"Propensities?"
"Propensities! Yes!"
"You don't believe In love?"
"You propose questions which have no answer! Believe in love in general? What do you mean by that? There exists a mass of species of love, as much contrasted as black and white! I cannot believe in two of them at the same time, or all of them at once."
"And the highest species?"
"The intellectual; in three stories but as the English house. Above is the study, beneath the sleeping room and in the basement the kitchen."
"So practical! But love, a great love, is not calculating, that I have imagined as the highest, as a storm, a lightning stroke, a cataract!"
"As a rude, uncurbed power of nature? So it appears to the animals and the lower varieties of human beings...."
"Lower? Are not all human beings alike?"
"Oh, yes! All beings are alike as two berries, youths and old men, men and women, Hottentots and Frenchmen, certainly they are alike! Look at us two only! Perfectly alike, the only difference is that I have a beard! Pardon, my lady, now I see that you have recovered I will leave you. A pleasant sleep!"
He had arisen and taken his hat, but the next moment the girl stood at his side with both his hands clasped in hers and with the same glances with which she for the first time had vanquished him, she begged him to stay!
Under these burning glances and hand pressures he felt something as he thought a young girl might feel when she stood under the influence of a seducer's passionate attack. He became perturbed and inwardly there arose a feeling of violated bashfulness, and injured manliness. He freed his hands, drew himself back and said in a calm voice, cutting in its affected coldness:
"Consider!"
"Stay, or I shall seek you in your room!" rang the excited voice of the girl, which seemed to imply a threat from which there was no appeal.
"Then I shall lock my door!"
"Are you a man, you?" rang the challenge with a hard laugh.
"Yes, in such a high degree that I will be both the selector and attacker, and I do not like to be seduced!"
With this he went out and heard behind him a noise as from a human body falling and striking against furniture.
After he was out he felt like turning back, for through mental strain he was in a condition of weakness that made him susceptible to impressions of the sufferings of others. But after having been alone for a few seconds and collected himself, so that his powers returned, he firmly decided to break this engagement, which threatened to usurp his whole soul-life; and in time cut off all relation with a woman, who had showed so plainly that it was only his body she desired, while she ejected his soul, which he would pour into this lifeless image of flesh. She enjoyed the sound of his voice, but the thoughts she did not receive only in such cases as when they were of direct benefit. He had often caught her looking at the lines of his figure, and she used sometimes thoughtlessly to grasp his arm whose swelling muscles formed a ridge beneath the soft cloth. He remembered now these many overtures at the bath, on yachting; on going up to the lookout, which he never visited because it upset his nerve system to stand on a bluff without sufficient support. And now this evening, when he had seen this eruption of uncontrollable passion, he saw with fear that this woman was not of the developed race, which could individualize its love to a certain one, and that he to her only played the role of the indispensable opposite sex in general.
He had strolled down to the strand for a breeze, but the night was sultry. The sea had ceased to roll, and in the northwest the heaven was a faint melon color, while out in the east over the water rested the night. The strand cliffs were still warm, and he placed himself down on one of the many arm chairs, that the cold had blasted out and the waves had polished smooth.
The events he had just lived through passed before him, and now, when his senses were cooled off, he saw them in another light. His dream had always been that he should awaken a woman's love to such a degree that she should come begging, crawling to him, saying, "I love you, deign to love me!" Such was the order of nature, that the weaker approach the stronger with a submissive mind and not vice versa, although the latter still was the case with those who were living with a trace of superstitious ideas about something supernaturally exalted in woman, notwithstanding that investigation had made it manifest that the mysterious was only confusion and the exalted only a collection of poems by the suppressed desires of male propensity.
Now she had come as he had dreamed it, the woman of the new time free from prejudice, had shown all her inward incandescent nature, and he had recoiled! Why? Perhaps tradition and conventional habits still governed him! For there was nothing bold in her effusion, no trace of the harlot offering, no immodest behavior or impudent mien! She loved him in her way. What more could he desire, and with such a love he could safely bind himself to her, for perhaps not many men could boast of having lighted such a flame. But he felt no pride over having gained her, for he felt his own value, and rather a pressing responsibility which he would get rid of; and therefore he must depart from the island.
In thought now he sat and packed his belongings. He gathered the things from the writing table and saw the green empty spread, took away the lamp that shed light in the evening and sparkled colors in the daytime, and there was a vacuum. Stripped the walls of their pictures and draperies, and the white, sad, mathematical figure came forth. He took the books from their shelves, and the dreadful solitude faced him, monotony, nudeness, poverty!
And then came the fatigue from bodily efforts, fear of traveling and its tiring effects; anxiety of the unknown where he now might be cast, deprived of his accustomed surroundings and her company. And he saw the young girl in her childish but still majestic beauty; heard her complain, saw her whitened cheeks, which another would cause to blush again as time passed.
Thus he suffered all the pangs of separation through a whole quarter of an hour, which had seemed to him as long as hours, when in the dusk of the summer night, he saw a woman's figure up on the rock outlined against the light sky. The splendid contours, that he knew so well, assumed still nobler proportions against the now pale yellow sky, which could just as well be the end of a sunset as the beginning of sunrise. She seemed to have come from the custom house cottage, and to be searching for someone. Bareheaded and with her hair still hanging over her shoulders, turning her head to spy, she seemed suddenly to discover what she sought, and with brisk steps she hurried down to the beach where the object of her search was sitting, immovable, without the power to flee, without the will to proclaim himself. And when she reached him she fell down and laid her head in his lap and talked wildly, modestly, beseechingly, as though she was annihilated with shame without being able to hold her tongue in check.
"Don't go away," sobbed she. "Despise me, but have mercy! Love me, love me or I will go where I shall never return!"
There now awoke in him the mature man's intense longing for love. And when he saw the woman at his feet, it aroused the inherent chivalry of man, who would see in its mate the mistress not the slave; and he arose, lifted her up, placed his arm round her waist and pressed her to him.
"At my side, Mary, not at my feet," said he. "You love me, for you knew that I loved you, and now you belong to me for life. And you will never leave me alive, do you hear! For our whole life long. And now I place you on my throne and give you the power over me and my belongings, my name and my property, my honor and my actions, but if you forget that it is I who gave you the power, and if you misuse or give it away, then as a tyrant I will overthrow you to such a depth that you shall never see the sunlight more! But you cannot do it, for you love me, is it not true that you love me?"
He had placed her on the stone stool, and kneeling he laid his head in her bosom.
"I lay my head in your lap," continued he, "but do not cut off my hair meanwhile I sleep on your bosom. Let me uplift you but do not drag me down. Become better than I am, for you can when I protect you from contact with the world's corruption and misery, in which I must delve. Ennoble yourself with great faculties which I do not possess, so that we together shall become a perfect whole."
His feelings began to take the cooler tone of reason and seemed to quench her exaltation, so that she interrupted him by placing her glowing face to his, and when he did not answer her caress, she pressed a burning kiss on his lips.
"You child," said she, "don't you dare to kiss when nobody can see it?"
Then he sprang up, clasped her round the neck and kissed her throat repeatedly until she freed herself from him with a laugh and stood erect before him.
"You are a perfect little savage," scolded she.
"The savage is there, be careful!" answered he, and grasping her round the waist they wandered onwards on the warm sands which whispered round their feet.
And now the lighthouse in the distance blinked, as the air had cooled off and the dew had fallen. Out from the rookeries they heard the cries of the seals as from the shipwrecked.
They wandered an hour or more, and spoke of their first meeting, about their secret thoughts from time to time; about the future, about the coming winter; about traveling in foreign countries; meantime they came out on the point where the pile of stones with a cross was selected in memory of a shipwreck with loss of life.
Suddenly they caught a glimpse of two shadows that sneaked away and disappeared.
"It is Vestman and his sister-in-law," said Borg. "Fie! If I were her husband I would sink her!"
"Not him?" came from the girl more hastily than she intended.
"He is not married!" answered Borg shortly; "that is the difference!"
There was a silence, a disagreeable silence, such as makes one seek for a topic for conversation; and meantime whispered the thoughts, now untied from the enchantment: and he already longed for the enchantment again, for the intoxication, which blinded him, which turned gray to rose color, which built pedestals; which placed gilded edges on cracked china.
At this they turned from the rocky wall to go home. The wind which had been quite asleep, now began to waft against them and in his anxiety the awakened lover felt how freshly it blew. It was the north wind which he had waited for, and which he now greeted as a rescuer. For in a second when the girl's contradiction in a serious matter had just as though broken something in him, so that he felt that her being could only be soldered to his, not melted together with it, unless he gave up resisting and delivered himself to her wholly and fully, he now grasped the opportunity to raise himself again without treading upon her.
"Why do the people hate me?" asked he suddenly.
"Because you are superior to them," slipped from the girl without her observing the confession she made.
"I do not believe it," answered he, "for their intellect is not sufficient to value my superiority."
"Their hate can pervert their vision!"
"Superbly answered! But if they should see the miracle, would their eyes open?"
"Perhaps! If the wonder aroused fear."
"Well, they shall have the miracle! To-morrow at ten o'clock it will appear!"
"What?"
"That which I have promised you!"
The girl looked into his face with amazement as though she did not believe what he said. After which she laughingly interposed:
"If it should be cloudy weather then?"
"But it won't be," answered the commissioner with decision. "However, now we have already come so far as to speak about weather, we can even think of what your mother will say about us."
"She won't trouble herself about it," answered the girl at once.
"It is astonishing that a mother does not pay any attention to what man her daughter is to bind herself in relationship, and whose name she is to carry! Can that be immaterial to her?"
"Good night, now!" interrupted Miss Mary and reached her mouth for a kiss. "To-morrow morning you will come and visit us! Is it not so?"
"Certainly," answered he, "certainly!"
She walked away.
But he still stood on the same place and saw her slender figure rise against the now sulphur yellow sky as she stepped upwards on the hillock, and when she came to the highest point she turned back and threw a kiss to him, and then she seemed to sink behind the slope until he only saw her head with its loose hair which fluttered in the northern wind.
When the commissioner sat the following morning at breakfast with his betrothed, after having been received without comment as the future son-in-law, he felt again the combined impression of a great calm at having been received in a little circle, where common interests formed a tie to unbounded confidence; and at the same time an anxiety over the necessity of giving himself up for these manifold considerations which sympathy and relationship bring. The past evening had rushed into his life mixing great and small, as life offers it, his whole history of love, which he had dreamed of with open eyes, had passed with his eyes purposely blindfolded. He had closed his eyes to the girl's pretended or imaginary illness; closed them completely, so that he had deceived himself into taking it seriously; for if he had not done so, and instead had said plainly from the first moment: rise up and be well, you are only sick in imagination, then she would have hated him for life; and his aim was to win her love. Now he had gained her love, perhaps because she believed that she had deluded him; therefore his love stood in direct relation to his credulity; and when now in the morning he repeated to himself again and again the question: Do you believe in your Mary? his rested reason translated it thus: Am I sure I can delude you? No, there does not exist a love with open eyes; and to gain a woman by frankness is impossible; to approach her with raised head, and with plain words is to drive her away. He had begun with lies and must go on with dissembling. However, now while the conversation drifted between trifling things and effusive expressions of feelings, it gave no time for worry, and the pleasure of being in a home between two women made everything so bright and soft, that he delivered himself up to the enjoyment of being the petted one, the child, the little one, the son of the mother-in-law; and he did not observe that the daughter, who had already outgrown her mother, treating her as though she the mother was her child, by simple syllogism gradually took authority over him, who called her equal "mother-in-law." It amused him, this reversing of nature's order, and he had always before him the image of the giant, who let the children pull out three hairs from his beard, but only three. As they were sitting at their coffee and chatting, there was heard a murmuring from the people down on the beach.
From the window they saw them gathered on the landings, sometimes standing immovable, with hands shading their eyes: sometimes rocking on both feet, as though the ground was burning beneath them, or as if they could not stand still from fear.
"It is the miracle!" cried the girl, and hastened out accompanied by her mother and her betrothed.
Coming out on the slope the ladies stopped as though struck by fright, when on this clear sunny morning, they saw a corpse-white colossal moon rising above a graveyard with black cypress, floating on the sea.
The commissioner, who had not calculated the effect at this point of view, did not see quickly enough the relation of things, and stood deathly pale from the shock which follows something monstrous and unexpected in the otherwise law-bound nature. He hastened past the ladies who stood petrified and unable to move, and came down to the strand where the people were gathered. In a moment he found the solution of the riddle. His intended marble palace had become involuntarily framed between a projecting, rounded cliff on one side and a pine top on the other, so that the limestone slab showed as a round circle and, with the two windows which were too faintly painted, it imitated the map of the moon's disk.
The people who had been posted as to the exact hour when the miracle would appear, as promised by the commissioner, regarded the approaching man with frightened but venerating glances and the men contrary to what had been their habit to him raised their hats and caps.
"Now what do you say about my mirage?" asked he jokingly.
Nobody answered, but the head pilot, who was the most courageous, pointed northwest towards the heavens, where the real moon was hanging pale in its first quarter.
The miracle thus was crushing, and the strong impressions which the two moons had already produced was too deep to be effaced with an explanation. And when the commissioner made an attempt to the beginning of which nobody listened and the people stood infatuated just as though enamored of the fear of the inexplicable, he ceased trying to remove their belief. He had wished to give them a proof that neither he nor nature could break laws, and, nevertheless, chance had made him a wizard.
When he turned back he found his betrothed in an ecstatic state restrained by her mother, but when he appeared, she freed herself and falling on her knees she cried with half insane gestures, and words which seemed to have been borrowed from some spiritualistic circle.
"Mighty spirit, we fear thee! Take away our fear, that we may love thee!"
The case had already assumed a hazardous turn and the commissioner tried with all his art to explain the involuntary miracle, but in vain. The enjoyment of being infatuated, the numbness of fear and, behind it, the lurking feeling of ambition not to admit the confusion of senses, had so taken possession of the young girl's mind that no remonstrances or assurances availed. The mother with her unchanging, even temperament did not seem to know where she was and had forgotten the whole phenomenon of nature through her daughter's disquieting behavior.
But now the mass of people on the beach had, through Miss Mary's cries and gesticulations, turned their attention from the performance out on the sea towards her, and when they saw the young woman on her knees before the white dressed man, with his deep dark glances and bare head, out here on the rock, there must have passed before them some reminiscences from the Bible history about a young man who did miracles; for they crowded together in haste and began to whisper, while at the exhortation of the head pilot one of the women hastened into the nearest cottage and returned with a three-years-old child which had a foul ulcer on its cheek.
With the ability to call forth a mirage there should also follow a supernatural knowledge of healing.
The role which was thrown on the commissioner, began to trouble him beyond measure, and when he saw the fishing population, pilots and custom house men, leave their work, and carpenters and finishers leave the building of the chapel to listen to his words as to prophesies with miraculous power, he became afraid as though before a power of nature that he had conjured up, but could not check. The moment, however, had come when he must express himself exactly, plainly, and turn them away.
"Good people," commenced he. But silently the reflection came: how to go on, what words to use, when each expression required an explanation which again presupposed foreknowledge, which was lacking. And during the second he meditated over the distance that lay between him and them, he heard steps approaching, and turning around, he saw a man who resembled an old sailor on his leave.
The man lifted a round felt hat and looked somewhat timorous at first, but coming nearer he straightened himself up and was just going to say something, when the commissioner relieved him from his embarrassment by the question:
"Perhaps you are the Home Mission preacher whom we expect?"
"I am the same!" answered the newcomer.
"Will you not say a few words to the people here, who are in a state of tumult on account of a phenomenon of nature which they do not wish to have explained and which I at this moment cannot elucidate"—the commissioner grasped at this in his eagerness to get out of his false position.
The preacher at once declared himself prepared. Stroking his long chin whiskers he took a Bible from his pocket.
When the people saw the black book a tremor passed through them and some of the men uncovered their heads.
The preacher turned the pages a moment and finally stopped, cleared his throat and began to read.
"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sack cloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains. And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of His wrath has come; and who shall be able to stand?"
The commissioner, who at once observed the dangerous turn the affair had taken, had drawn his betrothed half forcibly from the dangerous neighborhood, and got her down to the beach so that he could give her the right views and show, that it was no moon which had fallen from the heaven, that it was only the Italian landscape he had promised to arrange for her birthday.
But now it was too late. The girl's inner eye had already seen the vision in its first form, and the preacher's exciting interpretation had etched in that first delusion. He had toyed with the spirits of nature, conjured a foe to help him, as he believed, and then all had gone over to the foe so that he now stood alone.
While Mary's glances were still riveted to the preacher on the rock, he turned, as a trial, to the mother and whispered:
"Help us out of this. Follow me out to the skerry and see that it is only a plaything, a birthday joke."
"I cannot judge in these things," answered the mother, "and will not judge. But I believe ... that you should be married soon."
It was an advice, sober, prosaic, but from this old lady, who was herself a mother, it sounded so prudent, especially as it agreed with his own sharp understanding, he found, however, the explanation somewhat simplified. And after the hint he had received he went straight to the girl, and placing his arm round her waist, looked into her eyes with a smile, which she could not fail to understand, and kissed her lips.
At the same moment the girl seemed released from the wizard up on the rock, and without resistance she clung to her friend's arm and followed him almost dancing to her mother's cottage.
"Thanks," whispered she as she glanced into his eyes, "I thank you that you—how shall I say it?"
"Delivered you from the hobgoblin," filled in Borg.
"Yes, from the goblins!"
And she turned to look at the passed danger.
"Do not look back!" warned her betrothed as he pulled Mary through the cottage door, while fragments from the preacher's flow of words were wafted down to him by the wind.
When the commissioner awoke one morning eight days later after a night of perfect rest, his first clear thought was that he must leave the skerry, go anywhere to be alone, collect himself, find himself again. The preacher's arrival had the desired effect in one way, namely to "scare the mob," so that the tumult and rudeness ceased; but on the other hand the commissioner had not been able to enjoy the newly gained peace, for the exalted condition of his betrothed obliged him to keep her always in his sight. So he had accompanied her, and formally guarded her from morning to night; and by endless talk upon the questions of religion tried to keep her aloof from the preacher's seducing talk. All these matters which he had fought through in his youth, he now had to fight over again; and as new counter-proofs had been brought forth since then, he must reedit his whole apology. He improvised psychological explanations of God, faith, miracles, eternity and prayer; and he imagined that the girl understood him. But when after three days he found that she held the same position and that this matter of feeling lay outside the conversation, he dropped the whole subject and sought by awakening the erratical with its new sphere of feeling to drive away the first. But this he must soon give up, for to speak of that which should be lived only excited the girl's feelings still more, and he soon observed that there existed secret bridges between the religious ecstasy and the sensual one. From the love of Christ she ran so easily over to love of the man on that broad drawbridge the love of one's neighbor, and from abstinence one could trip over the footbridge renunciation to its neighbor penance; a little contention awakened the disagreeable feeling of debt which must be resolved in a lustful feeling—the reconciliation.
In his need he must first tear up the bridges, place her face to face with carnal desire, awake her avidity for the temporal, which he delineated in glowing colors. But when he had so succeeded and retreated at the last moment, there arose the coldness of disappointment in her, and when he then tried to cultivate her feelings, and lead them out to the thoughts of offspring and family, she withdrew and explained to him with determination, that she would not have any children. She could even use a phraseology which is current among a certain group of women, saying that she would not be the womb which he lacked; or carry his heirs, whom she must with danger to her life bring to the world for him.
Then he felt that nature had placed something between them which he did not yet understand. He consoled himself by imagining that it was only the butterfly's fear to lay its eggs and die, the flower's suspicion that its beauty would fade away with the setting of its seed.
But he had worn himself out in these eight days; his fine wheels of thought had begun to halt in their pivot holes, and the spring in the movement had become relaxed.
After such a day of exertion, when he would have worked for a couple of hours, his head was filled with trifles. Small words repeated themselves almost audibly to his ear; gesticulations and mannerisms, that she had used in their conversation, miraged themselves, suggestions how he ought to have answered now and then, and the recollection of an appropriate repartee which he had made gave him a momentary pleasure. In a word, his head was full of bagatelles, and now he observed that he had tried to straighten out a chaos; that he had conversed as a schoolboy instead of exchanging thoughts with a mature woman; that he had given out from himself masses of power without getting anything in return; that he had placed a dry sponge in the center of his soul, and that the sponge had swelled, while he himself had become dry.
He loathed everything; was tired, and longed to get out for a moment; for be free forever he could not.
When he now looked out through the window, about five o'clock in the morning, he saw only a dense fog which stood immovable notwithstanding a light breeze from the south. But far from being discouraged thereby, he felt attracted by this light, white obscurity, which would hide him and seclude him from the little fragment of the earth, where he now felt himself tied down.
The barometer and weather vane told him that there would be sunshine later in the day, and therefore he stepped into his boat without long preparations; only provided with chart and compass, on which, however, he did not intend to rely, as he could hear the whistling buoy three miles out at sea, just in the direction in which he would seek a landing.
He therefore put full sail on and was soon in the fog. Here, where the eyes were free from all impressions of color and form, he felt first the pleasure of isolation from the medley of an outer world. He had as it were his own atmosphere around him, soaring onwards alone as on another celestial body, in a medium, which was not air but water vapors, more agreeable and more refreshing to inhale than the exsiccating air with its superfluous seventy-nine per cent of nitrogen, which had remained without evident purpose, when the elements of the earth emerged from the chaos of gases.
It was not an obscure, smoke colored mist, through which the sunlight shone. It was light, like newly melted silver. Warm as wadding it lay healingly round his tired ego, protecting it from jars and pressure. He enjoyed for a moment this fully-awake rest of the senses, without sound, without color, without smell, and he felt how his pained head was soothed by this safety from contact with others. He was sure of not being questioned; needed not to answer, nor talk. The apparatus was standing still a moment, now that all conducts had been cut off; and so he began again to think clearly, systematically over all that had passed. But what he had just gone through was so inferior, so trifling, that he must first let the bilge water run off before the fresh came in.
In the distance he heard the whistling buoy cry at intervals of several minutes, and guided by the sound he steered his course right into the mist.
It became silent again, and only the splashing of the boat at the bow and the purling aft in the wake made him conscious that he was moving forwards. Immediately after he heard a sea gull cry in the fog, and at the same time it seemed to him that he heard the dashing and rustle about the prow of a boat coming abaft, and when he shouted to avoid the danger, he received no answer, but heard only the hissing of the water as when a boat is falling off.
After a moment of sailing he observed to windward the top of a mast with mainsail and jib, but nothing was to be seen of the hull or helmsman for they were hidden by the high swells of the sea.
This occurrence under other circumstances would not have disturbed his thought, but now it made an impression which was momentarily inexplicable, and which caused a fear, which was only one step removed from thoughts of persecution. The newly awakened suspicions were further aroused, when he shortly after caught sight of the haunting boat which shot by him on the lee side, as though painted on the mist, without his being able to get sight of the helmsman who was hidden by the mainsail.
He now hailed again, but instead of an answer he saw only the boat fall off so much that he observed that the stern sheet was empty; and then the apparition vanished in the all devouring mist.
Accustomed to free himself from fear of the unknown, he at once formed suggestions to explain it, but stopped finally at the question, why the helmsman hid himself, for that there must be a helmsman on a sailboat, which did not drift, he had no doubt. Why did he not want to be seen? In usual cases one does not want to be seen when going on a bad errand, wishing to be by oneself, or intending to frighten somebody. That the unknown sailor did not seek solitude was probable, as he held the same course, and if he would frighten an intrepid person, who was not susceptible to superstition, he could find some better way. However he held his course onward towards the buoy, incessantly, doggedly pursued by the haunting boat to the leaward, still at such a distance, that it appeared only as condensed fog.
Upon coming farther out where the wind was stronger the mist seemed to grow somewhat thinner, and like long silver bullion lay the fog-silvered sunlight on the crests of the waves. With the rising of the wind the crying of the buoy increased, and now he steered straight into the sunlight where the mist had parted, and ran at highest speed towards the buoy. There it lay swinging on the wave, cinnabar-red and shining, moist as a taken-out lung with its great black windpipe pointed slanting upwards into the air. And when the wave next time compressed the air, it raised a cry, as though the sea roared after the sun, the bottom chain clinked until it had run out, and now when the waves sank and sucked back the air, there arose a roaring out of the depth as from the giant proboscis of a drowning mastodon.
It was the first mighty impression he had had after a month of prattle and trivialities.
He admired the genius of man, that had hung this buoy on the insidious wolf, the sea, that it should itself caution its defenseless victims. He envied this hermit, who was permitted to lie fettered to a bottom rock in the middle of the sea and with its roaring to beat the wind and wave day and night so that it could be heard miles around; to be the first to give the voyager a welcome to his land; and to wail forth its pain and be heard.
The sight was quickly passed, and the demi-darkness again closed round the boat, which now fell off towards the skerry for which he had started to rest. For half an hour he lay on the same tack until he heard the breakers beating on the strand; then he fell off to leeward and soon sped into a cove where he could land.
It was the last skerry outside the channel and consisted of a couple of acres of red gneiss without any vegetation other than a few lichens on places where the drifting ice had not scraped the rocks perfectly clean. Only sea gulls and mews had their resting place here, and now as the commissioner moored his boat and stepped up on the highest point of the skerry they gave forth cries of alarm. Here he wrapped himself in his blanket, and placed himself in a well-polished crevice, which made him a comfortable arm chair. Here, without witness, without auditors, he gave himself up to thoughts and let them loose, confessed himself, scrutinized himself inwardly and heard his own voice from within. Only two months of rubbing against other beings, and he had through the law of accommodation lost the better part of himself, had become used to acquiescing to avoid disputes, drilled himself to yield to avoid a break, and developed into a characterless, malleable, sociable fellow; with his head full of bagatelles and being urged to speak in an abbreviated, simplified vocabulary, he felt that his scale of language had lost its semi-tones, and that his thoughts had been switching in on old worn rails, which led back to the ballast place. Old lax sophisms about respecting others' belief, that everybody will be happy in his grime, had crept back into him, and he had from pure politeness performed as a wizard and finally got a dangerous competitor on his hands, who every moment threatened to liberate the only soul he would unite with his own.
A smile crossed his lips when he thought of how he had fooled these people, who believed they had fooled him: and with a subdued voice he involuntarily ejaculated, "asses," which made him start, frightened at the thought that somebody might have heard him.
And so the silent thoughts continued: They believed they had caught his soul, and he had caught them! They imagined that he went their errands, and they did not know that he used them as a gymnastical exercise for his soul and to feel the enjoyment of power.
But these thoughts, which he had not dared to acknowledge before as his own, proclaimed themselves now as the children of his soul, big, healthy children, whom he acknowledged as his own. And what had he done otherwise than the others had willed to do, but could not! And this young woman, who believed she had turned a hand organ for herself, did not suspect that she was selected to the sounding board of his soul....
At this moment he jumped up, and interrupted the course of his dangerous thoughts, for he plainly heard footsteps on the flat rocks in the fog, and although he at once guessed that it was an error of hearing, caused by the solitude and fear of being taken unawares, he turned his steps towards his boat. But when he found it in good condition, he decided to go around the skerry to search for the other boat, for there must be one here, since another being had come over. He climbed on the strand bowlders and soon found behind the next point on the lee side a boat with the same sprit sail rig, as he had seen out on the sea. It was thus evident that the sailor must be on the skerry, and now the commissioner began a razzia in the fog, but always kept in the neighborhood of the boats, so that he could cut off retreat. When after having cried out several times without getting an answer he finally saw that he must leave the boats in order to catch the mysterious being, he went down to the boats, and took off the tillers to make every escape impossible, and so he went into the mist again. He heard steps before him and followed them by the sound, but soon heard them in an entirely other direction. Tired of the hunt and provoked by the fruitlessness of the endeavors, he decided to make a short ending to the scene, as he had no mind to wait until the fog had disappeared.
With as loud a voice as he could command, he cried:
"If there is anybody there, answer, for I am going to shoot."
"Lord Jesus! Do not shoot!" was heard in the fog.
The commissioner seemed to have heard this voice before, but a very long time ago, perhaps in his youth. And now when he approached the place, where the unknown stood, and saw its silhouette outlines gray to gray, there awoke old memories of these contours of a human being. The inward bowed knees, the arms all too long and the deformed left shoulder had a counterpart picture in memory's storage of a schoolmate in the third class in the high school. But when he caught sight of the colporteur's American whiskers appearing through the mist, the picture did not correspond longer, and he only saw the man upon the rock, who had applied the Revelation to the mirage.
With a raised cap and a frightened look he approached the commissioner, who did not feel himself safe with this sneaking pursuer, for in reality he carried no firearms. To disguise his uncertainty he assumed a sharp tone, when he asked:
"Why do you hide from me?"
"I have not hidden myself, the mist did it," answered the preacher softly and insinuatingly.
"But why were you not sitting at the tiller in your boat?"
"Hm, I did not know that one was obliged to sit on the stern sheet and therefore I sat to windward to keep the boat buoyant! For you see I had a sheet on the end of the tiller such as we use up in Roslagen."
The explanations were acceptable, but still did not answer the question, why he followed the commissioner out here. And he felt now, that here must be a close fight of souls, for it was not by chance that they had met out here.
"What do you seek out here so early in the morning?" the commissioner took up the broken thread.
"Yes, how shall I say it, I feel sometimes, as though I am in need of being alone with myself." The answer found a certain echo in the questioner, and at the expression of sympathy, which the preacher could read in his face, he added:
"For, you see, when I search myself in meditation and prayer and find myself, even so I find my God."
A naïve confession lay in these words, but the commissioner would not translate the involuntary heresy and draw such conclusions as: God is thus my own self or in my own self, because he held a certain esteem for this man, who could be alone with a fiction, and thus to a certain degree alone.
While the commissioner regarded the preacher's face, which was overgrown with long brown whiskers except on the upper lip as sailors and colporteurs usually wear them, probably to let out the spoken word and still resemble an apostle, he seemed to perceive a face behind this face, and annoyed by this labor which his memory had unconsciously undertaken, he asked bluntly:
"Have we not met each other before?"
"Yes, certainly we have," answered the preacher; "and you, sir commissioner, have, perhaps without knowing it, had such a great influence on my life, that it might be said you determined my path."
"Oh, no! Tell me about it, for I do not remember it!" said the commissioner, and placing himself on the rock, he invited the other to sit down.
"Yes, it is certainly about twenty-five years ago that we were together in the third class at school ...
"What was your name then?" interrupted the commissioner.
"At that time I was called Olsson and nick-named Ox-Olle, because my father was a farmer and I was dressed in homespun clothes."
"Olsson? Wait a moment! You could reckon best of us all."
"Yes, so it was! But there came a day, and it was the principal's fiftieth birthday. We had dressed the school with leaves and flowers, and after the lessons were ended someone proposed that the boys in our class should take the bouquets and carry them home to the principal's wife and daughter. I remember that you thought it unnecessary as the family of the principal had nothing to do with the school, but often encroached on its affairs in a disturbing manner. However, you went—and so did I. As I walked up the steps, you caught sight of my homespun clothes I presume, and noticing that I carried the nicest bouquet, you burst out: 'Is Saul also among the prophets!'"
"That I have entirely forgotten," said the commissioner very shortly.
"But I never forgot it," responded the preacher with trembling voice. "I had had it thrown in my face, that I was the scabby sheep, the intruder, who could never seriously extend homage to a woman of station. I quit school in order to devote myself to business and thereby gain money and fine clothes quickly, and learn manners and refined language. But I never gained a first class position. My exterior, my language, my appearance were against me. Then I began to go alone by myself, and in the solitude I found powers growing in me which I had never suspected. Clergy-man I had first thought to be, but now it was too late. The solitude gave me fears of human beings, and these fears of human beings made me entirely alone, so alone that I must search for my only acquaintance in God, and in the Saviour of the neglected, the scabby, the outcasts, Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. This I have to thank you for!"
The last words were spoken with a certain bitterness, and the commissioner found it prudent to have fair play and broke out.
"Then you have gone on hating me for twenty-five years?"
"Excessively! But no longer since I have left the revenge to God."
"So, you have a God who revenges! Do you believe that He selects you for an implement, or do you think that he will let His electric spark strike me, or that He is going to blow over my boat or mark me with the smallpox?"
"The ways of the Lord are past knowing, but the ways of iniquity are manifest to everybody!"
"Do you see such gross iniquity in a boy's thoughtless talk, that God should persecute him a whole man's age? I wonder if that revenging God is not in your heart, where you lately insisted that you made appointments with Him?"
Snared by his own words the preacher could not longer control himself.
"You blaspheme! Now I know who you are! The apple does not fall far from the tree! Now I understand the whole craft of Satan. You build the Lord a house for a brothel as an offering to a harlot! You play wizard and magician to get people to fall down and worship the denier. But the Lord says: 'Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolators, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie!'"
The last words he had thrown out with an incredible volubility and exaltation, without seeking for them elsewhere than on his lips, and just as though he feared a crushing answer which would weaken their impression, he turned his back and went down to his boat.
Meantime the mist had lifted, and the sea spread its pure blue water soothingly and acquittingly.
The commissioner remained awhile in his rocky chair, and meditated on the subjection of the soul under the same laws that govern the physical forces. The wind tore up a wave down on Esthonia; that wave chased another, and the last which transmitted the motion to the Swedish coast, removed a small pebble, which had afforded support to a rock; and after a man's age the results would be shown in the tumbling down of the rock; and this would be followed by a new undermining of the uncovered rock which now lay exposed.
His brain twenty-five years ago had thrown out what was to him a meaningless word, that word had penetrated an ear and put a brain into such a strong agitation that it still vibrated after having given direction to the whole life of a human being. And who knows, if this innervation current had not again been reënforced by contact and friction, so that it once more with invigorated force would unload itself and bring other counter forces into action, producing disturbances and destruction in the lives of others!
Now when the preacher's boat sped into sight round the point, bearing down to East Skerry, the commissioner got such a sure feeling that there sat a foe who was marching down to his forts, that he arose and went to his boat, to go home and place himself on the defensive.
When he was well seated in the boat and calmed by the gentle rocking of the waves, he was seized by a strong desire to still tarry a few hours on the sea in perfect solitude and let the last disquieting impressions blow away.
Why should he even fear this man's influence on his betrothed, as she would still show herself unsuited to a union for life, if she sunk back to a level with the uneducated. But nevertheless it grieved him that there existed this fear. It reminded of the behavior of those men, who were living in the fear of losses and which is stamped with the name jealousy. Was it the feeling of an inability to keep, which betrayed a frailness in him? Or was it not rather a frailness in her not to be able to retain a hold, when the balloon should ascend, leaving the sheet anchor religion, and throwing away the sacks of ballast, the feelings? Certainly the latter would have been the better way, notwithstanding they had got a certain authority with those, who had nothing to lose.
He now tacked and lay oft the skerry to south-east, a point from which he had not seen his prison before. Highest up on the hill he saw the skeleton of the unfinished chapel with its staging, but he did not see any laborers, although the morning was far advanced. He did not even notice any boats out fishing. There was on the whole a great stillness on the skerry, and no people were to be seen even by the custom house cottage or the pilots' outlook. He turned and stood on another tack to sail round the skerry. But when he came outside of the same, the sea became higher and he gained only a little by the tack, so it took a whole hour before he could scud down to the harbor. Now he saw the cottage where the ladles lived, and as soon as he had sped by the point of the harbor, he observed all the inhabitants of the island gathered round the house, on the porch of which the preacher stood bare-headed, speaking.
With a clear insight, that here impended a battle, he landed, furled the sail and went up to his chamber.
Through the open window he heard the people singing a hymn.
He would have liked now to sit down to his work, but the thought that maybe he would soon be interrupted, hindered him from beginning it.
A painful half hour passed during which he learned more plainly than ever before, that he did not own himself longer, did not rule over two square meters, on which he could lock himself up to avoid the touch of souls, which like barnacles on the whale's hide fastened themselves there to finally by their mass impede his motion.
The door opened now after a short knock, and Miss Mary stood before him, with a new expression in her face, resembling pained reproach and superior compassion.
She came besides with the feeling of being backed by the universal opinion of the people, and therefore felt strong against this solitary man.
He let her speak first so as to have a point to start from.
"Where have you been?" commenced she with an attempt not to sound too arrogant.
"I have been out for a sail!"
"Without inviting me?"
"I did not know that you were particular about that!"
"Yes, you did know it, but surely you would be alone with your dark thoughts!"
"Perhaps!"
"Certainly! Don't you think that I have observed it? Don't you believe that I have seen how you are becoming tired of me?"
"Have I proved tired of you, I who follow you day in and day out, though on a morning, when you usually are asleep, I took the liberty to sail for a couple of hours? But maybe you have become tired of learning to fish, for I have not seen you once out at sea."
"It is not the time to fish now as you well know," answered Miss Mary fully persuaded that she spoke the truth.
"No, I see that!" interposed the commissioner with the purpose of approaching the very mine, with the risk of an explosion. "I see how the people abandon their work to listen to sermons...."
Now an eruption was ready.
"Was it not you, who wished to have a church out here?"
"Yes, Sundays. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh go to church. Here no work is done any day, but there is preaching every day. And instead of making themselves and families an honest income here on this earth, they all race after such an uncertain thing as heaven. The very laborers on the chapel have left their work, so that we shall never see a roof on that church, and I expect every moment to hear that poverty has broken out, so that we must be prepared for charity...."
"That is just what I was going to speak about," interrupted Miss Mary, glad to have avoided taking up the subject herself, still overlooking that it was exhausted in advance by the commissioner.
"I have not come here to exercise charity; I am here to teach the people how to get along without charity."
"You are at the bottom a heartless person, although you appear to be otherwise."
"And you would show your big heart at my expense without being willing to offer a yard of the trimming from your gown."
"I hate you! I hate you!" burst out the girl with a hideous expression on her face. "Surely I know who you are, I know all, all, all!"
"Well, why not leave me then?" asked the commissioner in a steel cold tone.
"I shall leave you! I shall!" cried she and approached the door, but without going.
The commissioner, who had taken a seat at the table, took up a pen and began to write to avoid all temptation of taking up a conversation, which was ended, as everything had been said.
He heard, as in a dream, sobbing and how the door closed, how steps sounded in the hall, and squeakings of the stairs.
When he awoke and read the paper, over which his pen had been flying, he saw that the word Pandora was written there so many times, that he could calculate that a long while had passed since the scene was ended.
But the word struck him, and his inquisitiveness awoke as to its meaning, which he during the lapse of years had forgotten, although he had a faint memory about it from the mythology. He took his dictionary from the table, opened it and read:
"Pandora, the Eve of the ancients, the earth's first woman. Sent by the gods for revenge on account of Prometheus having stolen the fire, and given it to human beings, with all its misfortunes, after which they inhabitated the earth. Represented in poesy under the form of something good, which is an evil illusion, a creation, intended for deceit and surprise."
This was mythology like the tale of Eve, who debarred human beings from Paradise. But when the tale was confirmed from century to century and he had learned himself, how the presence of a woman on this little piece of earth out in the sea had already made dusk, where he would spread light, then there must have lain an idea in the Hellenic and Jewish poet's figurative style.
That she hated him, that he felt and knew, as she took sides with the low crowd down there, but, nevertheless he would not doubt her love, even if this love only consisted of the dandelion's attraction to the sun to borrow beams of light for a poor imitation of the yellow disk. But there existed besides something low as in that which is base, something evil with the desire to injure, a battle for power, which was out of place, as his aim was a victory over the irrational. To tell her this, yes, that would be to break the relation when this depended on his submission or at least his acknowledging her superiority, and this would be to build a life on a white lie, which would grow, wax and perhaps smother all possibility of an honest cohabitation. Just in this lay the deepest reason of all the relative misfortunes of marriage, that the man goes into the union sometimes with a willful lie, often the prey of an hallucination, when he fancies his ego into the being whom he would assimulate. Of this illusion;second sight,Mill had become infatuated to such a degree, that he believed he got all his sharp thoughts from the simple woman whom he had lifted up to himself.
It was love's prize from time immemorial, that the man should conceal what the woman was, and on this secrecy centuries had built a chaos of lies, which science did not dare to disturb, which the bravest statesmen did not dare to touch and which cause the theologian to deny his Paul, when it comes to "women in the churches."
But his love had just begun and taken fire, when he saw her look up to him with beseeching glances; and that love had fled, when she came with the vanquishing smile of stupidity after having trampled down what he would have formed for her happiness and that of many others.
"Ended!" said he to himself, arose and locked the door.
Ended with his youthful hopes of finding the woman he sought. "That woman, who was born with the sense to see her sex's inferiority to the other sex."
He had certainly now and then met one or another, who admitted the fact, but who finally and always reserved themselves as to the reason of the fact, laying the blame on a non-existing oppression, and promising themselves that with greater liberty they would soon surpass the men; and then the battle was in full sway.
He would not wear out his intelligence in an uneven fight with mosquitoes, whom he could not hit with a cane, because they were too small and too many, therefore there must now be an end forever to this fruitless searching after the non-existing. He would let all his power go out in labor, lay aside kin, family, home and sexual impulses and leave the multiplying to other "reproductive animals."
The feeling of being free placed his soul at rest, and it seemed to him as though a pall had lost its hold in his brain, which began to operate without concern. The thought that he did not need more to make his exterior agreeable, caused him to lay aside a certain kind of collar which annoyed him, but which his bethrothed had explained to bechic.He arranged his hair in a more comfortable manner and observed how it calmed his nerves, for he had been in constant strife about the coiffure his betrothed liked best. The tobacco pipe which he loved as an old acquaintance and which he had been obliged to lay aside, was taken out again, the dressing gown and moccasins, that he had not dared to use for a long time, again gave freedom from pressure, which reminded of a more airy medium In which he could breathe without difficulty, and think without restriction.
And now, freed from all these accommodation constraints, he observed what tyranny even in small details he had lived through. He could walk in his room without the fear of being embarrassed by a knock at the door, deliver himself up to his thoughts without feeling himself false.
He had not long enjoyed the newly gained liberty, when somebody rapped at the door. His body jarred as though some mooring still held him, and when he heard the mother's voice, the oppressing thought struck him like a club, that it was not ended, that it must begin over again.
His first intention was to let the door remain closed, but a sense of propriety, the fear of being regarded as a coward determined him to open it. And when he saw the old lady's cheerful, prudent eye, as she with a kind smile and a roguish shake of her head stepped in, it was to him as though the last half hour's scene had been only a dream after which he had awakened glad that it was past.
"Have we now squabbled again?" commenced the old lady, taking away the disagreeableness of the remark by the familiarwe. "You must get married, children, before there is a rupture I Believe an old woman's word; and don't think that you test your hearts as engaged, for the longer you are engaged, the worse it will become!"
"But after that it is too late to break it," answered the commissioner. "And when one has already discovered such a difference in disposition and opinions, so...."
"What are these opinions? You cannot have different opinions, no, though the girl did have it lonesome when Axel was away, and therefore she run after the colporteur. And as far as disposition is concerned, it comes and goes, according to the condition of the nerves. And Axel, who is such a knowing man, ought to know how women are!"
He could have kissed her hand at the first enchantment of finding that woman, who knew her own sex, but then he remembered that he had heard this manner of speaking ill about other women each time a woman would gain him, and that it was more of flattery than an admission, for when it came to earnestness, the utterance was always taken back with interest. Therefore he limited himself to answering:
"Let time pass, little mother! Get married out here I cannot, but let us only return to the city in the fall ... supposing that Mary shows more sympathy in my work and less repugnance to my way of seeing the world and living."
"Axel is so dreadfully profound, and if a poor girl cannot always follow it, why it is nothing to be astonished at."
"Yes, but if she cannot follow me upwards, I cannot on the other hand follow her downwards; but the latter seems to be her precise will, so precise, that it appears to me to-day, as though there lay a hidden hate behind it."
"Hate? It is only love, my friend! Come down now and say something friendly, and she will be all right again."
"Never, after the words we exchanged to-day! For either these words mean something and then we are foes, or they mean nothing, and then one of the party is irresponsible."
"Yes, she is irresponsible, but Axel should well know that a woman is a child until she becomes a mother. Come now, my friend, and play with' the child, otherwise she will select other playthings, which may be more dangerous."
"Yes, but, dearest, I cannot play the whole day without being tired, and I do not believe either that Mary is pleased to be treated as a child."
"Yes, she is, only it don't look so! Ah, what a child Axel is in such affairs!"
Again a politeness, which from anyone but a mother-in-law would have been an insult! And when she now took his hand to lead him out, he felt all resistance cease. She had by leaving his argument unanswered led the conversation away from the question; she had blown at the skein instead of untangling it, caressed his doubts to rest and stroked away the disquiet and by her womanly atmosphere, her motherly manner got him to lay aside his will and personal liberty.
And after he had changed his coat, he followed obediently, almost with pleasure the incessantly chatting old lady down the staircase to continue the play and put on handcuffs.
Upon reaching the hall he met the preacher, who delivered a letter to him with the Academy of Agriculture's stamp.
The commissioner broke the seal on the spot, and put the letter in his pocket, as though glad he had got something, a substitute for conversation, a lightning rod; he burned to communicate the news to the mother who was waiting.
"We are going to have a visitor," said he.
"The officials have sent me a young man who wants to learn to fish."
"So, it is delightful that Axel is going to have some man for company," said the mother with true sincerity.
And the commissioner went with light steps down to his waiting betrothed, sure that with a novelty on hand he could immediately pass over the most disagreeable of explanations.
A few days later, the commissioner had been out sailing alone to lay down salmon trails secretly, and now after having delayed his dinner hour as he went up from the harbor, he heard chatting and laughter from the porch of the ladies cottage. Without intending to listen he went thither, and when he reached the westerly gable wall, he saw through the two windows in the large chamber, which were in the angle of the cottage corner, that the two ladies were eating dinner on the porch and had a male visitor at the table. He took a step forwards and caught sight of Miss Mary, who with sparkling eyes raised a glass of wine to pass it over the table to the guest, of whom he only saw a pair of broad shoulders. Suddenly it came to him, that he had seen these movements and expressions before in the girl's eyes, and he remembered her first appearance on the islet, when she treated the boatman to a glass of beer, and he had thought she coquetted with the churl! But now he was astonished, that he had never seen this expression in her eyes, when she looked at him. Could her glances only have reflected his? Or did she always hide her inner-most thoughts from him, who should be her victim?
He regarded her for a moment, and the longer he looked, the more strange seemed the expression in the girl's face, so strange, that he became frightened, as when one discovers a deceit in his nearest related.
When one can see so much, when not seen, what then shall one not hear? he thought and stopped behind the corner to listen.
The mother arose now and went into the kitchen, so that the young couple were left alone.
At the same time they lowered their voices, and Miss Mary's glances became humid, while she listened to the stranger's passionately spoken words.
"Jealousy is the dirtiest of all vices, and in love there does not exist any right of ownership...."
"Thanks for these words! A thousand thanks!" said Miss Mary, and raised her glass, while her eyes were moist with some half-shed tears. "You are a real man, although you are young, for you believe in woman."
"I believe in woman as the most magnificent the creation has brought forth, the best and the truest," continued the young man with rising transport.
"And I believe in her, because I believe in God!"
"You believe in God?" Miss Mary continued.
"It shows that you are also intelligent, for it is only stupidity that denies the creator!"
The commissioner considered that he had heard enough, and to see at the same time how great the power of dissimulation his chosen friend for life could possess, he stepped forth suddenly, after he had gained control of all his facial muscles and assumed a beaming expression, as though he was charmed to see again his desired one.
The girl retained the expression of enchanted revelry in her face, and with the same fire as the just expressed confession of faith in women had produced she received her betrothed's embrace and returned it with a kiss, more burning than ever before.
Thereafter she jokingly introduced Assistant Blom, who had arrived early in the morning and had gained all hearts on the skerry, being a fisherman unequaled before.
"And we were just talking about the herring off Bohus, when you came and disturbed us!" the girl ended the presentation with.
The commissioner let the lie, and the dangerous word "disturbed" and the challenge "all hearts" pass, while he reached his hand to a giant youth of about twenty and some years, who had less ability to dissimulate, and with a guilty look grasped the outstretched hand, and stuttered a few incomprehensible words.
At the same time the mother came out, greeted her future son-in-law and began to arrange the table.
A conversation was soon started, and Miss Mary, very likely in the feeling of having a support, began to joke at her betrothed's toilet.
"That veil there, is precious you know," joked she; "you should also have a parasol when you are sitting at the helm."
"That will come, that will come," answered the commissioner, hiding the disagreeable impression which this exposure before a subordinate and a stranger had made on him.
The assistant, who already felt himself above the considerate foreman, but still could not help feeling uncomfortable at the cruel treatment he received, was seized with a tactless compassion, and drumming with his long fingers on the veil, which the commissioner wore on his hat, he said:
"Yes, but this here is very practical!" And hastily falling again into the flirting manner he had begun at the first moment, he added: "And if Miss Mary were just as careful of her beautiful complexion...."
"As you about your beautiful hands—" slipped from the girl, while she touched the hand that rested on the table and which was rolling balls from bread; and she seemed at once to be back in the humor, which her betrothed could guess had prevailed the whole forenoon.
Feeling himself ridiculous like one who is eating alone in the presence of those who are satisfied, he needed all his nerve power to disguise the depression which the overheard conversation had produced. "They already compliment each other's members in my presence," thought he with loathing. But perceived at once, that he would be lost if he showed a single sign of discontent over the improper behavior, which discontent would immediately be stamped as that dirty vice, he had lately heard spoken of.
"The assistant has indeed an unusually beautiful hand bespeaking intelligence," said he, as with the mien of a connoisseur he examined the object of his betrothed's admiration.
But she, who did not wish for this agreement with her views, switched aside and searched for a new lash for his supposed stupidity.
"One cannot speak of intelligent hands," she broke out with a laugh, which sounded somewhat tipsy.
"Therefore I use the more correct expression of bespeaking intelligence...."
"Oh, you philosopher!" scornfully laughed the girl. "You dream, so that you do not see that we have eaten up all the radishes from you."
"I am glad that the traveler has a relish, and I see with pleasure that you have forestalled me in caring for his well being," said the commissioner, unconstrainedly. "Permit me to give you a welcome, Assistant Blom, and wish you much pleasure from your sojourn here in the solitude. And now I leave you in Miss Mary's care, she can give you all the preliminary explanations about fishing affairs; meantime I go up and rest myself. Farewell, my dove," he turned to the girl; "now take care of the young man and lead him in the right path. Good night, mama," he addressed to the widow of the exchequer officer and kissed her hand.
His sortie had come entirely unexpected, while its adequate motive and rounded form, leaving no trace of ill feeling, had saved him from protests and at the same time gave him the last word and a superiority which was grudged him.
Upon reaching his chamber, he had only time to be astonished that "the fear of loss" could bring him such incredible ability to dissimulate, suppress disagreeable perceptions, to harden himself, before he was lying on the sofa with a blanket over his head and sleeping without dreams. When he awoke after a couple of hours, he arose with a resolve, which he felt that he would hold fast to for life, to free himself from this woman.
But just as she through habit had eaten her way into his soul, so she could only be gnawed out the same way again, and the vacant place that he would leave in her, must first be filled by another. By him, whose soul had seemed to set her on fire at the first encounter.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.
It was the preacher, who with many excuses stepped in and with some abashment tried to grind out what he had to say.
"Has not the commissioner," began he, "noticed anything like that the people out here have less conscience."
"That I observed at once," answered the commissioner. "What is it that has happened now?"
"Yer, see the laborer on the chapel say, they, have lost boards, so that there isn't enough to finish it."
"This does not surprise me, but what have I to do with that?"
"Yer, see, the commissioner was for it and procured what was necessary!"
"That was then! Now I have regretted it, since I have seen that your preaching has taken the people from their work and indirectly made them thieves."
"One cannot directly say...."
"No, therefore I said indirectly! But if you want money, go to somebody else. Tell me one thing; who is the new assistant here?"