Barbara (28 page)

Pastor Poul spoke few words after this. Twenty-four hours ago he had still been a radiantly happy man, and even an hour ago he had been full of confidence and hope. Now he was helpless in a trap. His misfortune was so great that he could scarcely conceive of it.

Farmer Niklas, the churchwarden, thought to himself that the minister was more upset by this misfortune than was reasonable.

“The weather is not really bad,” he said, “and as far as I can see, there is no sign of a gale coming. It’s just the direction of the wind that is so confoundedly unfortunate. But if the delay isn’t more than a day or two? Let’s hope for the best.”

Pastor Poul gave Niklas a kindly look but at the same time shrugged his shoulders as though he nevertheless considered it all to be pretty hopeless. He went across to the window. The weather still looked quite good; there was no movement to be seen on the endless, grey surface of the sea, where glimpses of sunshine could be seen glinting here and there.

He felt as though he had been placed under some sort of spell.

Farmer Niklas had the table laid and put on it the best food the farm could boast of. Pastor Poul was friendly and polite, but he had no appetite whatever, and early though the dusk was falling, he asked Niklas to show him where he was to sleep.

It was some relief to him to be left entirely to himself. A kind of dull calm gradually came over him. He consoled himself by asking, when it came to the point, why should he fear the worst? And even if the worst did happen! Should it break him completely? Surely he was both a man and a priest?

But at all events, this was a test, a hard test. He prayed that God would support him. It was a long and fervent prayer, and he felt that it gave him strength. “We must see how it goes,” he whispered to himself. “Time will tell. God alone must decide.”

When he awoke the following morning, he did not, as he had expected, feel his heart pierced by despair. On the contrary, he felt consoled and collected. There was no particular change in the weather. There was a little wind, but otherwise the same silver red dawn as yesterday. Pastor Poul embarked on a conversation with the churchwarden. After breakfast they went round the village together. The minister wanted to visit the sick and the old people. It passed his time. He gradually grew accustomed to the thought of this misfortune, which, when it came to the point, was perhaps not a misfortune at all, but merely a test for him and for her. He imagined his arrival home. Barbara coming to meet him, smiling, and his being as it were already able to see in her smile that all was well. Aye, perhaps Barbara had really changed in the course of these deep, happy winter months that they had spent alone together in the parsonage. Perhaps she was not the old Barbara, but a new Barbara, a transfigured and loyal Barbara filled with longing.

Eleven days passed before the weather was such that the minister could leave. On the other hand, it then turned as beautiful as if it were midsummer. The wide sound between Mikines and Vágar was only disturbed by choppy sea and by the quick-moving flashing tracks of the wake bearing the boat along at great speed. Sørvág Fjord was as calm as an inland lake and full of reflections of clouds and steep mountain sides. In Sørvág the leading oarsman found a horse for Pastor Poul and rode with him as far as the lake. A small group of oarsmen were already waiting, ready with a small boat. The minister had said that he was in a great hurry.

Pastor Poul had at first felt grateful and relieved on this journey home. He had felt he was being helped by God and by human beings. But the closer he came to Midvág and Jansegard, the more his spirits sank. The image of Barbara coming to meet him gradually gave way to another picture, which was not really a picture at all, but a void. Void! Empty rooms! And a void that blankly told him that Barbara was not at home. That Mrs Aggersøe had gone to Tórshavn… on a visit.

Barbara is not at home!

Barbara is not at home. The certainty struck him like an icy shudder as he hurried down towards Midvág. There, the village came into view, and the sands, and Jansegard. No, Barbara was not at home. That really was the situation. It was the old, half deaf maid Kristine, whose voice was to give him this news in the everyday and thoroughly dutiful voice of a servant. Barbara had gone to Tórshavn. She had left no message.

Pastor Poul went backwards and forwards in the empty rooms for a moment, still clad in his travelling clothes and with a blanket over his arm. “Barbara,” came the sob deep down inside him.

He went into the hearth room to ask Kristine whether Barbara had left alone or with someone else. But he could not get the question across his lips. Suddenly he thought of the law speaker. Samuel Mikkelsen… Samuel Mikkelsen must surely be on his side! He surely could… he surely could not have allowed that thing to happen that now had happened.

Pastor Poul threw down the blanket, loosed his travelling clothes a little, but did not take the time to take them off. He was quickly out of the door and on his way to Sandavág. He felt that talking to Samuel Mikkelsen would be the saving of him. He ran most of the way, and when he reached Sandavág he was drenched with sweat and so out of breath that he could hardly speak.

He found Samson on the Stegaard croft. He said that his father was down at the boathouses. He would be home before long.

Pastor Poul sat down on the boulder nearest to him. He was tired out.

“Won’t you come inside?” asked Samson. “You are not very comfortable there.”

“I’m all right,” said Pastor Poul, brusque and preoccupied.

Samson saw the look in his eyes. He left him in peace and went indoors. There, he merely said that the minister was outside. “He wouldn’t come in,” he added. Not much was said about this. A couple of curious eyes peered out. They saw the minister sitting there in the dusk with his elbows supported on his knees, hiding his face. No one ventured to disturb him.

Down on the shoreline a dot had appeared; it rose and grew slowly out of the ground, first a head and then a pair of shoulders, and then gradually the full figure of a man slowly approaching and growing bigger and bigger in the twilight. It was the law speaker on his way home. The clergyman suddenly saw him as a big shadow in front of him and jumped up. Samuel Mikkelsen wished him good evening.

“Barbara has left me,” said Pastor Poul.

The law speaker made no reply. He stood there looking unhappy.

“Won’t you come inside?” he asked at last in a quiet voice. “Come, let us go this way.”

They went through a special door into the law speaker’s study.

“I am furious about this,” were Samuel Mikkelsen’s first words after they had sat silent for a while. “It was not with my blessing they went to Tórshavn together, but I couldn’t prevent them. I tried to reason with them, but as you can imagine… it is pointless to try to talk to people when they are in the grip of such madness.”

The law speaker spoke gently and hesitantly. Nevertheless, it tore at the parson’s heart, and when he heard the words in the grip of such madness he was overcome by a sense of deep dismay.

“Andreas is so impetuous,” continued Samuel Mikkelsen. “I ought not to have invited him out here to the west… but it didn’t for a moment strike me…”

“He would have come sooner or later in any case,” said the minister. “This had to happen.”

“Let me give you a dram,” said the law speaker, almost pleadingly persuasive.

He opened a cupboard and filled a silver goblet to the brim. Pastor Poul pushed it away. “No thank you. Not now… I… no thank you.”

“You are perhaps like me,” said the law speaker. “I don’t much like the strong stuff unless I’m feeling happy.”

“I’m not in the mood,” mumbled the priest.

They sat for a while in silence. The goblet stood on the table between them.

“You could drink it as medicine, you know,” suggested the law speaker.

The parson made no reply. Suddenly, he emptied the goblet.

“That would do your heart good,” said the law speaker.

The minister felt it did his heart good. Suddenly, he smiled. He smiled like a dog; his eyes were glazed and hungry.

“Aye,” he said. “I’m not in the least bit surprised, not a bit. For I knew it already.”

The law speaker perhaps also smiled for a split second. He was thinking that he, too, knew it beforehand. If not exactly this, then something like it. Then he went for the bottle again and once more filled the goblet.

Pastor Poul sat mumbling to himself. He repeated in a dull voice: “But it had to be like this. Although I knew it so well all the time, I couldn’t act differently.”

“No,” said the law speaker. “I suppose not.”

“Aye, aye, that’s how things are.”

Pastor Poul drained the goblet again. His eyes were like those of a blind man, and he drank avidly. “Oh, yes,” he said.

The door slowly opened. Armgard came in with a candle; she was rather bent and slow in her movements when she walked around. She screwed up her cold eyes as she looked at the parson.

“Good evening, Pastor Poul,” she said slightly ironically. “And how are you?”

“I’m all right, thank you,” said the parson. “And you?”

Armgard had sat down with her knitting.

“How can one live when one’s relatives…?” She broke off.

The knitting needles were in motion; they went like a machine. Her eyes half closed.

They all sat for a while in silence. The minister had not eaten since that morning. He felt that the law speaker’s cognac was beginning to dull his senses. There was something like black snow in front of his eyes; the fierce pain in his breast had lessened just a little.

“When I come to think of it,” he said, “it’s perhaps not quite so overwhelming… I mean, well, one must be able to rise above one’s own fate. I can see the ludicrous element in it. Ha ha ha! Besides, cuckolds are always objects of ridicule.”

He laughed again, and the tears came to his eyes. He drank a further goblet and said, “Oh yes, oh yes.”

“Well, let us see,” said the law speaker. “I imagine things will settle down again. Of course, Barbara is often so… often so… unpredictable.”

He glanced at his aunt. Old Armgard’s eyes had almost closed. If she had not been knitting so intently, it might well have been thought that she was dozing as she sat there. But he knew her better and was aware that she could be expected to make some comment at any moment.

“Barbara!” said the minister, his face suddenly taking on a completely foolish look. It seemed as though he was having a vision. Suddenly he exclaimed, “Do you really think that? Do you think she will ever come back? Do you? Do you?”

His voice was quite outside its usual pitch, wild and pleading like someone suddenly shouting out in sleep. Then, more calmly and almost as though talking to himself: “Could I simply just once, one single time in my life… aye, then I wouldn’t ask more. Oh Barbara, I do so miss you.”

Armgard had looked up. She cleared her throat, but interrupted herself and continued knitting. There was a scornful expression around her nose and mouth.

“You see,” said Pastor Poul, turning confidentially towards the law speaker, “You understand … I have to explain myself… You have the right to expect an explanation from me. I have known perfectly well throughout that this had to happen; I’ve always been aware of it.”

“Oh, of course,” Armgard interrupted him ironically. “That’s why you were so intent on marrying her.”

The parson ignored her with the superior stance of a drunken man. He merely turned further away from her and grasped the law speaker’s sleeve.

“Well, I’ve been expecting this all along. Like a punishment, one could say, for it was all far too good, it was far too… epicurean, too voluptuous, too blissful.” He stumbled seriously over the words: “You understand. It had to come. It was expected. Even so, it came unexpectedly. I mean it came unexpectedly on that day. I wasn’t prepared; it was too sudden. If I can just once… I must at least be allowed to… I won’t try to avoid the punishment, but first, first… I will do that,” he shouted and struck the table.

“Aunt Armgard,” said the law speaker: “Pastor Poul needs something to eat.”

“That has been seen to,” said Armgard.

Pastor Poul leant back and stared ahead. “Barbara,” he mumbled. “If she knew what I’m thinking and feeling for her now; if she knew my heart now, she would come to me. Cheers. Cheers, Barbara, can’t you hear me?”

He had raised the silver goblet and sat there weeping. Armgard turned her chair away with an expression of disgust. A girl came in and laid the table for Pastor Poul.

Pastor Poul himself was sitting slumped in his chair, looking as though nothing of all this concerned him. The law speaker had got up and put his bonnet on a shelf under the ceiling.

“There we are,” he said. “Come, my dear Pastor Poul, have something to eat. I’m sure you need it, you know.”

He spoke in a gentle, almost plaintive voice and smiled quite helplessly. Pastor Poul took a piece of flatbread and put it on his plate. The table was not set for the law speaker and Armgard. They both sat a little way from the table, as was the custom when entertaining guests.

Pastor Poul hardly touched the food. He sat there with a dried leg of mutton and made a couple of indifferent and feeble attempts to cut some meat from it.

“Do have something to eat, my dear friend,” said the law speaker. “Meat will strengthen both heart and soul.”

But the minister did not touch the meat. It looked as though he was already beginning to fall asleep. He suddenly sat up, clenched his fists and, waving his arms wildly, sang:

Oh Lord, Thou madest me both great and wise,

I pray Thou wilt my sinful self chastise

Armgard gave him a surprised look. “That sounds like a new hymn,” she commented.

Pastor Poul looked quite idiotic. “Isn’t it good?” he asked. “ ‘Oh Lord, Thou madest me both great and wise, I pray Thou wilt my sinful self chastise.’ Aye, that’s how it is. Now I’ve found it. Ha, ha, ha. One suddenly finds it.”

“Listen, Pastor Poul, you poor thing,” said Armgard in a sharp, didactic tone: “You are a simple man, and I am sure God would never think of punishing you. No, no,” she continued in a mocking falsetto tone sounding rather like a gull’s laughter: “You who cannot even look after your own wife. But she, who continues to corrupt the youth of this country, God help me, now she can’t even leave our family alone… When she is subjected to divine punishment one day…!”