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Updated: May 3, 2025
A deafening, long-drawn ringing told him that the fire-brigade was near at hand. But in the midst of all the uproar Pelle's ears had heard a faint, intermittent sound. With one leap he was in Madam Johnsen's room; he stood there listening; the crying of a child reached him from the other side of the wall, where the rooms opened on to the inner corridor.
That apparently helpless young man had shown that he knew how to look after himself only too well. "Invited nearly every day to Sandsgaard! Hum!" muttered Martens, as he went down the street. No sooner had Delphin taken the clergyman's place, than the conversation changed its tone. "Our worthy chaplain did not much like Johnsen's going to Sandsgaard," said Fanny.
At last he said, calmly and plainly, "Are you not in love with this woman?" Johnsen's first idea was to answer no; but he failed in the effort, hesitated, and said, "I don't know." From that moment the dean had completed his task. Johnsen tried to break off the conversation by looking at the clock, which was now nearly eight.
She was the only person in the whole town who really knew that Martens wore a wig. This was not, however, a thing to be spoken about, and nobody else was admitted into the secret. As Mrs. Garman drove home from church with Rachel and Madeleine, she spoke disapprovingly of Johnsen's sermon.
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.
But there was nothing to be said about the matter; Vinslev played the flute, and Johnsen's suicide was a death like any other. Now the devil was going about with a ring in his nose; Vinslev's playing was like a gentle breeze that played on people's hearts, so that they opened like flowers. This was his good time. Pelle knew all this, although he had not long been here; but it was nothing to him.
It was impossible in any case to obtain any reassuring view of the whole. The world followed its own crooked course in defiance of all wisdom. There was little pleasure in absorbing knowledge about things that one could not remedy; poor people had better be dull. He and Morten had just been to Madam Johnsen's funeral. She had not succeeded in seeing Jutland.
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