isolation.
All this had happened twelve years ago. Since then he had looked around the world and had had to do with many people and circumstances. He had had friends in many countries, and had known girls who were as pretty and devoted as the fisherman’s daughter from Vatne. He thought of her no longer, and hardly remembered how it had first come about that he preferred to keep himself somewhat aloof from people, lest through him they should be lost.
IX. A BALL IN CHRISTIANSSAND
Now ladies and gentlemen from the town’s best society came to the house in the square to see and pay their respects to Mamzell Ross. They combined to give a ball in her honor in the ballroom of Harmonien. Malli till that day had gone about in the rich house in her one modest frock, and had not given it a thought; a ball-frock she had never possessed. But for the ball Mrs. Hosewinckel, in all haste, had her own dressmaker make up a tulle gown with flounces and a sash for the house’s young guest. The elderly woman on the evening of the ball was surprised to see how easily and regally the milliner’s daughter wore her finery, and wondered a little whether she herself and the whole town did not do wrong to treat, in return for a heroic deed, the heroine like a toy. She might have spared herself her worry. Such treatment might have turned the head of another girl, but here one had to deal with a young person who accepted being treated as a toy with gratitude, and who could at the same time treata whole town with its harbor, streets, town-hall and citizens as her own plaything.
So Malli went to the ball, but she could not take a full part in it, for she had never learned to dance. One of the ladies of the committee begged her instead to sing to the party. Malli did this gladly, and all listened with pleasure to her pure, clear voice, the old gentlemen at the card tables raising their punch glasses high to her as she gave them a sea chanty from their own young days. A young girl next suggested that she should sing something they could dance to. Malli held back a little, and then, like a bird in a tree, with a long-concealed, suddenly emerging delight broke into her own song, Ariel’s song:
“Come unto these yellow sands
,
And then take hands:
Curtsied when you have, and kiss’d,—
The wild waves whist,—
Foot it featly here and there
,
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.”
The dance swept on in time with the song, and Malli stood in the midst of the glittering hall and watched it turning and swaying to the command of her beat.
Ferdinand had been invited to the ball, and Malli had been happily looking forward to seeing him and talking with him, for the two had not met since the night of the storm. But he had sent word that he could not come. Now the singer fixed her eyes on Arndt Hosewinckel.
Arndt had stood talking to some old merchants, but when Malli began to sing he listened, and when she sang for the dance he joined in the dancing. She saw how well he danced, and in one single glance realized what he meant in the ballroomand the town, and what the lovely young ladies at the ball, who had learned to dance, thought of him. But the simple girl, who had bought her entry to the only ball of her young life by risking that life itself, while watching the town’s first young man dancing, realized even more. She thought: “God! what deep need!” And again: “I can help there. I can help him in his need and save him!”
Malli did not go to bed when she came home, but kept sitting for a long time in her filmy gown in front of her candle-lit mirror. Arndt Hosewinckel did not go to bed either, but went out of the house for a long night-walk. Not seldom did it happen that he went out at night like this to the harbor and to the warehouses there, or farther out, along the fjord.
X. EXCHANGE OF VISITS
Malli wished to visit the sick Herr Soerensen, and Arndt Hosewinckel walked with her to show her the way to the hotel, and to pay his respects
All this had happened twelve years ago. Since then he had looked around the world and had had to do with many people and circumstances. He had had friends in many countries, and had known girls who were as pretty and devoted as the fisherman’s daughter from Vatne. He thought of her no longer, and hardly remembered how it had first come about that he preferred to keep himself somewhat aloof from people, lest through him they should be lost.
IX. A BALL IN CHRISTIANSSAND
Now ladies and gentlemen from the town’s best society came to the house in the square to see and pay their respects to Mamzell Ross. They combined to give a ball in her honor in the ballroom of Harmonien. Malli till that day had gone about in the rich house in her one modest frock, and had not given it a thought; a ball-frock she had never possessed. But for the ball Mrs. Hosewinckel, in all haste, had her own dressmaker make up a tulle gown with flounces and a sash for the house’s young guest. The elderly woman on the evening of the ball was surprised to see how easily and regally the milliner’s daughter wore her finery, and wondered a little whether she herself and the whole town did not do wrong to treat, in return for a heroic deed, the heroine like a toy. She might have spared herself her worry. Such treatment might have turned the head of another girl, but here one had to deal with a young person who accepted being treated as a toy with gratitude, and who could at the same time treata whole town with its harbor, streets, town-hall and citizens as her own plaything.
So Malli went to the ball, but she could not take a full part in it, for she had never learned to dance. One of the ladies of the committee begged her instead to sing to the party. Malli did this gladly, and all listened with pleasure to her pure, clear voice, the old gentlemen at the card tables raising their punch glasses high to her as she gave them a sea chanty from their own young days. A young girl next suggested that she should sing something they could dance to. Malli held back a little, and then, like a bird in a tree, with a long-concealed, suddenly emerging delight broke into her own song, Ariel’s song:
“Come unto these yellow sands
,
And then take hands:
Curtsied when you have, and kiss’d,—
The wild waves whist,—
Foot it featly here and there
,
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.”
The dance swept on in time with the song, and Malli stood in the midst of the glittering hall and watched it turning and swaying to the command of her beat.
Ferdinand had been invited to the ball, and Malli had been happily looking forward to seeing him and talking with him, for the two had not met since the night of the storm. But he had sent word that he could not come. Now the singer fixed her eyes on Arndt Hosewinckel.
Arndt had stood talking to some old merchants, but when Malli began to sing he listened, and when she sang for the dance he joined in the dancing. She saw how well he danced, and in one single glance realized what he meant in the ballroomand the town, and what the lovely young ladies at the ball, who had learned to dance, thought of him. But the simple girl, who had bought her entry to the only ball of her young life by risking that life itself, while watching the town’s first young man dancing, realized even more. She thought: “God! what deep need!” And again: “I can help there. I can help him in his need and save him!”
Malli did not go to bed when she came home, but kept sitting for a long time in her filmy gown in front of her candle-lit mirror. Arndt Hosewinckel did not go to bed either, but went out of the house for a long night-walk. Not seldom did it happen that he went out at night like this to the harbor and to the warehouses there, or farther out, along the fjord.
X. EXCHANGE OF VISITS
Malli wished to visit the sick Herr Soerensen, and Arndt Hosewinckel walked with her to show her the way to the hotel, and to pay his respects
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