Stories by Foreign Authors: Scandinavian Part 4

"Oh, indeed! Patching your shoes, eh? Then if you can't see to do that by the same light that does for me, you may take yourself off with your pare into the bath-house or behind it if you like."

And Pekka went.

He stuck his boots under his arm, took his stool in one hand and his pare in the other, and off he went. He crept softly through the door into the hall, and out of the hall into the yard. The pare light flamed outside in the blast, and played a little while, glaring red, over outhouses, stalls, and stables. We children saw the light through the window and thought it looked very pretty. But when Pekka bent down to get behind the bath-house door, it was all dark again in the yard, and instead of the pare we saw only the lamp mirroring itself in the dark window-panes.

Henceforth we never burned a pare in the dwelling-room again. The lamp shone victoriously from the roof, and on Sunday evenings all the townsfolk often used to come to look upon and admire it. It was known all over the parish that our house was the first, after the parsonage, where the lamp had been used. After we had set the example, the magistrate bought a lamp like ours, but as he had never learned to light it, he was glad to sell it to the innkeeper, and the innkeeper has it still.

The poorer farmfolk, however, have not been able to get themselves lamps, but even now they do their long evening's work by the glare of a pare.

But when we had had the lamp a short time, father planed the walls of the dwelling-room all smooth and white, and they never got black again, especially after the old stove, which used to smoke, had to make room for another, which discharged its smoke outside and had a cowl.

Pekka made a new fireplace in the bath-house out of the stones of the old stove, and the crickets flitted thither with the stones--at least their chirping was never heard any more in the dwelling room. Father didn't care a bit, but we children felt, now and then, during the long winter evenings, a strange sort of yearning after old times, so we very often found our way down to the bath-house to listen to the crickets, and there was Pekka sitting out the long evenings by the light of his pare.

THE FLYING MAIL

BY

M. GOLDSCHMIDT

From "The Flying Mail." Translated by Carl La.r.s.en.

THE FLYING MAIL

BY

M. GOLDSCHMIDT

I.

Fritz Bagger had just been admitted to the bar. He had come home and entered his room, seeking rest. All his mental faculties were now relaxed after their recent exertion, and a long-restrained power was awakened. He had reached a crisis in life: the future lay before him,--the future, the future! What was it to be? He was twenty-four years old, and could turn himself whichever way he pleased, let fancy run to any line of the compa.s.s. Out upon the horizon, he saw little rose-colored clouds, and nothing therein but a certain undefined bliss.

He put his hands over his eyes, and sought to bring this uncertainty into clear vision; and after a long time had elapsed, he said: "Yes, and so one marries."

"Yes, one marries," he continued, after a pause; "but whom?"

His thoughts now took a more direct course; but the pictures in his mind's eye had not become plainer. Again the horizon widely around was rose-colored, and between the tinted cloud-layers angel-heads peeped out--not Bible angels, which are neither man nor woman; but angelic girls, whom he didn't know, and who didn't know him. The truth was, he didn't know anybody to whom he could give his heart, but longed, with a certain twenty-four-year power, for her to whom he could offer it,--her who was worthy to receive his whole self-made being, and in exchange give him all that queer imagined bliss, which is or ought to be in the world, as every one so firmly believes.

"Oh, I am a fool!" he said, as he suddenly became conscious that he was merely dreaming and wis.h.i.+ng. He tried to think of something practical, thought upon a little picnic that was to be held in the evening; but the same dream returned and overpowered him, because the season of spring was in him, because life thrilled in him as in trees and plants when the spring sun s.h.i.+nes.

He leaned upon the window-seat--it was in an attic--and let the wind cool his forehead. But while the wind refreshed, the street itself gave his mind new nourishment. Down there it moved, to him unknown, and veiled and hidden as at a masquerade. What a treasure might not that easy virgin foot carry! What a fancy might there not be moving in the head under that little bonnet, and what a heart might there not be beating under the folds of that shawl! But, too, all this preciousness might belong to another.

Alas! yes, there were certainly many amiable ones down there!--and if destiny should lead him to one of them, who was free, lovely, well-bred, of good family, could any one vouch that for her sake he was not giving up HER, the beau-ideal, the expected, whose portrait had shown itself between the tinted clouds? or, in any event, who can vouch for one's success in not missing the right one?

"Oh! life is a lottery, a cruel lottery; for to everybody there is but one drawing, and the whole man is at stake. Woe to the loser!"

After the expiration of some time, Fritz, under the influence of these meditations, had become melancholy, and all bright, smiling, and sure as life had recently appeared to him, so misty, uncertain, and painful it now appeared. For the second time he stroked his forehead, shook these thoughts from him, seeking more practical ones, and for the second time it terminated in going to the window and gazing out.

A whirlwind filled the street, slamming gates and doors, shaking windows and carrying dust with it up to his attic chamber. He was in the act of drawing back, when he saw a little piece of paper whirled in the dust cloud coming closely near him. He shut his eyes to keep out the dust, grasping at random for the paper, which he caught. At the same moment the whirlwind ceased, and the sky was again clear. This appeared to him ominous; the sc.r.a.p of paper had certainly a meaning to him, a meaning for him; the unknown whom he had not really spoken to, yet had been so exceedingly busy with, could not quite accidentally have thus conveyed this to his hands, and with throbbing heart he retired from the window to read the message.

One side of the paper was blank; in the left-hand corner of the other side was written "beloved," and a little below it seemed as if there had been a signature, but now there was nothing left excepting the letters "geb."

"'Geb,' what does that mean?" asked Fritz Bagger, with dark humor. "If it had been gek, I could have understood it, although it were incorrectly written. Geb, Gebrer, Algebra, Gebruderbuh,--I am a big fool."

"But it is no matter, she shall have an answer," he shouted after a while, and seated himself to write a long, glowing love-letter. When it was finished and read, he tore it in pieces.

"No," said he, "if destiny has intended the least thing by acting to me as mail-carrier through the window, let me act reasonably." He wrote on a little piece of paper:

"As the old Norwegians, when they went to Iceland, threw their high-seat pillars into the sea with the resolution to settle where they should go ash.o.r.e, so I send this out. My faith follows after; and it is my conviction that where this alights, I shall one day come, and salute you as my chosen, as my--." "Yes, now what more shall I add?" he asked himself. "Ay, as my--'geb'--!" he added, with an outburst of merry humor, that just completed the whole sentimental outburst. He went to the window and threw the paper out; it alighted with a slow quivering.

He was already afraid that it would go directly down into the ditch; but then a breeze came lifting it almost up to himself again, then a new current carried it away, lifting it higher and higher, whirling it, till at last it disappeared from his sight in continual ascension, so he thought.

"After all, I have become engaged to-day," he said to himself, with a certain quiet humor, and yet impressed by a feeling that he had really given himself to the unknown.

II.

Six years had pa.s.sed, and Fritz Bagger had made his mark, although not as a lover. He had become Counsellor, and was particularly distinguished for the skill and energy with which he brought criminals to confession. It is thus that a man of fine and poetic feelings can satisfy himself in such a business, for a time at least: with the half of his soul he can lead a life which to himself and others seems entire only because it is busy, because it keeps him at work, and fills him with a consciousness of accomplis.h.i.+ng something practical and good.

There is a youthful working power, which needs not to look sharply out into the future for a particular aim of feeling or desire. This power itself, by the mere effort to keep in a given place, is for such an organization, every day, an aim, a relish; and one can for a number of years drive business so energetically, that he, too, slips over that difficult time which in every twenty-four hours threatens to meet him, the time between work and sleep, twilight, when the other half of the soul strives to awaken.

Be it because his professional duties gave him no time or opportunity for courts.h.i.+p, or for some other reason, Fritz Bagger remained a bachelor; and a bachelor with the income of his profession is looked upon as a rich man. Counsellor Bagger would, when business allowed, enter into social life, treating it in that elegant, independent, almost poetic manner, which in most cases is denied to married men, and which is one reason why they press the hand of a bachelor with a sigh, a mixture of envy, admiration, and compa.s.sion. If we add here that a bachelor with such a professional income is the possible stepping-stone to an advantageous marriage, it is easily seen that Fritz Bagger was much sought for in company. He went, too, into it as often as allowed by his legal duties, from which he would hasten in the black "swallow-tail" to a dinner or soiree, and often amused himself where most others were weary; because conversation about anything whatever with the cultivated was to him a refreshment, and because he brought with him a good appet.i.te and good humor, resting upon conscientious work. He could show interest in divers trifles, because in their nothingness (quite contrary to the trifles in which half an hour previous, with painful interest, he had ferreted out crime), they appeared to him as belonging to an innocent, childish world; and if conversation approached more earnest things, he spoke freely, and evidently gave himself quite up to the subject, letting the whole surface of his soul flow out. And this procured him friends.h.i.+p and reputation.

In this way, then, six years had slipped by, when Counsellor Bagger, or rather Fritz Bagger as we will call him, in remembrance of his examination-day, and his notes by the flying mail, was invited to a wedding-party on the shooting-ground. The company was not very large,--only thirty couples,--but very elegant. Bagger was a friend in the families of both bride and bridegroom, and consequently being well known to nearly all present he felt himself as among friends gathered by a mutual joy, and was more than usually animated. A superb wine, which the bride's father had himself brought, crowned their spirits with the last perfect wreath. Although the toast to the bridal pair had been officially proposed, Bagger took occasion to offer his congratulations in a second encomium of love and matrimony; which gave a solid, prosaic man opportunity for the witty remark and hearty wish that so distinguished a practical office-holder as Counsellor Bagger would carry his fine theories upon matrimony into practice. The toast was drunk with enthusiasm, and just at that moment a strong wind shook the windows, and burst open one of the doors, blowing so far into the hall as to cause the lights to flicker much.

Bagger became, through the influence of the wine, the company, and the sight of the happy bridal pair, six years younger. His soul was carried away from criminal and police courts, and found itself on high, as in the attic chamber, with a vision of the small tinted clouds and the angel-heads. The sudden gust of wind carried him quite back to the moment when he sent out his note as the Norwegian heroes their high-seat pillars: the spirit of his twenty-fourth year came wholly over him, queerly mixed with the half-regretful reflection of the thirtieth year, with fun, inclination to talk and to breathe; and he exclaimed, as he rose to acknowledge the toast:

"I am engaged."

"Ay! ay! Congratulate! congratulate!" sounded from all sides.

"This gust of wind, which nearly extinguished the lights, brought me a message from my betrothed!"

"What?" "What is it?" asked the company, their heads at that moment not in the least condition for guessing charades.

"Counsellor Bagger, have you, like the Doge of Venice, betrothed yourself to the sea or storm?" asked the bridegroom.

"Hear him, the fortunate! sitting upon the golden doorstep to the kingdom of love! Let him surmise and guess all that concerns Cupid, for he has obtained the inspiration, the genial sympathy," exclaimed Bagger. "Yes," he continued, "just like the Doge of Venice, but not as aristocratic! From my attic chamber, where I sat on my examination-day, guided by Cupid, in a manner which it would take too long to narrate, I gave to the whirlwind a love-letter, and at any moment SHE can step forward with my letter, my promise, and demand me soul and body."

"Who is it, then?" asked bridegroom and bride, with the most earnest interest.

"Yes, how can I tell that? Do I know the whirlwind's roads?"

"Was the letter signed with your name?"