“Yes—and what tendencies doesn’t this let us suspect, and who knows what his past may have been, what do you think?”
“Yes, and heaven knows how things really were with him during the time of their engagement? There always was something suspicious about him. That is my opinion.
“Pardon me, and you, too, Mr. Carlsen, pardon me, but you look at the whole affair in rather an abstract way, very abstractedly. By chance I have in my possession a very concrete report from a friend in Jutland, and can present the whole affair in all its details.”
“Mr. Ronholt, you don’t mean to...?”
“To give details? Yes, that is what I intend. Mr. Carlsen, with the lady’s permission. Thank you! He certainly did not live as one should live after a brain-fever. He knocked about from fair to fair with a couple of boon-companions, and, it is said, was somewhat mixed up with troupes of mountebanks, and especially with the women of the company. Perhaps it would be wisest if I ran upstairs, and got my friend’s letter. Permit me. I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Don’t you think, Mr. Carlsen, that Ronholt is in a particularly good humor to-day?”
“Yes, but you must not forget that he exhausted all his spleen on an article in the morning paper. Imagine, to dare to maintain—why, that is pure rebellion, contempt of law, for him....”
“You found the letter?”
“Yes, I did. May I begin? Let me see, oh yes: ‘Our mutual friend whom we met last year at Monsted, and whom, as you say, you knew in Copenhagen, has during the last months haunted the region hereabouts. He looks just as he used to, he is the same pale knight of the melancholy mien. He is the most ridiculous mixture of forced gayety and silent hopelessness, he is affected—ruthless and brutal toward himself and others. He is taciturn and a man of few words, and doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself at all, though he does nothing but drink and lead a riotous life. It is as I have already said, as if he had a fixed idea that he received a personal insult from destiny. His associates here were especially a horse-dealer, called “Mug-sexton,” because he does nothing but sing and drink all the time, and a disreputable, lanky, over-grown cross between a sailor and peddler, known and feared under the name of Peter “Rudderless,” to say nothing of the fair Abelone. She, however, recently has had to give way to a brunette, belonging to a troupe of mountebanks, which for some time has favored us with performances of feats of strength and rope-dancing. You have seen this kind of women with sharp, yellow, prematurely-aged faces, creatures that are shattered by brutality, poverty, and miserable vices, and who always over-dress in shabby velvet and dirty red. There you have his crew. I don’t understand our friend’s passion. It is true that his fiancee met with a horrible death, but that does not explain the matter. I must still tell you how he left us. We had a fair a few miles from here. He, “Rudderless,” the horse-dealer, and the woman sat in a drinking-tent, dissipating until far into the night. At three o’clock or thereabouts they were at last ready to leave. They got on the wagon, and so far everything went all right; but then our mutual friend turns off from the main road and drives with them over fields and heath, as fast as the horses can go. The wagon is flung from one side to the other. Finally things get too wild for the horse-dealer and he yells that he wants to get down. After he has gotten off our mutual friend whips up the horses again, and drives straight at a large heather-covered hill. The woman becomes frightened and jumps off, and now up the hill they go and down on the other side at such a terrific pace that it is a miracle the wagon did not arrive at the bottom ahead of the horses. On the way up Peter had slipped from the wagon, and as thanks for the ride he threw his big clasp-knife at the head of the driver.’”
“The poor fellow, but this business of the woman is nasty.”