Ditte: Girl Alive!

by Martin Andersen Nexø

"I've saved it by selling eggs and butter and wool," said she; "and by starving you," she added with an uncertain smile. "I know that I've been stingy and a miser; but in the end it pays you as well."

It was so seldom she smiled. "How pretty it made her!" thought Lars Peter, looking lovingly at her. She had lately been happier and more even tempered—no doubt the prospect of getting a better home.

He counted the money—over three hundred crowns! "That's a step forward," said he. The next evening when returning home he had bricks on the cart; and every evening he continued bringing home materials for building.

People who passed the Crow's Nest saw the erection of beams and bricks shoot up, and rumors began to float round the neighborhood. It began with a whisper that the old woman had left more than had been spoken of. Then it was said that perhaps, after all, old Maren had not died a natural death. And some remembered having seen Sörine on her way from the Crow's Nest towards the hamlet, on the same afternoon as her mother's death; little by little more was added to this, until it was declared that Sörine had strangled her own mother. Ditte was probably—with the exception of the mother—the only one who knew the real facts, and nothing could be got out of her when it affected her family—least of all on an occasion like this. But it was strange that she should happen to arrive just at the critical moment; and still more remarkable that she should run to Per Nielsen's and not home with the news of her grandmother's death.

Neither Sörine herself nor Lars Peter heard a word of these rumors. Ditte heard it at school through the other children, but did not repeat it. When her mother was more than usually considerate, her hate would seethe up in her—"Devil!" it whispered inside her, and suddenly she would feel an overwhelming desire to shout to her father: "Mother stifled Granny with the eiderdown!" It was worst of all when hearing her speak lovingly about the old woman. But the thought of his grief stopped her. He went about now like a great child, seeing nothing, and was more than ever in love with Sörine; he was overjoyed by the change for the better. Ditte and the others loved him as never before.

When Sörine was too hard on the children, they would hide from her outside the house, and only appear when their father returned at night. But since Granny's death there had been no need for this. The mother was entirely changed; when her temper was about to flare up, an unseen hand seemed to hold it back.

But it happened at times that Ditte could not bear to stay in the same room with her mother, and then she would go back to her old way and hide herself.

One evening she lay crouching in the willows. Sörine came time after time to the door, calling her in a friendly voice, and at each call a feeling of disgust went through the girl. "Ugh!" said she; it made her almost sick. After having searched for her round the house, Sörine went slowly up to the road and back again, peering about all the time: passing so close to Ditte that her dress brushed her face: then she went in.

Ditte was cold, and tired of hiding, but in she would not go—not till her father came home. He might not return until late, or not at all. Ditte had experienced this before, but then there had been a reason for it. It was no whipping she expected now!

No, but how lovely it had been to walk in holding her father's hand. He asked no question now, but only looked at the mother accusingly, and could not do enough for one. Perhaps he would make an excuse for a trip over to ... no ... this ... Ditte began to cry. It was terrible that however much she mourned for Granny—suddenly she would find she had forgotten Granny was dead. "Granny's dead, dear little Granny's dead," she would repeat to herself, so that it should not happen again, but the next minute it was just the same. It was so disloyal!