Emanuel, or Children of the Soil/Book 1, Chapter 9
After Mortensen had got into his soft feather bed at home, he folded his hands on the counterpane, and said the Lord's Prayer.
His wife lay by his side, and as she turned round, half awake, the bed creaked under her large weighty person.
"Did you win anything, Mortensen?"
He continued his prayer undisturbed, and said at the end:
"Twelve kroner, my dear!" whereupon he fell softly and peacefully asleep.
In the meantime Villing had also reached his shop, which was in the middle of the village, near the pond. He walked along half asleep, but when he entered the shop and perceived the well-known mixed odour of soap, raisins, coffee, and tobacco, he became wide awake at once. He stopped a minute in the dark listening to the heavy snoring of the shop boy in a little closet at the back of the shop. Then he lighted a candle end which stood ready for him on the counter, noiselessly counted the change in the till, inspected the boxes of raisins and prunes, peered up into the rafters, and held the candle down into the cellar; and only when he had satisfied himself that there was nothing suspicious to be seen anywhere did he go into the bedroom.
His young wife sat up in bed rubbing her eyes, and at once began a minute statement of all that had taken place in the shop during the day; the miller who had been there with grain, Hans Jensen who had bought a cask of brandy, and Sören, the old tailor, to whom she had given credit for a pound of candy—and so on. She was a plump little creature with a round childish face framed in a big grandmother's nightcap.
Villing undressed rapidly, throwing in approving remarks. "Good!—very good, little Siné—very well done, little friend," he ejaculated from time to time as he skipped about in his socks and drawers, looking as if he was chasing his own shadow, which now shrunk up like a frog in one corner, and then spread out like a ghost on the low walls of the little room.
For a long time after the light was put out they talked under the clothes about the prices of coffee, meal, and credit. Even in their tenderest moments these two prudent persons never forgot their business for a moment.
Aggerbölle was the one of the three wanderers who had furthest to go.
He lived in a little neglected house half a mile from the village, on the way to the shore. Fifteen years ago—when, newly married, he came to this neighbourhood—he chose this desolate place on purpose to enjoy his happiness in solitude. There was a wide view of the Fiord and the shore from the windows. Many a balmy spring evening and moonlight autumn night he and his young wife had wandered among the silent hills, arm in arm, cheek pressed to cheek, while their hearts beat with joy and lightsome hope.
Now, he many a time swore at the distance, as, dazed with drink and play, he stumbled home in the dark through mire and snow. His gig was generally left at the place where he had stranded in the day; for when it came to going home, he was usually in no state to be trusted with a horse. Nor would Jensen, this evening, hand over his vehicle, although with the snow on the ground it was quite light, and the road was cleared nearly all the way to his house. But Aggerbölle did not keep to the road, he floundered across the fields in great circles, over his top boots in snow, stopping every moment with loud lamentations, beating his forehead with his fist and cursing himself and all the world. Never—he thought—had fate been so hard upon him as to-day, and never—so he fancied—had he loved his wife and children so dearly as now, when all ways were closed to him. In the morning the baker would bring his bill for the third time, he had already been threatened with the bailiff and a summons. How should he find a way out of it? He hardly owned a halter to hang himself with!—He stopped again in a great snowdrift, unbuttoned his coat, and took a few small coins from his waiscoat pocket with his swollen fingers, and held them in the hollow of his hand. He stood a moment counting them carefully, and then, with a loud sobbing sigh, clenched his hands and started again.
When at length he reached his home, and found the gate in the tumbledown fence, fear and shame—as they always did—made him for the moment perfectly sober. He took off his heavy boots in the passage, and crept softly in his stocking feet into the bedroom. It was crowded with children's beds, and a night-light was burning on a chair by his wife's bed.
He gave a sigh of relief. His wife's eyes were closed, her thin hand was folded under her pale cheek, and she seemed to be sound asleep. But hardly had he begun to undress, than he heard her move her head, and when he looked round he met a glance from her large, brown eyes, whose brightness betrayed that for her, too, the night had brought no sleep.
"Good—good night, little Sophie!" he hiccupped tenderly, supporting himself against the bed-post.
"Good morning," she answered quietly.
"Ah well, yes," he replied with an attempt at gaiety. "It certainly is rather late—or early—Ah!—It's that Mortensen, you know—he's a regular dog at a card table—a regular dog."
She did not answer him, but closed her eyes wearily, then opened them again and said:
"A messenger on horseback came from Anders Jensen of Egede. It seems you had promised to go and look at a sick cow there."
"I?" he burst out, colouring up and trying to look her straight in the face. "I know nothing about it—it must be a mistake."
She continued calmly, "The messenger was to say that it did not matter now for the cow was dead. But you were not to trouble yourself to go there again."
Aggerbölle was silent. He stood leaning against the bedpost looking at the floor—the swollen blue veins standing out on his forehead, and his lips compressed.
All at once he drew himself up with a shiver, ran his hand through his hair, and walked with a firm step up to his wife with his right hand outstretched.
"Here you have my hand, Sophie, it is the last night I will touch a card—I swear to you that from this day I will become another man. Do you hear, Sophie?—you may depend upon me—you must trust me this time," he went on, repeating, while his tears began to flow. "I swear to you it will all come right. And I will make up to you, Sophie, for all the bad times—for all that you have suffered for my sake—for the children's sake—for Oh, God—oh, God!"
The intoxication had come over him again. He sank on his knees by his wife's bed, and buried his head in the clothes like a child, while terrible sobs shook his heavy frame.
She lay quite still for a moment with closed eyes. Then she lifted her languid hand from the counterpane and stroked his hair—she could not help it, although she had heard the same repentant weeping hundreds of times before, and had let herself be deceived by the same solemn promises. At last her eyes filled with tears too, and clasping his head with both her hands, she pressed it to her emaciated bosom, and whispered: "My poor—poor Bernhard!"
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