Sunday after I came back. I like those blue-eyed, sea-faring folk; and
the priest wears a black gown and stiff ruff, like Luther of mixed
renown. An apple-tree outside the open door was struggling to open its
delicate pink blossoms; each petal had a tinge of soot,--it reminded
me of the pretty cheeks of a grimy maid-of-all-work. I sat still; a
sunbeam came in and pierced Judas's heart, as he sat at his section of
the Last Supper table, and it wrapped me up in a sun haze, so that all
was misty around me. The sermon only struck my ear with a soothing,
drowsy roll, something like the wave-note of the incurling sea in
the Mediterranean,--a legato accompaniment to my thoughts; and I had
a grand burial all by myself. I dug a deep grave, and laid all my
dreams and foolish wishes and sweet hopes in it. A puff of wind rustled
through the rigging of the ships, and set the flags with their yellow
cross fluttering, and scattered a few of the tender blooms over it,
and--ah, well! it seems hard to realize now. Spring has gone!
"Do you really think that crinolines will be worn?"
THE SPELL OF THE WHITE ELF.
Have you ever read out a joke that seemed excruciatingly funny, or
repeated a line of poetry that struck you as being inexpressibly
tender, and found that your listener was not impressed as you were? I
have; and so it may be that this will bore you, though it was momentous
enough to me.
I had been up in Norway to receive a little legacy that fell to me; and
though my summer visits were not infrequent, I had never been up there
in mid-winter, at least not since I was a little child tobogganing with
Hans Jörgen (Hans Jörgen Dahl is his full name), and that was long ago.
We are connected. Hans Jörgen and I were both orphans, and a cousin (we
called her aunt) was one of our guardians. He was her favorite; and
when an uncle on my mother's side (she was Cornish born; my father, a
ship captain, met her at Dartmouth) offered to take me, I think she was
glad to let me go. I was a lanky girl of eleven, and Hans Jörgen and
I were sweethearts. We were to be married some day,--we had arranged
all that,--and he reminded me of it when I was going away, and gave me
a silver perfume-box, with a gilt crown on top, that had belonged to
his mother; and later when he was going to America he came to see me
first. He was a long, freckled hobbledehoy, with just the same true
eyes and shock head. I was, I thought, quite grown up. I had passed my
"intermediate," and was condescending as girls are; but I don't think
it impressed Hans Jörgen much, for he gave me a little ring, turquoise
forget-me-nots with enamelled leaves and a motto inside (a quaint old
thing that belonged to a sainted aunt, they keep things a long time
in Norway), and said he would send for me; but of course I laughed
at that. He has grown to be a great man out in Cincinnati, and waits
always. I wrote later and told him I thought marriage a vocation, and
I hadn't one for it; but Hans Jörgen took no notice,--just said he'd
wait. He understands waiting, I'll say that for Hans Jörgen.
I have been alone now for five years, working away, though I was left
enough to keep me before. Someway I have not the same gladness in my
work of late years. Working for one's self seems a poor end, even if
one puts by money. But this has little or nothing to do with the white
elf, has it?
Christiania is a singular city if one knows how to see under the
surface, and I enjoyed my stay there greatly. The Hull boat was to
sail at 4.30, and I had sent my things down early; for I was to dine
at the Grand at two with a cousin, a typical Christiania man. It was
a fine, clear day, and Karl Johann was thronged with folks. The band
was playing in the park, and pretty girls and laughing students walked
up and down. Every one who is anybody may generally be seen about that
time. Henrik Ibsen--if you did not know him from his portrait, you
would take him to be a prosperous merchant--was going home to dine;
but Björnstjerne Björnson, in town just then, with his grand, leonine
head, and the kind, keen eyes behind his glasses, was standing near the
Storthing House with a group of politicians probably discussing the
vexed question of separate consulship. In no city does one see such
characteristic odd faces and such queerly cut clothes. The streets are
full of students. The farmers' sons among them are easily recognized
by their homespun, sometimes home-made, suits, their clever heads
and intelligent faces; from them come the writers and brain-carriers
of Norway. The Finns, too, have a distinctive type of head, and a
something elusive in the expression of their changeful eyes; but all,
the town students too, of easier manners and slangier tongues,--all
alike are going, as finances permit, to dine in restaurant or
steam-kitchen. I saw the _menu_ for to-day posted up outside the
door of the latter as I passed,--"Rice porridge and salt meat soup,
6_d._,"--and Hans Jörgen came back with a vivid picture of childhood
days, when every family in the little coast-town where we lived had a
fixed _menu_ for every day in the week; and it was quite a distinction
to have meat-balls on pickled-herring day, or ale soup when all the
folks in town were cooking omelets with bacon. How he used to eat rice
porridge in those days! I can see him now put his heels together and
give his awkward bow as he said, "Tak for Maden tante!"
Well, we are sitting in the Grand Café after dinner, at a little table
near the door, watching the people pass in and out. An ubiquitous
"sample-count" from Berlin is measuring his wits with a young Norwegian
merchant; he is standing green chartreuse. It pays to be generous
even for a German, when you can oust honest Leeds cloth with German
shoddy: at least, so my cousin says. He knows every one by sight, and
points out all the celebrities to me. Suddenly he bows profoundly. I
look round: a tall woman with very square shoulders, and gold-rimmed
spectacles is passing us with two gentlemen. She is English, by her
tailor-made gown and little shirt-front, and noticeable anywhere.
"That lady," says my cousin, "is a compatriot of yours. She is a very
fine person, a very learned lady; she has been looking up referats
in the University Bibliothek. Professor Sturm--he is a good friend
of me--did tell me. I forget her name; she is married. I suppose her
husband he stay at home and keep the house!"
My cousin has just been refused by a young lady dentist, who says she
is too comfortably off to change for a small housekeeping business; so
I excuse his sarcasm.
We leave as the time draws on, and sleigh down to the steamer. I like
the jingle of the bells, and I feel a little sad; there is a witchery
about the country that creeps into one and works like a love-philter,
and if one has once lived up there, one never gets it out of one's
blood again. I go on board, and lean over and watch the people; there
are a good many for winter time. The bell rings. Two sleighs drive up,
and my compatriot and her friends appear; she shakes hands with them,
and comes leisurely up the gang-way. The thought flits through me that
she would cross it in just that cool way if she were facing death; it
is foolish, but most of our passing thoughts are just as inconsequent.
She calls down a remembrance to some one in such pretty Norwegian, much
prettier than mine, and then we swing round. Handkerchiefs wave in
every hand. Never have I seen such persistent handkerchief-waving as
at the departure of a boat in Norway; it is a national characteristic.
If you live at the mouth of a fjord, and go to the market-town at the
head of it for your weekly supply of coffee-beans, the population give
you a "send off" with fluttering kerchiefs; it is as universal as the
"Thanks." Hans Jörgen says I am Anglicized, and only see the ridiculous
side, forgetting the kind feelings that prompt it.
I find a strange pleasure in watching the rocks peep out under the
snow, the children dragging their hand-sleds along the ice. All the
little bits of winter life of which I get flying glimpses as we pass,
bring back scenes grown dim in the years between. There is a mist
ahead; and when we pass Dröbak cuddled like a dormouse for winter's
sleep, I go below. A bright coal-fire burns in the open grate of
the stove, and the "Rollo" saloon looks very cosy. My compatriot is
stretched in a big arm-chair reading. She is sitting comfortably
with one leg crossed over the other, in the manner called shockingly
unladylike of my early lessons in deportment. The flame flickers over
the patent leather of her neat low-heeled boot, and strikes a spark
from the pin in her tie. There is something manlike about her; I don't
know where it lies, but it is there. Her hair curls in gray-flecked
rings about her head; it has not a cut look, seems rather to grow short
naturally. She has a charming, tubbed look; of course every lady is
alike clean, but some men and women have an individual look of sweet
cleanness that is a beauty of itself. She feels my gaze, and looks up
and smiles; she has a rare smile,--it shows her white teeth and softens
her features.
"The fire is cosy, isn't it? I hope we shall have an easy passage, so
that it can be kept in."
I answer something in English.
She has a trick of wrinkling her brows; she does it now as she says,--
"A-ah, I should have said you were Norsk, are you not really? Surely,
you have a typical head, or eyes and hair at the least?"
"Half of me is Norsk, but I have lived a long time in England."
"Father of course; case of 'there was a sailor loved a lass,' was it
not?"
I smile an assent and add: "I lost them both when I was very young."
A reflective look steals over her face. It is stern in repose; and
as she seems lost in some train of thought of her own, I go to my
cabin and lie down; the rattling noises and the smell of paint make
me feel ill. I do not go out again. I wake next morning with a sense
of fear at the stillness; there is no sound but a lapping wash of
water at the side of the steamer, but it is delicious to lie quietly
after the vibration of the screw and the sickening swing. I look
at my watch,--seven o'clock. I cannot make out why there is such a
silence, as we only stop at Christiansand long enough to take cargo
and passengers. I dress and go out. The saloon is empty, but the fire
is burning brightly. I go to the pantry and ask the stewardess when we
arrived. Early, she says; all the passengers for here are already gone
on shore, and there is a thick fog outside; goodness knows how long
we'll be kept. I go to the top of the stairs and look out; the prospect
is uninviting, and I come down again and turn over some books on the
table, in Russian, I think. I feel sure they are hers.
"Good-morning!" comes her pleasant voice.
How alert and bright-eyed she is! it is a pick-me-up to look at her.
"You did not appear last night; not given in already, I hope!"
She is kneeling on one knee before the fire, holding her palms to the
glow; and with her figure hidden in her loose, fur-lined coat, and
the light showing up her strong face under the little tweed cap, she
seems so like a clever-faced slight man that I feel I am conventionally
guilty in talking so freely to her. She looks at me with a deliberate,
critical air, and then springs up.
"Let me give you something for your head! Stewardess, a wine-glass!"
I should not dream of remonstrance, not if she were to command me to
drink sea-water; and I am not complaisant as a rule.
When she comes back I swallow it bravely, but I leave some powder in
the glass; she shakes her head, and I finish this too. We sat and
talked, or at least she talked and I listened. I don't remember what
she said; I only know that she was making clear to me most of the
things that had puzzled me for a long time,--questions that arise in
silent hours, that one speculates over, and to which one finds no
answer in text-books. How she knew just the subjects that worked in me
I knew not; some subtile intuitive sympathy, I suppose, enabled her
to find it out. It was the same at breakfast; she talked down to the
level of the men present (of course they did not see that it might be
possible for a woman to do that), and made it a very pleasant meal.
It was in the evening--we had the saloon to ourselves--when she told me
about the white elf. I had been talking of myself and of Hans Jörgen.
"I like your Mr. Hans Jörgen," she said; "he has a strong nature and
knows what he wants; there is reliability in him. They are rarer
qualities than one thinks in men; I have found through life that the
average man is weaker than we are. It must be a good thing to have a
stronger nature to lean to. I have never had that."
There is a want in the tone of her voice as she ends, and I feel
inclined to put out my hand and stroke hers,--she has beautiful long
hands,--but I am afraid to do so. I query shyly,--
"Have you no little ones?"
"Children, you mean? No, I am one of the barren ones; they are less
rare than they used to be. But I have a white elf at home, and that
makes up for it. Shall I tell you how the elf came? Well, its mother is
a connection of mine, and she hates me with an honest hatred; it is
the only honest feeling I ever discovered in her. It was about the time
that she found the elf was to come that it broke out openly, but that
was mere coincidence. How she detested me! Those narrow, poor natures
are capable of an intensity of feeling concentrated on one object that
larger natures can scarcely measure.
"Now I shall tell you something strange. I do not pretend to understand
it; I may have my theory, but that is of no physiological value,--I
only tell it to you. Well, all the time she was carrying the elf she
was full of simmering hatred, and she wished me evil often enough; one
feels those things in an odd way. Why did she? Oh, that--that was a
family affair, with perhaps a thread of jealousy mixed up in the knot.
Well, one day the climax came, and much was said; and I went away
and married, and got ill, and the doctors said I would be childless.
And in the mean time the little human soul--I thought about it so
often--had fought its way out of the darkness. We childless women
weave more fancies into the 'mithering o' bairns' than the actual
mothers themselves; the poetry of it is not spoiled by nettle-rash or
chin-cough any more than our figures. I am a writer by profession--oh,
you knew! No, hardly celebrated; but I put my little chips into the
great mosaic as best I can. Positions are reversed; they often are
now-a-days. My husband stays at home, and grows good things to eat
and pretty things to look at, and I go out and win bread and butter.
It is a matter not of who has most brains, but whose brains are most
salable. Fit in with the housekeeping? Oh, yes. I have a treasure,
too, in Belinda. She is one of those women who must have something to
love. She used to love cats, birds, dogs, anything. She is one bump
of philo-progenitiveness; but she hates men. She says: 'If one could
only have a child, ma'm, without a husband or the disgrace! ugh, the
disgusting men!' Do you know, I think that is not an uncommon feeling
among a certain number of women. I have often drawn her out on the
subject; it struck me, because I have often found it in other women.
I have known many, particularly older women, who would give anything
in God's world to have a child of 'their own' if it could be got, just
as Belinda says, 'without the horrid man or the shame.' It seems
congenital with some women to have deeply rooted in their innermost
nature a smoldering enmity--ay, sometimes a physical disgust--to
men. It is a kind of kin feeling to the race-dislike of white men
to black. Perhaps it explains why woman, where her own feelings are
not concerned, will always make common cause with woman against man.
I have often thought about it. You should hear Belinda's 'serve him
right' when some fellow comes to grief! I have a little of it myself
[meditatively], but in a broader way, you know. I like to cut them out
in their own province.
"Well, the elf was born; and now comes the singular part of it. It was
a wretched, frail little being, with a startling likeness to me. It
was as if the evil the mother had wished me had worked on the child,
and the constant thought of me stamped my features on its little face.
I was working then on a Finland saga, and I do not know why it was,
but the thought of that little being kept disturbing my work. It was
worst in the afternoon time, when the house seemed quietest; there is
always a lull then, outside and inside. Have you ever noticed that?
The birds hush their singing, and the work is done. Belinda used to sit
sewing in the kitchen, and the words of a hymn she used to lilt in half
tones--something about joy bells ringing, children singing--floated in
to me, and the very tick-tock of the old clock sounded like the rocking
of wooden cradles. It made me think sometimes that it would be pleasant
to hear small, pattering feet and the call of voices through the silent
house; and I suppose it acted as an irritant on my imaginative faculty,
for the whole room seemed filled with the spirits of little children.
They seemed to dance round me with uncertain, lightsome steps, waving
tiny, pink, dimpled hands, shaking sunny, flossy curls, and haunting
me with their great innocent child-eyes, filled with the unconscious
sadness and the infinite questioning that is oftenest seen in the gaze
of children. I used to fancy something stirred in me, and the spirits
of unborn little ones never to come to life in me troubled me. I was
probably over-worked at the time. How we women digress! I am telling
you more about myself than my white elf.
"Well, trouble came to their home, and I went and offered to take it.
It was an odd little thing, and when I looked at it I could see how
like we were. My glasses dimmed somehow, and a lump kept rising in
my throat, when it smiled up out of its great eyes and held out two
bits of hands like shrivelled white rose-leaves. Such a tiny scrap
it was! it was not bigger, she said, than a baby of eleven months. I
suppose they can tell that as I can the date of a dialect; but I am
getting wiser," with an emotional softening of her face, and quite a
proud look. "A child is like one of those wonderful runic alphabets;
the signs are simple, but the lore they contain is marvellous. 'She is
very like you,' said the mother; 'hold her.' She was only beginning
to walk. I did. You never saw such elfin ears, with strands of silk
floss ringing round them, and the quaintest, darlingest wrinkles in its
forehead, two long, and one short, just as I have"--putting her head
forward for me to see. "The other children were strong, and the one
on the road she hoped would be healthy. So I took it there and then,
'clothes and baby, cradle and all.' Yes, I have a collection of nursery
rhymes from many nations; I was going to put them in a book, but I say
them to the elf now.
"I wired to my husband. You should have seen me going home. I was so
nervous,--I was not half as nervous when I read my paper (it was rather
a celebrated paper, perhaps you heard of it) to the Royal Geographical
Society; it was on Esquimaux marriage songs, and the analogy between
them and the Song of Solomon. She was so light, and so wrapped up,
and my _pince-nez_ kept dropping off when I stooped over her (I got
spectacles after that); and I used to fancy I had dropped her out of
the wrappings, and peep under the shawl to make sure [with a sick
shiver], to find her sucking her thumb. And I nearly passed my station;
and then a valuable book--indeed, it is really a case of Mss., and
almost unique--I had borrowed for reference, with some trouble, could
not be found, and my husband roared with laughter when it turned up
in the cradle. Belinda was at the gate anxious to take her, and he
said I did not know how to hold her,--that I was holding her like a
book of notes at a lecture; and so I gave her to Belinda. I think the
poor little thing found it all strange, and when she puckered up her
face and thrust out her under-lip, and two great tears jumped off her
lashes, we all felt ready for hanging. But Belinda, though she doesn't
know one language, not even her own, for she sows her _h's_ broadcast
and picks them up at hazard,--she _can_ talk to a baby. I am so glad
for that reason she is bigger now. I couldn't manage it: I could not
reason out any system they go on in baby talk. I tried mixing up the
tenses, but somehow it wasn't right. My husband says it is not more odd
than salmon taking a fly that is certainly like nothing they ever see
in nature. Anyway it answered splendidly. Belinda used to say (I made a
note of some of them): 'Did-sum was denn? Oo did! Was ums de prettiest
itta sweetums denn? Oo was. An' did um put 'em in a nasty shawl an'
joggle 'em in an ole puff-puff? Um did; was a shame! Hitchy cum, hitchy
cum, hitchy cum hi, Chinaman no likey me!' This always made her laugh,
though in what connection the Chinaman came in I never _could_ fathom.
I was a little jealous of Belinda, but she knew how to undress her.
George, that's my husband's name, said the bath-water was too hot,
and that the proper way to test it was to put one's elbow in. Belinda
laughed; but I must confess it did feel too hot when I tried it that
way: but how did he know? I got her such pretty clothes! I was going to
buy a pragtbind of Nietzsche, but that must wait. George made her a cot
with her name carved on the head of it; such a pretty one!"
"Did you find she made a change in your lives?" I asked.
"Oh, didn't she! Children are such funny things. I stole away to have a
look at her later on, and did not hear him come after me. She looked so
sweet, and she was smiling in her sleep. I believe the Irish peasantry
say that an angel is whispering when a baby does that. I had given
up all belief myself, except the belief in a Creator who is working
out some system that is too infinite for our finite minds to grasp.
If one looks round with seeing eyes, one can't help thinking that
after a run of eighteen hundred and ninety-three years Christianity
is not very consoling in its results. But at that moment, kneeling
next the cradle, I felt a strange, solemn feeling stealing over me:
one is conscious of the same effect in a grand cathedral filled with
the peal of organ music and soaring voices. It was as if all the old,
sweet, untroubled child-belief came back for a spell, and I wondered
if far back in the Nazarene village Mary ever knelt and watched the
Christ-child sleep; and the legend of how he was often seen to weep
but never to smile came back to me, and I think the sorrow I felt as I
thought was an act of contrition and faith. I could not teach a child
scepticism; so I remembered my husband prayed, and I resolved to ask
him to teach her. You see [half hesitatingly] I have more brains, or at
least more intellectuality, than my husband; and in that case one is
apt to undervalue simpler, perhaps greater, qualities. That came home
to me, and I began to cry, I don't know why; and he lifted me up, and I
think I said something of the kind to him. We got nearer to each other
someway. He said it was unlucky to cry over a child.
"It made such a difference in the evenings! I used to hurry home,--I
was on the staff of the 'World's Review' just then; and it was so jolly
to see the quaint little phiz smile up when I went in.
"Belinda was quite jealous of George. She said 'Master worritted in
an' out, an' interfered with everything; she never seen a man as knew
so much about babies, not for one as never 'ad none of 'is own. Wot if
he didn't go to Parkins hisself, an' say as how she was to have the
milk of one cow, an' mind not mix it!' I wish you could have seen the
insinuating distrust on Belinda's face. I laughed. I believe we were
all getting too serious; I know I felt years younger. I told George
that it was really suspicious: how did he acquire such a stock of baby
lore? _I_ hadn't any. It was all very well to say 'Aunt Mary's kids.' I
should never be surprised if I saw a Zwazi woman appear with a lot of
tawny pickaninnies in tow. George was shocked! I often shock him.
"She began to walk as soon as she got stronger. I never saw such an
inquisitive mite. I had to rearrange all my bookshelves, change 'Le
Nu de Rabelais' (after Garnier, you know) and several others from the
lower shelves to the top ones. One can't be so Bohemian when there is a
little white soul like that playing about, can one? When we are alone,
she always comes in to say her prayers and good-night. Larry Moore of
the 'Vulture,'--he is one of the most wickedly amusing of men; prides
himself on being _fin de siècle_ (don't you detest that word?) or
nothing; raves about Dégas, and is a worshipper of the decadent school
of verse; quotes Verlaine, you know,--well, he came in one evening on
his way to some music hall. She's a whimsical little thing, not without
incipient coquetry either,--well, she would say them to him. If you
can imagine a masher of the Jan van Beer type bending his head to hear
a child in a white 'nighty' lisping prayers, you have an idea of the
picture. She kissed him good-night too (she never would before), and he
must have forgotten his engagement, for he stayed with us to supper.
She rules us all with a touch of her little hands, and I fancy we are
all the better for it. Would you like to see her?"