menu_book Chapter 24

part three chapter three of jenny by sigrid unset translated by w emma this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by expatriate in bangor maine part three chapter three hegan had left the colonel and borghild had returned and gone again to pay a visit to a married sister of francesca's jenny and cesca were alone and they went about by themselves deep in their own thoughts jenny was convinced now of her condition but she had not been able to realize what it all meant if she tried to think of the future her imagination stood still she was on the whole in a better frame of mind now than in the first desperate weeks when she was waiting anxiously for

her suspicions to be disproved she told herself that there would be a way out of it for her as for so many other women fortunately she had spoken of going abroad since last autumn she had not made up her mind about telling gert or not but she thought she would not do it when she was not thinking of herself she thought of cheska there was something the matter something that was not as it ought to be she was sure cheska was fond of aline did he not care for her any

longer cheska had had a bad time of it this first year of her married life there had been serious money troubles cheska looked so small and dejected hour after hour of an evening she would sit on jenny's bed telling her about all her household worries everything was so expensive in stockholm and cheap food was bad especially when one had not learned to cook housework was also difficult when one was brought up in such an idiotic way as she had been and the worst of it was that it had

to be done over and over again she had scarcely finished cleaning the house before it was in an awful state again and the moment she had finished a meal there was the washing up and so it went on indefinitely cooking things soiling plates and washing up again lenart tried to help her but he was just as clumsy and unpractical as she was then too she worried about him the commission for the monument had been given to someone else after all he was never appreciated and yet he was so

gifted but far too proud both individually and as an artist it could not be helped and she would not have had him different in the spring he had had a long illness being confined to bed for two months with scarlet fever pneumonia and subsequent complications it had been a very trying time for cheska but there was something else jenny felt it distinctly that cheska did not tell her and she knew she could not be to cheska now what she had been in the old days she had no longer the tranquil

heart and open mind ready to receive the sorrows of others and able to give comfort and it hurt her to feel that she could no longer help cheska had gone to moss one day to do some shopping jenny preferred to stay at home and was spending the day in the garden reading so as not to think then when she found that she could not pay attention to her book she started knitting but soon lost count of her stitches pulled them out and went on again trying to be more attentive

cheska did not come back to dinner as she had promised and jenny dined alone killing the afternoon by smoking cigarettes which she did not enjoy and knitting though her work constantly dropped onto her lap. At last, about 10 o'clock, Ceska came driving up the avenue. Jenny had gone to meet her, and the moment she sat down beside her in the cart, she saw that something had happened, but neither of them said a word. Later, when Franceska had had something to eat and they

were having a cup of tea, she said quietly, without looking at Jenny, can you guess whom I met in town today no hans hermann he is on a visit at the island and living with a rich woman who seems to have taken him up is his wife with him asked jenny no they are divorced i saw in the papers that they had lost their little boy in the spring i am sorry for her and cheska began to talk of other things when jenny was in bed cheska came quietly into her room sitting down at the foot

end of the bed and pulling her night dress 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 honor 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 see,

but you can be certain of one thing. If I had been false to Lennart, I would go straight to him and tell him and kill myself the same instant before his eyes. Do you love your husband? asked jenny francesca was silent a moment i don't know if i loved him really as one ought to love i suppose i should not be afraid of hans herman do you think i should have let hans behave like he did and kiss me but i know anyhow that if i did wrong to leonard i could not go on living

you understand don't you while i was francesca jarman i was not very careful about my good name but now i am francesca alline and if i let fall the very faintest shadow of a suspicion on that name his name i should deserve to be shot down like a mad dog lennart would not do it but i would do it myself she dropped her arms suddenly and crept into the bed nestling close to jenny you believe in me don't you do you think i could live if i had done anything dishonorable no cheska jenny put her arms round her and kissed her i don't think you could i don't know what leonard thinks he does not understand me when i get home i will tell him everything just as it is and leave it to him cesca said jenny but checked herself she would not ask after all if she was happy But Czeska began to tell by herself, I have had many difficulties since I married, I must tell you, and I have not been very happy, but then I was so foolish and ignorant in many ways.

I married Lennart because Hans began to write to me when he was divorced, saying that he was determined to have me, and I was afraid of him and did not want to have anything to do with him. i told leonard everything he was so kind and sympathetic and understood me and i thought he was the most wonderful man in the world and so he is i know but i did something awful leonard cannot understand it and i know that he has not forgiven me perhaps i am wrong in telling you but i must ask somebody if it is really so that a man can never forgive it and you must answer me frankly

tell me if you think that it is impossible ever to get over it we went to rocco di papa in the afternoon when we were married you know how dreadfully afraid i have always been of marriage and when leonard took me into our room in the evening i began to cry leonard was such a dear to me this was on a saturday we did not have a particularly pleasant time i mean leonard did not for i would have been delighted to be married like that and every morning when i awoke i was

so grateful to him, but I was scarcely allowed to kiss my husband. On the Wednesday we had gone to the top of Montecave, and it was marvelously beautiful up there. It was in the end of May, and the day was glorious. The chestnut wood was light green, the leaves had just come out, the broom was blossoming madly in the crevices, and along the road grew heaps of white flowers and lilies. It was a haze in the air, for it had rained earlier in the day, and the Nemi and

albano lakes were lying silvery white below with all the little white villages round the whole campagna and rome were wrapped in a thin veil of mist and farther out the mediterranean shone like a golden line on the horizon oh it was such a day and life seemed wonderfully beautiful to me but leonard was sad to me he was the most perfect man in the world and i was immensely fond of him all of a sudden it seemed so silly of me to make a fuss and i put my arms round his neck and said

i want to be yours for i love you cheska was silent a second taking a deep breath oh jenny how happy he was poor boy she swallowed her tears he was so pleased now said he here and took me in his arms but i resisted i don't know really why i did it it would have been beautiful in the deep forest and the sunshine he rushed out and stayed away all night i lay awake i was anxious wondering what he had done where he had gone next day we went back to rome and stayed at an hotel

leonard had taken two rooms i went to him in his room but there was no beauty in it We have never been quite happy since. I know that I have offended him frightfully, but tell me, Jenny, if you think of the thing a man never can forget or forgive. You ought to have realized afterwards that you did not understand what it was you were doing, how it would hurt him. No, Cheska was shivering, but I do now. I see that it was something pure

and beautiful that I soiled, but I did not understand it then. Jenny, do you think a man's love could ever get over that it ought to you have proved since that you want to be a good and faithful wife to him last winter you worked so hard and suffered without complaining and in the spring when he was ill you nursed him week after week watching night after night by his bedside that is nothing to speak of said cheska eagerly he was so good and patient and he helped me in

the house as much as he could when he was ill some of our friends came sometimes to help me to sit up with him in the night that week when he was near death we had a nurse but i sat up just the same because i wanted to although i was not really needed jenny kissed cesca's forehead there is one thing i have not told you jenny you warned me you remember to be more careful with men and said I had no instincts. Gunnar used to scold me, and Miss Linda said once, don't you remember,

that if you make a man excited that way, he goes to somebody else. Jenny felt quite cold with fright for what was coming next. Well, I asked him something about that on this first morning. Jenny could not say a word. I understand that he cannot forget it, and perhaps not forgive, but I wish he would find an excuse for me. Remember how very stupidly I looked at it all. she hesitated searching for words our life has been so horrid ever since he does not really

wish to kiss me if he ever does it is almost against his will and he is angry afterwards with himself and with me i have tried to explain but it is no good to be quite honest i don't know what to make of it all but i do not mind anything any longer if i could only make him happy anything that makes leonard happy is good and beautiful to me he thinks that i sacrifice myself but it is no sacrifice quite the contrary oh i have cried for nights and days in my room

because i saw that he was longing for my love and i have tried to kiss him but he pushes me away i am very fond of him jenny tell me can't one love a man in that way too can i not say that i love leonard yes cesca you cannot think how desperate i have been but i cannot help being as i am when we are out of an evening with other artists i see that he is in a bad humor he does not say anything but i see he thinks i flirt with them it is true perhaps for i get into

good spirits when i can have a meal out and need not cook and wash up once for a change and not be afraid of spoiling the food when leonard has to eat it all the same because we cannot afford to throw it away sometimes i was glad too of not having to be alone with leonard though i am fond of him and he is of me i know he is if i ask him about it he says you know it quite well and smiles in a queer way but he does not trust me because i cannot love with my senses and yet like to flirt

once he said i had not a notion of what love really meant and that it was his fault for not being able to awaken it in me, but there would probably be another man someday who could. Oh God, how I cried. You know we are ever so poor. Well, in the spring, Gunnar managed to get my still-life picture sold, the one I had at the exhibition three years ago. We got 300 kroner for it, and we lived on it for several months, but Lennart did not like spending the money I had

earned i cannot see what difference it makes when we are fond of each other but he talked about having brought me into misery and so on we've got debts too of course so i wanted to write to father asking him for a few hundreds but he would not let me i thought it's so ridiculous borghild and helga have lived at home or abroad all these years and had everything given to them whereas i have saved and pinched with the little I had from mother since I came of age, because I did not want to

take anything from Papa after what he said to me when I broke my engagement with Kazen, and there was all the talk about Hans and me. Father has since admitted that I was right. It was mean of Kazen and of them at home to try and force me to marry him, because he had beguiled me into an engagement when I was only 17, and did not know that marriage meant anything else but what you read in silly girl stories.

When I began to understand, I knew I would rather kill myself than marry him. If they had succeeded in forcing me to it, I would have led them a life, taking all the lovers I could get just out of spite

and to pay them out. Papa sees it now and he says I can have money whenever I want it. Lenart was very weak after his illness and the doctor said he must go into the country and I myself was tired and overworked

so I said I ought to go away for a change and a rest as I was going to have a baby. I got his permission to write to Papa for money. We got it and went to Wermland, having a lovely time. Lenart was getting well and strong, and I took up my painting again. When he understood I was not expecting a child, really,

he asked if I had not made a mistake, and I told him I had tricked him, not wanting to lie to him. But he is angry with me for it, and I can see that he does not quite believe me. if he understood my nature don't you think he would believe in me yes cheska dear you see i had told him the same thing once before about the baby i mean in the autumn when he was so sad and we were

not happy i wanted him to be pleased and to be kind to me and he was it was a lovely time i had really lied but i began to believe it myself at last for i thought god would make it true so that i need not disappoint him but god did not do it i am so unhappy because i can't have one do you think it is true some people say it is so she whispered emotionally that a woman cannot have a child if she cannot feel passionate no said jenny sharply i am sure it is only nonsense

i am sure everything would come all right then for leonard wishes it so very much and i oh i think i should be so good an angel for joy at having a dear little child of my own can you imagine anything more wonderful no whispered jenny confused when you love each other it would help you to get over many difficulties yes it would if it were not so awkward i would go and see a doctor don't you think i ought to i think i will someday but i am so stupid about it i feel so shy i suppose

it really is my duty as i am married i might go to a lady doctor one who is married and has children of her own think of it a tiny little creature all your own lennart would be so happy jenny set her teeth in the dark don't you think i ought to go home tomorrow yes i will tell lennart everything i don't know if he will understand me i don't myself but i am going to tell him the truth always. Should I not, Jenny? When you think it is right, you should do so. One must always do what

one thinks right, and never do anything one is not absolutely sure about. Good night, Jenny dear. She embraced her friend with sudden earnestness. Thank you. It is so lovely to have you to talk to. You are so good, and you know how to take me. You and Gunnar always get me onto the right way. I don't know what I should do if it weren't for you. Then, standing by the bed, she said,

Won't you come through Stockholm when you go abroad this autumn? Please do. You could stay with us. I'm getting a thousand kroner from father because he's going to give Borghild the same for her trip to Paris.

Thanks. I should like to, but I don't know yet what I am going to do. Do come if you can. Are you sleepy? Do you want me to go now?

I am a little tired. and pulling cheska's head down she kissed her god bless you darling thank you cheska went across the floor on her bare feet at the door she turned saying in a sad childish voice i do wish lennart and i could be happy end of part three chapter three recording by expatriate in bangor maine