"Well, what is it?"

"Don't let Kristen Larssen know that I have come back. Please not! Let us really have a little peace."

"But I have just got some children who----"

"No, no! No children either! oh, no!" and she began to cry.

"But my dear, darling Ragni----"

"Yes, yes, I know it is so selfish of me; but I cannot do it; it is not at all in my line."

Shortly after the piano was heard sending forth in chords of richest harmony a hymn of joy for her homecoming. Spirits of beauty took possession of the house. They flew up to the roof, to the windows and doors; up to the bedroom, out in the kitchen; into the office, singing, singing, singing all the while, so the tubercular bacilli that the doctor was studying danced straight away to meet the song that was to deal them their death-blow; they sang right up to the kitchen door, so the whole scullery seemed to dance, the coffee-kettle boiled over and the new dress which Sigrid had got as a Christmas present from her mistress, ready-made, with velvet tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and an upper skirt looped up with cord and ta.s.sels, fell to thinking of b.a.l.l.s and dancing, up there under the roof, the highest thing in all the house.

VIII.

The next day Kallem was coming away from Sissel Aune, the washerwoman.

He had been annoyed with her husband, who, in the abundance of his joy, had got his violin strung again, played at all the merry-makings and feasts, and made himself quite drunk. He wished to try with him what he had tried with Soren Pedersen, and he went round there in order, with their help, to get hold of the lyrical Aune. But he found "wife Aase"

alone in the shop, occupied in helping one of Sissel's children up into a saddle; four of them were in the shop, the fifth was lying in the next room. Soren Pedersen was not at home; he was with Kristen Larssen, who was ill. Kristen Larssen? Yes, he had had dreadful vomitings, at last nothing but blood came up; but he would not see or speak to the doctor. Kallem determined to go there at once, but first of all he would have given a little help toward the keep of the children here, but it was refused. That very day Aase had sold two sets of harness and a bed with a spring mattress; they now had in the workshop a niece of Aase's, a woman who was also called Aase; to distinguish them from one another, Soren called the latter "Aase's Aase."

Kallem found Kristen Larssen in bed; he had some work in his hairy hands, and Soren Pedersen was reading aloud to him. In the corner between the window and the table, pressed closely to the wall, sat his wife, knitting; her kerchief was pulled so far forward that the face was darkened. There was a very bad smell in the room. Kallem was much alarmed when he saw the sick man, he seemed thinner and more ashen gray than usual.

"Have you been eating many rich things this Christmas?"

"Well, we had some brawn."

"Have you been ill in this way before?"

"Oh, yes, now and then."

"Never as bad as this time," said she who was knitting.

"Do you feel any pain now?"

"Not just now. But it comes and goes."

"Is it in the chest and stomach?"

"Yes."

"And does the pain come often?"

"Oh, yes."

"Oftener and oftener every day," was heard coming from the corner.

Kallem examined him and found a swelling the size of a walnut in the pit of the stomach; Kristen Larssen knew of its existence too.

"Has this grown larger?"

"Oh, yes."

"It has grown very quickly," remarked she in the corner.

Kallem felt himself grow hotter and hotter. Why had he let himself be put off by the other's refusal of his help? The wife's eyes followed him about, her knitting-pins moved more slowly, she seemed to grow quite stiff; the doctor tried to keep a quiet countenance, but she was not to be taken in. Kristen Larssen's cold eyes also followed him about inquiringly. Kallem told them to open the register on the hearth and leave it open the whole time, day and night; their fire-wood would suffer, but that could not be helped.

Soren Pedersen got up and opened it with great eagerness. Both Kristen Larssen and his wife looked disapprovingly at him; the fire-wood did not belong to him.

To gain time and calmness Kallem took up the books that lay there; they were some of his own English ones, and there was also a work on mechanics; then he began staring at the little toy the sick man had in his hands.

"What is that?"

Soren Pedersen explained that it was an improvement on the knitting-machine that Kristen Larssen had invented. As he went on with the explanation little by little, Larssen's fingers touched the wheels and the pins with so dexterous and soft a touch that it was easy to see the power of his mind and his love for his work.

All over the room, on the tool-chest, on the floor, up on the table, were piled up things for mending, from watches and guns to sewing-machines, coffee-mills, locks, and broken tools. Kallem's revolver had been taken out of its case, and he heard now that it was the only thing that Larssen had repaired since Christmas. All this talk of Soren's was a respite for Kallem; he knew now how he would manage.

He spoke about diet and about medicine to relieve the pain, and asked Soren Pedersen to go with him to fetch the latter.

Hardly were they out in the street before Kallem said that there was no hope for Kristen Larssen; this was undoubtedly cancer in the stomach, and very far advanced too.

The self-sufficient cunning in Soren Pedersen's round shining face disappeared by all sorts of back ways, his face was a blank whose doors and windows all were open.

"I shall soon be able to give a decided opinion and then you, who know him better than I do, will have to tell him." Kallem quite forgot to speak about Aune.

Within a very few days the whole of the little town knew that Kristen Larssen, the jack-of-all-trades, was dying of cancer in the stomach; it was even in the papers. There they called him "an inventor and mechanician, well-known in our districts." Not a house did Kallem go to, nor did he stop to speak to anyone in the street, but they all asked after Kristen Larssen. When he went to see the sick man for the first time after Pedersen had told him what was the matter, there was not a word said about it. Larssen lay there with his invention in his hand, rather weak after a very severe bout of pain. His beard had been allowed to grow; he looked awful. His wife was knitting, but rather nearer to the bed. The English books had been put away, but that was the only outward sign that all thoughts of the future had been given up.

From there Kallem went round by Soren Pedersen's, who told Kallem that the former porter at the hospital had been at Larssen's to try and convert him; he would not like him to go straight to h.e.l.l. Larssen had only answered that he did not wish to be detained; he was occupied with something which was very near its completion. Then came the minister.

He began in a nicer and more careful way; but perhaps just on that account did Larssen lose all patience; he gave vent to all his collected bitterness in words that stung, and the woman with the knitting-pins and the projecting kerchief placed herself near the door.

The minister understood and went away meekly; he had never been the same man since that affair with mason Andersen. But among his congregation this caused a good deal of scandal.

After a meeting of the young men's a.s.sociation their choir a.s.sembled together outside Kristen Larssen's house and began to sing a psalm, very softly. Others joined them, but all quite quietly. It happened that it was just during one of the sick man's fits of pain; he said it was like the constant p.r.i.c.king of thousands of pins--and whilst he was in such pain the singing only irritated him. So Kallem had to interfere and forbid all such doings. Two lay-preachers, the former porter and one other went to the doctor at the hospital to explain to him that it had all been done in the best intention, and that it would not do to keep G.o.d's word from a dying man. Kallem lost his temper and answered rudely.

When he was down at Kristen Larssen's at the usual time in the evening he was certain he saw faces outside at the window. The sick man was just asking the doctor how long he had to live and if the pain would go on increasing, so Kallem took no further notice of what was outside except just asking to have something hung before the window. He was deliberating whether he should tell Kristen Larssen the whole truth, and he came to the conclusion that he might do so. He told him that it might last two or three months longer, and that the pain would become more frequent, although not every day equally often or equally violent.

Larssen's wife stood by listening.

No one was standing by the window when Kallem came out, but a little farther up the street a lady was walking about slowly, as if she were waiting for somebody. When she saw him, she came straight up to him; it was his sister.

"Was it you looking in at the window down at Kristen Larssen's?"

"I!" said she, and he saw her face turn red under her hood; "it is not my habit to peep in at other people's windows."

"Excuse me; but I really saw somebody do it."

"Well, yes, I did do it,"

"Do you know them?"