by Herman Bang
“I don’t know,” said Ida, supporting her head on her hand and in a voice that suddenly trembled.
The Russia leather purse had already appeared at the foot of his glass. He took it without thinking and opened it. There was a letter in the front compartment.
Ida grasped his arm: “That’s not for you.”
But Karl had already opened the letter: “It’s from Franck.” And in a tone as though it were a demand sent to him, he said:
“Of course it’s about the money.”
Ida made no reply and she put the letter away, but Karl said:
“I simply don’t understand what you do to get all that money out of him.”
“I lie,” said Ida, suddenly looking down at the tablecloth (she had blushed scarlet) and in the same breath – as though to say that he should not be so upset about that – she looked up and said:
“I always have done.”
Karl, who was touched and scarcely knew why, murmured:
“But to lie your way to a complete set of furniture isn’t all that easy.”
Ida smiled again, while considering the endless tissue of all her excuses.
“Yes,” she said, almost laughing: “Once you’ve started, you can always go on to lie more.”
“You’ re turning into a fallen woman,” said Karl. It was a long time since he had last grasped her hand so firmly and tenderly.
“But why do we need to talk about it?” said Ida, shaking her head. “Now we’ re going to have a drink.” And she took her glass.
When they had emptied their glasses and put them down, she suddenly, although she did not really want to, said:
“The worst thing they can do is dismiss me.”
“Surely they wouldn’t do that,” Karl exclaimed.
“Well, then that would be the end of it all,” said Ida.
But Karl made no reply until, with the same expression he had had in the circus, he said:
“But for God’s sake, she’ll surely keep her mouth shut.”
He beckoned to the waiter for the bill.
“Are we going already?” said Ida. It was as though she always had a sense of fear when they were to leave; and she looked across the table and the glasses.
“It’s jolly well about time,” said Karl.
He did not himself realise that he sighed a couple of times as he took a fifty kroner note out of the Russia leather purse.
But it was as though he had no wish to leave her, and in the carriage he said:
“Now we’ll go to the flat.”
“But it’s not ready,” said Ida.
“Surely something’s in place,” said Karl, and he called out the street and the house number to the coachman.
“You mustn’t inspect everything,” said Ida who had lit a little lamp in the passageway and now opened the door. But as she raised the lamp up in front of her, she pointed straight at two large rolls leaning against the wall:
“They are the carpet.”
“There’s a lot of it,” said Karl, standing and thinking that the furniture was too big for the living room.
“Yes,” and she nodded to him: “But you can’t see the pattern.”
“I’m dreadfully thirsty,” said Karl, taking off his overcoat.
Ida had some red wine and went to fetch it. Karl walked up and down alone, with a cigar that had gone out; lost in thought he rattled the furniture like the bars in a cage. The empty windows gaped at him like a pair of staring eyes.
Ida came back with the wine. “Thank you,” he said and was about to drain the glass.
But suddenly emotional, or desperate – at that moment he could gladly have smashed all that furniture – he said, and his voice was low:
“Well cheers, chick.”
“Yes,” said Ida, looking up into his face from the sitting room, where the furniture that was not yet in place cast long shadows: “This is our first glass here.”
And she drank the whole glass, her eyes fixed on his face.
Karl had gone.
“Thank you, I’ll stay here a little longer,” Ida had said.
Now she was alone. Her head was devoid of thought. She merely wanted to be alone when she put on her coat and her hat and when she left. But when she reached the street, she almost ran. She thought: supposing she met Nurse Friis at the gate, or outside, and she ran as though this would help her to avoid that.
But she reached her room without meeting anyone.
She took her outdoor clothes off. But she continued to walk up and down the floor. Then she opened the door. She wanted to see Roed and Nurse Petersen, to see them before they got to know about that. She went down. The entire building was silent. The first signs of day could be seen against the window in the corridor, and the patients were asleep. Quietly, she turned the key and went in. Roed and Nurse Petersen were sitting each on their own side of the stove, their eyes stiff with sleep.
“Gott, Gott, is it you?” said Nurse Petersen.
“I wanted a little chloral,” said Ida, and absent-mindedly, or nervously, she smoothed Roed’s hair with her hands.
“Oh, you’ re cold,” said Roed in the strangely indifferent voice of those who have been awake too long.
“Yes.”
Ida left her and went to the door to the Hall. The patient in the nearest bed moved and Ida went in. A bearded man wearing blue glasses lay staring up at her.
“Good evening, nurse,” he said in such a humble tone.
“Good heavens, Lauritzen,” said Ida: “Is it you?”
The patient made no reply. He was a drinker who was here for the third time and merely lay there wringing his hands.
“Yes, it’s me,” he said then and he went on wringing his hands so that his knuckles shone white.
And while he looked up in her face and his arms fell back at his sides, he said with the look a man must have when about to be crucified:
“I can’t help it.”
Ida leant against the bedpost. Quietly, without a sound, she sobbed in desperation.
Karl had arrived home. Half undressed he paced up and down the floor.
“It’s incredible,” he said.
“It’s just damned incredible,” he continued; he stopped his walking up and down and stared into the lamp.
“But damn it all, women are simply blind,” he said, nodding into the light.
Finally, he sat down on his bed.
“Hm.” And he twisted his face as though this was extremely unpleasant for him: and Knuth must naturally have been cooling his heels in the Café Vienna and waiting for him.
At last, he got down under the blankets. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
“It’s strange, but they damned well all end up being simple when you get them into a bed.”
Karl von Eichbaum put out his light. But in the darkness he lay for a long time tossing and turning and shaking his head, and his hands were also curiously restless like those of a man pestered by troublesome flies.
Nor was he in a good mood when he got up, and he failed to part his hair straight as he sat there working away with his comb and the brushes in front of his mirror. But suddenly, raising his face and looking himself straight in the eye in the looking glass, he said just audibly and with a nod:
“Aye, that’s it: a man damned well does what he has to do.”
Ida had waited for a long time up in her room. Now she had to go down to the tea room; she simply must. She went through the noisy ward into the quiet one. Never, she thought, had she ever walked with such an upright gait. All that was left now was the door to be opened, and the threshold to be crossed.
“Good morning.”
She was there now. And for a moment she had listened to her own voice and seen in everyone’s faces that they knew nothing; and she had seen Nurse Friis sitting nearest the door and rising quickly from her chair to embrace her.
“Good morning, pet,” she said.
And as she kissed her, she touched Ida’s cheek lightly wit
h her tongue.
Ida blushed scarlet…
And she heard Nurse Helgesen say:
“Two patients have died during the night.”
∞∞∞
Ida had waited for perhaps half an hour. She would leave now. Perhaps no one was coming, so she could go.
But Ellingsen was at the door to “assist madam”.
He took her coat and hat and she put them on.
“Thank you,” she said. “Goodbye.”
But Ellingsen, standing by the door, with his lips very moist, said:
“You are forgetting your parcels, madam.”
Ida took them, and Ellingsen also opened the street door.
“Goodbye,” she said and went. The outer door was one of those that quietly close of their own accord. Mr Ellingsen returned to the private room. He still had a sympathetic look on his face. He took a serviette to brush away a little dust that he thought had gathered on the tablecloth, after which he used the same serviette to dry his mouth. Mr Ellingsen had really seldom received less that sixteen or eighteen kroner a month from “those people”.
Someone rang from the buffet.
But the business was doing well.
Mr Ellingsen went out. A lady and a gentleman were coming towards him in the corridor.
Ida walked – she probably thought she did not herself know where – along the path, towards Østerbro, further and further out.
There she met them. She saw them a long way off. There they were.
She had to go past them. Her small parcels seemed to hang loose on her limp arm and she did not know how she managed to bend her neck in greeting.
But Kate stopped her horse for a moment.
“Good morning, Miss Brandt,” she said, greeting her with her switch. “Lovely weather.”
“Yes, beautiful,” said Ida, suddenly staring up at her face.
“You can really feel the approach of spring,” said Kate.
Karl stopped a little way from them. It looked as though he was having difficulty controlling his horse.
“Well, allons…Good morning.”
They rode off.
“She had come a long way out of town,” said Kate.
And after a short while, looking out over her horse’s head, she added:
“It doesn’t matter in the least to me, by the way.”
Karl would have liked to ask what, but he was suddenly silent and looked bewildered.
“I’m no match for you by Gad,” he said then after they had trotted for a time.
Ida had turned round. It was as though she had suddenly awakened. She saw every face she met as though it was strangely radiant, and every gateway and every house and every tree, as though everything was in some way sharply defined. And she clearly heard every snatch of conversation and every carriage and every sound as though she had a thousand senses.
But most of all she saw the soil and the yellow crocuses and the rose trees, their cover having been taken off them now. For now spring would soon be coming.
She could have walked ten miles, but nevertheless she turned down by the corner of the lake out of habit.
On the road close to Rørholm, she met Nurse Friis, who started to shout from a great distance and then kissed her, as had recently become her habit. “But,” she said, “I really must see your flat today, love.” Nurse Friis went on pestering Ida to let her see the flat: it was only just round the corner now.
Ida suddenly felt so tired, or perhaps she felt the need to savour one final pain.
“Yes,” she said quietly “we can go up.”
She mounted the steps as though she was climbing a mountain. Nurse Friis went before her, reading all the names on the doors.
“What a lovely quiet building,” she shouted. (The residents were all state employees or minor officials plus a Baptist minister.) She could hardly wait for Ida to open the door and say, as though she had forgotten:
“Oh yes, there are some men working here.”
But Nurse Friis was already in the living room, shouting:
“Oh, my hat, this is nice.” She flew out into the passageway again and had to kiss Ida in sheer enthusiasm before dancing in again. She felt everything and saw everything and she talked until she suddenly sat down on a chair arm.
“But, my dear Brandt, this must have cost you a fortune.”
Ida sat down. Motionless, she sat there and looked at it all, piece by piece: now it was all in place.
She did not hear Nurse Friis or notice that her torrent of words suddenly ceased; she only felt that she was alone, for a moment, and raised her hands from her lap when Nurse Friis appeared in the bedroom door.
“Brandt,” she said, and she spoke the name in a tone (there was a touch of admiration in it) which she had never used before: “You know how to arrange things.”
Ida had suddenly risen, and at the sound of her name her cheeks flushed.
“Well, we’ll go now,” she said and had almost forgotten her pain.
But Nurse Friis was in the bedroom again, bouncing on the big bed.
“We are going now,” Ida repeated.
There was something in her tone that persuaded Nurse Friis to get up rather quickly.
But Ida waited in silence first at the door to the living room and then at the outer door and finally at the street door until Nurse Friis was out. Nor did their conversation really resume out in the street. Nurse Friis was also quiet, thinking her own thoughts as though she had discovered something. But when they reached the hospital entrance, she said before continuing on “an errand”:
“For heaven’s sake, Brandt, do be reasonable, this is only for those of us who are broadminded.”
Ida silently pushed her hand from her arm.
“Goodbye,” nodded Nurse Friis.
When, still carrying the two small parcels, Ida came down the stairs in the Pavilion, she met Nurse Kjær.
“Oh,” she said in her happy voice – she was so used to Ida’s bringing something home with her – “You’ve got some cakes.”
And she ran ahead up to Nurse Petersen: “Miss has some cakes,” she said, and they quickly gathered for a picnic in the kitchen.
Ida sat and watched the cake disappear between Petersen’s teeth.
When the two had had enough, there was still a piece remaining. They offered it to Josefine, who came to fetch the buckets.
“Well, someone’s got to have it,” said Josefine.
But Nurse Petersen said:
“Oh, we ought to have kept them to have with the coffee.”
Ida had risen and left.
∞∞∞
Kate Mourier had developed the most remarkable habit. She wandered up and down through all the rooms followed by both the hounds.
“My dear Kate, why all this marching up and down?” said Mrs Mourier from her sofa.
“I’m thinking,” said Kate and marched on.
“But couldn’t you do it in just one room?” said Mrs Mourier.
Suddenly, Kate had sat down with both dogs in front of her, and then she got up again. Over by the door, she stretched her arms up along the door frame.
“Is it this evening we are going to a concert?” she said, staring up in the air.
“Yes.”
“That’s nice. Because I need some music,” she said; and she went in.
Mrs Mourier continued to sit there. The pages in her “Peters Edition” were left untouched. She was thinking that it was good that Mourier was coming at last. He would be company for Aline.
For Mrs Mourier did not really know what was going on in Kate’s mind.
The bell rang; it was Mrs von Eichbaum. She came merely to ask whether Mourier was also bringing their butler to town with him.
“Because, you see, Mine, it is best to know that,” she said.
Mourier’s butler was to help at the reception that Mrs von Eichbaum was arranging for the recently returned Mrs Feddersen.
They discussed it for a while, and Mrs von Eichbaum said the
n, in a different tone:
“The children have been riding, you know.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Mourier, staring ahead. She would so much have liked to have a “straight talk”, but she refrained.
Nurse Friis’s “errand” was a minute’s dash across to Svendsen, to find her large-nosed friend having lunch. The nurse was all hot and bothered after what she had seen that morning.
“Heavens above,” she said, “I would never have believed it. It was so splendid.”
Her large-nosed friend viewed his sandwiches.
“It’s always like that with those very gentle girls,” he said.
Nurse Friis sat for a while; she could still picture the bed and the big washbasin and the broad sofa.
“Yes, it must be that,” she said thoughtfully, and then she nodded.
But shortly afterwards she said:
“But, good Lord, it must be lovely to have money.”
“Well,” said her large-nosed friend, “the most important thing, when all is said and done, is to know what you want with each other.”
He offered Nurse Friis a glass of beer, which she lifted her veil to drink.
But, once more quite heatedly, she suddenly said:
“Frederik, she’ d moved the bed right into the middle of the flat.”
“Aye, that’ll probably be left where it is,” said the large-nosed friend.
∞∞∞
Mrs von Eichbaum was sitting with the general’s wife in front of the well-laid table in the latter’s dining room, where Mrs von Eichbaum’s guests were to eat today. All was ready.
Mrs von Eichbaum looked over the decorations, consisting of crocuses from the estate, and said:
“And then little Brandt is coming. I was out there myself this morning.”
And when the general’s wife made no immediate reply, she said:
“There was no sense in leaving the place empty, and she has been here a good deal during the winter. Besides, she will help a little with the tea.”
“But it is quite reasonable to invite her,” said the general’s wife, “as there is an empty place. And precisely,” she said, stopping just a little too suddenly after having said it, “under present circumstances.”