Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 124, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1909 — CIVIL MARRIAGE. [ARTICLE]

CIVIL MARRIAGE.

It has rained all day and now it Is getting dark. The avenue Is wet and Sticky with mud and the wind is howling through the branches of the trees. From the little brightly illuminated church comes the sound of organ and singing. Marius is sitting at his desk in the little eottage opposite the church and In spite of the wind and drizzle outside he has not closed his window. It seems to him he needs storm and cold and the weather outside agrees with his state of mind. He and Ingra, who is at present in Finnen to learn housekeeping in his uncle's home so that she may know how to make both ends meet with his annual income of 4,000 crowns—he and Ingra have decided to marry. They want a civil marriage. It is so simple, so easy, so human and so delightfully unconventional and modern. The quarrel with his mother, father, sisters, aunts had been hard enough. They had threatened to disinherit him and told him he was on the road to perdition. The father had ordered him to move out of the little cottage he had rented from him at a bargain. His mother and sisters had come to him without the angry father’s knowledge and had implored him on their knees. The aunts had wept and cried over the telephone and in their letters. But (hls-^and—and Ingra’s conviction none of them had been able to shake, and in the end the family had had to give in. “We cannot take upon us the responsibility of driving him still farther into the arms of crime,” the mother had said io the father .and the father, who remembered how, in his boyhood, he had stolen apples in the neighbor’s garden and made faces at an old woman, replied: “I suppose it Is the unfortunate inheritance from me. Let us save him by love and patience.” In front of Marius, on the desk, was the printed blank informing the minister that he desired to leave the state church. He himself had gone to the sexton to get it. “I want to leave the state church.” he had said to the sexton and had hoped to see an expression of pain or sorrow come into the old man’s face, but instead this inferior . -materialfhinded person had said to him with his most amiable smile: “With the greatest of pleasure, young man.” Then he had given him the blank which was to be filled out and he bowed him to the door as if the whole thing was a common, everyday affair. For the fifth time he picked up the blank and read it over aloud As he had done the other times, he stopped when he had come to this point, laid down the’ paper and thought: “I wonder what these privileges may be.” Of course, he did not know what these privileges were, but to give them up—for Ingra’s sake, who .was after all, only a woman and not as firm in her convictions as he. He had been a free-thinker ever since the minister had confirmed him in that church—but women —they are more—more changeable than we men and he must take that into consideration. Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense! When Inga stood shoulder to shoulder with hint, she, too, would feel strong. Privileges' He looked sarcastically toward the old church door. After all, one must let the people keep their religion. Religion has its value ,the people must believe. He picked up his pen, dipped it energetically in the ink-well, as a man does when there is no reason why he should hesitate', and ran his eyes over the paper: “I give up all” — Just then a cold gust of wind struck his face and he shivered. He turned around furious, picked up the pen or cc more with trembling hand, and while beads of cold perspiration came on his forehead he wrote his name in a hand which looked strange and unfamiliar to himself. "Now it is done,” he said aloud and thought at the same moment of a schoolmate he had long ago forgotten. What was the matter with him? Oh, now he remembered—he had forged a note.

He placed the paper in an envelope, wrote the address outside in Jarge, impudent letters, blew out the lamp, took his hat and went quickly outside. A moment later he heard the letter drop in the empty letter box on the corner of the road There was a policeman on the sidewalk, who stared at him. He wondered if he knew already. Oh, nonsense, it was no bomb, only a letter. Nevertheless, he went towards the light in front of the church door. He stopped and looked in. How amusing ,It was to look ift these people. The tramp was inside listening to the sermon. The tears ran down his bloated face. Marius suddenly heard a crash, a terrible crash as of a bomb exploding. He tore oft his hat and ran in end sat down next to the tramp and felt like a pariah, an ostracized person. (During the last hymn the man was seized with a violent attack of weeping and had to struggle hard not to bn rat out sobbing himself. He remained until the service was over, resting his elbows on his knees, just like the other. "Are you, too, going- to get married In the court house T* he whlopeied to tbe tramp. "No,*’ the other replied. "I shall never marry.*’—Julius Blanks.