Egholm and his God

“Good-bye, dear, and take care of yourself,” said Egholm, and kissed his wife on both cheeks.

Anna was touched at so much gentleness. The tears flowed from her eyes.

VII

As Egholm came up to the station, he caught sight of young Karlsen. He was pale, and there was a cut on the bridge of his nose, but his temper was of the best.

“Aha!” he said artfully, nudging Egholm with his elbow. “Aha!” And he grinned.

That nudge, that grin, and that “Aha!” said much. They seemed to imply that Karlsen and Egholm had a pleasant – oh, a delightful little secret between them.

“A nice way you treated me last night,” said Egholm. He would have spoken more forcibly, a great deal more forcibly, but his mind was distracted by the thoughts of his journey. He had not yet made his choice of where to go. And the world was wide. “I hadn’t expected that of you – after what you said. You know.”

“Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath. And – er – bless them that curse you, and – er – put up thy sword into its sheath, for… Well, anyhow. You see, the old man wouldn’t hear of it. It was no earthly good. He said he’d resign first. Put yourself in my place, my dear fellow. And then I began to be doubtful myself, too, afterwards, about it all. Come and have a drink. You look as if you were going off somewhere. What’s on now?”

“Er – I’m going away,” said Egholm nervously. “Going to open a photographic studio.”

“Well, I never,” said Karlsen, with ungrudging wonder. “And where’s it going to be? You never said a word about that before.”

“I had a studio once in Copenhagen – Østergade, a splendid position. And customers accordingly. Made any amount of money. This time I’m going to try – er – Knarreby. Quite a nice little place, don’t you think?”

(There! Now it was said.)

“Knarreby? Oh yes, first-rate.”

They went into the waiting-room. Egholm carried the camera himself, Sivert following behind him with the handbag.

“Skaal,2 Egholm, and here’s to burying the hatchet. Friends again now, aren’t we? We were both a bit upset last night, and didn’t know quite what we were doing. Turn the other cheek, what?”

“I was going to, only you were holding me behind.”

“Ha ha! That’s good. Taking it literally, as you might say. That’s very good. Skaal! Have another of these. Yes; go on. I’m sure you can.”

Egholm joined in the laugh at his own jest. Now that he had finally decided, all was brightness and freedom ahead. Away, away, like a bird that wakes to find its cage suddenly open. He could feel no anger against anyone now.

“Have a cigar,” said Karlsen. There was no end to his amiability to-day.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Don’t you, though? I say, Egholm, I wonder if you’d be above doing me a little favour?” Karlsen bit off the end of his cigar.

“Certainly, certainly.” Egholm dived willingly into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches.

“Thanks – as a matter of fact, it wasn’t matches so much I was thinking of. Another little matter…” The match flared and flared.

Egholm happened to glance at the other’s face. The bright black eyes, with a fan of wrinkles out to the side, reminded him of fluttering cockchafers. Why, the man was nervous himself! His hand was shaking. And suddenly he brought the match too close to his beard…

“Of all the cursed… H’m. Well, never mind. – Look here, Egholm, you couldn’t manage to fix up another youngster at your place – a baby? You’ve quite a crowd already; it wouldn’t be noticed. It’s not mine – ha ha! No; it’s Meilby’s. I daresay he’s told you… Silly thing to do – playing with fire…”

“But why should I…”

“Ah, that’s just where it comes in. In the first place, there’s no one I’d sooner trust with a little angel like that, than you, my dear friends. And, in the second place, it’ll be worth something to whoever takes it, and I’d like you to have the money. It’ll be paid for, and well paid for. See what I mean?”

Egholm was alert in an instant. His heart was bubbling over with gratified malice. He put on a thoughtful expression as he took his ticket.

“Was it Meilby that put you on to me?”

“Well, yes and no. He comes to the meetings, you know, so I’d like to help him if I can. I can’t take the kid myself, you understand. The mother’s in a dairy all day.”

“But about the money,” said Egholm, moving towards the train. “What’s it worth?”

“Oh, any amount,” said the Evangelist. In his delight at finding Egholm so amenable to his plan, he forgot to restrain his play of feature. “Hundred and fifty kroner at the least. Let him pay, the beggar, it’s his own fault, and I’ll give him a talking-to. I went up to his place just now, by the way, but he wasn’t in.”

Egholm was in his seat. The train was ready to start.

“I’ll tell you where he is,” said Egholm, with a smile. “He’s on his way to America by now. I said good-bye to him last night.”

Young Karlsen was not used to being made a fool of. He collapsed as the train moved off; he waved a clenched fist furiously after it, and shouted. Then, turning to go, he discovered Sivert.

“What are you grinning at, you young devil?”

“He’s forgotten his bag,” said Sivert, shaking his white mop of hair with a satisfied smile.

But Karlsen found poor comfort in that.

VIII

Sivert stood in the smithy, trembling in every limb each time the hammer clanged on the iron plate. His mother had just gone, and he was alone. The hammer crashed like thunder, and he expected every moment to be struck by lightning.

“Look to your work,” said the blacksmith.

Fru Egholm had shaken her head at first, when she saw there was a boy wanted at Dorn’s smithy. Sivert a blacksmith? Never. But as there was no other job to be found in all Odense, and when Dorn explained that he wasn’t a blacksmith really, but a locksmith and general metal worker, she agreed, albeit with some mistrust.

The boy stood holding a metal plate, his master cutting through it along chalked-out lines. It was to be a weathercock, in the shape of a horse. Suddenly – just at an awkward turn – the plate slipped, and the smith snipped off one lifted foreleg.

For a second or two he seethed like a glowing bar of iron thrust into water. A box on the ears was not enough…

“Here, Valdemar!” he cried to his man. “Take hold of the little beast, and we’ll cut his fingers off. That’s it. So!”

Sivert wriggled and screamed, and even tried to kick. But the man behind only crushed him the harder in his blouse-clad arms, till the boy’s limbs hung limply down and his voice died to a hoarse gasp.

The smith opened the little white-knuckled hand with a grip as if shelling peas, and drew one finger between the shears, but managing carefully so that the boy could wrench it away at the critical moment.

This, of course, prolonged the joke, and made it all the funnier.

The man, too, began to find it interesting; his dull eyes glittered like molten metal newly set. There was a kind of anticipation in his mind – he realised that he would find considerable enjoyment in having Sivert all to himself when they went up to the bedroom they were to share at nights. It was but a vague thought as yet, a blind and pale Proteus moving uncertainly in the secret passages of his mind.

At dinner, while master and man sat over their porridge, Sivert was busy peeling potatoes for the next course. He sat on the wood box out in the kitchen, a tiny place, which was filled with the odour of Madam Dorn. She was the hugest piece of womankind Sivert had ever seen, and full of curious noises. Every other moment there came a threatening rumble from within like an approaching hurricane – perhaps she was hungry, too – then she would clear her throat with a thick, full sound, that seemed to rise from unknown depths. Sivert made the surprising discovery that her posterior part resembled a huge heart when she bent down. Was that perhaps an indication of general kindliness?

Now and again she came over to where he sat, and thrust her fingers down among the potatoes, to see if there were enough done yet.

It was a long, long time before the kitchen door opened, and the two superior beings within said, “Tak for Mad.”3 Not till then could Sivert fall to upon the crumbs from their richer table – a draggled herring and a few diseased potatoes.

“It’s a funny big world,” thought Sivert, “but seems mainly alike in most things.” His father’s thrashings had been delivered with more solemnity than his present master’s clouts, but then, on the other hand, Father would never have left a whole herring.

He had just finished washing up when the smith woke from his afternoon nap. “Kept up with him that time,” thought Sivert, with some pride.

Evening came, after an endless day. Sivert had had his supper, and was standing with the bucket of leavings out by the pigs’ trough, when he saw the journeyman striding out through the gate – a sight to see, with his hat down over his eyes and a cigar between his teeth pointing upwards. The boy wept with emotion at seeing him go —that strangling brute. Ah, the day was over now. He would have peace at last. He could go to bed.

The pigs sniffed at the empty bucket, and grunted encouragingly. Sivert was overjoyed with the pigs – he had made friends with them already, after dinner. There were two of them, one black.

He clambered up on the partition, and talked confidentially to them about the events of the day.

“Now, don’t you think I’m crying, because I’m not. Not a bit of it. I promised mother I wouldn’t. I was only wiping my nose, and you thought I was crying – ha ha, I did you there! And I’m not homesick, no; only making a little invisible sound, the same as when you’re homesick. It’s a trick I’ve learnt, and it’s not everybody can do it. Just listen… No; you’ve got to be quiet. You make worse noises than Madam Dorn. Homesick? What for, I should like to know? Father in Knarreby? I tell you I’m not fretting for him a single bit. Still, he couldn’t do anything to me about the bag; he never said I was to put it in the train.

“Homesick? For Hedvig, perhaps? She’s not really warm to sleep with, you know, and she always pulls the clothes off me. Oh, but of course you don’t know Hedvig. She’s my sister – a girl, you understand…”

Sivert realised on a sudden that between his knowledge and that of his hearers was a great gulf fixed. He fell to laughing, and then shook his head contemptuously.

“As like as not you don’t even know what sort of thing a girl is at all. Poor silly pigs that you are. Now, I know all the things there are in the world. But I was stupid myself once.”

A little before eleven he clambered up to the attic, his own bedroom, the one thing that had tempted him most of all when his mother had pointed out what he would gain by going out into the world, instead of staying at home.

“And you’ll have your own room, with a big bed you can turn about in whenever you like and as much as you like, with no one to pinch you for being a nuisance. And you can cut out pictures and stick them up on the walls, and on Sundays you can pick flowers and put them in water to last all the week. And then when the mistress comes up to make the bed, she’ll say: ‘Why, what a nice lad we’ve got, now. Picking flowers…’”

He was much puzzled to find that there were two beds, and neither of them made. Mistress must have forgotten it. And what on earth was he to do with two beds? Perhaps the boy they had had before used to lie in one of them till it got warm; and then shift over to the other. That way, of course, you could keep them both warm. But… No. Sivert decided not. Much better to save the wear of them, and only sleep in one. Mistress, no doubt, would appreciate that, and praise him for it.

He noticed, certainly, that there were some clothes on a chair, and a trunk between one bed and the window, but all unused as he was to the ways of out-in-the-world, he thought nothing of it. There were often things lying about at home here and there. After much consideration, he chose one of the beds, and sank to sleep.

Late that night came journeyman locksmith Valdemar August Olsen home, quite appreciably drunk. He stopped singing as he entered the gate, and took off his boots at the foot of the stairs, moved, no doubt, by some vestige of respect from his apprentice days.

He did not seem to need a light, but sat down on Sivert’s bed, talking softly to himself. Suddenly he felt something alive under the bedclothes, and started up, almost sobered by the fright. He fumbled for matches, and a moment later was staring into the face of a pale, whitish-haired boy, who sat up in bed with wide, terror-stricken eyes.

Olsen waved the match till it went out, and threw away the stump. The boy must not see him quake. That bed there – it had been empty for three months past, ever since Boy Sofus ran away.

“Ha, frightened you, what?”

“Yes.”

Olsen called vaguely to mind the interesting episode of the morning; he lit the lamp, and sat down again on the edge of Sivert’s bed.

“No need to be frightened of me. I shan’t hurt you.”

He thrust his hand under the bedclothes, and stroked the child’s knobby spine. It gave him a curious sensation, something promising and yet uncanny. He had felt like that once before, when he had bought a bottle of spirits for the night, but mislaid it.

Drowsy as he was, but still obstinate, he sat like a beast of prey, watching his time. Now and again he sniffed at Sivert’s scalp – he had noticed the smell of it that morning when he was holding him.

“What d’you want to have long hair like that for?” he asked.

Sivert felt it would be dangerous to be at a loss for an answer. And, diving swiftly into the primeval forest growth of his mind, he snatched the first fruit that came to hand.

“That’s for the executioner to hold on by, when he’s cut off the body,” he said.

“Executioner – what the devil! – cut off the body. It’s the head that’s cut off, stupid.”

“Oh,” said Sivert. “Not the body, then?”

But Valdemar August felt strangely confused in his mind. He tried again and again to see that curious question clearly, but in vain. Then he gave it up, and began talking at random of the days when he was out on his travels, after ending his apprenticeship, some ten years before.

He had passed through no end of towns, lodged in all sorts of places. He told of it all in short, descriptive sentences, always beginning with the words: “And then…”

“And then we came over to Jutland – and then we went down to Kolding – and then my mate said … and then said I…”

He had set out on his travels with a receptive mind, and had seen and experienced much. It was not just ordinary things such as the position and “sights” of the different towns that had impressed him, but each place was associated with some new and remarkable experience, vicious for the most part, that came to his mind anew as soon as he named the scene.

Sivert dropped off to sleep for a second at a time, between the intervals of Olsen’s recurrent “And then…” He understood but little of it all, but was grateful to find no immediate prospect of thrashing or strangling. If only he weren’t so sleepy, and so horribly cold. And how long was it to last? Olsen was telling now of an inn where they had found a dead rat in a steaming dish of cabbage, and of how they had paid the host in his own coin.

He laughed at the joyous recollection, and nudged the boy in the ribs. His imagination grew more fertile, he used ever stranger words, until at last Sivert began to wake up, and feel amused. Evidently this Olsen was a merry soul, though it was hard to make him out at first.

Suddenly Olsen jumped up, and began dancing about in the half-dark in his ill-mended socks, making the queerest antics. Sivert took advantage of a burst of laughter to bury his tired head among the pillows, but a sudden silence made him open one eye warily and peer out into the room.

Olsen was standing over him, looking wilder and more incomprehensible than ever. Sivert was paralysed with fear. He was about to scream, but thought better of it – perhaps, after all, it was not so bad but that he could turn it off with a grin. And with an utmost effort, he broke into a fine imitation of a hiccuping laugh.

Then Olsen’s rough hand closed over his mouth.

IX

What seemed most remarkable of all to Sivert was that there was never anything strange about Olsen’s manner in the daytime, even when the smith was not there.

Olsen by day was simply brutal, like any ordinary man; his eyes, that glittered so insanely in the dark, looked out in daylight with a gleam of unadulterated cruelty from under the brow they shared in common. And the hand that stroked him so affectionately could land out a blow that would make his ears tingle all day.

For a time Sivert endeavoured to persuade himself that it was merely nightmare. But there were things that could not be so explained. And he bore his horror alone, for his mother misunderstood the hints he threw out, owing to the fact that Sivert, as was his custom, assured her that Olsen did not do so-and-so.

“I should think not, indeed. It’s wicked even to think such things.”

“But I can’t help it.”

“Then say your prayers properly and earnestly, and God will help you all right.”

“I say my prayers like anything, every night. But Olsen’s ever so strong, and it’s no good. God can’t manage him, I suppose.”

“Sivert!”

“Or perhaps God doesn’t trouble about things as much as people say.”

“Sivert, now be a good child, do. Do you think God doesn’t trouble about us? Why, look, what a lovely boy He’s given us now…” Fru Egholm lifted the coverlet aside, to show the baby’s face. “Isn’t he sweet? And so healthy he looks. I think he’ll be fair haired.”

“But you promised me I was to be the only fair-haired boy?”

“I’d like to have as many of them as I can. They’re the best sort. And, you know, Abel was fair haired, but Cain was dark.”

“Just like Father!”

“Oh, child, how can you say such a thing!” Fru Egholm chattered on to cover her confusion. What a head the child had, to be sure.

The little one in the cradle awoke, and set up a faint cry like the bleating of a lamb. His mother took him up to her breast.

Sivert looked on with an expression of intense disgust.

“That’s enough – that’s enough,” he said again and again, his eyes straining awry in consuming envy.

“Mother, let’s break it up, let’s tear it to bits, before it gets any bigger.”

“What do you think your father would say to that?” said his mother, with a smile.

Sivert started; he had not thought of that difficult side of the question.

“Couldn’t we say it had got lost somehow? No, I know; we’ll tell him there never was but me and Hedvig. He won’t remember. And then we can show him me, and ask if that’s the one he means. Oh, may we, dear little darling mother?” And he stretched out his hand for the child.

“Just listen and I’ll tell you what Father says,” said his mother, feeling in a pocket of her dress.

Sivert’s face darkened; he stared anxiously at the letter.

“My dear Anna, – Excuse my long silence, but I have got things settled now, and every day feeling happier for the change. Karlsen, the Evangelist, has been a nightmare to me, but now I am awake once more, and drink in the fresh air and feel myself another man. And only fancy —my powers of invention, that I thought were dead, have come back again stronger than before. You remember I used to say I was as the hand of God here on earth. I am to go over the work, file away at it and make it even – in a word, improve the whole world, that He created great and rich and round, it is true, but rough at the edges. In my innermost self, and right out to my fingertips, I feel conscious of this as my calling. If I only go for a little walk with the wind against me, I feel my powers in urgent movement. Now, the friction exerted by the wind could be reduced to one-seventh by means of a little invention of mine. I can tell you, there is a great time ahead. But it is not this that occupies my mind just now, but something else. A machine. I dare not set down on paper what it is. Only this: be sure that all the taps and other parts of the steam wagon, my old construction, are sent to me here as soon as possible. I must try my wings now; I feel myself free. Free as a bird.”

“So I should think,” murmured Fru Egholm. “With no wife and children or anything else to look after. Well, thank goodness that’s not all.”

“I believe God Himself has led me to this place, and guided my footsteps in the way.”

“Yes, I daresay – but who was it went down on her knees a hundred times and prayed God to deliver you out of that Angel creature’s claws?”

Fru Egholm knew the letter by heart from end to end. Nevertheless, each line affected her now as strongly as if read for the first time. Even then, despite her critical opposition to the present passage, she was already feeling for her handkerchief, ready for the touching part she knew was just ahead.

“I have fitted up a splendid little studio in a carpenter’s place. Do you think anyone in Odense would ever have given me credit for the rent, and paid for a glass roof into the bargain and all that? When I came into the town the first day, it was like a triumphal march. I walked down from the station with a man, and asked him if he knew a place where I could put up. ‘Yes,’ said he; ‘you can stay at Vang’s hotel. My name’s Henrik Vang; it’s my father owns the place.’ I shook my head, thinking of my 3 kroner 50 that was all I had. But he said I could fix my own price; he’d look after that all right. Did you ever hear of such luck? We spent the whole evening together, in the restaurant, and all the notables of the town were there. He told them to put it all on his bill. While I think of it – be sure to send my embroidered waistcoat and the small boots, if you can manage it. They’re only in for a small sum, and you should be able to get them out all right, now you haven’t got me to feed…”

“Only a small sum! Heh! Embroidered waistcoat and creaky boots – no, my good man, you won’t get them, and that’s flat.”

But now came the part that filled Fru Egholm with joy and pride. Egholm wrote that he had been thinking much about the vision she had had on the night the child was born. It would be as well to give the child a name that should remind the Lord of His promise. He would suggest Emanuel.

Was there ever such a thoughtful creature in the world? And it was the first time Egholm had ever troubled himself to think of a name for any of the children. But perhaps he was a different man now. For he wrote further:

“The country round here is lovely. Only two minutes’ walk from my studio down to the shore. Might easily have a little sailing boat there, all ready to hand. I often go down there, but only for a minute at a time – there might be people coming up while I was out. You must see and come over soon. I am longing for you, dearest Anna…”

“And I’m longing, too,” said Fru Egholm, using her handkerchief. “Man and wife should be one, as they say. But what about you young ones? Hedvig ought surely to be able to get a place in Knarreby, no worse than the one she’s got. It’s you that’s the trouble, Sivert lad.”

“Olsen’s a good enough hand at thrashing, but I think Father beats him at using hard words,” said Sivert judicially.

The matter was not one to be settled out of hand. Money was not the only difficulty. Fru Egholm had gradually worked up quite a decent business connection with the sewing of grave-clothes. One day she had made 1 kroner 67 øre, net earnings. And a business like that was not to be lightly thrown away.

Hedvig was getting on nicely, at school and in her situation, and Sivert’s curious revelations grew less frequent.

Indeed, the boy suffered less now from the attentions of his tormentor at the smithy than at first. There were always the wonderful stories to begin with, and these he took as a kind of compensation for what followed. Olsen had also a book which he would bring out on rare occasions. It was a crumpled rag to look at, from the outside. But within were marvels. Sivert’s eyes glowed when Olsen took it out of the drawer. It was his journeyman’s book, at once a passport and a register.