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The time passed without any change; she was as constant in her tranquillity as she had before been constant in her misery. It was not the habit of the Kollers to change their minds once they had made them up about anything. Then Kongstrup came home from his journey. She did not drive out to meet him, but was on the steps to greet him, gentle and kind.
Pelle walked into the servants' room like a gentleman; he was fitted several times a day. He was fitted for two whole suits, one of which was for Rud, who was to be confirmed too. It would probably be the last thing that Rud and his mother would get at the farm, for Fru Kongstrup had carried her point, and they were to leave the cottage in May.
Pelle, too, must never be able to say anything against his father in that way; he must be clean in his child's eyes, and be able to look him in the face without shrinking. And then well, the thought of how the two women would take it in the event of its being discovered, simply made Lasse blink his red eyes and hang his head. Toward the middle of March, Fru Kongstrup returned unexpectedly.
But Kongstrup, who was there himself, entering the weight, interfered. "No, if he's ill he must be allowed to keep his bed," he said. "But it's our duty to do something to cure him." "How about a mustard-plaster?" suggested Mons, with a defiant glance at the bailiff. Kongstrup rubbed his hands with delight. "Yes, that'll be splendid!" he said.
While it was being done, he walked about nervously, and then set off at full speed. As he turned the corner of the house, a window opened and a voice called to him imploringly: "Kongstrup, Kongstrup!" But he drove quickly on, the window closed, and the weeping began afresh. In the afternoon Pelle was busying himself about the lower yard when Karna came to him and told him to go up to mistress.
But what a good time he has! I think she'd go through fire to please him; but upon my word, she's master there. Well, well, I suppose we oughtn't to speak evil of any one; to you she's like your own mother!" Fru Kongstrup said nothing about the result of her drive to the parson; it was not her way to talk about things afterward.
Pelle, too, must never be able to say anything against his father in that way; he must be clean in his child's eyes, and be able to look him in the face without shrinking. And then well, the thought of how the two women would take it in the event of its being discovered, simply made Lasse blink his red eyes and hang his head. Toward the middle of March, Fru Kongstrup returned unexpectedly.
Later on she went to the other extreme, and dressed herself up like a man, and went about out on the rocks instead of busying herself with something at home; and she let no one come near her. Kongstrup, the present master of Stone Farm, had come to the island about twenty years before, and even now no one could quite make him out.
"Oh, very well! But then we can't do anything about it either." "I may just as well tell you," Lasse interrupted. "He called me Madam Olsen's concubine from the Bible story, I suppose." Kongstrup tried to suppress a chuckle, as if some one had whispered a coarse joke in his ear, and he could not help it. The mistress herself was serious enough.
It was now Jomfru Koller's second year at the farm, in spite of all evil prophecies; and indeed things had turned out in such a way that every one had to own that his prognostications had been wrong. She was always fonder of driving with Kongstrup to the town than of staying at home to cheer Fru Kongstrup up in her loneliness; but such is youth.
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