Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/343

 was queer and absurd. I shrugged my shoulders with the others at things that at the bottom of my heart I found noble and elevating, I tried to admire what was repulsive to my inmost self, I pretended to believe that the quality of virtue was hypocrisy and the word itself an absurdity, no, an 'indecency,' as one of Stephensen's intellectual friends said. In short, I tried to howl with the wolves I was among (after all you have wolves in Denmark, haven't you?—do you remember when you made fun of me?—but no lions). I did not succeed in getting my stiff neck bent, perhaps the fault is mostly yours, and this is not the least I have to thank you for."

"April 26th.

"We lived very sociably, as Stephensen had a real mania for diversion, and this sociability often lasted far into the night. As I had to get up early in the morning—after the German custom I was a rather industrious housewife, and had to be so to make two ends meet—this added considerably to the breaking down of my health.

"Sometimes I tried to excuse myself, which always made Stephensen most irritable. Very likely I should in the end have got my way, had it not been for one thing: my jealousy.

"How I have suffered from jealousy, I can hardly make you understand. I do not believe any man can understand it, though your sex is supposed to have produced Othellos.

"One would think that when a wife has lost so much respect and love for her husband, and when hardly any relationship exists, she would be able almost with indifference to see him run after others. With me it was almost the reverse. The cooler I felt towards him, the more burning