Sorrow-Acre

Sorrow-Acre Summary | Detailed Summary

This short story begins with a description of the Danish countryside that subtly makes the distinctions between the generations of gentry who have owned the land and the poor who have worked it for them. There is detail in the description of the thatched huts that clearly speaks of the impoverished village in contrast to the mansion and its fine furnishings that indicate no expense was spared in creating a comfortable and pleasurable environment for its inhabitants.

Among its inhabitants were the women who bore the sons that carried on the family name and inherited all that was left by those who came before. The lady of the manor might appear to be - in all her finery - mere window dressing, but the legitimacy she passed to her offspring was the very heart of her family's existence. One of the story's main themes is this very concern. The current lord of the manor lost his wife and then two of his children in infancy. He had arranged a marriage for his surviving child, a son, that would have rehabilitated the family's prestige, but the son had died before it could be accomplished. This news has brought home Adam, the lord's nephew, next in line to inherit the family fortune. This is unlikely to happen, however, because the old lord has taken his son's intended wife as his own bride. She may yet give him sons to whom he can leave his estate.

Adam is up at dawn on his first day back, surveying the land where he grew up, remembering those who had died and the choice he had made to leave home, to travel extensively, and to represent Denmark in the Court of King George. He is unaffected by his uncle's marriage, which will disinherit him largely. He enjoys knowing that his personal success in life depends on his own abilities. He has stretched his mind to embrace new ideas about the rights and freedoms of every man and of justice. He wants to learn more and plans to travel to America. Nonetheless, he was nostalgic for home after receiving news of his cousin's death and asked his uncle if he might visit. He realizes that this will always be home to him and it gives him some weight in the world, even though he might never return to it. At the same time, if he were to stay, he fears the responsibilities would stifle his imagination, energy and emotion.

In his reverie, Adam comes across his uncle and as they walk together, Adam praises the landscape and refers to it as a Garden of Eden. His uncle takes this as a personal compliment. Likewise, the uncle is pleased that Adam is still so fond of his native soil. Adam responds with verses of Danish poetry and a discourse on the virtues of the gods in Nordic mythology who surpass in moral greatness the gods of Greece and Rome, who were capricious and treacherous. He calls the gods of their Danish forefathers divine because of their righteous, trustworthy and benevolent qualities. At this, Adam's uncle responds that it was much easier for them. He goes on to say that these gods were not omnipotent, that they could safely give themselves over to temperance and kindness because there were darker forces that worked the suffering and disasters of the world. He further asserts that true sovereigns have no need to practice chivalry, which implies that have equals as rivals.

Adam remarks to his uncle that he seems distracted, and his uncle agrees. He tells him there is a matter of life and death going on in a nearby rye field. He tells Adam that a week earlier, someone burned his barn down. Several days later, he was presented with a boy, Goske Piil, a widow's son, whom he was told had been seen at the barn near nightfall. While Uncle knew his accusers had other reasons to finger him, he had the boy locked up and intended to turn the matter over to a judge. The judge, in turn, would do whatever the uncle wished - prison, soldiering or set free. However, Goske's mother, Anne-Marie, described as also of questionable character, came to him and attested to her son's innocence. He proposed that if she cut an entire field of rye in one day, he would drop the case against her son. She kissed his riding boot in gratitude for the favor. Uncle acknowledges that this is her only child, her only support in old age, and that she may hold him as dear as her own life. He estimated the field to be a day's work for three men. He tells Adam that the boy was his son's only playmate and that he does not know if Anne-Marie can accomplish the task before her. He proposes to stay all day and watch the scene, but asks Adam for the book, a tragedy, he has in his pocket so that he may read all the while. His servants come bearing his morning chocolate and breakfast on silver trays.

Inside the mansion, the mistress of three months, Sophie Magdalena, 17, wakes and dresses for the day. At one point, she looks grave and thoughtful, but actually does not think at all. Raised in the courts, she never questioned the strange series of events that led her to marry the almost-60-year-old father of her fiancé. She was not disappointed because she had thought her youthful suitor to be infantile, but she is only vaguely aware that she is not as happy as she ought to be. Her maid comes in with her clothing and accessories for the day and she gets ready to go riding with Adam.

During their ride, Adam positions himself between Sophie and the rye field so she will not see what is going on or question him about it. Adam has felt unsettled all day because of the tragic and cruel tale his uncle has told him. He hears the sad contest like a drum beat calling him to respond. While he thinks of the woman, he cannot get the image of his uncle out of his mind. He thinks of how he has looked to the man, since the death of his father, as a second father. He reflects on the fact that his uncle has been the law in this part of the country for longer than Adam has been alive. He thinks that perhaps when uncle traveled through Europe with his sick son as his sole companion, he had set himself apart and become insusceptible to the ideas and feelings of other human beings. Now, in "senile willfulness," he seemed determined to take the life of someone simpler and weaker than himself and feared no retribution. Adam thinks on powers different and more formidable than the "short-lived might of a despot." He felt a foreboding of disaster, but could not warn this man he loved.

Adam is torn, but sits with his uncle, who begins a discussion ostensibly about the book he has borrowed from Adam, but also about his own position and the events unfolding before them. Uncle tells Adam that his new age has made a god in its own image, an emotional god, and that he is writing a tragedy to it. While Adam does not want to debate with his uncle, he also dreads the silence in which he will have to listen to Anne-Marie's sickle. In the course of their conversation, the uncle includes himself among those "who stand in lieu of the gods and have emancipated ourselves from the tyranny of necessity…" Adam finds himself, for the first time, feeling estranged from his uncle.

He is further undone when they go to the field to measure Anne-Marie's progress. Adam shouts at his uncle in French that he should not force the old woman to continue, that he is killing her. His uncle responds that he is not forcing her to do anything. To which, Adam counters, if she quits it will cost her only child. His uncle only seems confused that someone would challenge him, and maintains that he gave Anne-Marie his word. Adam's argument that a life is worth more than a word is ignored. Uncle quotes scripture and his family's history in support of his authority while Adam tries to explain the value of a person willing to lay down her life for another. Uncle dismisses him as too young to understand the way things are. When Adam tells him that Anne-Marie's death will be on his head, his uncle merely responds that he has weathered much before and asks in what fashion this could harm him. Adam tells him it is unlikely that any woman would ever sacrifice her life for either of them.

Adam says he cannot stay another night under his roof. As he stands, avoiding his uncle's eyes, Adam sees the landscape in a new light. His gaze falls on "black stacks of peat (that) stood gravely…" His uncle tells him he will wish him well and asks where he will go. To America, Adam says. Then his mind wonders over all the emotions of the day, especially the sense of belonging he awoke with, and he tells his uncle he will stay. A long, loud roll of thunder breaks. His uncle thanks him and says that he need not stay, that he will tell him tomorrow how things turn out. Adams says he will return to see for himself, but he does not. Instead, he accompanies his young aunt on the harpsichord, all the while thinking that he and Anne-Marie were in the same hands of destiny that would end each.

Uncle stays and has his valet change his clothes in the open pavilion where he eats his supper and drinks a bottle of wine. At sunset, he goes to the field and watches as Anne-Marie finishes the field. He tells her that her son is free and she has done a good day's work that will long be remembered. Her son, beside her, repeats this message. She looks up, touches her son's face and falls dead. In the place where she died, the old lord later set a stone engraved with a sickle. The peasants on the land called the rye field "Sorrow-Acre," by which it was known a long time after the woman had been forgotten.