Emanuel, or Children of the Soil/Book 2, Chapter 4
He went down the creaking attic stairs, through the hall, and out of a gate at the side to reach the open fields through the garden.
Hardly had he passed the first big lawn, however, before he heard some one calling him. It was Miss Ragnhild's voice.
He was rather vexed. He would rather have been alone at this moment, and it was with a somewhat annoyed expression that he turned and went back.
Miss Ragnhild came towards him from the verandah—still wearing the flowered morning gown with the long tight bodice. As she stepped down the verandah stairs, a pair of pointed patent leather shoes were visible below the edge of her dress. She had a pale blue shawl over her shoulders, loosely knotted at the breast; and perched on her reddish waving hair was an immense straw hat, turned up at the back with an agrafe.
"Can I just speak to you before you go, Mr Hansted?" she asked with somewhat forced gaiety, looking at him closely with twitching eyes. "Do you mind going with me to the chestnut avenue, I want to see if I can find some violets."
They went through the garden together. This, which, as well as the house, was an inheritance of the "Millionaire parson," with the many lawns, shrubberies, big stone vases, its long alleys, and artificially clipped privet hedges, was more like a nobleman's seat than a homely Parsonage—and Provst Tönnesen took a pride in keeping it up in its former grandeur as far as he was able. Over a wide ditch, which divided the garden at one end, was built a wooden bridge in the Chinese style, with dragon's heads and a bamboo roof,—and over this bridge Miss Ragnhild and Emanuel now walked.
"Well," said the latter after some minutes silence, "may I ask what it is you wish to say to me?"
She laughed a little.
"Are you so inquisitive?"
"Yes, indeed," he answered, with an attempt to imitate her gay tone. "Besides which I am in a hurry!" As you see, I am dressed for a journey, for a pilgrimage. I am on the way to my Promised Land!"
"Your Promised Land? what do you mean?"
"Oh, I don't suppose I mean anything," he said, suddenly becoming grave again and looking down.
They walked on again a few minutes in silence.
She glanced at him a few times with her observant eyes. He walked by her side in his long coat, with both hands and his umbrella on his back, a little bent, and dragging slightly in his gait.
"What an ungrateful person you are!" she said, again trying to laugh! "I have half a mind to preach you an admonitory sermon. Haven't you noticed that both heaven and earth are smiling to you to-day, and that all the Lord's little birds are singing in emulation of each other above your head? And do you not see how I am extolling summer to-day! Or will nothing in the world bring a smile to your face now? I can tell you that I am on the high road to being a little offended with you. I am sure, for example, that you never noticed how I had decorated the luncheon table—entirely because you said one day that you thought much more of seeing a bunch of flowers on the table than a piece of beef. You know that, as far as I am concerned, a piece of beef is infinitely preferable."
He smiled half shyly. "I feel it thoroughly, Miss Ragnhild—I am a most unworthy person. Scold me as much as you like—I deserve it. But you will see, I shall improve. It's just a sort of childish complaint I am going through, I expect—a little old-fashioned romance perhaps. You know what the new-fashioned prophets preach. We all carry about an inheritance of moth-eaten, worn-out romance, they say—and either my father or my mother must have been endowed with an extra share of it."
"Your mother?"
"Yes—but let us talk about something else! You mustn't forget what you wanted to tell me. For I suppose it was not this?"
They had reached a broad avenue of chestnuts, which formed the boundary between the garden and the fields. A jubilant host of metallic shining starlings fluttered about in the sunshine among the tree-tops; and a warm balmy breeze brought in a scent of earth and fresh verdure from the fields. Between two trunks stood a rustic seat, before which Miss Ragnhild stopped, and said—
"Shall we sit down for a little while? The sun is so warm here."
She flicked away some dry leaves from the wooden seat with the tassels of her shawl, and sat down in one corner. Emanuel remained standing before her, leaning on his umbrella, and made no sign of sitting down.
She sat a moment bending forward with her hands folded in her lap, looking at the toes of her shoes. Then she said without lifting her head—
"You spoke of your mother—it has just occurred to me—have I dreamt it, or did you once tell me, that you were very young when your mother died."
"I?" said he, starting and looking down at her suddenly with an attentive glance. "Oh, I was fifteen or sixteen years old—but why do you ask about it"
"Oh, I don't know"
"Have you been talking to any one lately about my mother?"
"Yes, to-day father and I were talking about I think father once met someone who knew your mother."
The curate's eye darkened.
"Then I suppose your father also talked of—of my mother's end?"
"Yes."
A pained expression came over his face. After a moment's silence he said softly and with difficulty—
_p_077.jpg)
"My poor mother was a sacrifice to her time, to her family, and to the society to which you and I also belong, Miss Ragnhild; and which from our birth weaves such a web around us all, as slowly to take the life of those who have not courage or strength to break it asunder."
She looked up at him with astonishment, and said—
"What do you mean exactly?"
"Oh, I mean that if we were candid, we should be obliged to acknowledge that we all drag about a more or less heavy burden of loathing of life, world weariness, lonesomeness, or whatever we like to call the modern disease which is the bitter fruit of our over-culture. There are some who are strong enough to bear this burden without being entirely crippled; but it is not therefore always the most insignificant or the weakest whose hearts break. You will see, we may perhaps all sink down in the battle—especially we poor caricatures of humanity, who are begotten in the feverish life of the towns, born among chimney pots, telegraph wires, railways and trams—how many generations do you think we shall last?—And that is just the desperate part," he continued, with a changed voice, as he fell back into his old tormenting thoughts. "Can't you see, Miss Ragnhild, how topsy turvey it is that it should be my office to teach others to live and die—I, who need to learn to live my own life rightly—and just of those very people whom I am set to teach? Or is it not true that we ought to envy, with all our hearts, the poor labourer who toils week in week out; happily, and without complaint, eats his dry bread and sleeps soundly on old straw? Is greater wisdom of life to be found? But what folly it is that I, a poor corrupt, monstrous product of culture, should be a teacher of the sound—an example to the undefiled! I assure you, Miss Ragnhild, I never cross the threshold of the most miserable hovel without my heart beating with holy reverence. I feel that I ought to take off my shoes—that I am entering a sacred place where human passions are still preserved in all their pristine beauty and nobility, just as the Almighty instilled them into mankind in the morning of life."
He had entered upon his usual passionate praise of the life of the countryman, about which he and Miss Ragnhild had had many a warm debate in the course of the winter. Miss Ragnhild confessed openly that she hated country life—according to her opinion it was a living burial; nor did she conceal that she looked upon peasants as beings who belonged to a lower level—a sort of now creeping, now usurping, but always evil-smelling semi-human creatures, with whom she desired to come as little as possible in contact.
On this occasion also she combated Emanuel's views most strenuously. She leant back against the seat and looked at him with an unconstrained smile.
"If many of these peasants," she said, "are content with their dirt and mouldy straw, and hardly even wish for anything better, it only shows how little in reality they are removed from dumb brutes, swine, for example, in whom all the feelings of the heart are undoubtedly preserved in unadulterated swinishness."
"But it is no use for us to talk about it," she concluded, gaily, "you have once for all been irremediably bitten by some crazy digger of ditches, and it is folly on my part to try and convince you. This illusion will turn to stern reality one of these days. Only wait!"
She laughed—and as she sat there in her bright, distinguished-looking costume, self-controlled in every line of her slim figure, from the tip of her little patent leather shoe to the gigantic fancy straw hat, which threw shadows like a lace veil over the upper part of her pale face with the ruddy lips—one might very well doubt that she belonged to the same race of humanity as the heavy grey creatures clad in homespun, toilers of the earth, among whom she was condemned to live.
Emanuel, who felt hurt by her words, made a sign as if to go. Before doing so he turned towards her once again and said:
"I should like to know what it was you wished to say to me—you are forgetting that you have not told me yet."
Miss Ragnhild coloured slightly. She had had no other reason for calling him than that she wished to talk to him, to try and cheer him a little.
Then she hit upon saying:
"Well you see, Mr Hansted—as you perhaps know, we are going to have a little festivity to-day at the Parsonage."
"Yes, I think I have heard a little bird whisper it."
"Oh well, make fun if you like. A thing of that sort is always an event in the country, where nothing more interesting happens from year's end to year's end—which for the rest only proves what I said before on the subject. But enough of that.—As I daresay you can imagine, I shall be a most charming hostess to my guests. They are, as far as I know, Messrs Peter Niels, Niels Petersen, Peter Nielsen Petersen, and Niels Petersen Nielsen.—Oh, you needn't knit your brows in such a scandalized fashion, I have not the slightest objection to these good people. Only, I cannot reconcile myself to their spitting on my good carpets—yes, last time one of them did so. Possibly that kind of thing is a manifestation of the spontaneity of feeling of which you spoke before so finely, but I would none the less rather be without it.—Now I wanted to ask you, Mr Hansted, to be as amiable as possible to our guests this evening. And if anything should happen to me—one of my bad headaches, for instance—you will be so good as to be my gallant representative among the ladies."
"You can, as you know—command me," answered Emanuel, as he lifted his hat and bowed with ironical politeness. "Is there any other way in which I can serve you, Miss Ragnhild?"
"Yes, I daresay you will be accommodating enough not to be too unpunctual for once. I believe my father would be very impatient on this occasion if we had to wait for you. Rather come half an hour too soon, then you can help me with some of the arrangements into the bargain."
"I will do my best, but then you must allow me to leave you now. Besides, I see your father coming along in a hurry. You may be sure that there is something wrong with the salads. I have the honour to take leave of you."
Provst Tönnesen had indeed made his appearance at the end of the garden, walking with his hands behind him—he was evidently preparing a speech. But no sooner did he catch sight of the young pair by the seat, than he hurriedly turned and continued his walk in the opposite direction through the garden.