“And where are you going then?”
“To the farm just by. Grindhusen's fixed it up for us to go and dig
potatoes there....”
Then came the work in the kitchen; I had to saw through the floor there.
Frøken Elisabeth came in once or twice while I was there; it could
hardly have been otherwise, seeing it was the kitchen. And for all her
dislike of me, she managed to say a word or two, and stand looking at
the work a little.
“Only fancy, Oline,” she said to the maid, “when it's all done, and
you'll only have to turn on a tap.”
But Oline, who was old, did not look anyways delighted. It was like
going against Providence, she said, to go sending water through a pipe
right into the house. She'd carried all the water she'd a use for these
twenty years; what was she to do now?
“Take a rest,” said I.
“Rest, indeed! We're made to work, I take it, not to rest.”
“And sew things against the time you get married,” said Frøken
Elisabeth, with a smile.
It was only girlish talk, but I was grateful to her for taking a little
part in the talk with us, and staying there for a while. And heavens,
how I did try to behave, and talk smartly and sensibly, showing off like
a boy. I remember it still. Then suddenly Frøken Elisabeth seemed to
remember it wasn't proper for her to stay out here with us any longer,
and so she went.
That evening I went up to the churchyard, as I had done so many times
before, but seeing Frøkenen already there, I turned away, and took
myself off into the woods. And afterwards I thought: now she will
surely be touched by my humility, and think: poor fellow, he showed
real delicacy in that. And the next thing, of course, was to imagine her
coming after me. I would get up from the stone where I was sitting, and
give a greeting. Then she would be a little embarrassed, and say: “I was
just going for a walk--it's such a lovely evening--what are you doing
here?” “Just sitting here,” say I, with innocent eyes, as if my thoughts
had been far away. And when she hears that I was just sitting there in
the late of the evening, she must realize that I am a dreamer and a soul
of unknown depth, and then she falls in love with me....
She was in the churchyard again the following evening, and a thought of
high conceit flew suddenly into my mind: it was myself she came to see!
But, watching her more closely, I saw that she was busy, doing something
about a grave, so it was not me she had come for. I stole away up to the
big ant-heap in the wood and watched the insects as long as I could see;
afterwards, I sat listening to the falling cones and clusters of rowan
berries. I hummed a tune, and whispered to myself and thought; now and
again I had to get up and walk a little to get warm. The hours passed,
the night came on, and I was so in love I walked there bare-headed,
letting myself be stared out of all countenance by the stars.
“How's the time?” Grindhusen might ask when I came back to the barn.
“Just gone eleven,” I would say, though it might be two or three in the
morning.
“Huh! And a nice time to be coming to bed. _Fansmagt!_ Waking folk up
when they've been sleeping decently!”
And Grindhusen turns over on the other side, to fall asleep again in a
moment. There was no trouble with Grindhusen.
Eyah, it's over-foolish of a man to fall in love when he's getting on
in years. And who was it set out to show there _was_ a way to quiet and
peace of mind?
X
A man came out for his bricklayer's tools; he wanted them back. What?
Then Grindhusen had not stolen them at all! But it was always the
same with Grindhusen: commonplace, dull, and ordinary, never great in
anything, never a lofty mind.