Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Martin Andersen Nexø
From Ditte, Child of Man (1917-1921)
Translated by A.G. Chater and Richard Thirsk
…She was a plump little thing, with fat rosy cheeks, and was sweet and natural and friendly, but she was certainly not capable. Ditte really thought she was a terrible muddler. Just when Ditte was washing the floor she would have to leave her work to take the baby out. “He is to be a soldier, and so he must be a lot in the open air,” the mistress would say. “I will finish your work for you now.” But when Ditte came back nothing was done all the same; the young wife only flitted about from one thing to another. She was no cook either. Every day they had either sausage or rissoles bought ready made. “My husband ought to really have been here to-day,” the lady sued to say as they were having dinner. “He appreciates good food so much!”
Ditte became quite curious to see him; if he was like his mistress’s descriptions he must be funny, thought she. Life was new to her, and she made mental pictures of everything beforehand. She had never seen a lieutenant in the flesh, and now that she had got a master who was a real live one, who offered his life-blood for his country, her childish imagination built up a wonderful picture of a warlike giant with imposing presence and a great sword grasped in both hands. And his nostrils would be dilated with warlike ardor. “My husband is so fiery!” her mistress had murmured in a burst of confidence one day.
It was indeed a disappointment, when a fortnight later he came back from the camp. Ditte’s new master was a slim neat little man with a thin fair mustache of the kind that out in the country would be said to be in need of manuring. He had a parting back and front, which he would never get accurate enough, and wore a long parade sword which was always getting between his legs. He wore corsets – a thing that so tickled Ditte’s sense of humor that she would wake up in the middle of the night and giggle over it – and he used to scream out quite hysterically if anything went wrong. He cursed and swore frightfully too if every little thing was not in apple-pie order for his toilet; and his little wife would burst into floods of tears and become utterly prostrated at such times. But as soon as he was out of the door, she would smile again. “The lieutenant has such a nasty temper,” she would say. “That is because he has always to go for those stupid recruits.”
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