CHAPTER V

AFTER the main sallies against the enemy on the second of September and the twentieth of October, the town rang with the fame of Ulrik Christian Gyldenl?ve. Colonel Satan, the people called him. His name was on every lip. Every child in Copenhagen knew his sorrel, Bellarina, with the white socks, and when he rode past—a slim, tall figure in the wide-skirted blue uniform of the guard with its enormous white collar and cuffs, red scarf, and broad sword-belt—the maidens of the city peeped admiringly after him, proud when their pretty faces won them a bow or a bold glance from the audacious soldier. Even the sober fathers of families and their matrons in beruffled caps, who well knew how naughty he was and had heard the tales of all his peccadillos, would nod to each other with pleasure in meeting him, and would fall to discussing the difficult question of what would have happened to the city if it had not been for Gyldenl?ve.

The soldiers and men on the ramparts idolized him, and no wonder, for he had the same power of winning the common people that distinguished his father, King Christian the Fourth. Nor was this the only point of resemblance. He had inherited his father’s hot-headedness and intemperance, but also much of his ability, his gift of thinking quickly and taking in a situation at a glance. He was extremely blunt. Several years at European courts had not made him a courtier, nor even passably well mannered. In daily intercourse, he was taciturn to the point of rudeness, and in the service, he never opened his mouth without cursing and swearing like a common sailor.

With all this, he was a genuine soldier. In spite of his - 56 - youth—for he was but eight-and-twenty—he conducted the defence of the city, and led the dangerous but important sallies, with such masterful insight and such mature perfection of plan that the cause could hardly have been in better hands with any one else among the men who surrounded Frederik the Third.

No wonder, therefore, that his name outshone all others, and that the poetasters, in their versified accounts of the fighting, addressed him as “thou vict’ry-crowned Gyldenl?v’, thou Denmark’s saviour brave!” or greeted him: “Hail, hail, thou Northern Mars, thou Danish David bold!” and wished that his life might be as a cornucopia, yea, even as a horn of plenty, full and running over with praise and glory, with health, fortune, and happiness. No wonder that many a quiet family vespers ended with the prayer that God would preserve Mr. Ulrik Christian, and some pious souls added a petition that his foot might be led from the slippery highways of sin, and his heart be turned from all that was evil, to seek the shining diadem of virtue and truth, and that he, who had in such full measure won the honor of this world, might also participate in the only true and everlasting glory.

Marie Grubbe’s thoughts were much engrossed by this kinsman of her aunt. As it happened, she had never met him either at Mistress Rigitze’s or in society, and all she had seen of him was a glimpse in the dusk when Lucie had pointed him out in the street.

All were speaking of him. Nearly every day some fresh story of his valor was noised abroad. She had heard and read that he was a hero, and the murmur of enthusiasm that went through the crowds in the streets, as he rode past, had given her an unforgettable thrill.

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The hero-name lifted him high above the ranks of ordinary human beings. She had never supposed that a hero could be like other people. King Alexander of Macedonia, Holger the Dane, and Chevalier Bayard were tall, distant, radiant figures—ideals rather than men. Just as she had never believed, in her childhood, that any one could form letters with the elegance of the copy-book, so it had never occurred to her that one could become a hero. Heroes belonged to the past. To think that one might meet a flesh-and-blood hero riding in Store-F?rgestr?de was beyond anything she had dreamed of. Life suddenly took on a different aspect. So it was not all dull routine! The great and beautiful and richly colored world she had read of in her romances and ballads was something she might actually see with her own eyes. There was really something that one could long for with all one’s heart and soul; all these words that people and books were full of had a meaning. They stood for something. Her confused dreams and longings took form, since she knew that they were not hers alone, but that grown people believed in such things. Life was rich, wonderfully rich and radiant.

It was nothing but an intuition, which she knew to be true, but could not yet see or feel. He was her only pledge that it was so, the only thing tangible. Hence her thoughts and dreams circled about him unceasingly. She would often fly to the window at the sound of horse’s hoofs, and, when out walking, she would persuade the willing Lucie to go round by the castle, but they never saw him.

Then came a day toward the end of October, when she was plying her bobbins by the afternoon light, at a window in the long drawing-room where the fireplace was. Mistress Rigitze sat before the fire, now and then taking - 58 - a pinch of dried flowers or a bit of cinnamon bark from a box on her lap and throwing it on a brazier full of live coals that stood near her. The air in the low-ceilinged room was hot and close and sweet. But little light penetrated between the full curtains of motley, dark-flowered stuff. From the adjoining room came the whirr of a spinning-wheel, and Mistress Rigitze was nodding drowsily in her cushioned chair.

Marie Grubbe felt faint with the heat. She tried to cool her burning cheeks against the small, dewy window-pane and peeped out into the street, where a thin layer of new-fallen snow made the air dazzlingly bright. As she turned to the room again, it seemed doubly dark and oppressive. Suddenly Ulrik Christian came in through the door, so quickly that Mistress Rigitze started. He did not notice Marie, but took a seat before the fire. After a few words of apology for his long absence, he remarked that he was tired, leaned forward in his chair, his face resting on his hand, and sat silent, scarcely hearing Mistress Rigitze’s lively chatter.

Marie Grubbe had turned pale with excitement, when she saw him enter. She closed her eyes for an instant with a sense of giddiness, then blushed furiously and could hardly breathe. The floor seemed to be sinking under her, and the chairs, tables, and people in the room falling through space. All objects appeared strangely definite and yet flickering, for she could hold nothing fast with her eyes, and moreover everything seemed new and strange.

So this was he. She wished herself far away or at least in her own room, her peaceful little chamber. She was frightened and could feel her hands tremble. If he would only not see her! She shrank deeper into the window recess and tried to fix her eyes on her aunt’s guest.

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Was this the way he looked?—not very, very much taller? And his eyes were not fiery black, they were blue—such dear blue eyes, but sad—that was something she could not have imagined. He was pale and looked as if he were sorry about something. Ah, he smiled, but not in a really happy way. How white his teeth were, and what a nice mouth he had, so small and finely formed!

As she looked, he grew more and more handsome in her eyes, and she wondered how she could ever have fancied him larger or in any way different from what he was. She forgot her shyness and thought only of the eulogies of him she had heard. She saw him storming at the head of his troops, amid the exultant cries of the people. All fell back before him, as the waves are thrown off, when they rise frothing around the broad breast of a galleon. Cannon thundered, swords flashed, bullets whistled through dark clouds of smoke, but he pressed onward, brave and erect, and on his stirrup Victory hung—in the words of a chronicle she had read.

Her eyes shone upon him full of admiration and enthusiasm.

He made a sudden movement and met her gaze, but turned his head away, with difficulty repressing a triumphant smile. The next moment he rose as though he had just caught sight of Marie Grubbe.

Mistress Rigitze said this was her little niece, and Marie made her courtesy.

Ulrik Christian was astonished and perhaps a trifle disappointed to find that the eyes that had given him such a look were those of a child.

“Ma chère,” he said with a touch of mockery, as he looked down at her lace, “you’re a past mistress in the art - 60 - of working quietly and secretly; not a sound have I heard from your bobbins in all the time I’ve been here.”

“No,” replied Marie, who understood him perfectly; “when I saw you, Lord Gyldenl?ve,”—she shoved the heavy lace-maker’s cushion along the window-sill,—“it came to my mind that in times like these ’twere more fitting to think of lint and bandages than of laced caps.”

“Faith, I know that caps are as becoming in war-times as any other day,” he said, looking at her.

“But who would give them a thought in seasons like the present!”

“Many,” answered Ulrik Christian, who began to be amused at her seriousness, “and I for one.”

“I understand,” said Marie, looking up at him gravely; “’tis but a child you are addressing.” She courtesied ceremoniously and reached for her work.

“Stay, my little maid!”

“I pray you, let me no longer incommode you!”

“Hark’ee!” He seized her wrists in a hard grip and drew her to him across the little table. “By God, you’re a thorny person, but,” he whispered, “if one has greeted me with a look such as yours a moment ago, I will not have her bid me so poor a farewell—I will not have it! There—now kiss me!”

Her eyes full of tears, Marie pressed her trembling lips against his. He dropped her hands, and she sank down over the table, her head in her arms. She felt quite dazed. All that day and the next she had a dull sense of bondage, of being no longer free. A foot seemed to press on her neck and grind her helplessly in the dust. Yet there was no bitterness in her heart, no defiance in her thoughts, no desire for revenge. A strange peace had come over her soul and had - 61 - chased away the flitting throng of dreams and longings. She could not define her feeling for Ulrik Christian; she only knew that if he said Come, she must go to him, and if he said Go, she must quit him. She did not understand it, but it was so and had always been so, thus and not otherwise.

With unwonted patience she worked all day long at her sewing and her lace-making, meanwhile humming all the mournful ballads she had ever known, about the roses of love which paled and never bloomed again, about the swain who must leave his truelove and go to foreign lands, and who never, never came back any more, and about the prisoner who sat in the dark tower such a long dreary time, and first his noble falcon died, and then his faithful dog died, and last his good steed died, but his faithless wife Malvina lived merrily and well and grieved not for him. These songs and many others she would sing, and sometimes she would sigh and seem on the point of bursting into tears, until Lucie thought her ill and urged her to put way-bread leaves in her stockings.

When Ulrik Christian came in, a few days later, and spoke gently and kindly to her, she too behaved as though nothing had been between them, but she looked with childlike curiosity at the large white hands that had held her in such a hard grip, and she wondered what there could be in his eyes or his voice that had so cowed her. She glanced at the mouth, too, under its narrow, drooping moustache, but furtively and with a secret thrill of fear.

In the weeks that followed he came almost every day, and Marie’s thoughts became more and more absorbed in him. When he was not there, the old house seemed dull and desolate, and she longed for him as the sleepless long - 62 - for daylight, but when he came, her joy was never full and free, always timid and doubting.

One night she dreamed that she saw him riding through the crowded streets as on that first evening, but there were no cheers, and all the faces seemed cold and indifferent. The silence frightened her. She dared not smile at him, but hid behind the others. Then he glanced around with a strange questioning, wistful look, and this look fastened on her. She forced her way through the mass of people and threw herself down before him, while his horse set its cold, iron-shod hoof on her neck.

She awoke and looked about her, bewildered, at the cold, moonlit chamber. Alas, it was but a dream! She sighed; she did want so much to show him how she loved him. Yes, that was it. She had not understood it before, but she loved him. At the thought, she seemed to be lying in a stream of fire, and flames flickered before her eyes, while every pulse in her heart throbbed and throbbed and throbbed. She loved him. How wonderful it was to say it to herself! She loved him! How glorious the words were, how tremendously real, and yet how unreal! Good God, what was the use, even if she did love him? Tears of self-pity came into her eyes—and yet! She huddled comfortably under the soft, warm coverlet of down,—after all it was delicious to lie quite still and think of him and of her great, great love.

When Marie met Ulrik Christian again, she no longer felt timid. Her secret buoyed her up with a sense of her own importance, and the fear of revealing it gave her manner a poise that made her seem almost a woman. They were happy days that followed, fantastic, wonderful days! Was it not joy enough when Ulrik Christian went, to throw a hundred kisses after him, unseen by him and all others, or - 63 - when he came, to fancy how her beloved would take her in his arms and call her by every sweet name she could think of, how he would sit by her side, while they looked long into each other’s eyes, and how she would run her hand through his soft, wavy brown hair? What did it matter that none of these things happened? She blushed at the very thought that they might happen.

They were fair and happy days, but toward the end of November Ulrik Christian fell dangerously ill. His health, long undermined by debauchery of every conceivable kind, had perhaps been unable to endure the continued strain of night-watches and hard work in connection with his post. Or possibly fresh dissipations had strung the bow too tightly. A wasting disease, marked by intense pain, wild fever dreams, and constant restlessness, attacked him, and soon took such a turn that none could doubt the name of the sickness was death.

On the eleventh of December, Pastor Hans Didrichsen Bartskj?r, chaplain to the royal family, was walking uneasily up and down over the fine straw mattings that covered the floor in the large leather-brown room outside of Ulrik Christian’s sick-chamber. He stopped absentmindedly before the paintings on the walls, and seemed to examine with intense interest the fat, naked nymphs, outstretched under the trees, the bathing Susannas, and the simpering Judith with bare, muscular arms. They could not hold his attention long, however, and he went to the window, letting his gaze roam from the gray-white sky to the wet, glistening copper roofs and the long mounds of dirty, melting snow in the castle park below. Then he resumed his nervous pacing, murmuring, and gesticulating.

Was that the door opening? He stopped short to listen. - 64 - No! He drew a deep breath and sank down into a chair, where he sat, sighing and rubbing the palms of his hands together, until the door really opened. A middle-aged woman wearing a huge flounced cap of red-dotted stuff appeared and beckoned cautiously to him. The pastor pulled himself together, stuck his prayer-book under his arm, smoothed his cassock, and entered the sick-chamber.

The large oval room was wainscoted in dark wood from floor to ceiling. From the central panel, depressed below the surface of the wall, grinned a row of hideous, white-toothed heads of blackamoors and Turks, painted in gaudy colors. The deep, narrow lattice-window was partially veiled by a sash-curtain of thin, blue-gray stuff, leaving the lower part of the room in deep twilight, while the sunbeams played freely on the painted ceiling, where horses, weapons, and naked limbs mingled in an inextricable tangle, and on the canopy of the four-poster bed, from which hung draperies of yellow damask fringed with silver.

The air that met the pastor, as he entered, was warm, and so heavy with the scent of salves and nostrums that for a moment he could hardly breathe. He clutched a chair for support, his head swam, and everything seemed to be whirling around him—the table covered with flasks and phials, the window, the nurse with her cap, the sick man on the bed, the sword-rack, and the door opening into the adjoining room where a fire was blazing in the grate.

“The peace of God be with you, my lord!” he greeted in a trembling voice as soon as he recovered from his momentary dizziness.

“What the devil d’ye want here?” roared the sick man, trying to lift himself in bed.

“Gemach, gn?digster Herr, gemach!” Shoemaker’s Anne, - 65 - the nurse, hushed him, and coming close to the bed, gently stroked the coverlet. “’Tis the venerable Confessionarius of his Majesty, who has been sent hither to give you the sacrament.”

“Gracious Sir, noble Lord Gyldenl?ve!” began the pastor, as he approached the bed. “Though ’tis known to me that you have not been among the simple wise or the wisely simple who use the Word of the Lord as their rod and staff and who dwell in His courts, and although that God whose cannon is the crashing thunderbolt likewise holds in His hand the golden palm of victory and the blood-dripping cypresses of defeat, yet men may understand, though not justify, the circumstance that you, whose duty it has been to command and set a valiant example to your people, may for a moment have forgotten that we are but as nothing, as a reed in the wind, nay, as the puny grafted shoot in the hands of the mighty Creator. You may have thought foolishly: This have I done, this is a fruit that I have brought to maturity and perfection. Yet now, beloved lord, when you lie here on your bed of pain, now God who is the merciful God of love hath surely enlightened your understanding and turned your heart to Him in longing with fear and trembling to confess your uncleansed sins, that you may trustfully accept the grace and forgiveness which His loving hands are holding out to you. The sharp-toothed worm of remorse—”

“Cross me fore and cross me aft! Penitence, forgiveness of sins, and life eternal!” jeered Ulrik Christian and sat up in bed. “Do you suppose, you sour-faced baldpate, do you suppose, because my bones are rotting out of my body in stumps and slivers, that gives me more stomach for your parson-palaver?”

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“Most gracious lord, you sadly misuse the privilege which your high rank and yet more your pitiable condition give you to berate a poor servant of the Church, who is but doing his duty in seeking to turn your thoughts toward that which is assuredly to you the one thing needful. Oh, honored lord, it avails but little to kick against the pricks! Has not the wasting disease that has struck your body taught you that none can escape the chastisements of the Lord God, and that the scourgings of heaven fall alike on high and low?”

Ulrik Christian interrupted him, laughing: “Hell consume me, but you talk like a witless school-boy! This sickness that’s eating my marrow I’ve rightfully brought on myself, and if you suppose that heaven or hell sends it, I can tell you that a man gets it by drinking and wenching and revelling at night. You may depend on’t. And now take your scholastic legs out of this chamber with all speed, or else I’ll—”

Another attack seized him, and as he writhed and moaned with the intense pain, his oaths and curses were so blasphemous and so appalling in their inventiveness that the scandalized pastor stood pale and aghast. He prayed God for strength and power of persuasion, if mayhap he might be vouchsafed the privilege of opening this hardened soul to the truth and glorious consolation of religion. When the patient was quiet again he began: “My lord, my lord, with tears and weeping I beg and beseech you to cease from such abominable cursing and swearing! Remember, the axe is laid unto the root of the tree, and it shall be hewn down and cast into the fire, if it continues to be unfruitful and does not in the eleventh hour bring forth flowers and good fruit! Cease your baleful resistance, and - 67 - throw yourself with penitent prayers at the feet of our Saviour—”

When the pastor began his speech, Ulrik Christian sat up at the headboard of the bed. He pointed threateningly to the door and cried again and again: “Begone, parson! Begone, march! I can’t abide you any longer!”

“Oh, my dear lord,” continued the clergyman, “if mayhap you are hardening yourself because you misdoubt the possibility of finding grace, since the mountain of your sins is overwhelming, then hear with rejoicing that the fountain of God’s grace is inexhaustible—”

“Mad dog of a parson, will you go!” hissed Ulrik Christian between clenched teeth; “one—two!”

“And if your sins were red as blood, ay, as Tyrian purple—”

“Right about face!”

“He shall make them white as Lebanon’s—”

“Now by St. Satan and all his angels!” roared Ulrik Christian as he jumped out of bed, caught a rapier from the sword-rack, and made a furious lunge after the pastor, who, however, escaped into the adjoining room, slamming the door after him. In his rage, Ulrik Christian flung himself at the door, but sank exhausted to the floor, and had to be lifted into bed, though he still held the sword.

The forenoon passed in a drowsy calm. He suffered no pain, and the weakness that came over him seemed a pleasant relief. He lay staring at the points of light penetrating the curtain, and counted the black rings in the iron lattice. A pleased smile flitted over his face when he thought of his onslaught on the pastor, and he grew irritable only when Shoemaker’s Anne would coax him to close his eyes and try to sleep.

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In the early afternoon a loud knock at the door announced the entrance of the pastor of Trinity Church, Dr. Jens Justesen. He was a tall, rather stout man, with coarse, strong features, short black hair, and large, deep-set eyes. Stepping briskly up to the bed, he said simply: “Good-day!”

As soon as Ulrik Christian became aware that another clergyman was standing before him, he began to shake with rage, and let loose a broadside of oaths and railing against the pastor, against Shoemaker’s Anne, who had not guarded his peace better, against God in heaven and all holy things.

“Silence, child of man!” thundered Pastor Jens. “Is this language meet for one who has even now one foot in the grave? ’Twere better you employed the flickering spark of life that still remains to you in making your peace with the Lord, instead of picking quarrels with men. You are like those criminals and disturbers of peace who, when their judgment is fallen and they can no longer escape the red-hot pincers and the axe, then in their miserable impotence curse and revile the Lord our God with filthy and wild words. They seek thereby courage to drag themselves out of that almost brutish despair, that craven fear and slavish remorse without hope, into which such fellows generally sink toward the last, and which they fear more than death and the tortures of death.”

Ulrik Christian listened quietly, until he had managed to get his sword out from under the coverlet. Then he cried: “Guard yourself, priest-belly!” and made a sudden lunge after Pastor Jens, who coolly turned the weapon aside with his broad prayer-book.

“Leave such tricks to pages!” he said contemptuously. “They’re scarce fitting for you or me. And now this - 69 - woman”—turning to Shoemaker’s Anne—“had best leave us private.”

Anne quitted the room, and the pastor drew his chair up to the bed, while Ulrik Christian laid his sword on the coverlet.

Pastor Jens spoke fair words about sin and the wages of sin, about God’s love for the children of men, and about the death on the cross.

Ulrik Christian lay turning his sword in his hand, letting the light play on the bright steel. He swore, hummed bits of ribald songs, and tried to interrupt with blasphemous questions, but the pastor went on speaking about the seven words of the cross, about the holy sacrament of the altar, and the bliss of heaven.

Then Ulrik Christian sat up in bed and looked the pastor straight in the face.

“’Tis naught but lies and old wives’ tales,” he said.

“May the devil take me where I stand, if it isn’t true!” cried the pastor,—“every blessed word!” He hit the table with his fist, till the jars and glasses slid and rattled against one another, while he rose to his feet and spoke in a stern voice: “’Twere meet that I should shake the dust from my feet in righteous anger and leave you here alone, a sure prey to the devil and his realm, whither you are most certainly bound. You are one of those who daily nail our Lord Jesus to the gibbet of the cross, and for all such the courts of hell are prepared. Do not mock the terrible name of hell, for it is a name that contains a fire of torment and the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the damned! Alas, the anguish of hell is greater than any human mind can conceive; for if one were tortured to death and woke in hell, he would long for the wheel and the red-hot pincers as for Abraham’s - 70 - bosom. ’Tis true that sickness and disease are bitter to the flesh of man when they pierce like a draught, inch by inch, through every fibre of the body, and stretch the sinews till they crack, when they burn like salted fire in the vitals, and gnaw with dull teeth in the innermost marrow! But the sufferings of hell are a raging storm racking every limb and joint, a whirlwind of unthinkable woe, an eternal dance of anguish; for as one wave rolls upon another, and is followed by another and another in all eternity, so the scalding pangs and blows of hell follow one another ever and everlastingly, without end and without pause.”

The sick man looked around bewildered. “I won’t!” he said, “I won’t! I’ve nothing to do with your heaven or hell. I would die, only die and nothing more!”

“You shall surely die,” said the pastor, “but at the end of the dark valley of death are two doors, one leading to the bliss of heaven and one to the torments of hell. There is no other way, no other way at all.”

“Yes, there is, pastor, there must be—tell me, is there not?—a deep, deep grave hard by for those who went their own way, a deep black grave leading down to nothing—to no earthly thing?”

“They who went their own way are headed for the realm of the devil. They are swarming at the gate of hell; high and low, old and young, they push and scramble to escape the yawning abyss, and cry miserably to that God whose path they would not follow, begging Him to take them away. The cries of the pit are over their heads, and they writhe in fear and agony, but the gates of hell shall close over them as the waters close over the drowning.”

“Is it the truth you’re telling me? On your word as an honest man, is it anything but a tale?”

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“It is.”

“But I won’t! I’ll do without your God! I don’t want to go to heaven, only to die!”

“Then pass on to that horrible place of torment, where those who are damned for all eternity are cast about on the boiling waves of an endless sea of sulphur, where their limbs are racked by agony, and their hot mouths gasp for air, among the flames that flicker over the surface. I see their bodies drifting like white gulls on the sea, yea, like a frothing foam in a storm, and their shrieks are like the noise of the earth when the earthquake tears it, and their anguish is without a name. Oh, would that my prayers might save thee from it, miserable man! But grace has hidden its countenance, and the sun of mercy is set forever.”

“Then help me, pastor, help me!” groaned Ulrik Christian. “What are you a parson for, if you can’t help me? Pray, for God’s sake, pray! Are there no prayers in your mouth? Or give me your wine and bread, if there’s salvation in ’em as they say! Or is it all a lie—a confounded lie? I’ll crawl to the feet of your God like a whipped boy, since He’s so strong—it is not fair—He’s so mighty, and we’re so helpless! Make Him kind, your God, make Him kind to me! I bow down—I bow down—I can do no more!”

“Pray!”

“Ay, I’ll pray, I’ll pray all you want—indeed!” he knelt in bed and folded his hands. “Is that right?” he asked, looking toward Pastor Jens. “Now, what shall I say?”

The pastor made no answer.

For a few moments Ulrik Christian knelt thus, his large, bright, feverish eyes turned upward. “There are no words, pastor,” he whimpered. “Lord Jesu, they’re all gone,” and he sank down, weeping.

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Suddenly he sprang up, seized his sword, broke it, and cried: “Lord Jesu Christ, see, I break my sword!” and he lifted the shining pieces of the blade. “Pardon, Jesu, pardon!”

The pastor then spoke words of consolation to him and gave him the sacrament without delay, for he seemed not to have a long time left. After that Pastor Jens called Shoemaker’s Anne and departed.

The disease was believed to be contagious, hence none of those who had been close to the dying man attended him in his illness, but in the room below a few of his family and friends, the physician in ordinary to the King, and two or three gentlemen of the court were assembled to receive the noblemen, foreign ministers, officers, courtiers, and city councilmen who called to inquire about him. So the peace of the sick-chamber was not disturbed, and Ulrik Christian was again alone with Shoemaker’s Anne.

Twilight fell. Anne threw more wood on the fire, lit two candles, took her prayer-book, and settled herself comfortably. She pulled her cap down to shade her face and very soon was asleep. A barber-surgeon and a lackey had been posted in the ante-room to be within call, but they were both squatting on the floor near the window, playing dice on the straw matting to deaden the sound. They were so absorbed in their game that they did not notice some one stealing through the room, until they heard the door of the sick-chamber close.

“It must have been the doctor,” they said, looking at each other in fright.

It was Marie Grubbe. Noiselessly she stole up to the bed and bent over the patient, who was dozing quietly. In the dim, uncertain light, he looked very pale and unlike himself, - 73 - the forehead had a deathly whiteness, the eyelids were unnaturally large, and the thin wax-yellow hands were groping feebly and helplessly over the dark blue bolster.

Marie wept. “Art thou so ill?” she murmured. She knelt, supporting her elbows on the edge of the bed, and gazed at his face.

“Ulrik Christian,” she called, and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Is any one else here?” he moaned weakly.

She shook her head. “Art thou very ill?” she asked.

“Yes, ’tis all over with me.”

“No, no, it must not be! Whom have I if you go? No, no, how can I bear it!”

“To live?—’tis easy to live, but I have had the bread of death and the wine of death, I must die—yes, yes,—bread and wine—body and blood—d’you believe they help? No, no, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ! Say a prayer, child, make it a strong one!”

Marie folded her hands and prayed.

“Amen, amen! Pray again! I’m such a great sinner, child, it needs so much! Pray again, a long prayer with many words—many words! Oh, no, what’s that? Why is the bed turning?—Hold fast, hold fast! ’Tis turning—like a whirlwind of unthinkable woe, a dance of eternal anguish, and—ha, ha, ha! Am I drunk again? What devilry is this—what have I been drinking? Wine! Ay, of course, ’twas wine I drank, ha, ha! We’re gaily yet, we’re gaily—Kiss me, my chick!
Herzen und Küssen Ist Himmel auf Erd—

Kiss me again, sweetheart, I’m so cold, but you’re round - 74 - and warm. Kiss me warm! You’re white and soft, white and smooth—”

He had thrown his arms around Marie, and pressed the terrified child close to him. At that moment, Shoemaker’s Anne woke and saw her patient sitting up and fondling a strange woman. She lifted her prayer-book threateningly and cried: “H’raus, thou hell-born wench! To think of the shameless thing sitting here and wantoning with the poor dying gentleman before my very eyes! H’raus, whoever ye are—handmaid of the wicked one, sent by the living Satan!”

“Satan!” shrieked Ulrik Christian and flung away Marie Grubbe in horror. “Get thee behind me! Go, go!” he made the sign of the cross again and again. “Oh, thou cursed devil! You would lead me to sin in my last breath, in my last hour, when one should be so careful. Begone, begone, in the blessed name of the Lord, thou demon!” His eyes wide open, fear in every feature, he stood up in bed and pointed to the door.

Speechless and beside herself with terror, Marie rushed out. The sick man threw himself down and prayed and prayed, while Shoemaker’s Anne read slowly and in a loud voice prayer after prayer from her book with the large print.

A few hours later Ulrik Christian was dead.