That afternoon Tuft received a most unusual visit. There was a gentle
knock at the door, and at the first "Come in" no one appeared. The
second time the door was opened cautiously by Sören Pedersen, and after
him by slow degrees came Aase, very shy.
Their business was nothing less than to thank the minister for his
sermon that day! "For nobody can live without God! at all events not
ignorant people; it doesn't do; no, it doesn't do at all. And so we
come like the prodigal son--Aase I suppose must be the prodigal
daughter ... (come forward do--well, just as you please!) and we wish
that you will pray for God's mercy for us both." And their request was
granted with all the earnest fervour that Tuft could put into a prayer.
Sören said they were going direct to Dr. Kallem. "He is certainly the
best man in the world, at any rate in the town. But he is mistaken in
these matters. For there exists both God and spirits, and we will go
and tell him so."
Tuft had himself fixed to go to Kallem that same afternoon. He was
grateful to him, and he longed to acknowledge that had it not been for
their cruel wronging of Ragni, not even the events of the past days
would have sufficed to show him the treasures of life. He wished
particularly to justify Josephine by taking her faults on his
shoulders. Busy with his heavy load of dogmas, like a post-horse laden
with bags full of letters, she had always been obliged to keep him
company, whether she would or no; and this injustice had made her hard
and suspicious.
As he set out on his way an hour or so later, all their childhood was
vivid before him. He wanted then to be a missionary; perhaps now he
might be one in earnest! To propound a doctrine of evolution or
progress in religion was worthy of a mission, and he thought of
undertaking it. The God of dogmas and his priests of olden days, must
be vanquished and overcome like the idols and miracle-makers of the
heathens. What though he had dreamed of becoming a bishop, strong in
his theological powers, well, there was a dangerous bishopric--vacant
for easily explained reasons--here in Norway.
Sigrid was standing on the steps of the upper entrance as Pastor Tuft
came across the yard with long strides. She was dressed in black with a
black silk kerchief over her fair hair.
"The doctor is not at home," she said in her quiet way. He turned round
and went toward the hospital with the same decision. There stood
Andersen's widow, also dressed in black and in a cap with black
ribbons.
"Arc you still in mourning for your husband?"
"No, this time it is for Fru Kallem."
"Is Kallem here?"
"No, he went home a little while ago."
That's a mistake on your part, thought Tuft, and turned his steps in
the direction of the woods; he liked having a good long walk.
There were many people out walking; they all greeted him with joyful
sympathy; it was not to be mistaken. Widow Andersen's stern face had
cast a shadow over him; but it vanished before the kind looks of
everyone else. Again the same impetuous courage came over him as it had
recently done--the courage peculiar to all newly-converted people. Just
by the hospital he met Sören Pedersen and his wife who were coming away
from Kallem; they too were going for a walk this bright Sunday evening
so full of messages of spring.
"Was he at home?" asked Tuft. "Yes, your reverence," replied Pedersen,
highly delighted.
"Well, what did the doctor say?"
"I was much pleased with what he said, your reverence. There are two
kinds of persons, said he; the one kind believe only what they know;
the other kind do likewise; but that which they know cannot be
proved--at least only to themselves."
"He is right," and Tuft laughed as he hurried away. But the moment he
was alone, the sixteenth chapter of St. Mark, sixteenth verse, was upon
him; it lay in ambush for him, like a spy from his "orthodox" period.
"He that believeth not shall be damned." God has no respect for "two
kinds of persons." Tuft began eagerly to defend: "The sixteenth
chapter, from the ninth verse upwards, is a later addition which the
oldest manuscripts do not recognize. If this passage be not genuine,
then no such dreadful passage can be found in any of the other three
gospels. The fourth, in which it occurs, has thereby damned itself. No,
life is everything, and faith is the wondrous road to the explanation
of life, that is to say, to God. By this means we shall attain the
highest communion with Him, if not here, then in the next world. Faith
is not for judging, but for guidance. To condemn people for their
faith's sake might have been thought right in olden times; in our day
it shocks us. God reveals Himself in our understanding in a higher
light than that." Again he hastened back into the yard.
But again Sigrid came out on the steps. "The doctor is not at home."
Her eyes avoided his; but she remained standing there immovable, her
face framed in by the kerchief. The house at her back seemed like a
secret, select community, full of mutual steadfastness, something he
was shut out from.
Now he understood.
The price of entering there was greater than he had thought. He went
home humbled, and did not mention it to Josephine.
This repulsion led to further claims on him: it urged him on along the
road that would unite brother and sister together, which was the
condition laid down for all else. He acknowledged openly that he had
been jealous of his brother-in-law. This episode in his private life
was the cause of much of the narrow-mindedness of his preaching.
He received help from outside. At first there were wondering questions,
a reserved manner, which wounded him, and at times made him doubtful;
but soon it came to an open fight with his nearest followers, and that
urged him on. His old friend, the former porter, seemed to have longed
for an opportunity of freeing himself from a debt of gratitude that
weighed on him; he made a great to do and called in auxiliary troops
all the way from the capital. Teachers in seminaries, schoolmasters,
scientific travellers, and a few clergymen attacked Pastor Tuft at the
meeting-house with all sorts of theological weapons. First and foremost
he learnt to speak distinctly, for the greater part of what they
attacked him for was nothing but a misunderstanding; but he had
occasion for capabilities and knowledge which he had not needed
before. During this first month Josephine felt merely tired and
indifferent--she had grown weaker than she could understand; but after
that she began following in the steps of the peasant lad, who in days
gone by had captivated her heart by his bright faith; would he come
back to her?
An incident which she concealed from her husband had kept her back and
prevented her gaining strength, therefore she was so languid. She too
had quietly been over to her brother's the first time she was able to
go out; she, too, had been met by Sigrid on the steps telling her that
he was not at home;--but she had seen him standing on the veranda as
she came up. With great difficulty she reached home again.
She had felt the deepest pity for him and was ready to make all manner
of allowances; but his inexorableness aroused her opposition. Josephine
had not the slightest idea that she herself had been jealous of Ragni,
therefore she could not know that it affected her manner. She
considered herself to have been at fault in being intolerant toward one
who was guilty. As Sissel Aune sat upstairs beside the boy, and told
her all about Ragni, how she had been lovable to the very last, she
felt how unnatural it was to have overlooked Ragni's goodness of heart
and Kallem's love for her. But beyond this intolerance she did not
consider herself to blame.
The disappointment was great, and the consequences might have been
serious if it had not been that she was so much taken up just then with
her husband's struggles. A person of confused ideas, who has chiefly
lived a defiant life, can only be freed when some great event happens.
And such an event it was, the day that Ole said to her:
"On this, Josephine, we must stake both the living and our fortune."
Three months had gone by when she, revived by the fight, thought
herself strong enough to take up the case with her brother. She wrote
to him and said that whatever they might have done wrong--they would
wish to hear it right out; they ought to be worthy to be accused. Their
gratitude to him was great, as they repented of their former
intolerance, and wished to make every possible amends to that spirit of
charity and justice which they had misjudged.
It was an excellent letter; her husband said so too.
But the days went and there came no answer. It was a mercy that just at
that time Tuft was fighting some of his hardest battles. At the
meeting-house, and afterwards in church, he had made use of the words
Josephine had concluded her letter with.
"Justice and charity," without distinction of faith (as in the story of
the good Samaritan), is the essence of Christianity. Therefore must
everything be meted out with this measure, and first and foremost the
doctrine itself, so that the smallest particle weighed and found
wanting fell, like the theology of distant and cruel times, before the
revelation of justice in our day.
That very same day he was summoned on this account to a debate; three
meetings were held in the course of the week, all of them overcrowded.
The principal speaker against him was a clergyman and theological
publisher from the metropolis. The doctrine of hell was almost the sole
subject, and Tuft maintained that what St. Paul said about it was
widely different from what was in the Book of Revelations.
According to St. Paul, life here and in the next world was a state of
progression, which ended by God becoming "all in all." This doctrine
was up to the standard of both justice and charity. And a great
impression was made, as his resonant voice, in its rapid west-country
tones, shouted out across the tightly packed assembly, asking whether
they thought there would ever be an end of wars and persecutions as
long as the doctrine of hell, with all its cruel revenge and brutality
was taught in all the schools and churches as the justice and charity
of God. His opponents were "thoroughly in the style of the doctrine of
hell," for they did all they could to condemn and stigmatize him as
heretical.
However, there was but one opinion amongst the auditors--that for
clearness of language and powers of persuasion Tuft was vastly superior
to the others.
Dr. Kallem was present at the last meeting. He saw Josephine sitting
there with flaming eyes, and the next day, toward evening, his answer
came.
She was walking up and down before the house, watching her boy at play
with the garden-hose, when the letter was given her. She recognized the
writing directly, but trembled so that she could not open it. She was
horrified to see how weak she still was; would she never get back the
strength of her youth?
Then she went up to her room and locked herself in. It was a long
letter; she turned it over and sat down to consider whether she would
let Tuft read it first. But possibly there might be something about him
which he was not to see.
She opened the letter.
Not a word from her brother, not a single word to her. The first that
she saw was written in a strange hand, the next too, and the following
after that, the whole thing, but in two different handwritings. There
were some sheets of paper fastened together, some letters, a few loose
scraps--not a word from Edward.
What did it signify? Involuntarily Josephine selected the least of all
the papers, a little scrap of three lines:
"They destroyed my good name and I knew it not. For I knew not that I
had it before it was destroyed."
On another scrap there were these words faintly written:
"Forgive them; they know not what they do!"
This delicate, flowing handwriting was of course Ragni's. Josephine
began to tremble without knowing why.
Then there was a letter, written in another hand, the first words of
which were in red ink. No signature. But as she read that Kallem was
not to see it, she guessed it was a love-letter from Karl Meek, which
Kallem must have found afterwards. What had Josephine to do with that?
Hastily she read the first words, but was surprised at his calling her
"you," and that he spoke of a sorrow which he would have borne alone,
but which now had fallen upon her too, a slander----? Had she been
slandered?
All through the most respectful terms. When was it written? There was
no date given; but the writer of the letter was abroad; so it was after
their life together here. The letter was one long wail of despair, a
grief so genuine, never had she read of anything greater.
Josephine's hand shook so that she was obliged to put the letter down
on the table.
She read how Karl through all this cruel slander could not think of
anyone or anything else; she read how he in that way had come to love
Ragni. Josephine saw this love, engendered by sorrow, gratitude,
devotion, find vent in pure and touching words.
Ragni innocent? Good God, was she innocent? Then all those harrowing
scenes between her and Edward, as Death separated them inch by inch
from one another (Sissel Anne had so often described them to her), they
must indeed have been hard to bear! Yes, now she understood why he had
driven away that day with her body, and had Karl Meek by his side; only
she could not understand how he had survived it.
There was a knock at the door; she started in her seat. But it was only
the servant girl who came to ask her to go down to supper. She could
not answer, again there was a knock. "No, no!" she managed to
articulate as she writhed in sorrow and shame. She must go to her
brother, she would go to him, if she went there on her knees.
But here were more papers, and she felt as though her brother was
standing over her commending her to read them. She trembled and read:
"Now that I am about to copy what I have written down after many trials
and failures about my childhood and my first marriage, I feel myself to
be so tired--so done up. I had intended to write a few words as
beginning, and looked forward to it. Now it is too late for that. Now I
can only just tell to you, 'the white pasha' of my life, how it has
fared with me. I have told it briefly for it was torture to me; and I
have only told it so that you may defend my cause should anyone still
think it worth while to speak evil of me after I am gone. Dear friend,
I do not murmur. I have lived as purely and nobly as I could live; it
has only been too, too short. Know, that I had thrown myself away from
sheer horror of something still worse--and then you came and took me
out of the deep waters and giving me in keeping of good people I found
peace and all good things--till you could come again and bear me away
to yourself. To think that I might share all in your home and yourself
too without deserving it; for I felt that often; but I was happy all
the same.
"I did not suffice for you here, I know it; but now that the end is
near, it does not seem to matter. You would have borne with me as long
as it lasted, I feel so sure of that."
"My friend, were I now to tell you all I feel of gratitude and
admiration for you, you would not understand it; it has seemed so
natural to you that all the happiness of your life came from me. And
that was what was most beautiful in mine too.
"But you will not read this until the day when I no longer am sitting
in this chair, and nothing can imprint my memory so vividly on you and
make it live on in you, as one long, everlasting:
"Thanks."
And this was the marriage they had considered not worthy of the name!
What was Josephine's compared to this!
She slipped from the chair down upon her knees. She wept and
sobbed--and forced herself to silence that no one might discover her
crouching there in the shame of her crime. She folded her hands on
Ragni's letter, and laid her head down on them, whispering: "Forgive
me, forgive me!" though she knew that none could hear her, and that
none, none could forgive her.
In a moment, she understood that Ragni had been pure in her first
marriage; and that there too she had been slandered! The papers telling
how this marriage had been arranged--she did not need to read them, she
could not. With clammy hands she collected all the papers together, Ole
must read them. Now he must help her; her life was at stake. She had
committed murder, the murder of an innocent person. Not by her words or
prompting, for she had said nothing. But it was just her silence, and
her having that very first day repelled Ragni--just on that account the
poor thing had been hopelessly lost; this all flashed through her mind
like lightning; she lay there like one deaf and paralysed. The doom she
had read in her brother's eyes, the death-doom--and she had not been
mistaken, it was not intended for her son, it was intended for herself.
She deserved death!
She was seized with horror, a cold sweat broke out over her like a
stunning blow--now it was at hand!
Yes, now it was at hand! She had thought all was over when her boy was
well again; but no, now it had come, now that she had regained her
happiness in her husband and a firm footing altogether--now it overtook
and aimed a deadly blow at her.
She hurried down to the study whilst Tuft was still at his supper and
put the envelope on his desk; she had on her hat and a shawl, and now
she ran rather than walked toward her brother's house; now it must
break or bend.
Passing by a short cut she came right on the church. She remembered
Ole's last sermon and the tears came to her eyes; for only think what
it would have been if their mutual life had had such free scope and
such aims from the first! She wept as she hurried down toward the
terrible house. She could see the white wall of the other house shining
through the foliage to the left, the house Kule lived in, Kule the
murderous instrument. No, no, no, she had not asked him to come; she
had had no share in it whatever! Yes, she had heard it suggested and
had thought it was quite a fair proceeding. Some had looked upon it as
a good joke, others had taken it seriously, even religiously; Josephine
could remember each word to which she had tacitly agreed; each thought,
too, that she had had.
Murder, murder! She knew there was no forgiveness for her; of what use
was it to go to her brother? He had saved her child--but beyond that he
would have nothing whatever to do with her. All the same, from
henceforth she was nailed to that spot; even though she might die
there. She ran with all her might.
Her life was branded, after this she could never again look an honest
person in the face. Cruelly and coldly she had killed an utterly,
wholly innocent being, and had laid bare her brother's home! Henceforth
where could she live? What should she do now? Seek her just punishment!
Yes, but she would administer it herself. But first she must see him,
hear him, and herself speak to him--yes, for she had something to say;
he did not even know how she loved him and had always loved him, he
hardly knew her. She ran on, weeping.
She saw him standing in the yard between the house and the out-houses,
bending over something he was carrying; she saw him above the currant
and gooseberry bush hedge visible through the opening of the taller
fruit-trees. She shuddered, but she kept on her way. Soon she was under
the trees of the park; then turned down to the yard; nothing divided
them but the outhouse wall; then she came quite forward.
He stood with turned-up sleeves--his cuffs were off--in a yellow
tussore silk coat, the same probably in which he had arrived two years
ago, washing a travelling trunk under the pump; all the labels pasted
on by the railway people, one on top of the other, were to be taken
off; was he thinking of going away? He was sun-burnt and thin, seen in
profile his face seemed sharper; then he heard her step and looked
up--looked up into her tear-stained beseeching face! No trace of her
former bright-coloured dresses; a dark cotton dress with a belt round
her waist, a broad, shady, straw hat with a brown ribbon, a shawl
hanging on her arm. Her tears burst forth, bitterly, despairingly:
"Edward!" she could get no further.
For he dropped the trunk and drew himself upright; a voice with a sort
of break in it said:
"I can not forgive you, Josephine."
"Edward, let me explain myself!" She turned to the house, in horror and
despair at his stern face; but he fancied she wanted to go in.
"You shall never enter there!" and he put his hands on his sides as
though he were keeping guard.