THE DEATH OF SOeREN MAN
One day Soeren came crawling on all fours over the doorstep. Once
inside, he stumbled to his feet and moved with great difficulty
towards the fireplace, where he clung with both hands to the
mantelpiece, swaying to and fro and groaning pitifully the while. He
collapsed just as Maren came in from the kitchen, she ran to him,
got off his clothes and put him to bed.
"Seems like I'm done for now," said Soeren, when he had rested a
little.
"What's wrong with you, Soeren?" asked Maren anxiously.
"'Tis naught but something's given inside," said Soeren sullenly.
He refused to say more, but Maren got out of him afterwards that it
had happened when drawing the tethering-peg out of the ground.
Usually it was loose enough. But today it was firm as a rock, as if
some one was holding it down in the earth. Soeren put the
tethering-rope round his neck and pulled with all his might, it did
give way; but at the same time something seemed to break inside him.
Everything went dark, and a big black hole appeared in the earth.
Maren gazed at him with terror. "Was 't square?" asked she.
Soeren thought it was square.
"And what of Girlie?" asked Maren suddenly.
She had disappeared when Soeren fainted.
Maren ran out on the hills with anxious eyes. She found Ditte
playing in the midst of a patch of wild pansies, fortunately Maren
could find no hole in the ground. But the old rotten rope had
parted. Soeren, unsteady on his feet, had probably fallen backwards
and hurt himself. Maren knotted the rope together again and went
towards the little one. "Come along, dearie," said she, "we'll go
home and make a nice cup of coffee for Grandad." But suddenly she
stood transfixed. Was it not a cross the child had plaited of grass,
and set among the pansies? Quietly Maren took the child by the hand
and went in. Now she knew.
Soeren stayed in bed. There was no outward hurt to be seen, but he
showed no inclination to get up. He hardly slept at all, but lay all
day long gazing at the ceiling, and fumbling with the bedclothes.
Now and then he groaned, and Maren would hurry to his side. "What
ails you, Soeren, can't you tell me?" said she earnestly.
"Ails me? Nothing ails me, Maren, but death," answered Soeren. Maren
would have liked to try her own remedies on him, but might just as
well spare her arts for a better occasion; Soeren had seen a black
hole in the ground; there was no cure for that.
So matters stood. Maren knew as well as he, that this was the end;
but she was a sturdy nature, and never liked to give in. She would
have wrestled with God himself for Soeren, had there been anything
definite to fight about. But he was fading away, and for this there
was no cure; though if only the poison could be got out of his
blood, he might even yet be strong again.
"Maybe 'tis bleeding you want."
But Soeren refused to be bled. "Folks die quickly enough without,"
said he, incredulous as he had always been. Maren was silent and
went back to her work with a sigh. Soeren never did believe in
anything, he was just as unbelieving as he had been in his young
days--if only God would not be too hard on him.
At first Soeren longed to have the child with him always, and every
other minute Maren had to bring her to the bedside. The little one
did not like to sit quietly on a chair beside Grandad's bed, and as
soon as she saw a chance of escape, off she would run. This was
hardest of all to Soeren, he felt alone and forsaken, all was
blackness and despair.
Before long, however, he lost all interest in the child, as he did
in everything else. His mind began to wander from the present back
to bygone days; Maren knew well what it meant. He went further and
still further back to his youth and childhood. Strange it was how
much he could remember things which otherwise had been forgotten.
And it was not rambling nonsense that he talked, but all true
enough; people older than he who came from the hamlet to visit him
confirmed it, and wondered at hearing him speak of events that must
have happened when he was but two or three years old. Soeren forgot
the latter years of his life, indeed he might never have lived them
so completely had they faded from his mind.
This saddened Maren. They had lived a long life, and gone through so
much together, and how much more pleasant it would have been, if
they could have talked of the past together once more before they
parted. But Soeren would not listen, when it came to their mutual
memories. No, the garden on the old farm--where Soeren lived when
five years old--that he could remember! Where this tree stood, and
that--and what kind of fruit it bore.
And when he had gone as far back as he could remember, his mind
would wander forward again, and in his delirium he would rave of his
days as a shepherd boy or sailor boy and heaven knows what.
In his uneasy dreams he mixed up all his experiences, the travels of
his youth, his work and difficulties. At one minute he would be on
the sea furling sail in the storm, the next he would struggle with
the ground. Maren who stood over him listened with terror to all
that he toiled with; he seemed to be taking his life in one long
stride. Many were the tribulations he had been through, and of which
she now heard for the first time. When his mind cleared once more,
he would be worn out with beads of perspiration standing on his
forehead.
His old partners came to see him, and then they went through it
again--Soeren _had_ to talk of old times. He could only say a few
words, weak as he was; but then the others would continue. Maren
begged them not to speak too much, as it made him restless, and he
would struggle with it in his dreams.
It was worst when he imagined himself on the old farm; pitiful to
see how he fought against the sea's greedy advance, clutching the
bedclothes with his wasted fingers. It was a wearisome leave-taking
with existence, as wearisome as existence itself had been to him.
One day when Maren had been to the village shop, Ditte ran out
screaming, as she came back. "Grandad's dead!" she burst out
sobbing. Soeren lay bruised and senseless across the doorstep to the
kitchen. He had been up on the big chest, meddling with the hands of
the clock. Maren dragged him to bed and bathed his wounds, and when
it was done he lay quietly following her movements with his eyes.
Now and then he would ask in a low voice what the time was, and from
this Maren knew that he was nearing his end.
On the morning of the day he died he was altogether changed again.
It was as if he had come home to take a last farewell of everybody
and everything; he was weak but quite in his senses. There was so
much he wanted to touch upon once again. His talk jumped from one
thing to another and he seemed quite happy. For the first time for
many months he could sit on the edge of the bed drinking his morning
coffee, chatting to Maren whenever she came near. He was exactly
like a big child, and Maren could not but put his old head to hers
and caress it. "You've worn well, Soeren," said she, stroking his
hair--"your hair's as soft as when we were young."
Soeren fell back, and lay with her hand in his, gazing silently at
her with worship in his faded eyes. "Maren, would you let down your
hair for me?" he whispered bashfully at last. The words came with
some difficulty.
"Nay, but what nonsense!" said Maren, hiding her face against his
chest; "we're old now, you know, dear."
"Let down your hair for me!" whispered he, persisting, and tried
with shaking fingers to loosen it himself. Maren remembered an
evening long ago, an evening behind a drawn-up boat on the beach,
and with sobs she loosened her gray hair and let it fall down over
Soeren's head, so that it hid their faces. "It's long and thick," he
whispered softly, "enough to hide us both." The words came as an
echo from their bygone youth.
"Nay, nay," said Maren, crying, "it's gray and thin and rough. But
how fond you were of it once."
With closed eyes Soeren lay holding Maren's hand. There was much to
do in the kitchen, and she tried again and again to draw her hand
away, but he opened his eyes each time, so she sat down, letting
the things look after themselves, and there she was with the tears
running down her furrowed face, while her thoughts ran on. She and
Soeren had lived happily together; they had had their quarrels, but
if anything serious happened, they always faced it together; neither
of them had lived and worked for themselves only. It was so strange
that they were now to be separated, Maren could not understand it.
Why could they not be taken together? Where Soeren went, Maren felt
she too should be. Perhaps in the place where he was going he needed
no one to mend his clothes and to see that he kept his feet dry, but
at least they might have walked hand in hand in the Garden of Eden.
They had often talked about going into the country to see what was
hidden behind the big forest. But it never came to anything, as one
thing or another always kept Maren at home. How beautiful it would
have been to go with Soeren now; Maren would willingly have made the
journey with him, to see what was on the other side--had it not been
for Ditte. A child had always kept her back, and thus it was now.
Maren's own time was not yet; she must wait, letting Soeren go alone.
Soeren now slept more quietly, and she drew her hand gently out of
his. But as soon as she rose, he opened his eyes, gazing at Maren's
loosened hair and tear-stained face.
"Don't cry, Maren," said he, "you and Ditte'll get on all right.
But do this for me, put up your hair as you did at our wedding, will
you, Maren?"
"But I can't do it myself, Soeren," answered the old woman,
overwhelmed and beginning to cry again. But Soeren held to his point.
Then Maren gave in, and as she could not leave Soeren alone for long,
she ran as fast as she could to the hamlet, where one of the women
dressed her thin gray hair in bridal fashion. On her return she
found Soeren restless, but he soon calmed down; he looked at her a
long time, as she sat crying by the bed with his hand in hers. He
was breathing with much difficulty.
Then suddenly he spoke in a stronger voice than he had done for many
days.
"We've shared good and bad together, Maren--and now it's over. Will
you be true to me for the time you have left?" He rose on his elbow,
looking earnestly into her face.
Maren dried her bleared eyes, and looked faithfully into his. "Ay,"
she said slowly and firmly--"no one else has ever been in my thought
nor ever shall be. 'Tis Christ Himself I take as a witness, you can
trust me, Soeren."
Soeren then fell back with closed eyes, and after a while his hand
slipped out of hers.