In God's Way Part 17

"Not altogether."

"Have you gone shares with the others?"

"Yes, in drinking them."

"But did you buy them?"

"Yes, I bought the beer, but not the bottles; they are to be returned."

The woman was heard to t.i.tter.

"May I ask what is your name?"

"Soren Pedersen, that's my name."

"Look here, Soren Pedersen, will you let me buy the bottles of you?"

"Do you mean the beer?"

"Yes, the beer."

"All right, then."

"We shall have something, then, to drink to-night; for we must work all night, we must be ready to-morrow. We will help you with your work. Do you agree to that?"

"As you wish, doctor."

"Then will you kindly sup with us this evening?"

Then Kallem went upstairs in three-four strides; Ragni was out on the balcony, standing in the sun. She turned to him. He asked if she had finished her prayer? Yes, she was quite ready.

He, too, stood on the balcony, looking at the little islet at play beside the mother-island--it was visible from there--and the sea with its ripples, and the mountains yonder in distant grandeur. He looked over to the right, where the minister lived--she noticed it at once.

"They would never dare to treat us as though we were not married, eh?

It will be amusing to see what they do!"

She drew him in and pointed to the colour of the walls in their bed-room; it was exactly as she had asked for it to be, white, a dull oil-colour. Everything was to be white up there except the long curtains and hangings draped from the ceiling down over both beds, at the balcony windows, and before the door; they were blue in colour and pattern, and matched the ornamentations on the beds and the other furniture. Then she became very talkative; but Kallem wanted to see the hospital, and she thought she would like to go with him.

The first thing he wished to have altered when they stopped in front of it, inside the park, was that several beautiful old trees, that were too close to it, should be taken away. The hospital was a two-storied house, painted yellow, with exceptionally large windows, but very small panes. The ground floor of the building was brick and contained the servants' rooms and offices; it all looked very snug, with curtains in the windows and plenty of flowers standing in them. The entrance was at the left side of the house; and there was a very large yard railed in by a high fence. Kallem was pleased to see a row of shady trees by the paling; he knew that in about a fortnight he would have some American tents there for the use of the patients in summer-time.

The door was open, but no porter (concierge) to be seen; in the window there were religious books and tracts for sale. There was no notice put on the door to say when the patients might receive visits. Presently they saw the porter in the inner yard; he was an elderly man with a searching, solemn eye; he had spectacles on, but looked over the top of them and took them off directly he had taken in who it was.

"Are you the new doctor?"

"Yes."

Then he took off his hat too.

"Welcome!"

The patient he had been talking to crept on before them; he was pale and had a thick woollen scarf round his neck, even on that warm day; he kept at a distance and did not bow. The porter accompanied them.

In the hospital there was a suite of rooms on each side of a light and airy corridor, those to the front were large and those to the yard were small, both stories were built in the same way. The porter was not only porter, but he was also steward, and the oldest inspector the house had; he therefore felt called upon to introduce the other members of the household one by one as they met them. They were all respectable-looking people, both men and women; there were two deaconesses among the latter, and they seemed the pleasantest of them all.

The first thing Kallem intended to do was to do away with the old-established typhus-fever rooms, and to build a separate typhus-pavilion for winter use. The operating-room was very light, but there must at once be a new polished floor put in. The ventilating apparatus was most faulty. With the exception of these and a few minor drawbacks--such as the small windowpanes--it was a capital house, high rooms and roomy pa.s.sages, and generally airy; altogether he was well pleased.

The beds were pretty well filled, considering the time of year; tubercular disease of the lungs, his special study, was represented by three individuals, two boys and a girl about ten years old, poor, thin, waxy-pale creatures, whom he looked forward to seeing in his American tent. The late owner of the infirmary, old Dr. Kule--an uncle of Ragni's former husband--was dead; Kallem had bought it very cheap, because just at that moment there was no one else who could entertain the idea of buying. Here he would be able to arrange himself and his time exactly according to his own wishes; he had great plans. The parish gave their contribution, and a committee, consisting of the district physician and one other doctor besides, had the supervision of it; but he was entirely his own master. They were both of them quite delighted with this first visit. They went back to their own home in excellent spirits, but dreadfully hungry, took a bite of something in the kitchen and a gla.s.s of wine; thought fit to drink an extra gla.s.s on account of the important event that they were breaking bread for the first time in their own house.

Everything in the drawing-room was topsy-turvy; but in spite of it Ragni made her way to the piano. She had often attempted translations from that foreign literature--it had been like her own for five or six years--especially translations of poetry. Slightly flushed with the wine, and just a little shy, she struck some chords--begging him not to stand before her--then again more chords, and with a small, gentle voice, she recited more than sang:

Here let us live!

May our friends and our fancies, Our life's by-gone chances Flourish and grow-- In thoughts as in things, In trees as in tones, In voices, entwining Around us.

Here may my heart Through thee be laid bare To myself and to thee Who wert blind-- And joyfully, sinfully, Gladden thee, wound thee; Though yearning with years For a happy reunion With thine.

III.

The next morning they were awakened by a loud and continued noise. When they could collect their thoughts they knew it was the church bells ringing for service; they had slept very late, but then they had worked till three o'clock, that is to say, until broad daylight.

Kallem was out of bed in a second, and into the bathroom, next door, where he took a tremendous shower-bath; evidently, the former doctor had had a taste for that kind of thing! And hardly was he half dressed before he ran out onto the balcony to look at the view. He shouted in to Ragni to take her shower-bath too, and dress herself and come out to look at it; but she had felt the water so fearfully cold yesterday, she lay there with wide-open eyes, debating as to whether she should shirk it or really venture to take it. She made up her mind to shirk, so she quickly appeared at his side in a very pretty dressing-gown, which she had thrown round her. But although she looked so sweetly at him, and eagerly began praising the view and the exquisite day, he did not forget the shower-bath. Yesterday she had solemnly promised that she would begin the very first morning; susceptible to cold as she was, she must look upon a shower-bath as her daily bread, especially up here, where the change from heat to cold was so very sudden. Therefore----!

She made the most piteous face, and tried to laugh it off; but he pointed to the shower-bath--would she really break her promise? If she broke it now, this first time, she would break it too often later on.

She kissed him and said he was cruel; he kissed her and said she was sweet; but how about the shower-bath? So she darted in and undid her dressing-gown, as though she meant to take the bath, but popped into bed instead. When he came in, she pulled the clothes over her head; but without more ado he took up the blanket and its contents, and carried it to the door; but she begged and implored him to let her off, and seemed so frightened that he went back with his burden. She put her arms round him and dragged him down to her; she kissed him and whispered to him, and with her sweet caresses completely defeated his logic.

The bells went on ringing and ringing, carriages drove past away from the town. Hardly had one gone by before another came. The door was open; every time the bells stopped preparatory to the well-known three peals, they could hear the flies buzzing about the room, and the birds outside. They also heard the puffing of a little steamer out on the lake; they had seen it cut across from the other coast, probably with tourists. There must be some festivity going on somewhere to account for the way people were streaming in.

There was a light southwesterly breeze, filling the room each time with sweet scents; it poured in from the fields and trees. Through the clanging of the bells one could hear it whispering and sighing, the air seemed full of sounds.

Shortly after, they again stood on the balcony and watched the people going to church; well-packed carriages drove constantly past the church and continued upwards. The steamer came quite close; now the train whistled too. They both caught sight of two swallows that were evidently playing with their own shadows in the sand outside the veranda. They flew above and past each other, the shadows on the sand imitating each swoop; the birds wore down close to the sand and then a little way above; whenever they flew too high and the shadows disappeared, they darted down again to find them. She whispered to him that next year they would put out boxes for them to build in.

They finished dressing and went down to lunch. Soren Pedersen and his wife had arrived some time ago, and had their meal; they were now hard at work.

Then they heard that everyone was bound for the neighbouring parish, where the clergyman, Pastor Meek, was to celebrate his fifty years jubilee, and to preach a farewell sermon. Foot pa.s.sengers had been on the go all the morning; now came those in carriages; and a steamer full of people from the opposite coast. Meek had had this same living all these fifty years--"a truly delightful man."

Kallem and Ragni were lunching in the big room; but their lunch was interrupted by someone knocking, and in came a thin, elderly man, smiling and noiseless, with horn spectacles on his nose; this was Dr.

Kent, who was temporary manager of the hospital; he came from there just now. They both got up. He had a soft, pleasant voice, and a knowing smile accompanied all he said. He sat down at a little distance from them while they went on with their lunch, and gave a short account of the patients over at the "establishment," and of the sanitary state of both town and country. He answered dryly and briefly all questions as to those functionaries Kallem would have to call upon, as to the leaders in town and parish matters, and those of the local government board he ought to know. The purest business matters became pleasant when spoken of by Dr. Kent. When his gig came to the door--he was going on his rounds out in the country--Kallem asked leave to drive with him; but Ragni at once did the same too. So they hired a larger carriage and soon they were all three seated in it. Just as they were starting, Ragni remembered that the piano wanted tuning slightly, and she asked Soren Pedersen if he knew anyone who could tune at any rate for the present? Yes; there was Kristen Larssen.

So the drive began with an account of Kristen Larssen. Kent told them he was born up in one of the worst and most remote districts, and had been punished by the law for some trifling slip--he thought it was because he had called a tune he played, "the forgiveness of sins."

Kristen Larssen was an inventor too; there was a knitting machine much in use now which was his invention, and various kinds of tools. He was a cold man--cold as iron in the winter time. Soren Pedersen and his wife were the only people he had anything to do with. And who were those two? He knew nothing about their "antecedentia;" she was from these parts, he was from Funen. They were both clever at their work; but people soon found out that they drank. The minister tried to correct this failing; he had grown attached to them from the time they had worked for him in his new house. Strange to say, his efforts were crowned with success; not only did they give up drink, but Soren became a most zealous temperance man and very religious; at last he knew the Bible by heart. It was literally true, he knew it by heart! He often told them how it was his greatest delight to make Aase hear him, and in some few small a.s.semblies, he would repeat by heart whole chapters out of the Bible, while his hearers sat and followed attentively. The minister put his name down to get him into a Bible school, and he had no higher wish than to belong to it, but he expected Aase to be taken in too. As they did not agree to this, he gave up the Bible cla.s.s and became unsteady again in everything.

He then became acquainted with that Jack of all trades, Kristen Larssen, who had just settled in the town. Kristen Larssen had heard about Soren Pedersen's powers of learning by heart, and tried to find out the mechanism of it. But there was none; the whole thing was a gift of G.o.d's mercy; all things were possible for G.o.d.

That is in the book of Matthew, answered Kristen Larssen; but in the book of Judges it is written that the Lord was with Judah, but Judah could not make the enemy flee from the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

The worthy Soren Pedersen was much shocked that the G.o.d of the Jews had not gained the victory over the chariots of iron.