Johannes Bugenhagen

“ Egholm clasped his hands under his cloak, and prayed:
“Lord, spare Thy servant. Take away this cup from me. Let it be so that, when I come to the station, I may wake up out of a painful dream. No wife and children at all. Lord, hear Thy servant; hear him for that he suffered for the sake of Thy word, at the hands of the Brethren in Odense!”
He writhed his bony fingers, and looked up to the blue March sky. How grateful he would be; [109] how he would fall down and bend his forehead to the earth, if his prayer should be heard!
But, alas, they would surely be there—Anna, Sivert, and Hedvig. Yes ”

“ Horse-dealer. No? Ah, he’s a man if you like! Never troubles to ask the price when he finds a pair to suit him. ‘Bring ’em along’—that’s all he says.”
“Horse-dealers don’t go in much for religion as a rule.”
“Not him—no. But his wife!” said Karlsen, rasping again like a saw. “His wife.... Had a wire from Justesen last evening; he’s coming home to-day and going off again by the night train to Hamburg. So off I go to look up my old friend Egholm—what?”
“Yes....” said Egholm.
He stood in the waiting-room a little after the train had gone, warming himself by the stove. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ Of a senatorial family at Wollin in Pomerania, from which he is commonly called 'Pomeranus', Bugenhagen, at twenty years of age, began to teach at Treptow. Youth flocked to hear him, while nobles and learned men vied with each other for his society. He was a diligent student of the Holy Scriptures, and prayed to God to instruct him. [456] One day towards the end of December, 1520, when he was supping with several friends, Luther's treatise on the Captivity of Babylon was put into his hands. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ She keeps the machine audibly in motion, making pretence of work.
A long, long time he stands there. Sivert has been sawing away conscientiously all the time, but at last he can bear it no longer, and utters a loud sigh. Fru Egholm reaches stealthily for the matches, and lights the lamp. Her fingers tremble as she lifts the glass.
Egholm turns at the sound. And now he is no longer Egholm the upright, nor Egholm the abject; Egholm the Great he is now. His eyes glow like windows in a burning house; he stands there filling the room with Egholm; Egholm the invincible. ”

“ She’s been talking to Father again. Asking him to turn me out. I don’t know if she wants me to die of hunger. For she never gives me anything herself.”
“Well, you know, Vang,” laughed Egholm, “you’re not exactly a model husband, either. Women like being made a fuss of now and then. Now me, for instance. Here’s my wife coming to-day, and what do I do? Go up to the station myself to meet her. See?”
Egholm looked at his watch, and felt uncomfortable. Again he had forgotten the time. The train must be in by now, and Anna would be left standing there, utterly strange to the place.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Egholm had said it was time the boy found something to do, now he was confirmed. Find him a place at once. And Sivert, poor weakly lad—how would it go with him?
Fru Egholm shakes her head, and sends a loving glance at the boy, who is plainly busy in his mind with something new and splendid.
Then suddenly his face changes, as if at the touch of death itself. His eyes grow dull, his jaw drops; the childish features with their prematurely aged look are furrowed with dread as he stares down at something below. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Madam Hermansen laughed alarmingly.
“Now, does he mean? While it’s on you, that is?” Hoff blinked again.
“Now, this moment, if he could get me to do it. And then sit there for a week, for the juices of the earth to work a cure, if you please.”
“Well, mind you don’t take root,” said Hoff. His face was immobile, save for his eyes.
“What? Yes, and then all the worms and rats and things.... But how he can talk, that Egholm. Never knew such a man.”
Wassermann from the Customs House came down too, his galoshes leaving a long dragging trail in the dry sand. ”

“ But your husband—I thought he was a model.”
“Egholm doesn’t smoke. If he did, he’d be just the same. But I can tell you a thing—just to show what he thinks about my work. Ah, Madam Hermansen, take my word for it, there’s many a slight a woman has to put up with that hurts more than all your blows.”
“And he’s been on the railway, too....”
“It doesn’t change human nature, after all. It was these here things from the auction at Gammelhauge, the mirror and the chest of drawers, and the big chair over by the window, and that very one you’re sitting in now. ”

“ Fru Egholm had to spread her mattress on the floor till they could get the settee screwed together; then she had a real down coverlet over.
Egholm began undressing without a word. His wife turned down the lamp—there were no curtains to the windows. They heard him drop his waistcoat over by the coal-scuttle, and his trousers by the door; then he threw himself on his bed, breathing heavily.
Fru Egholm stole into the little room, where Emanuel’s cradle was set against Hedvig’s bed, lest the master of the house should be disturbed.
Sleeping soundly, the little angel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Lystrup, the cobbler, dropped his money, and crawled miserably over the floor beneath the benches, looking for that which was lost.
Those who had paid stopped behind to see the others share their fate.
Fru Westergaard, Egholm, and the Evangelist came down together.
“But—but how do you manage when it doesn’t work out exactly?” said the lady, nervously trying to do sums in her head.
“It always works out exactly,” said Karlsen, with superior calm.
“As long as it’s kroner, of course, I understand. But when it’s kroner and øre?” ”

“ And Egholm, suddenly aware of Anna’s sobbing and Hedvig’s uncontrolled blubbering plainly heard through the door, realises that Vang must have been able to follow the drama through all its painful details.
And now he is going off, convinced that Egholm is a cruel, cruel brute.
It must not be! Egholm feels now, more [124] strongly than ever before, that he can be so good, so good!
“No, no; you mustn’t go!” he cries, as Vang steps cautiously over the bath full of flower-pots. He grips him by the arm, anxious to prove his all-embracing affection on the spot. ”

“ He was a little grey man, with a felt hat several sizes too large, and his face so covered with a fungus-growth of beard that only his nose showed through. His daughter, who led him, had a crooked neck, which bent over so far as to leave her head lying archly on one shoulder; she was a woman grown, but wore short skirts and cloth shoes. They were a remarkable pair, and in face of this counter-attraction, Egholm’s wonder-boat might have sailed away to Jutland without being noticed by the crowd.
“Ei, ei.... Anything hereabout for a blind man to see?” ”

“ Egholm had not drummed about any announcement as to time and place of his experiment. He had, indeed, grown rather more reticent of late. And old Krogh would hardly say [276] more than he need. How could it have come about?
The explanation was there in the flesh—with a shawl about her head and beautifully varnished clogs on her feet. The explanation was Madam Hermansen, who had the backstairs entry of every house in Knarreby. Whatever was thrown into her as into a sink at one place was gladly used to wash up the coffee cups in at another. ”

“ 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 [86] he’s told you.... Silly thing to do—playing with fire....” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, [197] laying one hand on Egholm’s arm. “Don’t go teasing me now, there’s a good fellow.” ”

“ 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.” ”