Chapter IV: Introduction (4)

Mrs. Warden thought the girl had some sewing in her lap which she wanted to hide; perhaps it was some old garment she was mending.

“Why does the big boy lie upon the floor?” asked Mrs. Warden.

“He’s lame,” answered the mother. And now followed a detailed account of the poor boy’s case, with many lamentations. He had been attacked with hip-disease after the scarlet-fever.

“You must buy him--” began Mrs. Warden, intending to say, “a wheel-chair.” But it occurred to her that she had better buy it herself. It is not wise to let poor people get too much money into their hands. But she would give the woman something at once. Here was real need, a genuine case for help; and she felt in her pocket for her purse.

It was not there. How annoying--she must have left it in the carriage.

Just as she was turning to the woman to express her regret, and promise to send some money presently, the door opened, and a well-dressed gentleman entered. His face was very full, and of a sort of dry, mealy pallor.

“Mrs. Warden, I presume?” said the stranger. “I saw your carriage out in the street, and I have brought you this--your purse, is it not?”

Mrs. Warden looked at it--yes, certainly, it was hers, with E. W. inlaid in black on the polished ivory.

“I happened to see it, as I turned the corner, in the hands of a girl--one of the most disreputable in the quarter,” the stranger explained; adding, “I am the poor-law inspector of the district.”

Mrs. Warden thanked him, although she did not at all like his appearance. But when she again looked round the room she was quite alarmed by the change which had taken place in its occupants.

The husband sat upright in the bed and glared at the fat gentleman, the wife’s face wore an ugly smile, and even the poor wee cripple had scrambled towards the door, and resting on his lean arms, stared upward like a little animal.

And in all these eyes there was the same hate, the same aggressive defiance. Mrs. Warden felt as though she were now separated by an immense interval from the poor woman with whom she had just been talking so openly and confidentially.

“So that’s the state you’re in to-day, Martin,” said the gentleman, in quite a different voice. “I thought you’d been in that affair last night. Never mind, they’re coming for you this afternoon. It’ll be a two months’ business.”

All of a sudden the torrent was let loose. The man and woman shouted each other down, the girl behind the stove came forward and joined in, the cripple shrieked and rolled about. It was impossible to distinguish the words; but what between voices, eyes, and hands, it seemed as though the stuffy little room must fly asunder with all the wild passion exploding in it.

Mrs. Warden turned pale and rose, the gentleman opened the door, and both hastened out. As she passed down the passage she heard a horrible burst of feminine laughter behind her. It must be the woman--the same woman who had spoken so softly and despondently about the poor children.

She felt half angry with the man who had brought about this startling change, and as they now walked side by side up the street she listened to him with a cold and distant expression.

But gradually her bearing changed; there was really so much in what he said.

The poor-law inspector told her what a pleasure it was to him to find a lady like Mrs. Warden so compassionate towards the poor. Though it was much to be deplored that even the most well-meant help so often came into unfortunate hands, yet there was always something fine and ennobling in seeing a lady like Mrs. Warden--

“But,” she interrupted, “aren’t these people in the utmost need of help? I received the impression that the woman in particular had seen better days, and that a little timely aid might perhaps enable her to recover herself.”

“I am sorry to have to tell you, madam,” said the poor-law inspector, in a tone of mild regret, “that she was formerly a very notorious woman of the town.”

Mrs. Warden shuddered.

She had spoken to such a woman, and spoken about children. She had even mentioned her own child, lying at home in its innocent cradle. She almost felt as though she must hasten home to make sure it was still as clean and wholesome as before.

“And the young girl?” she asked, timidly.

“No doubt you noticed her--her condition.”

“No. You mean--”

The fat gentleman whispered some words.

Mrs. Warden started: “By the man!--the man of the house?”

“Yes, madam, I am sorry to have to tell you so; but you can understand that these people--” and he whispered again.

This was too much for Mrs. Warden. She turned almost dizzy, and accepted the gentleman’s arm. They now walked rapidly towards the carriage, which was standing a little farther off than the spot at which she had left it.

For the immovable one had achieved a feat which even the humorist had acknowledged with an elaborate oath.

After sitting for some time, stiff as a poker, he had backed his sleek horses, step by step, until they reached a spot where the street widened a little, though the difference was imperceptible to any other eyes than those of an accomplished coachman.

A whole pack of ragged children swarmed about the carriage, and did all they could to upset the composure of the sleek steeds. But the spirit of the immovable one was in them.

After having measured with a glance of perfect composure the distance between two flights of steps, one on each side of the street, he made the sleek pair turn, slowly and step by step, so short and sharp that it seemed as though the elegant carriage must be crushed to fragments, but so accurately that there was not an inch too much or too little on either side.

Now he once more sat stiff as a poker, still measuring with his eyes the distance between the steps. He even made a mental note of the number of a constable who had watched the feat, in order to have a witness to appeal to if his account of it should be received with scepticism at the stables.

Mrs. Warden allowed the poor-law inspector to hand her into the carriage. She asked him to call upon her the following day, and gave him her address.

“To Advocate Abel’s!” she cried to the coachman. The fat gentleman lifted his hat with a mealy smile, and the carriage rolled away.

As they gradually left the poor quarter of the town behind, the motion of the carriage became smoother, and the pace increased. And when they emerged upon the broad avenue leading through the villa quarter, the sleek pair snorted with enjoyment of the pure, delicate air from the gardens, and the immovable one indulged, without any sort of necessity, in three masterly cracks of his whip.

Mrs. Warden, too, was conscious of the delight of finding herself once more in the fresh air. The experiences she had gone through, and, still more, what she had heard from the inspector, had had an almost numbing effect upon her. She began to realize the immeasurable distance between herself and such people as these.

She had often thought there was something quite too sad, nay, almost cruel, in the text: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

Now she understood that it _could_ not be otherwise.

How could people so utterly depraved ever attain an elevation at all adequate to the demands of a strict morality? What must be the state of these wretched creatures’ consciences? And how should they be able to withstand the manifold temptations of life?

She knew only too well what temptation meant! Was she not incessantly battling against a temptation--perhaps the most perilous of all--the temptation of riches, about which the Scriptures said so many hard things?

She shuddered to think of what would happen if that brutish man and these miserable women suddenly had riches placed in their hands.

Yes, wealth was indeed no slight peril to the soul. It was only yesterday that her husband had tempted her with such a delightful little man-servant--a perfect English groom. But she had resisted the temptation; and answered: “No, Warden, it would not be right; I will not have a footman on the box. I dare say we can afford it; but let us beware of overweening luxury. I assure you I don’t require help to get into the carriage and out of it; I won’t even let the coachman get down on my account.”

It did her good to think of this now, and her eyes rested complacently on the empty seat on the box, beside the immovable one.

Mrs. Abel, who was busy clearing away _Bazars_ and scraps of stuff from the big table, was astonished to see her friend return so soon.

“Why, Emily! Back again already? I’ve just been telling the dress-maker that she can go. What you were saying to me has quite put me out of conceit of my new frock; I can quite well get on without one--” said good-natured Mrs. Abel; but her lips trembled a little as she spoke.

“Every one must act according to his own conscience,” answered Mrs. Warden, quietly, “but I think it’s possible to be too scrupulous.”

Mrs. Abel looked up; she had not expected this.

“Just let me tell you what I’ve gone through,” said Mrs. Warden, and began her story.

She sketched her first impression of the stuffy room and the wretched people; then she spoke of the theft of her purse.

“My husband always declares that people of that kind can’t refrain from stealing,” said Mrs. Abel.

“I’m afraid your husband is nearer the truth than we thought,” replied Mrs. Warden.

Then she told about the inspector, and the ingratitude these people had displayed towards the man who cared for them day by day.

But when she came to what she had heard of the poor woman’s past life, and still more when she told about the young girl, Mrs. Abel was so overcome that she had to ask the servant to bring some port-wine.

When the girl brought in the tray with the decanter, Mrs. Abel whispered to her: “Tell the dressmaker to wait.”

“And then, can you conceive it,” Mrs. Warden continued--“I scarcely know how to tell you”--and she whispered.

“What do you say! In one bed! All! Why, it’s revolting!” cried Mrs. Abel, clasping her hands.

“Yes, an hour ago I; too, could not have believed it possible,” answered Mrs. Warden, “But when you’ve been on the spot yourself, and seen with your own eyes--”

“Good heavens, Emily, how could you venture into such a place!”

“I am glad I did, and still more glad of the happy chance that brought the inspector on the scene just at the right time. For if it is ennobling to bring succor to the virtuous poor who live clean and frugal lives in their humble sphere, it would be unpardonable to help such people as these to gratify their vile proclivities.”

“Yes, you’re quite right, Emily! What I can’t understand is how people in a Christian community--people who have been baptized and confirmed--can sink into such a state! Have they not every day--or, at any rate, every Sunday--the opportunity of listening to powerful and impressive sermons? And Bibles, I am told, are to be had for an incredibly trifling sum.”

“Yes, and only to think,” added Mrs. Warden, “that not even the heathen, who are without all these blessings--that not even they have any excuse for evil-doing; for they have conscience to guide them.”

“And I’m sure conscience speaks clearly enough to every one who has the will to listen,” Mrs. Abel exclaimed, with emphasis.

“Yes, heaven knows it does,” answered Mrs. Warden, gazing straight before her with a serious smile.

When the friends parted, they exchanged warm embraces.

Mrs. Warden grasped the ivory handle, entered the carriage, and drew her train after her. Then she closed the carriage door--not with a slam, but slowly and carefully.

“To Madame Labiche’s!” she called to the coachman; then, turning to her friend who had accompanied her right down to the garden gate, she said, with a quiet smile: “Now, thank heaven, I can order my silk dress with a good conscience.”

“Yes, indeed you can!” exclaimed Mrs. Abel, watching her with tears in her eyes. Then she hastened in-doors.

ROMANCE AND REALITY.

“Just you get married as soon as you can,” said Mrs. Olsen.

“Yes, I can’t understand why it shouldn’t be this very autumn,” exclaimed the elder Miss Ludvigsen, who was an enthusiast for ideal love.

“Oh, yes!” cried Miss Louisa, who was certain to be one of the bridesmaids.

“But Sören says he can’t afford it,” answered the bride elect, somewhat timidly.

“Can’t afford it!” repeated Miss Ludvigsen. “To think of a young girl using such an expression! If you’re going to let your new-born love be overgrown with prosaic calculations, what will be left of the ideal halo which love alone can cast over life? That a man should be alive to these considerations I can more or less understand--it’s in a way his duty; but for a sensitive, womanly heart, in the heyday of sentiment!--No, no, Marie; for heaven’s sake, don’t let these sordid money-questions darken your happiness.”

“Oh, no!” cried Miss Louisa.

“And, besides,” Mrs. Olsen chimed in, “your _fiancé_ is by no means so badly off. My husband and I began life on much less.--I know you’ll say that times were different then. Good heavens, we all know that! What I can’t understand is that you don’t get tired of telling us so. Don’t you think that we old people, who have gone through the transition period, have the best means of comparing the requirements of to-day with those of our youth? You can surely understand that with my experience of house-keeping, I’m not likely to disregard the altered conditions of life; and yet I assure you that the salary your intended receives from my husband, with what he can easily earn by extra work, is quite sufficient to set up house upon.”

Mrs. Olsen had become quite eager in her argument, though no one thought of contradicting her. She had so often, in conversations of this sort, been irritated to hear people, and especially young married women, enlarging on the ridiculous cheapness of everything thirty years ago. She felt as though they wanted to make light of the exemplary fashion in which she had conducted her household.

This conversation made a deep impression on the _fiancée_, for she had great confidence in Mrs. Olsen’s shrewdness and experience. Since Marie had become engaged to the Sheriff’s clerk, the Sheriff’s wife had taken a keen interest in her. She was an energetic woman, and, as her own children were already grown up and married, she found a welcome outlet for her activity in busying herself with the concerns of the young couple.

Marie’s mother, on the other hand, was a very retiring woman. Her husband, a subordinate government official, had died so early that her pension extremely scanty. She came of a good family, and had learned nothing in her girlhood except to Play the piano. This accomplishment she had long ceased to practise, and in the course of time had become exceedingly religious.----“Look here, now, my dear fellow, aren’t you thinking of getting married?” asked the Sheriff, in his genial way.

“Oh yes,” answered Sören, with some hesitation, “when I can afford it.

“Afford it!” the Sheriff repeated; “Why, you’re by no means so badly off. I know you have something laid by--”

“A trifle,” Sören put in.

“Well, so be it; but it shows, at any rate, that you have an idea of economy, and that’s as good as money in your pocket. You came out high in your examination; and, with your family influence and other advantages at headquarters, you needn’t wait long before applying for some minor appointment; and once in the way of promotion, you know, you go ahead in spite of yourself.”

Sören bit his pen and looked interested.

“Let us assume,” continued his principal, “that, thanks to your economy, you can set up house without getting into any debt worth speaking of. Then you’ll have your salary clear, and whatever you can earn in addition by extra work. It would be strange, indeed, if a man of your ability could note find employment for his leisure time in a rising commercial centre like ours.”

Sören reflected all forenoon on what the Sheriff had said. He saw, more and more clearly, that he had over-estimated the financial obstacles to his marriage; and, after all, it was true that he had a good deal of time on his hands out of office hours.

He was engaged to dine with his principal; and his intended, too, was to be there. On the whole, the young people perhaps met quite as often at the Sheriff’s as at Marie’s home. For the peculiar knack which Mrs. Möller, Marie’s mother, had acquired, of giving every conversation a religious turn, was not particularly attractive to them.

There was much talk at table of a lovely little house which Mrs. Olsen had discovered; “A perfect nest for a newly married couple,” as she expressed herself. Sören inquired, in passing, as to the financial conditions, and thought them reasonable enough, if the place answered to his hostess’s description.--Mrs. Olsen’s anxiety to see this marriage hurried on was due in the first place, as above hinted, to her desire for mere occupation, and, in the second place, to a vague longing for some event, of whatever nature, to happen--a psychological phenomenon by no means rare in energetic natures, living narrow and monotonous lives.

The Sheriff worked in the same direction, partly in obedience to his wife’s orders, and partly because he thought that Sören’s marriage to Marie, who owed so much to his family, would form another tie to bind him to the office--for the Sheriff was pleased with his clerk.

After dinner the young couple strolled about the garden. They conversed in an odd, short-winded fashion, until at last Sören, in a tone which was meant to be careless, threw out the suggestion: “What should you say to getting married this autumn?”

Marie forgot to express surprise. The same thought had been running in her own head; so she answered, looking to the ground: “Well, if you think you can afford it, I can have no objection.”

“Suppose we reckon the thing out,” said Sören, and drew her towards the summer-house.

Half an hour afterwards they came out, arm-in-arm, into the sunshine. They, too, seemed to radiate light--the glow of a spirited resolution, formed after ripe thought and serious counting of the cost.

Some people might, perhaps, allege that it would be rash to assume the absolute correctness of a calculation merely from the fact that two lovers have arrived at exactly the same total; especially when the problem happens to bear upon the choice between renunciation and the supremest bliss.

In the course of the calculation Sören had not been without misgivings. He remembered how, in his student days, he had spoken largely of our duty towards posterity; how he had philosophically demonstrated the egoistic element in love, and propounded the ludicrous question whether people had a right, in pure heedlessness as it were, to bring children into the world.

But time and practical life had, fortunately, cured him of all taste for these idle and dangerous mental gymnastics. And, besides, he was far too proper and well-bred to shock his innocent lady-love by taking into account so indelicate a possibility as that of their having a large family. Is it not one of the charms of young love that it should leave such matters as these to heaven and the stork? [Note: The stork, according to common nursery legends, brings babies under its wing.]

There was great jubilation at the Sheriff’s, and not there alone. Almost the whole town was thrown into a sort of fever by the intelligence that the Sheriff’s clerk was to be married in the autumn. Those who were sure of an invitation to the wedding were already looking forward to it; those who could not hope to be invited fretted and said spiteful things; while those whose case was doubtful were half crazy with suspense. And all emotions have their value in a stagnant little town.--Mrs. Olsen was a woman of courage; yet her heart beat as she set forth to call upon Mrs. Möller. It is no light matter to ask a mother to let her daughter be married from your house. But she might have spared herself all anxiety.

For Mrs. Möller shrank from every sort of exertion almost as much as she shrank from sin in all its forms. Therefore she was much relieved by Mrs. Olsen’s proposition, introduced with a delicacy which did not always characterize that lady’s proceedings. However, it was not Mrs. Möller’s way to make any show of pleasure or satisfaction. Since everything, in one way or another, was a “cross” to be borne, she did not fail, even in this case, to make it appear that her long-suffering was proof against every trial.

Mrs. Olsen returned home beaming. She would have been balked of half her pleasure in this marriage if she had not been allowed to give the wedding party; for wedding-parties were Mrs. Olsen’s specialty. On such occasions she put her economy aside, and the satisfaction she felt in finding, an opening for all her energies made her positively amiable. After all, the Sheriff’s post was a good one, and the Olsens had always had a little property besides, which, however, they never talked about. --So the wedding came off, and a splendid wedding it was. Miss Ludvigsen had written an unrhymed song about true love, which was sung at the feast, and Louisa eclipsed all the other bridesmaids.

The newly-married couple took up their quarters in the nest discovered by Mrs. Olsen, and plunged into that half-conscious existence of festal felicity which the English call the “honeymoon,” because it is too sweet; the Germans, “Flitterwochen,” because its glory departs so quickly; and we “the wheat-bread days” because we know that there is coarser fare to follow.

But in Sören’s cottage the wheat-bread days lasted long; and when heaven sent them a little angel with golden locks, their happiness was as great as we can by any means expect in this weary world.

As for the incomings--well, they were fairly adequate, though Sören had, unfortunately, not succeeded in making a start without getting into debt; but that would, no doubt, come right in time.--Yes, in time! The years passed, and with each of them heaven sent Sören a little golden-locked angel. After six years of marriage they had exactly five children. The quiet little town was unchanged, Sören was still the Sheriff’s clerk, and the Sheriff’s household was as of old; but Sören himself was scarcely to be recognized.

They tell of sorrows and heavy blows of fate which can turn a man’s hair gray in a night. Such afflictions had not fallen to Sören’s lot. The sorrows that had sprinkled his hair with gray, rounded his shoulders, and made him old before his time, were of a lingering and vulgar type. They were bread-sorrows.

Bread-sorrows are to other sorrows as toothache to other disorders. A simple pain can be conquered in open fight; a nervous fever, or any other “regular” illness, goes through a normal development and comes to a crisis. But while toothache has the long-drawn sameness of the tape-worm, bread-sorrows envelop their victim like a grimy cloud: he puts them on every morning with his threadbare clothes, and he seldom sleeps so deeply as to forget them.

It was in the long fight against encroaching poverty that Sören had worn himself out; and yet he was great at economy.

But there are two sorts of economy: the active and the passive. Passive economy thinks day and night of the way to save a half-penny; active economy broods no less intently on the way to earn a dollar. The first sort of economy, the passive, prevails among us; the active in the great nations--chiefly in America.

Sören’s strength lay in the passive direction. He devoted all his spare time and some of his office-hours to thinking out schemes for saving and retrenchment. But whether it was that the luck was against him, or, more probably, that his income was really too small to support a wife and five children--in any case, his financial position went from bad to worse.

Every place in life seems filled to the uttermost, and yet there are people who make their way everywhere. Sören did not belong to this class. He sought in vain for the extra work on which he and Marie had reckoned as a vague but ample source of income. Nor had his good connections availed him aught. There are always plenty of people ready to help young men of promise who can help themselves; but the needy father of a family is never welcome.

Sören had been a man of many friends. It could not be said that they had drawn back from him, but he seemed somehow to have disappeared from their view. When they happened to meet, there was a certain embarrassment on both sides. Sören no longer cared for the things that interested them, and they were bored when he held forth upon the severity of his daily grind, and the expensiveness of living.

And if, now and then, one of his old friends invited him to a bachelor-party, he did as people are apt to do whose every-day fare is extremely frugal: he ate and drank too much. The lively but well-bred and circumspect Sören declined into a sort of butt, who made rambling speeches, and around whom the young whelps of the party would gather after dinner to make sport for themselves. But what impressed his friends most painfully of all, was his utter neglect of his personal appearance.

For he had once been extremely particular in his dress; in his student days he had been called “the exquisite Sören.” And even after his marriage he had for some time contrived to wear his modest attire with a certain air. But after bitter necessity had forced him to keep every garment in use an unnaturally long time, his vanity had at last given way. And when once a man’s sense of personal neatness is impaired, he is apt to lose it utterly. When a new coat became absolutely necessary, it was his wife that had to awaken him to the fact; and when his collars became quite too ragged at the edges, he trimmed them with a pair of scissors.

He had other things to think about, poor fellow. But when people came into the office, or when he was entering another person’s house, he had a purely mechanical habit of moistening his fingers at his lips, and rubbing the lapels of his coat. This was the sole relic of “the exquisite Sören’s” exquisiteness--like one of the rudimentary organs, dwindled through lack of use, which zoologists find in certain animals.--

Sören’s worst enemy, however, dwelt within him. In his youth he had dabbled in philosophy, and this baneful passion for thinking would now attack him from time to time, crushing all resistance, and, in the end, turning everything topsy-turvy.

It was when he thought about his children that this befell him.

When he regarded these little creatures, who, as he could not conceal from himself, became more and more neglected as time went on, he found it impossible to place them under the category of golden-locked angels had sent him by heaven. He had to admit that heaven does not send us these gifts without a certain inducement on our side; and then Sören asked himself: “Had you any right to do this?” He thought of his own life, which had begun under fortunate conditions. His family had been in easy circumstances; his father, a government official, had given him the best education to be had in the country; he had gone forth to the battle of life fully equipped--and what had come of it all?

And how could he equip his children for the fight into which he was sending them? They had begun their life in need and penury, which had, as far as possible, to be concealed; they had early learned the bitter lesson of the disparity between inward expectations and demands and outward circumstances; and from their slovenly home they would take with them the most crushing inheritance, perhaps, under which a man can toil through life; to wit, poverty with pretensions.

Sören tried to tell himself that heaven would take care of them. But he was ashamed to do so, for he felt it was only a phrase of self-excuse, designed to allay the qualms of conscience.

These thoughts were his worst torment; but, truth to tell, they did not often attack him, for Sören had sunk into apathy. That was the Sheriff’s view of his case. “My clerk was quite a clever fellow in his time,” he used to say. “But, you know, his hasty marriage, his large family, and all that--in short, he has almost done for himself.”

Badly dressed and badly fed, beset with debts and cares, he was worn out and weary before he had accomplished anything. And life went its way, and Sören dragged himself along in its train. He seemed to be forgotten by all save heaven, which, as aforesaid, sent him year by year a little angel with locks of gold--

Sören’s young wife had clung faithfully to her husband through these six years, and she, too, had reached the same point.

The first year of her married life had glided away like a dream of dizzy bliss. When she held up the little golden-locked angel for the admiration of her lady friends, she was beautiful with the beauty of perfect maternal happiness; and Miss Ludvigsen said: “Here is love in its ideal form.”

But Mrs. Olsen’s “nest” soon became too small; the family increased while the income stood still.

She was daily confronted by new claims, new cares, and new duties. Marie set staunchly to work, for she was a courageous and sensible woman.

It is not one of the so-called elevating employments to have charge of a houseful of little children, with no means of satisfying even moderate requirements in respect of comfort and well-being. In addition to this, she was never thoroughly robust; she oscillated perpetually between having just had, and being just about to have, a child. As she toiled from morning to night, she lost her buoyancy of spirit, and her mind became bitter. She sometimes asked herself: “What is the meaning of it all?”

She saw the eagerness of young girls to be married, and the air of self-complacency with which young men offer to marry them; she thought of her own experience, and felt as though she had been befooled.

But it was not right of Marie to think thus, for she had been excellently brought up.

The view of life to which she had from the first been habituated, was the only beautiful one, the only one that could enable her to preserve her ideals intact. No unlovely and prosaic theory of existence had ever cast its shadow over her development; she knew that love is the most beautiful thing on earth, that it transcends reason and is consummated in marriage; as to children, she had learned to blush when they were mentioned.

A strict watch had always been kept upon her reading. She had read many earnest volumes on the duties of woman; she knew that her happiness lies in being loved by a man, and that her mission is to be his wife. She knew how evil-disposed people will often place obstacles between two lovers, but she knew, too, that true love will at last emerge victorious from the fight. When people met with disaster in the battle of life, it was because they were false to the ideal. She had faith in the ideal, although she did not know what it was.

She knew and loved those poets whom she was allowed to read. Much of their erotics she only half understood, but that made it all the more lovely. She knew that marriage was a serious, a very serious thing, for which a clergyman was indispensable; and she understood that marriages are made in heaven, as engagements are made in the ballroom. But when, in these youthful days, she pictured to herself this serious institution, she seemed to be looking into an enchanted grove, with Cupids weaving garlands, and storks bringing little golden-locked angels under their wings; while before a little cabin in the background, which yet was large enough to contain all the bliss in the world, sat the ideal married couple, gazing into the depths of each other’s eyes.

No one had ever been so ill-bred as to say to her: “Excuse me, young lady, would you not like to come with me to a different point of view, and look at the matter from the other side? How if it should turn out to be a mere set-scene of painted pasteboard?”

Sören’s young wife had now had ample opportunities of studying the set-scene from the other side.

Mrs. Olsen had at first come about her early and late, and overwhelmed her with advice and criticism. Both Sören and his wife were many a time heartily tired of her; but they owed the Olsens so much.

Little by little, however, the old lady’s zeal cooled down. When the young people’s house was no longer so clean, so orderly, and so exemplary that she could plume herself upon her work, she gradually withdrew; and when Sören’s wife once in a while came to ask her for advice or assistance, the Sheriff’s lady would mount her high horse, until Marie ceased to trouble her. But if, in society, conversation happened to fall upon the Sheriff’s clerk, and any one expressed compassion for his poor wife, with her many children and her miserable income, Mrs. Olsen would not fail to put in her word with great decision: “I can assure you it would be just the same if Marie had twice as much to live on and no children at all. You see, she’s--” and Mrs. Olsen made a motion with her hands, as if she were squandering something abroad, to right and left.

Marie seldom went to parties, and if she did appear, in her at least ten-times-altered marriage dress, it was generally to sit alone in a corner, or to carry on a tedious conversation with a similarly situated housewife about the dearness of the times and the unreasonableness of servant-girls.

And the young ladies who had gathered the gentlemen around them, either in the middle of the room or wherever they found the most comfortable chairs to stretch themselves in, whispered to each other: “How tiresome it is that young married women can never talk about anything but housekeeping and the nursery.”

In the early days, Marie had often had visits from her many friends. They were enchanted with her charming house, and the little golden-locked angel had positively to be protected from their greedy admiration. But when one of them now chanced to stray in her direction, it was quite a different affair. There was no longer any golden-locked angel to be exhibited in a clean, embroidered frock with red ribbons. The children, who were never presentable without warning, were huddled hastily away--dropping their toys about the floor, forgetting to pick up half-eaten pieces of bread-and-butter from the chairs, and leaving behind them that peculiar atmosphere which one can, at most, endure in one’s own children.

Day after day her life dragged on in ceaseless toil. Many a time, when she heard her husband bemoaning the drudgery of his lot, she thought to herself with a sort of defiance: “I wonder which of us two has the harder work?”

In one respect she was happier than her husband. Philosophy did not enter into her dreams, and when she could steal a quiet moment for reflection; her thoughts were very different from the cogitations of the poor philosopher.

She had no silver plate to polish, no jewelry to take out and deck herself with. But, in the inmost recess of her heart, she treasured all the memories of the first year of her marriage, that year of romantic bliss; and these memories she would furbish and furbish afresh, till they shone brighter with every year that passed.

But when the weary and despondent housewife, in all secrecy, decked herself out with these jewels of memory, they did not succeed in shedding any brightness over her life in the present. She was scarcely conscious of any connection between the golden-locked angel with the red ribbons and the five-year-old boy who lay grubbing in the dark back yard. These moments snatched her quite away from reality; they were like opium dreams.

Then some one would call for her from an adjoining room, or one of the children would be brought in howling from the street, with a great bump on its forehead. Hastily she would hide away her treasures, resume her customary air of hopeless weariness, and plunge once more into her labyrinth of duties and cares.--Thus had this marriage fared, and thus did this couple toil onward. They both dragged at the same heavy load; but did they drag in unison? It is sad, but it is true: when the manger is empty, the horses bite each other.----There was a great chocolate-party at the Misses Ludvigsen’s--all maiden ladies.

“For married women are so prosaic,” said the elder Miss Ludvigsen.

“Uh, yes!” cried Louisa.

Every one was in the most vivacious humor, as is generally the case in such company and on such an occasion; and, as the gossip went the round of the town, it arrived in time at Sören’s door. All were agreed that it was a most unhappy marriage, and a miserable home; some pitied, others condemned.

Then the elder Miss Ludvigsen, with a certain solemnity, expressed herself as follows: “I can tell you what was at fault in that marriage, for I know the circumstances thoroughly. Even before her marriage there was something calculating, something almost prosaic in Marie’s nature, which is entirely foreign to true, ideal love. This fault has since taken the upperhand, and is avenging itself cruelly upon both of them. Of course their means are not great, but what could that matter to two people who truly loved each other? for we know that happiness is not dependent on wealth. Is it not precisely in the humble home that the omnipotence of love is most beautifully made manifest?--And, besides, who can call these two poor? Has not heaven richly blessed them with healthy, sturdy children? These--these are their true wealth! And if their hearts had been filled with true, ideal love, then--then--”

Miss Ludvigsen came to a momentary standstill.

“What then?” asked a courageous young lady.

“Then,” continued Miss Ludvigsen, loftily, “then we should certainly have seen a very different lot in life assigned to them.”

The courageous young lady felt ashamed of herself.

There was a pause, during which Miss Ludvigsen’s words sank deep into all hearts. They all felt that this was the truth; any doubt and uneasiness that might perhaps have lurked here and there vanished away. All were confirmed in their steadfast and beautiful faith in true, ideal love; for they were all maiden ladies.

WITHERED LEAVES.

You _may_ tire of looking at a single painting, but you _must_ tire of looking at many. That is why the eyelids grow so heavy in the great galleries, and the seats are as closely packed as an omnibus on Sunday.

Happy he who has resolution enough to select from the great multitude a small number of pictures, to which he can return every day.

In this way you can appropriate--undetected by the custodians--a little private gallery of your own, distributed through the great halls. Everything which does not belong to this private collection sinks into mere canvas and gilding, a decoration you glance at in passing, but which does not fatigue the eye.

It happens now and then that you discover a picture, hitherto overlooked, which now, after thorough examination, is admitted as one of the select few. The assortment thus steadily increases, and it is even conceivable that by systematically following this method you might make a whole picture-gallery, in this sense, your private property.

But as a rule there is no time for that. You must rapidly take your bearings, putting a cross in the catalogue against the pictures you think of annexing, just as a forester marks his trees as he goes through the wood.

These private collections, as a matter of course, are of many different kinds. One may often search them in vain for the great, recognized masterpieces, while one may find a little, unconsidered picture in the place of honor; and in order to understand the odd arrangement of many of these small collections, one must take as one’s cicerone the person whose choice they represent. Here, now, is a picture from a private gallery.--

There hung in a corner of the Salon of 1878 a picture by the English painter Mr. Everton Sainsbury. It made no sensation whatever. It was neither large enough nor small enough to arouse idle curiosity, nor was there a trace of modern extravagance either in composition or in color.

As people passed they gave it a sympathetic glance, for it made a harmonious impression, and the subject was familiar and easily understood.

It represented two lovers who had slightly fallen out, and people smiled as each in his own mind thought of those charming little quarrels which are so vehement and so short, which arise from the most improbable and most varied causes, but invariably end in a kiss.

And yet this picture attracted to itself its own special public; you could see that it was adopted into several private collections.

As you made your way towards the well-known corner, you would often find the place occupied by a solitary person standing lost in contemplation. At different times, you would come upon all sorts of different people thus absorbed; but they all had the same peculiar expression before that picture, as if it cast a faded, yellowish reflection.

If you approached, the gazer would probably move away; it seemed as though only one person at a time could enjoy that work of art--as though one must be entirely alone with it.--

In a corner of the garden, right against the high wall, stands an open summer-house. It is quite simply built of green lattice-work, which forms a large arch backed by the wall. The whole summer-house is covered with a wild vine, which twines itself from the left side over the arched roof, and droops its slender branches on the right.

It is late autumn. The summer-house has already lost its thick roof of foliage. Only the youngest and most delicate tendrils of the wild vine have any leaves left. Before they fall, departing summer lavishes on them all the color it has left; like light sprays of red and yellow flowers, they hang yet a while to enrich the garden with autumn’s melancholy splendor.

The fallen leaves are scattered all around, and right before the summer-house the wind has with great diligence whirled the loveliest of them together, into a neat little round cairn.

The trees are already leafless, and on a naked branch sits the little garden-warbler with its rust-brown breast--like a withered leaf left hanging--and repeats untiringly a little fragment which it remembers of its spring-song.

The only thriving thing in the whole picture is the ivy; for ivy, like sorrow, is fresh both summer and winter.

It comes creeping along with its soft feelers, it thrusts itself into the tiniest chinks, it forces its way through the minutest crannies; and not until it has waxed wide and strong do we realize that it can no longer be rooted up, but will inexorably strangle whatever it has laid its clutches on.

Ivy, however, is like well-bred sorrow; it cloaks its devastations with fair and glossy leaves. Thus people wear a glossy mask of smiles, feigning to be unaware of the ivy-clad ruins among which their lot is cast.--

In the middle of the open summer-house sits a young girl on a rush chair; both hands rest in her lap. She is sitting with bent head and a strange expression in her beautiful face. It is not vexation or anger, still less is it commonplace sulkiness, that utters itself in her features; it is rather bitter and crushing disappointment. She looks as if she were on the point of letting something slip away from her which she has not the strength to hold fast--as if something were withering between her hands.

The man who is leaning with one hand upon her chair is beginning to understand that the situation is graver than he thought. He has done all he can to get the quarrel, so trivial in its origin, adjusted and forgotten; he has talked reason, he has tried playfulness; he has besought forgiveness, and humbled himself--perhaps more than he intended--but all in vain. Nothing avails to arouse her out of the listless mood into which she has sunk.

Thus it is with an expression of anxiety that he bends down towards her: “But you know that at heart we love each other so much.”

“Then why do we quarrel so easily, and why do we speak so bitterly and unkindly to each other?”

“Why, my dear! the whole thing was the merest trifle from the first.”

“That’s just it! Do you remember what we said to each other? How we vied with each other in trying to find the word we knew would be most wounding? Oh, to think that we used our knowledge of each other’s heart to find out the tenderest points, where an unkind word could strike home! And this we call love!”

“My dear, don’t take it so solemnly,” he answered, trying a lighter tone. “People may be ever so fond of each other, and yet disagree a little at times; it can’t be otherwise.”

“Yes, yes!” she cried, “there must be a love for which discord is impossible, or else--or else I have been mistaken, and what we call love is nothing but--”

“Have no doubts of love!” he interrupted her, eagerly; and he depicted in warm and eloquent words the feeling which ennobles humanity in teaching us to bear with each other’s weaknesses; which confers upon us the highest bliss, since, in spite of all petty disagreements, it unites us by the fairest ties.

She had only half listened to him. Her eyes had wandered over the fading garden, she had inhaled the heavy atmosphere of dying vegetation--and she had been thinking of the spring-time, of hope, of that all-powerful love which was now dying like an autumn flower.

“Withered leaves,” said she, quietly; and rising, she scattered with her foot all the beautiful leaves which the wind had taken such pains to heap together.

She went up the avenue leading to the house; he followed close behind her. He was silent, for he found not a word to say. A drowsy feeling of uneasy languor came over him; he asked himself whether he could overtake her, or whether she were a hundred miles away.

She walked with her head bent, looking down at the flower-beds. There stood the asters like torn paper flowers upon withered potato-shaws; the dahlias hung their stupid, crinkled heads upon their broken stems, and the hollyhocks showed small stunted buds at the top, and great wet, rotting flowers clustering down their stalks.

And disappointment and bitterness cut deep into the young heart. As the flowers were dying, she was ripening for the winter of life.

So they disappeared up the avenue. But the empty chair remained standing in the half-withered summer-house, while the wind busied itself afresh in piling up the leaves in a little cairn.

And in the course of time we all come--each in his turn--to seat ourselves on the empty chair in a corner of the garden and gaze on a little cairn of withered leaves.--

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO.

Since it is not only entertaining in itself, but also consonant with use and wont, to be in love; and since in our innocent and moral society, one can so much the more safely indulge in these amatory diversions as one runs no risk of being disturbed either by vigilant fathers or pugnacious brothers; and, finally, since one can as easily get out of as get into our peculiarly Norwegian form of betrothal--a half-way house between marriage and free board in a good family--all these things considered I say, it was not wonderful that Cousin Hans felt profoundly unhappy. For he was not in the least in love.

He had long lived in expectation of being seized by a kind of delirious ecstasy, which, if experienced people are to be trusted, is the infallible symptom of true love. But as nothing of the sort had happened, although he was already in his second year at college, he said to himself: “After all, love is a lottery if you want to win, you must at least table your stake. ‘Lend Fortune a helping hand,’ as they say in the lottery advertisements.”

He looked about him diligently, and closely observed his own heart.

Like a fisher who sits with his line around his forefinger, watching for the least jerk, and wondering when the bite will come, so Cousin Hans held his breath whenever he saw a young lady, wondering whether he was now to feel that peculiar jerk which is well known to be inseparable from true love--that jerk which suddenly makes all the blood rush to the heart, and then sends it just as suddenly up into the head, and makes your face flush red to the very roots of your hair.

But never a bite came. His hair had long ago flushed red to the roots, for Cousin Hans’s hair could not be called brown; but his face remained as pale and as long as ever.

The poor fisherman was growing quite weary, when he one day strolled down to the esplanade. He seated himself on a bench and observed, with a contemptuous air, a squad of soldiers engaged in the invigorating exercise of standing on one leg in the full sunshine, and wriggling their bodies so as to be roasted on both sides.

“Nonsense!” [Note: The English word is used in the original] said Cousin Hans, indignantly; “it’s certainly too dear a joke for a little country like ours to maintain acrobats of that sort. Didn’t I see the other day that this so-called army requires 1500 boxes of shoe-blacking, 600 curry-combs, 3000 yards of gold-lace and 8640 brass buttons?--It would be better if we saved what we spend in gold-lace and brass buttons, and devoted our half-pence to popular enlightenment,” said Cousin Hans.

For he was infected by the modern ideas, which are unfortunately beginning to make way among us, and which will infallibly end in overthrowing the whole existing fabric of society.

“Good-bye, then, for the present,” said a lady’s voice close behind him.

“Good-bye for the present, my dear,” answered a deep, masculine voice.

Cousin Hans turned slowly, for it was a warm day. He discovered a military-looking old man in a close-buttoned black coat, with an order at his buttonhole, a neck-cloth twisted an incredible number of times around his throat, a well-brushed hat, and light trousers. The gentleman nodded to a young lady, who went off towards the town, and then continued his walk along the ramparts.

Weary of waiting as he was, Cousin Hans could not help following the young girl with his eyes as she hastened away. She was small and trim, and he observed with interest that she was one of the few women who do not make a little inward turn with the left foot as they lift it from the ground.

This was a great merit in the young man’s eyes; for Cousin Hans was one of those sensitive, observant natures who are alone fitted really to appreciate a woman at her full value.

After a few steps the lady turned, no doubt in order to nod once again to the old officer; but by the merest chance her eyes met those of Cousin Hans.

At last occurred what he had so long been expecting: he felt the bite! His blood rushed about just in the proper way, he lost his breath, his head became hot, a cold shiver ran down his back, and he grew moist between the fingers. In short, all the symptoms supervened which, according to the testimony of poets and experienced prose-writers, betoken real, true, genuine love.

There was, indeed, no time to be lost. He hastily snatched up his gloves, his stick, and his student’s cap, which he had laid upon the bench, and set off after the lady across the esplanade and towards the town.