PART IIICHAPTER IONthe morning after the inquiry, Fru Wangen rose at six, as she was now without a servant, and had to do the washing that day. She had scarcely dressed herself, however, before she was obliged to sit down. She felt so tired and worn out, for she had been wakened not only by the children, but also by Wangen several times in the night, and even when at last he fell asleep, he kept crying out in his sleep.At length she rose to go down, but stood for a little while with the lamp in her hand, and let the light fall upon him. He lay curled up, his face buried in the pillow. Perhaps he was dreaming something horrible even now.She stole quietly out, so as not to wake any of them. In the rooms downstairs the windows were thick with ice; and while she knelt and lighted the fires, she often had to stop to breathe upon her fingers.At a little past eight she went upstairs to surprise him with a cup of coffee before he got up; but while she was on the stairs she heard him callingher, although he might have known he would wake the children.“What are you thinking of?” she said, as she entered. “Do you want to have them wake up?”He sat up in bed. “Do you know, Karen,” he said, “there is no doubt that that Sören Kvikne, who came and offered to give evidence, was sent!”“What do you mean?” she said, standing still with the tray in her hand.“Can you tell me what interest that poor man could have in going and giving false evidence that was so easy to disprove?”“No, no?” She still stood there, and hardly dared to offer him the coffee.“No, Karen,” he said; “the fact is that Norby had bought him. Herlufsen of Rud, who once pretended he was on my side, is in the ring too, as I might have known beforehand. And he lent this man of his in order to set this trap for me. Upon my word it was well calculated. It made me ridiculous, and increased people’s suspicion. It was as diabolical as it could be!”“Are you quite sure now, Henry?”“Sure?” He became still more angry. “Sure? Good heavens!”“Well, because I can’t imagine how people can be so wicked.”“No, you can’t imagine, although you have to see it every blessed day. I begin to think you’d rather it were I that was wicked.”“Will you have some coffee?” she asked, handing him the tray.While he sat with the tray in front of him on the counterpane, Fru Wangen drew up the blinds to let in the wealth of snow-light from the bright winter’s morning. Shortly after she turned to him saying: “I got such a fright this morning.”“You got a fright?” he said, as he gulped down his coffee.“Yes. There was a man sitting on the steps when I opened the door; and I couldn’t help being frightened, for it was the tailor.”“What?” he cried, putting down the cup.“He must be mad. He’s still sitting there. He said he would wait until you came down.”“Can’t you get rid of the fellow?” he said angrily.“No. He said he’d sit there now until you came. I’m at my wits’ end!”It was the old tailor, who had lost by the bankruptcy all his savings, upon which Wangen had promised him such good interest. He came almost every day and wanted to speak to Wangen; but the latter was afraid of him, because his eyes had latterly acquired such a wild expression.It was not this tailor only who was constantly reminding him of the sad consequences of his failure. He received despairing letters, begging him for only a third of the money that had been entrusted to him; and letters that threatened and cursed him.People were continually coming to the house with tears and threats. It was enough to make one mad.These people still believed that he and no other was to blame for the disaster. And that was not the worst; for in Wangen’s inner consciousness, dark arms were extended, and he had to hasten to think of something else.“Here!” he said, holding out the tray to her.“But you haven’t drunk your coffee!” she said in surprise.He lay down again with his hands under his head.“No,” he said; “you take one’s appetite away, Karen.”“I do?”“Well, yes, to tell the truth. I can’t think what pleasure you can have in telling me this about the tailor. I think you ought rather to ask him to go to Norby.” And he breathed hard, as if something exceedingly painful were working in him.“Well, I’m sorry,” she said, sighing; and taking the tray, she left the room.Since the inquiry Wangen had lived as if in a fever. His tactics for asserting his innocence, namely, trying to prove that the forgery was only a link in a chain of conspiracies against his business, had turned out miserably. It had only increased people’s suspicion of him. It did not, however, on that account occur to him that he had chosen a wrong method of procedure, but only worked his suspicion up to greater certainty. The belief in thisconspiracy was just what had given him a good conscience in the midst of the troubles after his failure.The trial, which was either to condemn or acquit him, was approaching inexorably. It was not the fear of being found guilty of forgery that made Wangen ill with anxiety as to the result, for of that he could acquit himself; but the dread he felt was of having his illusion concerning the conspiracy torn to pieces, and thus being obliged to condemn himself. Moreover, because this belief in the malice of his enemies made him feel good, it seemed like treachery in his wife when she defended them. He grew angry, and felt inclined to fly at her; she wanted to take away from him the plank with which he kept himself up.He also had a feeling that it was only on the basis of this conspiracy that he had any right to make the working men his brothers in misfortune; so her slightest word in defence of Norby seemed an attempt to rob himself of a virtue, a strength, which the homage of the working men gave him.When at last he came downstairs that morning the rooms felt very warm and comfortable. “Has the tailor gone?” he asked almost anxiously.“Yes,” she answered—she was standing in the kitchen, rinsing clothes—“I managed to get rid of him at last.”When he had finished breakfast, he sat down to the only work he did at that time, namely, writingarticles for a labour-paper. The title to-day was “The Experiences of a Factory-Owner with Regard to the Eight-hours’ Working-Day.”His recollections on this subject acquired a wonderful golden radiance from the very fact of his clinging to the belief that the cause of his ruin lay neither in himself nor in any thoughtless reform. It was an ideal that he felt an affection for, and he found a comfort in glorifying it, because it acquitted him while at the same time it cast a shadow upon his enemies.As he sat with his pipe in his mouth, becoming warmer and warmer as he wrote, the kitchen door opened and Fru Wangen entered with her sleeves rolled up.“Henry, dear,” she said; “are you going to let another day go by without seeing about a house?”“I’ve told you,” he said, a little irritated at the interruption, “that it’s no good looking for a house as long as I have this hanging over me.” And he went on writing, when she continued:“But would you rather be turned out? Have you forgotten that the auction is to be here next week?”He threw his pencil across the table. Latterly she seemed always to be having a suspicion that he was doing something wrong, and must therefore come and interfere.“Can’t you go then and look for one, instead of coming everlastingly and interrupting me?” he said.“I didn’t know it was anything so important, Henry. And if you’re writing something anonymousabout Norby or others that you suspect, please don’t go on with it! I’m sure you’ll only lose by it.”“It seems as if you couldn’t imagine my writing anything but what was mean. That’s a nice thing to hear, Karen.”She stood a few moments looking at him, and then went quietly out into the kitchen, and went on rinsing children’s clothes in a tub. She found it painful to live in these luxurious surroundings when none of it was theirs any longer, and when they never knew for certain at dinner whether there would be anything for supper or not. But to go into the parish—she—and beg for a roof over their heads, was the very last humiliation she would take upon herself; for this was just what so many people had prophesied when she married him. But why did he not go, when he always had plenty of time? Why could he not save her a little? These were the thoughts that had of late made Fru Wangen so bitter.Wangen succeeded in recovering his happy mood, and had got on a long way with his article, when his wife came in once more and disturbed him. This time she had their two-year-old little girl with her.“You must forgive me, Henry,” she said, “but you haven’t chopped the wood I asked you for; and now you must take care of the child while I go out and do it myself.”He raised his head and looked straight before him for a moment. Then he sighed deeply. She sawthat he had something to say, and stood waiting with anxious eyes.“Oh, dear!” he groaned.“Do I bother you so dreadfully, Henry?”“I thought you would help me a little just now, Karen; but I believe even if people came here and killed me, you would go out and in just as calmly, cook and wash, think of house-rent, and above all not forget to chop wood.”“It must be done, Henry. It’s not my fault that I haven’t a servant now.”At this he rose to his feet in great excitement.“Are you beginning with that again? As sure as I live, I shall try to let you have back your money.”She drew back as if she had been struck in the face, and then she too grew angry.“No, really!” she cried. “I won’t bear that! I shall soon begin to wish that you were guilty, Henry; for to tell the truth, you become more and more unbearable because of this innocence.”“What do you say, Karen?” he exclaimed, turning pale and biting his lip.“You heard well enough!” she said, taking the child in her arms and leaving the room. In a little while he heard the sound of wood-chopping in the wood-shed.“It won’t do her any harm to chop a few sticks of firewood,” he thought; “for she takes everything else quietly enough, goodness knows! I wonder ifthey won’t succeed in enticing her away from me some day.”While Fru Wangen chopped wood, she had to keep a watchful eye upon the child, to whom she had given some twigs to play with. It was such a shame that on account of this innocence, he no longer bestowed a thought upon either her or the children. It was as if she were not allowed to think about anything but his innocence, not allowed to feel anything but pity for him. It was not five weeks since they had laid a little baby in the grave; but he never mentioned it, and would hardly allow her to do so either. But it was his continual suspicion that began to weary her most of all. It made the whole world so exceedingly sad and ugly; and the worst of it was that she involuntarily began to be infected by it, like a disease for which she felt disgust, and which she would like to shake off.And while he was resorting to more and more ignoble means for defending this innocence, she thought he grew a worse man. He oftener came home drunk than he had ever done before; he was churlish and brooked no contradiction. It was as if this innocence not only acquitted him of all the evil he had ever done, but it also gave him the right to do anything he liked, both now and in the future.When at last Fru Wangen came in again, he was walking up and down the room.“Karen,” he said, “can you blame me for expectingthat you will devote yourself a little at any rate to me just now?”“But what is it you want me to do, Henry? I’m toiling from morning to night.”“Yes, you’re toiling; but you might toil a little less. Couldn’t you let my aunt have the children for a time? You know she would like to, and you could be sure——”“Do you really want to send all three of them away, Henry?”He stopped. “Would that be such a dreadful thing?”“No, perhaps not for you,” she said, and went into the kitchen again.It was near the middle of April, and the spring had begun to appear. One day the sun was shining warm upon the bare fields when Fru Wangen stood on the verandah looking out. The river was rushing by, yellow and foaming, often hidden by alder bushes that were beginning to show green buds. To the right lay the shining lake, reflecting soft, bright clouds.“Let me see, mamma!” cried the two little girls, as they hung on to her skirts, both trying to climb up and see.At that moment she heard a well-known cough down by the garden gate. It was her father. It was always painful now when he came, and when he came on to the verandah breathing hard, she was sitting in the drawing-room with her sewing. Hepretended not to see that she rose and held out her hand. The two little girls, who had run up to their grandfather, were also perplexed at his pushing them away as he made his way to a comfortable chair and sank into it. He was breathing hard, and placed his stick between his knees, resting his trembling hands upon the handle.“Isn’t he at home to-day either?” he asked at length.“No, father.”“He used always to be at home before, ha, ha!”The old man was over seventy, but was a very giant. His long white hair, thick, yellowish beard beneath his chin, and red, watery eyes, gave him a patriarchal appearance. He was dressed in black frieze, with silver buttons on his waistcoat, of which the lowest three were left unfastened to allow for his corpulence.“How are you, father?”“I? Grand! We’re going to have an auction at home—sell every mortal thing; and your brother’s going to America, and I shall have nothing to live on, and must choose between going with him or to the workhouse.”“Father!” she exclaimed in a whisper, her eyes fixed on him.The old man laughed with his lips compressed and his blue-red hands trembling still more upon the handle of his stick. His head shook too upon his thin neck.“Is he holding a meeting for the workpeople to-day again?” asked the old man with a bitter smile.“No,” she replied in a low voice.“It’s so strange to us old fogies, Karen, that the worse people are themselves, the more they feel called upon to make others better. Can you tell me what he has to say to those vagabonds—he, the man who has cheated them out of so much pay?”She did not reply, but sighed.“And those ‘working men’—yes. They’re amusing too. You may cheat them as much as you like, if only you provide them lectures to listen to. Never mind food and clothes, if only they can have bits of paper to go about with and wave. Yes, it is strange in these days.”“You don’t think of going to America then, father?”“No, not if he pays me back the last ten thousand krones; for he said he wanted them only for a fortnight.” The old man laughed again.“You can be quite sure he said it in good faith, father.”“Good faith! Yes, of course! And this good faith is now driving us out of house and home. That was good faith indeed!”Fru Wangen again closed her lips and kept silence.The old man passed his hand across his mouth.“But I want something in return. You mustleave him, Karen, both you and the children; for if I were to go to America, I should die in the middle of the Atlantic. Now I might perhaps get a living out of the farm all the same. But do you imagine that I’ll live there and see strangers managing the farm, if none of my own family are with me? You must live with me; do you hear, Karen?” And he fixed his red eyes upon her.Fru Wangen looked at him quite helplessly, but after a little shook her head; and as so often before, the old man went away in a rage, threatening that he would never set his foot there again. But in a little while she heard his voice in the garden, and going on to the verandah, she saw him standing at the garden gate looking back, with trembling hands on the handle of his stick.“You’ve thought over your answer, Karen?” he cried. “For it’s the last time I shall ask anything of you.”She could not answer, but made a helpless motion with her hands and went in, where she sank upon a sofa and began to sob. But leave Wangen? No, people would be right then!When Wangen came home he told her that the workmen had determined on a demonstration on the first of May, and that he had a suspicion that they intended going to Norby Farm.It seemed to her that this pleased him, and she rose suddenly, saying: “It isn’t you, I suppose, Henry, that have thought of this, is it?”“I? Oh, of course!” he replied, smiling a little scornfully.“Yes, but you’ll do what you can to prevent it?”“Goodness me, how you do take on! To tell the truth, I’m not going to prevent it. To make known their opinion in a body is the only weapon these poor working men have; and I can’t blame them for wishing to show Norby and the other money-bags what they think of them.”“That’s just what I thought!” she sighed, and left the room.It was doubly painful to her to despise him now when she was obliged to cling to him against all the world. It was just now that she needed to respect him; but the worst of it was that while others were trying to ruin him he was doing them the service of ruining himself.One day they received notice from the liquidators that the works and villa had been sold privately, and that they must quit them at once. And so the day came when Fru Wangen had to go and look for rooms. There was an empty cottage on a farm close by that had been occupied by a schoolmaster; but the owner, Lars Kringen, had once proposed to her and been refused; and to go to him now——! But after going round to a number of houses, she came home quite discouraged, and remained sitting with her hat and jacket on. She had received the answer “No” everywhere. But a house they must have; and she felt she could not ask Wangen again.“Well,” she thought, rising, “I may just as well throw the last overboard!” And she went to Lars Kringen.A few days later a cart-load of furniture was driven from the door of the pretty villa. Upon it sat two children, and Fru Wangen carried the third in her arms. A little way behind, Wangen walked with bowed head, and hands buried in the pockets of his coat.The little cottage stood upon a mound surrounded with fir trees, and had only two rooms and a kitchen; and when they entered, the difference between it and the home they had left brought them both to a standstill in the middle of the floor. The rooms were dark, the paint was worn off the doors and window-frames, the boards were splintered, and the timbers in the walls cracked.Fru Wangen had to undertake a very thorough cleaning.The greatest humiliation, however, had still to be gone through. They had to ask Lars Kringen for milk and provisions on credit; and on her way to and from his house Fru Wangen felt as if she could sink into the earth. But all this was Wangen’s fault, and strive as she would she could not help a growing bitterness from rising up in her heart against him; and in all this poverty and discomfort, it soon came to be that they never talked to one another except to scold. And Wangen came home drunk more and more frequently.
ONthe morning after the inquiry, Fru Wangen rose at six, as she was now without a servant, and had to do the washing that day. She had scarcely dressed herself, however, before she was obliged to sit down. She felt so tired and worn out, for she had been wakened not only by the children, but also by Wangen several times in the night, and even when at last he fell asleep, he kept crying out in his sleep.
At length she rose to go down, but stood for a little while with the lamp in her hand, and let the light fall upon him. He lay curled up, his face buried in the pillow. Perhaps he was dreaming something horrible even now.
She stole quietly out, so as not to wake any of them. In the rooms downstairs the windows were thick with ice; and while she knelt and lighted the fires, she often had to stop to breathe upon her fingers.
At a little past eight she went upstairs to surprise him with a cup of coffee before he got up; but while she was on the stairs she heard him callingher, although he might have known he would wake the children.
“What are you thinking of?” she said, as she entered. “Do you want to have them wake up?”
He sat up in bed. “Do you know, Karen,” he said, “there is no doubt that that Sören Kvikne, who came and offered to give evidence, was sent!”
“What do you mean?” she said, standing still with the tray in her hand.
“Can you tell me what interest that poor man could have in going and giving false evidence that was so easy to disprove?”
“No, no?” She still stood there, and hardly dared to offer him the coffee.
“No, Karen,” he said; “the fact is that Norby had bought him. Herlufsen of Rud, who once pretended he was on my side, is in the ring too, as I might have known beforehand. And he lent this man of his in order to set this trap for me. Upon my word it was well calculated. It made me ridiculous, and increased people’s suspicion. It was as diabolical as it could be!”
“Are you quite sure now, Henry?”
“Sure?” He became still more angry. “Sure? Good heavens!”
“Well, because I can’t imagine how people can be so wicked.”
“No, you can’t imagine, although you have to see it every blessed day. I begin to think you’d rather it were I that was wicked.”
“Will you have some coffee?” she asked, handing him the tray.
While he sat with the tray in front of him on the counterpane, Fru Wangen drew up the blinds to let in the wealth of snow-light from the bright winter’s morning. Shortly after she turned to him saying: “I got such a fright this morning.”
“You got a fright?” he said, as he gulped down his coffee.
“Yes. There was a man sitting on the steps when I opened the door; and I couldn’t help being frightened, for it was the tailor.”
“What?” he cried, putting down the cup.
“He must be mad. He’s still sitting there. He said he would wait until you came down.”
“Can’t you get rid of the fellow?” he said angrily.
“No. He said he’d sit there now until you came. I’m at my wits’ end!”
It was the old tailor, who had lost by the bankruptcy all his savings, upon which Wangen had promised him such good interest. He came almost every day and wanted to speak to Wangen; but the latter was afraid of him, because his eyes had latterly acquired such a wild expression.
It was not this tailor only who was constantly reminding him of the sad consequences of his failure. He received despairing letters, begging him for only a third of the money that had been entrusted to him; and letters that threatened and cursed him.People were continually coming to the house with tears and threats. It was enough to make one mad.
These people still believed that he and no other was to blame for the disaster. And that was not the worst; for in Wangen’s inner consciousness, dark arms were extended, and he had to hasten to think of something else.
“Here!” he said, holding out the tray to her.
“But you haven’t drunk your coffee!” she said in surprise.
He lay down again with his hands under his head.
“No,” he said; “you take one’s appetite away, Karen.”
“I do?”
“Well, yes, to tell the truth. I can’t think what pleasure you can have in telling me this about the tailor. I think you ought rather to ask him to go to Norby.” And he breathed hard, as if something exceedingly painful were working in him.
“Well, I’m sorry,” she said, sighing; and taking the tray, she left the room.
Since the inquiry Wangen had lived as if in a fever. His tactics for asserting his innocence, namely, trying to prove that the forgery was only a link in a chain of conspiracies against his business, had turned out miserably. It had only increased people’s suspicion of him. It did not, however, on that account occur to him that he had chosen a wrong method of procedure, but only worked his suspicion up to greater certainty. The belief in thisconspiracy was just what had given him a good conscience in the midst of the troubles after his failure.
The trial, which was either to condemn or acquit him, was approaching inexorably. It was not the fear of being found guilty of forgery that made Wangen ill with anxiety as to the result, for of that he could acquit himself; but the dread he felt was of having his illusion concerning the conspiracy torn to pieces, and thus being obliged to condemn himself. Moreover, because this belief in the malice of his enemies made him feel good, it seemed like treachery in his wife when she defended them. He grew angry, and felt inclined to fly at her; she wanted to take away from him the plank with which he kept himself up.
He also had a feeling that it was only on the basis of this conspiracy that he had any right to make the working men his brothers in misfortune; so her slightest word in defence of Norby seemed an attempt to rob himself of a virtue, a strength, which the homage of the working men gave him.
When at last he came downstairs that morning the rooms felt very warm and comfortable. “Has the tailor gone?” he asked almost anxiously.
“Yes,” she answered—she was standing in the kitchen, rinsing clothes—“I managed to get rid of him at last.”
When he had finished breakfast, he sat down to the only work he did at that time, namely, writingarticles for a labour-paper. The title to-day was “The Experiences of a Factory-Owner with Regard to the Eight-hours’ Working-Day.”
His recollections on this subject acquired a wonderful golden radiance from the very fact of his clinging to the belief that the cause of his ruin lay neither in himself nor in any thoughtless reform. It was an ideal that he felt an affection for, and he found a comfort in glorifying it, because it acquitted him while at the same time it cast a shadow upon his enemies.
As he sat with his pipe in his mouth, becoming warmer and warmer as he wrote, the kitchen door opened and Fru Wangen entered with her sleeves rolled up.
“Henry, dear,” she said; “are you going to let another day go by without seeing about a house?”
“I’ve told you,” he said, a little irritated at the interruption, “that it’s no good looking for a house as long as I have this hanging over me.” And he went on writing, when she continued:
“But would you rather be turned out? Have you forgotten that the auction is to be here next week?”
He threw his pencil across the table. Latterly she seemed always to be having a suspicion that he was doing something wrong, and must therefore come and interfere.
“Can’t you go then and look for one, instead of coming everlastingly and interrupting me?” he said.
“I didn’t know it was anything so important, Henry. And if you’re writing something anonymousabout Norby or others that you suspect, please don’t go on with it! I’m sure you’ll only lose by it.”
“It seems as if you couldn’t imagine my writing anything but what was mean. That’s a nice thing to hear, Karen.”
She stood a few moments looking at him, and then went quietly out into the kitchen, and went on rinsing children’s clothes in a tub. She found it painful to live in these luxurious surroundings when none of it was theirs any longer, and when they never knew for certain at dinner whether there would be anything for supper or not. But to go into the parish—she—and beg for a roof over their heads, was the very last humiliation she would take upon herself; for this was just what so many people had prophesied when she married him. But why did he not go, when he always had plenty of time? Why could he not save her a little? These were the thoughts that had of late made Fru Wangen so bitter.
Wangen succeeded in recovering his happy mood, and had got on a long way with his article, when his wife came in once more and disturbed him. This time she had their two-year-old little girl with her.
“You must forgive me, Henry,” she said, “but you haven’t chopped the wood I asked you for; and now you must take care of the child while I go out and do it myself.”
He raised his head and looked straight before him for a moment. Then he sighed deeply. She sawthat he had something to say, and stood waiting with anxious eyes.
“Oh, dear!” he groaned.
“Do I bother you so dreadfully, Henry?”
“I thought you would help me a little just now, Karen; but I believe even if people came here and killed me, you would go out and in just as calmly, cook and wash, think of house-rent, and above all not forget to chop wood.”
“It must be done, Henry. It’s not my fault that I haven’t a servant now.”
At this he rose to his feet in great excitement.
“Are you beginning with that again? As sure as I live, I shall try to let you have back your money.”
She drew back as if she had been struck in the face, and then she too grew angry.
“No, really!” she cried. “I won’t bear that! I shall soon begin to wish that you were guilty, Henry; for to tell the truth, you become more and more unbearable because of this innocence.”
“What do you say, Karen?” he exclaimed, turning pale and biting his lip.
“You heard well enough!” she said, taking the child in her arms and leaving the room. In a little while he heard the sound of wood-chopping in the wood-shed.
“It won’t do her any harm to chop a few sticks of firewood,” he thought; “for she takes everything else quietly enough, goodness knows! I wonder ifthey won’t succeed in enticing her away from me some day.”
While Fru Wangen chopped wood, she had to keep a watchful eye upon the child, to whom she had given some twigs to play with. It was such a shame that on account of this innocence, he no longer bestowed a thought upon either her or the children. It was as if she were not allowed to think about anything but his innocence, not allowed to feel anything but pity for him. It was not five weeks since they had laid a little baby in the grave; but he never mentioned it, and would hardly allow her to do so either. But it was his continual suspicion that began to weary her most of all. It made the whole world so exceedingly sad and ugly; and the worst of it was that she involuntarily began to be infected by it, like a disease for which she felt disgust, and which she would like to shake off.
And while he was resorting to more and more ignoble means for defending this innocence, she thought he grew a worse man. He oftener came home drunk than he had ever done before; he was churlish and brooked no contradiction. It was as if this innocence not only acquitted him of all the evil he had ever done, but it also gave him the right to do anything he liked, both now and in the future.
When at last Fru Wangen came in again, he was walking up and down the room.
“Karen,” he said, “can you blame me for expectingthat you will devote yourself a little at any rate to me just now?”
“But what is it you want me to do, Henry? I’m toiling from morning to night.”
“Yes, you’re toiling; but you might toil a little less. Couldn’t you let my aunt have the children for a time? You know she would like to, and you could be sure——”
“Do you really want to send all three of them away, Henry?”
He stopped. “Would that be such a dreadful thing?”
“No, perhaps not for you,” she said, and went into the kitchen again.
It was near the middle of April, and the spring had begun to appear. One day the sun was shining warm upon the bare fields when Fru Wangen stood on the verandah looking out. The river was rushing by, yellow and foaming, often hidden by alder bushes that were beginning to show green buds. To the right lay the shining lake, reflecting soft, bright clouds.
“Let me see, mamma!” cried the two little girls, as they hung on to her skirts, both trying to climb up and see.
At that moment she heard a well-known cough down by the garden gate. It was her father. It was always painful now when he came, and when he came on to the verandah breathing hard, she was sitting in the drawing-room with her sewing. Hepretended not to see that she rose and held out her hand. The two little girls, who had run up to their grandfather, were also perplexed at his pushing them away as he made his way to a comfortable chair and sank into it. He was breathing hard, and placed his stick between his knees, resting his trembling hands upon the handle.
“Isn’t he at home to-day either?” he asked at length.
“No, father.”
“He used always to be at home before, ha, ha!”
The old man was over seventy, but was a very giant. His long white hair, thick, yellowish beard beneath his chin, and red, watery eyes, gave him a patriarchal appearance. He was dressed in black frieze, with silver buttons on his waistcoat, of which the lowest three were left unfastened to allow for his corpulence.
“How are you, father?”
“I? Grand! We’re going to have an auction at home—sell every mortal thing; and your brother’s going to America, and I shall have nothing to live on, and must choose between going with him or to the workhouse.”
“Father!” she exclaimed in a whisper, her eyes fixed on him.
The old man laughed with his lips compressed and his blue-red hands trembling still more upon the handle of his stick. His head shook too upon his thin neck.
“Is he holding a meeting for the workpeople to-day again?” asked the old man with a bitter smile.
“No,” she replied in a low voice.
“It’s so strange to us old fogies, Karen, that the worse people are themselves, the more they feel called upon to make others better. Can you tell me what he has to say to those vagabonds—he, the man who has cheated them out of so much pay?”
She did not reply, but sighed.
“And those ‘working men’—yes. They’re amusing too. You may cheat them as much as you like, if only you provide them lectures to listen to. Never mind food and clothes, if only they can have bits of paper to go about with and wave. Yes, it is strange in these days.”
“You don’t think of going to America then, father?”
“No, not if he pays me back the last ten thousand krones; for he said he wanted them only for a fortnight.” The old man laughed again.
“You can be quite sure he said it in good faith, father.”
“Good faith! Yes, of course! And this good faith is now driving us out of house and home. That was good faith indeed!”
Fru Wangen again closed her lips and kept silence.
The old man passed his hand across his mouth.
“But I want something in return. You mustleave him, Karen, both you and the children; for if I were to go to America, I should die in the middle of the Atlantic. Now I might perhaps get a living out of the farm all the same. But do you imagine that I’ll live there and see strangers managing the farm, if none of my own family are with me? You must live with me; do you hear, Karen?” And he fixed his red eyes upon her.
Fru Wangen looked at him quite helplessly, but after a little shook her head; and as so often before, the old man went away in a rage, threatening that he would never set his foot there again. But in a little while she heard his voice in the garden, and going on to the verandah, she saw him standing at the garden gate looking back, with trembling hands on the handle of his stick.
“You’ve thought over your answer, Karen?” he cried. “For it’s the last time I shall ask anything of you.”
She could not answer, but made a helpless motion with her hands and went in, where she sank upon a sofa and began to sob. But leave Wangen? No, people would be right then!
When Wangen came home he told her that the workmen had determined on a demonstration on the first of May, and that he had a suspicion that they intended going to Norby Farm.
It seemed to her that this pleased him, and she rose suddenly, saying: “It isn’t you, I suppose, Henry, that have thought of this, is it?”
“I? Oh, of course!” he replied, smiling a little scornfully.
“Yes, but you’ll do what you can to prevent it?”
“Goodness me, how you do take on! To tell the truth, I’m not going to prevent it. To make known their opinion in a body is the only weapon these poor working men have; and I can’t blame them for wishing to show Norby and the other money-bags what they think of them.”
“That’s just what I thought!” she sighed, and left the room.
It was doubly painful to her to despise him now when she was obliged to cling to him against all the world. It was just now that she needed to respect him; but the worst of it was that while others were trying to ruin him he was doing them the service of ruining himself.
One day they received notice from the liquidators that the works and villa had been sold privately, and that they must quit them at once. And so the day came when Fru Wangen had to go and look for rooms. There was an empty cottage on a farm close by that had been occupied by a schoolmaster; but the owner, Lars Kringen, had once proposed to her and been refused; and to go to him now——! But after going round to a number of houses, she came home quite discouraged, and remained sitting with her hat and jacket on. She had received the answer “No” everywhere. But a house they must have; and she felt she could not ask Wangen again.“Well,” she thought, rising, “I may just as well throw the last overboard!” And she went to Lars Kringen.
A few days later a cart-load of furniture was driven from the door of the pretty villa. Upon it sat two children, and Fru Wangen carried the third in her arms. A little way behind, Wangen walked with bowed head, and hands buried in the pockets of his coat.
The little cottage stood upon a mound surrounded with fir trees, and had only two rooms and a kitchen; and when they entered, the difference between it and the home they had left brought them both to a standstill in the middle of the floor. The rooms were dark, the paint was worn off the doors and window-frames, the boards were splintered, and the timbers in the walls cracked.
Fru Wangen had to undertake a very thorough cleaning.
The greatest humiliation, however, had still to be gone through. They had to ask Lars Kringen for milk and provisions on credit; and on her way to and from his house Fru Wangen felt as if she could sink into the earth. But all this was Wangen’s fault, and strive as she would she could not help a growing bitterness from rising up in her heart against him; and in all this poverty and discomfort, it soon came to be that they never talked to one another except to scold. And Wangen came home drunk more and more frequently.