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Marie sighed and returned to the window. She looked
down into the cool, green graveyard of St. Nikolaj, at the
red walls of the church, over the tarnished copper roof of
the castle, past the royal dockyard and ropewalk around
to the slender spire of East Gate, past the gardens and
wooden cottages of Hallandsaas, to the bluish Sound
melting into the blue sky, where softly moulded cloud-masses
were drifting to the Skaane shore.
Three months had passed since she came to Copenhagen.
When she left home she had supposed that life in the
residential city must be something vastly different from what
she had found. It had never occurred to her that she might
be more lonely there than at Tjele Manor, where, in truth,
she had been lonely enough. Her father had never been
a companion to her, for he was too entirely himself to be
anything to others. He never became young when he spoke
to fourteen years nor feminine when he addressed a little
maid. He was always on the shady side of fifty and always
Erik Grubbe.
As for his concubine, who ruled as though she were
indeed mistress of the house, the mere sight of her was enough
to call out all there was of pride and bitterness in Marie.
This coarse, domineering peasant woman had wounded
and tortured her so often that the girl could hardly hear
her step without instantly and half unconsciously
hardening into obstinacy and hatred. Little Anne, her half-sister,
was sickly and spoiled, which did not make it easier to get
along with her, and to crown all, the mother made the
child her excuse for abusing Marie to Erik Grubbe.
Who, then, were her companions?
She knew every path and road in Bigum woods, every
cow that pastured in the meadows, every fowl in the
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