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As, later on, Emilie looked back upon this time, it seemed to her thatthe child would often provoke an opportunity for this fact to manifestitself, and would then, so to say, clap his hands in triumph anddelight, as if the happy state of things had been brought about by hispersonal skill. But in other cases, his sense of proportion failed him. Emilie in her boudoir had an aquarium with goldfish, in front of which Jens would pass many hours, as silent as the fish themselves, and from his comments upon them, she gathered that to him they were huge,—a fine catch could one get hold of them, and even dangerous to the pug, should she happen to fall into the bowl. He asked Emilie to leave the curtains by this window undrawn at night, in order that, when people were asleep, the fish might look at the moon.

In Jakob’s relation to the child there was a moment of unhappy love,or at least of the irony of fate, and it was not the first time eitherthat he had gone through this same melancholy experience. For, eversince he himself was a small boy, he had yearned to protect those weaker than he, and to support and right all frail and delicate beings amongst his surroundings. The very qualities of fragility and helplessness inspired in him an affection and admiration which came near to idolatry.

But there was in his nature an inconsistency, such as will often be found in children of old, wealthy families, who have got all they wanted too easily, till in the end they cry out for the impossible: he loved pluck too, gallantry delighted him wherever he met it; and for the clinging and despondent type of human beings, and in particular of women, he felt a slight distaste and repugnance. He might dream of shielding and guiding his wife, but at the same time the little, cool, forbearing smile with which she would receive any such attempt from his side, to him was one of the most bewitching traits in her whole person. In this way he found himself somewhat in the sad and paradoxical position of the young lover who passionately adores virginity.

Now he learned that it was equally out of the question to patronize Jens. The child did not reject or smile at his patronage, as Emilie did, he even seemed grateful for it, but he accepted it in the part of a game or a sport. So that, when they were out walking together, and Jakob, thinking that the child must be tired, lifted him on to his shoulders, Jens would take it that the big man wanted to play at being a horse or an elephant just as much as he himself wanted to play that he were a trooper or a mahout.

Emilie sadly reflected that she was the only person in the house whodid not love the child. She felt unsafe with him, even when she wasunconditionally accepted as the beautiful, perfect mother, and as sherecalled how, only a short time ago, she had planned to bring up theboy in her own spirit, and had written down little memorandums uponeducation, she saw herself as a figure of fun. To make up for her lackof feeling, she took Jens with her on her walks and drives, to theparks and the Zoo, brushed his thick hair and had him dressed up asneatly as a doll. They were always together. She was sometimes amusedby his strange, graceful, dignified delight in all that she showedhim, and at the next moment, as in Madam Mahler’s room, she realizedthat however generous she would be to him, he would always be thegiver. Her sisters-in-law, and her young married friends, fine ladiesof Copenhagen with broods of their own, wondered at her absorption inthe foundling—and then it happened, when they were off their guard,that they themselves received a dainty arrow in their satin bosoms,and between them began to discuss Emilie’s pretty boy, with a tenderraillery as that with which they would have discussed Cupid. Theyasked her to bring him to play with their own children. Emiliedeclined, and told herself that she must first be certain about hismanners. At New Year, she thought,
she would give a children’s partyherself.