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It was not easy to know if Morten saw anything or not, and whether his confidence in his wife, or his own bad conscience, caused his indifference. Rachel passed the Monday and Tuesday in an anxious state of mind. Something, she thought, must happen. The feeling against Johnsen was strong, but it must surely take some more decided form.
"She never gets anything," said the child. "When she gets there it's always all over." "That's not true," said Madam Johnsen severely. "There's food enough in the soup kitchens for all; it's just a matter of understanding how to go about it. The poor must get shame out of their heads. She'll bring something to-day!" The child stood up and breathed a hole in the ice on the window-pane.
Her brief answers made up for him one connected, sad story. Widow Johnsen was not worth much when once the "Ark" was burnt down. She felt old and helpless everywhere else, and when Pelle went to prison, she collapsed entirely. She and the little girl suffered want, and when Johanna felt herself in the way, she ran away to a place where she could be comfortable.
Madame Rasmussen could not conceal her astonishment at the moderation with which the chaplain spoke of Johnsen's sermon. She was herself in the highest degree shocked, and when Mr. Martens told her that, in his opinion, Mr. Johnsen would be likely to become a clergyman of considerable note in Christiania some day, she almost thought that he was carrying his forbearance too far.
Rachel felt that she was blushing. She had recognized his voice in the hall, and to conceal her emotion, she sat down at the piano and aimlessly struck a few chords. The door opened and in came Dean Sparre, followed by Mr. Johnsen. Rachel turned round on the music-stool, bringing her hand down with a crash on some of the bass notes of the piano.
Hanne was standing in the middle of the room, with open mouth; and was engaged in putting on her fine linen underclothing by the light of a candle-end. Her breath came in short gasps and hung white on the air. "Are you standing there naked in the cold?" said Madam Johnsen reproachfully. "You ought to take a little care of yourself." "Why, mother, I'm so warm! Why, it's summer now!"
He obtained for Johnsen a chaplaincy in his cathedral town; and some people were so mischievous as to assert that the bishop's "good hopes" were now fulfilled, for Pastor Johnsen was shortly after engaged to Miss Barbara Sparre. A great change had taken place in the ci-devant school inspector.
He did not move, but himself sat like a dead man, until Madam Johnsen came in the morning to ask how matters were progressing. Then he awoke and went out, in order to make such arrangements as were necessary. On Saturday, at noon, it was reported that the treaty of peace was signed, and that the great strike was over.
Everything appeared radiant and bright to Martens as he came along the street from the jeweller's, where he had been to order the ring, but he took care not to show his feelings; it would not do to look too pleased on the day before the funeral of his intended's uncle. In the market-place he met Mr. Johnsen.
But the cold and its sister, hunger, came every day to look in upon them. On the third floor, away from the court, Widow Johnsen sat in the corner by the stove. Hanne's little girl lay cowering on the floor, on a tattered patchwork counterpane. Through the naked window one saw only ice, as though the atmosphere were frozen down to the ground.
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