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Jakob was a very big young man, with a quick head and an easy temper. He had many friends, but none of them could dispute the fact that hewas growing fat at the early age of thirty. Emilie was not a regularbeauty, but she had an extremely graceful and elegant figure, and theslimmest waist in Copenhagen, she was supple and soft in her walk andall her movements, with a low voice, and a reserved, gentle manner. Asto her moral being, she was the true daughter of a long row ofcompetent and honest tradesmen: upright, wise, truthful and a bit of aPharisee. She gave much time to charitable work, and therein minutelydistinguished between the deserving and the undeserving poor. Sheentertained largely and prettily, but kept strictly to her own milieu. Her old father, who had travelled round the world, and was an admirerof the fair sex, teased her over the Sunday dinner table: there was,he said, an exquisite piquancy in the contrast between the supplenessof her body, and the rigidity of her mind.

There had been a time when, unknown to the world, the two had been inconcord. When Emilie was eighteen, and Jakob was away in China on a ship, she fell in love with a young naval officer, whose name was Charlie Dreyer, and who, three years earlier, when he was only twenty- one, had distinguished himself and been decorated in the war of 1849. Emilie was not then officially engaged to her cousin; she did not believe, either, that she would exactly break Jakob’s heart if she left him and married another man. All the same, she had strange, sudden misgivings, the strength of her own feelings alarmed her. When in solitude she pondered on the matter, she held it beneath her to be so entirely dependent on another human being. But she again forgot her fears when she was with Charlie, and she wondered and wondered that life indeed held so much sweetness.

Her best friend, Charlotte Tutein, as the two girls were undressing after a ball, said to her: "Charlie Dreyer makes love to all the pretty girls of Copenhagen, but he does not intend to marry any of them. I think he is a Don Juan. "

Emilie smiled into the looking-glass. Her heart melted at the droughtthat Charlie, misjudged by all the world, was known to her alone forwhat he was: loyal, constant and true.

Charlie’s ship was leaving for the West Indies; upon the night beforehis departure he came out to her father’s villa near Copenhagen to saygood-bye, and found Emilie alone. The two young people walked in thegarden; it was moonshine. Emilie broke off a white rose, moist withdew, and gave it to him. As they were parting on the road just outsidethe gate, he seized both her hands, drew them to his breast, and inone great flaming whisper begged her, since nobody would see him walkback with her, to let him stay that night, until in the morning hemust go so far away.

It is probably almost impossible to the children of a later generationto imagine or realize the horror, dread and abomination which the ideaand the very word of seduction would awake in the minds of the younggirls of that past age. She would not have been as deadly frightenedand revolted if she found that he meant to cut her throat.

He had to repeat himself before she understood him, and as she did sothe ground sank beneath her. She felt as if the one man amongst all,whom she trusted and loved, was intending to bring upon her the supreme sin, disaster and shame, was asking her to betray her mother’s memory and all the maidens in the world. Her own feelings for him made her an accomplice in the crime, and she realized that she was lost: Charlie felt her wavering on her feet, and put his arms round her. In a stifled, agonized cry she tore herself out of them, fled, and with all her might pushed the heavy iron gate to, she bolted it on him as if it had been the cage of an angry lion. On which side of the gate was the lion? Her strength gave way, she hung on to the bars, while on the other side, the desperate, miserable lover pressed himself against them, fumbled between them for her hands, her clothes, and implored her to open. But she recoiled and flew, to the house, to her room, only to find there despair within her own heart and a bitter vacuity in all the world round it.