Egholm and his God. Buchholtz Johannes
said, it was hard taking money where there was none.”
“You said it was throwing money away. But do you know what I’m doing with that money all the time? I’m putting it in the bank.”
“In the bank?..”
“In the Bank of Heaven– where the interest is a thousand – nay, tens of thousands – per cent.! If it wasn’t for that, I’d never have thought of joining the Brotherhood at all.”
“But – I can’t help it, but I don’t believe in him, that Evangelist man. Young Karlsen, I mean.”
Egholm breathed sharply, and quickened his steps. The answer did not please him.
“You talk about young Karlsen: I am talking of Holy Writ.”
“But it was Karlsen that…”
“Yes, and I shall thank him for it till my dying day. He it was that opened my eyes, and showed me I was living the life of one accursed; pointed out the goal I can reach – cannot fail to reach – if only I will pay my tithe. Do you know what it says in Malachi? Shall I give you the words of Malachi the Prophet?”
“Ye – es … if you please,” answers his wife confusedly.
“Yes … if you please,” echoes Sivert in precisely the same tone. He has a painful habit of taking up his mother’s words when anything excites him.
But Egholm had no time now to punish the interruption; he stood forth and spoke, with threatening sternness:
“‘Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.’
“‘Ye are cursed with a curse…’
“Cursed!” Egholm struck the table with his fist in condemnation. “Do you hear? They are accursed who would rob the Lord —in tithes and offerings!”
“It’s solemn hard words,” said the mother, with a sigh.
“No harder than it should be. Just and right!”
“I was only thinking – the New Testament – perhaps there might be something there to make it easier.”
“Make it easier! God’s Law to be made easier! Are you utterly lost in sin, woman? Or do you think I would tamper with the Holy Scriptures? Read for yourself – there!”
He snatched the old Bible from its shelf and flung it down on the sewing-machine. Fru Egholm looked at the thick, heavy tome with something like fear in her eyes.
“I only meant … if it was really God’s will that we should starve to find that money for Karlsen.”
“Starve – and what’s a trifle of starvation when the reward’s so much the greater? What does it say there, only a little farther on: ‘Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it’?
“Isn’t that a glorious promise? Perhaps the finest in the whole Bible. Are you so destitute of imagination that you cannot see the Lord opening the windows of heaven, and the money pouring out like a waterfall, like a rainbow, over us poor worms that have not room enough to receive it?”
“Money? – but it doesn’t say anything about money.”
“Yes, it does – if you read it aright. It’s there all right, only” – Egholm drew his lips back a little, baring his teeth – “only, of course, it needs a little sense in one’s head to read the Bible, just as any other book. It wasn’t all quite easy to me at first, but now I understand it to the full. There’s not a shadow of doubt, but the Bible means ready money. What else could it be? The blessing of the Lord, you say. Well, there’s more than one of the Brethren in the congregation thinks the same – and that’s what makes them slow in paying up their tithes and offerings. They think the blessing is just something supernatural; an inner feeling of content – fools’ nonsense! Do you suppose I could be content, with duns and creditors tearing at me like dogs about a carcase? No; ready money, that’s what it means. Money we give, and money shall be given unto us in return; we shall receive our own with usury, as it is written.”
“Do you really mean…”
Egholm grasped eagerly at the hint of admission that he fancied lay behind her doubt. He strode to the chest of drawers, and, picking up the crystal bowl, held it out towards the light as if raising it in salutation. The tithe-money showed like some dark wine at the bottom.
“I swear unto you,” he said, with great solemnity, “it is even so.”
Fru Egholm meets his burning glance, and is confused.
“It would be a grand thing, sure enough, if we could come by a little money.” And she sighs.
“But it’s not a little,” says Egholm. The impression he has made on her is reacting now with added force upon himself. “Not altogether little; no. I can feel it; there is a change about to come. And a change, with me, must be a change for the better. It means I am to be exalted. ‘Friend, come up higher!’”
Again he strides up and down, seeking an outlet for his emotion. He sets down the bowl, and picks up the Bible instead, presses the book to his breast, and slaps its wooden cover, shaking out a puff of worm-eaten dust.
“Beautiful book,” he says tenderly – “beautiful old book. By thee I live, and am one with thee!” And, turning to his wife, he goes on: “After all, it’s simple enough. If I do my duty by God, He’s got to do His by me, and I’d like to see how He can get out of it.”
There was a rattle of the door below. Fru Egholm listened … yes, it was Hedvig, coming back from her work. There – wiping her boots on Eriksens’ mat, the very thing she’d been strictly forbidden. And dashing upstairs three steps at a time and whistling like a boy. No mistaking Hedvig.
Fru Egholm signed covertly to Sivert to go out in the kitchen. She could give the children their food there, without being noticed. What you don’t hear you don’t fear, as the saying goes. And that was true of Egholm; it always irritated him when Sivert made a noise over his food. Poor child – a good thing he’d the heart to eat and enjoy it.
Hedvig came tumbling in, with a clatter of wooden shoes.
“Puh, what a mess! I’m drenched to the skin. Look!” She ducked forward, sending a stream of water from the brim of her hat. Her hair, in two heavy yellow plaits, slipped round on either side, the ends touching the floor; then with a toss of her head she threw it back, and stood there laughing, in the full glare of the lamp.
Glittering white teeth and golden eyelashes. The freckles round her nose gave a touch of boyishness to her face.
“My dear child, what can we give you to put on?”
“Oh, I’ll find some dry stockings – there’s a pair of mine in the settee.”
“Sivert borrowed those, dear, last Sunday, you know. But you can ask him – he’s outside in the kitchen.”
Egholm, too, must have his meal. He had a ravenous appetite. The pile of bread and dripping vanished from his plate as a cloud passes from the face of the moon. Possibly because he was reading, as he ate, of the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey.
The rain spattered unceasingly against the panes.
“What are you hanging about here for?” asked Hedvig. Sivert was standing huddled up by the sink.
“He’ll find out in a minute,” whispered the boy. “He’s waving his arms and legs about, and talking all about money.”
“Puh – let him. We must eat, so there’s an end of it. He’ll have forgotten by to-morrow how much there was.”
“But he’ll count it to-night. He’s going to the meeting.”
“To-night – h’m. That’s a nasty one,” said Hedvig thoughtfully.
Sivert showed a strange