Jonas Lie

“ From the wood-cellar she all at once heard a sound as of wailing in the darkness within. It was as though some one were crying, and now and again sobbing convulsively for some time without being able to produce a distinct sound.
The voice sounded so utterly broken-hearted that Maren stopped putting the wood into her apron and stood by the chopping-block listening. It seemed to come from one of the coal cellars up the dark passage. At last she seized the lantern and groped her way in; she must come to the bottom of this.
"Is any one here?" she cried at the door whence the sobbing came. ”

“ You must be trying to make me afraid of you, too!"
"Afraid of me?—of me, Silla?"
"Don't they all look upon me as a baby that's tied to her mother's apron-strings? And now you come and want to help her, Nikolai. That's right! That's right! Only keep me in! Oh yes, you and mother! It's only a question of who gets the power over me. But you'd better take care, Nikolai!"
She began to cry bitterly in impotent rage.
"Oh, well, cry away! I won't say anything. You've got some one else to comfort you for a little while," he added moodily. ”

“ Confined as she was, and made to work through the long evenings, while her mother watched her like an eagle, Silla's only chance of indemnifying herself was up at the factory.
She went about there with a suppressed longing and eager interest, her eyes sparkling, in the midst of all the chattering, whispering and gossiping among her different ideals—Kristofa and Gunda, active Swedish Lena, and pert Jakobina. If she could not be with them herself, she might at any rate hear what fun they had had, and all that had happened. In this way she could live their life at second hand. ”

“ The hammer rang on the iron.
Nikolai did not take a lodging anywhere that evening; he was too bruised and dirty for that, his clothes too torn and ragged, and, more than anything else, he felt too sore to meet people now that he had left the smithy in such a way.
When night fell, he had once more taken up his familiar quarters in one of the stacks of planks down at the timber-yard. There, in one of the deep square spaces he lay and looked up at the stars and thought how entertaining the world had become! ”

“ Holman could stake her life upon, that if there was any one in the house who could not stand disorder or unseemly behaviour, it was she. She could not imagine a worse punishment than to have it said of her that she allowed shame and depravity to flourish in her sight.
But when Maren sat down there in the evening by the lantern on the chopping-block, and could hear the boy screaming right from the Holmans' room, she was not capable of going upstairs until the worst was over. She thought she had never heard anything so heart-rending, even though it was in the cause of justice. ”

“ Nikolai stood with his cap in his hand, looking down at the floor. He had a habit of drawing the skin of his forehead up and down when he was meditating. In the broad, young face with the large features, the grey eyes into which there sometimes came a peculiar look, and the cock's comb, of a tinge between zinc and copper, the police inspector's penetrating and—after many year's practice—not easily deceived eye saw the marks of one who would probably in the future often give occupation to the police. ”

“ This was repeated until it became wearisome, and Silla proposed that they should go somewhere else, which, under Georgina's guidance, led to a walk round the fortress.
Nature was not their object; and they only met one or two tired, bored individuals who evidently did not know what to do with themselves on Sunday afternoon: now and then they stopped and looked up at the trees.
A sentry called his long-drawn "Relieve guard!" It sounded like a mighty yawn in the afternoon. Out on the calm, shining fjord lay boats and vessels drifting in the breathless heat. ”

“ But I can tell you, Nikolai, that if there isn't to be any fun in this world, then good-bye and be rid of it. I've had to sit shut up long enough at home."
He shook his head. "If only there weren't all those wolves howling away there on the road. But you see, they want to amuse themselves too; and—and the insignificant ones have to take care of what they have, it seems to me—and if you're of the same mind, Silla, we'll go in to your mother at once—this very moment." ”

“ Silla followed slowly; there was inspiriting dance-music brightening all the path within the wooden paling, and she drank it in with both ears, while the rhythm rocked in her veins.
A little higher up, where the path turned off, she stopped again; she could not leave the music, and scandalised Georgina by going right up to the paling and trying to see in.
Georgina would leave her that very minute! She ought to have so much respect for herself as not to stand there! ”

“ But mother, Nikolai! Oh, I'm so frightened—so frightened only that she'll get to know that we sometimes meet. She looks at me so hard every time I've been an errand, and I've always been gone so long. But when I sit darning and patching of an evening, I sometimes imagine that you come in so fine and rich, and that you own the whole of Hægberg's smithy, so that mother has to give in. ”

“ They were for the most part quite young vagabond girls of from barely sixteen to twenty, who were making the noise up there: new-comers, more or less, without practice, who were still striving to acquire the knack. And that was Silla Holman, she with the dark hair, slender and freckled, with heelless slippers and a large spot of paraffine on the front of her dress, who coughed and questioned, and questioned and coughed, while her eyes looked like two little round, black fire-balls, and her weak, flat chest went up and down with the mere exertion of making herself heard. ”

“ Now he was gone; he must be dancing.
The clear glimpse he could get through the little opening in the blind was dimmed by moisture. Only when a heavy drop ran down the pane in the heat inside, could he catch a fraction of a glimpse through the streak.
There came Veyergang's shadow, with stick and hat again, and lower down the crooked outline of a woman's head in lively gesticulation.
Again the figure with the stick disappeared, and Nikolai prepared to watch for it. ”

“ It could not be fear of any one at home, and then it suddenly dawned upon him that she was ashamed that people should see her standing and talking to him, so with a "Good-bye, Silla!" he darted from her.
Afterwards he thoroughly enjoyed seeing her look so unhappy and so eager to show him that she did not care what people thought. What did she care about him, when he had nothing to treat her with? It was not fit for her to stand talking to a fellow like him.
There is a splendid friend and ally for every one who has thin, ragged clothes, and that is the sun. ”

“ In the streets and the park at this respectable time in the afternoon, crowds of people clad in their best were strolling up and down looking at one another, and for a long time Silla and Georgina had enough to do in directing one another's attention to the finest and most fashionable dresses, and especially the long white flowing scarfs wound under the chin and thrown over the shoulder. ”

“ Aloud he only said cautiously: "If we are only wise, and careful, and look well ahead, perhaps we may be sitting in our own room by next spring, Silla. But so many things may happen in between," he added huskily, with a deep-drawn sigh.
"I really believe there'll be neither life nor courage in you until you're married, Nikolai," she said, laughing; "you're so horrid to meet now, that it's enough to make one quite sad and uncomfortable the whole evening. A nice sweetheart you are!" ”

“ But there came those great, grown-up girls, flying one after another along a slide down the street, screaming and shouting, so that it was enough to knock people down. So she had dropped the cup with all five leeches in it, and if it had not been moonlight so that she could see to pick them up again on the snow, she would have lost every single one. It was that Josefa and Gunda and Kalla down the street, and that long Silla—she came along like a ghost. Ah, Mrs. Holman, who is so particular, should see what sort of a daughter she has, when it gets dark. ”

“ As a private individual, she is in a sense right; but socially, as a member of society——!
At first poor Barbara was quite blind on this point, utterly obstinate, rigid as a mountain pony that could not be got to stir.
Dr. Schneibel was standing for the third time at the tinsmith's, with his stick under his nose, while his gig waited down in the road. Each time he had added to both wages and arguments, and had again and again pointed out how bad it would be both for her and her boy if she continued so obstinate. He appealed to her own good sense. ”

“ After having thought gloomily and sadly over this for a time, her reflections took another course, and she began to anticipate impetuously how they would amuse themselves, she and Nikolai, when once she got away from home. She would have fun like all other young people, even if they had to give a dance in their own room. And go out in a boat in the evening and row and fish, and on Sundays take their dinner out into the woods, and shout so loud that the hills would ring again. ”

“ Silla hardly dared look up at him, and only heard something about freckles not being anything to mind when one had such dark eyes, when, with head in advance, she rushed out of the door.
Barbara's opinion afterwards about Silla's behaviour—her having all at once turned crimson, and rushed away at a few innocent words from such a well-meaning and handsome man as Ludvig Veyergang—her son heard the same evening. A young girl ought to stand modestly, and not go on like that: if she did, it was a sure way of getting all that could be called man-folk at her heels. ”

“ Have you quite forgotten what mother is like? It will be time enough when we've got something to marry on."
"Time enough? No, it's not time enough for me, Silla. I must try and get it said now."
"And what will happen to me at home afterwards? And you're not dressed for it either, this evening."
"Oh, don't be afraid, Mr. Nikolai. I may as well see with my own eyes how highly my daughter condescends to respect her mother who is left a poor defenceless widow."
It was Mrs. Holman's own voice; she was standing in the gateway, looking preternaturally large. ”

“ Holman's heel to be able to bloom now as a fragrant, full-blown flower within him.
The outcome of his reflections was a sudden twist and a violent jerk, by which he hoped to escape from his inconvenient companion, the sole result, however, being that he immediately had a constable at each arm.
When brought up for examination before the police superintendent, a dark, unwilling defiance glowed in his face, and the sharp glance—too sharp for a lad of his age—did not prepossess any one in his favour.
Silla? He had not been with any Silla on Saturday. ”

“ I really wonder, Nikolai, that you didn't find a respectable girl for yourself who would walk with her back like a poker, and her arms under her shawl, and who only lets herself slide by accident as it were, when she comes to a slide—daren't even look out of the corner of her eye at a hand-sledge, because she's so well-behaved! ”

“ Barbara was quite flushed.
She would not let herself be ruined a second time for Nikolai's sake. It was quite enough that he had injured her welfare once before in this world. Yes, he need not sit and look at her with open mouth. What else was she turned out of the Veyergangs' house for, where she had been so important, if it was not because Nikolai had lifted his hand against the Consul-General's Ludvig. Oh yes, he might wonder as much as he liked, but that was why she had been driven out helpless into the world, from comfortable circumstances. ”

“ The neighbours had become accustomed to the continual screaming and howling of that naughty boy, just as one accustoms one's self to piano practising or the din of a factory; perhaps too, they comforted themselves with the thought that it was most fortunate that such a morally depraved child had come under discipline and correction.
When Nikolai and Silla wandered as usual up and down the pavement outside the cellar, the people of the house might often in passing give the little girl a friendly nod. To give Nikolai any encouragement in that way would have been a mistake. ”

“ What fairy stood by the cradle of Barbara's Nikolai it would be difficult to say. Out at the tinsmith's, in the little house with the cracked and broken window-panes in the outskirts of the town, there was often a run of visitors, generally late at night, when wanderers on the high road were at a loss for a night's lodging. Many a revel had been held there, and it was not once only that the cradle had been overturned in a fight, or that a drunken man had fallen full length across it. ”

“ Johanna Sjoberg, who does clear starching, recognised him down at the masked ball at the fair; she told me so herself."
"You can just fancy," struck in Jakobina, "what a number of fine people come to the rooms in that way. You think you are only waltzing with a common man, and perhaps it is the son of the richest man in the town! But if you are a little careful you can easily tell by the way they dance, or by their watch, or their shirt-collar, or because they chew such fine tobacco."
"He looked at us, did you notice?" whispered Kristofa eagerly into Silla's ear. ”

“ One's good name is dear to every one, and Mrs. Selvig felt that what had just taken place was a blow to the house.
It was now nearly dark in the tap-room. Holman's dark figure had been moved on to the stretcher, which stood on the floor ready to be lifted, and a message had been sent to Mrs. Holman.
Perhaps they delayed purposely; a little later in the evening when it was darker, and an undesirable sensation in the street would be avoided.
Silla's face was stiff with crying. There was no one in the room but her and Nikolai. ”

“ He distributes overcoats in the shape of warm, sunny walls, brings life and movement with him, and then there need no longer be any uncertainty about a midday-meal.
Nikolai had had work on the quay the whole morning, and was now standing, in the midday rest, baking himself against the sunny wall, and yawning.
He stopped in the middle of a yawn. That slight figure in the faded cotton dress, that was running with her body bent forwards, and a handkerchief over the little, dark head, to keep off the sun—it was no other than Silla! ”