The Heritage of the Kurts, Volume 1 (of 2)
by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson · English · Gutenberg #37801 · 322,206 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Heritage of the Kurts, Volume 1 (of 2)
Author: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Translator: Cecil Fairfax
Release date: October 19, 2011 [eBook #37801]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37801
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HERITAGE OF THE KURTS, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***
Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=fuUsAAAAMAAJ
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
THE NOVELS OF
BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON
_Edited by EDMUND GOSSE_
VOLUME XI
_THE NOVELS OF_
_BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON_
_Edited by EDMUND GOSSE_
_Fcap. 8vo, cloth_
_Synnoeve Solbakken_
_Arne_
_A Happy Boy_
_A Fisher Lass_
_The Bridal March, & One Day_
_Magnhild, & Dust_
_Captain Mansana, & Mother's Hands_
_Absalom's Hair, & A Painful Memory_
_In God's Way_ (2 _vols._)
_Heritage of the Kurts_ (2 _vols._)
_NEW YORK_
_THE MACMILLAN COMPANY_
THE HERITAGE OF
THE KURTS
BY
BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON
_Translated from the Norwegian by_
_Cecil Fairfax_
VOLUME I
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1908
_Printed in England_
_All rights reserved_
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Upon his taking up his residence in Paris, in 1882, Bjoernson resumed an
interest in prose fiction, which he had for so many years abandoned in
favour of the drama. There can be no question that he was influenced in
this by the successes of Alexander Kielland and Kristian Elster, who
had begun to deal with the problems of Norwegian life in the form of
short novels, which attracted immense public curiosity. After writing
_Dust_ (1882), a very brief episode, Bjoernson started the composition
of his earliest long novel, which he finished and published in 1884, as
_Det flager i Byen og paa Havnen_ ("Flags are Flying in Town and
Harbour"), a title for which we have ventured to substitute, as more
directly descriptive, _The Heritage of the Kurts_. It is to be observed
that, with the exception of Jonas Lie's _Livsslaven_ (which was not yet
published when Bjoernson's book was begun), _The Heritage of the Kurts_
was the earliest novel, treating Scandinavian society on a large scale,
which any Norwegian writer had essayed to produce. This may explain a
certain cumbrousness in the unwinding of the plot, which has been noted
as a fault in this very fine and elaborate romance.
The didactic character of much of the novel, especially of the later
parts, was a surprise to contemporary readers, who were accustomed to
much lighter fare from the novelists of the day. No less a personage
than the great Danish writer, J. P. Jacobsen, joined in the outcry
against "all this pedagogy and all these problems." Physiological
instruction in girls' schools,--this seemed a strange and almost
unseemly subject for a romance addressed to idle readers in Copenhagen
and Christiania. But Bjoernson's serious purpose was soon perceived and
justified, and the popularity of The Heritage of the Kurts was assured
among the best appreciators of his genius. It will always, however,
possess the disadvantages inherent on a tentative effort in a class of
literature as yet unfamiliar to the veteran artist.
Translator, editor, and publisher of the English version alike desire
to express their debt to Mr. C. F. Keary, whose knowledge of Norwegian
matters is so widely recognised, for the help he has given in revising
the translation throughout, and in particular for his advice in regard
to the diction of the first section of the novel, which, in the
original, is an extremely clever _pastiche_ of early eighteenth-century
Danish.
E. G.
CONTENTS
I.--_FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT_
CHAP
I. "THE ESTATE" AND THOSE WHO LIVED THERE
II. WHAT FURTHER CAME TO PASS
II.--_JOHN KURT_
I. LONELINESS
II. A GENIUS
III. MAN'S BREAST IS LIKE THE OCEAN
IV. SAILS IN SIGHT
V. HOME LIFE
VI. FIRST RESULTS, AND THOSE THAT FOLLOWED
III.--_A LECTURE_
I. DETHRONED
II. ON THE MOUNTAIN
III. THE CHILD
IV. THE LAST YEARS IN THE GARDEN
V. THE LECTURE
IV.--_THE STAFF_
I. A GREAT LECTURE AND A LITTLE TOWN
I
FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT
CHAPTER I
"THE ESTATE" AND THOSE WHO
LIVED THERE
"The Estate" had probably been acquired by the strong hand, as indeed
most domains have been in all countries and at all times; but what
proportion forced marriages and fair bargains bore to actual guile,
fraud, and such base means, we can no longer determine.
Two hundred years ago it was an immense possession, the home farm stood
then as now on the woody mountain slopes overlooking the town, the
whole of which can be seen from there; both the old town on this side
of the harbour, and the new one out by the point. This point shelters
the harbour from the sea, but is not itself absolutely exposed to it,
for islands and skerries lie beyond it, and between them the two
entrances, the North and West Sounds. All this is to be seen from "The
Estate," and far out to sea as well.
Farther away to the right is the river between whose clayey banks the
foaming mass pours down into the harbour. At one time this river and
all the works at its mouth belonged to "The Estate," as well as the
site of the town, the islands, and the coast on either side; and
farther on, the lower lands and woods down to the channel of the river.
Such was "The Estate" two hundred years ago.
Its principal building is a large brick house from which rises a squat
clumsy tower; it has a long wing on the right hand, but curiously
enough none on the left; behind are a number of old stone buildings
serving as stables, cow-houses, and the like, besides servants'
quarters.
The great stairway up to the house, a perfect mountain of stone slabs,
for it is of immense size, is of semicircular form, having steps round
the whole circuit. From it a noble avenue leads down to the town
market-place, and on each side of it runs a stone park-wall which
almost reaches as far as the market; on the other sides of both the
walls lies the garden, which is cut in two by the avenue. Open fields
lie on both sides and likewise between the gardens and the town.
Above the houses, out towards the mountain, is a wood of deciduous
trees; although the fir-trees have again begun their silent advance
against them, for at one time they had the hill to themselves.
Who laid out these pleasure-grounds, who built this enormous mansion?
you say to yourself on first seeing the house and gardens of "The
Estate."
It was more than two hundred years ago, about 1660, that a German
skipper, who called himself Kurt (spelt at that time Curt), first
brought his vessel into the harbour in order to have her re-rigged and
painted, most probably to prevent her from being recognised. We now
know that he had then long been exiled from his native country on
account of some deed of violence which he had committed. He was of a
princely German family which still bears an honoured name which does
not require to be mentioned here--he was known only by his Christian
name of Curt.
He had not been there long before he began to pay his court to the
daughter and heir of Claus Mathiassoen, the owner of "The Estate,"
paying no heed to what the neighbours thought of it.
"It was the noble maid Ingeborg Clausdotter." ... From this point I
follow verbatim a manuscript description pertaining to the town, and
more especially to "The Estate," which was written at the beginning of
the last century by an old parish clerk and choir-master of Saint Mary
in that place....
She would hide herself away up in the Cock Loft, down in the Cellar, in
Byre or stable; she would fly you to wood or field whenever the
swaggering foreigner, skipper Curt, came a Wooing, for then he was
commonly in liquor.
Worshipful Master Claus Mathiassoen might bring him Ale from his cellar,
and set before him such things as he desired; the next moment had Curt
half slain him because Master Claus could not bring his fair daughter
to speak with him; and moreover he drove away every living person from
the homestead. He swore also to cut down any man who should dare to
wish to take her to wife: he would wring his neck, said he, and all his
belongings, and hers as well if she should ever belong to another.
And there was Hans Fuerst in the Market Place hard by the Church of St
Mary. When it was said that he too was a Wooer, went Curt to him on
Good Friday morning as Hans still lay abed, and beat him so sore with a
stout cudgel that for long after he was but broken bones. Hans Fauest
was afraid to bide in the town whenever skipper Curt came in with his
Ships, which from that time happened often enough; and it fell in
likewise with the Bailiff, Master Beinhard von Kluewer, who would fain
have brought him to reason. Curt defied him and hauled his ships before
the Bailiff's house; two ships he had then, and Cannon and his Company,
and the Bailiff dared no more go out alone, and did not dare to
discharge his office, but departed, nor did he return. So that full a
year passed ere his office was again filled; when it was, 'twas a
German who got it who was of a Mind with Curt in all things; and the
old Bailiff, he obtained office in another place.
'Twas commonly spoken of Curt that he had stole his first ship in the
North sea; later he had two ships, and folk held it for certain that
the second was stolen also, but his people were silent concerning it,
and naught was done in the Matter. Now it was in the following way that
he got the maid. There came a Clerk from his Excellence the Stadtholder
Ulrich, Frederick Gueldenloeve, with Commands from the High and Mighty
Prince, King Frederick 3rd, now of blessed memory, to the worshipful
Claus Mathiassoen of "The Estate," and to the good men and true of the
town, Counsellors, and Burgesses, that they must so deal for skipper
Curt who was of a noble German Family, that he should have the
high-born Maid Ingeborg Clausdotter to wife, promising them his royal
favour and especial grace, which skipper Curt without hesitation agreed
to; so the King's Will was done. The Clerk was come in Soeren
Rasmussen's sloop from Oslo; he also was a German, and spoke Danish but
ill; he demanded much service, and that he got, for he was lodged at
the Council House, and was bidden, when the wedding should be over, to
condescend to put up with the same at the houses of sundry of the
burgesses.
The wedding was celebrated with grandeur, but many a tear shed Mistress
Ingeborg as did Claus Mathiassoen, who knew that now his days of
happiness were past.
But it so chanced that at the wedding, Master Curt, being in liquor,
fell upon the clerk with thrust and blow and Drove him from the board,
for he swore he was not fit to sit at meat with the quality and their
women folk, for he was no clerk of the Stadtholder, but a cursed
vagabond Barber who had been a wood cutter to his brother-in-law in
Pommerania. So the barber fled over to the point and thence to the
North Holm, from there he hailed a passing ship and was taken on board
of her.
Therewith ended the wedding feast, but this mattered little to Curt,
for he had won his bride.
Now this is how it fell out; skipper Curt had been to Oslo and there
had met a Holsteiner, Georg von Bregentvedt; the same was a captain and
gave the Stadtholder aid in warlike enterprise, but Georg von
Bregentvedt and Curt had been known to each other in Germany, and this
Georg was a rare knave, full of merry conceits, and he helped Curt with
this trick, but they got the barber to bring it to pass.
Old Claus Mathiassoen went straightway to Copenhagen to make complaint
before the king, and three times had he _audience_, and each time was
the king Mightily enraged, but may well have forgotten it again by
reason of other matters, for Curt had countrymen at Court. In the
meantime was the money spent with which Claus Mathiassoen had provided
himself, and Curt had seized "The Estate," and refused to send him
more, likewise he threatened all those who would have been true to him;
and as Claus Mathiassoen at the same time got a letter from his
daughter, sent secretly by the skipper of a sloop, saying that she was
now with child, but that Curt went after other women on "The Estate,"
and in the town; so thought Claus Mathiassoen that no good could come
from his going home. And no man asked for him from that time. Claus
Mathiassoen was of Danish blood, and a good man was he.
Now "The Estate" at this time was a vast place of much grandeur, and
with great belongings; to wit, the ownership of leagues of land up
both sides of the River, for the forests and all the farms then
belonged to "The Estate." And large tile works had Curt established on
the river Bank, and brought many Hollanders there; also later he had
ship-building, which thing brought great gain to the Town; he made also
a marvellous clever saw pit, the like of which had never been seen
before, also he voyaged to see the king, the most mighty Prince, and
very good Lord, King Christian 5th, now of blessed memory, for by the
help of his powerful and noble countrymen, he had hope to come by royal
Grace and Favour, and he had at divers times _audience_, and pleased
the King with his great strength and by his Comely person. Then, said
he to the King, in all humility, that it was a bygone Custom that when
the King of His grace came to those parts he should take lodging on
"The Estate." Two kings had lain there, and King Christian 4th of
Blessed memory, even twice; and now in all humility he prayed for the
same Favour. And the kind did not deny it him. But Curt's purpose
therein was to again receive all those privileges which he had
forfeited in his Fatherland.
And he returned home, and found with his courtly fashions that the old
House on "The Estate," albeit that it was a fine house in every way,
large and costly, must be pulled down, and a Castle built to honour the
king when he should come withal; so forthwith he fell to work. But then
he took a liking to Hans Fuerst's house for a dwelling Place, the one,
namely, hard by St Mary's in the Market Place, while the new castle was
building; so he drove the aforesaid Hans from it till such time as the
Castle should be Roofed.
It was brought about in this manner: Curt forbade the sailors,
craftsmen, and fishers to buy so much as a measure of Ale, a dram of
Spirits, or an Ell of cloth. For the lewd mariners and their kinsfolk
are not like landsfolk, they worship those who rule over them, for they
and their forebears have let themselves be treated like dogs on sea and
land; they are ill at ease if they are not ordered hither and thither,
sworn at and beaten, and they join in their skipper's dissolute life.
But as well Curt allowed them free land on the mountain on all sides,
as many as there was room for, and besides gave them wood at small cost
for their buildings, so that now there is almost a town on the mountain
which can be seen from afar, as is known to every ship which comes in.
Atop of all, the Pilots have built themselves a Look Out.
It can be safely said that without the support of these men Curt and
his descendants could never have ruled and roystered as they have done
to this day; nay, the more masterful their ways, the more they rose in
the eyes of these Men, for that is the manner of them.
For his lawless ways then Curt in all his life never made any
reparation. People still repeat the words he was wont to use when any
man asked such of him. "Thou shall get thy pay from----, thou cursed
Peasant," he would say in his German fashion, for he never spoke our
tongue right, and "Peasant" he would call any man he was wroth with;
for in his Country the peasant is held in contempt, nay, almost as a
brute beast; he may own neither house nor land, but must work for his
lord, both he and his. Death alone can release him. Nay, 'tis even so
likewise in Denmark.
But as respecting the aforesaid Hans Fuerst, as he had naught else but
his trade he must needs go over to the other side of the Market Place
to Siegfried Brandenburg's old House on the left; for he had two, and
there he abode till Curt returned to his Castle.
Curt did not build it all as it now stands; neither the long wing on
the right, nor the great outbuildings; neither did he build the garden
wall which is on both sides, for that was done by his son. But the
great House with the steps and the Tower, that was built by him; and
the road between the two walls, that was done by Master Curt, for
before there was only a path and that did not go the same way, but
outside the garden to the right, as may be seen to this day; also the
trees on both sides of the road were planted by Curt himself, every one
of them, for he had a lucky hand in that way which he well knew, for
the larger part of the garden which is now on both sides was planted by
him; and he brought hither many new and costly Trees, Plants, and
flowers from Holland which greatly joyed his half crazy wife whenever
she was allowed a little liberty, for she loved flowers well.
The inside of the Castle for the most part is not as Curt left it, for
what he did was undone of his Son Master Adler, for thus he was called
after the great Sea Hero, Cort Adler. For that was a jest of Curt to
call his son Adler, since he had called himself Curt, for thus the
Admiral's name was turned end for end.
The Royal Bed and other furniture in the king's Chamber which are now
to be seen are not Curt's either. Those which he had bought now stand
in another Chamber out of the passage to the left. In that bed slept
Master Adler himself. That remains, and the furniture. But for the
king's Chamber Master Adler brought all new from Holland what time he
himself went there from Copenhagen with his ships. It was at that time
also that he bought the hangings which are now in the King's Chamber by
the side of his sleeping-room, and also he bought the great _Carosse_,
whereof more anon. But, on the other hand, the pictures in gilded
frames all belong to Curt's time. Those in the Knights' Hall are copied
from pictures in his father's Castle, and represent his ancestors.
I had almost forgot to relate about the tower which never was finished
and the reason thereof. The Man who first directed the Building was a
master builder from Luebeck. But he wearied there, not getting his pay,
and so went home. Master Curt went after him in a swift sailing ship
belonging to a Dane, which just then lay in harbour, but he did not
come nigh him. The second builder was from Holstein, or the parts
adjacent thereto. Curt had at that time with him a wench of rare
beauty. She was the wife of a Flemish skipper whom Curt had enticed to
come to him, and as he would not give her up, the skipper was fain to
depart. Now the master builder fell in love with her, and she with him,
and Master Curt sorely maltreated them, and had them stript and driven
down the Market Place. They got away at last in a boat; the builder was
brought to a sorry pass; I know not what further became of them.
After that Curt gave up the Tower, which indeed was very hard to build;
and as it was bruited about that the king was like to come that summer,
he had a wide roof set over it and covered it with tiles as is commonly
done, and so it stands, for no one has touched it since then. Now Curt
had put himself to great cost for the honour of seeing the king under
his Roof. At this time "The Estate" was still all one, and the high
banks on each side of the river and all round the valley as far as
might be seen were covered with fir-woods, and the same on the Islands.
That is all different since the merchants took the fir-woods in pledge,
but this giving in pledge had begun in Curt's time.
And now I must relate to you the Rest of Curt's life, firstly that his
wife had been for a long time half silly. She was a fair woman to look
on, but she could never abide him, so she remained shut up. The marks
are still to be seen in the chamber along to the left, which her feet
have left by the door, where she vainly sought to get out, and likewise
can be seen the marks of the iron bars before the window, which Curt
put there after the time when she sprang out into the garden, sorely
wounding herself thereby. At the time when the Castle stood open, after
Curt was dead, and his sons were abroad, we could see what she had
written all round the walls. This writing had never been known of by
Curt, or by those who minded the estate while his sons were still
young, or during their absence, but the sons had it washed off. 'Twas
thus I saw it when first I came as a student to the Town. For the most
part it was verses from the Psalter, but plaints as well, and other
quaint conceits which touched me by their simplicity. Thus of a
cloudberry which had been frozen. That is the tenderest sight in
Nature, she wrote, and verily since then how often I have thought of
it, for especially by the Road side in frost and thaw how true it is.
But now I must tell of what once happened while she was well and sat at
meat with Sieur van Geelmuyden, the especial friend of Master Curt, and
a merry man. Suddenly her madness came upon her again as she sat at
board, and flinging her knife at Curt, she cried that that very day had
she been told that Curt had a hundred Children about in the town. Then
remarked Van Geelmuyden pithily, "Noble Ingeborg Curt, no one should
believe more than half of what malicious folk say." Now Curt and all
his guests laughed beyond measure at this, and, for the sake of the
saying, Master Curt gave Van Geelmuyden, to whom, moreover, he ever
after set great _fiduce_, the house at Bommen; the same may still be
seen there, it is that one where the second Story stands well-nigh two
ells out beyond the first, and which is hard by that which was gotten
by the Bailiff.
The House still bears witness to the _piquante_ saying called a
_bon-mot_, which word the people have turned into Bommen, which name
the whole street bears at this day.
Never was there dung moved up at "The Estate" in the Spring time, nor
the Midden emptied, but that the bodies of children were found therein,
for Master Curt led a lusty life, both with his maid-servants and
others whom he caused to come up there. When the now departed Bishop of
Christiansand, the worshipful Magister Jersin, was to make a visitation
in the Town, some short space before Curt's death, and Curt heard
thereof, he begged that he might have the honour of housing and
feasting him while he abode here, which thing the Bishop in no wise
refused. So Curt went forth to meet him with one of his ships which
chanced to be in port, and took with him the Parson, the town Council,
and the king's trusty servants, and a goodly company of burgesses, and
prepared a noble feast on board of the ship for the Bishop, whom they
fetched from the house of a Parson of those parts, and he also, and the
others remained of the company. And they all came on shore in such
condition as was a sight to behold; Curt took the Bishop for his share,
and when they were come to the steps up to the house and were about to
mount them, the Bishop turned round and said, so that all might hear,
that those were the finest steps he had ever seen in the whole Country
Side. Then answered Curt, "These Steps, your Grace, are singular in
another manner, for more maids have gone up them than have ever gone
down." He said this in his German tongue, but that was the meaning of
it. I had it from one who was a lad at the time and was standing there
on the steps with the Welcome Cup for Master Curt, of which the Bishop
drank and handed it to him, but he who stood on the steps was in after
days Counsellor Niels Ingebrechtsoen, who at that time was clerk to
Curt. It was he who related this.
And now I must to Curt's death, for it was in this manner that it fell
out. There came a peasant with wife and daughter to the town, and
although there was great gathering of peasants at that time, no man had
seen any of such fine presence as these, and this thing was spoken of
at a banquet which was held at the Castle, and specially was praise
given to the daughter, and so it fell next day that the peasant with
wife and daughter were commanded by Curt to come up to the Castle.
There they were treated like the grandest folk and were shown all the
rooms in the House, but the end of all this was that several of Curt's
people came in to them and the maid was separated from her father and
carried away by force; full of wrath was she and implored her father to
ask for a large recompense. He did so, but Curt would have nothing to
do with it. So then came the father with his complaint to the King's
Bailiff, who counselled him to take things as he found them, for no man
had ever yet got recompense of Curt, for all those in authority were on
his side, both of church, and army, and worthies, and Patrons at Court,
unto all which might be added that Curt could safely depend on the
people of the lower sort here in the Town. But the peasant went up by
himself to Curt, and in the court-yard behind the stable between it and
the Byre he found him and there again he asked for compensation. "Get
thy compensation from----, thou cursed Peasant," answered Curt, for
that was ever what he answered. Then the peasant seized Master Curt and
held him where desired. But he took his compensation with a thrust of
his knife. There was no one there in the Court Yard but a few women,
and an old groom who stood by and saw it. Curt was flung down upon the
dung heap and there his life passed from him, where the bodies of his
children had lain before him.
Hardly could folk credit the news of it, but came up to see. Never
before had Curt given back before any man, and now he had been slain
like a helpless child. At last it was noised about that the Evil One
had been there, and had taken Curt's punishment on himself, and, what
indeed somewhat confirmed this was, that from that day the peasant
could never be found, and not even his name was known, and he himself
seemed unknown to the other peasants who were in the town, but these
clowns know how to be silent, so that there is nothing certain in the
matter.
But whoever it was, this thing is certain, that it was from the hand of
Almighty God, for without his Will there falls not a sparrow to the
ground. His ways have been brought to pass by other hands, in order
that this great sinner should end his days upon a dung heap. May God's
name be praised eternally. Amen.
CHAPTER II
WHAT FURTHER CAME TO PASS
Curt's sons were at this time at Copenhagen, under the charge of
Magister Owe Gude, with him they also travelled at a later time and
made an especial long sojourn with Curt's noble kinsmen. Adler came
home at length to take possession of his lands, but Max remained abroad
and studied for the priesthood, for he had a marvellous gift of speech.
Master Adler was but rarely seen in the Town, and he never went there
in any other fashion than borne in a _porte chaise_ by servants in fine
liveries. And it was the same at the Castle, there one serving man
stood in the way of the other, and all were dressed as though for a
feast in some prince's Hall. Master Adler lived alone and held no
intercourse with the worthy burgesses in the Town, as had never been
the way before his time. Now by degrees Master Adler waxed mighty fat
and had many peevish ways and tricks; thus he spoke with no man, but
listened to everything.
When he had been here a few years and all his affairs were well ordered
by the hand of Torbioern Christoffersen, Master Adler journeyed to
Copenhagen, for now was Christian V. of blessed memory no more; but our
good Lord and Prince, the most mighty and gracious King Frederick IV.
(whom may God sustain and adorn with all virtues) had now become our
King. And Master Adler went on his knees before him, with great
difficulty, and prayed the King to fulful the gracious pledge given by
his Father, of blessed Memory, to the Elder Curt now departed, and that
he would condescend to come to the Town, and be under his humble roof,
such time as he first came to Norway, where all men hoped for his
coming. Now the King wot well the design hid under this request,
namely, that Master Adler should obtain those titles of nobility which
his father had lost in his youth. This the King was graciously pleased
to listen to.
Thereupon Master Adler went to Holland, for he deemed not one of the
preparations good enough for him, which his father had made. From there
he came back with the great _Carosse_, which was then seen here for the
first time. The War Commissary, Master Synnestwedt, thought it not
fitting for Master Adler to drive in a _Carosse_, for he was no Person
of high rank, and complaint was made of the matter. Now in this fashion
did it first become known from Copenhagen that Curt had been of noble
birth; from that time forward he was never seen without Out-riders and
Attendants, besides the coachman, and two Servants behind. Wherefore he
must have also five horses on account of the Hills. But the townsfolk
held it an honour to them that their lord had such great privileges.
But while he was at Copenhagen it had come to Master Adler's knowledge
that in the Palace where the King then abode, neither the king's
servants nor attendants lay under the same roof with Him, as might have
been expected, but only the king and his Family. On the contrary, the
King's attendants, and the serving men and women lived in a wing by
themselves, and it was for this reason that Master Adler had the long
right wing added to the New house, as may still be seen, and this
should be used by the King's attendants and servants as well as by
Master Adler himself, and by his servants, when the King should come.
But Torbioern Christoffersen, his trusty steward, refused downright to
add a wing on the left hand, and threatened to go, and for this reason
it is that the right wing stands alone; neither did Master Adler
attempt to finish the Tower, for already many mortgages had been given
on "The Estate," by reason of all his display, and Torbioern
Christoffersen could in no wise bring both ends to meet; so some of the
heaviest mortgages had to go at a great loss, and, in the same way, the
portion of ground, let to certain men in the town, were sold to any who
could free themselves. It was in this manner that the parcelling of
"The Estate" began.
Master Adler's younger brother, Parson Max, was a knowing man in all
matters of business, and he supported Torbioern Christoffersen. And now
that I take on me to draw a picture of Parson Max, God forbid that I
should bear malice against a dead man who has done me harm in many
ways, for it was in this self-same year that I became the unworthy
Parish Clerk and Choir Master of the Church of St. Mary in this Town. I
will not fill this costly paper by telling of the strife which was
between us, concerning the vessel which was bought at the Public sale,
after Master Curt's death, and which came to me by inheritance; or
again with the dispute which arose when I was to read the sermon from
Dr. Martin's Book, in Parson Max's stead, he being that day unfit
through liquor. Up comes Master Max into the Pulpit and flings me down.
All this I will keep concealed now that he is under ground; so it is
not for that that I have noted down the Truth about him; but in order
that those who come after may see how wonderful have been the ways of
the Lord in dealing with this Family, and also that it shall remain
plain to be seen how this Town, more than others, must be under God's
Protection, who has so singularly cared for it, even to the
overthrowing of its Tormentors.
From the moment that Parson Max came, he played the Master and bully,
first towards his brother and "The Estate," and then over the whole
place. He was worse than his father Curt, inasmuch as he was learned,
and could with great prudence, and skill, twist and turn both people,
and things. He was also a mighty lunged man in the Pulpit. The time
when the terrible mishap befell, namely, that St. Mary's church was
burnt down, being struck by lightning from Heaven, an admonition to us
all, as is related in another place in my _Manu Scriptum_--that time I
say, Parson Max preached every Sunday through the summer, from a
hillock, and from thence was heard all over the Town; many people lying
off in their boats in the harbour heard him, likewise from the windows
away on the Point, but not the words; nay, a skipper told me himself
how, as his ship was being towed up the North Channel, they could all
hear a screaming like that of a Woman in Labour, nor could they tell
what it might be. For at a great distance a man's voice sounds like
that of a woman. So truly this may be said in praise of Parson Max,
that he wrought a very moving Fear on all who went to Church in his
day, and he would in no wise allow that any should stay away, for he
asked for them from the Pulpit, or sought them at their homes.
Wherefore the Church has never been so well frequented as then. The
lower people held wonderfully to him as before to his father; for he
often condescended to come to their weddings and Buryings, and tasted
their ale, and further gave them useful counsel in regard to all these,
for he was of great understanding, and beside knew them all by name,
men and women. By degrees he got the whole Town under his hand, so that
nothing was done in those days, in house or out, but the Parson must
have an account of it, neither might any bake or brew unless the Parson
gained by it. If the poor had nothing else to give there was always
Fish. No one, high or low, dare give his daughter in Marriage, or in
any other manner alter his Position, without Master Max's counsel in
the matter being heard. And if rich gifts, and other private
contributions, were there to help, men could get from Parson Max, what
were otherwise impossible. I know this well, for I relate what I know,
and in no wise that which I do not know. If any went against his will,
him he would persecute and harm by day and night, both he and his. This
he did by means of those in authority, both dignitaries and those of
the army, by his friends and his friends' friends, and his hand could
even reach to Copenhagen.[1] But at times good befell the Town by all
this, for no one at that time went to law, but each man must bring his
case to the Parson, who settled it for him. In the same way when the
new Church of St. Mary was to be built, that one which men commonly
called the Cross Church, everything abode in his hands, so that in
truth he was the Master Builder thereof; whereby that noble work is an
honour to the town, and an everlasting Memorial to him. It was terrible
what money it cost, and it all went to his brother, for "The Estate"
furnished both stone and wood, and all the rest by way of trade. But
Parson Max collected the money, and this he did in such a way as had
the place been _occuperit_ by an Enemy and been burnt to the ground.
For myself alone, when I begin to reckon what I had to pay, I cannot
understand how I got quit of it. He was a terrible man. He lay in wait
for every ship; thus his first walk each morning was to Fetaljen, on
the look out, and he was there again many times in the day, and each
one must do his duty. Every traveller, man or woman, whom he asked must
give to the Church. Once on Fetaljen at Widow Sarah Andersen's, she who
gives lodging to the seafaring folk, he nearly came to great mishap,
for she warned her guests when she saw him coming, so they would creep
up into the cock-loft, or down into the cellar, in order to hide
themselves, for none could withstand his persuasions or threats. Thus
it fell about with rich Heinrich Arendt from Luebeck. He was here on
account of the ship which the Pirates had taken from him, and had sold
here, though with loss. Very well he knew Master Max of old, and he
crept up into the cock-loft. Master Max was well used to this
_trafique_ and crept after him. However, as he was exceeding heavy,
down breaks the stair with him, and he slipped and stuck fast. A heavy
reckoning came to Sarah for this, she had to pay a vast _summa_ for the
new Church, in place of Heinrich Arendt, and he would never make good
the money to her, but put her off with talk, so she never got a stiver,
a thing she has often told me even with tears.
The aforesaid Sarah Andersen, widow, died on the same day, nay, even
the same hour, as Master Max. I have much considered the matter, in
order to find what deep meaning God may have had in it, and many have
done the same. But in truth it would not be well if everything were
known of us poor weak mortals.
It was in this manner that Parson Max's death came to pass. When first
he came hither he could carry all that he drank, but not so at last,
and when he was well in liquor he was a sore terror to the Women, who
were fain to take heed for themselves with him; and so it chanced one
day at the Castle that he had forced his brother into giving of a great
feast, as he mostly did force him to do twice yearly, at New Year and
St. John's day. Now this befell on St. John's day; but before I relate
what chanced there, I must say that the passage which leads from the
steps is parlous dark when the double doors are shut to, and that day
they were shut, by reason of a heavy rain such as is frequent here on
the coast. Master Max mistook Ane Trulsdotter, Trul Carsten's daughter
of Bommen, for Nille, Raadmand Paavelsen's daughter, because they both
wore the same sort of red cotton skirt. This befell in the passage in
the dusk, and of those who know both, it can be easily understood. But
Raadmand Paavelsen's daughter would not be jested with, nay, she even
had courage to make a great outcry against him, and there arose much
noise and commotion. The counsellor fetched the Master of the house,
who spoke with great wrath to his brother, and said there was too much
of this in the Castle, and that Max would never rest till he had
brought them all to disgrace. Never had Master Adler been heard to say
so much before, but his words were well considered and seemly; but
Master Max would not allow himself to be taxed with it, for he was in
his Cassock, it being just after dinner, and so he rushed at his
brother, and, as Master Adler was mighty heavy, he could not keep
_Ballansen_, but he first fell against the wall, and at last on to the
floor, and both times he struck his head with much violence. From that
time Master Adler lost his Wits and no long time after, he died.
So Master Max took "The Estate" in possession for himself, and his
heirs, but from the same hour that he went there, he fell into furious
madness, for he believed himself to be possessed of Spirits; they were
the Spirits, he said, of his Brother, and Father, and Mother, and
others to boot. No sleep could he have because of them, but went from
Room to Room, round all the House, and cried out, and preached against
them, with mighty power; nor would he allow the windows to be shut, for
by them he hoped the Spirits might depart. But watch had to be kept
lest he should fling himself out therefrom. Down in the Town, folk
heard him preaching in such manner as though he were verily in strife
with them. So it went about that the Devil would carry off Master Max,
and that all the Spirits had been sent by him, nay, it was even said
that Master Max had had the Devil to serve him in all his lucky
undertakings, and now the Devil would have him back, for that his Time
was come, but that Master Max hoped to cheat him by his power in the
use of the Word, and by his Ghostly Knowledge. And so they fought
together for dear life, both by day and night, for Master Max could
hold on if he were not outwitted. The whole Town crowded into the
Market Place, and up into the avenue, to listen. There was a terror
upon all, but none spoke of it, and further no Parson could be found,
albeit day after day messengers were sent all about; but every one was
abroad. So there was no one to help Master Max, by the Power of the
Word, against the Devil.
Now one evening there shone a marvellous great light upon all the
windows up at the Castle, and over the whole House, as though it were
in flames. Now Anders from the Council House, also known as Anders
Red-nose, was walking from the Town, whence he had come to deliver a
summons. In the Avenue, hard by the House, he heard the poor man
screaming with his hoarse voice, for so it now ever was, and Anders saw
the flaming light over the whole building, and in the midst of it the
Evil One, lying athwart the house, hard by Master Max's window, and
saying, "Now must thou come, Max." Anders went no further, but turned
back to the Town. As he came to the Market Place, screaming, he told us
all that he had seen and heard. And he became as frantic as Master Max
himself, and he also must be shut up and bound. And now it was seen of
all men, who had won in the struggle, and all awaited the end, and
accordingly Master Max died the day after, but quietly, and in a
peaceful frame of mind, which thing was much wondered at. Nay, he made
it understood by signs, that he would be taken to his Mother's Chamber,
there to die, and hardly was he there, when all unexpected comes Parson
Thomasius, and he prayed for Master Max, and gave to Him the Dear
_Sacramente_ of the Altar, there in that very room, and he sang to him,
and prayed heartily, and Master Max could now pray, though not with his
voice, and there he died in the same Bed as his mother before him.
Those that were there remarked, that at that very moment the Bells
chimed from the church which he himself had built. So it is after all
doubtful who won, he or the Devil.
I would I had the gift of a great writer, so that I might be able to
describe in every way what this Man was; for what he was during his
life, no one can know who has not been under him, as it was with me for
many years. Even now I often dream of him at night, so that my wife is
awakened by my great Fear and out-cries, and she wakes me assuring me
that he is dead. But I am commonly bathed in sweat from head to foot.
He was three times married and would have taken a wife a fourth time,
an he had not died. I have spoken with them all three. For I had often
need to go to the house on account of my business. Then they told all
their troubles to me, the one after the other. For he would have
everything done, and that all at once. I do not use my own words, but
those of Aadel Knutsdotter his second wife. She died at Candlemas, but
a little before as she sat in the green Parlour, she called me in, for
she had heard me in the kitchen. She was very weak, and her Hands
trembled. I asked what ailed her? "This is what ails me," she answered,
"that my husband has worn me out with bearing of children, and with
toil, like the garment he wears next him, so now it is over with me.
God knows who will be the next, though mayhap he knows himself." That
was what she said, and, but a short while after, she died. But the next
one was Birgitte Mogensdotter, the Apothecary's daughter, and the
wedding was just three months to the day, after Aadel was buried.
Albeit Birgitte was a big strong woman, she became so fearful when she
heard that he was to have her to wife, that she filled herself with
strong drink whenever she could come by any of that which her father
the Apothecary dealt in. She has often told me herself wherefor she had
taken to drink, and this was the reason of it. But she fought with him
when she was in liquor, and in the end she poisoned herself. The
Doctor, Mogens Mauritius, has since said this; she did not die of
drink, as was commonly said. She was married three years, and had two
sons by him. He had in all thirteen children, albeit he was not an old
man when he died. By a blow he had made the eldest son, Adler, deaf of
both ears, so that he became an idiot.
Even if, with my slender gifts, I could describe him as he was wont to
behave when he was wroth with wives, servants, children and others, yet
would I not do it. For we saw at his departing that God himself, in his
unsearchable favour (for verily that is great), had forgiven him. Why
then should not we, poor creatures towards whom he has sinned far less,
do the like. Which thing indeed The Bishop said in the rare oration he
made over him. For his burying was Mighty grand and magnificent. Never
have I seen the like; I might fill several pages if I were to count the
noble Persons who were there, and say what in three days was eaten, and
drunk, and said. In his lifetime Parson Max was more powerful than any
who had ever been in this place, Except the King, no one had any word
to say, as long as he was in his Prime. He was skilled also in the
Arts, namely thus, that he helped the people in all difficulties, more
especially with accounts, and in Building. I have told about the
Church, but I have forgotten to say that he was also a great
ship-builder. As a little lad he had gained skill down by the dock, and
later at "Holmen" in Copenhagen, where he was wont to go, and also
abroad, he carefully studied this. I have heard that from himself. The
ships built here in his brother's dock, under the river banks, were all
built by him, and several thereof were sold abroad, bringing great fame
and gain to us. But now we will leave speaking of him.
From this history we can clearly see how all has been directed of God,
namely, that the Father Curt brought their Mother and himself to ruin,
and Master Max, both his Brother and _himself_, and to a great degree
his Eldest son, so that but little of Blessing had come with what they
had stolen from Claus Mathiassoen, and from many others. Likewise their
strength alone was a cause of stumbling to them. In the next place we
must be mindful that the King's High and Sacred name was taken in vain,
in order to deceive, but for punishment it was, that in the same mighty
name "The Estate" was squandered.
There are more than I unworthy, who have noted this. For, as the
before-named Counsellor Niels Ingebrechtsen was at Copenhagen, in order
to try to gain the office of Collector of Tolls, he said the same to
the King's Confessor, who was known to him. And as Niels sought
_Audience_ of the King, the Confessor followed him, and, in the King's
Presence, he prayed Master Niels frankly to relate all which he had
told to him. And when the King rightly understood how it had befallen,
that "The Estate" had come into Curt's possession, and what had been
the cause of its ruin, namely, that the King's most noble name had, in
all innocence, stood father to both these things, the King graciously
vouchsafed to lend his ear, and after much thought to say, "The Lord is
more cunning than all the rogues put together." And these words of the
King, do I in all humility make mine own, as I leave behind me this
history, and repair to other Lands.
About the year 1830 the following was all that remained of "The
Estate." The Mountain with the woods, in which the fir-trees were again
beginning to predominate, the great ruinous house, the curious gardens,
with their stone walls, on each side of the avenue, several bare fields
between the gardens and the town, and a few more on either hand. Beside
this some clearings round about, still belonged to "The Estate."
The then owner, a tall, dark, dirty fellow, in a green apron which
reached to his feet, worked in his own garden; this, with the addition
of a few cows, was his only means of subsistence.
He was the only survivor of the whole family in that part of the
country, and he was unmarried.
II
JOHN KURT
CHAPTER I
LONELINESS
At fifteen Konrad Kurt had left his home; he could no longer bear to
witness the cruelty with which his mother was treated; for domestic
tyranny was an heirloom in the Kurt family. He crossed over to Hull,
and made his home for some time with an uncle, but was eventually sent,
at his expense, to live in the country. The boy's nervous system had
been pronounced by a doctor to be far from strong, and if he were to be
made any thing of, he must live as much as possible in the open air; it
was therefore suggested that he might be brought up as a gardener. Now
gardening chanced to be a perfect _gourmandise_ in the Kurt family, so
that the lad eventually adopted it as his profession.
When, on his father's death, he returned home to see after his own
interests, and to take care of his poor mother, he found but little
else to take care of, his worthy father having sold all the clearing
rights of his last woods, his remaining shares in some ships, and
finally the tile works, sinking the whole of the proceeds in an
annuity. In a word, he had the houses, the gardens, and a field or two;
all the rest Kurt had, as they say, "eaten bare" all round him. His
son, he considered, must follow his example. He might easily begin by
selling the field nearest to the town; with the lower garden, it
presented a splendid site for building. Konrad Kurt, on the other hand,
was quite of opinion that enough of "The Estate" had been sold already.
He therefore instead raised a loan, drained the gardens and fields, put
the houses so far into repair, that they would not actually fall to
ruin, and enlarged the forcing-house, adding another to it at a later
time. In short, he showed that it was possible to live on his
inheritance, and manage a garden, in such a way as to make it pay, an
idea which was then new in that part of the world.
At first he expended almost all he earned, but by-and-by things
improved. A single room served him for sleeping, eating, and writing;
the first room on the left side of the hall, which had been occupied by
the first Kurt, and by all the different possessors of "The Estate."
The room within it, which had been formerly used as a bedroom, was
given by Kurt to his mother, who, poor woman, was now happier than she
had ever been her in life before. All household work was done in the
kitchen, on the other side of the wide hall, which, running through the
whole house, divided it in two. The rest of the main building remained
empty. In the autumn Kurt covered the floors of the different rooms
with such portions of his produce as needed drying.
He was an impetuous man, taciturn at times, and stormy at others, but a
good man at the bottom. His servants and workmen stood by him, and he
stood by them. The sailors and fisher men living up on the mountain
also received a great deal of kindness from him; he gave them seeds,
and taught them how to cultivate their gardens, and utilise the
produce. In the course of many years, the refuse from their houses had
caused so great an accumulation round them, that enough soil had been
formed to enable any one to have a strip of garden who chose to give
the labour to it, besides which, they could carry away as much mould as
they wished for from "The Estate" to mix with it. Never had the folk on
the hill imagined that they would come to carrying earth from down
below, that they would ever get time for, or find any fun in, such an
occupation. Every Sunday throughout the spring and summer, Kurt went up
to the mountain and helped them, a custom which he kept up through his
whole life, but these were almost the only occasions on which he was
ever seen beyond his gardens, house, and cellars.
He was up and out every morning in spring and summer by four o'clock,
and as soon as it was light during the autumn and winter months. His
summer costume consisted of a pair of fustian trousers, a whitey-grey
linen coat, a green apron reaching down to his feet, and a cap with a
wide peak. The same trousers and long apron were worn during the
winter, with the addition of a tightly buttoned seaman's pea-jacket,
and a fur cap with a wide brim always turned down in such a way that
the loose flaps were constantly brushing against his face. He had never
been seen dressed in any other way, excepting on Sundays, when he
shaved, wore a starched shirt, and laid aside his apron. He had not
inherited the broad defiant forehead of the Kurts. His was a fairly
high one, and noticeable for its excessive whiteness; all the more so,
perhaps, from the rest of his face being very weather-beaten. He had
the eager, wild eyes of his ancestors; his face was somewhat longer,
thin, and with rather a wide nose.
Housewives and children soon learned that it was better to go up to
"The Estate" and deal with Kurt himself, stern and even passionate
though he was, than to go to the shop on the market-place, for he was
in reality very easy to manage, and excessively fond of children; they
had to be careful, however, not to be too long in making a choice, and
never to attempt to bargain.
He often seemed, when he was standing there, to be pondering some
serious matter in an absent-minded way, and would then collect himself
with a hasty "Ta, ta, ta, ta," ending with a long, deep "Ta-a-a!"
Everything prospered with him, his cows and garden paying him better
and better. But after a few years a rumour began to spread that, since
his mother's death, he spent every evening by himself getting drunk on
whisky toddy. As he went regularly to bed at half-past nine, any one
who wished to ascertain if this were the case, must go up there before
that time. One or two people did so, and found that it was but too
true; by half-past eight he was thoroughly drunk, crying, and unable to
speak distinctly.
At last this came to the ears of "old" Pastor Green. He was always, as
a young man, called "old," a frightful accident having completely
bleached his hair.
Pastor Green was one of the first men in Norway who came forward to
combat intemperance, and who gave up their lives to the work. It was
his axiom that it is useless to preach against drunkenness otherwise
than by facts and actions, and that it is quite hopeless to expect to
convert the individual drunkard, without knowing what cause has driven
him to drink. There always is one, and if drinking is not hereditary,
or become a long-established habit, it is to the removal of the cause
that you must look for its cure.
Green paid a visit to Konrad Kurt, and chatted with him, until he drew
from him, that while he was living in England, he had had an intrigue
with the wife of the gardener, to whom he had been apprenticed, and
that she had had a child by him. She had died just at the same time as
his mother.
He had been madly in love with her, he said; yes, it had been a
terrible thing to deceive her husband. "But--there really was no help
for it"--and he began to cry. Then their boy, "Ah! there never was such
a merry child born before." And, in his yearning for him, the tipsy man
cried, and upbraided himself with wild oaths.
Green endeavoured to induce him to ask pardon from the gardener, and
bring the boy home, but Kurt had not the courage for the effort, so
that there was nothing for it but for Green to use what other means he
could.
Accordingly, one summer evening, he walked up to "The Estate,"
accompanied by a tall, dark haired boy of twelve, and asked for Kurt,
who was still at work in the garden. It was a sight to see how Kurt, as
he got up out of the hot-bed where he had been digging, rubbing the
earth from his hands, suddenly stopped short, and stared at Green from
under the wide peak of his cap; then turned his gaze to the dark-haired
boy, and back again to Green.
At last he recognised the eager, wild eyes, larger than his by-the-way,
the long, rather wide nose, and the thin face, so like his own.
Unconsciously he exclaimed in English: "I beg pardon--but this lad----"
He could go no further, and Green was obliged to finish for him: "Yes,
this was indeed his son."
That evening Kurt forgot to get out the whisky bottle, and when he did
next produce it, the boy seized hold of it and flung it out of the
window against a stone--a really capital shot. Glass, sugar-basin, and
spoon went the same way; capitally thrown they certainly were. Pastor
Green had begged the boy to watch when his father took out the bottle,
and try to get it away from him, and it was in this fashion that the
youngster carried out his instructions. His father stood for a few
minutes staring at him, till at last he broke out into an irresistible
peal of laughter.
CHAPTER II
A GENIUS
Never had any one felt surer that he had a genius for a son than did
Konrad Kurt. Not only that the lad was a thorough botanist, and knew
every secret of gardening, but there was not a piece of work on all the
farmstead, from the cow-house to the kitchen, which he had not soon
learned to know all about. It was easy to see that he had been brought
up in some back premises, among gardeners, cooks, and dairy people, and
had been well taught into the bargain.
Nothing would serve him but to go on board the ships, and boats, and
learn how to manage them, for he had never lived in a seaport town
before.
And then how he learned Norse, in only a week or two! First and
foremost the art of swearing. His father convulsed himself with
laughter over all the oaths which the lad began to make use of with the
funniest accent. Then, what stories he would tell! Even before he had
properly learned the language, he could interest the work-people in a
way which was really extraordinary, and he was therefore allowed to
play any tricks he liked; it was all looked upon as fun.
When he spoke Norse easily, how he would gammon them! It was his
father's delight to steal behind one of the high hedges and listen to
him. The boy would tell them what the English Court was like, where he
had been as page; it was he who, with some of his companions, used to
walk before the lovely young Queen, while behind came all the bigwigs.
Probably he had seen something of the sort at the theatre, or in some
picture. Then the tremendous warlike achievements he had seen in India,
when he was over there or a little tour with the Queen of England. The
father stood hidden, and admired the vivid colours in which the boy
painted it all, although he still knew so little Norse. The father
enticed his son to go on telling him adventures. He drank no more
whisky toddy; the boy himself inebriated him. What a genius! ah! what a
genius!
There was a continual chasing away of cats from the garden; they came
up from the town after the birds; and John, as this last Master Kurt
was called, having one day captured one of the most determined of the
depredators, ordained that the murderer should be crucified. As not
one, even of the youngest of the labourers, would help him in this, he
temporarily fastened up the cat, giving her plenty to eat, while he
himself went to fetch some rough boys from the harbour.
Such extraordinary sounds of glee soon afterwards reached his father's
ear, that he hastened to see what it might portend, especially as some
more dubious notes were mingled with the cries of delight. He found the
executioners performing an Indian dance before the victim, a poor
bleeding cat, fastened to the storehouse door. The boy's inordinate
delight hindered him from seeing his father, whose first thought on
this occasion was not that his son John was a genius; although, when he
came to think it over, he must confess that it was a very remarkable
invention, and decidedly well done into the bargain. It is no easy
thing to crucify a cat.
However, another occasion came when he thought differently.
As the weather was excessively bad, his father had forbidden John to go
down to the garden, and the boy took his revenge by attacking his
father's finest apple-tree, a young one, which was in fruit for the
first time. He set to work to saw it right through at the roots, and
covered it up again with earth. His father was by no means so struck
this time, nor did he say much about the invention. He entirely forgot
to think of his son as a genius, to such an extent indeed that he
talked to him in his room, with a new well-twisted birch rod in his
hand. The boy never guessed, could not grasp, that his father was going
to flog him, and when this utterly incredible, this impossible thing
did happen, he rushed towards the door, with a look of mad terror in
his face. His father was as supple and active as he, and sprang on him
like a tiger, flung the boy on to the floor, and began beating him with
an absolutely wild pleasure. John screamed, prayed, promised, begged
for mercy. He got up on his knees, sprang up, and threw himself down
again, his eyes seemed to start out of his head, and his cries became
nothing more than a continuous, meaningless sound, his face turning
almost black. The maids, servants, and workmen came rushing in from the
passage, and tore open the doors. Kurt became frantic at this
interruption. He rushed first to one door, then to another, shutting
them in the faces of those who stood there. He had become almost as
crazed as his son, who, in the meantime, had contrived to make his
escape.
Only an hour later the boy was out among the gardeners, and there could
not have been anywhere, a more good-natured, more submissive, brighter,
livelier lad than John Kurt.
He lent a hand first to one, then to another, with flattering
coaxing words. Then he began to tell them stories about the apes at
Gibraltar--why, it swarms with apes! they stand there looking across to
Africa.
And then he mimicked them, snarling and making himself as inquisitive,
frolicsome, timid, wild, and nasty as they. Likely enough he had seen
monkeys somewhere, though not precisely at Gibraltar. As his father was
passing by, he heard the fun, and concealed himself as usual, stooping
down, and peeping.
That evening, he and his son had a talk together, in the very same
room, the old "Kurt room." There the two last of the Kurts wept in each
other's arms; the son promised to be always, always, always good, and
the father never to beat him again--never!
It was but a short time after this, that a lad who used to run errands
for Konrad Kurt, had got a new Sunday jacket. His brother, who was a
mate, had bought it at an English seaport, for next to nothing, from a
woman in the street, and every one concurred in the boy's belief that
there had never been such a fine one seen in the town before. Alas! as
he prepared to put it on the next Sunday, he found that it had been cut
to pieces. The cuts were small, but so carefully executed, that though
as long as it hung up it appeared to be whole, it was in reality
nothing but a useless rag. Of course all thoughts turned at once to
John, who happened at that moment to be out rowing. Owing to the cruel
way in which his father had punished his last fault, and the affection
which they had for him, every one hesitated to speak. But the
gardener's boy, Andreas Berg, as he was named, had only this one
jacket, and it was the delight of his heart: he could not restrain his
tears; and old Kurt, at last observing that something was amiss, the
whole truth had to come out.
It really seemed impossible that John should not have known what was
sure to happen, and have realised that after his performances with the
cat, and with the fruit-tree, suspicion must inevitably fall upon him.
It may be that he imagined that it would never go further than between
the little fellow and himself, or that he might rely on his father's
promise never to beat him again. Be that as it may, he came calmly up
from the water, bragging before he was well inside the garden gate, of
all the exploits that he had performed during the day. His father
called him from the open window of his room. The boy answered him with
a ringing "Yes," and was up the steps in a moment.
The instant he saw the jacket lying on the table, and a well-twisted
whip by the side of it, he became as white as a sheet, and seemed
entirely to lose the control of his senses. He turned round and round
in a circle as he stood there, and hurriedly exclaimed, in a voice
hoarse from holding back his breath, "It was not I. It was not I. It
was not I. It was not I." Then, seeing his father lift the whip, he
instantly changed to his own voice, crying, "Yes, it was I, it was I,
it was I, it was I." "Will you ask pardon?" "Yes, yes." He was on his
knees in a moment, and with his hands crossed above his head, he cried,
"Pardon, pardon, pardon, pardon!" "And will you beg the boy's pardon?"
"Oh! yes, where is the boy? Let us go to him." He was up and by the
door in a moment, casting terrified glances at his father, who
followed, with the whip in his hand, though he did not go so far as to
strike him.
John fell down once more on his knees before the little boy, tearing
off his own jacket and waistcoat to give to him, although no one had
suggested to him to do so. An English gold coin, and two Norwegian
silver ones, which were in the waistcoat pocket, fell out, and these he
gave to the lad at once, an act which so touched the father that he was
obliged to turn away. But a very short time afterwards, while the
workmen were at dinner, John made his appearance, and went through the
performance of the Gibraltar monkeys for their benefit. Then, returning
to his father, he asked him confidentially, if part of what had been
taken up in the garden that day, might be given to the men to take
home, and, on permission being granted, he went off with them to help
to carry the things away. His father stood and watched him from the
window.
John's next exploit was on the sea. He had probably found that such
performances were dangerous on land, and it remained to be seen if
there were more freedom on the water. One day he set off in a boat,
with a little boy as his companion, having formed the plan of throwing
the child overboard, in order that he might rescue him. The idea may
have arisen from something he had read, or he may only have wished to
see the boy's terror; at all events he obtained this gratification. The
little fellow could not swim a stroke, and thought that if he could
make his companion understand this, he would give up his plan; but in
vain. The boy's terror increased every moment, he screamed with all his
small strength, and John might have recognised a fear so like his own.
But no. The child clung to John's clothes with all his little fingers.
He was shaken off again. He seized hold of the boat, and then, utterly
bewildered, tried to grasp the empty air; but overboard he went. John
sprang after him, caught the boy just as he was sinking, and held him
up, but it was only with the greatest difficulty that he got him back
into the boat, the child having been seized with cramp. A number of
people rowed out from all quarters, believing that a murder had been
committed.
John did not return home that evening, and during three days search was
made for him. First by every one on "The Estate," later by the police,
and by a number of the townspeople who felt for his father's distress.
He was at length discovered up a _s[oe]ter_. He flung himself down at
once, and screamed at the top of his voice, absolutely refusing to
return home until he had received a promise that no one would beat him.
This last adventure made him known all over the town. Whether it were
good for him or not, that every one came to the conclusion that he was
not like the other children, not quite right, the fact remains that
even at school the masters were rather too forbearing, of course not
his schoolfellows--they excuse nothing.
He did the most horrible things; for instance as he was approaching
manhood he committed an act of such frightful indecency that it is
impossible to write it, but on this occasion, his father came to the
school to beg that he might be pardoned, and, as all the teachers
pitied the father, who worked so honestly, it was looked over that
time.
CHAPTER III
MAN'S BREAST IS LIKE THE OCEAN
John passed an excellent matriculation, whereupon he took a fancy to
become a cadet, to which his father at once gave his consent,
considering that at the Military Academy he would learn order and
discipline, though, as a matter of fact, if what is meant by
discipline, is obedience to orders, he had no need to learn it, and he
had never been disorderly in his habits. Other faults, however, he did
possess, and he was twice nearly expelled from the Academy. The only
thing which saved him was his behaviour to his teachers, which was
always ingratiating. From the Academy he again passed a creditable
examination, and became absolutely enthusiastic for his profession. He
showed himself particularly good in drill. All was life, movement, and
story-telling where he was, and swearing into the bargain, for by
degrees he had brought swearing to a fine art. All the officers in the
brigade put together, did not swear as much in the course of a year, as
he did in a week. He could begin a string of oaths at one flank of the
company, as they stood on parade, and keep it up till he arrived at the
other. If he had used all the powers of imagination which he squandered
on swearing, in painting, he could have stocked a museum; or if he had
been a poet or composer, his shelves would have been full. But
unfortunately his oaths will not bear repeating, for they were
generally used when only men were present.
For common every-day use he was content with ordinary oaths, though,
even then, his way of using them was that of a master. As an indication
of the first-named description--those, namely, of his own invention--I
will give one example a little toned down. On one occasion, when the
company was assembled for prayers, the chaplain had wearied them by
preaching an excessively long discourse, which John Kurt declared he
had once read in an old book of sermons. He therefore asked for a
blessing on the chaplain in the following terms: "May Satan inwardly
illuminate all through his inside with burning sermon books."
He had an unending supply of stories, which were served up in a
seething sauce of imagery and cursing. His stories had this advantage
in them, that everybody did not believe them.
John Kurt was tall, thin, bony, and as supple as a willow. He wore
beard and moustache, but they did not grow well. The hair was ragged,
and there were patches where none grew. This gave his face a look of
being torn in two. When his wild eyes flashed out he was actually ugly.
But his brow was clear, with the fair skin which was hereditary in his
family; and sometimes, when he was at his best, a gleam would pass over
it which quite redeemed his plainness. His feelings were extremely
strong, and he could make others feel with him.
The finest thing in the world for a grown man, he considered, was
without doubt to be a soldier and officer. He thundered out his
assurances to the whole world, that no one could be a man who had not
gone through his drill. "Drill and discipline," he would exclaim, using
by preference the commonest expressions, for book language was not
strong enough; "drill and discipline. That was women-folks' greatest
loss that they never had discipline or tact in their commonplace
lives--the swine!" The whole country ought to be arranged as one vast
"Drill-hall." There would be no more cranky bodies then: "No, there
would be--devil take me--order and sense; the whole _Storting_--devil
plague them--ought to go to the parade ground and be drilled." Till
that day came there would be ne'er a bit of sense in the whole crew.
"The king--devil stare at me--ought to be drilled, if not the whole
place would be like a pigstye, where the strongest snout shoves t'other
one's out of the trough. Some one must stand over them with a whip."
How then can one possibly paint the astonishment of his comrades, his
friends, and, above all, of his father, when one fine day it was
announced that First Lieutenant John Kurt had applied for a discharge,
which had been granted him. He came storming home again, and whenever
he was asked why he had left, he replied that the whole military system
was--"devil pickle him--the most miserable buffoonery. No honourable
man ought to lend himself to it. The officers were nothing but
dressed-up, well-trained monkeys, who trained strong lusty lads to be
monkeys as well. The generals were big monkeys with feathers in their
caps, and the king was the chief monkey of all."
What was he going to do? "Why, dig the ground like his father. The
earth--that was the only solid thing there was in creation, and so it
was the only thing worth a rush, or that produced anything worth
having. To get out of it all that tasted best, and smelt best, that
was--may the devil quarter him--the finest thing an independent lad
could turn his hand to." He dressed himself in the most slovenly way,
and worked among the other labourers for his living.
That was all very well during the summer, but the harvest was
hardly over before he discovered that--may the devil fly off with
him--gardening was simply muck. It consisted in using this sort of
muck, and then so much muck, and muck in that fashion. It seemed to him
at last that "all the world was naught but a great muck-heap. They were
the luckiest who owned the biggest. What--devil butcher him--was war
other than that each one killed t'other for his own muck-heap? Poets
and poetry were the flies in spring when the muck began to work."
He went off in a ship, bound for the South Sea, and was absent for
several years, nor, when one beautiful spring day he returned home,
could any one gain a clue as to where he had been. If he were to be
believed, he had traversed the whole globe, for from that time no
country or nation could be mentioned, nor anything remarkable in
natural history, no ocean, no well-known building, which he had not
seen, nor a single famous person with whom he was not on terms of the
greatest intimacy, or, at the very least, well known to. It was evident
that they were not all inventions. He had a great deal of information
which could only have been acquired on the spot. He had undoubtedly
some notable acquaintance, for his correspondence proved it. Later on
in the summer an English nobleman and his friends sought him out to
accompany them on a mountain hunting expedition.
Why had he come home? "To see his father before he died," he said;
though, to confess the truth, his father was in the best of health, and
not more pleased to welcome his son home, than he had been to see him
depart.
John, however, declared all the same, that for his part, Heaven help
him, he could not bear any longer to think that his father might be
dying, and he not by his side.
From the time he returned he was all solicitude and affection for his
father. He was now an old man, and allowed his son to do anything with
him that he chose, and strange fancies he took at times. Such as, when
he suddenly determined that his father should not eat anything. Or when
he, all at once, hit on the plan of putting him into a warm bath, while
he turned the cold douche on to him. Another idea was to lay him under
a number of large eider-down coverlids, in order to make him sweat,
although his father had not the slightest need for such treatment.
He would give a side glance at his son, and a very speaking one it
was; there was neither confidence, nor fear in it, still less any
good-humour, but a certain cold inquisitiveness, as though he just
wished to know what next; and sometimes he seemed to ask, "Is this
John, or is it not John?"
CHAPTER IV
SAILS IN SIGHT
In the autumn of the same year, a girl came home, who became the
subject of conversation in the whole town, and for two reasons.
Her name was Tomasine Rendalen, and she was the daughter of the
head-master, Rendalen. His name was derived from the mountain district
of Rendalen, from which his father had originally come.
Rendalen was a big, strong man, who quietly, if rather ponderously,
performed his scholastic duties in the town, and who, since his wife's
death, had taken interest in nothing but his school, and the town
reading society.
The management of his house he entirely left in the hands of old
Mariane and his children. Tomasine, who was his eldest child, possessed
a more than ordinary talent for languages, together with all her
mother's determination. When she was only sixteen she borrowed a little
money, entered a school in England, and, while there, thoroughly
mastered the English language. From thence she went to a school in
France, where she taught the pupils English and acquired French; and
finally to one in Germany, where she gave instruction in both English
and French, and learned German. She had been away nearly five years,
and had become a practised, and unusually clever teacher. She had no
sooner returned home than she began to give lessons both to men and
women, and thereby to pay off her debts. This aroused great admiration
in the town, and procured her a very large circle of friends. Her
figure excited an equally unanimous admiration, and it must be admitted
that it requires something special in a girl's figure before this can
happen. A beautiful face is always admired, for there can be no
delusion about it. A fine figure, on the contrary, is hardly sufficient
in itself to command attention. She was young, and well-made, and
always dressed in the latest fashion. Like other vigorous and healthy
girls, she had from her childhood longed to exercise her strength, and
had taken every opportunity of doing so. In England she had set to work
to practise gymnastics, and had continued them ever since. It had
become a passion with her; the result was, that there was not a single
girl in the town who held herself like Tomasine.
It did not in the least lessen the admiration for her figure that she
had a somewhat flat nose, and that her very light hair gave her the
appearance, at a distance, of being bald; as for her eyebrows, they
were really not worth mentioning. Her eyes were grey, and, when without
her spectacles, she screwed them up. Her mouth was much too large, but
the teeth within it were as sound and regular as though her family had
remained in Rendalen and lived upon hard bread. When any one saw her
from behind for the first time, and she then suddenly turned round, it
caused a certain disappointment. People even thought of calling her
"The Disappointment," but the name did not take. Her figure carried her
over all criticism. Being near-sighted she wore spectacles, the only
girl in the town who did so. In those days the fashion of using
_pince-nez_ had not come in, so this gave something rather unusual to
her appearance. She literally shone with strength and intelligence.
Through that winter she was the most popular partner at all the balls.
Her delight in being at home again, free from all restraint, and among
a number of merry young people of both sexes, her happiness in feeling
that every one was kind to her and liked her, were plainly visible. She
often expressed her feelings in simple and natural terms; she aroused
no jealousy, though it may be that this was a little strengthened by
the fact that she was well aware that she was not pretty. That winter
was a great dance winter, and at every dance she was present, for
dancing was the most delightful thing she knew. During that winter John
Kurt became for the first time a dancing man, and it was entirely for
her sake that he did so. She soon heard him say this, but she knew that
he could not be gauged by the rules of ordinary life, for he was always
allowed to say what he liked. She looked upon him as something quite
fresh, and very peculiar, but she acted as every one else did, and
neither ran away from him, nor fainted, because he said that he would
be d----d, pickled, boiled, and roasted if, when she danced, she were
not like a young, lively, whinnying Arabian mare, or like a flock of
birds in the woods in spring-time; her arms and her neck were just like
a dainty, warm, little Turkish pigling, one o' them with a pink skin.
She moved through the dance, Heaven help him, like a great man-of-war
through the water. When he danced with her--by his honour, life, and
salvation--it was like being up on the mountains of a clear autumn day,
with a gun in his hand, and the tykes ranging the hillside in full cry.
This, shouted in trumpet tones into her ear during every dance, only
added to her amusement. The others laughed and she laughed with them.
She did not possess the slightest knowledge of human nature. That
cannot be learnt by going from one school to another, even though they
be in foreign countries.
Kurt very soon began to visit her home; he knew the hours when she
would be free, and speedily learnt her times for walking, following her
about everywhere. She tried as much as possible not to be alone with
him; otherwise she was pleased enough that he should come. He told her
and her friends amusing stories, and touching ones sometimes. Such, for
instance, was the history of a deserted brood of ptarmigan, which he
had once picked up, one by one, out of the heather, where they were
running about, all downy and unfledged; he had brought them all home,
he said, in his cap. This story seemed to bring with it such a fresh
breath of mountain air, full of the scent of the heather, and he
related it with such genuine feeling, that it brought the tears into
their eyes. Such things as these seemed to inspire him; even in the
midst of the wildest stories, he would often throw in some delicate,
telling touch. The way in which he invariably spoke of his father
attracted the girl to him. There was a mixture of drollness and
tenderness in it, midway between laughter and tears. They got used to
his rough descriptions, his coarse language; it could not well have
been dispensed with; it gave a special colouring which charmed, while
it startled them. Tomasine and her friends did not try to have it
otherwise, so that at last there was no one who appeared to them to be
able to relate stories except himself. Tomasine more than any one else.
She felt that it was all done for her amusement.
One day, when by chance they were alone, he began to tell her about the
widow of a pilot, for whom he was just then most assiduously making a
collection. He saw that she liked him for doing so, and, without
further preface, he declared that Froeken Tomasine Holm Rendalen was to
him what a town was to a desert caravan; nay, if she laughed, it was
because she did not know what it was to trudge along through endless
sand, under a burning sun, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. "It is
something to see a town then, I can tell you." Well, _she_ was the
minaret tower, the plane-trees, and the springs of water, the wine
which awaited them, and white tents, and dancing, the sound of the
guitars, and the smell of roasting meat. Suppose they two were to make
a match of it! If that could be, he would sell the whole garden, and
they would wander away to all the most delightful places on the face of
the earth. They would lie on their backs under the awnings, while their
servants came and put food and drink into their mouths. Or why not stay
here and carry "The Estate" gardens right up on to the mountains? What
would not grow with such shelter, on such sunny hillsides, fanned by
such warm sea breezes. There they would dig away into the hillside,
like a couple of badgers, and become rich people. But he saw what a
fright he had put her into; so, without any pause, he turned the
conversation into a wild panegyric on his father. The fact was that the
whole thing was his father's invention. He was determined to have his
son married. His father was a man who would get up of a winter's night,
when it suddenly turned cold, and go out to wrap bast mats and woollen
rags round the frozen fruit-trees, as if they were naked children. If
he wanted to cut down a bush he took the birds'-nests down first, and
carried them away to some place near, or to some other bush, and stuck
'em fast there. What wonder then if his father gave a thought for him
too; but, as for him, he could wait, he was quite happy as he was. And
he started off with a story about some cows who would not eat the grass
because it looked black, but he put them on large green spectacles, so
that the grass looked quite nice and fresh--"then they munched it up, I
can promise you."
She could gather in the meantime that John Kurt was disappointed. She
herself had felt startled, she hardly knew why, and yet, on second
thoughts, she did, for she had heard, that very day, some stories of
the terribly licentious life he led.
It so happened, strangely enough, that a friend of her late mother came
in to see her, and after a short preamble, began warmly to advocate
Kurt's cause. Only an hour afterwards another one arrived, another
after that, all bent on the same errand. He was certainly not like
other people, that must be confessed, but that he would make a famous
husband, each one was as certain as the other. As to his immoral
conduct, that was bad, it must be admitted; but it was most likely not
worse than other people's. Why, there were married men living in the
town who were by no means all that they should be. The great difference
was that he did everything openly. Each one of the three ladies spoke
as strongly on the subject as the others, and Tomasine began to be
somewhat of the same opinion.
John Kurt himself held aloof for a time, excepting so far as that
whatever walk he took to or from the town, and they were not few, he
always contrived to pass the Rendalens' house, notwithstanding that
they lived quite on one side, to the left of the market-place, up
towards the field. Every time he passed up and down, he took off his
hat, if there were only a cat to be seen at the window. Beside this, he
sent a bouquet there every morning. The dawn was not more certain to
come than it was. Old Mariane, who received it, had always some little
thing to say about Tomasine, and he, on his part, generally let fall
some special remark, such as, for instance, "God bless your throats."
A very short time after her mother's especial friends had called upon
Tomasine to advocate John's cause, her own followed their example. Some
of them had in past days taken quite an opposite view of him. They had
spoken of him almost with horror. They could not bear his mendacious
stories, or put up with his coarse language; or indeed with him,
himself. He was "disgusting." Now, however, they began to admit that
there was something interesting in him all the same: a kind of
demoniacal overwhelming power.
The fact was that he had called upon them all, choosing first the one
whom he knew was most set against him. He told her that he was well
aware of this fact, and that he respected her for it. It was quite true
that he was a wretched, contemptible fellow. But it was just for that
very reason that he had come to her, for she really was the most honest
and clear-sighted conscience in the town; there was but one opinion on
that point. She really _must_ help him. She did not know the whole
history of his life, that was the fact. She did not know how it was
from his boyhood upward he had been misunderstood, and indeed continued
to be so still. And for that very reason would always remain an oddity.
But really it was hardly necessary for him to say anything. She saw
right through every one.
He told another that her hands were so plump, so dainty, and round and
soft, that one longed to nibble them with one's coffee.
He swayed and turned them with his stream of talk, he douched them
cold, he blew them warm, he startled them, and touched them. They did
not completely lose their heads. They knew perfectly well that it was
not all honest truth, spontaneous nature, but even that very fact
worked as an apology for him; he did not think about sheltering
himself, and most people are flattering when they wish to obtain
anything.
A little time afterwards the whole town from one end to the other was
convulsed with laughter, for when, in the course of the spring, a
little sempstress declared Kurt to be the father of her child, he
acknowledged it before every one, and had it brought with great state
to church to be baptised, giving it the name of Tomasine.
The amusement was renewed when he declared, on being asked how he could
possibly have done such an extraordinary thing, that if he had any
voice in the matter, Lord help him, every child in the town should be
called either Tomas, or Tomasine. It was quite touching.
Just about that time his father died under somewhat strange
circumstances. The old man had sent a message to Tomasine, asking her
the next time she went for an evening walk, to be so kind as to come in
to see him, as he was far from well. Those two had been friends of old.
Many times, when she was a little girl, he had filled her pocket with
cherries. She always looked so fresh and healthy, and an old gardener
has an eye for such things.
When she went up there, she found him sitting in his room on the left.
It was the first time she had ever been in it. The walls were hung with
some stiff, and rather dark material, apparently leather, which had at
one time been painted and gilded. In the corner by the window stood a
large press, a splendid piece of furniture, at least two hundred years
old, and most artistically carved. Quite in front of the window was a
clumsy unpainted table, littered over with papers, samples of seeds,
newspapers, and scraps of food. The old man sat there, in an ancient
arm-chair, with a short, broad leather back. He got up, and insisted
that she should take it. He was dressed in his grey linen coat, his
long apron, and wore slippers down at heel. On his head he had his
wide-peaked cap, and a thick neckcloth wound round his neck. He was
rather hoarse, and he seemed ill as well. "The spring was so sharp this
year," he said. The tall, gaunt man began to pace up and down between
the table near the window, and the bed beside the wall next the wide
hall, which divides the house in two. Up and down he walked along the
wall, past the great stove, with the two "Oldenborgs" on it, both in
enormous wigs, his steps keeping time to the ticking of an old
eight-day clock which hung on the wall near the stove. Just then it
struck seven, with a noisy chime.
The old man's bed was of freshly polished birch, contrasting with the
old decrepid chairs set along the wall, with a new leg or two, or half
the back put in fresh. The wall itself was hung with pictures, in which
a reddish yellow arm, or a brownish red dress, showed themselves, but
which otherwise were absolutely black.
Konrad Kurt's blustering talk, as he walked up and down, somewhat
resembled the room, for it was a mixture of old and new, most of the
former; and not without a touch of boasting about his family. About
modern days he had less to say, and it was more in the humbler style of
his present circumstances. He talked without his son's oaths and
imagery, but with no little skill. He romanced at one moment, and
sneered the next, as his son often did. _Summa summarum_ was, then,
that the race was worn out, the stock could no longer spread. If it
were to be saved, it, and the last of the inheritance, it must needs
receive a graft; a strong, new tree must be found.
Tomasine sat there for nearly two hours, and listened to him. She let
her supper hour, and the time for her evening classes, go by. He would
not let her leave. A maid-servant opened a door from the inner passage
to ask if she should lay the table, but was sent away.
As Tomasine returned along the avenue, where the road was guttered by
the rain, and the storm whistled through the old trees, she felt as
though she had just come from a mausoleum. In it she had met one single
living man, wandering round and gazing on his dead. She had not the
slightest desire to join him there. She turned and looked back at the
great, dirty, plastered building, with its small windows. "No," she
said aloud.
Next morning, when she came into the parlour, John Kurt's bouquet had
not arrived. It gave her a pang, she hardly knew why, for that was
after all exactly what she wished. But was it? She was trying to make
this clear to herself, when her father came in from his morning walk.
He was very pale--he told her that old Kurt had died in the night. They
had found him in the morning, lifeless, in his chair before the table.
John Kurt came in a few minutes later; he did not speak, but flung
himself down, crying. He cried so violently that both she and her
father were frightened. Then--the self-accusation that followed!
He came again every day and poured out his heart with affecting
vehemence. He went nowhere else, spoke to no one but to them. Just to
them and his own people. With these he worked day and night to build a
temple of flowers on the great flight of steps before the house, down
which the old man would be carried. This erection of flowers was
wonderfully lovely; it was talked of far and near, and the evening
before the funeral, numbers came up to see it, Tomasine and her father
among them. The dead man's friend, Dean Green, was one of the first to
come up the avenue, and after him, half the inhabitants of the
mountain, both grown people and children, to look, to show their
gratitude, and to say "Good-bye." They had been to see the clergyman
first. Old Green stood on the steps, and spoke of him who had loved
flowers so dearly, who had gone from our spring to the eternal one.
Every one was moved, and the son was obliged to go away.
The next day John went straight from the funeral to the Rendalens'. But
he did not find Tomasine at home. He was so disappointed at this, so
honestly distressed, that he stood silent for a long time, and at last
let fall that he had no one now--no, not one single being. He only
wished with all his heart that he could be laid in his grave too. He
was nothing but a trouble even to those he cared for most. He saw that
now. And he turned away. This quite touched old Mariane, to whom it had
all been said, and when Tomasine came in at last, she related it so
feelingly that her mistress was touched as well. The fact was that
Tomasine had not wished to be at home. She feared him. She had not the
courage to face his emotion, which might perhaps lead him in a special
direction.
She repented it now. She hastily took off her spectacles and wiped
them, put them on again, and looked at herself in the glass. Was not
she big and strong enough to hazard it? She stood there and weighed the
question.
The fashion of that day was to wear a bodice drawn in at the waist with
a belt, and crinoline.
She pushed her belt down with both her strong hands; she had taken off
her loose, white sleeves, as soon as she came in. Those belonging to
her dress were wide and open, so that her wrist and the lower part of
her arm, contrasted very prettily with her black dress. She delighted
in their strength, as those do who are much given to gymnastic
exercises. But her eyes turned involuntarily to her face, her weak
point. It was incredibly ugly. That flat nose, those thick lips, and
that hair which was the colour of her forehead--you could hardly see
it--and those eyebrows, light, short bristles, so thin that they were
quite invisible. Ah! no, it would never do to make herself of
importance. John Kurt loved her so heartily, and was unhappy!....
absolutely alone, and so unhappy!.... And his father had made her sit
down in his own chair!
Shortly afterwards old Mariane walked up the avenue as fast as she
could. She halted once though, and took out of a newspaper a dainty,
ah! such a dainty letter. She must look at it.
When it was put into John Kurt's hand, he tore it hastily open, and
took out a sheet of thick English note-paper--with a dove on it--the
paper was very good, and the dove well designed. He read the following
words, hastily written in a practised hand:
"_I will do it_.
"Tomasine."
John turned to Mariane. "Now, what a man father was," he said; "if he
had not died just now, small chance if I had ever got her."
He would have married the next day. To his immense astonishment,
Tomasine would not hear of it. Nor even that the marriage should be the
next week. She now gave up her pupils to begin to prepare herself for
her new position. She was completely ignorant of domestic matters,
except so far as to be able to keep her own things in order. From a
child she had only cared for her book. John Kurt was delighted when he
heard of her deficiencies; _he_ could do everything. Did any one doubt
it? He could wash up and clean, were it parlour or kitchen, better than
any housemaid or cook in Norway. He pushed old Mariane suddenly on one
side, and showed them, bit by bit. He did everything as quickly,
nicely, and carefully as the handiest girl--that was a fact. Besides
this, he could cook all sorts of food; dishes which they did not know
by name. He could roast and boil, knit, sew, and darn: he could wash
clothes; starch and iron. He, and no one else, would teach Tomasine.
Why should they not begin at once? And so it was settled. He himself
made purchases, and invited friends to the Rendalens'. The days which
followed were the most amusing the family had ever spent. The whole
town was filled with rumours. Friends and friends' friends came to look
on. And to listen! What noise and fun! What tales of where he learnt it
all! Sometimes among the gold-diggers in Australia, in constant peril
of his life. Then on a Nile boat, with a party of English, where the
cook directed the whole expedition. Sometimes in Brazil, at an hotel
among the niggers; or in the mines in South America. Then suddenly he
was at Hayti on board a large steamer! Then deserting from her. He did
not spare local colouring, or indeed any colouring; coarseness and
vituperation rained down like fire from heaven on the different places
and people.
But the work went on. Tomasine was assistant cook, scullery maid,
ironer, and darner. Even in the last he was her superior. He worked
just as quickly as he talked, and just as eagerly. He interrupted
himself with the most perfect good temper whenever she made a mistake,
for she was really very clumsy. He captivated them all now, without
exception. But surely this teaching and fun could go on as well or
better up at "The Estate." By degrees every one agreed to this, and
Tomasine gave in.
CHAPTER V
HOME LIFE
They were married one afternoon at home. Only the family was present,
and after leaving the table they walked up to "The Estate," arm-in-arm.
It could not be concealed that there was much feverish excitement.
Indeed, it was the more apparent because they wished all to go on as if
nothing were on foot.
Hardly anything had been done up at the house. Things were to
be arranged by degrees. The first room on the left was still a
sitting-room and dining-room. The next one a bedroom. The best
furniture of every description which the house contained, some of it
old and valuable, was collected there. The leather hangings on the
walls had been washed, but were not much the better for it. The heavy
carved ceiling, on the contrary, was much improved by being cleaned. An
attempt had also been made to clean the pictures, but not altogether
with success; as the frames had at the same time been regilt they
presented altogether a ghastly appearance. This was almost all that had
been done. A bath-room had been fitted up next to the bedroom, shortly
after John Kurt returned home. This was now divided, so as also to form
a dressing-room. The kitchen, on the other side of the hall which
divided the house lengthwise, was like a huge dancing-room; a new
English kitchener had been fixed there, and the newly married pair
proposed to spend a great part of their time before it.
For a few days they were quite alone, nor did they go out later on. But
one or two ladies at a time were invited. And soon they were all as
merry up there as they had been before down at the Rendalens'. Just
previous to her wedding, and for a short time afterwards, Tomasine was
thoroughly in love with John Kurt; entirely wrapped up in him,
absolutely happy, and in boisterous spirits.
But this exuberance was contrary to her nature, and did not suit her.
She looked excited and almost vulgar. She felt this when her friends
looked at her. Indeed, her glass had already told her the same thing.
It made an impression on her, but she put it aside. It returned now and
then, like a secret dread. She tried naturally to shout it down, and
only made things worse. Her friends whispered that she had become
disagreeable; she, who had pleased by her unconscious manner, was now
either strangely abstracted, or boisterous.
One small thing excited observation. None of her friends were admitted
further than the sitting-room and kitchen; all was carefully locked up.
She positively kept watch to see if they watched her. Very soon,
however, some one spied on them all. It became impossible for any one
to be alone with Tomasine without John Kurt opening the door, and
putting in his head, but no sound was heard before he made his
appearance. All the locks had been examined and oiled, and the doors
opened noiselessly. If they walked along the broad paths in the garden,
he came out unexpectedly from behind a hedge. If they whispered when he
was present, he became restless and perverse, not exactly with them,
but in such a way as to leave no doubt of his meaning. He generally
poured out his wrath over Tomasine's untidy habits. Her friends thought
either that they were in the way, or that something was going on which
they would rather be away from. They came more and more rarely.
Tomasine was the last to understand her husband's uneasiness. She
fancied at first that it was only to scare them, that he came upon them
in that way. His complaints of her untidiness were merited. One has to
_learn_ to keep everything tidy about one. Later, when there could be
no mistake, she asked herself if he were jealous of her friends. In
that case he ought to have been so before; they came oftener then than
now. Was he afraid, then? Afraid of what? That they should talk about
him? What could they say? She knew as she asked it. He was out at the
moment, so that she had time to cool down a little. It was not her
nature to come to hasty determinations, nor was it clear to her how she
ought to take it, or what rights she had, or had not, in her married
life. She had never spoken to any one on the subject, never read about
it. The pain lessened little by little as she pondered. She took up her
work again, and tried to appear as if nothing had happened. Kurt,
however, observed at once that her manner was different. From that time
forward he sometimes saw that she had been crying. Every time he came
in he asked if any one had been there. "No." Once she heard him, a
little while afterwards, ask the gardener if any one had been with "the
Missis" whilst he was out.
He was shy with her and guarded, actually uneasy. But he could not
continue this long, and without warning became impatient and rough;
then repented his violence and begged her pardon twenty times, and this
again and again.
Tomasine was not nervous, so that she was neither frightened by the
former, nor did the latter make her alter her behaviour. She was
friendly, but always reserved. So things drifted on towards a storm.
They both knew it. The changes from cold to hot became more sudden, the
squalls which preceded them heavier, the stillness and sultriness which
followed them more dangerous. Yet in the midst of it all he could be so
wonderfully kind, so naturally bright and considerate, that sometimes
she forgot all presentiments, and gave herself up to the hope that,
under her quiet guardianship, which he quite understood, their life
might at last become what she realised by an ordinary, honourable
married life.
One afternoon he came in from the garden, where he had worked all day.
He wished to change his clothes, for he was invited to a men's dinner
in the town. He went into his bedroom, took off his coat and waistcoat,
came back again and talked of taking a bath, walked up and down as
though considering something. Tomasine felt that things were not safe.
She was herself dressed to visit a friend in the town, and he looked
closely at her. She thought it would be wiser to slip away, but when he
saw that she was preparing to start, he suggested that she should wait
for him, and that they might go down together. She excused herself on
the plea that she was expected. "There would be time enough for gossip,
she could help him a little first." She inquired how. This he would not
submit to. She had no business to ask questions. Beside that, she was
not obedient. She had not learnt that yet. She ought to understand that
now she had a master, and that she must obey him "in all things." It
was the Bible itself that said so. By way of answer, she put on her
bonnet which lay ready on the table, and took up her mantle and
parasol. On this he became furious, and asked her if she thought he had
not observed her. She thought herself so much better than he was, and
was therefore constantly spying on him. It was certainly true that she
had not had the opportunities of leading the life he had, but that was
in reality the only difference between them. At the bottom she was
exactly the same as he was, precisely, so she really need not keep up
this farce any longer. This came so unexpectedly to Tomasine, that she
cried out "Boor," took up her things, and turned to leave the room. The
door leading into the hall was behind her, he sprang to it, turned the
key and, took it out. Then going to the other doors, he fastened them,
keeping the keys, and as well as this, he closed all the windows.
"What are you thinking of?" she asked, turning deadly white, and taking
off her spectacles. She forgot her bonnet.
"You shall learn for once what you really are," he answered, and to her
consternation he called her by the worst name which can be given to a
woman. And, as he spoke, he came so close to her that she could feel
his breath on her face. He said things which stung her like scalding
water. It was to such a wretch she had given herself. Her close
proximity and the scent of her best clothes gave him an inspiration.
Like lightning it flashed upon him, that the time had come to humble
her. She thought too much of herself, as she stood there with her
strong figure. She dared to wish to be independent. She was his--his
thing. He could do whatever he liked with her. But she put herself on
the defensive. He warned her first. He asked what she was thinking
of--of coercing _him?_ She! Suddenly he screamed out, "I am not afraid
of your cat's eyes."
Now a fight began in the old Kurt house--between a Kurt and his wife,
with all the strength possessed by two human beings--and on his side
with the recklessness which disappointed love of rule and thwarted will
can give: entirely alone, with closed windows and doors, and without a
word uttered. The table was overthrown, and everything on it spilt or
broken, chairs were knocked over, the new sofa pushed far out along the
floor. Down they went themselves, but were up again directly. They got
across to the other side of the room, knocking against the heavy clock;
it swayed and fell, striking him on the shoulder and head, so that he
was obliged to pause and recover himself. She had time to try a door,
or at least to alter her position, but she did neither; she looked at
herself, for she had hardly a whole garment upon her. Her hair hung
dishevelled about her, and she felt pain in her head. The only thing
she did, however, was to free herself from the remains of her
crinoline, which she threw from her, and which caught in the legs of
the table. She felt that she was bleeding. He had struck her on the
mouth and nose, and the scratches smarted. They set to again. This time
he knocked her down at once, but he gained little by it. For he was not
so much stronger than she, that he could afford to expend his strength
without soon losing all that he had gained. Hardly was one of her hands
free before she was near him again. She was as agile as a cat; he moved
slowly. He was breathless, and deadly white, as if he were going to
faint. She saw this as she stood before him, in her rags. She was
breathing hard as well, but could still go on. He now heard her speak
for the first time. It was all she could do to say between her gasps
for breath: "Won't you--try--once--more?" He went backwards towards a
chair, the only one left standing, and sank down on it. He did not look
at her, but sat there, panting and overcome. It was some time before
one or two long breaths showed that he was beginning to recover
himself. She placed herself by the stove, holding her rags about her,
and asked him to open the bedroom door; she wanted to get some clothes.
He did not answer. She scoffed at his utter weakness and misery. He
listened without a word; he pointed at her, and his face expressed how
hideous she was. His spite at last gave him words. She looked, he said,
as she stood there in her rags and with her hair torn, like the
roughest and most disgusting of drunken women. But he put no colour
into what he said, nor a single oath. "Can't you swear now?" she asked.
He took this quietly; merely got up and walked slowly to the bedroom;
took the key out of his pockets, and opened the door. As he went in he
looked at her, then fastened it behind him, leaving her standing there.
She heard him go into the bathroom and take a shower bath, and then
dress himself. She sat down and waited. After a long time he came out
again, ready for the dinner, locked the door behind him and withdrew
the key, put his hands in his pockets, and began to whistle. He went
past her, across the overthrown furniture and other litter on the
floor, without attempting to pick up anything, finally striding over
the clock-case to reach the outer door. "You will find plenty to amuse
you here," he said. He unlocked the door and locked it again outside.
She heard him take away the key.
All the people about the place thought that they had both gone out, for
everything was fastened--even the sitting-room doors, which was not, as
a rule, done. By nine o'clock perfect silence reigned over the
homestead, both within and without. It was late in August, and there
was no moon.
At ten o'clock a man walked hurriedly up the avenue. He saw no light in
any part of the great building. He mounted the steps and entered the
hall, where the darkness obliged him to grope his way to the room-door.
He was evidently unfamiliar with the place. He knocked, but received no
answer. He tried the door, it was fast. He knocked again, thundered,
waited, but no one came. Again he knocked, louder than before, and
called "Tomasine."
"Yes," was answered at once from within.
A moment later, close by the door, "Is that you, father?"
"Can you not open the door?"
He knew by her voice that she was crying.
"Where is the key, then?"
"John took it with him when he went out."
A moment's silence, and then the question, "Has he locked you in,
then?"
"Yes," was the answer amid her sobs.
She heard him turn away again and descend the steps, and, to her
astonishment, go away without a single word.
She needed some one so much. It was unbearable. She began to feel
frightened, for it must have some meaning. Why did he go? Where was he
going? To meet Kurt! What would happen? The blood began to circulate
again in her half-clad body, for as Kurt had left her she still
remained. She hurried to the window, but could see nothing, and at the
same moment she heard some one on the steps again. She ran to the door,
but could not tell by the footsteps who was coming, they advanced so
cautiously.
"Is it you, father?" she asked.
"Yes, it is I, with the keys," he answered.
He came in, and she fell sobbing on his breast. She began to speak, but
he interrupted her.
"Yes, yes, you have nothing more to be frightened about." Then he told
her plainly and shortly that John Kurt was dead. "They are now at the
steps, with the body."
Partly from her father, partly at a later time from other people, she
learned that John Kurt had eaten and drunk heavily at dinner, becoming
more and more excited. On leaving the table he swore by life and death
that he would go to a disreputable house. That would be such devilish
good fun for Tomasine. They tried to control him, but he became
perfectly beside himself, staggered forward, and fell dead.
No floral temple was built on the steps for John Kurt to be laid in.
CHAPTER VI
FIRST RESULTS, AND THOSE THAT
FOLLOWED
In the days that followed, several friends, both of Tomasine and of her
mother, came to express their sympathy and offer help, but she refused
to see any one.
During all that afternoon when she had sat locked in her room, robbed
of her clothes, her youth, her self-respect, trembling for her life,
she had called to mind that at that moment John Kurt was sitting at
table in the best society of the town. If society had not approved John
Kurt, she would never, inexperienced girl that she was, have been
sitting there. Society had surrendered her to him. Yes, surrender, that
was the word; and yet, if she were not mistaken, every one was fond of
her and respected her. She would never see them again. If she had been
free, she would have left the country. Her own fault? She saw it, saw
it. She would never show her face again.
_Now_ she was free! But something fresh bound her. A terrible
uncertainty. Was she _enceinte_, or was she not? Would she perhaps
bring another insane being into the world? For now that John was gone,
she wished to think that he had been mad, like several of his family.
Would she give birth to a child whose nature might combine any
possibilities, and afterwards be bound to it for the rest of her life,
because those people down in the town had surrendered her, and she had
not understood herself?
In the course of a few weeks she became the shadow of her former self.
It was wonderful, almost as soon as uncertainty changed to the
certainty that she was to become a mother, a feeling of solemnity came
with the decision she formed; she did not understand how it was that
she had not discovered so clear, so natural a thing before. The being
under her bosom should determine the question; if it were a miserable
little wretch everything would be at an end, she would not live to
nourish such a brat; but if the child combined the qualities of her own
honourable race with what was best in his, it would be a great, great
boon that she was left alone with it. At all events, she must wait to
see.
Tomasine was awakened, and from this time a natural grandeur began to
develop itself in her. She had borne both the actual and mental
struggles alone, alone she regulated her own character. It required
time, for her thoughts did not move quickly. She ate, rested, and
regained all her vigour. So finally everything was prepared. She first
called in the head gardener, a handsome, fair man, with a determined
manner and great powers of self-reliance. He was no other than Andreas
Berg, whose Sunday jacket John Kurt had cut to pieces. He had remained
on "The Estate" ever since. Andreas Berg, had borne everything with the
hasty-tempered old Kurt, who would undoubtedly have made him his heir,
if his son had not returned. In later times he had put up with all
John's freaks and bursts of passion.
Tomasine asked him to sit down. She inquired if he had any other
intention, than to stay with her.
"No, he wished to stay, if Fru Kurt would allow him."
She could depend on him, then?
"Yes, that she could."
The first thing she had to ask him was not to call her Fru Kurt any
longer, but Fru Rendalen, and to get the others to do the same. Their
eyes met. Hers shone uncertainly behind her spectacles; his in wide
open astonishment. But when he saw that her glasses were gradually
dimmed by the tears, which could not find a free course, and that her
flat nose worked until the spectacles slipped down on to her cheek, he
hastened to say, "Very good. That shall be done."
She took off her glasses, wiped her eyes first, and them afterwards,
and began, after a pause, with the next question.
"Dear Berg," she said, and put on her glasses, "could you not, quite
quietly, so that no one would notice, have all these portraits
destroyed--indeed, all the pictures, for I cannot always distinguish
them? Have them all burnt, or disposed of in some way, so that they do
not remain here and as soon as you can manage it. Do you understand
me?"
"Yes, Frue, but ..."
"What do you mean?"
"It would be rather difficult if no one is to see."
She considered for a while.
"Even if it is noticed, it may be done all the same, Berg."
"Very good. Then of course it shall be done."
And done it was, with an infernal smell of burnt canvas and burnt
leather, and a general smell of burning. A soft breeze drove it one
afternoon all over the town, the smoke drifting almost to the works,
out by the river-banks. She then invited her father, with all his
family, to come up to her. That was done at once. She handed over all
the housekeeping to old Mariane, and let her have what help she wanted.
The rest of the family lived in the rooms behind her own.
Soon afterwards an advertisement appeared in the local paper:
FRU TOMASINE RENDALEN
_Will resume her Instructions in English, French, and German_.
_Information to be obtained at_ "_The Estate_."
She changed her name with all legal formalities. Besides her classes,
of which she had as many as she wished, she studied book-keeping, and
soon herself began to keep the accounts of the house, garden, and
dairy. At the same time she began to learn a little about the working
of the business, the accounts of which she kept. She wished to qualify
herself to undertake it. Perhaps she would never have to do so, but it
gave her present occupation. It left no time for brooding; that was the
main thing. She was so tired every evening, that she slept the moment
her head was on the pillow, and, like all thoroughly healthy people,
she was wide awake directly she opened her eyes, and was into her bath
the next instant.
Notwithstanding this, as time went on the more oppressive became the
secret thoughts which were ever present to her mind. She had cleared
away every trace of the Kurt family, she had surrounded herself with
her own. Every time that a thought of the former presented itself to
her mind, she met it with some thought of the latter. She knew nothing
of her mother's family, but as a child she had been in Rendalen, and
there seen her father's relations, and listened to their sagas. There
was nothing remarkable about them. The family disposition, even and
rather heavy, had every now and then, after a too long period of
general respect, or when pressed to the uttermost, come out into
something uncommon, but otherwise they were an orderly race, toiling on
with quiet perseverance. But everything she knew about them, appearance
as well as disposition, she placed in opposition to all which could
come from the side of the Kurts. The Kurts were dark, the Rendalens
essentially fair; fair in hair and complexion, fair and open in
disposition. She had such practice in moving pictures in and out of her
mind, that the very moment a Kurt memory intruded, it was driven away
by a commanding fair Rendalen without eyebrows. The result was, that
dark or light became a sort of finality with her. The outward
appearance was a sign of the inward disposition; the first sight of her
child, therefore, might well determine her life. Her whole anxiety
centred itself upon that first moment.
The nearer the great moment came, the more her dread increased. Her
ordinary occupations no longer sufficed to deaden it. She dismissed her
pupils and took part in the work, both in the house and out of doors.
The spring was late that year, and in her ardour she let herself take
cold; she struggled against it as long as she could, but at last she
was obliged to keep indoors, and take to her bed. And now her anxiety
so entirely got the better of her that she fancied, before the time,
that the birth-pains were upon her, and became absolutely light-headed.
She again began the struggle with John Kurt, and even when, completely
exhausted, her mind became clear, her anxiety by no means subsided. The
first sight of the child would be enough, and in her distress and
desperation she came to believe that dark or light hair would be
decisive. "If it is dark," she thought, "I am doomed--I shall be unable
to bend the child. And it _will_ be dark, the Kurt race is so strong.
Its fierce strength has already impressed itself too deeply upon me,
its fancies overshadow me. I cannot even think as I will."
She tried to gain comfort from the answering thought that old Konrad
Kurt had been worthy. "There are good qualities in the Kurt family;
seeds of good which perhaps will grow again in the child which will be
born. Even if the good be not unmixed--I do not ask so much--but if it
may be the stronger." She prayed for it--ah! how she prayed!--until she
remembered that it was too late!--it had been decided long ago. She
constantly saw the back of a neck brooding over her--the neck in the
picture of the first Kurt. She used her old power, to call up images of
her own people against it, but the fair race would not shine. The neck
remained. It had no right to be there, it was no longer in the Kurt
family; neither Konrad Kurt had it, nor John.
"Take away that neck," she cried to those near her. And with the sound
of "Away, take it away," new fancies shaped themselves around her. John
Kurt appeared, to tell her that he would never go away. She would
never, by all the devils, get rid of him. His white forehead gleamed,
and he swore till nothing but r-r-r-r thrilled and drummed close up
beside her cheek.
To such a degree was she exhausted by this inward struggle, that it was
a relief when the birth-pains began in reality, imperiously commanding
all else to stand aside.
All fever had left her, and she bravely gathered her strength together,
but it was less than any one supposed. Therefore it was a long time
before she heard a feeble cry, and "A son, Frue, you have a son," and
afterwards, gently and kindly, "Tomasine, you have a son."
A gentle peace had filled her. It was soon broken. She collected her
thoughts at the word "son"--she had a son. The wave of peace broke
against a wave of dread. "His hair?" she contrived to whisper. She
could not say more. "Red, Frue." She had a dim idea that that might be
either dark or light, perhaps more likely dark. It was not clear--it
was---- And everything passed away from her.
For some time those near did not notice her. No one imagined that this
powerful woman could be fainting, and therefore some time elapsed
before she was brought round, and there was some alarm. It was only by
degrees that she realised what had happened--what the whimpering was
she heard somewhere--why she had a remembrance of pain. The child was
now clothed, and they lifted it up to her, but still not near enough.
She could not see it properly. She wished to sign to them to bring it
nearer, but it was difficult; she could neither do it with her voice,
nor by moving her head, and she did not think of her hand, or perhaps
she could not move it. But some one was there who understood, and held
the baby up to her, so that it touched her cheek, just where she had
felt its father's breath. She felt something soft, something warm,
something delicate, the softest thing she had ever touched. She heard a
cluck, a whimper, and now she saw--the eyebrows, they were her own, her
family's light sparse bristles.
It was too much joy, too much happiness. Her blood circulated more
quickly, and soon the warmth came to her cheeks, the tears to her eyes.
She lay there weeping quietly, while her little one was held fast to
her motherly breast.
With God's help, she would try to accomplish the rest.
III
A LECTURE
CHAPTER I
DETHRONED
Fru Tomasine Rendalen herself carried the child to the font, and gave
him her own name.
Little Tomas's cradle stood by the side of the bed in which she slept.
The room was both her reading and working room. The other remained
vacant as though only for show. Through her friends in England,
France, and Germany she obtained books in three languages on the
bringing up of children. But she soon laid them aside; they were all
either too vague, or too dogmatic. She began to widen her acquirements
in other respects. She wished to be his teacher in everything. But,
from the time that he was six months old her work was much interrupted,
for he was a most restless child. The doctor assured her that, so far
as he could see, the boy ailed nothing. He did not scream from pain.
If, at the moment he opened his eyes, for example, the person he wanted
was not there--that is to say, the one who could give him food--he not
only screamed till she came, which was to be expected, but after she
had come and had forced him to drink, he screamed while the milk ran
out of his mouth, and continued to give blows, slaps, and spiteful
cries. He could not forget. If there were anything he did not like, he
screamed himself black in the face, and made himself rigid. Sometimes
it seemed to Tomasine as though she had a log on her lap, and not a
human being. When he was nine months old, she was obliged to give up
nursing him, for he kept her in such a state of irritation and terror,
that his health became affected through her. The struggle which ensued
on this, was terrible. It lasted altogether for three days and nights,
during which time he could only be induced to touch a drop of the
strange food by artifice.
As Tomasine hung about in the outer room or in the passage, listening
to the hoarse screams, for he had no voice left--not allowed to see
him, or go to his help--she remembered more than once, with shame, what
she had thought and determined before he was born. The boy cried
inside, the mother outside, and no one could get her away. And this,
his first great fight in the world, to keep possession of his mother's
breast, had no happy influence upon him, for from that time he tried,
more than ever, to get everything by screaming.
Tomasine was a strong, long-suffering woman, but she became thin and
nervous. She hoped that things would improve as he grew bigger, and
waited till he should be a year old; but still had to wait, for the
stronger he grew the more persistently he screamed. Some new method
must be adopted. The specialists did not touch on this, or else she had
not understood them. She consulted experienced people, and was advised
to keep him continually amused. That answered for a while. He was quiet
when he saw anything new, but he would not look at the same thing more
than twice at the outside. If she forgot this, he became so furious
that the very newest thing in the world would not pacify him. Some one
else advised her to let the child scream as much as he liked. Eternal
Powers, how he yelled! If he had been chosen as the representative of
all the sorrow and trouble in the town he could not have done better.
"No," thought Tomasine, "that will torture the life out of both him and
me." So she turned to the exactly opposite course, and tried to guess
his thoughts before he had formed them, and indulged him in everything.
This helped, but if she guessed wrong, there was no use in guessing
right afterwards.
At last his maternal retainer and slave, like many before her, was
brought to such a state of distress and despair, that she determined to
revolt. The little despot must be dethroned. The revolution broke out
with six slaps on his little person. All the horrors of a civil war
at once showed themselves. But six, seven, eight to twelve slaps
followed. To give up one's power before one's life, is hard even for a
not-two-years-old tyrant, so the battle lasted several hours until--he
gave in? No, that he would not do, but he fell asleep.
Tomasine was so worn out by months of worry, anxiety, and sleepless
nights, and finally by the fight itself, that she was trembling and
bathed in perspiration. She stood over him as he slept, as David is
said to have stood over Saul. She grieved for his fallen greatness. She
heard him sob as he lay there in his helplessness. She saw the last
tear dry on his cheek, the convulsive movements of his chubby hands,
and the twitching of the thin skin of his head. Who should be good to
him if not she? How she longed for his waking, that she might let him
see her face with its gentlest expression, and caress him, and practise
all those small arts which are the delight of every mother! More than
all, she longed to make him screw up his mouth for a kiss. When he did
that, he was irresistible.
At last he began to move and to rub his hand over his nose. In her
impatience she put her hands under him, and laid her face down to his
head, to breathe the warm fragrance from it.
He screwed up his mouth for a grimace; despair rose darker and darker
in his eyes, and at last he gave a shriek, a frightful and frightening
shriek, while he thrust himself away from her, with hands, head, and
body.
She was obliged hastily to let go of him, and call her sister. To her,
the little arms were raised at once, and he pressed himself closely to
her, so as to be thoroughly safe.
The forsaken mother stood and looked on. She felt as though she had
been driven round the whole compass, and was now at the same point from
which she had started some months before. Her first feeling was one of
miserable helplessness, then came a strong sense of shame, and suddenly
she snatched the boy away from her sister, and dressed him herself,
whether he would or no.
He screamed the whole time, and when he was dressed, and would not take
food from her, a perfect hail of slaps and rain of scolding ensued, nor
did she leave off till he really struggled to be quiet; checking the
sound so suddenly that he gasped for breath as though he were choking.
By degrees the rebellion was reduced to subdued sounds strongly
restrained; whenever they broke out again they were forced back. At
last he showed that he was entirely subdued by screwing up his mouth
for a kiss, to prove to her that it really was against his will if a
cry every now and then escaped him. It was comically touching. He was
finally forced to eat, and, now completely mastered, he sobbed himself
to sleep.
Tomasine went out for a walk, and on her return sat once more,
anxiously waiting for his awakening. He had hardly opened his eyes, and
seen her, before there were threatenings of a prolonged howl, but he
restrained it from fear; nay, he even held out his hands to her as she
stood smiling over him. There have been many more fortunate conquerors,
both before and since the time, when Fru Tomasine Rendalen deposed her
son, and seated herself on his throne. Besides which, the pleasure was
diminished by the knowledge that she should have done this at first,
long, long ago; but all the same she was just as delighted with her
tardy victory, as any general could have been with a more timely one,
and as she lay down that night, she was as weary and as confident
as the conqueror of a city. At that time Tomas was a year and nine
months old. She thoroughly understood that this struggle would not be
the last, but with that knowledge came the conviction that in the
uncertain voyaging through which his whims had led him, he had
discovered his mother. From that time forward she would be his
mainland. She soon obtained a proof of this. Whether it were in the
intoxication of victory that she began to wear a cap, or whether it
were a long-nourished plan for concealing the hair which had always
annoyed her, and putting something visible in its place, the fact
remains that the cap first appeared at this time. The boy must and
would have it off. For his sake she had temporarily offered up her
spectacles, against which he had also waged war. But she would not
sacrifice her cap. Now many people are content to lose the realities of
power, but cannot bear to be deprived of its symbols; and to be able to
lord it over his mother's hair and head was a great, a strong proof of
power, which he would not give up.
And so a fight ensued, but he yielded before things had reached a
climax. His little hands were pushed back time after time, and always
with more force, notwithstanding his screams, till suddenly he flung
himself on her neck, and the little war ended charmingly.
She was a happy mother as she looked forward to his second birthday. An
English friend, with whom she exchanged letters from time to time,
since she no longer visited in the town, had sent her, for this great
day, Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield," at that time the most
popular novel in England. The book came a day too soon. She read a
great deal of it at once, and all the life-like forms gathered
themselves round little Tomas for his own day, when he was to be
dressed in new clothes from top to toe. She dreamt of little Em'ly and
little Tomas. She woke on his birthday morning a little earlier than
he. He was lying quite still. He had not disturbed her the whole night,
a thing which did not happen once in two months. Proud and happy, she
gave him his birthday greeting. The first hours passed in unbroken
delight. At nine o'clock he was sitting on the floor of the parlour,
dressed in his new clothes and surrounded by all the toys which she and
her family had given him. She herself sat by the window, dressed in her
best, reading "David Copperfield." She had tried having the window
open, to enjoy the fresh air, but the spring day was rather cold.
After a time she was called into the kitchen. He never liked her to
leave him, but he was so occupied at that moment, that she thought she
might venture, though she took the precaution of going through the
bedroom and across the hall into the kitchen. She left the kitchen-door
open, for fear he should think her too long gone, and begin to call for
her.
In the parlour all remained quiet, suspiciously quiet. He had in fact
closely observed the book that his mother was reading, for, according
to the English fashion, it had a bright-coloured binding, with a
picture on it.
He noticed that she put it down on the table, and felt that he too
should like to read a little of it, if he could do so without
interruption. He dropped his toys as soon as ever he was alone, got up,
and toddled off, pushed a stool forward, when he found he could not
reach up, pulled the book on to the floor, and sat himself down beside
it.
Some time elapsed before he again learnt, as he had done previously,
but had forgotten, that it is not easy to read a number of pages at
once, but, on the contrary, one should take them one or two at a time;
that did very well. Then he tore them out of the book, they were so
much easier to read in that way.
After the first one or two, he took them out several at a time, twenty
in all, before his mother returned. They soon had a difference of
opinion over this style of reading. She lost her temper, and took the
book hastily from him, telling him sharply, that he knew quite well
that he ought not to touch her books. He was frightened at first, but
after a while he stretched out both his hands and said, "Me book, mama,
me book."
She naturally took no notice of him, so he came up to her and repeated
very coaxingly, "Me book, mama, me book." "No," she answered sharply,
for unluckily the book had been shamefully treated, just at the place
where she was reading. He waited a little, but began again, "Me book,
mama, me book." She remembered that it was his birthday, and answered
him more gently, showing him what harm he had done. He listened and
answered, "Me book, mama, me book."
Some sweets were lying there; she gave him some, which he ate up,
saying, as he did so, "Me book, mama, me book." She laid the book
aside, took him up, and danced round with him, then set him down among
his toys, and went back to smooth out the crumpled leaves. He was soon
by her side again, reaching up to the table with one hand, while he
steadied himself with the other: "Me book, mama, me book." Once more
she left her occupation, and fetched his outdoor things in order to go
out with him.
This he would not have on any terms. He made himself as stiff as a
poker, but she was determined that out he should go. They remained in
the garden for an hour, and he amused himself while he was there.
While she was taking off his things again in the parlour, he stretched
his disengaged hand towards the table: "Me book, mama, me book," saying
it with the most coaxing tone and look of which he was capable. She
thought it the best way to appear deaf to it, and gave herself up to
cutting bits of paper, in order to gum them over the torn leaves. It
was slow work, and all the time he stood, and begged, and prayed,
giving little stamps, and stretching himself up: "Me book, mama, me
book."
"He will stop some time," she thought, but he was still persevering
when she had accomplished her task.
She was very anxious to leave his society for that of the characters in
the book, who were certainly much more amusing, but she did not wish to
be cross, and so began to play the flute--that is to say, she moved her
fingers as though she were playing a piccolo, whistling at the same
time; a performance in which she had a good deal of practice.
He pulled and dragged at her dress, and she replied with her flute. She
became quite merry over it, and her merriment increased when he became
angry, and called out "No, no," to her playing, and cried, and hit her.
The flute playing became much quicker; he would not leave off, nor
would she; the spirits of the Kurts were in every chink and corner.
Then the child threw himself down on his back on the floor, drumming
with his heels and screaming in good earnest. She played on, but more
softly, for she felt that it was actually he who had won, while she was
teasing him.
She could not take up the old fight again at once. In one moment the
flute-playing changed to crying--helpless, inconsolable crying. The
boy, who in the midst of his anger, had kept a sharp watch on her, was
so astonished that he forgot to scream. She had been suddenly seized by
her old dread, and neither saw nor heard anything, till she felt
something warm against one of her hands. She had let it hang as she
flung herself backward in her misery, raising the other to her face.
She lifted her head, and looked into a wondering face, the tear-stained
face of her own red-haired boy.
As soon as he saw her look at him, he put up his lips for a kiss,
stretching out his hands to her. So the little flat nose was lifted up
to the big one, and she murmured, and prattled, and fondled him, all
over his face and head, as he held his arms round her neck. She did not
take the book again. She kept him instead, and he never once looked
towards the table where it lay. That was their last great struggle.
There were a thousand lesser ones, of course, but never one which
lasted more than a few minutes.
CHAPTER II
ON THE MOUNTAIN
Tomasine always had her boy under her own care; the lively, clever
child needed a watchful eye; but all the same she looked forward to his
fourth birthday with good courage, and on that day something chanced,
which made her form a determination.
Tomas had had several playfellows; as he was accustomed to be alone he
always wanted things his own way, so he had not been very good-natured.
On his fourth birthday he received, among other presents, a book about
brothers and sisters, which told how good brothers were to their
sisters, so indulgent and helpful; this was illustrated by sketches in
which the little brother always led his little sister by the hand.
Tomas derived another idea in the meantime from the book; he asked "Why
he had not a sister too? Could he not get one?"
Tomasine Rendalen had certainly often remembered that he had a sister,
but not as a matter which concerned herself; it did not seem to her of
any further consequence, but he begged so continuously, that she began
to think a little more seriously about it. Suppose his sister should be
in want? The property had been John Kurt's, and it had prospered
greatly, thanks to his own plan, that of extending the gardens further
up the hill, thus making them nearly twice as large. John Kurt's child
must be properly provided for, there ought to be no doubt about it.
She made inquiries about the child, and learned that her little
namesake lived with her grandmother, Marit Stoeen, "Mother Stoea," as
they called her, the widow of the pilot who had gained a great
reputation on that coast. Marit Stoeen lived up on the mountain,
therefore to the left of "The Estate": Tomasine decided to see the
child.
As there was no hurry about it, she determined to do so the first fine
Sunday. As it chanced, the weather for a number of Sundays was bad, so
it was full summer before one came which tempted her to go. Andreas
Berg accompanied her.
The road to the mountain led to the left from the market-place, past
the new churchyard, and further out into the country. But after that,
when they turned towards the mountain, the way was more of a quagmire
than a road.
Till that time the poorer people of the town had been allowed to build
as they liked, and live as they could, and a regular road was only just
being constructed. Down by the sea, the boats lay side by side, as
close together as possible, for the left side of the mountain sheltered
them. All round the boats, and in them, were a number of children,
mostly little ones, and there was as much noise as if there were a
thousand of them.
Tomasine wondered if the one she sought were there as well. She looked
into each wild little face to see if she could find anything familiar.
It was not a pleasant occupation. The rough children gathered round her
in a swarm, when she inquired for Mark Stoeen, and at least twenty
pointed up the hill. But she could not distinguish what they said to
her all together. Nor did she wish to stay, but, with Andreas Berg,
began to climb all the corkscrew turnings of the road.
The shouts from below followed her, but none of the children, so that
she concluded that none of them had anything to do with Marit Stoeen.
It was a rough road, over the solid rock for the most part, though here
and there a step had been made, and now and then it had been slightly
hollowed.
It turned from left to right and from right to left; there were not
four houses standing on the same level. And how extraordinary many of
them were! Some nothing more than a ship's caboose, with a broad
penthouse over it. There were several with the stairs leading to the
upper story built outside, and, in one or two, they went right across
the roof, to an attic room which had been added later. Many were so
built that the lower story had its exit to the west, with the road on a
level with the door, but the upper story had an exit to the east, for
there the road and door were still on the same level.
Almost all the houses had odd outbuildings, mostly boats standing up,
with one end cut off, though in some cases boats were used as roofs, by
being turned upside down and supported by walls of boards or stone.
Little strips of garden wound in and out everywhere, often in the most
unlikely places, where they were so narrow that two turnips could
hardly grow side by side. Rank odours of all sorts, sometimes
pleasantly modified by the smell of tar, hung over the whole mountain,
rising and spreading as a rich offering up into the Sabbath sky--all
according to the ordinary customs in that part of the world.
The noise of the children down by the sea came ringing up the hillside
like a constant chime, now and then broken by a cry. A cock crowed; a
dog on board one of the ships in the harbour barked at a passing boat,
and was answered by some shaggy comrade on the mountain. Otherwise all
was still; they only heard their own steps crunching on the gravel,
and, as they got higher up, something like the frantic screaming of a
child.
Tomasine looked out over the islands, and the Sound, away to the open
sea--shining and still and clear under the sky. In the streets of the
town a few people were walking about, and, in some places, little
groups of children. But it was too far off for any sound to mingle with
the shouts of those below.
To the right lay "The Estate," the first column of smoke, just curling
from the kitchen chimney; all round here the chimneys had been smoking
for a long time, and a little smoke hung here and there over the town.
The day was warm. They toiled, perspiring, up the mountain-side, and
she thought of those who, after a day's hard work, had every evening to
climb these twenty, thirty, or even fifty stages for supper, wood
chopping, and bed.
She did not meet a single person, though she saw several, mostly old
men, sitting before the doors with their pipes. The working men
generally slept till dinner time on Sundays, and the women were all by
the kitchen fires. Here and there an idle lass might be seen, sitting
on a step, chatting to a girl-friend who had most likely come up to
join in the evening's amusements. Or perhaps a young sailor, who, with
his pipe in his mouth, and his hands in his pockets, leant over a wall
talking to a girl who stood shyly before him.
Little more than half-way up they came upon a party of lads and girls
who lay or sat round a large flat stone. There was no noise or talking;
Tomasine did not know they were there, until she was close upon them.
They were in the very worst of the smells, but that did not seem to
affect them. What could they be engaged in? There was nothing to show
it. She inquired the way, and one or two half rose, while one, who was
older, answered her, pointing to a red house with white painted
window-frames.
Tomasine had just wiped her spectacles and she could see the house, but
she also saw distinctly by their manner that they all knew her, and
every one guessed just what she wanted at Mother Stoea's. No one said
anything, but she heard a little tittering and whispering when she had
gone by.
She asked Berg what they could be doing, since they were all so quiet;
and he replied that he believed that the boys were playing cards, and
the girls looking on, but that, as it was at the time of the Sunday
sermon, they hid the cards away if a stranger went by. She began to
reflect on the difference between the working people in a little
Norwegian town and those of a large foreign city, raising thereby many
old memories. But something occupied her along with her thinking, a
disagreeable something which would not leave off. What was that? Yes,
it was the same frantic screaming from up the hill. Now that she came
nearer, she recognised it, and it brought a painful feeling with it. It
was her son's old, spiteful scream. There was no doubt of it--the same
to such a degree in tone of voice, in description, and vigour, that it
tortured and stabbed her. Could it be his sister who was up there
scoffing at her? She had been hot before, and now she was in a glow;
some of the old dread seized upon her, bewildering thoughts from the
old days, of struggles with her son. But, "Frue, you are going too
fast," called Andreas Berg from lower down the hill; she could hardly
see him, her glasses were dim; she took them off and wiped them, and
her eyes as well, drew a long breath and began to laugh. Berg came up
slowly. The child's crying continued, but now that she had recovered
her senses, she noticed that it came from the right, while she could
see Marit Stoeen's house, the red one with white window-frames, almost
exactly before her on the slope to the left; it was the largest house
up there, and undoubtedly the one she had seen, she could not be
mistaken; she felt quite lighthearted as she walked towards it.
They could not go straight to it, but were obliged to make a circuit
and come back along Marit Stoeen's garden fence, which had also been
painted, though evidently not so recently.
The two windows of the house looked out towards the garden, and there
was an extensive view from them, but the door was in the end wall to
the left, to which a porch had been added, with a few steps leading up
to it. All was quiet here, inside and out, but the jubilant voices of
the little ones below, and the screams of the angry child from the
other side, further away, met in the air.
The garden, along which they passed, was the largest they had seen on
the mountains, though certainly neither it, nor the house, were what
one would call well kept. But there was comfort, or whatever one might
call it: Tomasine hesitated for the right word. She now saw a child
with dark hair and bright, wondering eyes, who got up from the steps,
letting something fall from her lap, as she ran quickly into the
house-place. Immediately afterwards there appeared a tall elderly
woman, with dark untidy hair, and a handsome and intelligent, though
rather dirty face. The woman at once recognised Tomasine, who now came
up the steps and entered the porch.
"Have you come to see us, Frue?" she asked, smiling.
Tomasine was again busy with her eternal spectacles, and when she put
them on again, the woman had tidied up the place as well as she could,
with the little girl clinging with both hands to her skirt, so that,
however the woman turned, the child was hidden from the strange lady.
Andreas Berg remained outside. Marit Stoeen apologised for her untidy
room, with a pleasant voice and simple skill. It was getting on to
dinner-time, she said, and everything certainly ought to be very
different. But there had been a dance there the evening before. They
like to keep it up a long time, you see. She would still less like to
ask the lady to come into the parlour, for it was even worse, she said,
laughing. It was by no means a small sum that she made by letting the
room, and by the coffee she sold. Her room was the largest on that
side; for the mountain was divided in two as it were. "The people here
will have nothing to do with those on the other side." And she laughed
again.
Tomasine Rendalen had taken a seat, but when she began to look round
the room, she found that the spectacles must come off again. She was
warmer than she had supposed. As she took them off, she asked after the
child's mother. The woman replied that Petrea was married.
"Married!"
"Yes, to a mate of the name of Aslaksen. He was a smart, clever fellow,
and he would have her. They did not live here any longer," she said,
and proceeded to explain their circumstances in detail. "Aslaksen would
soon get a ship."
The child peeped now and again from behind her grandmother's skirts,
and each time Tomasine glanced towards her. She had a shock of dark
hair like her grandmother's, and in other respects was a blending of
John Kurt and the woman standing before her--a blending which, she
could not deny it, gave her a feeling of aversion. And yet the little
thing was pretty. She had undoubtedly Kurt's wild eyes, but there was
laughter in them as well as wildness.
"So the child remains with you?" said Tomasine, pointing with her
parasol to where she was hiding.
"The child, yes, she's all right," answered the grandmother, while she
patted her grandchild's head. "John Kurt, he paid for Petrea, as soon
as ever she had her misfortune. And had a christening, so grand as you
would hardly believe, and along a' that, he gives her a savings-bank
book with a hundred specie-daler in it, and his father gave her another
on top of it with just as much in it again." And Marit Stoeen began to
cry from sheer gratitude, because John Kurt had given two hundred daler
to his own child.
Up to that time Tomasine had had no idea of this "Have you any of the
money left?" she asked.
"I should think we have some of it left," laughed Marit; "why that is a
likely idea that the little 'un could want it all." She laughed, and
again took hold of the child's curly head, and drew it towards her. But
the little one slipped back again directly.
"Is she not very much in the way, now you are alone and have to work?"
"Oh! as for that, no. We are not so particular as all that comes to.
She sits herself away somewhere;" and she turned half round, laughing,
towards the child behind her.
"Is she easy to manage--not passionate?"
"Oh! not so bad," laughed Marit; "and she's so comical as well, poor
little thing." And she now forcibly pulled her forward, the child still
struggling against her. "Now, now, don't be such a silly."
Tomasine, however, did not wish to come into close contact with the
child. So she got up, and looked round the house-place. The hearth was
in the corner of the inner room; close by the window stood the table,
with the remains of breakfast on it; a coffee-cup and a milk-bowl, with
the dregs still in them.
On the wall opposite, and also on that between the fire-place and the
door, hung some daguerreotypes, and two or three pictures were nailed
up as well. The daguerreotypes, of course, represented Aslaksen and
Petrea. Fru Rendalen passed these without looking at them. The pictures
were, one a large ship in full sail, the others, the new Emperor and
Empress of the French. As Tomasine had never seen any likeness of the
latter she went up to them. The Emperor, who had a large nose, looked
about twenty-four; the Empress was but lightly clad, though she looked
all the same a very innocent little girl of hardly sixteen.
"They are only the sort o' things they carry about to sell," explained
Marit. "I thought it would be amusing like to have her. She was not
born to it, nor, for the matter of that, was he."
Tomasine was now opposite the open door. "Good gracious!" she
exclaimed, "what child can that be who is always screaming?"
Marit laughed. "Oh! that's Lars Tobiassen's boy, that is."
"He never does anything else but scream," was suddenly heard from the
little girl behind her grandmother's gown. She came forward in her
excitement. Then, frightened at the sound of her own voice, she hid her
head again.
"Perhaps the lady knows Lars Tobiassen?" inquired Marit.
Tomasine noticed something in her voice. "No, what is he?"
"It is rather a difficult job to say, that," answered Marit. "He's such
a lot of things. He's a hard drinker, he is. He's turned butcher
lately, for they say as drinking won't do no harm in that business.
Have you never seen him?"
"No, why do you ask me?"
"Ah, I don't hardly like to say anything about it," and she laughed
rather slyly.
"But why not?"
"Well, I only says what others says to me. It was not as found it out,"
and she laughed again.
"What is said, then?"
"Well, folk do say that he's a Kurt too. Not any of them last ones, but
a bit further back."
She saw this made some impression on Tomasine, and hastily added, "Like
enough, it's nought but talk. He's like no Kurt that ever I saw. He's a
rare fighter, he is."
"Some of the Kurts have been that too," answered Tomasine, by way of
saying something; and she turned to the window and looked out.
"Yes, I've heard that," answered Marit; "there are two sorts of 'em.
Some fat and dark, and others just as thin; but they have always been
good-natured, the most of 'em. Folk can say what they will, but to the
poor people...." Her hand sought the child.
Tomasine turned at the moment and beckoned to Marit. Through the window
they could see a number of people beyond the garden-fence. Andreas Berg
was there as well, talking to some of them, perhaps to keep them there,
and prevent them from coming to the door. They were mostly young. Now
she saw that they were the same whom she had passed down below, sitting
round the flat stone; a few others might perhaps have joined them. They
all stood staring up at the window.
"My, what a lot there are!" cried Marit.
"Do you see that ragged boy, with the fair curly hair?" asked Tomasine.
"Yes, he is easy enough to see," and Marit's voice showed that she
understood what Tomasine wished to know. "He is the son of young Consul
Fuerst, and like enough to his father." It was true. That curly hair,
those blue eyes, re-recalled the partner of many a dance. Tomasine
blushed crimson. "Why, my gracious, and you did not know before, Frue?
Well, it's my turn to ask you something now," she continued. "Do you
know that lass over there, as is holding her petticoat on with her
hand? She has pulled off the string, poor thing. Her, without much more
on than her shift. Her with hair as is neither yellow nor red, and a
ridiculous white skin. Dear me, _that_ one over there. Can't you really
see who she is?" Yes, Tomasine had done so long ago; she had had plenty
of practice in the foreign schools in recognising parents by their
children, and children by their parents. "Yes, she's Froeken Engel right
enough, if any one chose to call her so," laughed Marit, "though she's
not dressed in silks." Tomasine drew back from the window.
Again Marit laughed, though this time not altogether without malice.
"One sees the wrong side of the world up here on the mountain."
Tomasine hastened to say that she had thought of giving the child sixty
daler a year. Here was the first thirty for the past six months. If
Marit needed any more help, she must come and tell her. When the child
was bigger, they would talk of what was further to be done with her.
Marit stood with the money in her hand: "That really was something, far
more than any one could expect; if everybody behaved like that when any
one had a misfortune...." And she began to cry again.
In the meantime the child had let go the dress, rousing up when she
heard that there were people outside in the garden. She had sidled
right into the porch. She now came rushing in again, while loud
laughter from outside rang through the house. The little girl only said
"Lars Tobiassen," seized her grandmother's dress with both her hands,
and huddled it round her. Tomasine, frightened lest he should be coming
in, went hurriedly to the door without even saying goodbye, tying her
bonnet strings, which she had loosened, as she went. In so doing she
nearly fell, and had a narrow escape of descending the steps quicker
than she had intended. But Lars Tobiassen had just passed. The laughter
seemed to have burst out as he clambered up the steps to the right. He
was roaring drunk.
Tomasine came out just as, with his back towards her, he had surmounted
the first obstacle. She noticed his close-cropped neck. Where had she
seen that bronze bull-neck before, and the point of hair in the middle?
Oh! Heavens, that fearful neck which had hung over her, the night
her child was born. The eldest Kurt's neck: that was it. And the
bull-necked man now called out, "Now just you wait--devil take you!
I'll give you something to scream for, I will." Tomasine was down
the steps, out of the garden, through the crowd; she would not hear
that swearing again, nor the sound of blows, and not, oh! not that
half-insane screaming. She rather flew than walked through the people,
who made way for her. But barely sufficient, so that she jostled
against several of them, and when the descent began, she sprang from
step to step, fancying she heard laughter behind her, but only running
on the faster. She was fit to drop, but would not give in.
Notwithstanding all her efforts, she could hear behind her the
incessant terrified cries of the child, the drunken voice, and a
woman's passionate scream. Dogs woke up and barked, but not near enough
to drown the shriek, that fearful shriek, until, thank God, the bells
from the two churches in the town began to ring at the same moment,
filling the whole air with their clangour. She had come to the flat
stone where the young people had been. It was deserted now; she sank
down on it, and burst into tears. At last Andreas Berg came after her.
His dignified pace made her feel that she had behaved somewhat
strangely. She dare not wait till he got up with her, but without
looking round she walked on. Her knees trembled, but she would no
longer allow herself to be hunted by phantoms. The blessed church bells
saved her from hearing anything else, and they continued till she was
right down at the bottom. The children were no longer there. It was
dinner-time.
A quarter of an hour later she was sitting with her little boy in her
lap. He was very much puzzled by her excitement and tears, assuring her
eagerly that he had been "dood" the whole time. She thanked him for it
over and over again, with caresses, hugs, and kisses, but cried all the
more. Now she began to feel how bad it had been of her never to lay her
hand on his little sister's head, although she had been "dood" too.
The boy's playthings lay strewn around him. She remembered the bit of
firewood, with an apron round it, which his little sister had let fall
when she ran frightened away from the door-step. Tomasine had noticed
it, for she almost fell over it as she hurried away. But nothing had
melted her. Yet the child could not help having the same father! No, it
was Tomasine who had not been "dood" that morning.
CHAPTER III
THE CHILD
The first result of this visit was that Tomasine felt she must have
some one to talk to, for there were other bad inheritances in the world
beside the Kurts'. She must gain further knowledge. Without hesitation
she chose the man for whom she had the greatest respect, "Old Green."
Now as surely as the afternoon came old Green passed by. The way he
took was along the garden, on the right, where the road used to run,
and where a path still led up to the woods. This walk among the hills
and woods was Dean Green's favourite one. Tomasine began to watch for
him, but lately he had hardly ever been alone. Nils Hansen, the
shoemaker, was generally with him, the greatest character in the town,
and married to a lady whom Tomasine had known abroad, and who had been
one of her friends.
One day, as Tomasine had stationed herself at the gate, to watch if the
Dean were alone, she heard him and Hansen far down the slope. Mormonism
was beginning at this time to be made known in the North by its first
emissaries. The newspapers constantly contained something about this
new teaching. Nils Hansen was talking loudly. "Mormonism," he said, "we
are as good Mormons here as in America. How many wives has a man before
he is married in church, and afterwards as well? The merchants are the
worst, but there are others beside."
They had drawn nearer before the Dean answered. "Look you, Hansen. I
take it for granted that the races which have attained to monogamy,
actual monogamy...."
"And what sort of thing may that be?"
The Dean stood still. "It means having one wife. Polygamy is having
several wives."
"Oh! that's it, is it."
"The races which have really and truly come to be monogamists,"
continued the Dean, "are but few. The most part are still polygamists."
They walked on again.
Nils Hansen agreed. "Yes, that is--devil take it--my opinion as well."
The Dean: "Progress consists in this, that the disgrace...." She heard
no further.
"There are bad inheritances in the world beside the Kurts," thought
Tomasine again. "How otherwise could he have been endured: nay, even
liked? No doubt he appealed to some secret feeling in most of them."
As she had not the courage to go straight down to Dean Green, she went
first to Nils Hansen's. It was generally said of Nils Hansen, that he
flourished, and that in the greatest prosperity, on the hatred of the
whole town. His crime consisted in his having several years before
mustered the lesser townsfolk in a struggle against those of more
importance, or rather in the fact that he had been victorious. He had
taken the town councillorship from them, seized the pews in church, so
that now every one had equal rank and place there. He had had
everything supervised and the financial estimates inspected, in a way
that the leading people looked upon as extremely wrong. His worse
villainy admittedly was, that, aided by some pecuniary help from
non-residents, he had established a bank for poor people, called the
penny bank, which had helped a number of the lower orders, even in some
cases bringing them quite to independence; for all the vested
interests, his sharp and amusing answers were like a wireworm at the
root of a tree.
It had aroused incredible merriment when a school-mistress in the town,
a pretty, fair woman, with more than usual endowments, and even with
the expectation of a fortune, refused several eligible offers, to
engage herself to rough, rude, shoemaker Hansen. She was desperately in
love with him into the bargain. She smiled and blushed if he were so
much as named, and it can be imagined what it was when he himself hove
in sight--one shoulder a little higher than the other, by the way--with
his odd face, blinking eyes, broad shoulders, and huge hands. Endless
jokes were made behind their backs, because, both while they were
engaged, and afterwards when they were married, she taught Hansen, and
he boasted of it. But they afterwards felt the result of this
schooling, and paid for it as well. She was older than Tomasine, and
had once been some months with her in England. When Tomasine returned,
Fru Hansen had been married a year, and was therefore somewhat outside
the circle in which the former moved, though she often went to see her,
for she was very fond of the healthy, clear-headed little housewife.
It was therefore with her that Tomasine was especially angry when it
transpired what kind of man John Kurt was. Why had she not by a single
word dissuaded her from taking him? After his death Laura Hansen had
tried to have some talk with Tomasine, but in vain. But now the latter
thought, "Perhaps most wives have something to complain of, and yet
this does not prevent girls from marrying; so why should I have
expected them to advise me to act differently from what they would have
done themselves?" So she went down to Laura Hansen.
They lived in a small, old house on the marketplace, next door to
Fuerst's. The queer building, with a narrow alley on one side and a
large door leading to the rambling courtway on the other, was the
inheritance which Laura had expected, and now possessed. She was a
slender but well-grown woman, with an open countenance. Some people
considered her sullen, some thought her shy: that depended very much on
what was passing. By some she was called talkative, by others sparing
of her words. She took both people and circumstances into
consideration. The friends had not met for five years. Laura sat sewing
in the room behind the shop, the one with the window towards the alley.
She rose, astonished, flushed, and somewhat agitated. Tomasine was
really once more in her house. They were both a little stiff at first.
A little dark-haired, thickset girl sat on a stool learning to sew. She
looked solemnly up at them, but was soon sent out of the room. Her
mother understood at once that they two, friends of old days, must be
alone, and make it up together. And they did so.
After several introductory remarks, Tomasine laid her complaint against
Laura and her other friends, considerately, but still clearly.
Laura answered: "When a girl does not allow herself to be hindered by
the kind of life that John Kurt led, there is no use in any one else
talking to her about it." Laura, for her part, had refused several men
just because their conduct in that particular had been doubtful, or
more than doubtful. But Hansen, she knew, was honourable in that
respect as in others.
The tall Tomasine felt very small under little Laura's steady gaze and
quiet words. She fell from the position of accuser to that of accused,
and her fall was no trifling one. She had felt very superior up there
for several years, and a few words spoken in the course of a minute or
two had laid her low. She did not feel much respect for her own powers;
nay, for a moment, it made her unhappy to think how short-sighted she
had been. She actually felt anxious to discover if she were equally
stupid in other things, but she soon so far regained her balance as to
understand that to look only at one side of things may be partly the
fault of circumstances.
She sat there without speaking, without listening; she had fallen into
a reverie. Laura took the opportunity of leaving the room to prepare
some chocolate, and to ask her husband to take her place while she was
away. This, however, he had not time for at the moment, but still was
so pleased that Tomasine had come again, that he felt he must just put
his head in at the door to say so. He had on his leather apron, and
held a shoemaker's stirrup in his left hand. Tomasine rose to grasp the
other, but he waved her back, laughing. It was not fit to touch. "I
only wanted to say many, many 'good days' to an old friend," he said
after his fashion, as he drew back. But at that moment little Augusta
came in again from the shop. She heard her father. He popped his head
in again. "Just look at her. I always say that a dark person ought to
marry a fair one. That is just what our two young ones are." And he
shut the door.
Augusta was unusually tall and strong for her age. She was a full year
older than Tomas. When Tomasine called her and spoke to her, the child
surprised her.
There was a serenity in her eyes and brow, and a quietness in her way
of talking, more like a grown person than a child. She was a contrast
to Tomasine's own nervous little "Red-head," who never asked three
questions about the same thing--a most pleasant contrast both outwardly
and inwardly. Little Augusta went on questioning until the subject was
clear to her own mind, and then would pass on to the next topic which
came up.
Her hands were plump, but firm; his, thin, freckled, restless in their
very shape. Her hair was dark and unusually plentiful, notwithstanding
which it made the smoothest plaits; his stood up and stuck out in red
bristles, which seemed to grow in layers; it was never tidy unless it
were close cropped. He was bony and thin; she so plump, though
thoroughly healthy. Tomasine recalled what she herself had been as a
child. Why was not her child the same? She felt something almost like
envy; to think that the little velvet jacket that Augusta wore was
without a spot, though it was evidently far from new. Tomasine searched
for one until it seemed to her that the whole little figure was solid
soft velvet.
Her mother came in with the chocolate, and the ice being now broken,
they found plenty of subjects of conversation, especially after Augusta
had again been sent away.
Tomasine asked how the child had become so lovable, gentle, and
sensible; and was told that she had never been headstrong. "Not even at
first?" "Never, but clear-headed and staid from a tiny child."
The last thing that Tomasine wished was to say anything against her
little Tomas, but the contrast was so great that somehow all that she
had gone through was told, and what incessant care she had still to
practice.
Laura received, during Tomasine's relation, a firm conviction that this
state of things would in the long run prove too much for her, and
therefore be dangerous for her health.
Accordingly they both went to Dean Green, and from that day forward the
stately old gentleman, in his long-skirted coat and broad-brimmed hat,
often took his way up the avenue, instead of round the garden, when he
set out for his afternoon's walk. Beside this, Tomasine began, little
by little, to gather her old friends about her again. Once more they
strolled in the broad paths of "The Estate" garden, many of them with
their children in their hands. So by degrees happiness and confidence
entered into her life again, and peace as well.
For now, when Tomas's education was to begin, it was done in quite a
different way from what she had imagined. He went to school--a school
which she herself kept for him, and for a number of little girls, the
children of her friends.
At first he thought this incredibly splendid. He was thoroughly happy,
willing, even devoted; but after a while, when he heard from the other
boys that it was a disgrace even to go about with little girls, he
wanted to know why he should be condemned to do so. Could not his
mother send them all home again and have boys there instead? He pleaded
for this--he fumed, he cried; but the girls remained. If only he could
make out what was the use of it all! What had he not to endure from the
lads who attended the boy's public school, who had men for teachers. If
he as much as put his head over the garden wall, he heard, "Petticoat
boy!" "Mamma's darling!" "The women's prince!" "Miss Freckles!"
Especially the last, for he was terribly freckled, regularly speckled
with red all over his face and hands, added to which he had the most
hopelessly red hair. Just think of a boy being called "A Freckle,"
"Miss Freckle," though he were nothing but a freckle amongst the band
of girls. Goodness knows how he disdained them! If, however, he were so
bold as to say so to them, and a boy with his heart in the right place
is often impelled to do so, he cannot always keep his contempt
concealed; well, if he did so he got a beating--a veritable, serious
beating. From his mother? That would have been nothing; no, from those
same wretched little girls. Some held him and half strangled him, and
several more beat him. And this not as a joke. It hurt frightfully. And
his mother stood there and laughed. She laughed till the tears came.
She had to take off her spectacles and dry them. They would have no
domineering little tyrant among them--those girls, no arrogant young
master; though they were always ready, they said to him, to welcome a
well-behaved little gentleman and pleasant companion. If he grimaced at
them they were at him again, down with him again; it was one perpetual
beating. When they had done, they curtseyed to him, one after the
other. There were such a number of them that it was mere fun to them.
The worst, however, has not yet been told. He was desperately in love
with one of the little girls. She knew it, the ungrateful little
monkey, and his mother knew it as well. He was sure of that. It was
principally on account of it that she had laughed so dreadfully. It was
the worst of them, Augusta Hansen, Laura's daughter--Augusta, with whom
he had eaten cherries. That is to say, they had taken them out of each
other's mouths; first she out of his, as he held the stalk in his mouth
close up to the fruit, and then he, in the same way from hers. Augusta,
who had given him her sash to wear as a badge at the tournaments which
he held ... quite alone, by the way. Augusta, to whom in return he had
given his whole collection of blown eggs; he had found every one of
them himself. He had been obliged to ask his mother's leave to give
them away, for it could not very well have been managed without. He had
come behind her to whisper in her ear, he did not wish her to look at
him while he did so. His mother had asked him if he were fond of
Augusta, and he had confided to her that it was especially her hair,
but that she was the most good-natured of the girls, and the cleverest
as well. What Augusta said was always right. His mother had agreed with
him in that. She had not laughed then, but now she stood and looked on
while Augusta thrashed him, for it was Augusta's hand that thumped the
hardest.
After such treachery--and this did not happen only once unfortunately;
it happened very often--he would not speak to Augusta for several days;
once he held out for three. He tried the same with his mother, but he
could never contrive to keep grave when she looked at him. She always
befooled him into laughing.
He now essayed, by a more serious and regular manner of proceeding, to
obtain a different adjustment of things for the future. This struggle
really meant nothing more nor less than the right relationship between
the sexes. Its depths he was truly far from having sounded, but his
masculine instincts told him that it was all upside down, up there in
the garden. Things must be altered. But there was never any "Hands
off," as they say. It was Dean Green whom he suspected of being the
cause of the worst of all this. Of one thing, at all events, he was
certain. It was Dean Green's idea that he, like the girls, should learn
to play the piano. No other boy had to strum like that. Tomas hated the
long-coated parson, with his aquiline nose and bushy eyebrows; who was
always about, and who smiled when he saw him. He hated him to that
extent that, when he shot at a mark, he always tried to draw a picture
of the Dean to shoot at, and then to hit his coat, his nose, or his
eye. But, hit him as much as he would, no change took place; the
piano-playing went on, the girls remained, and even if any day he
brought some boys into the garden, they could never be alone--oh no!
The detestable little girls were always hanging about, and then all the
stories afterwards; any little thing that a boy might have said or done
was used against him; he was done for, he never came again.
And they would say, too, that Tomas had tried to show himself off
before his companions, and play the grown man. He always got a beating
afterwards. Sometimes they divided his offences into several portions,
and he was first beaten for one and then for another. Augusta was
constantly drubbing him with the greatest heartiness, without the
slightest remembrance of the cherries, or the eggs, or any of his
little attentions. There is no telling the number of times that he
renounced his allegiance and loyalty to her, but as Augusta did not
care a rush, and went about just the same, with those thick plaits and
sturdy legs of hers.... Well, then he began to abase himself. He had to
let her understand that he did not exactly disdain her, that perhaps it
might be possible to obtain grace. She never seemed to notice him, and
so it ended that he thought it was not worth remembering any longer.
One thing about Augusta was peculiar, she always really influenced the
others without trying to do so; she let others lead as long as they
liked, she acted exactly in the same way whoever led and whatever plan
they hit upon; but whenever they got into difficulties it was _she_ who
found the way out.
Ah! how Tomas admired her, how often he told her so! and was annoyed
that he could not let it alone. It was with her that he now began to
take his music lessons, and from that time forth playing became his
favourite occupation.
These first stormy years were followed by others, and he attained at
last to such superiority, that he dared to acknowledge his comradeship
with the girls. He settled down at last into accepting their help
against other boys, when they challenged him from outside. Nay--who
would have thought it?--the time came when he fought for his valiant
girl-friends, eager for the battle; especially if one of the boys had
called Augusta "Shoemaker's lass," or even "Sausage." He would gladly
have gone to the death for her; nor was this all boasting, for at nine
years old he was severely mauled because, on this account, he would
fight against ten or twelve at once, of whom three at least were older
than he. That was the proudest moment of his life, as he lay with a
fresh vinegar plaster on his head, and Augusta must come in and change
it instead of his mother.
Now that there really was something worth talking about--not a word.
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST YEARS IN THE GARDEN
At this time a great change took place in Tomas's external life. For
the first time he had a companion.
Some years back, there had died in the town a curate named Vangen, who
had married a very enthusiastic Danish lady. They had led quite an
Arcadian life together--literally without thought for the morrow.
People are always very kind at times of bereavement; she managed to
support her children and herself for the first few years, for those
that followed there was no necessity to do so--she died.
Through Dean Green, her son Karl came to Fru Rendalen "on probation."
He was at that time eleven. Karl Vangen was tall, slight, and dark,
with a large head, his forehead being the most noticeable feature. He
had gentle blue-grey eyes, in large sockets, a wide, straight mouth,
which slowly expanded into a smile. He was quiet, and very modest, and
rather uneasy in his new surroundings. When, at night, he went with
Tomas into the room he now occupied, on the other side of the
bath-room, he knelt down by the side of the new bed, which had been put
up for him there, and prayed silently for a long time, his face buried
in his hands. When he rose from his knees, he smiled across at his
companion, with tears in his eyes, but he did not speak.
Tomas heard him afterwards sobbing under the bed-clothes. This lasted a
long time. Tomas felt at last that he must cry too, but took care that
the other should not hear him.
Every one was kindness itself to the newcomer, but no one so much so as
Tomas. If he could have clasped himself round him like a belt, he would
have done so.
Karl went to the Latin school, where he was received free, so the boys
were separated almost all day, nor did they even study together when he
came home.
Karl allowed himself but little leisure. He was slow at learning, but
still was at the head of his class, and he wished to continue there; so
that Tomas naturally could not see as much of him as he wished, or be
so good to him as he wanted to be.
When Karl did at last come out he was tired, and did not go with Tomas
very willingly.
He did not perhaps estimate all that Tomas had done for him, nor
understand how the boy had waited for him, how glad he was to see him.
He was the first companion that Tomas had ever had, but he himself had
plenty.
The fact was, that Karl was too slow and gentle, always anxious about
his clothes, perfectly obedient to anything that was said to him, and
in this, and other things, a great contrast to Tomas.
At last Tomas discovered that Karl was just a girl, one more girl up
there, and not, by a long way, so amusing as the others.
He soon began to call him Karoline. He mocked at him when he shivered,
or was frightened about his clothes. And when he smiled good-naturedly,
instead of being angry, Tomas would make his mouth wide by stretching
it with his two forefingers.
That was so very funny that the girls began to take part in it. They
praised Tomas for his chivalrous behaviour to them, and he was proud of
it himself. But both he, and they, could be very unchivalrous towards
Karl, without its striking them that they were so. As, for instance,
when Tomas conceived the idea that every time Karl showed himself, they
should rush at him, one after the other, and dust his clothes with
their hands, because he was so frightened about them--he had had so
few. So he was brushed and brushed till he began to cry, and was then
immediately called "Say-your-prayers boy" and "Cry-baby." And this grew
worse when they saw that Karl, though both older and bigger than Tomas,
was nevertheless the weaker. So Tomas could show himself off, and at
last they really ill-treated him.
Now, at the bottom it was not altogether disagreeable to Karl to be a
martyr. It seemed something great to him. But the others soon
discovered this, and would not for the life of them stand it. He was
treated worse than ever from that moment.
But where was Augusta while all this developed itself?
Augusta was kind to Karl; indeed, the more the others teased him, the
more good-natured she became. But she did not mix herself with what
they took up. And besides, lately she had shrunk more and more from
anything rough. Whenever Karl sought refuge with her, he was safe for
the time being, so that it happened that he did so oftener and oftener,
and at last constantly. He dare not enter the garden without her.
Tomas was too proud to appear to notice anything, but he made Karl pay
for it.
One especial time, Tomas grumbled about this during a music lesson, and
she answered that so it would continue until he became as good a boy as
Karl, which he was far from being at present. Then he swore vengeance.
On Saturday afternoons, Karl always went to the churchyard, to put
fresh flowers on his parents' graves. On the next Saturday, as he was
going down with his basket, Tomas met him in the avenue, and asked him
if he would promise not to talk any more to Augusta. But Karl, so
accommodating in other things, would not promise this, not even when
Tomas struck him. He struck him again and again, with all the strength
he could muster, but Karl would not promise to give her up. Quite
beside himself, Tomas kicked him in a dangerous manner; he gave a loud
cry and dropped down. Tomas had him carried home, and rushed away for
the doctor. When, his forehead bathed in sweat from anxiety and the
speed with which he had run, he passed the place where Karl had fallen
down, with his eyes fixed upon him, another image of his companion rose
before him--that of the helpless, silent lad who had knelt down and
prayed by his bedside the first evening in his new home.
Tomas kept this resurrection of the former Karl in his soul.
He hurried back home again before the doctor, in order that he might,
as he passed the spot where Karl had fallen, kneel down, unseen by any
one, and cry and pray.
That evening his mother, Andreas Berg, and he sat by themselves in the
parlour. Andreas Berg had come in at Fru Rendalen's request to tell
Tomas the history of his father's (John Kurt's) childhood--to tell it
in her presence without any reserve. Berg was a grave man, not free
from severity. He had been made angry, more than once, by Tomas's
performances with Karl. And he now related the various circumstances of
John Kurt's life when a boy, related them without a single word of
blame; but this only made it fall the heavier. This was part of Berg's
nature.
The mother did not feel it needful to add a single word.
She heard Tomas, late that evening, sobbing and crying beside Karl's
bed, and the next day saw him talking to Augusta in the passage.
In the course of the day he had flung his arms round his mother's neck
and cried. But he had said nothing, though it worked in his mind for a
long while.
In the meantime it was determined that Karl's time of probation should
end, and that he should be considered as a son of the house from that
time. The doctor had declared that he would all his life feel the
effects of the kick which jealousy and domineering had bestowed on him.
And this had decided the question.
Another great revolution took place shortly afterwards. The girls who,
together with Tomas, had enjoyed Fru Rendalen's teaching from the
beginning, were so much more advanced in languages, not only than those
of the same age at the girls' school, but also than the boys at the
Latin school, that many people wished she would extend her classes and
establish the girls school for the town up at "The Estate."
This desire, which became unanimous, was strongly pressed upon her.
Dean Green was the most eager of all. How could she use her knowledge
and powers of administration better? All the development of her
character, all the experience of her life, led her to this goal. Think
of the Kurts' house echoing with confiding, childish laughter; think
that there, the rising generation of women would learn to raise
themselves to independence, either in married life, or outside it. The
subject symbolised itself in this way.
Very few of us have perhaps noticed that certain expectations and
signs, fixed forebodings, chance remembrances, weigh far more in
deciding our plans than the simple circumstances of the present time.
Tomasine Rendalen was no exception to this rule. She was, however,
prudent enough to ask herself sometimes if she were fit for all that
the Dean proposed in the school work. She suspected that he, like all
reformers, was oversanguine, demanding the work of three generations
from one, and expecting a single man to give the result of a thousand.
She also had good sense enough to doubt if a little more knowledge of
languages, a little better teaching of history and similar
acquirements, would seriously help forward morality and independence.
But the symbol outweighed these objections of good sense. And it really
did seem as if a distinct commission had been given to a special
person. Here she was in the Kurt inheritance, well qualified for school
work: that was undoubted. Fancy obliterating the evil example with a
good one. She had had great practice in that. At all events, it gave
her strength. Once determined, she exerted herself to make it go
forward, and made others do the same.
She raised a new loan on her property and renovated the house from top
to bottom. All the windows were removed and enlarged. The rooms on the
ground-floor, on the right as one comes in from the great steps,
remained as they were. But those on the left, in the wing and upstairs,
were for the most part altered, in so far as that the doors between
them were walled up, so that they only led into the long inner passage.
The great Knights' Hall on the left hand, just as one comes in from the
steps, was made into a gymnasium. The pupils were to assemble there,
and morning prayers were to be read in it as well. The double staircase
in the passage, which led up to the first floor, was cut off from the
entrance hall by a wall in which were two doors, one on each side. By
this means Fru Rendalen kept the hall for herself. The famous steps
only led to it, and to the Knights' Hall on great occasions.
The teachers had their separate entrance from the court yard, while the
lower part of the great, empty, useless tower was converted into an
anteroom. Outside, the plaster was removed from the walls, and the red
colour of the bricks freshened up. It all looked like new. There was a
great pilgrimage up there when it was all finished, and many good
wishes were expressed for the new school.
Tomasine incurred considerable debt--she had to pay a large sum for the
school which she took over. But from the first, the influx was
unprecedented. Little girls from the country, nay, even from the
nearest towns, were entered. They were boarded with different people,
whom she recommended. She did not wish at first to have any in the
house. She must regulate the school.
Sometimes it seemed to her that this simple state of things, a
well-regulated school, was what she would never attain to. She got into
difficulties, first and foremost, with the staff of teachers. They did
not come up to the standard which she proposed. She took on trial, and
discharged again, and endured all the discomfort and irregularity, all
the over-exertion, which are the natural results of such a position,
hoping for better days.
The constant wear and tear, the endless unrest, the anxious cares for
money, goaded her on from day to day. The aim that she had originally
set herself, the great aim, now seemed almost ludicrous. One thing
appeared certain: it was losing her her son; not his affection, still
less his obedience, taken as a whole, nor was it his education; but her
influence on his character, their mutual confidence, her happiness in
him. Something impetuous, fantastic, extravagant crept into his games,
his plans, his expression, which she saw increase in a manner she
deeply deplored. When she corrected him she saw a gloomy impatience in
the nervous glance of his eyes. She felt herself condemned by his air
of superiority.
Karl's company only increased this failing, for he was himself an
enthusiast. She therefore begged Augusta to check the boy's hot mood,
and to try to keep him steady by turning his mind to stern realities.
But Augusta never entered into any controversy with him on the subject.
So Fru Rendalen saw this tendency increase. This spoilt her pleasure in
the school when at last, outwardly at any rate, it began to work well.
She asked herself what, as a whole, she had gained by this hunted life
beyond increased debt, and greatly increased anxiety. But now she was
launched into it; she struggled on from day to day; a moment's pause
would bring all in ruins about her.
Of all his mother's anxiety Tomas had not the slightest idea. He led a
happy life, developing quickly. Karl's large amount of information
helped him. Together they wove their daydreams; together they loved.
They devised the strange idea that they would devote themselves to the
service and happiness of "the ladies," they and their comrades, for by
degrees several others had been drawn into the circle. And there was
more beauty, more variety, in all they hit on since boys and girls were
constantly together.
Tomas's strength increased, but unlike his parents, he did not promise
to be tall. He was remarkably well made, with a very erect gait. His
well turned-out feet were so small that he could wear girls' shoes. He
was also nearly as slim in the waist as a girl, but broad-shouldered.
At twelve years old he took the first boy's prize at a gymnastic
display, which had been inaugurated in that part of the country. He had
a powerfully shaped head, his cheekbones strongly marked. His nose had
become much bigger than his mother's, which gave him occasion for much
fun, she always answering that his was at least as broad as hers at the
end. He had small, finely cut lips, his eyes were not large, and seemed
smaller still because he frowned and blinked. They were grey in colour,
with a restless but sharp expression. His forehead was fair like his
father's, but his face, neck, and hands were so covered with freckles,
that they were as red as his hair, which stood on end, and was
generally untidy.
By the side of the tall dark Karl, with his heavy forehead, hollow
eyes, wide, straight mouth, his gentle expression, and slow nature, he
seemed to sparkle. He filled his mother with perhaps greater anxiety
than there was need for. He had become a true friend to Karl. He loved
him heartily. He generally did either love or detest; there was no
moderation in him. Tomas was in his fourteenth year when, in the
autumn, it was arranged that he should take a voyage with his uncle,
who was the master of a vessel, to Hamburg, and from thence to England
and back.
The trip had been talked of since the early summer, but had been
postponed. Tomas, who was studying privately, could start at any time,
and it would be more manly to go at the time of the autumn gales. His
preparations were complete; they were only waiting for a fair wind.
One Saturday afternoon, Augusta and he were sitting up in an
apple-tree--he on a branch to the right, and Augusta on one to the
left. They had come to gather the fruit, but the linen bags, which they
had spread round them, still hung limp. She had taken hold of a branch,
on a level with her head, and rested her head on her arm. She sat and
listened to Tomas. They had seen the new doctor, Knut Holmsen, go in to
Fru Rendalen, and this wonderful new doctor was one of those whom Tomas
loved. He had lately been reading with him about the Gracchi in
Mommsen's Roman History, and it was about them that he was talking.
There was nothing equal to the Gracchi in their own history; they were
his ideals. But in the midst of an ardent disquisition it occurred to
him that if he were to be the Gracchi, Augusta must be their mother.
There was nothing grander for a woman than to be the daughter of
Scipio, and the mother of the Gracchi.
But Augusta had no desire for this. She could not wish that the mother
of the Gracchi should live after her sons were killed. Augusta was
always so frightened of death, there was something ugly about it. She
sat there with her head on her arm, and said this quietly, as though to
herself. She looked very sweet.
Or was she tired? he asked. No, she was not tired, but she wished so
much to be quiet. Well, they could easily sit a little longer. She
altered her position, and they went on talking.
Supposing the mother of the Gracchi met her sons in heaven? But would
the Gracchi and she go to heaven? They did not believe in Jesus. After
some discussion the children agreed that now they could be taught about
Jesus, and therefore naturally they had gone to heaven.
But after that, what would they do there? Augusta shuddered, Eternity
was so frightful. She hid her face, and when she lifted it again, she
had been crying. He sat a long time and looked at her.
"Listen, Augusta," he said, "neither of us will die till we have grown
dreadfully old, so old that we cannot even walk. It can't be the same
then, can it?"
Augusta smiled. "That time you gave me the everlastings, you said I was
to think of you when you were dead, you know."
"Yes, I was so frightfully miserable that day, and then I had got that
picture of King Edward's sons. Augusta!"
"Well?"
"At sea, in the autumn gales--they are often very dangerous, the autumn
gales, you know--I shall have myself lashed fast, and I will write to
you exactly what I think. And then you must write down what you think
when you read it."
"That might prove dangerous," laughed Augusta. She was older.
He felt embarrassed, so there was silence. But all the time he looked
at her plump figure, good-natured face, her heavy braids, and long
eyelashes. She sat looking down--yes
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