Absalom's Hair Part 14

For a moment his senses failed him; only confused sounds fell on his ear. But then he seemed to emerge from a dark pa.s.sage. He must get to h.e.l.lebergene! He must see what had happened; he would go and search!

By this time it was growing dark. He went on sh.o.r.e and looked round for a boat as though half asleep. He could hardly speak, but he did not give in till he got the men together and hired the boat. He took the helm himself, and bade them row with all their might. He knew every peak in the grey twilight. They might depend on him, and row on without looking round. Soon they had pa.s.sed the high land and were in among the islands. This time they did not come out to meet him; they all seemed gathered there to repel him. No boat had been sent; there was, therefore, nothing more for him to do here. No boat had been sent, because he had forfeited his place here. Like savage beasts, with bristles erect, the peaks and islands arrayed themselves against him.

"Row on, my lads," he cried, for now arose again in him that dormant power which only manifested itself in his utmost need.

"How is it with you, my boy? I am growing weary. Courage, now, and forward!"

Again that voice outside himself--a man's voice. Was it his father's?

Whether or not it were his father's voice, here before his father's home he would struggle against Fate.

In man's direst necessity, what he has failed in and what he can do seem to encounter each other. And thus, just as the boat had cleared the point and the islands and was turning into the bay, he raised himself to his full height, and the boatmen looked at him in astonishment. He still grasped the rudder-lines, and looked as though he were about to meet an enemy. Or did he hear anything? was it the sound of oars?

Yes, they heard them now as well. From the strait near the inlet a boat was approaching them. She loomed large on the smooth surface of the water and shot swiftly along.

"Is that a boat from h.e.l.lebergene?" shouted Rafael. His voice shook.

"Yes," came a voice out of the darkness, and he recognised the bailiff's voice. "Is it Rafael?"

"Yes. Why did you not come before?"

"The telegram has only just arrived."

He sat down. He did not speak. He became suddenly incapable of uttering a word.

The other boat turned and followed them. Rafael nearly ran his boat on sh.o.r.e; he forgot that he was steering. Very soon they cleared the narrow pa.s.sage which led into the inner bay, and rounded the last headland, and there!--there lay h.e.l.lebergene before them in a blaze of light! From cellar to attic, in every single window, it glowed, it streamed with light, and at that moment another light blazed out from the cairn on the hill-top.

It was thus that his mother greeted him. He sobbed; and the boatmen heard him, and at the same time noticed that it had grown suddenly light. They turned round, and were so engrossed in the spectacle that they forgot to row.

"Come! you must let me get on," was all that he could manage to say.

His sufferings were forgotten as he leapt from the boat. Nor did it disturb him that he did not meet his mother at the landing-place, or near the house, nor see her on the terrace. He simply rushed up the stairs and opened the door.

The candles in the windows gave but little light within. Indeed, something had been put in the windows for them to stand on, so that the interior was half in shadow. But he had come in from the semi-darkness.

He looked round for her, but he heard some one crying at the other end of the room. There she sat, crouched in the farthest corner of the sofa, with her feet drawn up under her, as in old days when she was frightened. She did not stretch out her arms; she remained huddled together. But he bent over her, knelt down, laid his face on hers, wept with her. She had grown fragile, thin, haggard, ah! as though she could be blown away. She let him take her in his arms like a child and clasp her to his breast; let him caress and kiss her. Ah, how ethereal she had become! And those eyes, which at last he saw, now looked tearfully out from their large orbits, but more innocently than a bird from its nest. Over her broad forehead she had wound a large silk handkerchief in turban fashion. It hung down behind. She wished to conceal the thinness of her hair. He smiled to recognise her again in this. More spiritualised, more ethereal in her beauty, her innermost aspirations shone forth without effort. Her thin hands caressed his hair, and now she gazed into his eyes.

"Rafael, my Rafael!" She twined her arms round him and murmured welcome. But soon she raised her head and resumed a sitting posture.

She wished to speak. He was beforehand with her.

"Forgive the letter," he whispered with beseeching eyes and voice, and hands upraised.

"I saw the distress of your soul," was the whispered answer, for it could not be spoken aloud. "And there was nothing to forgive," she added. She had laid her face against his again. "And it was quite true, Rafael," she murmured.

She must have pa.s.sed through terrible days and nights here, he thought, before she could say that.

"Mother, mother! what a fearful time!"

Her little hand sought his: it was cold; it lay in his like an egg in a deserted nest. He warmed it and took the other as well.

"Was not the illumination splendid?" she said. And now her voice was like a child's.

He moved the screen which obstructed the light: he must see her better.

He thought, when he saw the look of happiness in her face, if life looks so beautiful to her still, we shall have a long time together.

"If you had told me all that about Absalom, the picture which you made when you were told the story of David, Rafael; if you had only told me that before!" She paused, and her lips quivered.

"How could I tell it to you, mother, when I did not understand it myself?"

"The illumination--that must signify that I, too, understand. It ought to light you forward; do you not think so?"

A PAINFUL MEMORY FROM CHILDHOOD

I must have been somewhere about seven years old, when one Sunday afternoon a rumour reached the parsonage that, on that same day, two men, rowing past the Buggestrand in Eidsfjord, had discovered a woman who had fallen over a cliff, and had remained half lying, half hanging, close to the water's edge.

Before moving her, they tried to find out from her who had thrown her over.

It was thirty-five miles by water to the doctor's, and then an order for admission to the hospital had also to be procured. She had lain twenty-four hours before help reached her, and shortly afterwards she died. Before she breathed her last, she said it was Peer Hagbo who had done it. "But," she added, "they mustn't do him any harm."

Everybody knew that there had been an attachment between the girl, who was in service at Hagbo's, and the son of the house, and the shrewd ones instantly guessed why he wanted to get her out of the way.

I remember clearly the arrival of the news. It was, as I have said, on a Sunday afternoon, her death having occurred on the morning of the same day.

It was in the very middle of summer, when the whole place was flooded with sunshine and gladness. I remember how the light faded, faces turned to stone, the fjord grew dim, and village and forest shrank away into shadow. I remember that even the next day I felt as though a blow had been dealt to ordinary existence. I knew that I need not go to school. Men knocked off work, leaving everything just as it was, and sat down with idle hands. The women especially were paralysed: it was evident they felt themselves threatened, they even said as much. When strangers came to the parsonage their bearing and expression showed that the murder lay heavy on their minds, and they read the same story in us. We took each other's hands with a sense of remoteness. The murder was the only thing that was present with us. Whatever we talked of we seemed to hear of the murder in voice and word. The last consciousness at night and the first in the morning was that everything was unsettled, and that the joy of life was suddenly arrested, like the hands on a dial at a certain hour.

But by degrees the murder fell into its proper place among other interests; curiosity and gossip had made it commonplace. It was taken up, turned over, considered, picked at and pulled about, till it became simply "the last new thing." Soon we knew every detail of the relation between the murdered and the murderer. We knew who it was that Peer's mother had wanted him to marry; we knew the Hagbo family in and out, and their history for generations past.

When the magistrate came to the parsonage to inst.i.tute the preliminary inquiry, the murder was merely an inexhaustible theme of conversation.

But the next day when the bailiff and some other men appeared with the murderer, a new feeling took possession of me, a feeling of which I could not have imagined myself capable--an overpowering compa.s.sion. A young good-looking lad, well grown, slightly built, rather small than otherwise, with dark not very thick hair, with appealing eyes which were now downcast, with a clear voice, and about his whole personality a certain charm, almost refinement; a creature to a.s.sociate with life, not death, with gladness, with gaiety. I was more sorry for him than I can say. The bailiff and the other people spoke kindly to him too, so they must have felt the same. Only the peppery little clerk came out with some hard words, but the accused stood cap in hand and made no answer.

He paced up and down the yard in his shirt sleeves--the day was very warm--with a flat cloth cap over his close-cut hair, and his hands in his trousers pockets, or toying restlessly with a piece of straw. The parsonage dog had found companions, and the youth followed the dog's frolic with his eyes, and gazed at the chickens and at us children as though he longed to be one of us. The girl's words, "But don't do him any harm," rang in my ears unceasingly--whether he walked about or stood still or sat down. I knew that he would certainly be beheaded, and, believing that it must be soon, I was filled with horror at the thought of his saying to himself, In a month I shall die--and then in a week--in a day--an hour... it must be utterly unendurable. I slipped behind him to see his neck, and just at that moment he lifted his hand up to it, a little brown hand; and I could not get rid of the thought that perhaps his fingers would come in the way when the axe was falling.

He and the warders were asked to come in and dine. I felt I must see if it were really possible for him to eat. Yes, he ate and chatted just like the rest, and for a time I forgot my terror. But no sooner was I outside again and alone than I fell to thinking of it with might and main, and it seemed to me very hard that her words, "But you mustn't do him any harm," should be so utterly disregarded. I felt I must go in and say as much to father. But he, slow and serious, and the clerk, little and dapper, were walking up and down the room deep in conversation, far, far above all my misery. I slipped out again, and stroked the coat which Peer had taken off.

The inquiry was held in my schoolroom. My master acted as secretary to the court, and I got leave to sit there and listen. For the matter of that, the clerk spoke in so loud a voice that it could be heard through the open window by every one in the place. The unfortunate youth was called upon to account for the entire day on which the murder had been committed--for every hour of that Sunday. He denied that he had killed her--denied it with the utmost emphasis: "It was not he who had done it." The magistrate's examination was both acutely and kindly conducted; Peer was moved to tears, but no confession could be drawn from him.

"This will be a long business, madam," said the magistrate to my mother when the first day's inquiry was over. But later in the evening Peer's sister came to the parsonage and remained with him all through the night. They were heard whispering and crying unceasingly. In the morning Peer was pale and silent; before the court he took all the blame upon himself.

The way it had happened, he explained, was that he had been her lover, and that his mother had strongly disapproved of the connection. So one Sunday as the girl, prayer-book in hand, was going to church, he met her in the wood. They sat down, and he asked if she intended to declare him the father of the child she was about to bear; for it was in this time of sore necessity that she was going to seek consolation in the church. She replied that she could accuse no one else. He spoke of the shame it would bring on him, and how annoyed his mother already was.

Yes, yes, she knew that too well. His mother was very angry with her; and she thought it strange of Peer that he didn't stand up for her; he knew best whose fault it was that all this had happened. But Peer hinted that she had been compliant to others as well as to himself, and therefore he would not submit to being given out as the child's father.

He tried to make her angry, but did not succeed, she was so gentle. He had an axe lying concealed in the heather near where he sat. He took it and struck her on the head from behind. She did not lose consciousness at once, but tried to defend herself while she begged for her life. He could give no clear account of what happened afterwards. It seemed almost as though he himself had lost consciousness. As to the other events, he accepted the account of them which had been given in the evidence against him.

His sister waited at the parsonage until he came from the examination, worn out and with eyes red with weeping. Once more they went aside and whispered. I remember nothing more of her than that she held her head down and wept a great deal.

It was in the winter that he was to be executed. The announcement was made at such short notice that every one in the house had to bestir himself--father was to deliver an exhortation at the place of execution, and the Dean, whose parishioner the condemned man was, together with the bailiff, had arranged to come to us the day before.

Peer and his warders and a friend, his instructor during the time of his imprisonment, schoolmaster Jakobsen, were to sleep down in the schoolhouse, which was part of the farm property belonging to the old parsonage. Meals were to be carried from our house to the prisoner and Jakobsen.