A CHILD IS BORN
There are a milliard and a half of stars in the heavens, and--as far
as we know--a milliard and a half of human beings on the earth.
Exactly the same number of both! One would almost think the old
saying was right,--that every human being was born under his own
star. In hundreds of costly observatories all over the world, on
plain and mountain, talented scientists are adjusting the finest
instruments and peering out into the heavens. They watch and take
photographic plates, their whole life taken up with the one idea: to
make themselves immortal with having discovered a new star. Another
celestial body--added to the milliard and a half already moving
gracefully round.
Every second a human soul is born into the world. A new flame is
lit, a star which perhaps may come to shine with unusual beauty,
which in any case has its own unseen spectrum. A new being, fated,
perhaps, to bestow genius, perhaps beauty around it, kisses the
earth; the unseen becomes flesh and blood. No human being is a
repetition of another, nor is any ever reproduced; each new being is
like a comet which only once in all eternity touches the path of
the earth, and for a brief time takes its luminous way over it--a
phosphorescent body between two eternities of darkness. No doubt
there is joy amongst human beings for every newly lit soul! And, no
doubt they will stand round the cradle with questioning eyes,
wondering what this new one will bring forth.
Alas, a human being is no star, bringing fame to him who discovers
and records it! More often, it is a parasite which comes upon
peaceful and unsuspecting people, sneaking itself into the
world--through months of purgatory. God help it, if into the bargain
it has not its papers in order.
Soerine's little one had bravely pushed itself into the light of day,
surmounting all obstacles, denial, tears and preventatives, as a
salmon springs against the stream. Now she lay in the daylight, red
and wrinkled, trying to soften all hearts.
The whole of the community had done with her, she was a parasite and
nothing else. A newly born human being is a figure in the
transaction which implies proper marriage and settling down, and the
next step which means a cradle and perambulator and--as it grows
up--an engagement ring, marriage and children again. Much of this
procedure is upset when a child like Soerine's little one is vulgar
enough to allow itself to be born without marriage.
She was from the very first treated accordingly, without maudlin
consideration for her tender helplessness. "Born out of wedlock"
was entered on her certificate of birth which the midwife handed to
the schoolmaster when she had helped the little one into the world,
and the same was noted on the baptismal certificate. It was as if
they all, the midwife, the schoolmaster and the parson, leaders of
the community, in righteous vengeance were striking the babe with
all their might. What matter if the little soul were begotten by the
son of a farmer, when he refused to acknowledge it, and bought
himself out of the marriage? A nuisance she was, and a blot on the
industrious orderly community.
She was just as much of an inconvenience to her mother as to all the
others. When Soerine was up and about again, she announced that she
might just as well go out to service as all her sisters had done.
Her fear of strangers had quite disappeared: she took a place a
little further inland. The child remained with the grandparents.
No one in the wide world cared for the little one, not even the old
people for that matter. But all the same Maren went up into the
attic and brought out an old wooden cradle which had for many years
been used for yarn and all kinds of lumber; Soeren put new rockers,
and once more Maren's old, swollen legs had to accustom themselves
to rocking a cradle again.
A blot the little one was to her grandparents too--perhaps, when all
is said and done, on them alone. They had promised themselves such
great things of the girl--and there lay their hopes--an illegitimate
child in the cradle! It was brought home to them by the women
running to Maren, saying: "Well, how do you like having little ones
again in your old days?" And by the other fishermen when Soeren Man
came to the harbor or the inn. His old comrades poked fun at him
good-naturedly and said: "All very well for him--strong as a young
man and all, Soeren, you ought to stand treat all round."
But it had to be borne--and, after all, it could be got over. And
the child was--when one got one's hand in again--a little creature
who recalled so much that otherwise belonged to the past. It was
just as if one had her oneself--in a way she brought youth to the
house.
It was utterly impossible not to care for such a helpless little
creature.