“Good evening, Helge,” she said, taking the hand he offered her. “Will you not sit down, please?”
She sat down on the sofa. She could hear that her voice sounded calm and as usual. But in her brain she had the same delirious sensation of dread as in the afternoon.
“I wanted to come and see you,” said Helge, sitting down on a chair close to her.
“It was good of you,” replied Jenny. Both were silent.
“You live in Bergen now,” she said. “I saw that you had got your degree. I congratulate you.”
“You have been abroad a long time. I meant to write to you sometimes, but it never came off. Heggen lives in this house, I see.”
“Yes; I wrote him to get a studio for me, but they are so dear and so difficult to find. This room has a good light, though.”
“I see that you have some pictures drying.”
He rose, went across the room, but returned immediately to his seat. Jenny bent her head, feeling that he did not take his eyes from her. They tried to keep up conversation. He asked about Francesca Ahlin and other acquaintances they had in common, but there were long intervals when he sat staring at her.
“Do you know that my parents are divorced?” he asked suddenly.
“They stayed together for our sake as long as they could, whining and creaking against each other like two millstones until they had ground everything to powder between them. There was nothing more to grind, I suppose, so the mill stopped.
“I remember when I was a boy. They did not fight, but there was something in their voices that made you think they would like to. Mother abused him and used plain talk, always ending with tears. Father kept cool and quiet, but his voice was full of hatred and so hard and cutting. I lay in my bed listening to this performance that was forced on me. I used to think what a relief it would be to put a knitting needle right through my head, in at one ear and out at the other. The voices created a physical pain in my ears and spread to the whole of my head. Well, that was the beginning—they have done their duty as parents, and now it is all over.
“Hatred is an ugly thing; it makes everything ugly that comes in contact with it. I went to see my sister last summer. We have never been sympathetic, but I thought it disgusting to see her with that husband of hers. Sometimes I saw him kiss her—taking his pipe out of his thick wet mouth, he kissed his wife. I saw Sophy get quite white when he touched her. He is a pope in his pulpit and a libertine at home.