The Hittite’s Wife

The short summer in the mountains would soon be at an end. Already the nights were getting long, with mist around the tarns and the lakes and up the river, and the bright leaves on the birch trees were no more—everything was turning yellow, one leaf today, two tomorrow, and the next day several millions. The north wind was again finding its ancient ways from centuries past over the bare mountain, the air no longer quivered in the midday sun, and the sun itself made shorter and shorter journeys for each day. The cuckoo, that happy bell ringer, had also stopped ringing its brass bells for the bridal journeys of woodlandp. 137 fairies. Now all the slopes were silent—silent as in great, deserted rooms.

To the young people who as yet had experienced so few summers and had not yet had their souls seared, this summer had been like a sun‐kissed love letter, or a fleeting kiss, or an almost inaudible whispering in the ear. To the old people, the grey‐heads in a hurry, both in thought and deed, with their long skinny fingers out after their neighbors’ goods, this summer began yesterday and finished today.

. . . It was an evening well on in August. An evening with a full moon, with a golden bridge over the Gjet tarn, with faded hayracks, and long black shadows in the courtyards.

Benjamin Sigismund was walking to and fro along Langeggen. He wasn’t in clerical attire but in a short jerkin and long riding boots, with a peaked cap on his head and a silver‐mounted stick in his hand. There were many who saw him walking out there in the moonlight, but they all took him for the county governor Fredrick Trampe, that arrogant overlord. Nobody thought it could be the pastor.

Today he had spoken to her for the first time—to Gunhild Bonde, no, Finne now. He had run into her up in the upper churchyard. She was sitting on her father’s grave. Her speech was that of the common people. Her clothes were also of the common people’s, possibly more refined. That could mean that she had imagination, a sense of beauty; inherited taste, too.

What he had noticed in particular was her beauty—it wasn’t dazzling, but it was individual. There was something intense about her whole being—something which had forced its way into him with violent strength.

Was she then that Bath‐sheba whom the hideous wise‐woman down at the Lakes had prophesied? No, a thousand times no! He felt no desire for her. He was no womanizer. Hadn’t he bigger and more important things to do than to go around thinking about somebody else’s wife? He had to laugh to himself. He, the Reverend Benjamin Sigismund, what concern had he with the daughters of Cappadocia? Now he could scarcely remember her face. Was she blond? When hep. 138 met Gunhild Finne next time, it wasn’t certain that he would even recognize her.

Stop, Benjamin Sigismund! You are lying! He beat the leg of his boot with his stick. You are a liar! You continually add one sin to the other. Your account has long been an abomination to Him whose servant you are. You are a wicked and faithless servant! And your sins are many and great. Mountains and high towers would be needed to measure them!

Yes, concerning that, and according to the words of the Scriptures, there could be only one opinion. He had been David on the roof of the King’s house. His desire had been inflamed from the first morning they had met.

Through Him, who was capable of all, he could perhaps get strength to go away and sin no more?

And then Benjamin Sigismund went home to his house.

As he went up the stone staircase he heard Kathryn coughing in the sitting room. She went on coughing violently for a long time. And he felt a dread of going in, a dread of meeting those large, questioning eyes.

“Is it dangerous, Benjamin?” the eyes asked. “Shall I die soon?” The eyes could also cry out at him, “No, Benjamin, I don’t want to die! I dare not die!”

He remained standing there for a while thinking of an answer he could have ready; a white lie on which Kathryn, again tonight, could sleep peacefully.

At this moment thoughts of Gunhild had vanished. But had they? No, oh no, they had not vanished—for they were thoughts of life, and of the joy and happiness of life. And thus they were the strongest.

The door opened. And Kathryn called out:

“Benjamin, are you there?”

“I’m coming now, Kathryn.”

He went in resolutely—with closed eyes so as not to see the terror in her face.

“I thought I heard you out on the stairs, Husband. Oh, when you come I forget that I am sick and ill.”

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She put her arms around his neck, stretching herself up on tiptoe against his tall figure.

Benjamin Sigismund twisted his head aside and tried to smile.

“We are not on our honeymoon, my dear; we have to eat bark bread these days.”1

“We don’t, do we, Benjamin? No, don’t move your dear head! Let me hold it a little longer between my hands. Oh, my dear one!”

He freed himself gently, but she continued:

“Tell me, Benjamin, don’t you love me at all any more?”

“Yes, of course, you know I do.”

“Lies, Benjamin Sigismund!” he heard someone cry out. “You love someone else now! Her name is Bath‐sheba, the wife of Uriah, the Hittite.”

The voice was so loud that he thought Kathryn, too, must have heard it. And the voice was the voice of God. And it seemed to him, in the half‐light of the room, that he could see a fiery sword over his head; God’s sword!

“I’m hungry. Can you give me anything to eat?” he asked. “I haven’t eaten a bite all day.”

That, too, was a lie. He had got himself into a web of lies with a thousand threads. The more he tried to free himself, the more entangled in it he became. There was only one movement he could make to free himself: throw himself down on his knees and tell her the truth. But wouldn’t that be the truth that killed? Verily! Verily! He had no choice. He had to keep silent.

After supper Kathryn said almost elatedly:

“A note came for you today, can you guess from whom?”

“No.”

“We have been invited to a party at the Knophs’.”

“At Director Knoph’s?”

“Yes.”

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“We must think about it, Kathryn.”

Sigismund was gloomy and silent. He still felt laden with guilt. A serious resolution began to take shape in his mind: to dismiss this woman he had met for ever from his thoughts. Wasn’t an honest and sincere resolution infinitely better than an over‐hasty confession? Verily! Verily! And, at once, the resolve brought him more peace. From this little stumble into the snares of Satan he would reap experience and acquire the wisdom to avoid a bigger fall.

“Yes, we must consider it, Kathryn.”

Kathryn held out her thin hand over the table to him. She looked up at him, imploringly.

“Benjamin, it made me so happy that, at last, some of the gentry here in Bergstaden have invited us, that I accepted at once.”

“I see. Then the matter is settled.”

He took her hand and held it for a while—that thin, clammy, sick hand. He must never forget that this hand was given to him in trust and confidence when he asked for it. Should he then thrust it away from him now—now that it was tired, weak and near death?

“You must wear your canonicals at the party, Benjamin.”

“Canonicals at a secular party?”

“The officers of the Mine Corps are to be in uniform and so are all the other officials.”

“Well, that’s another matter, my dear.”

After a bit he asked:

“The officials, the minor ones, are they also bringing their wives?”

“I didn’t ask about that. Why do you ask, Benjamin?”

She began to clear the table. There wasn’t much. Just a few pewter plates worn thin with use, two or three knives, and a couple of empty milk jugs, that was all.

“No particular reason. In other words, it’s going to be a largish party. Did you hear if there was any special reason for its being held?”

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“No.” She looked somewhat roguishly at her husband. “Are you afraid you will have to speak?”

“In that case we must hope that I shall survive it. What do you think, Kathryn?”

She laughed. She stroked his hair.

“Actually, I am terribly anxious about you. You ought to see about getting an Aaron in your place, dear Moses.”

“In that case Aaron would have to be Ole Korneliusen.”

“Ole Korneliusen!” Kathryn cried. “That terrible drunkard!”

“Don’t speak so loud, gracious lady. We all drink, according to how thirsty we are.”

“He is assuredly very thirsty, Benjamin.”

“Yes, assuredly,” Benjamin Sigismund said very seriously. “Both hungry and thirsty! Anyway we shan’t discuss that matter, and even less pass judgment on it, my little lady.”

And the conversation continued in a tone midway between jest and gravity. They had achieved a short armistice in the battle between them, those two. Kathryn then told him what she had recently heard from her maid Anne‐Sofie: Ole Korneliusen was a dreamer and an adventurer. In his youth he was supposed to have been secretly engaged to a pastor’s daughter, Miss Ellen von Westen Hammond. At that time he had big ideas of becoming a pastor, and studied Latin in the schoolroom—it was at the time when Ole Korneliusen had taught school for a few weeks during the winter.

“But wasn’t that a highly laudable ambition, then?”

“Yes, yes, of course. But you must admit, Benjamin, that the engagement was something of a—of a mésalliance, not to say a scandal.”

“No, I don’t admit that at all, Kathryn,” Sigismund said heatedly. “Didn’t life give them the right to it?”

“What do you mean, Husband?” Kathryn asked, horrified. “A young lady with ‘von’ in her name and a blacksmith, that doesn’t sound very promising, does it?”

“It sounds excellent,” Sigismund said. He was still irritated. “What happened to them?”

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“Miss von Westen Hammond died before her parents found out about it. And then, of course, Ole Korneliusen gave up his Latin. His house of cards collapsed. The idea of a blacksmith becoming a pastor is, to say the least, absurd, isn’t it?”

“Not at all, my dear. Not at all. He is a very talented man. Don’t you know that he is supposed to be descended from a certain mining chief up here?”

“He, Ole Korneliusen? Well, well, that is nice to hear.”

“And then what happened, Kathryn?”

“After the lady’s death, Ole Korneliusen began to drink heavily. In any case, he has never been very temperate. And, as you know, he had to leave his post at the school because of that.”

“Yes, I know about that.”

“And you know the story about the cross on the grave, as well, I suppose?”

“The cross on the grave? No.”

“I think it’s beautiful, all the same. No one could believe a drunkard capable of fashioning such a work of art, let alone to be inspired by such a lofty idea.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Just after Miss von Westen Hammond was buried, Ole Korneliusen came up to her father and implored him with tears in his eyes to give him permission to execute a cross to be put on her grave. After some consideration von Westen Hammond gave him his permission. He had no doubt a suspicion that there had been some sort of relationship between the two of them—some innocent relationship we must hope it was. Ole Korneliusen worked for five years on this cross.”

“Five years!” Sigismund repeated. “Five long years?”

He began to walk to and fro across the floor. “Yes, truly, love can bring mountains together, Kathryn. Tomorrow I shall go and carefully inspect this cross. He is in truth a remarkable man, this Ole.”

It was long past bedtime for the pastor and his wife; the children were already sleeping the sleep of the just and Kathryn prepared her husband’s bed. She smoothed the patchedp. 143 white sheet carefully with her hand. And she furtively kissed the little pillow, which was filled with eiderdown and covered with a blue silk pillowcase.

Kathryn herself used a linen pillowcase stuffed with straw. She undid the bed tassel from a peg in the beam and put a clean handkerchief into the handgrip. And then she quietly opened the door into the living room and whispered:

“The bed is made, Benjamin.”

“Thanks! Many thanks! I’ll sit here for a while and work on my dissertation.”

“Are you still writing it?”

“Yes.”

She tiptoed in. Her knees were trembling. Her hair, which she had combed with a coarse comb, hung down over her narrow, bony, square shoulders. Her arms had become so thin and wasted.

Now she wondered anxiously whether Benjamin would get up from his work and kiss her when she said good night. He didn’t do it very often—but now, at this late hour, with a night mood enveloping everything, perhaps he would? Oh God! Everything about Benjamin Sigismund was so uncertain. Violent and uncertain! He had always been like April weather: suddenly sunshine, suddenly cloud. He walked on divided paths: one foot on the narrow path, the other on the broad—but there would come a day when Benjamin, too, would have to choose; might God, then, because of his goodness, lead him gently over on to the path which led to eternal life. She bent down towards him and whispered:

“Good night, Benjamin.”

“Good night.”

He didn’t look up. His hand continued to write.

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1. In time of famine bread was made from finely ground bark mixed with rye flour.

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