Barbara (23 page)

“Do you understand? Here I am reasoning and studying the chart of the ocean called human life. And then you suddenly come along and put out to sea with all sails unfurled.”

“Towards my own shipwreck of course, you say.”

“Well yes. But understand me aright: a philosopher never suffers a total shipwreck. And so it was just this that I wanted to say to you: since you have got yourself on this vessel, go on like a philosopher. Make your philosophical and moral observations of everything you see and hear, and every day measure the strength of the wind force of foolishness. Then you will make shore one day, perhaps robbed of your vessel, but in return you will be able with an omniscient smile to shake your head and say, ‘this world, this world,’ just like my aunt Ellen Katrine.”

Pastor Poul still felt confused.

“It’s something new for me to hear,” he said, “that foolishness should be a means of achieving wisdom.”

The judge stopped and laughed. With his thin fingers he made a gesture as though he were a preacher: “For a man of God such as you this shouldn’t be so difficult to understand. Just as you have doubtless discovered that the road to salvation goes through sin, so the road to wisdom goes through foolishness.”

Pastor Poul thought he recognised something in this train of thought. He felt ensnared by it, though it helped him through a difficulty.

“I thought you were a disciple of Baron Holberg and men of that kind,” he said, “whose moral stance is said to rest exclusively on reason.”

The judge suddenly sat down. He looked as though he had a pain in his stomach; he grimaced and was as though in pain:

“Well, what am I to say? The only thing you have to hold on to is your poor reason. That is why one reads Holberg and Bayle and Locke and all those men. But if, in my ignorance, I can take the liberty of criticising these writers a little, it would be to say that in all their reason they forget that Man is fundamentally unreasonable and can simply not live without foolishness. I am not far from sharing my brother Wenzel’s belief in original sin.”

“Original sin?”

“Yes, or original unreason. Sin and foolishness are only two names for the same thing. My brother Wenzel encounters it with a vengeance and calls it sin and for that reason pesters Heaven with a tedious correspondence concerning the miserable and perverse state of his own heart. I do not feel myself to be one iota better than he, but yet I cannot see myself as anything but laughable and foolish. Viewed correctly, my dear Pastor Poul, we are all of us nothing but monkeys. We are ravaged by jealousy, greed, covetousness and vanity. Especially vanity.”

He shook his head and laughed: “But that is because of our natures, whether it is the Devil or someone else that has planted this monkey nature within us.”

“How true, how true indeed,” said Pastor Poul. “What would we all be if God in His love had not given us the grace that makes all our sins as white as snow?”

“Grace,” said the judge, “bah. Grace… rubbish. What is grace but smelling salts to sniff at when the foot sweat of sin becomes rather too pungent?”

Pastor Poul could not help smiling. He thought of the hymn sung by Pastor Severin and Pastor Marcus. But all this was dreadful; it was heresy; it was unlawful.

“No,” Johan Hendrik went on, “smelling salts can perhaps take the smell away, but the sweat remains even so, damn it. You are only stifling one piece of foolishness with another.”

Pastor Poul shook his head and said, “What you are saying only applies to the orthodox. Modern Christians do not believe in grace unless with an honest heart you repent your sins and try to improve your life. If you don’t do that, then you do not
receive
grace.”

“What do you mean by ‘an honest heart’? Aye, you must forgive me for asking you like another Pontius Pilate.”

The judge rose and again started to walk up and down. Pastor Poul thought of his own heart. It could not be entirely honest. In relation to Barbara that morning it had been shamefully inconstant and erratic. He did not know whether he had loved her at all at that moment or whether it was not all some enchantment. He had no answer for the judge.

“Well, there you are,” said Johan Hendrik. “We cannot escape the monkey in our own hearts, whether we are Christians or atheists. Have you read Pascal? No, of course not. My brother Wenzel has not read him either, and that is a mistake. But he has read Kingo, and he says, ‘Farewell, oh world, farewell.’ Well, does he the blazes. But never mind, he is only a monkey like all the rest of us. I really don’t know how God is to differentiate between us. My own poor reason has not taken me any further than recognising my foolishness, but it has never persuaded me to try to improve my unreasonable heart. It has not helped me more than grace. And yet I cannot find any other way of worshipping God than with the light I have been given to examine the fool within me and try to be of use in the world in which I have been placed. In my circumstances there is little to learn and less to achieve. But you, my dear friend, you must know that the people who encounter true grace are those whom fate has grasped to play, as though they were an instrument. But whether these people can be bothered to learn anything from it is another matter.”

“I consider you a heretic, Mr Heyde,” said Pastor Poul. “But I must confess that I have learnt something from you.”

The judge made no reply. He stood by a small table and was busy screwing a flute together. When he had finished, he put the instrument to his lips and blew a long cadence.

“Well, see,” he said. “This is one of
my
follies. I cannot refrain from playing the flute even though there is nothing rational or moral in it.”

He again blew a long, trembling trill and then stood thoughtfully holding the flute in his two hands: “Even that old fogey Holberg had a passion for music. You wouldn’t have expected it of him. Have you ever seen him?”

“No, he was dead before I started at the university.”

“Oh yes.
I
once heard him playing… one evening when I passed his house in Copenhagen.”

Johan Hendrik played a few short pieces and talked in between them. He told about his nephew Andreas Heyde, who was an excellent violinist. Andreas’ father was dead, and he himself was now studying economics in Copenhagen.

“Economics?”asked Pastor Poul in surprise.

“Yes,” nodded the judge. I saw to that. “Then he might perhaps be of some use to his native land. Wenzel, of course, wanted him to study theology. He thought the other was far too worldly a subject.”

“And then he argued that theology was at least a subject on which you could earn your bread and butter.”

Johan Hendrik grimaced. “Oh, this world, this world,” he added, shrugging his shoulders.

“You are no great lover of the clergy, I can understand,” said Pastor Poul with a smile.

“Not as great as Mrs Aggersøe!”

The judge suddenly lowered his instrument and made a deep and very affable bow in the direction of the open window.

“Good morning, Johan Hendrik,” came the sound of Barbara’s voice outside. “Your playing has drawn me here.”

“Hmm,” said the judge. “You can easily kid me with that. I know why you are here. But it is only a good thing that you miss your husband.”

Pastor Poul had immediately risen. His wife blinked when she saw him and then laughed, though unconvincingly.

“Actually” she said, blushing, “I really came because of the music. I didn’t know Poul was here.”

“Well, come in,” said the judge. “And I will play for both of you. It ought to be on an
oboe d’amour
now.”

Barbara looked at the judge and laughed. It seemed to Pastor Poul as though there existed some understanding between the two of which he knew nothing.

“An
oboe d’amour
– do you know what that is, Barbara?” the judge went on. “You don’t understand the word, perhaps? But you always know the melody.”

“No, I must get on,” said Barbara. “I simply haven’t the time to stand here; I have
so
much to do. By the way, there’s a ship in the offing. They say it’s the
Fortuna
.”

She waved goodbye and smiled once more at the judge. But when she had gone a little way down the alleyway, she turned round and blew a kiss to her husband. By then, the judge had retired to the middle of the room.

“Yes,” he said, “you have a lovely wife. I have paid court to her since she was a little girl, and she has always been so charming as to pretend that she has not known how old I am.”

Pastor Poul gave him a dubious look. These careless words pleased him, but they did not quench his thirst for reassurance. He wanted most to open his entire heart to the judge, to implore at least this man to be his ally. But he feared to have truths revealed to him that were too devastating. He had already discovered that Johan Hendrik was a surgeon who used the knife without mercy. So he turned the conversation on to more ordinary subjects, and it was not long before he took his leave.

“Goodbye,” said the judge. “If there is any way in which I can be of service to you, I hope you will come again. I shall be following you with interest.”

Johan Hendrik did not know whether he should appreciate this interest. He felt as though he was a boat made of paper that had been pushed out to sail in a great river. For the moment, the current was gentle. He lay turning this way and that in the tidal waters of love.

At that moment, a certain movement could be sensed in the streets of the town. Windows were opened, people were looking out and a few hurried off down the narrow stepped alleyways leading down to the shore. When Pastor Poul came down to Nýggjastova, he saw that a ship was approaching. He recognised it as the
Fortuna
, the ship which had brought him to the country one dark November morning nine months ago.

Neither Barbara nor her mother was at home. He had the impression that the entire town was on its toes. The sun was shining and the flags were raised on the Redoubt. The mood was as on some public occasion. On the way to Tinganes he caught up with the law speaker and joined him. He asked him if they were not soon to be leaving.

“My dear friend,” Samuel Mikkelsen replied, looking at him with a smile. “Just when the ship has arrived! No, I don’t think we shall be getting away today after all.”

Pastor Poul had all along had some indeterminate feeling of antipathy towards this ship. Now he was quite irritated as a result of its arrival. He was suddenly keen to get away as soon as possible; he was on edge and worried at having to remain in Havn any longer. His concern increased when he arrived at the Hoist… here he found Barbara at the centre of the crowd. She scarcely heeded him, but went around without having her eyes on anything but the ship.

“Good Lord,” he thought. “Am I now to be jealous of a ship?” He had to shake his head at his own foolishness. This was not a great problem with which to burden his heart.

When the ship soon afterwards dropped anchor in the East Bay, an unfamiliar figure could be glimpsed on the deck. It was presumably a passenger, but no one was able to say who it was, for no one was expected. People stood around in inquisitive groups chatting and making guesses. They had a long wait, a wait filled with excitement. But when the boat was at last on its way towards the shore again with the skipper and the unknown stranger on board, there was suddenly a cry of recognition from the quick group of women right out by the Hoist:

“Andreas. It’s Andreas.”

And now everyone could see that it was Andreas Heyde, the student, who had come back home.

The Reverend Wenzel Heyde, who had also come down to Tinganes, suddenly acquired two flushed cheeks: “That was not the idea… that was not the idea.”

Even the judge looked as though he disapproved. He had always imagined that his nephew would finish his studies before coming home. He had to admit that this did not suggest very serious study. But otherwise it appeared that the people of Tórshavn were happy to see Andreas again; they crowded together down by the Hoist and surrounded him as soon as he set foot ashore.

Andreas Heyde quickly made his way through the crowd, greeting people and laughing. He had a fair, manly face and very big, cheerful eyes. His clothes were those of a gentleman, well tailored, but he wore them in a careless manner of his own. His hat was skewed, and there was tobacco dust in the folds in his waistcoat. The bottom buttons were not even fastened, so that his shirt ballooned a little over his waistband. He made straight for his uncles and greeted them cheerfully, after which he was so busy shaking the hands of people both high and low that he simply had no time to answer questions.

Not until things had calmed down around him and he had brushed a little snuff away did he suddenly turn his head to look at his two uncles and say, “Well! That was a surprise for you, wasn’t it.”

There was a light and cheerful, perhaps a slightly challenging tone in his voice.

“Your uncle and I…” Pastor Wenzel began in a serious and solemn tone.

Andreas interrupted him with a little laugh. He stood with both hands in his pockets and, to the sound of a slight click, sank first one knee and then the other. “See here,” he said, taking out a paper: “Resolution of the Royal Exchequer! You hadn’t expected that, had you!”

The Tórshavners stood around exchanging quite loud comments on the new arrival. They all knew him; he belonged there, and they were proud of him. Someone commented that it was a man like him who ought to have got the bailiff’s daughter instead of that oaf Gabriel.

“I don’t think you had better say that,” said another. “Andreas is probably used to finer young ladies than the bailiff’s daughter.”

“Bah,” said a third one. “Finer than the bailiff’s daughter! If Suzanne isn’t a fine lady…”

“Aye, she’s fine here in Tórshavn, but what about out in the rest of the world?”

“Tórshavners are never too fine for Tórshavners,” concluded Whoops. “Suzanne, poor thing, it was not prophesied at her birth that she would have to marry some great local hulk, and I’ve told him that to his face.”

“You’re mad, so you are. He’ll soon be manager.”