Rendalen was a big, strong man, who quietly, if rather ponderously, performed his scholastic duties in the town, and who, since his wife's death, had taken interest in nothing but his school, and the town reading society.
The management of his house he entirely left in the hands of old Mariane and his children. Tomasine, who was his eldest child, possessed a more than ordinary talent for languages, together with all her mother's determination. When she was only sixteen she borrowed a little money, entered a school in England, and, while there, thoroughly mastered the English language. From thence she went to a school in France, where she taught the pupils English and acquired French; and finally to one in Germany, where she gave instruction in both English and French, and learned German. She had been away nearly five years, and had become a practised, and unusually clever teacher. She had no sooner returned home than she began to give lessons both to men and women, and thereby to pay off her debts. This aroused great admiration in the town, and procured her a very large circle of friends. Her figure excited an equally unanimous admiration, and it must be admitted that it requires something special in a girl's figure before this can happen. A beautiful face is always admired, for there can be no delusion about it. A fine figure, on the contrary, is hardly sufficient in itself to command attention. She was young, and well-made, and always dressed in the latest fashion. Like other vigorous and healthy girls, she had from her childhood longed to exercise her strength, and had taken every opportunity of doing so. In England she had set to work to practise gymnastics, and had continued them ever since. It had become a passion with her; the result was, that there was not a single girl in the town who held herself like Tomasine.
It did not in the least lessen the admiration for her figure that she had a somewhat flat nose, and that her very light hair gave her the appearance, at a distance, of being bald; as for her eyebrows, they were really not worth mentioning. Her eyes were grey, and, when without her spectacles, she screwed them up. Her mouth was much too large, but the teeth within it were as sound and regular as though her family had remained in Rendalen and lived upon hard bread. When any one saw her from behind for the first time, and she then suddenly turned round, it caused a certain disappointment. People even thought of calling her "The Disappointment," but the name did not take. Her figure carried her over all criticism. Being near-sighted she wore spectacles, the only girl in the town who did so. In those days the fashion of using pince-nez had not come in, so this gave something rather unusual to her appearance. She literally shone with strength and intelligence.
Through that winter she was the most popular partner at all the balls. Her delight in being at home again, free from all restraint, and among a number of merry young people of both sexes, her happiness in feeling that every one was kind to her and liked her, were plainly visible. She often expressed her feelings in simple and natural terms; she aroused no jealousy, though it may be that this was a little strengthened by the fact that she was well aware that she was not pretty. That winter was a great dance winter, and at every dance she was present, for dancing was the most delightful thing she knew. During that winter John Kurt became for the first time a dancing man, and it was entirely for her sake that he did so. She soon heard him say this, but she knew that he could not be gauged by the rules of ordinary life, for he was always allowed to say what he liked. She looked upon him as something quite fresh, and very peculiar, but she acted as every one else did, and neither ran away from him, nor fainted, because he said that he would be d----d, pickled, boiled, and roasted if, when she danced, she were not like a young, lively, whinnying Arabian mare, or like a flock of birds in the woods in spring-time; her arms and her neck were just like a dainty, warm, little Turkish pigling, one o' them with a pink skin. She moved through the dance, Heaven help him, like a great man-of-war through the water. When he danced with her--by his honour, life, and salvation--it was like being up on the mountains of a clear autumn day, with a gun in his hand, and the tykes ranging the hillside in full cry. This, shouted in trumpet tones into her ear during every dance, only added to her amusement. The others laughed and she laughed with them. She did not possess the slightest knowledge of human nature. That cannot be learnt by going from one school to another, even though they be in foreign countries.
Kurt very soon began to visit her home; he knew the hours when she would be free, and speedily learnt her times for walking, following her about everywhere. She tried as much as possible not to be alone with him; otherwise she was pleased enough that he should come. He told her and her friends amusing stories, and touching ones sometimes. Such, for instance, was the history of a deserted brood of ptarmigan, which he had once picked up, one by one, out of the heather, where they were running about, all downy and unfledged; he had brought them all home, he said, in his cap. This story seemed to bring with it such a fresh breath of mountain air, full of the scent of the heather, and he related it with such genuine feeling, that it brought the tears into their eyes. Such things as these seemed to inspire him; even in the midst of the wildest stories, he would often throw in some delicate, telling touch. The way in which he invariably spoke of his father attracted the girl to him. There was a mixture of drollness and tenderness in it, midway between laughter and tears. They got used to his rough descriptions, his coarse language; it could not well have been dispensed with; it gave a special colouring which charmed, while it startled them. Tomasine and her friends did not try to have it otherwise, so that at last there was no one who appeared to them to be able to relate stories except himself. Tomasine more than any one else. She felt that it was all done for her amusement.
One day, when by chance they were alone, he began to tell her about the widow of a pilot, for whom he was just then most assiduously making a collection. He saw that she liked him for doing so, and, without further preface, he declared that Fröken Tomasine Holm Rendalen was to him what a town was to a desert caravan; nay, if she laughed, it was because she did not know what it was to trudge along through endless sand, under a burning sun, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. "It is something to see a town then, I can tell you." Well, she was the minaret tower, the plane-trees, and the springs of water, the wine which awaited them, and white tents, and dancing, the sound of the guitars, and the smell of roasting meat. Suppose they two were to make a match of it! If that could be, he would sell the whole garden, and they would wander away to all the most delightful places on the face of the earth. They would lie on their backs under the awnings, while their servants came and put food and drink into their mouths. Or why not stay here and carry "The Estate" gardens right up on to the mountains? What would not grow with such shelter, on such sunny hillsides, fanned by such warm sea breezes. There they would dig away into the hillside, like a couple of badgers, and become rich people. But he saw what a fright he had put her into; so, without any pause, he turned the conversation into a wild panegyric on his father. The fact was that the whole thing was his father's invention. He was determined to have his son married. His father was a man who would get up of a winter's night, when it suddenly turned cold, and go out to wrap bast mats and woollen rags round the frozen fruit-trees, as if they were naked children. If he wanted to cut down a bush he took the birds'-nests down first, and carried them away to some place near, or to some other bush, and stuck 'em fast there. What wonder then if his father gave a thought for him too; but, as for him, he could wait, he was quite happy as he was. And he started off with a story about some cows who would not eat the grass because it looked black, but he put them on large green spectacles, so that the grass looked quite nice and fresh--"then they munched it up, I can promise you."
She could gather in the meantime that John Kurt was disappointed. She herself had felt startled, she hardly knew why, and yet, on second thoughts, she did, for she had heard, that very day, some stories of the terribly licentious life he led.
It so happened, strangely enough, that a friend of her late mother came in to see her, and after a short preamble, began warmly to advocate Kurt's cause. Only an hour afterwards another one arrived, another after that, all bent on the same errand. He was certainly not like other people, that must be confessed, but that he would make a famous husband, each one was as certain as the other. As to his immoral conduct, that was bad, it must be admitted; but it was most likely not worse than other people's. Why, there were married men living in the town who were by no means all that they should be. The great difference was that he did everything openly. Each one of the three ladies spoke as strongly on the subject as the others, and Tomasine began to be somewhat of the same opinion.
John Kurt himself held aloof for a time, excepting so far as that whatever walk he took to or from the town, and they were not few, he always contrived to pass the Rendalens' house, notwithstanding that they lived quite on one side, to the left of the market-place, up towards the field. Every time he passed up and down, he took off his hat, if there were only a cat to be seen at the window. Beside this, he sent a bouquet there every morning. The dawn was not more certain to come than it was. Old Mariane, who received it, had always some little thing to say about Tomasine, and he, on his part, generally let fall some special remark, such as, for instance, "God bless your throats."
A very short time after her mother's especial friends had called upon Tomasine to advocate John's cause, her own followed their example. Some of them had in past days taken quite an opposite view of him. They had spoken of him almost with horror. They could not bear his mendacious stories, or put up with his coarse language; or indeed with him, himself. He was "disgusting." Now, however, they began to admit that there was something interesting in him all the same: a kind of demoniacal overwhelming power.