by Herman Bang
“There,” she said, “in with your paws.”
Josefine tapped him again and stood there fresh and high-bosomed, with her hands on her hips, while Bertelsen, apathetic and silent, swilled water up around his powerful neck.
“Look happy, Bertelsen,” she said. “The sun’s shining.”
There was something fresh and full about Josefine’s voice in the mornings that seemed to be telling people that she had come from outside and that she spent her nights away from the hospital.
“Good morning, nurse.”
Josefine nodded in towards the Hall, where Ida was sitting on the sun-lit bed with one of the two old patients, and turned on her heels –Josefine wore rather higher heels in the ward than the rules allowed.
“Good morning, Josefine.”
“There,” said Ida as she dried the old man’s hands, “now you are fine, Sørensen.”
The old man smiled and nodded.
The keys rattled energetically in the doors: “Good morning, good morning, what lovely weather.” It was Nurse Kjær, smart and rosy-cheeked, who was looking in through the door to the women’s ward.
“Isn’t it lovely,” said Ida, washing down a panel that had been warmed by the sun, while Nurse Kjær hurried out through the kitchen.
“Are you up yet, Petersen?” she shouted, knocking hard on Petersen’s door.
“Ach, how schön it is over the Lakes,” said Nurse Petersen behind a locked door. Nurse Petersen did not approve of having visitors in the morning while she was taking elaborate care of her thirty-year-old body and dressing in very white and youthful underclothes.
“Speak Danish, my dear German colleague,” shouted Nurse Kjær and banged on the door again.
The keys rattled again, and she was gone.
Ida removed the bowls of water; she was busy and worked quickly to butter the bread for them all. Yes, it would be lovely along the lakes today. Her morning walk round them after night duty was the best thing she knew.
She went around, humming and chatting with each patient as she gave them their food until she quietly opened the door to Ward A, where all was still dark.
“Good morning, doctor,” she said.
Ida opened the shutters to allow the light to pour in, while the sick man lay there, silent, with his long pale hands motionless on the blanket. She saw to him and he expressed his unswerving gratitude in the same tone (he always said this in a voice as though he felt some profound sympathy with whoever he was thanking) while raising a cautious eye to watch not the sun, but her.
Ida went on cheerfully.
“I’m going to go for a walk now,” she said.
The sick man merely nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “The sun is tempting.”
Ida laughed:
“Yes, after night duty…Good morning.”
“Nurse Petersen had emerged and, washed and wearing a starched uniform, was starting her duty. Nurse Petersen looked after the ward as meticulously as the manageress in a milliner’s shop.
“I’ll be off now,” said Ida, opening the door to the corridor, where she was met by the morning air, strong and fresh, pouring in through the open window.
Ida ran up the stairs to her attic room. The rattling of her bunch of keys sounded like the ringing of a set of cheerful little bells as she ran.
Once up in her room, she opened the windows: how fresh everything was, and all the bushes in the gardens were resplendent.
She stayed at the window and suddenly she smiled. She thought of Karl von Eichbaum, who, when she met him yesterday morning, had said:
“Yes, I really think spring is coming.”
And they had both laughed, and she had told him about Mrs Franck, who in past times, around the feast of Epiphany, would open her window a little when the sun was shining and sit there with her nose in the chink and say:
“Do you know, children, I can smell spring now.”
Ida continued to smile: she had recently been thinking so often of the old days and the year, that lovely year, before mother fell ill; and all the other years seemed almost never to have existed – there was only that time, that sunny time.
It was probably also because she had met them again, almost all of the people from home at Ludvigsbakke: Miss Rosenfeld, who had looked her up, and Karl von Eichbaum, whom she came across every day in the hospital.
Ida looked up at her clock and had to hurry: it had grown so late. She dressed and ran down the stairs and through the garden, closing and locking, closing and locking. There were three maids in the laundry, all singing. When Ida emerged into the big courtyard, Dr Quam was sitting on one of the stone steps, sunning his white trousers.
“Hey, where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“I’m going for a walk.”
Without getting up, Dr Quam handed her a rose.
“Take it with you, in the sunshine,” he said, and Ida fixed it on her coat.
Dr Quam sat there and watched her. “She has a nice way of walking,” he thought as the door closed and Ida went off into the daylight.
The bells could be heard clanging on the tramcars and in the botanical gardens the huge maize tops nodded their heads. Above her, at all the open windows, maids were beating dust out into the fresh air while Ida was walking. How energetically they were beating the rugs, and there were two who were talking to each other over the street. Faces and people and every single tree, all so dazzlingly clear on such a morning, as though one’s eyes became new.
On the corner at the end of the lakes, the flower lady stood on her steps and nodded.
“Thank you,” said Ida, nodding back to her as she inclined a little towards her and put her hand up to Quam’s rose: “I have one today.”
Otherwise, it was her habit to buy a flower, for their scent was so fresh early in the morning, when they had just been brought by the gardener.
“Oh yes,” replied the flower lady. “Isn’t the weather lovely today?”
“Yes,” said Ida, looking over the shining lake, where the white boats lay motionless beside the bridges as though they were not yet awake.
“It’s a good year for flowers, Mrs Hansen.”
“Yes Miss, even for roses,” said the flower lady, who was a little deaf and had in her eyes something of the wonderment of the deaf, who always look as though they are hearing some strange secret when they hear anything at all. “Even our roses are outdoor grown.”
“Good morning.”
Ida turned into the road along the lakes, as was her custom. She always walked along the same side of the lakes. She always liked the roads she was used to. There, she knew everything, every cranny, every boat and all the windows, and almost all the people she met as well. And there were some who actually said good morning, just as they did at home.
And now he nodded, too, the toothless old waiter from the “Rørholm” restaurant. This was the result of one morning recently when they had had coffee there – for Karl von Eichbaum had not had any at home because he had got up too late. They were the first customers and sat enjoying coffee and rolls behind an ivy-covered fence that had just been watered. “It’s almost as though we were in the country,” said Ida. “Yes,” said Karl von Eichbaum: “It’s nice here.”
They had not sat together at table since those days at home.
But he had never managed to get up in the morning. At home in Ludvigsbakke, he had always insisted on having the attic room above the main loft, for Schrøder could not be bothered to go right up there to get him up. And so he lay there until after noon puffing away on the steward’s pipes.
Ida was walking past the café when a voice called to her. It was Karl von Eichbaum, who emerged from behind the ivy.
“Morning,” he shouted.
Ida spun round.
“Good morning,” she said.
“I’m having my morning coffee here.”
“Again,” said Ida, stopping on the path.
Eichbaum drifted out on to the roadway with both hands
in his pockets.
“What glorious weather,” he said, standing for a moment to look at the water.
“We ought to have a picnic in the forest, Miss Ida,” he said, still with his hands in his pockets.
“Yes, perhaps we should.”
They walked a little beside each other, he still on the roadway.
“But then there are no forests in Zealand,” he said.
“No, I suppose not,” said Ida with a sudden smile.
“But over there, there are trees,” Eichbaum went on, still thinking of Jutland.
They stopped again, and a couple of young gentlemen of some obviously secretarial occupation went past.
Karl laughed and said: “The gentlemen all turn to look at you, Miss Ida.”
“Why?”
Eichbaum laughed again: “Well, why?” he said and smiled.
“Because you look so pretty as you stand there…Goodbye.”
Ida nodded and he strolled back, but in the middle of the roadway he stopped again briefly.
Ida went on. She was thinking of the forests. She had after all always thought that the forests at home in Jutland were quite different.
A little further along the road she met Nurse Kaas and Nurse Boserup. They were also taking a walk, but were already on their way home.
“You are late getting out,” shouted Nurse Kaas.
“Yes,” Ida replied. They stood chatting for a short time; Ida’s voice was noticeably bright.
“But I must get on,” she said. “Tick!” She tapped Nurse Boserup on the shoulder and ran off.
Nurse Boserup shook her shoulder after the touch.
“Grow up, Brandt?” she shouted after her.
But Ida stopped and shouted back with a laugh:
“I would so much have liked to go for a swim.”
Nurse Kaas and Nurse Boserup continued their walk, and Nurse Kaas said:
“Brandt looks nice in that hat.”
But Nurse Boserup dug her heel firmly in the ground and said:
“That’s no problem when you’ve got money.”
They talked a little about Ida’s means, and Nurse Boserup said:
“Yes, that’s all very well but in fact she’s merely taking up a job that some probationer could do with.”
Ida had gone as far as Østerbro, where she was met by the cheerful breeze from the lakes. She crossed the road to a flower shop and bought a potted plant for Nurse Helgesen. She felt such an urge to buy something – to buy everything.
When she arrived back at the hospital and went in to Nurse Helgesen with the plant, Helgesen was sitting at the central table with a large piece of embroidery. Nurse Helgesen always had a never-ending piece of embroidery on the go, with a regular and almost geometric design.
“But it’s ridiculous, everything you are buying these days.”
“Well,” said Ida, “it must be because the weather is so lovely.”
She stood for a moment with one of the leaves of the plant between her fingers:
“But isn’t it beautiful,” she said with a smile.
She went upstairs to the first floor. Nurse Petersen was crocheting by the big window, where the sun was shining on the flowers. The other four were working in the basement, and the two old patients were in the Hall, white and motionless, beside each other in their beds.
“How nice it is in here,” said Ida.
“Yes,” said Nurse Petersen; “it’s quiet in here this morning.”
There were no sounds apart from the doctor’s footsteps in Ward A, coming and going, coming and going, in perpetual motion.
“Well, good night,” said Ida.
“Good night.”
Ida went upstairs. She drew the green curtain to keep the light out. But she was unable to sleep. She was so happy and so easy in her mind.
She lay wondering what clothes she should buy now for the winter. She had thought of a pale beige dress. They were always so elegantly dressed for Nurse Fock’s birthday, in the evening. Then she could put it on for the first time.
She shook her head. She suddenly came to think of Karl von Eichbaum, how he had hunched his shoulders in his black summer overcoat the other morning when it was blowing a gale: “Ugh,” he had said, “and now I’ll have to get some winter clothes.”
Hm, he probably hadn’t any money…
No, and Ida smiled. Of course he had not.
Ida heard them coming up the stairs and the door down there being opened and closed. It was them coming from their work in the basement, so it must be twelve o’ clock.
No, for he had never been able to keep any money.
Ida fell asleep.
∞∞∞
It was the same day, in Toldbodvejen, in the middle building in the “Family House”.
Mrs von Eichbaum – armed with gloves with the fingers cut off – had finished the lamps, and Julius, wearing prunella boots, glided in and out and put them in place. The lamps were Mrs von Eichbaum’s sole domestic chore as they also were with her sister, the general’s wife. It was a tradition: they attended to the lamps themselves as though they were part of the family.
“I need the table setting for two, Julius,” said Mrs von Eichbaum, going out into the sitting room. Mrs von Eichbaum was expecting the general’s wife to come in from their country house. The general’s wife always stayed out in their country house until well into November. The autumn air did her good – both she and her sister suffered from dry skin.
“Besides,” she said to her sister, “you are always there yourself to supervise the way everything is brought indoors from the garden.”
The door bell rang on the stroke of twelve, and Julius opened the door.
“Good Lord, Emilie” – it was the general’s wife who entered the room – “what glorious weather, my dear…Good morning.”
“Good morning, Charlotte, it is so good to be able to have you on your own for a while.”
“Julius, you can bring the urn in.”
The general’s wife sat down on the sofa while Mrs von Eichbaum went in and inspected the table, and the sisters conversed with each other from one room to the other. The general’s wife talked about their country residence. She could not believe how delightfully fresh the mornings were.
“And the grapes, dear, grow to this size.” The general’s wife showed with her fingers how big the grapes grew. So she had really thought of trying the recipe recommended by Mrs Schleppegrell, the admiral’s wife.
“With refined sugar, you know.”
And then she could give her half of them.
“Yes,” said Mrs von Eichbaum, from the urn, “they are really so nice for a small dessert.”
The sisters continued to converse. They spoke in exactly the same way, in just the same voice, the general’s wife just a little faster, both with very open and genteel A’s, which as it were broadened all sentences as they spoke them.
“But Emilie,” – her voice rose a tone on saying Emilie, and the general’s wife let her hands fall down on her lap – “what do you think of Aline?”
“O good gracious me,” said Mrs von Eichbaum, coming to the door and standing there for a moment with closed eyes, “I can still hardly bring myself to talk about it. It is incredible that it could happen.”
The general’s wife repeated “incredible” and went on:
“And we in the family, who have all known her.”
“We can eat now, Charlotte,” said Mrs von Eichbaum.
They continued to talk about Mrs Feddersen. She was a childhood friend, Mrs von Eichbaum’s best, married to a landowner by the name of Feddersen from the estate of Korsgaard, who suddenly and without warning, had left her husband and children for a surveyor who had his own grown-up sons.
“And Feddersen,” said the general’s wife, “such a calm, admirable man.”
Mrs von Eichbaum handed a plate to her sister and said slowly:
“But, Charlotte, it must simply be a momentary aberration.”
“Than
k you, Julius,” – she turned to the butler, who had opened the door – “there is nothing at the moment.”
Mrs von Eichbaum continued to eat, but her tone assumed an explanatory or meditative tone.
“There has always been a curious urge to talk in that family, you know…they just had to talk and talk.”
“They have that from her mother. She was fond of speaking at revivalist meetings,” the general’s wife interposed.
“Yes,” Mrs von Eichbaum nodded. “All that about spiritual life, you know, and then they talk themselves into such an emotional state…Aline already had a bit of that in her young days.”
The general’s wife agreed, and Mrs von Eichbaum rose and poured the coffee.
“Good heavens, my dear,” she said. “Just fancy that people cannot learn to remain silent and suffer in private and get over it.”
The general’s wife took the coffee cup and nodded again.
If people were to talk of everything,” Mrs von Eichbaum continued, “then there would presumably be…There is probably something in every family.”
“Of course,” said the general’s wife.
“And we all have our own cross to bear,” concluded Mrs von Eichbaum, staring ahead.
They sat there for a short time. Then, in a rather different voice, sounding almost moved, Mrs von Eichbaum said:
“But of course, we must take her part…”
“And say the same thing…”
“Good heavens, Mille,” – when they were alone, the sisters occasionally abbreviated their names – “that is only reasonable. I told Anna Schleppegrell yesterday that Aline had gone to Vichy on account of her swollen legs…”
“They dropped the subject of Mrs Feddersen, and the general’s wife asked:
“Does Karl not have lunch at home?”
His name had so far not been mentioned.
“Oh no, dear,” said Mrs von Eichbaum. “It is such a long way… He has lunch in the office. Ane prepares it, and he takes sandwiches with him. You know, in one of those oilcloth briefcases…It makes him look like a civil servant.”