For a time Sivert endeavoured to persuade himself that it was merely nightmare. But there were things that could not be so explained. And he bore his horror alone, for his mother misunderstood the hints he threw out, owing to the fact that Sivert, as was his custom, assured her that Olsen _did not_ do so-and-so.
"I should think not, indeed. It's wicked even to think such things."
"Then say your prayers properly and earnestly, and God will help you all right."
"I say my prayers like anything, every night. But Olsen's ever so strong, and it's no good. God can't manage him, I suppose."
"Or perhaps God doesn't trouble about things as much as people say."
"Sivert, now be a good child, do. Do you think God doesn't trouble about us? Why, look, what a lovely boy He's given us now...." Fru Egholm lifted the coverlet aside, to show the baby's face. "Isn't he sweet? And so healthy he looks. I think he'll be fair haired."
"But you promised me I was to be the only fair-haired boy?"
"I'd like to have as many of them as I can. They're the best sort. And, you know, Abel was fair haired, but Cain was dark."
"Oh, child, how can you say such a thing!" Fru Egholm chattered on to cover her confusion. What a head the child had, to be sure.
The little one in the cradle awoke, and set up a faint cry like the bleating of a lamb. His mother took him up to her breast.
Sivert looked on with an expression of intense disgust.
"That's enough--that's enough," he said again and again, his eyes straining awry in consuming envy.
"Mother, let's break it up, let's tear it to bits, before it gets any bigger."
"What do you think your father would say to that?" said his mother, with a smile.
Sivert started; he had not thought of that difficult side of the question.
"Couldn't we say it had got lost somehow? No, I know; we'll tell him there never was but me and Hedvig. He won't remember. And then we can show him me, and ask if that's the one he means. Oh, may we, dear little darling mother?" And he stretched out his hand for the child.
"Just listen and I'll tell you what Father says," said his mother, feeling in a pocket of her dress.
Sivert's face darkened; he stared anxiously at the letter.
"MY DEAR ANNA,--Excuse my long silence, but I have got things settled now, and every day feeling happier for the change. Karlsen, the Evangelist, has been a nightmare to me, but now I am awake once more, and drink in the fresh air and feel myself another man. And only fancy--_my powers of invention_, that I thought were dead, have come back again stronger than before. You remember I used to say I was as _the hand of God_ here on earth. I am to go over the work, file away at it and make it even--in a word, _improve the whole world_, that He created great and rich and round, it is true, but rough at the edges. In my innermost self, and right out to my fingertips, I feel conscious of this as my calling. If I only go for a little walk with the wind against me, I feel my powers in urgent movement. Now, the friction exerted by the wind could be reduced to one-seventh by means of a little invention of mine. I can tell you, there is a _great time_ ahead. But it is not this that occupies my mind just now, but something else. A machine. I dare not set down on paper what it is. Only this: be sure that all the taps and other parts of the _steam wagon_, my old construction, are sent to me here as soon as possible. I must try my wings now; I feel myself free. Free as a bird."
