Growth of the Soil Part 11

"What do you mean?" asks Oline in a strangely gentle voice.

"Ah, don't deny it!" cries Inger, her eyes wild. "I'll break your face in with this ladle here--see that!"

Struck her? Ay, she did so. Oline took the first blow without falling, and only cried out: "Mind what you're doing, woman! I know what I know about you and your doings!" Inger strikes again, gets Oline down to the floor, falls on her there, and thrusts her knees into her.

"D'you mean to murder me?" asks Oline. The terrible woman with the hare-lip was kneeling on her, a great strong creature armed with a huge wooden ladle, heavy as a club. Oline was bruised already, and bleeding, but still sullenly refusing to cry out. "So you're trying to murder me _too_!"

"Ay, kill you," says Inger, striking again. "There! I'll see you dead before I've done with you." She was certain of it now. Oline knew her secret; nothing mattered now. "I'll spoil your beastly face."

"Beastly face?" gasps Oline. "Huh! Look to your own. With the Lord His mark on it!"

Oline is hard, and will not give in; Inger is forced to give over the blows that are exhausting her own strength. But she threatens still--glares into the other's eyes and swears she has not finished with her yet. "There's more to come, ay, more, more. Wait till I get a knife. I'll show you!"

She gets on her feet again, and moves as if to look for a knife, a table knife. But now her fury is past its worst, and she falls back on curses and abuse. Oline heaves herself up to the bench again, her face all blue and yellow, swollen and bleeding; she wipes the hair from her forehead, straightens her kerchief, and spits; her mouth too is bruised and swollen.

"You devil!" she says.

"You've been nosing about in the woods!" cries Inger. "That's what you've been doing. You've found that little bit of a grave there.

Better if you'd dug one for yourself the same time."

"Ay, you wait," says Oline, her eyes glowing revengefully. "I'll say no more--but you wait--there'll be no fine two-roomed house for you, with musical clocks and all."

"You can't take it from me, anyway!"

"Ay, you wait. You'll see what Oline can do."

And so they keep on. Oline does not curse, and hardly raises her voice; there is something almost gentle in her cold cruelty, but she is bitterly dangerous. "Where's that bundle? I left it in the woods.

But you shall have it back--I'll not own your wool."

"Ho, you think I've stolen it, maybe."

"Ah, you know best what you've done."

So back and forth again about the wool. Inger offers to show the very sheep it was cut from. Oline asks quietly, smoothly: "Ay, but who knows where you got the first sheep to start with?"

Inger names the place and people where her first sheep were out to keep with their lambs. "And you mind and care and look to what you're saying," says she threateningly. "Guard your mouth, or you'll be sorry."

"Ha ha ha!" laughs Oline softly. Oline is never at a loss, never to be silenced. "My mouth, eh? And what of your own, my dear?" She points to Inger's hare-lip, calling her a ghastly sight for G.o.d and man.

Inger answers furiously, and Oline being fat, she calls her a lump of blubber--"a lump of dog's blubber like you. You sent me a hare--I'll pay you for that."

"Hare again?" says Oline. "If I'd no more guilt in anything than I have about that hare. What was it like?"

"What was it like? Why, what's a hare always like?"

"Like you. The very image."

"Out with you--get out!" shrieks Inger.

"'Twas you sent Os-Anders with that hare. I'll have you punished; I'll have you put in prison for that."

"Prison--was it prison you said?"

"Oh, you're jealous and envious of all you see; you hate me for all the good things I've got," says Inger again. "You've lain awake with envy since I got Isak and all that's here. Heavens, woman, what have I ever done to you? Is it my fault that your children never got on in the world, and turned out badly, every one of them? You can't bear the sight of mine, because they're fine and strong, and better named than yours. Is it my fault they're prettier flesh and blood than yours ever were?"

If there was one thing could drive Oline to fury it was this. She had been a mother many times, and all she had was her children, such as they were; she made much of them, and boasted of them, told of great things they had never really done, and hid their faults.

"What's that you're saying?" answered Oline. "Oh that you don't sink in your grave for shame! My children! They were a bright host of angels compared with yours. You dare to speak of my children? Seven blessed gifts of G.o.d they were from they were little, and all grown up now every one. You dare to speak...."

"What about Lise, that was sent to prison?" asks Inger.

"For never a thing. She was as innocent as a flower," answers Oline.

"And she's in Bergen now; lives in a town and wears a hat--but what about you?"

"What about Nils--what did they say of him?"

"Oh, I'll not lower myself.... But there's one of yours now lying buried out there in the woods--what did you do to it, eh?"

"Now ...! One-two-three--out you go!" shrieks Inger again, and makes a rush at Oline.

But Oline does not move, does not even rise to her feet. Her stolid indifference paralyses Inger, who draws back, muttering: "Wait till I get that knife."

"Don't trouble," says Oline. "I'm going. But as for you, turning your own kin out of doors one-two-three.... Nay, I'll say no more."

"Get out of this, that's all you need to do!"

But Oline is not gone yet. The two of them fall to again with words and abuse, a long bout of it again, and when the clock strikes half of the hour, Oline laughs scornfully, making Inger wilder than ever. At last both calm down a little, and Oline makes ready to go. "I've a long road before me," says she, "and it's late enough to be starting.

It wouldn't ha' been amiss to have had a bite with me on the way...."

Inger makes no answer. She has come to her senses again now, and pours out water in a basin for Oline to wash. "There--if you want to tidy yourself," she says. Oline too thinks it as well to make herself as decent as may be, but cannot see where the blood is, and washes the wrong places. Inger looks on for a while, and then points with her finger.

"There--wash there too, over your eye. No, not that, the other one; can't you see where I'm pointing?"

"How can I see which one you're pointing at," answers Oline.

"And there's more there, by your mouth. Are you afraid of water?--it won't bite you!"

In the end, Inger washes the patient herself, and throws her a towel.

"What I was going to say," says Oline, wiping herself, and quite peaceable now. "About Isak and the children--how will they get over this?"

"Does he know?" asks Inger.

"Know? He came and saw it."

"What did he say?"

"What could he say? He was speechless, same as me."