"Yes, what else are we both," continues the merciless tongue,
which, since it has once started, finds it best to clear up this
matter which has tortured her conscience ever since she has begun
to realize that this rich man who owned this big estate had a heart
too which could suffer and yearn. So while her tongue is so well
started and all shyness seems to have fallen from her, she says:--

"When we placed ourselves in the chaise at home there, what did we
think? What did we talk about on the way? About how we would
deceive him there. 'You must be brave, Anne-Marie,' you said. 'And
you must be crafty, Maurits,' I said. We thought only of
ingratiating ourselves. We wished to have much and we wished to
give nothing except hypocrisy. It was not our intention to say:
'Help us, because we are poor and care for one another,' but we
were to flatter and fawn until Uncle was charmed by me or by you;
that was our intention. But we meant to give nothing in return;
neither love nor respect nor even gratitude. And why did you not
come alone, why must I come too? You wished to show me to him; you
wished me to--to--"

Uncle Theodore rises when he sees Maurits raise his hand against
her. For now he has finished counting, and follows what is passing
with his heart swelling with hope. His heart flies wide open to
receive her as she now screams and runs into his arms, runs there
without hesitation or consideration, quite as if there were no
other place on earth to which to run.

"Uncle, he will strike me!"

And she presses close, close to him.

But Maurits is now calm again. "Forgive my impetuosity, Anne-Marie,"
he says. "It hurt me to hear you speak in such a childish way in
Uncle's presence. But Uncle must also understand that you are only
a child. Still I grant that not even the most just wrath gives a
man the right to strike a woman. Come here now and kiss me. You
need not seek protection from me with anybody."

She does not move, does not turn, only clings more closely.

"Downie, shall I let him take you?" whispers Uncle Theodore.

She answers only with a shudder, which quivers through him also.

Uncle Theodore feels so strong, so inspired. He, too, no longer
sees his perfect nephew as before in the bright light of his
perfection. He dares to jest with him.

"Maurits," he says, "you surprise me. Love makes you weak. Can you
so promptly forgive her having called you a scoundrel? You must
break with her instantly. Your honor, Maurits, think of your honor!
Nothing in the world can permit a woman to insult a man. Place
yourself in the chaise, my boy, and go away without this abandoned
creature! It is only pure and simple justice after such an insult."

As he finishes this speech, he puts his big hands about her head
and bends it back so that he can kiss her forehead.

"Give up this abandoned creature!" he repeats.

But now Maurits begins to understand also. He sees the light in
Uncle Theodore's eyes and how one smile after the other dances over
his lips.

"Come, Anne-Marie!"

She starts. Now he calls her as the man to whom she has promised
herself. She feels she must obey. And she lets go of Uncle Theodore
so suddenly that he cannot stop her, but she cannot go to Maurits;
so she slides down to the floor and there she remains sitting and
sobs.

"Go home alone in your chaise, Maurits," says Uncle Theodore
sharply. "This young lady is guest in my house as yet, and I intend
to protect her from your interference."

He no longer thinks of Maurits, but only to lift her up, dry her
tears and whisper that he loves her.

Maurits, who sees them, the one weeping, the other comforting,
cries: "Oh, this is a conspiracy! I am tricked! This is a comedy!
You have stolen my betrothed from me and you mock me! You let me
call one who never intends to come! I congratulate you on this
affair, Anne-Marie!"

As he rushes out and slams the door, he calls back: "Fortune-hunter!"

Uncle Theodore makes a movement as if to go after him and chastise
him, but Downie holds him back.

"Ah, Uncle Theodore, do let Maurits have the last word. Maurits is
always right. Fortune-hunter,--that is just what I am, Uncle Theodore."

She creeps again close to him without hesitation, without question.
And Uncle Theodore is quite confused; just now she was weeping and
now she is laughing; just now she was going to marry one man and
now she is caressing another. Then she lifts up her head and
smiles: "Now I am your little dog. You cannot be rid of me."

"Downie," says Uncle Theodore with his gruffest voice: "You have
known it the whole time!"

She began to whisper: "Had my brother--"

"And yet you wished, Downie--Maurits is lucky to be rid of you.
Such a foolish, deceitful, hypocritical Downie, such an unreliable
little wisp, such a, such a--"

***

Ah, Downie, ah, silken flower! You were certainly not a fortune-hunter
only; you were also a fortune-giver, otherwise there would be
nothing left of your happy peace in the house where you lived. To
this day the garden is shaded by big beeches and the birch tree
trunks stand there white and spotless from the root upwards. To
this day the snake suns himself in peace on the slope, and in the
pond in the park swims a carp which is so old that no boy has the
heart to catch it. And when I come there, I feel that there is
festival in the air, and it seems as if the birds and flowers still
sang their beautiful songs of you.



AMONG THE CLIMBING ROSES

I could wish that the people with whom I have spent my summer would
let their glance fall on these lines. Now when the cold, dark
nights have come, I should like to carry their thoughts back to
that bright, warm season.

Above all, I should like to remind them of the climbing-roses that
enclosed the veranda, of the delicate, somewhat thin foliage of the
clematis, which in the sunlight as well as in the moonlight was
drawn in dark gray shadows on the light gray stone floor and threw
a light lace-like veil over everything, and of its big, bright
blossoms with their ragged edges.

Other summers remind me of fields of clover, or of birch-woods, or
of apple-trees and berry bushes, but that summer took its character
from the climbing-roses. The bright, delicate buds, that could
resist neither wind nor rain, the light, waving, pale-green shoots,
the soft, bending stems, the exuberant richness of blossoms, the
gaily humming hosts of insects, all follow me and rise up before me
in their glory, when I think of that summer, that rosy, delicate,
dainty summer.

Now, when the time for work has come, people often ask me how I
passed my summer. Then everything glides from my memory, and it
seems to me as if I had sat day in and day out on the veranda
behind the climbing roses and breathed in fragrance and sunshine.
What did I do? Oh, I watched others work.

There was a little upholsterer bee which worked from morning till
night, from night till morning. From the soft, green leaves it
sawed out a neat little oval with its sharp jaws, rolled it
together as one rolls up a real carpet, and with the precious
burden pressed to it, it fluttered away to the park and lighted on
an old tree stump. There it burrowed down through dark passage-ways
and mysterious galleries, until at last it reached the bottom of a
perpendicular shaft. In its unknown depths, where neither ant nor
centipede ever had ventured, it spread out the green leaf roll and
covered the uneven floor with the most beautiful carpet. And when
the floor was covered, the bee came back for new leaves to cover
the walls of the shaft, and worked so quickly and eagerly, that
there was soon not a leaf in the rose hedge that did not have an
oval hole which bore testimony that it had been forced to assist in
the adorning of the old tree-stump.

One fine day the little bee changed its occupation. It bored deep
in among the ragged petals of the full-blown roses, sucked and
drank all it could in those beautiful larders, and when it had got
its fill, it flew quickly away to the old stump to fill the
freshly-papered chambers with brightest honey.

The little upholsterer bee was not the only one who worked in the
rose-bushes. There was also a spider, a quite unparalleled spider.
It was bigger than any spider I have ever seen; it was bright
orange with a clearly marked cross on its back, and it had eight
long, red-and-white striped legs, all equally well marked. You
ought to have seen it spin! Every thread was drawn out with the
greatest precision from the first ones that were only for supports
to the last fine connecting thread. And you should have seen it
balance its way along the slender threads to seize a fly or to take
its place in the middle of the web, motionless, patient, waiting
for hours.

That big, orange spider won my heart; he was so patient and so
wise. Every day he had his little encounter with the upholsterer
bee, and he always came out of the affair with the same unfailing
tact. The bee who took his way close by him caught time and time
again in his net. Instantly it began to buzz and tear; it dragged
at the fine web and behaved like a mad thing, which naturally
resulted in its being more and more entangled and getting both legs
and wings wound up in the sticky net.

As soon as the bee was exhausted and weakened, the spider came
creeping out to it. It kept always at a respectful distance, but
with the extreme end of one of the beautiful, red striped legs it
gave the bee a little push, so that it swung round in the web. When
the bee had again buzzed and raged itself tired, it received
another gentle shove, and then another and yet another, until it
spun round like a top and did not know what it was doing in its
fury, and became so confused that it could not defend itself. But
during the whirling the threads that held it fast twisted ever more
tightly, till the tension became so great that they broke, and the
bee fell to the ground. Yes, that was what the spider had wished,
of course.

And that performance could they repeat, those two, day after day as
long as the bee had work in the rose-bushes. Never could the little
bee learn to look out for the spider-web, and never did the spider
show anger or impatience. I liked them both; the little, eager,
furry worker, as well as the big, crafty, old hunter.

Very few great events happened in the garden of the climbing roses.
Between the espaliers one could see the little lake lying and
twinkling in the sunlight. And it was a lake which was too little
and too shut in to be able to heave in real waves, but at every
little ripple on the gray surface thousands of small sparkles that
glistened and played on the waves flew up; it seemed as if its
depths had been full of fire that could not get out. And it was the
same with the summer life there; it was usually so quiet, but if
there came the slightest, little ripple--oh, how it could shine
and glitter!

We needed nothing great to make us happy. A flower or a bird could
make us merry for several hours, not to speak of the upholsterer
bee. I shall never forget what pleasure I had once on his account.

The bee had been in the spider-web as usual, and the spider had as
usual helped him out; but it had been fastened so securely that it
had had to buzz a dreadfully long time and had been very tamed and
subdued when it had flown away. I bent forward to see if the
spider-web had suffered much damage. Fortunately it had not; but on
the other hand a little yellow larva was caught in the web, a
little threadlike monster, which consisted of only jaws and claws,
and I was agitated, really agitated, at the sight of it.

I knew them, those May-bug larvae, that in thousands crawl up on
the flowers and hide themselves under their petals. Did I not know
them and yet admire them, those bold, cunning parasites, that sit
hidden and wait, only wait, even if it is for weeks, until a bee
comes, in whose yellow and black down they can hide. And did I not
know their hateful skill just when the little cell-builder has
filled a room with honey and on its surface laid the egg from which
the rightful owner of the cell and the honey will come forth, just
then to creep down on the egg and with careful balancing sit on it
as on a boat; for if they should come down into the honey; they
would drown. And while the bee covers the thimble-like cell with a
green roof and carefully shuts in its young one, the yellow larva
tears open n the egg with its sharp jaws and devours its contents,
while the egg-shell has still to serve as craft on the dangerous
honey-sea.

But gradually the little yellow larva grows flat and big and can
swim by itself on the honey acid drink of it, and in the course
of time a fat, black beetle comes out of the bee-cell. It is
certain that this is not what the little bee wished to effect by
its work, and however cunningly and cleverly the beetle may
have behaved, it is nevertheless nothing but a lazy parasite,
who deserves no sympathy.

And my bee, my own little, industrious bee, bad flown about with
such a yellow hanger-on in its down. But while the spider had spun
round with it, the larva had loosened and fallen down on the
spider-web, and now the big, orange spider came and gave it a bite
and transformed it in a second into a skeleton without life or
substance.

When the little bee came again, its humming was like a hymn to
life.

"Oh, thou beauteous life," it said. "I thank thee that happy work
among roses and sunshine has fallen to my lot. I thank thee that I
can enjoy thee without anxiety or fear.

"Well I know that spiders lie in wait and beetles steal, but happy
work is mine, and brave freedom from care. Oh, thou beauteous life,
thou glorious existence!"

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