ELSI, THE STRANGE MAID
To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
IT WAS FOOLISH OF HIM, ELSI SAID, TO THINK that a poor maid could be ashamed of a farmer, and he should not be angry but she had a lifelong habit of not being rash but of thinking about the significance of something first, then speaking, and standing by her word. The good farmer’s wife, who knew nothing other than to want or not want to, added to the pressure and said that if in her day a good lad wanted to take her for a drink, she would have been ashamed to decline his invitation and disgrace him.
Now there was nothing more likely to ignite a person’s wrath and steel his desire than such support; Christian therefore became more impetuous and wanted to force Elsi. But Elsi resisted. Christian said incensed: ‘Well, you would know best why you cannot go into an inn; but if you will not, there are others.’ So he let go of Elsi and quickly reached for another local girl who was just passing by and she willingly followed him. The farmer’s wife threw Elsi a wicked glance and said: ‘See what you have done’, and went after him. Elsi stood there and it almost broke her heart. The wrath over Christian’s suspicious words and jealousy of the willing girl nearly achieved what love could not, and she would have rushed after Christian. Instead she kept her poise, for she loathed inns, where her family honour, her domestic happiness were destroyed, and she fled from them at once because she ran the greatest danger of being recognised in them or having to learn something about her father. It is in inns where people gather together and find the time to examine and analyse what passed by unnoticed in fleeting encounter on the road.
She went home, but it was so dark in her heart as it had not been since the days when the disaster had broken over them. At first she nearly could hardly refrain from drinking wine, but she suppressed the urge with all her strength because of the people. She was seized by a growing bitter and dark rage. She felt she would not only never be happy but even
