"No, no, but you never will condescend to speak to me, so I am compelled to think--no, I will not say that, but you see yourself what you are; one must not so much as make use of a word before you, and you---- But I will be silent, I see that you are suffering, my son; if only you would remember that I suffer as well. Great heavens! must I ask permission before I remind you that this has been going on for a year? I have not the slightest idea what is the matter--not the slightest, Tomas, beyond what results from my want of ability. If there is anything that I can set right, only tell me--tell me, whatever it is. Can you not trust me?"
"Cannot you trust me?" he burst out, and threw himself down on the sofa, with his face in his hands.
And then it transpired that he thirsted for sympathy.
His was a warm, impulsive nature, which must have trust and affection if he were not to waste his whole life. The independence to which he had accustomed himself, and which had increased during his violent studies, his continual journeys, and by his different plans, had changed into a sense of deprivation--had been succeeded by the most terrible hunger when he was here in the midst of a daily recurring life, full of heartiness and devotion--devotion to one another, while he was always outside it. All his being yearned for what he saw. "Not the cursed littlenesses," as he expressed himself; "no, only to have trust as the groundwork of everything--trust, and nothing but trust."
They must just bear with him and take him as he was, because they believed in him. Otherwise, he should go to destruction.
Fru Rendalen sat there, she had taken his head on her lap; she listened and listened, her heart swelled, and she laid her spectacles aside, for they were no longer any use to her.
"He is right," she thought; "oh, how right he is!" One image rose up in her mind after another; above all, the incident with the teachers. She had believed them at once, and to humour them had taken the school away from him, and from that time forward had in a manner controlled it. Till this moment she had lived in the blessed delusion that he was indifferent to this--nay, that it was a relief to him. And thus things began to dawn upon her which she might otherwise never have discovered. She did not understand this delicate, sensitive nature. If his repressed powers did not recover their strength, the fault would be hers.
"You mean about the teachers, Tomas?" she asked, and she could hardly control her voice. He took her hands and held them while he enumerated his grievances.
There were, oh, such a string of them, both great and small--some so small that she had never been conscious of them. An answer, a word of advice in passing, a remark to some one else, even a silent look in response to something he had said. In her distress, the worthy Fru Rendalen asked his pardon with voice and gesture and tender embraces, declaring that hereafter if he said he wished to go to the moon, she would believe him. She had never worked herself up before to such decided exaggeration, so that Tomas was forced to smile. Her memory was awakened. She remembered clearly how it had all happened, and how she had first lost confidence in him. It had been after his famous lecture; he had taken her much farther with him on to "slippery ice" than she had really the courage to go, and she had only discovered this afterwards. That was the foundation of it all. His power of persuasion, his gift for talking people over, and something indescribable added to this, carried one away; that was undoubtedly what the teachers had felt. Now unfortunately it is the way with mankind, that as soon as we discover that any one has carried us farther than it suits us to go, we not only try to fight against it--that would be right enough--but we look ever afterwards with mistrust at what that person says. Fru Rendalen knew that at times she had done this, and had tried to correct it; but she had had no idea how often she had done so, and still less how often he had noticed it. She knew that she hurt herself when she did so, but till now it had never occurred to her that she had hurt him--he seemed so superior and so distant.
There was a real reconciliation. It was broken off, and taken up again during the next few days, whenever it was possible.