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Out of Isak Dinesen

Karen Blixen's untold story

by Linda G.Donelson

Excerpt

After leaving Denmark, where in December there are only seven hours of daylight, arriving in Africa has the effect of a bright light switched on when you have been asleep in the dark. You cannot get used to the glare. You would like to appreciate the fruity, flower-laden aroma of the coastal forest, and to rejoice in the chanting of the porters as they unload the ship--large bundles on top of turbaned heads, brown legs in loincloths wading from the log canoes to the beach. You would like to stare up at the baobabs, the elephants of the tree world, and wonder why they have been planted, as it appears, upside down. You would like to touch the brown shining-eyed children and ask their names, and to peer inside the stuccoed buildings lining the tunnel-like streets. You would like to know how this Muslim colony came to be here, and why a great coral fort rises over the entrance to the town. You would like to think about the slave and ivory trade that has passed through Mombasa port, and the coffee, sisal, and tea being shipped to England and points abroad from this small tropical island, joined by a bridge to the African mainland. But it is so bright that you only wish to get away, anywhere, out of the sun.

There is a strange, thick, musty smell at the African coast that may have seemed ominous to Karen--who was perhaps yearning to have her mother beside her as she readied to leave the ship. The sight of palm trees and bougainvillea, of minarets and African fishing canoes did not arouse her excitement as she had expected; she was fainting from the heat. There being no quay, Bror, in a rumpled white suit, was rowed out to greet her. He was robust and tanned, and roughly affectionate--but she wished he would not embrace her so openly in front of the others. His greeting matched the enthusiasm of the crowd onshore to welcome Prince Wilhelm to Mombasa....

As the lone woman in the company, Karen may have been aware that she was creating a sensual effect. Although her shoes added height, she seemed small beside Bror, and her figure was generous: one could say ripe, as one might expect of a bride. She had taken off her hat, revealing her thick brown hair. Her face and dark eyes were sweet and alluring. The men may have judged that Blixen had chosen well. They perhaps wondered if he had tasted the fruits.

As a matter of fact, it is likely he had. Bror Blixen was not one to be reticent when it came to women. In his twenty-seven years he had already known quite a few, and he clearly had a way with them.

Bror had always known Karen, but he had begun to find her particularly interesting some four years previously when she fell in love with his twin brother Hans. Hans was a few minutes older and a little better looking, and Bror made his life a game of drawing attention from Hans to himself. Hans became a soldier and expert horseman. Bror went to agricultural school, which he never took seriously, and, for lack of another trade, afterwards took up management of the family's dairy farm. He did not do too badly at it, because he had a knack for working with animals. But his greatest talent was for the pleasurable pursuits--parties, hunting, and women.

Karen had had a teasing relationship with both twins since they were children, when she saw them at family gatherings. If she eyed her cousins with the possibility of marrying one of them, she chose Hans. In his uniform, with his medals for horsemanship, he was decidedly the hero of the twins. And it was a hero she was seeking; she would have nothing else--unless she were to be the hero herself.

The family knew about Karen's infatuation with Hans. For several years she believed she might win him. Her best friend and cousin, Daisy, encouraged her in this fantasy. The fact that Daisy's and Hans's mutual grandmother and Karen's grandmother were sisters and the fact that the cousins by virtue of wealth were part of the same social set prepared the stage for girlish intrigue. Karen and Daisy used some deviousness to bring Hans and Karen together.

"I fell very, very deeply in love when I was quite young,--it was in 1909," she later wrote (LFA, 225). She was then twenty-four years old. In the tale "The Deluge at Norderney," she provides a description, elegantly concealed, of a loss of virginity--portrayed as a loss of "voice":

"the court physician, who was attending me, told me that I had lost my voice and that I had no hope of getting it back. While I was still in bed I was much worried by this, not only by the loss of my voice itself, but by the thought of how I should now disappoint and lose my friends. . . . I was even shedding tears about it. . . . He had to get up from his chair and pretend to look out of the window to hide his laughter. I thought it heartless of him, and did not say any more to him. . . . he said, "I have reason to laugh, for I have won my bet. I held that you were indeed the simpleton you look, which nobody else would believe. . . . It will not make the slightest difference in the world to you that you have lost that voice of yours." (SGT, 32)

Out of Isak Dinesen: Karen Blixen's untold story (Book Description)

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Supported misspellings: karen blixon, karin, isaac, isak dineson, isak denison, dinison, dinisen, denesen, dinnison, dennison, dinnisen, coolsong, donaldson