Bramsen

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Title:     Bramsen
Author: Anthon B. E. Nilsen [More Titles by Nilsen]

Translator: W. J. Alexander Worster

On the morning after the party, Holm sent down for Paal Abrahamsen or "Bramsen" as he was generally called. Holm and Bramsen had known each other from childhood; they had gone to the same poor school, and had grown up together. After their confirmation, Bramsen had gone to sea, while Holm had got a place in a shop, and commenced his mercantile career. But he never forgot his old friend, and when in course of time he had established a business of his own, he made Bramsen his warehouseman and clerk on the quay, where he now held a position of trust as Holm's right-hand man. He was a short, bandy-legged man, with a humorous face set in a frame of shaggy whiskers, and a remarkably mobile play of feature. Agile as a cat, he could walk on his hands as easily as others on their feet, and, despite his fifty-five years, he turned out regularly on Contrition Day to compete with the boys for prizes in the park; and he was a hard man to beat!

"Paal he can never be serious," complained Andrine, his wife, who was something of a melancholy character herself, and constantly endeavouring to drag him along to various meetings and assemblies which Paal as regularly evaded on some pretext or other.

Holm's relations with his old comrade and subordinate were of a curious character. Down at the quay, when they were alone, they addressed each other in familiar terms, as equals; but in public, Bramsen was always the respectful employee, observing all formalities towards his master.

When the message came down from the office that Mr. Holm would be coming down to the waterside at 7.30 in the morning to see him, Bramsen turned thoughtful.

They had held a similar conference once, some years before, when the firm of Knut G. Holm looked like going to ruin--Heaven send it was not something of the same sort now!

Holm looked irritable and out of sorts. "Bramsen," he said, "I'm sick and tired of the whole blessed business."

Bramsen scratched his chin meditatively, and laid his head on one side. "H'm," he observed after a pause. "More trouble with that there guinea-pig up at the bank, fussing about bills and that sort?"

"No, no, nothing to do with that. We're all right as far as money goes."

"All right, eh? But you're put out about something, that's plain to see. Liver out of order, perhaps?"

"Oh no!"

"Why, then, there's nothing else that I can see."

"It's those wretched youngsters of mine."

"Ho, is that all?"

"All! As if it wasn't enough! I tell you they're going stark mad, the pair of them."

"Seems to me they've been that way a long time now."

"Oh, it's all very well to talk like that. But really, it's getting beyond all bearing. William's taken it into his head to go and be a painter."

"Well, and not a bad thing, either, as long as he does the work decently, with plenty of driers and not too much oil in the mixing. Look at Erlandsen up the river, he's made a good thing out of it."

"Oh, not that sort of painting. It's an artist, I mean. Painting pictures and things."

"Pictures!" Bramsen looked dumbfounded. "Painting pictures? Well, blister me if I ever heard the like. Wait a bit, though--there was Olsen, the verger; he'd a boy, I remember, a slip of a fellow with gold spectacles and consumption, he used to mess about with that sort of thing. But he never made a living out of it--didn't live long, anyway."

"But that's not the worst of it, Bramsen. There's Marie--she wants to be a singer."

Bramsen almost fell off the sugar-box on which he was seated.

"Singer--what! Singing for money, d'you mean? Going round with a hat?"

"Something very much like it, anyway--only it'll be my money that goes into the hat. What are we to do about it, eh?"

"H'm ... Couldn't you pack the boy off to sea? And the young lady--send her to a school to do needlework and such like?"

"Oh, what's the good of talking like that? No, my dear man, young people nowadays don't let themselves be sent anywhere that way. There's the pair of them, they simply laugh at us."

Holm walked back to the office deep in thought. On his return, he found Hans Martinsen, and Berg, the organist, awaiting him.

Bramsen remained seated on his sugar-box and murmured to himself: "Well, it's a nice apple-pie for Knut Holm, that it is. Lord, but they children can be the very devil."

A little later, Garner came down to the quay, and found Bramsen still meditating on his box.

"What's wrong with the old man to-day, Bramsen? He looks as if he was going in for the deaf-and-dumb school; there's no getting a word out of him."

Bramsen sat for quite a while without answering. Then at last he said solemnly:

"It's my humble opinion, and that's none so humble after all, that there's a deal of what you might call contrapasts in this here world."

"Meaning to say?"

"It's plain enough. Folk that's got a retipation, they does all they can to lose it, and they that hasn't, why--there's no understanding them till they've got one."

Garner was still in the dark as to whither all this wisdom tended, and began absently slitting up a coffee-sack.

"Look you, Garner," Bramsen went on. "It's this way with the women: they've each their station here in life, as by the Lord appointed. Some gets married, and some goes school-teaching, or out in service, and such-like--and all that sort, they stick to their retipation; but the woman that goes about singing for money in a hat, her retipation's like a broken window--it's out and gone to bits and done with."

Garner laughed and looked inquiringly at the other.

"Now, do you understand, Garner, what's the trouble with Holm?"

"Oh, so that's what you're getting at, is it? Miss Holm wants to go on the stage."

"Singing, my boy; singing for money, and if so be that was to happen to any daughter of mine, I'd give her a dose of something to make her lose her voice--ay, if it was rat poison, I would."

It was a regular thing for Garner and Bramsen to have a comfortable chat down at the waterside, when the old sailor would generally relate some of his experiences at sea. These yarns especially delighted Garner, who came of a peasant stock himself, and knew nothing of the sea or foreign parts until he came to the town. He tried now to open up the subject again.

"Ever been in the Arctic, Bramsen?"

"Have I? Why, I should think so. I was up that way in '76, on a whaling trip with Svend Foya."

It was a habit of Bramsen's at the beginning of a story to make some attempt at a literary style, but he invariably dropped it as he went on.

"Dangerous business, isn't it?"

"Why, that's as you take it or as you make it. If one of the brutes gets your boat with a flick of his tail, there's an end of you, of course. I remember once we were after a big fellow; had a shot at him and got in just aft of the spout-holes. And then, take my word for it, he led us a dance. Off he went, full-speed ahead, and us full speed astern, but blister me if he didn't win the tug-of-war and sail off with us at nineteen knots, till we were cutting along like a torpedo boat. He wasn't winded, ye see, for his blowpipe was intact, and his gear below-decks sound and ship-shape. But at last we got him fairly run down, and settled him with a straight one through the heart."

"A whale's heart must be pretty big?"

"Why, yes, he's what you might call a large-hearted beast. About the size of a middling chest o' drawers or a chiffonier."

"Rough on a whale, then, if he got heart disease," laughed Garner.

"Why, as to that, I suppose it would be in proportion, as you might say. But he's built pretty well to scale in the other parts as well, with his main arteries about as big round as a chimney."

"I wonder you didn't go up with Nansen to the Pole."

"And what for, I'd like to know? Messing about among a lot of nasty Eskimos; no, thankye, I'd a better use for my time." And Bramsen went on again with his whaling yarns for a spell, until Garner found it was time to get back to the shop.

Outside the store shed sat a row of urchins fishing from the edge of the quay. Bramsen was a popular character among the waterside boys; he would chat and fish with them at off-times, or help them in the manufacture of a patent "knock-out" bait, from a recipe of his own, the chief ingredients being flour and spirits. There was always a shout of delight when the small fish appeared at the surface, belly upwards. But to-day the knock-out drops appeared to fail of their effect, whether because the fish had grown used to French brandy, or for some other reason. Bramsen soon left the boys to their own devices, and went back into the shed. Here, to his astonishment, he found Amanda, his daughter and only child, weeping in a corner.

Amanda was about fifteen, a lanky slip of a girl, with her hair in a thick plait down her back, twinkling dark brown eyes, and a bright, pleasant face.

"Saints and sea-serpents--you here, child? What's amiss now?"

"Mother--mother wants us to go to meeting this evening, and you promised we should go to the theatre and see Monkey Tricks, and they say it's the funniest piece."

Bramsen grew suddenly thoughtful. What if the child were to go getting ideas into her head, like Miss Holm, and want to go about singing with a hat--h'm, perhaps after all it might be as well to take her to the meeting with Andrine.

But the mere suggestion sent Amanda off into a fresh burst of tears.

"There, there, child, I'll take you to the theatre, then, but on one condition."

Amanda looked up expectantly. "Yes?"

"You're never to think of singing for money yourself, or going on the stage, or anything like that. You understand?"

The girl had no idea of what was in his mind, and answered mechanically, "No, father--and you'll take me to see Monkey Tricks after all?"

"All right! but don't let your mother know, that's all."

Amanda was out of the door like an arrow, and hurried home at full speed. That evening she and her father sat up in the gallery, thoroughly enjoying themselves. Bramsen, it must be confessed, had taken the title literally, and waited expectantly all through the piece for the monkey to appear, and was disappointed in consequence, but seeing Amanda so delighted with the play as it was, he said nothing about it. Had he been alone he would have demanded his money back; after all, it was rank swindling to advertise a piece as Monkey Tricks, when there wasn't a monkey.

Meanwhile, Andrine had gone to the meeting, and waited patiently for the others to appear--they had promised to come on after. Here, however, she was disappointed, as usual.

When the backsliders came home, they found her deploring the vanity of this world, the imperfections of our mortal life, and the weakness of human clay against the powers of evil.

Bramsen and Amanda let her go on, as they always did, exchanging glances the while; occasionally, when her back was turned, Bramsen would make the most ludicrous faces, until Amanda had to go out into the kitchen and laugh.

Bramsen was fond of his wife; she was indeed so good-hearted and unselfish that no one could help it; while Amanda, for her part, respected her mother as the only one who could keep her in order. And indeed it was needed, "with a father that never so much as thought of punishing the child."

Bramsen himself had never been thrashed in his life, except by his comrades as a boy, and had always conscientiously paid back in full. He had had no experience of the chastening rod, and could not conceive that anything of the sort was needed for Amanda. Consequently, the relation between father and daughter was of the nature of an alliance as between friends, and as the years went on, the pair of them were constantly combining forces to outwit Andrine.

Bramsen had no idea of the value of money, or its proper use and application, wherefore Andrine had, in course of time, taken over charge of the family finances, and kept the savings-bank book,--a treasure which Bramsen himself was allowed to view on rare occasions, and then only from the outside, its contents being quite literally a closed book to him. Amanda and he would often put their heads together and fall to guessing how much there might be in the book, "taking it roughly like," but the riddle remained unsolved.

Every month Bramsen brought home his pay and delivered it dutifully into Andrine's hands; he made no mention, however, of the ten-shilling rise that had been given him, but spent the money on little extras and outings for himself and Amanda, whom he found it hard to refuse at any time.

A month before, it had been her great wish to have an album "to write poetry in"; all the other girls in her class had one, and she simply couldn't be the only one without. Bramsen could not understand what pleasure there was to be got out of such an article; much better to get a song book with printed words and have done with it. But Amanda scorned the suggestion, and the album was duly bought. She had got two entries in it already, one from Verger Klemmeken of Strandvik, an old friend of her father's, who wrote in big straggling letters:

"Whene'er these humble lines you see,
I pray that you'll remember me."

and one from Miss Tobiesen, an old lady at the infirmary, who had been engaged seven times, and therefore judged it appropriate to quote:

"'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."

Amanda then insisted that her father should contribute something, but Bramsen declared in the first place that the album was much too fine a thing for his clumsy fist, and furthermore, that he couldn't hit on anything to write. Amanda, however, gave him no peace till he consented, and at last, after much effort, the worthy man achieved the following gem:

"I, Amanda's only father,
Love her very much but rather
Fear she causes lots of bother
To her wise and loving mother."

This elegant composition was unfortunately not appreciated by Amanda, who, to tell the truth, was highly displeased. Fancy writing such a thing in her book--why, the whole class would laugh at her. Bramsen was obliged to scratch it out, but in so doing, scratched a hole in the paper, leaving no alternative but to take out the page altogether, much to Amanda's disgust.

Bramsen's highest ambition in life was to be master of a steamboat; not one of the big vessels that go as far as China, say, or Copenhagen--that, he realised, was out of the question, in view of his large contempt for examinations, mate's certificates and book-learning generally. The goal of his desire, the aim of all his dearest dreams, was a tugboat, a smart little devil of a craft with a proper wheel-house amidships and booms and hawsers aft.

A grand life it would be, to go fussing about up and down the fjord, meeting old acquaintances among the fishermen and pilots--yo, heave ho, my lads! He had often suggested to Andrine that the contents of the savings-bank book might be devoted to the purchase of a tug, but Andrine would cross herself piously, and urge him to combat all temptation and evil inspirations of the sort. Bramsen could not see anything desperately evil in the idea himself; he found it more depressing to think that he should spend the remainder of his days in the stuffy atmosphere of the warehouse on the quay. Was it reasonable, now, for a man like himself to be planted, like a geranium in a flower-pot, among sugar-boxes, flour-sacks, and store-keeping trash?

"Ay, life's a queer old tangle sometimes," murmured Bramsen to himself, "and we've got to make the best of it, I suppose." And he cast a longing glance through the doorway of the shed, at Johnsen, of the tug Rap, steaming down the fjord with his tow.

[The end]
Anthon B. E. Nilsen's short story: Bramsen

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