I.
FIRST COUPLE FORWARD
There was a party of young people collected together at a country house about five kilometres outside the town. The garden they were sitting in down by the cove was brightly coloured by their light summer clothes, especially those of the girls:
"Yellow, black, brown, white,
Green, violet, blue,"
some self-coloured, others variegated, checks and stripes; felt hats, straw hats, tulle hats, caps, bare heads, parasols. A sound of singing rose harmoniously up out of this medley of colour; men's and women's voices in chorus floating in long undulating waves of sound. There was no conductor; a dark young girl in a brown checked dress lay in the midst of the group, leaning on one elbow, and led the singing with a soprano voice stronger and clearer than the others; and they followed her lead. They were in good practice. In the cove below them lay a freshly painted smack, with half rigged up new sails; the water calm as a mirror.
The singing and the smack seemed brightly to enter into league with each other down in that black-looking cove, overshadowed and shut in by the bleak mountains with still higher ones in the distance. The little cove was like a mountain lake, once caused by a flood but since forgotten. The mountains--oh, so heavy and stunted in outline as in colour, rugged and leaden-looking, the more distant ones blue-black, with dirty snow on their peaks, monsters all of them.
The smack lay on the black water, ready for a dance; it belonged to a more light-hearted community than these lofty accessories of nature and human life. The smack and the singing protested against all overweening despotism, all that was rude, rough, and coarse--a free swaying protest, proudly delighting in their colours.
But the mountains took no notice of this protest, nor did the young people ever understand that it had been made. The "high-born" part of being born and bred in scenery like that of Norway's west country is just this, that nature forces one to make a stand, if one would not be utterly crushed and overwhelmed; either one must be beneath or above all! And they were above; for the west country folk are the brightest and cleverest of all Scandinavians. In so great a degree do they feel themselves masters of the situation as regards their scenery that not one of all these young people felt the mountains as heavy and cold in colour; all nature seemed to them fresh and strong, as nowhere else in the world.
But they who now sat there singing or listening only had not been born and nurtured by glad songs and the wide sea alone; no, they were children of the mountains too; children of them as well as of the songs and sea. Just before the song began they had been engaged in a discussion as sharp and cutting, as leaden-hued as any mountain. It was to do away with this stone-like sharpness among themselves that they had sent forth their melodious song, building long bridges of glorious harmony across the mountain-peaks and precipices. The summer day was slightly gray in itself; but occasionally (just as at that moment!) the sun shone forth over song and sail and landscape.
There sat two on whom both sun and song were wasted. Look at him down there, a little to the right, lying in the grass, leaning on his elbow; a tall young fellow in light summer clothes and without hat, a round closely-cropped head, short, broad forehead that looked like butting, a forehead that in his boyish days must have given many a hard bang! Below the forehead was a nose like a beak, and sharp eyes that just then were slightly squinting; either the spectacles concealed it so as to make it hardly visible, or else it really was only very slight. The whole face had something severe about it, the mouth was pinched and hard and the chin sharp. But when one looked more closely into it the impression it gave one changed entirely; all that was so sharply cut became energetic rather than severe, and the spirit which had taken up its abode in this mountainous country could doubtless be both a friendly and a mischievous one. Even then, as he sat there in a towering rage, not caring a hang about either sunshine or song, he would rather have had a fight--even then gleams of merriment shot out from under the angry brows. It was clear that he was the conqueror.
If anyone doubted it they need only cast an eye over to the other side of the group on him who sat up against a tree to the left, a little higher up the bank. He was the picture of a wounded warrior, suffering, and with all the trembling uneasiness of battle still in his features. It was a long fair face, not a west country face, but belonging rather to the mountain districts or highlands; either he was a foreigner, or else he came of a race of immigrants; he was strikingly like the popular pictures of Melanchthon, though perhaps the eyes were a little more dreamy and the eyebrows a little more arched; altogether the likeness, particularly the forehead, position of the eyes, and the mouth, was so striking that among his fellow-students he always went by the name of Melanchthon.
This was Ole Tuft, student in theology, his studies nearly completed; and the other one, the conqueror with the eagle's beak (which just now had been hacking so sharply), was the friend of his childhood, Edward Kallem, medical student.
Several years ago their paths in life had begun to deviate, but so far there had never been any serious encounter between them; but now what had happened was to prove decisive.
Between these two, in the middle of the garden and surrounded by the singers, sat a tall girl in a plum-colored silk dress, round her neck some broad yellow lace which hung in long loose folds down to her waist. She herself was not singing; she was making a wreath out of a whole garden of field flowers and grass. One could easily see that she was sister to the conqueror, but with darker complexion and hair. The same shape of head, although her forehead was comparatively higher and the whole face larger, undoubtedly too large. The sharp family nose had a more gentle bend in her well-proportioned face; his thin lips became fuller, his chin more rounded, his uneven eyebrows more even, the eyes larger--and yet it was the same face. The expression of the two was different; hers, though not cold, was calm and silent; no one could quickly read those deep eyes; and yet the two expressions were much alike. Her head was well set on a strong-looking neck and well-shaped shoulders, the bust, too, was well developed. Her dark hair was twisted into a knot peculiar to herself. Her throat was bare, but the dress, with its yellow lace fastened closely round it--indeed, her whole attire gave one the idea of something shut in, buttoned up as it were; and so it was with her whole manner. As before said, she was making a wreath and looked neither at one or the other of the two who had been fighting.
The quarrel has been caused by a large black dog; it lay there now pretending to sleep, its thick wet coat glistening in the sun. Several of them had been throwing sticks into the water and sending the dog in after them; each time they threw a stick they shouted, "Samson! Samson!"--that was the dog's name. Edward Kallem said to two or three who stood near him, "Samson means sun-god."
"What?" asked one young girl, "does Samson mean sun-god?"
"Certainly it does; but of course the clergymen take care not to tell that." He said it in youthful exuberance, not in the least intending to hurt anyone's feelings, or to say more at all. But by chance Ole Tuft overheard him and said, with rather a superior air:
"Why should the clergymen not dare to tell the children that Samson means sun-god?"
"Why, for then the whole legend about him could no longer serve them as a type of the Christ-myth."
This last word was like a sharp stab, and it was meant as such. With a superior smile Ole said:
"I suppose Samson may be used as a type, whether he be called sun-god or not."
"Certainly, whether he be called sun-god or not, but suppose him to be sun-god?"
"Indeed, so he was sun-god?" shouted Ole, laughing.
"The name tells us so."
"The name? Are we bears or wolves because we are called after bears or wolves? Or gods because we are called after gods?"
Several of the party stood by listening; others joined them, Josephine among the number, and both turned at once to her.
"The misfortune is," said Edward, "that it is only the fact of his being a sun-god that gives any sense to the stories told about Samson."
"Oh, nowadays all old records of everybody's forefathers are turned into sun legends. And Ole related a few amusing parodies of this scientific craze now so much in vogue. They all laughed, Josephine too; Edward became excited at once and began to explain that our gods, who were Indian sun-gods, had in reality been turned into our forefathers when a new religion was started; the altars which then had been used for sacrifices were turned into graves or burying-places. In the same way all the old sun-gods of the Jews had been changed to forefathers when the worship of Jehovah did away with them as gods."
"Who can know that?"
"Know it? Why, take Samson! How utterly meaningless to believe that anyone's strength should be in his hair! But as soon as we take it for granted that it is the sun's rays, lengthy in summer-time, but cut short in the lap of winter, then there is some sense in it. And when the rays grew longer and longer, and spring drew near, then all can understand that the sun-god could again encircle with his arms the pillars of the world. Never have bees been known to deposit their honey in a beast's carcase; but when we hear that each time the sun passes over one of the signs of the stars--for instance, the lion's--then it is said that the sun slaughtered the lion; then we can understand that the bees made their honey in the dead lion's carcase, that is to say, in the hottest part of the summer."
The whole party was all ears, and Josephine was highly astonished. She did not look up at her brother because she felt he was looking at her, but the impression made was unmistakable. What Edward had at first started, without other thought than that of showing off a little, was now a decided thing aimed at, and it was because Josephine stood between them.
"With the Egyptians," explained he, "the spring began when the sun slaughtered the lamb, that is to say, passed across the sign of the lamb--in their delight at the renewal of all things, every Egyptian slaughtered a lamb that day. The Jews have it from them. It is utterly false if the Jews later on have changed this to something that separates them from the Egyptians. Just as with the circumcision, they have that, too, from Egypt. But clergymen take care never to speak of that kind of thing."
Ole Tuft had little or no knowledge of all these things. His plodding studies had been severely theological, he had not time for more, and his faith was an inheritance from an old peasant race, and was far too secure in itself to be capable of scientific doubts. Had he announced this fact straight out, there would probably have been an end of the matter. But he too felt that Josephine stood between them and was allowing herself to be led away. So he began with great scorn to call everything vague inventions, empty devices, shining one day, melted away on the morrow.
The other's vanity would not stand this. "Theologians," cried he, "are wanting in the very simplest honesty. They conceal the fact that the most important items of their faith are not revealed to the Jews, but simply taken up and accepted from elsewhere! Like the creed of immortality, that is from Egypt. The same with the Commandments. No one climbs up on to a high mountain to have revealed to him in a thunderstorm what others have known for thousands of years. Where is the devil from? And the punishments of hell? Whence the last day and judgment? And the angels? The Jews knew nothing of all this. Clergymen are a set--in short, a set who do not honestly investigate matters, telling people such things."
Josephine subsided completely; all the young people, particularly the men, were evidently on Kallem's side; free-thinking was the fashion, and it was amusing to have a laugh at the old faith handed down from days of yore.
One young man began mocking at the history of the creation; Kallem possessed both geological and palæontological learning, and he made good use of it. Still less on this subject could Ole Tuft argue with them; he alluded again to a trial that had been made to reconcile the doctrines of the Bible with more recent discoveries, but it fared badly with him. And on they went in rapid succession from dogma to dogma--now they lay basking in the doctrine of the atonement of sins, it descended from so ancient and uncultured a time that such a thing as individual responsibility was not then known, merely that of the whole tribe or family. Tuft was in despair; to him it really was an important question, and much moved, in a loud voice, he began to confess his faith. As if that were of any use! Excuses! Inventions!--show us your proofs! Too late, Ole Tuft perceived that he had defended the cause too eagerly and had therefore lost all. He was overcome with grief, fought without hope, but fought on all the same and shouted out that, if a single one of all those truths seemed doubtful, the fault was his; he lacked the power to defend it. But the Word of God would stand unharmed to the last hour of the world! What is the Word of God? It is the spirit and entirety of the Bible, the creation (No!); the deluge (No! No!); the expiation by death (No, No, No!); he shouted, they shouted; the tears rushed to Tuft's eyes, his voice shook; he looked pale and handsome.
Young people are not quite so cruel as children; but still it is the same kind of spirit. Some were sorry for him, others just wanted to drive him into a corner, Edward Kallem first and foremost.
But Josephine stepped quickly away to the dark girl with the soprano voice. She began one of their songs directly, the others joined in, the gentlemen rather after the ladies. With very few exceptions, the party consisted of a chorus of ladies and gentlemen who had practised together the last three winters with all the perseverance and industry only to be met with in a small town.
Josephine went and sat down in the middle of the bank, the others round about her. She did not sing; she had her flowers.
The party had come out there in the little schooner which now lay so fresh and bright-looking in the sun. On board, Josephine, Edward, and Ole had sat together, close together, for there was not much room. No one could guess, hearing their merry, oft-whispered conversation, that there was aught between them save friendship and goodwill. And now, only three hours after, Ole Tuft sat there like an outcast! How he suffered! An attack on his calling, on his faith, and before them all! And by Edward, too! So cruel, so persistingly scornful! And Josephine? Not a single word of sympathy, not even a look from Josephine.
From their childhood Ole and she had been constantly together; they had written to each other when he was away at Christiania, he once a fortnight, she as often as she had anything to write about. When he was at home for his holidays they met daily. During the two years that she was at a French school and away in Spain their correspondence had been more active than ever, on her part, too, and when she came home again--changed though she was otherwise--to him she was always the same. Her father had helped him with his studies and enabled him to give all his attention to them; he was to pass his last examination at Christmas; everyone prophesied that it would be one of the first and best ever passed in theology. Undoubtedly he had her, and possibly her brother too, to thank for his having been helped. In former days they had both of them brought him to their father, to the head-master, to the apothecary, and to many other families; and now through her he was accepted everywhere. In everyday life she spoke but little, and was often rather difficult to get on with; but she was a firm and true friend. At times she would censure him (for he was not always according to her taste); it was all part of their intercourse and he did not attach much importance to it, nor she either; from the very first she had always been his guardian. As yet he had not dared to say that he loved her; there was no necessity for it, and, in fact, it was almost too sacred to be mentioned. He was as sure of her as of his own faith. He was a peasant, his chief characteristic was a certain trustful, solid collectiveness. God provided for his faith; his well-being and future were provided for--of course also by God; but through Josephine. In his eyes she was the cleverest, most beautiful and healthiest girl not only in the town but in the whole country, and she was very rich. This last must be taken into consideration too; as a small boy he had been an ambitious dreamer, but now his dreams had a different bent.
His fellow-students knew all about it; as well as Melancthon, they called him the "bishop-theme from the bay," or the "bay bishop." He had got accustomed to this, it was almost a necessity for him; there was something child-like in his smiling trustfulness that suited him well; then he was so handsome, with his fair, open face; and when that is the case it is quite excusable to be ambitious.
Now he felt that he had been hurled down from his secure and pleasant height! Anyone who having been safe and secure, for the first time is thoroughly defeated, feels so completely out of it all. The worst of this was that Josephine did not appear to wish to have anything to do with him; he looked repeatedly across to her, but she went on arranging her flowers and grass just as if he did not exist.
At last it was exactly as though they all had glided away and he too were no longer there. He sat without seeming to sit, heard without hearing, saw without seeing. The supper was being got ready up before the house; they all went up there as soon as the table was laid; they ate, they drank, they laughed and made merry; but he was not with them, he stood there staring out across the bay--far, far away. A young man, clerk in some business, spoke to him about the routes of the different steamers and how badly they were managed; a girl with crooked teeth, red hair in plaits and a freckled face (he had formerly been her master), assured him that sailors were by no means so well educated as one might expect from people who travelled so much. The hostess came and asked how it was he would not eat anything, and the host took wine with him; in doing so they showed him the usual respect; but both of them cast a hurried, searching glance at his eyes, which made him tremble. He felt they doubted. In his ceaseless and ever-increasing pain, he saw nothing but doubt and scorn on every side, even in the fact of the general merriment. Edward Kallem was especially full of fun and they all collected round him. It was in his honor too (he had come home a fortnight ago) that the expedition had been got up. As in a dream, Ole saw that Josephine's flowers had been placed on the table, and he heard how everyone praised the blending of their colors; she herself was sitting at a little stone table with two girl friends--was that to prevent his joining her? There was much noise and fun going on at the other side. He saw her talking and laughing, all the young men waiting upon her; Edward joined them several times; he made them laugh too. Ole noticed all this with a strange feeling of fear. The noise jarred on him, the laughter made him feel ashamed, he could not swallow a morsel, and the wine had a bad taste; everyone seemed as though they were worked by machinery, the house, the bay, the schooner, the mountains, all seemed so overwhelmingly near.
A dead calm had set in, so that the whole party were obliged to walk back to town. They started on their walk singing and all together; but almost immediately some of the numerous summer visitors came pouring out from the houses along the road, and, as they were all acquaintances, they stopped to speak. The newcomers joined them and walked on with them; then came others, and each time they stopped, and each time the party broke up and became more divided. In that way Ole was able to keep behind without anyone's noticing it. He could not bear their company and their merriment any longer.
Now it was that everything was, as it were, concentrated in Josephine. The being attacked and overthrown by Edward, the shame of this defeat, his wounded religious feelings ... it all was due to the fact that she had not upheld him, neither by word nor by look; had shunned him before, and now had gone and left him! He could not stand that; for she had grown to be so much, too much, for him, he knew it and was not ashamed. That which once had been his highest aim, namely, to be a missionary, had fallen from him like scales, when he saw she no longer cared about it. Whenever his mother had said that he should never become a missionary, his answer was that God must be obeyed before man. But when Josephine, in her strong sort of way, had looked closer into the reality of things, he gave up all his wishes without her needing even to say a word on the subject. He said to himself that he would surely be punished for having so great a love for any one person. But he could not help it.
With these and thousands of similar thoughts in his mind, he lagged behind, and turned off from the road up into the wood; there he lay down, waiting until their summer acquaintances should pass back again. He soon turned over, and lay with his face downwards, the cool blades of grass prickling both cheeks and forehead, and the half-wet earth he seemed to inhale suited his mood. All these tiny blades of grass were as nothing in the shade; and so it was with him--through her he reached the sunny side of life, without her all was shadow.
A voice within him seemed to say her brother had taken her from him.
Her brother, who, until a very few days ago, had not cared a straw about her, whilst Ole had always been with her since they were children together, had rowed with her, read to her, been to her both brother and sister in one, and had faithfully written to her when they were separated; her own brother had never done any one of all these things. Even his defeat of to-day he credited to her account; for if he had not, for her sake, been so conscientious in working for his examination, to which he had been assisted by her father, then he would probably have known more about all those matters under discussion to-day--he would perhaps not have been defeated at all; this, too, he suffered for the sake of his fidelity.
As long as Josephine was a child and half grown up, Edward had seldom been together with her without teasing her. She was very thin, with large, black eyes, often uncombed hair, red hands, altogether scraggy; he nicknamed her "the duckling," and once when she had hurt her foot and went about limping, "the lame duckling."
He could never really make her out, she was so defiant, and yet shy--kept always at a distance. And then, time upon time, she was the cause of his getting a beating. She considered it "just" to tell each time he did anything wrong. And if he beat her for telling, then it was "just" to tell about that too. He took a dislike to her. Soon, however, they were separated, through his leaving his father's house. After that unlucky day, when father and son met on the road to Store-Tuft, the apothecary took pity on his old friend and, taking the boy from him, adopted him entirely as his own son. What the father had never been able to succeed in succeeded now. The boy was at once taken away from school, and allowed to devote himself to his chief interest, natural history. Chemical and physical analysis or botanical expeditions were his highest aim, and for two years he studied nothing but what belonged to those branches. After that he went through other necessary studies with a private master, and very quickly; he began his medical studies after passing his second examination. As long as he was at home he only saw his sister when she came across to the apothecary's to see him, and, as their interests were entirely opposed, their intercourse became almost nil. Later on, the apothecary used to take him abroad with him in the holidays; Edward was so clever at languages, which he certainly was not. It was not often, therefore, that the brother and sister met in their holiday time. But from the time that, as a student, he had first travelled abroad with the apothecary, and she saw her brother come home, grown-up, with new fashions, both in ideas and in dress, energetic, full of life, a very ideal, especially a woman's ideal of youth, from that time she had always secretly admired him. He, for his part, either overlooked her completely, or else teased her; it cost her many an hour's torture, but she swallowed it all, so as to be allowed to be where he was, even if only quietly in a corner.
Ole understood her, though she never betrayed herself. To him, too, she spoke seldom of Edward without calling him "disgusting," "meddlesome," "chatterbox," etc., etc. But Ole's faithful attention to her every time she sat there neglected by her brother, and with wounded feelings heaped up "treasures" for him in her heart.
A great change had taken place in Edward--his inquisitiveness had become a desire for knowledge, his restlessness was now energy. But at the same time his sister also underwent a change to an extent that he knew nothing about. It was exactly two years and a half since he had seen her last; she had been in France and Spain for two years, and in the last holidays, when she was at home, he had been away travelling in England with the apothecary; this year, too, they had been away for a couple of months. This sister whom he now met again was like a stranger to him. He was much taken up with her after their first meeting.
She was not handsome, he told Ole, as soon as they two met (to Ole's greatest astonishment). But he never wearied talking of the new and peculiar sort of impression she produced up here among all the others. Their mother must surely have looked too much at some Spanish woman during the time before Josephine's birth. If it had not been for that indescribable something about the eyes which distinguishes one person from the other all the world over--if it had not been for that something about the eyes--she might very well have lived among Spaniards and been taken for their countrywoman. The effect of this in a Norwegian household may be imagined! She talked well, rapidly, and to the point; but, all the same, was rather silent--kept herself at a distance. She dressed conspicuously, liked bright colors, and was always in the height of fashion, thereby almost challenging people, but in all other respects she was timid and shy.
From this time Edward really became a brother to her. Their father was away, and during his absence she lived at the head-master's and was not always easily got at; but whenever it was possible they were together. She had a feeling that he wanted to study her thoroughly, so she was on her guard; but it flattered her greatly that, whenever there was anyone present, his eyes always sought hers and he appealed to her in everything.
While Ole, in deep distress, pressed his face down in the grass in the little wood where he lay, he could see in his mind's eye Josephine at a ball, her brother dancing first with this one, then with the other--sometimes even several dances with the same partner, but with her only one little "turn," out of compassion.
But now?
Now she had become a precious sister to Edward, and she and Ole were to be separated.
Why should Edward break in upon and spoil their intercourse, he who knew so little about it?--taking to himself all manner of rights which he did not in the least deserve? Just after being together for a few days, was he to decide who was suitable for her to be with, and who was not?
Why, before them all, had he thus attacked him, casting scorn and derision on his calling in life?--not only mocking him, but mocking God himself.
As this thought passed through Ole Tuft's mind, a strange and strong light seemed to rise up and spread over all the mountains far away on the other side of the bay. He felt it in the back of his neck as he lay there with his face buried in the grass. Then there seemed to come a whisper from over there, filling all the air around him, "What hast thou done with me?"
Oh! how crushed he felt, he seemed forced down into the ground. Now he knew that his suffering was like a sharp razor cutting away all that was diseased out of his flesh. He had lost his cause to-day simply because he stood there as a liar. "Thou shalt have no other gods but me!" No, no, forgive me, spare me! "Thou with thy vain, sensual dreams! Let the night serve thee as it did Jacob, to wrestle with me, writhing worm that thou art!"
The air around him seemed full of the sound of a thousand wings.
It was not the first time that the solemnity of the Old Testament had come upon him from the heights and taken root in him. These questions of great or small; as to whether he should hazard "the greatest"--or be contented, like everyone else, with mediocrity--this was nothing new to him.
But were he to meet Josephine in good humor again, those questions would cease to exist, with one stroke of her hand she made them vanish. And such was the case now. Without any warning, it was as if a fresh protest from her came and overwhelmed him. Josephine would never have turned from him to-day because her brother wished it, never! And if she had understood it in that way, she would have done just the opposite. No, she turned from him because he was such a poor creature--for nothing else. Perhaps, too, because she did not wish to be forced into a discussion, she was so very shy. Neither had she turned to her brother. She sat in the middle of the group in the garden, and later on, when they dined, she and a couple of girl friends had been at a separate table. And when the party broke up she had made no effort to be where her brother collected so many round him--why, in the world, had he not thought of that before? She was true to him; upon my word, she was true and faithful! He rose up; why, in the name of fortune, had he not seen that sooner?
He had wished that she would help him one way or another--at least, would comfort him and show him how sorry she was for him. But all that sort of thing was utterly opposed to Josephine's nature. How could he even think of it? Especially as there had been all this disturbance and everyone was on the lookout as to what she would do.
He had been a great stupid. Delighted with this discovery, he hopped down through the wood and across the ditch, on his homeward way, after the others.
Great heavens, how he loved her! He saw her before him as she was sometimes when she thought him too child-like; through all her majesty he could always catch a good, kind look from her!
The late sunset left no red sky behind, the night was dull and gray, a deserted road winding down hill; by the roadside were some small factories, the houses being up on the hill, poor places all of them, and a few shabby-looking summer villas here and there, low trees, and a few bushes spread about.
He saw it all without seeing it, occupied as he was with his own thoughts. Not a soul on the road--yes, far off in the distance was a solitary individual going toward the town. He slackened his pace so as not to overtake this person, and never noticed that besides that person walking in front of him was another advancing to meet him. At last he could distinguish one from the other. Surely--it could never be--was he mistaken? No, he recognized the hat, and then the walk, the whole figure, there was only one such! Josephine was coming back to fetch him! It was just like her.
"But where have you been?" said she. Her large-featured face was flushed, her breath came quickly, her voice was rather hesitating, and the parasol she held in her left hand was not altogether steady. He did not answer; he gazed at her face, her dress, the feather in her hat, her tall, fine figure, till involuntarily she smiled; so much dumb admiration and gratitude would pierce through any kind of armor. "Josephine! Oh, Josephine!" Joy and admiration were reflected from the crown of his flat hat and down to his very boots. She went gaily up to him and laid her right hand on his left arm, pushing him gently forward; he was to walk on.
His face was all stained by the grass he had been burrowing in, she thought he had been crying: "You are silly, Ole," she whispered.
Such a gray summer's night, when nothing really sleeps nor yet is fully awake, gives one a strange, unsatisfied feeling. For these two it was as would be a dimly lighted room for two who were secretly engaged. She allowed her hand to remain resting on his arm, and when his eyes met hers she looked at him as though watching over a child.
"You see, I thought," said he, "I thought, only fancy I thought--" The tears stood in his eyes.
"You are very silly, Ole," whispered she again! And thus ended the storm of that day.
Her hand still rested on his arm; it looked as if she were leading him to prison. He could only just feel a very slight pressure, but it went to his very marrow. Now and then her silk dress just touched his leg, they were keeping step together, he seemed carried along by the electric current of her vicinity. They were utterly alone, and the silence round them was complete; they could hear their own steps and the rustling of the silk dress. He kept the arm on which her hand lay, painfully quiet, half afraid that the hand might fall down and be broken. There was just this one drawback--for there must always be something not quite perfect, that he felt an ever-increasing guilty desire to take her hand and tuck it under his arm in the usual way; he could have pressed it then. But he dared not do it.
They walked on and on. He looked upward and discovered there was no moon. "There is no moon," said he.
"It would have been lighter if there had been," answered she, smiling. "Much lighter." Their voices had met and the sound of them mingled, floating together like birds in the air.
But just on that account they found it difficult to say more. As Ole walked along pondering over what he could venture to say next, he felt both touched and proud. He thought of that snowy Saturday evening long ago, when the other boys at school had treated him so badly, and he had fled away to Store-Tuft; he thought of all his misery that day; but his promotion as it were dated from then, he had walked into the town from the other side, but with her on his arm--stop though, not quite. There had been the same drawback then too.
Should he tell her? Would she not think it too outspoken.
"We are quite alone now, we too," thus cunningly would he try to lead up to it; but he could not depend on his voice, it would betray him. She did not answer him. Again there was a complete silence between them. Just fancy, then her hand of its own accord slipped quietly into his arm, in the usual way when two people are engaged. His whole frame quivered, and taking courage, he pressed it slightly; but did not dare to look at her. They walked on.
Soon the town lay before them as though under a veil, the ships' rigging rising up like so many towers; or like the pointed sort of rigging dredging ships always have; the houses stood in thick outline, no coloring visible; everything carefully packed up and put away, the mountains keeping guard over the whole. One long, faint, indistinct sound, a dull gleam through the dead-gray silence. "Will you not tell me something?" said she, rapidly, as though she could not possibly get out more just then. He felt quite relieved at this, and asked her if he should tell her--about light.
"Yes, about light," answered she; was it ironical?
He began, but could not do it clearly. The very first time that she asked him for a clearer explanation he felt that he could not give it, he was not sufficiently at home with the subject. "No," he said, "let me finish my story about Jeanne d'Arc; you know we were interrupted yesterday."
"Yes, let us take Jeanne d'Arc!" said she, merrily, and laughed.
"Do you not wish that?"
"Yes, yes!" And she said that more kindly, as if wishing to make up for the first. Then he told her the end of Jeanne d'Arc's story, as it was told in a newly published book which he had borrowed from her father in the holidays. This was a subject that suited him; his west country accent, with the sing-song rise and fall in the voice, his carefully studied use of words, peculiar to one who had once been a peasant, heightened by the country dialect, though it no longer was so noticeable, impressed one with the idea that it was the words of some old writer; his soft and gentle Melancthon-face was dreamy; she looked up at him, and each time seemed to see deep down into his pure heart.
And in this manner they reached the town. The story had taken a hold on her too, and they both became so eager that they were not aware that they might possibly meet someone, and that they now had houses on each side of them; he just lowered his voice a little, but went on telling his story.
But when they came near the street where his aunt lived, and up which he ought to turn, he stopped, without having finished his story. Would he be allowed to take her home? The head-master's house was a little further on; if not, then he ought to leave her here. Now, this was not a question of this evening only.
Just on this account she thought of it too; she had never approved of that sort of nonsense, of being taken to one's own door when the other person's way lay quite in an opposite direction. From their childhood she had always had the same feeling, because she had been teased about him. But she knew that for him it was a great treat.
They both walked along the short bit of road that remained, and worked themselves up to a state of excitement. Shall we say good-by here, or--? What had originally been so childish had now grown, by dint of repetition, to something of great importance. She could not account for it, but as they stood at the cross-roads, she quietly took her gloveless hand from his arm and offered it to him in farewell greeting. She saw his disappointment. And to make up for it her large eyes beamed on him, her hand grasped his heartily, and, "Thanks for a pleasant evening!" said she, in quite a different tone of voice from what she had used for the last few years. The words seemed to fly from heart to heart like a life-long promise, and such was their meaning. She thanked him now and always for his faithful love. He stood there, quite pale. She saw it, and seemed to meditate something--took her hand away, and went. On the hill, she turned again to look at him, thankful that neither by word nor deed had he tried to do anything but what she wished. She nodded to him, he raised his hat.
A few minutes later she stood in her own room, much too warm and too wide-awake to think of going to bed. She did not wish to sleep; at all events, she wanted first to see the sun on the roofs, or at least daylight. Her room looked out on the courtyard, the playground and gymnasium at the end, some gymnastic apparatus stood outside too. Looked at from the street side, her bed-room was in the second story, but seen from the court it was on the first floor; hundreds of times, as a child, she had jumped out of the window instead of going out through the door. She opened the window, and even thought of jumping out now and walking up and down the court. She would, in reality, have preferred walking about the whole night with Ole; but he could not understand that. Perhaps it was because he had not proposed it that she had dismissed him up the street.
But as she thought more about it, she did not dare to venture out into the yard. It happened sometimes that young men coming home from a country walk or a boating expedition, or jaunt of some kind, would take it into their heads, as they passed the old school-yard, to turn into the playground of their boyish days and have a swing on the ropes; she would not like to meet those half-tipsy young men. She took off her hat, and remained standing in the window, leaning forward, gazing out after what had just happened, and which seemed to draw her outward in spite of herself.
She heard steps on the stairs outside, and then in the sand, the way in to her. Could it be Ole? Was he sentimental enough to wish to look up at her window? He must not come! God help him if he did come! She listened eagerly; no--those steps were too rapid; it was--she knew it as he stood there, it was her brother.
Yes, it was Edward who came. He was not astonished at seeing her, but came straight up to her. And when he had come up to the open window he stretched up his right hand to her, and she took it. His eyes squinted a little, a sure sign that he was excited. "I am glad you are still up; otherwise I should have been obliged to knock." His eyes looked searchingly into hers, and he did not loose her hand. "Have you just got back?"
"Yes, just this moment." All at once she felt herself to be in his power; he might have questioned her about anything in the world and she would have answered, with those eyes of his looking at her like that.
"When I saw you were no longer with the rest of the party, I knew you had gone back to Ole."
"Yes."
He stopped speaking, his voice shook: "I behaved badly; I suppose now you are engaged?"
There was a pause, but her answer gleamed forth directly in her eyes. "I think so," she said.
Lovingly, yet full of grief, he gazed at her. She felt the greatest desire to cry aloud. Had she done wrong? She was dreadfully alarmed. Then he took her head between both his hands, and bending down, kissed her on the forehead. She burst into tears and clasped her arms tightly round his neck; they lay thus cheek against cheek.
"Well, well--if it is settled, then--I congratulate you, Josephine, dear Josephine." They pressed closer to each other, then they parted.
"I leave to-day," whispered he, taking hold of her hand; she gave them both to him.
"To-day, Edward?"
"I have behaved stupidly. Good-by, Josephine."
She disengaged her hands to take her handkerchief and press it to her face. "I will come and say good-by," she sobbed.
"Don't do that! No--not again!" And to get it over quickly, he embraced and kissed her once more and left her without once looking round.