PAGE 11
One Day
by
Each time that he came home he kept less guard over himself, and was more careless as regarded others. Had she known that men who have expended their strength as he had done are as a rule worn out at forty–and many such are to be found in the coast-towns–she would have understood that these very things were signs of failure. He had advanced far along the road. To her he only appeared more and more disgusting. He was but little at home, which helped her. She had determined that she and her boys should live in the best manner, and this again was a help to her; but more than all was her constant employment and the regard which every one felt for her. After five years of marriage she looked as charming as ever, and appeared as cheerful and lively; she was accustomed to conceal her feelings.
Her children were now–the elder four, the second three years old. They were rarely seen anywhere but in the market-place, on the snow-heaps in winter and on the sand-heaps in summer, or else they were in the country with their aunt whom they had adopted as “grandmother.”
Next to the care of the little boys, flowers were Ella’s greatest delight. She had a great many, which made the house appear smaller than it really was. She could play with the boys, but she could share her thoughts with the flowers. When she watered them, she felt acutely how much she suffered. When she dried their leaves, she longed for pleasant words and kindly eyes. When she removed dead twigs and superfluous shoots, when she re-potted them, she often cried with longing; the thought that there was no one to care for her overcame her.
Five years were gone, then, when one day it was reported through the whole town that Aksel Aaroe had become a rich man. His old friend was dead and had left him a large annuity. It was also said that he had been a second time treated for dypsomania. The previous treatment had not been successful, but he was now cured. One could see how popular Aaroe was, for there was hardly anybody who was not pleased.
On Wednesday the 16th of March, 1892, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Ella sat at work near her flowers; from there she could see the hotel. At the corner window in the second story stood the man of whom she was thinking–stood and looked down at her.
She got up and he bowed twice. She remained standing as he crossed the market-place. He wore a dark fur cap, and his fair beard hung down over his black silk waistcoat. His face was rather pale, but there was a brighter expression in his eyes. He knocked, she could not speak or move, but when he opened the door and came into the room, she sank into a chair and wept. He came slowly forward, took a chair and sat down near her. “You must not be frightened because I came straight to you, it is such a pleasure to see you again.” Ah! how they sounded in this house, those few words full of consideration and confidence. He had acquired a foreign accent, but the voice, the voice! And he did not misconstrue her weakness, but tried to help her. By degrees she became her old self, confiding, bright, timid.
“It was so entirely unexpected,” she said.
“All that has occurred in the meantime rushes in on one,” he added courteously.
Not much more was said. He was preparing to leave, when his brother-in-law entered. Aaroe looked at her boys out on the snow-heap, he looked at her flowers, her piano, her music, then asked if he might come again. He had been there hardly five minutes, but an impression rested on her mind somewhat as the magnificent fair beard rested on the silk waistcoat. The room was hallowed, the piano, the music, the chair on which he had sat, even the carpet on which he had walked–in his very walk there was consideration for her. She felt that all that he had said and done showed sympathy for her fate. She could do nothing more that day, she hardly slept during the night, but the change which had taken place in her was nothing less than the bringing of something into the daylight again from five years ago, from six years indeed, as one brings flowers out of the cellar, where they have been put for their winter sleep, up into the spring-time again. As this thought passed through her mind, she made the same gesture at least twenty times, she laid both hands on her breast, one over the other, as though to control it: it must not speak too loudly.