Part 8 (1/2)

Meanwhile, they stood gazing up into the night.

”It has grown so unusually quiet here,” finally said the mother, ”since the children have gone away with their sports.”

”Nor have you a _child_ in the house any longer, either,” said the school-master.

The mother knew what he meant.

”Oyvind has not been happy of late,” said she.

”Ah, no! he who is ambitious never is happy,”--and he gazed up with an old man's calmness into G.o.d's peaceful heavens above.

CHAPTER VI.

Half a year later--in the autumn it was (the confirmation had been postponed until then)--the candidates for confirmation of the main parish sat in the parsonage servant's hall, waiting examination, among them was Oyvind Pladsen and Marit Heidegards. Marit had just come down from the priest, from whom she had received a handsome book and much praise; she laughed and chatted with her girl friends on all sides and glanced around among the boys. Marit was a full-grown girl, easy and frank in her whole address, and the boys as well as the girls knew that Jon Hatlen, the best match in the parish, was courting her,--well might she be happy as she sat there. Down by the door stood some girls and boys who had not pa.s.sed; they were crying, while Marit and her friends were laughing; among them was a little boy in his father's boots and his mother's Sunday kerchief.

”Oh, dear! oh, dear!” sobbed he, ”I dare not go home again.”

And this overcame those who had not yet been up with the power of sympathy; there was a universal silence. Anxiety filled their throats and eyes; they could not see distinctly, neither could they swallow; and this they felt a continual desire to do.

One sat reckoning over how much he knew; and although but a few hours before he had discovered that he knew everything, now he found out just as confidently that he knew nothing, not even how to read in a book.

Another summed up the list of his sins, from the time he was large enough to remember until now, and he decided that it would not be at all remarkable if the Lord decreed that he should be rejected.

A third sat taking note of all things about him: if the clock which was about to strike did not make its first stroke before he could count twenty, he would pa.s.s; if the person he heard in the pa.s.sage proved to be the gard-boy Lars, he would pa.s.s; if the great rain-drop, working its way down over the pane, came as far as the moulding of the window, he would pa.s.s. The final and decisive proof was to be if he succeeded in twisting his right foot about the left,--and this it was quite impossible for him to do.

A fourth was convinced in his own mind that if he was only questioned about Joseph in Bible history and about baptism in the Catechism, or about Saul, or about domestic duties, or about Jesus, or about the Commandments, or--he still sat rehearsing when he was called.

A fifth had taken a special fancy to the Sermon on the Mount; he had dreamed about the Sermon on the Mount; he was sure of being questioned on the Sermon on the Mount; he kept repeating the Sermon on the Mount to himself; he had to go out doors and read over the Sermon on the Mount--when he was called up to be examined on the great and the small prophets.

A sixth thought of the priest who was an excellent man and knew his father so well; he thought, too, of the school-master, who had such a kindly face, and of G.o.d who was all goodness and mercy, and who had aided so many before both Jacob and Joseph; and then he remembered that his mother and brothers and sisters were at home praying for him, which surely must help.

The seventh renounced all he had meant to become in this world. Once he had thought that he would like to push on as far as being a king, once as far as general or priest; now that time was over. But even to the moment of his coming here he had thought of going to sea and becoming a captain; perhaps a pirate, and acquiring enormous riches; now he gave up first the riches, then the pirate, then the captain, then the mate; he paused at sailor, at the utmost boatswain; indeed, it was possible that he would not go to sea at all, but would take a houseman's place on his father's gard.

The eighth was more hopeful about his case but not certain, for even the aptest scholar was not certain. He thought of the clothes he was to be confirmed in, wondering what they would be used for if he did not pa.s.s. But if he pa.s.sed he was going to town to get a broadcloth suit, and coming home again to dance at Christmas to the envy of all the boys and the astonishment of all the girls.

The ninth reckoned otherwise: he prepared a little account book with the Lord, in which he set down on one side, as it were, ”Debit:” he must let me pa.s.s, and on the other ”Credit:” then I will never tell any more lies, never t.i.ttle-tattle any more, always go to church, let the girls alone, and break myself of swearing.

The tenth, however, thought that if Ole Hansen had pa.s.sed last year it would be more than unjust if he who had always done better at school, and, moreover, came of a better family, did not get through this year.

By his side sat the eleventh, who was wrestling with the most alarming plans of revenge in the event of his not being pa.s.sed: either to burn down the school-house, or to run away from the parish and come back again as the denouncing judge of the priest and the whole school commission, but magnanimously allow mercy to take the place of justice.

To begin with, he would take service at the house of the priest of the neighboring parish, and there stand number one next year, and answer so that the whole church would marvel.

But the twelfth sat alone under the clock, with both hands in his pockets, and looked mournfully out over the a.s.semblage. No one here knew what a burden he bore, what a responsibility he had a.s.sumed. At home there was one who knew,--for he was betrothed. A large, long-legged spider was crawling over the floor and drew near his foot; he was in the habit of treading on this loathsome insect, but to-day he tenderly raised his foot that it might go in peace whither it would.

His voice was as gentle as a collect, his eyes said incessantly that all men were good, his hands made a humble movement out of his pockets up to his hair to stroke it down more smoothly. If he could only glide gently through this dangerous needle's eye, he would doubtless grow out again on the other side, chew tobacco, and announce his engagement.

And down on a low stool with his legs drawn up under him, sat the anxious thirteenth; his little flas.h.i.+ng eyes sped round the room three times each second, and through the pa.s.sionate, obstinate head stormed in motley confusion the combined thoughts of the other twelve: from the mightiest hope to the most crus.h.i.+ng doubt, from the most humble resolves to the most devastating plans of revenge; and, meanwhile, he had eaten up all the loose flesh on his right thumb, and was busied now with his nails, sending large pieces across the floor.

Oyvind sat by the window, he had been upstairs and had answered everything that had been asked him; but the priest had not said anything, neither had the school-master. For more than half a year he had been considering what they both would say when they came to know how hard he had toiled, and he felt now deeply disappointed as well as wounded. There sat Marit, who for far less exertion and knowledge had received both encouragement and reward; it was just in order to stand high in her eyes that he had striven, and now she smilingly won what he had labored with so much self-denial to attain. Her laughter and joking burned into his soul, the freedom with which she moved about pained him. He had carefully avoided speaking with her since that evening, it would take years, he thought; but the sight of her sitting there so happy and superior, weighed him to the ground, and all his proud determinations drooped like leaves after a rain.