A MISTAKE.
When Odegaard rung for his coffee next morning, he was informed that
Yngve Vold, the merchant, had already called twice to see him. It
annoyed him to have to hold intercourse with a stranger just then, but
one who sought him so early must have an important errand. He was
scarcely dressed before Yngve Vold came again. "You are surprised, I
dare say? So am I. Good morning!"--They shook hands, and he laid his
light hat upon the table. "You rise late, I have been here twice
before; I have something important at heart, and I must speak
with you!"--"Take a seat if you please!" he seated himself in
an easy chair.--"Thank you, thank you, I would rather walk, I am
too excited to sit. I am quite beside myself since the day before
yesterday, stark mad, neither more nor less; and it is your doing,
partly!"--"Mine?"--"Yes, yours. You brought the girl forward, no one
thought about her, no one noticed her except you. But now I have never
seen, no, as true as I live, never seen anything so matchless, anything
so--well isn't it? No, over the whole of Europe I have never seen such
a cursedly curly-haired wonder,--have you? I got no peace, I was
bewitched, she was mixed up in everything, I went away, came back
again, impossible.--isn't it? Didn't know at first who she was ... the
Fisher Girl, they said,--the Senorita they should have called her, the
gipsy, the witch; all fire, eyes, bosom, hair,--what?--sparkling,
hopping, laughing, trilling, blushing,--something----! Ran after
her, you see, up among the trees in the forest, calm evening, ... she
stood, I stood, a few words, song, dance,--and then?... well then I
gave her my chain, as true as I live, a minute before, I had never
thought of it! Next time, same place, same chase, she was afraid, and
I;--well,--would you believe it? I could not say a single word, dare
not touch her; but when she came back again, would you think it? I
proposed to her, I had not thought about it a second before. Now
yesterday I was proving myself, stayed away from her, but then faith
and soul I'm mad, yes,--I CANNOT, I MUST be with her; if I don't get
her I shall shoot myself slap out, there, that's the history. I don't
care what my mother says, nor the town, it's no place, no place at
all,--she must go away, you see, away, far away from here, she must be
'comme il faut,' go abroad, to France, Paris, I pay, and you arrange. I
might go with her myself, live elsewhere, not stay any longer in this
little hole; but the fish you see! I'd like to make something out of
the place, but it's all in a torpor, no thought, no speculation, but
the fish? They don't know how to manage the fish; the Spaniards
complain, it must be done in a fresh way, new drying, new curing, the
town must rise, business make headway, the fish!--Where was it I left
off? the fish, the Fisher Girl,--that suits well: the fish, the Fisher
Girl, ha, ha, ha,--to be sure: I pay, you arrange, she shall be my
wife, and then----"
Further he did not get; during the conversation he had not observed
Odegaard, who had now risen, deathly pale, and stood over him with a
fine Spanish cane. The astonishment of the latter is not to be
described; he avoided the first strokes. "Take care," said he, "you may
hit me!"--"Yes, I may hit you! you see: Spanish, Spanish cane, that
suits too!" and the strokes fell over shoulders, arms, hands, face,
anywhere and everywhere; the other rushed about the room: "Are you mad,
have you lost your reason;--I will marry her!"--"Out!" cried Odegaard,
his strength failing him, and down went the light haired, away from
this madman, and was soon standing in the street calling up after his
light hat. It was thrown out of the window to him; a heavy fall was
heard, and when they went up, Odegaard lay unconscious upon the floor.
All this time Petra was sitting up in her bedroom half dressed, and
could not get further the whole day long. Every time she attempted it,
her hands sank down upon her lap. Her thoughts bent down as an ear of
corn fully ripe, as clustering campanulas in the fields. Calmness,
security, waving visions, lay over the airy castles in which she dwelt.
She recalled the meeting of yesterday, every word, every look, every
touch of the hand, every kiss; she would follow the whole way from the
meeting to the parting, but never get to the end; for every single
remembrance vanished away in a dream, and all dreams returned again
with fair promises. But sweet as were these thoughts, she turned from
them to think where she had left off; and as soon as she remembered,
she was again carried off into the land of the wonderful.
As she did not come down, the mother concluded that Odegaard having
returned, she had begun to study again; she had her meals sent up, and
was left alone the whole day. When evening came, she got up to make
herself ready to go to meet her beloved; she put on the best she
had,--the things she had worn at the confirmation; they were not much,
but that she had not felt until now. She had but little sense of the
elegant, but she was inspired with it to-day: one thing made another
look ugly till the right ones were selected, and even then the whole
was not beautiful! To-day she would have given worlds to have been the
most beautiful,--with the word a remembrance glided in, which she waved
away with her hand; nothing, no nothing should come near that might
disturb her. She went about quietly putting her room in order, as it
was not yet time to go. She opened the window and looked out; warm,
rosy clouds lay encamped over the mountains, but a cooling breeze was
wafted in with a message from the forest near by. "Yes, now I'm coming!
now I'm coming!" She went back once again to the looking-glass to study
her bride-like feelings.
Then she heard Odegaard's voice down stairs with the mother, heard that
he was being directed the way to her room; he had come to fetch her! A
feeling of bashful joy took hold of her, she looked round to see if all
was in order for him; then she went to the door. "Come in!" she
answered softly to the low tap, and stepped back a little.
As an icy shower over her, as if the earth gave way beneath her, was
the impression of the face that met her in the door! She staggered back
to get hold of the bed-post; her thoughts slipped from one abyss to
another; in less than a second she had fallen from earth's happiest
bride to its greatest sinner; she heard it thunder out of that face: in
time and eternity he could not forgive her!
In scarcely audible tones he whispered: "I see it, you are guilty!" He
leaned against the door and held fast to the lock, as if without that
he could not stand. His voice trembled; the tears rolled down his face,
though his countenance was perfectly calm.
"Do you know what you have done?" and his eyes crushed her to the
earth. She did not answer,--did not even weep; she was paralysed by a
complete and hopeless inability,--"Once before, I gave my heart away,
and he to whom I gave it, died through my fault. I could not rise above
this sorrow, unless one should reach over me and give me the wealth of
a whole heart again. This you have done,--and you have done it
hypocritically!" He stopped: two or three times he tried in vain to
begin again, then with a sudden pang of pain: "And all that I have
stored up during these years, thought upon thought, you have had the
heart to overturn as though it were an image of clay! Child, child,
could you not understand that I was building up myself in you? Now it
is past! Can you not now comprehend it: all that I have given, the very
warmest, the very depths of my heart, lost as flame in the winter air,
no token left?--Who are you, unhappy child?--I believed you to be my
most sacred treasure, but alas; you are more than profaned!"--He wept
in the bitterness of his grief.
"No, you are too young to comprehend it," he said again; "you know not
what you have done.--But yet you must understand," he exclaimed, "what
it is, when that which shines upon our lives, that which we believe can
yield the flowers and fruit we look for, proves nothing but an enormous
deception!--Tell me, what have I done to you that you COULD do anything
so cruel? Child, child, had you but told me it yesterday! Why, why, did
you lie so fearfully?--It must be my fault, mine, who have instructed
you,--have I then forgotten to speak about truth! No,--then where have
you thus learnt it?"
She heard him, and it was altogether true. He had tottered to a chair
in the window to lean his head against a table standing beside it. He
started up again, he wrung his hands, a sob of pain escaped him, then
he sank down and was still. "And I, who am not able to help my old
father," he said as if to himself, "I CANNOT, I have no calling, I also
am to have help from no one, all to be broken in pieces before me, all
and everybody forsake me." He was unable to speak more, his head lay in
his right hand; the left hung powerlessly down; he looked as though he
could not move,--and thus he remained sitting and said nothing. Then he
felt something warm against the hand that was hanging down, and
startled, he drew it away, it was Petra's breath; she was on her knees
beside him, her head bent down, now she folded her hands, and looked up
to him with an inexpressible entreaty for mercy. He looked down at her,
and neither of them turned away. Then he lifted his hand preventingly
against her, as if he felt within him a voice of persuasion that he
would not hear,--bent hastily down for his hat that had fallen on the
floor, and went quickly to the door; but still more quickly she stopped
the way before him, she cast herself down, grasped hold of his knees,
and nailed her eyes into him, but all without a sound; he both saw and
felt that she was struggling for life. Then his old love was too
strong, he bent down once more over her, and with an expressive look,
but one that was full of pain, he threw his arms round her and drew her
up to him. Yet once more she lay upon his breast, but it groaned and
sighed within, like an organ after the last stroke, when there is
still air, but no more tone. Again and again he pressed her to his
heart;--for the last time! He left her with a passionate cry; "No,
no!--you can abandon yourself, but you cannot love!" He was overwhelmed
with emotion: "Unhappy child, your future I cannot guide; may God
forgive you that you have ruined mine!" He went past her, she did not
move, he opened the door and shut it again, she did not speak;--she
heard him on the stairs, she heard his last step on the flagstone and
down the road,--then she was released, and gave one cry, a single one,
but with this came the mother.
When Petra came to herself again, she was lying in bed undressed and
well nursed; before her sat the mother with her arms upon her knees;
her head in both her hands, and eyes of fire fastened upon her
daughter. "Have you read enough with him now?" she asked:--"Have you
learnt something?--What is it you are going to be now?"--Petra answered
with an outburst of grief. The mother sat and listened to this for a
long time, then said with strange solemnity: "May the Lord heartily
curse him!"--The daughter started up: "Mother, mother! Not him, not
him, but me, me,--not him!"--"Oh; I know them! I know who should have
it!"--"No mother, he has been deceived, dreadfully deceived, and that
by me, me--it is I who have deceived him!"--She told the whole story
hurriedly and sobbing; he must not for a moment be misjudged; she told
about Gunnar, and what she had asked of him, how she had hardly
understood at the time, what she was doing; next about Yngve Vold's
unlucky gold chain, that had taught her so much, and got her so
fearfully entangled, and then about Odegaard, how on seeing him, she
had forgotten all else. She could not understand how it had all
happened, but this she did understand, that she had sinned deeply
against them all, and especially against him who had taken her up, and
given her all that one human being can give to another. After sitting
long silent, at last the mother said: "Then you have committed no sin
against ME? Where have I been all this time that you have never said a
word to me?"--"Oh! mother, help me, don't be hard on me now; I feel
that I shall suffer for it as long as I live; but I shall pray to God
that He will let me soon die!--Dear, dear God," she began, as she
folded her hands and looked up to Heaven, "dear, dear God, hear me, I
have already forfeited my life; there is nothing more for me, I am not
fit, I do not know how to live, then, dear God, I pray Thee suffer me
to die!"--But Gunlaug, who had hard words uppermost, stifled them, and
laid her hand on the daughter's arm, to take it down from such a
prayer: "Govern your feelings, child, do not tempt God;--we must live
even if it is painful." She drew several heavy sighs and rose up; she
had no consolation to offer. The daughter had no doubt now given her
entire confidence, but it was too late. Gunlaug never more set foot
within that little attic chamber.
Odegaard had taken an illness, that seemed likely to be a dangerous
one, so his old father had gone up, and made his study beside him,
saying to all who begged him to spare himself, that he could not do it;
his work was to watch over his son, each time he lost one of those whom
he loved better than his father.
It was thus that matters stood when Gunnar came home.
He frightened his mother by showing himself long before the ship he
sailed with,--she thought it was his ghost, and his acquaintances were
not much better. To all their curious inquiries, he could give but an
unsatisfactory reply. They, however, soon got a better one, for the
very day that he came, he was turned out of Gunlaug's house, and that
by Gunlaug herself. "Never let me see you here again," she called out,
to him on the doorstep, so that it could be heard far and near, "we
have had enough of this now!" He had not gone far, before a girl
overtook him with a parcel; she had another as well, and made a
mistake, and Gunnar found in his a heavy gold chain; he stood looking
at it a minute, and turning it over; he had not understood Gunlaug's
fury before, but he understood still less why she should send him a
gold chain. He called the girl back, she must have made a mistake, and
she asked as she gave him the other parcel if it was this. The parcel
proved to contain his gifts to Petra. Yes, that was it; but who was to
have the gold chain? "Yngve Vold, the Merchant," replied the girl, and
went her way. Gunnar stood musing: Yngve Vold the Merchant? Does he
give presents?--and Gunlaug has stumbled upon them! Then it is HE who
has stolen her from me,--Yngve Vold,--but he shall----his vexation and
excitement must have vent, some one must be thrashed, and it proved to
be Yngve Vold.
To relate shortly: the unhappy merchant was once again attacked quite
unexpectedly, and that upon his own door step. He ran into the office
to escape from the infuriated man, but Gunnar ran after him. The clerks
rose up "en masse" against him, but he kicked and struck on all sides;
chairs, tables, and desks were overthrown; letters, papers, and
journals flew about like dust; help came at last from Yngve's
warehouse, and after a hard fight, Gunnar was turned into the street.
But here the battle began again in earnest. There were two ships lying
on the quay, and one of them was from abroad; being about noon, when
the sailors were at liberty, they were glad to join in the fun; they
rushed into the fight, crew against crew, many others were sent for,
and came running at double quick pace; labouring people, women and
children drew up, till at last there was no one who knew why or against
whom they were fighting. In vain the captains cursed; in vain the
citizens commanded that the only policeman should be sent for: he was
just then out on the fiord, fishing. They ran to the magistrate, who
was also postmaster; but he had locked himself in with the post that
had just arrived, and answered out of the window, that he could not
come; his assistant was at a funeral, they must wait. But as they could
not wait, several shouted, and especially frightened women, that Arne
the blacksmith should be sent for. This being decided by the worthy
citizens, his own wife was despatched to seek him, "for the policeman
was not at home." He soon came, to the mirth of the school boys; he
made a few strokes among the crowd, picked out a burly Spaniard, and
struck him promiscuously against the rest.
When all was settled, there came the magistrate with a stick; he found
a few old women and children, talking on the field of battle; these he
sternly commanded to go home to dinner, which he also did himself.
But the next day he began to look into the matter, the investigation
was continued for a time, though no one had the slightest idea who had
been the aggrieving parties. One thing, however, all were agreed upon,
that Arne the blacksmith had been mingled in the fray, as they had seen
him striking on all sides with the Spaniard. For this Arne had to pay
one specie dollar fine, for which his wife, who had led him into it,
got sundry blows the second Sunday after trinity, which she might well
remember. That was the only judicial consequence of the fray.
But it had other consequences. The little town was no longer a quiet
town, the Fisher Girl had put it in commotion. The strangest rumours
were set afloat,--arising from angry jealousy at her having been able
to win to herself the best head in the place, and its two wealthiest
matches, besides having several in the background; for Gunnar had grown
by degrees into "several young men." Soon there arose a general moral
storm. The disgrace of a great street brawl, and sorrow in three of the
best families rested on the head of the young girl who had been but
half a year confirmed; three engagements at one time, and one of them
with her teacher,--her life's benefactor! Indignation might well boil
up. Had she not been, from a child, an annoyance to the town, and for
all that, had she not had its expectancy manifested in gifts when
Odegaard took her up, and had she not now scorned them all, crushed
him, and following the instincts of her nature, thrown herself
recklessly on a course that would lead to her being an outcast from
society, with the gaol for old age?
The mother must have been to blame too; in her sailors' house the child
had learnt to be giddy. They would no longer bear the yoke that Gunlaug
laid upon them, they would no longer tolerate them, neither mother nor
daughter, they would unite to drive them away.
One night a crowd gathered on the bank; there were sailors, who owed
Gunlaug money, drunken labourers, for whom she would not procure work,
young lads, to whom she would not give credit, and the better class in
the back ground. They whistled, they shouted, they called for The
Fisher Girl, for Fisher Gunlaug; by and bye a stone was thrown against
the door, then another in at the attic window. They did not go away
until after midnight. Behind the windows all was dark and still.
The next day not a soul looked in to Gunlaug, not even a child went
past, up the hill. But at night the same riot again, only that now all
were there without distinction. They broke all the windows, they tore
up the garden, and trampled down the shrubs, they threw the young fruit
trees about, and then they sang:--
Mother, I've fished up a sailor, oh!
"Ah! have you so?"
Mother, I've fished up a merchant, oh!
"Ah! have you so?"
Mother, I've fished up a pastor's son
"The best you've won!"
Ah! ding dong,
The nose grows long.[1]
Great fishes may bite, but what is the gain,
If into the basket, they ne'er can be ta'en!
Mother, he's gone, the sailor, oh!
"Ah! has he so!"
Mother, he's gone, the merchant, oh!
"Ah! has he so?"
Mother, the pastor's son's going they say!
"Then haul away!"--
Ah! ding dong,
The nose grows long,
Great fishes may bite, but what is the gain,
If into the basket, they ne'er can be ta'en!
They called especially for Gunlaug, they would have been mightily
pleased to have heard her matchless fury rage.
Gunlaug was sitting within, and heard every word; but she kept silence;
one must be able to bear something for the sake of one's child.