“And you?”
“The luckiest woman in all the world!” But now her voice died away in a sob.
“And where is the strong man to rest to-night?” He snatched at her breast.
She sprang up with blazing eyes. “You beast—oh, you beast!” she cried, red with shame, and she struck him in the face.
The “Great Power” wiped his face wonderingly after each blow. “We’re only playing,” he said. Then, in a flash, he caught sight of the boys, who had shrunk into a corner. “There you are!” he said, and he laughed crazily; “yes, mother and I, we’re having a bit of a game! Aren’t we, mother?”
But the woman had run out of doors, and now stood under the eaves, sobbing.
Jörgensen moved restlessly to and fro. “She’s crying,” he muttered. “There’s no grit in her—she ought to have married some farmer’s lad, devil take it, if the truth must be told! It catches me here and presses as though some one were shoving an iron ferrule into my brain. Come on, ‘Great Power’! Come on! so that you can get some peace from it! I say every day. No, let be, I say then—you must keep a hold on yourself, or she just goes about crying! And she’s never been anything but good to you! But deuce take it, if it would only come out! And then one goes to bed and says, Praise God, the day is done—and another day, and another. And they stand there and stare—and wait; but let them wait; nothing happens, for now the ‘Great Power’ has got control of himself! And then all at once it’s there behind! Hit away! Eight in the thick of the heap! Send them all to hell, the scoundrels! ’Cause a man must drink, in order to keep his energies in check…. Well, and there she sits! Can one of you lend me a krone?”
“Not I!” said Jens.
“No, not you—he’d be a pretty duffer who’d expect anything from you! Haven’t I always said ‘he takes after the wrong side’? He’s like his mother. He’s got a heart, but he’s incapable. What can you really do, Jens? Do you get fine clothes from your master, and does he treat you like a son, and will you finish up by taking over the business as his son-in-law? And why not? if I may ask the question. Your father is as much respected as Morten’s.”
“Morten won’t be a son-in-law, either, if his master has no daughter,” Jens muttered.