Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part IV - VI
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The old woman, a coquette still at the age of sixty,
had always inspired me with mingled feelings of
compassion and dislike; mean, pleasure-loving, with the
manners of an adventuress, a veritable “man-eater,” she
regarded every man as her legitimate prey. She had
made me support her sister; she had deceived her first
son-in-law, the Baron, with the story of a dowry swindled
out of one of her creditors.
Poor Marie! Her remorse, her unrest, her dark moods
were rooted in that shady past. In putting old events by
the side of new ones I had the key to the quarrels between
mother and daughter, brutal quarrels, frequently verging
on violence. I could understand Marie’s hitherto
incomprehensible words, “I could kick my mother!”
Had her game been to silence the old woman?
Probably; for the latter had threatened to ruin our lives by
confessing “everything.”
There could have been no doubt of Marie’s dislike for
her mother, to whom the Baron frequently referred as
“that old blackguard,” an invective which he justified
with the half-truth that she had taught her daughter all
the tricks of coquetry to enable her to catch a husband.
All these coincidents strengthened my determination to
separate from her. It had to be! There was no
alternative. And I left for Copenhagen to make inquiries into
the past of the woman in whose keeping I had confided
my honour.
In meeting my countrymen after several years’ absence
I found that they had formed very definite opinions of
me; the eager exertions of Marie and her friends had
borne fruit. She was a holy martyr; I was a madman,
whose lunacy consisted in believing himself to be saddled
with an unfaithful wife.
Make inquiries? It was like beating my head against
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