Excerpts from
Barbara
By Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen
The
new priest later remembered all this very clearly. But for the moment he had no
proper understanding of it. A discreet invitation from his colleague, Pastor
Wenzel, first opened his eyes to the fact that there was French brandy to be
had in the study.
Neither did he understand this
about the widow Barbara: that a fresh breeze filled the conversation's slack
sail when the Bailie mentioned her name.
The Chief Magistrate came back out of the study, big and gentle and with some
indefinable air or other of renewal about him. He had a broad, wavy, full
beard. He looked like the god Jupiter. But his eyes were quiet and gentle. Most
often there shone a fine and almost loving smile in them.
He seated himself and said nothing at first. Then he raised his gentle voice: -
What Barbara was like in her first marriage I shall leave unsaid, though I have
beard some noteworthy things about that. In her second marriage she was not a
good wife, I believe so, I dare say so. But to assert that she was responsible
for Pastor Niels' death that is not right, for that was accidental.
Armgard snorted. - Accidental! Ay, then there have been many accidents
for Barbara. And they have all come marvellously convenient for her.
Ellen Katrina leaned up from her bench and waved her crutch as though she was
signalling: - Hold your tongue, Armgard, and let Samuel tell his story.
He knows better about it than you!
Samuel, the Chief Magistrate, sat and looked at his small hands. It was seldom
his way to say much. Everyone listened to him intently. He had never before
said anything about Barbara. But he must know what was what. His Chief
Magistrate's house, Steigargard, was in Sandavag, barely a good mile from the
Priest's house in Jansagerd in Midvag, where Pastor Niels and Barbara had
lived.
- I do not pretend to understand Barbara. When she came west to Vagar
with Pastor Niels, no-one could see but that she worshipped him. Everyone
spoke well of her, and for my part I cannot say other than that in all her ways
and all her doings she appeared to be an angel.
- An angel! Old seagull Armgard gave her nephew a piercing look: Nay, by
almighty God, Samuel! Her fist came almost to the table again: Others may not
be so wise, but you at least ought to know that an angel outward is not the
same as an angel inward.
The Chief Magistrate smiled. He held his peace a moment. But no-one broke
in, the word was his. Then forth it came, deliberately, with the merest hint of
indulgent irony: - Ay, Aunt Armgard, how hasty you are! For that was
exactly what I was by way of saying. She was no angel, inward. But that does
not need to mean that she was a devil, for that was not her nature. I believe
that she wanted to be good to everyone. She was down among the folk when they
came in from fishing, she was out at the turf-cutting, something that
other priest's wives are not used to doing, and she joined in the dances. That
did not rightly please Pastor Niels.
- Dear God, said Ellen Katrina: join in the dances, there should be
nothing sinful in that - not even for a priest's wife.
- Nay, broke in the judge: if you were a priest's wife, Aunt Ellen
Katrina, and you joined in the dances, then neither would I think that anything
sinful would come of it.
- Oh you, Johan Hendrik! You hold your tongue for once, with your
impertinence! She gave him a tap with her crutch. Her look was at once solemn
and giddy.
But the Chief Magistrate's gentle eyes twinkled for a fraction of a second.
Then he continued: - No doubt Pastor Niels would have felt more secure
with another wife. I do not say that this was Barbara's fault. But so it was,
that when Barbara was in the dance, all were in the dance, men and women alike.
- No-one will understand that, said the Priest's wife, Anna Sophia,
the mistress of the house: it is not always so easy to be Barbara at a dance.
- If Barbara had understood that herself, then she should have kept
herself away from the dances, said Armgard. And this time she let her fist
thump down on the table.
- How exciting do you think it would have been, evening after evening at
home in Jansagerd with Pastor Niels and his mouldy books? said Anna Sophia,
with sudden energy.
- Ah, world, world! Ellen Katrina burst out and made signs most
thoughtfully in the air with her crutch.
But Paster Wenzel Heyde, the short and unctuous, gave his wife a most
disapproving look. She was jolly and plump and had deep dimples.
- Tell me one thing, though, asked Ellen Katrina. Was Barbara not fond of
her husband?
- I can assure you, said the Chief Magistrate, that I do not remember
having seen a wife so affectionate with her husband, when I first knew them.
She would have him near her at all times, and was bound she would help him with
everything. And when he was away she always longed for him. And he longed for
her too. He would never stay a night with us at Steigargard. In the very worst
weather he rode home to her in the evening - in rain, sleet or frost. And
so it was, moreover, all through their married life, that she could not bear to
have him neglect her. It was on this account that they had their first quarrels
- God help me, I think shewould hardlygive him leave to write his
sermons.
- Ay, Barbara! said the judge: when she is in that mood, she is ready to be
jealous of God in Heaven himself!
The Chief Magistrate smiled. - Ay. But what she would not allow her
husband, she would willingly allow herself. For many a time she neglected him.
That was hard to understand. She did want to be good to him, of that I am sure.
But take charge of herself is something Barbara cannot do. She does exactly what,
at the moment, she wants to do - if there was a dance that she would be
in, off she went. I believe she was often cut to the heart with sympathy for
her husband, God knows she was! But off she went just the same. And then she
quickly forgot him. And in the same way, if there was a trip to Havn here, then
Barbara had to take it. Often she would stay here for weeks and months,
as you all well know, who live here.
- No doubt of it! said the Company Manager.
The Chief Magistrate looked at him and scrutinized him for a moment: -
How she behaved herself here - you know that much better than I.
- We could not well avoid - hm - not well avoid
noticing this or that, said the Bailie.
- That is the gods'
truth, said the Company Manager.
The judge looked at him ironically: - Hm, ay - You did have some
interest in the case.
- So, then, I arranged with Melzer of Jubilee to make a second
trip. Do you have an objection to that?
Johan Hendrik Heyde had no objection, he merely looked more ironic.
- It must be said, the Chief Magistrate continued, that neither did
Barbara behave at home on Vagar as she should. That came out all at once, one
day, for all that she knew how to step warily. I do not intend to sit here and
reckon up everything I have heard, much of it was slander anyhow. But there are
different men to whom she has shown friendship.
Armgard had been holding her peace for some while. Now her words burst out: -
From all I have heard, Samuel, this is a slut you are sitting and talking
about!
The Company Manager whistled softly: - No, a priest's wife.
- Jesus forgive me, said Samuel Mikkelsen: she carries herself as seemly
and fine as a queen. And she is so friendly and good towards everyone. As Anna
Sophia said a moment ago: it is not easy to be Barbara. Everyone flocks around
her. She is such that she tempts everyone - and she is tempted herself.
It often seems to me that she is like a child ...
- A fine child, ay, eight and twenty years old, priest's wife and biggest
whore in the country! said Armgard.
- Ay, ay, said the Judge. And Samuel is quite right. A child - a
dangerous child, it is true.
- Ah, world! Ay~ everyone tells his own story. ]Rut now tell me, how was
it with the Priest, Samuel.
- That I shall tell you, Aunt Ellen Katrina: Pastor Niels was an
unusually gentle and orderly man. Peaceful by nature. He gave in and tried to
look the other way. As I have said, she was fond of him, but by little and
little his complaisance must have begun to irritate her. Then he tried taking
another line, and answered hard with hard. But that only put her back up. They
quarrelled. People say that she once threw a candlestick at him. Gradually it
became apparent to all that the Priest was having a bad time. Especially the
servants took his part. And the state of affairs in Jansagerd eventually got
more and more out of hand.
The Chief Magistrate's voice was deep and bucolic. It would make one think of
cattle lowing softly in their stalls, or of the stall doors sounding on their
wooden hinges. His words came separately and almost simply. But over his
Jupiter's countenance played a fine, disciplined mingling of good nature, irony
and wisdom.
- Then it happened one day, he went on, that Barbara was altogether
unreasonable with Pastor Niels - in everyone's hearing. She went after
him with taunts and that sort of thing. That gentle man had no idea what he
should do. He tried to quiet her but it just worked her up all the more. At
last she struck him. They had a manservant, Kristoffer by name, a giant of a
man. This was too much for him. All at once he goes over and picks Barbara up
and carries her out of the house.
- The house-man picked up the priest's wife? asked Fru Mathilde.
- Ay.
- Lord God, what did she say?
- What should she say? He carried her like a little child. She must have
looked somewhat surprised. It was not until he got around behind the house with
her that she began to struggle. But she was a small thing between his hands.
Then he took and put her head‑first into a dung barrel. And there she
stayed.
- Is that really so, did he do that? they all wanted to know.
- Kristoffer himself told me that, said the Chief Magistrate.
Fru Mathilde took a little spell and had to have her smelling salts brought. -
Dear God, if it had been me! I could never show my face before people again!
- It cannot have been a very edifying sight, said Samuel, taking, with a
dignified smile, an indulgent attitude to life, whose turns can sometimes be so
deplorably drastic. All the household were rounded up - they were fairly
thunderstruck.
He smiled again, just perceptibly: - It is not a common thing, either, to
see a priest's wife in that fix.
- Who helped her out?
- Kristoffer turned over the barrel and then the crawled out herself.
- She would not be an easy cat to stroke then, would she? asked the
judge.
- She was possessed. She ordered everyone out of the house for the rest
of the day. Pastor Niels, poor fellow, he felt the weight of love, he had to
help her clean up again. Eighteen tubs of water, they say, he had to fetch her
from the river. It was summer time, a Saturday afternoon. His sermon for next
day in Midvag Church suffered accordingly. But Barbara ... when the servants
came home in the evening she was as clean and pretty as ever and carried on as
though nothing had happened. Kristoffer came to me and gave himself up. I took
it that neither Pastor Niels nor Barbara would wish to prosecute in this case,
and neither they did. Then I took Kristoffer into my household, and from him
comes much of what I know about the state of affairs in Jansagerd.
There was a stunned silence. Only the knitting needles could be heard.
- Now then, that is the queen you were talking about, said Armgard at
last.
- Queen she was all the same, said the Chief Magistrate. Three days later
I was going to Havn by boat. Along came Barbara and asked if she might go with
me. But then I said that as it happened I could not have her with me. Other
times I do not like to be
unaccomodating. But upon my word, that seemed to astonish her amazingly. Ay,
that is Barbara for you.
- It is remarkable really that this story has not made Barbara more of a
laughing-stock than it has, said Pastor Wenzel. One would think that even
the most beautiful woman would have become absolutely impossible.
- Ah, but why not the other way round? said the judge.
- No, ouf! burst out Fru Mathilde.
- It shows that there is good stuff in her, said Anna Sophia.
- The devil it does, declared the Company Manager, she was simply taking
care that folk should have something else to talk about, for it was only a
short while after that that she killed her husband.
- It was nearly a half year before all that happened, the Chief
Magistrate corrected him, gently. It was in November. The Priest had been with
us one Sunday, and preached in Sandavag church. There had been a thaw and rain,
but in the course of the day there had come a hard frost and all the roads and
paths had become iced over. The Priest was bound he would ride home in the
evening, as usual. We tried every way to put him off that. But there was no
stopping him. He held to his purpose. Tired of him though Barbara surely was,
she would not allow him to leave her sit at home alone.
- So off rode the Priest, the Chief Magistrate went on, and everyone
knows how that turned out. At Midvagssand the horse stumbled on some flat rock,
and Pastor Niels fell and broke his leg. They say that Barbara was very
sympathetic at first, and cared for him so tenderly that it looked as though
they were more affectionate than ever. But then it did begin to be tiresome for
her. The Priest kept getting better and had come along so far that he could sit
up with the broken leg resting on a chair. One day in comes a manservant and
says that a strange boat has just pulled ashore down at the landing.
- It must be some gentlemen from Havn, he adds.
Barbara, who had been sitting by Pastor Niels, sprang up and ran to the window -
that is her way, to be sure - and in carelessness she happened to knock over
the chair in such a way that the Priest's broken leg came down on the floor and
broke a second time. Then they brought the Priest to a barber-surgeon
here in Havn, but he made such a botched-up job of it that gangrene set
in and Pastor Niels did not recover from that.
- Ay, Samuel, said Armgard. And how deeply the widow grieved!
- I do not know how deeply she grieved, but grieve she did, everyone
could see that.
- It is true that she grieved, said the judge. She is not a brute, not
Barbara. But she forgets damned quickly, that I shall willingly concede.
- It is just as I have observed, said the Chief Magistrate: she is like a
child.
- Ah, hold your tongue, with that twaddle. You are a grown man to whom
the country and people have been entrusted! Letting the wool be pulled over
your eyes like that! A child! Slut, is what I say, the way she carries on, playing
up to everyone.
Armgard was indignant.
- Tell me, asked Anna Sophia, have you ever spent any time with Barbara?
The seagull snarled.
- She is so delightful, said Anna Sophia.
- She is a dangerous woman, said Bailie Harme, with much solemnity.
- Ay, said Pastor Wenzel: as the hymn says, 'the fairest flower has a
corrosive poison.' Let Barbara be as delightful as she may, Christian folk must
stand aloof from her doings.
- She should be locked up, said Armgard, disdainfully. She is a dangerous
one to be at large, there is nothing but bad luck to be met with in her wake.
She should be sentenced as a whore.
- Now, now, said Johan Hendrik, and shrugged his shoulders, -
perhaps there are many others, then, who should be sentenced too. According to
my understanding of the world.
- Oh ay, oh ay, God have mercy on us, said Ellen Katrina, lame and
cheerful on her bench.
- Nay, let the good Lord judge Barbara, reasoned Johan Hendrik. She is so
made now, that every man, you might say, ay and every living creature that sees
her adores her. And she is aware of it on every least occurrence, if it is only
a dog that is worshipping her from a corner.
- Now then, asked Anna Sophia, can she do anything about that? Such is
woman's nature.
- Ay, is it not the truth? KJohan Hendrik went on, warming to his
subject. And such a woman has she become that she needs to have everyone, no
matter how small and unworthy, admiring her. Everything in her being wills to
prevail - and so has done, to this day. Everyone must love her. And she
will love everyone. But it is just this that escapes her, she cannot succeed in
this.
- I do not understand such talk at all, said Armgard.
- It is perfectly true and wisely said altogether, declared the Company
Manager, but it can all be put in a shorter and more easily understood way.
Barbara is downright lecherous. That is my simple understanding.
At that moment women's voices could be heard out in the hearth. room, and two
young women came into view in the doorway. Pastor Paul gave a little start -
these were the two pretty women he had seen that morning in the gateway of the
Company Stores.
- Thunderation! burst out the Commanding Officer of the Fort. He was so
full of beer and taken off guard that he stood in the doorway to the study with
the bottle in plain sight in his hand.
This was his one contribution to the talk, and it was paid attention to by no-one,
for all eyes were suddenly turned to the newcomers, who gleamed in their pretty
clothes, and gave off odours of face‑powder and filled the air with
twittering and smiles.
- Speak of angels - ! said Bailie Harme.
- Were you speaking about us?
- About you, Barbara, ay, said the judge in a serious tone, but with a
half-hidden smile.
This clearly pleased and flattered her, she lowered her eyes and laughed, and
her look was modest and fresh.
Pastor Paul was as though stopped in his tracks.
The two young women went round and shook hands with everyone. Barbara Salling
was somewhat tall and fair-skinned, her mouth was large and red and she
had pretty teeth. She carried herself with an innate naturalness and a
gentility that was no less impressive. Suzanne Harme was finer in build and had
a much more beautiful face. But her clever eyes were outshone by the liveliness
and quick changeableness in Barbara's glance, and her low voice seemed
monotonous compared to her friend's, with its unusual turns and breakings.
There seemed to be a rainbow of titillating sounds that had arisen amid the dry
gossip in the room.
The new Vagar priest stood up and greeted, in a somewhat confused manner, the
widow of his living. He was overcome and dazzled. Barbara exchanged handshakes
with him without paying him much attention, but she was so natural that he was
made to feel at ease. Everyone was made to feel at ease. The Chief Magistrate
smiled from the still depths of his good nature, Pastor Wenzel was friendly,
though with some reservations on Heaven's account, Anna Sophia was delighted
and the Company Manager was gallant to the point of obtrusion. But his anaemic
wife, Fru Mathilde, sat with her eyes on stalks and greedily took in Barbara
and all she did with curiosity's fiercest demons in her look. But no-one
noticed her, for all heeded Barbara alone.
But Barbara turned to Armgard's knitting and was much interested.
- It is a jacket ... or no, a kerchief, or a shawl?
And the pattern was so interesting! Armgard had to explain how it was to be,
and pointed with her needles.
- It is lovely! Barbara's eyes gave a lively impression of seeing exactly
what old Armgard's kerchief would look like when it would be finished some
time.
Armgard's face became pleasant, a smile began to open her tightshut lips, her
old tooth-stumps began to show themselves in mere friendliness and at
last she looked at Barbara with more tenderness than one would ever expect of a
seagull. They chattered away, they two, about purl and plain.
Old Ellen Katrina on her bench wanted to have a proper look at Barbara. She had
never spoken with her before, she lived on the great farm inland on Eysturoy
and was seldom in Havn. She held the young woman's hand a long while: - Well, this is Barbara herself, this is what you look like, indeed! Her old eyes
were full of attention.
Barbara was ever so little shy under this inspection, she looked down and then
up, an almost comical uncertainty showing on her face. She blushed.
- Ay, then, the old dame concluded at last, beautiful you are, as I expected.
Jesus bless you! World, world ...
Barbara's errand had been merely to ask the Bailie if a letter had come for her
mother on Fortuna. She had sought him in vain at his Bailie's house.
They told her there that he was away in Havn. She brought Stizanne with her.
Now, praise be, she found the Bailie at last on Reyn. But ah, no, there was no
letter for Mme Salling, said the Bailie. No, and there was nothing else, and
the two ladies departed again.
The judge said good-bye to Barbara in a certain ironic tone which they
had both gradually agreed to recognize as a kind of caress. She responded with
a look that might be interpreted thus: Ay, you are the only one who understands
me to my depths, and you appreciate me! This rather pleased him. But who could
tell? Perhaps she thanked the Company Manager too for his gallantry with some
look or other that singled him out as the only one or the real one.
That Barbara! - she had sweet confidences enough with them all -
bigger or littler confidences.
- How delightful she is, said Ellen Katrina. It may well be that you are
right in what you say, but are you so sure too that Pastor Niels was the man
for her?
- Nay, said the judge with a little smile: but - who would that man
be?
He stroked his chin thoughtfully, as was his way. There came to be a veritable
migration into the study. The Chief Magistrate had been there again and was now
walking sedately in a state of large and serene refreshment. It was growing
dark, and raining out of doors. The men were of one mind, that they would go
down to the Stores and inspect the goods that had come in. it promised to be a
wet, a very wet evening. Armgard's needles clicked angrily again at the pattern
that had roused Barbara's eager anticipations for a brief moment.
Such was Pastor Paul's first day in Torshavn
From Jørgen-Frantz Jacobsen: Barbara
Norvik Press, 1993
Translated by George Johnston
|
|
