An old tree grows but poorly
in a new soil. So Lage Kvaerk thought, and so
he said, too, whenever his wife Elsie spoke of
her sunny home at the river.
Gloomy as Lage usually was, he had his
brighter moments, and people noticed that these
were most likely to occur when Aasa, his daughter,
was near. Lage was probably also the only
being whom Aasa's presence could cheer; on
other people it seemed to have the very opposite
effect; for Aasa was--according to the testimony
of those who knew her--the most peculiar creature
that ever was born. But perhaps no one
did know her; if her father was right, no one
really did--at least no one but himself.
Aasa was all to her father; she was his past
and she was his future, his hope and his life;
and withal it must be admitted that those who
judged her without knowing her had at least in
one respect as just an opinion of her as he; for
there was no denying that she was strange,
very strange. She spoke when she ought to be
silent, and was silent when it was proper to
speak; wept when she ought to laugh, and
laughed when it was proper to weep; but her
laughter as well as her tears, her speech like her
silence, seemed to have their source from within
her own soul, to be occasioned, as it were, by
something which no one else could see or hear.
It made little difference where she was; if the
tears came, she yielded to them as if they were
something she had long desired in vain. Few
could weep like her, and "weep like Aasa
Kvaerk," was soon also added to the stock of
parish proverbs.
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