Ida Brandt (36 page)
Authors: Herman Bang
“But they hide the stove,” laughed Mr Mourier.
Over in the living room, the rather tired older ladies had settled down around Mrs von Eichbaum’s bed curtain.
“Yes,” said Mrs von Eichbaum: “all that is needed now are the bows. But Kate has promised me to tie them.”
The young people were dancing a quadrille, and the ladies and gentlemen wound almost wildly around. The lieutenant colonel’s voice could once be heard over the music. He was talking about tradition.
∞∞∞
Ida opened and closed gates and doors so quietly.
But as she passed the door on the first floor, Dr Quam was just opening it.
“Is it you?” he said. “Oh, what a night, two attempted suicides, and they have both had to be pumped out.”
Petersen had heard Dr Quam speaking to Ida, and she put her head out:
“Och, have you had a good time?” she said, pulling Ida into the ward, where Nurse Roed was sitting under the gas lamp eating her dinner.
There were loud voices from in the women’s ward, and from the main ward came the sound of the patients’ groans.
“Ach, ach,” said Nurse Petersen, who had to run back and forth: “They are restless tonight.”
Dr Quam looked in the direction of Ward A and asked Nurse Roed:
“Is he not in bed?”
“No.”
“And he’s being sent off tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
Dr Quam opened the door leading in.
The gentleman in Ward A was sitting up on the windowsill, with the window open, and looking out into the gale. The rain had passed and the stars were out again.
“Are you sitting
there
?” said Dr Quam. “That is rather against the rules.”
The gentleman in Ward A turned his head half way, stared at the doctor through his heavy eyelids and said:
“I am sitting here in defiance of the regulations.”
And as though he was talking to himself, he said in that strange voice of his that always sounded as though it was laden with sympathy:
“I am looking at the stars. The stars that are so high in the heavens.”
He was silent for a moment.
“When I was young, I looked at them because I wanted to pull them down. Now I look at them to learn patience.”
Dr Quam had come closer. From where he was, down on the floor, he looked up at the gentleman from Ward A: this face registered something of great sorrow.
Then the sick man looked down from the windowsill:
“But let us bow to the laws,” he said and closed the shutters.
Quam remained standing there.
“Yes, but who wrote the laws?”
The gentleman from Ward A smiled:
“Was it not the prof?” he said.
But his fleeting smile disappeared, and he asked:
“Am I to go tomorrow?”
“Yes, tomorrow morning.”
The gentleman from Ward A stared ahead for a moment.
Then he shrugged his shoulders:
“Well, perhaps that is a good thing, doctor.”
And as he fixed his eyes on Quam, he said with a new smile that had the character of a farewell:
“Your world does not tempt me.”
Quam was suddenly moved and said in a rather gentler voice:
“But life has to be lived.”
“Yes,” said the gentleman from Ward A, “by those they don’t lock up.”
“Let me say goodbye now,” he said, opening the door.
Outside, Sister Koch from the women’s ward had come in to fetch Dr Quam.
Ida was standing on the same spot, near the door, leaning against a wall. Her waved hair had been ruined by the rain.
The gentleman from Ward A shook hands with each of them.
“Goodbye,” he said.
Finally, he took Ida’s hand, and then he raised his eyes.
“Goodbye.”
Then he went in again and closed his door.
There was silence for a moment after he had gone. Then Nurse Koch looked at Ida who was standing on the same spot.
“So the party is over, I suppose.”
And Quam, suddenly looking at her, said:
“Yes, Nurse Brandt. I think you need to sleep it off.”
The keys could be heard rattling in the door. Dr Quam and Sister Koch went in to the women’s ward.
“Good night,” said Ida gently.
There was the rattle of keys again. Ida Brandt was going up to her room.
The cries from the restless patients could be heard coming up through the pavilion, as though they were coming from far, far down, from under the ground.
Herman Bang was one of the group of writers representing the advent of modern literature in Denmark. Words such as realism and naturalism are associated with this movement, but Herman Bang was the impressionist par excellence. His novels contain very little by way of authorial comment, but leave readers to pick up the countless hints as to what is really going on.
Social criticism was also a feature of the new movement, and although Bang avoids taking a political stance, his criticism of a society in which social class, snobbery and insensitivity are dominant features is plain to see. Ida Brandt is a victim of this society, brought up on the fringes of the wealthy landowning class, but never quite a part of it and never quite accepted by some of the nurses with whom she subsequently works and who think that, as she has money, she is merely taking up a job that someone else could do with. Good looking and gentle, generous and kind, not endowed with the sharpness to understand what is actually going on around her, she is the outsider, the obvious victim. And victim she is.
Herman Bang (1857–1912) was from an aristocratic Danish family. His homosexuality led to a smear campaign against him and his exclusion from Danish literary circles. He worked as a theatre producer and as a journalist, having first tried unsuccessfully to be an actor.
His first novel
Families Without Hope
was banned for obscenity. He specialised in novels about isolated female characters.
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Publishing History
First published in Denmark in 1896
First published by Dedalus in 2013
Translation copyright © W. Glyn Jones 2013
The right of W. Glyn Jones to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Printed in Finland by Bookwell
Typeset by Marie Lane
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