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.