While Wik spoke, his divorced wife stood and listened to him. She had
gone out to the wood that morning, beaming and contented on her
husband’s arm, most matron-like, respectable in every fold. Her
daughter and the apprentice carried the luncheon basket. The maid
followed with the youngest child. There had been nothing but content,
happiness, calm.
There they had lain in a thicket. They had eaten and drunk, played and
laughed. Never a thought of the past! Conscience was as silent as a
satisfied child. In the beginning, when her first husband had slunk
half drunk by her window, she had felt a prick in her soul.
Then she had heard that he had become the idol of the Salvation Army.
She was, therefore, quite calm. Now she had come to hear him. And she
understood him. He was not speaking of Uria; he was telling about
himself. He was writhing at the thought of his own sacrifice. He tore
bits from his own heart and threw them out among the people. She knew
that rider in the desert, that conqueror of brigands. And that
unappeased agony stared at her like an open grave. …
Night came. The wood was deserted. Farewell, grass and flowers! Wide
heaven, a long farewell! Snakes began to crawl about the tufts of
grass. Turtles crept along the paths. The wood was ugly. Everybody
longed to be back in the stone desert, the moon landscape. That is the
place for men.
Dame Anna Erikson invited all her old friends. The mechanics’ wives
from the suburbs and the poorer scrub-women came to her for a cup of
coffee. The same were there who had been with her on the day of her
desertion. One was new, Maria Anderson, the captain of the Salvation
Army.
Anna Erikson had now been many times to the Salvation Army. She had
heard her husband. He always told about himself. He disguised his
story. She recognized it always. He was Abraham. He was Job. He was
Jeremiah, whom the people threw into a well. He was Elisha, whom the
children at the wayside reviled.
That pain seemed bottomless to her. His sorrow seemed to her to borrow
all voices, to make itself masks of everything it met. She did not
understand that her husband talked himself well, that pleasure in his
power of fancy played and smiled in him.
She had dragged her daughter with her. The daughter had not wished to
go. She was serious, modest, and conscientious. Nothing of youth played
in her veins. She was born old.
She had grown up in shame of her father. She walked upright, austere,
as if saying: “Look, the daughter of a man who is despised! Look if my
dress is soiled! Is there anything to blame in my conduct?” Her mother
was proud of her. Yet sometimes she sighed. “Alas! if my daughter’s
hands were less white, perhaps her caresses would be warmer!”
The girl sat scornfully smiling. She despised theatricals. When her
father rose up to speak, she wished to go. Her mother’s hand seized
hers, fast as a vice. The girl sat still. The torrent of words began to
roar over her. But that which spoke to her was not so much the words as
her mother’s hand.
That hand writhed, convulsions passed through it. It lay in hers limp,
as if dead; it caught wildly about, hot with fever. Her mother’s face
betrayed nothing; only her hand suffered and struggled.
The old speaker described the martyrdom of silence. The friend of Jesus
lay ill. His sisters sent a message to him; but his time had not come.
For the sake of God’s kingdom Lazarus must die.
He now let all doubting, all slander be heaped upon Christ. He
described his suffering. His own compassion tortured him. He passed
through the agony of death, he as well as Lazarus. Still he had to keep
silence.
Only one word had he needed to say to win back the respect of his
friends. He was silent. He had to hear the lamentations of the sisters.
He told them the truth in words which they did not understand. Enemies
mocked at him.
And so on always more and more affecting.
Anna Erikson’s hand still lay in that of her daughter. It confessed and
acknowledged: “The man there bears the martyr’s crown of silence. He is
wrongly accused. With a word he could set himself free.”
The girl followed her mother home. They went in silence. The girl’s
face was like stone. She was pondering, searching for everything which
memory could tell her. Her mother looked anxiously at her. What did she
know?
The next day Anna Erikson had her coffee party. The talk turned on the
day’s market, on the price of wooden shoes, on pilfering maids. The
women chatted and laughed. They poured their coffee into the saucer.
They were mild and unconcerned. Anna Erikson could not understand why
she had been afraid of them, why she had always believed that they
would judge her.
When they were provided with their second cup, when they sat delighted
with the coffee trembling on the edge of their cups, and their saucers
were filled with bread, she began to speak. Her words were a little
solemn, but her voice was calm.
“Young people are imprudent. A girl who marries without thinking
seriously of what she is doing can come to great grief. Who has met
with worse than I?”
They all knew it. They had been with her and had mourned with her.
“Young people are imprudent. One holds one’s tongue when one ought to
speak, for shame’s sake. One dares not to speak for fear of what people
will say. He who has not spoken at the right time may have to repent it
a whole lifetime.”
They all believed that this was true.
She had heard Wik yesterday as well as many times before. Now she must
tell them all something about him. An aching pain came over her when
she thought of what he had suffered for her sake. Still she thought
that he, who had been old, ought to have had more sense than to take
her, a young girl, for his wife.
“I did not dare to say it in my youth. But he went away from me out of
pity, for he thought that I wanted to have Erikson. I have his letter
about it.”
She read the letter aloud for them. A tear glided demurely down her
cheek.
“He had seen falsely in his jealousy. Between Erikson and me there was
nothing then. It was four years before we were married; but I will say
it now, for Wik is too good to be misjudged. He did not run away from
wife and child from light motives, but with good intention. I want this
to be known everywhere. Captain Anderson will perhaps read the letter
aloud at the meeting. I wish Wik to be redressed. I know, too, that I
have been silent too long, but one does not like to give up everything
for a drunkard. Now it is another matter.”
The women sat as if turned to stone. Anna Erikson, her voice trembling
a little, said with a faint smile,—
“Now perhaps you will never care to come to see me again?”
“Oh, yes indeed! You were so young! It was nothing which you could
help.—It was his fault for having such ideas.”
She smiled. These were the hard beaks which would have torn her to
pieces. The truth was not dangerous nor lying either. The young men
were not waiting outside her door.
Did she know or did she not know that her eldest daughter had that very
morning left her home and had gone to her father?
The sacrifice which Matts Wik had made to save his wife’s honor became
known. He was admired; he was derided. His letter was read aloud at the
meeting. Some of those present wept with emotion. People came and
pressed his hands on the street. His daughter moved to his house.
For several evenings after he was silent at the meetings. He felt no
inspiration. At last they asked him to speak. He mounted the platform,
folded his hands together and began.
When he had said a couple of words he stopped, confused. He did not
recognize his own voice. Where was the lion’s roar? Where the raging
north wind? And where the torrent of words? He did not understand,
could not understand.
He staggered back. “I cannot,” he muttered. “God gives me no strength
to speak yet.” He sat down on a bench and buried his head in his hands.
He gathered all his powers of thought to discover first what he wanted
to talk about. Did he have to consider so in the old days? Could he
consider now? His head whirled.
Perhaps it would go if he should stand up again, place himself where he
was accustomed to stand, and begin with his usual prayer. He tried. His
face turned ashy-gray. All glances were turned towards him. A cold
sweat trickled down his forehead. He found not a word on his lips.
He sat down in his place and wept, moaning heavily. The gift was taken
from him. He tried to speak, tried silently to himself. What should he
talk about. His sorrow was taken from him. He had nothing to say to
people which he was not allowed to tell them. He had no secret to
disguise. He did not need to romance. Romance left him.
It was the agony of death; it was a struggle for life. He wished to
hold fast that which was already gone. He wished to have his grief
again in order to be able again to speak. His grief was gone; he could
not get it back.
He staggered forward like a drunken man to the platform again and
again. He stammered out a few meaningless words. He repeated like a
lesson learned by heart what he had heard others say. He tried to
imitate himself. He looked for devotion in the glances, for trembling
silence, quickening breaths. He perceived nothing. That which had been
his joy was taken from him.
He sank back into the darkness. He cursed, that he by his discourse had
converted his wife and daughter. He had possessed the most precious of
gifts and lost it. His pain was extreme.—But it is not by such grief
that genius lives.
He was a painter without hands, a singer who had lost his voice. He had
only spoken of his sorrow. What should he speak of now?
He prayed: “O God, when honor is dumb, and misjudgment speaks, give me
back misjudgment! When happiness is dumb, but sorrow speaks, give me
back sorrow!”
But the crown was taken from him. He sat there, more miserable than the
most miserable, for he had been cast down from the heights of life. He
was a fallen king.