by Jonas Lie
There was a general silence.
But at dinner-time there was a great deal of talking and fuss about this affair. Every one had heard how Nikolai had threatened Olaves, and Olaves, as a precaution, found witnesses for his words.
“He looked as if he could use the sledge-hammer to something besides forging bolts, that fellow, if he could do it without witnesses!”
They might talk as much as they liked for all that Nikolai cared; he did his work, and never heard that Hægberg had anything to complain of. He was prepared for a disappointment now.
There was one thing, though, that he would do before he gave in—go straight to Hægberg and speak out, and then the master could give his testimony as to which he wanted, if Mrs. Ellingsen asked him.
The final answer from Mrs. Ellingsen was delayed week after week: at last it was two months.
What could the old woman mean? The whole smithy wondered—she must have a foreman by the autumn.
At last, one morning it appeared in the shape of a message.
* * * *
It was drawing on towards evening one broiling hot summer day. In both floors of the grey wooden house in which Mrs. Holman lived, the small-paned windows stood open, drinking in the slight coolness there was in the air, while the dwellers within went about their occupations more or less lightly clothed. A faint breath only now and again stirred the half transparent curtains, or the white clothes hanging on lines across the yard.
At the window on the ground floor just above the entrance to the cellar, stood a slender, dark-eyed young girl with turned-up sleeves, busy at the water tap under which she had a wash-tub full of clothes. Her head could be seen now above, now below the short blind, cooled and refreshed by the cold rush of water.
Suddenly she stopped in surprise.
Nikolai entered with his flat cap pushed triumphantly on one side.
“The world’s right enough, I can tell you, Silla. The only thing is to see that everything is properly in order from the very beginning. He who hasn’t got a father, must be his own father, you know!”
“But Nikolai! Did you know mother was out?”
“Pooh! What is there that I don’t know! My mother told me just now that it was one of the washing days at Antonisens. But you see, Silla, it’s beginning to get late, and—if you’d like to know—I’ve been invited today to be foreman at Mrs. Ellingsen’s. That’ll be only ten dollars a month more!”
“Foreman? Is it true, Nikolai?” She retreated from the wash-tub, looking doubtfully at him. “Come here with your smutty face!” she said, hastily pulling the clothes out of the tub. “You are so awfully black! Foreman, did you say? No, is it really true? Oh, you must put up with a little splashing; I can’t see the foreman for coal-soot! Then Mrs. Ellingsen didn’t ask Olaves first?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“And no one put out their tongue or made Mrs. Ellingsen afraid of you, as they did before?”
“Oh, Hægberg must have let her know that he hadn’t taken any harm from me.”
“If only they don’t begin again and do what they can. For your getting in front of them stings and chafes and torments every one of them, ever since that time when you had to do those wheel pivots over again for Olaves. And then they dig up all the old stories they can find.”
“Oh no! The world’s right enough, I tell you, and Mrs. Ellingsen must take the smith who works her smithy best. Besides it’s as fixed as a vice, and the contract signed this morning. And it’s pretty badly needed, for the money that mother borrowed last, it—it—whu!”—he whistled—“has gone the same way as the rest. It disappears like smoke with her. It seems to me she trades backwards instead of forwards, and that the profits go the wrong way.”
“Now you’re so nice and clean, that you shine. That way with your hair or else the cock’s-comb will stand up too much.”
“I rushed straight out of the smithy, you see, to come up here and cram it into you. I went in to mother first, and then I promised her to go down and buy some mackerel for supper. Two smacks have come in today, they say.”
Silla’s face showed that this was a great piece of news. They were both natives of the town, and the arrival of the mackerel brought with it a number of pleasant recollections and pictures from the time when they lived in the square down by the wharves.
She looked a little undecided.
“What if I put on my shawl and went with you!” she exclaimed. “Wait for me down below, Nikolai, so that we don’t go together in the street up here!”
It was a proposal that it was not easy to resist, she was so eager about it. And then he had been made foreman today!
She was not long in putting on her blue-striped dress and a shawl over her head and following him.
They hastened down together; she chattering gaily as in the old days when they had stolen out, he quite taken up with looking at and listening to her. They walked in the middle of the road, anything but carefully; clouds of dust arose at every step, but Nikolai only saw Silla, dark-eyed, warm and gay in the middle of it all.
Down in the town that warm summer evening, the streets were unusually busy about the fish-place. There was evidently something that occasioned more life and movement than usual. The bridge was full of people hanging over the railings and looking down at all those who were pushing their way forwards amid noise, shouts and cries to get a mackerel for their supper.
This greenish-blue, shining fish, so round and strong and quick, sea-built for lightning speed, its head formed for cleaving the water, and an elastic arrow-feather as the termination to an almost dangerously slender tail—it had already been glittering for two days on the stalls in the fish-market.
Even as late as yesterday morning it was a rarity, and only for the tables of the wealthier, but later in the afternoon another smack came in,—there had been a large haul out by the Hval Islands—and today two more loaded vessels, so that the market was over-stocked.
Yes, indeed, the mackerel had come—that is to say, the mackerel that the working-man can buy. It was to be had now for two-pence or two-pence halfpenny apiece, both on the fish-market and up the river here. The women, who speculated, carried them in baskets up to all the most out-of-the-way parts of the town.
It found its way now everywhere, where there was only a hole for it to slip into, a kettle or a pan for it to be boiled or fried in—into all the galleys in the harbour, from the large, superior steamship or full-rigged vessel, down to the cooking-stoves on the timber sloops and the little decked barges, where people were resting, and broiling it in the summer evening, into all the back blocks and small streets from the cellars to the garrets. Workmen and small tradesmen, husbands and wives were going that sultry evening with one, two, or three in their hand, according to the number of mouths there were at home. There was a smell of fried and broiled mackerel over whole quarters of the town.
It must be sold, it was so confoundedly hot!
“Yes, indeed, it is a blessed warmth,” answered deaf Mother Andersen, “that sends all this mackerel over the town.”
This fish has had a prejudice to overcome, although in all modesty it has solicited nothing but the favour of being allowed to escape being eaten. It has the reputation of being the cannibal of the North Sea—in plain words, a man-eater, and that the dark part of its flesh comes from drowned sailors.
Nikolai and Silla were also down at the boats to seize their share of the glory of the evening. Silla had not lived near the wharves in her childhood for nothing, and to pick out the best fish from under the very nose of the old women, was an easy matter for her. She stood eagerly bargaining and stretching out over the boat.
“Thanks very much, mother, but you won’t fool me into taking that sunburnt mackerel skin! Take some of those that are lying behind there under the thwart—those two—yes, just tho
se.”
She weighed them in her hand to see if they were firm and stiff.
Nikolai’s hand was already in his pocket; but Silla threw the mackerel contemptuously into the boat again.
“Why, they’re as old as the hills! Eyes as dead as horn!”
“Those beautiful—”
“Be quiet, Nikolai! If we are to be satisfied with these for supper, mother, you’ll have to take off a farthing or two.”
In the end they went for two-pence a piece.
“What a fine trader you are, Nikolai!” she said to tease him, on the way home. “But do you see how big and fresh they are?”
Barbara was standing on the steps, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking to see if Nikolai were not soon coming with the fish.
The person she did see coming quietly and sedately up the road was Silla, and she chatted with her from the steps until Nikolai also at last appeared with the two mackerel.
Of course Silla must come in and see how they tasted; there was no question of Barbara’s honour and superabundant hospitality putting up with anything else.
In there on Barbara’s cooking-stove the mackerel hissed and broiled that light evening. The peculiar, rather pungent smell of frying grew stronger and more appetising as it went on.
Then the pieces had to be turned with fresh fat in the pan—fresh hissing!
The scent floated out through the open window, and far into the street.
Barbara was big and slow in turning, while Silla, quick and ready, put now one thing, now another into her hands, and hurried away, and was over the fish both with her face and her opinions, long before Barbara could collect herself.
Nikolai’s broad, pleased face followed the whole of the frying process with deeply interested attention.
“That mackerel’s the right sort of fellow for frying!”
And then at last to take the pieces straight from the pan on to the bread!
The evening breeze began to blow cool between the warm house walls. The three who sat there enjoying the mackerel, felt as if it were a festive night.
And foreman too!
CHAPTER XI
THE WEDDING POSTPONED AGAIN
Confined as she was, and made to work through the long evenings, while her mother watched her like an eagle, Silla’s only chance of indemnifying herself was up at the factory.
She went about there with a suppressed longing and eager interest, her eyes sparkling, in the midst of all the chattering, whispering and gossiping among her different ideals—Kristofa and Gunda, active Swedish Lena, and pert Jakobina. If she could not be with them herself, she might at any rate hear what fun they had had, and all that had happened. In this way she could live their life at second hand.
It was of course Kristofa who knew how to put everything in a captivating, magic light. A little walk, a possible engagement, an evening at a dance, everything was moulded by her busy imaginative power into events that never wanted a hero, that interesting, mystic being, who was seen, now with a cigar, now without one, who sometimes pretended he did not know them, sometimes nodded, or only smiled. The person in question might be some town gentleman or other, or some one from one of the offices up there, who often had not the faintest suspicion that his coming and going was seen in Bengal illumination, or that it caused such a flutter in their hearts; though this did not preclude others from both suspecting and taking advantage of it.
These, through Kristofa’s habit of spinning, grew into little romances, which Silla took in with wide-open eyes, and afterwards continued at home.
Silla herself had a little romance which she kept to herself: she would not dare to tell it to Nikolai.
She had to take care, when she went at dinner-time to buy anything for her mother at Barbara’s, that Veyergang had not gone in there on his way down to light his cigar.
The last time she had met him there, he laughed and asked whether the black-eyed maid wanted to run away from him? He was not so very terrible! She had completely vanished lately. He had heard that her mother kept her in a cage for the sake of a dangerous smith—was that true? When a young girl had two such black eyes, she ought not to hide them away.
And yet it was not altogether a warlike condition; but he knew very well that she watched and waited, however long it might be, until he had left the shop.
All this was like a ray of sunlight through the high, barred paling.
In other respects, one day passed like another, from the hum of the factory into the work at home, and Mrs. Holman was quite satisfied with the help she really must say she had of Silla this summer. That her daughter grew more large-eyed, pale and thin, it was not in her nature to attach much importance to; it only showed that Silla was not accustomed to systematic work.
On the rare occasions when Nikolai had an opportunity of speaking to her, Silla complained sadly.
She talked herself into such exasperation that she cried over everything that the others—all the others—had leave to do, and only she had not. To begin with, in her childhood, and all the time she was growing up, she had been bottled up in that cellar in the square, and now, when she was grown up, she had got into a regular workhouse!
After having thought gloomily and sadly over this for a time, her reflections took another course, and she began to anticipate impetuously how they would amuse themselves, she and Nikolai, when once she got away from home. She would have fun like all other young people, even if they had to give a dance in their own room. And go out in a boat in the evening and row and fish, and on Sundays take their dinner out into the woods, and shout so loud that the hills would ring again.
She was almost wild, and her eyes burned with all the pressure and work that was put upon her.
When she did not get excited with talking, she looked depressed—more so every time, Nikolai thought. Her face seemed to him to wear such a plaintive expression.
There was nothing to be done but to set his teeth and hammer away, and hope for release by the winter.
Georgina Korneliussen in the next house but one, who sewed uppers for the shoemaker—she was such a nice, quiet girl. Silla should make friends with her, Mrs. Holman thought; it began to dawn upon her that there are limits to being trained in one’s duty. On Sundays they might take it in turns to visit one another, for then they would be under surveillance in both places. And Mrs. Holman even allowed Silla one Sunday to go for a walk with Georgina down in the town. Young people must have a little pleasure now and then.
Silla had looked forward all the week to this Sunday with the passionate impatience of a bird that is to be let out of its cage, and the morning rose on great expectations of what the day would bring with it.
It seemed as if the soup with swedes in it would never be ready, so that they could have dinner. And afterwards there was endless waiting for Georgina, who could not finish adorning herself.
At last she came out, tightly laced, and with a strip of crochet in the neck of her dress. What sort of oil or fatty substance she had plastered down her hair with may be left unsaid; but Silla in her brown straw hat and a plain white collar, felt for a moment insignificant beside her. But she quickly took her friend’s arm; now they were off to amuse themselves!
Down to the town they went, Silla impatiently champing the bit in her desire to get there in time to take part in the day’s pleasures.
In the streets and the park at this respectable time in the afternoon, crowds of people clad in their best were strolling up and down looking at one another, and for a long time Silla and Georgina had enough to do in directing one another’s attention to the finest and most fashionable dresses, and especially the long white flowing scarfs wound under the chin and thrown over the shoulder. These, and white straw hats with light blue or pink ribbons and roses, were the objects of their vehement admiration.
They went up and down, lost sight of and met again the same dresses, and the same stiff quiet Sunday faces.
This was repeated until it became wearisome, and Silla proposed that they should go somewhere else, which, under Georgina’s guidance, led to a walk round the fortress.
Nature was not their object; and they only met one or two tired, bored individuals who evidently did not know what to do with themselves on Sunday afternoon: now and then they stopped and looked up at the trees.
A sentry called his long-drawn “Relieve guard!” It sounded like a mighty yawn in the afternoon. Out on the calm, shining fjord lay boats and vessels drifting in the breathless heat.
There was nothing here, so they made their way down to the harbour.
Here, too, was emptiness and Sunday desolation, the vessels seemed to have died out.
Another cruise up the street.
On the market-place stood some unemployed forces, who had found a Sunday amusement in exchanging watches,[5] while the bells of the church behind them were ringing in the congregation to evening service.
[Footnote 5: In Norway this is a pastime often resorted to by men on holidays, when time hangs heavy on their hands. I have seen even old men deeply absorbed in the examination of each other’s watches, with a view to their exchange.—Trans.]
Tired, wearied, and thirsty, they continued their walk up the street until they came into the motley stream of people who were wending their way down to the piers, where the steamers were constantly coming in and going out with passengers from and to the islands.
Here a difference of opinion arose.
Georgina thought there were so many people, and perhaps it was not proper to go by the steamer, as it was beginning to grow late.
But Silla thought that they had swallowed dust in the streets long enough, and that they must make use of the little time they had. Was Georgina going home satisfied with the pleasure she had already had?