The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Feeling better, Brigge decides to visit the library to read poetry. As he passes through the streets, expecting to encounter some strange person, he sees a tall, lean man who moves in a manic, jerking fashion. The man suffers from St Vitus' Dance (scientifically known as Sydenham's chorea), which causes rapid, uncoordinated movements in the hands, feet, and face. Brigge is darkly fascinated by the man's movements and follows him along the street. He offers out his hand to help the man. They walk together but, overcome by his illness, the man jolts and judders violently then vanishes into the crowd. Brigge does not have the energy to follow him. He feels empty.

Brigge knows that many people would envy his opportunity to live in Paris, even though he is caught in a deep depression. Paris is "a great city, great and full of remarkable temptations" (76). These temptations have altered Brigge's worldview, to some degree. Brigge desperately wants to share his experiences with the world but does not feel that he has the opportunity to do so. His thoughts exist "only at the price of being alone" (76).

The horror of day-to-day life exists "in every particle of the air" (76), Brigge says, and people breath in this horrific air daily. These horrors then fester within the body until they can no longer be contained and they spill out "like a beetle that has been trodden on" (77). People try to stand up defiantly to these fears. While walking in the street, he sees the now-familiar death mask taken from a woman who drowned in the River Seine. The woman's face has a knowing smile that conveys peace and serenity. Brigge imagines the woman's life and the circumstances of her death. He watches old men feed birds with crumbs of cakes hidden in the pockets of their coats. The passing people get in the way of the men's pure act, meaning that only birds appear, rather than the angels that the men deserve to summon. Women, Brigge observes, feed the birds in a much less ritualistic, much less religious manner.

While reading, Brigge thinks about the nature of fame and celebrity and how the "loneliest and remotest of men" (79) can appropriate the name of a dead writer (a subtle reference to the Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen) to make their own identity. These people misunderstand the complexity of the "timelessly tragic poet" (80). Brigge thinks about the women in his past, particularly in his immediate family. He remembers his mother talking about his aunt, Ingeborg. Everyone in the family loved Ingeborg who died unexpectedly due to illness. His mother complained that she would never get over Ingeborg's death. Brigge would watch his mother pour through Ingeborg's possessions after Ingeborg's death, though she is convinced that everything is too complicated for her to understand. The young Brigge tried to reassure his mother by referring to the death of another of his aunts, Countess Ollegard Skeel, who "had burned to death trying to rearrange the flowers in her hair in a mirror lit by candles before a ball" (82). Ingeborg's death was harder for his mother to process, however. Brigge recalls a story about the days after Ingeborg's funeral. His mother's family, sat in the house during a period of mourning, saw Ingeborg's ghost pass through the room to serve the tea, just as she had done when she was alive. A dog excitedly ran to Ingeborg's ghost as the family watched in stunned silence.

Brigge remembers his mother and a time he came close to telling her about "the hand" (83) though, ultimately, he did not feel strong enough to do so. Later, he considered confiding the same story in his cousin Erik but again stayed silent. Instead, he decides to write it in his notebook. One winter, he recalls, when he was a small boy, he sat drawing at a table by lamplight. His French governess was sat beside him, absorbed in a book. Brigge dropped one of his pencils on the floor. He clambered down to the floor and fumbled in the darkness for the missing pencil. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he studies his searching hand. Then, another hand suddenly appears as though it is coming out of the wall, searching and fumbling in a similar fashion. Brigge was horrified. He withdrew from the darkness and sat on his chair. As the governess tried to help him, he had no idea how to tell her what he had seen. He suddenly became aware that his future would be "full of inwardness and remaining silent" (85) as he struggled with the idea of telling anyone of the horror he had experienced.

A short time after the incident with the hand, Brigge became very sick. His fever became so intense that all he could do was scream. His family gathered around his bed. He remembers one evening, during a fit of screaming, when his mother returned from a glamorous ball, dressing in "her magnificent court gown" (86) and cradled him in her arms. His father, however, insisted that they return to the ball because the illness is not "anything serious" (86).