Tales of Two Countries
“Oh yes,” answered Ola with an effort.
“What a cross-grained being you are!” exclaimed Hans, indignantly. “But
even if you’re devoid of all sense for female beauty, I think you might
at least show more interest in--in your brother’s future wife.”
“If you only knew how she interests me,” thought the nefarious Ola,
hanging his head.
But meanwhile this delightful meeting had thrown Hans into an ecstatic
mood of amorous bliss; he swung his stick, snapped his fingers, and sang
at the pitch of his voice.
As he thought of the fair one in the light-green frock--fresh as spring,
airy as a butterfly, he called it--the refrain of an old ditty rose to
his lips, and he sang it with great enjoyment:
“Hope’s clad in April green--
Trommelommelom, trommelommelom,
Tender it’s vernal sheen--
Trommelommelom, trommelommelom.”
This verse seemed to him eminently suited to the situation, and he
repeated it over and over again--now in the waltz-time of the old
melody, now as a march, and again as a serenade--now in loud, jubilant
tones, and then half whispering, as if he were confiding his love and
his hope to the moon and the silent groves.
Cousin Ola was almost sick; for, great as was his respect for his
brother’s singing, he became at last so dog-tired of this April-green
hope and this eternal “Trommelommelom” that it was a great relief to him
when they at last arrived at the Sheriff’s.
The afternoon passed as it always does on such occasions; they all
enjoyed themselves mightily. For most of them were in love, and those
who were not found almost a greater pleasure in keeping an eye upon
those who were.
Some one proposed a game of “La Grace” in the garden. Cousin Hans
rushed nimbly about and played a thousand pranks, threw the game into
confusion, and paid his partner all sorts of attentions.
Cousin Ola stood at his post and gave his whole mind to his task; he
caught the ring and sent it off again with never failing precision.
Ola would have enjoyed himself, too, if only his conscience had not so
bitterly upbraided him for his nefarious love for his brother’s “future
wife.”
When the evening began to grow cool the party went in-doors, and the
dancing began.
Ola did not dance much at any time, but to-day he was not at all in
the humor. He occupied himself in observing Hans, who spent the whole
evening in worshipping his lady-love. A spasm shot through Ola’s heart
when he saw the light-green frock whirl away in his brother’s arms, and
it seemed to him that they danced every dance together.
At last came the time for breaking up. Most of the older folks had
already taken their departure in their respective carriages, the
young people having resolved to see each other home in the delicious
moonlight.
But when the last galop was over, the hostess would not hear of the
young ladies going right out into the evening air, while they were still
warm with dancing. She therefore decreed half an hour for cooling down,
and, to occupy this time in the pleasantest manner, she begged Cousin
Hans to sing a little song.
He was ready at once, he was not one of those foolish people who require
pressing; he knew quite well the value of his talent.
There was, however, this peculiarity about Hans’s singing, or rather
about its reception, that opinion was more than usually divided as to
its merits. By three persons in the world his execution was admired as
something incomparable. These three persons were, first, Cousin Ola,
then Aunt Maren, and lastly Cousin Hans himself. Then there was a large
party which thought it great fun to hear Cousin Hans sing. “He always
makes something out of it.” But lastly there came a few evil-disposed
people who asserted that he could neither sing nor play.
It was with respect to the latter point, the accompaniment, that Cousin
Ola always cherished a secret reproach against his brother--the only
shadow upon his admiration for him.
He knew how much labor it had cost both Hans himself and his sisters to
get him drilled in these accompaniments, especially in the three
minor chords with which he always finished up, and which he practised
beforehand every time he went to a party.
So, when he saw his brother seated at the piano, letting his fingers run
lightly and carelessly over the key-board, and then looking up to
the ceiling and muttering, “What key is it in again?” as if he were
searching for the right one, a shiver always ran through Cousin Ola. For
he knew that Hans had mastered three accompaniments, and no more--one
minor and two major.
And when the singer, before rising from the piano, threw in these three
carefully-practised minor chords so lightly, and with such an impromptu
air, as if his fingers had instinctively chanced upon them, then Ola
shook his head and said to himself, “This is not quite straightforward
of Hans.”
In the mean time his brother sang away at his rich repertory. Schumann
and Kierulf were his favorites, so he performed _“Du bist die Ruh,” “My
loved one, I am prison’d” “Ich grolle nicht,” “Die alten bösen Lieder,”
“I lay my all, love, at thy feet,” “Aus meiren grossen Schmerzen mach’
ich die kleinen Lieder”_--all with the same calm superiority, and that
light, half-sportive accompaniment. The only thing that gave him a
little trouble was that fatal point, _“Ich legt’ auch meine Liebe, Und
meinen Schmerz hinein;”_ but even of this he made something.
Then Ola, who knew to a nicety the limits of his brother’s musical
accomplishment, noticed that he was leaving the beaten track, and
beginning to wander among the keys; and presently he was horrified to
find that Hans was groping after that unhappy “Hope’s clad in April
green.” But fortunately he could not hit upon it, so he confined himself
to humming the song half aloud, while he threw in the three famous minor
chords.
“Now we’re quite cool again,” cried the fair one in light green,
hastily.
There was a general burst of laughter at her eagerness to get away, and
she was quite crimson when she said good-night.
Cousin Ola, who was standing near the hostess, also took his leave.
Cousin Hans, on the other hand, was detained by the Sheriff, who was
anxious to learn under what teachers he had studied music; and that took
time.
Thus it happened that Ola and the fair one in the light green passed out
into the passage at the same time. There the young folks were crowding
round the hat-pegs, some to find their own wraps, some to take down
other people’s.
“I suppose it’s no good trying to push our way forward,” said the fair
one.
Ola’s windpipe contracted in such a vexatious way that he only succeeded
in uttering a meaningless sound. They stood close to each other in
the crush, and Ola would gladly have given a finger to be able to say
something pleasant to her, or at least something rational; but he found
it quite impossible.
“Of course you’ve enjoyed the evening?” said she, in a friendly tone.
Cousin Ola thought of the pitiful part he had been playing all evening;
his unsociableness weighed so much upon his mind that he answered--the
very stupidest thing he could have answered, he thought, the moment the
words were out of his lips--“I’m so sorry that I can’t sing.”
“I suppose it’s a family failing,” answered the fair one, with a rapid
glance.
“N-n-no,” said Ola, exceedingly put out, “my brother sings capitally.”
“Do you think so?” she said, drily.
This was the most astounding thing that had ever happened to Ola: that
there could be more than one opinion about his brother’s singing, and
that she, his “future wife,” did not seem to admire it! And yet it was
not quite unpleasant to him to hear it.
Again there was a silence, which Ola sought in vain to break.
“Don’t you care for dancing?” she asked.
“Not with every one,” he blurted out.
She laughed: “No, no; but gentlemen have the right to choose.”
Now Ola began to lose his footing. He felt like a man who is walking,
lost in thought, through the streets on a winter evening, and who
suddenly discovers that he has got upon a patch of slippery ice. There
was nothing for it but to keep up and go ahead; so, with the courage
of despair, he said “If I knew--or dared to hope--that one of the
ladies--no--that the lady I wanted to dance with--that she would care
to--hm--that she would dance with me, then--then--” he could get no
further, and after saying “then” two or three times over, he came to a
stand-still.
“You could ask her,” said the fair one.
Her bracelet had come unfastened, and its clasp was so stiff that she
had to bend right forward and pinch it so hard that she became quite red
in the face, in order to fasten it again.
“Would you, for example, dance with me?” Ola’s brain was swimming.
“Why not?” she answered. She stood pressing the point of her shoe into a
crack in the floor.
“We’re to have a party at the Parsonage on Friday--would you give me a
dance then?”
“With pleasure; which would you like?” she answered, trying her best to
assume a “society” manner.
“A quadrille?” said Ola; thinking: “Quadrilles are so long.”
“The second quadrille is disengaged,” answered the lady.
“And a galop?”
“Yes, thank you; the first galop,” she replied, with a little
hesitation.
“And a polka?”
“No, no! no more,” cried the fair one, looking at Ola with alarm.
At the same moment, Hans came rushing along at full speed. “Oh, how
lucky I am to find you!--but in what company!”
Thereupon he took possession of the fair one in his amiable fashion, and
drew her away with him to find her wraps and join the others.
“A quadrille and a galop; but no more--so so! so so!” repeated Cousin
Ola. He stood as though rooted to the spot. At last he became aware
that he was alone. He hastily seized a hat, slunk out by the back way,
sneaked through the garden, and clambered with great difficulty over the
garden fence, not far from the gate which stood ajar.
He struck into the first foot-path through the fields, fixing his
eyes upon the Parsonage chimneys. He was vaguely conscious that he was
getting wet up to the knees in the long grass; but on the other hand, he
was not in the least aware that the Sheriff’s old uniform cap, which he
had had the luck to snatch up in his haste, was waggling about upon his
head, until at last it came to rest when the long peak slipped down over
his ear.
“A quadrille and a galop; but no more--so so! so so!--“--It was pretty
well on in the night when Hans approached the Parsonage. He had seen the
ladies of the Doctor’s party home, and was now making up the accounts of
the day as he went along.
“She’s a little shy; but on the whole I don’t dislike that.”
When he left the road at the Parsonage garden, he said, “She’s
dreadfully shy--almost more than I care for.”
But as he crossed the farm-yard, he vowed that coy and capricious girls
were the most intolerable creatures he knew. The thing was that he did
not feel at all satisfied with the upshot of the day. Not that he for a
moment doubted that she loved him; but, just on that account, he thought
her coldness and reserve doubly annoying. She had never once thrown the
ring to him; she had never once singled him out in the cotillion; and on
the way home she had talked to every one but him. But he would adopt a
different policy the next time; she should soon come to repent that day.
He slipped quietly into the house, so that his uncle might not hear how
late he was. In order to reach his own and his brother’s bedroom he had
to pass through a long attic. A window in this attic was used by the
young men as a door through which to reach a sort of balcony, formed by
the canopy over the steps leading into the garden.
Cousin Hans noticed that this window was standing open; and out upon the