XV
We are staying in the country, a long way out, where the real country is.
Cows and horses, pigs and sheep, a beautiful dog and hens and ducks form our circle of acquaintances. In addition to these, there are of course the two-legged beings who own and look after the four-legged ones and who, in my little boy"s eyes, belong to quite the same kind.
The great sea lies at the foot of the slope. Ships float in the distance and have nothing to say to us. The sun burns us and bronzes us. We eat like thrashers, sleep like guinea-pigs and wake like larks. The only real sorrow that we have suffered is that we were not allowed to have our breeches made with a flap at the side, like the old wood-cutter"s.
Presently, it happens that, for better or worse, we get neighbours.
They are regular Copenhageners. They were prepared not to find electric light in the farm-house; but, if they had known that there was no water in the kitchen, G.o.d knows they would not have come. They trudge through the clover as though it were mire and are sorry to find so few cornflowers in the rye. A cow going loose along the roads fills them with a terror which might easily have satisfied a royal tiger.
The pearl of the family is Erna.
Erna is five years old; her very small face is pale green, with watery blue eyes and yellow curls. She is richly and gaily dressed in a broad and slovenly sash, daintily-embroidered pantalets, short open-work socks and patent-leather shoes. She falls if she but moves a foot, for she is used only to gliding over polished floors or asphalt.
I at once perceive that my little boy"s eyes have seen a woman.
He has seen the woman that comes to us all at one time or another and turns our heads with her rustling silks and her glossy hair and wears her soul in her skirts and our poor hearts under her heel.
"Now comes the perilous moment for Dirty," I say to the mother of my little boy.
This time it is my little boy"s turn to be superior.
He knows the business thoroughly and explains it all to Erna. When he worries the horse, she trembles, impressed with his courage and manliness. When she has a fit of terror at the sight of a hen, he is charmed with her delicacy. He knows the way to the smith"s, he dares to roll down the high slope, he chivalrously carries her ridiculous little cape.
Altogether, there is no doubt as to the condition of his heart. And, while Erna"s family apparently favour the position--for which may the devil take them!--I must needs wait with resignation like one who knows that love is every man"s master.
One morning he proposes.
He is sitting with his beloved on the lawn. Close to them, her aunt is nursing her chlorosis under a red parasol and with a novel in her bony lap. Up in the balcony above sit I, as Providence, and see everything, myself unseen.
"You shall be my sweetheart," says my little boy.
"Yes," says Erna.
"I have a sweetheart already in Copenhagen," he says, proudly.
This communication naturally by no means lowers Erna"s suitor in her eyes. But it immediately arouses all Auntie"s moral instincts:
"If you have a sweetheart, you must be true to her."
"Erna shall be my sweetheart."
Auntie turns her eyes up to Heaven:
"Listen, child," she says. "You"re a very naughty boy. If you have given Dir--Dir----"
"Dirty," says the boy.
"Well, that"s an extraordinary name! But, if you have given her your word, you must keep it till you die. Else you"ll never, never be happy."
My little boy understands not a word and answers not a word. Erna begins to cry at the prospect that this good match may not come off.
But I bend down over the bal.u.s.ter and raise my hat:
"I beg your pardon, Froken. Was it not you who jilted Hr. Petersen? . . ."
"Good heavens! . . ."
She packs up her chlorosis and disappears with Erna, mumbling something about like father, like son, and goodness knows what.
Presently, my little boy comes up to me and stands and hangs about.
"Where has Erna gone to?" I ask my little boy.
"She mustn"t go out," he says, dejectedly.
He puts his hands in his pockets and looks straight before him.
"Father," he says, "can"t you have two sweethearts?"
The question comes quite unexpectedly and, at the moment, I don"t know what to answer.
"Well?" says the mother of my little boy, amiably, and looks up from her newspaper.
And I pull my waistcoat down and my collar up:
"Yes," I say, firmly. "You can. But it is wrong. It leads to more fuss and unpleasantness than you can possibly conceive."
A silence.
"Are you so fond of Erna?" asks our mother.
"Yes."
"Do you want to marry her?"
"Yes."
I get up and rub my hands:
"Then the thing is settled," I say. "We"ll write to Dirty and give her notice. There"s nothing else to be done. I will write now and you can give the letter yourself to the postman, when he comes this afternoon.
If you take my advice, you will make her a present of your ball. Then she will not be so much upset."
"She can have my gold-fish too, if she likes," says the boy.
"Excellent, excellent. We will give her the gold-fish. Then she will really have nothing in the world to complain of."