Emanuel, or Children of the Soil/Book 2, Chapter 9
Emanuel left the farm with hasty steps. To avoid passing through the village again he went by the nearest slopes back to the shore. He soon recovered himself in the fresh air. The stuffy air of the little peasant's room and sitting still so long had both contributed to the confusion which had overcome him.
He was in a curious state, being both relieved and depressed.
He was glad to have made the acquaintance of the notorious and much-feared weaver; and he had a happy feeling that the meeting with this man would not be without importance in his future work in the parish. But he was ashamed that he had not had the courage to talk openly to this man. What reason had he to suspect him? Certainly report did not speak to his credit—but then, in this instance, report only meant Provst Tönnesen, who could scarcely be called impartial on this subject. But what right had he to assume a hidden design behind his frankness?
He mentally recalled the whole conversation. But as, by so doing, he was again reminded by the weaver's strange words of his mother, his thoughts were all at once turned in another direction.
He had not often heard his mother mentioned since he had been grown up, and altogether he did not know much more about her than what he remembered to have seen himself. For several years he had felt that there was something in her early life which the family were anxious to hush up. What it was he had never been able to discover. After his mother's unhappy death—his young friends and companions had been afraid even of alluding to her in his presence; and he had had a natural shyness in speaking of her to strangers, especially as his father and his other relations always preserved absolute silence concerning everything connected with her. Only an aged aunt who lived in a convent had once, in a moment of excitement, said that he must never forget "how deeply his mother had offended the prejudices of her class." Now, the weaver's words and the pictures on the walls of the peasant's room pointed out distinctly what direction this "offence" had taken. The more he buried himself in recollections of her, and of her curious solitary life in his father's house, so much the more were the mists enveloping her image dispersed. He saw her before him with her hair dressed high, and the plain black gown which in his boyhood had always somewhat embarrassed him, because it so little resembled the dresses of the other ladies of their circle, who were also plainly a little oppressed by her presence. He remembered her private sitting-room, which was not in the least like the other rooms, and where she would often shut herself up for days without seeing anyone. Many a time as a child had he stood outside in the dusk, not knowing if he dared knock. When at last he summoned up courage to enter, he would see his mother crouching in one corner of the long horse-hair sofa, gazing fixedly before her as if she had not heard him. Only after he had stood by her side for some time and whispered "Mother," would she lay her hand on his head and silently stroke his hair; or she would take him on her knee and press him to her with passionate tenderness while she told him many tales of warriors and king's sons, who, under the banner of Christ, had gone forth into the world to fight for truth and the right—he also remembered that his brother and sister seldom visited their mother in her room, and generally fell asleep during her stories. They were younger, and amused themselves better in their father's handsome library with the picture-books and the big globe. The servants also called them "the young lady and gentleman," while they nicknamed him "the mistress' boy." How often and how bitterly had he not felt, that since the day of his mother's death, he had become solitary and homeless in his father's house!
He wandered on the beach so long, buried in his thoughts, that he forgot both time and place. When at length he reached the Parsonage, he found to his dismay that the guests had already begun to arrive, and he had to hurry his dressing so as not to be too late.
When he entered the drawing-room a quarter of an hour later, he was received by a most ungracious look from the Provst, who, in evening dress and skull cap, was gesticulating in the middle of the room, in his animated conversation with a couple of other gentlemen, also in evening dress.
There were about a score of people assembled. The three landowners of the neighbourhood were there, the old schoolmaster Mortensen, Aggerbölle the veterinary surgeon, and Villing the store-keeper, and all their wives in silk dresses. In addition, there were six peasant farmers from Veilby, their wives, and Johanson, the young assistant teacher. There were none of the Skibberup people, and no representatives of the Veilby cottagers, because the last of the faithful among these had, to the Provst's great mortification, been drawn away to Hansen's Meeting House.
Two of the landowners were tall powerful men, as like each other as brothers, which they were not. The third was a little, peevish-looking fat man with a red patchy face and protruding eyes (like poached eggs swimming in fat). From his broad lower jaw, which stuck out from the upper part of his face like a trough, a grey beard grew, covering an immense double chin which hung out over his neck like a paunch. He walked up and down with his hands behind him near the dining-room door, grunting and looking impatiently at his watch every minute.
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The six peasant women, all dressed alike in black stuff gowns and close-fitting caps embroidered with gold, sat silent in a row, along by the window, with their brown hands motionless on their laps, grasping folded pocket handkerchiefs. Their husbands, dressed in homespun, stood against the wall close to them, looking just as serious.
Jenson, the chairman of the parish council, with his purple turkey-like beak, was the only one quite at ease, and his voice rang out like that of a man accustomed to move in good society.
The ladies were seated in arm-chairs round the table in the middle of the room, their silk trains flowing over the carpeted floor. The tongues wagged merrily here, in that kind of conversation where no one knows either what they say themselves or what the others answer. The conversation was led by the wife of one of the landowners, a towering lady in green satin and white lace, who had just returned from a visit to Copenhagen, and was untiring in relating her experiences. The others eagerly echoed her praises of the extensions and improvements in the town. Only Mrs Mortensen, the portly wife of the schoolmaster, who had not been vouchsafed a visit to the capital for the last twenty years, sat pursing up her mouth in a contemptuous manner; and at last she protested loudly that she hated Copenhagen, and that for her part she would rather die than set her foot in it.
Her remarks called forth a perfect storm of opposition. They all turned towards her with "Dear Mrs Mortensen"; but she was not to be cowed, and repeated her words with conviction; and added that she certainly could not imagine how people could endure to live, even for a week, in such a babel and crowd.
In the meantime, the thin, shy, little Mrs Aggerbölle sat silently looking before her with an absent and worried expression, as if her thoughts were still with her home and children. She sat with her hands on her lap, looking ready to faint from fatigue and night watching. It looked as if she had carefully sought out a place behind Mrs Mortensen's large person, so that the evening light should not fall too cruelly upon her prematurely aged features and faded silk gown—the old-fashioned cut of which, and the far too roomy bodice, bore sorrowful witness to bygone youthful charms. Now and then she glanced fearfully at her husband, who stood in a defiant attitude by the stove, as if disclaiming all knowledge of the smell of benzine which emanated from his shiny dress coat, and diffused itself all over that part of the room where he stood. He had only come home late in the afternoon from a peasant christening-feast in a neighbouring parish. Reminiscences of the night's carouse were plainly visible on the beardless parts of his face, in the shape of dark red patches, showing that the child had not been christened with water alone.
The young assistant teacher, Johansen, stood alone by the piano, with one leg lightly crossed over the other, the tips of the toes just touching the ground. He had a white glove on one hand, and a pocket handkerchief stuck in between his waistcoat and his vast shirt front.
Johansen, who had come to the parish about the same time as Emanuel, had quickly, in contrast to the other, become the lion of the neighbourhood. With his dark, somewhat theatrical hair, which, on grand occasions, was curled all over his head, his pale, fat, beardless face, his marvellously starched and frilled shirt, his stout legs and small feminine feet, he had fascinated all the young wives and girls at the winter festivities; his social talents had even procured admission for him to the country houses round about, and it was already considered not unlikely that one of the young ladies of the neighbourhood might one day bestow upon him something more than her admiration.
A moment after Emanuel's arrival the folding doors to the dining-room were thrown open. Miss Ragnhild came in and invited the company to sit down.
She was dressed in black silk, with yellow palm branches scattered over it, and a sort of lace overdress, which was transparent at the neck and below the elbows. Round her long, slender neck she wore a fine gold chain in four strands, gathered into an opal clasp. She had a large tortoise-shell comb in her dark auburn hair.
"Will the gentlemen please take ladies?" called out the Provst, himself offering his arm to the tall wife of the Squire.
A race took place among the elder gentlemen for Miss Ragnhild. Jensen, who was nearest to her, was the happy man, and he conducted her to the dining-room with uplifted nose.
Emanuel bowed to Mrs Aggerbölle, who remained behind when the other gentlemen had taken their ladies. The peasants took their own wives by the hand, and brought up the rear of the solemn procession in silence.