On a summer evening the bridge is crowded with people out walking--school teachers and tradespeople, young girls and children. I watch my time when it is getting late, and the bridge is deserted; then I can lounge over that way myself, and stay for an hour or so in the midst of the roar. No need to do anything really but listen; only my brain is so over-rested with idleness and good sound sleep, it finds no end of things to busy itself about. Last evening I determined in all seriousness to go to Fru Falkenberg and say:

"Go away from here, Frue; leave by the first train that goes." Today I have been calling myself a fool for entertaining such a ridiculous thought, and set in its place another: "Get out of this yourself, my good man, by the first train that goes. Are you her equal, her adviser?

Very well, then; see that what you do is not too utterly at variance with what you are!"

And this evening I am still treating myself as I deserve. I fall to humming a little tune, but can scarcely hear it myself! the sound is crushed to death in the roar of the water. "That's right," I say to myself scornfully. "You ought always to stand by a deafening foss when you feel like humming a tune." And I laugh at myself again. With suchlike childish fancies do I pa.s.s the time.

The noise of the rapids anywhere inland is as useful to the ear as the noise of breakers on the sh.o.r.e. But the voice of the breakers is louder and fainter by turns. The roar of waters in a river-bed is like an audible fog, a monotony of sound beyond reason, contrary to all sense, a miracle of idiocy. "What is the time, do you know?" "Yes, isn't it?"

"Day or night?" "Yes!" As if some one had laid a stone on six keys of an organ, and walked off and left it there.

With such childish fancies do I while away the time.

"_G.o.daften_!" says Fru Falkenberg, and there she is beside me.

I hardly felt surprised; it was almost as if I had expected her. After her behaviour with her husband's letter, she might well go a little farther.

Now I could think two ways about her coming: either she had turned thoroughly sentimental at being reminded so directly of her home once more, or she wanted to make her engineer jealous; he might perhaps be watching us from his window that very moment, and I had been sent for to go back to vreb. Possibly she was thoroughly calculating, and had been trying to work on his jealousy even yesterday, when she studied the letter so attentively.

It seemed, however, that none of my clever theories was to be confirmed.

It was me she wanted to see, and that only to make a sort of apology for getting me dismissed. That she should ever care about such a trifle!

Was she so incapable of thinking seriously that she could not see what a miserable position she herself was in? What in the devil's name had she to do with my affairs?

I had thought to say a brief word or so and point to the train, but something made me gentle, as if I were dealing with an irresponsible, a child.

"You'll be going back to vreb now, I suppose?" she said. "And I thought I'd like.... H'm!... You're sorry to be leaving here, perhaps?

No? No, no, of course not. But I must tell you something: It was I that got you dismissed."

"It doesn't matter."

"No, no. Only, I wanted to tell you. Now that you're going back to vreb. You can understand it was a little unpleasant for me at times to...."

She checked herself.

"To have me about the place. Yes, it would be unpleasant."

"To see you here. A _little_ unpleasant; I mean, because you knew about me before. So I asked the engineer if he couldn't send you away. Not that he wanted to himself, you understand. Quite the reverse, in fact, but he did at last. I'm glad you're going back to vreb."

"So?" said I. "But when Fruen comes home again surely it will be just as unpleasant to see me then?"

"Home?" she repeated. "I'm not going home."

Pause. She had frowned as she spoke. But now she nodded, and even smiled a little, and turned to go.

"Well, well, you'll pardon me, then, I know," she said.

"Have you any objection to my going back to Captain Falkenberg?" I asked.

She stopped, and looked me full in the face. Now, what was the right thing here? Three times she had spoken of vreb. Was it with the idea that I might put in a word for her if opportunity offered, when I got back there? Or was she unwilling to ask of me as a favour not to go?

"No, no, indeed I've not!" she answered. "Go there, by all means."

And she turned and left me.

Neither sentimental nor calculating, as far as I could see. But she might well have been both. And what had I gained by my attempt at a confidential tone? I should have known better than to try, whether she stayed here or went elsewhere. What business was it of mine? 'Twas her affair.

You're playing and pretending, I said to myself. All very well to say she's literature and no more, but that withered soul of yours showed good signs of life when she was kind to you and began looking at you with those two eyes of hers. I'm disappointed; I'm ashamed of you, and to-morrow you go!

But I did not go.

And true it is that I went about spying and listening everywhere for anything I could learn of Fru Falkenberg; and then at times, ay, many a night, I would call myself to account for that same thing, and torture myself with self-contempt. From early morning I thought of her: is she awake yet? Has she slept well? Will she be going back home to-day? And at the same time all sorts of ideas came into my head. I might perhaps get work at the hotel where she was staying. Or I might write home for some clothes, turn gentleman myself, and go and stay at that same hotel.

This last, of course, would at once have cut the ground from under my feet and left me farther removed from her than ever, but it was the one that appealed to me most of all, fool that I was. I had begun to make friends with the hotel porter, already, merely because he lived nearer to her than I. He was a big, strong fellow, who went up to the station every day to meet the trains and pick up a commercial traveller once a fortnight. He could give me no news; I did not ply him with questions, nor even lead him on to tell me things of his own accord; and, besides, he was far from intelligent. But he lived under the same roof with Fruen--ah yes, that he did. And one day it came about that this acquaintance of mine with the hotel porter brought me a piece of valuable information about Fru Falkenberg, and that from her own lips.

So they were not all equally fruitless, those days in the little town.

One morning I came back with the porter from the station; he had picked up a traveller with a heap of luggage, and had to take horse and cart to fetch the heavy grey trunks.

I had helped him to get them loaded up at the station, and now, as we pulled up at the hotel, he said: "You might lend a hand getting these things in; I'll stand you a bottle of beer this evening."

So we carried in the trunks together. They were to be taken up at once to the big luggage-room upstairs; the owner was waiting for them. It was an easy job for the two of us big, strong fellows both.

We had got them up all but one--that was still in the cart--when the porter was called back upstairs; the traveller was giving him instructions about something or other. Meantime, I went out, and waited in the pa.s.sage; I did not belong to the place, and did not want to be seen hanging about on the stairs by myself.

Just then the door of Engineer La.s.sen's office opened, and he and Fru Falkenberg came out. They looked as if they had just got up; they had no hats on; just going down to breakfast, no doubt. Now, whether they did not notice me, or took me for the porter standing there, they went on with what they had been saying.

"Quite so," says the engineer. "And it won't be any different. I can't see what you've got to feel lonely about."

"Oh, you know well enough!" she answered.

"No, I don't, and I do think you might be a little more cheerful."

"You wouldn't like it if I were. You'd rather have me stay as I am, miserable and wretched, because you don't care for me any more."

He stopped on the stairs abruptly. "Really, I think you must be mad," he said.

"I dare say I am," she answered.

How poorly she held her own in a quarrel! It was always so with her. Why could she not be careful of her words, and answer so as to wound him, crush him altogether?

He stood with one hand on the stair-rail and said:

"So you think it pleases me to have things going on like this? I tell you it hurts me desperately--has done for a long time past."

"And me," she answered. "But now I'll have no more of it."

"Oh, indeed! You've said that before. You said it only a week ago."

"Well, I am going now."