Arne: Early Tales and Sketches Part 13

"I often think there is something that sings when it is quite still."

"That is the good within ourselves."

She looked at him as though there were something too much in that answer; they were both quiet afterward. Then she asked, as she traced figures with one finger on the window-pane,--

"Have you made any songs lately?"

He blushed; but this she did not see. Therefore she asked again,--

"How do you manage when you make songs?"

"Would you really like to know?"

"Oh, yes."

"I h.o.a.rd up the thoughts that others are in the habit of letting go," he answered evasively.

She was long silent, for she had doubtless been making an attempt at a song or two. What if she had had those thoughts and let them go.

"That is strange," said she, as though to herself, and fell to tracing figures on the pane again.

"I made a song after I had seen you the first time."

"Where was that?"

"Over by the parsonage, the evening you left there. I saw you in the lake."

She laughed, then was still a while.

"Let me hear that song."

Arne had never before done such a thing, but now he sang for her the song,--

"Fair Venevill bounded on lithesome feet, Her lover to meet," etc.

Eli stood there very attentive; she stood there long after he was through. At last she burst out,--

"Oh, how I pity her!"

"It seems as though I had not made it myself," said Arne, for he felt ashamed at having produced it. Nor did he understand how he had come to do so. He remained standing there as if looking after the song.

Then she said: "But I hope it will not be that way with me!"

"No, no, no! I was only thinking of myself."

"Is that to be your fate, then?"

"I do not know; but I felt so at that time--indeed, I do not understand it now, but I once had such a heavy heart."

"That was strange." She began to write on the window-pane again.

The next day, when Arne came in to dinner he went over to the window.

Outside it was gray and foggy, within warm and pleasant; but on the window-pane a finger had traced "Arne, Arne, Arne!" and over again "Arne." It was the window where Eli had stood the preceding evening.

But Eli did not come down-stairs that day; she was feeling ill. She had not been well at all of late; she had said so herself, and it was plainly to be seen.

CHAPTER XI.

A day later Arne came in and announced that he had just heard on the gard that the priest's daughter Mathilde had that very moment started for the town, as she thought, for a few days, but, as had been decided, to stay there for a year or two. Eli had heard nothing of this before, and fell fainting.

It was the first time Arne had seen any one faint, and he was much alarmed; he ran for the maid-servants, they went for the parents, who started at once; there was confusion all over the gard, even the shepherd-dog barked on the barn-bridge. When Arne came in again, later, the mother was on her knees by the bedside, the father stood holding the sick girl's head. The maid-servants were running, one for water, another for medicine, which was kept in a cupboard, a third was unfastening Eli's jacket at the throat.

"The Lord help and bless us!" cried the mother. "It was certainly wrong that we said nothing to her; it was you, Baard, who would have it so.

The Lord help and bless us!"

Baard made no reply.

"I said we had better tell her; but nothing is ever done as I wish. The Lord help and bless us! You are always so underhand with her, Baard; you do not understand her; you do not know what it is to care for any one."

Baard still made no reply.

"She is not like others; they can bear sorrow, but it completely upsets her, poor thing, she is so slight. And especially now when she is not well at all. Wake up again, my dear child, and we will be kind to you!

Wake up again, Eli, my own dear child, and do not grieve us so!"

Then Baard said,--

"You are either too silent, or you talk too much;" and he looked over at Arne, as though he did not wish him to hear all this, but to go away. As the maid-servants remained in the room, however, Arne thought that he might stay, too, but he walked to the window. Now the patient rallied so far that she could look about her and recognize people; but at the same moment her memory returned; she shrieked "Mathilde," burst into hysterical weeping, and sobbed until it was painful to be in the room with her. The mother tried to comfort her; the father had placed himself where he might be seen; but the sick girl waved her hand to them. "Go away!" she cried, "I do not love you!"

"Good gracious! You do not love your parents?" said the mother.

"No! You are cruel to me, and take from me the only joy I have!"

"Eli, Eli! Do not speak such dreadful words!" begged the mother.

"Yes, mother," she shrieked; "now I must say it! Yes, mother! You want me to marry that hateful man, and I will not. You shut me up here, where I am never happy, except when I am to go out! You take Mathilde from me, the only person I love and long for in the world! O G.o.d, what will become of me when Mathilde is no longer here--especially now that I have so much, so much I cannot manage when I have no one to talk with?"

"But you really have so seldom been with her lately," said Baard.

"What did that matter when I had her over at the window yonder!"

answered the sick girl, and she cried in such a child-like way, that it seemed to Arne as though he had never before seen anything like it.

"But you could not see her there," said Baard.

"I could see the gard," answered she; and the mother added, hotly,--