JACOBSENIANA - J. P. Jacobsen Selskabet - Aarhus Universitet

and a young boy 12 years of age. I cannot here quote the two cru-
cial scenes in extenso, just offer you a sample.
Marie Grubbe. Right at the beginning of Fru Marie Grubbe the
young protagonist is in the flourishing garden of her fathers
manor some time in the middle of the 17 th century somewhere in
the middle of Jutland. Playing around, she imagines some cruel
sado-masochistic tableaux from some books she consults for sex-
ual pleasure. She then gathers the blossoms of a climbing rose and
becomes more and more eager, soon she fills her skirt with flow-
ers, which she carries into an arbor. The text goes on: “She sat
down by the table, took them from her lap, and laid one upon the
other until the stone was hidden under a fragrant cover of pale
roses./ When the last flower had been put in its place, she
smoothed the folds of her frock, brushed off the loose petals and
green leaves that had caught in the nap, and sat with hands in her
lap gazing at the blossoming mass./ This bloom of color, curling
in sheen and shadow, white flushing to red and red paling to blue,
moist pink that is almost heavy, and lavender light as wafted on
air, each petal rounded like a tiny vault, soft in the shadow, but
gleaming in the sun with thousands of fine light-points; with all
its fair blood-of-rose flowing in the veins, spreading through the
skin – and the sweet, heavy fragrance, rising like vapor from that
red nectar that seethes in the flower-cup…/ suddenly she turned
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