Falkenberg was right; the people at the next farm would not be outdone by their neighbours; their piano must be seen to as well. The daughter of the house was away for the moment, but the work could be done in her absence as a little surprise for her when she came home. She had often complained that the piano was so dreadfully out of tune it was impossible to play on it at all. So now I was left to myself again as before, while Falkenberg was busy in the parlour. When it got dark he had lights brought in and went on tuning. He had his supper in there too, and when he had finished, he came out and asked me for his pipe.
“Which pipe?”
“You fool! the one with the clenched fist, of course.”
Somewhat unwillingly I handed him my neatly carved pipe; I had just got it finished; with the nail set in and a gold ring, and a long stem.
“Don't let the nail get too hot,” I whispered, “or it might curl up.”
Falkenberg lit the pipe and went swaggering up with it indoors. But he put in a word for me too, and got them to give me supper and coffee in the kitchen.
I found a place to sleep in the barn.
I woke up in the night, and there was Falkenberg standing close by, and calling me by name. The full moon shone right in, and I could see his face.
“What's the matter now?”
“Here's your pipe. Here you are, man, take it.”
“Pipe?”
“Yes, your pipe. I won't have the thing about me another minute. Look at it—the nail's all coming loose.”
I took the pipe, and saw the nail had begun to curl away from the wood. Said Falkenberg:
“The beastly thing was looking at me with a sort of nasty grin in the moonlight. And then when I remembered where you'd got that nail....”
Happy Falkenberg!
Next morning when we were ready to start off again, the daughter of the house had come home. We heard her thumping out a waltz on the piano, and a little after she came out and said:
“It's made no end of difference with the piano. Thank you very much.”
“I hope you may find it satisfactory,” said the piano-tuner grandly.
“Yes, indeed. There's quite a different tone in it now.”
“And is there anywhere else Frøkenen could recommend...?”
“Ask the people at Øvrebø; Falkenberg's the name.”
“Whatname?”
“Falkenberg. Go straight on from here, and you'll come to a post on the right-hand side about a mile and a half along. Turn off there and that'll take you to it.”
At that Falkenberg sat down plump at the steps and began asking all sorts of questions about the Falkenbergs at Øvrebø. Only to think he should come across his kinsmen here, and find himself, as it were, at home again. He was profusely grateful for the information. “Thanks most sincerely, Frøken.”
Then we went on our way again, and I carried the things.
Once in the wood we sat down to talk over what was to be done. Was it advisable, after all, for a Falkenberg of the rank of piano-tuner to go walking up to the Captain at Øvrebø and claim relationship? I was the more timid, and ended by making Falkenberg himself a little shy of it. On the other hand, it might be a merry jest.
Hadn't he any papers with his name on? Certificates of some sort?
“Yes, but forFan, there's nothing in them except saying I'm a reliable workman.”
We cast about for some way of altering the papers a little, but finally agreed it could be better to make a new one altogether. We might do one for unsurpassed proficiency in piano-tuning and put in the Christian name as Leopold instead of Lars. [Footnote: Again substituting an aristocratic for a rustic name.] There was no limit to what we could do in that way.
“Think that you can write out that certificate?” he asked.
“Yes, that I can.”
But now that wretched brain of mine began playing tricks, and making the whole thing ridiculous. A piano-tuner wasn't enough, I thought; no, make him a mechanical genius, a man who had solved most intricate problems, an inventor with a factory of his own....
“Then I wouldn't need to go about waving certificates,” said Falkenberg, and refused to listen any more. No, the whole thing looked like coming to nothing after all.
Downcast and discouraged both, we tramped on till we came to the post.
“You're not going up, are you?” I asked.
“You can go yourself,” said Falkenberg sourly. “Here, take your rags of things.”
But a little way farther on he slackened his pace, and muttered:
“It's a wicked shame to throw away a chance like that. Why, it's just cut out for us as it is.”
“Well, then, why don't you go up and pay them a call? Who knows, you might be some relation after all.”
“I wish I'd thought to ask if he'd a nephew in America.”
“What then? Could you talk English to them if he had?”
“You mind your own business, and don't talk so much,” said Falkenberg. “I don't see what you've got to brag about, anyway.”
He was nervous and out of temper, and began stepping out. Then suddenly he stopped and said:
“I'll do it. Lend me that pipe of yours again. I won't light it.”
We walked up the hill, Falkenberg putting on mighty airs, pointing this way and that with the pipe and criticizing the place. It annoyed me somewhat to see him stalking along in that vainglorious fashion while I carried the load. I said:
“Going to be a piano-tuner this time?”
“I think I've shown I can tune a piano,” he said shortly. “I am good for that at any rate.”
“But suppose there's some one in the house knows all about it—Fruen, for instance—and tries the piano after you've done?”
Falkenberg was silent. I could see he was growing doubtful again. Little by little his lordly gait sank to a slouching walk.
“Perhaps we'd better not,” he said. “Here, take your pipe. We'll just go up and simply ask for work.”
As it happened, there was a chance for us to make ourselves useful the moment we came on the place. They were getting up a new flagstaff, and were short of hands. We set to work and got it up in fine style. There was a crowd of women looking on from the window.
Was Captain Falkenberg at home?
No.
Or Fruen?
Fruen came out. She was tall and fair, and friendly as a young foal; and she answered our greeting in the kindliest way.
Had she any work for us now?
“Well, I don't know. I don't think so really, not while my husband's away.”
I had an idea she found it hard to say no, and touched my cap and was turning away, not to trouble her any more. But she must have found something strange about Falkenberg, coming up like that wearing decent clothes, and with a man to carry his things; she looked at him inquisitively and asked:
“What sort of work?”
“Any kind of outdoor work,” said Falkenberg. “We can take on hedging and ditching, bricklayer's work....”
“Getting late in the year for that sort,” put in one of the men by the flagstaff.
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Fruen agreed. “I don't know.... Anyhow, it's just dinner-time; if you'd like to go in and get something to eat meanwhile. Such as it is.”
“Thank you kindly,” answered Falkenberg.
Now, that seemed to my mind a poor and vulgar way to speak; I felt he shamed us both in answering so, and it distressed me. So I must put in a word myself.
“Mille grâces, Madame; vous êtes trop aimable,” I said gallantly, and took off my cap.
Fruen turned round and stared at me in astonishment; the look on her face was comical to see.
We were shown into the kitchen and given an excellent meal. Fruen went indoors. When we had finished, and were starting off, she came out again; Falkenberg had got back his courage now, and, taking advantage of her kindness offered to tune the piano.
“Can you tune pianos too?” she asked, in surprise.
“Yes, indeed; I tuned the one on the farm down below.”
“Mine's a grand piano, and a good one. I shouldn't like it....”
“Fruen can be easy about that.”
“Have you any sort of....”
“I've no certificate, no. It's not my way to ask for such. But Fruen can come and hear me.”
“Well, perhaps—yes, come this way.”
She went into the house, and he followed. I looked through the doorway as they went in, and saw a room with many pictures on the walls.
The maids fussed about in and out of the kitchen, casting curious glances at me, stranger as I was; one of the girls was quite nice-looking. I was thankful I had shaved that morning.
Some ten minutes passed; Falkenberg had begun. Fruen came out into the kitchen again and said:
“And to think you speak French! It's more than I do.”
Now, Heaven be thanked for that. I had no wish to go farther with it myself. If I had, it would have been mostly hackneyed stuff, about returning to our muttons and looking for the lady in the case, and the State, that's me, and so on.
“Your friend showed me his papers,” said Fruen. “You seem to be decent folk. I don't know.... I might telegraph to my husband and ask if he's any work for you.”
I would have thanked her, but could not get a word out for swallowing at something in my throat.
Neurasthenia!
Afterwards I went out across the yard and walked about the fields a bit; all was in good order everywhere, and the crops in under cover. Even the potato stalks had been carted away though there's many places where they're left out till the snow comes. I could see nothing for us to do at all. Evidently these people were well-to-do.
When it was getting towards evening, and Falkenberg was still tuning, I took a bit of something to eat in my pocket and went off for a walk, to be out of the way so they should not ask me in to supper. There was a moon, and the stars were out, but I liked best to grope my way into the dense part of the wood and sit down in the dark. It was more sheltered there, too. How quiet the earth and air seemed now! The cold is beginning, there is rime on the ground; now and again a stalk of grass creaks faintly, a little mouse squeaks, a rook comes soaring over the treetops, then all is quiet again. Was there ever such fair hair as hers? Surely never. Born a wonder, from top to toe, her lips a ripened loveliness, and the play of dragonflies in her hair. If only one could draw out a diadem from a sack of clothes and give it her. I'll find a pink shell somewhere and carve it to a thumbnail, and offer her the pipe to give her husband for a present ... yes....
Falkenberg comes across the yard to meet me, and whispers hurriedly:
“She's got an answer from the Captain; he says we can set to work felling timber in the woods. Are you any good at that?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, go inside, into the kitchen. She's been asking for you.”
I went in and Fruen said:
“I wondered where you'd got to. Sit down and have something to eat.Hadyour supper? Where?”
“We've food with us in the sack.”
“Well, there was no need to do that. Won't you have a cup of tea, then? Nothing?... I've had an answer from my husband. Can you fell trees? Well, that's all right. Look, here it is: 'Want couple of men felling timber, Petter will show trees marked.'....”
Heaven—she stood there beside me, pointing to the message. And the scent of a young girl in her breath....
In the woods. Petter is one of the farm-hands; he showed us the way here.
When we talked together, Falkenberg was not by any means so grateful to Fruen for giving us work. “Nothing to bow and scrape for in that,” he said. “It's none so easy to get workmen these days.” Falkenberg, by the way, was nothing out of the ordinary in the woodcutting line, while I'd had some experience of the work in another part of the world, and so could take a lead in this at a finish. And he agreed I was to be leader.
Just now I began working in my mind on an invention.
With the ordinary sort of saw now in use, the men have to lie down crookedwise on the ground and pullsideways. And that's why there's not so much gets done in a day, and a deal of ugly stumps left after in the woods. Now, with a conical transmission apparatus that could be screwed on to the root, it should be possible to work the saw with a straight back-and-forward movement, but the blade cutting horizontally all the time. I set to work designing parts of a machine of this sort. The thing that puzzled me most was how to get the little touch of pressure on the blade that's needed. It might be done by means of a spring that could be wound up by clockwork, or perhaps a weight would do it. The weight would be easier, but uniform, and, as the saw went deeper, it would be getting harder all the time, and the same pressure would not do. A steel spring, on the other hand, would slacken down as the cut grew deeper, and always give the right amount of pressure. I decided on the spring system. “You can manage it,” I told myself. And the credit for it would be the greatest thing in my life.
The days passed, one like another; we felled our nine-inch timber, and cut off twigs and tops. We lived in plenty, taking food and coffee with us when we started for the woods, and getting a hot meal in the evening when we came home. Then we washed and tidied ourselves—to be nicer-mannered than the farm-hands—and sat in the kitchen, with a big lamp alight, and three girls. Falkenberg had become Emma's sweetheart.
And every now and then there would come a wave of music from the piano in the parlour; sometimes Fruen herself would come out to us with her girlish youth and her blessed kindly ways. “And how did you get on today?” she would ask. “Did you meet a bear in the woods?” But one evening she thanked Falkenberg for doing her piano so nicely. What? did she mean it? Falkenberg's weather-beaten face grew quite handsome with pleasure; I felt proud of him when he answered modestly that he thought himself it was a little better now.
Either he had gained by his experience in tuning already, or Fruen was grateful to him for not having spoiled the grand piano.
Falkenberg dressed up in my town clothes every evening. It wouldn't do for me to take them back now and wear them myself; every one would believe I'd borrowed them from him.
“Let me have Emma, and you can keep the clothes,” I said in jest.
“All right, you can take her,” he answered.
I began to see then that Falkenberg was growing cooler towards his girl. Oh, but Falkenberg had fallen in love too, the same as I. What simple boys we were!
“Wonder if she will give us a look in this evening again?” Falkenberg would say while we were out at work.
And I would answer that I didn't care how long the Captain stayed away.
“No, you're right,” said Falkenberg. “And I say, if I find he isn't decent to her, there'll be trouble.”
Then one evening Falkenberg gave us a song. And I was proud of him as ever. Fruen came out, and he had to sing it over again, and another one after; his fine voice filled the room, and Fruen was delighted, and said she had never heard anything like it.
And then it was I began to be envious.
“Have you learnt singing?” asked Fruen. “Can you read music at all?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Falkenberg. “I used to sing in a club.”
Now that was where he should have said: no, worse luck, he'd never learned, so I thought to myself.
“Have you ever sung to any one? Has any one ever heard you?”
“I've sung at dances and parties now and again. And once at a wedding.”
“But I mean for any one that knew: has any one tried your voice?”
“No, not that I know of—or yes, I think so, yes.”
“Well, won't you sing some more now? Do.”
And Falkenberg sang.
The end of it'll be he'll be asked right into the parlour one evening, I thought to myself, with Fruen—to play for him. I said:
“Beg pardon, but won't the Captain be coming home soon?”
“Yes, soon,” answered Fruen. “Why do you ask?'
“I was only thinking about the work.”
“Have you felled all the trees that were marked?”
“No, not yet—no, not by a long way. But....”
“Oh....” said Fruen suddenly, as if she had just thought of something. “You must have some money. Yes, of course....”
I grasped at that to save myself, and answered:
“Thank you very much.”
Falkenberg said nothing.
“Well, you've only to ask, you know.Varsaagod” and she handed me the money I had asked for. “And what about you?”
“Nothing, thank you all the same,” answered Falkenberg.
Heavens, how I had lost again—fallen to earth again! And Falkenberg, that shameless imposter, who sat there playing the man of property who didn't need anything in advance. I would tear my clothes off him that very night, and leave him naked.
Only, of course, I did nothing of the sort.
And two days went by.
“If she comes out again this evening,” Falkenberg would say up in the woods, “I'll sing that one about the poppy. I'd forgotten that.”
“You've forgotten Emma, too, haven't you?” I ask.
“Emma? Look here, I'll tell you what it is: you're just the same as ever, that's what you are.”
“Ho, am I?”
“Yes; inside, I mean. You wouldn't mind taking Emma right there, with Fruen looking on. But I couldn't do that.”
“That's a lie!” I answered angrily. “You won't see me tangled up in any foolery with the girls as long as I am here.”
“Ah, and I shan't be out at nights with any one after. Think she'll come this evening? I'd forgotten that one about the poppy till now. Just listen.”
Falkenberg sang the Poppy Song.
“You're lucky, being able to sing like that,” I said. “But there's neither of us'll get her, for all that.”
“Get her! Why, whoever thought.... What a fool you are!”
“Ah, if I were young and rich and handsome, I'd win her all the same,” I said.
“If—and if.... So could I, for the matter of that. But there's the Captain.”
“Yes, and then there's you. And then there's me. And then there's herself and everybody else in the world. And we're a couple of brutes to be talking about her like this at all,” said I, furious now with myself for my own part. “A nice thing, indeed, for two old woodcutters to speak of their mistress so.”
We grew pale and thin the pair of us, and the wrinkles showed up in Falkenberg's drawn face; neither of us could eat as we used. And by way of trying to hide our troubles from each other, I went about talking all sorts of cheerful nonsense, while Falkenberg bragged loudly at every meal of how he'd got to eating too much of late, and was getting slack and out of form.
“Why, you don't seem to eat anything at all,” Fruen would say when we came home with too much left of the food we had taken with us. “Nice woodcutters, indeed.”
“It's Falkenberg that won't eat,” said I.
“Ho, indeed!” said Falkenberg; “I like that.He'sgiven up eating altogether.”
Now and again when she asked us to do her a favour, some little service or other, we would both hurry to do it; at last we got to bringing in water and firewood of our own accord. But one day Falkenberg played me a mean trick: he came home with a bunch of hazel twigs for a carpet-beater, that Fruen had asked me expressly to cut for her.
And he sang every evening now.
Then it was I resolved to make Fruen jealous—ey, ey, my good man, are you mad now, or merely foolish? As if Fruen would ever give it as much as a thought, whatever you did.
But so it was. I would try to make her jealous.
Of the three girls on the place, there was only one that could possibly be used for the experiment, and that was Emma. So I started talking nonsense to Emma.
“Emma, I know of some one that is sighing for you.”
“And where did you get to know of that, pray?”
“From the stars above.”
“I'd rather hear of it from some one here on earth.”
“I can tell you that, too. At first hand.”
“It's himself he means,” put in Falkenberg, anxious to keep well out of it.
“Well, and I don't mind saying it is.Paratum cor meum.”
But Emma was ungracious, and didn't care to talk to me, for all I was better at languages than Falkenberg. What—could I not even master Emma? Well ... I turned proud and silent after that, and went my own ways, making drawings for that machine of mine and little models. And when Falkenberg was singing of an evening, and Fruen listening, I went across to the men's quarters and stayed there with them. Which, of course, was much more dignified. The only trouble about it was that Petter was ill in bed, and couldn't stand the noise of ax and hammer, so I had to go outside every time I'd any heavy piece of work to do.
Still, now and again I fancied Fruen might perhaps be sorry, after all, at missing my company in the kitchen. It looked so, to me. One evening, when we were at supper, she turned to me and said:
“What's that the men were saying about a new machine you're making?”
“It's a new kind of saw he's messing about with,” said Falkenberg. “But it's too heavy to be any good.”
I made no answer to that, but craftily preferred to be wronged. Was it not the fate of all inventors to be so misjudged? Only wait: my time was not yet come. There were moments when I could hardly keep from bursting out with a revelation to the girls, of how I was really a man of good family, led astray by desperation over an unhappy love affair, and now taking to drink. Alas, yes, man proposes, God disposes.... And then, perhaps, Fruen herself might come to hear of it....
“I think I'll take to going over with the men in the evenings,” said Falkenberg, “the same as you.”
And I knew well enough why Falkenberg had suddenly taken it into his head to spend his evenings there; he was not asked to sing now as often as before; some way or other, he was less in demand of late.
The Captain had returned.
A big man, with a full beard, came out to us one day while we were at work, and said:
“I'm Captain Falkenberg. Well, lads, how goes it?”
We greeted him respectfully, and answered: “Well enough.”
Then there was some talk of what we had done and what remained to do. The Captain was pleased with our work—all clean cut and close to the root. Then he reckoned out how much we had got through per day, and said it came to a good average.
“Captain's forgetting Sundays.” said I.
“That's true,” said he. “Well, that makes it over the average. Had any trouble at all with the tools? Is the saw all right?”
“Quite all right.”
“And nobody hurt?”
“No.”
Pause.
“You ought by rights to provide your own food,” he said, “but if you would rather have it the other way, we can square it when we come to settle up.”
“We'll be glad to have it as Captain thinks best.”
“Yes,” agreed Falkenberg as well.
The Captain took a turn up through the wood and came back again.
“Couldn't have better weather,” he said. “No snow to shovel away.”
“No, there's no snow—that's true; but a little more frost'd do no harm.”
“Why? Cooler to work in d'you mean?”
“That, too, perhaps; yes. But the saw cuts easier when timber's frozen.”
“You're an old hand at this work, then?”
“Yes.”
“And are you the one that sings?”
“No, more's the pity. He is the one that sings.”
“Oh, so you are the singer, are you? We're namesakes, I believe?”
“Why, yes, in a way,” said Falkenberg, a little awkwardly, “My name is Lars Falkenberg, and I've my certificate to show for that.”
“What part d'you come from?”
“From Trøndelagen.”
The Captain went home. He was friendly enough, but spoke in a short, decisive way, with never a smile or a jesting word. A good face, something ordinary.
From that day onwards Falkenberg never sang but in the men's quarters, or out in the open; no more singing in the kitchen now the Captain had come home. Falkenberg was irritable and gloomy; he would swear at times and say life wasn't worth living these days; a man might as well go and hang himself and have done with it. But his fit of despair soon came to an end. One Sunday he went back to the two farms where he had tuned the pianos, and asked for a recommendation from each. When he came back he showed me the papers, and said:
“They'll do to keep going with for a bit.”
“Then you're not going to hang yourself, after all?”
“You've better cause to go that way, if you ask me,” said Falkenberg.
But I, too, was less despairing now. When the Captain heard about my machine idea, he wanted to know more about it at once. He saw at the first glance that my drawings were far from perfect, being made on small pieces of paper, and without so much as a pair of dividers to work with. He lent me a set of drawing instruments, and gave me some useful hints about how such things were done. He, too, was afraid my saw would prove too cumbersome. “But keep on with it, anyway,” he said. “Get the whole thing drawn to a definite scale, then we can see.”
I realized, however, that a decently constructed model of the thing would give a better idea of it, and as soon as I was through with the drawings I set to work carving a model in wood. I had no lathe, and had to whittle out the two rollers and several wheels and screws by hand. I was working at this on the Sunday, and so taken up with it I never heard the dinner-bell. The Captain came out and called, “Dinner!” Then, when he saw what I was doing, he offered to drive over himself to the smithy the very next day, and get the parts I needed cut on the lathe. “All you need do is to give me the measurements,” he said. “And you must want some tools, surely? Saw and drills; right! Screws, yes, and a fine chisel ... is that all?”
He made a note of the things on the spot. A first-rate man to work under.
But in the evening, when I had finished supper and was crossing the courtyard to the men's room, Fruen called me. She was standing between the kitchen windows, in the shadow, but slipped forward now.
“My husband said ... he ... said ... you can't be warm enough in these thin clothes,” she said. “And would you ... here, take these.”
She bundled a whole suit into my arms.
I thanked her, stammering foolishly. I was going to get myself some new things soon. There was no hurry; I didn't need....
“Of course, I know you can get things yourself. But when your friend is so ... so ... oh, take these.”
And she ran away indoors again, the very fashion of a young girl fearing to be caught doing something over-kind. I had to call my last thanks after her.
When the Captain came out next evening with my wheels and rollers, I took the opportunity of thanking him for the clothes.
“Oh—er—yes,” he answered. “It was my wife that.... Do they fit you all right?”
“Yes; many thanks.”
“That's all right, then. Yes; it was my wife that ... well, here are the things for your machine, and the tools. Good-night.”
It seemed, then, as if the two of them were equally ready to do an act of kindness. And when it was done, each would lay the blame on the other. Surely this must be the perfect wedded life, that dreamers dreamed of here on earth....
The woods are stripped of leaf now, and the bird sounds are gone; only the crows rasp out their screeching note at five in the morning, when they spread out over the fields. We see them, Falkenberg and I, as we go to our work; the yearling birds, that have not yet learned fear of the world, hop along the path before our feet.
Then we meet the finch, the sparrow of the timbered lands. He has been out in the woods already, and is coming back now to humankind, that he likes to live with and study from all sides. Queer little finch. A bird of passage, really, but his parents have taught him that onecanspend a winter in the north; and now he will teach his children that the north's the only place to spend the winter in at all. But there is still a touch of emigrant blood in him, and he remains a wanderer. One day he and his will gather together and set off for somewhere else, many parishes away, to study a new collection of humans there—and in the aspen grove never a finch to be seen. And it may be a whole week before a new flock of this winged life appears and settles in the same place....Herregud!how many a time have I watched the finches in their doings, and found pleasure in all.
One day Falkenberg declares he is all right again now. Going to save up and put aside a hundred Kroner this winter, out of tuning pianos and felling trees, and then make up again with Emma. I, too, he suggests, would be better advised to give over sighing for ladies of high degree, and go back to my own rank and station.
Falkenberg was right.
On Saturday evening we stopped work a trifle earlier than usual to go up and get some things from the store. We wanted shirts, tobacco and wine.
While we were in the store I caught sight of a little work-box, ornamented with shells, of the kind seafaring men used to buy in the old days at Amsterdam, and bring home to their girls; now the Germans make them by the thousand. I bought the workbox, with the idea of taking out one of the shells to serve as a thumbnail for my pipe.
“What d'you want with a workbox?” asked Falkenberg. “Is it for Emma, what?” He grew jealous at the thought, and not to be outdone, he bought a silk handkerchief to give her himself.
On the way back we sampled the wine, and got talking. Falkenberg was still jealous, so I took out the workbox, chose the shell I wanted, and picked it off and gave him the box. After that we were friends again.
It was getting dark now, and there was no moon. Suddenly we heard the sound of a concertina from a house up on a hillside; we could see there was dancing within, from the way the light came and went like a lighthouse beam.
“Let's go up and look,” said Falkenberg.
Coming up to the house, we found a little group of lads and girls outside taking the air. Emma was there as well.
“Why, there's Emma!” cried Falkenberg cheerily, not in the least put out to find she had gone without him. “Emma, here, I've got something for you!”
He reckoned to make all good with a word, but Emma turned away from him and went indoors. Then, when he moved to go after her, others barred his way, hinting pretty plainly that he wasn't wanted there.
“But Emma is there. Ask her to come out.”
“Emma's not coming out. She's here with Markus Shoemaker.”
Falkenberg stood there helpless. He had been cold to Emma now for so long that she had given him up. And, seeing him stand there stupidly agape, some of the girls began to make game of him: had she left him all alone, then, and what would he ever do now, poor fellow?
Falkenberg set his bottle to his lips and drank before the eyes of all, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed to the nearest man. There was a better feeling now towards us; we were good fellows, with bottles in our pockets, and willing to pass them round; moreover, we were strangers in the place, and that was always something new. Also, Falkenberg said many humorous things of Markus Shoemaker, whom he persisted in calling Lukas.
The dance was still going on inside, but none of the girls left us to go in and join.
“I'll bet you now,” said Falkenberg, with a swagger, “that Emma'd be only too glad to be out here with us.”
Helene and Rønnaug and Sara were there; every time they drank, they gave their hands prettily by way of thanks, as the custom is, but some of the others that had learned a trifle of town manners said only, “Tak for Skjænken,” and no more. Helene was to be Falkenberg's girl, it seemed; he put his arm round her waist and said she was his for tonight. And when they moved off farther and farther away from the rest of us, none called to them to come back; we paired off, all of us, after a while, and went our separate ways into the woods. I went with Sara.
When we came out from the wood again, there stood Rønnaug still taking the air. Strange girl, had she been standing there alone all the time? I took her hand and talked to her a little, but she only smiled to all I said and made no answer. We went off towards the wood, and Sara called after us in the darkness: “Rønnaug, come now and let's go home.” But Rønnaug made no answer; it was little she said at all. Soft, white as milk, and tall, and still.
The first snow is come; it thaws again at once, but winter is not far off, and we are nearing the end of our woodcutting now at Øvrebø—another week or so, perhaps, no more. What then? There was work on the railway line up on the hills, or perhaps more woodcutting at some other place we might come to. Falkenberg was for trying the railway.
But I couldn't get done with my machine in so short a time. We'd each our own affairs to take our time; apart from the machine, there was that thumbnail for the pipe I wanted to finish, and the evenings came out all too short. As for Falkenberg, he had made it up with Emma again. And that was a difficult matter and took time. She had been going about with Markus Shoemaker, 'twas true, but Falkenberg for his part could not deny having given Helene presents—a silk handkerchief and a work box set with shells.
Falkenberg was troubled, and said:
“Everything is wrong, somehow. Nothing but bother and worry and foolery.”
“Why, as to that...”
“That's what I call it, anyway, if you want to know. She won't come up in the hills as we said.”
“It'll be Markus Shoemaker, then, that's keeping her back?”
Falkenberg was gloomily silent. Then, after a pause:
“They wouldn't even have me go on singing.”
We got to talking of the Captain and his wife. Falkenberg had an ill-forboding all was not as it might be between them.
Gossiping fool! I put in a word:
“You'll excuse me, but you don't know what you are talking about.”
“Ho!” said he angrily. And, growing more and more excited, he went on: “Have you ever seen them, now, hanging about after each other? I've never heard them say so much as a word.”
The fool!—the churl!
“Don't know what is the matter with you to-day the way you're sawing. Look—what do you think of that for a cut?”
“Me? We're two of us in it, anyway, so there.”
“Good! Then we'll say it's the thaw. Let's get back to the ax again.”
We went on working each by himself for a while, angered and out of humour both. What was the lie he had dared to say of them, that they never so much as spoke to each other? But, Heaven, he was right! Falkenberg had a keen scent for such things. He knew something of men and women.
“At any rate, they speak nicely of each other to us,” I said.
Falkenberg went on with his work.
I thought over the whole thing again.
“Well, perhaps you may be right as far as that goes, that it's not the wedded life dreamers have dreamed of, still....”
But it was no good talking to Falkenberg in that style; he understood never a word.
When we stopped work at noon, I took up the talk again.
“Didn't you say once if he wasn't decent to her there'd be trouble?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, there hasn't been trouble.”
“Did I ever say he wasn't decent to her?” said Falkenberg irritably. “No, but they're sick and wearied of each other—that's what it is. When one comes in, the other goes out. Whenever he starts talking of anything out in the kitchen, her eyes go all dead and dull, and she doesn't listen.”
We got to work again with the ax, each thinking his own ways.
“I doubt but I'll need to give him a thrashing,” said Falkenberg.
“Who?”
“Lukas....”
I got my pipe done, and sent Emma in with it to the Captain. The nail had turned out fine and natural this time, and with the fine tools I had now, I was able to cut well down into the thumb and fasten it on the underside, so that the two little copper pins would not show. I was pleased enough with the work.
The Captain came out while we were at supper that evening, to thank me for the pipe. At the same time, I noticed that Falkenberg was right; no sooner had the Captain come out than Fruen went in.
The Captain praised my pipe, and asked how I had managed to fix the nail; he said I was an artist and a master. All the others were standing by and heard his words—and it counted for something to be called an artist by the Captain himself. I believe I could have won Emma at that moment.
That night I learned to shiver and shake.
The corpse of a woman came up to me where I lay in the loft, and stretched out its left hand to show me: the thumbnail was missing. I shook my head, to say I had had a thumbnail once, but I had thrown it away, and used a shell instead. But the corpse stood there all the same, and there I lay, shivering, cold with fear. Then I managed to say I couldn't help it now; in God's name, go away! And, Our Father which art in heaven.... The corpse came straight towards me; I thrust out two clenched fists and gave an icy shriek—and there I was, crushing Falkenberg flat against the wall.
“What is it?” cried Falkenberg. “In Heaven's name....”
I woke, dripping with sweat, and lay there with open eyes, watching the corpse as it vanished quite slowly in the dark of the room.
“It's the corpse,” I groaned. “Come to ask for her thumbnail.” Falkenberg sat straight up in bed, wide awake all at once.
“I saw her,” he said.
“Did you see her, too? Did you see her thumb? Ugh!”
“I wouldn't be in your shoes now for anything.”
“Let me lie inside, against the wall,” I begged.
“And what about me?”
“It won't hurt you; you can lie outside all right.”
“And let her come and take me first? Not if I know it.”
And at that Falkenberg lay down again and pulled the rug over his eyes.
I thought for a moment of going down to sleep with Petter; he was getting better now, and there was no fear of infection. But I was afraid to go down the stairs.
It was a terrible night.
Next morning I searched high and low for the nail, and found it on the floor at last, among the shavings and sawdust. I took it out and buried it on the way to the wood.
“It's a question if you oughtn't to carry it back where you took it from,” said Falkenberg.
“Why, that's miles away—a whole long journey....”
“They won't ask about that if you're called to do it. Maybe she won't care about having a thumb one place and a thumbnail in another.”
But I was brave enough now; a very desperado in the daylight. I laughed at Falkenberg for his superstition, and told him science had disposed of all such nonsense long ago.