He has seen the woman that comes to us all at one time or another and
turns our heads with her rustling silks and her glossy hair and wears
her soul in her skirts and our poor hearts under her heel.
"Now comes the perilous moment for Dirty," I say to the mother of my
little boy.
This time it is my little boy's turn to be superior.
He knows the business thoroughly and explains it all to Erna. When he
worries the horse, she trembles, impressed with his courage and
manliness. When she has a fit of terror at the sight of a hen, he is
charmed with her delicacy. He knows the way to the smith's, he dares to
roll down the high slope, he chivalrously carries her ridiculous little
cape.
Altogether, there is no doubt as to the condition of his heart. And,
while Erna's family apparently favour the position--for which may the
devil take them!--I must needs wait with resignation like one who knows
that love is every man's master.
One morning he proposes.
He is sitting with his beloved on the lawn. Close to them, her aunt is
nursing her chlorosis under a red parasol and with a novel in her bony
lap. Up in the balcony above sit I, as Providence, and see everything,
myself unseen.
"You shall be my sweetheart," says my little boy.
"Yes," says Erna.
"I have a sweetheart already in Copenhagen," he says, proudly.
This communication naturally by no means lowers Erna's suitor in her
eyes. But it immediately arouses all Auntie's moral instincts:
"If you have a sweetheart, you must be true to her."
"Erna shall be my sweetheart."
Auntie turns her eyes up to Heaven:
"Listen, child," she says. "You're a very naughty boy. If you have given
Dir--Dir----"
"Dirty," says the boy.
"Well, that's an extraordinary name! But, if you have given her your
word, you must keep it till you die. Else you'll never, never be happy."
My little boy understands not a word and answers not a word. Erna
begins to cry at the prospect that this good match may not come off.
But I bend down over the baluster and raise my hat:
"I beg your pardon, Froeken. Was it not you who jilted Hr. Petersen? . . ."
"Good heavens! . . ."
She packs up her chlorosis and disappears with Erna, mumbling something
about like father, like son, and goodness knows what.
Presently, my little boy comes up to me and stands and hangs about.
"Where has Erna gone to?" I ask my little boy.
"She mustn't go out," he says, dejectedly.
He puts his hands in his pockets and looks straight before him.
"Father," he says, "can't you have two sweethearts?"
The question comes quite unexpectedly and, at the moment, I don't know
what to answer.
"Well?" says the mother of my little boy, amiably, and looks up from her
newspaper.
And I pull my waistcoat down and my collar up:
"Yes," I say, firmly. "You can. But it is wrong. It leads to more fuss
and unpleasantness than you can possibly conceive."
A silence.
"Are you so fond of Erna?" asks our mother.
"Yes."
"Do you want to marry her?"
"Yes."