written. He complied, without thinking any more about the matter. But
in a few days after, the boy, thinking to please Arne, told him that
Eli and Mathilde liked his writing very much.
"Where, then, have they seen any of it?"
"Well, it was for them, I asked for some of it the other day."
Then Arne asked the boys to bring him something their sisters had
written. They did so; and he corrected the errors in the writing with
his carpenter's pencil, and asked the boys to lay it in some place
where their sisters might easily find it. Soon after, he found the
paper in his jacket pocket; and at the foot was written, "Corrected
by a conceited fellow."
The next day, Arne completed his work at the parsonage, and returned
home. So gentle as he was that winter, the mother had never seen him,
since that sad time just after the father's death. He read the sermon
to her, accompanied her to church, and was in every way very kind.
But she knew only too well that one great reason for his increased
kindness was, that he meant to go away when spring came. Then one day
a message came from Boeen, asking him to go there to do carpentry.
Arne started, and, apparently without thinking of what he said,
replied that he would come. But no sooner had the messenger left than
the mother said, "You may well be astonished! From Boeen?"
"Well, is there anything strange in that?" Arne asked, without
looking at her.
"From Boeen!" the mother exclaimed once more.
"And, why not from Boeen, as well as any other place?" he answered,
looking up a little.
"From Boeen and Birgit Boeen!--Baard, who made your father a cripple,
and all only for Birgit's sake!"
"What do you say?" exclaimed Arne; "was that Baard Boeen?"
Mother and son stood looking at each other. The whole of the father's
life seemed unrolled before them, and at that moment they saw the
black thread which had always run through it. Then they began talking
about those grand days of his, when old Eli Boeen had himself offered
him his daughter Birgit, and he had refused her: they passed on
through his life till the day when his spine had been broken; and
they both agreed that Baard's fault was the less. Still, it was he
who had made the father a cripple; he, it was.
"Have I not even yet done with father?" Arne thought; and determined
at the same moment that he would go to Boeen.
As he went walking, with his saw on his shoulder, over the ice
towards Boeen, it seemed to him a beautiful place. The dwelling-house
always seemed as if it was fresh painted; and--perhaps because he
felt a little cold--it just then looked to him very sheltered and
comfortable. He did not, however, go straight in, but went round by
the cattle-house, where a flock of thick-haired goats stood in the
snow, gnawing the bark off some fir twigs. A shepherd's dog ran
backwards and forwards on the barn steps, barking as if the devil was
coming to the house; but when Arne went to him, he wagged his tail
and allowed himself to be patted. The kitchen door at the upper end
of the house was often opened, and Arne looked over there every time;
but he saw no one except the milkmaid, carrying some pails, or the
cook, throwing something to the goats. In the barn the threshers
were hard at work; and to the left, in front of the woodshed, a lad
stood chopping fagots, with many piles of them behind him.
Arne laid away his saw and went into the kitchen: the floor was
strewed with white sand and chopped juniper leaves; copper kettles
shone on the walls; china and earthenware stood in rows upon the
shelves; and the servants were preparing the dinner. Arne asked for
Baard. "Step into the sitting-room," said one of the servants,
pointing to an inner door with a brass knob. He went in: the room was
brightly painted--the ceiling, with clusters of roses; the cupboards,
with red, and the names of the owners in black letters; the bedstead,
also with red, bordered with blue stripes. Beside the stove, a
broad-shouldered, mild-looking man, with long light hair, sat hooping
some tubs; and at the large table, a slender, tall woman, in a
close-fitting dress and linen cap, sat sorting some corn into two
heaps: no one else was in the room.
"Good day, and a blessing on the work," said Arne, taking off his
cap. Both looked up; and the man smiled and asked who it was. "I am
he who has come to do carpentry."
The man smiled still more, and said, while he leaned forward again to
his work, "Oh, all right, Arne Kampen."
"Arne Kampen?" exclaimed the wife, staring down at the floor. The man
looked up quickly, and said, smiling once more, "A son of Nils, the
tailor;" and then he began working again.
Soon the wife rose, went to the shelf, turned from it to the
cupboard, once more turned away, and, while rummaging for something
in the table drawer, she asked, without looking up, "Is _he_ going to
work _here_?"
"Yes, that he is," the husband answered, also without looking up.
"Nobody has asked you to sit down, it seems," he added, turning to
Arne, who then took a seat. The wife went out, and the husband
continued working: and so Arne asked whether he, too, might begin.
"We'll have dinner first."
The wife did not return; but next time the door opened, it was Eli
who entered. At first, she appeared not to see Arne, but when he
rose to meet her she turned half round and gave him her hand; yet
she did not look at him. They exchanged a few words, while the
father worked on. Eli was slender and upright, her hands were small,
with round wrists, her hair was braided, and she wore a dress with a
close-fitting bodice. She laid the table for dinner: the laborers
dined in the next room; but Arne, with the family.
"Isn't your mother coming?" asked the husband.
"No; she's up-stairs, weighing wool."
"Have you asked her to come?"
"Yes; but she says she won't have anything."
There was silence for a while.
"But it's cold up-stairs."
"She wouldn't let me make a fire."
After dinner, Arne began to work; and in the evening he again sat
with the family. The wife and Eli sewed, while the husband employed
himself in some trifling work, and Arne helped him. They worked on in
silence above an hour; for Eli, who seemed to be the one who usually
did the talking, now said nothing. Arne thought with dismay how often
it was just so in his own home; and yet he had never felt it till
now. At last, Eli seemed to think she had been silent quite long
enough, and, after drawing a deep breath, she burst out laughing.
Then the father laughed; and Arne felt it was ridiculous and began,
too. Afterwards they talked about several things, soon the
conversation was principally between Arne and Eli, the father now and
then putting in a word edgewise. But once after Arne had been
speaking at some length, he looked up, and his eyes met those of the
mother, Birgit, who had laid down her work, and sat gazing at him.
Then she went on with her work again; but the next word he spoke made
her look up once more.
Bedtime drew near, and they all went to their own rooms. Arne thought
he would take notice of the dream he had the first night in a fresh
place; but he could see no meaning in it. During the whole day he had
talked very little with the husband; yet now in the night he dreamed
of no one in the house but him. The last thing was, that Baard was
sitting playing at cards with Nils, the tailor. The latter looked
very pale and angry; but Baard was smiling, and he took all the
tricks.
Arne stayed at Boeen several days; and a great deal was done, but very
little said. Not only the people in the parlor, but also the
servants, the housemen, everybody about the place, even the women,
were silent. In the yard was an old dog which barked whenever a
stranger came near; but if any of the people belonging to the place
heard him, they always said "Hush!" and then he went away, growling,
and lay down. At Arne's own home was a large weather-vane, and here
was one still larger which he particularly noticed because it did not
turn. It shook whenever the wind was high, as though it wished to
turn; and Arne stood looking at it so long that he felt at last he
must climb up to unloose it. It was not frozen fast, as he thought:
but a stick was fixed against it to prevent it from turning. He took
the stick out and threw it down; Baard was just passing below, and it
struck him.
"What are you doing?" said he, looking up.
"I'm loosening the vane."
"Leave it alone; it makes a wailing noise when it turns."
"Well, I think even that's better than silence," said Arne, seating
himself astride on the ridge of the roof. Baard looked up at Arne,
and Arne down at Baard. Then Baard smiled and said, "He who must wail
when he speaks had better he silent."
Words sometimes haunt us long after they were uttered, especially
when they were last words. So Baard's words followed Arne as he came
down from the roof in the cold, and they were still with him when he
went into the sitting-room in the evening. It was twilight; and Eli
stood at the window, looking away over the ice which lay bright in
the moonlight. Arne went to the other window, and looked out also.
Indoors it was warm and quiet; outdoors it was cold, and a sharp wind
swept through the vale, bending the branches of the trees, and making
their shadows creep trembling on the snow. A light shone over from
the parsonage, then vanished, then appeared again, taking various
shapes and colors, as a distant light always seems to do when one
looks at it long and intently. Opposite, the mountain stood dark,
with deep shadow at its foot, where a thousand fairy tales hovered;
but with its snowy upper plains bright in the moonlight. The stars
were shining, and northern lights were flickering in one quarter of
the sky, but they did not spread. A little way from the window, down
towards the water, stood some trees, whose shadows kept stealing over
to each other; but the tall ash stood alone, writing on the snow.
All was silent, save now and then, when a long wailing sound was
heard. "What's that?" asked Arne.
"It's the weather-vane," said Eli; and after a little while she added
in a lower tone, as if to herself, "it must have come unfastened."
But Arne had been like one who wished to speak and could not. Now he
said, "Do you remember that tale about the thrushes?"
"Yes."
"It was you who told it, indeed. It was a nice tale."
"I often think there's something that sings when all is still," she
said, in a voice so soft and low that he felt as if he heard it now
for the first time.
"It is the good within our own souls," he said.
She looked at him as if she thought that answer meant too much; and
they both stood silent a few moments. Then she asked, while she wrote
with her finger on the window-pane, "Have you made any songs lately?"
He blushed; but she did not see it, and so she asked once more, "How
do you manage to make songs?"
"Should you like to know?"
"Well, yes;--I should."
"I store up the thoughts that other people let slip."
She was silent for a long while; perhaps thinking she might have had
some thoughts fit for songs, but had let them slip.
"How strange it is," she said, at last, as though to herself, and
beginning to write again on the window-pane.
"I made a song the first time I had seen you."
"Where was that?"
"Behind the parsonage, that evening you went away from there;--I saw
you in the water."
She laughed, and was quiet for a while.
"Let me hear that song."
Arne had never done such a thing before, but he repeated the song
now:
"Fair Venevill bounded on lithesome feet
Her lover to meet," &c.[4]
[4] As on page 68.
Eli listened attentively, and stood silent long after he had
finished. At last she exclaimed, "Ah, what a pity for her!"
"I feel as if I had not made that song myself," he said; and then
stood like her, thinking over it.
"But that won't be my fate, I hope," she said, after a pause.
"No; I was thinking rather of myself."
"Will it be your fate, then?"
"I don't know; I felt so then."
"How strange." She wrote on the panes again.
The next day, when Arne came into the room to dinner, he went over to
the window. Outdoors it was dull and foggy, but indoors, warm and
comfortable; and on the window-pane was written with a finger, "Arne,
Arne, Arne," and nothing but "Arne," over and over again: it was at
that window, Eli stood the evening before.
XI.
ELI'S SICKNESS.
Next day, Arne came into the room and said he had heard in the yard
that the clergyman's daughter, Mathilde, had just gone to the town;
as she thought, for a few days, but as her parents intended, for a
year or two. Eli had heard nothing of this before, and now she fell
down fainting. Arne had never seen any one faint, and he was much
frightened. He ran for the maids; they ran for the parents, who came
hurrying in; and there was a disturbance all over the house, and the
dog barked on the barn steps. Soon after, when Arne came in again,
the mother was kneeling at the bedside, while the father supported
Eli's drooping head. The maids were running about--one for water,
another for hartshorn which was in the cupboard, while a third
unfastened her jacket.
"God help you!" the mother said; "I see it was wrong in us not to
tell her; it was you, Baard, who would have it so; God help you!"
Baard did not answer. "I wished to tell her, indeed; but nothing's to
be as I wish; God help you! You're always so harsh with her, Baard;
you don't understand her; you don't know what it is to love anybody,
you don't." Baard did not answer. "She isn't like some others who can
bear sorrow; it quite puts her down, poor slight thing, as she is.
Wake up, my child, and we'll be kind to you! wake up, Eli, my own
darling, and don't grieve us so."
"You always either talk too much or too little," Baard said, at last,
looking over to Arne, as though he did not wish him to hear such
things, but to leave the room. As, however, the maid-servants stayed,
Arne thought he, too, might stay; but he went over to the window.
Soon the sick girl revived so far as to be able to look round and
recognize those about her; but then also memory returned, and she
called wildly for Mathilde, went into hysterics, and sobbed till it
was painful to be in the room. The mother tried to soothe her, and
the father sat down where she could see him; but she pushed them both
from her.
"Go away!" she cried; "I don't like you; go away!"
"Oh, Eli, how can you say you don't like your own parents?" exclaimed
the mother.
"No! you're unkind to me, and you take away every pleasure from me!"
"Eli, Eli! don't say such hard things," said the mother, imploringly.
"Yes, mother," she exclaimed; "now I _must_ say it! Yes, mother; you
wish to marry me to that bad man; and I won't have him! You shut me
up here, where I'm never happy save when I'm going out! And you take
away Mathilde from me; the only one in the world I love and long for!
Oh, God, what will become of me, now Mathilde is gone!"
"But you haven't been much with her lately," Baard said.
"What did that matter, so long as I could look over to her from that
window," the poor girl answered, weeping in a childlike way that Arne
had never before seen in any one.
"Why, you couldn't see her there," said Baard.
"Still, I saw the house," she answered; and the mother added
passionately, "You don't understand such things, you don't." Then
Baard said nothing more.
"Now, I can never again go to the window," said Eli. "When I rose in
the morning, I went there; in the evening I sat there in the
moonlight: I went there when I could go to no one else. Mathilde!
Mathilde?" She writhed in the bed, and went again into hysterics.
Baard sat down on a stool a little way from the bed, and continued
looking at her.
But Eli did not recover so soon as they expected. Towards evening
they saw she would have a serious illness, which had probably been
coming upon her for some time; and Arne was called to assist in
carrying her up-stairs to her room. She lay quiet and unconscious,
looking very pale. The mother sat by the side of her bed, the father
stood at the foot, looking at her: afterwards he went to his work. So
did Arne; but that night before he went to sleep, he prayed for her;
prayed that she who was so young and fair might be happy in this
world, and that no one might bar away joy from her.
The next day when Arne came in, he found the father and mother
sitting talking together: the mother had been weeping. Arne asked how
Eli was; both expected the other to give an answer, and so for some
time none was given, but at last the father said, "Well, she's very
bad to-day."
Afterwards Arne heard that she had been raving all night, or, as the
father said, "talking foolery." She had a violent fever, knew no one,
and would not eat, and the parents were deliberating whether they
should send for a doctor. When afterwards they both went to the
sick-room, leaving Arne behind, he felt as if life and death were
struggling together up there, but he was kept outside.
In a few days, however, Eli became a little better. But once when the
father was tending her, she took it into her head to have Narrifas,
the bird which Mathilde had given her, set beside the bed. Then Baard
told her that--as was really the case--in the confusion the bird had
been forgotten, and was starved. The mother was just coming in as
Baard was saying this, and while yet standing in the doorway, she
cried out, "Oh, dear me, what a monster you are, Baard, to tell it to
that poor little thing! See, she's fainting again; God forgive you!"
When Eli revived she again asked for the bird; said its death was a
bad omen for Mathilde; and wished to go to her: then she fainted
again. Baard stood looking on till she grew so much worse that he
wanted to help, too, in tending her; but the mother pushed him away,
and said she would do all herself. Then Baard gave a long sad look at
both of them, put his cap straight with both hands, turned aside and
went out.
Soon after, the Clergyman and his wife came; for the fever
heightened, and grew so violent that they did not know whether it
would turn to life or death. The Clergyman as well as his wife spoke
to Baard about Eli, and hinted that he was too harsh with her; but
when they heard what he had told her about the bird, the Clergyman
plainly told him it was very rough, and said he would have her taken
to his own house as soon as she was well enough to be moved. The
Clergyman's wife would scarcely look at Baard; she wept, and went to
sit with the sick one; then sent for the doctor, and came several
times a day to carry out his directions. Baard went wandering
restlessly about from one place to another in the yard, going
oftenest to those places where he could be alone. There he would
stand still by the hour together; then, put his cap straight and work
again a little.
The mother did not speak to him, and they scarcely looked at each
other. He used to go and see Eli several times in the day; he took
off his shoes before he went up-stairs, left his cap outside, and
opened the door cautiously. When he came in, Birgit would turn her
head, but take no notice of him, and then sit just as before,
stooping forwards, with her head on her hands, looking at Eli, who
lay still and pale, unconscious of all that was passing around her.
Baard would stand awhile at the foot of the bed and look at them
both, but say nothing: once when Eli moved as though she were waking,
he stole away directly as quietly as he had come.
Arne often thought words had been exchanged between man and wife and
parents and child which had been long gathering, and would be long
remembered. He longed to go away, though he wished to know before he
went what would be the end of Eli's illness; but then he thought he
might always hear about her even after he had left; and so he went to
Baard telling him he wished to go home: the work which he came to do
was completed. Baard was sitting outdoors on a chopping-block,
scratching in the snow with a stick: Arne recognized the stick: it
was the one which had fastened the weather-vane.
"Well, perhaps it isn't worth your while to stay here now; yet I feel
as if I don't like you to go away, either," said Baard, without
looking up. He said no more; neither did Arne; but after a while he
walked away to do some work, taking for granted that he was to remain
at Boeen.
Some time after, when he was called to dinner, he saw Baard still
sitting on the block. He went over to him, and asked how Eli was.
"I think she's very bad to-day," Baard said.
"I see the mother's weeping."
Arne felt as if somebody asked him to sit down, and he seated himself
opposite Baard on the end of a felled tree.
"I've often thought of your father lately," Baard said so
unexpectedly that Arne did not know how to answer.
"You know, I suppose, what was between us?"
"Yes, I know."
"Well, you know, as may be expected, only one half of the story, and
think I'm greatly to blame."
"You have, I dare say, settled that affair with your God, as surely
as my father has done so," Arne said, after a pause.
"Well, some people might think so," Baard answered. "When I found
this stick, I felt it was so strange that you should come here and
unloose the weather-vane. As well now as later, I thought." He had
taken off his cap, and sat silently looking at it.
"I was about fourteen years old when I became acquainted with your
father, and he was of the same age. He was very wild, and he couldn't
bear any one to be above him in anything. So he always had a grudge
against me because I stood first, and he, second, when we were
confirmed. He often offered to fight me, but we never came to it;
most likely because neither of us felt sure who would beat. And a
strange thing it is, that although he fought every day, no accident
came from it; while the first time I did, it turned out as badly as
could be; but, it's true, I had been wanting to fight long enough.
"Nils fluttered about all the girls, and they, about him. There was
only one I would have, and her he took away from me at every dance,
at every wedding, and at every party; it was she who is now my
wife.... Often, as I sat there, I felt a great mind to try my
strength upon him for this thing; but I was afraid I should lose, and
I knew if I did, I should lose her, too. Then, when everybody had
gone, I would lift the weights he had lifted, and kick the beam he
had kicked; but the next time he took the girl from me, I was afraid
to meddle with him, although once, when he was flirting with her just
in my face, I went up to a tall fellow who stood by and threw him
against the beam, as if in fun. And Nils grew pale, too, when he saw
it.
"Even if he had been kind to her; but he was false to her again and
again. I almost believe, too, she loved him all the more every time.
Then the last thing happened. I thought now it must either break or
bear. The Lord, too, would not have him going about any longer; and
so he fell a little more heavily than I meant him to do. I never saw
him afterwards."
They sat silent for a while; then Baard went on:
"I once more made my offer. She said neither yes nor no; but I
thought she would like me better afterwards. So we were married. The
wedding was kept down in the valley, at the house of one of her
aunts, whose property she inherited. We had plenty when we started,
and it has now increased. Our estates lay side by side, and when we
married they were thrown into one, as I always, from a boy, thought
they might be. But many other things didn't turn out as I expected."
He was silent for several minutes; and Arne thought he wept; but he
did not.
"In the beginning of our married life, she was quiet and very sad. I
had nothing to say to comfort her, and so I was silent. Afterwards,
she began sometimes to take to these fidgeting ways which you have, I
dare say, noticed in her; yet it was a change, and so I said nothing
then, either. But one really happy day, I haven't known ever since I
was married, and that's now twenty years...."
He broke the stick in two pieces; and then sat for a while looking at
them.
"When Eli grew bigger, I thought she would be happier among strangers
than at home. It was seldom I wished to carry out my own will in
anything, and whenever I did, it generally turned out badly; so it
was in this case. The mother longed after her child, though only the
lake lay between them; and afterwards I saw, too, that Eli's training
at the parsonage was in some ways not the right thing for her; but
then it was too late: now I think she likes neither father nor
mother."