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2026-06-03T12:55:01Z

Christian always knew he was different. Just as he always knew, society viewed his difference as immoral. He had settled with the notion of marrying someone who would not understand and thus, when his betrothed caught him red-handed in the middle of one of his affairs, he was also ready to face the consequences. Except, there were none. Anne Kirstine told him his secret was safe, because they were each other's secret bearers now, meaning she had no virginity to give him and he had no fidelity to pay her back - and so, he fell in love with her. Suddenly it became a happy union.

They had been betrothed since they were little.Their match was made in efforts to unite two of the most powerful lower-noble families in Denmark, the landowning Griffenhjelm family and Anne Kirstine's merchant "Axelsen" one. Nevertheless, they became a couple forged by more than familial ambition. Like so, they became each other's confidantes and best friends years before they finally married, when Anne Kirstine was twenty-two and Christian more than ten years older. They moved into a huge period apartment in Copenhagen, set up shop there as regular artists working for the Court and the Kinng - and after two years, Anne Kirstine gave birth to their first son and the new heir to the Griffenhjelm estate, Johannes Peder.

For three years, they were allowed an idyllic, relatively free family lifestyle in Copenhagen where no one asked about their marriage or bothered either of them while they took various other lovers than each other, Christian eventually settling with his secretary, Hermann and Anne Kirstine keeping a tight group of girlfriends at her disposal. It was blissful. It was Heaven.

It was also temporary. In the year of the lord, 1781, Christian's father, the Baron Griffenhjelm of Mariendal, died from typhus fever and since there were no other sons to the family, it befell Christian to return home to Mariendal in remote Western Jutland and take over leadership of the manor house. Anne Kirstine, of course, would come with him, along with Johannes - and Hermann as well. He couldn't rightly go anywhere without him.

The manor was run-down and showed obvious signs of not having been mananged properly for years, so Christian looked at Anne Kirstine, once they'd settled in, and said, it seems my painting days are over, what a great fortune for the world, that I have such a talented wife to carry on my heritage. So, while Christian worked, Anne Kirstine would paint - her new surroundings, the new people in it, her family and a world that was slowly falling apart, also politically.

In 1781, we are historically seven years from the abolition of serfdom in Denmark. Seven years from freedom for the whole foundation of Danish society, a freedom that would inevitably destabilize everything that Anne Kirstine spent her days painting during those days, so prettily.

That's the setting.

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KEEPING HOUSE.

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