The moonlight flooded that great, silent land. The reaped fields lay
yellow in it. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks threw sharp black
shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was a deep,
crystalline blue, and the stars were few and faint. Everything seemed to
have succumbed, to have sunk to sleep, under the great, golden, tender,
midsummer moon. The splendour of it seemed to transcend human life and
human fate. The senses were too feeble to take it in, and every time one
looked up at the sky one felt unequal to it, as if one were sitting deaf
under the waves of a great river of melody. Near the road, Nils Ericson
was lying against a straw stack in Olaf's wheat field. His own life
seemed strange and unfamiliar to him, as if it were something he had
read about, or dreamed, and forgotten. He lay very still, watching the
white road that ran in front of him, lost itself among the fields, and
then, at a distance, reappeared over a little hill. At last, against
this white band he saw something moving rapidly, and he got up and
walked to the edge of the field. “She is passing the row of poplars
now,” he thought. He heard the padded beat of hoofs along the dusty
road, and as she came into sight he stepped out and waved his arms.
Then, for fear of frightening the horse, he drew back and waited. Clara
had seen him, and she came up at a walk. Nils took the horse by the bit
and stroked his neck.
“What are you doing out so late, Clara Vavrika? I went to the house, but
Johanna told me you had gone to your father's.”
“Who can stay in the house on a night like this? Aren't you out
yourself?”
“Ah, but that's another matter.”
Nils turned the horse into the field.
“What are you doing? Where are you taking Norman?”
“Not far, but I want to talk to you tonight; I have something to say to
you. I can't talk to you at the house, with Olaf sitting there on the
porch, weighing a thousand tons.”
Clara laughed. “He won't be sitting there now. He's in bed by this time,
and asleep--weighing a thousand tons.”
Nils plodded on across the stubble. “Are you really going to spend the
rest of your life like this, night after night, summer after summer?
Haven't you anything better to do on a night like this than to wear
yourself and Norman out tearing across the country to your father's
and back? Besides, your father won't live forever, you know. His little
place will be shut up or sold, and then you'll have nobody but the
Ericsons. You'll have to fasten down the hatches for the winter then.”
Clara moved her head restlessly. “Don't talk about that. I try never to
think of it. If I lost Father I'd lose everything, even my hold over the
Ericsons.”
“Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose your race,
everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a good deal of it now.”
“Of what?”
“Of your love of life, your capacity for delight.”
Clara put her hands up to her face. “I haven't, Nils Ericson, I haven't!
Say anything to me but that. I won't have it!” she declared vehemently.
Nils led the horse up to a straw stack, and turned to Clara, looking
at her intently, as he had looked at her that Sunday afternoon at
Vavrika's. “But why do you fight for that so? What good is the power
to enjoy, if you never enjoy? Your hands are cold again; what are you
afraid of all the time? Ah, you're afraid of losing it; that's what's
the matter with you! And you will, Clara Vavrika, you will! When I used
to know you--listen; you've caught a wild bird in your hand, haven't
you, and felt its heart beat so hard that you were afraid it would
shatter its little body to pieces? Well, you used to be just like that,
a slender, eager thing with a wild delight inside you. That is how I
remembered you. And I come back and find you--a bitter woman. This is
a perfect ferret fight here; you live by biting and being bitten. Can't
you remember what life used to be? Can't you remember that old delight?
I've never forgotten it, or known its like, on land or sea.”
He drew the horse under the shadow of the straw stack. Clara felt him
take her foot out of the stirrup, and she slid softly down into his
arms. He kissed her slowly. He was a deliberate man, but his nerves were
steel when he wanted anything. Something flashed out from him like a
knife out of a sheath. Clara felt everything slipping away from her; she
was flooded by the summer night. He thrust his hand into his pocket,
and then held it out at arm's length. “Look,” he said. The shadow of the
straw stack fell sharp across his wrist, and in the palm of his hand she
saw a silver dollar shining. “That's my pile,” he muttered; “will you go
with me?”
Clara nodded, and dropped her forehead on his shoulder.
Nils took a deep breath. “Will you go with me tonight?”
“Where?” she whispered softly.
“To town, to catch the midnight flyer.”
Clara lifted her head and pulled herself together. “Are you crazy, Nils?
We couldn't go away like that.”
“That's the only way we ever will go. You can't sit on the bank and
think about it. You have to plunge. That's the way I've always done,
and it's the right way for people like you and me. There's nothing so
dangerous as sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, and
you can let it slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing easier.
Most people do that. You'd be better off tramping the roads with me than
you are here.” Nils held back her head and looked into her eyes. “But
I'm not that kind of a tramp, Clara. You won't have to take in sewing.
I'm with a Norwegian shipping line; came over on business with the New
York offices, but now I'm going straight back to Bergen. I expect
I've got as much money as the Ericsons. Father sent me a little to get
started. They never knew about that. There, I hadn't meant to tell you;
I wanted you to come on your own nerve.”
Clara looked off across the fields. “It isn't that, Nils, but something
seems to hold me. I'm afraid to pull against it. It comes out of the
ground, I think.”
“I know all about that. One has to tear loose. You're not needed here.
Your father will understand; he's made like us. As for Olaf, Johanna
will take better care of him than ever you could. It's now or never,
Clara Vavrika. My bag's at the station; I smuggled it there yesterday.”
Clara clung to him and hid her face against his shoulder. “Not tonight,”
she whispered. “Sit here and talk to me tonight. I don't want to go
anywhere tonight. I may never love you like this again.”
Nils laughed through his teeth. “You can't come that on me. That's not
my way, Clara Vavrika. Eric's mare is over there behind the stacks, and
I'm off on the midnight. It's goodbye, or off across the world with me.
My carriage won't wait. I've written a letter to Olaf, I'll mail it
in town. When he reads it he won't bother us--not if I know him. He'd
rather have the land. Besides, I could demand an investigation of his
administration of Cousin Henrik's estate, and that would be bad for a
public man. You've no clothes, I know; but you can sit up tonight, and
we can get everything on the way. Where's your old dash, Clara Vavrika?
What's become of your Bohemian blood? I used to think you had courage
enough for anything. Where's your nerve--what are you waiting for?”
Clara drew back her head, and he saw the slumberous fire in her eyes.
“For you to say one thing, Nils Ericson.”
“I never say that thing to any woman, Clara Vavrika.” He leaned back,
lifted her gently from the ground, and whispered through his teeth: “But
I'll never, never let you go, not to any man on earth but me! Do you
understand me? Now, wait here.”
Clara sank down on a sheaf of wheat and covered her face with her hands.
She did not know what she was going to do--whether she would go or stay.
The great, silent country seemed to lay a spell upon her. The ground
seemed to hold her as if by roots. Her knees were soft under her. She
felt as if she could not bear separation from her old sorrows, from her
old discontent. They were dear to her, they had kept her alive, they
were a part of her. There would be nothing left of her if she were
wrenched away from them. Never could she pass beyond that skyline
against which her restlessness had beat so many times. She felt as if
her soul had built itself a nest there on that horizon at which
she looked every morning and every evening, and it was dear to her,
inexpressibly dear. She pressed her fingers against her eyeballs to shut
it out. Beside her she heard the tramping of horses in the soft earth.
Nils said nothing to her. He put his hands under her arms and lifted her
lightly to her saddle. Then he swung himself into his own.
“We shall have to ride fast to catch the midnight train. A last gallop,
Clara Vavrika. Forward!”
There was a start, a thud of hoofs along the moonlit road, two dark
shadows going over the hill; and then the great, still land stretched
untroubled under the azure night. Two shadows had passed.