THE spring was early this year, and when Pastor Borring went up the
avenue to Norby Farm at the beginning of May, the trees were in leaf,
and a strong scent of leaves and grass filled the air. The priest
carried a bag in his hand. He was going on a sick visit to Lars Kleven
up on the hill.
Many of the young trees in the avenue were torn up or broken off, as
if after a hurricane; but it was after the working men's procession to
Norby on the first of May.
When the priest came to the garden, he saw Norby inside the fence in a
white working coat, busy with some trees. The priest stopped and fell
into conversation with him.
"It looks dreadful after the demonstrators," said he with a shake of
the head. "Upon my word, it's not only the consul's standing drinks
that has fooled them; there must have been some one or other who has
dealt out mental strong drinks too."
Norby looked surprised, but laughed as he leaned upon his spade. "The
workmen?" he said. "They had nothing to do with the damage in the
grounds. The wind did that one night."
The priest looked a little sheepish, and soon went on his way. That
Norby had a peculiar way of being proud! He was so terribly afraid
that any one should pity him.
The path up the hill was muddy after the rain in the night, but the
leaves of the trees and the green slopes were glistening in the sun.
Brooks ran noisily towards the fjord, and in the fields round about
men and horses were busy harrowing.
At last the priest had mounted the last hill, on which stood the
little cottage. Dwelling-house and cow-shed together formed one
building; it would be difficult to know the one from the other, were
it not for the porch at one end, and two small windows at each side.
The steps were washed and the stones strewn with fir twigs, because
the priest was expected.
He had to stoop to enter. The ceiling was low, too, so that he had to
keep his head bent. A saucepan of water was steaming on the fire, the
floor was white and strewn with fir twigs, the wife was sitting
dressed in her best with a hymn-book in her hand, and in bed, beneath
an old skin coverlet, lay Lars Kleven, in a shirt so white that it
must have been put on at the moment the priest was seen at the bottom
of the hill. The priest first shook hands with the wife, and then went
to the bed.
"And how are you, my dear Lars?"
Lars said nothing, pressed his lips together, and looked at the
priest. It was his wife who answered.
"Oh, mercy! How frightened I was that he'd be gone before the priest
came!"
The priest took the old man's hand. It was as hard as horn, and quite
cold. The furrowed, weather-beaten face was motionless, and the old
eyes looked up dully. Now and then his mouth moved, for he still had
his quid to chew. The pastor sat down.
"Are you afraid to die, my dear Lars?"
It was again the wife that answered.
"He has something to confess to you," she said.
"Indeed?" The priest looked kindly at the old man in the bed.
The dying man suddenly surprised him by sending a squirt of
tobacco-juice out of his mouth on to the floor. "It was about the
inquiry," he then said, looking anxiously at the priest.
"Oh! Between Wangen and Norby?"
"He wanted to go and give evidence," said the wife; "but he hadn't the
courage to give evidence against Norby."
The priest looked expectantly at Lars, who kept his eyes all the time
anxiously on him, still chewing his quid.
"Do you think there's pardon for me?" he asked at length.
"Yes. Why not?" The priest smiled.
"When I didn't go and give evidence to the truth, even though God told
me to?"
"Are you sure you knew the truth then, Lars?"
"He went with Norby to town that time when he signed the paper," said
the wife, who now stood by the table with her hymn-book in front of
her, looking anxiously at the priest.
Pastor Borring sat looking at the floor for a little while.
"And now he thinks there's no pardon for him," said the wife, wiping
her eyes. "But I tell him that Christ died for that sin too?"
The priest still looked down at the floor, but he felt the eyes of the
dying man eagerly fixed upon him, and he knew that he must answer when
he met those eyes.
If Pastor Borring had been alone and uninfluenced by the moment, he
would have answered: "Even if Christ died for your sins, and even if
you get to heaven, Wangen may suffer just as much in consequence of
your sin." He had it in his mind to say it, too, but it was another
matter to look up and meet the old, frightened eyes.
"Do you think there's pardon for me?" came at last from the bed; and
the priest had to answer.
"Yes," he said looking up.
"Will you pray for me?" said Lars, turning his quid in his mouth. The
priest rose and folded his hands; but what should he pray? He thought
of Wangen. But the sun shone brightly in upon the fir-strewn floor,
throwing a few beams across the old skin coverlet and on the old man's
shirt. It was like a message from Him who shines upon the good and the
evil, thought the priest, and there was such poverty and helplessness
in this little cottage, and the two poor old people filled him with a
desire to be merciful, and he began to pray God to be merciful.
When he ended, the wife was crying, and the old man lay with his hands
folded upon the coverlet, and the tears running down his cheeks. When
the priest sat down, he said: "Will you give me the sacrament?"
The priest rose mechanically and opened his bag. He heard the swallows
flying past the window outside in the sunshine, and the starling that
had its nest up under the eaves. It was like another message to tell
him that life was greater than man's idea of right and wrong.
When he stood ready in his priest's robes, after pouring the wine into
the chalice he had brought with him, he said with bowed head: "Listen,
Lars. The trial is next week. Won't you ask your wife to go and give
evidence for you? I can confirm what you have now confessed?"
"Oh, yes," said the old man, looking longingly at the chalice. The
wife sighed upon her bench, but came up and took the quid out of her
husband's mouth, and laid it on the window-sill.
When the priest had given the sacrament, and had packed up his gown
again, he sat a little longer by the dying man's bedside. It seemed as
if Lars had only kept up in expectation of the sacrament and the
forgiveness of his sins, and that he now suddenly began to sink. Once
he opened his eyes and turned them upon his wife. She understood him,
and took the half-chewed quid from the window-sill and put it into his
mouth; and Lars looked at her, as much as to say: "Yes, that was it."
The priest rose, and was taking his departure when the dying man
looked once more at the priest and then affectionately at his wife,
and whispered: "Oh no! She mustn't be made to go and give evidence,
for he'll take the cottage from her if she does."
"Very well," said the priest a little uncertainly, as he paused.
Old Lars smiled with content at finding that every prospect had
brightened so wonderfully, both for time and eternity; and he settled
himself deeper into his pillow. He then wanted to raise his head as if
to spit, but could not; the tobacco stuck in his throat, and he
coughed; and the cough became a dying rattle, and after a moment that
too ceased.
His wife stood some time gazing at him, and then went resolutely up
and closed his eyes. She then turned to the priest. "Thank God!" she
said with emotion. "Now I know that Lars died saved."
On his way homewards with his bag in his hand the priest stopped on
the hill, and sitting down on a stone, rested his chin in his hand,
and looked out over the parish.
Whenever Pastor Borring had imparted forgiveness of sins he was always
unhappy; for in the first place he did not feel that God had charged
him with the forgiveness of sins, and in the second he did not believe
in the notion of forgiveness. And yet in the course of time he had
laid his hand in church upon the heads of thousands, and lied this
dangerous comfort into their souls.
And now he was sitting here, unhappy once more. He had never felt more
distinctly than now how altogether meaningless it was to pardon, to
forgive. If God forgave Lars Kleven, was He also to pardon on Wangen's
behalf? Wangen would perhaps be unjustly condemned, in spite of the
pardon. And Wangen's family, who were the sufferers?
No, a wicked action is a thing that is set in motion, and perhaps
never stops. It appears in consequences and the consequences of those
consequences; it spreads like an infectious disease, and no one knows
when or how it will cease. Even if it is lost to sight, it still goes
on its way. Who will pardon here? God? Is it His duty to pardon it on
the behalf of innocent persons?
Thus thought Pastor Borring as he sat. On his way home he felt
saddened and ashamed, as he so often did during the performance of an
act from which he did not feel strong enough to free himself.
But what was he to do now? The confessions of a dying man are sacred.