Whenever I hear the sound of a lawnmower, it makes me think of the summer when Einar was a baby. I would sit on the veranda in a drowsy state, with a book or some mending and watch Otto as he labored, in his shirtsleeves, with a perspiring face. He cut the grass at least every other day with an old lawnmower he had bought at an auction. He had an arsenal of garden tools under the veranda steps, enough to keep the grounds of a palace neat and tidy. The clattering of the lawnmower sounded so peaceful and summery, and I would sit there and doze until Otto came over to ask me to wipe his brow, give him some lemonade, or come down and look at his eight cauliflower plants and the cucumbers. And Einar would lie in the sunshine, sleeping under the gauzy netting, pink and warm and lovely, with his sweet little hands that clutched my breast so wondrously whenever I nursed him.
I THINK IT ACTUALLY BEGAN as a kind of weariness. I had become sated with happiness. I’ve read somewhere that happiness is always the same. And it was.
Halfred was born, and I started teaching again. The baby was incorporated into our daily life with the whole apparatus of chores, routines, and considerations that are part of any type of household and yet create a home. As far as Otto was concerned, all the exact same feelings arose—everything that had occurred after Einar’s birth was now repeated. The first time his response had made me happy, but now I thought it was all a little comical, a bit pathetic, and it offended me slightly. Good Lord, I thought. Then Otto wanted me to stop teaching. His own business, which he had started by then, was flourishing. That was during the good period. We also belonged to quite a large social group, mostly Otto’s business friends. I thought rather sadly that he was going to develop into a proper, narrow-minded citizen—he had that tendency—and I would lose my own circle of friends and my own interests, which I had always maintained a woman could hold on to if she had a husband and children. Then history would repeat itself, until I grew tired and ugly from all the children I was bound to have. In the end I would undoubtedly be reduced to nothing more than one of the entries in Otto Oulie’s thick catalog of blessings.
None of this was crystal clear to me at the time, but it was the reason for my melancholy mood. As the relationship then existed between Otto and me, I felt there was a danger that we might drift apart. I clung to my work and to my children, as if wanting to have them in reserve should I suffer disappointment in what was still the most important aspect of my life.
Otto thought I was ill. He promptly summoned our family doctor, ordered me to drink wine and take iron tablets, wanted me to stay with Helene for a while or at our cabin, but in particular he wanted me to stop teaching after summer vacation. I didn’t feel like doing anything. Actually, there was something new, interesting, and pleasant about sitting like that, sad and tired and brooding, especially when Otto would come in, sit with me, and worriedly indulge me.
“But my sweet little Marta, what’s wrong with you? My dear, you mustn’t be ill!”
“There’s nothing wrong with me, Otto,” I would tell him as I accepted his kisses. Maybe I was also hoping to bind him to me in that way.
WHEN IT WAS TIME for Otto’s annual trip to London, he wanted to take me with him. I didn’t want to go. First, because I couldn’t really imagine leaving the children. And second . . . as a young girl I’d always had a great wish to go out and travel, but it had to be in such a way that I could live in each city, get to know the people, absorb the atmosphere of the place, learn about its uniqueness. This kind of trip would be completely different.
Well, of course I went along. And I had a splendid time. At first I woke up at night at the hour when I usually got up to check on the children, to see if they had thrown off the covers. Then I would feel sad at finding myself in a hotel room, and I would think about my little ones far away in Kristiania. But I missed them less than I had expected, which made me almost ashamed. Otto decided that we should go to Paris as well, and we spent a lovely week there. He conscientiously took me around to see everything a person should see: museums and theaters and a few places of entertainment that Otto enthusiastically viewed as the mysteries of Paris. And I bought a hat and a tailored suit and two sets of silk underclothes, as well as a dainty corset and silk slip, in which I danced the can-can for Otto when we got back to the hotel one morning at four a.m. and drank champagne in our room, each of us more eager than the other to tell everyone at home about our wild outings.
Then I was back home and started teaching again in good spirits. And for two peaceful years I was quite content with my life.
IN REALITY it was perhaps the sorriest of trifles that started it all.
We needed a larger apartment. We were already feeling so cramped that we could hardly breathe, and now I was expecting our third child, so we had to move. If we could have acquired the upstairs flat, too, we might have managed, and then everything might have turned out differently. But the carpenter and his family didn’t want to move.
I was unhappy with the new apartment from the very beginning. I didn’t like any of the accommodations that we looked at, and I wasn’t feeling well, which made me angry, and this was in the autumn when the weather was terrible. And Otto had at least seven other apartments on his list, so I allowed myself to be persuaded by him and the landlord to end the search. But from the start I had made up my mind not to like our new home.
I thought the street was disgusting—a truly snobbish neighborhood with ugly little houses and desolate gardens with a gazebo in one corner, and you could tell that not a single person had ever sat there. Granite pillars at the building entrance, with a signboard of tedious tenant names, and cream-colored curtains and Majolica urns in the windows. A glimpse of the parlor revealed floor lamps and pedestals and palms and everything that was ugly.
Otto thought it was a charming neighborhood. And when I clung to his arm and acted in great pain, he merely said: “Well, how can you expect not to feel sick, Marta, when you refuse to do what the doctor says?”
Then we had to have more furnishings. The new apartment was exactly twice the size of the old one. Otto bought leather furniture for his smoking room, and we went around to look at “salon” furniture but couldn’t agree. One evening we saw a large suite of furniture made of jacaranda wood in a department store window. Otto thought it was charming. “It’s in the Russian style,” he said. God knows where he had that from. I said that I thought the color was pretty. It was upholstered in turquoise crushed velvet. Otto behaved mysteriously for a week. Then one evening he dragged me over to the new apartment, and there stood the “Russian” furniture in all its splendor.
INGRID WAS BORN. No doubt Otto’s deepest wish was fulfilled. He was so delighted with her and so infatuated that I almost felt annoyed. I thought it looked ridiculous to see that big tall man rushing around with her in his arms, murmuring baby talk. He would dash to the nursery the minute he came home from the office, even before he said hello to me.
“Little mother, here we come, the two of us!” And then he would shove the baby right into my face, without paying any attention to what I might be doing.
“Ugh, what’s that you’re sitting there reading now?” he might say. “To think you’d bother!”
“Oh, I’m just so sick and tired of that stupid baby, she smells so awful,” Einar said one day when Otto was fussing with Baby Sister more than usual. Otto got mad, but I just laughed at Einar and pulled him onto my lap.
I STOPPED TEACHING FOR GOOD before Ingrid was born. Otto’s business was now thriving, and we hadn’t spent a lot of money during those first years. Otto wanted me to live comfortably, to have as much help in the house as I wanted, and the like. I started reading a great deal again, went to a few lectures that interested me, and joined several clubs and associations.
That didn’t really please Otto. He never said anything directly to me, but when any of the women from my clubs would visit he would often be slightly ill-tempered and try to give the impression that he was a proper tyrant at home.
One day he was p
resent as my friends and I drank tea and conversed. During a momentary lull he said, “Children, there is something that I’ve forgotten today. I wonder what it could be?”
And both boys shrieked delightedly in unison: “You must have forgotten to give Mamma a thrashing!”
“By Jove, you’re right! Remind me about that tonight, won’t you, Einar?”
All three of them were greatly amused. Then he grabbed each of the boys by the ear and hauled them away: “Let’s us menfolk go into my study.”
They raised quite a ruckus in his smoking room, sounding like wild animals.
ONE DAY AT NOON Otto came home with a puppy he had bought. It was a terrier and we named him Peik. All of us were utterly delighted with him. “I’d rather have Peik than Baby Sister,” said Halfred.
Poor little Peik. We had him only six months before he was run over, and Otto had to put the dog out of his misery. He cried, the children cried, and I cried.
Then one day when I was getting dressed, Otto came to me and said vehemently: “I don’t understand why you have to be so involved in all this stuff. Are you out of your mind, Marta? How can you? This time it was just a poor puppy. Next time it might be one of your own children!”
“Wait a minute, now you’re really being too protective! But if you have something against the fact that I’m interested in such things—women’s rights and the like—then I think you should tell me straight out!”
“You know quite well that I have nothing against those things. I think it’s all very fine and justified and all that—but couldn’t you just leave it to others for a while? As long as you have three children who are so young?”
“But good Lord, Otto, it could be a long time before I’m done with having babies!”
“Are you sorry about having children, Marta?”
“I’m not even going to answer that. But you certainly do whatever you can to make me sorry about having them.”
“Now listen here, Marta—we menfolk have to tend to our jobs and our businesses, even though we might not have time for anything else. And when you women get married, you know what your work is going to be, as a rule. And I don’t think it’s such terribly boring work to take care of your own children and keep your home nice. So I don’t feel very sorry for you women. And if you have to put your own interests aside for a while for that reason . . . well, that’s no different from what men have to do, too. Good Lord, you don’t think I have much time to devote to my own interests, do you?”
“At least you have your singing group,” I said.
“One evening a week! Do you think that’s too much?”
“No, God knows . . . if anything, it’s too little,” I said.
And we stood there quarreling.
August 7, 1902
Rain and more rain. A summer like this is enough to drive a person mad.
It’s worse for Otto. He would, of course, get well quicker if only we had warm sunny weather. He is indisputably getting better, but very slowly, it seems to me. Even though the doctor sounds encouraging, I can’t help feeling worried. It’s probably just nerves—I’ve always been susceptible to letting the weather influence my mood. Poor Otto. Today he talked about almost nothing else but Nordmarken because I’d brought him flowers from Ragna. She came to visit me yesterday, and she asked about him and the children.
I spent all morning with Otto. In the afternoon I made paper cutouts for Ingrid—she’s been bored to tears lately. When I came back from town, her toys, along with Åse’s, were scattered all over the place, and the maid is and will always be impossible.
I don’t like living here on Neuberggaden. But I know it’s foolish to worry so much about all the outer circumstances—God knows I think I’m doing everything I can to battle my ill humor. But the neighborhood is appalling. All these half-finished streets and new houses that already look decrepit—these small apartments with their shabby-chic furnishings, set close together with tiny balconies, garishly painted stairwells, filthy entryways. In every other courtyard a delicatessen or a shoemaker’s shop, and on every corner a new grocery store. Another one seems to open every week. And everybody here is so much the same. Each time a newly married couple moves in—and half the residents are newly married, while the other half have an income of about three or four thousand per year and six or eight children, and two-thirds of the women wear loose capes and are in the so-called “blessed” family way—they all have the same three suites of furniture: plush upholstered for the parlor, an oak dining set, and mahogany beds and chests of drawers. How awful to share a stairwell with eight families and the laundry room with sixteen, and to have a balcony that is visible from fifteen other ones here in the building, not to mention the neighboring buildings. And the rain has ruined all my flowers on the balcony, all my red geraniums, and I was so looking forward to bringing bouquets to Otto.
How lovely it would be to have a garden. I’ll certainly appreciate it if we ever have one again. And a telephone!
It’s actually not bad here for the children. The boys, at any rate, have a splendid time in all these construction sites and the half-finished streets. As for Ingrid and Åse, they mostly stay with the maid in the empty lot and dig in the sand. When I think about how things were for the boys when they were small . . . poor little Ingrid has nothing else to keep her busy except putting dirt in her red tin pail and then pouring it from one sand pile to the other. If only the weather were good enough so that she could do this every day, things would be fine. Although God save me, what a trial it is with all the laundry in the kitchen.
August 10, 1902
I feel so horribly lost and confused, especially at night when I lie in bed, longing for Otto up at Grefsen, and missing Einar and Halfred, who are at Løiten. Sometimes I take Åse into my bed all night long so I won’t feel so alone.
It’s better in the daytime. Then I’m always thinking up all kinds of plans for the future. But when I truly consider the life that we’re going to start, then I can be almost feverish with impatience. Good Lord, good Lord, how long is this going to continue? My heart feels like it will burst. Then Otto asks me what’s wrong. He can always tell now whenever something is wrong. It’s strange how his illness has made him so perceptive. He notices at once every little change in my mood.
I’ve never loved my husband as much as I do now.
THEN HENRIK CAME HOME from England. He had inherited money from one of his uncles, and he and Otto became business partners.
I HAD ACTUALLY LOST TOUCH with Henrik after I became engaged. He went to England at about the same time Otto and I were married, and found an excellent position there. We visited him when we were in London, and he and Otto corresponded a bit. Occasionally I would add a greeting to Otto’s letters and receive in turn congratulations on my birthday or whenever Otto told him about an addition to our family.
During the time when they were making arrangements for the new company, it was natural for Henrik to come to our house quite often, and the three of us also did a great deal of socializing together, going to the theater and eating supper out and the like.
Otto admired Henrik beyond words. In the beginning I was happy to have him visit, mostly because it somehow brought Otto and me closer together.
The three of us would talk about all kinds of things. Henrik has always been fond of talking. And we aired our ideas as we used to do in the old days, at Aunt Guletta’s house and in Henrik’s lodgings. Naturally, things were quite different now—if only because of the fact that now we all had had experiences that served as a basis for our discussions. So we talked somewhat less. And Henrik had grown quite reserved. But he has always been exceptionally good at giving brief but articulate speeches on all sorts of topics.
I think he wanted to lend us a helping hand. He knew both of us quite well, but he stood outside of us, looking in at our home, and he clearly grasped the situation at once.
He was the one who steered the conversation to subjects that indirectly touched on our relat
ionship, always in general terms. All three of us pretended that we weren’t talking about ourselves. Yet Otto and I were able to say so much to each other, and Henrik would agree with first one and then the other of us, presenting the issues so that we both became aware of much that we hadn’t previously understood, since we were right in the midst of it all.
In a sense, it was a kind of settling of accounts—or a clearing of the air. And I can’t deny that when things had been cleared out, I felt a bit empty inside.
That was a dangerous feeling. I was living so comfortably, and I had too much time to think about myself. Otto, being the kind of person that he is, was affected in such a way that he was even more considerate toward me than before. For many years he had taken charge of my life for me, without thinking that I might not be so enthusiastic about the home and the circle of friends and the routines that he had arranged for both of us. It never occurred to him that my opinions were anything more than “whims,” and he didn’t have time to pay attention to them because he was simply too busy trying to provide all those comforts for me.
Now he suddenly heard the same opinions voiced by Henrik. I think most men listen more closely to a friend whom they also highly respect than to the wife they have been married to for eight to ten years. That was true of Otto, at any rate.
Another matter was that my self-confidence grew as I became the focus of Henrik’s attentiveness and empathy. I had always felt a slight admiration for him because he was handsome and articulate. Now, having returned from abroad, he was something of a novelty, and it was rather intriguing to renew our old, familiar relationship. Rumor had it that he had “lived” a great deal during those years—in all senses of the word. Otto hinted as much, and the women in our social circle spoke with great zeal about it. They found Henrik wildly interesting and sweet and were exceedingly impressed. And I had become enough a part of their group that I was more influenced by their views than I even knew.