Lise

See Lovisa

Lovisa

Lovisa, who is called Lise by her husband, is the main character in Dinesen's story. She is nineteen years old and has been blissfully married for only a week to Sigismund, whom she has planned to marry for ten years. She is from a family of greater rank and wealth than Sigismund's, and her parents originally objected to him. Lovisa is girlish in many respects: she was still playing with dolls until fairly recently; the story of the thief reminds her of a fairy-tale character, "Red Ridinghood's wolf"; she has "never in her life been exposed to danger"; and she plays a game of hide-and-seek on Sigismund to make him grieve her absence. Yet Lovisa considers herself much more mature than her twenty-four-year-old husband. She delights in the freedom of having no secrets from him. Though she wants "to obey him in everything," she is...