measure of us others, perhaps--Oh-ho, no," stretching himself with
superabundant conviction, "if we can afford to keep him at his studies,
he can easily learn. There are many more stupid than he who have
attained the position of both minister and sheriff."
One day the captain hastily separated a letter from Aunt Alette from
his official mail, and threw it on the table for Ma to read through at
her convenience. If there was anything in it, she could tell it to him,
he shouted back, as he went up the stairs to his office; he had become
a great deal heavier and more short of breath lately, and took a firmer
hold on the stair rail.
_May 1, 1844_
MY DEAREST GITTA,--It is with a certain sad, subdued feeling that I
write to you this time; nay, I could even wish to characterize it
by a stronger expression. It comes to my old ears as if there was a
lamentation sounding over so many bright hopes bowing their heads
to the ground; and I can only find consolation in the firm faith,
cherished through a long life, that nothing happens save as a link in a
higher wisdom.
Just as I have hitherto tried to present everything relating to
Inger-Johanna as clearly before you as I could see it myself, so I find
it most proper not to conceal from you the struggle which she plainly
is going through against a feeling, from whose power I hope there may
yet be salvation in the fortunate circumstance that it has not yet had
full time to come into being and ripen in her.
It is there, and it produces pain, but more, is my hope, as a
possibility, which has not put out sufficient roots, than as a reality,
a living growth, which could not, without injury to her innermost
being, coldly be subdued and stifled again.
But never has shrewd calculation celebrated a more sorry triumph
than when the governor's wife believed that she could find a remedy
by keeping the person concerned at a distance and at last even by
persecuting him, in order to make it impossible for him to support
himself here. When it is considered that Inger-Johanna, during all the
treatment that Grip has endured for his ideas, has plainly sympathized
with, almost championed them, the result should not have been difficult
to foresee.
And one cold, frosty morning early this winter, Inger-Johanna came here
in great mental excitement to make an examination into his condition
through Jörgen. It was then also at her appeal that Jörgen asked him to
teach him four hours a week.
On this occasion I saw clearly what before I had only suspected, but
which had not escaped your sister-in-law's sharp eye, that Student
Grip, without Inger-Johanna's having any idea of it, had engrossed her
as a personality that drew her more and more.
It is of no use to conceal it; it is a crisis which must be fought
through, before she finally becomes any other person's, if her
position is not to be a false one, and if she is not to support a
lifelong sorrow.
That the news of her betrothal has fallen like a saddening
disappointment of a hope (even if a remote one) on this young man, I
regard as far from improbable.
I certainly cannot forget the two serious young faces, which for a
moment stood looking at each other, when they met in my room one
afternoon. There was not much said.
She knew that he had been wronged and she hinted something to that
effect.
"Possibly, Miss Jäger," he said harshly, while he took hold of the
door-knob. "So many soap-bubbles burst."
Inger-Johanna remained standing and looking down on the floor. It was
as if an entire change had come over her; I am sure it dawned upon her
what he felt.
The discharge from the governor's bureau has plainly enough been
welcome to many of the families which immediately after with singular
quickness seized the opportunity to dismiss him as tutor. A man of such
strangely discordant ideas had long been thought not quite desirable to
receive. And the example had been given.
From an honest heart I offered him a loan, so that he might live in
peace for two or three months and study, until he could again get
places to teach; but either he was too sore and proud, or else he
thought that Inger-Johanna had a hand in it.
He has certainly taken it very much to heart that the total want
of means of existence has now compelled him to give up the school,
which was his pride, so that he is now in a certain way an object of
ridicule, and this has capped the climax.
He goes about unoccupied, so Jörgen reports, and asks for credit at
eating-houses and restaurants, where he sits out the evening and night.
I understood well enough that it was not just for the sake of her old
aunt or for the thing itself, but to hear about him, that Inger-Johanna
sat with me so often and learned the old-fashioned stitch with
pearls and gold thread. She was in such an excited condition and so
abstracted, and jumped up when Jörgen came home towards evening and,
more's the pity, as often as not had been looking for him in vain to
read with him.
That pale, darkly brilliant face stands so before me, Gitta, with which
she one evening broke out: "Aunt--Aunt--Aunt Alette!"
It was like a hidden cry.
Where he is living now, Jörgen has not succeeded in finding out;
possibly for want of means he has been turned out of his lodgings.
I narrate all this so much in detail, because it is to be believed and
hoped that the severest part of the crisis, so far as she is concerned,
is over now.
Since that evening, when she felt that she had forgotten herself, she
has at least not talked about him, nor, as I know certainly, addressed
a word to Jörgen. She has evidently esteemed his character very highly,
and has now suffered a disappointment.
It is not well to be young and have a great deal of life that can
suffer. I tell you, it is as with your teeth; there is no peace until
you have them all in your table drawer.
No, all this was not anything for father, Ma thought.
* * * * *
Great-Ola was standing with a crowbar. There was a stone which was to
be placed in the wall. But the frozen crust of earth was hard, up there
on the meadow, although the sun was so roasting hot that he was obliged
to wipe his forehead with his pointed cap every time he rested.
The non-commissioned officers had returned to the office during the
forenoon with their pay in their pockets, one after the other; and that
it was pretty bad going with holes in the highway was evident from
their splashed carts, which were as if they had been dipped in the mud.
He had just got ready to put the crowbar under again, when he suddenly
stopped. There was something which attracted his attention--a cariole
with a post-boy walking by the side and a little yellow horse covered
with mud up to its belly.
With pieces of rope for reins and wound around the cariole thills, the
horse toiled up along the Gilje hills in zigzag, incessantly stopping
to get breath. The sun was burning hot down there on the frozen earth.
The post down from Drevstad--he knew both the horse and the lumbering
vehicle.
It was not that which would have taken his attention so seriously;
but some one was sitting in it--a lady with hat and veil. He did not
understand--that way of carrying the head--wasn't it--
He took two or three slow, thoughtful steps, then started on the jump,
and over the wall with a leap which would have touched the roof-beam in
a high room.
"Why, in the Lord's name, if it isn't Inger-Johanna herself!" he
ejaculated, as he suddenly stood by the side of the horse. "What will
the capt--"
At the sight of her he suddenly had a misgiving that perhaps everything
might not be so well.
"And such a rattle-trap!" he said, recovering himself, "is that fit for
Inger-Johanna?"
"Good morning, Great-Ola, is father at home, and mother? No, I am not
so very well, but shall be better now."
She became silent again.
Great-Ola walked on, leading the horse by the reins, when Inger-Johanna
drove into the yard.
There stood her father under the painting-ladder, looking up. He
suddenly shaded his eyes, and was at once with her by the cariole.
"Inger-Johanna!"
She hugged him tightly out there, and the captain, dreadfully
perplexed, drew her into the hall to Ma, who was standing there dumb.
"What is the matter, what is the matter, Inger-Johanna?" he burst out.
"Go in--go into the room a little, Jäger." She knew how little he could
bear. "Let her talk with me first, and then we will come in to you--it
is surely not anything irreparable."
"Father, Ma? Why should not father understand me?"
"Come, come, child," the captain made haste to say; he had hardly any
voice left.
And she sat down there in the sitting-room with her father by her side
on the sofa and her mother on a chair, and told them how she had fought
and striven to make herself fancy that her life's task lay with Rönnow.
She had created for herself a whole pile of illusions.
But then, on one day--and she also knew which one--they became like
extinguished lights for her--black as coal and empty, wherever she
looked--not what she had thought, not what she meant--like throwing
herself into a desert.
"And aunt insisted that I should choose the pattern of my wedding
dress. I think I should have gone into it blindly, with my eyes shut,
nevertheless; for I thought of you, father, what you would say, and of
you, mother,--and of the whole world outside, what it would say, if
I thus, without any trace of reason, broke my engagement. And then I
considered that everything was settled. I had thrown myself into the
water and was only sinking, sinking--I had no right now to do anything
else than drown. But then--"
"Well," a short ominous cough; the captain sat looking on the floor
with his hands on his knees.
"Then," resumed Inger-Johanna with a low voice, still paler, and
violently impressed with her subject--"Nay, there need not be any
secret from you, father, and you, mother, since you otherwise would not
understand me;--it came almost like a flash of lightning upon me, that
for wholly one year, and perhaps for two, I had had my whole soul bound
up with another."
"Who is it?"
"Grip," she whispered.
The captain had sat patiently and listened--entirely patiently--till
the last word. But now he flew up and placed himself before her; he
struck his hands together on the backs, and stretched them out,
utterly without self-control.
"But, kingdom of heaven!" he broke out at last. "Where are you!--What
are you thinking of? You can't for a single moment ever think
of comparing such a--Grip with a man like Rönnow?--I tell you,
Inger-Johanna, your father is absolutely, totally--you--you might just
as well rise up and strike me dead at once."
"Listen, father!" came from Inger-Johanna; at the same moment she
sprang up and stood before him. "If Thinka and the others have not
saved themselves, no one shall trample on me."
Ma continued sitting with sharp, compressed face.
"Such pure insanity!" The captain struck his fist against his forehead
and walked up and down the floor disconsolately. "But now I see it;" he
stopped again, nodding to himself. "You have been spoiled, dreadfully
spoiled--spoiled, since you were little--And then we get it again, only
because I think so much of you."
"The whole world could contradict me, father. I have only my right way
to go--to do as I have done--write to Rönnow, give full explanation,
and tell it to aunt. And," she leaned against the sofa and looked
down bitterly, as the remembrance came over her, "aunt has done what
she could, I can assure you--thought, as you do, father, that it was
pure insanity. She was so fond of me that she did not care how much
wretchedness it was for me if the match only came off. So vain and
young as I was, she thought, all she had to do was to get Grip cried
down and pursued, so that he should stand without means, hemmed in on
all sides without any way out, a man made an object of ridicule, who
was obliged to give up his purpose--only his father over again. It was
so easily done, as he fought for his opinions unsupported, and it would
be taken up so readily, as she knew." She stood there so self-assured,
tremblingly lost in her own thoughts, with downcast eyes and dark
brows. She had become thin and slim. "And now I have come home here
with more sorrow than I can tell you or explain--so full of fear--"
There was a silence during which strange emotions were working in the
captain. "Do you say that we are not fond of you--will do you harm?
Well, then, perhaps, I might not consider it so right hereafter, what
you have done. I say perhaps; but now I tell you that, if you must do
it, then we shall stand by it, just as you yourself wish in the affair.
You understand it, at all events. Why, you have not even sat down,
child. Let her have something to eat, Ma, at once."
He started up. There was a good deal to be got out of the way in her
room, so she should not see that repairs were going on.
_Chapter XIII_
The captain's house, freshly painted red, stood there on the hillside
through the summer, and looked out over the country; it had become an
ornament to the district.
But Great-Ola did not see how it was. Since the painting the captain
was not like himself, some way or other. It did not have the right good
luck with it. He came out there one time after another, and forgot
what he came after, so that he must turn back again. Not a bad word to
be heard from his mouth any longer, far from that, and he did not box
one's ears.
The captain did not feel safe from dizziness this year. He went about
continually making stops, and the one who must always go with him on
his different trips over the grounds, stop when he stopped and go when
he went, was Inger-Johanna. It was as if he seemed to find strength for
himself in her erect carriage, and besides wanted to make sure that she
was not going about grieving.
"Do you believe that she will ride or drive?" he asked Ma out in the
pantry. "She stands there planting here and there and taking up and
putting down in the garden; she is not accustomed to that now, Ma, you
see. It seems to me, she is so serious. But can you imagine what will
become of her? Huh," he sighed. "Nay, can you imagine it?" He took a
ladle of whey out of the tub--"Drink plenty of whey, that thins the
blood and prolongs life, Rist says--so that she can be the captain's
daughter the longer here at Gilje--I have been thinking, Ma, that I am
not going down to the sheriff's birthday on Thursday. Thinka is soon
coming up, and--Oh, it is good to drink when one is thirsty."
On that same above named Thursday, the captain went about more than
commonly silent and taciturn. Not a syllable at the dinner table, from
the time he sat down till he rose again and peevishly, heavily, trudged
up the stairs in order to take his after-dinner nap as it now should
be, sitting and only for a moment.
He did not know whether he had closed his eyes or not; it didn't
matter, either.
He rushed out of the office door--"Suppose they are now talking among
themselves, Scharfenberg and the others. Just as amusing as to run
the gauntlet through the whole country to travel down there." He
stood absorbed before the great clothes-press out in the hall, when
Inger-Johanna came up. "Will you see something?" said he--"your long
boots when you were small."
She did not like to go into the housekeeping, but developed a great
activity in outside affairs. For the present, the garden must be
enlarged, the beds must be measured and spaded, and the hedge planted
for Thinka's coming visit.
With a straw hat on, she was in the garden from early morning. There
was such peace in being able to work in the fresh air and escaping from
sitting over the sewing and thinking.
The captain went about shrinking from the drill.
Ma had several times proposed to send for Rist; but now she and
Inger-Johanna in consultation determined really to do so.
Such a calming down always followed the doctor's visits.
Of course he should go to the drill-ground. A little lively marching
in rank and file took off the fat so effectually and made the blood
circulate as it should. "You have never yet talked about your head
swimming when you were in camp, Jäger. It is just the right treatment,
if you want to be allowed a glass of punch again on this side of
Christmas."
While Gülcke was on the circuits, Thinka came up on a visit.
The sisters were at home again together, talking as in the old time;
but neither of them wondered any longer what there might be in the
outside world.
They knew that so well, both of them.
He felt so comfortable, the captain said, when he saw Thinka sitting
there with her knitting-work and a novel, either out on the stairs or
in the sitting-room.
"She is satisfied with her lot now, isn't she?" he said to Ma.
He came back to it so often; it was as if he had a secret disquietude
on that point. By getting an insight into the matter through
Inger-Johanna, he had to a degree got his eyes opened, at least to the
extent of a suspicion, as to the possibility that a woman could be
unhappy in a good match.
Then, on the other hand, his constant consolation was that such as
Inger-Johanna must be exceptional examples of humanity--with her
commanding nature and intolerance of living under any one's thumb.
But ordinary girls were not endowed with such lofty feelings and
thoughts--and Thinka was, as it were, made for giving way and
submitting to some one.
All the same, the question still lay and writhed like a worm in his
stomach.
"Inger-Johanna!" said Thinka out on the stairs, "notice father,
how unnerved he looks now, he is walking down there by the garden
fence--and he is all the time forgetting his pipe; it is not halfsmoked
up before it goes out."
"So you think he is changed," said Inger-Johanna, musing and resuming
the conversation, up in their room in the evening. "Poor father; it is
so absolutely impossible for him to get over it; I was destined to be
a parade horse. But do you believe he would now demand it again of any
of us?"
"You are strong, Inger-Johanna, and I suppose you are right. But he has
become so good," Thinka said, sighing; "and it is that which makes me
uneasy."
As the time drew nearer, he went about, dreading more and more to go
to the camp, so that Ma finally began to believe that perhaps it was
not advisable for him to go, since he had himself so little courage or
desire for it. During the day, he would walk about quite alone, so that
he might come to shun people altogether.
And the first real gleam of light she had seen for a long time on his
countenance was when she, notwithstanding, proposed that he write to
the army surgeon for a certificate of sickness.
It went on smoothly enough after it was first set in motion. And yet he
seemed to repent it, so to speak, when his leave of absence actually
lay upon his desk.
He went about annoyed and thought about them all down there. Now
Captain Vonderthan would naturally spoil the men on the drill-ground;
and this one and that one was speculating, he supposed, even now, on
whether he would not possibly go upon half pay. But he would disappoint
them by lasting as long as possible, if he should drink whey the year
round.
The time, which was so absorbing and disturbing to his mind, when the
drill was taking place, was over at last, and he had already, through
Ma's persuasion, by degrees reconciled himself to a possible trip to
the principal parish, when a scrap of a letter from Jörgen was brought
in the mail, which put them all in great distress.
He could not endure any longer to sit there as the poorest in his
class, and had shipped on board a vessel which was going to sail
that evening for England. From there he hoped to find some means of
getting over to America, where he would try to become a blacksmith or a
wheelwright or something else. He would not fail to write home to his
dear parents what his fate was.
"There, Ma," said the captain with a deep, trembling voice, when at
last he had got over his stupefaction a little, "that Grip has been
expensive for us. It is nothing but his teaching."
* * * * *
The autumn was already far advanced. The snow had come and gone twice,
and had now been swept off by the wind from the slippery, hard frozen
road. The slopes and mountains were white, with red and yellow tones
of the frost-touched leaves of the leafy forest still showing in many
places, and the lake down below was shining coldly blue, ready to
freeze over.
There was a thundering over the country road hard with frost, so it
waked the echoes in the quiet October day; one crow was standing, and
another started up from the hedge-post at the sound.
It was the wheels of a cariole, and in it was sitting, with a long whip
hanging down behind his back, in cloak and large overshoes, the Captain
of Gilje.
He had been ten miles down and had his yearly settlement with Bardon
Kleven.
It is true, the bailiff had not been willing to let him go out of
the house without compelling him to taste a little brandy in a small
tumbler, with a little ale in addition, and a little something to eat.
But he had been prudent. It was almost the only trip he had made away
from home for a long time, except his visit to the sheriff.
Old Svarten ran over the long, flat stretches in the heavy, strong trot
to which he was accustomed; the road showed that he was sharp shod with
full caulks. He knew that he was not to stop till he had done the three
miles to the foot of the steep ascent up the Gilje hills.
It was probably because he was newly shod, and the lumps of mud were so
large and were frozen hard; but now he stumbled.
It was the first time it had happened. Perhaps he felt it himself, for
he kept on at a brisker trot--but then slackened up by degrees. He
felt that the reins were loose and slack; their folds fell longer and
longer down over his shoulders.
The whip-lash hung down as before over the captain's back, only still
more slantingly.
He had begun to feel such cold shivers, just as if he had suddenly got
cold all over--and now he had become so sleepy--had such a longing for
a nap.
He saw the reins, the ears, and the hanging mane over the neck of
Svarten nodding up and down before him, and the ground beneath him
flying away--
It was just as if a crow flew up and made it dark right over his face;
but he could not get his arm up to catch it--so let it be.
And there stood the grain-poles, like crooked old witches, crouched
down--they wanted to avenge themselves--with straw forelocks they
resisted him more and more like goblins and would forbid him to get
his arms up to take the reins and drive to Gilje. They were swarming
between heaven and earth, as it were, swimming, dancing--were bright
and dark. Then there was something like a shout or a crash from
somewhere. There was Inger-Johanna coming--
Svarten had got the reins quite down over his forelegs; a little more
and he would be stepping on them.
From the gentle trot, into which he had at last fallen, he began to
walk.
Then he turned his head round--and remained standing in the middle of
the road.
The whip-lash hung down as before. The captain sat there immovable with
his head a little tipped back--
They were still on the level, and Svarten stood patiently looking
toward the Gilje hill, which lay a bit farther on, until he turned his
head round again two or three times and looked into the cariole.
Now he began to paw on the ground with one forefoot, harder and
harder--so that the lumps flew about.
Then he neighed.
A good hour later, in the twilight, there was a conversation in an
undertone out in the yard, and the sound of cariole wheels which moved
slowly.
Great-Ola was called down to the gate by the man down yonder at the
Sörgaard; he had met the cariole with the captain down in the road.
"What is it?" Ma's voice was heard to say through the darkness from the
porch.
* * * * *
At the entrance of the churchyard, a week later, old Svarten and young
Svarten stood before an empty sleigh.
A salute before and after the lowering into the ground informed the
parish that here lay Captain Peter Wennechen Jäger.
_Chapter XIV_
About twenty years had passed, and the traffic down in the country
store and inn showed an entirely different style both in building and
goods. There had also begun to be a route for travellers and tourists
in the summer up through the valley.
The snow drifted, so that it lay high up on the steps this Sunday
afternoon.
But in the little warm room behind the shop there was jollity. He had
come up again, he, the delightful Grip; and now he was sitting there
with the shopkeeper, the bailiff's man, and the execution-server.
Only let him get a little something to drink.