e had lived
and where they had been so happy, and he could not bear to work at
fishing on the south side of the island, within sight of that house.
There was work enough for him here; a kind voice told him so, a kind
hand was laid on his shoulder, and he was bidden come and welcome. The
tears rushed into the poor fellow's eyes, he went hastily away, and
that night sent over his chest of tools,--he was a carpenter by trade.
Next day he took up his abode here and worked all summer. Every day I
carefully observed him as I passed him by, regarding him with an
inexpressible pity, of which he was perfectly unconscious, as he
seemed to be of everything and everybody. He never raised his head
when he answered my "Good-morning," or "Good-evening, Ivan." Though I
often wished to speak, I never said more to him, for he seemed to me
to be hurt too sorely to be touched by human hand. With his head sunk
on his breast, and wearily dragging his limbs, he pushed the plane or
drove the saw to and fro with a kind of dogged persistence, looking
neither to the left nor right. Well might the weight of woe he carried
bow him to the earth! By and by he spoke, himself, to other members of
the household, saying, with a patient sorrow, he believed it was to
have been, it had so been ordered, else why did all things so play
into Louis's hands? All things were furnished him: the knowledge of
the unprotected state of the women, a perfectly clear field in which
to carry out his plans, just the right boat he wanted in which to make
his voyage, fair tide, fair wind, calm sea, just moonlight enough;
even the ax with which to kill Anethe stood ready to his hand at the
house door. Alas, it was to have been! Last summer Ivan went back
again to Norway--alone. Hardly is it probable that he will ever return
to a land whose welcome to him fate made so horrible. His sister Maren
and her husband still live blameless lives, with the little dog Ringe,
in a new home they have made for themselves in Portsmouth, not far
from the river-side; the merciful lapse of days and years takes them
gently but surely away from the thought of that season of anguish; and
though they can never forget it all, they have grown resigned and
quiet again. And on the island other Norwegians have settled, voices
of charming children sound sweetly in the solitude that echoed so
awfully to the shrieks of Karen and Maren. But to the weirdness of the
winter midnight something is added, a vision