Barbara Read online

  “For the priest,” continued Pastor Wenzel, “the priest is your spiritual superior, appointed by the Holy Ghost – and, by the way, also by His Majesty the King – in the same way as the bailiff and the law speaker, the Royal Store manager and the judge…”

  He gave his brother a look in the hidden depths of which lay a kind of mild reproach. But then he quickly looked back at the bailiff and continued: “…errh, in the same way as these are your high-ranking temporal superiors, whom it is your duty to honour and love. Do not be angry with your minister for telling you the truth. Even the most high-ranking should not be deaf to his exhortations, if not for the sake of his humble personage, then for the sake of his lofty calling.”

  Now it was said. Pastor Wenzel paused; his watery blue eyes wandered around rather uncertainly as though he was trying to fathom the effect of his words. Then he went on: “Furthermore, the Apostle says to us today: ‘Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly…’”

  It was suddenly as though he was unable to go on. Anna Sophie – now he could see her! And he could see the Royal Store manager as well. Through one of the open windows in the church he could see over to the parsonage, and there, in the small sitting room, he could see both his wife and the manager of the Royal Store…

  He swayed as he stood there, understanding nothing and feeling nothing. It was almost as though he were dreaming. Anna Sophie and the Royal Store manager! What was it… he did not remember immediately… there had always been something about this; he had known it all along.

  He wanted to go on where he had left off, but he had a pain in his heart. It was growing. He was overcome by an ache that paralysed him. His heart beat slowly like an iron knot; his throat was tightened and burned, his entire figure radiated pain.

  Anna Sophie!

  He heard his own voice, still stammering: “Warn them that are unruly, warn them that are unruly…”

  The entire congregation saw him standing there rocking on his feet, helpless, deathly pale with a tiny blood-red patch on either cheek. A few thought he had been taken ill; no one understood the true reason for his terrible distress. Some time passed. The lieutenant’s easy snoring started to become restless, and he uttered a few words in his sleep.

  Then it was as though the minister himself started at the great silence. He realised he was standing in the pulpit but not preaching. The congregation was sitting in the church and not listening. A ray of sunlight fell on the windows and he saw all the faces quite clearly. High up at the back of the church sat his brother with a look of surprise in his face. The Lion of Norway was slowly rocking in its cords, pointlessly. And the entire church was like a ship that was sailing out of control on the ocean’s waves, full of people, but without anyone at the helm.

  Pastor Wenzel pulled himself together. The unruly – now he had it. He spoke out loud in a voice trembling with hurt. If he had had anything on his mind before, he had no less now. The unruly, they were those of high rank! He envisaged the Royal Store manager’s smooth, well-fed face. Like a flash of lightning all was made clear to him. He had admired this face, taken care of it as of a plant when the Royal Store manager sat at table in his home to enjoy a good roast. Now he saw his own happiness being devoured and himself being trampled on with the same matter-of-fact look of satisfaction. He gasped; his soul and his mind turned on the mighty and snapped at them like a dog that has been kicked without reason. He suddenly envisaged them as an eternal host of the powerful and the replete. The judge, and behind him a succession of judges who had despised the peasants in the country. The lieutenant and behind him a succession of lieutenants who had mercilessly drilled decent lads. The Royal Store manager, and behind him a host of Royal Store managers who had cheated his honest and innocent forefathers. Did he not know the great figures? King David, who stole Urias’s wife. Herod, who had St John the Baptist beheaded. And behind them all Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands. The great ultimately all washed their luxurious white hands. Did he not know them? They had been the maggots eating away at his life. No more than a few minutes ago, he had stood here applying to be accepted as one among them. And now he had been stabbed in the heart.

  Trembling with bitterness, Pastor Wenzel had started his confrontation with the unruly of this world, but as he gradually dug deeper into his own soul and became aware of the beam in his own eye, he himself grew with his message. No secret corner of the human heart, no selfish hidden thought, no earthly desire, no foolish vanity did he allow to remain hidden. He recognised clearly that the world and only the world was the goal and objective of the human mind. For all were born bad and sinful and did not themselves know how great sinners they were. No one could be just by virtue of their own strength or deserts, and all lacked honour before God. Every time a human being had performed some good act, it was followed by self-righteousness, the great flatterer, reaching out its hand to him and thereby turning good to evil. Nothing good was said or done without the world being behind it like some grubby hidden thought. So endless was mankind’s inability to achieve true goodness. Everything was fundamentally desire, false ness, self-justification, selfishness, folly and vanity. Vanity!

  “Hmm,” said the judge to the law speaker; “so that’s the direction he’s taking today. Aye, then something or other has gone wrong for him.”

  But, amazed and horrified, the congregation down in the church listened to Pastor Wenzel’s words and thought that he was after all a great preacher and chastiser. For it was to all of them as though he were showing them their own image in a mirror and looking deep into their hearts. They did not think that he was only looking into his own heart.

  Pastor Poul, the new parson bound for Vágar, had like so many others to bow his head. For he felt that he himself was walking on the same path of vanity and was never completely happy unless his heart was flattered, his ambition fostered and his desire fired. It was the world and only the world that played before his eyes, and he had not himself the ability to look higher.

  But Pastor Wenzel, who saw that he had carried the congregation with him, went further and further down into the ways and byways of the human heart, and when he could go no further and had quite revealed humankind’s complete inability to achieve goodness and its unworthiness to see God, he suddenly allowed the miracle to take place. And this miracle was grace through Jesus Christ, who took away all our sins. Indeed through grace and only through grace was it possible to rise, to relinquish the burden of this world and despise it as the worthless rubbish it is, and finally with a pure heart to turn our thoughts to heaven.

  “Amen!” He concluded in a loud voice, and before he began the prayer his pale eyes wandered quickly around the church, though without getting too close to a certain window. This was a moment of grace for the Tórshavn congregation.

  When they came to the hymn, Pastor Wenzel said that they were not going to sing the hymn ordained for the day – he was a master of theology and could decide this on their behalf – but another. It was by Thomas Kingo and was familiar to them from The Spiritual Choir or from the book called Thousands and known as Tired of the World and Longing for Heaven.

  Most of them knew it by heart. Sieur Arentzen led the singing with great skill and with the loud support of Pastor Wenzel himself:

  Farewell oh world, farewell

  No longer will I live in thrall

  The cares with which you burdened me

  I now cast off and from them flee.

  And from the sin I’ll now be free

  Of vanity

  Of vanity

  The hymn fired everyone, and the entire congregation sang aloud the next verse:

  And what is this frame

  Adorned by the world with so wondrous a name

  Beach Flea glanced at the commandant, who was still snoring with an indescribably non-military expression on his face.

  It is but shades and glittering glass.

  It is but froth and clinking brass.

  It is but gross profan
ity

  And vanity

  And vanity

  Aye, that was probably right. Samuel Mikkelsen had a slight headache after a quiet evening of festivity yesterday. It was the fifth on the run and he was gradually beginning to feel sickened by all the jugs and glasses that were to be found on a table by midnight. No, there was surely no earthly joy without a sour aftertaste.

  What then are my years

  That vanish now amid my fears?

  My worries then? My thoughtful mind?

  My sorrows? My joys? My puzzled mind?

  My labours now? Urbanity?

  ‘Tis vanity

  ‘Tis vanity.

  The young ones did not believe this. But there was no furrowed face in the church that did not become thoughtful at these words. From Bailiff Harme with his great responsibility to Samuel the Hoist with his eight children. One man had to recognise that his forty years in the job was no more than writing in the sand, while another merely awaited three shovelfuls of soil as the mortal end of one who had laboured all his life. But the judge, ever doubting and difficult, was struck by the acrimonious idea that a piece of useful work carried out on earth was more gratifying than ten cries of jubilation in heaven.

  He read modern books and had come to the belief that hard work and patriotism were the tokens of greater blessings than palm leaves.

  O riches and gold

  You idols of Earth so fair to behold

  You are but a part of the world’s deep deceit

  Which grows and then withers and signals defeat.

  Your nature is profanity

  And vanity,

  And vanity.

  This was a consolation to many who had lost their possessions. But Gabriel had not sufficient control over his thoughts to prevent him from that moment falling into profound speculations as to whether various sums of money that had recently been transferred from others’ pockets into his ought not to be invested in four rods of land that were for sale in Mikladal.

  Ah, honour, what now?

  What are all the crowns and the wreaths on your brow?

  Black envy is ever now ready to chafe,

  In secret you hurt and so seldom feel safe

  And often you wonder at others’ profanity –

  Aye, vanity

  Aye, vanity.

  Who could deny all this? Who was not eaten by the worm of ambition – big or small? From the rented pews of the finer folk to the benches of the poor there was no soul who did not secretly glance at a competitor or a superior. Envy rode on the backs of them all. Who was without arrogance? Who had no hidden wounds?

  Sorrow and a strange sense of consolation moved in great waves in Pastor Wenzel’s mind. The hymn comforted him. There! Thomas Kingo had felt and experienced everything in the same way as he himself.

  Ah, favour and fame,

  You mightily longed for, you urge for acclaim

  You flatterer false, you fast blowing wind

  With eyes as of thousands and yet blowing blind –

  What other are you then when examined in sanity?

  Than Vanity

  Than Vanity.

  What on earth has come over Wenzel today, the judge wondered again. Something or other must have upset the little man and hurt him to the depths of his innermost clerical soul. Could it be that the bailiff had not bothered to listen to his sermon? Something had gone wrong, that was obvious, and now Wenzel was standing there, God help him, wallowing in every earthly passion, but with his face turned to the light of divine grace – of course, ah rubbish. This hymn would soon be a source of false comfort, a kind of brandy in which to find consolation when folk burned themselves on the porridge of life. If someone did no more than lose three marks at cards, then farewell, oh world. A fat lot of help that would be.

  But when they came to the next verse, everything collapsed completely for Pastor Wenzel for a moment: he forgot divine grace and wept and sang in his sorrow:

  Ah, friendship and faith,

  Who know that good fortune is merely a wraith

  O beauteous deceiver, o fortunate knave

  Treacherous ever, you never will save

  But vanity,

  But vanity.

  And fired with righteous fury and zeal, he continued:

  Ah, fleshly desire,

  So many your kisses of death-bringing fire,

  Your matches, your kindling, your fast flying spark

  So many have sent into ne’er-ending dark…

  The invisible halo around Barbara’s head started to glow. For it was to her that most people’s thoughts were directed in envy, in lust, in condemnation. Gabriel was suffering as he lusted for her; even the judge up in the gallery sat looking at her. But she herself sat there as devoid of reflection as a bird on a fence, oblivious to the fires of Hell by which she was surrounded. The new parson from Vágar, Pastor Poul Aggersøe, loved her and was terrified.

  …Like honey your draught, but foul is the drink,

  Ah, vanity,

  Ah, vanity.

  Armgard was so small and so old in her black dress. She nodded as though in confirmation of this. All she felt this hymn lacked was a verse on brandy. For that was the Devil’s drink and had been the downfall of many. But her sister Ellen Katrine looked ahead quite happily as she sat there in the grip of her memories: – The World!

  Then fare thee now well, now farewell,

  No longer deceit shall you heap on my soul,

  O world of deceit, you shall ne’er me enslave

  I’ll dig you deep down in oblivion’s grave

  I’ll mend now my soul in sorrow and grace

  In Abraham’s embrace

  In Abraham’s embrace

  And everyone shook off the yoke of earthly life and sang aloud of heavenly bliss. They had settled their accounts with their hearts. While the congregation rose and the bells started to resound in the wooden tower, the woeful sound of the hymn lingered in everyone’s ears.

  Vanity, vanity.

  Pastor Poul walked slowly down the aisle. He was remembering the Sunday in Copenhagen Cathedral when he had thought he was bidding farewell to the world. But the world had come here with him. There were no columns and arcades here, no organ and no vaulting, merely a mean wooden church. And yet the world was just as powerful and difficult to say goodbye to.

  Pastor Wenzel came and took him by the arm, red and flushed and as if he were not quite himself. He came as though with authority from on high, humble and yet trembling with triumph.

  “Well, Johan Hendrik,” he enquired out in the entrance to the church, “what did you think of that sermon?”

  “Well,” said the judge, taking his time to put his hat on his head, “the end was different from the beginning. Otherwise, it was just like you at both ends.”

  Samuel the law speaker, who by now had emptied the first bottle of the day, paid his kindly and clear-eyed respects to his old aunts Armgard and Ellen Katrine.

  A little snow was falling. The ringing of the bell sounded freer outside, fluttering among the tiny flakes of white. Everyone had a strange sense of elation. They had seen themselves and each other in the seductive mirror of the world and were fascinated and shocked at everything on this earth. But thank God! The world had no power over them; they had torn themselves away. Relieved and liberated, they hurried home. They did not know that it was the anticipation of dinner that lent them wings.

  But in the empty church the East-Indiaman The Lion of Norway still hung in its strings, adorned with guns, pennants and flags, slowly rocking around all the points of the compass, now in one direction and now in another.

  The World

  It was blowing down every alley and passageway and there was a raw smell of seaweed. The weather had turned dull again. A south wind was blowing in from the sea and lessening the biting grip of the frost.

  The town had fallen into a state of lethargy. People were sitting in their houses and hovels in their best clothes. They were sated with food and Sabb
ath and were gradually starting to be bored. Out in Reynegaard, Samuel the law speaker was playing chess with his cousin the judge. A long time elapsed between moves and even longer between words. Armgard and Ellen Katrine sat talking about the old days and every now and again disagreed about their family. It was a great lack to Armgard that she dared not knit – knitting permitted her to let off steam when she was overcome with anger, but the quiet of the Sunday must not be disturbed by worldly labours.

  The minister and his wife only put in a brief appearance that afternoon; they had probably had a talk in the small sitting room. The old folk did not think it had been right of Anna Sophie to miss the service. But of course, they said nothing.

  Pastor Poul had gone out. He met no one in the deserted streets. As he approached Nýggjastova he slowed his pace. In the midst of all the cheerlessness it was a profound joy to him to know that Barbara lived in this house. Was she in there, perhaps? Perhaps it was more likely that she was at the bailiff’s home together with Suzanne.

  On the sand, where the river ran out into the East Bay, the ducks lay with their beaks hidden beneath their wings. They uttered some alarmed quacks as he went by, but they were far too lazy to be bothered moving. They were the ducks that belonged to Springus and Whoops and Katrine the Cellar. Every family had its own, but they were without artificial markings – the local people knew the town’s ducks as well as they knew each other. Well, it may be that Bailiff Harme did not know the ducks so well, although he lived quite nearby, but he had greater things to see to. As for Pastor Poul, he simply did not see the ducks he walked amongst. He was solely concerned with the thought that at that very moment it might be that he was being observed from a window. And so he was; he was being observed from a large number of windows. All the womenfolk in Gongin were very interested and for the following hour that afternoon, the great subject of discussion was that they had seen the new minister jump the stones across the river and go up into the outfield.