Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard (13 page)

Shortly after he had spoken she sank down before him, and as he would raise her up she prevented him by laying her clasped hands upon his knee.

“Nay, let me lie here,” she said. “This is the most fitting place of all.”

Her gentle, enraptured and humble face shone up toward him.

“Yes,” she went on very slowly. “Yes, ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ ” said Malli. “ ‘He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die, but have everlasting life.’ ”

Arndt had to go to Stavanger for the firm; owing to a sudden bankruptcy a ship was for sale there. He set out a few days later, early in the morning.

He had not known how much it would cost him to part from Malli; now at the last moment he had to force himself to leave. Malli too, on her side, had taken this separation of a few days lightly; she almost felt that she needed to draw her breath. It was only when at his departure she saw him so pale that she herself became very pale. Something terrible might happen to him on the journey. She ought to have prevented him from going away, or she ought to have gone with him in order to ward off the misfortune that threatened him. In the chill spring morning she stood on the front steps
of the house, in the East Indian shawl her mother had given her, and watched his cariole depart.

“My God!” she thought. “If it goes with him as with Father! If he never comes back!”

It now happened, the day after Arndt had left, that a couple of ladies of the town were paying a call on Fru Hosewinckel, and that while they were sitting around the coffee table Malli came into the room in cloak and bonnet, radiant with happiness, ready to go out. Fru Hosewinckel asked her where she was going, and she answered that she was going to see Ferdinand. The ladies fell silent and looked at each other. Fru Hosewinckel got up from her chair, went toward Malli and took her hand.

“My dear girl,” she said, “you cannot see Ferdinand anymore.”

“Why not?” asked Malli in amazement.

“Alas, Ferdinand is dead,” said Fru Hosewinckel.

“Ferdinand!” Malli cried aloud.

“Yes, our poor, good Ferdinand,” said Fru Hosewinckel.

“Ferdinand!” Malli cried again.

“Such was the will of God,” said Fru Hosewinckel.

“Ferdinand!” Malli cried for the third time, as if to herself.

The two ladies of the town said that they were very sorry indeed, and then went on to report in detail what had happened to Ferdinand. On board the
Sofie Hosewinckel
he had, on the night of the tempest, been struck by a falling piece of the yardarm and had suffered severe internal injuries. These at first had not appeared to be serious, but yesterday he had died.

“So after all it was the tempest,” said one of the ladies, “which brought on the death of the brave young man.”

“The tempest!” Malli exclaimed. “The tempest! No, how can you think that? I must go to him. Then will you see that you are utterly mistaken!”

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt about it,” said another lady. “And it is such a very poor home. How, now, is his poor mother to get along? Alas no, Mamzell Ross, there is no doubt at all.”

Malli stood for a while considering.

“Indeed yes,” she then burst out forcefully. “He stood on the deck with me, you know! We were together the whole night through. In the morning, in the fisherman’s hut, he was the one who helped me change my clothes. And you have seen for yourselves,” she went on, turning to face the ladies, “that he came ashore in the boat with me. No, Ferdinand is not dead!” Once more she was silent.

“I must go to him at once!” she cried. “God! To think that I have not gone before!”

The ladies did not know what to do about this wild, disturbed agitation, so remained silent and let the girl go her way.

Malli came into Ferdinand’s home just as the young seaman was being laid in his coffin. His mother and small brothers and sisters, and a few relatives who had assisted them, stood around and in their dark clothing filled up the small dark room. They all made way for the girl, and the dead boy’s mother greeted her, took her by the hand and led her forward, so that she should see Ferdinand for the last time.

Malli had sped through the streets like a gale and was panting after her run; now she stood as if turned to stone. Ferdinand’s young face on its pillow of shavings was as peaceful
as if he were asleep. Suffering and agony had passed over it and again away, and had left behind, as it were, a deep, solemn experience. Malli had never before seen a corpse; neither had she ever seen Ferdinand so quiet.

The strangers in the room had been about to leave when she came; they now said good-bye to her and she shook hands with them one by one, with wide-open, dumb eyes. Ferdinand’s mother saw the visitors out; Malli was alone with him.

She fell on her knees by the coffin.

“Ferdinand!” she called out very gently. And again: “Ferdinand! Dear Ferdinand!”

As he did not answer, she stretched out her hand and touched his face. Death’s icy chill penetrated through her fingers; she felt it go right into her heart and withdrew her hand. But a little after she laid it back again, let it rest on the boy’s cheek until she thought that her hand had become as cold as that cheek itself, and so began slowly to stroke the still face. She felt the cheekbones and the eyesockets against the tips of her fingers. Her own face the while took on the expression of the dead sailor boy’s face; the two grew to resemble each other like brother and sister.

Ferdinand’s mother came into the room again and made Malli sit down on a chair. She began to tell about Ferdinand and about what a good son he had always been to her. She went over his short life, relating small traits and incidents from his childhood and boyhood, and as she did so the tears ran down her cheeks. But when she began to tell of how Ferdinand had ever laid aside almost all his pay to give to his mother when he came home, she ceased to cry. She only sighed deeply and heavily over how hard life would now be for his small brothers and sisters, and for herself.

“Ferdinand,” she said sorrowfully, “would have been so grieved to see it.”

Malli listened, and deep in her heart recognized this subdued woman’s wailing. It was her own mother’s anxiety about bread for herself and her child. She looked about her, and now also recognized the needy, narrow room. This was the room of her own home; here she had grown up. The old familiar, bare world came back to her, so strangely gentle, and so inescapable.

It was as if a hand—and was it Ferdinand’s own cold hand, on which hers had just now rested?—seized her by the throat, and she grew giddy and sank, or everything round her sank. The elder woman looked at her, and with the quiet tact of the poor changed the subject. She began to tell of Ferdinand’s pride at being the young lady’s friend. She had from Ferdinand’s own lips heard more of the shipwreck than anyone else, and had followed Malli’s steps from the deck to the engine room, and from the engine room to the helm. By her son’s sickbed she had had to read aloud to him so many times the report of the
Christianssand Daily News
that she now knew it all by heart. A little smile broke out on her careworn face as she explained how, to please him, she herself had had to repeat the young lady’s cry through the din and roaring of the tempest: “Ferdinand!”

At that Malli rose from her chair, pale as death. She looked at the simple bench and table, at the one poor flower pot in the window and at the woman’s threadbare clothes. Lastly she turned toward the silent face in the coffin. But now she dared not go near it. She merely for an instant wrung her hands in its direction in a movement that was like a shriek. Then she gave Ferdinand’s mother her hand and went away.

When she came home, she sought out Fru Hosewinckel and said to her:

“Ay, Ferdinand is dead. And it is such a poor home. How, now, is his mother to get along?”

Fru Hosewinckel felt sorry for the pale girl.

“Dear Malli,” she said, “we will not forget Ferdinand’s loyalty. We will stand by this poor mother.”

Malli stared at her as if she had not understood what was said and was waiting to hear something she could better comprehend.

“My dear child,” said Fru Hosewinckel. “That is the happiness of possessing wealth, that one may help where need is great.”

When next morning Malli came downstairs, she was so changed that her housemates were frightened. She was once more the girl with the stiff white face and the dark rings under her eyes, paralyzed in all her joints, who had been brought in from the wreck. And she was now also dumb, as at that time Herr Soerensen himself. She would not go out, but also dreaded to stay in; she got up from one chair to sit down on another. Fru Hosewinckel proposed sending for the family doctor, but Malli begged her not to with such anguish that she again gave up the idea. The household then in perplexity left her in peace; only the lady of the house attentively followed the distressed expressions in the young face.

As long as Arndt was in the house it had been difficult for Fru Hosewinckel, in the strong light with which her son’s love surrounded Malli, really to catch sight of the girl. In her sober way she had almost looked forward to his absence, during which she would have time and peace to look at her. The sudden ominous change in Malli’s face and manner
frightened her, and she did not know what to think about it. For some days her son was still so close to her that she saw Malli with his eyes. The girl then was to her a precious possession, and she tried to the best of her ability to help and console her.

Now she also reproached herself, more seriously than on the evening of the ball, with having thoughtlessly allowed Malli to be the object of so many people’s curiosity and homage. This very young girl had looked death in the face, had immediately after been taken up into new, rich surroundings, and there to all probability had had her life’s course decided. Let good fortune be ever so sweet, the elderly woman reflected, it takes strength to bear even that. Now there must be an end to parties and gatherings, and Malli must remain unobserved and undisturbed under the protection of the house.

As Fru Hosewinckel spoke of her resolve to Malli herself, it was as if for the first time since Ferdinand’s death the girl did really grasp what was said to her.

“Yes, unobserved,” whispered Malli. “Be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every eyeball else! What lovely words.”

But soon afterwards she was once more white and restless in the grip of her grief.

Arndt’s mother knew Malli so little that she could not guess what she was grieving about. She noticed that least of all the girl could bear to hear her son’s name mentioned; it was as if each time the sound of it struck her at the heart. A terrible thought for a while gained hold of Fru Hosewinckel’s mind. Was it possible that this girl was not quite sane? Nobody had really known her father, and who could tell what ghosts of old forgotten times had been admitted to
the house together with the valiant maiden? Yet till now no one had noticed any derangement in Malli, and she again dismissed her fear. There was something else weighing on the girl’s mind, and what was it?

She called to mind that it was the news of Ferdinand’s death which had brought Malli to despair. What could there have been between the girl and the young sailor? While pondering on this she called to mind that she herself, while her engagement to Jochum Hosewinckel was still a secret, had had another suitor applying for her hand and had been unhappy about it. Malli in the turbulence of the storm might have given Ferdinand a promise, and might now be grieving because she had not got herself released from it in time. Slowly Fru Hosewinckel groped her way further into the idea, at times amazed at the unwonted audacity of her own fantasy. Did the girl, she wondered, now imagine that the dead young ordinary seaman might rise from his grave and call her to account? Young girls have strange notions and may almost die of them. But a secret distress to be relieved must be brought into the light of day. She must persuade or force Malli to speak.

For a few days she cautiously questioned the girl on her childhood and her time with Herr Soerensen’s troupe. Malli artlessly answered all her questions; in this past there were no secrets. Fru Hosewinckel went on to mention Ferdinand’s name, and it seemed evident that Ferdinand had never caused Malli any sorrow but his death. The elder woman almost lost patience with the young one who suffered and would not let herself be helped. Then she bethought herself that in this world there are powers stronger than the human will, and decided to turn to them with regard to Malli’s salvation.

As already mentioned, she was unaccustomed to troubling
heaven with direct petitions; this was perhaps the first time she approached it with a personal plea. But she did it for the sake of her only son, and because she had now gone so far into the matter that to her there was no retreat. Neither could she hand over her task to anyone else. Her husband was as pious as herself, and for more than forty years the two had said their evening prayers together. But just as Fru Hosewinckel—although she inwardly hoped that she might be wrong—could not quite believe that any man could attain to eternal life, she could not quite imagine that a person of the male sex could put a matter before God in the form of prayer.

So next Sunday she went to church and collected herself to submit her demand. She did not ask for strength or patience; what was required of these she must, she knew, herself supply. But she prayed for an inspiration to find clarity in the affair and help for the sorrowing girl, for she realized that she herself was not rich in inspiration. She walked home from church with hope in her heart.

Fru Hosewinckel, in her gratitude for the rescue of
Sofie Hosewinckel
, had wished to present her church with a new altar cloth, a fine piece of drawn-thread work fitted together in squares which could be embroidered separately and when ready joined together. She herself worked on one such piece and had asked Malli, who had been taught needlework by her mother, to do another, and this occupation, a return to days of old, was the only one in which the girl seemed to be at ease; she worked on steadily, almost without looking up. On Sunday evening the lady of the house and its young guest were sitting together by the drawing-room table sewing; in the large, dim room the linen shone a delicate white in the gleam of the paraffin lamp. Shortly after the master of the house came into the room and sat down with them.