What seemed most remarkable of all to Sivert was that there was never
anything strange about Olsen’s manner in the daytime, even when the
smith was not there.
Olsen by day was simply brutal, like any ordinary man; his eyes, that
glittered so insanely in the dark, looked out in daylight with a gleam
of unadulterated cruelty from under the brow they shared in common. And
the hand that stroked him so affectionately could land out a blow that
would make his ears tingle all day.
For a time Sivert endeavoured to persuade himself that it was merely
nightmare. But there were things that could not be so explained. And he
bore his horror alone, for his mother misunderstood the hints he threw
out, owing to the fact that Sivert, as was his custom, assured her that
Olsen _did not_ do so-and-so.
“I should think not, indeed. It’s wicked even to think such things.”
“But I can’t help it.”
“Then say your prayers properly and earnestly, and God will help you
all right.”
“I say my prayers like anything, every night. But Olsen’s ever so
strong, and it’s no good. God can’t manage him, I suppose.”
“Sivert!”
“Or perhaps God doesn’t trouble about things as much as people say.”
“Sivert, now be a good child, do. Do you think God doesn’t trouble
about us? Why, look, what a lovely boy He’s given us now....” Fru
Egholm lifted the coverlet aside, to show the baby’s face. “Isn’t he
sweet? And so healthy he looks. I think he’ll be fair haired.”
“But you promised me I was to be the only fair-haired boy?”
“I’d like to have as many of them as I can. They’re the best sort. And,
you know, Abel was fair haired, but Cain was dark.”
“Just like Father!”
“Oh, child, how can you say such a thing!” Fru Egholm chattered on to
cover her confusion. What a head the child had, to be sure.
The little one in the cradle awoke, and set up a faint cry like the
bleating of a lamb. His mother took him up to her breast.
Sivert looked on with an expression of intense disgust.
“That’s enough--that’s enough,” he said again and again, his eyes
straining awry in consuming envy.
“Mother, let’s break it up, let’s tear it to bits, before it gets any
bigger.”
“What do you think your father would say to that?” said his mother,
with a smile.
Sivert started; he had not thought of that difficult side of the
question.
“Couldn’t we say it had got lost somehow? No, I know; we’ll tell him
there never was but me and Hedvig. He won’t remember. And then we can
show him me, and ask if that’s the one he means. Oh, may we, dear
little darling mother?” And he stretched out his hand for the child.
“Just listen and I’ll tell you what Father says,” said his mother,
feeling in a pocket of her dress.
Sivert’s face darkened; he stared anxiously at the letter.
“MY DEAR ANNA,--Excuse my long silence, but I have got things settled
now, and every day feeling happier for the change. Karlsen, the
Evangelist, has been a nightmare to me, but now I am awake once more,
and drink in the fresh air and feel myself another man. And only
fancy--_my powers of invention_, that I thought were dead, have come
back again stronger than before. You remember I used to say I was as
_the hand of God_ here on earth. I am to go over the work, file away
at it and make it even--in a word, _improve the whole world_, that
He created great and rich and round, it is true, but rough at the
edges. In my innermost self, and right out to my fingertips, I feel
conscious of this as my calling. If I only go for a little walk with
the wind against me, I feel my powers in urgent movement. Now, the
friction exerted by the wind could be reduced to one-seventh by means
of a little invention of mine. I can tell you, there is a _great
time_ ahead. But it is not this that occupies my mind just now, but
something else. A machine. I dare not set down on paper what it is.
Only this: be sure that all the taps and other parts of the _steam
wagon_, my old construction, are sent to me here as soon as possible.
I must try my wings now; I feel myself free. Free as a bird.”
“So I should think,” murmured Fru Egholm. “With no wife and children or
anything else to look after. Well, thank goodness that’s not all.”
“I believe God Himself has led me to this place, and guided my
footsteps in the way.”
“Yes, I daresay--but who was it went down on her knees a hundred times
and prayed God to deliver you out of that Angel creature’s claws?”
Fru Egholm knew the letter by heart from end to end. Nevertheless, each
line affected her now as strongly as if read for the first time. Even
then, despite her critical opposition to the present passage, she was
already feeling for her handkerchief, ready for the touching part she
knew was just ahead.
“I have fitted up a splendid little studio in a carpenter’s place. Do
you think anyone in Odense would ever have given me credit for the
rent, and paid for a glass roof into the bargain and all that? When
I came into the town the first day, it was like a triumphal march. I
walked down from the station with a man, and asked him if he knew a
place where I could put up. ‘Yes,’ said he; ‘you can stay at Vang’s
hotel. My name’s Henrik Vang; it’s my father owns the place.’ I shook
my head, thinking of my 3 _kroner_ 50 that was all I had. But he
said I could fix my own price; he’d look after that all right. Did
you ever hear of such luck? We spent the whole evening together, in
the restaurant, and all the notables of the town were there. He told
them to put it all on his bill. While I think of it--be sure to send
my embroidered waistcoat and the small boots, if you can manage it.
They’re only in for a small sum, and you should be able to get them
out all right, now you haven’t got me to feed....”
“Only a small sum! Heh! Embroidered waistcoat and creaky boots--no, my
good man, you won’t get them, and that’s flat.”
But now came the part that filled Fru Egholm with joy and pride. Egholm
wrote that he had been thinking much about the vision she had had on
the night the child was born. It would be as well to give the child
a name that should remind the Lord of His promise. He would suggest
_Emanuel_.
Was there ever such a thoughtful creature in the world? And it was the
first time Egholm had ever troubled himself to think of a name for any
of the children. But perhaps he was a different man now. For he wrote
further:
“The country round here is lovely. Only two minutes’ walk from my
studio down to the shore. Might easily have a little sailing boat
there, all ready to hand. I often go down there, but only for a
minute at a time--there might be people coming up while I was out.
You must see and come over soon. I am longing for you, dearest
Anna....”
“And I’m longing, too,” said Fru Egholm, using her handkerchief. “Man
and wife should be one, as they say. But what about you young ones?
Hedvig ought surely to be able to get a place in Knarreby, no worse
than the one she’s got. It’s you that’s the trouble, Sivert lad.”
“Olsen’s a good enough hand at thrashing, but I think Father beats him
at using hard words,” said Sivert judicially.
The matter was not one to be settled out of hand. Money was not the
only difficulty. Fru Egholm had gradually worked up quite a decent
business connection with the sewing of grave-clothes. One day she had
made 1 _kroner_ 67 _øre_, _net earnings_. And a business like that was
not to be lightly thrown away.
Hedvig was getting on nicely, at school and in her situation, and
Sivert’s curious revelations grew less frequent.
Indeed, the boy suffered less now from the attentions of his tormentor
at the smithy than at first. There were always the wonderful stories
to begin with, and these he took as a kind of compensation for what
followed. Olsen had also a book which he would bring out on rare
occasions. It was a crumpled rag to look at, from the outside. But
within were marvels. Sivert’s eyes glowed when Olsen took it out of the
drawer. It was his journeyman’s book, at once a passport and a register.
Page after page, the stamp and signatures of the police--the State
Authorities, no less. One stamp for every imaginable town.
Sivert was dumb with emotion. Even Olsen’s voice shook. And in the
middle of showing it, he would sometimes snatch up the book with an
oath and hide it jealously against his naked breast, only to draw it
forth lovingly a moment later. It was as if he could not bear the
glorious vision for more than a little glimpse at a time.
It was a treasure of almost inconceivable value, was that book. Better
to lose one’s own head than that, for, once lost, the unfortunate owner
would be put in prison on the spot. On the other hand, whoever held
such a book, duly stamped and signed and in order, might wander the
whole world over, and none should dare to touch a hair of his head.
In the front of the book was something more wonderful even than the
police stamps. Sivert had been three times granted a sight of it.
Nothing less than a painting in words of the owner of the book. The
boy grew giddy at the thought that in five years’ time he, too, might
attain a like distinction.
“Height--58 inches.
Hair--black.
Eyes--brown (eyebrows meeting in centre).
Nose--ordinary.”
Sivert turned his eyes from the book to the living Olsen before him; it
was a marvel that anyone could have hit off the description thus to a
hair.
But then came the best of all:
“Any distinctive marks: _Has six toes on each foot_.”
Olsen threw back his head, and set his lips sternly. Yes, he had six
toes; it was perfectly true. And why shouldn’t he? What, didn’t believe
it? Well, then, look here!
Off came Olsen’s socks, and Sivert, in humble amazement, counted the
whole dozen. True, the outermost toe was no giant, but rather a tiny
blind thing that clung to the next. There was no nail to it, yet it was
undoubtedly a toe. A whole limb additional!
Sivert counted his own inferior equipment again and again by night, and
in course of time developed a fine gift of counting them wrong.
“Why don’t they write down about your inside?” he ventured to ask.
“They can’t. That’s private,” answered Olsen.
X
Henrik Vang loved a soft, easy seat, and from his very first visit he
had chosen to sit down in the middle of Egholm’s iron bed. Sometimes,
when it was cold, he would pull the bedclothes up over his legs, right
to his throat. Egholm did not mind. He preferred to walk up and down
the floor, listening to his own voice. It was rarely but he had some
new strange plan or invention in his head.
To-day, however, he was nervous, and void of ideas. Anna was coming by
the midday train. Consequently, he found nothing now to talk of but
old, worn-out themes. Of the Brethren, who had cheated him out of all
that money. Of his great Day of Reckoning with those same Brethren, and
how they had risen up and cast him forth, together with one Meilby, a
photographer.
“He was something like you, Vang, by the way, was Meilby. Same light
hair, and eyes--and especially in the look of them. Now, anyone not
seeing that great big body of yours would say you weren’t grown up yet.
But Meilby, he was younger, and not so heavy built, perhaps.”
“Was he married?”
“No, but he....”
“Then he wasn’t like me.”
“Ha ha--but he was, though, on my word. The voice, too. Same rumbling
sort of way, as if that wasn’t properly set either.”
“Anyhow, he wasn’t married, so he wasn’t like me. She’s been talking to
Father again. Asking him to turn me out. I don’t know if she wants me
to die of hunger. For she never gives me anything herself.”
“Well, you know, Vang,” laughed Egholm, “you’re not exactly a model
husband, either. Women like being made a fuss of now and then. Now me,
for instance. Here’s my wife coming to-day, and what do I do? Go up to
the station myself to meet her. See?”
Egholm looked at his watch, and felt uncomfortable. Again he had
forgotten the time. The train must be in by now, and Anna would be left
standing there, utterly strange to the place....
He left Vang in the nest he had made, and hurried out.
Annoyance at the little misfortune was but a herald for the host of
black thoughts that had been gathering in Egholm’s mind ever since the
day when, in a weak--a very weak--moment, he had written to Anna to
come.
Now, was it nice, was it decent of her, to take advantage of a
momentary lapse like that?
Anyhow, it was too late now. The thing was done. Good-bye to
freedom--he had himself turned back to seek his fetters. Anna would
be there, right enough, standing on the platform ready to clap the
handcuffs on him once more.
And now, just as things were beginning to move! With a wife and two
hungry children to drag about after him, it would be stagnation once
more, however he might put his shoulder to the work.
The gravel path leading to the station had been newly planted with
trees, poor, scraggy things, more like the brooms on the buoys outside
the harbour. And now they had to feel about with their roots through
the hard earth. It would be ages before they grew to be tall and
strong, with broad leafy crowns. And they were young--but he was no
longer young, and his strength had been wasted in many a barren soil.
Egholm clasped his hands under his cloak, and prayed:
“Lord, spare Thy servant. Take away this cup from me. Let it be so
that, when I come to the station, I may wake up out of a painful dream.
No wife and children at all. Lord, hear Thy servant; hear him for that
he suffered for the sake of Thy word, at the hands of the Brethren in
Odense!”
He writhed his bony fingers, and looked up to the blue March sky. How
grateful he would be; how he would fall down and bend his forehead to
the earth, if his prayer should be heard!
But, alas, they would surely be there--Anna, Sivert, and Hedvig. Yes;
they would be there, never fear.
It suddenly occurred to him that he could not remember the children’s
faces. All he could call to mind of Hedvig was her keen grey eyes, and
Sivert was associated chiefly with the grating sound of a little saw.
But that sound was so vividly present in his mind that he lashed out
with his stick, by way of relief. It was a reflex movement, a case of
cause and effect.
Egholm had expected to find his family on the steps of the station,
but there was no one there. The whole place looked dead and deserted.
The omnibus horse stood drowsing in its tether, while the driver, Red
Jeppe, jested with the waitress at the bar. No one on the platform but
a group of girls. And it was already half-past twelve by the clock.
Strange--very strange.
He drifted up to a porter, and asked:
“The train from Odense--has it come in yet?”
“She’s broken down at Aaby. A nasty mess.”
“Broken down!”
“Yes. Engine off the line, and....”
_Oh!_ Egholm felt a nasty blow at his heart. So God--or was it
Satan?--had heard his prayer for once. With an ashy face he asked
again:
“Nobody hurt, I hope?” And the answer seemed to flash on him as a
vision: Anna stretched out on a canvas bier, her thick hair matted with
blood.
“Hurt? Oh, Lord, no,” said the porter. “Only the engine turned off
down the wrong track, and stuck in the gravel.” He yawned hungrily.
“You’re not the only one hanging about here waiting for their blessed
trains....”
Egholm felt a strange weakness in the legs, and sat down. The signal
bell rang--train due in ten minutes. It seemed to him as if the station
had suddenly brightened up. Quite cheerful all at once. Those girls
there, for instance, with lovely new boots on. And laughing all the
time. The one on the outside leaned right over to listen when the
others whispered. Well, well, a good thing everyone wasn’t miserable.
And there--there was a man coming out of the waiting-room--a tall,
fat man with rather thin legs--a commercial traveller. He didn’t look
pleased at all, but dragged at his two bags like a convict in irons.
Then, at sight of the girls, he stopped and drew himself up, anxious to
be seen.
He draws a mirror and a tiny brush from his pocket, and wields them
like a virtuoso. Then a cigar-case, and next a smart little contrivance
for cutting off the end; another little case, with matches in.
Evidently he is trying to impress those girls with an idea that he
is a sort of original chest of drawers, with all manner of cases and
shiny, interesting things inside. And he succeeds. The girls stop
talking, and look at him, to see what will happen next. But after a
little they fall to laughing again.
When the train rolled in, Fru Egholm, standing at the window of a
compartment beyond the end of the platform, saw her husband come
running down the length of the carriages, eagerly, with delighted eyes.
Hurriedly she took leave of a couple of women fellow-travellers. They
had lived together for the past three or four hours, and suddenly that
was over....
Egholm clambered up on the footboard, and found a pleasant surprise.
Sivert was not there!
True, there was little Emanuel, whom he had forgotten altogether for
the moment. But then Emanuel was the child of victory. Or at least it
was reasonable here, as ever, of two evils to choose the lesser.
Anna was a little puffy and dark under the eyes, but her cheeks were
flushed with excitement. She and Hedvig handed out an endless array of
packages, a lamp, some pictures, and the family treasure--the cut-glass
bowl. One of the parcels was soft and round, and Anna proffered it with
a warning:
“Be careful; don’t lay it down anywhere. There might come a dog....”
Egholm fingered it over, and made out the contours of a fowl. His heart
softened. And then, as Anna stood feeling helplessly behind her with
her lace boots, he took her in his arms, helped her out, and twisted
her round. Her face was flushed with confusion. The features he cared
for hid those he hated. For a second he read the anxious questioning in
her eyes, then a wave of deep sympathy overwhelmed him, and he pressed
her to him again and again.
“I’m so glad you’ve come, Anna, my dear, I’m so glad.”
Omnibus-Jeppe was to take the heavier luggage that was in the van.
“H’m,” said Jeppe, scratching the back of his head, “there’s enough to
stock a shop.”
Egholm scratched his head likewise, and stared helplessly at the
bundles of bedding and Anna’s flower-pots--a whole score of them.
“What on earth d’you want to drag all that about for?” he asked
irritably.
“Oh, look! They’ve broken the calla there,” wailed Fru Egholm, kneeling
down beside it. “Broken right down at the root. And it was just coming
out....”
“Oh, never mind that!”
“Give me a twenty-five _øre_, and I’ll look after the lot,” said Jeppe,
melting at once before feminine grief.
The family had as much as they could carry. Egholm walked with pictures
under either arm; his wife took the fowl, the cut-glass bowl, and the
flower-pot with the calla. Leave it--because it was broken? No, she
could never be so cruel.
Emanuel’s perambulator lay upside down, revealing the advertisement
placard for somebody’s beer that had been tacked over the hole in the
bottom. Hedvig tipped it right side up. It would hold a good deal,
being of a peculiarly low, broad shape. Emanuel was ultimately placed
among the various goods there disposed, as one surrounded by trophies
in a triumphal car. He sat looking round with big blue eyes under his
little white cap. It was a girl’s cap, really--a sort of sunbonnet that
had lain in a drawer since Hedvig’s time, but--_Herregud!_ what did it
matter? At his age....
Egholm walked in front, the pictures waving up and down like a pair of
wings as he described the view with great enthusiasm to his wife.
The slow-moving flood of the Belt glittered in newborn sunlight. The
fields lay green and open under God’s sky. The landscape looked one
freshly and boldly in the eyes--Anna marked how the very air tasted
utterly different from that about Eriksens’ sour little patch of yard
and garden. Her husband voiced her thought exactly when he said:
“I don’t believe there’s a prettier spot in all the world.”
“But the town?” she asked in surprise. “Where is it?”
“Right up there in the bay. See the red church-tower there, and the
Custom House--that yellow place standing out against the great black
woods? The town’s as sheltered as a bird in its nest. And look, that’s
Jutland over there--see how close it looks, and the two lines of coast
all soft against each other. Looks almost as if they were dancing.”
“And look at the white sails on the blue water!”
“Yes. I know that one with the topsail. That’s Etatsraad Brodersen’s.
You know, ‘Brodersen’s Pure Grape.’ He’s the great man of the town.”
“It’s a lovely place.”
“Ah, but wait till it’s summer, and the beeches are out,” said Egholm,
with bright eyes. “We’ll go out one day together. I’ll show you it all.”
Tears welled up into Anna’s eyes. What a marvellous place was this
Knarreby, that could so change her husband altogether! Actually running
down the platform to meet them as if it had been visitors of rank. And
no grumbling or scolding because the train was late.
Egholm was himself moved. He blinked his eyes and looked away.
Out on the Belt, Brodersen’s cutter was cruising about. It was on the
water early this year. There--it was tacking now. Stood for a moment
straight as a white church, and then off on the new tack. Heavens, how
it heeled over! Why don’t they let go the sheet? Ah, there she was up
again! But Egholm had somehow slipped out of his former joyous mood,
and said a trifle absently and wearily:
“Yes, it’s a pretty place; that’s true.”
Fru Egholm did not notice his altered tone. She found the moment
opportune to put in a word for one that had been left behind in Odense,
one that had stood on the platform in the early morning, waving and
waving, till he suddenly collapsed, as if the ground had been snatched
from under his feet. Was he not to have a share in the promised land?
“Sivert sent his love. He couldn’t come, of course, poor child.”
“No, thank goodness!”
The mother started--it was the old voice again. Her rejoicing had
hurried her forward along a path that ended in a morass--she must drag
her steps back now, uncertain of her way.
Listlessly she followed Egholm’s account of some excursion of his own.
“We came round the point to an island that was like a floating
forest--Heireøen, it’s called. We put in there, alongside a pavilion
place, and had steak and onions.”
“Wasn’t it dreadfully expensive--at a place like that?” Anna’s voice
was dull and joyless as her own meals and the children’s had been every
day, Sundays and weekdays alike, as far back as she could remember.
“I don’t know. It was Henrik Vang that paid. That is to say--he knew
the man who kept the place, and so....”
“Henrik Vang? Oh, that’ll be the one you wrote about. His father’s got
a little eating-house or something.”
“Little eating-house! Good Lord!--the finest hotel in the place.
First-class restaurant!”
Anna had no grounds for disapproval, but, none the less, she murmured:
“H’m. A fellow like that....”
The family had reached the outskirts of the town. As they walked
on, curtains were moved aside, and a nose-tip here and there showed
through. In the little shops, the shopkeepers dropped their paper bags
and crowded with their customers to see.
Hedvig enjoyed being thus a centre of attraction. She arranged the
newspaper-holder, the plaster figure, and the lamp in a specially
attractive fashion, drew herself up, tossed her head, and only wished
they might have to walk all through the town. As it happened, she was
disappointed.
Egholm, whose fingers were getting sore with holding the pictures,
tripped on faster.
“There--that’s where I live,” he said, out of breath. “Pick up your
legs a bit, can’t you?”
“Where?”
“The grey house there, with the gateway.”
All else was forgotten now in the anxiety to see the place that was
to be their home. It was a long, low house. A gateway, two narrow
shop-windows, a door, and four pairs of windows beside. Over the
entrance was a placard inscribed with black letters on a white ground:
“_H. Andreasen. Coffins and Funeral Furnishings._”
A very respectable house it was, plastered with cement. And now they
could see the show-case on one side of the entrance, with the photos
in. No dream, then, no misunderstanding. It was here they were to live.
“Lord, isn’t it fine!” cried Hedvig.
Anna sighed resignedly, even perhaps in relief.
Saw and plane stopped suddenly. The men wiped the cobwebs from the
panes and looked out, their bare arms gleaming against their blue
overalls.
Anna hurried in through the entrance, but stopped inside, and looked
back at her husband inquiringly.
_There was someone in there!_ She could feel it, and it made her ill at
ease. She was ready to drop as it was, from weariness, and longed to
hide herself between four walls, to get her breath in peace, and set
about to make things comfortable for her husband, the children, and
herself.
“What are you waiting for? Go along in--the door’s open.”
“But there’s someone ... I thought I....”
“Oh, that’ll be Vang, I suppose,” said Egholm, opening the door
himself. “Hullo, Vang, here we are again. Nobody been, I suppose? No,
no. Well, here’s my little party.”
Vang was seated in the middle of the bed, with his hat on, and a cold
cigar at one corner of his mouth. The bed had sunk under the weight of
his heavy frame; the dirty sheets and spotted blankets were twirled up
as by a waterspout.
“My husband wrote about you,” Fru Egholm stammered with an effort. She
stood holding her flower-pot and her parcels as if dreading to soil the
paint of table and seats.
“Him and me,” said Vang in a solemn bass, letting his chin fall forward
on his chest--“him and me we’ve been as one. But I’m going now, all
right.”
“Why, what for?” said Egholm, touched. “There’s no need....” He took
Vang’s arm.
“Ah, but I must. Henrik Vang can’t stay where there’s women about.”
“What’s turned you so serious all at once?”
Vang smoothed the bedclothes, evidently embarrassed.
“It’s not just making a fuss, to be asked again. I know I’d rather
stay. Where should I go to, anyway?”
“You’ve a charming wife at home,” said Egholm mischievously. “But stay
here if you like. I’ll be only too pleased.”
“Home? I’d rather walk in water up to my neck the rest of the day. But
if you really mean it--if you’ll let me stay where I am--still as a
mouse, and never disturb a soul, why, I’d just love it.”
“Do, then, Vang, do.”
Vang turned with a smile towards Fru Egholm, who was removing her hat
in silence at the farthest corner of the room.
“I’ll stay, then, just as I am, in what I’ve got on. My clothes aren’t
much, anyway. And I’m mostly drunk as well. But when you get to know
me, _Frue_, you’ll see that right down inside I’m the man I am. Son
of Sofus Vang. First-class hotel, excellent cuisine, and choicest
wines--with terrace overlooking the water!”
Hedvig burst out laughing. She and her mother began carrying in the
things Omnibus-Jeppe had piled up outside.
Egholm saw how he and Vang were gradually being immured behind the
various belongings. It even seemed to him that now and then something
was thrust with unnecessary harshness against his legs, and a
threatening look crept into his eyes. In the midst of a flow of speech
addressed to Vang, he broke off suddenly, and said in a voice of
command:
“Take that stuff into the other room!”
“I will, dear. Let me,” said Fru Egholm. “But it looked like rain, you
know.”
“Not that door,” said Egholm angrily.
“But these are the kitchen things.” Fru Egholm had already seen that
the other door opened into an attic or box-room or something of the
sort. “Isn’t that the kitchen there?”
“Kitchen! That’s my dark-room.” Egholm spoke as might a God to whom
creations are the merest trifle. The place might have been a kitchen.
Well and good--Egholm spoke the words: “Let there be a dark-room.”
“You’ll have to manage in there--at any rate, for the present.” He
nodded towards the nondescript apartment opposite. “Make that a
kitchen.”
“But, my dear....” Fru Egholm pulled herself together with a poor
attempt at a smile. Then she shook her head; it was hopeless to try
to explain to the uninitiate what a little world in itself a kitchen
is. “The stove....” she managed to protest. “There’s not even a
heating-stove in there.”
She waited still, with the chest of utensils in her hands, before the
forbidden door. She _must_ get in there.
Egholm reflected that it was perfectly true about there being no stove.
It was for that reason he had had his bed in here for the winter. He
could find no way out of the difficulty, and grew furious--for even he
was not so far almighty as to create a kitchen where no kitchen was.
“All right, get along with you, then?” he said, pushing her in, and
Hedvig, with Emanuel in her arms, behind her. “There you are! But mind!
No fooling about with any of my things!”
The door opened with a queer sucking noise--it had been caulked with
strips of cardboard and cloth.
Hedvig and her mother stood aghast, while Egholm thrust past them and
began moving his bottles with the easy familiarity of habit.
All the windows were darkened but one, that glared red as a furnace
door. They could see nothing save their own hands, which looked strange
and uncanny in the red light.
“Egholm, you surely don’t mean to say we’re to do the cooking here?
When you can’t see your hand before your face!”
Egholm stepped across and shut the door behind them; then, turning to
his wife, he brought his face close down to hers, and whispered in a
voice that seethed like a leak in an overheated boiler:
“Look here! You’re not going to come along and ruin the business for me
now, so don’t you think it. If I can see to do my developing, you can
see to cook. You understand?”
And he went on with a further flow of words, furious, though subdued.
Fru Egholm writhed.
“But, Egholm ... there’s no _room_! I can’t even see the stove....
Oh....”
She still clung to a faint hope that he might be brought to see things
with her eyes, and realise how unreasonable it was to ask her.
“Very well. I’ll give you a lamp. My dark-room lamp should be about
here somewhere.”
His fingers moved among rattling bottles on the stove.
“Here it is--no. Now, where the devil....”
A bottle upset; he grasped at it hurriedly and knocked over another;
the liquid gurgled out into a pool on the floor.
“A basin--quick, give me a basin! My silver nitrate ... quick, a basin!”
They reached about for one in haste and confusion.
“Open the door so we can see!” cried Hedvig. But at the same moment her
father came towards them. His face looked as if smeared with blood in
the light from the red-covered pane; his teeth showed between parted
lips.
“You--you’re the serpent in the garden!” he hissed.
“Oh, don’t!” she cried, her voice rising to a scream.
Emanuel was beginning to cry. Hedvig tried to wriggle through with him
to the door, but stepped on the basin her father had just set on the
floor.
This was too much for Egholm. He felt he must either discharge the
current within, or be fused by it, like an overcharged wire.
He staggered one step back, then forward again. His arms rose up as if
with an inner force of their own; then with his full strength he struck
his clenched fist in his wife’s face.
Once again, and once again he struck, the flesh of her checks
squelching under the blows. Then he stumbled out, and closed the door
carefully behind him.
Vang was seated on the bed exactly as before. What could he say to
him? It was the first time any stranger had witnessed a scene of this
sort. What was the use of starting upon heart-rending explanations,
which Vang would never understand? And how much of the trouble had been
audible through the close-padded door?
Vang gets to his feet; he must go now--yes, he must. There is something
cowed about him; he speaks in a low voice, and does not look up. And
Egholm, suddenly aware of Anna’s sobbing and Hedvig’s uncontrolled
blubbering plainly heard through the door, realises that Vang must have
been able to follow the drama through all its painful details.
And now he is going off, convinced that Egholm is a cruel, cruel brute.
It must not be! Egholm feels now, more strongly than ever before, that
he _can_ be so good, so good!
“No, no; you mustn’t go!” he cries, as Vang steps cautiously over the
bath full of flower-pots. He grips him by the arm, anxious to prove
his all-embracing affection on the spot. “You mustn’t go now I’m in
all this mess. Didn’t you say we’d been as one together? Wait a bit;
there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Egholm sat down on a ragged mattress, and covered his face with his
hands.
If only he had something--some precious gift--to offer Vang. But he had
nothing--not a copper _øre_ in his pocket; not a thing. Not so much as
a bite of bread for himself, still less for Vang. And what about the
others?...
_The fowl!_ The thought of it seemed to flow like something rich and
soft and fat right out to his fingers. He straightened himself up and
looked round--yes, there it was, in the perambulator.
“I was going to ask you to supper, Vang. My wife’s brought a fowl
along, a fine fat bird, almost as big as a drake. But I suppose you’ve
something better for supper yourself?”
He gauged Vang’s hunger by the rumbling of his own empty paunch, and
made every effort to persuade him.
“A fine bird, a delicious bird; the size of a drake as nearly as can
be.”
Egholm was not quite sure whether a duck or a drake would be the
larger, but took the word as it came into his head, to help him in his
need.
Vang could not resist. He smacked his lips, and said:
“I could go down to Father’s place, of course. They can’t refuse me
anything there, after all, though they do keep me waiting and make
things as uncomfortable as they can. If only I could be sure your wife
wouldn’t mind....”
“Not a bit, not a bit,” said Egholm cheerfully, relieved that all was
well again. He had been cruel, by an unfortunate chance, but now he had
wiped that out. Briskly he took up the parcel with the delicious bird,
and even played ball with it as he went towards the dark-room door. The
business in there before sickened him unspeakably.
There was a moment of deadly silence as he opened the door, but hardly
had he taken a step forward when he ran against a shadow that would not
let him pass. Next moment he felt Hedvig’s skinny hands like claws, one
at his chest, the other gripping his throat, as she hissed out:
“You dare to touch Mother again--you dare! Quick, Mother, take Emanuel
and run!”
Egholm was more astonished than angry at first. What was all this?
But--ugh! it hurt! He tried in vain to wrest her hands away; then he
struck at her head. But she ducked down between his arms and butted
him over against the stove.
“Run--run quick! I’ve got him!”
“Let go, you little devil!--oh, help! she’s strangling me!”
“Hedvig, what are you doing?--Hedvig, dearest child! Let go, do; it’s
your father!” Fru Egholm tried to pull her off.
Then Hedvig realised that the day was lost. She loosened her hold, and
let Mother and Father wrest an arm to either side, till she stood as
if crucified up against the wall, her head drooping, and yellow wisps
of hair falling over her flushed face. And she fell to crying, with a
horrible penetrating wail.
Egholm had still by no means recovered from his astonishment. He
coughed, and began rubbing his neck, speculating the while on some
appropriate punishment for the presumptuous girl.
“Well, you’re a nice little beast, you are,” he said. But he could
hardly find more to say. There were not actually words in the language
for criminals of that sex.
“You overgrown hobbledehoy, falling upon your own father, your own
flesh and blood. I never heard of such a thing. If you had your
deserts, you’d be bundled off to gaol this minute, you disgraceful
young scoundrel.”
Suddenly he began tearing down the planks and cardboard from the
window, without a word of explanation, but with emphatic jerks and
crashes that fell in time to his words and gave them added weight.
“You wait--I shan’t--forget, you--squat-nosed--little--guttersnipe.”
But for every tug at the flimsy covering, the light poured in more
violently, like a wonderful grace of God. Both Hedvig and her mother,
despite their indignation, could not help craning their necks to look,
as the corner of a garden, with budding trees, came moving, as it were,
towards them. Even Emanuel opened his eyes wide, and lifted his little
hands towards the light.
Once he had begun, there seemed no end to Egholm’s willingness to
oblige. He cut the string by which the door was fastened, and tore away
the padding from all sides.
“There! _Now_, are you satisfied?” he asked, with great politeness.
But there was something wanting yet to render his wife’s satisfaction
complete. Those bottles.... All along the shelves and dresser were
rows of bottles, in every shape, thickness, and colour. Many of them
were ticketed with complicated chemical names, and some bore the
awe-inspiring death’s-head poison label. Egholm had strung a tangle of
lines from wall to wall, on which his photos hung to dry, exactly as
when Hedvig played dolls’ washing-day.
And the kitchen table was a veritable map of stains.
“They cost something, those did,” said Egholm. “That’s my silver
nitrate.” And he seemed as proud as if he had paved the way for his
wife’s arrival with pieces of eight.
He helped to set the numerous bowls and glass plates aside, and
murmured regretfully:
“Well, well, anyhow, you’ve had your way.”
“Yes, but....”
“I hope you can see now, at any rate. And now, for Heaven’s sake, make
haste and get that fowl done. I’ve asked Vang to supper.”
“But, Egholm! You don’t mean to say....” Fru Egholm almost screamed.
“Beginning again, are you?” he said threateningly. But at sight of her
face, bruised and already colouring from his recent blows, he turned
away.
“We must do something for him. He’s been a help to me from the first
day I came. And he’s got a miserable home.”
“We’ve neither knives nor forks--we haven’t even plates.” Fru Egholm
dared not say too much just now, but hurried to unpack a box, that the
contents might speak for her. There were a few cups without handles,
five or six plates, some of them soup-plates, but no two alike. One
had a pattern of flowers, another birds; a third was ornamented with a
landscape. Two of the knives lacked handles, and nearly all the forks
were one prong short.
“There! I don’t know what you think?”
Egholm was on the point of breaking out again, but suddenly he laughed.
“Oh, an elegant dinner service. Splendid! splendid!” And he danced
about the floor.
“We haven’t a single dish, or a tureen. And his father keeps a real
hotel--we can’t serve it up in the saucepan.”
“Oh yes, you can. Vang and I, we’re not the sort to stand on ceremony.
Wait a minute, though--a dish ... I can let you have a dish.”
He picked up a big white rinsing-dish from among his own equipment,
fished up some plates that were lying in the bottom, and tipped the
liquid into a bottle.
“There you are--real porcelain. Now the set’s complete. But mind you
wash it out well, or you’ll send us all to kingdom come. And, for
Heaven’s sake, make haste. I’ve got to keep talking to him all the
time, and you’ve no idea what a business that is.”
Whereupon Egholm danced out of the doorway, leaving his wife, confused
and helpless, with the dripping poison dish in her hands.