Chapter 5

The Doctor, once more in good humor, drew the attention of all present. The ladies were never tired of his society. Is that thing there my rival? I thought, noting his lame leg and miserable figure. He had taken to a new and amusing oath: he said _Död og Pinsel_, [Footnote: A slight variation of the usual Död og Pine (death and torture).] and every time he used that comical expression I laughed aloud. In my misery I wished to give the fellow every advantage I could, since he was my rival. I let it be “Doctor” here and “Doctor” there, and called out myself: “Listen to the Doctor!” and laughed aloud at the things he said.

“I love this world,” said the Doctor. “I cling to life tooth and nail. And when I come to die, then I hope to find a corner somewhere straight up over London and Paris, where I can hear the rumble of the human cancan all the time, all the time.”

“Splendid!” I cried, and choked with laughter, though I was not in the least bit drunk.

Edwarda too seemed delighted.

When the guests began to go, I slipped away into the little room at the side and sat down to wait. I heard one after another saying good-bye on the stairs; the Doctor also took his leave and went. Soon all the voices had died away. My heart beat violently as I waited.

Edwarda came in again. At sight of me she stood a moment in surprise; then she said with a smile:

“Oh, are you there? It was kind of you to wait till the last. I am tired out now.”

She remained standing.

I got up then, and said: “You will be wanting rest now. I hope you are not displeased any more, Edwarda. You were so unhappy a while back, and it hurt me.”

“It will be all right when I have slept.”

I had no more to add. I went towards the door.

“Thank you,” she said, offering her hand. “It was a pleasant evening.” She would have seen me to the door, but I tried to prevent her.

“No need,” I said; “do not trouble, I can find my way...”

But she went with me all the same. She stood in the passage waiting patiently while I found my cap, my gun, and my bag. There was a walking-stick in the corner; I saw it well enough; I stared at it, and recognized it--it was the Doctor's. When she marked what I was looking at, she blushed in confusion; it was plain to see from her face that she was innocent, that she knew nothing of the stick. A whole minute passed. At last she turned, furiously impatient, and said tremblingly:

“Your stick--do not forget your stick.”

And there before my eyes she handed me the Doctor's stick.

I looked at her. She was still holding out the stick; her hand trembled. To make an end of it, I took the thing, and set it back in the corner. I said:

“It is the Doctor's stick. I cannot understand how a lame man could forget his stick.” “You and your lame man!” she cried bitterly, and took a step forward towards me. “You are not lame--no; but even if you were, you could not compare with him; no, you could never compare with him. There!”

I sought for some answer, but my mind was suddenly empty; I was silent. With a deep bow, I stepped backwards out of the door, and down on to the steps. There I stood a moment looking straight before me; then I moved off.

“So, he has forgotten his stick,” I thought to myself. “And he will come back this way to fetch it. He would not let _me_ be the last man to leave the house...” I walked up the road very slowly, keeping a lookout either way, and stopped at the edge of the wood. At last, after half an hour's waiting, the Doctor came walking towards me; he had seen me, and was walking quickly. Before he had time to speak I lifted my cap, to try him. He raised his hat in return. I went straight up to him and said:

“I gave you no greeting.”

He came a step nearer and stared at me.

“You gave me no greeting...?”

“No,” said I.

Pause.

“Why, it is all the same to me what you did,” he said, turning pale. “I was going to fetch my stick; I left it behind.” I could say nothing in answer to this, but I took my revenge another way; I stretched out my gun before him, as if he were a dog, and said:

“Over!”

And I whistled, as if coaxing him to jump over.

For a moment he struggled with himself; his face took on the strangest play of expression as he pressed his lips together and held his eyes fixed on the ground. Suddenly he looked at me sharply; a half smile lit up his features, and he said:

“What do you really mean by all this?”

I did not answer, but his words affected me.

Suddenly he held out his hand to me, and said gently:

“There is something wrong with you. If you will tell me what it is, then perhaps...”

I was overwhelmed now with shame and despair; his calm words made me lose my balance. I wished to show him some kindness in return, and I put my arm round him, and said:

“Forgive me this! No, what could be wrong with me? There is nothing wrong; I have no need of your help. You are looking for Edwarda, perhaps? You will find her at home. But make haste, or she will have gone to bed before you come; she was very tired, I could see it myself. I tell you the best news I can, now; it is true. You will find her at home--go, then!” And I turned and hurried away from him, striking out with a long stride up through the woods and back to the hut.

For a while I sat there on the bed just as I had come in, with my bag over my shoulder and my gun in my hand. Strange thoughts passed through my mind. Why ever had I given myself away so to that Doctor? The thought that I had put my arm round him and looked at him with wet eyes angered me; he would chuckle over it, I thought; perhaps at that very moment he might be sitting laughing over it, with Edwarda. He had set his stick aside in the hall. Yes, even if I were lame, I could not compare with the Doctor. I could never compare with him--those were her words...

I stepped out into the middle of the floor, cocked my gun, set the muzzle against my left instep, and pulled the trigger. The shot passed through the middle of the foot and pierced the floor. Æsop gave a short terrified bark.

A little after there came a knock at the door.

It was the Doctor.

“Sorry to disturb you,” he began. “You went off so suddenly, I thought it might do no harm if we had a little talk together. Smell of powder, isn't there...?”

He was perfectly sober. “Did you see Edwarda? Did you get your stick?” I asked.

“I found my stick. But Edwarda had gone to bed... What's that? Heavens, man, you're bleeding!”

“No, nothing to speak of. I was just putting the gun away, and it went off; it's nothing. Devil take you, am I obliged to sit here and give you all sorts of information about that...? You found your stick?”

But he did not heed my words; he was staring at my torn boot and the trickle of blood. With a quick movement he laid down his stick and took off his gloves.

“Sit still--I must get that boot off. I _thought_ it was a shot I heard.”

XVIII

How I repented of it afterward--that business with the gun. It was a mad thing to do. It was not worth while any way, and it served no purpose, only kept me tied down to the hut for weeks. I remember distinctly even now all the discomfort and annoyance it caused; my washerwoman had to come every day and stay there nearly all the time, making purchases of food, looking after my housekeeping, for several weeks. Well, and then...

One day the Doctor began talking about Edwarda. I heard her name, heard what she had said and done, and it was no longer of any great importance to me; it was as if he spoke of some distant, irrelevant thing. So quickly one can forget, I thought to myself, and wondered at it.

“Well, and what do you think of Edwarda yourself, since you ask? I have not thought of her for weeks, to tell the truth. Wait a bit--it seems to me there must have been something between you and her, you were so often together. You acted host one day at a picnic on the island, and she was hostess. Don't deny it, Doctor, there was something--a sort of understanding. No, for Heaven's sake don't answer me. You owe me no explanation, I am not asking to be told anything at all--let us talk of something else if you like. How long before I can get about again?”

I sat there thinking of what I had said. Why was I inwardly afraid lest the Doctor should speak out? What was Edwarda to me? I had forgotten her.

And later the talk turned on her again, and I interrupted him once more--God knows what it was I dreaded to hear.

“What do you break off like that for?” he asked. “Is it that you can't bear to hear me speak her name?”

“Tell me,” I said, “what is your honest opinion of Edwarda? I should be interested to know.”

He looked at me suspiciously.

“My honest opinion?”

“Perhaps you may have something new to tell me to-day. Perhaps you have proposed, and been accepted. May I congratulate you? No? Ah, the devil trust you--haha!”

“So that was what you were afraid of?”

“Afraid of? My dear Doctor!”

Pause.

“No,” he said, “I have not proposed and been accepted. But you have, perhaps. There's no proposing to Edwarda--she will take whomever she has a fancy for. Did you take her for a peasant girl? You have met her, and seen for yourself. She is a child that's had too little whipping in her time, and a woman of many moods. Cold? No fear of that! Warm? Ice, I say. What is she, then? A slip of a girl, sixteen or seventeen--exactly. But try to make an impression on that slip of a girl, and she will laugh you to scorn for your trouble. Even her father can do nothing with her; she obeys him outwardly, but, in point of fact, 'tis she herself that rules. She says you have eyes like an animal...”

“You're wrong there--it was someone else said I had eyes like an animal.”

“Someone else? Who?”

“I don't know. One of her girl friends. No, it was not Edwarda said that. Wait a bit though; perhaps, after all, it was Edwarda...”

“When you look at her, it makes her feel so and so, she says. But do you think that brings you a hairbreadth nearer? Hardly. Look at her, use your eyes as much as you please--but as soon as she marks what you are doing, she will say to herself--'Ho, here's this man looking at me with his eyes, and thinks to win me that way.' And with a single glance, or a word, she'll have you ten leagues away. Do you think I don't know her? How old do you reckon her to be?” “She was born in '38, she said.”

“A lie. I looked it up, out of curiosity. She's twenty, though she might well pass for fifteen. She is not happy; there's a deal of conflict in that little head of hers. When she stands looking out at the hills and the sea, and her mouth gives that little twitch, that little spasm of pain, then she is suffering; but she is too proud, too obstinate for tears. She is more than a bit romantic; a powerful imagination; she is waiting for a prince. What was that about a certain five-_daler_ note you were supposed to have given someone?”

“A jest. It was nothing...”

“It was something all the same. She did something of the same sort with me once. It's a year ago now. We were on board the mail-packet while it was lying here in the harbour. It was raining, and very cold. A woman with a child in her arms was sitting on deck, shivering. Edwarda asked her: 'Don't you feel cold?' Yes, she did. 'And the little one too?' Yes, the little one was cold as well. 'Why don't you go into the cabin?' asks Edwarda. 'I've only a steerage ticket,' says the woman. Edwarda looks at me. 'The woman here has only a steerage ticket,' she says. 'Well, and what then?' I say to myself. But I understand her look. I'm not a rich man; what I have I've worked to earn, and I think twice before I spend it; so I move away. If Edwarda wants someone to pay for the woman, let her do it herself; she and her father can better afford it than I. And sure enough, Edwarda paid. She's splendid in that way--no one can say she hasn't a heart. But as true as I'm sitting here she expected me to pay for a saloon passage for the woman and child; I could see it in her eyes. And what then, do you think? The woman gets up and thanks her for her kindness. 'Don't thank me--it was that gentleman there,' says Edwarda, pointing to me as calmly as could be. What do you think of that? The woman thanks me too; and what can I say? Simply had to leave it as it was. That's just one thing about her. But I could tell you many more. And as for the five _daler_ to the boatman--she gave him the money herself. If you had done it, she would have flung her arms round you and kissed you on the spot. You should have been the lordly cavalier that paid an extravagant sum for a worn-out shoe--that would have suited her ideas; she expected it. And as you didn't--she did it herself in your name. That's her way--reckless and calculating at the same time.”

“Is there no one, then, that can win her?” I asked.

“Severity's what she wants,” said the Doctor, evading the question. “There's something wrong about it all; she has too free a hand; she can do as she pleases, and have her own way all the time. People take notice of her; no one ever disregards her; there is always something at hand for her to work on with effect. Have you noticed the way I treat her myself? Like a schoolgirl, a child; I order her about, criticise her way of speaking, watch her carefully, and show her up now and again. Do you think she doesn't understand it? Oh, she's stiff and proud, it hurts her every time; but then again she is too proud to show it. But that's the way she should be handled. When you came up here I had been at her for a year like that, and it was beginning to tell; she cried with pain and vexation; she was growing more reasonable. Then you came along and upset it all. That's the way it goes--one lets go of her and another takes her up again. After you, there'll be a third, I suppose--you never know.”

“Oho,” thought I to myself, “the Doctor has something to revenge.” And I said:

“Doctor, what made you trouble to tell me all that long story? What was it for? Am I to help you with her upbringing?”

“And then she's fiery as a volcano,” he went on, never heeding my question. “You asked if no one could ever win her? I don't see why not. She is waiting for her prince, and he hasn't come yet. Again and again she thinks she's found him, and finds out she's wrong; she thought you were the one, especially because you had eyes like an animal. Haha! I say, though, Herr Lieutenant, you ought at least to have brought your uniform with you. It would have been useful now. Why shouldn't she be won? I have seen her wringing her hands with longing for someone to come and take her, carry her away, rule over her, body and soul. Yes ... but he must come from somewhere--turn up suddenly one day, and be something out of the ordinary. I have an idea that Herr Mack is out on an expedition; there's something behind this journey of his. He went off like that once before, and brought a man back with him.”

“Brought a man back with him?”

“Oh, but he was no good,” said the Doctor, with a wry laugh. “He was a man about my own age, and lame, too, like myself. He wouldn't do for the prince.”

“And he went away again? Where did he go?” I asked, looking fixedly at him.

“Where? Went away? Oh, I don't know,” he answered confusedly. “Well, well, we've been talking too long about this already. That foot of yours--oh, you can begin to walk in a week's time. _Au revoir._”

XIX

A woman's voice outside the hut. The blood rushed to my head--it was Edwarda. “Glahn--Glahn is ill, so I have heard.”

And my washerwoman answered outside the door:

“He's nearly well again now.”

That “Glahn--Glahn” went through me to the marrow of my bones; she said my name twice, and it touched me; her voice was clear and ringing.

She opened my door without knocking, stepped hastily in, and looked at me. And suddenly all seemed as in the old days. There she was in her dyed jacket and her apron tied low in front, to give a longer waist. I saw it all at once; and her look, her brown face with the eyebrows high-arched into the forehead, the strangely tender expression of her hands, all came on me so strongly that my brain was in a whirl. I have kissed _her_! I thought to myself.

I got up and remained standing.

“And you get up, you stand, when I come?” she said. “Oh, but sit down. Your foot is bad, you shot yourself. Heavens, how did it happen? I did not know of it till just now. And I was thinking all the time: What can have happened to Glahn? He never comes now. I knew nothing of it all. And you had shot yourself, and it was weeks ago, they tell me, and I knew never a word. How are you now? You are very pale: I should hardly recognize you. And your foot--will you be lame now? The Doctor says you will not be lame. Oh, I am so fond of you because you are not going to be lame! I thank God for that. I hope you will forgive me for coming up like this without letting you know; I ran nearly all the way...”

She bent over me, she was close to me, I felt her breath on my face; I reached out my hands to hold her. Then she moved away a little. Her eyes were still dewy.

“It happened this way,” I stammered out. “I was putting the gun away in the corner, but I held it awkwardly--up and down, like that; then suddenly I heard the shot. It was an accident.”

“An accident,” she said thoughtfully, nodding her head. “Let me see--it is the left foot--but why the left more than the right? Yes, of course, an accident...”

“Yes, an accident,” I broke in. “How should I know why it just happened to be the left foot? You can see for yourself--that's how I was holding the gun--it couldn't be the right foot that way. It was a nuisance, of course.” She looked at me curiously.

“Well, and so you are getting on nicely,” she said, looking around the hut. “Why didn't you send the woman down to us for food? What have you been living on?”

We went on talking for a few minutes. I asked her:

“When you came in, your face was moved, and your eyes sparkled; you gave me your hand. But now your eyes are cold again. Am I wrong?”

Pause.

“One cannot always be the same...”

“Tell me this one thing,” I said. “What is it this time that I have said or done to displease you? Then, perhaps, I might manage better in future.”

She looked out the window, towards the far horizon; stood looking out thoughtfully and answered me as I sat there behind her:

“Nothing, Glahn. Just thoughts that come at times. Are you angry now? Remember, some give a little, but it is much for them to give; others can give much, and it costs them nothing--and which has given more? You have grown melancholy in your illness. How did we come to talk of all this?” And suddenly she looked at me, her face flushed with joy. “But you must get well soon, now. We shall meet again.”

And she held out her hand. Then it came into my head not to take her hand. I stood up, put my hands behind my back, and bowed deeply; that was to thank her for her kindness in coming to pay me a visit.

“You must excuse me if I cannot see you home,” I said.

When she had gone, I sat down again to think it all over. I wrote a letter, and asked to have my uniform sent.

XX

The first day in the woods.

I was happy and weary; all the creatures came up close and looked at me; there were insects on the trees and oil-beetles crawling on the road. Well met! I said to myself. The feeling of the woods went through and through my senses; I cried for love of it all, and was utterly happy; I was dissolved in thanksgiving. Dear woods, my home, God's peace with you from my heart... I stopped and turned all ways, named the things with tears. Birds and trees and stones and grass and ants, I called them all by name, looked round and called them all in their order. I looked up to the hills and thought: Now, now I am coming, as if in answer to their calling. Far above, the dwarf falcon was hacking away--I knew where its nests were. But the sound of those falcons up in the hills sent my thoughts far away.

About noon I rowed out and landed on a little island, an islet outside the harbour. There were mauve-coloured flowers with long stalks reaching to my knees; I waded in strange growths, raspberry and coarse grass; there were no animals, and perhaps there had never been any human being there. The sea foamed gently against the rocks and wrapped me in a veil of murmuring; far up on the egg-cliffs, all the birds of the coast were flying and screaming. But the sea wrapped me round on all sides as in an embrace. Blessed be life and earth and sky, blessed be my enemies; in this hour I will be gracious to my bitterest enemy, and bind the latchet of his shoe...

“_Hiv ... ohoi..._” Sounds from one of Herr Mack's craft. My heart was filled with sunshine at the well-known song. I rowed to the quay, walked up past the fishers' huts and home. The day was at an end. I had my meal, sharing it with Æsop, and set out into the woods once more. Soft winds breathed silently in my face. And I blessed the winds because they touched my face; I told them that I blessed them; my very blood sang in my veins for thankfulness. Æsop laid one paw on my knee.

Weariness came over me; I fell asleep.

* * * * *

_Lul! lul!_ Bells ringing! Some leagues out at sea rose a mountain. I said two prayers, one for my dog and one for myself, and we entered into the mountain there. The gate closed behind us; I started at its clang, and woke.

Flaming red sky, the sun there stamping before my eyes; the night, the horizon, echoing with light. Æsop and I moved into the shade. All quiet around us. “No, we will not sleep now,” I said to the dog, “we will go out hunting tomorrow; the red sun is shining on us, we will not go into the mountain.” ... And strange thoughts woke to life in me, and the blood rose to my head.

Excited, yet still weak, I felt someone kissing me, and the kiss lay on my lips. I looked round: there was nothing visible. “Iselin!” A sound in the grass--it might be a leaf falling to the ground, or it might be footsteps. A shiver through the woods--and I told myself it might be Iselin's breathing. Here in these woods she has moved, Iselin; here she has listened to the prayers of yellow-booted, green-cloaked huntsmen. She lived out on my farm, two miles away; four generations ago she sat at her window, and heard the echo of horns in the forest. There were reindeer and wolf and bear, and the hunters were many, and all of them had seen her grow up from a child, and each and all of them had waited for her. One had seen her eyes, another heard her voice. When she was twelve years old came Dundas. He was a Scotsman, and traded in fish, and had many ships. He had a son. When she was sixteen, she saw young Dundas for the first time. He was her first love...

And such strange fancies flowed through me, and my head grew very heavy as I sat there; I closed my eyes and felt for Iselin's kiss. Iselin, are you here, lover of life? And have you Diderik there? ... But my head grew heavier still, and I floated off on the waves of sleep.

_Lul! lul!_ A voice speaking, as if the Seven Stars themselves were singing through my blood; Iselin's voice:

“Sleep, sleep! I will tell you of my love while you sleep. I was sixteen, and it was springtime, with warm winds; Dundas came. It was like the rushing of an eagle's flight. I met him one morning before the hunt set out; he was twenty-five, and came from far lands; he walked by my side in the garden, and when he touched me with his arm I began to love him. Two red spots showed in his forehead, and I could have kissed those two red spots.

“In the evening after the hunt I went to seek him in the garden, and I was afraid lest I should find him. I spoke his name softly to myself, and feared lest he should hear. Then he came out from the bushes and whispered: 'An hour after midnight!' And then he was gone.