“Punishment for their sins! Because they built the Tower of Babel, you know!” informed Ulrika.
Mrs. Henry O. Jackson was not of the opinion that an immigrant could learn English in school and then speak it fluently. The language must come to one’s tongue of its own free will, of its own whim and fancy, on the spur of the moment.
“I myself, I speak English from inspiration!”
“Well, that’s why you spoke it from the beginning, I guess. So your husband-to-be could understand you?”
“Yes, of course. Henry and I understood each other that way from the very beginning.”
Ulrika considered the day when she was married to Pastor Jackson as the greatest happening of her life. Kristina knew she celebrated that day each year; each fourth of May she put on her old bridal gown and the pastor donned his cutaway.
The two women had withdrawn from the other guests and were sitting in a corner of the room. It was only seldom they had the opportunity to speak to each other in confidence.
Ulrika had mentioned her husband’s name, then she sighed and became silent. She seemed depressed. It was not the first time Kristina had been surprised at her behavior when her marriage to Jackson was spoken of. He was such a patient and good-hearted man, but there must be something here that wasn’t quite right as it should be. Had something happened between the couple lately? It sounded as if Ulrika was burdened by something unsaid — why did she always sigh like that at her husband’s name?
“Henry is very good to me, very good,” she said. “But a woman can be happy in one way and unhappy in another.”
“Unhappy in another? What do you mean?” Kristina’s eyes were wide open.
Ulrika looked about and continued in a low voice: “We’re at a wedding today, that’s why my thoughts go in that other way. I’ll tell you, but it must stay between us of course.”
She pulled out her handkerchief, blew her nose thoroughly, and leaned intimately toward Kristina. Henry and she didn’t fit together in bed any more. She had hoped for a long time that it could be worked out, so they would fit, but as they had shared the marital bed now for ten years, she knew there was no hope of improvement. Henry didn’t handle a woman the right way at the very moment when it counted. She didn’t want to blame him in the least for this, because he hadn’t been trained with women from his youth, and when he got a wife — at a ripe age — he was too old to train. And perhaps a man’s way in bed was something he was born with, something that came naturally, if bedplay were to be excellent.
Ulrika looked toward the upper end of the table; there on the bench, in today’s seat of honor, sat the young bridal couple. Her eyes lingered a moment on the young Norwegian girl, whose cheeks were rosy-red with health and from blushing, whose eyes, glitteringly clear, never for a moment left the groom.
Ulrika sighed again in envy and desire: “You see, Kristina, in my marriage I don’t get that bodily bliss a woman craves. The great temptations of my old body have come over me. Desire for sins of the flesh. I have eyed other men. .”
Kristina grew disturbed at Ulrika’s confidence: “What are you talking about?! You mean that you — the wife of Pastor Jackson. .?”
“Yes, it’s true — I’ve been tempted to whoring.”
Kristina made a sudden motion with her hand, as if to silence her. But Ulrika went right on.
“I had to tell you. It happened last summer. A Norwegian tempted me so I had to. . You know him, Sigurd Thomassen. .”
“The shoemaker in Stillwater? The one who always complains because he doesn’t have a woman?”
“Exactly! It was he!”
Kristina remembered the man from Ulrika’s great Christmas party when he had tried to become intimate with her: “I’m a kind man, I don’t wish to do anything wrong with any woman. .”
“Did the Norwegian tempt you to adultery?”
“He wanted the same thing as I.”
And Ulrika’s ample bosom rose with her deep breathing; in this woman-empty America Thomassen was far from the only one who had tried to seduce her. She had met men who had both the inclination, the lust, and the fresh approach. But the Norwegian was the only one whom she herself had been tempted to satisfy, because he had a gentle heart — he was a good man who had lived single for many years, poor devil. She had many times allowed him to take her around the waist and pat her — oh, quite innocently! But his eyes had always told her what he wanted.
Then it had happened, one time last summer. She had left a pair of shoes to be resoled, and late one evening she had gone to Sigurd Thomassen’s house to pick them up. He offered to make coffee for her and she thanked him and stayed. They were alone, he had set the table in his bedroom, and while they drank their coffee he complained of how many years it had been since a woman had comforted him in bed. He was pining and yearning, he was almost at his wit’s end. And then she began to wish sometime she could give him this enjoyment he had so long gone without.
Sometime — and when would be better than at this very moment?
At first she hadn’t thought anything of it that they sat alone in his bedroom; when she came to fetch her shoes she had only innocent thoughts. But by and by the other thoughts came over her. Sigurd’s bedroom was so small, his bed so large; they could barely move in there without touching the bed. And without realizing how it happened she was suddenly on his bed, while he patted and petted her — they were acting like young lovers. Then the thought came to her: What Henry didn’t have the power to give her, the Norwegian might. A man who had lived single for so long must have saved much for a woman.
He was ready to turn her over in his bed, and she was ready to be turned over; she could not resist a man’s hands as they stroked her loins and hips, and she grew utterly faint and helpless. At last she herself turned over on her back.
That was how far it had gone, so close to adultery was she: She herself had turned over.
Then rescue came. At the very last second help had come.
She had not noticed that Sigurd had locked the door when she came in, and this was not the act of a gentleman. Now suddenly someone was knocking to get in. He had already begun to undress and didn’t wish to go and open the door. But the hangings were insistent and at last he had to go; two little children had brought a pair of their father’s boots to be resoled. As Sigurd took the boots she could hear the voices of the children and couldn’t resist opening the door just a little to peek at them. There stood two cute little girls with flaxen braids and rosy cheeks and eyes as blue as heaven itself. And as she looked at them she understood at once.
They were a couple of angels who had knocked on the shoemaker’s door to save her in the moment of her temptation. It was so late in the evening — why would the parents have sent their kids on an errand at this time? It was God himself who had sent them. God’s angels had come to save her.
And as she looked at them she received the strength to resist the desire that was burning her flesh. Her eyes were opened, and in fright she realized how close to the abyss she was. Only in the very last second had the Lord remembered her.
As soon as the children were gone she picked up her newly soled shoes and left. Sigurd didn’t want any pay for repairing the shoes but she forced the money on him — he mustn’t get the idea that he could pinch her for pay! She had long ago been redeemed from that sort of life! But she had told him that she forgave him for tempting her so much; he couldn’t help it, she thought, because the evil one used men as his tools when he led women astray.
“I did no whoring,” Ulrika ended her tale, “but it was pretty close!”