Tales of Two Countries Part 15

Mrs. Olsen had become quite eager in her argument, though no one thought of contradicting her. She had so often, in conversations of this sort, been irritated to hear people, and especially young married women, enlarging on the ridiculous cheapness of everything thirty years ago.

She felt as though they wanted to make light of the exemplary fas.h.i.+on in which she had conducted her household.

This conversation made a deep impression on the _fiancee_, for she had great confidence in Mrs. Olsen's shrewdness and experience. Since Marie had become engaged to the Sheriff's clerk, the Sheriff's wife had taken a keen interest in her. She was an energetic woman, and, as her own children were already grown up and married, she found a welcome outlet for her activity in busying herself with the concerns of the young couple.

Marie's mother, on the other hand, was a very retiring woman. Her husband, a subordinate government official, had died so early that her pension extremely scanty. She came of a good family, and had learned nothing in her girlhood except to Play the piano. This accomplishment she had long ceased to practise, and in the course of time had become exceedingly religious.----"Look here, now, my dear fellow, aren't you thinking of getting married?" asked the Sheriff, in his genial way.

"Oh yes," answered Soren, with some hesitation, "when I can afford it.

"Afford it!" the Sheriff repeated; "Why, you're by no means so badly off. I know you have something laid by--"

"A trifle," Soren put in.

"Well, so be it; but it shows, at any rate, that you have an idea of economy, and that's as good as money in your pocket. You came out high in your examination; and, with your family influence and other advantages at headquarters, you needn't wait long before applying for some minor appointment; and once in the way of promotion, you know, you go ahead in spite of yourself."

Soren bit his pen and looked interested.

"Let us a.s.sume," continued his princ.i.p.al, "that, thanks to your economy, you can set up house without getting into any debt worth speaking of. Then you'll have your salary clear, and whatever you can earn in addition by extra work. It would be strange, indeed, if a man of your ability could note find employment for his leisure time in a rising commercial centre like ours."

Soren reflected all forenoon on what the Sheriff had said. He saw, more and more clearly, that he had over-estimated the financial obstacles to his marriage; and, after all, it was true that he had a good deal of time on his hands out of office hours.

He was engaged to dine with his princ.i.p.al; and his intended, too, was to be there. On the whole, the young people perhaps met quite as often at the Sheriff's as at Marie's home. For the peculiar knack which Mrs.

Moller, Marie's mother, had acquired, of giving every conversation a religious turn, was not particularly attractive to them.

There was much talk at table of a lovely little house which Mrs. Olsen had discovered; "A perfect nest for a newly married couple," as she expressed herself. Soren inquired, in pa.s.sing, as to the financial conditions, and thought them reasonable enough, if the place answered to his hostess's description.--Mrs. Olsen's anxiety to see this marriage hurried on was due in the first place, as above hinted, to her desire for mere occupation, and, in the second place, to a vague longing for some event, of whatever nature, to happen--a psychological phenomenon by no means rare in energetic natures, living narrow and monotonous lives.

The Sheriff worked in the same direction, partly in obedience to his wife's orders, and partly because he thought that Soren's marriage to Marie, who owed so much to his family, would form another tie to bind him to the office--for the Sheriff was pleased with his clerk.

After dinner the young couple strolled about the garden. They conversed in an odd, short-winded fas.h.i.+on, until at last Soren, in a tone which was meant to be careless, threw out the suggestion: "What should you say to getting married this autumn?"

Marie forgot to express surprise. The same thought had been running in her own head; so she answered, looking to the ground: "Well, if you think you can afford it, I can have no objection."

"Suppose we reckon the thing out," said Soren, and drew her towards the summer-house.

Half an hour afterwards they came out, arm-in-arm, into the suns.h.i.+ne.

They, too, seemed to radiate light--the glow of a spirited resolution, formed after ripe thought and serious counting of the cost.

Some people might, perhaps, allege that it would be rash to a.s.sume the absolute correctness of a calculation merely from the fact that two lovers have arrived at exactly the same total; especially when the problem happens to bear upon the choice between renunciation and the supremest bliss.

In the course of the calculation Soren had not been without misgivings.

He remembered how, in his student days, he had spoken largely of our duty towards posterity; how he had philosophically demonstrated the egoistic element in love, and propounded the ludicrous question whether people had a right, in pure heedlessness as it were, to bring children into the world.

But time and practical life had, fortunately, cured him of all taste for these idle and dangerous mental gymnastics. And, besides, he was far too proper and well-bred to shock his innocent lady-love by taking into account so indelicate a possibility as that of their having a large family. Is it not one of the charms of young love that it should leave such matters as these to heaven and the stork? [Note: The stork, according to common nursery legends, brings babies under its wing.]

There was great jubilation at the Sheriff's, and not there alone. Almost the whole town was thrown into a sort of fever by the intelligence that the Sheriff's clerk was to be married in the autumn. Those who were sure of an invitation to the wedding were already looking forward to it; those who could not hope to be invited fretted and said spiteful things; while those whose case was doubtful were half crazy with suspense. And all emotions have their value in a stagnant little town.--Mrs. Olsen was a woman of courage; yet her heart beat as she set forth to call upon Mrs. Moller. It is no light matter to ask a mother to let her daughter be married from your house. But she might have spared herself all anxiety.

For Mrs. Moller shrank from every sort of exertion almost as much as she shrank from sin in all its forms. Therefore she was much relieved by Mrs. Olsen's proposition, introduced with a delicacy which did not always characterize that lady's proceedings. However, it was not Mrs. Moller's way to make any show of pleasure or satisfaction. Since everything, in one way or another, was a "cross" to be borne, she did not fail, even in this case, to make it appear that her long-suffering was proof against every trial.

Mrs. Olsen returned home beaming. She would have been balked of half her pleasure in this marriage if she had not been allowed to give the wedding party; for wedding-parties were Mrs. Olsen's specialty. On such occasions she put her economy aside, and the satisfaction she felt in finding, an opening for all her energies made her positively amiable.

After all, the Sheriff's post was a good one, and the Olsens had always had a little property besides, which, however, they never talked about.

--So the wedding came off, and a splendid wedding it was. Miss Ludvigsen had written an unrhymed song about true love, which was sung at the feast, and Louisa eclipsed all the other bridesmaids.

The newly-married couple took up their quarters in the nest discovered by Mrs. Olsen, and plunged into that half-conscious existence of festal felicity which the English call the "honeymoon," because it is too sweet; the Germans, "Flitterwochen," because its glory departs so quickly; and we "the wheat-bread days" because we know that there is coa.r.s.er fare to follow.

But in Soren's cottage the wheat-bread days lasted long; and when heaven sent them a little angel with golden locks, their happiness was as great as we can by any means expect in this weary world.

As for the incomings--well, they were fairly adequate, though Soren had, unfortunately, not succeeded in making a start without getting into debt; but that would, no doubt, come right in time.--Yes, in time!

The years pa.s.sed, and with each of them heaven sent Soren a little golden-locked angel. After six years of marriage they had exactly five children. The quiet little town was unchanged, Soren was still the Sheriff's clerk, and the Sheriff's household was as of old; but Soren himself was scarcely to be recognized.

They tell of sorrows and heavy blows of fate which can turn a man's hair gray in a night. Such afflictions had not fallen to Soren's lot. The sorrows that had sprinkled his hair with gray, rounded his shoulders, and made him old before his time, were of a lingering and vulgar type.

They were bread-sorrows.

Bread-sorrows are to other sorrows as toothache to other disorders.

A simple pain can be conquered in open fight; a nervous fever, or any other "regular" illness, goes through a normal development and comes to a crisis. But while toothache has the long-drawn sameness of the tape-worm, bread-sorrows envelop their victim like a grimy cloud: he puts them on every morning with his threadbare clothes, and he seldom sleeps so deeply as to forget them.

It was in the long fight against encroaching poverty that Soren had worn himself out; and yet he was great at economy.

But there are two sorts of economy: the active and the pa.s.sive. Pa.s.sive economy thinks day and night of the way to save a half-penny; active economy broods no less intently on the way to earn a dollar. The first sort of economy, the pa.s.sive, prevails among us; the active in the great nations--chiefly in America.

Soren's strength lay in the pa.s.sive direction. He devoted all his spare time and some of his office-hours to thinking out schemes for saving and retrenchment. But whether it was that the luck was against him, or, more probably, that his income was really too small to support a wife and five children--in any case, his financial position went from bad to worse.

Every place in life seems filled to the uttermost, and yet there are people who make their way everywhere. Soren did not belong to this cla.s.s. He sought in vain for the extra work on which he and Marie had reckoned as a vague but ample source of income. Nor had his good connections availed him aught. There are always plenty of people ready to help young men of promise who can help themselves; but the needy father of a family is never welcome.

Soren had been a man of many friends. It could not be said that they had drawn back from him, but he seemed somehow to have disappeared from their view. When they happened to meet, there was a certain embarra.s.sment on both sides. Soren no longer cared for the things that interested them, and they were bored when he held forth upon the severity of his daily grind, and the expensiveness of living.

And if, now and then, one of his old friends invited him to a bachelor-party, he did as people are apt to do whose every-day fare is extremely frugal: he ate and drank too much. The lively but well-bred and circ.u.mspect Soren declined into a sort of b.u.t.t, who made rambling speeches, and around whom the young whelps of the party would gather after dinner to make sport for themselves. But what impressed his friends most painfully of all, was his utter neglect of his personal appearance.

For he had once been extremely particular in his dress; in his student days he had been called "the exquisite Soren." And even after his marriage he had for some time contrived to wear his modest attire with a certain air. But after bitter necessity had forced him to keep every garment in use an unnaturally long time, his vanity had at last given way. And when once a man's sense of personal neatness is impaired, he is apt to lose it utterly. When a new coat became absolutely necessary, it was his wife that had to awaken him to the fact; and when his collars became quite too ragged at the edges, he trimmed them with a pair of scissors.

He had other things to think about, poor fellow. But when people came into the office, or when he was entering another person's house, he had a purely mechanical habit of moistening his fingers at his lips, and rubbing the lapels of his coat. This was the sole relic of "the exquisite Soren's" exquisiteness--like one of the rudimentary organs, dwindled through lack of use, which zoologists find in certain animals.--

Soren's worst enemy, however, dwelt within him. In his youth he had dabbled in philosophy, and this baneful pa.s.sion for thinking would now attack him from time to time, crus.h.i.+ng all resistance, and, in the end, turning everything topsy-turvy.

It was when he thought about his children that this befell him.

When he regarded these little creatures, who, as he could not conceal from himself, became more and more neglected as time went on, he found it impossible to place them under the category of golden-locked angels had sent him by heaven. He had to admit that heaven does not send us these gifts without a certain inducement on our side; and then Soren asked himself: "Had you any right to do this?" He thought of his own life, which had begun under fortunate conditions. His family had been in easy circ.u.mstances; his father, a government official, had given him the best education to be had in the country; he had gone forth to the battle of life fully equipped--and what had come of it all?

And how could he equip his children for the fight into which he was sending them? They had begun their life in need and penury, which had, as far as possible, to be concealed; they had early learned the bitter lesson of the disparity between inward expectations and demands and outward circ.u.mstances; and from their slovenly home they would take with them the most crus.h.i.+ng inheritance, perhaps, under which a man can toil through life; to wit, poverty with pretensions.

Soren tried to tell himself that heaven would take care of them. But he was ashamed to do so, for he felt it was only a phrase of self-excuse, designed to allay the qualms of conscience.

These thoughts were his worst torment; but, truth to tell, they did not often attack him, for Soren had sunk into apathy. That was the Sheriff's view of his case. "My clerk was quite a clever fellow in his time," he used to say. "But, you know, his hasty marriage, his large family, and all that--in short, he has almost done for himself."

Badly dressed and badly fed, beset with debts and cares, he was worn out and weary before he had accomplished anything. And life went its way, and Soren dragged himself along in its train. He seemed to be forgotten by all save heaven, which, as aforesaid, sent him year by year a little angel with locks of gold--

Soren's young wife had clung faithfully to her husband through these six years, and she, too, had reached the same point.

The first year of her married life had glided away like a dream of dizzy bliss. When she held up the little golden-locked angel for the admiration of her lady friends, she was beautiful with the beauty of perfect maternal happiness; and Miss Ludvigsen said: "Here is love in its ideal form."