Shallow Soil Part 7

"Your health!"

Mrs. Hanka spoke first; she smiled to Ojen and said, out of the goodness of her heart:

"Oh, you Ojen, you Ojen! How everything you write seems evanescent, ethereal! 'Mute exhalations from the crowds'--I can hear it; I can feel it! It is thrilling!"

Everybody thought so, too, and Ojen was happy. Happiness was very becoming to his girlish face.

"Oh, it is only a little thing, a mood," he said. He would have liked to hear Paulsberg's opinion, but Paulsberg remained sphinxlike and silent.

"How _do_ you think of such things? These prose poems are really exquisite!"

"It is my temperament, I suppose. I have no taste for fiction. In me everything turns to poetry, with or without rhymes; but verses always. I have entirely ceased to use rhymes lately."

"But tell me--in what manner does your nervousness really affect you?"

asked Mrs. Hanka in her gentle voice. "It is so very sad; you must really try to get well again."

"Yes, I'll try. It is hard to explain; at times I will suddenly become excited without the slightest reason. I shudder; I simply tear myself to pieces. Then I cannot bear to walk on carpets; if I should lose anything I should never find it again. I should not hear it drop, and consequently I should never think of looking for it. Can you imagine anything more distracting than to have something you have lost lying there without your knowing it? It tortures me, therefore, to walk on carpets; I am in constant fear and I keep my hands over my pockets; I look at my vest b.u.t.tons to be sure of them. I turn around again and again to make sure that I haven't by chance lost something or other--And there are other annoyances: I have the strangest ideas, the most peculiar hallucinations.

I place a gla.s.s on the very edge of the table and imagine I have made a bet with some one--a bet involving enormous amounts. Then I blow on the gla.s.s; if it falls I lose--lose an amount large enough to ruin me for life; if it remains I have won and can build myself a castle on the Mediterranean. It is the same whenever I go up a strange stairway: should there be sixteen steps I win, but if there are eighteen I lose. Into this, though, there enter other intricate possibilities: Suppose there should be twenty steps, have I lost or won? I do not yield; I insist on my rights in the matter; I go to law and lose my case--Well, you mustn't laugh; it is really annoying. Of course these are only minor matters. I can give other examples: Let somebody sit in a room next to yours and sing a single verse of a certain song, sing it endlessly, without ceasing, sing it through and begin again; tell me--would this not drive you crazy? Where I live there is such a person, a tailor; he sits and sings and sews, and his singing is unceasing. You cannot stand it; you get up in a fury and go out. Then you run into another torture. You meet a man, an acquaintance, with whom you enter into a conversation. But during this conversation you suddenly happen to think of something pleasant, something good that is in store for you, perhaps--something you wish to return to later and thoroughly enjoy.

But while you stand there talking you forget that pleasant thought, forget it cleanly and cannot recall it at any cost! Then comes the pain, the suffering; you are racked on the wheel because you have lost this exquisite, secret enjoyment to which you could have treated yourself at no cost or trouble."

"It _must_ be strange! But you are going to the country, to the pine woods now; you will get well again," says Mrs. Hanka, and feels like a mother.

Milde chimes in:

"Of course you will. And think of us when you are in your kingdom."

Ole Henriksen had remained quietly in his chair; he said little and smoked his cigar. He knew Torahus; he gave Ojen a hint about visiting the house of the county judge, which was a mile away. He had only to row across a lake; pine woods all around--the house looked like a little white marble palace in the green surroundings.

"How do you know all this?" asked Irgens, quite surprised to hear Ole speak.

"I went through there on a walking trip," answered Ole, embarra.s.sed. "We were a couple of boys from the college. We stopped at the house and had a gla.s.s of milk."

"Your health, Mr. College Man!" called the Journalist sarcastically.

"Be sure and row over," said Ole. "County Judge Lynum's family is charming. There is even a young girl in the house if you care to fall in love," he added smilingly.

"He, he! No; whatever else one can accuse Ojen of, the ladies he leaves severely alone!" said Norem, good-natured and tipsy.

"Your health, Mr. College Man!" shouted Gregersen again.

Ole Henriksen looked at him.

"Do you mean me?" he asked.

"Of course, I mean you, certainly I do! Haven't you attended college?

Well, aren't you a college man, then?"

The Journalist, too, was a little tipsy.

"It was only a business college," said Ole quietly.

"Of course, you are a peddler, yes. But there is no reason why you should be ashamed of that. Is there, Tidemand? I say there is no reason whatever!

Does anybody feel called upon to object?"

Tidemand did not answer. The Journalist kept obstinately to the question; he frowned and thought of nothing else, afraid to forget what he had asked about. He began to lose his temper; he demanded a reply in a loud voice.

Mrs. Hanka said suddenly:

"Silence, now. Ojen is going to read another poem."

Both Paulsberg and Irgens made secretly a wry face, but they said nothing; on the contrary, Paulsberg nodded encouragingly. When the noise had subsided a little Ojen got up, stepped back, and said:

"I know this by heart. It is called 'The Power of Love.'"

We rode in a railway carriage through a strange landscape--strange to me, strange to her. We were also strangers to each other; we had never met before. Why is she sitting so quietly? I wondered. And I bent toward her and said, while my heart hammered:

"Are you grieving for somebody, madam? Have you left a friend where you come from--a very dear friend?"

"Yes," she answered, "a very dear friend."

"And now you sit here unable to forget this friend?" I asked.

And she answered and shook her head sadly:

"No, no--I can never forget him."

She was silent. She had not looked at me while she spoke.

"May I lift your braid?" I asked her. "What a lovely braid--how very beautiful it is!"

"My friend has kissed it," she said, and pushed back my hand.

"Forgive me," I said then, and my heart pounded more and more. "May I not look at your ring--it shines so golden and is also so very beautiful. I should like to look at it and admire it for your sake."

But to this she also said no and added:

"My friend has given it to me."

Then she moved still further away from me.

"Please forgive me," I said....

Time pa.s.ses, the train rolls on, the journey is so long, so long and wearisome, there is nothing we can do except listen to the rumbling of the wheels. An engine flares past, it sounds like iron striking iron, and I start, but she does not; she is probably entirely absorbed in thoughts about her friend. And the train rolls on.

Then, for the first time, she glances at me, and her eyes are strangely blue.

"It grows darker?" she says.