The next morning they were awakened by a loud and continued noise. When
they could collect their thoughts they knew it was the church bells
ringing for service; they had slept very late, but then they had worked
till three o'clock, that is to say, until broad daylight.
Kallem was out of bed in a second, and into the bathroom, next door,
where he took a tremendous shower-bath; evidently, the former doctor
had had a taste for that kind of thing! And hardly was he half dressed
before he ran out onto the balcony to look at the view. He shouted in
to Ragni to take her shower-bath too, and dress herself and come out to
look at it; but she had felt the water so fearfully cold yesterday, she
lay there with wide-open eyes, debating as to whether she should shirk
it or really venture to take it. She made up her mind to shirk, so she
quickly appeared at his side in a very pretty dressing-gown, which she
had thrown round her. But although she looked so sweetly at him, and
eagerly began praising the view and the exquisite day, he did not
forget the shower-bath. Yesterday she had solemnly promised that she
would begin the very first morning; susceptible to cold as she was, she
must look upon a shower-bath as her daily bread, especially up here,
where the change from heat to cold was so very sudden. Therefore----!
She made the most piteous face, and tried to laugh it off; but he
pointed to the shower-bath--would she really break her promise? If she
broke it now, this first time, she would break it too often later on.
She kissed him and said he was cruel; he kissed her and said she was
sweet; but how about the shower-bath? So she darted in and undid her
dressing-gown, as though she meant to take the bath, but popped into
bed instead. When he came in, she pulled the clothes over her head; but
without more ado he took up the blanket and its contents, and carried
it to the door; but she begged and implored him to let her off, and
seemed so frightened that he went back with his burden. She put her
arms round him and dragged him down to her; she kissed him and
whispered to him, and with her sweet caresses completely defeated his
logic.
The bells went on ringing and ringing, carriages drove past away from
the town. Hardly had one gone by before another came. The door was
open; every time the bells stopped preparatory to the well-known three
peals, they could hear the flies buzzing about the room, and the birds
outside. They also heard the puffing of a little steamer out on the
lake; they had seen it cut across from the other coast, probably with
tourists. There must be some festivity going on somewhere to account
for the way people were streaming in.
There was a light southwesterly breeze, filling the room each time with
sweet scents; it poured in from the fields and trees. Through the
clanging of the bells one could hear it whispering and sighing, the air
seemed full of sounds.
Shortly after, they again stood on the balcony and watched the people
going to church; well-packed carriages drove constantly past the church
and continued upwards. The steamer came quite close; now the train
whistled too. They both caught sight of two swallows that were
evidently playing with their own shadows in the sand outside the
veranda. They flew above and past each other, the shadows on the sand
imitating each swoop; the birds wore down close to the sand and then a
little way above; whenever they flew too high and the shadows
disappeared, they darted down again to find them. She whispered to him
that next year they would put out boxes for them to build in.
They finished dressing and went down to lunch. Sören Pedersen and his
wife had arrived some time ago, and had their meal; they were now hard
at work.
Then they heard that everyone was bound for the neighbouring parish,
where the clergyman, Pastor Meek, was to celebrate his fifty years
jubilee, and to preach a farewell sermon. Foot passengers had been on
the go all the morning; now came those in carriages; and a steamer full
of people from the opposite coast. Meek had had this same living all
these fifty years--"a truly delightful man."
Kallem and Ragni were lunching in the big room; but their lunch was
interrupted by someone knocking, and in came a thin, elderly man,
smiling and noiseless, with horn spectacles on his nose; this was Dr.
Kent, who was temporary manager of the hospital; he came from there
just now. They both got up. He had a soft, pleasant voice, and a
knowing smile accompanied all he said. He sat down at a little distance
from them while they went on with their lunch, and gave a short account
of the patients over at the "establishment," and of the sanitary state
of both town and country. He answered dryly and briefly all questions
as to those functionaries Kallem would have to call upon, as to the
leaders in town and parish matters, and those of the local government
board he ought to know. The purest business matters became pleasant
when spoken of by Dr. Kent. When his gig came to the door--he was going
on his rounds out in the country--Kallem asked leave to drive with him;
but Ragni at once did the same too. So they hired a larger carriage and
soon they were all three seated in it. Just as they were starting,
Ragni remembered that the piano wanted tuning slightly, and she asked
Sören Pedersen if he knew anyone who could tune at any rate for the
present? Yes; there was Kristen Larssen.
So the drive began with an account of Kristen Larssen. Kent told them
he was born up in one of the worst and most remote districts, and had
been punished by the law for some trifling slip--he thought it was
because he had called a tune he played, "the forgiveness of sins."
Kristen Larssen was an inventor too; there was a knitting machine much
in use now which was his invention, and various kinds of tools. He was
a cold man--cold as iron in the winter time. Sören Pedersen and his
wife were the only people he had anything to do with. And who were
those two? He knew nothing about their "antecedentia;" she was from
these parts, he was from Funen. They were both clever at their work;
but people soon found out that they drank. The minister tried to
correct this failing; he had grown attached to them from the time they
had worked for him in his new house. Strange to say, his efforts were
crowned with success; not only did they give up drink, but Sören became
a most zealous temperance man and very religious; at last he knew the
Bible by heart. It was literally true, he knew it by heart! He often
told them how it was his greatest delight to make Aase hear him, and in
some few small assemblies, he would repeat by heart whole chapters out
of the Bible, while his hearers sat and followed attentively. The
minister put his name down to get him into a Bible school, and he had
no higher wish than to belong to it, but he expected Aase to be taken
in too. As they did not agree to this, he gave up the Bible class and
became unsteady again in everything.
He then became acquainted with that Jack of all trades, Kristen
Larssen, who had just settled in the town. Kristen Larssen had heard
about Sören Pedersen's powers of learning by heart, and tried to find
out the mechanism of it. But there was none; the whole thing was a gift
of God's mercy; all things were possible for God.
That is in the book of Matthew, answered Kristen Larssen; but in the
book of Judges it is written that the Lord was with Judah, but Judah
could not make the enemy flee from the valley, because they had
chariots of iron.
The worthy Sören Pedersen was much shocked that the God of the Jews had
not gained the victory over the chariots of iron.
In the same book of Moses, continued Kristen Larssen, it is written,
"Thou shalt not kill," but it is written too that the Lord constantly
gave orders to kill. So there are contradictions.
This was altogether new to Sören Pedersen, and yet he knew his Bible by
heart. He was anxious to know the rights of it, and at every religious
meeting he demanded explanations. At last he had no less than a hundred
contradictory questions to inquire into; it was no longer possible to
keep the peace. Half of them went into fits of laughter, the other half
got angry. It ended by his being turned out of the meetings, both he
and Aase. "I don't know," said Dr. Kent, "whether I may tell you how
your brother-in-law, with his own hands, turned out Sören Pedersen and
his wife Aase--out of the meeting-house! They had sat themselves down
there before anyone else, and they would not move. Your brother-in-law
is very strong, but Sören Pedersen held on, until it struck the
minister that he would take Aase first, and then they both pulled away
at her as if she were a stick of firewood."
Kallem and Ragni roared with laughter at this.
"I myself have witnessed one of the encounters," said Dr. Kent. "The
minister was holding an examination at the school; I am one of the
school committee. Sören Pedersen and his wife, Aase, were present, and
everyone suspected there would be mischief. 'God cannot lie,' said the
minister. Then Sören Pedersen rose up and said: 'It is written, that
the Lord gave unto the prophets a spirit of lying.' Again Sören
Pedersen had to depart."
The scenery through which they were driving, as they listened to all
these amusing anecdotes, was an elevated, sunny plain divided by large
and small ridges of woodland--or contrariwise, a wood divided by
cultivated fields. The farms were all well built, the fields fertile,
the road varied, first through woods, across fields, hills, and
undulating over brooks and streams. There were heaps of stones in the
most unexpected places, and paths and roads in all directions. Anyone
coming from the prairies of America and the regularity of Central
Europe, would be put in good spirits by all this variety. The same
dazzling sunshine as yesterday, the same strong scent from meadow and
wood--and such a display of flowers, such singing of birds; hark, that
was the cuckoo!
It was not long till midsummer's day, and the vegetation was
thereafter; Ragni was enchanted with the luxuriance of it all. Botany
was her favourite branch of study, and the contrast between the flora
she had studied, and that of the country here, interested her greatly.
She asked if there were many places in Norway where barberry and
columbine grew wild? Dr. Kent thought that they must have been brought
into the country a long time ago; probably by the monks from the
cloister down yonder.
As they passed again from the meadow into a narrow strip of wood,
principally fir-trees, she saw the linnæa for the third time; she could
not sit still in the carriage any longer; they all got out.
It had just begun to open its bell-shaped pink flowers; its spicy
fragrance filled the wood; Ragni at once began her little whisperings
to it; if only she were allowed to be alone now--for six years they had
not seen each other, or, indeed, as it was spring when she started, it
was six years and a half. She gathered and lifted up some of them, and
her eye fell on a "pyrola uniflora" bending low in melancholy solitude;
Kallem had just found the same; she asked him what it was called in
Norwegian? He asked Kent if it was not St. Olaf's candlestick--he asked
as an apothecary, and received an answer from a herbarium.
Ragni went further and further away from them both. The scent of the
flower as she gathered it seemed to attract her still further in; it
was sent to entice her on. So she went further, but kept a little
behind--away from the others. She heard them talking; one hears so
distinctly in the wood; she heard too a pair of startled birds. But
here at hand was nothing but the rustling of her own footsteps through
the grass and moss. She found one single wood-sorrel in flower, a last
loiterer. It looked so out of sorts midst all its clover-like leaves;
did it know its companions had left it?
The flowers all told her to go on; indeed, both the linnæa, and the
holy candlestick, and the wood-sorrel drew her on; the latter had stood
so long waiting on purpose for that. And there was Ragni--in a large
family gathering of star-flowers; they were all waiting to see her; no
one else had trodden that way this year. Ragni knelt down among them
and told them how she had come from so very far away, she told it all
in flower-fashion, without words; speech was not necessary between
them. How she had opened one door after the other to find her way back
to Norway; each time she had opened one, there had been another beyond
... until at last she was with them all. As soon as she saw the linnæa
she knew that she had reached the end. This was the innermost of all.
All great dangers from outside, direct from the sea, all that strength
and cruelty, variable and busy, all this splendour and alarm, all
impels us further and further in; right in here we must come to
understand that everything does not fall in a thousand pieces. It is
they who are in there who can control all.
"We have been waiting for you too. Here we keep the innermost secret."
"Oh, tell it to me!"
"Be kind to others."
"Indeed, I think that is the only thing I have a talent for. But if the
others will not----"
"Let the others be as they will; but be you kind."
Then she understood, because she had gone so deep in. She understood
now what had the greatest strength. The star-flowers.
"Ragni," shouted Kallem, in the distance, the wood resounded with his
clear voice. "Yes!" Some of the family must go with her, she gathered
them and took them up.
Then she hastened back again nearer to the road. On the edge of the
wood stood an "actea"--it seemed to stand there just to show the way
in, if she had got out of the carriage there. Now it wished to join the
party. And just by the road, well hidden under the bank, was a whole
party of lilies of the valley; where could her eyes have been? They
knew well enough where she came from, for they, too, had been posted as
sentinels to show the way in. They saw and understood one another
directly; but that is always the way amongst those of the same family.
Some of them must go with her too.
"Ragni!" shouted Kallem.
"Yes, yes!" and she came out on to the road and saw how far behind she
was.
The two men were standing by the carriage, talking; they were on the
top of the bank, and Kallem's tall figure and the other's little slight
one stood out clearly defined. Both of them had their hands full. As
she hurried toward them she could hear Kallem discoursing; it was on a
branch of black alder which he swung as he stood there; he repeated in
German, a German botanist's delight over this stately poison-bearer
which he had come across in Norway. Dr. Kent presented her with a
"polygula amara;" he knew that the little blue flower would be new to
her coming from America. She thanked him warmly. They got into the
carriage and began at once arranging their treasures, and begged Ragni
to choose what she liked; they had gone through a small bog; Kent had
the flower of a bog-fir fastened in his coat, and they had both
gathered everything, down to the very buttercup, "that wild beast,"
said Ragni; she wouldn't have it; it was so "muddy" too.
"You are æsthetic in everything," said Kallem. She shot a glance at
him, sweet as the scent of her flowers.
"Do you notice that we are quite alone on the road?" remarked Dr. Kent;
he told them that everyone was at church, as old Pastor Meek was to
preach a farewell sermon on this his fifty years jubilee day. When he
was twenty years old he had become curate to his own father--that was
in those times--and he had inherited the living. He was now seventy
years old, and was going to start on a journey abroad with his
grand-daughter. He must be a strong man? Yes, and led a healthy
life; always on the move, always busy. He was the go-between here.
Go-between? Yes, each district must have one to intercede for science
and for practical matters. Much of the prosperity of this district
proceeds from him and has been passed on to others. Then he is popular?
The most popular man of the neighbourhood. How is he "in the pulpit?"
"Well, he has stood there now fifty years and related anecdotes. At
first this was made fun of, and there were some who thought it
profanation; now there are several who have followed his example."
"What sort of anecdotes are they?"
The last one that Dr. Kent had heard was about a woman who had been
thirty years in prison in St. Louis, in America, and who, although she
was seventy years old, was the worst of all the prisoners. Once the
prisoners had to be moved to another prison which was under the
management of a woman who was a Quaker. The old woman refused to be
moved; she resisted with all her strength, and at last they had to tie
her in a chair and carry her away. As they arrived with her, the woman
who had the management of the prison stood in the doorway and received
the furious old creature. "Unloose her!" she said. "But is it safe?"
"Unloose her!" And they did so. As soon as the old woman was unbound,
her new superintendent bent down over her, put her arm round her neck,
and gave her a kiss of welcome as from one sister to another. Then the
old woman fell on her knees and asked: "Do you really believe that
there is some good in me?" From that time she invariably was quite
obedient.
Here Kent and Kallem left the carriage; they had to turn up to a
peasant's house a little way back from the road. There was a black dog
lying in front of the gallery; he looked at the carriage and barked;
but only once or twice, then he went down a few steps toward them,
sniffed at them all round, and then went back and lay down.
There was no one else to be seen. The driver turned the horses and
drove to one side. The two doctors went in to the patient, and Ragni
walked up and down the yard. Through the window she could see an old
man in bed and his old wife sitting beside him; she sang to him with
trembling voice, and did not stop even when the door was opened behind
her.
Ragni looked about her in the yard; then went and sat down on the
store-house steps.
Nothing has such a quieting influence on one as a peasant's farm at
rest. Not even the wood, for there is always a rustle or sound of
something, and one must be on the look-out both sitting or lying down;
nor yet the sea when it is quiet, for it never can be perfectly at
rest; nor the meadow, for that swarms with life and we can see it too
around us. But a peasant's farm which is not at work--the hens going
about scratching and picking up food, make you feel comfortable, the
dog lying down, and the cat that creeps stealthily a few paces, stops,
then creeps on again, and the ploughs leaning up against the harrows,
the grinding-stones standing dry, the carts with shafts down, the
dinner-bell silent; everything that has been at work rests like you,
and that which still moves about only adds to the general peace. Should
you see a pig in the distance rooting up the ground, it is entirely
occupied with that; or a horse champing and whisking away flies, that
is its pleasure; should the little birds come and chirp their greeting
to you, it increases the light-heartedness which is the foundation of
all peace.
Suddenly, in the midst of this peaceful rest, the fright from that
meeting with Josephine came over her. Was there nothing in her
conscience that could accuse her? No, a thousand times, no! Not even
her sister's children? No, for she could not even have lived for them
under such circumstances. What then? What had she done? She had loved
him. And why should she not do so?
The quiet was over; she went up above the house and found there two
kinds of "orobus" not very far apart, first of all the bird-pea out on
the meadow, and then one other in a cup with petals; she could not
remember the name of the latter. As she went down the path again she
found a splendid cock's-comb and a third kind of violet; the others had
already given her two kinds. What flowers there were! Look there! The
loveliest veronica; ah, the head fell; but there is another, that will
keep. Afterwards she heard that the fragile flower is called here
"man's faith."
Again she went in to the farm-yard; through the window of the bed-room
she saw Kallem with his ear pressed to the old man's chest. Dr. Kent
soon came out and the wife with him; he screamed at her, but she heard
almost nothing. Kallem looked so tall standing there in the door, now
he came to join her. How she loved him.
They were sitting together in the evening in the doctor's work-room; it
was now all arranged as it was to be, with the exception of the books.
Sören Pedersen, followed by his wife Aase, came in from the passage
through the dining-room; he looked cunning, she looked alarmed; they
announced that the minister and his wife were just coming in at the
gate!
Kallem saw that Ragni turned pale. As the others were present, however,
he said nothing but: "Come along!" went into the drawing-room, and from
thence out in the passage to receive them.
The meeting was a stiff one. The minister begged they would excuse
their coming so late, but it was the most convenient time for him, he
had just come from evening service. They only came in to ask if Kallem
and his wife would go home with them to supper? On Sundays a clergyman
is seldom his own master before the evening.
His voice had still a little of the solemnity of a sermon in it, and
there was a reflection of church in both countenance and manner.
Josephine stood and looked about her, in which her husband speedily
followed her example.
He thought it all very snug and cosy, and the piano was a "splendid
piece of furniture." As they were looking at it, Josephine opened her
lips for the first time, and turning to Ragni, said quickly: "I hear
you play so beautifully!"
"Oh----"
"Won't you play something for us?" The minister added: "Please do!"
Ragni looked at her husband--as one who is drowning looks for help.
"Ragni requires to be in the proper mood to be able to play," said he.
"Very likely she is tired," said the minister, excusing her; they sat
down, the minister and Kallem opposite each other, Josephine on one
side; Ragni remained standing.
"Of course you must both of you be tired," continued the minister; "you
have been travelling now for so long, and then arranging the house
here; I heard from Dr. Kent that you had very nearly finished?"
Yes, so they were; but they had had capital help from Sören Pedersen
and his wife Aase. Ragni was afraid that those two were still in the
dining-room, and hurried in to see; but they were gone, and were not in
the doctor's room either.
The minister's face had assumed quite a fatherly expression. "We have
been obliged to employ Sören Pedersen and his wife because the people
we otherwise employ were not at liberty. But one ought not to give work
to that kind of people."
"Indeed?"
"Oh, they are good workers; but they drink up everything they earn, and
then stay away from their work for days; it was the same here too. They
scandalize the whole congregation."
"Dear me, that's a pity."
In passing Kallem, Ragni stroked his head with her hand; she had to
fetch something off the piano. The minister was nothing abashed by the
doctor's flighty tone.
"We have striven to do what we could for them both--yes, for she drinks
just as much as he does. You would be astonished if you heard how kind
everyone has been to them. But all in vain, and worse than in vain. But
I will not go further into that story." He looked at his wife, who sat
there in her tight-fitting dress, stiff and impenetrable, a piece of
perfection from top to toe. Her eyes so well trained that they saw
everything without appearing to see. She would have liked Kallem to
have come and spoken to her. Ragni stood farther back, unseen by the
others, but directly opposite him.
"It is provoking," he said, "that the former doctor built his house so
close to the hospital. It is not pleasant to have strangers so near
one."
"Yes, but the old man built it for his brother-in-law. And now he is
dead too."
"So I hear; if I could afford to sink more money in houses, I would buy
this, although I should have no use for it."
Josephine turned half round, doubtless to see if Ragni still stood
there. "I don't think it is for sale," said she; "I know the heirs."
Then there was a pause for a little while.
The minister started a new subject; that same morning he had been
reading in the _Morgenblad_ about the general state of insecurity all
over America. He spoke like one who knew all about it, and turned
continually to his wife; if he did look at the others--for instance at
Ragni, who had just come back from America--it was merely a passing
glance; he invariably returned to his wife.
Pastor Tuft was a stately, good-looking man, especially as a certain
degree of stoutness had filled in his bony face; he had a pleasant
voice, and his Melancthon eyes sparkled and glistened at all that was
said. His speech and manners were, if anything, persuasive; but one
felt his power under cover of all his mildness.
His wife quite unexpectedly made an upward movement with her head. "Of
course it must be time to be going now," said he, as he rose from his
seat; "I am quite forgetting myself. Well--will you go with us?"
Josephine got up too, so did Kallem. But he, too, had a wife who could
give glances, warning and imploring.
"Thanks, but we are both tired, we will put it off till another time."
And so they accompanied the others to the door. Kallem then went to the
window and looked out after them as they walked away, both so tall and
strong-looking. Soon they had left the church behind them; everyone who
met them greeted them most respectfully. He stood on there even after
they were out of sight. He walked up and down the room a few times,
then he turned a somersault (made a wheel on his hands). "Go and fetch
Sören Pedersen and his wife Aase to me!"--but he went himself. They
were not to be found anywhere; Sigrid told him they had gone directly
the minister and his wife came. "Hang it all, now you'll see they are
making themselves tipsy! Just go down to them and invite them to come
to supper with us. Say we are quite alone." Off went the girl; Kallem
shouted out after her: "Insist upon their coming, whether they want to
or not."
"Now listen to me, Mr. saddler!" said the doctor, when they both
appeared in the parlor again, the wife behind the husband; "listen to
me. The minister says that you drink, Pedersen, both you and your wife,
and that he cannot get you to give it up?"
"The minister speaks the truth."
"But it is a dreadful disease, Pedersen."
"Oh, yes--in the long run."
"Will you leave it to me to cure you?"
"Oh, most willingly, doctor! but seriously, now; will it take a long
time?"
"Two minutes."
"Two minutes?" He smiled; but before the smile had vanished, Kallem was
upon him with his eyes, which had a strange and startling expression.
The saddler changed colour, he retreated a few steps. The doctor
followed and told him to sit down. He did it without hesitation. "Look
at me!" Aase was fit to faint. "Sit down, you too!" said the doctor
over his shoulder to her, and she collapsed into a chair. Yesterday
already the doctor had seen what kind of people he had to do with; it
did not take two minutes, before Sören Pedersen was completely
mesmerized and his wife Aase too, though she had only been looking on.
The doctor commanded them to open their eyes again; they both did so at
once. "Now listen here, Sören Pedersen! You just leave off drinking
brandy or spirits in any shape or form whatever; no more wine either,
nor strong beer--not for one whole month. Do you hear? When that month
is past--it is now half-past six--you come here to me on the stroke of
the hour. And you too, Aase. Every time he wants to drink, you must cry
out. And afterwards you can sing, both of you."
"But we can't sing."
"You will sing all the same."