Look Back on Happiness Part 38

Not everyone has a man like Nikolai to live with, either. The young wife is very fond of her Nikolai, this sound, hearty bear who loves her in return. Besides, Nikolai is not exacting; his wife seems to him peerless in all she does. Of course she has taken great pains; it has left its mark on her, too, and she is not gray for nothing. A few months ago she lost a front tooth, too--broke it on some bird shot left in the breast of a ptarmigan she was eating. She hardly dared look in the mirror now--didn't recognize herself. But what did it matter as long as Nikolai....

Look what he'd brought her, this brooch, bought at the goldsmith's at the market: wasn't it lovely? Oh, Nikolai was mad; but she would do anything in the world for him, too. Imagine using some of the money for the horse on a brooch! Where is he now, where's he gone to? She'll bet anything he's stroking the mare again.

"Nikolai!" she called.

"Yes," his reply came from the stable.

She sat down again, crossing her legs. Her face had turned pink; perhaps a thought, a memory, pa.s.sed through her mind. She was suffused with excitement and beauty. Her dress clung to her body, outlining its contours. She began gently to stroke her knee.

"Is the child asleep?" I asked. I had to say something.

"Yes, he's asleep. And think of him!" she exclaimed. "Can you imagine anything more wonderful? Excuse my talking like this, but.... You know he's not a year old yet. I never knew children were such a blessing."

"Well, you see they are."

"Yes, I thought differently once; I remember that perfectly well, and you contradicted me. Of course it was stupid of me. Children? Miracles! And when you're old, they're the only happiness--the last happiness. I shall have more; I shall have many of them, a whole row of them, like organ pipes, each taller than the last. They're lovely.... But I wish I hadn't lost my tooth; it leaves such a black gap. I really feel quite bad about it, on Nikolai's account. I suppose a false one could be put in, but I shouldn't dream of it. Besides, I understand it's quite dear. But I've given up using any arts; I only wish I'd stopped earlier--I've gone on much too long. Think of all I've missed by it: all my childhood, all my youth. Haven't I idled away whole summers at resorts, even as a grown woman? I needed a holiday from my school work, a rest, and immediately turned it into sheer futility, every day a disgrace. I could cry with regret. I should have been married ten years ago, and had my husband all that time, and a home and many children. Now I'm already old, cheated out of ten years of my life, with gray hair and one tooth gone--"

"Well, you've lost one tooth, but I've hardly got one left!"

No sooner had I consoled her thus than I regretted it. Why should I make myself worse than I am? Things were bad enough anyhow. I was sick with fury at myself, and grinned and grimaced to show her my teeth: "Here, don't miss them, have a good look!" But I'm afraid she saw what a fool I was making of myself; everything I did was wrong.

Then she consoled me in her turn, as people do when they can well afford it:

"What, you old? Nonsense!"

"Have you met the schoolmaster?" I asked abruptly.

"Of course. I remember what you told me about him: a horse and a man came riding along the road.... But he's got sense, and he's terribly stingy.

Oh, he's cunning; he borrows our harrow because ours is new and good.

They've built a house at the end of the valley, and take in travelers-- quite a big hotel, in fact, with the waitresses dressed in national costume. Of course Nikolai and I both went to the wedding; Petra really looked a charming and lovely bride. You mustn't think she and I are still unfriendly; she likes me better now that I'm more competent, and last summer they sent for me several times to interpret for some English people and that sort of thing--at least I know how to say soap and food and conveyance and tips in other languages!

"But I don't think I should ever have had any serious trouble with Petra in the first place if Sophie hadn't come home--you know, the schoolmistress in the town. She's always found plenty to criticize in me, so I never liked her very much, I must admit. But when she came here, she was very arrogant toward me, and lorded it over me, showing off all her knowledge. I was busy trying to learn what I needed to know for the life up here, and then she came along and made me look small, talking about the Seven Years' War all the time. She was terribly learned about the Seven Years' War, because that's what she had in her examination. And our way of talking wasn't elegant enough for her; Nikolai used rough country expressions sometimes, and she didn't like that. But Nikolai speaks quite well enough, and I can't see what that fool of a sister of his has got to put on airs for! And on top of that she came home to stay--for six months, anyhow. She'd been engaged, so then she had to take a six months' holiday.

The baby's with Petra, with his grandmother, so he's well taken care of.

It's a boy, too, but he's hardly got any hair; mine has plenty of hair.

Well, in a way, of course, it's a pity about Sophie, because she'd used up her legacy and her youth studying to be a schoolmistress, and then she comes home like that. But she really was insufferable, thinking she was a lot better than I because she hadn't been discharged, like me. So I asked her to leave. And then they both left, Sophie and her mother. Anyhow, her mother and I are quite reconciled.

"But you mustn't think we've had any help from her to buy the horse.

Nothing of the kind! We borrowed the money from the bank. But we'll manage, because it's our only debt. Nikolai has made all the furniture in here himself, the table and china cupboard and everything; we haven't bought a thing. He's dug up the new field himself, too. And we'll be getting more cattle; you ought to see what a handsome heifer we've got....

"Even the food wasn't good enough for Sophie. Tins saved such a lot of trouble, she said; we ought to buy tinned food. It was enough to make you sick to listen to her. I was just beginning to knit, too; I'd got one of my neighbors to teach me, and I was knitting stockings for myself. But of course Lady Sophie--well, she bought her stockings in the city. Oh, she was charming. 'Get out!' I said to her. So they left."

Nikolai entered the room.

"Did you want me?"

"No--oh, yes, I wanted you to come upstairs with me. I need something to hang things on in front of the fire, a clotheshorse--come along--"

I stayed behind, thinking:

"If only it lasts, if only it lasts! She's so overwrought; living on her nerves. And pregnant again. But what splendid resolution she shows, and how she's matured in these two years! But it has cost her a great deal, too.

"Good luck to you, Ingeborg, good luck!"

At all events, she had triumphed over Schoolmistress Sophie, who had once tried so hard to set Nikolai against her. "Get out!" How content Fru Ingeborg must be--what delight in this small triumph! Life had changed so much that such things were important to her; she grew heated again when she mentioned it, and pulled at her fingers as she had done in her schooldays. And why should she not be content? A small triumph now had the rank of a bigger one in the old days. Proportions were changed, but her satisfaction was no less.

Listen--she has begun to read upstairs; there's the sound of a steady hum.

Yes, it's Sunday today, and she, being the best educated of them, naturally reads the service. Bravo! Magnificent! She has extended her self-discipline even to this, for they are all orthodox Christians in this neighborhood. Believing? No, but not hostile, either. One reads Scripture.

Rather a clever ruse, that of the clotheshorse.

She has become an excellent cook, too, in the peasant style. Delicious broth, without noodles, but otherwise just as it should be, with barley, carrots, and thyme. I doubt whether she has learned this at the domestic science school. I consider all the things she has learned, and find them numerous. Had she, perhaps, been a little overstrung in her talk about children like organ pipes? I don't know, but her nostrils dilated like a mare's as she spoke. She must have known how unwillingly middle-cla.s.s couples have children, and how short is the love between them: in the daytime they are together so that people might not talk, but the night separates them. She was different, for she would make hers a house of fruitfulness: often she and her husband were apart during the day, when their separate labors called them, but the night united them.

Bravo, Fru Ingeborg!

x.x.xVII

Really, it was time I was leaving; at least I could have moved across to Petra and the Schoolmaster, who take in travelers. Really I ought to do that....

Nikolai has got his tawny lady working on the farm; she's harnessed to a neat cart that he has made himself and banded with iron. And now the lady carts manure. The tiny farm with its few head of cattle doesn't yield too much of this precious substance, so it is soon spread. Then the lady draws the plow, and looks as though it were no more than the heavy train of a ball dress behind her! Nikolai has never heard of such a horse before, and neither has his wife.

I take a walk down to the newly dug field and look at it from every angle.

Then I take soil in my hand and feel it and nod, exactly as though I knew something about it. Rich, black soil--sheer perfection.

I walk so far that I can see the gargoyles on Petra's hotel--and suddenly turn off the path into the woods, to sheltered groves and catkins and peace. The air is still; spring will soon be here.

And so the days wear on.

I am comfortable and feel very much at home; how I should like to stay here! I should pay well for my keep, and make myself useful and popular; I shouldn't harm a fly. But that evening I tell Nikolai that I must think of moving on; this will not do.... And perhaps he will mention it....

"Can't you stop a while longer?" he says. "But I suppose it isn't the kind of place--"

"G.o.d bless you, Nikolai; it _is_ the kind of place, but--well, it's spring now, and I always travel in the spring. I should have to be very low before I gave that up. And besides, I expect you're both pretty tired of me, at least your wife."

This, too, I hoped he would mention.

Then I packed my knapsack and waited. No--no one came to take the knapsack out of my hand and forbid me to pack any farther. So perhaps Nikolai hasn't mentioned it. The man never does open his mouth. So I placed the knapsack on a chair in the middle of the room, all packed and ready, for everyone to see that we're leaving. And I waited for the morning of the next day, and this time the knapsack _was_ observed. No, it wasn't.

So I had to wait till the housewife called us to the midday meal, and tell her then, pointing to what was in the middle of the room:

"I'm afraid I shall have to be leaving today."

"No! Really? Why do you want to go away?" she said.

"Why? Well, don't you think I should?"

"Well, of course--But you might have stayed on a bit longer; the cows will be going out to spring pasture now, and we should have had more milk."