Johannes Buchholtz

“ The talk itself was but a detail, that cropped up before one knew, thought Fru Egholm at times; but if she had not had someone to look at her needlework, why, in the long run, it would mean sinking down to the level of a man.
True, Madam Hermansen was no connoisseur of art, but a dollymop who never achieved more than the knitting of stockings herself. On the other hand, she was ready to prostrate herself in admiration of even the most trivial piece of embroidery or crochet-work. ”

“ Egholm turned up an old bucket. “Here!” and he offered his hand like a polite cavalier and helped her up.
The summer night was all about them. The lapping of the waves sounded now near, now far; it was like delicate footsteps. For a little while neither spoke.
“But—you’re not crying, Anna, dear?” He had felt her shoulders quivering.
“We’ve been so far away from each other; strangers like,” she sniffed. And then she broke down completely. “Anna, dear,” he had said. “Far away from each other.... I don’t see how.... Seems to me we’ve been seeing each other all day the same as usual.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ The wrinkles in the young apostle’s face were ceaselessly at play, forming new and intricate labyrinths without end. As soon as the Angel had finished his prayer, young Karlsen slipped in close to Egholm and sat down beside him.
“Straight to the heart,” he said admiringly. “That’s the sort of goods, what? It fetches them.”
Egholm dried his eyes bashfully.
“That’s the way to drive a lot like this. But”—a sudden gleam of contempt shone in his blue-and-watery sheep’s eyes—“it’s about the only thing he can do. Angel, indeed! Once he’s got you here, he’s good for something, I’ll allow. ”

“ Love’s not a thing you can pull up by the roots all of a sudden.
“‘When first the flame of love warms human heart, they little know
What harm they do beyond repair who make it cease to glow!’”
[165]
“Hymns!” said Madam Hermansen scornfully.
“Ah, but it’s just hymns and such that lift us up nearer to God.”
“Oh, God’s all right, of course, but it doesn’t do in this world to leave too much to God.”
“It’s all we poor sinful mortals have. Where do you suppose I should ever find comfort and solace if I hadn’t God to turn to? Why, He’s almighty. He’s even done things with Egholm at times. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Hedvig and her mother stood aghast, while Egholm thrust past them and began moving his bottles with the easy familiarity of habit.
All the windows were darkened but one, that glared red as a furnace door. They could see nothing save their own hands, which looked strange and uncanny in the red light.
“Egholm, you surely don’t mean to say we’re to do the cooking here? When you can’t see your hand before your face!” ”

“ All he could call to mind of Hedvig was her keen grey eyes, and Sivert was associated chiefly with the grating sound of a little saw. But that sound was so vividly present in his mind that he lashed out with his stick, by way of relief. It was a reflex movement, a case of cause and effect.
Egholm had expected to find his family on the steps of the station, but there was no one there. The whole place looked dead and deserted. The omnibus horse stood drowsing in its tether, while the driver, Red Jeppe, jested with the waitress at the bar. No one on the platform but a group of girls. ”

“ Trembling with emotion, Egholm watched the mighty personage striding through the groups. He always walked as if battling his way forward in the teeth of a gale. Even to-day, when the water was smooth as a mirror, his flowing cloak, his greyish-yellow military beard, even his bushy eyebrows, [275] seemed to stand away from him as if borne on the wings of some private particular wind; possibly one he had brought home with him from the battlefields of ’64.
The onlookers leaped aside, like recruits, to make way for him. ”

“ Egholm felt his knees sinking—he was deadly tired. Then, at the sound of a cart crushing through the wood far away, he drew himself up with a sigh and walked off among the trees.
The blood began pulsing in long swells through his veins, following on his excitement, but there was no pain anywhere now. He had a nice strong feeling of having been honest.
He murmured a few words of Sivert’s oracular speech that had stuck in his mind:
“It’s ever so hard to do a thing when it’s impossible.” ”

“ Meilby would bear it in mind.
“Yes, but suppose you forgot?”
“Why, we’ll be none the less friends for that,” said Meilby, with an amiable smile.
“You’ll get nothing out of him, you see,” said Anna when he had gone. “It’ll be just the same with him as with young Karlsen, when he came to learn English, too. Huh! It was you that learned something that time, if you ask me.”
“He’s an artful one,” said Egholm, with a laugh. “He tricked the doctor when he went to be examined. But, after all—what’s a trifle like that when a man stands firm on the rock of truth?” ”

“ Then he would mess about for a few hours in the studio, while his thoughts flew all ways at will, generally down to the beach, where he struggled with imaginary parts of his machine in an imaginary boat, but ready and willing to occupy themselves with anything of any sort anywhere in the world. Egholm felt it a wasted day when he had not stowed away a couple of new inventions in the warehouse of his mind. And a night that brought him nothing but sleep and rest he counted empty [235] and unfruitful. Better a touch of the horrors than just nothing. ”

“ My friend, my old and faithful friend, you are a man. You can assert yourself, and get your own way. But Henrik Vang, he can’t. And I ask you now: How shall we gain the mastery over woman? There! That, my friend, is the problem—the problem of the future.”
“But is it true that she knocks you about?” asked Egholm, grasping eagerly at anything to turn the current of his own thoughts. ”

“ By the time he reached Knarreby Mill it was pitch dark. The high invisible sails flung rattling round past a little red window far above. A little later, and the town itself blinked out to meet him, but it was some time before he managed, with the help of a lad of his own age, to find the way in through Andreasen’s yard, and stood, with beating heart, looking in at the light behind the familiar green curtains. Someone was standing outside the window, looking in from one side where the curtain was folded. Someone in a blue blouse, only a little bigger than Sivert himself. ”

“ It was a girl’s cap, really—a sort of sunbonnet that had lain in a drawer since Hedvig’s time, but—Herregud! what did it matter? At his age....
Egholm walked in front, the pictures waving up and down like a pair of wings as he described the view with great enthusiasm to his wife.
The slow-moving flood of the Belt glittered in newborn sunlight. The fields lay green and open under God’s sky. The landscape looked one freshly and boldly in the eyes—Anna marked how the very air tasted utterly different from that about Eriksens’ sour little patch of yard and garden. ”

“ If you can’t abide the smell of hot bread, then it’s no good going for a baker!”
Egholm overcame his reluctance, knelt down, and began examining the leg, from the greenish-faded stocking that was gathered like an ankle-ring at the bottom, to the knee, where a garter had cut deep brownish-red furrows.
“Here’s the mischief,” he said, nodding wisely. “The blood can’t get past here, and that’s why it can’t heal. You’ll have to stop wearing garters at once.”
“Easy to hear it’s a man that’s talking,” laughed Fru Egholm. ”

“ He shakes his poodle mop of hair, and gives way to a long-drawn, gasping laugh—simply can’t help it—leans his forehead [2] against the pane, thrusts both hands suddenly deep into his pockets, and gives a curious wriggle.
“You great big boy, what’s the matter now?” says his mother gently.
Sivert turns his head away and answers with an evasive laugh:
“All that rain ... it tickles so.”
Fru Egholm does not question him again; for a moment she really feels as if the boy were right. And, anyhow, it would be no use asking him. If only he can find his little pleasure in it, so much the better. ”

“ It was moonlight outside; the shadow of the tall workshop roof lay coal-black over half the courtyard, leaving the remainder white as if it had been lime-washed.
Every step she took seemed new and strange. So softly their steps fell in the thick dust as they crossed the road.
Up in the old churchyard, every tree stood like a temple of perfume in the quiet, soft night. And all the time, she was marvelling that it really was moonlight. She had not noticed it at home—doubtless because the lamp was burning. ”

“ The words were plain and to the point; everyone in the hall stared in amazement at the backsliding photographer, who was standing on a bench and waving clenched fists in the air. It was evident that he had been drinking.
Then they turned to look at young Karlsen. His face was drawn awry.
Egholm was so moved at this unexpected reinforcement that the tears flowed down his cheeks. He found voice again and took up the cry.
“They’re a lot of criminals, all of them. Setting themselves up against God’s laws that I’ve discovered. I’ll have you up, that I will. Give me my money, my money!” ”

“ Egholm stops at the Eriksens’ gate, glances round, and kneels.
Kneels down full in the mire, while the gale flings the cape of his ulster over his head. Now he snatches off his hat and crushes it in his fingers; his bald head looks queerly oblong, like a pumpkin, seen from above.
“He’s praying!”
And the two at the window shudder, as if they were witnessing some dreadful deed.
“Where am I to hide?” blubbers Sivert.
The mother pulls herself together—she must find strength for two.
“You need not hide to-day. Take your little [4] saw and be doing some work. ”

“ 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 [189] 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. ”

“ You haven’t lost faith in your own invention?”
“It’s a curious thing,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “One moment I believe in it, and the next I don’t. How is it possible that the trained experts with all modern equipment at their backs—and money, most of all—with nothing to worry about but their own calculations and plans—how could they have missed the solution of the problem when it seems to me as plain as the nose on your face?”
“Why, as to that, I don’t know, I’m sure. But that steam cart you made, you know, just before Hedvig was born, that didn’t work.” ”

“ Sivert was not there!
True, there was little Emanuel, whom he had forgotten altogether for the moment. But then Emanuel was the child of victory. Or at least it was reasonable here, as ever, of two evils to choose the lesser.
Anna was a little puffy and dark under the eyes, but her cheeks were flushed with excitement. She and Hedvig handed out an endless array of packages, a lamp, some pictures, and the family treasure—the cut-glass bowl. One of the parcels was soft and round, and Anna proffered it with a warning:
“Be careful; don’t lay it down anywhere. There might come a dog....” ”

“ The factory boys whistled like rockets, and marched in procession two and two about Petrea and her father.
The respectable citizens stepped out briskly to get warm, and laughed modestly one to another, like peasants emerging from a conjurer’s tent.
But never again!
The sound of footsteps died away on the path, and the last of the figures disappeared into the gloom, leaving a solitary figure still waiting on the beach—a little woman, shivering under a white knitted kerchief. It was Fru Egholm. No one had seen her come ”

“ Karlsen broke off in distraction every time the door opened.
“As long as the Lord gets your souls. And Father, he’ll see to that.”
Egholm began to feel uncomfortable.
The congregation had broken up into groups, centring more particularly about the neighbourhood of the Angel. Johannes, the postman, glared furiously, with distended greenish eyes, at Fru Laursen wading like a cow among the reeds.
“If I can keep behind her,” thought Egholm to himself as he rose, “I might get through. Just to thank him....” ”

“ Outside his own door he stopped. The scent of the clove tea came to greet him, and revolted him for the first time. He turned round and walked away again, out over the sandhills, along the quay, and down between the warehouses.
The group of fishermen sighted his thin, fluttering figure in the gloom, shook themselves, and pressed their backs closer against the wall of the shed.
But Egholm found at last an old green rowing boat among those drawn up on the beach. He struck a match, and made sure it was the one. ”

“ Do you suppose I could be content, with duns and creditors tearing at me like dogs about a carcase? No; ready money, that’s what it means. Money we give, and money shall be given unto us in return; we shall receive our own with usury, as it is written.”
“Do you really mean....”
Egholm grasped eagerly at the hint of admission that he fancied lay behind her doubt. He strode to the chest of drawers, and, picking up the crystal bowl, held it out towards the light as if raising it in salutation. The tithe-money showed like some dark wine at the bottom. ”

“ All heard, however, when young Karlsen called out the number of a hymn, and though Egholm repeated his request in a slightly louder voice, the congregation began singing:
“‘Up, ye Christians, up and doing,
Warriors of the Lord, to arms!
Lo, the foeman’s host pursuing,
All the power of war’s alarms.
Draw and smite
For the right,
Hell is arming ’gainst the Light.
Follow in your leader’s train,
Trusting in his strength to win,
Satan hopes the day to gain,
Up, and smite the host of sin!
Here at hand
Still doth stand
One who can all powers command!’”
Egholm had lost patience. ”

“ She stood holding her flower-pot and her parcels as if dreading to soil the paint of table and seats.
“Him and me,” said Vang in a solemn bass, letting his chin fall forward on his chest—“him and me we’ve been as one. But I’m going now, all right.”
“Why, what for?” said Egholm, touched. “There’s no need....” He took Vang’s arm.
“Ah, but I must. Henrik Vang can’t stay where there’s women about.” ”