Things were not going well in the brothers’ home. Jörgensen had done
nothing with his plans. He was the only person who had not known that
such would be the case. The people knew, too, on very good authority,
that the engineer had offered him a hundred kroner for them, and as he
would not take them, but demanded a share in the undertaking and the
honor of executing it, he was shown to the door.
He had never before taken anything so quietly. He did not burst out
roaring with violent words; he simply betook himself to his usual
day-laborer’s work in the harbor, like any other worker. He did not
mention his defeat, and allowed no one else to do so. He treated his
wife as though she did not exist. But she had to watch him wrap himself
up in silence, without knowing what was going on in his mind. She had a
foreboding of something terrible, and spoke of her trouble to the boys.
He made no scenes, although now and again he got drunk; he ate in
silence and went to bed. When he was not working, he slept.
But as he himself had so far revealed his plans that they were known to
all, it was all up with his work. The engineer had taken from
Jörgensen’s plans as much as he could use—every one could see that—and
now the “Great Power” stood with his mouth empty, simply because he had
put more in his spoon than his mouth would hold. Most people were far
from envying his position, and they took plenty of time to talk about
it; the town was quite accustomed to neglect its own affairs in order
to throw its whole weight on his obstinate back. But now he was down in
the dust all had been to the harbor to watch the “Great Power” working
there—to see him, as a common laborer, carting the earth for his own
wonderful scheme. They marvelled only that he took it all so quietly;
it was to some extent a disappointment that he did not flinch under the
weight of his burden and break out into impotent raving.
He contented himself with drinking; but that he did thoroughly. He went
about it as it were in the midst of a cloud of alcoholic vapor, and
worked only just enough to enable him to go on drinking. “He has never
yet been like this,” said his wife, weeping. “He doesn’t storm and
rage, but he is angry all the time so that one can’t bear him at home
any longer. He breaks everything in his anger, and he scolds poor Karen
so that it’s wretched. He has no regard for anybody, only for his old
mother, and God knows how long that will last. He doesn’t work, he only
drinks. He steals my hard-earned money out of my dress-pocket and buys
brandy with it. He has no shame left in him, although he always used to
be so honorable in his way of life. And he can’t stand his boozing as
he used to; he’s always falling about and staggering. Lately he came
home all bloody—he’d knocked a hole in his head. What have we ever done
to the dear God that he should punish us like this?”
The old woman said nothing, but let her glance sweep from one to the
other, and thought her own thoughts.
So it went on, week after week. The boys became weary of listening to
their mother’s complaints, and kept away from home.
One day, when Karen had been sent on an errand for her mother, she did
not return. Neither had she returned on the following day. Pelle heard
of it down at the boat-harbor, where she had last been seen. They were
dragging the water with nets in the hope of finding her, but no one
dared tell Jörgensen. On the following afternoon they brought her to
the workshop; Pelle knew what it was when he heard the many heavy
footsteps out in the street. She lay on a stretcher, and two men
carried her; before her the autumn wind whirled the first falling
leaves, and her thin arms were hanging down to the pavement, as though
she sought to find a hold there. Her disordered hair was hanging, too,
and the water was dripping from her. Behind the stretcher came the
“Great Power.” He was drunk. He held one hand before his eyes, and
murmured as though in thought, and at every moment he raised his
forefinger in the air. “She has found peace,” he said thickly, trying
to look intelligent.
“Peace—the higher it is——” He could not find the word he wanted.
Jens and Pelle replaced the men at the stretcher, and bore it home.
They were afraid of what was before them. But the mother stood at the
door and received them silently, as though she had expected them; she
was merely pale. “She couldn’t bear it!” she whispered to them, and she
kneeled down beside the child.
She laid her head on the little crippled body, and whispered
indistinctly; now and again she pressed the child’s fingers into her
mouth, in order to stifle her sobs. “And you were to have run an errand
for mother,” she said, and she shook her head, smilingly. “You are a
nice sort of girl to me—not to be able to buy me two skeins of thread;
and the money I gave you for it—have you thrown it away?” Her words
came between smiles and sobs, and they sounded like a slow lament. “Did
you throw the money away? It doesn’t matter —it wasn’t your fault. Dear
child, dear little one!” Then her strength gave way. Her firmly closed
mouth broke open, and closed again, and so she went on, her head
rocking to and fro, while her hands felt eagerly in the child’s pocket.
“Didn’t you run that errand for mother?” she moaned. She felt, in the
midst of her grief, the need of some sort of corroboration, even if it
referred to something quite indifferent. And she felt in the child’s
purse. There lay a few öre and a scrap of paper.
Then she suddenly stood up. Her face was terribly hard as she turned to
her husband, who stood against the wall, swaying to and fro. “Peter!”
she cried in agony, “Peter! Don’t you know what you have done? ‘Forgive
me, mother,’ it says here, and she has taken four öre of the thirteen
to buy sugar-candy. Look here, her hand is still quite sticky.” She
opened the clenched hand, which was closed upon a scrap of sticky
paper. “Ah, the poor persecuted child! She wanted to sweeten her
existence with four öre worth of sugar-candy, and then into the water!
A child has so much pleasure at home here! ‘Forgive me, mother!’ she
says, as though she had done something wrong. And everything she did
was wrong; so she had to go away. Karen! Karen! I’m not angry with
you—you were very welcome—what do they signify, those few öre! I didn’t
mean it like that when I reproached you for hanging about at home! But
I didn’t know what to do—we had nothing to eat. And he spent the little
money there was!” She turned her face from the body to the father and
pointed to him. It was the first time that the wife of the “Great
Power” had ever turned upon him accusingly. But he did not understand
her. “She has found peace,” he murmured, and attempted to pull himself
up a little; “the peace of—” But here the old woman rose in the
chimney-corner—until this moment she had not moved. “Be silent!” she
said harshly, setting her stick at his breast, “or your old mother will
curse the day when she brought you into the world.” Wondering, he
stared at her; and a light seemed to shine through the mist as he
gazed. For a time he still stood there, unable to tear his eyes from
the body. He looked as though he wished to throw himself down beside
his wife, who once more lay bowed above the bier, whispering. Then,
with hanging head, he went upstairs and lay down.