Barbara E-Book

Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Barbara leads her 3 clergymen husband to their destruction.now a major film.

Das E-Book Barbara wird angeboten von Dedalus und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:

Leseprobe

Dedalus would like to thank The Danish Arts Council’s Committee for Literature and Arts Council England, London for their assistance in producing this book.

Contents

Title

Dedication

The Author

The Translator

Introduction

Fortuna

The Widow in the Benefice

Happiness on Account

Farewell, Oh World, Farewell

The World

Rain

Coloured Stones

Brandy

A Clerical Convention

In a Garden

Tides

Fortuna

Christmas Festivities

Weatherbound

Tempo di Minuetto

China

Nul ne mérite

Copyright

The Author

Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen (1900–1938) spent his early childhood in his native Faroe Islands, then proceeded to high school and university in Denmark. He worked as a journalist for the newspaper Politiken, but in 1922 fell prey to the tuberculosis that led to his early death.

He worked to the very end, and while Barbara was his only novel, it was preceded by a work entitled The Faroes, Nature and People, which has the dual quality of being informative and a work of considerable beauty. Although written in Danish, his work is intensely Faroese.

The Translator

W. Glyn Jones read Modern Languages at Pembroke College Cambridge, with Danish as his principal language, before doing his doctoral thesis at Cambridge. He taught at various universities in England and Scandinavia before becoming Professor of Scandinavian Studies at Newcastle and then at the University of East Anglia. He also spent two years as Professor of Scandinavian Literature in the Faeroese Academy. On his retirement from teaching he was created a Knight of the Royal Danish Order of the Dannebrog.

He has written widely on Danish, Faeroese and Finland- Swedish literature including studies of Johannes Jorgensen, Tove Jansson and William Heinesen.

He is the the author of Denmark: A Modern History and coauthor with his wife, Kirsten Gade, of Colloquial Danish and the Blue Guide to Denmark.

W. Glyn Jones’ many translations from Danish include Seneca by Villy Sorensen and for Dedalus: The Black Cauldron, The Lost Musicians, Windswept Dawn, The Good Hope and Mother Pleiades by William Heinesen, Ida Brandt by Herman Bang and My Fairy-Tale Life by Hans Christian Andersen.

He is currently translating William Heinesen’s last novel The Tower at the Edge of the World.

Introduction

When Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen died in March 1938 at the early age of 37, he left behind the manuscript for this book. Jacobsen had previously been known to the Danish public as the author of two books on the Faroe Islands in addition to a large number of articles in the newspaper Politiken on Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and other Scandinavian subjects, and through these articles he achieved a reputation as a gifted and original journalist with a distinctive style, a man who tackled his material with authority and complete honesty, but writing in an artistically fascinating, amusing manner.

Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen was born in 1900, the son of a grocer in Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands. He was of an outgoing and positive nature and was gifted in many fields, and people rightly had great expectations of him. He would undoubtedly have been able to make an important contribution both as a scholar (historian) and as a politician if stubborn ill health had not prevented him from developing to the full extent of his ability. This illness, tuberculosis, already made its appearance when he was only twenty-one years old, living as a student in Regensen, the hall of residence in Copenhagen, and it made its mark on the rest of his later life. For long periods he was condemned to being bedridden and passive, into the active life that suited his temperament. He took part in politics, became acquainted with a great number of people and conditions, undertook studies and journeys, fell in love – and all the time devoting himself to the writing that had been a compulsion for him ever since childhood. He undertook demanding tasks and exposed himself time after time to overexertion, which again led to relapses and once more tied him to his bed. “The organ is strong enough,” he would say, “but the church can’t stand it.” And as he approached maturity the church became ever weaker, though the organ remained just as indomitable.

Jacobsen also occupied himself with literary activities from his earliest youth. He wrote some poems, some short stories and plays, and he left hundreds of poetical letters and reports often in the form of elegant descriptions of nature and travel accounts or in the form of memoirs.

He started on the novel Barbara in 1934. His illness had by then taken a complicated and dangerous course. Most of the book was written while he lay ill in bed, often under conditions that least of all could be expected to predispose a man to productive work. But it was not in Jacobsen’s nature to break down. He was absolutely invincible, and he met every adversity in a manner that could only be described with one word: heroic. No one ever heard Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen complain at the really quite unusually harsh fate that was his. On the other hand, he often expressed his gratitude to life, with which, as he put it, he had always been on good terms and the gifts of which he did not intend to subject to suspicion. “Simply all these Faroese mountains and valleys: Kirkjubøreyn, Reyðafallstind, Sjeyndir – and all that music: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel or Carl Nielsen! Yes, and then Kingo, Bellman and La Rochefoucauld!” as he exclaims but his courage and his spirit were never subdued. As soon as a temporary relief gave him back his freedom, he threw himself in one of his letters.

Four months before his death he wrote to a friend: “Don’t you be bothered about my Mozartian view of life… my strength lies in my not striving for happiness and well-being but for better or for worse being in love with my own fate.” During a catastrophic bout of his illness which, as he well knew, would necessitate a difficult and dangerous operation, he wrote these stoic and ironic words: “This is a trial, but if you want the good, you must accept the bad as well. If I die, you will be able to write on my grave: Here lies one who had many human experiences and was always harmoniously happy. He finally even managed to experience a touch of the molestations of old age.”

As will be clear, Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen was not prone to either the pretentious or the mystical. On the other hand, his view of life was characterised by humour, a humour of a certain honest and pithy kind, often containing a touch of wormwood in the manner of harsh criticism and self-irony and always linked to the respect for life and its immediate realities, which he rated more highly than any sort of unconstrained and dishonest metaphysical ramblings.

The material for the novel Barbara is taken from a Faroese legend, “Beinta and Peder Arrheboe”, which builds on a foundation of historical events. The beautiful, but evil parson’s wife, Beinta, who has been married several times and is the cause of her husbands’ misfortune and death, is traditionally seen as a virtually demonic female figure, a vampire who is evil for the sake of being evil. The Barbara who is the subject of Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen’s novel is also in her way a jinx and a vampire, but she is portrayed in such a way that we understand her, come to be fond of her and finally to feel sorry for her. She is neither demonic nor mystical, but in all her paradoxical womanliness, all too human. The same applies to the book as a whole. It takes place at the time of Frederik the Fifth (1723–66), though this is no archaic portrayal, but, one might say, a modern one, and Jacobsen builds throughout on his own experiences, not on reading and literary studies. It is a book about life and youth, a portrait characterised by archness and charm, by humour and poetry, but also containing a touch of irony and an undercurrent of melancholy. It was written by a man who was still young and resilient in spirit, but whose body was already broken and aged – a man who in spite of all his troubles and painful experiences never grew bitter because, “for better or for worse” he was genuinely in love with life in the form in which he had found it.

William Heinesen

Fortuna

The lights in the Royal Store buildings in Havn were almost blown out by the wind each time there came a gust. Occasionally, it could be as quiet as the grave. Then the heavy timberwork would start to groan, and the gale again caught the brown tarred wooden houses in its stranglehold. There was a pitiful wailing in every corner; the warehouse shutters tore and struggled in their iron cramps; the turf roofs danced in turmoil like wild flames, and the surf cast itself heavily on the stony promontory of Tinganes and enveloped all Tórshavn in a shower of salt and rain.

In the storehouse, Ole the stocking buyer and Rebekka’s Poul were busy sorting jerseys. They sat in the small circle of light provided by a lamp. Otherwise, the warehouses lay in darkness. But several folk were assembled in the shop.

They had received news. A boat that had been out fishing to the east of Nolsoy had seen a ship. They thought it was the Fortuna, which was expected from Copenhagen with goods for the Store. But she could not get into the harbour in this weather. The fishing boat had made the shore at the last moment before the storm broke.

The men stood around, idly discussing this ship. They were Tórshavn men – Havn men, as they were known – at one and the same time soldiers at the Redoubt, porters in the Royal Store and fishermen far out at sea when the weather was suitable and the commander would allow them to go. They were leaning over the counter. The tallow candle shone in their flaccid faces and their sullen, red-ringed eyes. They were spitting and yawning in a generally miserable manner. The news was turned over like a plug of chewing tobacco. Gabriel, the storekeeper, was standing at his desk behind the counter. He occasionally looked up from his accounts and made a small contribution to the conversation.

Were there two or three masts on this ship? Oh, two masts. Yes, it would probably be the Fortuna.

Katrine the Cellar fought her way into the Store. The gale was right on her heels like some evil spirit. Then the door slammed to. She timidly wished everyone a good evening, cowed by all the commotion she had caused. The men spat at a slightly greater distance and acknowledged in this way that they had noticed her. They were not particularly grand – neither Springus, Niels the Punt, Samuel the Hoist nor the Beach Flea. But they did not approve of female interference in a strictly factual discussion on seafaring. Katrine also fully understood this. For a long time she stood there meekly and was only Katrine the Cellar. Or rather: for the time being she hardly existed. But her eyes were watchful and determined. She had her little war to wage. So when Gabriel at some stage, almost by chance, caught sight of her, she was there straight away: “God bless you, Gabriel, will you let me have a jug of syrup this evening.”

She cautiously pushed the jug forward on the counter.

“What the hell are you doing out here again now? Haven’t you been out here once before today buying both flour and oats?

“God bless you! Just so the children can have something to drink this evening.”

“Oh, go to blazes,” shouted Gabriel furiously. “Why the devil can’t you buy everything at the same time?”

“We couldn’t take more on account this morning, you know. But now Marcus has had such a good day’s fishing.”

“Do you think I haven’t anything else to do but stir the syrup barrel every time Marcus catches a tiddler?”

Clearly showing his irritation, he went over to the barrel, bent his fat back and filled the mug with the thick syrup. Katrine watched him excitedly. It was taking such a long time. If only he didn’t change his mind half way! Gabriel groaned and swore gently. Finally, he straightened his back and flung the mug across the counter: “There!”

He took her shopping book and made a note in it. Katrine left. The men spat.

Gabriel was easy-going by nature, but somewhat selfimportant on account of his position. He had a big, full mouth that actually bubbled with kindly impudence. Idleness had made him fat, and during the hours he spent every day behind the counter in the store, he had grown accustomed to gossip. He was a king to his customers and he supplied corn and sugar, snuff and sarcasms to the small fry on the other side of the counter.

And now all this talk about the ship started to weary him.

“Oh,” he said suddenly, addressing Beach Flea: “I suppose you didn’t see any pilot whales today?”

Beach Flea spat. He had got the message. Now it was his turn to be teased. He turned his head left and right, quickly and spasmodically, and his eyes wandered cautiously over the scene. Were they laughing at him?

“Pilot whales? Who sees pilot whales in November, if I may ask?”

“I thought perhaps you did. You see pilot whales when no one else does.”

That story was never going to be forgotten. Beach Flea had once mistaken a flock of eider ducks out on the water for pilot whales. In his excitement he had sounded the alarm and caused a good deal of bother. Others had been guilty of similar mistakes. Was it worth bringing up so many years later? He was furious every time anyone referred to it.

The men laughed. Beach Flea stared them out, giving each of them a bad-tempered, hurt look as he tried to think of what to say. He stopped at Samuel the Hoist: “Well, you are not the one to talk, Samuel. At least I’ve not been found asleep on my job in the Redoubt while a pod of pilot whales was swimming right in front of my nose! That was you!”

“Me?”

Samuel’s mouth was quite rigid with hurt and amazement.

“Me?”

The entire gathering chuckled. That story was just as well known. Samuel was the only one who refused to accept it. There were hints of fury in his eyes and he was ready to erupt. He studied the miserable Beach Flea. What was this he was daring to accuse him of?

They gently banged on the counter. Gabriel was in his element. He had set things going now. He made the odd serious, extremely factual remark that greatly stimulated the fighting spirit. A turning point in the struggle came when Beach Flea suddenly – as though on some sudden inspiration – got hold of the expression bamboozler and flung it out. He didn’t know what it really meant. The result was silence. Samuel the Hoist straightened his back and stared at Beach Flea:

“Me, a bamboozler?”

Nor did he know what a bamboozler was. But that did not make the accusation any less offensive. Something had to be done.

“No!” he exclaimed with composure and much dignity. And then he set off. Everyone watched in amazement. He went behind the counter! In between barrels and sacks, right over to Gabriel’s desk. And there he stood.

“No, you are a bamboozler,” he roared banging his fist down on the account books with a resounding thump. He gave Beach Flea a look that was enough to unnerve him. Then he returned to his place, all that long way, like a man who has done his job well.

Beach Flea’s eyes fluttered wildly. He had been hurt.

“I? I? Am I a bamboozler?”

Could that possibly be true? He stood open-mouthed.

“No,” he said decisively at last, full of regained conviction: “It’s you, you, yes you!”

He threw off his clogs and went behind the counter, went right over to the desk and banged on it, saying in a tearful voice: “You are a bamboozler.”

Then he went carefully back to his place again and put on his clogs.

If Samuel the Hoist had been amazed the first time the accusation was flung out, he was no less surprised when it was repeated. He had in general a rare ability to feel amazed at the evil in the world – and to encounter it with fortitude. But in this case a protest must be made.

Then he went calmly to the desk again, took up a position there, aimed and fired like the soldier he was. The desk groaned: – “No! You are a bamboozler!”

Beach Flea ducked a little. Again this worrying flank attack. His head jerked warily, to the right and to the left, and he squinted watchfully through irate eyes. No, this was more than he could countenance. Clogs off. Off to the desk. He, too, was a soldier and knew how to make a direct hit. He would show them. He put all his tousled and hectored spiritual force in his wounded glance and all his physical strength into his angry fist: – “No! You – are – a – bamboozler.”

He screamed this last word and accompanied it with three small extra shots, a salvo on the desk. Then he went back again. Victorious, he put on his clogs. Now, Samuel had got what he deserved.

Samuel was upset by this brutal attack. But he gradually more or less regained his composure. He got going again, still a little bowed, but with a new tragic grandeur. And so they went on. The other men shrugged their shoulders in enjoyable neutrality. They kept their hands in front of their mouths, but their eyes were alive, attentive and amused. Thank heaven it was not they who were in the firing line.

At first Gabriel did not like the natural forces that had been unleashed on his desk at all. But he gradually came to sacrifice his dignity on the altar of amusement. At least he had got them going pretty damned well now. He was itching to see the outcome, and his stomach quietly moved out and in. And the men of Havn dutifully went on with the comedy to the satisfaction of his lordship. Finally, he took up a position at the counter and organised them a little by virtue of his official capacity. No one was allowed to go in and bang on it until the other had come out.

Gabriel was that sort of a man. A virtuoso at playing on people’s weaknesses, working them up against each other and getting them to reveal the most secret and most foolish aspirations of their hearts. What did these poor folk want out there in his store? No, life at home with the womenfolk in the smoke from the peat fires and the wailing of infants was probably no more fun. Out here there was at least a scent of cardamom and other spices, indeed there was also the view of a barrel of brandy. And then there was the news. Reflections of the world.

And something could happen, of course.

The door had once more been opened to the storm and the din. No one had noticed it during the confrontation – it was probably some woman or other. Now they all saw that the new arrival was Barbara, the judge’s daughter.

Everything was different all of a sudden. Even Gabriel was different. Beach Flea had stopped in the middle of the word bamboozler; his fist fell like some idiotic accidental shot on the royal desk. There he stood, in his stocking feet, Oh Jesus, putting on an act!

It was not that Barbara enjoyed any particular respect. She spoke kindly to the ordinary men and was never haughty. But when, on an evening of storm and wind, the sun suddenly shines on the circle of men…

“Have you any silk ribbons that I could buy?” came the sound of her voice.

“Silk ribbons.” Gabriel pulled himself together. “Oh, silk ribbons.”

Barbara, the sun, suddenly developed a knowledgeable wrinkle between her eyes, pouted and started to choose and reject. Beach Flea very cautiously tiptoed out to his place, but – Barbara’s skirt was hiding his clogs.

“But we shall be having some more silk ribbons tomorrow,” said Gabriel. A gleam came into his eyes.

“Tomorrow?”

Her voice suggested amazement.

“Yes, or the day after.”

“What do you mean?” Barbara’s voice suggested still more amazement but at the same time bordered on laughter.

“Oh, do stop it, Barbara,” said Gabriel affectionately: “Don’t try to kid me that you are the only person in the whole of Tórshavn not to know that the Fortuna is off Nolsoy.”

“God knows…”

Barbara became obstinate, and indignation started competing with the slight laugh that rose in her throat.

“Aye,” Beach Flea intervened now, standing with his legs apart and making explaining movements with his hands, “we saw it, Tommassa Ole and Marcus the Cellar and Samuel the Hoist and me, while we were out fishing this morning.”

Barbara suddenly let the sun shine on Beach Flea.

“Did you? Then why is she not coming in?”

Beach Flea was bathed in light and felt honoured and he eagerly shook his head. “No, there’s no getting into the harbour here in this weather.”

“Oh no, of course.”

“And haven’t you heard of the new Vágar parson, who’s on it either, Barbara?” asked Gabriel.

“Of course I know that a new parson’s coming for Vágar.”

She sounded a little irritated and abandoned the silk ribbons.

“Aye, as I say,” Gabriel went on, “when the ship arrives tomorrow or the day after, you can have all the silk ribbons you want. But I suppose that’ll be too late?”

“What do you mean?” Barbara was again somewhere between being insulted and smiling.

“Nothing. I simply mean that’ll be too late to bedeck yourself for the parson. Because then he’ll already be here.”

The men looked at Gabriel in amazement. He was certainly Barbara’s cousin. But to taunt her in just the same way as he taunted anyone else…! They gave her a furtive look. There she stood in the golden candle light with a smile on her lips. Not at all angry. It was almost as though she felt some subtle delight in the revelation.

Then she turned towards Niels the Punt, with her voice full of delight: “Is your little daughter better, Niels? I will come round with something for her tomorrow.”

She went towards the door and started to push it open. Beach Flea, who had got his clogs on meanwhile, sprang across to help her. There was just a trace of a smile in his angry face after she had gone. They were probably all smiling a little. Something in her laughter as it rose in her throat seemed to float there like some melodic sound in the scent of cardamom. A vision had come and gone. The shabby men had become reverential.

But then Gabriel broke the silence: “This is a bit bloody thick! I’ll swear that she’ll be going down tomorrow to entice the new parson when he comes ashore just as she did with Pastor Niels and Pastor Anders when they arrived.”

There was outrage in Gabriel’s voice.

Oh of course. They all knew that story. Barbara was already the widow of two parsons, Pastor Jonas on the Northern Islands and Pastor Niels on Vágar. Pastor Niels had died only a year ago. A third, Pastor Anders of Næs, with whom she had been betrothed in between, had had second thoughts in time. He had not suffered a tragic fate. It was said that Barbara had brought about the deaths of both the men to whom she had been married. There had been a lot of talk about this in various places in the islands, and some people had called her evil Barbara. But that was probably mainly in the outlying villages. Those who knew Barbara said that she was not evil by any means. And as for the people of Tórshavn, her fellow-townspeople, she had never been at cross purposes with them. On the contrary. But Gabriel simply had to find something scornful to say.

Ole the stocking buyer and Rebekka’s Poul came in from the warehouse with their lamp. They had finished. And it was time now to go home for supper. All the men broke up and tramped out among the pack houses, over Reyn, past the church and home to their huts.

Gabriel was suddenly alone in his shop. He was a big man, a king to his customers, and now everyone had heard that he could even go as far as to taunt Barbara. But it hurt Gabriel a little somewhere or other deep down inside. He was only human. And in his merchant soul, too, there resided a hidden touch of folly. It was nothing. Perhaps it was simply a little dog howling at the moon when no one could hear it. He was all right; he had his wages and he earned a little extra. And he would probably be made manager one day. Or perhaps even bailiff, for he had good contacts. And as for his lonely state, there was always Angelika, who came to him in his lodgings when he wanted her to. Everything was well organised; he managed well. But now there was this cousin Barbara, who had been married to two clergymen. She had celebrated weddings with far more men; he was well aware of that; he was bright, and nothing went unnoticed. It was a disgrace to the family and a source of scandal in general. But if things came to that pass, why had she never celebrated a little wedding with him? It was such an obvious thing. It could surely be arranged quite easily.

But now this new parson was coming.

The little dog inside Gabriel started howling pitifully with its snout right up in the air. Then he suddenly had an idea. He exploded in a little whistle: Of course!

When, shortly afterwards he was in the manager’s office with the keys, his plan had been laid.

“Where have you been, Barbara Christina?” asked Magdalene, the judge’s widow, somewhat coldly and testily. She had been sitting by the bureau in the best room going through some old things.

Barbara was cold and more or less wet through after being caught in a shower. “You are always at that bureau, mother. Why don’t you stay out here in the hearth room, where it’s warm?”

“Good heavens, I have put some peat in the stove.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t give off any heat, as you well know.”

They ate their supper in silence. Then the mother returned to her fine room with the bureau and the two poor miniatures hanging on the whitewashed walls. “Don’t you think your father might have kept some money hidden in a secret compartment in the bureau?” she asked in the doorway.

“You ask that question every day. I don’t believe that story any longer. If there were any, we would have found that compartment long ago.”

When Gabriel knocked on the door and entered an hour later, he found Barbara dressed in a woollen petticoat and sitting close to the fire. A pair of stockings had carelessly been thrown down just as she had pulled them off. She was sleepy and tired, and the arrival of her cousin awoke no feelings of femininity in her.

Magdalene came in from the sitting room and asked her nephew what news he had. “Don’t sit like that,” she said, turning to her daughter. “You could put some more clothes on.”

“Oh, Gabriel’s no stranger,” said Barbara sullenly.

No, Gabriel was no stranger. He could sit here and see her white arms and neck – as a matter of course, too much of a matter of course. That was the trouble with it. Her skin was uniquely lustrous. Could that be because she had been in the tub?

It was not long before Magdalene went back again. But Barbara yawned.

“Barbara, would you like some silk ribbons and clothes and that sort of thing?” asked Gabriel in a voice that was suddenly confidential in tone.

Barbara started; her eyes suddenly sprang to life and her voice took on a warm tone: “Have you got some?”

“I might be able to get something for you.”

“Where? Where?” Her entire body had suddenly come to life; her face shone in radiant, almost comical anticipation.

“You mustn’t say a word about it,” said Gabriel.

“Of course not,” she shouted impatiently; she was trembling, radiant and secretive. That little laugh of hers rose in her throat.

“I have quite a lot out there in my place,” whispered Gabriel.

“Do you mean that? Out in the store. Shall we go straight away?”

It took only a moment: a chest was opened, a drawer pulled out, and Barbara was again in skirts and shoes with a scarf around her neck and deeply complicit. Gabriel was a little taken aback, and his mouth relaxed.

At that moment, Suzanne Harme, the bailiff’s daughter, arrived.

“Isn’t this fun,” burbled Barbara: “What do you think? I’m going over to the Store with Gabriel to look at some silks and dresses that he has there. Isn’t that exciting? It’s so nice you came.”

That was not what Gabriel was thinking. A great hope sank within him. Bloody hell!

“Over in the shop?” said Suzanne. She seemed to shudder a little. She was dark and elegant. She wrinkled her forehead.

“Isn’t it just so exciting?” Barbara repeated.

“I don’t know. Now, this evening? Won’t it attract attention? And father’s the bailiff, you know.”

“You don’t usually bother very much about that,” Gabriel burst out. “But we can manage perfectly well without you, you know.”

“Oh no.” Barbara didn’t agree.

“Well, father has an office in the Store,” said Suzanne. “And what if we are caught, Gabriel?”

“Oh. Don’t you think the bailiff’s ever sold a yard of material? What about that time the Dutch East-Indiaman was here? But in any case the bailiff’s office isn’t up there in my space – at least not this evening.”

“Mother, I’m going across to Suzanne’s for a while,” Barbara shouted as they went out. They made their way through Gongin in pitch darkness. The rain was gusting malevolently, both from above and below. They groped their way forward and had to tread very carefully.

“But this is smuggling,” Suzanne determined.

Barbara uttered a deep laugh. Exciting. She had to take Gabriel’s arm. Gongin was the only continuous street in Tórshavn. Otherwise just a few odd alleyways between the scattered houses and huts, Skot as they were called, often so narrow that there was scarcely room for two people to pass. They reached the top of Reyn, Reyn, where the school, the parsonage, Reynegaard, and the church stood. They went across the churchyard. Behind the church, in Church Alley, was the entrance to the shop, the northernmost of the buildings belonging to the Royal Store. Gabriel put a huge key in the lock. The pitch darkness, the sudden silence and the heavy air felt oppressive to the two young women as they stepped into the blackness of the warehouse. Gabriel felt his way forward, finally found a lamp, struck a light and lit it. They ascended a steep staircase and crossed the long loft. Their shadows fluttered across the creaking floor planks. The withered roots of the grass on the roof hung down here and there between the rafters. Suzanne shuddered and clung to Barbara.

They went into Gabriel’s lodging over in one of the gables. It was a small room with alcoves, a wall cupboard and chests.

“Do you never come across Master Naaber here?” asked Suzanne in a voice suggesting mirth mixed with anxiety.

“Master Naaber – who’s that?” asked Gabriel.

“Don’t you know? No, of course you weren’t born here. All the people of Tórshavn are frightened of him. He is supposed to haunt the lofts out here in Tórshavn at night.”

“I’ve never seen him.”

“He wears a black, pointed hood and talks to himself. And when he looks at you, he has yellow eyes.”

Gabriel didn’t like to hear this. He started to light some candles, making rather a noise as he did so.

“Haven’t you seen the Council either?” Suzanne went on.

“The Council, what are you talking about?”

“Yes, the Council.” Suzanne’s eyes opened wide. “The seven men. They meet in one of the buildings – I don’t know which – and sit at a long table.”

It was beginning to run cold down Gabriel’s spine. Suzanne was carried away with her own words. Her face was just a little distorted. Her voice was low and tense: “Several people have seen them. They sit there quite silently and write and write and seal letters.”

“Be quiet,” shouted Barbara vehemently. A shudder went through her and she gave a rather weak smile.

“You’re crazy,” said Gabriel.

They all fell silent. The weak light from the candlestick quite failed to penetrate into all the corners in the little room. Bare woodwork, dark from age, could be glimpsed through the magic wrought by the gloom. Suzanne’s eyes were still curiously radiant. But then Gabriel started to unpack, and colours blossomed from mysterious hiding places. The little room was suddenly transformed, the oppressive feel broken. Greedy female hands grabbed after the materials and spread them out; white fingers ran through crackling silks; the poor furnishings were bathed in light and radiance. At first there was nothing but silent wonderment and shining eyes. A hushed springtime had been created beneath Master Naaber’s turf roof – it rose mound-like on four planks; the two women sat spellbound.

Gabriel, shopkeeper and lover, played his cards intelligently; he did not waste his trumps, but went about things in a matter-of-fact manner and allowed the drama to develop like a firework display. The occasion was his. He did not break the silence, but simply let one miracle take place after the other.

“But Gabriel,” said Suzanne in a sudden fit of reason, “where did you get all this?”

“Do I need to tell you? I haven’t stolen it.”

“You must have been dealing on the quiet with some sly Dutchman or Englishman.”

Gabriel made no attempt to deny that. It sounded quite good. The truth was actually that it was one of the Royal Store’s own skippers he had been working with.

“And you have silk stockings as well,” exclaimed Barbara in amazement and delight.

“Goods are power,” thought Gabriel. He suddenly had a vision of Barbara’s wet woollen stockings that had lain by the fireplace, all drab and ordinary. He thought he had made a splendid trick and made another bid: “Just look here.”

He took a pair of brocade shoes out and placed them beside Barbara’s feet, which were all dirty with mud from the street.

Both women were wide-eyed. Barbara drew her feet back, a little embarrassed by the contrast, but a moment later she wanted to try the shoes. Gabriel had no objection to this; indeed he even wanted to help her, knelt down and removed her shoe. Barbara’s foot was simply in a coarse woollen stocking, but never mind about that – small and supple as it was it fitted perfectly in the fine shoe; indeed the shoe was, if anything, too big. Oh, that blasted Suzanne! Why had she come? Suddenly, Gabriel saw a dizzying perspective of what lost opportunities the moment held. He had so many things that Barbara would perhaps not have been unwilling to try!

His heart was thumping. And then it happened that his bright intellect suddenly let him down. He took out a fine garter. Would Barbara like to try that as well?

Barbara almost gasped and she looked at Suzanne. Then she laughed and said affably: “But a garter isn’t something to try on, Gabriel.”

Suzanne looked up, slightly confused, with a brief wrinkle on her brow, and then, with sudden enthusiasm, said, “Let me try those shoes.”

Barbara rose. “What would a dress in this stuff look like?” she asked, starting to drape herself in some flowered material.

“Now, if I had a skirt like this and then these shoes,” said Suzanne, shaking her foot a little under a length of silk.

“Oh, just look here,” exclaimed Barbara enthusiastically. She pulled something out of the pile and held it up to the light.

Gabriel tried to join in, but they did not listen to him. And suddenly it was clear to him that his wares had completely put him out of the picture. The two women had launched themselves into an intoxicated discussion about clothes; they selected and rejected, felt and tried. Barbara’s eyes were shining; she was shouting with delight; she was becoming more and more beautiful in her enthusiasm for beauty.

“I think I had better have my dress off,” said Suzanne.

“I think I will, too,” said Barbara.

Their dark costumes were wet and shapeless from the rain and made the fine garments damp when they tried them on. Suzanne had already started to undo her bodice when her eyes caught sight of Gabriel:

“Oh, Gabriel, go and leave us alone for a bit, will you?”

“Oh, that’s not quite fair,” said Barbara.

Suzanne directed a thoughtful, searching look at Gabriel. Then she came to a conclusion: “No, we can’t have you in here looking at us.”

And Gabriel went.

By chance discovered in his own room and thrown out like an unwelcome dog! He was furious. This was his splendid, great plan. And here he was standing out in the desolate loft. They had probably already forgotten him in there. He went backwards and forwards with his lamp, angry, but also really uncomfortable. Master Naaber! The gale had increased and lay like some unceasing, superior pressure on the building – an inexhaustible song of a thousand voices in torment. He reached the other end of the loft, by the Chapterhouse and looked out through the small window. The west bay was covered in spume and the froth shone through the darkness. The Chapter – were they now sitting at the counsel table somewhere or other in the Royal Store buildings? Perhaps no more than a few yards away. That confounded girl Suzanne – producing that story just this evening. She was not going to have to sleep alone in this building tonight.

He went back to his own door. Women and chattering inside. Barbara’s laughter, fancies and exclamations. Suzanne’s rather deeper and more prudent voice. No, in there they were deaf to storm and surf. They were not turning the hourglass; they were not counting the passing hours. Least of all did they take notice of Gabriel’s beating heart and burning desire. He was but a shadow in a loft. But in there it was summer. They were gorging themselves on clothes and trinkets and colours. He could imagine the rustling and crackling of the materials. Indeed, he would swear they had taken off every stitch of their homely woollen clothing. They were two butterflies sunning themselves in this fantasy, wrapping themselves in red and gold and blue, in airy calico and heavy silk – his wares. They were dressing up and filling themselves on vain delight.

It was a very long time before the women thought of letting Gabriel in again. By then they had chosen what they wanted. It was actually Barbara who had come to buy from him, although the other was also to have a little. And what did it cost?

Gabriel, lover and merchant – he had been thinking, under certain happy circumstances, to tell Barbara that it would cost her almost nothing. But now he was angry and reeled off some stiff, almost exorbitant prices.

The unexpected happened in that Barbara paid without query, in cash from a purse – wantonly, in silver. A sacrifice on the altar of beauty.

Gabriel blushed.

Suzanne had not been prepared for buying, so she needed credit. And was given it willingly – the finest lady in town.

Then Gabriel had to show them out. No thank you, they wouldn’t have any wine; it was getting late now, Suzanne thought. And Gabriel understood that he ought not to have waited so long with this trump.

As they were going through the long loft, Barbara said quietly and kindly to Gabriel: “I tried your garters after all.”

Was that supposed to be a consolation? A strange consolation, it must be said. And yet, in the way in which it was uttered it almost sounded like an expression of thanks. Was it true, as people said, that no one paid tribute to Barbara without receiving some sort of reward?

But Gabriel did not pay homage to her. The bitch! Parson’s tart. He knew a thing or two.

The women took leave of him in the churchyard. He went back through the graves, past the church. Barbara’s coins were still in his sweaty hand. Now he would soon be able to buy some land. But the little hound in Gabriel howled. Then he entered the dark, empty building to join Master Naaber and to enjoy a lonely bed.

And while the storm lay over the town like a nightmare, two women, cunning and suspicious, filled with experience and with a rich booty, crept through the driving rain in the alleyways, back to their homes.

The Widow in the Benefice

“Of course, you know there is a widow in the benefice?

The speaker was the country’s bailiff.

The new Vágar parson, Pastor Poul Aggersøe, knew that. It was not something that had preoccupied him much at all. Most clergymen dealt with that problem in a very practical manner and married the widow. But he was made of less pliable material. He had not thought of marrying at all and it irritated him when others did so on his behalf.

He was sitting in the Tórshavn parson’s parlour, surrounded by people who wanted to hear news from the outside world. He had had to tell them about battles and about generals, about King Frederick of Prussia, whom no one could conquer, and about King Louis of France, whom no one could disturb in his debauchery. Everyone was in something of a state of excitement at the news, both the judge, the bailiff, the manager of the Royal Store and the commandant. They went to and fro and stepped over the high threshold between the parlour and the study. The women said nothing – with the exception of old Armgard, the old law speaker’s widow, and her sister Ellen Katrine, the woman with the crutches and the happy face. She was of the opinion that no one could be compared with Marlborough, who had been alive when she was a young woman.

Pastor Poul sat observing all these completely unknown people in whose midst he had landed. The world was still rocking for him. He had been sailing for four weeks. For the past two days, the ship hove to in a severe gale off a black, sharp island called Nolsoy. At last, the weather had settled early this morning, and they had sailed in.

There were still remains of nocturnal darkness in the air when the Fortuna dropped anchor. The air was raw and snow showers were moving slowly across the shabby greensward in the mountains. A weather-beaten, black, wooden church tower rose above a few clumps of houses. This was Tórshavn. Everything was so fusty. The people who appeared beneath the eaves were weak and pale in the pallid morning. Pastor Poul had felt almost as though he had landed somewhere in the underworld when he stepped ashore on the rocks at Tinganes. But as he went up towards the Royal Store buildings he saw two beautifully dressed women standing amidst a crowd of curious people in the entrance. He noted one of them in particular. She was fair and tall, so elegant as she stood there seemingly taking no notice of him.

Throughout the entire dark, rainy day he had been mixing with people he did not know. He still did not have a clear impression of them; they were large shadows speaking a semi-incomprehensible language; a spinning wheel was whirring somewhere or other in the house; the withered grass from the roof hung down in front of the windows; there was a grey view across the East Bay to the Redoubt on the other side, where the flag was flapping. But it was all accompanied by the memory of the woman he had seen. He could forget her for long periods, but she was nevertheless there all the time – like something sweet, a glimpse of light, a consolation.

But now the bailiff obviously wanted to talk mainly about that widow in the benefice.