by Jonas Lie
They had turned to look after him.
“He isn’t nearly so stern as he walks there; but in the factory, you know, he has to be as firm as a rock. Johanna Sjoberg, who does clear starching, recognised him down at the masked ball at the fair; she told me so herself.”
“You can just fancy,” struck in Jakobina, “what a number of fine people come to the rooms in that way. You think you are only waltzing with a common man, and perhaps it is the son of the richest man in the town! But if you are a little careful you can easily tell by the way they dance, or by their watch, or their shirt-collar, or because they chew such fine tobacco.”
“He looked at us, did you notice?” whispered Kristofa eagerly into Silla’s ear.
“Yes, because he knows me,” said Silla, a little confused at his having fixed his eyes on her.
There was a burst of laughter.
“Is that young crow going to caw too?”
The young crow grew hot beneath her handkerchief, but she did not answer. She knew quite well, that he did know her; he had been in the office when she went out with her mother to the Consul-General’s to apply for a place in the factory.
A stream of girls from another factory fell like a tributary into theirs, and then through ramifications of streets and lanes, the whole flowed out into the irregular part of the town that was built of wood, below—through narrow entrances and up narrow flights of steps, into brown, red, white or grey houses, houses with slate roofs, with turf roofs, with tile roofs, and new houses that had barely been roofed.
Silla slipped into a narrow, damp entry. The sun shone through the cracks in the rotten woodwork full of bent rusty nails, and from time to time a dirty stream issued from beneath the gate, and disappeared into the gutter.
She stopped a moment as she heard her mother’s righteous indignation venting itself within, in the familiar, dry, measured tones; and it was hesitatingly and with a depressed look that she opened the gate, behind which stood Mrs. Andersen’s servant-maid, furiously red, and incapable of defending herself, while Mrs. Holman, her skirts fastened up, and her feet astride over the gutter-board, was rinsing and wringing out clothes. She was working calmly and deliberately; nothing in her cold grey eyes betrayed agitation.
“Mrs. Andersen ought at least to have the good sense to understand that clothes that had been used so long couldn’t be got ready in one week. For that matter, you’re welcome to tell her so from me. And I haven’t been accustomed either, even in my humble position, to send clothes to the wash not patched or mended; and I can tell you that both Mother Nilsen next door and the people in this house have wondered to see the things that a person, who calls herself a chandler’s wife, lets her husband and children wear! No, you needn’t contradict me, my good girl; when I say a thing, it’s the truth. And the stockings—we’ll say nothing about them; for one heel was gathered up with a piece of twine, so that it was a disgrace to stand and wash them. People may look as high and mighty as they like—the wash speaks out!”
With slow, crushing significance she turned to her daughter.
“If you had come a little sooner, Silla, you might have saved me a great deal of work. But it’s of no consequence; the sooner I’m dead and gone, the better. I’ve never wanted to live either, since your father went away.”
“I’ll help you wring, mother.”
“Now it’s all done? Many thanks! But it would have shown a little forethought, if you, who have only been sitting up in the factory, had hurried yourself a little to help your mother, who’s had to stand and work hard all the morning.”
“Thanks for the information, Mrs. Holman.” It was Mrs. Andersen’s servant, who had at last recovered her voice. “But I think you won’t need to trouble yourself any more about our washing. It’s much too plain and humble for such grand sentiments.”
She dropped a curtsey, and then added, as she vanished quickly out of the gate:
“If only your soap-lye was half as sharp as your tongue!”
It was always Mrs. Holman’s strong point, and one on which she prided herself, that she was always hungering and thirsting after righteousness in this world—in others. Inasmuch as part of this sentence also points inwards towards one’s self, she was fortunate in finding her own doorstep well swept. She was also in the favourable position of being able to lay down both the law and the exceptions.
To every one comes a time when he is surrounded by a lustre, and that blockmaker Holman had existed was something which was really properly understood—perhaps by his wife too—only after he had disappeared from the scene.
The fact is, that it makes a great difference to a household whether it has the husband’s work and weekly wages to subsist upon or not, and as a further aggravation of the situation, her dead husband’s bill at Mrs. Selvig’s thrust its extremely unexpected, unwelcome face into Mrs. Holman’s room. Mrs. Holman could never get into her head that that bill was correct—why, Holman had had his fixed, regular pocket-money!
Mrs. Holman’s bitter observations were numerous when she found herself compelled to choose between want and seeking work.
She had known to a pin’s point how she would employ her husband’s earnings in her own room, and occupied herself also with the way in which others might have things in theirs. During all these years, she had, so to speak, sat comfortably on the top of the load and driven; but now, unfortunately, the day had come when she herself must get down and draw—and that she felt herself less fitted for.
It was when brought into this critical situation that Mrs. Holman thought that if an exertion was ever to be made, it must be made now—by whom, she left unsaid. To this end she availed herself of her acquaintance with Consul Veyergang to get her daughter Silla taken into his factory. Unemployed hands must have something to do, and it would, at any rate, yield some small compensation for the weekly money lost with her husband. If she then stayed at home and kept house well, and in addition mended and took in washing when it came in her way, no one would venture to charge Mrs. Holman with not knowing how to do her duty during these hard days.
And she still discharged this duty of hers by strictly keeping Silla from passing her leisure time in idleness, which was dangerous for young people. Sewing and darning and patching all the evening—there could be no better way of being trained in steadiness.
But it was just while Silla sat and sewed and darned and patched in the evening by the low oil-lamp that the dancing and gaiety were best carried on in her head, and that all Kristofa’s and her friends’ word-pictures transformed themselves into actual experiences. Bubble after bubble, the one more wonderful than the other, floated up or burst right in front of Mrs. Holman’s nose, while she sat knitting. She saw nothing, only wondered a little sometimes what there could be to smile and laugh at in the heel of a stocking.
CHAPTER VII
“THE WORLD IS RIGHT ENOUGH AFTER ALL”
Down in Hægberg’s smithy it looked as if it were going to be not only blue Monday,[2] but blank Tuesday too. With the exception of one solitary figure, it was black and empty. Outside the door a row of iron picks, spades and crowbars, were waiting to be sharpened for the navvies on the new harbour works.
[Footnote 2: An extra day’s holiday taken by workmen after the lawful bank holiday is called “blue Monday”; if still another follows, it is called “blank Tuesday.”]
Hægberg was going about with his leather apron hanging down over one shoulder, as furious as a Berserk. There were no respectable men and apprentices to be had nowadays; but he would give them notice man by man, as sure as his name was Hægberg!
One was standing there grinding. And he had stood there quite alone, filing with all his might at his journeyman’s probation work, the whole of St. John’s day yesterday. That’s how it is: one goes on the spree, and another pinches and is so stingy about his money, that he would willingl
y lay his soul in the fire for it. The fellow was a good enough workman, to be sure, and if he had not had that affair with the police, then—yes, no—no, yes, to be sure, he was acquitted of that, so he was!
The person in question was Nikolai, who had entered Hægberg’s smithy again to complete his years of apprenticeship.
Ah, at last! There came two men sauntering over the yard to the smithy.
Hægberg turned round and pretended not to see them; on consideration, it was not the time to part with one’s men. He only went up himself and took one of the crowbars out of the forge; and when the two culprits arrived, he stood there, tall, lean, strong, and grey-haired, hammering so that the sparks flew.
This piece of work, unworthy of the master, spoke louder than the angriest reproaches, and when in silence he flung the crowbar down, and began sharpening a pick, it was sufficiently evident that there was thunder in the air.
By degrees during the morning they arrived, with staring eyes, beating temples, and faces either pale or red from being up all night, one with a swollen eye, another with a plaster across his nose. Their voices were hoarse, and they each went silently to work. They must exert themselves if they were to get through all the tool-work that remained.
Work went on uninterruptedly almost the whole afternoon, without a word being spoken over the whole smithy. By that time most of the work had been got through, and Hægberg himself went out to do business in the town.
Those who were left at work shone with perspiration, and either because work had been the best cure for the excesses of the preceding Midsummer Day and Midsummer Eve, or it was the general relief at the departure of the master, one man began suddenly to sing, a couple more to yawn and stretch themselves lazily in the enjoyment of their pleasant recollections; and then the talk began about the way they had each spent their holiday.
Only Nikolai went on undisturbed; he cared more about a screw-hole in the hinge on his probation work than all their Midsummer Eve outings, and if he only worked away now, it would be finished by the end of the month.
His small hammer sounded above their talk,—the tar-barrels, wood-stacks and old house-walls that they had burnt, and their drinking and merriment until they had not a penny left,—haw-haw!
The hammer rang above it all.
Jan Peter had gone in a boat over to the islands, and seen so many bonfires,[3] both there and on the hills round, that it was impossible to count them.
[Footnote 3: It is the custom in Norway on Midsummer Eve to burn large bonfires, which can be seen for many miles round.]
Yes, when a fellow’s drunk!
The hammer went on again.
One man stretched himself and yawned with the whole Midsummer holiday in his jaws. “Up on Grefsen ridge, cold punch had flowed down the hill as good as free. Veyergang’s son had given the girls at the factory an old boat from Maridal Lake and half a barrel of pitch; heard the cuckoo and had larks all night—came down again when it was nearly eight o’clock.”
The hammer rang no longer.
“Veyergang’s son—the girls at Veyergang’s factory!” Nikolai stood, anxious and uncertain, listening, and now and again glancing quickly and sharply over at the man who was speaking.
Then he washed off the soot, and disappeared.
* * * *
Silla had been down to the Valsets’ cottage to fetch the customary evening pint of milk, when at the gate she met Nikolai. He said he had seen her go in, but she knew quite well that he had been watching for her.
“You can’t think what fun I had on Midsummer Eve, Nikolai!” she said, holding out the can by the handle towards him. “If you only knew! No, never in all my life!”
“Up on Grefsen ridge?”
“How did you know; tell me, how did you know?”
“Oh, I—one of the smiths was up there. But I can’t understand how you could get away from her at home.”
“No, it was a near chance, too, I can tell you!” She looked round, and said in a cautious whisper: “Mother doesn’t know but that I lay and turned over in my bed at home all Midsummer night. She went to eat St. John’s porridge with aunt out at Asker, and I was to stay at home, and iron; but at nine o’clock, I said good-bye and went my way. Oh Nikolai!”—she clapped her hands, laughing—“you should have heard how she scolded yesterday morning when she came back, because I was still in bed! Did you hear that we were treated to punch, too?”
“Who gave it you?”
“Ah, wouldn’t you like to know! But, Nikolai, you won’t tell. It was a certain person who treated us.”
“Indeed!”
“He came up to see that they did not light the bonfire too near the wood. Yes, you must know, Nikolai, that it was no less a person than young Veyergang! There was a Midsummer party at his father’s, and they were to see the fire from the stairs at exactly half-past eleven.
“And then he treated them to punch? You too?”
“It was just me! ‘Her with the black eyes,’ he said.”
“Perhaps he has spoken to you before, too?”
“Yes, indeed; he knows perfectly well that my name is Silla. I meet him every single day, you must know.”
Nikolai made a movement as if he were bringing down a hammer on the hillside. “Indeed!”
“Last Saturday in the office, when he had reckoned a krone too much in the pass-book, he said I could keep it and spend it on cakes.”
“Ha! ha! Did he say that? Wonderful, how kind he is!” Nikolai said this with something that was meant for laughter. “The cook is very kind, too, when she feeds the goose so as to get hold of it!”
He stood with one arm round the gate-post, looking at her; she had grown so pretty and elegant, and almost taller since he had seen her last. “A young girl who doesn’t even know that she is pretty.”
Silla pouted; her whole expression was one of supercilious disavowal.
“If they offer her a cake, or a handkerchief, or a little fun, she stretches out her neck and runs up. I should think you might understand that, Silla, from all you see round you! How many of them, I should like to know, will ever come to be the wife of an honest working-man? They manage to dance a few times, and then it’s all over. And they wanted to be just as kind to you now, Silla! That Veyergang is on the watch for you! If I’m not on the watch for him——” He suddenly looked pale and ugly.
“What are you thinking of, Nikolai? Don’t go on like that!”
“You may well say what was I thinking of, to stand there grinding and filing away the whole month at my probation work, and then let you go up there among that pack of wolves. But I was born like that—that everything should go wrong with me!”
Silla stood, as she always did when Nikolai put on this tone, downcast and dispirited, her slender figure bending forwards, and her eyes on the ground.
“We two, Silla,” he continued at length, with a shake as if of resolution, but his voice trembled—“we two have been, as it were, brought up together. And with things as they were, if they could make me go wrong, it would have been still easier for you to be twisted by them, for I was strong, you see; but you were weak, and had always to creep like a cat among lies and difficulties. And so—so—I thought that we two—who have always stood by one another—and I haven’t had anyone else I could trust, as you know, Silla, and neither have you—that we should join hands. And if you’re of the same mind, then——”
He had clasped his broad hands round the gate-post, and was squeezing it with all the strength of his square-set figure, while he waited for her answer. He gazed at her bent head, but she did not look up; and he drew a deep breath, for he felt that he must go on.
“And now I’ve got together a little money, and not bought anything, and have filed and filed away at my probation work; because when I become journeyman, and another yea
r has passed, and I’ve laid by a little, then—then it might be that you could get away from the factory dirt and the ordering at home both at once, and be a real smith’s wife, Silla. You’ve never had any one to take care of you as I’ve done, you know; and you don’t know how good I’ll be to you! For a fellow who hasn’t had either father or mother, and since I was up at the police-station I haven’t had many companions either—” But here his emotion overpowered him.
“Such an uncommonly pretty smith’s wife you would make, Silla! If any one has eyes for a smith, it’s you; they are like sparks in the fire! And then to come home and see only the top of your pretty little black head at the room door! In spite of having always been treated like a dog, and worse than that—like a thief, it would all be nothing at all, if that was how it could end. One’s own room with a lock on the door and the chest, that would be something better than being dragged round a dancing-hall, Silla, by fine fellows and sailors.”
The last words, which were uttered in warm excitement, would have been better left unsaid; for, from standing melted and overcome, with tears in her eyes, she suddenly fired up against the accusation.
“Do you want to deny me a little pleasure, too, Nikolai? I’m not to see any one, not to go anywhere. Oh no! I’m to be a girl who has never danced, a regular queer bird, that’s first been kept in a cage by her mother, and then by——” her voice quivered, and she began to cry. “Is that what you call being kind to me, Nikolai? You must be trying to make me afraid of you, too!”
“Afraid of me?—of me, Silla?”
“Don’t they all look upon me as a baby that’s tied to her mother’s apron-strings? And now you come and want to help her, Nikolai. That’s right! That’s right! Only keep me in! Oh yes, you and mother! It’s only a question of who gets the power over me. But you’d better take care, Nikolai!”
She began to cry bitterly in impotent rage.