Madam Neoteric

White alders, bluish lilac, red hawthorn, and radiant laburnum were in flower and gave forth their fragrance in front of the house. The windows were open and the blinds were drawn. Mogens leaned in over the sill and the blinds lay on his back. It was grateful to the eye after all the summer-sun on forest and water and in the air to look into the subdued, soft, quiet light of a room. A tall woman of opulent figure stood within, the back toward the window, and was putting flowers in a large vase. The waist of her pink morning-gown was gathered high up below the bosom by a shining black leather-belt; on the floor behind her lay a snow-white dressing-jacket; her abundant, very blond hair was hanging in a bright-red net.

“You look rather pale after the celebration last night,” was the first thing Mogens said.

“Good-morning,” she replied and held out without turning around her hand with the flowers in it towards him. Mogens took one of the flowers. Laura turned the head half towards him, opened her hand slightly and let the flowers fall to the floor in little lots. Then she again busied herself with the vase.

“Ill?” asked Mogens.

“Tired.”

“I won’t eat breakfast with you to-day.”

“No?”

“We can’t have dinner together either.”

“You are going fishing?”

“No—­Good-by!”

“When are you coming back?”

“I am not coming back.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asked arranging her gown; she went to the window, and there sat down on the chair.

“I am tired of you. That’s all.”

“Now you are spiteful, what’s the matter with you? What have I done to you?”

“Nothing, but since we are neither married nor madly in love with each other, I don’t see anything very strange in the fact, that I am going my own way.”

“Are you jealous?” she asked very softly.

“Of one like you! I haven’t lost my senses!”

“But what is the meaning of all this?”

“It means that I am tired of your beauty, that I know your voice and your gestures by heart, and that neither your whims nor your stupidity nor your craftiness can any longer entertain me. Can you tell me then why I should stay?”

Laura wept. “Mogens, Mogens, how can you have the heart to do this? Oh, what shall I, shall I, shall I, shall I do! Stay only today, only to-day, Mogens. You dare not go away from me!”

“Those are lies, Laura, you don’t even believe it yourself. It is not because you think such a terrible lot of me, that you are distressed now. You are only a little bit alarmed because of the change, you are frightened because of the slight disarrangement of your daily habits. I am thoroughly familiar with that, you are not the first one I have gotten tired of.”

“Oh, stay with me only to-day, I won’t torment you to stay a single hour longer.

“You really are dogs, you women! You haven’t a trace of fine feelings in your body. If one gives you a kick, you come crawling back again.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what we do, but stay only for to-day—­won’t you—­stay!”

“Stay, stay! No!”

“You have never loved me, Mogens!”

“No!”

“Yes, you did; you loved me the day when there was such a violent wind, oh, that beautiful day down at the sea-shore, when we sat in the shelter of the boat.”

“Stupid girl!”

“If I only were a respectable girl with fine parents, and not such a one as I am, then you would stay with me; then you would not have the heart to be so hard—­and I, who love you so!”

“Oh, don’t bother about that.”

“No, I am like the dust beneath your feet, you care no more for me. Not one kind word, only hard words; contempt, that is good enough for me.”

“The others are neither better nor worse than you. Good-by, Laura!”

He held out his hand to her, but she kept hers on her back and wailed: “No, no, not good-by! not good-by!”

Mogens raised the blind, stepped back a couple of paces and let it fall down in front of the window. Laura quickly leaned down over the window-sill beneath it and begged: “Come to me! come and give me your hand.”

“No.”

When he had gone a short distance she cried plaintively:

“Good-by, Mogens!”

He turned towards the house with a slight greeting. Then he walked on: “And a girl like that still believes in love!—­no, she does not!”

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