Smilla Jaspersen—Benja

Smilla Jaspersen and Benja are rivals for Moritz Jaspersen’s attention, but their conflict reaches beyond romantic jealousy: Benja belongs to the household from which Smilla has long tried to flee, while Moritz’s attachment to Smilla keeps drawing her back. Smilla’s changing view of Benja—from a seemingly self-assured performer to a woman capable of fierce love, and finally to an active threat—culminates in a violent struggle that enables Smilla to leave with Moritz’s help.

First Impressions and Misreading

Smilla initially interprets Benja’s behavior through the apparent advantages of her upbringing. Benja’s parents are accomplished and restrained; they arranged private ballet instruction for her during summers at their house on the Costa Smeralda, and Benja herself had wanted the lessons. Against this background, Smilla reads Benja’s provocations as the confidence of someone who has never had to lack anything. Benja walks through a room in her underwear, puts red silk scarves over the lamps because the light hurts her eyes, and repeatedly makes appointments with Moritz only to cancel them, saying she needs to see someone her own age. Smilla suspects that Benja is testing her youth and attractiveness on Moritz, who is almost fifty years older.

That interpretation begins to fail when Benja asks Moritz to move the furniture so she can dance and he refuses. Benja first assumes she will get her way; then, as she realizes Moritz will not yield, her face changes from expectation to rage and finally to a look of despair. Smilla sees more than a thwarted demand. The moment reveals that Benja’s apparent coquettishness conceals an intense attachment, and that Moritz’s refusal reaches her as a genuine loss.

Love, Rivalry, and Moritz’s Past

Smilla comes to understand Benja’s love as forceful and uncompromising: she imagines it as a military operation, prepared to endure and fight for what it wants. That recognition does not reconcile the women. Smilla also concludes that Benja may always hate her, because Moritz’s deepest emotional attachment remains, in Smilla’s understanding, bound to the memory of her mother. Benja may try to claim a place beside Moritz, but she cannot reach that interior landscape of grief and feeling.

The novel leaves Smilla’s judgment unsettled. She later allows that Benja may have won Moritz after all, and concedes that Benja possesses raw energy rather than merely relying on beauty or flirtation. This possibility sharpens the rivalry: Benja is not simply an interloper whom Moritz’s past has already defeated. Her attachment may have altered the present, even if Smilla cannot know how fully.

The Threat Revealed

Smilla’s suspicion takes a concrete form when she stands in the snow against the house wall and looks down into the pantry. She sees Benja pour a glass of milk and hand it to the Toenail, who steps into view. The glimpse connects Benja to someone Smilla recognizes as dangerous, though the scene does not explain the terms of their association. It nevertheless changes the stakes of Smilla’s return: Benja’s role in the household cannot be treated as a private romantic matter alone.

When Smilla enters the living room, Benja stands beside Moritz and says that she was the one who called. Moritz does not deny responsibility for what has happened, but Benja’s admission places her directly inside the action that has brought Smilla back. She then tells Smilla that people are waiting outside to take her away and insists that Smilla does not belong there. Benja is no longer merely competing for Moritz’s affection; she is helping enforce Smilla’s removal.

A Contest over Smilla’s Departure

Moritz speaks of wanting peace and his family around him, and admits that he failed to achieve that life. Seeing the box delivered that afternoon, he understood that Smilla was leaving again. He says he is too old to bring her home as he once did, and that he does not want to let her go. Benja stands beside him, but she does not share his appeal. Instead, she warns that the people outside are waiting and asks whether Moritz will go out to them himself or whether she should fetch them. Her ultimatum makes her position unmistakable: she is prepared to help turn the waiting threat into action.

Smilla, exhausted by the repeated pattern of escape and return, prepares to give in. Then Moritz tells Benja to stay and asks Smilla what he can do. Smilla calls an outside contact and says she is coming. Benja immediately threatens to go out and send the waiting people after her once the car drives away. Their conflict has become physical and immediate: Benja attempts to preserve control of the situation by keeping Smilla exposed to pursuit, while Smilla acts to get away.

Smilla grabs Benja through her leotard and puts a hand around her throat, cutting off her windpipe. She holds her down despite Benja’s greater height and weight, then releases her. Benja makes no sound; her face is empty with fear. Smilla’s violence is not presented as a reconciliation or a resolution of their rivalry. It is the forceful interruption of Benja’s threat. With the car waiting outside, Smilla crawls onto the floor in the back, her box on the seat beneath a blanket, and Moritz gets into the front. Their exit makes Benja’s opposition part of the same unresolved family pattern that has governed Smilla’s returns and departures: she helps secure this escape, but the deeper contest over Moritz’s past, present attachments, and Smilla’s freedom remains open.