How I repented of it afterward--that business with the gun. It was a mad
thing to do. It was not worth while any way, and it served no purpose,
only kept me tied down to the hut for weeks. I remember distinctly even
now all the discomfort and annoyance it caused; my washerwoman had to
come every day and stay there nearly all the time, making purchases of
food, looking after my housekeeping, for several weeks. Well, and
then...
One day the Doctor began talking about Edwarda. I heard her name, heard
what she had said and done, and it was no longer of any great importance
to me; it was as if he spoke of some distant, irrelevant thing. So
quickly one can forget, I thought to myself, and wondered at it.
“Well, and what do you think of Edwarda yourself, since you ask? I have
not thought of her for weeks, to tell the truth. Wait a bit--it seems to
me there must have been something between you and her, you were so often
together. You acted host one day at a picnic on the island, and she was
hostess. Don't deny it, Doctor, there was something--a sort of
understanding. No, for Heaven's sake don't answer me. You owe me no
explanation, I am not asking to be told anything at all--let us talk of
something else if you like. How long before I can get about again?”
I sat there thinking of what I had said. Why was I inwardly afraid lest
the Doctor should speak out? What was Edwarda to me? I had forgotten
her.
And later the talk turned on her again, and I interrupted him once
more--God knows what it was I dreaded to hear.
“What do you break off like that for?” he asked. “Is it that you can't
bear to hear me speak her name?”
“Tell me,” I said, “what is your honest opinion of Edwarda? I should be
interested to know.”
He looked at me suspiciously.
“My honest opinion?”
“Perhaps you may have something new to tell me to-day. Perhaps you have
proposed, and been accepted. May I congratulate you? No? Ah, the devil
trust you--haha!”
“So that was what you were afraid of?”
“Afraid of? My dear Doctor!”
Pause.
“No,” he said, “I have not proposed and been accepted. But you have,
perhaps. There's no proposing to Edwarda--she will take whomever she has
a fancy for. Did you take her for a peasant girl? You have met her, and
seen for yourself. She is a child that's had too little whipping in her
time, and a woman of many moods. Cold? No fear of that! Warm? Ice, I
say. What is she, then? A slip of a girl, sixteen or seventeen--exactly.
But try to make an impression on that slip of a girl, and she
will laugh you to scorn for your trouble. Even her father can do nothing
with her; she obeys him outwardly, but, in point of fact, 'tis she
herself that rules. She says you have eyes like an animal...”
“You're wrong there--it was someone else said I had eyes like an
animal.”
“Someone else? Who?”
“I don't know. One of her girl friends. No, it was not Edwarda said
that. Wait a bit though; perhaps, after all, it was Edwarda...”
“When you look at her, it makes her feel so and so, she says. But do you
think that brings you a hairbreadth nearer? Hardly. Look at her, use
your eyes as much as you please--but as soon as she marks what you are
doing, she will say to herself--'Ho, here's this man looking at me with
his eyes, and thinks to win me that way.' And with a single glance, or a
word, she'll have you ten leagues away. Do you think I don't know her?
How old do you reckon her to be?” “She was born in '38, she said.”
“A lie. I looked it up, out of curiosity. She's twenty, though she might
well pass for fifteen. She is not happy; there's a deal of conflict in
that little head of hers. When she stands looking out at the hills and
the sea, and her mouth gives that little twitch, that little spasm of
pain, then she is suffering; but she is too proud, too obstinate for
tears. She is more than a bit romantic; a powerful imagination; she is
waiting for a prince. What was that about a certain five-_daler_ note
you were supposed to have given someone?”
“A jest. It was nothing...”
“It was something all the same. She did something of the same sort with
me once. It's a year ago now. We were on board the mail-packet while it
was lying here in the harbour. It was raining, and very cold. A woman
with a child in her arms was sitting on deck, shivering. Edwarda asked
her: 'Don't you feel cold?' Yes, she did. 'And the little one too?' Yes,
the little one was cold as well. 'Why don't you go into the cabin?' asks
Edwarda. 'I've only a steerage ticket,' says the woman. Edwarda looks at
me. 'The woman here has only a steerage ticket,' she says. 'Well, and
what then?' I say to myself. But I understand her look. I'm not a rich
man; what I have I've worked to earn, and I think twice before I spend
it; so I move away. If Edwarda wants someone to pay for the woman, let
her do it herself; she and her father can better afford it than I. And
sure enough, Edwarda paid. She's splendid in that way--no one can say
she hasn't a heart. But as true as I'm sitting here she expected me to
pay for a saloon passage for the woman and child; I could see it in her
eyes. And what then, do you think? The woman gets up and thanks her for
her kindness. 'Don't thank me--it was that gentleman there,' says
Edwarda, pointing to me as calmly as could be. What do you think of
that? The woman thanks me too; and what can I say? Simply had to leave
it as it was. That's just one thing about her. But I could tell you many
more. And as for the five _daler_ to the boatman--she gave him the money
herself. If you had done it, she would have flung her arms round you and
kissed you on the spot. You should have been the lordly cavalier that
paid an extravagant sum for a worn-out shoe--that would have suited her
ideas; she expected it. And as you didn't--she did it herself in your
name. That's her way--reckless and calculating at the same time.”
“Is there no one, then, that can win her?” I asked.
“Severity's what she wants,” said the Doctor, evading the question.
“There's something wrong about it all; she has too free a hand; she can
do as she pleases, and have her own way all the time. People take
notice of her; no one ever disregards her; there is always something at
hand for her to work on with effect. Have you noticed the way I treat
her myself? Like a schoolgirl, a child; I order her about, criticise her
way of speaking, watch her carefully, and show her up now and again. Do
you think she doesn't understand it? Oh, she's stiff and proud, it hurts
her every time; but then again she is too proud to show it. But that's
the way she should be handled. When you came up here I had been at her
for a year like that, and it was beginning to tell; she cried with pain
and vexation; she was growing more reasonable. Then you came along and
upset it all. That's the way it goes--one lets go of her and another
takes her up again. After you, there'll be a third, I suppose--you never
know.”
“Oho,” thought I to myself, “the Doctor has something to revenge.” And I
said:
“Doctor, what made you trouble to tell me all that long story? What was
it for? Am I to help you with her upbringing?”
“And then she's fiery as a volcano,” he went on, never heeding my
question. “You asked if no one could ever win her? I don't see why not.
She is waiting for her prince, and he hasn't come yet. Again and again
she thinks she's found him, and finds out she's wrong; she thought you
were the one, especially because you had eyes like an animal. Haha! I
say, though, Herr Lieutenant, you ought at least to have brought your
uniform with you. It would have been useful now. Why shouldn't she be
won? I have seen her wringing her hands with longing for someone to come
and take her, carry her away, rule over her, body and soul. Yes ... but
he must come from somewhere--turn up suddenly one day, and be something
out of the ordinary. I have an idea that Herr Mack is out on an
expedition; there's something behind this journey of his. He went off
like that once before, and brought a man back with him.”
“Brought a man back with him?”
“Oh, but he was no good,” said the Doctor, with a wry laugh. “He was a
man about my own age, and lame, too, like myself. He wouldn't do for the
prince.”
“And he went away again? Where did he go?” I asked, looking fixedly at
him.
“Where? Went away? Oh, I don't know,” he answered confusedly. “Well,
well, we've been talking too long about this already. That foot of
yours--oh, you can begin to walk in a week's time. _Au revoir._”