The Sword and the Net полностью

Relaxed, he lay in the over-soft feather-bed and rolled luxuriously and stretched himself and opened his eyes. Above him were dark beams of oak, black save for the dapplings of gold made by such rays of the early slanting sun as struggled through the skylight window. Then, as he dropped his eyes, there were the clean whitewashed walls, and the high dresser of dark, time-polished pine, and, on the far wall, the picture which (they said) was of Axel’s mother—and the washstand—and the little, gatelegged table—and the four great packing cases—and the curtain-covered corner for clothes—and all the rest. . . .

The air smelt wonderful, and the sunshine was not pale—and there stirred in Otto an anger.

“Soft!” said Otto without sound, and threw the covers from him—and then angrily reprimanded himself.

“Splendid morning!” said Nils aloud, and swung his legs to the floor and fished his watch from under the pillows and found the time to be seven. . . .

He pulled on blouse and trousers and grabbed a thick brown towel (he must remember never to find the colour unusual!) and, taking his thick shoes in his hand, ran down the stairs and let himself out of the side-door near the kitchen.

Outside, the sun was warm and the air itself cold and tingling, so that it stung the skin with a sudden, exhilarating bite before the sun could warm it. He made his way through the kitchen-garden to the door in the white fence. He opened the door and stepped through it and closed it quickly behind him and was in the common-land meadow which made a huge triangle bounded by the mill-stream and Axel’s dwelling and the mill-house itself. He began to run without waiting to put on his shoes. The coarse weed-grasses stabbed at his feet. They hurt, and he felt better. He slowed to a walk, the heavy shoes bouncing and jerking around his neck, and made a bee-line for the mill-pond. Over the stream, past the fertile fields, the sudden small mountains rose—a mile, twenty, sixty miles away. They were white-capped, and blue against the green and gold and brown of the tilled earth at their feet. The sun grew warmer and softened more and more the bite of the early spring air. Small creatures made scurrying rustles in the grass and the hedges, and a lark startlingly sang above his head. From the mill-house chimney a thin blue-grey streamer of smoke reached up uncertainly—and from the fields behind him came a velvety lowing of cattle.

It was peaceful—idyllic—beautiful—unreal! The air smelt soft and sweet—and yet was sharp and heady. And the little mountains were incredibly beautiful in their baby ruggedness.

Otto began to run again; there was a lump coming in his throat, for no reason at all, and he grew angry again.

“Soft!” said Otto violently—and then took himself to task, violently, for not being Nils, to whom all this would doubtless seem ordinary and pleasant and right. . . .

But there was nothing (surely there was nothing?) to prevent Nils Jorgensen from plunging into the searing-cold water of the mill-pond—and swimming—and climbing out and shivering until the sun warmed his aching muscles back to life—and then diving in again—and staying in the clear dark water until the coldness clamped iron fingers around his heart and lungs with such grisly force that he must use all the strength of his will to make the frigid muscles obey his mind and propel his body three times, fast, around the pool before he clambered out through the reeds. . . .

Nils came back to the house, hard and tight and glowing, to find his Aunt Kirsten cooking already, while his cousin Gertrud laid the blue-bordered white cloth upon the big white-pine table in the bay-window of the kitchen. Pots bubbled upon the great stove, and there was the vivid, tingling smell of bacon frying.

There was also another smell—a forbidden, delicious scent—the gritty-gold aroma of brewing coffee.

Nils’ Aunt Kirsten giggled as her nephew sniffed the air.

“That uncle of yours!” she said. “He will have his coffee. I keep telling him the neighbours will smell it out and then he’ll be reported for hoarding. But he has to have it!”

Gertrud, very busy with her table-setting, spoke to him softly. She said:

“You have been swimming, Nils? . . . B’rr!” She shook her pretty shoulders and her breasts quivered tautly beneath the print frock. “You are brave!”

Gertrud was brown-haired and small and slimly rounded. She was like her mother in feature, but had Axel’s colouring. Her eyes were large and of a soft, warm brownness—and her teeth, when she smiled, were very white against her red lips. She was eighteen and shyly ardent. She said again:

“You are brave, Nils!”