Egholm and his God. Buchholtz Johannes
one suffering intensely. And he speaks in an injured tone.
“I only thought. … You’re home earlier than usual.”
No answer. Egholm walks over to the window and stares into the greyness without, his long, thin fingers pulling now and again at his dark beard.
Lost in thought. …
His wife does not venture to disturb him, though he is shutting out the fading light. She keeps the machine audibly in motion, making pretence of work.
A long, long time he stands there. Sivert has been sawing away conscientiously all the time, but at last he can bear it no longer, and utters a loud sigh. Fru Egholm reaches stealthily for the matches, and lights the lamp. Her fingers tremble as she lifts the glass.
Egholm turns at the sound. And now he is no longer Egholm the upright, nor Egholm the abject; Egholm the Great he is now. His eyes glow like windows in a burning house; he stands there filling the room with Egholm; Egholm the invincible. The mother cowers behind her sewing-machine; and her seam runs somewhat awry.
What terrible thing can he be thinking of now? The “Sect,” as usual?—Heaven have mercy on them, now that Egholm has joined the Brotherhood.
Surely something terrible must happen soon; he has rarely been as bad as this before.
He moves, and his wife looks up with a start. But now he has changed again, to something less terrible now—not quite so deadly terrible as before.
He is far away in his dreamings now, without a thought for his earthbound fellow-creatures.
He stands in his favourite attitude, with one hand on his hip, as if posing to a sculptor. A fine figure of a man. His watch-chain hangs in a golden arc from one waistcoat pocket to the other. Only one who knew of the fact would ever notice that one of the oval links is missing, and a piece of string tied in its place.
After a little he begins walking up and down, stopping now and again at the window, with a gesture of the hand, as if addressing an assembly without.
Then suddenly he swings round, facing his wife, and utters these words:
“Now I know what it means. At last!”
Fru Egholm checks the wheel of her machine, and looks up at him with leaden-grey, shadow-fringed eyes. But he says no more, and she sets the machine whirring once more.
Peace for a little while longer, at any rate, she thinks to herself.
Sivert looks up stealthily every time his father turns his back; the boy is flushed with repressed excitement, the tip of his tongue keeps creeping out.
“Mark you,” says Egholm after a long pause, “I’m wiser perhaps—a good deal wiser—than you take me for.”
He throws out his chest with conscious dignity, lifting his head, and placing one hand on his hip as before.
Oh, so he’s still thinking of that quarrel of theirs this morning. Well, well, of course it would be something to do with the Brotherhood some way or other.
“You said I was wasting my time.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said I was throwing money out of the window.”
Fru Egholm shifts in her seat, pulling nervously at her work. She would like to mitigate the sharpness of her words, and yet, if possible, stand by what she had said.
Sivert wakes to the fact that he is dribbling down over his hand, and sniffs up hastily.
“Didn’t you say it was throwing money out of the window?”
“I 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