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Page 16
"So! and now?"
"Now I have presented the letter to Miss Brandt."
"You gave it away? Why?"
"Because I learned that the man, who perhaps or probably wrote it
in his youth, has spoken about it publicly, and is counsellor in
one of the courts."
"Oh, I understand," said the cousin, half audibly: "when the ideal
is found out to be a counsellor, then--"
"Then it is not an ideal any longer? No. The whole had been
spoiled by being fumbled in public. I would get away from the
temptation to think of him. Do court to him, announce myself to
him as the happy finder,--I could not."
"That I understand very well," said the cousin, putting her arm
affectionately around Ingeborg's waist; "but why did you just give
Miss Brandt the letter?"
"Because she is acquainted with the counsellor, and indeed, as far
as I could understand, feels somewhat for him. They two can get
each other; and what a wonderful consecration it will be when she
on the marriage-day gives him the letter!"
The cousin said musingly: "And such secrets can live in one whole
year, without another surmising it!" Suddenly she added: "But how
will Miss Brandt on that occasion interpret the word 'Geb'?"
"Oh! I suppose a single syllable is of no consequence; and,
besides, Miss Brandt is a judicious girl," answered Ingeborg, with
an inexpressible flash in the dark eyes.
IV.
Good fortune seldom comes singly. One morning Criminal and Court
Counsellor Bagger got, at his residence at Noerre Street, official
intelligence that from the first of next month he was transferred
to the King's Court, and in grace was promoted to be veritable
counsellor of justice there; rank, fourth-class, number three. As,
gratified by this friendly smile from above, he went out to repair
to the court-house, he met in the porch a postman, who delivered
him a letter. With thoughts yet busy with new title and court,
Counsellor Bagger broke the letter, but remained as if fixed to
the ground. In it he read:
"The high-seat pillars have come on shore.
"--'GEB.'--"
One says well, that a man's love or season of courtship lasts till
his thirtieth year, and after that time he is ambitious; but it is
not always so, and with Counsellor Bagger it was in all respects
the contrary. His ambition was already, if not fully reached, yet
in some degree satisfied. The faculty of love had not been at all
employed, and the letter came like a spark in a powder-cask; it
ran glowing through every nerve. The youthful half of his soul,
which had slept within him, wakened with such sudden,
revolutionary strength, that the other half soul, which until now
had borne rule, became completely subject; yes, so wholly, that
Counsellor Bagger went past the court-house and came down in
Court-house Street without noticing it. Suddenly he missed the big
building with the pillars and inscription: "With law shall Lands
be built;" looked around confused, and turned back.
So much was he still at this moment Criminal Examiner, that among
the first thoughts or feelings which the mysterious letter excited
in him was this: It can be a trick, a foolery. But in the next
moment it occurred to him, that never to any living soul had he
mentioned his bold figure of the high-seat pillars, and still less
revealed the mysterious, to him so valued, syllable--geb--. No
doubt could exist: the fine, perfumed paper, the delicate lady
handwriting, and the few significant words testified, that the
billet which once in youthful, sanguine longing he had entrusted
to the winds of heaven, had come to a lady, and that in one way or
another she had found him out. He remembered very well, that a
single time, five or six weeks before, he had in a numerous
company mentioned that incident, and he did not doubt that the
story had extended itself as ripples do, when one throws a stone
into the water; but where in the whole town, or indeed the land,
had the ripple hit the exact point? He looked again at the
envelope. It bore the stamp of the Copenhagen city mail: that was
all. But that showed with some probability that the writer lived
in Copenhagen, and maybe at this moment she looked down upon him
from one of the many windows; for now he stood by the fountain.
There was something in the paper, the handwriting, or more
properly perhaps in the secrecy, that made her seem young,
spirited, beautiful, piquant. There was something fairy-like,
exalted, intoxicating, in the feeling that the object of the
longing and hope of his youth had been under the protection of a
good spirit, and that the great unknown had taken care of and
prepared for him a companion, a wife, just at the moment when he
had become Counsellor of Justice of the Superior Court. But who
was she? This was the only thing painful in the affair; but this
intriguing annoyance was not to be avoided, if the lady was to
remain within her sphere, surrounded by respect and esteem.
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