Excerpts from
Tina
By Herman Bang
The extract comes from the final part of the book. Tina has just experienced an unhappy love affaire. Furthermore Denmark lost in the war against the Preussians over the southers borders and Tina´s home, the idyllic countryside of Als, has been marked by the confrontation with death and destruction.
The first grey light of dawn fell across the room, and the candle was burning very low when Tina got up and put it out. She went carefully down the stairs and opened the front door gingerly. She saw the inn and the church and the blacksmith´s cottage, and she turned to look at the school, for the last time: at her mother´s place by the window with the edge of her chair just visible.
She walked slowly down the road; at the terrace she stepped over the fence into the commissioner´s garden, where the trees and strubs, and the roses wrapped in matting, stood like wraiths in the half-light.
She went up the garden-room steps and looked in through the French window. She knew every inch of this house, and every inch of it lay desolated.
Her mind was empty of thoughts, dead already, it seemed. She sought no forgiveness. She knew only the time had come to make an end.
Herman Bang: Tina
The Athlone Press 1984
Translated by Paul Christophersen
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