Chapter XII
Duringthe first days of March Inger-Johanna wrote:
This comes so close upon my former, because I have just received a letter from Rönnow about something on which I would gladly, dear parents, have you stand on my side, when you, as I foresee, receive aunt's explicit and strong representation and reasons in the opposite direction.
Rönnow already writes as if it were something certain and settled that we should have the wedding in the summer, in June or July. Aunt wants it at her house, and hopes that, in any event, you, father, will come down.
Rönnow urges so many amiable considerations which speak for it, and I do not at all doubt that aunt in her abundant kindness will take care to make it doubly sure with a four-page letter full of reasons.
But against all this I have only one thing to say, that I, at the time I gave my consent to Rönnow, did not at all foresee such haste without, as it were, a little time and breathing-space for myself.
It is possible that others cannot understand this feeling of mine, and especially it seems that aunt thinks it does not exactly show the degree of heartiness of feeling that Rönnow could expect.
But to the last, which is certainly the only one of the whole number she can urge that is worth answering, I will only say, that it cannot possibly be Rönnow's intent to offend my innermost sensibilities when he learns how I feel about it.
I only ask for suitable time—for instance, till some time next winter. I should so much like to have this year, summer and autumn at least, a little in quiet and peace. There is so much to think over, among other things my future position. I want first to study the French grammar through, and I should prefer to do it at home alone, and generally to prepare myself. It is not merely like jumping into a new silk dress.
Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish I could be at Gilje this summer! I sat yesterday thinking how delightful it was there last year on the high mountains!
No, aunt and I would not agree permanently. Her innermost, innermost peculiarity (let it be never so well enveloped in amiability and gentle ways of speech) is that she is tyrannical. Therefore she wants now to manage my wedding, and therefore—which can now vex and disturb me, so that I haven't words for it!—she has in these days got my good-natured (but not especially strong-minded, it would be a pity to say that!) uncle to commit the act, which is far from being noble, of dismissing Grip from his position in the office. It is just like robbing him of half of what is needed to enable himto live and study here, and that only because she does not tolerate his ideas.
I let her know plainly what I thought about it, that it was both heartless and intolerant; I was so moved.
But why she pursues him to the seventh and last—for with aunt there is always something for the seventh and last—that I should still like to know.
Regard must naturally be paid to Inger-Johanna's wish to postpone the wedding. And so there was writing and writing to and fro.
But then came Rönnow's new promotion and with it the practical consideration, which weighed on the scales, that housekeeping must be begun on moving-day in October.
*****
There was a general brushing up at Gilje from top to bottom, inside and out. The rooms upstairs must be whitened and everything put in order for the arrival of the newly married couple to remain this summer, the whole of July, after the wedding.
And when Inger-Johanna should come she was to meet a surprise—the whole of the captain's residence, by order of the army department, newly painted red with red-lead and white window sashes.
The captain's every-day coat had a shower ofspots at all times in the day, as he stood out by the painter's ladder and watched the work—first the priming and now the second coat; then came the completion, the third and last. The spring winds blew, so that the walls dried almost immediately.
He was a little dizzy off and on during all this, so that he must stop and recover his balance; but there was good reason for it, because the parish clerk this year had not taken enough blood, since he had become so much stouter!—and then perhaps he pushed on too hard and eagerly; for he did long for Inger-Johanna's return.
He talked of nothing but Inger-Johanna, of her prospects, beauty, and talents, and how Ma could not deny that he had seen what there was in her from the time when she was very small.
But Ma still thought privately, while he was going about boisterous and happy, that he had been less stout and more healthy when he had more anxieties and had to take the world harder. She had let him into the secret of Aunt Alette's misgivings in respect to Jörgen's capacities for scholarship.
"I have not been able to avoid thinking, Jäger, that Jörgen might not find happiness in that line."
"In what line, then?—Be a shoemaker and lie on one knee and take the measure of us others, perhaps—Oh-ho, no," stretching himself with superabundant conviction, "if we can afford to keep him at his studies, he can easily learn. There are manymore stupid than he who have attained the position of both minister and sheriff."
One day the captain hastily separated a letter from Aunt Alette from his official mail, and threw it on the table for Ma to read through at her convenience. If there was anything in it, she could tell it to him, he shouted back, as he went up the stairs to his office; he had become a great deal heavier and more short of breath lately, and took a firmer hold on the stair rail.
May 1, 1844
My dearest Gitta,—It is with a certain sad, subdued feeling that I write to you this time; nay, I could even wish to characterize it by a stronger expression. It comes to my old ears as if there was a lamentation sounding over so many bright hopes bowing their heads to the ground; and I can only find consolation in the firm faith, cherished through a long life, that nothing happens save as a link in a higher wisdom.
Just as I have hitherto tried to present everything relating to Inger-Johanna as clearly before you as I could see it myself, so I find it most proper not to conceal from you the struggle which she plainly is going through against a feeling, from whose power I hope there may yet be salvation in the fortunate circumstance that it has not yet had full time to come into being and ripen in her.
It is there, and it produces pain, but more, is my hope, as a possibility, which has not put out sufficient roots, than as a reality, a living growth, which could not, without injury to her innermost being, coldly be subdued and stifled again.
But never has shrewd calculation celebrated a more sorry triumph than when the governor's wife believed that she could find a remedy by keeping the person concerned at a distance and at last even by persecuting him, in order to make it impossible for him to support himself here. When it is considered that Inger-Johanna, during all the treatment that Grip has endured for his ideas, has plainly sympathized with, almost championed them, the result should not have been difficult to foresee.
And one cold, frosty morning early this winter, Inger-Johanna came here in great mental excitement to make an examination into his condition through Jörgen. It was then also at her appeal that Jörgen asked him to teach him four hours a week.
On this occasion I saw clearly what before I had only suspected, but which had not escaped your sister-in-law's sharp eye, that Student Grip, without Inger-Johanna's having any idea of it, had engrossed her as a personality that drew her more and more.
It is of no use to conceal it; it is a crisis which must be fought through, before she finally becomesany other person's, if her position is not to be a false one, and if she is not to support a lifelong sorrow.
That the news of her betrothal has fallen like a saddening disappointment of a hope (even if a remote one) on this young man, I regard as far from improbable.
I certainly cannot forget the two serious young faces, which for a moment stood looking at each other, when they met in my room one afternoon. There was not much said.
She knew that he had been wronged and she hinted something to that effect.
"Possibly, Miss Jäger," he said harshly, while he took hold of the door-knob. "So many soap-bubbles burst."
Inger-Johanna remained standing and looking down on the floor. It was as if an entire change had come over her; I am sure it dawned upon her what he felt.
The discharge from the governor's bureau has plainly enough been welcome to many of the families which immediately after with singular quickness seized the opportunity to dismiss him as tutor. A man of such strangely discordant ideas had long been thought not quite desirable to receive. And the example had been given.
From an honest heart I offered him a loan, so that he might live in peace for two or three months and study, until he could again get places to teach;but either he was too sore and proud, or else he thought that Inger-Johanna had a hand in it.
He has certainly taken it very much to heart that the total want of means of existence has now compelled him to give up the school, which was his pride, so that he is now in a certain way an object of ridicule, and this has capped the climax.
He goes about unoccupied, so Jörgen reports, and asks for credit at eating-houses and restaurants, where he sits out the evening and night.
I understood well enough that it was not just for the sake of her old aunt or for the thing itself, but to hear about him, that Inger-Johanna sat with me so often and learned the old-fashioned stitch with pearls and gold thread. She was in such an excited condition and so abstracted, and jumped up when Jörgen came home towards evening and, more's the pity, as often as not had been looking for him in vain to read with him.
That pale, darkly brilliant face stands so before me, Gitta, with which she one evening broke out: "Aunt—Aunt—Aunt Alette!"
It was like a hidden cry.
Where he is living now, Jörgen has not succeeded in finding out; possibly for want of means he has been turned out of his lodgings.
I narrate all this so much in detail, because it is to be believed and hoped that the severest part of the crisis, so far as she is concerned, is over now.
Since that evening, when she felt that she had forgotten herself, she has at least not talked about him, nor, as I know certainly, addressed a word to Jörgen. She has evidently esteemed his character very highly, and has now suffered a disappointment.
It is not well to be young and have a great deal of life that can suffer. I tell you, it is as with your teeth; there is no peace until you have them all in your table drawer.
No, all this was not anything for father, Ma thought.
*****
Great-Ola was standing with a crowbar. There was a stone which was to be placed in the wall. But the frozen crust of earth was hard, up there on the meadow, although the sun was so roasting hot that he was obliged to wipe his forehead with his pointed cap every time he rested.
The non-commissioned officers had returned to the office during the forenoon with their pay in their pockets, one after the other; and that it was pretty bad going with holes in the highway was evident from their splashed carts, which were as if they had been dipped in the mud.
He had just got ready to put the crowbar under again, when he suddenly stopped. There was somethingwhich attracted his attention—a cariole with a post-boy walking by the side and a little yellow horse covered with mud up to its belly.
With pieces of rope for reins and wound around the cariole thills, the horse toiled up along the Gilje hills in zigzag, incessantly stopping to get breath. The sun was burning hot down there on the frozen earth.
The post down from Drevstad—he knew both the horse and the lumbering vehicle.
It was not that which would have taken his attention so seriously; but some one was sitting in it—a lady with hat and veil. He did not understand—that way of carrying the head—wasn't it—
He took two or three slow, thoughtful steps, then started on the jump, and over the wall with a leap which would have touched the roof-beam in a high room.
"Why, in the Lord's name, if it isn't Inger-Johanna herself!" he ejaculated, as he suddenly stood by the side of the horse. "What will the capt—"
At the sight of her he suddenly had a misgiving that perhaps everything might not be so well.
"And such a rattle-trap!" he said, recovering himself, "is that fit for Inger-Johanna?"
"Good morning, Great-Ola, is father at home, and mother? No, I am not so very well, but shall be better now."
She became silent again.
Great-Ola walked on, leading the horse by the reins, when Inger-Johanna drove into the yard.
There stood her father under the painting-ladder, looking up. He suddenly shaded his eyes, and was at once with her by the cariole.
"Inger-Johanna!"
She hugged him tightly out there, and the captain, dreadfully perplexed, drew her into the hall to Ma, who was standing there dumb.
"What is the matter, what is the matter, Inger-Johanna?" he burst out.
"Go in—go into the room a little, Jäger." She knew how little he could bear. "Let her talk with me first, and then we will come in to you—it is surely not anything irreparable."
"Father, Ma? Why should not father understand me?"
"Come, come, child," the captain made haste to say; he had hardly any voice left.
And she sat down there in the sitting-room with her father by her side on the sofa and her mother on a chair, and told them how she had fought and striven to make herself fancy that her life's task lay with Rönnow.
She had created for herself a whole pile of illusions.
But then, on one day—and she also knew which one—they became like extinguished lights for her—blackas coal and empty, wherever she looked—not what she had thought, not what she meant—like throwing herself into a desert.
"And aunt insisted that I should choose the pattern of my wedding dress. I think I should have gone into it blindly, with my eyes shut, nevertheless; for I thought of you, father, what you would say, and of you, mother,—and of the whole world outside, what it would say, if I thus, without any trace of reason, broke my engagement. And then I considered that everything was settled. I had thrown myself into the water and was only sinking, sinking—I had no right now to do anything else than drown. But then—"
"Well," a short ominous cough; the captain sat looking on the floor with his hands on his knees.
"Then," resumed Inger-Johanna with a low voice, still paler, and violently impressed with her subject—"Nay, there need not be any secret from you, father, and you, mother, since you otherwise would not understand me;—it came almost like a flash of lightning upon me, that for wholly one year, and perhaps for two, I had had my whole soul bound up with another."
"Who is it?"
"Grip," she whispered.
The captain had sat patiently and listened—entirely patiently—till the last word. But now he flew up and placed himself before her; he struckhis hands together on the backs, and stretched them out, utterly without self-control.
"But, kingdom of heaven!" he broke out at last. "Where are you!—What are you thinking of? You can't for a single moment ever think of comparing such a—Grip with a man like Rönnow?—I tell you, Inger-Johanna, your father is absolutely, totally—you—you might just as well rise up and strike me dead at once."
"Listen, father!" came from Inger-Johanna; at the same moment she sprang up and stood before him. "If Thinka and the others have not saved themselves, no one shall trample on me."
Ma continued sitting with sharp, compressed face.
"Such pure insanity!" The captain struck his fist against his forehead and walked up and down the floor disconsolately. "But now I see it;" he stopped again, nodding to himself. "You have been spoiled, dreadfully spoiled—spoiled, since you were little—And then we get it again, only because I think so much of you."
"The whole world could contradict me, father. I have only my right way to go—to do as I have done—write to Rönnow, give full explanation, and tell it to aunt. And," she leaned against the sofa and looked down bitterly, as the remembrance came over her, "aunt has done what she could, I can assure you—thought, as you do, father, that it waspure insanity. She was so fond of me that she did not care how much wretchedness it was for me if the match only came off. So vain and young as I was, she thought, all she had to do was to get Grip cried down and pursued, so that he should stand without means, hemmed in on all sides without any way out, a man made an object of ridicule, who was obliged to give up his purpose—only his father over again. It was so easily done, as he fought for his opinions unsupported, and it would be taken up so readily, as she knew." She stood there so self-assured, tremblingly lost in her own thoughts, with downcast eyes and dark brows. She had become thin and slim. "And now I have come home here with more sorrow than I can tell you or explain—so full of fear—"
There was a silence during which strange emotions were working in the captain. "Do you say that we are not fond of you—will do you harm? Well, then, perhaps, I might not consider it so right hereafter, what you have done. I say perhaps; but now I tell you that, if you must do it, then we shall stand by it, just as you yourself wish in the affair. You understand it, at all events. Why, you have not even sat down, child. Let her have something to eat, Ma, at once."
He started up. There was a good deal to be got out of the way in her room, so she should not see that repairs were going on.