Part 118 (1/2)

”No, then you'd just swallow down the cold--the air is like ice. Just keep still, and soon mother will be here, and she'll bring something!”

”She never gets anything,” said the child. ”When she gets there it's always all over.”

”That's not true,” said Madam Johnsen severely. ”There's food enough in the soup kitchens for all; it's just a matter of understanding how to go about it. The poor must get shame out of their heads. She'll bring something to-day!”

The child stood up and breathed a hole in the ice on the window-pane.

”Look now, whether it isn't going to snow a little so that the poor man can get yet another day's employment,” said the old woman.

No, the wind was still blowing from the north, although it commonly shuffled along the ca.n.a.l; but now, week after week, it blew from the Nicolai tower, and played the flute on the hollow bones of poverty. The ca.n.a.ls were covered with ice, and the ground looked horribly hard. The naked frost chased the people across it like withered leaves. With a thin rustling sound they were swept across the bridges and disappeared.

A great yellow van came driving by. The huge gates of the prison opened slowly and swallowed it. It was the van containing the meat for the prisoners. The child followed it with a desolate expression.

”Mother isn't coming,” she said. ”I am so hungry.”

”She will soon come--you just wait! And don't stand in the light there; come here in the corner! The light strikes the cold right through one.”

”But I feel colder in the dark.”

”That's just because you don't understand. I only long now for the pitch darkness.”

”I long for the sun!” retorted the child defiantly.

There was a creaking of timber out in the yard. The child ran out and opened the door leading to the gallery. It was only the people opposite, who were tearing a step away.

But then came mother, with a tin pail in her hand, and a bundle under her arm; and there was something in the pail--it looked heavy.

Tra-la-la! And the bundle, the bundle! What was in that? ”Mother, mother!” she cried shrilly, leaning far over the rickety rail.

Hanne came swiftly up the stairs, with open mouth and red cheeks; and a face peeped out of every little nest.

”Now Widow Hanne has taken the plunge,” they said. They knew what a point of honor it had been with her to look after her mother and her child unaided. She was a good girl.

And Widow Hanne nodded to them all, as much as to say, ”Now it's done, thank G.o.d!”

She stood leaning over the table, and lifted the cover off the pail.

”Look!” she said, as she stirred the soup with a ladle: ”there's pearl barley and pot-herbs. If only we had something we could warm it up with!”

”We can tear away a bit of the woodwork like other people,” said the mother.

”Yes,” replied Hanne breathlessly, ”yes, why not? If one can beg one can do that!”

She ran out onto the gallery and tore away a few bits of trellis, so that the sound re-echoed through the court. People watched her out of all the dark windows. Widow Hanne had knocked off the head of her pride!

Then they sat down to their soup, the old woman and the child. ”Eat!”

said Hanne, standing over them and looking on with glowing eyes. Her cheeks were burning. ”You look like a flower in the cold!” said her mother. ”But eat, yourself, or you'll starve to death.”

No, Hanne would not eat. ”I feel so light,” she said, ”I don't need any food.” She stood there fingering her bundle; all her features were quivering, and her mouth was like that of a person sick of a fever.

”What have you there?” asked Madam Johnsen.