Garman and Worse: A Norwegian Novel

by Alexander Lange Kielland

"Let us go to Per's," said the clergyman.

For a long time Madeleine had not been certain whether Martens knew of her adventure with Per; but after a short time of married life, she found that a story does not travel very far, without reaching the clergyman, and without looking up she felt that his eye was resting upon her, with the smile with which he used to bend her to his will.

Per was in the peat-shed when they drove up, and saw her as he peeped through a chink in the boards. The moment he did so, he involuntarily took the quid of tobacco out of his mouth and threw it from him. After waiting a long time, he had begun again to chew tobacco, and after a still longer time he had married. It was thus Per's wife who, with numberless excuses, conducted the clergyman and his lady into the best room. She repeated that it was not what such people were accustomed to. While she went out to find Per, and introduce him to the strangers, the pastor went round the room examining the curiosities it contained. Madeleine sat gazing out of the window. The sight of Per's wife, looking so fresh and happy, had pained her--she knew not why.

"Look here, Lena!" he cried, every time he found something of interest.

Lena was a name of his own invention, and which he had given her in spite of all her entreaties. Lena sounded so homely, and was well suited to a clergyman's wife; while Madeleine had a foreign, French ring, which was quite out of place in a rectory.

In the room were several things worthy of his attention. In the first place there were two pictures, representing Vesuvius by day, and Vesuvius by night; then came a drawing of a coasting vessel called The Three Sisters of Farsund; then Frederick VII. with his red uniform and hook nose; and over the bed, which was heaped up with eider-downs as high as one's head, hung a huge horn of plenty, made of white cardboard, and on which was the motto, in gilt paper letters, "Be fruitful and multiply," which had been given them as a wedding-present. On one end of the chest of drawers stood a yellow canary on a red pear, and on the other end a red bullfinch on a yellow pear. The floor was dazzlingly clean and neatly sanded. The window-panes were small, and the glass of different tints; while over one of the windows was nailed a board, on which was painted in gold letters the words "L'Espérance," which was the name of the vessel to which it had belonged. At length Per came in. He held out his hand first to the pastor and then to Madeleine, and said, "How do you do?" to both. As Madeleine touched the hard and powerful hand, she involuntarily drew back her own, and turned away without pronouncing the usual greeting. The words seemed to stick in her throat.

At that moment Per's wife entered and asked him in a whisper to cut her a few chips to make the peat fire burn more quickly, as she wished to prepare some coffee. Per went out of the room, and the pastor followed the prosperous little peasant woman to inspect the house.

Madeleine took a few steps to and fro in the room, and then went to the door. As she stood on the stone steps under the porch, she could see down into the little harbour, and her eye could follow the path which led across the flat meadow, and up across the steep slope as far as the lighthouse. There lay her old home, with its solid stone walls, and the lantern with its red-painted cover. She turned away: the sight was more than she could bear. Her ear now caught the sound of Per chopping the wood in the peat-shed, and almost without knowing what she did, she found herself in the shed, standing by his side. He ceased for a moment from his work, raised himself up, and looked beyond her over the sea. Per wore a stiff sailor's beard, and his face had grown older and coarser with the lapse of time, but still every feature was familiar to her. Madeleine made a step towards him and endeavoured to take his hand. In this she was unsuccessful, for he drew it away from her. She could no longer command her feelings, and, throwing her arms round his neck, she laid her head on his breast.

Delphin's remark was perfectly true about the mixture of fish, tobacco, and damp woollen clothing; but she felt that this was her place, and here she ought to rest. At that moment, too, she perceived why the pang had passed through her heart when she met Per's wife. She envied her everything. Husband, home, even her very existence,--all belonged to her. Here was her place, and here the man she loved and understood. Oh, how all her so-called friends had mocked and deceived her! What a life was hers!--a life which consisted only in being the wife of a man she did not love, in keeping his house, and bearing his children, surrounded on every side by an unwholesome atmosphere of form, ceremony, and selfishness.

Closer and closer she clung to the broad breast whereon she lay, and that heart, so well drilled and confined, ran over in one supreme moment of mingled happiness and anguish, while the recollections of her youthful love passed through her sobbing heart.