Look Back on Happiness Part 29

"Yes?"

"No, it's no use suggesting it. I'd have liked you to come with me this winter, though--I've got a small spare room."

"Why should I go there?" Still--it wasn't a bad idea.

"It would be nice if you could," said the carpenter.

Just then I heard the name of Solem mentioned in the hall. Yes, there he was, swaggering as usual, the self-same Solem from Tore Peak. He was standing alone, in high spirits, announcing that he was Solem--"Solem, my lad." He appeared not to be in the company of any one lady, for I saw him choosing partners indiscriminately. Then he chose the wrong lady, and her partner shook his head and said no. Solem remembered that. He allowed the couple to dance the next dance, and when it was finished, approached again and bowed to the lady. Once more he was refused.

The lady's appearance was striking--sophisticated or innocent, who could tell? Ash-blonde, tall, Grecian, in a black frock without tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. How quiet and retiring she was! Of course she was a tart, but what a gentle one--a nun of vice, with a face as pure as that of a repentant sinner.

Peerless!

This was a woman for Solem.

It was after he had received his second "No" from the gentleman that he began to talk, to tell everyone that he was "Solem, my lad." But his boasts were dull: Something was going to happen; he would show them an image of sin! There was no sting in it; just old, familiar rubbish these people had heard before. The commissionaire crossed over to him and asked him to be quiet, pointing at the same time to the constable by the door.

This pouring of oil on the waters was successful, for Solem himself said: "Hush, we mustn't make trouble." But he did not lose sight of the Grecian and her partner.

He allowed a few dances to pa.s.s again, himself engaging other partners to dance with. There was now a huge crowd, all the late-comers having by this time arrived. Many were crowded off the floor and had to wait, rushing to get first place in the next dance instead.

Then something happened.

A couple slipped and fell. It was Solem and his partner. As he was getting up again, he tripped up another couple--the Grecian and her partner, both of whom fell down. And Solem was so strangely clumsy as he rose that his long arms and legs brought down a third couple. In a few minutes there was a squirming heap on the floor; screams and oaths were heard, people grew angry and kicked one another, while Solem skillfully directed the disaster with sincere and wholehearted malevolence. Couple after couple met their Waterloo over those already fallen. The commissionaire poked them with his stick, exhorting them to get up; the constable himself a.s.sisted him, and the music stopped. In the meantime, Solem, acting with the better part of valor, slipped out of the room and did not return.

Gradually the fallen couples got to their feet again, rubbing their shins, dusting off their clothes, some laughing, others swearing. The Grecian lady's partner had a bleeding wound on his temple, and put his hands to his head in a daze. Questions were being asked about that--what was his name?--that tall fellow who had started all the trouble. "Solem," said some of the ladies. Threats were uttered against Solem: he was the one.

"Go and find him, somebody--we'll show him!"--"Why, he couldn't help it,"

said the ladies.

Ah, Solem, Solem--how the ladies loved him!

But the Grecian rose from the dust as from a bath. The sand from the floor clung to her black dress, making it look as though spangled with stardust.

Submissively she accepted the lot of lying under all the others, entwined in their legs, and smiled when someone pointed out to her that the comb in her Grecian knot was crushed.

x.x.xIII

Today, the first of October forty years ago, we drove the snowplow at home. Yes, I regret to say that I remember forty years ago.

Nothing escapes my attention yet, but everything moves past me. I sit in the gallery looking on. If Nikolai the carpenter had been observant, he would have seen my fingers closing and opening again, my absurdity augmented by affectation and grimacing. Fortunately he was a child. In the end I left it all behind me, and took my proper seat. My address is the chimney corner.

Now it is winter again, with snow over the north, and Anglo-Saxon claptrap in the town. This is my desolate period; my wheels stop, my hair stops growing, my nails stop growing, everything stops growing but the days of my life. And it is well that my days increase--from now on it is well.

Not much happens during the winter. Well, of course, Nikolai has got an overcoat for the first time in his life. He didn't really need it, he says, but he bought it because of the advertis.e.m.e.nt; and it was dear, twenty _kroner_, but he got it for eighteen! I am sure Nikolai is much happier about his overcoat than Flaten is about his.

But let me not forget Flaten, for something has happened to him. His friends have given him a farewell party and drunk him out of bachelordom, for he is going to marry. It is Miss Torsen who told me this; I met her by accident again under her own lamppost, and she told me then.

"And you're not wearing mourning?" I said.

"Oh, no," she said, smiling. "No, it's something I've known a long time.

Besides, perhaps I'm not very faithful; I don't know."

"I think you've hit the truth there."

She looked startled.

"What do you mean?"

"I think you've changed very much since last summer. You were straight and competent then, you saw clearly, you knew what you wanted. What's happened to your tinge of bitterness? Or have you no longer reason to be bitter?"

This was all too gravely spoken, but I was like a father and meant well.

She began to walk on, her head bent in thought. Then she said something very sensible:

"Last summer I had just lost my livelihood. I'm telling you things exactly as they were. I lost my post, which was a very serious matter. This made me reflect for a time; that's true. But then--I don't know--I'm quite adult, but not adult enough. I have two sisters who are really steady; they're married and quite settled, though they're younger than I. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Would you like to go to a concert with me?" I asked.

"Now? No, thank you, I'm not dressed for it."

A pause.

"But it's kind of you to ask me!" she said with sudden pleasure. "It might have been very nice, but--well, you must let me tell you about the dinner party, the banquet; what a lot of pranks they thought of!"

She was right about that; these jolly young people had played a great many pranks, some of them childish and stupid, others not too bad. First they had drunk wine of the vintage of 1812. No, first of all, Flaten was sent an invitation, of course, and it consisted of a painting, a very emanc.i.p.ated painting in a frame, the only written words being the date and the place, and the legend: _Ballads, Bachiads, Offenbachiads, Baccha.n.a.les_. Then there were speeches for him who was about to leave them, and generally speaking a most deafening shouting over the winegla.s.ses. And there was music, with someone of the company playing all the time.

But as the evening wore on, this sort of thing was not enough, and girls with their faces masked were brought in to dance. As there had been a great deal of champagne, however, this part of the program tended to deteriorate into something different, and the girls had to be sent away.

Then the gentlemen went down to the hotel lobby and stood at the door watching for "opportunities."

There--a young woman approached carrying a baby and a bundle of clothes.

Great, wet flakes of snow were drifting down, and she bent forward over the child to shelter it as she walked.

"Whoa!" said the gentleman and caught hold of her. "Is that your child!"

"Yes, he's mine."

"What, a boy?"

"Yes."

They talked more with her; she was thin and young, evidently a servant girl. They also looked at the child, and Helgesen and Lind, who were both short-sighted, polished their gla.s.ses and inspected it carefully.

"Are you going off to drown the child?" somebody says.

"No," says the girl in confusion.

That was a nasty question, all the others agreed, and the first one admitted it. He went off to fetch his raincoat, and hung it over the girl's shoulders. Then he tickled the child under the chin and made it smile--a marvel of a child, human bones and rags and dirt all in one little bundle.