“Oh, damn it all, they might leave me in peace!” said the man defiantly.
The “Ark” was now freezing in the north wind; all outward signs of life were stripped from it. The sounds that in summer bubbled up from its deep well-like shaft were silent now; the indistinguishable dripping of a hundred waste-pipes, that turned the court into a little well with green slimy walls, was silent too. The frost had fitted them all with stoppers; and where the toads had sat gorging themselves in the cavities of the walls—fantastic caverns of green moss and slimy filaments—a crust of ice hung over all; a grimy glacier, which extended from the attics right down to the floor of the court.
Where were they now, the grimy, joyful children? And what of the evening carouse of the hearse-driver, for which his wife would soundly thrash him? And the quarrelsome women’s voices, which would suddenly break out over this or that railing, criticizing the whole court, sharp as so many razors?
The frost was harder than ever! It had swept all these things away and had locked them up as closely as might be. The hurdy-gurdy man lay down below in his cellar, and had as visitor that good friend of the north wind, the gout; and down in the deserted court the draught went shuffling along the dripping walls. Whenever any one entered the tunnel- entry the draught clutched at his knees with icy fingers, so that the pain penetrated to the very heart.
There stood the old barrack, staring emptily out of its black windows. The cold had stripped away the last shred of figured curtain, and sent it packing to the pawn-shop. It had exchanged the canary for a score of firewood, and had put a stop to the day-long, lonely crying of the little children behind the locked doors—that hymn of labor, which had ceased only in the evening, when the mothers returned from the factories. Now the mothers sat with their children all day long, and no one but the cold grudged them this delight. 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. Transparent spots had formed on the window-panes every time the child had breathed on them in order to look out, but they had soon closed up again. The old woman sat staring straight into the stove with big, round eyes; her little head quivered continually; she was like a bird of ill omen, that knew a great deal more than any one could bear to hear.