Part 18 (1/2)

The street boys who stood nearest stared and consulted. Through the s.h.i.+ning, black window-panes their glances penetrated no further than to the white lace curtains. One of the boys climbed up on the vines and pressed his face against the pane. ”What do you see?”

whispered the others. ”What do you see?” The shoemaker's shop and the shoemaker's bench, grease-pots and bundles of leather, lasts and pegs, rings and straps. ”Don't you see anybody?” He sees the apprentice, who is repairing a shoe. n.o.body else, n.o.body else? Big, black flies crawl over the pane and make his sight uncertain. ”Do you see n.o.body except the apprentice?” n.o.body. The master's chair is empty. He looked once, twice, three times; the master's chair was empty.

The crowd stood still, guessing and wondering. So it was true; the old shoemaker had absconded. n.o.body would believe it. They stood and waited for a sign. The cat came out on the steep roof. He stretched out his claws and slid down to the gutter. Yes, the master was away, the cat could hunt as he pleased. The sparrows fluttered and chirped, quite helpless.

A white chicken looked round the corner of the house. He was almost full-grown. His comb shone red as wine. He peered and spied, crowed and called. The hens came, a row of white hens at full speed, bodies rocking, wings fluttering, yellow legs like drumsticks. The hens hopped among the stacked peas. Battles began. Envy broke out.

A hen fled with a full pea-pod. Two c.o.c.ks pecked her in the neck.

The cat left the sparrow nests to look on. Plump, there he fell down in the midst of the flock. The hens fled in a long, scurrying line. The crowd thought: ”It must be true that the shoemaker has run away. One can see by the cat and the hens that the master is away.”

The uneven street, muddy from the autumn rains, resounded with talk. Doors stood open, windows swung. Heads were put together in wondering whisperings. ”He has run off.” The people whispered, the sparrows chirped, the wooden shoes clattered: ”He has run away. The old shoemaker has run away. The owner of the little house, the young wife's husband, the father of the beautiful child, he has run away. Who can understand it? who can explain it?”

There is an old song: ”Old husband in the cottage; young lover in the wood; wife, who runs away, child who cries; home without a mistress.” The song is old. It is often sung. Everybody understands it.

This was a new song. The old man was gone. On the workshop table lay his explanation, that he never meant to come back. Beside it a letter had also lain. The wife had read it, but no one else.

The young wife was in the kitchen. She was doing nothing. The neighbors went backwards and forwards, arranging busily, set out the cups, made up the fire, boiled the coffee, wept a little and wiped away the tears with the dish-towel.

The good women of the quarter sat stiffly about the walls. They knew what was suitable in a house of mourning. They kept silent by force, mourned by force. They celebrated their holiday by supporting the forsaken wife in her grief. Coa.r.s.e hands lay quiet in their laps, weather-beaten skin lay in deep wrinkles, thin lips were pressed together over toothless jaws.

The wife sat among the bronze-hued women, gently blonde, with a sweet face like a dove. She did not weep, but she trembled. She was so afraid, that the fear was almost killing her. She bit her teeth together, so that no one should hear how they chattered. When steps were heard, when the clattering sounded, when some one spoke to her, she started up.

She sat with her husband's letter in her pocket. She thought of now one line in it and now another. There stood: ”I can bear no longer to see you both.” And in another place: ”I know now that you and Erikson mean to elope.” And again: ”You shall not do that, for people's evil talk would make you unhappy. I shall disappear, so that you can get a divorce and be properly married. Erikson is a good workman and can support you well.” Then farther down: ”Let people say what they will about me. I am content if only they do not think any evil of you, for you could not bear it.”

She did not understand it. She had not meant to deceive him. Even if she had liked to chat with the young apprentice, what had her husband to do with that? Love is an illness, but it is not mortal.

She had meant to bear it through life with patience. How had her husband discovered her most secret thoughts?

She was tortured at the thought of him! He must have grieved and brooded. He had wept over his years. He had raged over the young man's strength and spirits. He had trembled at the whisperings, at the smiles, at the hand pressures. In burning madness, in glowing jealousy, he had made it into a whole elopement history, of which there was as yet nothing.

She thought how old he must have been that night when he went. His back was bent, his hands shook. The agony of many long nights had made him so. He had gone to escape that existence of pa.s.sionate doubting.

She remembered other lines in the letter: ”It is not my intention to destroy your character. I have always been too old for you.” And then another: ”You shall always be respected and honored. Only be silent, and all the shame will fall on me!”

The wife felt deeper and deeper remorse. Was it possible that people would be deceived? Would it do to lie so too before G.o.d? Why did she sit in the cottage, pitied like a mourning mother, honored like a bride on her wedding day? Why was it not she who was homeless, friendless, despised? How can such things be? How can G.o.d let himself be so deceived?

Over the great dresser hung a little bookcase. On the top shelf stood a big book with bra.s.s clasps. Behind those clasps was hidden the story of a man and a woman who lied before G.o.d and men. ”Who has suggested to you, woman, to do such things? Look, young men stand outside to lead you away.”

The woman stared at the book, listened for the young men's footsteps. She trembled at every knock, shuddered at every step.

She was ready to stand up and confess, ready to fall down and die.

The coffee was ready. The women glided sedately forward to the table. They filled their cups, took a lump of sugar in their mouths and began to sip their boiling coffee, silently and decently, the wives of mechanics first, the scrub-women last. But the wife did not see what was going on. Remorse made her quite beside herself.

She had a vision. She sat at night out in a freshly ploughed field.

Round about her sat great birds with mighty wings and pointed beaks. They were gray, scarcely perceptible against the gray ground, but they held watch over her. They were pa.s.sing sentence upon her. Suddenly they flew up and sank down over her head. She saw their sharp claws, their pointed beaks, their beating wings coming nearer and nearer. It was like a deadly rain of steel. She bent her head and knew that she must die. But when they came near, quite near to her, she had to look up. Then she saw that the gray birds were all these old women.

One of them began to speak. She knew what was proper, what was fitting in a house of mourning. They had now been silent long enough. But the wife started up as from a blow. What did the woman mean to say? ”You, Matts Wik's wife, Anna Wik, confess! You have lied long enough before G.o.d and before us. We are your judges. We will judge you and rend you to pieces.”

No, the woman began to speak of husbands. And the others chimed in, as the occasion demanded. What was said was not in the husbands'

praise. All the evil husbands had done was dragged forward. It was as consolation for a deserted wife.

Injury was heaped upon injury. Strange beings these husbands! They beat us, they drink up our money, they p.a.w.n our furniture. Why on earth had Our Lord created them?

The tongues became like dragons' fangs; they spat venom, they spouted fire. Each one added her word. Anecdotes were piled upon anecdotes. A wife fled from her home before a drunken husband.

Wives slaved for idle husbands. Wives were deserted for other women. The tongues whistled like whip lashes. The misery of homes was laid bare. Long litanies were read. From the tyranny of the husband deliver us, good Lord!