Pan Part 19

Eva answers:

"It was cruel of her to laugh at you."

"No, it was not cruel of her," I cry. "How dare you sit there speaking ill of her? She never did an unkind thing; it was only right that she should laugh at me. Be quiet, devil take you, and leave me in peace--do you hear?"

And Eva, terrified, leaves me in peace. I look at her, and repent my harsh words at once; I fall down before her; wringing my hands.

"Go home, Eva. It is you I love most; how could I love a dream? It was only a jest; it is you I love. But go home now; I will come to you to-morrow; remember, I am yours; yes, do not forget it. Good-night."

And Eva goes home.

The third iron night, a night of extremes! tension. If only there were a little frost! Instead, still heat after the sun of the day; the night is like a lukewarm marsh. I light my fire...

"Eva, it can be a delight at times to be dragged by the hair. So strangely can the mind of a man be warped. He can be dragged by the hair over hill and dale, and if asked what is happening, can answer in ecstasy: 'I am being dragged by the hair!' And if anyone asks: 'But shall I not help you, release you?' he answers: 'No.' And if they ask: 'But how can you endure it?' he answers: 'I can endure it, for I love the hand that drags me.' Eva, do you know what it is to hope?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Look you, Eva, hope is a strange thing, a very strange thing. You can go out one morning along the road, hoping to meet one whom you are fond of. And do you? No. Why not? Because that one is busy that morning--is somewhere else, perhaps... Once I got to know an old blind Lapp up in the hills. For fifty-eight years he had seen nothing, and now he was over seventy. It seemed to him that his sight was getting better little by little; getting on gradually, he thought. If all went well he would be able to make out the sun in a few years' time. His hair was still black, but his eyes were quite white. When we sat in his hut, smoking, he would tell of all the things he had seen before he went blind. He was hardy and strong; without feeling, indestructible; and he kept his hope. When I was going, he came out with me, and began pointing in different ways. 'There's the south,' he said, 'and there's north. Now you go that way first, and when you get a little way down, turn off that way.' 'Quite right,' I said. And at that the Lapp laughed contentedly, and said: 'There! I did not know that forty or fifty years back, so I must see better now than I used to--yes, it is improving all the time.'

And then he crouched down and crept into his hut again--the same old hut, his home on earth. And he sat down by the fire as before, full of hope that in some few years he would be able to make out the sun...

Eva, 'tis strange about hope. Here am I, for instance, hoping all the time that I may forget the one I did not meet on the road this morning..."

"You talk so strangely."

"It is the third of the iron nights. I promise you, Eva, to be a different man to-morrow. Let me be alone now. You will not know me again to-morrow, I shall laugh and kiss you, my own sweet girl. Just think--only this one night more, a few hours--and then I shall be a different man. _G.o.dnat_, Eva."

_"G.o.dnat."_

I lie down closer to the fire, and look at the flames. A pine cone falls from the branch; a dry twig or so falls too. The night is like a boundless depth. I close my eyes.

After an hour, my senses begin swinging in a certain rhythm. I am ringing in tune with the great stillness--ringing with it. I look at the half-moon; it stands in the sky like a white scale, and I have a feeling of love for it; I can feel myself blushing. "It is the moon!" I say softly and pa.s.sionately; "it is the moon!" and my heart strikes toward it in a soft throbbing. So for some minutes. It is blowing a little; a stranger wind comes to me a mysterious current of air. What is it? I look round, but see no one. The wind calls me, and my soul bows acknowledging the call; and I feel myself lifted into the air, pressed to an invisible breast; my eyes are dewed, I tremble--G.o.d is standing near, watching me. Again several minutes pa.s.s. I turn my head round; the stranger wind is gone, and I see something like the back of a spirit wandering silently in through the woods...

I struggle a short while with a heavy melancholy; I was worn out with emotions; I am deathly tired, and I sleep.

When I awoke the night was past. Alas, I had been going about for a long time in a sad state, full of fever, on the verge of falling down stricken with some sickness or other. Often things had seemed upside down. I had been looking at everything through inflamed eyes. A deep misery had possessed me.

It was over now.

XXV

It was autumn. The summer was gone. It pa.s.sed as quickly as it had come; ah, how quickly it was gone! The days were cold now. I went out shooting and fishing--sang songs in the woods. And there were days with a thick mist that came floating in from the sea, damming up everything behind a wall of murk.

One such day something happened. I lost my way, blundered through into the woods of the annexe, and came to the Doctor's house. There were visitors there--the young ladies I had met before--young people dancing, just like madcap foals.

A carriage came rolling up and stopped outside the gate; Edwarda was in it. She started at sight of me. "Good-bye," I said quietly. But the Doctor held me back. Edwarda was troubled by my presence at first, and looked down when I spoke; afterwards, she bore with me, and even went so far as to ask me a question about something or other. She was strikingly pale; the mist lay grey and cold upon her face. She did not get out of the carriage.

"I have come on an errand," she said. "I come from the parish church, and none of you were there to-day; they said you were here. I have been driving for hours to find you. We are having a little party to-morrow--the Baron is going away next week--and I have been told to invite you all. There will be dancing too. To-morrow evening."

They all bowed and thanked her.

To me, she went on:

"Now, don't stay away, will you? Don't send a note at the last minute making some excuse." She did not say that to any of the others. A little after she drove away.

I was so moved by this unexpected meeting that for a little while I was secretly mad with joy. Then I took leave of the Doctor and his guests and set off for home. How gracious she was to me, how gracious she was to me! What could I do for her in return? My hands felt helpless; a sweet cold went through my wrists. _Herregud!_ I thought to myself, here am I with my limbs hanging helpless for joy; I cannot even clench my hands; I can only find tears in my eyes for my own helplessness. What is to be done about it?

It was late in the evening when I reached home. I went round by the quay and asked a fisherman if the post-packet would not be in by to-morrow evening. Alas, no, the post-packet would not be in till some time next week. I hurried up to the hut and began looking over my best suit. I cleaned it up and made it look decent; there were holes in it here and there, and I wept and darned them.

When I had finished, I lay down on the bed. This rest lasted only a moment. Then a thought struck me, and I sprang up and stood in the middle of the floor, dazed. The whole thing was just another trick! I should not have been invited if I had not happened to be there when the others were asked. And, moreover, she had given me the plainest possible hint to stay away--to send a note at the last moment, making some excuse...

I did not sleep all that night, and when morning came I went to the woods cold, sleepless, and feverish. Ho, having a party at Sirilund!

What then? I would neither go nor send any excuse. Herr Mack was a very thoughtful man; he was giving this party for the Baron; but I was not going--let them understand that! ...

The mist lay thick over valley and hills; a clammy rime gathered on my clothes and made them heavy, my face was cold and wet. Only now and then came a breath of wind to make the sleeping mists rise and fall, rise and fall.

It was late in the afternoon, and getting dark; the mist hid everything from my eyes, and I had no sun to show the way. I drifted about for hours on the way home, but there was no hurry. I took the wrong road with the greatest calmness, and came upon unknown places in the woods.

At last I stood my gun against a tree and consulted my compa.s.s. I marked out my way carefully and started off. It would be about eight or nine o'clock.

Then something happened.

After half an hour, I heard music through the fog, and a few minutes later I knew where I was: quite close to the main building at Sirilund.

Had my compa.s.s misled me to the very place I was trying to avoid? A well-known voice called me--the Doctor's. A minute later I was being led in.

My gun-barrel had perhaps affected the compa.s.s and, alas, set it wrong.

The same thing has happened to me since--one day this year. I do not know what to think. Then, too, it may have been fate.

XXVI

All the evening I had a bitter feeling that I should not have come to that party. My coming was hardly noticed at all, they were all so occupied with one another; Edwarda hardly bade me welcome. I began drinking hard because I knew I was unwelcome; and yet I did not go away.

Herr Mack smiled a great deal and put on his most amiable expression; he was in evening dress, and looked well. He was now here, now there, mingling with his half a hundred guests, dancing one dance now and then, joking and laughing. There were secrets lurking in his eyes.

A whirl of music and voices sounded through the house. Five of the rooms were occupied by the guests, besides the big room where they were dancing. Supper was over when I arrived. Busy maids were running to and fro with gla.s.ses and wines, brightly polished coffee-pots, cigars and pipes, cakes and fruit. There was no sparing of anything. The chandeliers in the rooms were filled with extra-thick candles that had been made for the occasion; the new oil lamps were lit as well. Eva was helping in the kitchen; I caught a glimpse of her. To think that Eva should be here too!

The Baron received a great deal of attention, though he was quiet and modest and did not put himself forward. He, too, was in evening dress; the tails of his coat were miserably crushed from the packing. He talked a good deal with Edwarda, followed her with his eyes, drank with her, and called her Froken, as he did the daughters of the Dean and of the district surgeon. I felt the same dislike of him as before, and could hardly look at him without turning my eyes away with a wretched silly grimace. When he spoke to me, I answered shortly and pressed my lips together after.

I happen to remember one detail of that evening. I stood talking to a young lady, a fair-haired girl; and I said something or told some story that made her laugh. It can hardly have been anything remarkable, but perhaps, in my excited state, I told it more amusingly than I remember now--at any rate, I have forgotten it. But when I turned round, there was Edwarda standing behind me. She gave me a glance of recognition.