Chapter 12

The schoolmaster gossiped thus:

People who had visited the village in Petra's girlhood always used to live at her parents' house. There was a room and a loft, and the engineer that planned the big road lived there, and so did the two traveling preachers, to say nothing of the itinerant peddlers who toured the district all the year round. So it went on for many a year, with the children growing up, and Petra getting big and hearty. Then Palm came; he was a Swede, a big merchant--a wholesale merchant, one might almost say, for that period, with his own boat and even a boy to carry his wares. Well, there were glass panes again in the windows of Petra's parents' house, and there was meat on Sundays, for Palm liked things done in style. He gave Petra presents of dress materials and sweets. Then he was finished with Petra, and went away to do business elsewhere. But it happened that the child Petra gave birth to was a boy, and when Palm returned and saw him, he stayed, and traveled no more. They married, and Palm added two rooms to the house, for it was his intention to open a shop there. But when he had built honestly and well, he died. His widow was left with two small children, but she had means enough, for Palm had had plenty of money. Then why did not Petra remarry? She could have got a man in spite of the handicap of two small children, for Petra herself was still a young girl. But from her childhood days, said the schoolmaster, she had been spoiled by this love of roving company, and again housed itinerant tramps and Swedes and peddlers, and thoroughly disgraced herself. Some of them stayed there for weeks, eating and drinking and idling. It was shameful. Her parents saw nothing wrong in this because it had always been their way of living, and besides it brought them a little money. So the years went by. When the children were grown and Sophie was out of the way, she might have married even then, for she still had half her money left, and being childless again, it was not too late. But no, Petra didn't want to, and it _was_ too late, she said; it was the children's turn to marry now, she said.

"Well, she's pretty old now, isn't she?" I said.

"Yes, time passes," the schoolmaster replied. "I don't know whether anyone has asked her this year, but last year there was someone--one person--or so I've heard, so I've been told. But Petra didn't want to. If I could only guess what she's waiting for."

"Perhaps she's not waiting at all."

"Well, it's all the same to me," says the schoolmaster. "But she takes in all these tramps and peddlers and carries on and makes a public nuisance of herself...."

As I walked home from the schoolmaster's, I found I understood Petra's arithmetic much better.

* * * * *

Nikolai has gone back to his workshop in the town, but I have remained behind. It matters little where I am, for the winter makes a dead man of me in any case.

To pass the time, I carefully measure the piece of land that Nikolai is going to break up when he can afford it, and I calculate what it will cost him, with drainage and everything: a bare two hundred _kroner_. Then he could keep a horse. It would have been an act of charity to give him this money in case his mother could not. He could have added another field to his land then.

"Look here, Petra--why don't you give Nikolai the two hundred _kroner_ he needs for fodder for a horse?"

"And four hundred to buy the horse," she muttered.

"That makes six."

"I haven't got such a lot of six hundred _kroners_ lying about."

"But wouldn't the horse be useful for plowing?"

A pause. Then:

"He can break the ground himself."

I was not unfamiliar with this line of reasoning. Everyone has his own problems, and Petra had hers. But the strange thing is that each one of us struggles for himself as though he had a hundred years to live. I once knew two brothers named Martinsen who owned a large farm, the produce of which they sold. Both were well-to-do bachelors without heirs. But both had diseased lungs, the younger brother's much worse than the elder's. In the spring, the younger brother became permanently bedridden, but though he approached his end, he still maintained an interest in everything that went on at the farm. He heard strangers talking in the kitchen and called his brother in.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Only someone to buy eggs."

"What's the price per score now?"

His brother told him.

"Then give him the small eggs," he cautioned.

A few days later he was dead. His brother lived till his sixty-seventh year, though his lungs were diseased. When anybody came to buy eggs, he always gave him the smallest....

"But," I insisted to Petra, "Nikolai doesn't want to waste time breaking his ground himself, does he? Surely if he works at his trade he'll earn more!"

"They don't pay for joinery here," Petra replied. "People buy their chairs and tables from the shops now; it's cheaper."

"Then why is Nikolai working as an apprentice?"

"I've asked him the same question," she replied. "Nikolai just wants to be a carpenter, but it won't get him anywhere. Still, he can do as he likes."

"Well, what else could he do?"

A pause. Petra's big mouth is closed. But at length she says:

"There's plenty of traffic now and a lot of tourists in the summer, both at Tore Peak and down here on the headland. One time we had two Danes living here; they had traveled on foot. 'If you had a horse, you could have driven us here,' they said to me."

"Ah," I thought to myself, "the cat sticking its nose out of the bag!"

"'You've got a big house and four rooms,' the Danes said, and 'There are high mountains and big woods,' they said, 'and fish in the fjord and fish in the river; there are lots of things here, and there's a broad road here,' they said. Nikolai was standing next to them and heard it all, too. 'Now we're here,' they said, 'but we can't get away again unless we walk.'"

Just to say something, I asked her:

"Four rooms--I thought you only had three?"

"Yes, but the workshop could be turned into a room, too," the big mouth replied.

"So that's it!" I thought. With hardly a pause, I continued:

"But if Nikolai were going to deal with tourists, he'd have to get a horse, wouldn't he?"

"Well, I suppose we could have managed it," Petra replied.

"It's four hundred _kroner_."

"Yes," she said, "and the carriage a hundred and fifty."

"But this land won't feed a horse!"

"What do other people feed horses on?" she asked. "They buy sacks of oats on the headland."

"That's eighteen _kroner_ a sack."

"No, seventeen. And you earn as much as that on your first tourist."

Yes, Petra had it all figured out; she was the born landlady, and had grown up in a lodginghouse. She could cook, too, for had she not put two snakes of Italian macaroni in the barley broth? The money for coffee, for the bed at night and waffles in the morning, had grown so dear to her that she hid it away, watched it increase, and grew rich on it. She did not produce like other peasant women, but no one can do everything at one time, and Petra was a parasite. She did not want to live by earning something; she wanted to live on the tourists who earned enough themselves, and could afford to come.

Splendor and Englishmen, no doubt, in these parts! If it all works out as it should--and it probably will.

* * * * *

It is February. I have an idea, a vagrant idea that comes to me, and I harbor it: now that there is a little snow, and its crust is hard, I shall walk across the fields into Sweden. That is what I shall do.

But before I can do it, I must wait for my laundry, and Petra, who is cleanly, washes in many waters. So I pass the time in Nikolai's workshop, where there are many kinds of planes and saws and drills and lathes, and there I fashion strange things. For the small boys of the neighboring farm, I make a windmill that will really turn in the wind. It whirls and rattles well, and I remember my own childhood when we called this apparatus onomatopoeically a _windwhirr_.

Besides this, I go out walking, and use my winter head as well as I can, which is not very well. I do not blame the winter, nor do I blame anything. But where are the red-hot irons and the youth of omnipotence? For hours sometimes I walk along a path in the woods with my hands folded on my back, an old man, my mind gilded for a moment by an occasional memory; I stop, and raise my eyebrows in surprise. Can this be an iron in the fire? It is not, for it fades again, and I am left behind in a quiet melancholy.

But in order to recall my young days, I pretend to be filled with a heaven-sent energy. It is by no means all pretense, and pictures rise in my mind, fragmentary flageolet tones:

We came from the meadow and downy heather; we came from friendship, too-loo-loo-lay! A star that watched saw lips meet lips. None else so dear, so sweet as you.

Those youthful days, those happy days, unmatched since then! but what am I now? The bees once swarmed, the swan once played. There's no play now, yet too-loo-loo-lay!

I break off, and put the pencil in my pocket with a tone still resounding within me. I walk on with some pleasure to myself, at least.

There is a letter for me. Who on earth has found me out here? The letter is as follows:

Forgive me for writing you, but I should like to talk to you about something that has happened. I should like to see you as soon as you come back. There's nothing the matter. Please don't say no.

Yours,

Ingeborg Torsen

I reread it many times. "Something that has happened." But I'm going to Sweden, I'm going to move about a little, and stop losing myself in the affairs of others. Do they think I am mankind's old uncle, that I can be summoned hither and thither to give advice? Excuse me, but I am going to assert myself and become quite inaccessible; the snow is just right, and I have planned a big journey--a business tour, I might almost call it, very important to me--I have a great deal at stake.... How composite is the mind of man! As I sit talking drivel to myself, and even sometimes saying an angry word aloud in order that Petra may hear it, I am not at all displeased at having received this letter; in fact secretly I am so pleased that I feel ashamed. It is merely because I shall soon see the town again--the town with its frostbitten gardens and its ships.

But what on earth can this mean? Has she been to my landlady's and got my address? Or has she met Nikolai?

I left at once.

XXXV

My landlady was surprised.

"Why, good evening. How well and happy you look! Here's your mail."

"Let it lie. I must tell you, Madame Henriksen, that you are a jewel."

"Ha, ha, ha!"

"Yes, you are. You are a very kind woman. But you have given my address to someone."

"No, indeed; I swear I haven't."

"No? Well, then someone else must have done so. Yes, you're right, I am happy, and tomorrow morning I shall get up very early and walk down by the shore."

"But I did send a message," said my landlady. "I hope it wasn't wrong of me. To a lady who wanted to know as soon as you arrived."

"A lady? You sent a message just now?"

"A little while ago, as soon as you came in. A young, handsome lady; she might have been your daughter, you know."

"Thank you."

"Well, I'm only saying what's so. She said she would come at once, because she had to see you about something."

The landlady left me.

So Miss Torsen was coming this very evening; something must have happened. She had never visited me before. I looked round; yes, everything was neat and tidy. I washed and made myself ready. There, she can have that chair; I'd better light the other lamp, too. It might not be a bad idea to sit down to my correspondence; that would make a good impression, and if I put some letters in a small, feminine hand on top, it might even make her a little jealous--hee, hee. Oh, God, ten or fifteen years ago one could play such tricks; it's too late now....

Then she knocked and came in.

I made no move to shake hands, and neither did she; I merely drew out a chair for her.

"Excuse my coming like this," she said. "I asked Mrs. Henriksen to send me a message; it's nothing serious, and now I feel a little embarrassed about it, but--"

I saw that it was something serious, and my heart began to pound. Why should my heart be affected?

"This is the first time you've been in my rooms," I said, expectant and on the defensive.

"Yes. It's very nice," she said, without looking round. She began to clasp her hands and pull them apart again till the tips of her gloves projected beyond her finger tips. She was in a state of great excitement.

"Perhaps _now_ I've done something you'll approve of?" she said, suddenly pulling off her glove.

She had a ring on her finger.

"Good," I said. It didn't affect me immediately; I was to understand more later, and merely asked:

"Are you engaged?"

"Yes," she replied. And she looked at me with a smile, though her mouth shook.

I looked back at her, and I believe I said something like, "Well, now, well, well!" Then I nodded in a fatherly fashion, bowed formally, and said: "My heartiest congratulations!"

"Yes, that's what it's come to," she said. "I think it was the best thing to do. Perhaps you think it's a bit unreliable of me or rash or--well, don't you?"

"Oh, I don't know--"

"But it was absolutely the best thing. And I just thought I'd tell you."

I got up. She started, evidently in a very nervous state. But I had only risen to turn down the lamp behind her, which had begun to smoke.

A pause. She said nothing more, so what could I say? But as the minutes passed and I saw she was distressed, I said:

"Why did you want to tell me this?"

"Yes--why did I?"

"Perhaps for a moment you thought you were the center of the world again, but--"

"Yes, I expect so."

She looked about her with great, roving eyes. Then she got up; she had been sitting all this time as though about to spring at me. I rose, too. An unhappy woman--I saw that plainly enough; but good heavens, what could I do? She had come to tell me she was engaged, and at the same time looked very unhappy. Was that a way to behave? But as she got up, I could see her face better under her hat--I could see her hair--the hair that was beginning to show silken and silver at the temples--how beautiful it was! She was tall and handsome, and her breast was rising and falling--her great breast--what a great breast she had, rising and falling! Her face was brown, and her mouth open, just a little open, dry, feverishly dry--

"Miss Ingeborg!"

It was the first time I called her this. And I moved my hand toward her slightly, longing to touch her, perhaps to fondle her--I don't know--

But she had collected herself now, and stood erect and hard. Her eyes had grown cold; they looked at me, putting me in my place again, as she walked toward the door. A cry of "No!" escaped me.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"Don't go, not yet, not at once; sit down again and talk to me more."

"No, you're quite right," she said. "I'm not the center of the universe. Here I come to bother you with my unimportant troubles, and you--well, of course, you're busy with your extensive correspondence."

"Look here, sit down again, won't you? I shan't even read the letters; they're nothing, only two or three letters perhaps, probably from complete strangers. Now sit down; tell me everything; you owe me that much. Look, I shan't even read the letters."

And with that I swept them up and threw them into the fire.

"Oh--what are you doing?" she cried, and ran to the fireplace, trying to save them.

"Don't bother," I said. "I expect no happiness to come to me through the post, and sorrows I do not seek."

She stood so close to me that I found myself again on the point of touching her, just for a moment, touching her arm; but I caught myself in time. I had already gone too far, so I said as gently and sympathetically as I could:

"Dear child, you must not be unhappy; it will all turn out for the best; you'll see. Now sit down--there, that's better."

No doubt she had been taken aback by my violence, for she sank into her chair almost absently.

"I'm not unhappy," she said.

"Aren't you? So much the better!"

I began to chatter away at top speed, though I tried to restrain myself, to show that I was nothing more than an uncle to her. I talked to distract her, to distract us both; I let my tongue wag--I could hear it buzzing. What could I say? A little of everything--a great deal, in fact:

"Well, well, child. And whom are you marrying, who is the lucky man? Nice of you to come and tell me before anyone, really very nice; thank you very much. You see I've only just come home and I haven't slept much on the journey. I was anxious to know--well, perhaps not anxious exactly--but still--You know what such a homecoming is: lots of people, noise, brr!--I hardly got any sleep. Then I came home, and then you came along--thank you for coming, Miss Ingeborg--I might be your father and you're just a child; that's why I say 'Ingeborg.' But when you told me all this, I hadn't had any sleep, I wasn't quite balanced--not enough to give you advice; I mean, I hadn't quite appreciated--But now you can quite safely--I'd like to know, of course--Is he old? Is he young? Young, of course. I am imagining what will happen to you now, Miss Ingeborg, in your new condition. I mean, it will be so entirely different from what you've been accustomed to, but God bless you, it will all turn out for the best, I'm sure of that--"

"But you don't even know who it is!" she interrupted, looking at me apprehensively again.

"No, I don't, and I needn't if you'd rather not tell me yet. Who is it? A dapper little man, I can see that from his ring, a schoolmaster perhaps, a clever young schoolmaster--"

She shook her head.

"Then a big, good-natured man who wants to dance with you--"

"Yes, perhaps," she said slowly.

"There you are--you see I've guessed it. A bear who will carry you on his paws. On your birthday--do you know what he'll give you for your birthday?"

But perhaps I was getting too childish; I bored her, and for the first time she looked away from me, looked at a picture on the wall, then at another picture. But it was not easy for me to stop now, after having spoken hardly at all for several weeks, and feeling profoundly excited besides--heaven only knows why.

"How did you like the country?" she asked suddenly. As I could not see the drift of this question, I merely looked at her.

"Weren't you at Nikolai's mother's house?" she persisted.

"Yes."

"What is she like?"

"Are you interested in her?"

"No, I don't suppose so. Oh dear!" she sighed wearily.

"Come, come, you mustn't sound like that when you're newly engaged! What the country was like? Well, there was a schoolmaster--you know, an old bachelor, sly, and amusing. Said he knew me, and put on the most extraordinary airs the first day. And of course I returned the compliment and said I had come exclusively to meet him. 'Impossible!' he said. 'Why should it be?' I said; 'forty years a schoolmaster, a respected man, permanent churchman, chairman, indispensable everywhere!' Well, then I attended his class. Most impressive. He talked continually; for once he had an audience, almost like a school inspection. 'You there, Peter! Ahem,' he said. 'There was a horse and a man, and one of them was riding on the other's back. Which one was riding, Peter?' 'The man,' Peter replies. A pause. 'Well, maybe you're right, Peter--maybe the man was riding. Just like sin, like the devil riding us....'"

But she was looking at the wall again, drifting away from me again. I changed the subject clumsily:

"Of course you'd rather hear about people you know--about Tore Peak, for instance. Josephine has been in town."

"Yes, I know," she said, nodding her head.

"Remember the old man at Tore Peak? I don't think I'll ever forget him. In a certain number of years I shall be like him--perhaps not quite so old. Then I shall be a child again with age. One day he came out, and went down to the field. I saw him; he had mittens on. You know he eats all sorts of things, and I saw him lie down and eat the hay."

She stared at me foolishly.

"But I must say he didn't look as though he had ever eaten hay before--possibly because it was rotting. It was the hay that had been left, you know--rotting down for next year--for the next tourist year."

"You seem to think," she said smiling, "that you have to cheer me up, because I'm terribly unhappy. I'm quite the reverse. Perhaps he's too good for me; that's what his sister seems to think, anyhow, because she tried to stop it. But I'm going to enjoy snubbing that sister of his. Anyhow, I'm not unhappy, and that isn't the reason I've come. I'd really much rather have him than anyone else--since I can't get the one I really want."

"You've told me this before, child--last winter, in fact. But the man you want has gone his way--besides, you said yourself that you didn't belong with him, or rather, that he didn't with you--I mean--"

"Belong? Do I belong anywhere? Do you think I belong in the place I'm going to now? I'm afraid I'm not really suitable for anybody--at least I can't think of anyone I'd suit. I wonder how I'll manage. I wonder if he'll be able to stand me. But I'll do my very best; I've made up my mind to that."

"Well, who is it--do I know him? Of course you suit each other. I can't believe you don't. He must be in love with you, quite madly in love, and you must love him in return. I'm sure you'll come through with flying colors, Miss Ingeborg, because you're capable and intelligent."

"Oh, well," she said, rising suddenly to her feet. But she hesitated over something, and seemed about to speak, then changed her mind again. At the door, she stood with her back to me, pulling on her gloves, and said:

"So you think I ought to do it?"

I was taken aback by the question, and replied:

"Ought to do it? Haven't you done it already?"

"Yes. That is--well, yes, I've done it, I'm engaged. And I can tell from your manner that I've done the right thing."

"Well, I don't know. I can't tell."

I crossed the room to her.

"Who is it?"

"Oh, God, no; let's drop it. I can't bear any more now. Good night."

She stretched her hand out fumblingly, but since she was looking at the floor, she could not find mine, and both our hands circled helplessly round each other for a moment. Then she opened the door and was gone. I called to her, begging her to wait, seized my hat, and hurried after her. An empty staircase. I rushed down and opened the street door. An empty street. She must have run.

"I'll try to see her tomorrow," I thought.

* * * * *

One day, two days, but I did not see her, though I went to all the usual places. Another day--nothing. Then I thought I would go up to her home and inquire about her. At first this did not seem to me too improper, but when it came to the point, I hesitated. There is, after all, something to be lost by making a fool of oneself. But was I not a kind of uncle? No--yes, of course, but still--

A week passes, two weeks, three. The girl has quite disappeared; I hope she hasn't had an accident. I mount the stairs to her home and ring the bell....

She's already gone away; they left as soon as they were married, last week. She's married to Nikolai, Carpenter Nikolai.

* * * * *

March--what a month! The winter is over, yet there's no telling how much longer it may still last. That's what March is for.