The Great Hunger Part 10

"No, no, of course not." Klaus shrugged his shoulders and walked on, whistling.

"Or that I want to make trouble for that fine family of his? No, I may find a way to take it out of him some day, but it won't be that way."

"Well, but, d.a.m.n it, man! you can surely stand hearing what people say about him." And Klaus went on to tell his story. Ferdinand Holm, it seemed, was the despair of his family. He had thrown up his studies at the Military Academy, because he thought soldiers and soldiering ridiculous. Then he had made a short experiment with theology, but found that worse still; and finally, having discovered that engineering was at any rate an honest trade, he had come to anchor at the Technical College. "What do you say to that?" asked Klaus.

"I don't see anything so remarkable about it."

"Wait a bit, the cream of the story's to come. A few weeks ago he thrashed a policeman in the street--said he'd insulted a child, or something. There was a fearful scandal--arrest, the police-court, fine, and so forth. And last winter what must he do but get engaged, formally and publicly engaged, to one of his mother's maids. And when his mother sent the girl off behind his back, he raised the standard of revolt and left home altogether. And now he does nothing but breathe fire and slaughter against the upper cla.s.ses and all their works. What do you say to that?"

"My good man, what the deuce has all this got to do with me?"

"Well, I think it's confoundedly plucky of him, anyhow," said Klaus.

"And for my part I shall get to know him if I can. He's read an awful lot, they say, and has a d.a.m.ned clever head on his shoulders."

On his very first day at the College, Peer had learned who Ferdinand Holm was, and had studied him with interest. He was a tall, straight-built fellow with reddish-blond hair and freckled face, and wore a dark tortoisesh.e.l.l pince-nez. He did not wear the usual College cap, but a stiff grey felt hat, and he looked about four or five and twenty.

"Wait!" thought Peer to himself--"wait, my fine fellow! Yes, you were there, no doubt, when they turned me out of the churchyard that day. But all that won't help you here. You may have got the start of me at first, and learned this, that, and the other, but--you just wait."

But one morning, out in the quadrangle, he noticed that Ferdinand Holm in his turn was looking at him, in fact was putting his gla.s.ses straight to get a better view of him--and Peer turned round at once and walked away.

Ferdinand, however, had been put into a higher cla.s.s almost at once, on the strength of his matriculation. Also he was going in for a different branch of the work--roads and railway construction--so that it was only in the quadrangle and the pa.s.sages that the two ever met.

But one afternoon, soon after Christmas, Peer was standing at work in the big designing-room, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning round, saw Klaus Brock and--Ferdinand Holm.

"I wanted to make your acquaintance," said Holm, and when Klaus had introduced them, he held out a large white hand with a red seal-ring on the first finger. "We're namesakes, I understand, and Brock here tells me you take your name from a country place called Holm."

"Yes. My father was a plain country farmer," said Peer, and at once felt annoyed with himself for the ring of humility the words seemed to have.

"Well, the best is good enough," said the other with a smile. "I say, though, has the first-term cla.s.s gone as far as this in projection drawing? Excuse my asking. You see, we had a good deal of this sort of thing at the Military Academy, so that I know a little about it."

Thought Peer: "Oh, you'd like to give me a little good advice, would you, if you dared?" Aloud he said: "No, the drawing was on the blackboard--the senior cla.s.s left it there--and I thought I'd like to see what I could make out of it."

The other sent him a sidelong glance. Then he nodded, said, "Good-bye--hope we shall meet again," and walked off, his boots creaking slightly as he went. His easy manners, his gait, the tone of his voice, all seemed to irritate and humiliate Peer. Never mind--just let him wait!

Days pa.s.sed, and weeks. Peer soon found another object to work for than getting the better of Ferdinand Holm. Louise's dresses hung still untouched in his room, her shoes stood under the bed; it still seemed to him that some day she must open the door and walk in. And when he lay there alone at night, the riddle was always with him: Where is she now?--why should she have died?--would he never meet her again? He saw her always as she had stood that day playing to the sick folks in the hospital ward. But now she was dressed in white. And it seemed quite natural now that she had wings. He heard her music too--it cradled and rocked him. And all this came to be a little world apart, where he could take refuge for Sunday peace and devotion. It had nothing to do with faith or religion, but it was there. And sometimes in the midst of his work in the daytime he would divine, as in a quite separate consciousness, the tones of a fiddle-bow drawn across the strings, like reddish waves coming to him from far off, filling him with harmony, till he smiled without knowing it.

Often, though, a sort of hunger would come upon him to let his being unfold in a great wide wave of organ music in the church. But to church he never went any more. He would stride by a church door with a kind of defiance. It might indeed be an Almighty Will that had taken Louise from him, but if so he did not mean to give thanks to such a Will or bow down before it. It was as though he had in view a coming reckoning--his reckoning with something far out in eternity--and he must see to it that when that time came he could feel free--free.

On Sunday mornings, when the church bells began to ring, he would turn hastily to his books, as if to find peace in them.

Knowledge--knowledge--could it stay his hunger for the music of the hymn? When he had first started work at the shops, he had often and often stood wide-eyed before some miracle--now he was gathering the power to work miracles himself. And so he read and read, and drank in all that he could draw from teacher or book, and thought and thought things out for himself. Fixed lessons and set tasks were all well enough, but Peer was for ever looking farther; for him there were questions and more questions, riddles and new riddles--always new, always farther and farther on, towards the unknown. He had made as yet but one step forward in physics, mathematics, chemistry; he divined that there were worlds still before him, and he must hasten on, on, on. Would the day ever come when he should reach the end? What is knowledge? What use do men make of all that they have learned? Look at the teachers, who knew so much--were they greater, richer, brighter beings than the rest?

Could much study bring a man so far that some night he could lift up a finger and make the stars themselves break into song? Best drive ahead, at any rate. But, again, could knowledge lead on to that ecstasy of the Sunday psalm, that makes all riddles clear, that bears a man upwards in nameless happiness, in which his soul expands till it can enfold the infinite s.p.a.ces? Well, at any rate the best thing was to drive ahead, drive ahead both early and late.

One day that spring, when the trees in the city avenues were beginning to bud, Klaus Brock and Ferdinand Holm were sitting in a cafe in North Street. "There goes your friend," said Ferdinand; and looking from the window they saw Peer Holm pa.s.sing the post-office on the other side of the road. His clothes were shabby, his shoes had not been cleaned, he walked slowly, his fair head with its College cap bent forward, but seemed nevertheless to notice all that was going on in the street.

"Wonder what he's going pondering over now," said Klaus.

"Look there--I suppose that's a type of carriage he's never seen before.

Why, he has got the driver to stop--"

"I wouldn't mind betting he'll crawl in between the wheels to find out whatever he's after," laughed Klaus, drawing back from the window so as not to be seen.

"He looks pale and f.a.gged out," said Ferdinand, s.h.i.+fting his gla.s.ses. "I suppose his people aren't very well off?"

Klaus opened his eyes and looked at the other. "He's not overburdened with cash, I fancy."

They drank off their beer, and sat smoking and talking of other things, until Ferdinand remarked casually: "By the way--about your friend--are his parents still alive?"

Klaus was by no means anxious to go into Peer's family affairs, and answered briefly--No, he thought not.

"I'm afraid I'm boring you with questions, but the fact is the fellow interests me rather. There is something in his face, something--arresting. Even the way he walks--where is it I've seen some one walk like that before? And he works like a steam-engine, I hear?"

"Works!" repeated Klaus. "He'll ruin his health before long, the way he goes on grinding. I believe he's got an idea that by much learning he can learn at last to--Ha-ha-ha!"

"To do what?"

"Why--to understand G.o.d!"

Ferdinand was staring out of the window. "Funny enough," he said.

"I ran across him last Sunday, up among the hills. He was out studying geology, if you please. And if there's a lecture anywhere about anything--whether it's astronomy or a French poet--you can safely swear he'll be sitting there, taking notes. You can't compete with a fellow like that! He'll run across a new name somewhere--Aristotle, for instance. It's something new, and off he must go to the library to look it up. And then he'll lie awake for nights after, stuffing his head with translations from the Greek. How the deuce can any one keep up with a man who goes at things that way? There's one thing, though, that he knows nothing about."

"And that is?"

"Well, wine and women, we'll say--and fun in general. One thing he isn't, by Jove!--and that's YOUNG."

"Perhaps he's not been able to afford that sort of thing," said Ferdinand, with something like a sigh.

The two sat on for some time, and every now and then, when Klaus was off his guard, Ferdinand would slip in another little question about Peer.

And by the time they had finished their second gla.s.s, Klaus had admitted that people said Peer's mother had been a--well--no better than she should be.

"And what about his father?" Ferdinand let fall casually.

Klaus flushed uncomfortably at this. "n.o.body--no--n.o.body knows much about him," he stammered. "I'd tell you if I knew, hanged if I wouldn't.

No one has an idea who it was. He--he's very likely in America."

"You're always mighty mysterious when you get on the subject of his family, I've noticed," said Ferdinand with a laugh. But Klaus thought his companion looked a little pale.

A few days later Peer was sitting alone in his room above the stables, when he heard a step on the stairs, the door opened, and Ferdinand Holm walked in.

Peer rose involuntarily and grasped at the back of his chair as if to steady himself. If this young c.o.xcomb had come--from the schoolmaster, for instance--or to take away his name--why, he'd just throw him downstairs, that was all.

"I thought I'd like to look you up, and see where you lived," began the visitor, laying down his hat and taking a seat. "I've taken you unawares, I see. Sorry to disturb you. But the fact is there's something I wanted to speak to you about."

"Oh, is there?" and Peer sat down as far as conveniently possible from the other.

"I've noticed, even in the few times we've happened to meet, that you don't like me. Well, you know, that's a thing I'm not going to put up with."

"What do you mean?" asked Peer, hardly knowing whether to laugh or not.