Part 6

"Here by these bushes something happened to me once. I was walking one evening as I so often did in my loneliness, and it was summer and fine weather. I lay down behind the bushes and was lost in thought. Then two people came quietly walking along the road. The lady stopped. Her companion asked: why do you stop? And as he got no answer he asked again: Is anything the matter? No, she answered; but you mustn't look at me like that. I only looked at you, he said. Yes, she answered, I know very well that you love me, but Papa won't allow it, you understand; it is impossible. He murmured: Yes, I suppose it's impossible. Then she said: You are so broad here, about the hand; you have such oddly broad wrists! And then she took hold of his wrist."

"Well, what happened?" asked Camilla.

"I don't know," replied Johannes. "Why did she say that about his wrists?"

"Perhaps they were nice. And then he had a white shirt above them--oh, of course I know why. I expect she was fond of him too."

"Camilla!" he said; "if I was very fond of you and waited a few years, I only ask.... In one word, I am not worthy of you; but do you think you would be mine some day if I ask you next year or in two years' time?"

Pause.

Camilla had suddenly turned fiery red with embarrassment, she twisted her slight figure this way and that and clasped her hands. He put his arm round her and asked:

"Do you think you could some day? Will you?"

"Yes," she answered, and fell into his arms.

* * * * *

The next day he saw her down to the pier. He kissed her little hands with their childish, innocent expression and was full of thankfulness and joy.

Victoria was not there.

"Why has nobody come with you?"

Camilla told him with scared eyes that the Castle was in the most terrible trouble. A telegram had come in the morning, the Master had gone as pale as death, the old Chamberlain and his wife had cried out with pain--Otto had been killed out shooting the evening before.

Johannes seized Camilla's arm.

"Killed? The Lieutenant?"

"Yes. They're on the way with his body. It is terrible."

They walked on, lost in their own thoughts, and only woke at the sight of the people on the pier and the sound of orders shouted from the ship. Camilla bashfully gave him her hand; he kissed it and said:

"Well, well, I'm not worthy of you, Camilla, no, not in any sense. But I shall be as good to you as I possibly can if you will be mine."

"I will be yours. I have wanted it the whole time, the whole time."

"I shall follow in a few days," he said. "In a week I shall see you again."

She was on board. He waved to her, went on waving as long as he could see her. When he turned to go home Victoria was standing behind him; she too held her handkerchief in the air and waved to Camilla.

"I came a little too late," she said.

He did not answer. What was he to say? Condole with her loss, congratulate her, press her hand? Her voice was so toneless and her face showed such distraction, a tragic experience had left its mark there.

People were leaving the pier.

"Your eye is still red," she said, as she began to walk away. She looked round for him.

He was standing still.

Then all at once she turned round and went up to him.

"Otto is dead," she said in a hard voice, and her eyes were burning. "You don't say a word, you are so superior. He was a hundred thousand times better than you, do you hear? Do you know how he died? He was shot, his whole head was blown to pieces, his whole silly little head. He was a hundred thousand...."

She burst into sobs and began to walk towards home with long, despairing steps.

* * * * *

Late that evening there was a knock at the Miller's door; Johannes opened it and looked out; Victoria stood outside and beckoned to him. He followed her. She seized his hand impetuously and led him up to the road; her hand was icy cold.

"Sit down, won't you?" he said. "Sit down and rest a little. You are so exhausted."

They sat down.

She murmured:

"What must you think of me, never leaving you in peace!"

"You are very unhappy," he said. "Now you must obey me and calm yourself, Victoria. Can I help you in any way?"

"For God in Heaven's sake you must forgive me what I said today," she begged. "Yes, I am very unhappy, I have been unhappy for many years. I said he was a hundred thousand times better than you; that was not true, forgive me! He is dead and he was my fiancé, that is all. Do you think it was of my own free will? Johannes, do you see this? It is my engagement ring, I was given it long ago--long, long ago; now I throw it away--throw it away!" And she threw her ring into the wood; they both heard it fall. "It was Papa who would have it. Papa is poor, he is completely beggared, and Otto would have had so much money one day. You've got to do it, said Papa to me. I won't, I answered. Think of your parents, said he, think of the Castle, our old name, my honour. Well then, I will, I answered; wait three years and then I will. Papa thanked me and waited, Otto waited, they all waited; but I was given the ring at once. Then a long time went by and I saw there was no help for me. Why should we wait any longer, come along with my husband, I said to Papa. God bless you, he said and thanked me again for what I was going to do. Then Otto came. I didn't go to meet him at the pier, I stood at my window and saw him drive up. Then I ran in to Mamma and threw myself on my knees before her. What is the matter, my child? she asked. I can't, I told her; no I can't take him; he's come, he's waiting downstairs; but let us insure my life instead and then I will be lost in the bay or the waterfall, it will be better for me. Mamma turned as pale as death and wept over me. Papa came. Now then, my dear Victoria, you must come down and receive him, he said. I can't, I can't, I answered and repeated what I had said, that he should take pity on me and insure my life. Papa did not answer a word, but sat down on a chair and began to tremble at his thoughts. When I saw that I said: Come along with my husband; I'll take him."

Victoria broke off. She was shaking. Johannes took her other hand in his and warmed it.

"Thanks," she said. "Johannes, be kind to me and hold my hand fast. Do me that kindness! Oh, how warm you are! I am so thankful to you. But you must forgive me what I said on the pier."

"Yes, that's forgotten long ago. Would you like me to fetch you a shawl?"

"No thanks. But I can't understand why I'm trembling, my head is so hot. Johannes, I have to ask your forgiveness for so much...."

"No, no, don't do that. There, now you are calmer. Sit still."

"You made me a speech at the dinner. I didn't know a thing from the time you got up till you sat down again; I simply heard your voice. It was like an organ and I was desperate at the power it had over me. Papa asked me why I called out to you and interrupted you; he was very sorry about it. But Mamma didn't ask me, she understood. I had told Mamma all, many years ago I told her, and two years ago I told her again, when I came back from town. That was the time I met you."

"Don't let us talk about that."

"No, but forgive me, do you hear, be merciful! What in the world am I to do? Now there is Papa at home, walking up and down his study, it is such a terrible thing for him. It's Sunday tomorrow; he has decided that all the servants are to have the day off; that is the only thing he has decided today. He is grey in the face and he doesn't say a word, so hard has his son-in-law's death hit him. I told Mamma that I was going to you. You and I must both go to town with the Chamberlains tomorrow, she answered. I am going to Johannes, I repeated. Papa can't find the money for all three of us, he will stay here himself, she said and went on talking about other things. Then I went to the door. Mamma looked at me. Now I'm going to him, I said for the last time. Mamma followed me to the door and kissed me and said: Well well, God bless you both!"

Johannes dropped her hands and said:

"There, now you're warm."

"Thank you so much, yes, now I'm quite warm.... God bless you both, she said. I have told Mamma all, she has known it the whole time. But dear me, who is it you're in love with, child? she asked. Can you ask me that again? I answered; it is Johannes I love, it is he alone I have loved all my life, loved, loved...."

He made a movement.

"It's late. Don't you think they will be getting anxious about you at home?"

"No," she answered. "You know that it is you I love, Johannes, you must have seen that? I have longed so for you all these years, nobody knows how much. I have walked along the road here and thought to myself, now I'll go a little way into the wood by the side of the road, for that is where _he_ used to go. And then I did so. The day I heard you had come I put on a light dress, light yellow, I was sick with excitement and longing and I kept going in and out of all the rooms. How radiant you are today! said Mamma. I was saying to myself all the time: now he's come home again! He is glorious and now he has come back, both those things are true! The next day I could not endure it any longer, I put on my light dress again and went up to the quarry to find you. Do you remember? I found you, too, but I did not gather any flowers as I said I would, and that was not why I came either. You were no longer glad to see me again; but thanks all the same that I met you. It was getting on for three years ago. You had a twig in your hand and sat switching with it when I came; after you had gone I picked up the twig and hid it and took it home with me...."

"Yes but, Victoria," he said in a shaking voice, "you mustn't say such things to me any more."

"No," she answered uneasily, seizing his hand. "No, I mustn't. No, you don't like it, I see." She began to pat his hand nervously. "No, I can't expect you to. And besides, I have hurt you so much. Don't you think you can forgive me in time?"

"Yes, yes, everything. It isn't that."

"What is it then?"

Pause.

"I am engaged," he answered.

X

The next day--Sunday--the Master of the Castle came in person to the Miller and asked him to come up about noon and drive Lieutenant Otto's body down to the steamer. The Miller could not understand and stared at him; but the Master explained curtly that all his men had the day off and had gone to church, none of his servants were at home.

The Master could not have slept that night, he looked like a dead man and was unshaven besides. But he swung his walking-stick in his usual way and held himself erect.

The Miller put on his best coat and went. When he had put the horses in, the Master himself lent him a hand in getting the body into the carriage. It was all done quietly, almost secretly, there was nobody to look on.

The Miller drove away to the pier. After him came the Chamberlain and his Lady, besides the Lady of the Castle and Victoria. They were all on foot. The Master was seen standing alone on the steps and making repeated gestures of farewell; the wind ruffled his grey hair.

When the body was carried on board the mourners followed. From the railing the Lady of the Castle called ashore to the Miller that he was to say good-bye to the Master for her, and Victoria asked him the same.

Then the boat steamed away. The Miller stood a long while watching her. There was a stiff breeze and the bay was rough; it was a quarter of an hour before the boat disappeared behind the islands. The Miller drove home.

He put the horses in the stable, gave them a feed and was going in to deliver the message he had for the Master. The kitchen door, however, proved to be locked. He walked round the house and tried to get in by the front door; that too was locked. It's the dinner hour and the Master's asleep, he thought. But as he was a punctilious man and wished to carry out what he had undertaken, he went into the servants' hall to find somebody to whom he could give his messages. In the servants' hall there was not a soul. He went out again, looked all about, and even tried the maids' room. There was nobody there either. The whole place was deserted.

He was just going out again when he saw the glimmer of a candle in the Castle cellar. He stopped. Through the little barred windows he could plainly see a man come into the cellar with a candle in one hand and a chair upholstered in red silk in the other. It was the Master. He was shaved and dressed as though for a great occasion. Perhaps I might knock at the window and give him the Lady's message, thought the Miller, but stood still.

The Master looked about him, held out the candle and looked about him. He pulled forward a sack which seemed to be full of hay or straw and laid it against the entrance door. Then he poured some liquid over the sack from a can. After that he brought packing-cases, straw and a discarded flower-stand up to the door and poured some of the liquid over them; the Miller noticed that in doing so he was careful not to soil his fingers or his clothes. He took the little candle-end, placed it on top of the sack and carefully surrounded it with straw. Then the Master sat down on the chair.

The Miller gazed at all these preparations with increasing amazement, his eyes were glued to the cellar window and a dark suspicion fell upon his soul. The Master sat quite quietly in his chair and watched the candle burning lower and lower; he kept his hands folded. The Miller saw him flip a speck of dust from the sleeve of his dress coat and fold his arms again.

Then the terrified old Miller uttered a shriek.

The Master turned his head and looked out of the window. Suddenly he jumped up and came close to the window, where he stood staring out. It was a face in which a world of suffering was depicted. His mouth was strangely distorted, he shook both his clenched fists at the window, silently threatening; at last he only threatened with one hand as he walked backwards across the cellar floor. As he struck against the chair the candle upset. At the same instant a huge flame shot up.

The Miller shrieked and ran out. For a moment he tore about the yard quite out of his wits and not knowing what to do. He ran to the cellar window, kicked in the glass and shouted; then he stooped down, seized the iron bars in his fists and shook them, bent them, tore them out.

Then he heard a voice from the cellar, a voice without words, a groan, as from a dead man in the ground; it sounded twice, and the Miller fled terror-struck from the window, across the yard, down the road and home. He dared not look behind him.

When a few minutes later he and Johannes came to the place, the whole Castle, the big old timber house, was in flames. A couple of men from the pier had also come up; but they could not do anything either. Everything was destroyed.

But the Miller's lips were silent as the grave.

XI

Ask of some what Love is and it will be no more than a breeze murmuring among the roses and then dying away. But again it is often like an inviolable seal that lasts for life, lasts till death. God has created it of many kinds and seen it endure or perish:

Two mothers are walking along a road and talking together. One of them is dressed in gay blue garments because her lover has come home from a journey. The other is dressed in mourning. She had three daughters, two of them dark, the third fair, and the fair one died. That is ten years ago, ten whole years, and still the mother wears mourning for her.

"It is so glorious today!" cries the blue-clad mother exulting, and claps her hands. "The warmth goes to my head, love has gone to my head, I am full of happiness. I could strip myself naked here on the road and stretch out my arms to the sun and send it kisses."

But the black-clad mother is silent and neither smiles nor makes reply.

"Are you still sorrowing for your little girl?" asks the Blue one in the innocence of her heart. "Is it not ten years since she died?"

The Black one answers:

"Yes. She would have been fifteen now."

Then the Blue one says to console her:

"But you have other daughters alive, you have two left."

The Black one sobs:

"Yes. But neither of them is fair. She who died was so fair and bright."

And the two mothers part and go their several ways, each with her love....

But the same two dark daughters had also, each her love, and they loved the same man.

He came to the elder and said:

"I wish to ask your advice, for I love your sister. Yesterday I was untrue to her, she surprised me kissing your servant girl in the passage; she gave a little scream, it was like a whimper, and passed by. What am I to do now? I love your sister; for Heaven's sake speak to her and help me!"

And the elder sister paled and put her hand to her heart; but she smiled as though she would bless him and answered:

"I will help you."

The next day he went to the younger and threw himself on his knees before her and confessed his love.

She looked him up and down and answered:

"Unfortunately I can't spare more than ten shillings, if that is what you mean. But go to my sister, she has more."

With that she left him, holding her head proudly.

But when she had reached her room she threw herself upon the floor and wrung her hands with love.

* * * * *

It was winter and the streets were cold, with fog, dust and wind. Johannes was back in town, in his old room where he heard the creaking of the poplars against the wooden wall and from whose window he had more than once greeted the dawning day. Now the sun was gone.

His work had occupied him the whole time, the big sheets he had filled, growing and growing as the winter wore on. It was a series of fairy tales from the land of his fancy, an endless night in a crimson sunset glow.

But the days were not all alike, he had both good and bad, and sometimes when his work was going best, a thought, a pair of eyes, a word from the past might strike him and quench his inspiration at once. Then he got up and began to pace his room from wall to wall; he had done that so often that he had worn a white path across the floor and it grew whiter every day....

"Today, as I cannot work, cannot think, cannot rest for memories, I will set myself to describe what befell me one night. Dear Reader, today I have had such a terribly bad day. It is snowing outside, there are scarcely any people in the streets, everything is dismal and my soul is so fearfully desolate. I have been walking in the street and then for hours in my room and have tried to compose myself a little; but now it is afternoon, and I am no better. I who should be warm am cold and pale like a sunless day. Dear Reader, in this state I am trying to describe a bright and thrilling night. For work forces calm upon me and when a few more hours are past I shall perhaps be happy again...."

There was a knock at the door and Camilla Seier, his young secret fiancé, came in. He put down his pen and got up. They both smiled as they shook hands.

"You don't ask me about the ball," she said at once, throwing herself into a chair. "I danced every single dance. It lasted till three o'clock. I danced with Richmond."

"Thank you so much for coming, Camilla. I am so miserably depressed and you are so cheerful; that will help me. Fancy, and what did you wear at the ball?"

"Red, of course. Oh dear, I can't remember, but I must have talked a lot and laughed a lot. It was so jolly. Yes, I was in red, no sleeves, not a hint of them. Richmond is at the Legation in London."

"I see."

"His people are English, but he was born here. What have you been doing to your eyes? They're so red. Have you been crying?"

"No," he answered with a laugh; "but I have been staring into my stories and there is so much sunshine there. Camilla, if you want to be a really nice girl, don't tear up that paper any more than you have done."

"Oh I say, how absent-minded I am. Excuse me, Johannes."

"It doesn't matter; it is only some notes. But let's hear now: I suppose you had a rose in your hair?"

"Oh yes! A red rose; it was almost black. I'll tell you what, Johannes, we might go to London for our wedding trip. It isn't nearly so awful as people say and it's all nonsense about the fogs."

"Who told you that?"

"Richmond. He said so last night, and he knows. You know Richmond, don't you?"

"No, I don't know him. He once proposed my health; he had diamond studs in his shirt. That's all I remember about him."

"He's simply sweet. Oh, when he came up and bowed and said: I expect you hardly remember me.... Do you know, I gave him the rose."

"Did you though? What rose?"

"The one I had in my hair. I gave it him."

"You must have been very taken with Richmond."

She turned red and protested warmly:

"Not a bit, far from it. Surely one can like a person, think them nice, without.... For shame, Johannes, are you mad? I shall never mention his name again."

"But, bless me, my dear Camilla, I didn't mean ... you mustn't think.... On the contrary, I should like to thank him for having entertained you."

"Yes, you just do it--you dare! For my part I'll never say another word to him as long as I live."

Pause.

"Well, well, let's say no more about it," he said. "Are you going already?"

"Yes, I can't stay any longer. How far have you got with your work now? Mamma asked about it. Fancy, I haven't seen Victoria for several weeks and I met her just now."

"Just now?"

"As I was coming here. She smiled. But my goodness, how she has changed! Look here, aren't you coming to see us soon?"

"Yes, soon," he answered, jumping up. A flush had spread over his face. "Perhaps in a day or two. I have to write something first, I've just thought of it, a conclusion to my tales. Oh, I shall write something, I tell you! Imagine the world as seen from above, like a rare and splendid pontifical robe. In its folds people are walking about; they walk in couples, it is evening and calm, the hour of love. I shall call it 'The Race.' I think it will be great; I have had this vision so often, and every time I feel as if my breast would burst and I could embrace the earth. There they are, men and women, beasts and birds and all of them have their hour of love, Camilla. A wave of rapture is at hand, their eyes grow more ardent, their bosoms heave. Then a fine blush rises from the earth; it is the blush of bashfulness from all their naked hearts, and the night is stained a rosy red. But far away in the background lie the great sleeping mountains; they have seen nothing and heard nothing. And in the morning God throws his warm sun over all. 'The Race' I shall call it."

"I see."

"Yes. And then I'll come when I've finished it. Thank you so much for coming here, Camilla. And don't think any more about what I said. I didn't mean any harm by it."

"I'm not thinking about it at all. But I shall never mention his name again. Never."

* * * * *

The next morning Camilla came again. She was pale and in an unusual state of excitement.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked.

"Me? Nothing," she answered quickly. "It's you I am fond of. You really mustn't think there's anything the matter with me and that I'm not fond of you. No, now I'll tell you what I've been thinking: we won't go to London. What do we want there? He can't have known what he was talking about, that man, there's more fog than he thinks. You're looking at me, what makes you do that? I never mentioned his name. Such a storyteller, he filled me up with lies; we won't go to London."

He looked at her, studied her attentively.

"No, we won't go to London," he said thoughtfully.