“The poor widow, who sits there with her four little ones and doesn’t know how she’s to feed them—to take food from her—no, I couldn’t do it! She’s had to borrow three hundred kroner so that her man could have a respectable funeral party.”
“That ought to be forbidden by law,” said Master Andres; “any one with little children hasn’t the right to throw away money on the dead.”
“She is giving her husband the last honors,” said Jeppe reprovingly. “That is the duty of every good wife.”
“Of course,” rejoined Master Andres. “God knows, something must be done. It’s like the performances on the other side of the earth, where the widow throws herself on the funeral pyre when the husband dies, and has to be burned to death.”
Baker Jörgen scratched his thighs and grimaced. “You are trying to get us to swallow one of your stinking lies, Andres. You’d never get a woman to do that, if I know anything of womankind.”
But Bjerregrav knew that the shoemaker was not lying, and fluttered his thin hands in the air, as though he were trying to keep something invisible from touching his body. “God be thanked that we came into the world on this island here,” he said, in a low voice. “Here only ordinary things happen, however wrongheaded they may be.”
“What puzzles me is where she got all that money!” said the baker.
“She’s borrowed it, of course,” said Bjerregrav, in a tone of voice that made it clear that he wanted to terminate the conversation.
Jeppe retorted contemptuously, “Who’s going to lend a poor mate’s widow three hundred kroner? He might as well throw it into the sea right away.”
But Baker Jörgen gave Bjerregrav a great smack on the back. “You’ve given her the money, it’s you has done it; nobody else would he such a silly sheep!” he said threateningly.