When the commissioner awoke one morning eight days later after a night
of perfect rest, his first clear thought was that he must leave the
skerry, go anywhere to be alone, collect himself, find himself again.
The preacher's arrival had the desired effect in one way, namely to
"scare the mob," so that the tumult and rudeness ceased; but on the
other hand the commissioner had not been able to enjoy the newly
gained peace, for the exalted condition of his betrothed obliged
him to keep her always in his sight. So he had accompanied her, and
formally guarded her from morning to night; and by endless talk upon
the questions of religion tried to keep her aloof from the preacher's
seducing talk. All these matters which he had fought through in his
youth, he now had to fight over again; and as new counter-proofs had
been brought forth since then, he must reedit his whole apology. He
improvised psychological explanations of God, faith, miracles, eternity
and prayer; and he imagined that the girl understood him. But when
after three days he found that she held the same position and that
this matter of feeling lay outside the conversation, he dropped the
whole subject and sought by awakening the erratical with its new sphere
of feeling to drive away the first. But this he must soon give up,
for to speak of that which should be lived only excited the girl's
feelings still more, and he soon observed that there existed secret
bridges between the religious ecstasy and the sensual one. From the
love of Christ she ran so easily over to love of the man on that broad
drawbridge the love of one's neighbor, and from abstinence one could
trip over the footbridge renunciation to its neighbor penance; a little
contention awakened the disagreeable feeling of debt which must be
resolved in a lustful feeling--the reconciliation.
In his need he must first tear up the bridges, place her face to
face with carnal desire, awake her avidity for the temporal, which
he delineated in glowing colors. But when he had so succeeded
and retreated at the last moment, there arose the coldness of
disappointment in her, and when he then tried to cultivate her
feelings, and lead them out to the thoughts of offspring and family,
she withdrew and explained to him with determination, that she would
not have any children. She could even use a phraseology which is
current among a certain group of women, saying that she would not be
the womb which he lacked; or carry his heirs, whom she must with danger
to her life bring to the world for him.
Then he felt that nature had placed something between them which he did
not yet understand. He consoled himself by imagining that it was only
the butterfly's fear to lay its eggs and die, the flower's suspicion
that its beauty would fade away with the setting of its seed.
But he had worn himself out in these eight days; his fine wheels of
thought had begun to halt in their pivot holes, and the spring in the
movement had become relaxed.
After such a day of exertion, when he would have worked for a couple
of hours, his head was filled with trifles. Small words repeated
themselves almost audibly to his ear; gesticulations and mannerisms,
that she had used in their conversation, miraged themselves,
suggestions how he ought to have answered now and then, and the
recollection of an appropriate repartee which he had made gave him a
momentary pleasure. In a word, his head was full of bagatelles, and now
he observed that he had tried to straighten out a chaos; that he had
conversed as a schoolboy instead of exchanging thoughts with a mature
woman; that he had given out from himself masses of power without
getting anything in return; that he had placed a dry sponge in the
center of his soul, and that the sponge had swelled, while he himself
had become dry.
He loathed everything; was tired, and longed to get out for a moment;
for be free forever he could not.
When he now looked out through the window, about five o'clock in the
morning, he saw only a dense fog which stood immovable notwithstanding
a light breeze from the south. But far from being discouraged thereby,
he felt attracted by this light, white obscurity, which would hide him
and seclude him from the little fragment of the earth, where he now
felt himself tied down.
The barometer and weather vane told him that there would be sunshine
later in the day, and therefore he stepped into his boat without long
preparations; only provided with chart and compass, on which, however,
he did not intend to rely, as he could hear the whistling buoy three
miles out at sea, just in the direction in which he would seek a
landing.
He therefore put full sail on and was soon in the fog. Here, where
the eyes were free from all impressions of color and form, he felt
first the pleasure of isolation from the medley of an outer world. He
had as it were his own atmosphere around him, soaring onwards alone
as on another celestial body, in a medium, which was not air but
water vapors, more agreeable and more refreshing to inhale than the
exsiccating air with its superfluous seventy-nine per cent of nitrogen,
which had remained without evident purpose, when the elements of the
earth emerged from the chaos of gases.
It was not an obscure, smoke colored mist, through which the sunlight
shone. It was light, like newly melted silver. Warm as wadding it lay
healingly round his tired ego, protecting it from jars and pressure.
He enjoyed for a moment this fully-awake rest of the senses, without
sound, without color, without smell, and he felt how his pained head
was soothed by this safety from contact with others. He was sure of not
being questioned; needed not to answer, nor talk. The apparatus was
standing still a moment, now that all conducts had been cut off; and
so he began again to think clearly, systematically over all that had
passed. But what he had just gone through was so inferior, so trifling,
that he must first let the bilge water run off before the fresh came in.
In the distance he heard the whistling buoy cry at intervals of several
minutes, and guided by the sound he steered his course right into the
mist.
It became silent again, and only the splashing of the boat at the bow
and the purling aft in the wake made him conscious that he was moving
forwards. Immediately after he heard a sea gull cry in the fog, and at
the same time it seemed to him that he heard the dashing and rustle
about the prow of a boat coming abaft, and when he shouted to avoid the
danger, he received no answer, but heard only the hissing of the water
as when a boat is falling off.
After a moment of sailing he observed to windward the top of a mast
with mainsail and jib, but nothing was to be seen of the hull or
helmsman for they were hidden by the high swells of the sea.
This occurrence under other circumstances would not have disturbed
his thought, but now it made an impression which was momentarily
inexplicable, and which caused a fear, which was only one step removed
from thoughts of persecution. The newly awakened suspicions were
further aroused, when he shortly after caught sight of the haunting
boat which shot by him on the lee side, as though painted on the mist,
without his being able to get sight of the helmsman who was hidden by
the mainsail.
He now hailed again, but instead of an answer he saw only the boat fall
off so much that he observed that the stern sheet was empty; and then
the apparition vanished in the all devouring mist.
Accustomed to free himself from fear of the unknown, he at once formed
suggestions to explain it, but stopped finally at the question, why the
helmsman hid himself, for that there must be a helmsman on a sailboat,
which did not drift, he had no doubt. Why did he not want to be seen?
In usual cases one does not want to be seen when going on a bad errand,
wishing to be by oneself, or intending to frighten somebody. That the
unknown sailor did not seek solitude was probable, as he held the
same course, and if he would frighten an intrepid person, who was not
susceptible to superstition, he could find some better way. However he
held his course onward towards the buoy, incessantly, doggedly pursued
by the haunting boat to the leaward, still at such a distance, that it
appeared only as condensed fog.
Upon coming farther out where the wind was stronger the mist seemed
to grow somewhat thinner, and like long silver bullion lay the
fog-silvered sunlight on the crests of the waves. With the rising of
the wind the crying of the buoy increased, and now he steered straight
into the sunlight where the mist had parted, and ran at highest speed
towards the buoy. There it lay swinging on the wave, cinnabar-red
and shining, moist as a taken-out lung with its great black windpipe
pointed slanting upwards into the air. And when the wave next time
compressed the air, it raised a cry, as though the sea roared after the
sun, the bottom chain clinked until it had run out, and now when the
waves sank and sucked back the air, there arose a roaring out of the
depth as from the giant proboscis of a drowning mastodon.
It was the first mighty impression he had had after a month of prattle
and trivialities.
He admired the genius of man, that had hung this buoy on the insidious
wolf, the sea, that it should itself caution its defenseless victims.
He envied this hermit, who was permitted to lie fettered to a bottom
rock in the middle of the sea and with its roaring to beat the wind and
wave day and night so that it could be heard miles around; to be the
first to give the voyager a welcome to his land; and to wail forth its
pain and be heard.
The sight was quickly passed, and the demi-darkness again closed round
the boat, which now fell off towards the skerry for which he had
started to rest. For half an hour he lay on the same tack until he
heard the breakers beating on the strand; then he fell off to leeward
and soon sped into a cove where he could land.
It was the last skerry outside the channel and consisted of a couple
of acres of red gneiss without any vegetation other than a few lichens
on places where the drifting ice had not scraped the rocks perfectly
clean. Only sea gulls and mews had their resting place here, and now as
the commissioner moored his boat and stepped up on the highest point of
the skerry they gave forth cries of alarm. Here he wrapped himself in
his blanket, and placed himself in a well-polished crevice, which made
him a comfortable arm chair. Here, without witness, without auditors,
he gave himself up to thoughts and let them loose, confessed himself,
scrutinized himself inwardly and heard his own voice from within.
Only two months of rubbing against other beings, and he had through
the law of accommodation lost the better part of himself, had become
used to acquiescing to avoid disputes, drilled himself to yield to
avoid a break, and developed into a characterless, malleable, sociable
fellow; with his head full of bagatelles and being urged to speak in an
abbreviated, simplified vocabulary, he felt that his scale of language
had lost its semi-tones, and that his thoughts had been switching
in on old worn rails, which led back to the ballast place. Old lax
sophisms about respecting others' belief, that everybody will be happy
in his grime, had crept back into him, and he had from pure politeness
performed as a wizard and finally got a dangerous competitor on his
hands, who every moment threatened to liberate the only soul he would
unite with his own.
A smile crossed his lips when he thought of how he had fooled these
people, who believed they had fooled him: and with a subdued voice he
involuntarily ejaculated, "asses," which made him start, frightened at
the thought that somebody might have heard him.
And so the silent thoughts continued: They believed they had caught
his soul, and he had caught them! They imagined that he went their
errands, and they did not know that he used them as a gymnastical
exercise for his soul and to feel the enjoyment of power.
But these thoughts, which he had not dared to acknowledge before as
his own, proclaimed themselves now as the children of his soul, big,
healthy children, whom he acknowledged as his own. And what had he done
otherwise than the others had willed to do, but could not! And this
young woman, who believed she had turned a hand organ for herself, did
not suspect that she was selected to the sounding board of his soul....
At this moment he jumped up, and interrupted the course of his
dangerous thoughts, for he plainly heard footsteps on the flat rocks
in the fog, and although he at once guessed that it was an error of
hearing, caused by the solitude and fear of being taken unawares,
he turned his steps towards his boat. But when he found it in good
condition, he decided to go around the skerry to search for the other
boat, for there must be one here, since another being had come over. He
climbed on the strand bowlders and soon found behind the next point on
the lee side a boat with the same sprit sail rig, as he had seen out on
the sea. It was thus evident that the sailor must be on the skerry, and
now the commissioner began a razzia in the fog, but always kept in the
neighborhood of the boats, so that he could cut off retreat. When after
having cried out several times without getting an answer he finally saw
that he must leave the boats in order to catch the mysterious being, he
went down to the boats, and took off the tillers to make every escape
impossible, and so he went into the mist again. He heard steps before
him and followed them by the sound, but soon heard them in an entirely
other direction. Tired of the hunt and provoked by the fruitlessness of
the endeavors, he decided to make a short ending to the scene, as he
had no mind to wait until the fog had disappeared.
With as loud a voice as he could command, he cried:
"If there is anybody there, answer, for I am going to shoot."
"Lord Jesus! Do not shoot!" was heard in the fog.
The commissioner seemed to have heard this voice before, but a very
long time ago, perhaps in his youth. And now when he approached the
place, where the unknown stood, and saw its silhouette outlines gray
to gray, there awoke old memories of these contours of a human being.
The inward bowed knees, the arms all too long and the deformed left
shoulder had a counterpart picture in memory's storage of a schoolmate
in the third class in the high school. But when he caught sight of the
colporteur's American whiskers appearing through the mist, the picture
did not correspond longer, and he only saw the man upon the rock, who
had applied the Revelation to the mirage.
With a raised cap and a frightened look he approached the commissioner,
who did not feel himself safe with this sneaking pursuer, for in
reality he carried no firearms. To disguise his uncertainty he assumed
a sharp tone, when he asked:
"Why do you hide from me?"
"I have not hidden myself, the mist did it," answered the preacher
softly and insinuatingly.
"But why were you not sitting at the tiller in your boat?"
"Hm, I did not know that one was obliged to sit on the stern sheet and
therefore I sat to windward to keep the boat buoyant! For you see I had
a sheet on the end of the tiller such as we use up in Roslagen."
The explanations were acceptable, but still did not answer the
question, why he followed the commissioner out here. And he felt now,
that here must be a close fight of souls, for it was not by chance that
they had met out here.
"What do you seek out here so early in the morning?" the commissioner
took up the broken thread.
"Yes, how shall I say it, I feel sometimes, as though I am in need
of being alone with myself." The answer found a certain echo in the
questioner, and at the expression of sympathy, which the preacher could
read in his face, he added:
"For, you see, when I search myself in meditation and prayer and find
myself, even so I find my God."
A naïve confession lay in these words, but the commissioner would not
translate the involuntary heresy and draw such conclusions as: God is
thus my own self or in my own self, because he held a certain esteem
for this man, who could be alone with a fiction, and thus to a certain
degree alone.
While the commissioner regarded the preacher's face, which was
overgrown with long brown whiskers except on the upper lip as sailors
and colporteurs usually wear them, probably to let out the spoken word
and still resemble an apostle, he seemed to perceive a face behind this
face, and annoyed by this labor which his memory had unconsciously
undertaken, he asked bluntly:
"Have we not met each other before?"
"Yes, certainly we have," answered the preacher; "and you, sir
commissioner, have, perhaps without knowing it, had such a great
influence on my life, that it might be said you determined my path."
"Oh, no! Tell me about it, for I do not remember it!" said the
commissioner, and placing himself on the rock, he invited the other to
sit down.
"Yes, it is certainly about twenty-five years ago that we were together
in the third class at school ...
"What was your name then?" interrupted the commissioner.
"At that time I was called Olsson and nick-named Ox-Olle, because my
father was a farmer and I was dressed in homespun clothes."
"Olsson? Wait a moment! You could reckon best of us all."
"Yes, so it was! But there came a day, and it was the principal's
fiftieth birthday. We had dressed the school with leaves and flowers,
and after the lessons were ended someone proposed that the boys in our
class should take the bouquets and carry them home to the principal's
wife and daughter. I remember that you thought it unnecessary as
the family of the principal had nothing to do with the school, but
often encroached on its affairs in a disturbing manner. However, you
went--and so did I. As I walked up the steps, you caught sight of my
homespun clothes I presume, and noticing that I carried the nicest
bouquet, you burst out: 'Is Saul also among the prophets!'"
"That I have entirely forgotten," said the commissioner very shortly.
"But I never forgot it," responded the preacher with trembling voice.
"I had had it thrown in my face, that I was the scabby sheep, the
intruder, who could never seriously extend homage to a woman of
station. I quit school in order to devote myself to business and
thereby gain money and fine clothes quickly, and learn manners and
refined language. But I never gained a first class position. My
exterior, my language, my appearance were against me. Then I began to
go alone by myself, and in the solitude I found powers growing in me
which I had never suspected. Clergy-man I had first thought to be, but
now it was too late. The solitude gave me fears of human beings, and
these fears of human beings made me entirely alone, so alone that I
must search for my only acquaintance in God, and in the Saviour of the
neglected, the scabby, the outcasts, Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
This I have to thank you for!"
The last words were spoken with a certain bitterness, and the
commissioner found it prudent to have fair play and broke out.
"Then you have gone on hating me for twenty-five years?"
"Excessively! But no longer since I have left the revenge to God."
"So, you have a God who revenges! Do you believe that He selects you
for an implement, or do you think that he will let His electric spark
strike me, or that He is going to blow over my boat or mark me with the
smallpox?"
"The ways of the Lord are past knowing, but the ways of iniquity are
manifest to everybody!"
"Do you see such gross iniquity in a boy's thoughtless talk, that God
should persecute him a whole man's age? I wonder if that revenging
God is not in your heart, where you lately insisted that you made
appointments with Him?"
Snared by his own words the preacher could not longer control himself.
"You blaspheme! Now I know who you are! The apple does not fall far
from the tree! Now I understand the whole craft of Satan. You build the
Lord a house for a brothel as an offering to a harlot! You play wizard
and magician to get people to fall down and worship the denier. But the
Lord says: 'Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may
have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into
the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and
murderers, and idolators, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie!'"
The last words he had thrown out with an incredible volubility and
exaltation, without seeking for them elsewhere than on his lips, and
just as though he feared a crushing answer which would weaken their
impression, he turned his back and went down to his boat.
Meantime the mist had lifted, and the sea spread its pure blue water
soothingly and acquittingly.
The commissioner remained awhile in his rocky chair, and meditated on
the subjection of the soul under the same laws that govern the physical
forces. The wind tore up a wave down on Esthonia; that wave chased
another, and the last which transmitted the motion to the Swedish
coast, removed a small pebble, which had afforded support to a rock;
and after a man's age the results would be shown in the tumbling down
of the rock; and this would be followed by a new undermining of the
uncovered rock which now lay exposed.
His brain twenty-five years ago had thrown out what was to him a
meaningless word, that word had penetrated an ear and put a brain
into such a strong agitation that it still vibrated after having
given direction to the whole life of a human being. And who knows,
if this innervation current had not again been reënforced by contact
and friction, so that it once more with invigorated force would
unload itself and bring other counter forces into action, producing
disturbances and destruction in the lives of others!
Now when the preacher's boat sped into sight round the point, bearing
down to East Skerry, the commissioner got such a sure feeling that
there sat a foe who was marching down to his forts, that he arose and
went to his boat, to go home and place himself on the defensive.
* * * * *
When he was well seated in the boat and calmed by the gentle rocking of
the waves, he was seized by a strong desire to still tarry a few hours
on the sea in perfect solitude and let the last disquieting impressions
blow away.
Why should he even fear this man's influence on his betrothed, as she
would still show herself unsuited to a union for life, if she sunk back
to a level with the uneducated. But nevertheless it grieved him that
there existed this fear. It reminded of the behavior of those men, who
were living in the fear of losses and which is stamped with the name
jealousy. Was it the feeling of an inability to keep, which betrayed
a frailness in him? Or was it not rather a frailness in her not to
be able to retain a hold, when the balloon should ascend, leaving
the sheet anchor religion, and throwing away the sacks of ballast,
the feelings? Certainly the latter would have been the better way,
notwithstanding they had got a certain authority with those, who had
nothing to lose.
He now tacked and lay oft the skerry to south-east, a point from which
he had not seen his prison before. Highest up on the hill he saw the
skeleton of the unfinished chapel with its staging, but he did not see
any laborers, although the morning was far advanced. He did not even
notice any boats out fishing. There was on the whole a great stillness
on the skerry, and no people were to be seen even by the custom house
cottage or the pilots' outlook. He turned and stood on another tack
to sail round the skerry. But when he came outside of the same, the
sea became higher and he gained only a little by the tack, so it took
a whole hour before he could scud down to the harbor. Now he saw the
cottage where the ladles lived, and as soon as he had sped by the point
of the harbor, he observed all the inhabitants of the island gathered
round the house, on the porch of which the preacher stood bare-headed,
speaking.
With a clear insight, that here impended a battle, he landed, furled
the sail and went up to his chamber.
Through the open window he heard the people singing a hymn.
He would have liked now to sit down to his work, but the thought that
maybe he would soon be interrupted, hindered him from beginning it.
A painful half hour passed during which he learned more plainly than
ever before, that he did not own himself longer, did not rule over two
square meters, on which he could lock himself up to avoid the touch of
souls, which like barnacles on the whale's hide fastened themselves
there to finally by their mass impede his motion.
The door opened now after a short knock, and Miss Mary stood before
him, with a new expression in her face, resembling pained reproach and
superior compassion.
She came besides with the feeling of being backed by the universal
opinion of the people, and therefore felt strong against this solitary
man.
He let her speak first so as to have a point to start from.
"Where have you been?" commenced she with an attempt not to sound too
arrogant.
"I have been out for a sail!"
"Without inviting me?"
"I did not know that you were particular about that!"
"Yes, you did know it, but surely you would be alone with your dark
thoughts!"
"Perhaps!"
"Certainly! Don't you think that I have observed it? Don't you believe
that I have seen how you are becoming tired of me?"
"Have I proved tired of you, I who follow you day in and day out,
though on a morning, when you usually are asleep, I took the liberty to
sail for a couple of hours? But maybe you have become tired of learning
to fish, for I have not seen you once out at sea."
"It is not the time to fish now as you well know," answered Miss Mary
fully persuaded that she spoke the truth.
"No, I see that!" interposed the commissioner with the purpose of
approaching the very mine, with the risk of an explosion. "I see how
the people abandon their work to listen to sermons...."
Now an eruption was ready.
"Was it not you, who wished to have a church out here?"
"Yes, Sundays. Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh go to
church. Here no work is done any day, but there is preaching every day.
And instead of making themselves and families an honest income here
on this earth, they all race after such an uncertain thing as heaven.
The very laborers on the chapel have left their work, so that we shall
never see a roof on that church, and I expect every moment to hear that
poverty has broken out, so that we must be prepared for charity...."
"That is just what I was going to speak about," interrupted Miss Mary,
glad to have avoided taking up the subject herself, still overlooking
that it was exhausted in advance by the commissioner.
"I have not come here to exercise charity; I am here to teach the
people how to get along without charity."
"You are at the bottom a heartless person, although you appear to be
otherwise."
"And you would show your big heart at my expense without being willing
to offer a yard of the trimming from your gown."
"I hate you! I hate you!" burst out the girl with a hideous expression
on her face. "Surely I know who you are, I know all, all, all!"
"Well, why not leave me then?" asked the commissioner in a steel cold
tone.
"I shall leave you! I shall!" cried she and approached the door, but
without going.
The commissioner, who had taken a seat at the table, took up a pen and
began to write to avoid all temptation of taking up a conversation,
which was ended, as everything had been said.
He heard, as in a dream, sobbing and how the door closed, how steps
sounded in the hall, and squeakings of the stairs.
When he awoke and read the paper, over which his pen had been flying,
he saw that the word Pandora was written there so many times, that he
could calculate that a long while had passed since the scene was ended.
But the word struck him, and his inquisitiveness awoke as to its
meaning, which he during the lapse of years had forgotten, although he
had a faint memory about it from the mythology. He took his dictionary
from the table, opened it and read:
"Pandora, the Eve of the ancients, the earth's first woman. Sent by the
gods for revenge on account of Prometheus having stolen the fire, and
given it to human beings, with all its misfortunes, after which they
inhabitated the earth. Represented in poesy under the form of something
good, which is an evil illusion, a creation, intended for deceit and
surprise."
This was mythology like the tale of Eve, who debarred human beings
from Paradise. But when the tale was confirmed from century to century
and he had learned himself, how the presence of a woman on this little
piece of earth out in the sea had already made dusk, where he would
spread light, then there must have lain an idea in the Hellenic and
Jewish poet's figurative style.
That she hated him, that he felt and knew, as she took sides with the
low crowd down there, but, nevertheless he would not doubt her love,
even if this love only consisted of the dandelion's attraction to the
sun to borrow beams of light for a poor imitation of the yellow disk.
But there existed besides something low as in that which is base,
something evil with the desire to injure, a battle for power, which was
out of place, as his aim was a victory over the irrational. To tell
her this, yes, that would be to break the relation when this depended
on his submission or at least his acknowledging her superiority, and
this would be to build a life on a white lie, which would grow, wax and
perhaps smother all possibility of an honest cohabitation. Just in this
lay the deepest reason of all the relative misfortunes of marriage,
that the man goes into the union sometimes with a willful lie, often
the prey of an hallucination, when he fancies his ego into the being
whom he would assimulate. Of this illusion; _second sight,_ Mill had
become infatuated to such a degree, that he believed he got all his
sharp thoughts from the simple woman whom he had lifted up to himself.
It was love's prize from time immemorial, that the man should conceal
what the woman was, and on this secrecy centuries had built a chaos
of lies, which science did not dare to disturb, which the bravest
statesmen did not dare to touch and which cause the theologian to deny
his Paul, when it comes to "women in the churches."
But his love had just begun and taken fire, when he saw her look up to
him with beseeching glances; and that love had fled, when she came with
the vanquishing smile of stupidity after having trampled down what he
would have formed for her happiness and that of many others.
"Ended!" said he to himself, arose and locked the door.
Ended with his youthful hopes of finding the woman he sought. "That
woman, who was born with the sense to see her sex's inferiority to the
other sex."
He had certainly now and then met one or another, who admitted the
fact, but who finally and always reserved themselves as to the reason
of the fact, laying the blame on a non-existing oppression, and
promising themselves that with greater liberty they would soon surpass
the men; and then the battle was in full sway.
He would not wear out his intelligence in an uneven fight with
mosquitoes, whom he could not hit with a cane, because they were too
small and too many, therefore there must now be an end forever to this
fruitless searching after the non-existing. He would let all his power
go out in labor, lay aside kin, family, home and sexual impulses and
leave the multiplying to other "reproductive animals."
The feeling of being free placed his soul at rest, and it seemed to
him as though a pall had lost its hold in his brain, which began to
operate without concern. The thought that he did not need more to
make his exterior agreeable, caused him to lay aside a certain kind
of collar which annoyed him, but which his bethrothed had explained
to be _chic._ He arranged his hair in a more comfortable manner and
observed how it calmed his nerves, for he had been in constant strife
about the coiffure his betrothed liked best. The tobacco pipe which
he loved as an old acquaintance and which he had been obliged to lay
aside, was taken out again, the dressing gown and moccasins, that he
had not dared to use for a long time, again gave freedom from pressure,
which reminded of a more airy medium In which he could breathe without
difficulty, and think without restriction.
And now, freed from all these accommodation constraints, he observed
what tyranny even in small details he had lived through. He could walk
in his room without the fear of being embarrassed by a knock at the
door, deliver himself up to his thoughts without feeling himself false.
He had not long enjoyed the newly gained liberty, when somebody rapped
at the door. His body jarred as though some mooring still held him, and
when he heard the mother's voice, the oppressing thought struck him
like a club, that it was not ended, that it must begin over again.
His first intention was to let the door remain closed, but a sense of
propriety, the fear of being regarded as a coward determined him to
open it. And when he saw the old lady's cheerful, prudent eye, as she
with a kind smile and a roguish shake of her head stepped in, it was to
him as though the last half hour's scene had been only a dream after
which he had awakened glad that it was past.
"Have we now squabbled again?" commenced the old lady, taking away the
disagreeableness of the remark by the familiar _we_. "You must get
married, children, before there is a rupture I Believe an old woman's
word; and don't think that you test your hearts as engaged, for the
longer you are engaged, the worse it will become!"
"But after that it is too late to break it," answered the commissioner.
"And when one has already discovered such a difference in disposition
and opinions, so...."
"What are these opinions? You cannot have different opinions, no,
though the girl did have it lonesome when Axel was away, and therefore
she run after the colporteur. And as far as disposition is concerned,
it comes and goes, according to the condition of the nerves. And Axel,
who is such a knowing man, ought to know how women are!"
He could have kissed her hand at the first enchantment of finding that
woman, who knew her own sex, but then he remembered that he had heard
this manner of speaking ill about other women each time a woman would
gain him, and that it was more of flattery than an admission, for
when it came to earnestness, the utterance was always taken back with
interest. Therefore he limited himself to answering:
"Let time pass, little mother! Get married out here I cannot, but let
us only return to the city in the fall ... supposing that Mary shows
more sympathy in my work and less repugnance to my way of seeing the
world and living."
"Axel is so dreadfully profound, and if a poor girl cannot always
follow it, why it is nothing to be astonished at."
"Yes, but if she cannot follow me upwards, I cannot on the other hand
follow her downwards; but the latter seems to be her precise will, so
precise, that it appears to me to-day, as though there lay a hidden
hate behind it."
"Hate? It is only love, my friend! Come down now and say something
friendly, and she will be all right again."
"Never, after the words we exchanged to-day! For either these words
mean something and then we are foes, or they mean nothing, and then one
of the party is irresponsible."
"Yes, she is irresponsible, but Axel should well know that a woman is a
child until she becomes a mother. Come now, my friend, and play with'
the child, otherwise she will select other playthings, which may be
more dangerous."
"Yes, but, dearest, I cannot play the whole day without being tired,
and I do not believe either that Mary is pleased to be treated as a
child."
"Yes, she is, only it don't look so! Ah, what a child Axel is in such
affairs!"
Again a politeness, which from anyone but a mother-in-law would have
been an insult! And when she now took his hand to lead him out, he felt
all resistance cease. She had by leaving his argument unanswered led
the conversation away from the question; she had blown at the skein
instead of untangling it, caressed his doubts to rest and stroked away
the disquiet and by her womanly atmosphere, her motherly manner got him
to lay aside his will and personal liberty.
And after he had changed his coat, he followed obediently, almost
with pleasure the incessantly chatting old lady down the staircase to
continue the play and put on handcuffs.
Upon reaching the hall he met the preacher, who delivered a letter to
him with the Academy of Agriculture's stamp.
The commissioner broke the seal on the spot, and put the letter in
his pocket, as though glad he had got something, a substitute for
conversation, a lightning rod; he burned to communicate the news to the
mother who was waiting.
"We are going to have a visitor," said he.
"The officials have sent me a young man who wants to learn to fish."
"So, it is delightful that Axel is going to have some man for company,"
said the mother with true sincerity.
And the commissioner went with light steps down to his waiting
betrothed, sure that with a novelty on hand he could immediately pass
over the most disagreeable of explanations.