Arne: Early Tales and Sketches Part 17

"Does he never read to you?"

"Of course he reads and sings to me every Sunday; but he always seems in a hurry, except now and then, when he overdoes it."

"Does he never come and talk with you?"

"He often lets so long a time pa.s.s without saying a word, that I cannot help crying when I sit alone. Then, I suppose, he sees this, for he begins to talk with me, but it is always about trifles, never about anything serious."

The priest was walking up and down; now he stopped and asked, "Why do you not speak with him about it?"

It was some time before she made any reply to this; she sighed several times, she looked first downward, then on either side,--she folded the handkerchief she carried.

"I came here to-day to have a talk with father about something that lies heavily on my heart."

"Speak freely, it will lighten the burden."

"I know that; for I have now dragged it along alone these many years, and it grows heavier each year."

"What is it, my good woman?"

There was a brief pause; then she said, "I have sinned greatly against my son,"--and she began to cry.

The priest came close up to her. "Confess it to me," said he, "then we will together pray G.o.d that you may be forgiven."

Margit sobbed and dried her eyes, but began to weep afresh as soon as she tried to speak, and this was repeated several times. The priest comforted her, and said she surely could not have been guilty of anything very sinful, that she was no doubt too strict with herself, and so on. Margit wept, however, and could not muster the courage to begin until the priest had seated himself by her side and spoken kindly words to her. Then, in broken sentences, she faltered forth her confession:--

"He had a hard time of it when he was a boy, and so his mind became bent on travel. Then he met Kristian, he who has grown so very rich over there where they dig for gold. Kristian gave Arne so many books that he ceased to be like the rest of us; they sat together in the long evenings, and when Kristian went away, my boy longed to follow him.

Just at that time, though, his father fell down dead, and Arne promised never to leave me. Yet I was like a hen that had brooded a duck's egg, when the young duckling had burst the sh.e.l.l, he wanted to go out on the great water, and I remained on the bank screaming. If he did not actually go away himself, his heart went in his songs, and every morning I thought I would find his bed empty.

"Then there came a letter for him from a far-off country, and I knew it must be from Kristian. G.o.d forgive me, I hid it! I thought that would be the end of the matter, but still another one came, and as I had kept the first from him, I had to keep the second one too. But, indeed, it seemed as though they would burn a hole in the chest where they lay, for my thoughts would go there from the time I opened my eyes in the morning until I closed them at night. And you never have known anything so bad as this, for there came a third! I stood holding it in my hand for a quarter of an hour; I carried it in my bosom for three days, weighing within me whether I should give it to him or lay it away with the others, but perhaps it would have power to lure the boy away from me, and I could not help it, I put the letter away with the others. Now I went about in sorrow every day, both because of those that were in the chest and because of the new ones that might come. I was afraid of every person who came to our house. When we were in the house together, and there came a knock at the door, I trembled, for it might be a letter, and then _he_ would get it. When he was out in the parish, I kept thinking at home that now perhaps he would get a letter while he was away, and that it might have something in it about those that had come before. When he was coming home, I watched his face in the distance, and, dear me! how happy I was when I saw him smiling, for then I knew he had no letter! He had grown so handsome, too, just like his father, but much fairer and more gentle-looking. And then he had such a voice for singing: when he sat outside of the door at sunset, singing toward the mountain ridge and listening for the echo, I felt in my heart that I never could live without him! If I only saw him, or if I knew he was anywhere around, and he looked tolerably happy, and would only give me a word now and then, I wished for nothing more on earth, and would not have had a single tear unshed.

"But just as he seemed to be getting on better, and to be feeling more at ease among people, there came word from the parish post-office that a fourth letter had now come, and that in it there were two hundred dollars! I thought I should drop right down on the spot where I stood.

What should I do now? The letter, of course, I could get out of the way; but the money? I could not sleep for several nights on account of this money. I kept it up in the garret for a while, then left it in the cellar behind a barrel, and once I was so beside myself that I laid it in the window so that he might find it. When I heard him coming, I took it away again. At last I found a way, though. I gave him the money and said it had been out at interest since mother's lifetime. He spent it in improving the gard, as had been in my own mind, and there it was not lost. But then it happened that same autumn that he sat one evening wondering why Kristian had so entirely forgotten him.

"Now the wound opened afresh, and the money burned. What I had done was a sin, and the sin had been of no use to me!

"The mother who has sinned against her own child is the most unhappy of all mothers,--and yet I only did it out of love. So I shall be punished, I dare say, by losing what is dearest to me. For since midwinter he has taken up again the tune he sings when he is longing; he has sung it from boyhood up, and I never hear it without growing pale. Then I feel I could give up all for him, and now you shall see for yourself,"--she took a sc.r.a.p of paper out of her bosom, unfolded it, and gave it to the priest,--"here is something he is writing at from time to time; it certainly belongs to that song. I brought it with me, for I cannot read such fine writing; please see if there is anything in it about his going away."

There was only one stanza on this paper. For the second one there were half and whole lines here and there, as if it were a song he had forgotten, and was now calling to mind again, verse by verse. The first stanza ran,--

"Oh, how I wonder what I should see Over the lofty mountains!

Snow here shuts out the view from me, Round about stands the green pine-tree.

Longing to hasten over-- Dare it become a rover?"

"Is it about his going away?" asked Margit, her eyes fixed eagerly on the priest's face.

"Yes, it is," answered he, and let the paper drop.

"Was I not sure of it! Ah, me! I know that tune so well!" She looked at the priest, her hands folded, anxious, intent, while tear after tear trickled down her cheek.

But the priest knew as little how to advise as she. "The boy must be left to himself in this matter," said he. "Life cannot be altered for his sake, but it depends on himself whether he shall one day find out its meaning. Now it seems he wants to go away to do so."

"But was it not just so with the old woman?" said Margit.

"With the old woman?" repeated the priest.

"Yes; she who went out to fetch the sunshine into her house, instead of cutting windows in the walls."

The priest was astonished at her shrewdness; but it was not the first time she had surprised him when she was on this theme; for Margit, indeed, had not thought of anything else for seven or eight years.

"Do you think he will leave me? What shall I do? And the money? And the letters?" All this crowded upon her at once.

"Well, it was not right about the letters. You can hardly be justified in withholding from your son what belonged to him. It was still worse, however, to place a fellow Christian in a bad light when it was not deserved, and the worst of all was that it was one whom Arne loved and who was very fond of him in return. But we will pray G.o.d to forgive you, we will both pray."

Margit bowed her head; she still sat with her hands folded.

"How earnestly I would pray him for forgiveness, if I only knew he would stay!" She was probably confounding in her mind the Lord and Arne.

The priest pretended he had not noticed this. "Do you mean to confess this to him at once?" he asked.

She looked down and said in a low tone, "If I dared wait a little while I should like to do so."

The priest turned aside to hide a smile, as he asked, "Do you not think your sin becomes greater the longer you delay the confession?"

Both hands were busied with her handkerchief: she folded it into a very small square, and tried to get it into a still smaller one, but that was not possible.

"If I confess about the letters, I am afraid he will leave me."

"You dare not place your reliance on the Lord, then?"

"Why, to be sure I do!" she said hurriedly; then she added softly, "But what if he should go anyway?"

"So, then, you are more afraid of Arne's leaving you than of continuing in sin?"

Margit had unfolded her handkerchief again; she put it now to her eyes, for she was beginning to weep.

The priest watched her for a while, then he continued: "Why did you tell me all this when you did not mean it to lead to anything?" He waited a long time, but she did not answer. "You thought, perhaps, your sin would become less when you had confessed it?"

"I thought that it would," said she, softly, with her head bowed still farther down on her breast.

The priest smiled and got up. "Well, well, my dear Margit, you must act so that you will have joy in your old age."

"If I could only keep what I have!" said she; and the priest thought she dared not imagine any greater happiness than living in her constant state of anxiety. He smiled as he lit his pipe.

"If we only had a little girl who could get hold of him, then you should see that he would stay!"

She looked up quickly, and her eyes followed the priest until he paused in front of her.

"Eli Boen? What"--