Barbara Read online

  During the following period scarcely a day passed without his seeing Barbara, and every new encounter only helped increase his happiness. He did not himself know what to think of it. He could be in no doubt that she was a woman with a bad reputation. He did not need Gabriel to instruct him in this – he could draw his own conclusions. The effect she had on all men was quite obvious. She neither did nor said anything worthy of censure. And yet! It could not be otherwise. Perhaps she simply could not help it. She pleased everyone and no one knew her ways.

  So what in heaven’s name could he, a man of the cloth, a man whose task it was to be an example to others – what could he have to do with such a woman? He could already clearly see the trap that fate was setting for him. But he did not fear it.

  He already knew that he ought to avoid her, but instead he rather sought her out. His heart was thoroughly flattered. His senses were dazzled by the looks from her green eyes and titillated by her scintillating voice. And this black, wet village with its storehouses and hovels, this place that at first had been to him but a source of melancholy, he now saw as through a radiant spectrum.

  Never mind, then, that this joy was only on account and that every day that elapsed in this way only increased its cost. He would know how to pay when the time came for settling. He did not doubt that he would be solvent, whatever the price became. He had so far never doubted himself, and he was accustomed to going with all sails set.

  The fifth day saw the arrival of the dean, Anders Morsing, by boat from Nes. Pastor Poul had heard that this man had once been betrothed to Barbara but had broken with her before the wedding. This latter fact struck Pastor Poul as being likely enough when he saw him. He was a man with a commanding figure, tall and stern faced. What eye games could he ever have had with Barbara? His eyes were like steel, piercingly blue and determined, so that anyone he spoke to would feel that he was being examined deep down into his conscience. But a little smile at once both grim and sweet played around his mouth.

  Pastor Poul felt he had been called to order the moment he saw him. He was suddenly back in the past. The dean sat with the bishop’s letter open in one hand, measuring him up.

  “Hmm,” he said. “As you know, a great deal is expected of you. Things in this country are not like they are elsewhere. The position ought to be that it is the clergy who serve their parishioners as models of piety and Christian living, but the contrary is often the case. I will not name any names, but we – that is to say you and I – have a couple of brethren whom one could only wish were half as pious as their parishioners. And so we hope to see our younger clergy made of different stuff.”

  He looked straight at Pastor Poul’s face: “You see, it is scarcely a matter of having devoured so and so many big books or of being familiar with so many of the Christian movements that are to be found all over the place these days – all this skilful whining and subtle pseudo-religiosity. I will say to you once and for all what I have actually already said: that in matters of unshakable faith and true dedication to the Lord we have more to learn from these people than these people can learn from us. I mean mainly the people living out in the villages. You cannot really count the people living here in Tórshavn. For us clergymen at the moment the important thing is not whether one of us can proclaim our message, one louder than another, but quite simply that in our lives and manners we should be worthy of our calling and that we should humbly and faithfully serve, teach and guide our flocks to respect the law and to lead a sober life so that we can in some measure be worthy of the inexplicable confidence they show in us.”

  The dean had tapped the table a couple of times; his mouth was serious but smiling, but his eyes were fierce.

  “And then,” he went on, “you yourself have eyes to see. You will probably soon discover what needs to be done.”

  All Pastor Poul could do was express his full agreement. He tried to find the right words, but found them insubstantial and insignificant.

  “And now you can go to your parish at your earliest opportunity,” concluded Dean Anders.

  Pastor Poul replied that he would be able to travel with the law speaker, who was preparing to return to his own farm.

  “Hmm,” said the dean with a smile: “Then you will be arriving in your benefice in good company. Aye, aye. I have nothing but good to say of Samuel Mikkelsen, but he is rarely in a hurry to get away when he is here on a visit to Tórshavn. Oh well, you must see to that. I am sure that you will take care of yourself in every way.”

  Dean Anders gave him another penetrating look and left.

  Pastor Poul was quite overcome. He felt almost as though he had been baptised and confirmed all over again. This dean was like a large, sharp, spiced dram. Oh well, the time had come. In a feeling almost of elation he thought that he would be tearing himself away before long, taking leave of Tórshavn and starting to work. And that would probably not be all that burdensome. He went to the law speaker to arrange the journey with him. It was a Saturday.

  Throughout the rest of the day he remembered Dean Anders’ sharp, probing eyes that had thrown their light far down into his conscience and called him to order. But occasionally he also saw Barbara’s radiant greenish yellow eyes, which she constantly had to drop because they knew far too much about a secret that could not be talked about, indeed scarcely thought about, but which nevertheless made her mouth turn up in a sweet, pleased smile that created dimples in her cheeks. That artful and everlasting secret that Barbara had with all men.

  Farewell, Oh World, Farewell

  The church bells out on Reyn were calling people to divine service. Their gentle tone fluttered above the housetops. But the tower in which they hung was sombre and rickety with age. It shook beneath the movement. The bells heaved and squeaked in the woodwork, and this piteous secondary sound mingled with chimes as light as birdsong and could be heard everywhere in the town.

  The gale and the rain had set into a static cold. The dirt in the streets had become hard and sharp, and the puddles had frozen to tinkling ice. The sun shone hazily on this twenty-sixth Sunday after Trinity.

  The church was small. There were thirteen pews on either side in addition to a small gallery above the entrance. It was bitterly cold among the bare timber walls. There was no loft; you just looked straight up at the heavy rafters and laths in the roof.

  The impoverished people of Tórshavn began to arrive. The women wore black shawls and scarves. They came tight-lipped and with the Kingo hymnbook in their hands. The men followed, a little hesitantly and with a sombre urge to remain in the background. A few individuals among them found their way up to the gallery. They were only the heroes of everyday life – Samuel the Hoist and Niels the Punt. Here in this sacred place the women had better take the lead.

  The better off and the fine folk also came to church. As was their right, they had their regular places, which none of the common folk dared violate. Bailiff Harme came and spread himself beside his daughter Suzanne. They sat in the front row. There was also the judge’s pew, which was still used by Mrs Stenderup, the previous judge’s widow, and a pew for the clergyman’s family, in which the two sisters Armgard and Ellen Katrine were allotted seats as Pastor Wenzel’s relatives and guests. Pastor Poul Aggersøe was also given a seat in this pew.

  There were in addition many others who had their permanent pews despite not being among the elite: Mrs Dreyer, Sieur Arentzen and old Miss Kleyn. They were solid folk who paid for their seats. This was their pride and their token of distinction in the eyes of the ordinary folk, and their faces betrayed just a little awareness of this as they seated themselves.

  But one feature all the churchgoers had in common was that their breath rose as grey clouds in the bitterly cold air.

  Pastor Poul sat thinking of all the times he had attended service in the cathedral in Copenhagen, all the courteous commotion outside the west door of carriages, hansoms and servants banging carriage doors. He thought of the well-dressed throng of distinguished and ordinary citi
zens who with pleasure and dignity strode down three equally lofty aisles between the columns as the organ played a solemn voluntary and growled beneath the vaulted roof. Alas, here in Tórshavn there was only a poor, bent parish clerk hoarsely stammering his way through the introit. And meanwhile there was a deathly silence beneath the roof beams and not the usual coughing and spluttering.

  Immediately after this, Barbara hurried quietly in and sat down beside her mother in the judge’s pew – as a final living glimpse of the world before the start of the sombre hymn.

  Judge Johan Hendrik Heyde had on this day come to church together with the bailiff and his daughter. He had greeted them, exchanged a few words and smiled, but when they had entered the porch he had not accompanied them up the floor of the church to his pew. Instead, he had made his bulky way up into the gallery.

  Why did he do this? He had nothing against them, but there was nevertheless something keeping them apart at that moment. They were speaking Danish. Well, of course, that was their language. And Johan Hendrik had nothing against things Danish – he had himself spent much time in Denmark, and his own family was Danish. Indeed, he would have thought it unreasonable if people such as the bailiff or the storekeeper had spoken Faroese. And yet, here on home ground among ordinary Faroese people, this easily flowing language was in conflict with the right tone. It irritated him a little, as when he heard someone nearby playing a badly tuned instrument. He was himself attuned to the people. So it was against his nature to go forward into the front row. He preferred to remain in the background in the gallery. Here, he could sit quietly and think about agricultural improvements, new fishing experiments and other useful subjects serving the interests of the country.

  Some time after the judge had taken his place, there was a heavy creaking on the stairs, and up came his cousin Samuel Mikkelsen, the islands’ law speaker. He was big and ungainly, but he, too, preferred the gallery. Not on account of any subtle ill will towards other good people, but purely out of discretion. He proceeded so carefully; if he made a joke it was an elegant one, and when he took a drink during the service he did so with great delicacy – not secretly like some scoundrel or schoolboy, but with imperturbable dignity. Johan Hendrik felt refreshed by his presence, but, perhaps not without reason, Bailiff Harme thought that His Majesty’s Faroese-born officials misunderstood their position by hiding themselves from view among the riffraff in the six free benches in the gallery.

  Things were completely different with the commandant, Lieutenant Otto Hjørring. He did not hide his light under a bushel, but strode into the church in his red dress uniform, with rapier, moustache, pigtail and everything that could be required of a military personage. But admittedly, he made a mistake and blundered into one of the common pews. Beach Flea was both honoured and concerned and directed a great number of anxious glances at the overwhelming proximity of such splendour and delectable perfume.

  This was how they came, all the people of the parish, high and low. Gabriel in his Sunday best, pious and unrecognisable. The staff of the Store and the gunners from the Redoubt, the owner of the home farm with his workers and the village farmer who had come on foot from afar. The congregation worked their way through the first long-winded hymn. There was no organ. The cold, shivering voices hardly kept time with each other. Some sang splendidly and with a sense of artistry; for instance Sieur Arentzen, on whom it was plain to see that he saw himself as the main singer. Others sang with no sense of music whatsoever, and their wives simply wailed from beneath their black scarves. There was a great deal of coughing and sniffing when the last, endless, asthmatic verse had finally been sung. Hanging beneath the roof, the model of the East-Indiaman The Lion of Norway turned slowly on its cord. Its bowsprit started to point south.

  The minister, who had been standing turned towards the altar, now addressed the congregation: “The Lord be with you.”

  A cloud of steam emerged from his mouth. A hundred clouds of steam from the congregation replied: “And with thy spirit.”

  Pastor Wenzel was a little too small for the red chasuble, and it looked as though he at any time could stumble and fall in the folds of the alb. He glanced at the congregation. The Royal Store manager had not come. That was unfortunate. No, that man regrettably only had a mediocre record for attending church. It was particularly annoying today. The clergyman felt a sudden sense of disappointment. The sermon for the day had a message for everyone, though mainly for the great and those with temporal responsibilities, those who were most inclined to forget the church and to ignore its servants. The bailiff was there. But as soon as he turned towards the altar again, Pastor Wenzel noticed that his own wife was absent. Anna Sophie had not come yet!

  “Let us pray.”

  He started to feel a vague sense of unease. He hesitated in the midst of the ritual. Then he swallowed hard and chanted the collect in a voice that trembled slightly. No one thought that unusual. Pastor Wenzel often spoke as though something or other had upset him. The whole of his small, red-bearded figure always gave the sense of having been slightly insulted.

  The service took its course. They reached the Epistle. Pastor Wenzel, who had been feeling strangely outside it all, pulled himself together. He turned to the congregation and in a powerful voice intoned: “The Epistle for the twenty-sixth Sunday after Trinity is taken from the First Epistle of St Paul to the Thessalonians.”

  Anna Sophie had not come.

  “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you. And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly…”

  Some time after he had finished the Epistle, Pastor Wenzel could still hear his voice echoing within his head. He had not associated any meaning with a single word of what he had read out. His heart was uneasy, his mind empty. Nor had Pastor Poul, sitting in the pew reserved for the clergy, been listening. His thoughts, too, were wandering restlessly on other paths. Indeed, in the entire church there were scarcely many who had noticed the words of the Apostle. Some were too worried, others too sleepy. And so the service progressed like a game that had been started and must go on. Unnoticed, the Lion of Norway had again turned and was now heading towards the south west.

  As soon as the minister had gone up into the pulpit and started to speak, Johan Hendrik up in the gallery could hear that his brother had been upset by something or other. There was a certain quality in the tone of his voice that he knew so well. He had known it ever since they had both been boys.

  Pastor Wenzel began hesitantly, but soon found the sure thread he had planned and followed it determinedly. It was this sermon he had prepared with such zeal and which the store manager should have heard, although it was equally aimed at the bailiff, indeed fundamentally at everyone in the congregation, right down to the most humble.

  “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord…”

  It was not every year there was a twenty-sixth Sunday after Trinity, and it was not every minister who during the service was allowed to preach on the text of the Epistle instead of the Gospel. But Pastor Wenzel, who had a master’s degree, was so permitted, and at last, on this Sunday which so rarely occurred, he had the opportunity to say what had burdened his heart for so long.

  Anna Sophie had still not come.

  She, too, could benefit from hearing what he had to say. Although it would presumably be like water off a duck’s back. No, that was not why he was missing her. He did not allow himself to think more deeply about it. But his heart knew better; it was beating strongly.

  He started by rendering unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s. The king’s officials and servants and all the temporal authorities – they should all be respected and obeyed. For the authorities were placed there by God. But what of God’s servants? Should they not be honoured and respected in the same way? The Apostle Paul explained
it in his Epistle to the Ephesians. “Pay heed to yourselves,” he writes to the leaders of the congregation, “and to the entire flock, among which the Holy Ghost appointed you bishops to feed God’s people, which he achieved through His own blood.”

  He looked around for the first time and raised his voice: “But when bishops and priests give you your spiritual food, take care of your souls and justify yourselves before God, ought they then not to be seen as equal to those – indeed at least equal to those who provide you with food for the body, ensure there are provisions in the country (this was something the Royal Store manager should have heard!), take care of your temporal wellbeing and maintain justice and righteousness among you?”

  Pastor Wenzel had worked himself up: “The spiritual and the temporal are two concepts, but the spiritual is not inferior to the temporal. If you observe the laws of the land, which the authorities impose on you, ought you not to obey God’s eternal commandments, which I also proclaim?”

  He looked appealingly at the bailiff, and Harme nodded.

  “And when you pay your land dues and taxes to the office established for the purpose by the king, ought you not to pay your dues to the Church established by God?”

  The bailiff nodded again, conceding the point. Pastor Wenzel worked himself up still more: “And when you do service and pay rates to the military and its officers, are those above you in the service of the Lord not of such value that you will pay them a tithe?”

  His eyes wandered over to the lieutenant, who was sleeping soundly in his scarlet dress uniform.

  Then his eyes turned back to the bailiff; indeed, it was almost as though this sermon was developing into a conversation with the bailiff. And the bailiff again nodded graciously.