- Project Runeberg -  Jenny /
219

(1921) Author: Sigrid Undset
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nightdress well over her feet. She sat with her arms folded round
her knees, her little dark head making a black shadow on the
curtain.

“Jenny, I am going home tomorrow. I will send a wire to
Lennart early in the morning and leave in the afternoon. You
must stay here as long as you like, and don’t think me very
inconsiderate, but I dare not stay. I must go at once.” She
was breathing heavily. “I cannot understand it, Jenny. I
have seen him. He kissed me, and I did not strike him. I
listened to all he had to say, and I did not strike him in the
face as I ought to have done. I don’t care for him—I know
that now—and yet he has power over me. I am afraid. I
dare not stay, because I don’t know what he might make me
do. When I think of him now I hate him, but when he speaks
to me I seem to get petrified; and I could not believe that
anybody could be so cynical, so brutal, so shameless.

“It seems as if he does not understand there is such a thing
as honour or shame; they do not exist for him, and he does not
believe that anybody else cares for them either. His point of
view is that our talking of right and wrong is only speculation,
and when I hear him speak I seem to get hypnotized. I have
been with him all the afternoon, listening to his talk. He said
that as I was married now I need not be so careful about my
virtue any longer, or something to that effect, and he alluded
to his being free again, so as to give me some hope, I suppose.
He kissed me in the park and I wanted to scream, but could
not make a sound. Oh, I was so afraid. He said he would
come here the day after tomorrow—they were going to have
a party tomorrow—and all the time he smiled at me with
that same smile I was always so afraid of in the old days.

“Don’t you think I ought to go home when I feel like this?”

“Yes; I think so.”

“I am a goose, I know. I cannot rely upon myself, as you

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