Spring had arrived.
One afternoon, the parson’s daughter fetched Katinka and they went for a walk along the river. Wee Bentzen had knocked up a bench under a couple of willows close to the railway bridge. They sat there and worked until the afternoon train came. The guards on this stretch knew them and waved to them.
“The best thing would be to leave,” said Agnes Linde, watching the train as it moved away. “I think about it every day.”
“Oh, but, Agnes…”
“Yes, that would be the best thing – for both of us – that either he or I should go away.”
And they discuss this eternal subject for the thousandth time.
It was a day in the middle of winter. Agnes Linde and the curate went past on their way from the pond, where they had been skating, and the curate had to go into the station to send a letter and he fell into conversation with Bai.
Agnes came into the living room with her skates over her arm. She was very brusque and simply replied “Yes” and “No” to whatever Katinka said. Then, after standing over by the window and looking out, she suddenly burst into tears.
“What is it, Miss Linde? Are you ill?” said Katinka going over to her and putting an arm round her. “What on earth is wrong?”
Agnes Linde battled with her tears. But her weeping only increased. She moved Katinka’s arm.
“Let me go in here,” she said, moving over towards the bedroom.
There she threw herself on the bed and told Katinka all about it in a torrent of words, how she loved Andersen, but he only played about with her, and she could take no more.
Since that day, Katinka had enjoyed the confidence of the parson’s daughter.
Katinka was used to being taken into people’s confidence. It had been like that when she was a young girl at home, too. Bleeding hearts would all come to her. It was presumably because of her quiet manner and because she herself never said much. She was the ideal person for listening to others.
The parson’s daughter came almost every day and she spent hours with Katinka. It was the same thing time after time: her love and him. And every day she told things as though they were new, even though she had already told them a thousand times over.
Then, when she had sat talking for three or four hours and had finally started to weep, Agnes packed her sewing up:
“Yes, we are indeed an odd couple,” she said in conclusion.
Now that spring had come, they sat down by the stream.
Agnes talked and Katinka listened. She sat with her hands on her lap, looking out across the meadows. There was a slight haze out there, and the hollow looked like a big, blue lake. There was no seeing what was lake and what was sky; it was all just like one dawning blue. With the groups of willows like islands in the sea.
Agnes told about the early days when she had come home from Copenhagen and met Andersen. Months had passed, and she had simply not realised she was fond of him.
Katinka listened and did not listen. She knew the theme and she nodded silently.
But bit by bit she had learned of the other’s love. She knew it and all the emotions that accompanied it. She shared them as though they were her own. Of course, they never talked about anything else.
And she felt comfortable with all these words of love. Her thoughts became so familiar with everything that belonged to love, at least in these two strangers.
After accompanying Agnes Linde part of the way and then returning home herself, she could sit for half an hour at a time in the summer house by the elder tree out in the garden. And it was as though all those words of love floated in the air about her, and she heard them again and reflected on them.
It was in keeping with her quiet, rather passive nature that words and thoughts with which she was now so familiar as it were should return time and time again, on the road, on her way home.
And they cocooned her. They turned into dreams that led her far away, into realms of which she was scarcely aware.
Life had also been quieter at home recently. Huus was not coming so frequently now spring had arrived. He said there was so much to do.
When he came, his mood varied so much as well. It was often as though he simply failed to notice how pleased Katinka was to see him, and he chatted mostly with Bai although Katinka had had so much to tell him and to ask him about.
Just now in spring, when there had been so much to arrange and change everywhere.
But there was something wrong. Perhaps he was not happy working for Kiær on the farm; it was said that he was a little difficult to get on with.
And indeed, she herself was also occasionally rather low spirited.
But perhaps that was the result of not getting enough sleep.
She stayed in the living room in the evening when Bai went to undress. He would then wander around half naked for a long time and then sit on the edge of the bed and talk and talk.
Katinka found it wearisome that he would never settle down and stop chattering.
And when she herself finally got to bed and lay there in the darkness beside the soundly sleeping Bai, she was unable to fall asleep and had a sense of malaise that prompted her to get up again and go into the living room. And there she sat, by the window. The night train rushed past and a great silence once more lay over the fields. No sound, not the slightest breeze in the summer night. The first grey light of day came; and a cold, damp air rose from the meadows.
And it grew lighter and lighter as the larks began to sing.
Huus had told her how fond he was of watching the arrival of morning.
He had told her what it was like in the mountains when morning came. It was like a mighty sea of gold and red, he said, with the mountain tops standing there half gold and half pink. And the peaks floated there like islands in a vast ocean.
And then, bit by bit, he said, it was as though all the mountain tops came on fire.
And then the sun came.
And rose.
And swept the darkness out of the valleys as though with the wave of a great wing.
He would often talk about that sort of thing now, about all those memories from his travels.
In general, he talked more now, that is if he talked at all.
It grew quite light, and Katinka still sat by the window. But she must presumably get some sleep.
The air was heavy in the bedroom, and Bai lay there and had thrown the blankets off.
When Huus came of an evening, they would mostly sit in the summer house by the elder tree.
They watched the eight o’clock train leave. The odd farmer would saunter out onto the platform and greet them as he passed them and drove home.
Then they went down into the garden. The cherry trees were in blossom. The white petals drifted like some brightly glistening rain through the summer air down on to the lawn.
They sat still, looking out at the white trees. It was as though the gentle evening silence that had descended upon the wold was enveloping everything. Up in the village a gate could be heard closing. Cattle were lowing over the fields.
Katinka talked of her home.
About her friends and her brothers and the old house’s courtyard, where there were so many pigeons.
“And then, in the new flat with mother… after father’s death.”
“Yes, that was a happy time.”
“But then I got married of course.”
Huus looked out across the soft snow of fruit blossom gently falling on the grass.
“There was Thora Berg, she was great fun. In the evening when she was coming home from a party with the entire garrison on her heels, throwing sand at all the windows as she went through the town.”
Katinka sat for a while.
“She is married now as well,” she said.
“And they say she has several children.”
A man passed by on the road outside. “Good evening,” he said over the hedge.
“Good evening, Kristen Peter.”
“Good evening,” said Katinka.
“Hmm,” said Katinka again, “the last time I saw her was at my wedding. All the girls sang at it; they were all up near the organ, in the choir loft. I can still see them, all their faces, all of them. But I wept so much.”
Huus still said nothing and she could not see his face. He was bending forward as he sat there, studying something down on the ground.
“That was almost eleven years ago,” said Katinka. “Yes. Time passes.”
“Yes, when you are happy,” said Huus without stirring.
Katinka did not hear this at first. Then it was as though the words suddenly struck her.
“Yes,” she said, starting a little.
And then, before long: “This is my home now.”
Again, they sat in silence.
Bai came out into the garden. He could be heard from far away. He always made such a noise, and before this it had been so quiet in the dusk.
“I’ll fetch the glasses,” said Katinka.
“Aye, a lovely evening,” said Bai. “Lovely evening out in the open.”
Katinka returned with glasses and a bottle.
“I’ve had a visitor,” said Bai.
“Who?”
“Miss Ida. She’s off again now.”
“What, Ida?”
“Aye,” Bai laughed: “They’ve given up on Miss Louise by god, and now they are raising all the sails on the lighter vessel. She’s going to stay away all summer.”
“Aye, well, it’d be nice if one of them was successful.” Bai sat for a while: “Aye, but what the hell. A girl like that has to get married.”
Bai often lectured on marriage. He was something of a philosopher when it came to that subject.
“I joined the railways,” he said. “Do you think it was because I wanted to? There was simply no future as a lieutenant. That’s what it’s like, there’s no getting away from it: girls just have to be taken to the altar. Then it works out. We all see that, you know. They get used to living together. They have a house and home, and then the children arrive.”
“For most people,” Bai concluded with something approaching a sigh.
They sat in silence; it had grown quite dark beneath the elder tree.
The end of June arrived.
“Our lovely lady looks a bit pale about the gills,” said Agnes Linde when she came down to the station.
“Yes, I don’t think the heat suits me,” said Katinka. It was as though there was something restive about her and she was constantly starting on something and then abandoning it again and then coming and going.
She liked best to be sitting with Agnes down by the stream. She looked out across the fields and always heard the same things.
Agnes Linde always adopted a quite different, gentle voice when she spoke about him, “her man”, as she called him.
Katinka sat looking at her as she sat there with her head bowed and she smiled.
“And then one snivels,” said Agnes. “Monstrous as it is, this is perhaps the best I can expect.”
“Yes,” said Katinka, still looking at her.
When Agnes Linde did not come to her, Katinka went up to the parsonage. She really longed to hear her speak.
And then she saw Andersen as well. She saw them together, Agnes and him.
She stood there while they played croquet on the big lawn. She stood and watched them, these two, who loved each other.
She listened to them inquisitively and watched them almost as though they were some great wonder.
And one day, she wept as she went home.
Huus’ visits were so irregular now. Sometimes he would come twice in the course of one day and would hardly sit down in the garden house before he had to get up on his horse again. And sometimes several days would elapse during which they hardly saw him at the station.
The hay had been cut and was now in stacks all over the meadows. There was a constant fragrance in the air.
One evening, Huus was in a good mood and suggested they should have a “day at the big fair”. They could drive there in a carriage and first have a brief rest in the woods and then see all the splendours of the fair.
Bai thought it a good idea, and the outing was planned. They were to start out early in the morning while it was still cool and they would not come home until that night or the following morning.
Just the Bais and Huus.
Katinka was busy all day making preparations.
She studied her cookery book and made plans during the night and went to town to do her shopping.
Just as the train was leaving, Huus came to fetch the post.
“Huus,” she shouted from the carriage window.
“Where are you going?” he shouted.
“Shopping. Marie is with me.” And she pulled Marie across and showed her face at the window. “Goodbye.”
“Hmm,” said Bai. “Katinka’s gone quite crazy. She’s frying and boiling things for that trip as though she was getting us ready to withstand a cholera epidemic.”
In town they had started erecting tents in the streets and up on the market place the horses for the merry-go-rounds were lined up in rows against the churchyard wall. Katinka went in among the fairground people, who were hammering and banging, and looked at all that was going on. She stared at the crates and gazed in wonder at each piece of canvas that was raised up.
“Would you mind, miss.”
She had to jump across both boards and ropes.
“They are calling me miss,” she said.
“I just hope the weather holds, Marie,” she said.
They went out along the streets to the park. There was a caravan there. The men were asleep by the roadside; the wife of one of them was washing stockings in a bowl on the lowered steps. Three pairs of unmentionables were stretched out and flapping on a line.
Katinka looked inquisitively at the woman and the men at the roadside.
“Do you want something?” shouted the woman in some foreign accent.
“Ugh,” shouted Katrina. She was quite afraid and ran a little further away.
“That was the Strong Woman,” she said.
They wandered further along the road. At the edge of the park a group of joiners were laying the dance floor. It was cool in there beneath the trees after the sun-drenched road. Katinka sat down on a bench.
“This is where we are going to dance,” she said.
“Yes, Huus must be a good dancer,” said Marie. She was a constant and loyal admirer of Huus; a photograph of him framed in velvet stood on her chest of drawers and she had an old visiting card with his name as a bookmark in her hymn book. Peter the porter attended to her more tangible needs.
Katinka made no reply. She just sat there watching the people at work.
“Let’s hope the weather holds,” she said to one of them.
“Yes,” he said, looking up into the trees. He could not see the sky as he wiped his brow with his sleeve, “it all depends on that.”
Katinka and Marie went back. It was high time. They crossed the square. The evening bells in the church tower could be heard ringing above the din in the market.
They spent the final day baking. Katinka wore a short-sleeved dress and kneaded so that her hair was covered with flour like that of a miller.
“No one’s allowed in. No one’s allowed in.” Someone was knocking on the door, which was locked.
Katinka thought it was Huus.
“It’s me,” shouted Agnes Linde. “What is going on?”
She came in and helped with the baking. It was a pound cake that needed to be stirred and stirred for ever. “It’s for Huus,” said Katinka. “He’s got a sweet tooth so I’m making a pound cake for him.”
Agnes stirred until the dough bobbled. “Aye, menfolk must have their pound cake,” she said.
Katinka took the tray out. “Have a taste,” she said. “Be careful not to burn your tongue.” Her face was as red as a copper pan straight out of the oven.
Miss Jensen and Louise came down for the afternoon train. They knocked on the kitchen window and stood talking outside.
“Good Lord, they must have smelt it,” said Agnes Linde. She dropped her tired arms and sat with the mixing bowl between legs that were spread rather inelegantly.
Marie took a plate out onto the platform so they could have a taste.
Louise was overwhelmed with such joy while sitting on the platform bench, that a couple of commission agents in the train saw a significant bit of her beauty.
When the train had left, those working in the kitchen opened the windows. Louise and little Miss Jensen munched away happily on the bench outside.
“You have been so fortunate, Mrs Bai – wonderful.”
“Yes, Mrs Bai is an excellent housewife,” said Miss Jensen.
“Now we are off again,” said Agnes inside the kitchen. She set about the dough.
Bai opened the office window above the platform bench.
“There you are,” he said. “And here am I without anything at all.”
“Would you like a bit, Mr Bai?” asked Louise. “Do you like sweet things as well?”
“If anyone deigned to offer me some,” said Bai, adopting his club tone.
There was a din on the platform, accompanied by squeaks.
“What is going on?” asked Agnes from the kitchen.
“We’re feeding the birds,” shouted Louise. She had jumped up on the bench in all her beauty and stood there putting cake into Bai’s mouth.
“Oh, he’s biting,” she screams.
It was on such occasions that Mrs Abel would say, “They just go on playing like children, without knowing anything of the world.”
Louise took the empty plate back. She picked up the crumbs with her finger tips. Louise and Ida were always like that: they never wasted anything.
She stood at the kitchen window and looked inside.
“Mother should have known about this,” she said in a sweet voice.
“Oh, so she hasn’t got wind of it,” said Agnes over the pound cake.
Louise was given a bag of cakes through the window. “It’s something to take home,” she said as she came out on to the road with little Miss Jensen.
She and Miss Jensen had eaten the cakes before they were past the wood. Louise threw the paper away.
“Good heavens, my dear Louise, Miss Linde might see you with those sharp eyes of hers.”
Miss Jensen picked the paper up. Down in her pocket, she quietly wrapped it round three cakes for Bel-Ami.
Katinka started to feel tired. She sat on the chopping block with her sleeves rolled up and surveyed her work.
“But it’s nothing to what we used to do at home, nothing compared to when we did our Christmas baking.”
She told how they used to bake, her mother and her sisters and the entire household. How she used to make dough into pig shapes and then how they popped when they were dropped in the hot fat.
And her brothers, how they used to pinch bits so that mother had to wield a wooden spoon to guard the stone jar containing cake mixture.
And if they were paring almonds they stole so many there would not even be fifty left out of a pound.
There was a knock on the door. It was Huus.
“No one is coming in,” said Katinka at the door. “In an hour. Come back in an hour.”
Huus appeared outside the window. “You can wait in the garden,” said Katinka. She hurried to finish and sent Agnes down to keep Huus company.
Agnes stayed there for about an hour. Then she left.
“Mr Huus is too easy to keep company,” she said to Andersen. “All he wants is for you to stay quiet so he can whistle in peace.”
“Where is Agnes?” said Katinka when she went down into the garden.
“I think she left.”
“But when?”
“I suppose it was about an hour ago.”
Huus laughed. “Miss Linde and I are so fond of each other,” he said. “But we don’t exactly have much to say to each other.”
“We must pack the things,” said Katinka.
They went indoors and started packing the big basket. They stuffed hay into it to be sure the jars were firmly fixed in place.
“Tighter,” said Katinka, “tighter.” And she pressed firmly on Huus’ hands.
She opened the bureau and counted the right number of spoons and forks from the cutlery drawer.
“And I’m going to take a fan,” she said.
She started to search. “Oh, it’s in this drawer.”
It was in the drawer with all the petticoats and the bridal veil. She opened the box containing the old bits of ribbon. “Look,” she said. “All that old rubbish.”
She plunged her hand down into the box and rummaged around in all kinds of ribbons and decorations. All that old rubbish.
Again she looked for her fan.
“Oh, will you just hold my veil?” she said. She put her bridal veil and a fine shawl over Huus’ arm. “There it is,” she said. The fan was at the bottom of the drawer.
“And your shawl,” she said. It was on one side, packed in tissue paper. She took it out.
Huus had been holding so tight on the yellowing bridal veil that he left marks on the lace.
The evening train arrived, and they went out onto the platform.
“Phew,” said the slim guard in the tight, revealing trousers, “getting the train through during the holidays… half an hour late…”
“You’re in for trouble,” said Bai.
Katinka looked down at the carriages. There was a sweaty face at each window.
“Fancy,” she said, “all these people wanting to travel.” The guard gave a laugh.
“Well,” he said. “That’s what the railways are for.” He saluted and jumped on to the footboard.
The train left. The young guard continued to lean out and nod.
Katinka waved her blue shawl. Suddenly, all the people going on holiday waved and nodded back at her from the carriage windows, all laughing and enjoying themselves.
Katinka shouted and waved her blue shawl, and they waved back from the train as long as they could be seen.
Huus went home after tea. He was to come to the station at six o’clock the following morning.
Katinka stood in the garden behind the hedge and sang out:
“Cricket, oh cricket, now bring us good weather.”
The scent of the trees in the grove descended on her. She stood there, smiling and staring up into the blue air.
“Curious how blue suits the little lady,” thought the railway guard with the tight, revealing trousers. He was always on the lookout for anything interesting along this stretch of the track.
“We must get up at five o’clock,” said Bai in the direction of the kitchen.
“Yes, all right, Bai, I’m coming.” Katinka scraped a bit of black away from the pound cake. “We have to get everything ready, you know.”
She wrapped the pound cake up and examined the basket one last time. She opened the door to the courtyard and stood there looking out. The only sound was that of the pigeons cooing up there.
The last pale traces of red were disappearing in the west. The stream wound its way and disappeared among the steaming meadows.
How she loved that spot.
She closed the door and went inside.
Bai had put his watch down near the lighted lamp by the bed. He wanted to check when she had finished fiddling about.
But he had fallen asleep and lay there sweating and breathing heavily through his nose in the light from the lamp.
Katinka quietly put it out. She undressed in the dark.
Katinka was in the garden when the carriage arrived. Her blue dress could be recognised all the way from the turning.
“Good morning, good morning, you are bringing a fine day with you.”
She ran out onto the platform. “He’s here,” she shouted.
“The hampers, Marie.”
Bai stood in his shirt sleeves at the bedroom window. “Morning, Huus. Looks as though we’re going to get sunstroke, doesn’t it.”
“Oh, there’s a bit of a breeze, you know” said Huus, alighting from the carriage.
They managed to secure the baskets and had coffee out on the platform. Wee Bentzen was so sleepy that Bai made him run up and down the platform three times to wake him up.
Katinka promised to bring some cake back for him, and they climbed into the carriage. Bai wanted to be in charge of the horses and sat on the front seat together with Marie, whose dress was so starched that it crackled at the slightest movement.
Katinka looked like a young girl in her big white sunhat.
“They will be sending food from the inn for you,” Katinka said to Wee Bentzen .
“Well we’d better be off now, then,” said Bai. Wee Bentzen ran into the garden and waved eagerly.
They drove some way along a narrow road through the meadows. It was still quite cool, with a good-natured summer breeze; the clover and the damp grass filled the air with perfume.
“It is so lovely and fresh,” said Katinka.
“Yes, a wonderful morning,” said Huus.
“Lovely fresh air.” Bai gently tapped the horses.
They drove along the avenue past Kiær’s land. The cattleman’s hut was out there on its wheels surrounded by the cattle. A dog barked from far away as it rounded up some cattle; the great cows raised their thick necks and lowed, lazy and replete.
Katinka looked out across the green meadow with its scattered, shiny cattle, all illumined by the sun.
“It’s so lovely,” she said.
“Yes, isn’t it,” said Huus turning his head towards her. “It’s beautiful.”
They started to talk. They saw the same things and took pleasure in the same things. The same things always caught their attention. And then either he or Katinka would nod.
Bai talked to the horses like an old cavalryman.
No more than an hour had passed before he started to talk of “having a bite”.
“Early mornings make their demands on you, Tik,” he said. “You need something to keep you going, damn it.”
Katinka really could not unpack now. And where were they going to find a place to sit in any case?
But Bai did not give up, and they came to a standstill by a field where the rye had been stacked.
They took one of the hampers from the carriage and sat down on a stack close to the roadside.
Bai ate as though he had not seen food for a week.
“Cheers, Huus,” he said. “Good company.”
They chatted and passed the jars around and ate.
“This does you good, you know, Tik,” said Bai.
People passed by and glanced at them.
“Enjoy your breakfast,” they said and walked on.
“Cheers, Huus. Here’s to a good day.”
“Thank you, Mrs Bai.”
“That bucked us up,” said Bai. They were in the carriage again. “But it’s going to be a hot one today, isn’t it Marie?”
“Yes,” said Marie, glistening with perspiration. “It’s pretty warm.”
“We’ll soon be getting to the woods,” said Huus.
They drove on. The edge of the woods was over there, bluish in the heat.
“Don’t the fir trees smell wonderful?” said Katinka.
They reached the edge of the woods, and densely packed fir trees threw shadows over much of the road ahead. They all breathed a sigh of relief, but they did not speak as they drove slowly through the forest. The fir trees stood in long, straight rows away from the road and disappeared into the gloom of the forest. And there were no birds, no singing, no noise.
Only great clouds of insects could be seen rising from the fir trees up into the light.
They emerged from the woods again.
“Pretty solemn in there, isn’t it,” said Bai, breaking the silence.
They reached the beech forest towards midday and went into the forester’s house.
Bai said, “It’s good to get a bit of exercise. One has to stretch one’s legs, Huus.” And he immediately went and sat down beneath a tree to have a snooze.
Huus helped with the unpacking. “You have such good fingers, Huus,” said Katinka. Marie went backwards and forwards, warming the pots in hot water in the kitchen.
“My mother-in-law always said that,” said Huus.
“Mother-in-law?”
“Yes,” said Huus. “My fiancée’s mother.”
Katinka said nothing. Knives and forks rattled out of the paper she was holding.
“Yes,” said Huus, “I’ve never talked about it. I was engaged once.”
“Oh? I didn’t know.”
Katinka arranged the knives. Marie returned.
“We could go down to the pond,” said Huus.
“Yes, if Marie will call us.” They went down the path into the woods. The pond was a small marsh lake a little way into the wood. The trees stretched their great tops out over the dark water.
They had not spoken on the way there. Now they sat beside each other on a bench by the lake.
“No,” said Huus. “I’ve never talked about it.”
Katinka looked out across the water in silence.
“It was my mother,” he said, “who so much wanted it. For the sake of the future.”
“Oh,” said Katinka.
“And so it went on for a whole year until she broke it off.”
Huus spoke jerkily, with long pauses, as though ashamed or angry.
“That’s what engagements and marriages are like,” he said again.
A bird started warbling over there in the forest. Katinka heard every note in the silence.
“And I suppose I was a coward as well and went on with it,” said Huus again. “Stuck there really and truly like a coward. Day after day. I stayed with it,” he spoke quietly, “until she broke it off. Because she was fond of me.”
Katinka placed her hand in a gentle caress down on his, which he was pressing hard on the bench.
“Poor Huus,” was all she said.
And she sat patting his hand, gently and soothingly: that poor man, how he had suffered.
They sat like that, close to each other. The midday heat descended on the waters of the tiny lake. Clouds of midges and flies filled the air with their buzzing.
They spoke no more. Marie’s shouting roused them.
“They are calling us,” said Katinka.
They rose and silently went along the path.
They were all rather merry at table. Finally they had some old Aalborg port wine with the pound cake.
Bai sat in his shirt sleeves, every other minute saying, “Aye, children, our green Danish forest is a damned nice place to be in.”
He was overcome by an attack of tenderness and wanted Katinka to sit on his knee. She tore herself away. ‘What are you thinking of, Bai,” she said. She had turned pale and blushed at the same time.
“I suppose she’s shy in front of strangers,” said Bai.
All had gone quiet. Katinka started to pack the baskets and Huus rose.
“Aye,” said Bai. “What about a bit of a walk to let the lunch go down?” He put on his coat. “It’s good for the digestion, you know.”
“Yes,” said Katinka. “You could go for a walk while I pack up.”
Huus and Bai strolled down the road, Bai walking with his hat in his hand, feeling warm from the heat and the old port.
“There you are, Huus; that’s marriage for you, my lad,” he said. “That’s what it’s like and it’s never any different.”
“It’s no damned good. Everything they write about and everything you sit and mop up in your weeklies about marriage and chastity and all that. And faithfulness and the ‘needs’ they pontificate about, just like old Linde and his Lord’s Prayer. They put it all fine and it sounds so good, and it gives people something to write about. But you see it doesn’t really get down to things, Huus.”
He stopped and waved his straw hat in front of Huus.
“Well, you saw now. I have needs but Katinka won’t… A lovely summer’s day when you’ve had a good meal out in the country and yet even so, she wouldn’t even give me a kiss. That’s what women are like. You can never reckon with them. They’re like that at times, you see, Huus.”
“Between ourselves,” Bai shook his head. “It’s damned difficult for a man in the prime of life.”
Huus hit out at some nettles with his walking stick. He swung it with such force that they went down as though they had been mown.
“Aye, that’s what it’s like,” said Bai, walking along and looking dubious, “but they don’t say anything about that in the weeklies. But as one grown man to another, we know where the shoe pinches.”
They heard Katinka call out behind them, and Huus replied with a shout that echoed right through the forest.
Katinka had recovered her spirits. It would be a good idea for them to have a nap under the trees now, she said. She knew of a spot, a lovely spot beneath an oak tree. And she went ahead of them to find it.
Huus followed. He made a sound like a cuckoo in the direction of the trees. Bai heard him laughing and yodelling.
“Aye,” he said, “he can laugh all right. He’s free of all this.”
It was not long before Bai was asleep beneath the great oak tree with his nose in the air and his hat lying on his stomach.
“You must have a sleep now, Huus,” said Katinka.
“Ye-es” said Huus. They were sitting each on their own side of the oak trunk.
Katinka had taken her straw hat off and leant her head against the tree. She sat looking up into the oak. Right up there at the top, the sunbeams were like drops of shining gold in the greenery, and the birds were singing in the undergrowth.
“It’s so lovely here,” she whispered, bending her head forward.
“Yes, it’s lovely,” whispered Huus. He sat with his arms round his knees, staring up into the treetop.
It was so quiet. They could both hear Bai’s breathing; they watched an insect buzzing its way up into the green treetop and the birds that were chirping both so close to them and yet so far away.
“Are you asleep?” Katinka whispered.
“Yes,” said Huus.
They sat again for a while. Huus listened, rose quietly and moved forward. Yes, she was asleep. She looked like a child, with her head on one side and her mouth slightly open as though smiling in her sleep.
Huus stood looking at her for a long time. Then he quietly returned to his place, and happily, with his eyes trained on the top of the oak tree, he listened to her sleeping.
When Marie woke them with some robust shouts of “hello”, summoning them to coffee, Bai had slept off his irritation along with the old port wine.
“A cognac does you good out in the open,” he said. “A nice little cognac in the open air.”
Bai was again able to manage a piece of pound cake with the cognac. Bai was a man able to consume vast quantities.
“Lovely cake,” he said.
“It’s Huus’ cake,” said Katinka.
“Oh well,” said Bai. “Provided the rest of us are allowed to eat it.”
After coffee, they drove on. Bai was tired of holding the reins and he took Huus’ place on the back seat with Katinka. They were all a little lethargic. The hot summer sun was blazing down on them and the road was dusty. Katinka sat looking at the back of Huus’ head, his broad neck well browned by the sun.
The hotel courtyard was tightly packed with carriages that had been left there. Women and girls who had just descended from the wagon seats were shaking their skirts and smoothing them down. All the windows in the basement were open; a plentiful supply of hot punch was being passed among the card players. A falsetto with piano was busy playing a popular song in the main wing behind rolled blinds.
“That’s one of Agnes’s songs,” said Katinka.
“It’s the Nightingales,” said Bai. “We’ll have to go in and hear them chirp this evening.”
Katinka kept close to the main wing as they walked. But there was nothing to be seen.
“No peeping,” said Bai. “Pay at the entrance.”
Inside, behind the curtains, a screechy woman’s voice started imploring “O Charles, my dear”.
“Oh Charles, my dear,
Please write to me…”
“Oh,” said Katinka, standing by the window and nodding. “That’s the one Agnes sings.”
“That’s where you always wrote…”
“Come on, Tik,” said Bai. “Just you go with Huus. I’ll barge a way through if there’s a crowd.”
“But the first verse is the only one we know by heart,” said Katinka, listening as she took Huus’ arm.
“That’s where you always wrote…”
implored the screeching voice.
“The other songs all say more or less the same,” said Huus.
“Are you coming?” shouted Bai.
Outside the entrance a gangling woman was singing about the mass murderer Thomas, beating his likeness with a cane. The audience stood there sheepishly, repeating the refrain lingeringly just like singing the amen in church.
Long rows of wooden-faced girls walked arm in arm, waiting to be picked out by the boys standing in groups in front of the tents, smoking pipes and with hands buried deep in trouser pockets.
One lad stepped forward.
“Hello, Mary,” he said. And Mary reached him the tip of her fingers. “Hello, Søren,” she said. And the entire line of girls stopped and waited.
Søren stood in front of Mary for a moment, looking first at his pipe and then at his boots. “Goodbye, Mary,” he said.
“Goodbye, Søren.”
And Søren rejoined his group, and the row of girls closed again, and they continued with their mouths primly closed.
“Damn stupid way of carrying on,” said Bai, “blocking the street.”
The married women gathered in groups, standing there looking each other up and down with melancholy mien as though waiting for a corpse. When they spoke, they whispered so it was difficult to hear them, as though they could not really open their mouths properly, and when they had said a couple of words, they stood there again in silence and looked quietly offended.
It was impossible to make any progress. “I’ll use my elbows,” said Katinka. She was constantly being pushed in against Huus.
“Just keep close to me,” said Huus.
It was impossible to hear anything with the gangling female singing about the mass murderer and a couple of barrel organs that forlornly mingled General Bertrand’s song of departure with the Ajaxes’ duet. The grammar school pupils weaved their ways in and out, whistling through their fingers, and lethargic village kids blew up balloons and made them screech while gazing in the air with immovable expressions on their faces.
The sun shone straight down on the street, baking both people and honey cakes.
“Ugh, it’s hot,” said Katinka.
“This is where we can get waffles,” shouted Bai.
“Waffles, ladies, waffles, made by Tyrolese Ferdinand’s brown-eyed daughter.”
“Waffles, Huus, waffles,” said Katinka, forcing her way through a wall of girls who were blocking the street.
The girls squealed. Ooh, the boys from the grammar school had sewn their skirts together.
“It’s all those grammar school lads,” shouted a couple of louts from the council school. They were pinning them with safety pins.
The girls gathered in a group to undo themselves. “Ooh,” they howled. “Ooh.” The boys from the grammar school saw their chance and broke in like lightning to pinch their legs.
“Ooh.” They howled at the top of their voices. Katinka shouted along with them out of sheer giddiness.
“Waffles, ladies, made by Tyrolese Ferdinand’s brown-eyed daughter.”
They went over to the oven: “Three waffles, sir, Dutch ones, fifteen øre.”
“Will you sprinkle some sugar on it, brown-eyes.”
The brown-eyed one sprinkled some sugar with her bare fingers:
“Aye, madam,” said the man, “she has known better days.”
“What about a tip,” he bleated across the street, “for Tyrolese Ferdinand’s brown-eyed daughter?”
The brown-eyed daughter automatically rattled a collection box she was holding out and looked as though she neither heard nor saw.
“Sugar, brown-eyes.”
Again the brown-eyed daughter’s fingers dipped into the sugar.
They reached the market place. “It’s almost enough to deafen you,” said Katinka, putting her hands to her ears. Le Tort, the great professor of conjuring, stood on some high scaffolding, struggling with two trombones and competing with the music emitted by three merry-go-rounds. A white-painted Pierrot dragged a big bass drum up in front of the biggest arena in the world:
“The biggest arena, ladies and gentlemen, the world-famous arena.”
He made music by putting the hindmost part of his body down hard on his drum.
“Miss Flora, Miss Flora, the high trapeze.”
It was just in front of them. “Miss Flora, the Queen of the Air, gentlemen, ten øre.” The barker swung a great bell with his right arm.
“The Queen of the Air, ten øre.”
Professor Le Tort was determined. He proclaimed all sorts of wonders, his voice cracking, and he decided to make five hundred yards of silk ribbon for free. He started regurgitating up there on his scaffolding and pulling strips of tissue paper out of his throat, all the while turning so red faced that he looked as though he was about to have a fit.
“The Queen of the Air, ten øre.”
In the biggest arena in the world, Pierrot was standing on his head on a drum and beating it with the top of his head.
The merry-go-rounds were going to the accompaniment of brass bands and barrel organs.
“Ladies, the Queen of the Air. The Queen of the Air, ten øre.”
The sun baked down on them, the air was filled with the scent of honey cake and there were milling crowds and a great din.
“Isn’t it lovely,” said Katinka. She looked up at Huus and shook herself a little, like a kitten in scorching heat.
“That’s his wife,” she said.
“Who?” asked Huus.
“The one that was doing the washing.”
It was the Queen of the Air going up the steps with pink legs in laced boots and a broad, waggling backside.
“Miss Flora, known as the Queen of the Air, ten øre.”
The Queen of the Air was equipped with a fan which she handled like a fig leaf; she munched a few plums in preparation for going inside and up in the air.
“Shall we go in?” said Katinka.
“Tik,” shouted Bai. He wanted to see the Snake Lady. They pushed their way forward through the crush and passed a merry-go-round. Marie was riding a lion, half on the lap of a cavalryman.
Katinka also wanted to have a ride. Bai said that on no account was he going to pay money to be made sick. Katinka found a horse on the inside alongside Huus. They started to move, slowly and then faster. She nodded to Bai and laughed at all the faces revolving around them.
“What a crowd,” she said. She could see over all their heads.
They had a second ride. “Hold tight,” said Katinka, leaning forward across Huus.
“Be careful,” he said, putting his arm round her.
Katinka smiled and leaned back. All the faces started to merge into one for her. They were simply a mass of black and white that kept on whirling around.
She continued to smile as she closed her eyes.
It was as though all the noise from the fair and the music and the voices and the blaring horns combined in one intense sound in her ears, while everything rocked gently.
She opened her eyes a little: “I can’t see anything,” she said and closed them again.
The bell rang and they started to move more slowly. “Let’s have another turn,” she said. Huus had leant in towards her. She did not realise that she was supporting herself on his shoulder. “Catch it,” she said. They flew past the ring, and she laughed in his face.
She sat with half open eyes looking into the circle of people. It was as though all the faces had been threaded on a string.
Though dizzy, she caught sight of Marie. She had come up again and was sitting in a carriage with her cavalryman.
She was sitting on his knee.
She looked almost as though she was about to swoon.
And all the others: just see how they were leaning tight against the lads, as though they were half dead.
Katinka suddenly straightened up; all her blood had rushed to her head. The merry-go-round stopped.
“Come on,” she said and got down from the horse.
Bai was standing by the ring pole. Katinka took his hand. “It makes you dizzy,” she said, stepping down onto the ground. She was quite pale from having driven around so much.
“You look after Tik, Huus,” said Bai. “I’ll lead the way.” He pinched Marie’s arm as she descended from the merry-go-round with her cavalryman.
Marie was embarrassed to see her employer and his family and disentangled herself from her blue-uniformed companion.
“She’s getting on fine,” said Bai as he set off.
“It’s just here,” said Katinka. Huus offered her his arm.
The snake lady Miss Theodora was displaying her lethargic pets alongside the merry-go-round. They were fat, slimy creatures that she took out of a box containing blankets. Miss Theodora tickled them under their chins to liven them up a little.
“They are digesting their lunch, miss,” said Bai in his club voice.
“What did you say?” said Miss Theodora. “Don’t you think they are alive?” Miss Theodora took the reference to digesting their lunch as an insult.
She took the snake by its neck and scratched its head so that it opened its jaws and managed to produce a hiss.
Miss Theodora called it her little pet and held it to her breast. Miss Theodora was of impressive female girth and wore a pageboy suit.
The snake quietly allowed its tail to hang between the lady’s knees. “Sweetie,” said Miss Theodora.
“Let’s go,” said Katinka. “It’s horrible.” She had taken Huus’ arm in disgust.
“Yes,” said the owner, flattered in her assumption that this was from fear and feeling duly flattered. “Difficult beasts, my dear. But she’s tamed lions as well.”
Katinka was already outside.
“I don’t know how people can do that sort of thing,” she said. She was trembling all over.
“Aye,” said Bai, passing his hands over it like an expert. The owner had asked the “gentleman” to convince himself that the animals could really move “as well as on a bare body”.
“Aye,” said Bai. “There’s meat on it all right.”
The snake lady Theodora gave a conciliated smile as she put her “little dears” back into their box.
“Aye,” said its owner, “she used to tame lions, sir.”
“For eight years,” said Miss Theodora.
Huus and Katinka were on the other side of the square. It was gradually starting to grow dark, and all the barkers were shouting in competition with each other, eagerly and desperately, on the stands.
“Reduced price, reduced price for you, lady,” the professor shouted to Katinka. He wiped the sweat off with ‘the remarkable handkerchief’, “Twenty øre for you and your gentleman friend.”
Katinka walked on so much faster that Bai could hardly keep up.
People started to be merrier. Groups of unsteady lads ran singing towards the rows of girls, who screamed and scattered; and couples were gradually starting to flirt in the lanes formed by the tents.
A great noise issued from the refreshment tents and from up where the brown-eyed daughter was pouring cognac on the waffles.
The three policemen hobbled around with their walking sticks. They were men who had been slightly wounded during the wars and who were keeping together to maintain order; here and there, in groups behind the tents, the grammar school boys suddenly started whistling through their fingers and piercing the air above all the din.
It grew darker and darker as Katinka and Huus walked down along the rows of tents, buying this and that.
Storm lanterns were already being lit in the tents, throwing a sparse light over buns and honey cakes. The ladies behind the high counters polished the honey cakes with the flat of their hands making them shine and handed them to Huus and Katinka on a long scoop.
Bai turned up and bought some as well.
Huus had bought Katinka a small Japanese tray as a present from the fair. She gave him a honey cake.
“Hey,” said Bai. “Are you giving Huus honey cake? Give him one shaped like a heart.”
“Miss,” he shouted, “can we have a heart here.”
“A heart, sir, with a poem.”
“Bai,” said Katinka.
“There is going to be a shower,” said Huus behind them.
“Blast.” Bai turned from the counter.
The first spots fell. “It’ll soon be throwing it down,” said Bai.
“We can shelter in the panorama,” said Huus.
“Yes.” Katinka took Bai’s arm. “Come on.”
Everyone ran to get indoors. Women and girls threw their skirts over their heads and ran off with handkerchiefs arranged in squares over their new hats.
“Look there,” said Bai. “My God, petticoats are on show now.”
The girls stood around in the doorways, revealing their blue stockings with tops hidden by their Icelandic petticoats.
The tradesfolk dragged their wares under cover, cursing and swearing. The grammar school boys ran all over the place, making a din and getting drenched.
“Here it is,” said Katinka.
“All of Italy, ladies and gentlemen, for fifty øre.” The man was hoarse and wrapped in woollen scarves: “There we are.”
“It’s pouring down,” said Katinka. She stood at the entrance to the tent and shook herself as she looked out.
The water ran in torrents as though the sluice gates had been opened. Half the market place was already under water. The slightly wounded policemen were running around, limping as they went, under their umbrellas and raising the gutter coverings.
All around, under the tents and in doorways, stood the women, soaked to the skin and looking less than perfect.
Inside the panorama, all was empty and quite quiet. The heavy, monotonous drumming of the rain on the roof could be heard, and then it had become quite cool.
It was as though Katinka caught her breath after all the din.
“Oh, how nice it is here,” she said.
“They are country scenes,” said Bai, who had started looking in the peepholes.
“Blue water,” he said and went on. He preferred to go out into the entrance hall to see what might be revealed beneath the Icelandic skirts.
Katinka remained seated. She felt as though reborn in here, alone with Huus in the silence beneath the falling rain.
“They are not playing,” she said.
“No, because of the rain.”
They both listened to the falling rain.
“What a din there was, though,” she said.
Katinka would have preferred to stay there and sit listening to the rain. But nevertheless she rose: “Are they really of Italy?”
“That’s what he said.”
She looked through one of the peepholes. “Yes,” she said. “It’s Italy.”
There was some artificial light in there directed on the pictures, which shone out in bright colours.
“It is so beautiful.”
“It’s the gulf,” said Huus, “near Naples.”
The picture was not bad. Gulf and beach and city lay bathed in shimmering sunlight. Boats were skimming across the blue waters.
“Naples,” breathed Katinka in a quiet voice.
She continued to look in the peephole. Huus looked at the same picture in the peephole alongside hers.
“Have you been there?”
“Yes, I was there for two months.”
“Sailing?”
“Yes, to Sorrento.”
“Sorrento,” Katinka lingered over the foreign name as she gently repeated it.
“Yes,” she said. “Travel.”
They went along the row of peepholes and looked at the pictures while standing beside each other. The rain was less intense as it fell on the roof, and finally it was no more than a few drops.
They saw Rome and the Coliseum. Huus told her about them.
“It is so grand,” said Katinka, “that it almost makes you afraid.”
“I like Naples best.”
Outside, the barrel organs started to play. The merry-go-round bell rang. Katinka had almost forgotten where she was.
“I don’t think it’s raining any longer.”
“No, it’s gone off now.”
Katinka looked round her in the room. “Then Bai will be waiting,” she said.
She went back and once more looked at the Bay of Naples with the hurrying boats.
Bai came in and said that the street was open to regular traffic again.
“So I suppose we can go out to the park?” he said.
They went. The air was cool and fresh. Crowds of happy people were making their way towards the park.
The trees and hawthorn hedges were perfumed after the rain.
The sun was sinking, and over by the entrance to the park coloured lamps were being lit on the decorated arch. The lads were drifting along with their arms around the lasses’ waists. All the benches along the road were occupied by young people sitting close together, secretly courting.
“Now we’re going to have a dance,” said Bai.
Outside the dance floor crowds of adolescent boys and girls were watching over the railings. Inside, the dance floor resounded to the beat of a polka.
“Come on, Tik,” said Bai. “We’ll open the dancing.”
Bai danced ferociously and continued to weave his way in and out among the other couples.
“Oh Bai, please,” said Katinka, quite breathless.
“I can still manage to shuffle around,” said Bai. He was swinging his hips to a completely wrong rhythm.
“Oh Bai, please.”
“I can still get her going,” said Bai as they went over to Huus.
“Now I’d better keep up the good work,” he said, clicking his heels as at the club balls, “and get the ladies moving.”
Bai was making Katinka feel uncomfortable.
“Bai is so frisky,” she said when he had left them.
“Will you dance with me?” said Huus.
“Yes. In a moment. Let’s just wait a moment.”
They could see Bai waggling his hips together with a buxom farmer’s daughter in a velvet corsage.
“Let’s walk a little,” said Katinka.
They left the dance floor and walked a little way down the road, where the music was not so loud.
Katinka sat down. “Sit down,” she said. “This makes one so tired.”
It was quiet in the woods. Only a few odd sounds of music reached them now and then. They sat in silence. Huus fiddled with a stick on the ground.
“Where is she now?” Katinka asked suddenly. She was sitting there looking down.
“She?”
“Yes, your fiancée.”
“She is married, thank goodness.”
“Thank goodness?”
“Yes, one would always feel some responsibility if she were now simply left high and dry.”
“But you couldn’t help that.”
Katinka was silent for a time: “If she was fond of you.”
“She was fond of me,” said Huus. “I know that now.”
Katinka rose. “Has she any children?” she asked. They had already moved a little further along the road.
“Yes, a little boy.”
They spoke no more until they reached the dance floor. “Shall we dance now?” said Katinka.
The small lanterns had been lit all around and threw a sparse light down on the benches along the sides. The couples danced out into the light and then back again into the darkness; everything on the dance floor constituted a black, indeterminate, rather restless throng gliding in and out.
Huus and Katinka started to dance. Huus danced calmly and led confidently, and for Katinka it was as though she was at rest in his arms.
She heard it all, music and voices and tramping, as something quite far away and was only aware that he led her so confidently, in and out.
Huus continued to dance in the same quiet way. Katinka felt her heart beating and knew that her cheeks were burning. But she did not ask him to stop and she said nothing.
They continued to dance.
“Can we see the sky?” said Katinka suddenly.
“No,” said Huus. “The trees are hiding it.”
“So the trees are hiding it,” whispered Katinka.
They danced.
“Huus,” she said, looking up at him and not knowing why her eyes were full of tears, “I’m tired.”
Huus stopped and protected her with his arm as they made their way through the throng.
“This is great fun,” said Bai. He whirled past them at the entrance.
They went down the step and drifted out along a path.
It was quite dark among the trees; it was as though it had grown hotter again after the rain, and they were met by the intense perfume of flowering hawthorn.
All around beneath trees and in the undergrowth there was whispering and movement as tightly embracing couples hid on the benches in the darkness.
“Huus, Bai must be waiting for us,” said Katinka. “We’d better go.”
They turned back.
“Aye,” said Bai, “let’s go and see what all the screeching is about over there. There are supposed to be some ‘chorus girls’ in the pavilion, and they’re said to be rather nice to look at. But first I’m going to have a last dance with that little country lass over there. You go and shake a leg with Katinka again, Huus, and make sure she doesn’t just sit there.”
Huus put his arm round Katinka, and they danced again.
Katinka was oblivious as to whether they had danced for a minute or an hour as they walked through the woods in the direction of the pavilion.
Five ladies were singing at the door to greet them. They were waving tassels and placed two fingers on their hearts:
“Here come we,
Jolly good company,
Fighting as you see,
All male tyranny…”
“There’s a cosy corner here,” said Bai. “We can see the ladies from here.”
They sat down. It was almost impossible to see faces around them for smoke and fumes. The five ladies were singing about bayonets and bravery. When they had finished, they drank some punch and flirted with their onlookers by putting rose petals in their bodices and giggling behind their grubby fans.
“Nice girls,” said Bai.
Katinka scarcely heard him; Huus sat with his head in his hands, staring down at the dirty floor.
A little pianist looking like a grasshopper threw himself at a piano as though he was going to play it with his thin nose.
The ladies argued as to whose turn it was.
“It’s you, Julie,” came an irate whisper from behind the fans. “God knows. It’s Julie.”
“The Chimney Sweep,” Julie addressed the crowd in a loud voice.
“That’s not allowed,” shouted a couple of ladies behind their fans down to the pianist. “She’s singing a song that’s not allowed, Sørensen.”
Down in the hall people started tapping their glasses.
“Ugh, just because Josefine can’t sing it.”
Miss Julie sang, “The Chimney Sweep”:
“Our August, the chimney sweep
A splendid coat of arms did keep…”
Bai thumped the table so hard he almost broke the toddy glasses:
“How’s that, Tik?” he said.
Katinka started. She had not been listening at all.
“All right,” she said.
“Brilliant,” said Bai, “brilliant.” He clapped again.
“The popular ballad singer, Miss Mathilde Nielsen,” shouted Miss Julie.
The popular ballad singer Miss Mathilde Nielsen wore a long dress and was solemn in appearance. The other ladies said, “Mathilde’s got some voice.” Mathilde had fallen and split her nose as a child.
While the piano introduction was being played, she placed her hand on her heart.
It was the song about Sorrento.
“There the tall and darkling pines
Give their shade to farmers’ vines
There orange grove and luscious lime
Their perfumes give to this sweet clime;
There boats rock gently by the shore
As happy lovers by the score
So loud Madonna’s praises sing
And then to her their prayers do bring.”
Miss Mathilde Nielsen’s singing was sentimental with long, tremulous notes.
When the song was at an end, the ‘ladies’ applauded by striking their fans against their outstretched hands.
The singer of popular ballads, ‘Miss’ Nielsen, bowed to express her thanks.
“I do believe that song’s got Tik blubbering,” said Bai. Katinka really had tears in her eyes as she sat there.
They went outside. “Let’s go back through the churchyard,” said Bai.
“Through the churchyard?” said Katinka.
“Aye, it’s the shortest way and it’s rather nice.”
Katinka took Huus’ arm and they followed Bai. They emerged from the woods and walked down an avenue. Noise and music died away behind them.
“Aye,” said Bai, “quite a day, a day put to good use.” He went on about the dance: “They do go at it, those village kids. And the ‘ladies’. ‘Miss Julie’, some girl in those boots, bright lass. And Marie, well now we’ll see what’s been going on. I know her.”
The other two said nothing. Nor was either of them listening. It was so quiet that they could hear their own steps on the ground. At the end of the avenue, the iron gate leading into the churchyard towered up with its great cross above.
“Oh, but Bai,” said Katinka.
“Do you think there are ghosts in here?” said Bai. He opened the side gate.
They went in. Katinka took Huus’ arm as they entered through the gate. The churchyard looked like a great garden in the dusk. Roses and box hedges and jasmines and limes filled the air with a heavy scent, and grey and white stones rose among the hedges.
Katinka held tight onto Huus’ arm as they walked along.
Bai led the way. He tramped past the shrubbery and swung his arms about as though he was trying to frighten a flock of poultry.
Katinka stopped: “Just look at that.”
An open space had been made through the trees, opening up the view down across the fields to the fjord. The dusk floated like a veil over the dark, shiny surface of the water, silent and dreamy.
All was silent, as though life itself had died beneath the perfumed air. They stood close to each other, quite still.
They moved on slowly. Katinka stopped now and then and quietly read the inscriptions on the stones which stood out white in the dusk. She read them, names and years, in a quiet, tremulous voice.
“Loved and missed.”
“Loved beyond the grave.”
“He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.”
She went closer and raised the branches of the weeping willow; she was going to read the name on the stone.
Then there was a rustling noise from behind the willow.
“Huus,” she said and grabbed his arm.
Something started off and fled over the fence.
“It was a couple,” said Huus.
“Oh, I was so frightened,” said Katinka, holding her hands to her breast.
She continued to walk close to him; her heart was beating fiercely.
They no longer spoke. There was a rustling in the shrubbery now and then and Katinka started.
“There, there, dear, it’s all right,” whispered Huus as though to a child. Katinka’s hand was trembling beneath his.
Bai was standing at the end of the pathway.
“Are you there?” he said.
He opened the gate. It clicked shut on its iron hinges after them.
Out in the avenue, Bai took Huus aside:
“It’s a flaming scandal,” he said, “that people can behave like that. It’s a desecration of sacred ground. Kjær had told me about it, of course. The things those wretches get up to. But I didn’t think it was possible, damn it. Not even to have respect for the dead in a cemetery, the garden of the dead. Bloody disgrace. You can’t even be left in peace on the damned benches.”
Huus could have hit him.
They went down through the streets. The tents were closed and deserted. Here and there a tradesman would be gathering his wares with the help of a solitary torch.
The noise from the inn could be heard in the street. Sleepy, wilting people were drifting home in pairs.
Marie emerged at the entrance to the hotel. She was tired and worn.
Katinka waited by the carriage. People round about were hitching their horses and driving off. The ‘nightingales’ were singing at the tops of their voices out in the courtyard.
They took their seats. Bai wanted to drive and sat with Marie.
“Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling Clementine…”
“They do keep at it,” said Bai.
They drove through the night, past the forest and on over the flat fields.
Marie sat there, bent over the basket on her lap. Huus and Katinka sat in silence, staring out across the countryside. Bai spoke now and then.
“Whoa.”
“Come on, easy now.”
And then all was silent as before.
Bai wanted “something to keep him going” and pestered Marie until she found a bottle of port wine.
“Do you want some?” he said.
“No, thank you,” said Huus.
“You’re making a mistake there, damn it.” Bai took the bottle from his mouth. “Your stomach needs something to stand against the night air.”
Bai took another gulp. “You learn that in the field,” he said.
He started to talk about the Prussians and the war.
“Nice people,” he said, “taken one by one. Eat a lot, eat a dreadful lot, but kind-hearted, really kind-hearted taken on their own. But when they’re in the army, then they’re proper devils.”
No one replied. Marie was nodding again.
Katinka merely wished he would be quiet.
“But my hat, how they can stuff themselves,” said Bai again.
He started to become all patriotic and spoke about old Denmark and the blood-red Danish flag. Then he lapsed into silent reflections when no one answered.
The only sound was that made by the horses in their harness. Now and again a cock was heard to crow over the fields.
“Put your shawl on,” said Huus. “It’s cold.”
He carefully laid the blue shawl around Katinka’s shoulders.
Gradually, day dawned over the fields.
“I suppose you’ll give us a bit of breakfast,” said Bai. They were home and standing on the steps in the grey morning light, not quite knowing what to do.
“Yes, if you like,” said Katinka.
But Huus had to go home. It was the busy time of the year.
“Oh well, as you like,” said Bai. He yawned and went inside. Marie had gone off laden with the baskets.
Huus and Katinka were left alone. She leant against the doorpost. They did not speak for a moment or two.
“Well, thank you for a lovely day,” she said. The words came gently and uncertainly.
“Surely I’m the one who should say thank you.” This came in the form of an exclamation, and in a flash Huus had taken her hand and kissed it twice and three times with burning lips.
And then he was up in the carriage and away.
“What the devil took hold of him?” said Bai, coming out. “Has he gone?”
Katinka remained standing on the same spot. “Yes,” she said, “he left.”
She leant on the doorpost and then quietly went inside.
Katinka sat by the open window. Day had come in all its fullness. Larks and all the birds were singing in celebration over the meadow. The summer fields were filled with song and sun and chirping.