During the week that ensued, the multifarious sub-currents of Strand’s
passion seemed slowly to gather themselves into one clearly defined
stream, and, after much scientific speculation, he came to the
conclusion that he loved Augusta. In a moment of extreme discouragement,
he made a clean breast of it to Arnfinn, at the same time informing him
that he had packed his knapsack, and would start on his wanderings again
the next morning. All his friend’s entreaties were in vain; he would and
must go. Strand was an exasperatingly headstrong fellow, and persuasions
never prevailed with him. He had confirmed himself in the belief that he
was very unattractive to women, and that Augusta, of all women, for
some reason which was not quite clear to him, hated and abhorred him.
Inexperienced as he was, he could see no reason why she should avoid
him, if she did not hate him. They sat talking until midnight, each
entangling himself in those passionate paradoxes and contradictions
peculiar to passionate and impulsive youth. Strand paced the floor with
large steps, pouring out his long pent-up emotion in violent tirades
of self-accusation and regret; while Arnfinn sat on the bed, trying to
soothe his excitement by assuring him that he was not such a monster as,
for the moment, he had believed himself to be, but only succeeding,
in spite of all his efforts, in pouring oil on the flames. Strand
was scientifically convinced that Nature, in accordance with some
inscrutable law of equilibrium, had found it necessary to make him
physically unattractive, perhaps to indemnify mankind for that excess of
intellectual gifts which, at the expense of the race at large, she had
bestowed upon him.
Early the next morning, as a kind of etherealized sunshine broke
through the white muslin curtains of Arnfinn’s room, and long streaks
of sun-illumined dust stole through the air toward the sleeper’s pillow,
there was a sharp rap at the door, and Strand entered. His knapsack was
strapped over his shoulders, his long staff was in his hand, and there
was an expression of conscious martyrdom in his features. Arnfinn
raised himself on his elbows, and rubbed his eyes with a desperate
determination to get awake, but only succeeded in gaining a very dim
impression of a beard, a blue woolen shirt, and a disproportionately
large shoe buckle. The figure advanced to the bed, extended a broad,
sun-burned hand, and a deep bass voice was heard to say:
“Good-bye, brother.”
Arnfinn, who was a hard sleeper, gave another rub, and, in a querulously
sleepy tone, managed to mutter:
“Why,--is it as late as that--already?”
The words of parting were more remotely repeated, the hand closed about
Arnfinn’s half-unfeeling fingers, the lock on the door gave a little
sharp click, and all was still. But the sunshine drove the dust in a
dumb, confused dance through the room.
Some four hours later, Arnfinn woke up with a vague feeling as if some
great calamity had happened; he was not sure but that he had slept a
fortnight or more. He dressed with a sleepy, reckless haste, being but
dimly conscious of the logic of the various processes of ablution which
he underwent. He hurried up to Strand’s room, but, as he had expected,
found it empty.
During all the afternoon, the reading of “David Copperfield” was
interrupted by frequent mutual condolences, and at times Inga’s hand
would steal up to her eye to brush away a treacherous tear. But then she
only read the faster, and David and Agnes were already safe in the
haven of matrimony before either she or Arnfinn was aware that they
had struggled successfully through the perilous reefs and quicksands of
courtship.
Augusta excused herself from supper, Inga’s forced devices at merriment
were too transparent, Arnfinn’s table-talk was of a rambling, incoherent
sort, and he answered dreadfully malapropos, if a chance word was
addressed to him, and even the good-natured pastor began, at last, to
grumble; for the inmates of the Gran Parsonage seemed to have but one
life and one soul in common, and any individual disturbance immediately
disturbed the peace and happiness of the whole household. Now gloom
had, in some unaccountable fashion, obscured the common atmosphere. Inga
shook her small wise head, and tried to extract some little consolation
from the consciousness that she knew at least some things which Arnfinn
did not know, and which it would be very unsafe to confide to him.