Madam Neoteric

The same evening Mogens went to the station with the councilor who had received a sudden order in reference to an official tour which he was to make. On this account Camilla was to go to her aunt’s the next morning and stay there until he returned.

When Mogens had seen his future father-in-law off, he went home, thinking of the fact that he now would not see Camilla for several days. He turned into the street where she lived. It was long and narrow and little frequented. A cart rumbled away at the furthest end; in this direction, too, there was the sound of footsteps, which grew fainter and fainter. At the moment he heard nothing but the barking of a dog within the building behind him. He looked up at the house in which Camilla lived; as usual the ground-floor was dark. The white-washed panes received only a little restless life from the flickering gleam of the lantern of the house next door. On the second story the windows were open and from one of them a whole heap of planks protruded beyond the window-frame. Camilla’s window was dark, dark also was everything above, except that in one of the attic windows there shimmered a white-golden gleam from the moon. Above the house the clouds were driving in a wild flight. In the houses on both sides the windows were lighted.

The dark house made Mogens sad. It stood there so forlorn and disconsolate; the open windows rattled on their hinges; water ran monotonously droning down the rainpipe; now and then a little water fell with a hollow dull thud at some spot which he could not see; the wind swept heavily through the street. The dark, dark house! Tears came into Mogen’s eyes, an oppressive weight lay on his chest, and he was seized by a strange dark sensation that he had to reproach himself for something concerning Camilla. Then he had to think of his mother, and he felt a great desire of laying his head on her lap and weeping his fill.

For a long while he stood thus with his hand pressed against his breast until a wagon went through the street at a sharp pace; he followed it and went home. He had to stand for a long time and rattle the front door before it would open, then he ran humming up the stairs, and when he had entered the room he threw himself down on the sofa with one of Smollett’s novels in his hand, and read and laughed till after midnight. At last it grew too cold in the room, he leaped up and went stamping up and down to drive away the chill. He stopped at the window. The sky in one corner was so bright, that the snow-covered roofs faded into it. In another corner several long-drawn clouds drifted by, and the atmosphere beneath them had a curious reddish tinge, a sheen that wavered unsteadily, a red smoking fog. He tore open the window, fire had broken out in the direction of the councilor’s. Down the stairs, down the street as fast as he could; down a cross-street, through a side-street, and then straight ahead. As yet he could not see anything, but as he turned round the corner he saw the red glow of fire. About a score of people clattered singly down the street. As they ran past each other, they asked where the fire was. The answer was “The sugar-refinery.” Mogens kept on running as quickly as before, but much easier at heart. Still a few streets, there were more and more people, and they were talking now of the soap-factory. It lay directly opposite the councilor’s. Mogens ran on as if possessed. There was only a single slanting cross-street left. It was quite filled with people: well-dressed men, ragged old women who stood talking in a slow, whining tone, yelling apprentices, over-dressed girls who whispered to each other, corner-loafers who stood as if rooted to the spot and cracked jokes, surprised drunkards and drunkards who quarreled, helpless policemen, and carriages that would go neither forwards nor backwards. Mogens forced his way through the multitude. Now he was at the corner; the sparks were slowly falling down upon him. Up the street; there were showers of sparks, the window-panes on both sides were aglow, the factory was burning, the councilor’s house was burning and the house next door also. There was nothing but smoke, fire and confusion, cries, curses, tiles that rattled down, blows of axes, wood that splintered, window-panes that jingled, jets of water that hissed, spluttered, and splashed, and amid all this the regular dull sob-like throb of the engines. Furniture, bedding, black helmets, ladders, shining buttons, illuminated faces, wheels, ropes, tarpaulin, strange instruments; Mogens rushed into their midst, over, under it all, forward to the house.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23