"But you said he was the only one!"
"Oh--you know, you think that sort of thing sometimes. Of course I've been in love with other people, too; I can't deny that. Flaten was very nice, and took me out driving sometimes, or to a dance or something like that. And of course I was proud of his paying attention to me in spite of my having lost my post. I think I could have got a job in his father's shop but--anyhow, I'm looking for a job now."
"Are you? I hope you'll find a good one."
"That's just the point. But I'm not getting any job at all. That is, I shall in the end, of course, but--well, for instance, in old Flaten's shop--I shouldn't fit in there."
"Not very good pay either, I expect?"
"I'm sure it's not. And then--I don't know; I feel I know too much for it. That wretched academic training of mine does nothing but harm. Oh, well, let's not talk any more about me. It must be late; I'd better go."
I saw her to her door, said good night, and went home. I thought about her ceaselessly. It was wintry weather, with raw streets and an invisible sky. No, really, she's not suited for marriage. No man is served with a wife who is nothing but a student. Why has no one in the country noticed what the young women are coming to! Miss Torsen's tale of the wild party proved how accustomed she was to sitting and listening, and then herself disgorging endless tales. She had done it very well and not omitted much, but she paid attention only to the fun. A grown-up, eternal schoolgirl, one who had studied her life away.
When I reached my own door, Miss Torsen arrived there at the same time; she had been close at my heels all the way. I guessed this from the fact that she was not in the least breathless as she spoke.
"I forgot to ask you to forgive me," she said.
"My dear girl--?"
"Oh, for saying what I did. You mustn't subscribe. I'm so sorry about that. Please be kind and forgive me."
She took my hand and shook it.
In my amazement I stammered:
"It was really a very witty remark: a human journal--ha, ha! Now don't stand there and get cold; put your gloves on again. Are you walking back?"
"Yes. Good night. Forgive me for the whole evening."
"Let me take you home; why not stay a few minutes--"
"No, thank you."
She pressed my hand firmly and left me.
I suppose she wanted to spare my aging legs, damn them! Nevertheless I stole after her to see that she got home safely.
It happened that Josephine came to the town--Josephine, that spirit of labor from the Tore Peak farm. I saw her, too, for she came to pay me a visit. She had looked up my address, and I joked with her again and called her Joséfriendly.
How was everybody at Tore Peak? Josephine had good news about all of them, but she shook her head over Paul. Not that he drank much now; but he did little of anything else either, and had definitely lost interest in his work. He wanted to sell the farm. He wanted to try carting and delivery by horse cart in Stordalen. I asked if he had any prospective purchaser. Yes; Einar, one of the cotters, had had rather an eye on the farm. It all depended on Manufacturer Brede, who had put so much money into it.
I remembered her father, the old man from another world, the man with mittens, who had to be spoon-fed on porridge because he was ninety, who smelled like an unburied corpse. I remembered him and asked Josephine:
"Well, I expect your old father is dead by now?"
"No, praise be," she replied. "Father is better than we dared hope. We must be thankful he's still on his feet."
I took Josephine to the cinema and the circus, and she thought it all quite delightful. But she was shocked at the behavior of the ladies who rode with so little clothing on. She wanted to go to one of the great churches, too, and found her way there alone. For several days she was in the town and did a good deal of shopping. I never once saw her dejected or brooding about anything, and at length she said good-bye, because she was going back next day.
Oh, so she was going home?
Yes, she had done what she had come to do. She had also been to see Miss Torsen and got the money for the actor, because of course he had never sent it.
"Poor Miss Torsen! She was furious with him for not sending it, and turned quite red and ashamed, too. She didn't seem to find it very easy either, because she asked me to wait till next day, but she gave it to me then."
So Josephine had nothing more to do in the town. She had just visited Miss Palm, but she had not, on this occasion, met Miss Palm's brother, Nikolai, who was apprenticed to a master carpenter. Not that it mattered, Josephine said, because the last time she had seen him, nothing came of it, anyhow. So that was that. Because she was not a one to beg--she had some money of her own and livestock as well. As far as that was concerned, she had some woolen blankets, and two beds complete with bedding, too, nor did she lack clothes: she had many changes, both underthings and top ones. Yet in spite of that she had started some more weaving.
I asked in some surprise whether they had been engaged. I had had no inkling--
No, but--. Well, not exactly engaged with a ring, and plighting the troth and all. But that had been their intention. Because otherwise why should that schoolmistress, that sister of his, Sophie Palm, have come up and stayed for nothing at the Tore Peak farm for two whole summers, and behaved as though she were a lady? No, thank you, that was the end of that. Anyhow, that was what she, Josephine, had thought once, but it was a Providence that it wasn't going to happen, because there would never have been anything but trouble. So it was just as well.
Suddenly Josephine caught herself up:
"Good gracious--I nearly forgot to buy the indigo. It's for my weaving. Lucky I remembered it! Well--thanks for your hospitality."
It was between Christmas and the New Year, and I had accompanied Nikolai to his home. Since the town workshop was closed in any case, he had decided to go home and fell timber in the woods.
It was a big farmhouse, enlarged from the old cottage by Nikolai's father, while Nikolai himself had moved up the roof and built on a second story. He has plenty of room for me; I have a small room to myself.
His mother is hard-working and honest; she has a few animals to see to, and usually she is washing something or other, even if it is nothing more than some empty potato sacks. She cooks on the kitchen stove, and keeps her pots and pans shining. She is cleanly, and strains her milk through a muslin cloth, which she afterward washes and rinses twice. But she picks food remnants from between the prongs of forks with a hairpin!
A mirror, pictures of the German Kaiser's family, and a crucifix hang on the walls of the living room; in one corner are two shelves with oddments, including a hymnbook and a book of sermons. They are still simple and orthodox in these parts. The rest of the furniture in the house, the chairs and tables and cupboards and a cleverly constructed chest, have all been made by Nikolai himself.
Nikolai is just as slow and speechless here as in the town; the day after we arrived he went out to the woods without telling his mother. When I asked for him, she said:
"I saw him take the sleigh, so I expect he's gone to the woods."
His mother's name is Petra, and judging from her appearance she cannot be much over forty; like her son, she is ruddy and big-muscled, with a fair complexion and thick, graying hair, a veritable lion's mane. Her eyes are good companions to her hair--dark, and a little worn now, but still good enough to see far and sharply across the fjord. She, too, is taciturn, like all the peasants here, and usually keeps her large mouth shut.
I ask her how long she has been a widow, and she says, "For nearly a generation--no, don't let me tell a lie," she corrects herself. "Sophie is four and twenty now, and it was the year after her birth that he died."
They had only been married a couple of years. Nikolai is six and twenty.
I ponder over this arithmetic, but as I am old and incapable, I cannot make it tally.
Petra was very proud of her children, especially Sophie, who had gone to school and passed an examination, and now held such an important post. Of course her inheritance was used up, but she had her learning instead. Nobody could ever take that from her. A big, handsome girl, Sophie--look, here is her portrait.
I said I had met her at Tore Peak.
At Tore Peak? Oh, yes, she spent her summers there so as to be among her equals; you couldn't blame her for that. But she came home every year, too, as sure as the year came round itself. So I had met her at Tore Peak?
Sometimes I went with Nikolai to the forest for timber, and made myself slightly useful. He is as strong as an ox, and has endurance almost to the point of insensibility--a cut, black eye--nothing. And now it becomes evident that his brain works well, too. He should have had a horse, yes, but he cannot keep a horse till he can provide more fodder. But he cannot buy more pasture land till he has more money. But he was learning more about his trade in the town, and when he had finished his course of training, he would earn more money. After that he would buy a horse.
I visited the neighbors, too. The farms were small, but the farmers cultivated as much land as they required, and there was no poverty. Here were no flowerpots in the windows or pictures on the walls, as at Petra's; but good, thick furs with woven backs hung over the doors, and the children looked healthy and well-fed. The neighbors all knew I lived at Petra's house; every visitor to this district lived at Petra's house--had done so as long as they could remember. I could sense no hostility to Petra in these silent people, but the old schoolmaster was more talkative, and he was quite ready to spread gossip about her. This man was a bachelor; he had his own house and did his own housework. Had he, perhaps, at some time felt a secret desire for the widow Petra?
The schoolmaster gossiped thus:
People who had visited the village in Petra's girlhood always used to live at her parents' house. There was a room and a loft, and the engineer that planned the big road lived there, and so did the two traveling preachers, to say nothing of the itinerant peddlers who toured the district all the year round. So it went on for many a year, with the children growing up, and Petra getting big and hearty. Then Palm came; he was a Swede, a big merchant--a wholesale merchant, one might almost say, for that period, with his own boat and even a boy to carry his wares. Well, there were glass panes again in the windows of Petra's parents' house, and there was meat on Sundays, for Palm liked things done in style. He gave Petra presents of dress materials and sweets. Then he was finished with Petra, and went away to do business elsewhere. But it happened that the child Petra gave birth to was a boy, and when Palm returned and saw him, he stayed, and traveled no more. They married, and Palm added two rooms to the house, for it was his intention to open a shop there. But when he had built honestly and well, he died. His widow was left with two small children, but she had means enough, for Palm had had plenty of money. Then why did not Petra remarry? She could have got a man in spite of the handicap of two small children, for Petra herself was still a young girl. But from her childhood days, said the schoolmaster, she had been spoiled by this love of roving company, and again housed itinerant tramps and Swedes and peddlers, and thoroughly disgraced herself. Some of them stayed there for weeks, eating and drinking and idling. It was shameful. Her parents saw nothing wrong in this because it had always been their way of living, and besides it brought them a little money. So the years went by. When the children were grown and Sophie was out of the way, she might have married even then, for she still had half her money left, and being childless again, it was not too late. But no, Petra didn't want to, and itwastoo late, she said; it was the children's turn to marry now, she said.
"Well, she's pretty old now, isn't she?" I said.
"Yes, time passes," the schoolmaster replied. "I don't know whether anyone has asked her this year, but last year there was someone--one person--or so I've heard, so I've been told. But Petra didn't want to. If I could only guess what she's waiting for."
"Perhaps she's not waiting at all."
"Well, it's all the same to me," says the schoolmaster. "But she takes in all these tramps and peddlers and carries on and makes a public nuisance of herself...."
As I walked home from the schoolmaster's, I found I understood Petra's arithmetic much better.
Nikolai has gone back to his workshop in the town, but I have remained behind. It matters little where I am, for the winter makes a dead man of me in any case.
To pass the time, I carefully measure the piece of land that Nikolai is going to break up when he can afford it, and I calculate what it will cost him, with drainage and everything: a bare two hundredkroner. Then he could keep a horse. It would have been an act of charity to give him this money in case his mother could not. He could have added another field to his land then.
"Look here, Petra--why don't you give Nikolai the two hundredkronerhe needs for fodder for a horse?"
"And four hundred to buy the horse," she muttered.
"That makes six."
"I haven't got such a lot of six hundredkronerslying about."
"But wouldn't the horse be useful for plowing?"
A pause. Then:
"He can break the ground himself."
I was not unfamiliar with this line of reasoning. Everyone has his own problems, and Petra had hers. But the strange thing is that each one of us struggles for himself as though he had a hundred years to live. I once knew two brothers named Martinsen who owned a large farm, the produce of which they sold. Both were well-to-do bachelors without heirs. But both had diseased lungs, the younger brother's much worse than the elder's. In the spring, the younger brother became permanently bedridden, but though he approached his end, he still maintained an interest in everything that went on at the farm. He heard strangers talking in the kitchen and called his brother in.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Only someone to buy eggs."
"What's the price per score now?"
His brother told him.
"Then give him the small eggs," he cautioned.
A few days later he was dead. His brother lived till his sixty-seventh year, though his lungs were diseased. When anybody came to buy eggs, he always gave him the smallest....
"But," I insisted to Petra, "Nikolai doesn't want to waste time breaking his ground himself, does he? Surely if he works at his trade he'll earn more!"
"They don't pay for joinery here," Petra replied. "People buy their chairs and tables from the shops now; it's cheaper."
"Then why is Nikolai working as an apprentice?"
"I've asked him the same question," she replied. "Nikolai just wants to be a carpenter, but it won't get him anywhere. Still, he can do as he likes."
"Well, what else could he do?"
A pause. Petra's big mouth is closed. But at length she says:
"There's plenty of traffic now and a lot of tourists in the summer, both at Tore Peak and down here on the headland. One time we had two Danes living here; they had traveled on foot. 'If you had a horse, you could have driven us here,' they said to me."
"Ah," I thought to myself, "the cat sticking its nose out of the bag!"
"'You've got a big house and four rooms,' the Danes said, and 'There are high mountains and big woods,' they said, 'and fish in the fjord and fish in the river; there are lots of things here, and there's a broad road here,' they said. Nikolai was standing next to them and heard it all, too. 'Now we're here,' they said, 'but we can't get away again unless we walk.'"
Just to say something, I asked her:
"Four rooms--I thought you only had three?"
"Yes, but the workshop could be turned into a room, too," the big mouth replied.
"So that's it!" I thought. With hardly a pause, I continued:
"But if Nikolai were going to deal with tourists, he'd have to get a horse, wouldn't he?"
"Well, I suppose we could have managed it," Petra replied.
"It's four hundredkroner."
"Yes," she said, "and the carriage a hundred and fifty."
"But this land won't feed a horse!"
"What do other people feed horses on?" she asked. "They buy sacks of oats on the headland."
"That's eighteenkronera sack."
"No, seventeen. And you earn as much as that on your first tourist."
Yes, Petra had it all figured out; she was the born landlady, and had grown up in a lodginghouse. She could cook, too, for had she not put two snakes of Italian macaroni in the barley broth? The money for coffee, for the bed at night and waffles in the morning, had grown so dear to her that she hid it away, watched it increase, and grew rich on it. She did not produce like other peasant women, but no one can do everything at one time, and Petra was a parasite. She did not want to live by earning something; she wanted to live on the tourists who earned enough themselves, and could afford to come.
Splendor and Englishmen, no doubt, in these parts! If it all works out as it should--and it probably will.
It is February. I have an idea, a vagrant idea that comes to me, and I harbor it: now that there is a little snow, and its crust is hard, I shall walk across the fields into Sweden. That is what I shall do.
But before I can do it, I must wait for my laundry, and Petra, who is cleanly, washes in many waters. So I pass the time in Nikolai's workshop, where there are many kinds of planes and saws and drills and lathes, and there I fashion strange things. For the small boys of the neighboring farm, I make a windmill that will really turn in the wind. It whirls and rattles well, and I remember my own childhood when we called this apparatus onomatopoeically awindwhirr.
Besides this, I go out walking, and use my winter head as well as I can, which is not very well. I do not blame the winter, nor do I blame anything. But where are the red-hot irons and the youth of omnipotence? For hours sometimes I walk along a path in the woods with my hands folded on my back, an old man, my mind gilded for a moment by an occasional memory; I stop, and raise my eyebrows in surprise. Can this be an iron in the fire? It is not, for it fades again, and I am left behind in a quiet melancholy.
But in order to recall my young days, I pretend to be filled with a heaven-sent energy. It is by no means all pretense, and pictures rise in my mind, fragmentary flageolet tones:
We came from the meadowand downy heather;we came from friendship,too-loo-loo-lay!A star that watchedsaw lips meet lips.None else so dear,so sweet as you.
Those youthful days,those happy days,unmatched since then!but what am I now?The bees once swarmed,the swan once played.There's no play now,yet too-loo-loo-lay!
I break off, and put the pencil in my pocket with a tone still resounding within me. I walk on with some pleasure to myself, at least.
There is a letter for me. Who on earth has found me out here? The letter is as follows:
Forgive me for writing you, but I should like to talk to you about something that has happened. I should like to see you as soon as you come back. There's nothing the matter. Please don't say no.
Yours,
Ingeborg Torsen
I reread it many times. "Something that has happened." But I'm going to Sweden, I'm going to move about a little, and stop losing myself in the affairs of others. Do they think I am mankind's old uncle, that I can be summoned hither and thither to give advice? Excuse me, but I am going to assert myself and become quite inaccessible; the snow is just right, and I have planned a big journey--a business tour, I might almost call it, very important to me--I have a great deal at stake.... How composite is the mind of man! As I sit talking drivel to myself, and even sometimes saying an angry word aloud in order that Petra may hear it, I am not at all displeased at having received this letter; in fact secretly I am so pleased that I feel ashamed. It is merely because I shall soon see the town again--the town with its frostbitten gardens and its ships.
But what on earth can this mean? Has she been to my landlady's and got my address? Or has she met Nikolai?
I left at once.
My landlady was surprised.
"Why, good evening. How well and happy you look! Here's your mail."
"Let it lie. I must tell you, Madame Henriksen, that you are a jewel."
"Ha, ha, ha!"
"Yes, you are. You are a very kind woman. But you have given my address to someone."
"No, indeed; I swear I haven't."
"No? Well, then someone else must have done so. Yes, you're right, I am happy, and tomorrow morning I shall get up very early and walk down by the shore."
"But I did send a message," said my landlady. "I hope it wasn't wrong of me. To a lady who wanted to know as soon as you arrived."
"A lady? You sent a message just now?"
"A little while ago, as soon as you came in. A young, handsome lady; she might have been your daughter, you know."
"Thank you."
"Well, I'm only saying what's so. She said she would come at once, because she had to see you about something."
The landlady left me.
So Miss Torsen was coming this very evening; something must have happened. She had never visited me before. I looked round; yes, everything was neat and tidy. I washed and made myself ready. There, she can have that chair; I'd better light the other lamp, too. It might not be a bad idea to sit down to my correspondence; that would make a good impression, and if I put some letters in a small, feminine hand on top, it might even make her a little jealous--hee, hee. Oh, God, ten or fifteen years ago one could play such tricks; it's too late now....
Then she knocked and came in.
I made no move to shake hands, and neither did she; I merely drew out a chair for her.
"Excuse my coming like this," she said. "I asked Mrs. Henriksen to send me a message; it's nothing serious, and now I feel a little embarrassed about it, but--"
I saw that it was something serious, and my heart began to pound. Why should my heart be affected?
"This is the first time you've been in my rooms," I said, expectant and on the defensive.
"Yes. It's very nice," she said, without looking round. She began to clasp her hands and pull them apart again till the tips of her gloves projected beyond her finger tips. She was in a state of great excitement.
"PerhapsnowI've done something you'll approve of?" she said, suddenly pulling off her glove.
She had a ring on her finger.
"Good," I said. It didn't affect me immediately; I was to understand more later, and merely asked:
"Are you engaged?"
"Yes," she replied. And she looked at me with a smile, though her mouth shook.
I looked back at her, and I believe I said something like, "Well, now, well, well!" Then I nodded in a fatherly fashion, bowed formally, and said: "My heartiest congratulations!"
"Yes, that's what it's come to," she said. "I think it was the best thing to do. Perhaps you think it's a bit unreliable of me or rash or--well, don't you?"
"Oh, I don't know--"
"But it was absolutely the best thing. And I just thought I'd tell you."
I got up. She started, evidently in a very nervous state. But I had only risen to turn down the lamp behind her, which had begun to smoke.
A pause. She said nothing more, so what could I say? But as the minutes passed and I saw she was distressed, I said:
"Why did you want to tell me this?"
"Yes--why did I?"
"Perhaps for a moment you thought you were the center of the world again, but--"
"Yes, I expect so."
She looked about her with great, roving eyes. Then she got up; she had been sitting all this time as though about to spring at me. I rose, too. An unhappy woman--I saw that plainly enough; but good heavens, what could I do? She had come to tell me she was engaged, and at the same time looked very unhappy. Was that a way to behave? But as she got up, I could see her face better under her hat--I could see her hair--the hair that was beginning to show silken and silver at the temples--how beautiful it was! She was tall and handsome, and her breast was rising and falling--her great breast--what a great breast she had, rising and falling! Her face was brown, and her mouth open, just a little open, dry, feverishly dry--
"Miss Ingeborg!"
It was the first time I called her this. And I moved my hand toward her slightly, longing to touch her, perhaps to fondle her--I don't know--
But she had collected herself now, and stood erect and hard. Her eyes had grown cold; they looked at me, putting me in my place again, as she walked toward the door. A cry of "No!" escaped me.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Don't go, not yet, not at once; sit down again and talk to me more."
"No, you're quite right," she said. "I'm not the center of the universe. Here I come to bother you with my unimportant troubles, and you--well, of course, you're busy with your extensive correspondence."
"Look here, sit down again, won't you? I shan't even read the letters; they're nothing, only two or three letters perhaps, probably from complete strangers. Now sit down; tell me everything; you owe me that much. Look, I shan't even read the letters."
And with that I swept them up and threw them into the fire.
"Oh--what are you doing?" she cried, and ran to the fireplace, trying to save them.
"Don't bother," I said. "I expect no happiness to come to me through the post, and sorrows I do not seek."
She stood so close to me that I found myself again on the point of touching her, just for a moment, touching her arm; but I caught myself in time. I had already gone too far, so I said as gently and sympathetically as I could:
"Dear child, you must not be unhappy; it will all turn out for the best; you'll see. Now sit down--there, that's better."
No doubt she had been taken aback by my violence, for she sank into her chair almost absently.
"I'm not unhappy," she said.
"Aren't you? So much the better!"
I began to chatter away at top speed, though I tried to restrain myself, to show that I was nothing more than an uncle to her. I talked to distract her, to distract us both; I let my tongue wag--I could hear it buzzing. What could I say? A little of everything--a great deal, in fact:
"Well, well, child. And whom are you marrying, who is the lucky man? Nice of you to come and tell me before anyone, really very nice; thank you very much. You see I've only just come home and I haven't slept much on the journey. I was anxious to know--well, perhaps not anxious exactly--but still--You know what such a homecoming is: lots of people, noise, brr!--I hardly got any sleep. Then I came home, and then you came along--thank you for coming, Miss Ingeborg--I might be your father and you're just a child; that's why I say 'Ingeborg.' But when you told me all this, I hadn't had any sleep, I wasn't quite balanced--not enough to give you advice; I mean, I hadn't quite appreciated--But now you can quite safely--I'd like to know, of course--Is he old? Is he young? Young, of course. I am imagining what will happen to you now, Miss Ingeborg, in your new condition. I mean, it will be so entirely different from what you've been accustomed to, but God bless you, it will all turn out for the best, I'm sure of that--"
"But you don't even know who it is!" she interrupted, looking at me apprehensively again.
"No, I don't, and I needn't if you'd rather not tell me yet. Who is it? A dapper little man, I can see that from his ring, a schoolmaster perhaps, a clever young schoolmaster--"
She shook her head.
"Then a big, good-natured man who wants to dance with you--"
"Yes, perhaps," she said slowly.
"There you are--you see I've guessed it. A bear who will carry you on his paws. On your birthday--do you know what he'll give you for your birthday?"
But perhaps I was getting too childish; I bored her, and for the first time she looked away from me, looked at a picture on the wall, then at another picture. But it was not easy for me to stop now, after having spoken hardly at all for several weeks, and feeling profoundly excited besides--heaven only knows why.
"How did you like the country?" she asked suddenly. As I could not see the drift of this question, I merely looked at her.
"Weren't you at Nikolai's mother's house?" she persisted.
"Yes."
"What is she like?"
"Are you interested in her?"
"No, I don't suppose so. Oh dear!" she sighed wearily.
"Come, come, you mustn't sound like that when you're newly engaged! What the country was like? Well, there was a schoolmaster--you know, an old bachelor, sly, and amusing. Said he knew me, and put on the most extraordinary airs the first day. And of course I returned the compliment and said I had come exclusively to meet him. 'Impossible!' he said. 'Why should it be?' I said; 'forty years a schoolmaster, a respected man, permanent churchman, chairman, indispensable everywhere!' Well, then I attended his class. Most impressive. He talked continually; for once he had an audience, almost like a school inspection. 'You there, Peter! Ahem,' he said. 'There was a horse and a man, and one of them was riding on the other's back. Which one was riding, Peter?' 'The man,' Peter replies. A pause. 'Well, maybe you're right, Peter--maybe the man was riding. Just like sin, like the devil riding us....'"
But she was looking at the wall again, drifting away from me again. I changed the subject clumsily:
"Of course you'd rather hear about people you know--about Tore Peak, for instance. Josephine has been in town."
"Yes, I know," she said, nodding her head.
"Remember the old man at Tore Peak? I don't think I'll ever forget him. In a certain number of years I shall be like him--perhaps not quite so old. Then I shall be a child again with age. One day he came out, and went down to the field. I saw him; he had mittens on. You know he eats all sorts of things, and I saw him lie down and eat the hay."
She stared at me foolishly.
"But I must say he didn't look as though he had ever eaten hay before--possibly because it was rotting. It was the hay that had been left, you know--rotting down for next year--for the next tourist year."
"You seem to think," she said smiling, "that you have to cheer me up, because I'm terribly unhappy. I'm quite the reverse. Perhaps he's too good for me; that's what his sister seems to think, anyhow, because she tried to stop it. But I'm going to enjoy snubbing that sister of his. Anyhow, I'm not unhappy, and that isn't the reason I've come. I'd really much rather have him than anyone else--since I can't get the one I really want."
"You've told me this before, child--last winter, in fact. But the man you want has gone his way--besides, you said yourself that you didn't belong with him, or rather, that he didn't with you--I mean--"
"Belong? Do I belong anywhere? Do you think I belong in the place I'm going to now? I'm afraid I'm not really suitable for anybody--at least I can't think of anyone I'd suit. I wonder how I'll manage. I wonder if he'll be able to stand me. But I'll do my very best; I've made up my mind to that."
"Well, who is it--do I know him? Of course you suit each other. I can't believe you don't. He must be in love with you, quite madly in love, and you must love him in return. I'm sure you'll come through with flying colors, Miss Ingeborg, because you're capable and intelligent."
"Oh, well," she said, rising suddenly to her feet. But she hesitated over something, and seemed about to speak, then changed her mind again. At the door, she stood with her back to me, pulling on her gloves, and said:
"So you think I ought to do it?"
I was taken aback by the question, and replied:
"Ought to do it? Haven't you done it already?"
"Yes. That is--well, yes, I've done it, I'm engaged. And I can tell from your manner that I've done the right thing."
"Well, I don't know. I can't tell."
I crossed the room to her.
"Who is it?"
"Oh, God, no; let's drop it. I can't bear any more now. Good night."
She stretched her hand out fumblingly, but since she was looking at the floor, she could not find mine, and both our hands circled helplessly round each other for a moment. Then she opened the door and was gone. I called to her, begging her to wait, seized my hat, and hurried after her. An empty staircase. I rushed down and opened the street door. An empty street. She must have run.
"I'll try to see her tomorrow," I thought.
One day, two days, but I did not see her, though I went to all the usual places. Another day--nothing. Then I thought I would go up to her home and inquire about her. At first this did not seem to me too improper, but when it came to the point, I hesitated. There is, after all, something to be lost by making a fool of oneself. But was I not a kind of uncle? No--yes, of course, but still--
A week passes, two weeks, three. The girl has quite disappeared; I hope she hasn't had an accident. I mount the stairs to her home and ring the bell....
She's already gone away; they left as soon as they were married, last week. She's married to Nikolai, Carpenter Nikolai.
March--what a month! The winter is over, yet there's no telling how much longer it may still last. That's what March is for.
I have lived through another winter and seen the nigger entertainment at the Anglo-Saxon theater. You were there too, my friend. You saw how cleverly we all turned somersaults. Why, you even took part yourself, and you carry about a broken rib as a cherished little memento of the occasion. I saw it all from a slight distance away, ten miles, to be exact; no people were near me, but there were seven heavens above.
And pretty soon I shall be reading what the officials have to say about the year's harvest in our country; that is to say, the harvest at the theater--in dollars, and in sterling.
The waggish professor is enjoying himself, quite in his element. There he goes, self-assured and complacent, Sir Mediocrity in all his glory. By next year, he will have dragged other progressive people in his wake; he will have dressed up Norway still more, and made it still more attractive to the Anglo-Saxons. More dollars, and more sterling.
What, do I hear someone objecting?
Yes, Switzerland.
Well, then, we shall invite Switzerland to dinner and toast her thus: "Colleague, our great aim is to resemble you. Who else can squeeze so much profit out of their mountains? Who else can file at such clockwork? Switzerland, make yourself at home; we don't want to rob you; there are no pickpockets at this table. Here's to you!"
But if that doesn't help, we shall have to roll up our sleeves and fight. There are still Norwegians left in good old Norway, and our rival--is Switzerland.
Mrs. Henriksen brings catkins in a vase into my room.
"What, is it spring?"
"Oh, it's getting on."
"Then I shall be going away. You see, Mrs. Henriksen, I should very much have liked to stay, because this is really where I belong; but what more can I do here? I don't work; I merely idle. Do you understand me? I grieve continually, and my heart sits wrinkled. My most brilliant achievement is spinning coins: I toss a coin into the air and wait. When I came here last autumn I wasn't so bad, not nearly so bad. I was only half a year younger then, yet I was ten years younger. What has happened to me since? Nothing. Only--I'm not a better man than I was last autumn."
"But you've been all right all winter, haven't you? And three weeks ago, when you came back from the country, you were so happy!"
"Was I? I don't remember that. Ah, well, things don't move so fast, and nothing has happened to me in these three weeks. Well, never mind; at all events, I shall go away. I must travel when the spring comes. I have always done so in the past, and I want to do the same thing now. Sit down, Mrs. Henriksen."
"No, thank you, I'm too busy."
Too busy! Yes, you work--you're not ten years older than you were last autumn. You think it's hard work to rest on Sundays, don't you? Dear Madame Henriksen! You and your little daughter knit stockings for the whole family, you let your rooms, you keep your family together like a mother. But you mustn't let your little Louise sit for twelve years on a school form. If you do, you'll hardly ever see her all through her youth, those formative years of her life. And then she can't be like you or learn from you. She'll learn to have children easily enough, but she won't learn to be a mother, and when the time comes for her to keep her home and family together, she will not be able to do it. She'll only know "languages" and mathematics and the story of Bluebeard, but that is not food for the heart of a woman. That is twelve years of continual famine for her soul.
"Excuse my asking, but where are you going to?"
"I don't know, but I'm going. Why, where should I go? I shall go aboard a steamship and sail, and when I have sailed long enough, I will go ashore. If I find, on looking about me, that I have traveled too far or not far enough, I shall board a ship again and sail on. Once I walked across into Sweden as far as Kalmar and even Öland, but that was too far, so I turned back. No one cares to know where I am, least of all myself."
You get used to everything; you even get used to the passage of two years.
And now it is spring again....
It is market day in the frontier town; my room is noisy, for there is music down in the fields, the roundabout is whirling, the tightrope walker is gossiping outside his tent, and people of every sort throng the village. The crowds are great, and there is even a sprinkling of Norwegians from across the border. Horses snort and whinny, cows low, and trading is brisk.
In the display window of the goldsmith across the road, a great cow of silver has made its appearance, a handsome breeder that the local farmers stop to admire.
"She's too smart for my crags," says one of them with a laugh.
"What do you think's her price?" says another with a laugh.
"Why, do you want to buy her?"
"No, haven't got fodder enough this year."
A man trudges placidly down the road and also stops in front of this window. I see him from behind, and take note of his massive back. He stands there a long time, trying to make up his mind, no doubt, for now and then he scratches his beard. There he goes, sure enough, entering the shop with a ponderous tread. I wonder if he intends to buy the silver cow!
It takes him an age, and still he hasn't come out. What on earth is he doing in there? Now that I have begun to watch him, I might as well go the whole hog. So I put on my hat and cross to the goldsmith's window myself, mingling with the other spectators, and watching the door.
At last the man re-emerges--yes, itisNikolai. It was his back and hands, but he has got a beard now, too. He looks splendid. Imagine Carpenter Nikolai being here!
We greet each other, and we talk as he shakes me slowly and ponderously by the hand. Our conversation is halting, but we get on. Yes, of course, he has gone into the shop on business, in a kind of way.
"You've not bought the silver cow, have you?"
"Oh, no, not that. It didn't amount to anything, really. In fact, I didn't buy anything."
By degrees, I discover that he is buying a horse. And he tells me that he has dug that piece of land of his, and is turning it into pasture, and his wife--oh, yes, thank you for asking--she lives in health to this day.
"By the way," he said, "have you come here over the fjeld?"
"Yes, I came last winter. In December."
"What a pity I didn't know!"
I explained that I hadn't had the time to visit his home then; I was in a hurry, there was some business--
"Yes, I understand," he said.
We said little more, for Nikolai was as taciturn as ever. Besides, he had other business to attend to; he cannot absent himself from the farm for long, and had to return next day.
"Have you bought your horse yet?"
"Well, no, I haven't."
"Do you think you will?"
"I don't know yet. I'm trying to split a difference of five and twentykroner."
Later I saw Nikolai going to the goldsmith's again. He seemed to do a great deal of business there.
"I could have company across the fjeld now," I thought. "It's spring, and do I not always travel in the spring?"
I began to pack my knapsack.
Nikolai emerged once more, apparently as empty-handed as he had entered. I opened my window and called to him to ask if he had bought the horse.
"N-no--the man won't meet my price."
"Well, can't you meet his?"
"Y-yes, I could," he replied slowly. "But I don't think I've got enough money on me."
"I could lend you some."
At this Nikolai smiled and shook his head as though my offer were a fairy tale.
"Thank you just the same," he said, turning to walk away.
"Where are you going now?" I asked.
"To look at another horse. It's old and small, still--"
Was I thrusting myself on the man? I? Nonsense! I don't see that at all. He felt offended because I had passed his door last winter without stopping and now I wanted to make him friendly again. That was all. But as I wanted no cause for self-reproach, I stopped packing, nor would I ask Nikolai if I might go back with him. But I went out for a walk in the town. I had as much right to do that as anyone.
I met Nikolai in the street with a colt, and we stopped to exchange a few words.
"Is it yours?"
"Yes, I've bought her; the man met me halfway after all," he replied with a smile.
We walked along to the stable together and fed and petted the horse. She was a mare, two and a half years old, with a tawny coat and an off-white mane and tail--a perfect little lady.
That evening Nikolai came over to my room of his own accord for a chat about the mare and the state of the roads. When he was saying good-bye at the door, he seemed struck by a sudden thought.
"By the way," he said, "I suppose it's no good asking you, but you could get a lift for your knapsack, you know. We could be there day after tomorrow," he added.
How could I offend him again?
We walked all next day, spent the night in the mountain hut at the frontier, and then went on again. Nikolai carried my knapsack all the way, as well as his own smaller parcels. When I suggested that we should share the burden, he said it was no weight at all. I think Nikolai wanted to spare the little tawny lady.
At noon we saw the fjord beneath us. Nikolai stopped and carefully rubbed down the mare once more. As our path sloped downward, I felt a pressure, a contraction in my chest; it was the sea air. Nikolai asked me what was the matter, but it was nothing.
On reaching his home, we found the yard well swept, and in the doorway a woman on her knees with her back toward us, scrubbing the floor. It was the Saturday cleaning day.
"Hullo!" Nikolai roared in a tremendously loud voice, stopping dead in his tracks as he did so.
The woman in the doorway looked round; her hair was gray, but it was she, Miss Ingeborg,Fru1Ingeborg.
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, hastily mopping up the rest of the floor.
"Look at all the cleaning that goes on here!" Nikolai said, laughing. "That's her idea of fun!"
And I had believed Carpenter Nikolai incapable of lightheartedness! Yet I had seen how content he had been all the way home, how deeply content, and proud of the little lady he was bringing with him. Even now he was still stroking her.
Fru Ingeborg rose to her feet, her skirts dark with the damp. It all seemed strange to me; her hair was so gray. I needed a little time, a moment, to collect myself, and turned away to give her time, too.
"What a lovely horse!" I heard her exclaim.
Nikolai went on stroking the mare.
"I've brought a visitor with me," he said.
I went to her and perhaps--I don't know--perhaps I rather overdid my unconcern. I greeted her and insisted on shaking her wet hand, which she hesitated to give me. I was anxious to appear quite formal with her, and shook her hand as I repeated my greeting.
"Well, of all people!" she replied.
I persisted in my formal attitude.
"You must blame your husband," I said. "It's his fault that I'm here."
"I wish you heartily welcome," she returned. "How lucky I've just got through the cleaning!"
A slight pause. We looked at each other; two years had passed since our last meeting. To break the silence, we all began to admire the mare, Nikolai swelling with pride. Then we heard a child calling from within the house, and the young mother ran off.
"Come in, won't you!" she called back over her shoulder.
As soon as I entered, I saw that the room had been changed. There was too much middle-class frippery: white curtains at the windows, numerous pictures on the walls, a lamp pendent from the ceiling, underneath it in the center of the room a round table and chairs, knickknacks in a china cupboard, a pink-painted spinning wheel, flowers in pots--in short, the room was crowded. This, no doubt, was the sort of thing Fru Ingeborg had been used to and considered in good taste. But in Petra's day, this had been a light and spacious room.
"How's your mother?" I asked Nikolai.
As usual he was slow to reply. His wife answered for him:
"She's very well."
I wanted to ask, "Where is she?" but I refrained.
"Look, I want to show you something," said Fru Ingeborg.
It was the child in his bed--a boy, big and handsome, about a year old. He frowned at me at first, but only for a moment. As soon as he was on his mother's arm, he looked at me without fear.
How happy and beautiful the young mother looked! Peerless, indeed, with her eyes full of an inscrutable graciousness she had not possessed before.
"What a fine littleman!" I said, admiring the boy.
"I should think he was!" said the mother.
You get used to everything. The sea air no longer oppresses me; I can speak without losing my breath to the woman who is now the mistress of this house. She likes to talk, too, pouring out her words nervously, as though it had been a long time since she last opened her mouth. What we talked about? Well, we neither asked nor answered questions about measuring angles or analyzing Shakespeare's grammar.
Had she ever thought her matriculation would land her up here, amid livestock and Saturday cleaning?
Oh, that parody of an education! She had taken the first toddling steps in a dozen sciences, but if she met someone with fully adult knowledge she was lost. She had other things to think about now, her home and her family and the farm. Of course there wasn't much livestock, now that Nikolai's mother had taken half of it with her--
"Has Petra gone away?"
Married--to the schoolmaster. No, Petra hadn't wanted to stay when the young wife took possession. One evening a strange man had come to the house, and Petra had wanted to admit him, but Fru Ingeborg would not. She knew who he was and wanted him to leave. So there were quarrels between the older woman and the young one.
Petra was also dissatisfied with the young wife's work in the barn. It was true she was not very skillful, but she was learning all the time, and enjoyed improving her skill. She never asked questions; that, she saw, would have been foolish, but she worked things out by herself, and kept her eyes open when she visited neighboring farms. That didn't mean to say she could learn everything. There were things she never learned properly because she was not "to the manner born." Often the wives of rural officials are from small towns, and have not learned the ways of the country, though they must learn them in time. But they never learn them well. They know only just enough for their daily needs. To set up a weave, you must have grown up with the sound of the shuttle in your ears; to tend the cattle as they should be tended, you must have helped your mother since childhood. You can learn from others, but it will not be in your blood.
Not everyone has a man like Nikolai to live with, either. The young wife is very fond of her Nikolai, this sound, hearty bear who loves her in return. Besides, Nikolai is not exacting; his wife seems to him peerless in all she does. Of course she has taken great pains; it has left its mark on her, too, and she is not gray for nothing. A few months ago she lost a front tooth, too--broke it on some bird shot left in the breast of a ptarmigan she was eating. She hardly dared look in the mirror now--didn't recognize herself. But what did it matter as long as Nikolai....
Look what he'd brought her, this brooch, bought at the goldsmith's at the market: wasn't it lovely? Oh, Nikolai was mad; but she would do anything in the world for him, too. Imagine using some of the money for the horse on a brooch! Where is he now, where's he gone to? She'll bet anything he's stroking the mare again.
"Nikolai!" she called.
"Yes," his reply came from the stable.
She sat down again, crossing her legs. Her face had turned pink; perhaps a thought, a memory, passed through her mind. She was suffused with excitement and beauty. Her dress clung to her body, outlining its contours. She began gently to stroke her knee.
"Is the child asleep?" I asked. I had to say something.
"Yes, he's asleep. And think of him!" she exclaimed. "Can you imagine anything more wonderful? Excuse my talking like this, but.... You know he's not a year old yet. I never knew children were such a blessing."
"Well, you see they are."
"Yes, I thought differently once; I remember that perfectly well, and you contradicted me. Of course it was stupid of me. Children? Miracles! And when you're old, they're the only happiness--the last happiness. I shall have more; I shall have many of them, a whole row of them, like organ pipes, each taller than the last. They're lovely.... But I wish I hadn't lost my tooth; it leaves such a black gap. I really feel quite bad about it, on Nikolai's account. I suppose a false one could be put in, but I shouldn't dream of it. Besides, I understand it's quite dear. But I've given up using any arts; I only wish I'd stopped earlier--I've gone on much too long. Think of all I've missed by it: all my childhood, all my youth. Haven't I idled away whole summers at resorts, even as a grown woman? I needed a holiday from my school work, a rest, and immediately turned it into sheer futility, every day a disgrace. I could cry with regret. I should have been married ten years ago, and had my husband all that time, and a home and many children. Now I'm already old, cheated out of ten years of my life, with gray hair and one tooth gone--"
"Well, you've lost one tooth, but I've hardly got one left!"
No sooner had I consoled her thus than I regretted it. Why should I make myself worse than I am? Things were bad enough anyhow. I was sick with fury at myself, and grinned and grimaced to show her my teeth: "Here, don't miss them, have a good look!" But I'm afraid she saw what a fool I was making of myself; everything I did was wrong.
Then she consoled me in her turn, as people do when they can well afford it:
"What, you old? Nonsense!"
"Have you met the schoolmaster?" I asked abruptly.
"Of course. I remember what you told me about him: a horse and a man came riding along the road.... But he's got sense, and he's terribly stingy. Oh, he's cunning; he borrows our harrow because ours is new and good. They've built a house at the end of the valley, and take in travelers--quite a big hotel, in fact, with the waitresses dressed in national costume. Of course Nikolai and I both went to the wedding; Petra really looked a charming and lovely bride. You mustn't think she and I are still unfriendly; she likes me better now that I'm more competent, and last summer they sent for me several times to interpret for some English people and that sort of thing--at least I know how to say soap and food and conveyance and tips in other languages!
"But I don't think I should ever have had any serious trouble with Petra in the first place if Sophie hadn't come home--you know, the schoolmistress in the town. She's always found plenty to criticize in me, so I never liked her very much, I must admit. But when she came here, she was very arrogant toward me, and lorded it over me, showing off all her knowledge. I was busy trying to learn what I needed to know for the life up here, and then she came along and made me look small, talking about the Seven Years' War all the time. She was terribly learned about the Seven Years' War, because that's what she had in her examination. And our way of talking wasn't elegant enough for her; Nikolai used rough country expressions sometimes, and she didn't like that. But Nikolai speaks quite well enough, and I can't see what that fool of a sister of his has got to put on airs for! And on top of that she came home to stay--for six months, anyhow. She'd been engaged, so then she had to take a six months' holiday. The baby's with Petra, with his grandmother, so he's well taken care of. It's a boy, too, but he's hardly got any hair; mine has plenty of hair. Well, in a way, of course, it's a pity about Sophie, because she'd used up her legacy and her youth studying to be a schoolmistress, and then she comes home like that. But she really was insufferable, thinking she was a lot better than I because she hadn't been discharged, like me. So I asked her to leave. And then they both left, Sophie and her mother. Anyhow, her mother and I are quite reconciled.
"But you mustn't think we've had any help from her to buy the horse. Nothing of the kind! We borrowed the money from the bank. But we'll manage, because it's our only debt. Nikolai has made all the furniture in here himself, the table and china cupboard and everything; we haven't bought a thing. He's dug up the new field himself, too. And we'll be getting more cattle; you ought to see what a handsome heifer we've got....
"Even the food wasn't good enough for Sophie. Tins saved such a lot of trouble, she said; we ought to buy tinned food. It was enough to make you sick to listen to her. I was just beginning to knit, too; I'd got one of my neighbors to teach me, and I was knitting stockings for myself. But of course Lady Sophie--well, she bought her stockings in the city. Oh, she was charming. 'Get out!' I said to her. So they left."
Nikolai entered the room.
"Did you want me?"
"No--oh, yes, I wanted you to come upstairs with me. I need something to hang things on in front of the fire, a clotheshorse--come along--"
I stayed behind, thinking:
"If only it lasts, if only it lasts! She's so overwrought; living on her nerves. And pregnant again. But what splendid resolution she shows, and how she's matured in these two years! But it has cost her a great deal, too.
"Good luck to you, Ingeborg, good luck!"
At all events, she had triumphed over Schoolmistress Sophie, who had once tried so hard to set Nikolai against her. "Get out!" How content Fru Ingeborg must be--what delight in this small triumph! Life had changed so much that such things were important to her; she grew heated again when she mentioned it, and pulled at her fingers as she had done in her schooldays. And why should she not be content? A small triumph now had the rank of a bigger one in the old days. Proportions were changed, but her satisfaction was no less.
Listen--she has begun to read upstairs; there's the sound of a steady hum. Yes, it's Sunday today, and she, being the best educated of them, naturally reads the service. Bravo! Magnificent! She has extended her self-discipline even to this, for they are all orthodox Christians in this neighborhood. Believing? No, but not hostile, either. One reads Scripture. Rather a clever ruse, that of the clotheshorse.
She has become an excellent cook, too, in the peasant style. Delicious broth, without noodles, but otherwise just as it should be, with barley, carrots, and thyme. I doubt whether she has learned this at the domestic science school. I consider all the things she has learned, and find them numerous. Had she, perhaps, been a little overstrung in her talk about children like organ pipes? I don't know, but her nostrils dilated like a mare's as she spoke. She must have known how unwillingly middle-class couples have children, and how short is the love between them: in the daytime they are together so that people might not talk, but the night separates them. She was different, for she would make hers a house of fruitfulness: often she and her husband were apart during the day, when their separate labors called them, but the night united them.
Bravo, Fru Ingeborg!