Part 18

At six o’clock an elegant carriage, with two horses, pulls up before the door, and the bridal pair take a drive. Louise is charmed as they roll along through the park, reclining there so comfortably, while they meet acquaintances on foot, who bow to them in obvious astonishment and envy. The assistant councilor has made a good match, they must think; he has chosen a girl with money. And they, poor souls, have to walk. How much pleasanter to ride, without effort, leaning against these soft cushions! It is symbolical of agreeable married life.

The first month was one of unceasing enjoyment--balls, parties, dinners, suppers, theatres. Still, the time they spent at home was really the best of all! It was a delightful sensation to carry Louise off home, from her parents, at night, when they would do as they pleased under their own roof. Arriving at the flat, they would make a little supper, and then they would sit comfortably, chatting until a late hour. Gustaf was all for economy--the theory of it, that is to say. One day the young bride and housekeeper tried smoked salmon with boiled potatoes. How she relished it, too! But Gustaf demurred, and when smoked salmon day came round again he invested in a brace of partridges. These he bought at the market for a krone, exulting over the splendid bargain, of which Louise did not approve. She had once bought a pair for less money. Besides, to eat game was extravagant. However, it would not do to disagree with her husband about such a trifling matter.

After a couple of months more Louise Falk became strangely indisposed. Had she caught cold? Or had she perchance been poisoned by the metal kitchen utensils? The doctor who was called in merely laughed, and said it was all right--a queer diagnosis, to be sure, when the young lady was seriously ailing. Perhaps there was arsenic in the wall-paper. Falk took some to a chemist, bidding him make a careful analysis. The chemist’s report stated the wall-paper to be quite free from any harmful substance.

His wife’s sickness not abating, Gustaf began to investigate on his own account, his studies in a medical book resulting in a certainty as to her ailment. She took warm foot-baths, and in a month’s time her state was declared entirely promising. This was sudden--sooner than they had expected; yet how lovely to be papa and mama! Of course the child would be a boy--no doubt of that; and one must think of a name to give him. Meanwhile, though, Louise took her husband aside, and reminded him that since their marriage he had earned nothing to supplement his salary, which had proved far from sufficient. Well, it was true they had lived rather high, but now a change should be made, and everything would be satisfactory!

Next day the assistant councilor went to see his good friend the barrister, with a request that he indorse a promissory note. This would allow him to borrow the money that would be needed to meet certain unavoidable forthcoming expenses--as Falk made clear to his friend. “Yes,” agreed the man of law, “marrying and raising a family is an expensive business. I have never been able to afford it.”

Falk felt too much ashamed to press his request, and when he returned home, empty-handed, was greeted with the news that two strangers had been to the house, and had asked for him. They must be lieutenants in the army, thought Gustaf, friends belonging to the garrison of Fort Vaxholm. No, he was told, they could not have been lieutenants; they were much older-looking men. Ah, then they were two fellows he used to know in Upsala; they had probably heard of his marriage, and had come to look him up. Only the servant said they were not from Upsala, but were Stockholmers, and carried sticks. Mysterious--very; but no doubt they would come back.

Then the young husband went marketing again. He bought strawberries--at a bargain, of course.

“Just fancy,” he triumphantly exclaimed to his housewife, “a pint of these large strawberries for a krone and a half, at this time of year!”

“Oh, but Gustaf dear, we can’t afford that sort of thing!”

“Never mind, darling; I have arranged for some extra work.”

“But what about our debts?”

“Debts? Why, I’m going to make a big loan, and pay them all off at once that way.”

“Ah,” objected Louise, “but won’t this simply mean a new debt?”

“No matter if it does. It will be a respite, you know. But why discuss such unpleasant things? What capital strawberries, eh, dear? And don’t you think a glass of sherry would go well now after the strawberries?”

Upon which the servant was sent out for a bottle of sherry--the best, naturally.

When Falk’s wife awoke from her afternoon nap on the sofa that day, she apologetically reverted to the subject of debt. She hoped he would not be angry at what she had to say. Angry? No, of course not. What was it? Did she want some money for the house? Louise explained:

“The grocer has not been paid, the butcher has threatened us, and the livery-stable man also insists on having his bill settled.”

“Is that all?” replied the assistant councilor. “They shall be paid at once--to-morrow--every farthing. But let’s think of something else. How would you like to go out for a little drive to the park? You’d rather not take a carriage? All right, then, there’s the tramway; that will take us to the park.”

So they went to the park, and they had dinner in a private room at the Alhambra Restaurant. It was great fun, too, because the people in the general dining-room thought they were a frisky young pair of lovers. This idea amused Gustaf, though Louise seemed a trifle depressed, especially when she saw the bill. They could have had a good deal at home for that amount.

The months go by, and now arises the need for actual preparation--a cradle, infant’s clothing, and so forth.

Falk has no easy time raising the money. The livery-stable man and the grocer refuse further credit, for they, too, have families to feed. What shocking materialism!

At length the eventful day arrives. Gustaf must secure a nurse, and even while holding his new-born daughter in his arms is called out to pacify his creditors. The fresh responsibilities weigh heavily upon him; he almost breaks down under the strain. He succeeds, it is true, in getting some translation to do, but how can he perform the work when at every touch and turn he is obliged to run errands? In this frame of mind he appeals to his father-in-law for help. The old gentleman receives him coldly:

“I will help you this once, but not again. I have little enough myself, and you are not my only child.”

Delicacies must be provided for the mother, chicken and expensive wine. And the nurse has to be paid.

Fortunately, Falk’s wife is soon on her feet again. She is like a girl once more, with a slender figure. Her pallor is quite becoming. Louise’s father talks seriously to his son-in-law, however:

“Now, no more children, if you please, unless you want to be ruined.”

For a brief space the junior Falk family continued to live on love and increasing debts. But one day bankruptcy knocked at the door. The seizure of the household effects was threatened. Then the old man came and took away Louise and her child, and as they rode off in a cab he made the bitter reflection that he had lent his girl to a young man, who had given her back after a year, dishonored. Louise would willingly have stayed with Gustaf, but there was nothing more to subsist upon. He remained behind, looking on while the bailiffs--those men with the sticks--denuded the flat of everything, furniture, bedding, crockery, cutlery, kitchen utensils, until it was stripped bare.

Now began real life for Gustaf. He managed to get a position as proofreader on a newspaper which was published in the morning, so that he had to work at his desk for several hours each night. As he had not actually been declared a bankrupt, he was allowed to keep his place in the government service, although he could hope for no more promotion. His father-in-law made the concession of letting him see his wife and child on Sundays, but he was never permitted to be alone with them. When he left, in the evening, to go to the newspaper office, they would accompany him to the gate, and he would depart in utter humiliation of soul. It might take him perhaps twenty years to pay off all his obligations. And then--yes, what then? Could he then support his wife and child? No, probably not. If, in the mean time, his father-in-law should die, they would be left without a home. So he must be thankful even to the hard-hearted old man who had so cruelly separated them.

Ah, yes, human life itself is indeed hard and cruel! The beasts of the field find maintenance easily enough, while of all created beings man alone must toil and spin. It is a shame, yes, it is a crying shame, that in this life everybody is not provided with gratuitous partridges and strawberries.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] A krone is worth about twenty-eight cents.

IRENE HOLM BY HERMANN JOACHIM BANG

[Illustration]

_Bang was born in Seeland in 1858. During his sojourn among foreigners he has been at various times journalist, author, playwright, until he now stands first among Danish writers of the modern realistic school, for Drachmann can not be accounted to any school for any length of time._

_Outside of his critical writings his works form a series of naturalistic romances and novels, showing a deep knowledge of the sad side of life, all the way from his first novel, called “Hopeless Struggle,” published in 1880, to “Alive or Dead,” published in 1900, including the very remarkable play, “Ellen Urne,” and his short stories. “Irene Holm” is as inconclusive as life itself, and that is what it is intended to be; that is the author’s conception of art when dealing with life._

[Illustration]

IRENE HOLM BY HERMANN BANG

Translated by Grace Isabel Colbron. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.

I

One Sunday morning, after service, the bailiff’s son announced to the gathering at the meeting-stone outside the church that Miss Irene Holm, dancer from the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, would open a course for dancing and deportment, for children, ladies, and gentlemen, if a sufficient number of subscribers could be found. The lessons would begin the first of November, in the inn, and the price would be five crowns for each child, with a discount for several in the same family.

Seven names were signed. Jens Larsens put up his three on the discount.

Miss Irene Holm considered the number sufficient. She arrived toward the end of October, and stopped in at the Inn with her only baggage, an old champagne basket tied up with a cord. She was little and wearily meagre in form, had a childish face with the lines of forty years in it under her fur cap, and she wore old handkerchiefs wrapped about her wrists, because of the gout. She pronounced all the consonants most carefully, and said, “Oh, thank you, I can do it myself,” for everything, looking very helpless the while. She wanted nothing but a cup of tea, and then crept into her bed in the tiny room, trembling in fear of ghosts.

Next morning she appeared with a head full of curls, her figure encased in a tight-fitting, fur-trimmed coat, much the worse for wear. She was going to call upon the parents of her pupils. She inquired the way timidly. Madam Henriksen came out to the door with her, and pointed over the fields. At every step Miss Holm bowed once in her gratitude. “Such a looking creature!” thought Madam Henriksen, and stood in the doorway looking out after her. Miss Holm walked toward Jens Larsens’, choosing the dike path to save her shoes. Miss Holm was wearing leather shoes and fancy knit stockings.

When she had visited all the parents--Jens Larsens gave nine crowns for his three children--Miss Holm looked about for a place to live. She hired a tiny whitewashed room at the smith’s, the window looking out over the level fields. The entire furnishing consisted of a bed, a bureau, and a chair. The champagne basket was placed between the bureau and the window.

Miss Holm moved into her new quarters. Her mornings were given up to busy handling of curling tongs and pins, and much drinking of cold tea. When her hair was dressed she tidied up her room, and then she knitted all the afternoon. She sat on her basket in the corner, trying to catch the last rays of light. The smith’s wife would drop in, sit down on the chair and talk, Miss Holm listening with a pleasant smile and a graceful nod of her curly head.

The hostess spun out her stories until it was time for supper. But Miss Holm seldom knew what she had been talking about. With the exception of dance, and positions, and the calculation for one’s daily bread--a tiresome, never-ending calculation--the things of this world seldom filtered into Miss Holm’s brain. When left alone she sat silent on her basket, her hands in her lap, gazing at the narrow strip of light that came in under the door.

She never went out. The level, dreary fields made her homesick, and she was afraid of wild horses.

When evening came, she cooked her simple supper, and then busied herself with her curl papers. When she had divested herself of her skirts she practised her “pas” beside the bedpost, stretching her legs energetically. The smith and his wife clung to the keyhole during this proceeding. They could just see the high kicks from behind, and the curl papers standing up on the dancer’s head like quills on a porcupine. She danced so eagerly that she began to hum gently as she hopped up and down in the little room, the whole family outside hugging the keyhole closely.

When Miss Holm had practised her accustomed time, she crept into bed. While she practised her thoughts would wander back to the time “when she was at dancing school.” And she would suddenly laugh, a gentle, girlish laugh, as she lay still in the darkness. She fell asleep thinking of that time--that happy, merry time--the rehearsals, when they pricked each other in the calves with pins--and screamed so merrily--And then the evenings in the dressing-rooms, with the whir and tumult of voices, and the silence as the stage-manager’s bell shrilled out--Miss Holm would wake up in a fright, dreaming that she had missed her entrance.

II

“Now, then--one--two”--Miss Irene Holm raised her skirt and put out her foot--“feet out--one--two--three--” The seven pupils toed in, and hopped about with their fingers in their mouths. “Here, little Jens--toes out--one, two, three--bow--one, two, three--now once more.” Jens bowed, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. “Now, Maren, left--one, two, three; Maren turns to the right--once more--one, two, three--” Miss Holm sprang about like a kid, so that one could see long stretches of fancy stockings.

The dancing lessons were in full swing, and were held three times a week in the hall of the inn, under the two old lamps that hung from the beams. The long, undisturbed dust in the cold room whirled up under their feet. The seven pupils flew about wildly like a flock of magpies, Miss Holm straightening their backs and bending their arms. “One, two, three--_battement_--one, two, three--_battement_.” The seven bobbed at “battement” and stepped out energetically.

The dust gathered in Miss Holm’s throat as she called out her orders. Now the pupils were to dance a round dance in couples. They held their partners at arm’s length, stiff-armed and embarrassed, and turned in sleepy circles. Miss Holm swung them around, with encouraging words. “Good--now around--four, five--turn again--good--” She took hold of Jens Larsen’s second, and little Jette, and turned them as one would turn a top.

Jette’s mother had come to look on. The peasant women would drop in for the lessons, their cap-bands tied in stiff bows, and sit motionless as wooden figures against the wall, without speaking a word even to each other. Miss Holm addressed them as “Madame,” and smiled at them as she skipped about.

Now it was the turn of the lanciers. “Ladies to the right--good--now three steps to the left, Jette--good--” The lanciers was more like a general skirmish than a dance.

Miss Holm groaned from her exertions. She leaned against the wall, her temples beating with hammer-strokes. “Good--this way, Jette--” The dust hurt her eyes, as the seven hopped about in the dusk.

When Miss Holm came home after her dancing lessons, she wrapped her head up in a handkerchief. But in spite of this, she suffered from an everlasting cold, and sat, most of her leisure hours, with her head over a bowl of hot water.

Finally, they had music for their lessons--Mr. Broderson’s violin. Two new pupils, a couple of half-grown young people, joined the class. They all hopped about to the tune of tailor Broderson’s fiddle, as the dust flew up in clouds, and the old stove seemed to dance on its rough carved feet.

They had spectators, too, and once the young people from the rectory, the pastor’s daughter and the curate, came to look on. Miss Holm danced out more energetically under the two dim lamps, threw out her chest, and arched her feet. “Throw out your feet like this, children--throw out your feet--” She threw out her feet proudly and raised the hem of her skirt--now she had an audience!

* * * * *

Every week Miss Holm sent a package of knitting to Copenhagen. The teacher took charge of the package. Each time it was clumsily wrapped or addressed wrong, and he had to put it to rights himself. She stood watching him with her girlish nod and the smile of faded sixteen. The newspapers that had come by the mail lay ready for distribution on one of the school-tables. One day Miss Holm asked timidly if she might look at the “Berlinske.” She had gazed longingly at the bundle for a week before she could pluck up courage enough to proffer her request. After that she came every day, in the noon pause. The schoolteacher soon came to recognize her timid knock. “Come in, little lady, the door is open,” he would call.

She tripped across the schoolroom and took her chosen paper from the bundle. She read the theatrical advertisements, the repertoire, and the criticisms, of which she understood but little. But it was about “those over there.” She needed a lengthy time to go the length of a column, following the words with one gracefully pointed finger. When she had finished reading she crossed the hall and knocked once more at the other door. “Well?” said the teacher. “Anything new happened in the city?”

“It’s only about--those over there--the old friends--” she would answer.

The schoolteacher looked after her, as she wandered home to her knitting. “Poor little creature!” he sighed. “She’s really quite excited about her dancing master--” It was the news of a new ballet, by a lately promoted master of the ballet, that had so excited her. Miss Holm knew the list of names by heart, and knew the names of every solo dance. “We went to school together,” she would say.

And on the evening when the ballet was performed for the first time she fevered with excitement, as if she were to dance in it herself. She lit the two candles, gray with age and dust, that stood one on each side of a plaster cast of Thorwaldsen’s Christ on the bureau, and sat down on her champagne basket, staring into the light. But she couldn’t bear to be alone that evening. All the old unrest of theatrical life came over her. She went into the room where the smith and his wife were, and sat down beside the tall clock. She talked more during the next hour than she had talked for a whole year. She talked about the theatre and about first nights; she talked about the big “solos” and the famous “pas.” She hummed and she swayed in her chair while she talked.

The novelty of it all so excited the smith that he began to sing an old cavalry song, and finally called out: “Mother, shan’t we have a punch to-night?”

The punch was brewed, the two candles brought out from the little room, and they sat there and chatted merrily. But in the midst of all the gaiety, Miss Holm grew suddenly silent, and sat still, great tears welling up in her eyes. Then she rose quietly and went to her room. In there she sat down on her basket and wept quietly and bitterly, before she undressed and went to bed. She did not practise her steps that evening. She could think of but one thing. He had gone to school with her.

She lay sobbing gently in the darkness. Her head moved uneasily on the pillow as the remembered voice of the old dancing master of the school rang in her ears, cross and excited: “Holm has no _élan_--Holm has no _élan_--” He cried it out for all the hall to hear. How plainly she could hear it now--how plainly she could see the great bare hall--the long rows of figurantes practising their steps--she herself leaning for a moment against the wall with the feeling as if her tired limbs had been cut off from her body altogether--and then the voice of the dancing master: “Haven’t you any ambition, Holm?”

Then she saw her little home, her mother shrunken down into the great armchair, her sister bending over the rattling sewing-machine. And she heard her mother ask, in her asthmatic voice: “Didn’t Anna Stein dance a solo?”--“Yes, mother.”--“Did they give her ‘la grande Napolitaine’?”--“Yes, mother.”--“You both entered the school at the same time,” she asked, looking over at her from behind the lamp.

“Yes, mother.” And she saw Anna Stein in her gay-colored skirts, with the fluttering ribbons on her tambourine, so happy and smiling in the glare of the footlights as she danced her solo.

And suddenly the little woman in the darkness buried her head in her pillow and sobbed convulsive, heart-breaking, unchecked sobs of impotent and despairing grief. It was dawn before she fell asleep.

The new ballet was a success. Miss Holm read the notices, and two little, old woman’s tears fell softly down upon the printed page as she read.

Letters came now and then from her sisters, letters about pawn-tickets and dire need. The days such letters came Miss Holm would forget her knitting and sit with her hands pressed to her temples, the open letter lying before her. Finally, one day, she made the round of the homes of her pupils, and begged shyly, with painful blushes, for the advance of half her money. This she sent home to her family.

* * * * *