“I should advise you to take the Doctor instead. What have you against
him? A man in the prime of life, and a clever head--you should think it
over.”
“Oh, but do listen a minute ...”
Æsop, my dog, was waiting for me in the hut. I took off my cap, bowed
to her again, and said:
“Fair one, I give you farewell.”
And I started off.
She gave a cry:
“Oh, you are tearing my heart out. I came to you to-day; I waited for
you here, and I smiled when you came. I was nearly out of my mind
yesterday, because of something I had been thinking of all the time; my
head was in a whirl, and I thought of you all the time. To-day I was
sitting at home, and someone came in; I did not look up, but I knew who
it was. 'I rowed half a mile to-day,' he said. 'Weren't you tired?' I
asked. 'Oh yes, very tired, and it blistered my hands,' he said, and was
very concerned about it. And I thought: Fancy being concerned about
that! A little after he said: 'I heard someone whispering outside my
window last night; it was your maid and one of the store men talking
very intimately indeed.' 'Yes, they are to be married,' I said. 'But
this was at two o'clock in the morning!' 'Well, what of it?' said I,
and, after a little: 'The night is their own.' Then he shifted his gold
spectacles a little up his nose, and observed: 'But don't you think, at
that hour of night, it doesn't look well?' Still I didn't look up, and
we sat like that for ten minutes. 'Shall I bring you a shawl to put over
your shoulders?' he asked. 'No, thank you,' I answered. 'If only I dared
take your little hand,' he said. I did not answer--I was thinking of
something else. He laid a little box in my lap. I opened the box, and
found a brooch in it. There was a coronet on the brooch, and I counted
ten stones in it... Glahn, I have that brooch with me now; will you
look at it? It is trampled to bits--come, come and see how it is
trampled to bits... 'Well, and what am I to do with this brooch?' I
asked. 'Wear it,' he answered. But I gave him back the brooch, and said,
'Let me alone--it is another I care for.' 'What other?' he asked. 'A
hunter in the woods,' I said. 'He gave me two lovely feathers once, for
a keepsake. Take back your brooch.' But he would not. Then I looked at
him for the first time; his eyes were piercing. 'I will not take back
the brooch. You may do with it as you please; tread on it,' he said. I
stood up and put the brooch under my heel and trod on it. That was this
morning... For four hours I waited and waited; after dinner I went out.
He came to meet me on the road. 'Where are you going?' he asked. 'To
Glahn,' I answered, 'to ask him not to forget me...' Since one o'clock I
have been waiting here. I stood by a tree and saw you coming--you were
like a god. I loved your figure, your beard, and your shoulders, loved
everything about you... Now you are impatient; you want to go, only to
go; I am nothing to you, you will not look at me ...” I had stopped.
When she had finished speaking I began walking on again. I was worn out
with despair, and I smiled; my heart was hard.
“Yes?” I said, and stopped again. “You had something to say to me?”
But at this scorn of mine she wearied of me.
“Something to say to you? But I have told you--did you not hear? No,
nothing--I have nothing to tell you any more...”
Her voice trembled strangely, but that did not move me.
Next morning Edwarda was standing outside the hut when I went out.
I had thought it all over during the night, and taken my resolve. Why
should I let myself be dazzled any longer by this creature of moods, a
fisher-girl, a thing of no culture? Had not her name fastened for long
enough on my heart, sucking it dry? Enough of that!--though it struck me
that, perhaps, I had come nearer to her by treating her with
indifference and scorn. Oh, how grandly I had scorned her--after she had
made a long speech of several minutes, to say calmly: “Yes? You had
something to say to me...?”
She was standing by the big stone. She was in great excitement, and
would have run towards me; her arms were already opened. But she
stopped, and stood there wringing her hands. I took off my cap and bowed
to her without a word.
“Just one thing I wanted to say to you to-day, Glahn,” she said
entreatingly. And I did not move, but waited, just to hear what she
would say next. “I hear you have been down at the blacksmith's. One
evening it was. Eva was alone in the house.”