Egholm and his God

He looked at Hedvig. She stood up, reaching with her thin, girlish arms for the parcel with her white apron in, up on the dresser. Off to her work. Off to all that money again.

“Wait a minute,” he said. There was a slight pause then, before he could stammer out his proposal – that they should all kneel down and pray to God. He did not know why, but it must be now, just at this moment, he said.

This was by no means a new and unheard-of thing; on the contrary, it had been known as far back as Hedvig could remember.

“It’ll keep till this evening, won’t it?” she said. “I shall be late if I stay behind now.”

“‘Seek first the kingdom of God and righteousness…’”

“Ha!” A single sound, like the scream of a cockerel, escaped from Hedvig. It was the first time she had openly derided her father’s godliness. She regretted it bitterly next moment. True, the door out to the alley-way was open, just at her left, but what was the good of escaping herself when her mother was left behind to face what would come? She knew what it was to come home in high spirits from her work, and find her mother weeping, perhaps bruised into the bargain. She had no wish to experience that again.

The tears were gathering already; something was choking her.

Egholm set his hands on the arms of his chair, to spring up and dash out into the kitchen, but his anger seemed to snap in the middle.

In a sudden glimpse of vision he saw Hedvig in a new light. The slip of a girl, whose naughtinesses he had been at such pains to weed out, was no longer a slip of a girl and merely naughty – she was a sinner.

Every line of her figure, every feature in her face spoke blasphemy. She stood there with the challenge of an idol.

With a strangely sweet horror her father noted all: her guilty mouth, half-open, with lips pale and narrow, yet fresh, and teeth white as almonds, whence issued that hell-born defiance. Her blood must be evil as smoking brimstone.

Egholm sank back powerless in his chair.

But a moment later a new feeling came over him. How great a thing would it be to bring this child of sin to God, with bowed head and folded hands. “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than of the ninety and nine which need no repentance.” So the Scripture said. Hedvig would be a heavenly subject for conversion.

And there could be no doubt but that God would appreciate the efforts of the one who had borne the trial of that conversion.

Hedvig stood with her back to him, slightly stooping, as if awaiting the blow. She started when her father came out and laid his hand on her shoulder instead.

The conversion process appeared strangely easy; yes, she should always find something to say to the bakers by way of excuse. She set to work at once pulling the chairs aside to make room.

Her father looked crestfallen and unsatisfied. He had been prepared for a struggle – but this was too easy.

Still, he had something in reserve. Little Emanuel, whose inconsiderable length of days might serve as warrant for his innocence, was set on a pillow in the middle of the floor.

“Put something under your knees, Hedvig dear,” said her mother.

“No need of that,” said Egholm, thumping his own on the floor with unnecessary force.

“Oh, great and merciful God…”

“You’ve got your hat on, dear,” said Fru Egholm mildly.

He sent her a wrathful glance, but laid aside his hat with much dignity.

“Almighty God, Lord of Heaven and Earth…”

Egholm’s prayer began as a sonorous commonplace, an echo from the halls of the Brethren of St. John. But gradually, as his subject grew on him, his own individual religious view for the time being showed through.

It was to God as the Owner of great possessions that he prayed.

If any had asked him who was the greatest inventor in the world, he would have confessed, with a pious bend of the head, that it was one of the least of God’s servants, an unworthy creature by the name of Egholm. But at the thought that God owned the fields, the woods, and the cities – the lands and the seas, Egholm, who had never owned more than the poor clothes he wore and a trifle of old furniture, was moved to prostrate himself before that mighty power.

It distressed him, however, that God should suffer those possessions of His to be put to ill use, in that He allowed them to fall into the wrong hands. It was by no means altogether selfishness that led him, Egholm, here to point out himself as one who would be a true and grateful steward of even the largest and most troublesome estate.

“Am I not Thy son, art Thou not my Father, whose will it is that all should be well with me?”

Hedvig heard but little of her father’s words: her eyes were following the hands of the clock; it was jerking by tiny stages on towards twelve. There it stopped, and seemed to linger for a moment, as if inviting the figure to join it on its way; then on again, irrevocably on and on. She clenched her teeth in impotent fury. Then suddenly a new note was touched in her father’s prayer – something which made her all attention.

He had commenced, quite advisedly, with the practical human tactics of praising those qualities in the Lord which he himself wished to call forth towards himself.

“Thy goodness is without end and beyond all measure. So great is Thy love to us poor children of men, that Thou hearest every prayer we offer up to Thee, and grantest it. It is written: ‘Ask, and thou shalt receive!’ So great is Thy loving-kindness unto us, that Thou wouldst not have us suffer more, and therefore sayest, let there be an end. Behold, Egholm Thy servant groaneth under the weight of poverty; Thou seest, and it is enough; Thou sayest the word, and lo, Thy servant cometh into riches and happiness…”

The words seemed to have a sort of hypnotic power; for a moment, Hedvig quivered with hope that it might really come to pass. Then she remembered how often she had heard the same thing; how many times she had been forced to kneel thus on aching knees in prayer for the same, but to no avail. From the time she was first able to speak, her tongue had praised the Lord. Now, it revolted her; something within her seemed to rise in protest; she felt that she hated God.

Never for a moment did she doubt His existence; on the contrary, she seemed to see His face. But it was a face hard and cold as stone, with eyes looking absently out. The ardent prayers of men were powerless to affect Him.

She began mumbling an oath every time her father found a new form for his praise.

It was otherwise with Egholm himself. He felt stronger and stronger as he went on; and at sight of Hedvig’s lips moving, he burst into tears, and found courage to speak out without reserve.

For it was a curious fact that more courage was needed to ask for little things. It was a simple matter enough to pray for wealth and happiness in general, but to-day he managed to get out the matter that really troubled him.

“Dear, good Lord, grant me – or only lend me – one hundred kroner; even fifty would do. You know what it’s for – that boat, the green boat of Ulrik’s. Not his new one, but the old. You know, dear Lord, I want it for my steam-turbine. And I’ve come to a dead stop now, and can’t move a step if you won’t lend me a miserable fifty kroner…”

His voice had altered now to a wheedling tone, with a marked city accent. He made a sort of half scrape-and-bow, and finished off.

“A – far…” prattled Emanuel.

It was Egholm’s habit after a prayer to embrace his wife. He made as if to do so now, but, to his surprise, she thrust him away with every indication of ill-will.

“No! Don’t think you’re going to get me on to that sort of thing, because I won’t.”

“That sort of thing!” Egholm’s voice was uncertain; he had a feeling that his wife was, after all, somehow in relation with the heavenly powers.

“No good having a cow that yields when it kicks over the bucket after. The first part was all right, but if you think God’s going to help with your silly tricks about that turbine thing – why, you’re very much mistaken.”

“But, why not?..”

“Because it’s an abomination. Cain was the first smith, and you know it. And the Lord hates all that hammering and smithying about at turbines and steam carts and friction cylinders…”

“Friction couplings,” corrected Egholm gently.

“Well, I don’t care what you call them. He hates all that sort of stuff, whatever name you give it. And you can be certain sure you’ll get nothing out of that prayer,” she concluded, with a lofty shake of her head.

Egholm sat down in silence, and Hedvig, seeing that he was overcome by some incomprehensible means, hurried off in relief.

What had come to Egholm now? Was he impressed by his wife’s wisdom? Oh, he thought her foolish beyond words.

But she had destroyed his exaltation as effectively as a knife thrust into a balloon.

His head dropped on his breast.

Yes, it was true enough, no doubt, that God was against him in all his plans and inventions. His prayer had been in vain, despite the brilliant idea of bringing along Hedvig as a sacrifice.

“Well, what do you think I ought to do?” he asked weakly.

“Me! And how’s a simple creature like me to say what you should do? You’re so clever…”

He fancied there was something behind her words, and grasped at it eagerly.

“What d’you mean?”

Fru Egholm kept up her pretence of emptiness for some time, but her speech was crafty as a will-o’-the-wisp, and he followed her till he lost his foothold. Then she said:

“Write to the Brethren, and ask for your money back.”

Egholm looked up with a momentary gleam of light, but pursed up his mouth in a grimace, and said:

“The Brethren – no. I’ve done with them for good and all.”

“All right, then, just as you please,” said she. And no more was said.

Towards evening, Egholm took his stick, and went for a walk through the town and down along the quay.

The black gliding waters of the Belt slapped softly against the stonework, and patted like flat hands under the tarred beams. He went right out to the point, where some boys were fishing with lines, and calling to one another in their singing dialect, as often as they fancied a bite.

A big Norwegian timber ship with a heavy deck-load lay in the harbour, and all the fishing-boats of Knarreby were gathered along the side of the quay.

The background was dominated by the church, the Custom House, and Vang’s hotel. To the west, little fisher huts set all up a steep slope, that rose farther on to the great beeches of Kongeskoven. Knarreby itself was on an elevation; the ground line of St. Nicholas Church was level with the roof of the Custom House. From where he stood, Egholm could see two gravestones showing white in the churchyard.

Loud voices could be heard from the terrace of Vang’s hotel; three gentlemen had just come out, and were sniffing and wiping their foreheads with handkerchiefs. Evidently, they had been dining. Somebody gave an order to a waiter, with a heavy slap on the back. There was a certain noisiness apparent.

Egholm pricked up his ears – that was Rothe’s voice and no other.

Ah – and now he recognised the other two: the warlike editor and Vang with a silk skull-cap.

Here were three men who, he felt sure, never bowed the knee to God. And yet they seemed to enjoy themselves.

How could it be?

That fellow Rothe, for instance, the ironfounder. He was said to have started at the lowest rung, as a blacksmith’s hand, eighteen years ago. Now, he owned the whole of Knarreby ironfoundry.

A turbine boat would be a mere nothing to a man like that.

Egholm sat on the quay for a while, following the three with envious eyes; then he strolled in towards the land with the ferrule of his stick dragging listlessly over the stones.

There was the usual crowd of fishermen gathered about the warehouse. They were always to be found there or over by the agent’s house. The walls of both were worn smooth by the backs of their trousers.

“Going to have thunder?” asked Egholm, with a swinging gesture which he fancied smacked of the sea.

They puffed at their pipes, and squinted in towards the centre, where Peder Kvabs stood. He was the fattest and reddest-faced of them all, and went about in his shirt-sleeves all the year round. When he said nothing, then there was nothing to be said.

Well, after all, no need for any introduction, thought Egholm, and came to the matter of his turbine at once. Funny thing, when you came to think of it, that in four or five years from now every little rowing-boat would have its turbine, and go spurting across the Belt like a cat, dead against the wind.

“If only it don’t turn out one of them infernal machines like they use for the Czar,” said Peder Kvabs, spitting between his teeth. The others were roused at his words to some considerable emotion. They rubbed themselves against the wooden wall, spat, and worked their eyebrows up and down. One of them made strange sounds.

“Ah, well,” said Egholm, discomfited, “you wait and see.”

He walked a few paces, swinging his stick, then turned and called back to them:

“You wait and see when it comes! I’m getting the money now – three or four hundred kroner. From Odense. It’s money I was done out of under false pretences. And I’m going to have the law of them…”

The woollen jerseys seemed to betray a seething and bubbling within. The men could contain themselves no longer. Suddenly Peder Kvabs hoisted his slacks, and led the whole flock hastily into the nearest café. There was no need to ask should they go; all felt it was a simple necessity.

“Yes,” said Egholm to himself. “That’s what I’ll do. They couldn’t give it against me if I went to law.”

But he felt sorely in need of someone who would have faith in him, and he longed for Henrik Vang’s ever-ready admiration. Might just slip up to his room…

Fru Vang kept a quiet little boarding-house for a few old bachelors who had taken the best rooms of the house. She and Vang himself occupied separate attics.

Vang was in bed, with half an inch of reddish stubble on his chin, and the hair on his forehead clammy with feverish sweat.

“Why, what’s this?” cried Egholm, aghast. “Are you ill? And I’d never heard a word… A great strong fellow like you! What’s the matter?”

“Sit down a minute,” said Vang faintly. “We can shift this here. Or give it to Diana … there you are.”

He set a plate down on the floor, and wiped the seat of a chair with his bare arm.

“I’ve worked it out,” said Egholm, without preface. “The boiler must be vertical. With the first experimental boat, of course, it’s more than ever important to save space. Can’t make out why I didn’t hit on that before.”

There were half a score of other things he had “worked out.” Vang listened attentively, wrinkling up his forehead and gazing ceilingwards, as if something were passing far above his head.

Egholm felt comfortable now, and in a burst of geniality exclaimed:

“Here, Vang, you’d better let me have a look at you. I’m something of a doctor – natural healer, you know. I was patching up Madam Hermansen’s leg the other day. Have you seen a doctor at all? What did he say?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Vang, looking away.

“All the better; nothing to distract my instinctive powers. Where’s the pain?”

“Oh, you know all the time,” said Vang piteously, laying one hand on Egholm’s arm. “Don’t go teasing me now, there’s a good fellow.”

Egholm rose to his feet in surprise; his imagination was weaving intricate tangles in a moment.

“Is it – is it… No, I’ve no idea – really, I haven’t.”

Vang pouted like a boy, and after a little hesitation explained that his wife had a habit now and again – more and more frequently of late – of taking away his trousers. He had been lying here now for four days, with no trousers to put on.

“Oh, don’t sit there grinning just like all the rest of them!”

“I’m not, indeed. So she takes away your trousers? First-rate idea, you know, really. She’s one of my sort. But, look here, you know, we must be able to borrow a pair from somewhere. I’ve only these myself, more’s the pity. But we might take it in turns…”

“There’s only one man in the place whose trousers fit me. And he won’t. Oh, the beast! I sent down to ask him. He knows very well what’s the trouble. It’s Rothe.”

There was a sound of short, rapid steps outside. Vang listened, waved one arm as if with a baton to bid the orchestra cease, and fell back, looking very ill indeed. There was a knock, and Fru Vang entered. She was a dark, thin, sour-looking woman with pale cheeks and a burnt fringe.

Vang sat up hastily and made the introduction with an ease of manner acquired from habitual attendance at ballrooms, then lay back and resumed his invalid air.

“I’ve sewed that button on,” said Fru Vang, laying something on the bed. “Don’t you think you might try to get up now?”

She tripped back and forth about her husband’s bed, settled his pillows, and pulled the sheet straight. Her skirts were shorter than was usual, and her patent shoes had pointed toes and very high heels.

The legs were undoubtedly the legs of a waitress, but the rest of her was unimpeachable. Save, perhaps, for the fringe… Yes, the legs and the fringe…

Egholm left the pair to themselves and hurried home. He had gained something at least, in that his gloomy thoughts were dispersed for the time being. Again and again he stopped, shook his head, and snorted with laughter, at the recollection of huge Vang’s helpless expression.

After all, there was no sense in taking things too seriously. Most of life was only fooling at the best. He would write to the Brethren, yes; but he would not be a fool and insist on his rights; much better to go warily, and beg their assistance in his extremity. It was one of the rules of the community to help any brother in distress.

Fru Egholm had the pleasure of her husband’s company till late that night. She looked to her work, and he sat there as in the old days, busy with pen and ink and quantities of paper. But he was not angry now; he hummed and chuckled in a self-satisfied way. At one o’clock he began to read his petition aloud.

The letter ought to be sent off at once, wherefore he started off himself to the railway station, and Fru Egholm was for once the first to retire. She was asleep when he returned, but woke shortly after, and was puzzled a good deal by a curious sniffling sound that seemed to come from his pillow. Then the bed shook, and all at once she realised that he was laughing!

Ah, well, those who laugh at night may come to weep by day, she thought to herself, with some irritation.

Egholm gabbled away for some time about the turbine, about his letter to the Brethren, and about Vang, the trouserless, and his wife.

His wife… Ah, she was a devil! A cold air seemed to breathe from her – though she might well have exhaled overmuch warmth in earlier days. He remembered her mechanical smile and her soft, gentle ministrations about her husband’s bedside. False, false from top to toe.

One might almost be tempted to say that there was but one thing genuine about her – her false teeth! Egholm ducked down in bed again at the thought, his lips opening and closing stickily.

XVI

The Egholms managed to drag on into December without using their stove.

Fru Egholm pointed to the trees in Andreasen’s garden, showing how the leaves broke away in the frost, and slid drowning one by one down through the air, like naked yellowish bodies.

“Well, and what then?” asked her husband uncomprehendingly.

“Why, then – it’s winter, and time to be getting in fuel, unless you want to perish with cold.”

“Why, as for that,” said Egholm, leaning over the kitchen table to get a better view, “there’s one tree there that’s as green as ever. Look.”

“Green as ever it may be,” said his wife, “seeing it’s an evergreen. That’s holly.”

“Holly’s a sacred tree,” said Egholm, “and we should take it as a model.” It was not meant in jest. He really endeavoured to school himself to endurance. He left one button of his coat undone, and made long speeches about the unwarrantable luxury of having a fire in the stove. When you went about wrapped up in clothes, and even lived in a house, why…

Fru Egholm sighed. She made herself and Emanuel into bundles of clothes, and hoped for the best.

At first it really seemed as if Egholm had conquered the ancient prejudice in favour of warmth. He talked about pawning his overcoat, and went about rejoicing at his excellent health. He expected to feel even better as it grew colder, he said.

But cold was a strangely elusive enemy to fight against. Out in the open, in a gale of wind, where one might expect to find it at its worst, he could defeat it easily, and come home flushed and warm. Then, before he knew it, it had crushed and left him exhausted in his own comparatively sheltered room. His wrists grew thinner, and his fingers curled like the fingers of a corpse.

One evening he gave in completely. Now he would have a fire, and that at once. And since there was nothing else in the place to burn, he cut up his wife’s chopping-boards, tore out the stuffing from an old straw mattress, and trampled Hedvig’s doll’s house flat. Fru Egholm made piteous protest, but Hedvig simply looked on with a curious smile. Next day Egholm himself was most eager to obtain credit at the coal merchant’s.

This, then, was the state of things in the house. They had no money, and very little credit; both difficult things to do without.

People seemed to have forgotten there was such a thing as having their photograph taken.

The Egholms felt it in various ways: food and clothing, for instance. Hedvig could manage all right as to food. She was always eating at the baker’s, and cakes dropped out of her clothes when she undressed at night; she brought them home for Emanuel. But even her existence was touched with the ugly grey brush of poverty. Her boots were a marvel; every schoolgirl in the town knew Hedvig’s boots. They had an extraordinary number of buttons up the side, with springs, and a sort of ventilation. They must have cost a great deal at one time. There were no soles to them now, but that did not matter, said her father – you don’t walk with your feet in the air! Hedvig admitted there was something in that, and comforted herself further with the thought that no one could see what her under things were like.

There was little gaiety about the Egholms’ life.

And yet there was one little being whose only longing day and night was to share their lot in every way. This was Sivert in his smithy.

The day his mother had got into the train and glided out into the morning mist, his organ of equilibrium had suffered a shock. One day he would fall, and fall, moreover, in the direction of Knarreby.

He had always been keenly attached to his mother, and, now that she was gone, his longing conjured up her picture into this or that piece of bright metal he held, or he would hear her voice in the blowing of the bellows. Then he would laugh and talk out loud, or stand up and swing his arms in a joyful embrace towards his beloved mother.

Whereupon his master would immediately land out at him from one side, and Olsen from the other, which was perhaps the reason why he retained the same degree of crookedness.

His mother had given him to understand that there would be occasional visits; either he should come to Knarreby, or she would come to him there, but there came nothing more than a letter once a month, and even these grew shorter and shorter. At last they contained hardly more than the advice to be a good boy and do what he was told, and not to forget his prayers.

Sivert read them with quivering mouth, and nodded; he would do as she said.

Then, further, the letter reported that they were all well at home. Sivert nodded at this likewise. But when he came to read the signature, “Your own loving mother,” the tears began to trickle down, and, a moment after, he was sobbing all over.

Each day was for the boy a ladder of a hundred toilsome steps, and the ladder led to nights spent with Olsen. It was getting on towards Christmas. Sivert realised it one day, as he came trotting along through the street with a load of iron rods.

In one of the shop windows stood a Christmas tree decked out with little baskets and paper horns and cottonwool on all the branches. There was a crowd of children in front of the window. Sivert made a sharp turn about, and stood there lost in admiration. Ho! That was a Christmas tree! He knew it!