Arne; A Sketch of Norwegian Country Life Part 13

The next day when Arne came in, he found the father and mother sitting talking together: the mother had been weeping. Arne asked how Eli was; both expected the other to give an answer, and so for some time none was given, but at last the father said, "Well, she's very bad to-day."

Afterwards Arne heard that she had been raving all night, or, as the father said, "talking foolery." She had a violent fever, knew no one, and would not eat, and the parents were deliberating whether they should send for a doctor. When afterwards they both went to the sick-room, leaving Arne behind, he felt as if life and death were struggling together up there, but he was kept outside.

In a few days, however, Eli became a little better. But once when the father was tending her, she took it into her head to have Narrifas, the bird which Mathilde had given her, set beside the bed. Then Baard told her that--as was really the case--in the confusion the bird had been forgotten, and was starved. The mother was just coming in as Baard was saying this, and while yet standing in the doorway, she cried out, "Oh, dear me, what a monster you are, Baard, to tell it to that poor little thing! See, she's fainting again; G.o.d forgive you!"

When Eli revived she again asked for the bird; said its death was a bad omen for Mathilde; and wished to go to her: then she fainted again. Baard stood looking on till she grew so much worse that he wanted to help, too, in tending her; but the mother pushed him away, and said she would do all herself. Then Baard gave a long sad look at both of them, put his cap straight with both hands, turned aside and went out.

Soon after, the Clergyman and his wife came; for the fever heightened, and grew so violent that they did not know whether it would turn to life or death. The Clergyman as well as his wife spoke to Baard about Eli, and hinted that he was too harsh with her; but when they heard what he had told her about the bird, the Clergyman plainly told him it was very rough, and said he would have her taken to his own house as soon as she was well enough to be moved. The Clergyman's wife would scarcely look at Baard; she wept, and went to sit with the sick one; then sent for the doctor, and came several times a day to carry out his directions. Baard went wandering restlessly about from one place to another in the yard, going oftenest to those places where he could be alone. There he would stand still by the hour together; then, put his cap straight and work again a little.

The mother did not speak to him, and they scarcely looked at each other. He used to go and see Eli several times in the day; he took off his shoes before he went up-stairs, left his cap outside, and opened the door cautiously. When he came in, Birgit would turn her head, but take no notice of him, and then sit just as before, stooping forwards, with her head on her hands, looking at Eli, who lay still and pale, unconscious of all that was pa.s.sing around her.

Baard would stand awhile at the foot of the bed and look at them both, but say nothing: once when Eli moved as though she were waking, he stole away directly as quietly as he had come.

Arne often thought words had been exchanged between man and wife and parents and child which had been long gathering, and would be long remembered. He longed to go away, though he wished to know before he went what would be the end of Eli's illness; but then he thought he might always hear about her even after he had left; and so he went to Baard telling him he wished to go home: the work which he came to do was completed. Baard was sitting outdoors on a chopping-block, scratching in the snow with a stick: Arne recognized the stick: it was the one which had fastened the weather-vane.

"Well, perhaps it isn't worth your while to stay here now; yet I feel as if I don't like you to go away, either," said Baard, without looking up. He said no more; neither did Arne; but after a while he walked away to do some work, taking for granted that he was to remain at Boen.

Some time after, when he was called to dinner, he saw Baard still sitting on the block. He went over to him, and asked how Eli was.

"I think she's very bad to-day," Baard said.

"I see the mother's weeping."

Arne felt as if somebody asked him to sit down, and he seated himself opposite Baard on the end of a felled tree.

"I've often thought of your father lately," Baard said so unexpectedly that Arne did not know how to answer.

"You know, I suppose, what was between us?"

"Yes, I know."

"Well, you know, as may be expected, only one half of the story, and think I'm greatly to blame."

"You have, I dare say, settled that affair with your G.o.d, as surely as my father has done so," Arne said, after a pause.

"Well, some people might think so," Baard answered. "When I found this stick, I felt it was so strange that you should come here and unloose the weather-vane. As well now as later, I thought." He had taken off his cap, and sat silently looking at it.

"I was about fourteen years old when I became acquainted with your father, and he was of the same age. He was very wild, and he couldn't bear any one to be above him in anything. So he always had a grudge against me because I stood first, and he, second, when we were confirmed. He often offered to fight me, but we never came to it; most likely because neither of us felt sure who would beat. And a strange thing it is, that although he fought every day, no accident came from it; while the first time I did, it turned out as badly as could be; but, it's true, I had been wanting to fight long enough.

"Nils fluttered about all the girls, and they, about him. There was only one I would have, and her he took away from me at every dance, at every wedding, and at every party; it was she who is now my wife.... Often, as I sat there, I felt a great mind to try my strength upon him for this thing; but I was afraid I should lose, and I knew if I did, I should lose her, too. Then, when everybody had gone, I would lift the weights he had lifted, and kick the beam he had kicked; but the next time he took the girl from me, I was afraid to meddle with him, although once, when he was flirting with her just in my face, I went up to a tall fellow who stood by and threw him against the beam, as if in fun. And Nils grew pale, too, when he saw it.

"Even if he had been kind to her; but he was false to her again and again. I almost believe, too, she loved him all the more every time.

Then the last thing happened. I thought now it must either break or bear. The Lord, too, would not have him going about any longer; and so he fell a little more heavily than I meant him to do. I never saw him afterwards."

They sat silent for a while; then Baard went on:

"I once more made my offer. She said neither yes nor no; but I thought she would like me better afterwards. So we were married. The wedding was kept down in the valley, at the house of one of her aunts, whose property she inherited. We had plenty when we started, and it has now increased. Our estates lay side by side, and when we married they were thrown into one, as I always, from a boy, thought they might be. But many other things didn't turn out as I expected."

He was silent for several minutes; and Arne thought he wept; but he did not.

"In the beginning of our married life, she was quiet and very sad. I had nothing to say to comfort her, and so I was silent. Afterwards, she began sometimes to take to these fidgeting ways which you have, I dare say, noticed in her; yet it was a change, and so I said nothing then, either. But one really happy day, I haven't known ever since I was married, and that's now twenty years...."

He broke the stick in two pieces; and then sat for a while looking at them.

"When Eli grew bigger, I thought she would be happier among strangers than at home. It was seldom I wished to carry out my own will in anything, and whenever I did, it generally turned out badly; so it was in this case. The mother longed after her child, though only the lake lay between them; and afterwards I saw, too, that Eli's training at the parsonage was in some ways not the right thing for her; but then it was too late: now I think she likes neither father nor mother."

He had taken off his cap again; and now his long hair hung down over his eyes; he stroked it back with both hands, and put on his cap as if he were going away; but when, as he was about to rise, he turned towards the house, he checked himself and added, while looking up at the bed-room window.

"I thought it better that she and Mathilde shouldn't see each other to say good-bye: that, too, was wrong. I told her the wee bird was dead; for it was my fault, and so I thought it better to confess; but that again was wrong. And so it is with everything: I've always meant to do for the best, but it has always turned out for the worst; and now things have come to such a pa.s.s that both wife and daughter speak ill of me, and I'm going here lonely."

A servant-girl called out to them that the dinner was becoming cold.

Baard rose. "I hear the horses neighing; I think somebody has forgotten them," he said, and went away to the stable to give them some hay.

Arne rose, too; he felt as if he hardly knew whether Baard had been speaking or not.

XII.

A GLIMPSE OF SPRING.

Eli felt very weak after the illness. The mother watched by her night and day, and never came down-stairs; the father came up as usual, with his boots off, and leaving his cap outside the door. Arne still remained at the house. He and the father used to sit together in the evening; and Arne began to like him much, for Baard was a well-informed, deep-thinking man, though he seemed afraid of saying what he knew. In his own way, he, too, enjoyed Arne's company, for Arne helped his thoughts and told him of things which were new to him.

Eli soon began to sit up part of the day, and as she recovered, she often took little fancies into her head. Thus, one evening when Arne was sitting in the room below, singing songs in a clear, loud voice, the mother came down with a message from Eli, asking him if he would go up-stairs and sing to her, that she might also hear the words. It seemed as if he had been singing to Eli all the time, for when the mother spoke he turned red, and rose as if he would deny having done so, though no one charged him with it. He soon collected himself, however, and replied evasively, that he could sing so very little.

The mother said it did not seem so when he was alone.

Arne yielded and went. He had not seen Eli since the day he helped to carry her up-stairs; he thought she must be much altered, and he felt half afraid to see her. But when he gently opened the door and went in, he found the room quite dark, and he could see no one. He stopped at the door-way.

"Who is it?" Eli asked in a clear, low voice.

"It's Arne Kampen," he said in a gentle, guarded tone, so that his words might fall softly.

"It was very kind of you to come."

"How are you, Eli?"

"Thanks, I'm much better now."

"Won't you sit down, Arne?" she added after a while, and Arne felt his way to a chair at the foot of the bed. "It did me good to hear you singing; won't you sing a little to me up here?"

"If I only knew anything you would like."

She was silent a while: then she said, "Sing a hymn." And he sang one: it was the confirmation hymn. When he had finished he heard her weeping, and so he was afraid to sing again; but in a little while she said, "Sing one more." And he sang another: it was the one which is generally sung while the catechumens are standing in the aisle.

"How many things I've thought over while I've been lying here," Eli said. He did not know what to answer; and he heard her weeping again in the dark. A clock that was ticking on the wall warned for striking, and then struck. Eli breathed deeply several times, as if she would lighten her breast, and then she said, "One knows so little; I knew neither father nor mother. I haven't been kind to them; and now it seems so sad to hear that hymn."

When we talk in the darkness, we speak more faithfully than when we see each other's face; and we also say more.

"It does one good to hear you talk so," Arne replied, just remembering what she had said when she was taken ill.