by Herman Bang
She emerged in the doorway, completely filling it; the tartan ribbons on her bonnet were fixed with pins and were flapping around her ears like a pair of blinkers.
“Yes, yes,” she said, following this with a torrent of words about the washing.
“And you know what a lot of woollens Thønnichsen uses.”
Miss Thøgersen sat down on the chair by the door, her stomach resting on her distended lower regions.
“Ach, and now that Julie has got herself into trouble,” she said.
Ida was in the kitchen, and Mrs Brandt said that Mrs Thomsen could not be so far gone.
“Ach nein, ach nein.” Miss Thøgersen moved across to the basket chair; she moved and collapsed into ten chairs in the course of ten minutes. “But Maren has. She cannot control herself and yesterday they had to send for the midwife.”
Maren was her “niece”, Julie’s maid-of-all work (the three fruits of the coppersmith’s life with Miss Thøgersen were all referred to as belonging to a collateral branch of the family) and she loyally ran the entire household except for the ten days when the midwife was needed. That happened, almost to the day, around the first of April.
“Ach ja, ach ja…” Miss Thøgersen went on to give them a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding Maren and the need for the midwife. When she was sitting in the basket chair she always spoke quickly and in a half whisper, while Mrs Brandt remained seated, immovable, but with a singular expression on her face as though she was absorbing Maren’s words through an ear trumpet.
“Ach ja, ach ja,” Miss Thøgersen finished, placing her hands down on her legs.
“And otherwise she is such a decent person.”
With her Schleswig accent, Miss Thøgersen accented her words differently and then she sat there in silence.
Mrs Brandt waited for a few moments. Then, from her raised position, she said:
“Who is it – this time?”
“Gott, Gott.” If only she knew.
Miss Thøgersen shook her head.
“But she is so good-natured,” she said in explanation.
Ida came in with the coffee; they both had a cup, Miss Thøgersen holding hers as though it were a basin.
From the platform came an admonition:
“Ida, your mouth …”
Ida often had her mouth open a little when she was carrying something. She offered sugar and went back; she tended to withdraw to the far reaches of the room when Miss Thøgersen was there.
But Miss Thøgersen went on. She had so many concerns.
“And then there was this Gustav who wrote from America – and wanted to come home…But Thønnichsen was not having any of it.”
Miss Thøgersen groaned (Gustav was one of the three).
“Ach nein,” she said, putting the cup down. “Ach nein, it is not the same as when you have stood before the altar.”
Miss Thøgersen had many concerns regarding her family.
The church bells began to ring, and Miss Thøgersen rose from her chair.
“Oh dear, oh dear…and I have to spread sand.”
“It’s Christensen, the painter,” said Mrs Brandt.
“Ach, ja, so sad,” said Miss Thøgersen, assuming a quite different voice. “And with four children.”
“Will his widow stay in the house?” asked Mrs Brandt.
Miss Thøgersen did not know. “But there are people,” she said, “who are kind to a widow.”
There was something about the word “widow” that always touched Miss Thøgersen.
“Yes,” said Mrs Brandt. “He was a freemason of course.”
Miss Thøgersen had gradually moved into Ida’s seat by the window, when she suddenly shouted out in horror:
“Gott, Gott, there comes the minister…”
Miss Thøgersen lived in constant fear of clergymen on account of her illegitimate social position.
The minister went past to the house of sorrow and Miss Thøgersen rushed away. Thønnichsen the coppersmith, spread box cuttings and sand on the road for all his more important customers.
“Have you forgotten the cups?” said Mrs Brandt, and Ida took them.
Mrs Brandt watched through the mirror to follow events in the house of mourning.
The blind was down in Mr Sørensen’s window opposite to keep out the sun. It was always a source of irritation to him when funeral processions came down the street in the middle of the day.
When they came out of school, the boys shrieked as they ran along the pavement. Olivia’s eldest boy was at the front with the remains of a snowball over his left ear.
“Do they let him run about with bare legs now?” said Mrs Brandt. “Oh well, I suppose that’s supposed to be a good thing.”
“Olivia says she thinks it toughens them, mother.”
“Ach, there they are,” shouted Miss Thøgersen from outside on the pavement. She scattered the last handful of sand over the gutter plank and then helped with the box cuttings.
Mrs Brandt had already seen the hearse in the mirror. It was the expensive one with curtains.
The boys continued to run past on the pavement and the procession approached.
“Oh, look at the children,” said Ida.
Christoffersen’s two eldest were walking, stiff and shocked, in their new clothes, behind the hearse and in front of the minister, who was holding his white handkerchief up to his nose. The minister could not stand the smell of iodine.
There was a squeal from the pavement as Miss Thøgersen struck out at a couple of boys.
“Fie,” she said and went up her stone steps again. “You should be ashamed, getting in the way of that funeral procession…”
The cortege continued to walk past, and the bells were ringing. The last were mourners coming now: two round-shouldered old men wearing grey mittens.
Mrs Brandt looked away from the mirror.
“I suppose it’s the masons who are paying,” she said.
Miss Thøgersen still stood on the coppersmith’s stone steps. Miss Thøgersen wept bitterly every time she saw a coffin.
“It’s one o’ clock,” said Mrs Brandt. Ida had already started to set the table for dinner, on the mahogany table, beneath the mantelpiece clock.
∞∞∞
There was a loud noise by the door, awakening Mrs Brandt from her nap. It was the forester knocking the snow off his boots out in the corridor.
“Hello, everyone,” he shouted, opening the door to the kitchen. “You have guests from afar.”
“Good day, Ida my dear. Good day, Sofie.”
“Hello. Hello…” Ida emerged, and her voice took on a quite different sound. Then she opened the door to the sitting room.
“Good day, Mrs. Brandt,” said the forester in a rather more reserved voice as Mrs Brandt rose a little from her chair.
“Well,” said Mrs Lund as she was divested of a mass of clothes, the innermost layer consisting of two red-striped capes: “It’s been a lovely time. But it makes one quite giddy,” she said. “And then I always feel a little strange travelling by train…”
Mrs Lund sat down and Mrs Brandt said:
“Are you not going to take your hat off?”
“Oh, thank you. Just for a while.” Mrs Lund took off her hat and her grey hair stood on end and made her look like an uncombed poodle. Meanwhile she started telling all about her son’s wedding.
“Yes, we celebrated the wedding in the hotel. There’s a really lovely hotel at Kolding – and everything is so clean and tidy there. And there were sixty of us, just imagine, all those happy people. Yes, it was lovely to see so much happiness.”
“Did she wear silk?” asked Mrs Brandt.
“Oh yes, they do nowadays…and Good Lord, you know it can always be dyed afterwards.”
Mrs Lund went on with her account; she spoke rather quickly, for she always became as it were a little out of breath when sitting in the basket chair in front of Mrs Brandt; she told all about the dinner and the guests and the speech…
“And what about presents?” said Mrs Brandt.
“Yes, people really did remember us – even the smallholders sent telegrams…Oh, do sit down, Lund.”
“I need to move about a bit,” said Lund, but he nevertheless sat down by the door.
“Yes,” he said. “People have been really generous, indeed they have.”
“Yes,” Mrs Brandt intervened. “People will always remember those who have a bit of money behind them.”
Ida, who was setting the table again, said:
“And there were bridesmaids as well, of course.”
“Seven,” said the forester, slapping his hands against his thighs.
“And then we saw all the boys,” said Mrs Lund with a smile: “It’s so lovely when the children are growing up.”
The forester sat for a while nodding. Then he started to laugh and said:
“And our daughter-in-law went and made merry with all her brothers-in-law after the meal, fooling around in one room after the other, just as though she was at home, and even though she was still wearing her veil.”
“Yes, dear; that’s the way they are,” said Mrs Lund: “They are so much at home there.” She turned to Mrs Brandt as though needing to explain it to her.
“Yes,” said Lund, “and that was the only thing that brought tears to my eyes…For it was lovely,” he added quite quietly.
Ida laughed quietly, almost tenderly:
“How like Henriette that is.”
She continued to smile as she stood behind the table, as though she could picture Henriette going around in her veil and fighting with all her brothers-in-law for pure joy.
“Yes, it was lovely,” said the forester again.
“You have remembered the table?” said Mrs Brandt.
“Yes, mother.”
The table was ready and – holding on to the chairs in order to walk over the floor, but not using a stick – Mrs Brandt said:
“Well, I was not sure we could expect you.”
The forester sat down heavily on his chair and looked pleased to see so much food.
“It’s good to see,” he said, “that there’s plenty of food in the larder here.”
Mrs Brandt sat in the big chair, in front of the dishes.
“Well, at least we can still afford butter on the bread,” she said.
“It reminds me of the old house,” said little Mrs Lund who, as always when at Mrs Brandt’s, took a large amount on her plate and never managed to eat it.
“Aye,” said the forester. “It was always good to visit old Brandt.”
“Have you remembered to offer second helpings?” Mrs Brandt’s lips were trembling a little over her teeth.
“We simply had what suited our condition,” she said.
Mrs Lund took still more on her enormously filled plate.
“Oh,” she said. “I have so often felt ashamed of my house, Mrs Brandt, when I came to visit you.”
Mrs Brandt made no reply, but the forester started to talk about Christoffersen’s funeral.
Mrs Lund continued to tell Ida about the wedding, while Ida sat smiling. She knew all the forester’s boys, of course.
“There was a huge cortege, I must say,” said Lund. “Aye, Christoffersen was well liked.”
“Christoffersen’s,” said Mrs Brandt, “was always a place where there was plenty to throw around.”
Lund gripped his knife rather hard as he cut his ham, and the clocks could be heard ticking.
“Ah well,” said the forester. “Cheers, Ida my dear. Here’s to your turn, my girl…” He raised his glass. “Young ladies must always get to the altar and populate the world, damn it.”
“Yes, here’s to your turn, Ida,” said Mrs Lund. She had loosened the last shawl.
“There’s no hurry about that,” said Mrs Brandt. “Thank goodness, Ida is not one of those who need to be provided for.”
“Oh no, of course not,” said Mrs Lund. “That was not what I meant. But we always look to the future, Mrs Brandt, to the children’s future.”
She started to pat Ida’s hand, which was quite cold.
“Yes,” said the forester, “that’s what we’ re here for.”
“Yes, dear, but we often had to leave ours to fend for themselves.”
“You never did that, mother.”
“Yes we did, Lund. I know it only too well, for there were so many of them, and the little ones had to be looked after while the bigger ones did as they liked…But even so, it’s strange to think that they simply saw us doing our best, and now we can as it were always enjoy sharing their everyday lives with them.”
“Yes,” said Lund.
Mrs Lund continued to stare ahead.
“And the joy, that always comes from the heart, as they say, whatever pressures there are…”
Ida bent her head a little down in the direction of Mrs Lund, and from her sofa Mrs Brandt said:
“Yes, people have to talk so much about the children these days.”
“Well, Mrs Brandt,” said Lund in a rather loud voice, “I’ d jolly well like to know what else there would be to talk about once you’ ve brought them into the world.”
There was a knock at the door; it was Niels, the forester’s coachman, coming with some parcels, and Mrs Lund went out with Ida into the kitchen.
“It’s only a tiny bit, my dear, but I had said they could put it in the coach – a little ham and butter…I just wonder how the butter has stood the journey.”
“Oh, Mrs Lund, it’s far too much.”
“Well then, we’ll not say anything to your mother, and then you can arrange things…Your mother simply can’t get used to buying everything. And that’s quite understandable when she has come from such a house as you had…”
“Yes,” said Ida. “It really is difficult for mother…and then it would hurt her so much to know that she’ d been forgotten by everybody at home…Thank you.”
“Oh, heavens, my dear,” said Mrs Lund, “who is it up to more than to those who were so fond of your father? But if the butter hasn’t kept well, Ida” – they went into the bedroom and closed the door – “you must use it in the frying pan.”
Mrs Lund sat on the edge of the bed and Ida sat beside her.
“We’ re all a little confused,” she said, “but it was a lovely time.”
She still sat with Ida’s hands in hers, and the rooms were beginning to grow dark.
“For you know, it was what you could call such a safe wedding, those two who have known each other since they were children.”
“Yes,” said Ida – they were both speaking slowly and quietly – “It’s so lovely to see when people are happy.”
Mrs Lund nodded.
“Yes, so lovely, my dear.”
There was another knock on the sitting room door, but they both remained seated. It was Sørensen the borough treasurer and his daughter who were coming from their afternoon walk to the “Grove”.
“Are we not going to have the lamps lit?” said Mrs Brandt from the sitting room.
Ida lit the lamps and returned to the edge of the bed, where Mrs Lund was still sitting.
The borough treasurer sat in the basket chair and pulled his mittens off while Mrs Brandt followed him closely with her eyes. There was nothing but bones and veins left in Sørensen’s hands.
“Oh, so you’ve been to a wedding,” said Sørensen.
“Yes, we have indeed,” said Lund.
“Hmm, yes, everybody’s getting married these days…”
“It’s the way of the world, Mr Sørensen.”
“Yes,” and the borough treasurer tapped the floor with his stick. “Well, leave them to it.”
He looked up at Lund:
“I’m getting too old, Mr Lund; I don’t mix myself up in anything.”
The forester said something to the effect that that was probably the wisest course.
&n
bsp; “Wisest? Yes, but (and he banged his stick down again) where is it all going? Where is it all going?”
“One just sits here…”
The treasurer was silent for a moment and then he said in a quieter voice:
“That’s all there is.”
Miss Sørensen had gone into the bedroom and sat down on a chair in front of the bed. She had undone her cloak, revealing a satin-clad breast that rose like a mountain of gold.
“Oh, heavens, of course,” she said, “you’ve been to a wedding. Aye, we all go and think all sorts of thoughts, now we’ve had an offer for the house again…It’s Mathiesen, and he is very keen to have it for a shop.”
Miss Sørensen spoke in a whisper, but in an unbroken stream:
“And it would be best to sell it, you know, for when father is no longer with us I shall move to Copenhagen – that’s where my sisters are. But as long as father is alive, Mrs Lund, no one is going to make any changes, neither my sisters nor I.”
“That is only reasonable,” said Mrs Lund.
“That’s right, both my sisters and I are agreed. He’s an old man when all is said and done, and no one knows how long he has to go.”
The borough treasurer, who had the ears of an owl, said in the sitting room:
“Oh, they are on about the house again. But,” – and he spoke more loudly – “I’m still here.”
He banged his stick on the floor:
“Once they have me in the cemetery, they can do as they like. That’s all there is to it.”
Total silence descended on the bedroom.
“Now you can see what father is like,” said Miss Sørensen.
She sat for a few moments with her hands in her clean black lap and then she said:
“But after all, Mrs Lund, we human beings have to think about the future as well.”
The treasurer got up from his chair; he wanted to go. The forester went out to the steps with them; he nudged Lund’s arm and said:
“Hm, the old girl’s tongue is getting a bit swollen in there, isn’t it? I suppose she’s got fat round her heart as well.”
“Yes, she seems to me to be going downhill,” said Lund.
Sørensen nodded and looked up at Lund.
“Her tongue’s swollen,” he said. “Good night.”