What was he going to do? "Why, dig the ground like his father. The earth--that was the only solid thing there was in creation, and so it was the only thing worth a rush, or that produced anything worth having. To get out of it all that tasted best, and smelt best, that was--may the devil quarter him--the finest thing an independent lad could turn his hand to." He dressed himself in the most slovenly way, and worked among the other labourers for his living.
That was all very well during the summer, but the harvest was hardly over before he discovered that--may the devil fly off with him--gardening was simply muck. It consisted in using this sort of muck, and then so much muck, and muck in that fashion. It seemed to him at last that "all the world was naught but a great muck-heap. They were the luckiest who owned the biggest. What--devil butcher him--was war other than that each one killed t'other for his own muck-heap? Poets and poetry were the flies in spring when the muck began to work."
He went off in a ship, bound for the South Sea, and was absent for several years, nor, when one beautiful spring day he returned home, could any one gain a clue as to where he had been. If he were to be believed, he had traversed the whole globe, for from that time no country or nation could be mentioned, nor anything remarkable in natural history, no ocean, no well-known building, which he had not seen, nor a single famous person with whom he was not on terms of the greatest intimacy, or, at the very least, well known to. It was evident that they were not all inventions. He had a great deal of information which could only have been acquired on the spot. He had undoubtedly some notable acquaintance, for his correspondence proved it. Later on in the summer an English nobleman and his friends sought him out to accompany them on a mountain hunting expedition.
Why had he come home? "To see his father before he died," he said; though, to confess the truth, his father was in the best of health, and not more pleased to welcome his son home, than he had been to see him depart.
John, however, declared all the same, that for his part, Heaven help him, he could not bear any longer to think that his father might be dying, and he not by his side.
From the time he returned he was all solicitude and affection for his father. He was now an old man, and allowed his son to do anything with him that he chose, and strange fancies he took at times. Such as, when he suddenly determined that his father should not eat anything. Or when he, all at once, hit on the plan of putting him into a warm bath, while he turned the cold douche on to him. Another idea was to lay him under a number of large eider-down coverlids, in order to make him sweat, although his father had not the slightest need for such treatment.
He would give a side glance at his son, and a very speaking one it was; there was neither confidence, nor fear in it, still less any good-humour, but a certain cold inquisitiveness, as though he just wished to know what next; and sometimes he seemed to ask, "Is this John, or is it not John?"
CHAPTER IV
SAILS IN SIGHT
In the autumn of the same year, a girl came home, who became the subject of conversation in the whole town, and for two reasons.
Her name was Tomasine Rendalen, and she was the daughter of the head-master, Rendalen. His name was derived from the mountain district of Rendalen, from which his father had originally come.
Rendalen was a big, strong man, who quietly, if rather ponderously, performed his scholastic duties in the town, and who, since his wife's death, had taken interest in nothing but his school, and the town reading society.
The management of his house he entirely left in the hands of old Mariane and his children. Tomasine, who was his eldest child, possessed a more than ordinary talent for languages, together with all her mother's determination. When she was only sixteen she borrowed a little money, entered a school in England, and, while there, thoroughly mastered the English language. From thence she went to a school in France, where she taught the pupils English and acquired French; and finally to one in Germany, where she gave instruction in both English and French, and learned German. She had been away nearly five years, and had become a practised, and unusually clever teacher. She had no sooner returned home than she began to give lessons both to men and women, and thereby to pay off her debts. This aroused great admiration in the town, and procured her a very large circle of friends. Her figure excited an equally unanimous admiration, and it must be admitted that it requires something special in a girl's figure before this can happen. A beautiful face is always admired, for there can be no delusion about it. A fine figure, on the contrary, is hardly sufficient in itself to command attention. She was young, and well-made, and always dressed in the latest fashion. Like other vigorous and healthy girls, she had from her childhood longed to exercise her strength, and had taken every opportunity of doing so. In England she had set to work to practise gymnastics, and had continued them ever since. It had become a passion with her; the result was, that there was not a single girl in the town who held herself like Tomasine.
It did not in the least lessen the admiration for her figure that she had a somewhat flat nose, and that her very light hair gave her the appearance, at a distance, of being bald; as for her eyebrows, they were really not worth mentioning. Her eyes were grey, and, when without her spectacles, she screwed them up. Her mouth was much too large, but the teeth within it were as sound and regular as though her family had remained in Rendalen and lived upon hard bread. When any one saw her from behind for the first time, and she then suddenly turned round, it caused a certain disappointment. People even thought of calling her "The Disappointment," but the name did not take. Her figure carried her over all criticism. Being near-sighted she wore spectacles, the only girl in the town who did so. In those days the fashion of using _pince-nez_ had not come in, so this gave something rather unusual to her appearance. She literally shone with strength and intelligence.
Through that winter she was the most popular partner at all the balls.
Her delight in being at home again, free from all restraint, and among a number of merry young people of both sexes, her happiness in feeling that every one was kind to her and liked her, were plainly visible. She often expressed her feelings in simple and natural terms; she aroused no jealousy, though it may be that this was a little strengthened by the fact that she was well aware that she was not pretty. That winter was a great dance winter, and at every dance she was present, for dancing was the most delightful thing she knew. During that winter John Kurt became for the first time a dancing man, and it was entirely for her sake that he did so. She soon heard him say this, but she knew that he could not be gauged by the rules of ordinary life, for he was always allowed to say what he liked. She looked upon him as something quite fresh, and very peculiar, but she acted as every one else did, and neither ran away from him, nor fainted, because he said that he would be d----d, pickled, boiled, and roasted if, when she danced, she were not like a young, lively, whinnying Arabian mare, or like a flock of birds in the woods in spring-time; her arms and her neck were just like a dainty, warm, little Turkish pigling, one o' them with a pink skin.
She moved through the dance, Heaven help him, like a great man-of-war through the water. When he danced with her--by his honour, life, and salvation--it was like being up on the mountains of a clear autumn day, with a gun in his hand, and the tykes ranging the hillside in full cry.
This, shouted in trumpet tones into her ear during every dance, only added to her amusement. The others laughed and she laughed with them.
She did not possess the slightest knowledge of human nature. That cannot be learnt by going from one school to another, even though they be in foreign countries.
Kurt very soon began to visit her home; he knew the hours when she would be free, and speedily learnt her times for walking, following her about everywhere. She tried as much as possible not to be alone with him; otherwise she was pleased enough that he should come. He told her and her friends amusing stories, and touching ones sometimes. Such, for instance, was the history of a deserted brood of ptarmigan, which he had once picked up, one by one, out of the heather, where they were running about, all downy and unfledged; he had brought them all home, he said, in his cap. This story seemed to bring with it such a fresh breath of mountain air, full of the scent of the heather, and he related it with such genuine feeling, that it brought the tears into their eyes. Such things as these seemed to inspire him; even in the midst of the wildest stories, he would often throw in some delicate, telling touch. The way in which he invariably spoke of his father attracted the girl to him. There was a mixture of drollness and tenderness in it, midway between laughter and tears. They got used to his rough descriptions, his coarse language; it could not well have been dispensed with; it gave a special colouring which charmed, while it startled them. Tomasine and her friends did not try to have it otherwise, so that at last there was no one who appeared to them to be able to relate stories except himself. Tomasine more than any one else.
She felt that it was all done for her amusement.
One day, when by chance they were alone, he began to tell her about the widow of a pilot, for whom he was just then most assiduously making a collection. He saw that she liked him for doing so, and, without further preface, he declared that Froken Tomasine Holm Rendalen was to him what a town was to a desert caravan; nay, if she laughed, it was because she did not know what it was to trudge along through endless sand, under a burning sun, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. "It is something to see a town then, I can tell you." Well, _she_ was the minaret tower, the plane-trees, and the springs of water, the wine which awaited them, and white tents, and dancing, the sound of the guitars, and the smell of roasting meat. Suppose they two were to make a match of it! If that could be, he would sell the whole garden, and they would wander away to all the most delightful places on the face of the earth. They would lie on their backs under the awnings, while their servants came and put food and drink into their mouths. Or why not stay here and carry "The Estate" gardens right up on to the mountains? What would not grow with such shelter, on such sunny hillsides, fanned by such warm sea breezes. There they would dig away into the hillside, like a couple of badgers, and become rich people. But he saw what a fright he had put her into; so, without any pause, he turned the conversation into a wild panegyric on his father. The fact was that the whole thing was his father's invention. He was determined to have his son married. His father was a man who would get up of a winter's night, when it suddenly turned cold, and go out to wrap bast mats and woollen rags round the frozen fruit-trees, as if they were naked children. If he wanted to cut down a bush he took the birds'-nests down first, and carried them away to some place near, or to some other bush, and stuck 'em fast there. What wonder then if his father gave a thought for him too; but, as for him, he could wait, he was quite happy as he was. And he started off with a story about some cows who would not eat the grass because it looked black, but he put them on large green spectacles, so that the grass looked quite nice and fresh--"then they munched it up, I can promise you."
She could gather in the meantime that John Kurt was disappointed. She herself had felt startled, she hardly knew why, and yet, on second thoughts, she did, for she had heard, that very day, some stories of the terribly licentious life he led.
It so happened, strangely enough, that a friend of her late mother came in to see her, and after a short preamble, began warmly to advocate Kurt's cause. Only an hour afterwards another one arrived, another after that, all bent on the same errand. He was certainly not like other people, that must be confessed, but that he would make a famous husband, each one was as certain as the other. As to his immoral conduct, that was bad, it must be admitted; but it was most likely not worse than other people's. Why, there were married men living in the town who were by no means all that they should be. The great difference was that he did everything openly. Each one of the three ladies spoke as strongly on the subject as the others, and Tomasine began to be somewhat of the same opinion.
John Kurt himself held aloof for a time, excepting so far as that whatever walk he took to or from the town, and they were not few, he always contrived to pass the Rendalens' house, notwithstanding that they lived quite on one side, to the left of the market-place, up towards the field. Every time he passed up and down, he took off his hat, if there were only a cat to be seen at the window. Beside this, he sent a bouquet there every morning. The dawn was not more certain to come than it was. Old Mariane, who received it, had always some little thing to say about Tomasine, and he, on his part, generally let fall some special remark, such as, for instance, "God bless your throats."
A very short time after her mother's especial friends had called upon Tomasine to advocate John's cause, her own followed their example. Some of them had in past days taken quite an opposite view of him. They had spoken of him almost with horror. They could not bear his mendacious stories, or put up with his coarse language; or indeed with him, himself. He was "disgusting." Now, however, they began to admit that there was something interesting in him all the same: a kind of demoniacal overwhelming power.
The fact was that he had called upon them all, choosing first the one whom he knew was most set against him. He told her that he was well aware of this fact, and that he respected her for it. It was quite true that he was a wretched, contemptible fellow. But it was just for that very reason that he had come to her, for she really was the most honest and clear-sighted conscience in the town; there was but one opinion on that point. She really _must_ help him. She did not know the whole history of his life, that was the fact. She did not know how it was from his boyhood upward he had been misunderstood, and indeed continued to be so still. And for that very reason would always remain an oddity.
But really it was hardly necessary for him to say anything. She saw right through every one.
He told another that her hands were so plump, so dainty, and round and soft, that one longed to nibble them with one's coffee.
He swayed and turned them with his stream of talk, he douched them cold, he blew them warm, he startled them, and touched them. They did not completely lose their heads. They knew perfectly well that it was not all honest truth, spontaneous nature, but even that very fact worked as an apology for him; he did not think about sheltering himself, and most people are flattering when they wish to obtain anything.
A little time afterwards the whole town from one end to the other was convulsed with laughter, for when, in the course of the spring, a little sempstress declared Kurt to be the father of her child, he acknowledged it before every one, and had it brought with great state to church to be baptised, giving it the name of Tomasine.
The amusement was renewed when he declared, on being asked how he could possibly have done such an extraordinary thing, that if he had any voice in the matter, Lord help him, every child in the town should be called either Tomas, or Tomasine. It was quite touching.
Just about that time his father died under somewhat strange circumstances. The old man had sent a message to Tomasine, asking her the next time she went for an evening walk, to be so kind as to come in to see him, as he was far from well. Those two had been friends of old.
Many times, when she was a little girl, he had filled her pocket with cherries. She always looked so fresh and healthy, and an old gardener has an eye for such things.
When she went up there, she found him sitting in his room on the left.
It was the first time she had ever been in it. The walls were hung with some stiff, and rather dark material, apparently leather, which had at one time been painted and gilded. In the corner by the window stood a large press, a splendid piece of furniture, at least two hundred years old, and most artistically carved. Quite in front of the window was a clumsy unpainted table, littered over with papers, samples of seeds, newspapers, and scraps of food. The old man sat there, in an ancient arm-chair, with a short, broad leather back. He got up, and insisted that she should take it. He was dressed in his grey linen coat, his long apron, and wore slippers down at heel. On his head he had his wide-peaked cap, and a thick neckcloth wound round his neck. He was rather hoarse, and he seemed ill as well. "The spring was so sharp this year," he said. The tall, gaunt man began to pace up and down between the table near the window, and the bed beside the wall next the wide hall, which divides the house in two. Up and down he walked along the wall, past the great stove, with the two "Oldenborgs" on it, both in enormous wigs, his steps keeping time to the ticking of an old eight-day clock which hung on the wall near the stove. Just then it struck seven, with a noisy chime.
The old man's bed was of freshly polished birch, contrasting with the old decrepid chairs set along the wall, with a new leg or two, or half the back put in fresh. The wall itself was hung with pictures, in which a reddish yellow arm, or a brownish red dress, showed themselves, but which otherwise were absolutely black.
Konrad Kurt's blustering talk, as he walked up and down, somewhat resembled the room, for it was a mixture of old and new, most of the former; and not without a touch of boasting about his family. About modern days he had less to say, and it was more in the humbler style of his present circumstances. He talked without his son's oaths and imagery, but with no little skill. He romanced at one moment, and sneered the next, as his son often did. _Summa summarum_ was, then, that the race was worn out, the stock could no longer spread. If it were to be saved, it, and the last of the inheritance, it must needs receive a graft; a strong, new tree must be found.
Tomasine sat there for nearly two hours, and listened to him. She let her supper hour, and the time for her evening classes, go by. He would not let her leave. A maid-servant opened a door from the inner passage to ask if she should lay the table, but was sent away.
As Tomasine returned along the avenue, where the road was guttered by the rain, and the storm whistled through the old trees, she felt as though she had just come from a mausoleum. In it she had met one single living man, wandering round and gazing on his dead. She had not the slightest desire to join him there. She turned and looked back at the great, dirty, plastered building, with its small windows. "No," she said aloud.
Next morning, when she came into the parlour, John Kurt's bouquet had not arrived. It gave her a pang, she hardly knew why, for that was after all exactly what she wished. But was it? She was trying to make this clear to herself, when her father came in from his morning walk.
He was very pale--he told her that old Kurt had died in the night. They had found him in the morning, lifeless, in his chair before the table.
John Kurt came in a few minutes later; he did not speak, but flung himself down, crying. He cried so violently that both she and her father were frightened. Then--the self-accusation that followed!
He came again every day and poured out his heart with affecting vehemence. He went nowhere else, spoke to no one but to them. Just to them and his own people. With these he worked day and night to build a temple of flowers on the great flight of steps before the house, down which the old man would be carried. This erection of flowers was wonderfully lovely; it was talked of far and near, and the evening before the funeral, numbers came up to see it, Tomasine and her father among them. The dead man's friend, Dean Green, was one of the first to come up the avenue, and after him, half the inhabitants of the mountain, both grown people and children, to look, to show their gratitude, and to say "Good-bye." They had been to see the clergyman first. Old Green stood on the steps, and spoke of him who had loved flowers so dearly, who had gone from our spring to the eternal one.
Every one was moved, and the son was obliged to go away.
The next day John went straight from the funeral to the Rendalens'. But he did not find Tomasine at home. He was so disappointed at this, so honestly distressed, that he stood silent for a long time, and at last let fall that he had no one now--no, not one single being. He only wished with all his heart that he could be laid in his grave too. He was nothing but a trouble even to those he cared for most. He saw that now. And he turned away. This quite touched old Mariane, to whom it had all been said, and when Tomasine came in at last, she related it so feelingly that her mistress was touched as well. The fact was that Tomasine had not wished to be at home. She feared him. She had not the courage to face his emotion, which might perhaps lead him in a special direction.
She repented it now. She hastily took off her spectacles and wiped them, put them on again, and looked at herself in the glass. Was not she big and strong enough to hazard it? She stood there and weighed the question.
The fashion of that day was to wear a bodice drawn in at the waist with a belt, and crinoline.
She pushed her belt down with both her strong hands; she had taken off her loose, white sleeves, as soon as she came in. Those belonging to her dress were wide and open, so that her wrist and the lower part of her arm, contrasted very prettily with her black dress. She delighted in their strength, as those do who are much given to gymnastic exercises. But her eyes turned involuntarily to her face, her weak point. It was incredibly ugly. That flat nose, those thick lips, and that hair which was the colour of her forehead--you could hardly see it--and those eyebrows, light, short bristles, so thin that they were quite invisible. Ah! no, it would never do to make herself of importance. John Kurt loved her so heartily, and was unhappy!....
absolutely alone, and so unhappy!.... And his father had made her sit down in his own chair!
Shortly afterwards old Mariane walked up the avenue as fast as she could. She halted once though, and took out of a newspaper a dainty, ah! such a dainty letter. She must look at it.
When it was put into John Kurt's hand, he tore it hastily open, and took out a sheet of thick English note-paper--with a dove on it--the paper was very good, and the dove well designed. He read the following words, hastily written in a practised hand:
"_I will do it_.