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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:13 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:43:13 -0700 |
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diff --git a/13922-h/13922-h.htm b/13922-h/13922-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b660383 --- /dev/null +++ b/13922-h/13922-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4212 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<meta name="author" content="Jim Wiborg"> +<meta name="description" content= +"Transcribed out-of-copyright book"> +<meta name="keywords" content= +"Jonas Lie Norwegian Literature in translation Weird Tales"> +<title>Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie's "The Visionary"</title> +<style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13922 ***</div> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<br> +<h1>THE VISIONARY</h1> + +<h2>OR<br> +PICTURES FROM NORDLAND</h2> + +<br> +<h2>BY<br> +JONAS LIE</h2> + +<br> +<br> +<h3><i>TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN</i><br> +<i>BY JESSIE MUIR</i></h3> + +<br> + + +<h3>WITH A PREFACE<br> +AND<br> +PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR</h3> + +<br> +<br> +<h3>LONDON<br> +HODDER BROTHERS<br> +1894</h3> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> + +<center><img src="images/JL001.jpg" width="444" height="703" border="0" +alt="Jonas Lie"> </center> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + +<br> + + +<p>Until a few years ago, Norway was an unknown country to most +Englishmen. Occasionally a sportsman went there to kill salmon or +to shoot reindeer, but the fjords, glaciers, mountains, and +waterfalls were quite beyond the reach of any but the most +venturesome travellers. Still less was it supposed that Norway +possessed a modern school of poets and novelists. Wergeland, +Welhaven, Munch, and Moe among the former, Björnson, Ibsen, +Kjelland, and Lie among the latter, were, as far as Englishmen were +concerned, "to fortune and to fame unknown." All this has been +changed; sportsmen now complain that it becomes more difficult +every year to hire rivers. Tourists swarm over the country from the +Naze to the North Cape. Ibsen's dramas are played in London +theatres, and his novels, and those of Björnson and Lie, are +read in Germany and in France, as well as in England and +America.</p> + +<p>These three writers are of nearly the same age. Ibsen was born +in 1828, at Skien on the south-eastern coast of Norway; +Björnson in the Dovrefjeld in 1832; and Lie at Eker, near +Drammen, in 1833. Five years after his son's birth, Lie's father +was appointed sheriff of Tromsö, which lies within the Arctic +Circle, and young Jonas Lauritz Edemil Lie, to give him his full +name, spent six of the most impressionable years of his life at +that remote port. There he heard from the sailors many strange +tales of romantic adventure and of hazardous escape from shipwreck, +with the not uncommon result that he wished to be a sailor himself. +He was, therefore, sent to the naval school at Fredriksværn; +but his defective eyesight proved fatal to the realisation of his +wish and the idea of a seafaring life had to be given up. He was +removed from Fredriksværn to the Latin School at Bergen, and +in 1851 entered the University of Christiania, where he made the +acquaintance of Ibsen and Björnson. He graduated in law in +1857, and shortly afterwards began to practise at Konsvinger, a +little town in Hamar's Stift between Lake Miosen and the frontier +of Sweden. Clients were not numerous or profitable at Konsvinger; +Lie found time to write for the newspapers and became a frequent +contributor to some of the Christiania journals. Meantime, Ibsen +and Björnson were becoming famous in Norway, and in 1865 Lie, +perhaps in a spirit of emulation, decided to abandon law for +literature. His first venture was a volume of poems which appeared +in 1866 and was not successful. During the four following years he +devoted himself almost exclusively to journalism, working hard and +without much reward, but acquiring the pen of a ready writer and +obtaining command of a style which has proved serviceable in his +subsequent career. In 1870 he published "The Visionary,"—"Den +Fremsynte"—of which a translation is now, for the first time, +offered to English readers. In the following year he revisited +Nordland and travelled into Finmark. Having obtained a small +travelling pension from the Government, immediately after his +journey to Nordland, he sought the greatest contrast he could find +in Europe to the scenes of his childhood and started for Rome. For +a time he lived in North Germany, then he migrated to Bavaria, +spending his winters in Paris. In 1882 he visited Norway for a +time, but returned to the continent of Europe. His voluntary exile +from his native land ended in the spring of 1893, when he settled +at Holskogen, near Christiansund.</p> + +<p>"The Visionary" was followed in 1871 by a volume of short +stories "Fortoellinger," and during the next year by a larger and +more ambitious book, "The Three-master Future,"—"Tremasteren +Fremtiden"—a realistic sketch of life in the northern +harbours of Norway. Two years later "The Pilot and his +Wife"—"Lodsen og hans Hustru"—appeared, a book in every +respect greatly in advance of its predecessors. Though written +almost entirely in an Italian village it has been justly described +by an able critic as "one of the saltiest stories ever published." +It placed Lie on a higher pedestal than he had ever before +occupied, and brought him into line with Ibsen and Björnson. +"The Pilot and his Wife" made its author a popular Norwegian +writer, and as it has been translated into several European +languages—there are, I believe, two English versions—it +was the first step towards the wider reputation Lie now enjoys. His +next book was hardly a success. Leaving, happily only for a time, +Norwegian folk and Norwegian scenes, he attempted, in 1876, a drama +in verse, "Faustina Strozzi," the plot of which is derived from an +incident in modern Italian history. He returned to Norwegian +subjects in "Thomas Ross" and "Adam Schrader," published in 1878 +and 1879, which deal with life and manners in Christiania; but even +here he was not quite at home and these two novels are not of his +best work. "Rutland" and "Go Ahead!"—"Gaa paa!"—are +much better, and these two stories of Norwegian life as exhibited +in the merchant navy added greatly to Lie's popularity at home.</p> + +<p>"The Slave for Life"—"Livsslaven"—1883, is in a +different vein. The plot is strong and the writer shows himself a +keen and careful observer of human nature. Without imputing to him +any attempt at imitating Ibsen, "The Slave for Life" certainly +exhibits that pessimistic view of existence which is at once +attractive to many and repulsive to not a few of Ibsen's readers. +"The Family of Gilge,"—"Familjen paa Gilge"—is of a +somewhat similar character. Ethical objections to these stories +are, perhaps, superfluous; it must be admitted that both are +popular and have added very considerably to Lie's fame. They were +followed by "A Whirlpool"—"En Malström"—1886; "A +Wedded Life"—"En Samliv"—1887; "The Story of a +Dressmaker"—"Maisa Jons"—1888; and by "The Commodore's +Daughters"—"Kommandörens Döttre"—1889, which +has enjoyed the good fortune of being translated into English with +an introduction by Mr. Edmund Gosse, a most competent Scandinavian +scholar. Since 1889 Lie has published "Evil Forces"—"Onde +Magter," a volume of poetry, and two collections of shorter +stories, "Otte Fortoellinger" and "Trold." He has recently +completed another novel, which will shortly appear, and is, it is +believed, to be entitled "Niobe." Jonas Lie completed his sixtieth +year on the 6th of November last, and this interesting occasion has +been celebrated by a festival given in his honour by the students +of his old University at Christiania. A special number of +<i>Samtiden</i> a Norwegian magazine, has also been devoted to a +series of articles on his life and literary work.</p> + +<p>The present volume, as has already been said, is a translation +of Lie's first story. His literary style is at times very +colloquial, and his sentences are often of great length, running on +for ten, fifteen, or even twenty lines without a full stop. The +difficulty of rendering such a mass of words into English prose +without sacrificing the meaning, and of maintaining the easy +familiarity of the conversation has been fairly overcome by the +translator. The story is simple as compared with some of Lie's +later productions, but it will always be interesting, not only in +itself but as the earliest production of Norway's most popular +novelist. Ibsen and Björnson may be better known in England, +in America, and on the Continent of Europe, but Jonas Lie is dearer +to the Norwegian heart. He has laid the scene of "The Visionary" in +Nordland, the home of his childhood, the last district of Norway to +receive the faith of Christendom, and even now the abode of +superstitions which have survived centuries of Christian teaching. +Except along the coast, and there towns and villages are few and +far between, Nordland is very sparsely occupied by men of Norwegian +birth. Fins and Laplanders wander over the interior during the +brief summer, and have, to some extent, intermarried with the +Norwegians on the coast, who are chiefly fishermen and sailors. The +seafaring life of the people and the slight intermixture of Fin and +Lap blood have not tended to lessen their superstitions, and, +doubtless, young Lie heard many a strange tale of sea-goblins and +land-spirits as he wandered in his boyhood along the quay and in +the streets of Tromsö. Many of the impressions he then +received have contributed to the tragic interest of "The +Visionary." For "The Visionary" is a tragedy in which resistless +Fate hurries its victims to destruction. The hero, David Holst, is +one of those unhappy beings who seem doomed to a more than ordinary +share of the ills of life. He has inherited from his mother at +least a tendency to insanity, and he lives in fear of being +involved in a terrible catastrophe, from which he only saves +himself by strong efforts of will and by the recollection of the +lost love of his youth. The awful calamity which overtook him at +the very moment his betrothal to Susanna was sanctioned by her +father proved, in fact, his salvation, and delivered him from +madness, but its effects were never eradicated. Like Hamlet he +found the times out of joint; but, instead of contending with them, +he patiently submitted to Fate and won for himself, if not absolute +peace, at least a certain amount of tranquillity. Throughout his +life he was subject to visions. In his earliest days the appearance +of a lady carrying a white rose marked the near approach of +calamity. In later life a vision of his beloved Susanna was +sometimes vouchsafed to him, and as he lay on his death-bed she +came, after a long interval, as if beckoning him to join her.</p> + +<p>The other characters of the story are naturally drawn. David's +stern, yet not unkind father; the minister and his wife; the old +clerk, and Susanna herself, will soon make themselves known to the +reader. The refusal of Susanna to give up David when she learns +that his doctor fears he may become insane, and her victory over +her father's objections to her engagement, are proofs of Lie's +insight into the depth and steadfastness of the love of a good +woman. The story of her death, of the bringing home her body in the +boat, and of the scene in the death-chamber, are full of pathos, +and are told with the simplicity of a great artist.</p> + +<p>"The Visionary" is written in the spirit of a true Nordlander, +who is ever contrasting life and nature in the south of Norway with +life "up there" at home, and with the more varied aspects of nature +in Nordland. The vivid description of the great storm are evidently +impressions and recollections of actual experience. Before he +became an author Lie had often mused</p> + +<p> "On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life,"</p> + +<p>and the first results of these musings were given to the world +in "The Visionary."</p> + +<p>J.A.J.H.</p> + +<hr style='width: 75%;'> +<br> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<p> +<a href='#INTRODUCTION'>PART I—INTRODUCTION</a><br> + +<a href='#PART_II'>PART II—NORDLAND AND NORDLANDERS</a><br> +<br> +<a href='#PART_III'>PART III</a>—CHAPTERS<br> + +<a href='#CHAPTER_I'>I.—HOME</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_II'>II.— ON THE SHORE</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_III'>III.— THE SERVANTS' HALL</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_IV'>IV.—AMONG THE VÆTTE +ROCKS</a><br> +<a href='#CHAPTER_V'>V.—CONFIRMATION</a><br> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VI'>VI.—AT THE CLERK'S</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VII'>VII.—TRONDENÆS</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'>VIII.—AT HOME</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_IX'>IX.—THE CHRISTMAS VISIT</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_X'>X.—THE STORM</a><br> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XI'>XI.—CONCLUSION</a><br> +</p> + +<hr style='width: 75%;'> +<br> + + +<h1>PART I</h1> + +<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='INTRODUCTION'></a> +<h3>INTRODUCTION</h3> + +<br> + + +<p>I know many people who have felt the same inclination that +sometimes comes over me, to choose bad weather to go out in. They +are generally men who have passed from a childhood lived in the +open air of the country, to an occupation which entails much +sitting still, and for whom the room sometimes seems to become too +narrow and confined—or else they are poets. Their +recollection and imagination live, more or less unknown to +themselves, in a continual longing to get away from the confined +air of a room, and the barrack-life of a town.</p> + +<p>So one day when the country comes into the town in the shape of +a downright storm of wind and rain, which shakes the tiles on the +roofs, and now and then flings one after you, while the streets +become rivers, and every corner an ambush from which the whirlwind +makes a sudden attack upon your umbrella, and, after a more or less +prolonged and adroit struggle, tears it, and turns it inside out, +until at last you stand with only the stick and the ribs left in +your hand—at such a time, it now and then happens that a +quiet, dignified civil servant, or business man, instead of sitting +at home, as usual, in the afternoon in his comfortable room after +the day's toil in the office, says to his wife that he "is sorry he +must go out into the town for a little while." And what he +unfortunately must go out for is, of course, "business." For little +would it become a sedate, grave man, perhaps an alderman, and one +of the fathers of the town, to acknowledge, even to himself, that +he is childish enough to go and wander about in bad weather, that +he only wants to walk down to the quay to see the spray dash over +the bitts, and to watch the ships in the harbour playing at +shipwreck. He must, of course, have something to do there; if +nothing else, at any rate to see "ne quid detrimenti capiat +respublica"; that is to say, that the town, whose welfare, in one +way or another, it is his business to look after, is not blown +down.</p> + +<p>The fact is, there is a revolution in the streets—not a +political revolution, Heaven preserve him from that—but one +which has an attraction for him, because it awakens all his old +recollections, and in which, much to his disgrace, he contrives +surreptitiously to join, although, in its own way, it too defies +all police arrangements, breaks windows, puts out street-lamps, +tears the tiles from the house-roofs, damages piers and moorings, +and chases police and watchmen into their holes. It is Nature's +loud war-cry, in the very midst of the civilised town, to all the +recollections of his childhood, to his imagination and his love of +Nature; and he obeys it like an old trumpeter's horse that hears +the signal of his youth, and instantly leaps the fence.</p> + +<p>After an hour or two out in the storm, the fire in his veins is +subdued, and home he comes once more a quiet, grave man, carefully +puts his stick and goloshes in their accustomed places in the hall, +and is pitied by his wife, who has been anxious about him, and is +now helping him off with his wet things. Strange to say, he +himself, in spite of adverse circumstances, is in capital spirits +that evening, and has such a number of things to tell about this +storm—every thing of course, as becomes the occasion, in the +form of anxiety lest damage should be done, or fire break out in +the town.</p> + +<p>It was in such weather that I—a practising doctor, and +having, as such, good reason, both on my own account and on that of +others, for being out at all times of the day or night—one +rainy, misty, stormy October afternoon, roamed the streets of +Kristiania, finding pleasure in letting the rain dash in my face, +while my mackintosh protected the rest of my person.</p> + +<p>Darkness had gradually fallen, and the lighted gas-lamps flared +in the gusty wind, making me think of the revolving lights on a +foggy night out on the coast. Now and again an unfastened door +swung open and shut again, with a bang like a minute gun. My inward +comment on these occasions was that, even in our nervous times, +there must still be an astonishing number of people without nerves; +for such bangs thunder through the whole house right up to the +garret, as a gust fills the passage, and doors fly open and shut, +shut and open; everybody feels the discomfort, but no one will take +the trouble to go down and fasten the origin of the evil; the +porter is out in the town, and as long as he is away the inmates +must put up with an absence of all domestic comfort.</p> + +<p>It was just such an unfastened, unweariedly banging door that +led to what I have to relate.</p> + +<p>As I passed it, I heard a voice, which seemed familiar to me, an +old beloved voice—though at first I could not recall where I +had heard it—calling impatiently to the porter. It was on the +subject of the banging door. The man was evidently the only nervous +individual in that house; at any rate, the porter was not, for he +appeared to be quite wanting in feeling both for his door and for +the man who had interested himself in it, and was now fumbling in +vain with a latch-key, which did not appear to fit.</p> + +<p>At last the porter came out of his subterranean hole, and it was +during a little altercation between the now placable and gentle +voice, sorry for its previous irritability, and the growling +porter, that with all the power of an awakened recollection I +recognised my old friend of student-days, David Holst, with whom I +had lived three of the richest years of my youth.</p> + +<p>"If that is you, David, you must let me in before you lock the +door!" I cried, just as I should have done in the good old days, +twenty years before.</p> + +<p>The door opened wide, and a warm shake of the hand from the dark +advancing form, told me that he had not needed to search so long +through the chambers of his memory as I, but had recognised me at +once.</p> + +<p>"Follow me!" were his only words, and then we mounted silently, +he in front and I behind, up the dark stairs, one, two, three +floors and one considerably narrower flight above. There he took my +hand to guide me—a very necessary proceeding, for, as far as +I could make out, the way led across a dark loft, hung with +clothes-lines. He told me, too, to bend my head.</p> + +<p>As I mounted I drew my own conclusions. His hand—I +remembered that in old days he used to be rather proud of +it—was damp, perhaps with mental agitation, and he sometimes +stopped as if to take breath. The narrow garret-stairs whispered to +me too, that my friend David, who in his time had given promise of +good abilities, could not have made great use of them for his own +worldly advancement.</p> + +<p>He opened a door and bade me go in first.</p> + +<p>Upon a table stood a lamp, whose shade concentrated the light +round its foot, in a circle of scarcely more than half a yard's +radius, upon an inkstand and papers which lay there, leaving the +ends of the table in apparent darkness. Behind the table was what +looked like a black grave, which, however, when the eye became +accustomed to the abrupt transition from light to shadow, revealed +itself as a sofa, before which stood an almost correspondingly +long, painted, wooden table with square ends.</p> + +<p>When two old friends meet in such a way, there is often, under +their frank manner, a secret shyness to overcome; for there is a +layer of the different experiences of many years that has to be +cleared away.</p> + +<p>After a short pause, my friend, as if with a sudden resolve, +went quickly up to the table and took the shade off the lamp, so +that the whole room became light.</p> + +<p>"You see," said he, "things are just the same with me as in the +old days, only that there are now two garret windows instead of +one, a few more shelves with books, and a rather better monthly +salary, which I get by combining a teachership in one of the +lower-class schools here, with an easy post on a daily paper. It is +all I need, you see. I moved here from Bergen this spring, and +ought properly to have paid you a call, but have not yet managed +it; when I have seen you in the street, you have always looked as +if you were too much taken up with your practice. But now that I +have you in my den, we will have a chat about old times, and what +you are doing. Take off your coat, while I go down and see about +getting some toddy made." Whereupon he replaced the lamp shade, and +disappeared through the doorway.</p> + +<p>My friend's somewhat forced introductory speech did not seem +natural to me; it was as though, in his ready confidence, he were +regulated rather by my circumstances than by his own, and the whole +thing gave me the impression that at the outset he would parry all +unnecessary questions.</p> + +<p>As yet I, at least, had not said a word; indeed, I had not seen +more of my friend than a brief glimpse of his face, as he turned +towards the lamp and replaced the shade. Still I recognised, in +spite of the difference in age, the same thin, delicate, pale face, +which, in the old days, would sometimes assume such a beautiful, +melancholy expression—it was with that he was always +photographed in my memory—but the features had now acquired a +striking sharpness, and in the quick glance I caught there was an +expression, both suffering and searching, which made me +indescribably sad. I have seen sick people look at me in the same +way, when they were afraid they were to be operated upon; and I +thought I now understood at any rate this much, that what wanted +operating on here was my friend's confidence, and this would +require all my dexterity.</p> + +<p>I was once the most confiding fellow under the sun; but since I +became a doctor and saw what people really are, I have become +thoroughly suspicious; for there is nothing in the whole world you +may not have to presuppose, even with the best of mortals, if you +do not want to be misled as to the cause of their disease. I +suspect everybody and everything, even, as the reader has seen +above, those sedate men who go out in stormy weather. An Indian +does not steal more unperceived and noiselessly through a primeval +forest than I, when necessary, into my patient's confidence; and my +friend David had all at once become my patient. He would scarcely +succeed in deceiving <i>me</i> any longer with his talk about "old +days" and a glass of punch in his "unchanged student's den."</p> + +<p>My first strategem was now hastily to continue the inspection of +the room, which my friend had somewhat cursorily allowed me to +begin. I took the lamp and began to look about me.</p> + +<p>Under the sloping ceiling, against the wall opposite the sofa, +was the bed, with a little round table beside it. On some +bookshelves, which stood on the floor against the wall in the +corner at the foot of the bed, I recognised Henrik Wergeland's +bust, even more defective about the chin and nose than in my time, +and now, in addition, blind in one eye; he had fared almost as +badly as the old pipe I used to smoke, which I recognised again, in +spite of its being cut and hacked in every direction. For my friend +had a habit of cutting marks in it while he sat smoking, now and +then throwing a word into the conversation to keep it going, just +as one throws fuel on a fire—it was the spirit of the +conversation, and that something should be said, rather than the +thought itself, he cared about. When sitting thus, his face often +wore a melancholy, peaceful expression, as if he were smiling at +something beautiful we others did not see.</p> + +<p>Between the bed and the shelves I discovered some bottles, +ordinary spirit bottles, and the suspicion flashed like lightning +through my mind—I have, as I said, become suspicion +personified, not naturally, but through disappointment—that +my friend was perhaps given to drink.</p> + +<p>I put the lamp down upon the floor. In one bottle was ink, in +the second paraffin, and in the third, a smaller one, cod-liver +oil, which he probably took for his chest.</p> + +<p>I remembered his clammy hand, his stopping, and heavy breathing +on the stairs, and I felt thoroughly ashamed that I could have been +such a wretch as to think the dear friend, I might also say ideal, +of my youth, was no better than any scamp in vulgar life, who +positively ought to be suspected.</p> + +<p>I offered him, in silence, a penitent apology, while I read over +the titles on the backs of the books, recognising one and another. +These shelves seemed to be the bookshelves of his student days. I +drew out a thick volume, old "Saxo Grammaticus," which I remembered +to have bought at an auction, and presented to him; but now I found +something quite different to think about.</p> + +<p>It happened with me as with a man who draws out a brick and +suddenly finds a secret passage—I all at once felt myself at +the entrance to my friend's secret, though, as yet, only before a +deep, dark room through which my imagination might wander, but +which I could not really see, unless my friend himself held the +light for me.</p> + +<p>What thus attracted my attention and rivetted my thought and +recollection to the spot, was no hole, but the head of a violin, +with a dusty neck, and a tangle of strings about the screws which +was stuck up at the back of the shelf. The fourth string hung +loosely down; the over-stretched, broken first had curled up, and +under the two whole strings the bridge lay flat, as I ascertained +by taking several books out of the row and feeling for it. I +examined the violin, which I could easily remove, as carefully as +if I had found a friend ill and starving; there was an unmended +crack in the body. Enchained by old memories, I could not help +falling into a very sad frame of mind.</p> + +<p>I put the books on the shelves again, replaced the lamp on the +table, and sat myself on the sofa, where puffing away at the pipe +(I found on it among others my own initials, cut by myself) I gave +myself up to reflections, which I will here impart to the reader +even at the risk of his thinking my friend is rather a long time +getting the punch. Through these reflections he will stand before +the reader, as he did before my mind's eye in the light of youthful +recollections, and as the reader must know him, if he will +understand him.</p> + +<p>Our acquaintance as students arose naturally from the fact that +we were both from Nordland. He was three or four years older than +I, and his being the trusted though anonymous theatrical reviewer +on the H—— paper, was enough of itself to give him, in +my eyes, an official superiority, before which I bowed.</p> + +<p>But what worked still more strongly upon my youthful imagination +was his manner. There was something unusually noble about his +slender figure and his delicate, oval-shaped, earnest face, with +the high forehead and the heavy masses of dark, curly hair on the +temples. His strongly-marked eyebrows and a decided Roman nose drew +one's attention away from his eyes, which were light blue, and more +in keeping with his pale and beardless face than with his more +energetic features. But yet it was his eyes that gave one the first +impression of him. I learned later to read his features +differently, and to see that in them was reflected the meeting of +the currents of that twofold nature by which his life was gradually +crushed out.</p> + +<p>A sweet smile when he talked and a reserved manner gave him a +distinguished air, which at any rate impressed me greatly. He was +the only student I knew who did not wear a student's cap; he used +to wear a flat blue sailor's cap with a short peak, which suited +him very well. When he became eager, as might happen in a +dispute—for he was a great logician, though it was only his +intellect that took part in a discussion, and never, as far as I +could see, his heart or his deeper feelings—his voice would +give way; it became overstrained and harsh, as if from a weak +chest. Such encounters always told upon him, and left him in +irritable restlessness for some time after.</p> + +<p>One of his peculiarities was that he sometimes went on walking +tours of several days out in the country, both in summer and +winter. Companionship he would never hear of. Had he wished for it, +he would have asked me I knew, and therefore I never thought of +forcing myself upon him.</p> + +<p>On these occasions he would set off without a knapsack; I +noticed this once when I happened to be roaming in the fields two +or three miles [A Norwegian mile is about seven English miles.] +from a town, where I had gone on a visit. When he came home again, +he would be in capital spirits, but before setting out he was +always so silent and melancholy that I had to sustain nearly the +whole burden of the conversation. He used to have periods of low +spirits.</p> + +<p>One indication of these moods was his manner in playing on the +violin I had now found with broken strings, at the back of his +bookshelf. As it lay there, it recalled the incidents of twenty +years ago.</p> + +<p>This violin he once held in high esteem; it had the place of +honour on his wall, with the bow beside it. It had been left him by +a friend, an old clerk, [Norw. "klokker," almost answering to the +Scotch precentor, but a klokker, in addition to leading the singing +in church, has to read the opening prayer and to assist the priest +in putting on his vestments.] at his home up in the north, who had +taught him to play, and had evidently been one of those musical +geniuses who are never fully appreciated in this world.</p> + +<p>David loved to give play to his fancy, not only upon this +violin—he had a good ear, and had learnt not a +little—but also about it: where it really came from, and how +old it might be? He would exceedingly have liked an indistinct mark +inside to mean that it was "possibly a Cremona"; it was one of his +weak points, and this room for conjecture was evidently, in his +eyes, one of the excellences of the violin.</p> + +<p>David had a small collection of what he called classical music, +long compositions which he played from the notes. They were not +much to my fancy, and always struck me as being of a piece with +what was strange in his manner when he posed as a logician. When he +played them it was more like severe, mental, school exercise than +anything his heart was in; and he played as correctly as he argued +or wrote.</p> + +<p>The times when classical music and critical conversations ruled +in his room, were certainly those in which he felt his mind most in +balance. He was less hearty in manner then, even towards me.</p> + +<p>But then would come times when the music-stand would remain in +the corner. He would sit for a long time looking straight before +him, as if lost in thought, and then give expression to his +feeling, on his violin, in all kinds of fantasies, which pleased my +uncultivated ear far more than his so-called classical music.</p> + +<p>He sometimes played a variety of small pieces, and then +gradually sank into his own peculiar minor strain, and sometimes +into a wonderfully sad melody. I very seldom heard him play +anything right through, and then always in a kind of +self-forgetfulness. At such times, I had a feeling that he was +confiding to me something beautiful that he had lost, and over +which he could never cease to mourn.</p> + +<p>At a later period of our friendship he became, as I have said, +more irregular in his habits, and was seldom to be found at home; +he would sometimes talk ironically about his comrades, the +professors and things in general, and his sarcasm was almost +biting.</p> + +<p>I was privileged to take my friend's key, and go into his room, +even when he was not at home. If his violin hung uncared for, I +knew that something was wrong, and that his own condition answered +to that of his instrument. The first thing he did, when all was +right again, was carefully to put it in order.</p> + +<p>But never during those times had I seen his treasure so badly +treated and neglected as when twenty years later, I found it again, +dusty and cracked at the back of the bookshelf. The reader will now +be able to understand how sorrowful were the reflections it +aroused, and how it led me to suspect the story of a joyless life; +and I trust he will forgive me for having taken him so far from +David Holst's room—where I sat and waited for my friend to +come with the punch—into the land of my youthful +recollections. For three years we had been together almost daily. +After that David had to go out as tutor, and our ways parted, as +they so often do in this life.</p> + +<p>And this evening we had met again.</p> + +<p>There was a jingling in the passage, and immediately after David +Holst carefully opened the door for a servant-girl, who brought in +a steaming jug of hot water and other requisites for punch, which +were most welcome to a man who had been out several hours in the +wind and rain, as I had that very afternoon.</p> + +<p>David found me installed on the sofa with his pipe in my mouth +and his slippers on my feet, just as he would have done in the old +days, and this I reckoned as one of my cunning artifices; for with +these passes, his pipe and slippers, I reinstated myself, without +more ado, on the old friendly footing. I felt like a general who is +fortunate enough to open the campaign by occupying a whole +province.</p> + +<p>In default of his accustomed place on the sofa, David drew a +chair up to the table and sat down opposite to me, with the punch +tray between us.</p> + +<p>We were now once more on the banks of the same river of delight, +in which we had so often bathed and tumbled in our youth; but now +we both approached it more carefully.</p> + +<p>In the course of conversation, he often leaned over towards me, +as if listening, and in this way his head came within the region of +the lamp's bright light. I then noticed that his hair was much +thinner, and sprinkled rather plentifully with grey, and that the +perspiration stood in beads on his no longer unwrinkled brow. His +pallid, sharp-featured face, and a strange brilliancy in his eyes, +told me that either his physical or his mental being hid an +underground fire, perhaps no longer quenchable. Thinking from his +repeated fits of coughing, that his bending over towards me arose +quite as much from the fact that he was tired and was trying to +rest against the edge of the table, as from his interest in the +conversation, I determined to enter at once upon the question of +the state of his health, and thus put myself in possession of yet +another important outwork of his confidence.</p> + +<p>I rose suddenly, determined and serious, and said that, as an +experienced doctor, I unfortunately saw that he was ill in no such +slight degree as he perhaps thought, and that, as he was evidently +weak and languid—as the drops of perspiration on his forehead +showed—he must, at any rate, at once seat himself on the +comfortable sofa I had hitherto occupied.</p> + +<p>He acknowledged that going twice downstairs had been rather too +much for him—the first time he had only gone down to put an +end to the uncomfortable draught through the house—and +willingly took his place on the sofa at my desire.</p> + +<p>It was his chest, he said. By the help of the stethoscope, I +found that this was only too true. His chest, indeed, was in such a +condition that it was only a question of gaining time, not of +saving life; for one lung was entirely gone, and the other +seriously affected.</p> + +<p>During the remainder of the evening, both he and I felt +ourselves re-established on the old footing, my authority as doctor +now giving me a slight superiority.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock, I declared that he must go to bed, and I told +him that the next morning I intended to come again, and prescribe +what was needful. I heard he was not to be at school before eleven: +until that hour he promised me not to go out.</p> + +<p>When I came home, I found my wife in great anxiety about me. She +could not conceive how a sensible man, and a doctor into the +bargain, who gave others such good advice, could be out more than +was necessary in such dreadful weather; and I had been out in it +the whole time since dinner.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be said to this, and I only considered, +while she talked, how I could best win her over to the cause which +I now had at heart. My wife had not the slightest acquaintance with +my dying friend, and, if I knew her aright, might even feel hurt +when I told her that he had, in a way, possessed my affection +before I knew her.</p> + +<p>Things turned out as I foresaw; for it was only after a rather +doubtful pause that she came up to me, and said that my best friend +should of course be dear to her.</p> + +<p>And from that moment no one could have been more helpful than +she. Whatever she undertakes, she always does thoroughly, and she +settled that very evening how the matter should be arranged.</p> + +<p>At ten the next morning I was up in my friend's room with my +wife, and I introduced her to him, saying that she wished to be +regarded as an old friend like myself. I told him, as consolingly +as I could—but when I said it, my wife looked away—that +his illness absolutely required that he should put himself under +treatment for six months, until the warm weather came and completed +his cure, and that I hoped he would consent to let me arrange +matters at the school for him.</p> + +<p>He was evidently both surprised and touched. Life had not +offered him friendship, he said; he was so little used to accept +it, even when it came to him as true and good as this was. After a +little parleying, he surrendered at discretion to my wife, who +never liked being defeated.</p> + +<p>He would not, however, move to our house, as I suggested, for he +had a fondness for this room, and, as he frankly said, he would not +feel happy if obligations of a pecuniary nature were introduced +into the matter.</p> + +<p>From this time I visited him as a rule every morning, and +generally had a little chat about different things in the town +which I thought might interest, or at any rate divert him.</p> + +<p>My wife treated him in her own way. Contrary to what I had been +a little afraid of, she carried out no radical revolution in his +housekeeping arrangements. That the servant-girl had her reasons +for coming up to him so often, and that every day she waited in +fear and trembling my wife's quiet inspection whether the room were +properly dusted and in order, he could have no suspicion.</p> + +<p>The only thing that my wife openly effected, was the sending of +all kinds of strengthening food. One of the children often went +with the maid who took these, and it sometimes amused and +entertained him, to keep the child with him for a while.</p> + +<p>This new and unaccustomed state of affairs seemed at first to +divert him; but in the course of a month he began to be depressed +again. Our visits evidently troubled him, and, for this reason, +were discontinued for a time. He spent almost the whole day on the +sofa at the dark end of the room.</p> + +<p>One evening the girl said she had heard a sound as of crying and +sobbing in his room, so she did not go in, but remained standing +outside. A little while after it seemed to her as if he were +praying earnestly, but she did not understand the words. The next +evening she heard him playing a soft melody, as if on a violin +which did not give a clear sound.</p> + +<p>The following morning when I came to him his mood was entirely +changed, and to my surprise I saw that his violin, dusted and with +strings in order, but still cracked, hung on the wall with the bow +beside it. On the table, by the bed, I noticed too an old Bible +that I had never before seen, probably because this treasure had +always been kept in his drawer as a sacred thing.</p> + +<p>He looked more languid and worn out than usual; but his face +wore a beatified expression, as of a man who had wrestled with his +fate, and had won rest and resignation.</p> + +<p>If possible, he said, he would like to speak to my wife that +same morning; but he would rather talk with me at once, and so I +must sit down for a little while.</p> + +<p>With a smile—that same quiet, sweet, mysterious smile of +his that I knew so well, but which now seemed no longer to shun +observation—he turned to me saying, as he laid his hand on my +shoulder and looked into my face:</p> + +<p>"My dear, kind Frederick! I know for certain, though I cannot +tell you why, that I shall not live to see the spring again. What +is wanting neither you nor any one else can give me, only God; but +of all men you have been the kindest to me, and your friendship has +reached farther than you would ever imagine. You have a right to +know him who has been your friend. When I am gone—and that +will undoubtedly be this winter, perhaps sooner than you, judging +from my condition, think—you will find some memoranda in my +drawer; they are the history of my early youth, but uneventful as +that was, it has had its effect upon my whole life. It will tell +you that the world has been sad, very sad for me, and that I am as +glad as an escaped bird to leave it."</p> + +<p>"There was a time," he added after some hesitation, "when I +wished to be buried in a churchyard up in Nordland; but now I think +that the place does not make any difference, and that one can rest +just as peacefully down here."</p> + +<p>Saying which, he pressed my hand, and asked me to go for my +wife.</p> + +<p>When she came, she was surprised to see him brighter and in +better spirits than she had ever thought he could be. He wanted, he +said, to ask a favour of her. It was a whim of his; but, if he +should be called away, she must promise him to plant a wild rose +upon his grave next spring.</p> + +<p>My wife understood how sad the request was when I told her what +had already passed; for David had looked so confident and bright +when he was talking to her, that the sorrowful element was +absent.</p> + +<p>My friend's prophecy about himself proved to be only too true. +Though his mood grew constantly brighter, so that he sometimes even +had a gleam of the joy of living, his illness went in the opposite +direction, always toward the worst.</p> + +<p>One day I found him lying and watching from his bed—where +he now spent nearly the whole day—my little Anton, who had +"made a steamboat" out of his old violin-case—of which the +lid was gone—and was travelling with it on the floor, +touching at foreign ports. When I came up to the bed, David told +me, smiling, that he had been at home in Nordland playing on the +beach again.</p> + +<p>My wife had, meantime, become more and more his sick-nurse. She +was with him two or three times a day, and sat at his bedside. He +often held her hand, or asked her to read him something out of his +old Bible. The portions he chose were generally those in which the +Old Testament speaks of love and lovers. He dwelt especially on the +story of Jacob and Rachel.</p> + +<p>My wife, who had now become very fond of him, confided to me one +day that she was sure she knew what my friend was suffering from; +it was certainly nothing but unrequited love.</p> + +<p>She had never thought any one could look so touchingly beautiful +as he did, when death was near. When he lay still and smiled, it +was as though he were thinking of a tryst he should go to, as soon +as he had done with us here on earth.</p> + +<p>One evening he asked my wife to sit with him. At nine o'clock a +message came for me; but when I got there, he was gone.</p> + +<p>He had asked my wife to read to him, for the first time, a part +of Solomon's Song, where she found an old mark in his Bible. It was +the second chapter, in which both the bride and the bridegroom +speak, and which begins: "I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of +the valley"; and ends: "Until the day break, and the shadows flee +away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon +the mountains of Bether."</p> + +<p>He had asked her to read it a second time, but during the +reading he had quietly fallen asleep.</p> + +<p>And there he lay, beautiful in death, with a peaceful smile, as +though he were greeting just such a grove, on the other side of the +mountains of Bether.</p> + +<p>Next summer there stood a wooden cross, and a blooming, wild +briar-rose, on a grave in one of the churchyards of the town. There +rests my friend David Holst.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> +<p>As a beginning of the story of my friend's life, I found, laid +aside, a section, part of which seems to have been added at a riper +age. It shows with what strong ties nature had bound him to his +home, and with what affection he clung to it.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='PART_II'></a> +<h1>PART II</h1> + +<h2>NORDLAND AND NORDLANDERS</h2> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='NORDLAND_AND_NORDLANDERS'></a> +<h2>NORDLAND AND NORDLANDERS</h2> + +<br> + + +<p>In so far as a man like myself, who lives in such a sad reality, +dare talk of illusions—how great, and what a number of +illusions I have had shattered, during the two or three years since +I left my home in Nordland, and became a student; how grey and +colourless is the world down here, how small and mean, compared +with what I had imagined it as regards both men and conditions of +life!</p> + +<p>This afternoon, I was out fishing in the fjord with some +friends; of course they all enjoyed themselves—and I +pretended that I did. No, I did not enjoy myself! We sat in a +flat-bottomed, broad, ugly boat, that they called a "pram," a +contrivance resembling a washtub, and fished the whole afternoon in +muddy water a few feet deep, with a fine line, catching altogether +seven whiting—and then rowed quite satisfied to land! I felt +nearly sick; for the whole of life down here seems to me like this +pram, without a keel, by which to shape a course, without a sail, +which one cannot even fancy could be properly set in such a boat, +without rough weather, which it could not stand, and like this +muddy, grey, waveless sea outside the town, with only a few small +whiting in it. Life here has nothing else to offer than such small +whiting.</p> + +<p>While the others talked, I sat and thought of a fishing +expedition when <i>she</i> was with me, out among the Vætte +Rocks at home, in our little six-oared boat—what a different +kind of day, what a different kind of boat, what a different +experience! Yes, how unromantic, poor and grey, life is down here +among the rich, loamy, corn-producing hills, or on the fjord of the +capital, sooty with steamboat smoke, or even in the town itself, +compared with that at home! But if I uttered this aloud, how these +superior people would open their eyes!</p> + +<p>They talk here of fishing, and are pleased with a few poor cod +and whiting. A Nordlander understands by fishing a haul of a +thousand fish; he thinks of the millions of Lofoten and Finmark, +and of an overwhelming variety of species, of whales, spouting +through the sounds, and driving great shoals of fish before them, +as well as of the very smallest creatures of the deep. The only +fish that I know down here worth noticing—and I always look +at them whenever I come across them—are the gold and silver +fish, that you keep in a glass-bowl, just as you keep a canary in a +cage: but then they are from another fairyland in the south.</p> + +<p>When a Nordlander speaks of birds he does not mean as they do +here, only a head or two of game, but an aërial throng of +winged creatures, rippling through the sky, flying round the rocks, +like white foam, or descending like a snowstorm on their +nesting-places; he thinks of eider-duck, guillemot, diver and +oyster-catcher swimming in fjord and sound, or sitting upon the +rocks; of gulls, ospreys and eagles, hunting in the air; of the +eagle-owl, hooting weirdly at night in the mountain-clefts—in +short, he means a whole world of birds, and has a little difficulty +in confining his ideas to the poor capercailzie, surprised and +killed by a sportsman in the midst of a love-frolic, when the sun +is rising over the pine-clad hills.</p> + +<p>Instead of the fruit-gardens here, he has the miles of +cloudberry moors at home. Instead of a poor, uniform shore with +nothing but mussels, he remembers a grand beach strewn with myriads +of marvellously tinted shells.</p> + +<p>All natural conditions are intensified in Nordland, and are far +more powerfully contrasted than in the south of Norway. Nordland is +a boundless stone-grey waste, as it was in primæval times +before man began to build, but in the midst of this there are also +countless natural treasures; it has a sun and a summer glory, whose +day is not twelve hours only, but an uninterrupted period of three +months, during which, in many places, one must wear a mask as +protection against the swarms of mosquitoes; but, on the other +hand, the night is a time of darkness and horror, lasting nine +months. Everything there is on a gigantic scale without the gradual +transitions between extremes, upon which the quiet life here in the +south is built; in other words, there are more occasions for fancy, +adventure and chance, than for calm reasoning, and quiet activity +with certain results.</p> + +<p>A Nordlander, therefore, down here, is at first apt to feel like +Gulliver, who has come to Lilliput, and, on the whole, does not get +on well among the inhabitants, until he has screwed down his old +customary ideas to the simple proportions of their insignificant +life; in short, until he has taught himself to use his intellect, +instead of his fancy.</p> + +<p>The Lap on snow-shoes with his reindeer, the Fin, the Russian, +not to mention the constantly moving Nordlander himself, who, +though slow on land, is quick in his boat—are all undeniably +far more interesting people than the dull southern rustic, whose +imagination reaches scarcely farther than his own field, or to +wondering whereabouts in the pasture he must go to fetch his +horse.</p> + +<p>When Southerners talk about storms and waves, they mean a little +bit of a storm and rough sea in the Kristiania Fjord, which can +even do a little damage in the harbour; and they consider it deeply +affecting when a clumsy boatman is drowned. A storm suggests +something very different to my mind: a sudden down-rushing wind +from the mountains, which carries away houses—for which +reason they are secured with ropes at home; waves from the Arctic +Sea, which bury high rocks and islands in foam, and roll +ground-seas of innumerable fathoms' depth, so that vessels are +suddenly dashed to pieces in the middle of the ocean; crowds of +brave men sailing for their very lives before the wind, and not for +their lives only, but also to save the dearly-won cargo for the +sake of those at home, and, even in deadly peril, trying to lend a +hand to a capsized comrade; I think of the shipwreck of countless +boats and vessels on a winter evening, in the hollows of the +foaming waves. It would, for once, be worth while to see such waves +(usually three in succession, and the last the worst) advancing +with their crests higher than the custom-house roof, and bearing on +their shoulders a yacht, which has to be run ashore, rushing into +Kristiania's peaceful little harbour, carrying ships up with them +into the town, and followed by correspondingly fierce bursts of +wind, lifting off the very roofs. If they came, I know well it +would be <i>me</i> they wanted, <i>me</i> the poor visionary, +hidden away in the civilisation of the town, who, they consider, +belongs to them; and I think a moment after the terror I should +greet them as friends from home, although they came bearing death +and destruction on their wings. They would, for once, show to all +this civilised littleness the terrible grandeur and greatness of +the mighty ocean, and flavour the insipidity of the town with a +little sea-salt terror. I should like to see a whale squeezed in +between Prince's Street and Custom-house Street, glaring at a +family on the upper floor, or the fine, gold-laced policemen trying +to bring into court a stranded sea-goblin. I should like, too, to +see the town's theatrical reviewers, who are accustomed to see +"Haupt und Statsaction" in vaudevilles twice a week, stand with +their eye-glasses to their eyes, before such a play, which, without +more ado, would swamp all their critical ideas and inkstands, and +show them death and horror in real downright earnest.</p> + +<p>How such a reviewer would grow in ability to understand what is +imposing and powerful in a poetical composition, and in the desires +it awakens, if he only once in his life had seen the "Horseman," [A +remarkable mountain in Nordland.] on a stormy day, with its height +of 1700 feet, riding southwards out in the surf, while his cloak +fluttered from his shoulder towards the north, and, besides the +giant himself in his might, had seen, in prefect illusion, the +horse's head, his ear, his neck, his snaffle and his majestic +chest.</p> + +<p>It is up in the north that northern popular imagination, from +the time of the myths, has laid the home of a whole army of +wickedness; there the Fin folk have practised their magic arts, and +woven their spells; and there by the dark, wintry-grey breakers of +the Arctic Sea, live yet the ancient gods of evil, driven out to +earth's farthest limits, those demoniacal, terrible, half-formless +powers of darkness, with whom the Aases fought, but St. Olaf, with +his victorious, dazzling, cross-hilt sword, "turned to stock and +stone."</p> + +<p>That which can so easily be put aside as superstition, when one +is sitting safely in the middle of civilisation—and yet still +lives as a natural power in the people—is represented, on the +whole, in pigmy proportions in the south. Here they have a little +terror of small hobgoblins, good-natured fairies, a love-sick +river-sprite, and so forth, beings who with us in the north, almost +go about our houses like superstition's tame domestic animals. You +have there, too, good-natured elves, who carry on their peaceful +boating and coasting trade invisibly among the people. But then, in +addition, natural terror creates a whole host of wicked demons, who +draw people with an irresistible power, the ghosts of drowned men, +who have not had Christian burial, mountain ogres, the sea-sprite, +who rows in a half boat, and shrieks horribly on the fjords on +winter nights. Many who really were in danger have let their chance +of safety go for fear of him, and the visionaries can actually see +him.</p> + +<p>But if Nature's great power, brooding with crushing weight over +life on this wintry, surf-beat, iron-bound coast, which lies in +twilight for nine months, and for three of these altogether loses +the sun, creates a terror of darkness in the mind, yet the north +also possesses in the same extreme the exactly opposite character, +a warm, sunny, summer nature, clear-aired, heavily scented, rich +with the changing beauty of countless colours; in which objects at +ten or twelve miles' distance across the sea-mirror, seem to +approach within speaking-distance; in which the mountains clothe +themselves with brownish green grass to the very top—in +Lofoten to a height of 2000 feet—in which the small birch +woods wreathe themselves up on the slopes and ravines, like white, +sixteen-year-old maidens at play; in which too the air is laden, as +in no other place, with the scent of the growing strawberries and +raspberries there, and when the day is so hot, that you are +compelled to walk in shirt-sleeves, and you are longing to bathe in +the rippling sea, always saturated with sunshine, and perfectly +clear to the very bottom.</p> + +<p>The powerful aroma and bright colour of things growing there, +have been attributed by the learned to the strong light that fills +the atmosphere, when the sun is above the horizon uninterruptedly +the whole twenty-four hours. And in no other place can such +deliciously flavoured strawberries or raspberries, nor such +fragrant birch-boughs, be gathered as in Nordland.</p> + +<p>If there is a home for a wonderfully beautiful idyl, it must be +in the fjord-valleys of Nordland in the summer-time. It is as +though the sun kisses Nature all the more lovingly, because he +knows how short a time they have to be together, and as if they +both, for the time, try to forget that they must part so soon. Then +the hill grows green as if by a sudden miracle, and the bluebell, +the dandelion, the buttercup, the dog-daisy, the wild rose, the +raspberry and the strawberry spring up in lavish abundance, by +every brook, on every hillock, on every mountain-slope; then +hundreds of insects hum in the grass as in a tropical land; then +cows, horses, and sheep are driven up the hills and the +mountain-sides, while the Fin from the highlands comes down into +the valley with his reindeer and waters them in the river; then the +cloudberry moors lie reddening for many a mile inland; then there +is quiet, sunny peace in every cottage, where the fisherman is now +sitting at home with his family, putting his tackle in order for +the winter fishing; for in Nordland the summer is more beautiful +than in any other place, and there is an idyllic gladness and peace +over Nature, which is to be found nowhere else.</p> + +<p>The Nordlander, too, has a touch of Nature's caressing softness +in his character; when he can manage it, he is fond of living and +dressing well, and lodging comfortably; with regard to delicacies, +he is a thorough epicure. Cod's tongue, young ptarmigan, +reindeer-marrow, salted haddock, trout, salmon and all kinds of the +best salt-water fish, appropriately served with liver and roe, +nourishing reindeer-meat and a variety of game are, like the +fresh-flavoured cloudberries, only every-day dishes to him. And the +Fin as well as the Nordland plebeian is also childishly fond of all +sweet things, and his "syrup and porridge" are widely known.</p> + +<p>Brought up in the midst of a nature so rich in contrasts and +possibilities, and amidst scenes of the utmost variety, from the +wildest grandeur to the tenderest beauty, charm and fascination, +the Nordlander is, as a rule, clever and bright, often indeed +brilliant and imaginative. Impressionable as he is, he yields +easily to the impulse of the moment. If there is sunshine in your +face, there is sure to be sunshine in his. But you must not be +mistaken in him, and take his good-nature for perfect +simplicity—as is often done here in the south. Deep in his +soul there lurks a silent suspicion, unknown even to himself, he is +always like a watchful sea-fowl that dives at the flash of the gun, +and before the bullet has had time to strike the spot where it just +now lay on the water. He has been used from childhood to think of +the unexpected, the possibility of all possible things in Nature, +as a sword hanging over every peaceful, quiet hour, and he +generally carries this instinct with him in his intercourse with +his fellow-creatures. While you are talking to him, he may dive +into his mind like the sea-fowl, but you do not suspect it, and are +not therefore disconcerted. This introspection may occur while he +has tears in his eyes, and in moments when he is most deeply +affected—it is his nature, and he will always retain a dash +of it, even when he has moved, with all his belongings, from +natural into civilised surroundings. He eludes you, steals, with +his imagination and his watchful suspicion, in, among, and around +your thoughts; indeed, if he is a really talented +Nordlander—I am too dull and disinterested to be able to do +it—I believe that, without your suspecting it, he can go, +with his hands in his pockets, right through your mind, in at your +forehead, and out at the back of your head. He would be invaluable +as a detective or a diplomatist, if only he had more strength of +character, and succumbed with less childish weakness to the +influence of the moment; but these are unfortunately his weak +points. I am speaking now of the strong trait in the national +character as it shows itself in the more conspicuous natures, and +would not be misunderstood to mean that men of character are not to +be found in Nordland too—many a time, perhaps oftener than +elsewhere, they are hardened into something grand.</p> + +<p>In a native Nordland family there will generally be +found—such, at least, is my belief—some drops of Fin +blood. It has been remarked elsewhere that in the Sagas, when the +greatest peasant races in Halgoland were spoken of as descended +from half-trolls, or mountain-ogres, this only meant Finnish +descent. Our royal families were of Finnish extraction, and Fin was +a good-sounding name borne by the greatest men in the +land—for instance, Fin Arnesen. [One of Olaf the Holy's most +trusted men.] Harald Haarfager and Erik Blodöxe both married +Fin maidens. The mystic sense-affecting influence which has been +ascribed to them, was only the erotic expression of the great +national connection between the two differently derived elements; +the fair-haired, blue-eyed, larger-minded and quieter Norwegian, +and the dark, brown-eyed Fin, quick of thought, rich in fancy, +filled with the mysticism of nature, but down-trodden and weak in +character. The Fin, to this very day, goes as it were on snow-shoes +and sings minor strains, while many a Norwegian, in his pride of +race, little suspects that he has any connection with that despised +people.</p> + +<p>There is also, in my experience, a great difference in our +national character, which depends upon whether the crossing has +taken place with the weak Laplander, or with the well-grown, +strong, bold Fin. It makes a difference in temperament, as great as +between minor and major in the same piece of music. That touch of +rich colour in our nation, of which the poet Wergeland's endless +wealth of imagery and flight beyond logic are a representation, is +certainly Finnish—at any rate, there is very little of it in +our old Sagas. And it can be understood from this, what grandeur of +nature the Fin has added to the Norwegian character. The Fin +admixture has been a great and essential factor in the composition +of the mental qualities of our people at the present day.</p> + +<p>I have often talked with people about this Finnish admixture, +which, in a near degree, is looked upon almost as a disgrace, and I +have found a surprisingly large number who were secretly of my +opinion. Finnish admixture makes energetic, logical, bold, +enterprising men; it has, to a great extent, given a backbone to +the character of our Eastland and Trondhjem people. In Nordland, on +the contrary, the Lap element is predominant, and has in a measure +altered the character of the people. The Fin-Norwegian is master of +Nordland nature; the Lap-Norwegian is subject to it, and suffers +under its oppression.</p> + +<p>Nature's contrasts in Nordland are too great and extreme for the +mind of the race that lives there not to be exceedingly liable to +receive permanent injury from them. The extreme melancholy and +sadness which is found there in the poor man, and which so often +results in mental derangement and suicide, has most undoubtedly its +connection with and reason in these natural conditions; in the long +winter darkness with its oppressive, overwhelming scenes that crush +down the mind in light-forsaken loneliness; and in the strong and +sudden impressions that, in the dark season as well as in the +light, affect all too violently the delicate inner fibres of being. +I have thought over these things as perhaps no one else has +done—thought, while I myself have been suffering under them; +and I understand—although again, when it is a question of my +own person, I do not understand it in the least—why "second +sight," <i>fremsynethed</i> as it is called in Nordland, can there, +just as in the Shetland and Orkney Isles, make its appearance, and +be inherited in a family. I understand that it is a disease of the +mind, which no treatment, no intelligence or reflection can cure. A +visionary is born with an additional sense of sight. Beside his two +sound eyes, he has the power of looking into a world that others +have only a suspicion of, and when the occasion comes it is his +doom to be obliged to use his extraordinary power; it will not be +stopped with books or by intelligent reflection; it will not be +suppressed even here in the "enlightened capital": it can at the +most only be darkened for a while with the curtain of +forgetfulness.</p> + +<p>Ah! when I think how, at home in Nordland, I pictured to myself +the king's palace in Kristiania, with pinnacles and towers standing +out grandly over the town, and the king's men like a golden stream +from the castle court right up to the throne-room; or Akershus +fortress, when the thundering cannon announce the king's arrival, +and the air is filled with martial music and mighty royal commands; +when I think how I pictured to myself "the high hall of light," the +University, as a great white chalk mountain, always with the +sunshine on its windowpanes; or how I imagined the Storthing +[Norwegian parliament] Hall, and the men who frequent it, whose +names, magnified by fancy, echoed up to us, as though for each one +there rang through the air a mighty resounding bell, names like +Foss, Sörenssen, Jonas Anton Hjelm, Schweigaard, and many +others; when I compare what I, up in the north, imagined about all +this, with the "for our small conditions—most respectable +reality," in which I now live and move—it is like a +card-castle of illusions, as high as Snehætten, +[Snehætten—a mountain in the Dovre range, 7400 feet +high.] falling over me. Until I was over twenty years of age, I +lived only in a northern fairyland, and I am now for the first time +born into the world of reality: I have been spell-bound in my own +fancy.</p> + +<p>If I were to tell any one all this, he would certainly—and +the more sensible the man was the more surely—be of opinion +that my good <i>Examen Artium</i> [<i>Artium</i>—an +examination to be passed before admittance to the University is +granted.] must clearly have come about by some mistake. But if life +depends on theoretical reasoning and knowledge, I have, thank God, +as good abilities as most men. And I know that in them I have a +pair of pliant oars, with which, as long as I require to do so, I +shall be able to row my boat through practical life without running +aground. The load which I have in the boat, at times so very heavy, +but then again so blissfully beautiful, no one shall see.</p> + +<p>I feel a longing to weep away the whole of this northern fairy +tale of mine, and would do it if I could only weep away my life +with it. But why wish to lose all the loveliness, all the illusion, +when I must still bear with me to my dying day the sadness it has +laid upon me?</p> + +<p>It will be a relief to me in quiet hours to put down my +recollections of this home of mine, which so few down here +understand. It is the tale of a poor mentally-diseased man, and in +it there are more of his own impressions than of outward +events.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='PART_III'></a> +<h1>PART III</h1> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_I'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h2><i>HOME</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>My father was a country merchant, and owned the trading-place, +——ven in West Lofoten. He was really from Trondhjem, +whence he had come north, as a destitute boy, in one of those small +vessels which are sent from that city to Lofoten, to trade during +the fishing season. In his youth he had gone through a great deal, +and had even worked for a time in a boat's crew, as a simple +fisherman, until he at last got a place as shop-boy with Erlandsen +the merchant, whose son-in-law he became.</p> + +<p>My father, in middle age, was a handsome man, black-haired and +dark-skinned, with sharp, energetic features, and in height rather +short than tall. He always wore a brown duffel, seaman's jacket, +and glazed hat. In manner he was stern, and not very accessible; it +was said, too, that he was rather a hard man—for which the +severe school of life through which he had passed was perhaps to +blame. If this manner, on the one hand, made him few friends, on +the other, it gained for him a greater confidence in business +matters, in which he was prompt and expeditious, always claiming to +the utmost what he considered to be his due. People feared him, and +would not willingly be on bad terms with him.</p> + +<p>We have generally only flashing recollections of what has +happened before our eighth year, but these flashes last for a whole +lifetime. I have in my mind just such a picture of my poor unhappy +mother. I know her better from that than from all I have heard +about her since; from what I have been told she must have had fair +hair and soft blue eyes, have been pale and delicate, and in figure +rather tall. She was also very quiet and melancholy.</p> + +<p>She was Erlandsen's only daughter, and was married to my father +while he was yet a subordinate in Erlandsen's service, and it was +said that it was the old man who brought about the union, thinking +it the best way to provide for her future.</p> + +<p>I remember a warm summer day, and the mowers in their +shirt-sleeves, mowing with long scythes, out in the meadow: I was +with my mother, as she passed by them, knitting. Outside the fence +lay a half-bare rocky hill, behind which my mother had a bench. +Above this on a stony heap grew raspberry-bushes, and beside them +stood a few small birch-trees. While I was scrambling about among +the stones, picking raspberries, father called my mother.</p> + +<p>When she had gone away, there came over to me from the other +side of the hill a tall, pale lady, who seemed older than mother, +dressed in black, with a stand-up, white, frilled collar; she +looked at me very kindly, and stretched out to me a wild rose spray +she had in her hand.</p> + +<p>I did not feel at all afraid, and it did not seem as if she were +a stranger. Then she nodded sadly to me in farewell, and went back +the same way she had come.</p> + +<p>When mother returned I told her that such a kind, strange lady +had been there, but she must have been in great sorrow, and now she +was gone.</p> + +<p>My mother—I remember it, as if it were +yesterday—stood still for a minute, as white as a sheet, +looking at me with anguish in her eyes, as if we were both going to +die, then she threw her arms above her head, and fell fainting to +the ground.</p> + +<p>I was too frightened to cry, but I remember that, while she lay +stretched insensible on the grass by the bench, I threw myself upon +her, crying, "Mother! mother!"</p> + +<p>A little while after I had come running to father, who stood in +his shirt-sleeves over in the meadow, mowing with the others, and +had said, sobbing, that mother was dead.</p> + +<p>From that hour my mother was out of her mind. For many years she +had to be constantly watched in her own room, and my father must +have had many a sad hour. Afterwards she was taken to a lunatic +asylum in Trondhjem, where two years later she died, without having +come to her right mind for one moment.</p> + +<p>The person who had the charge of me during this time was old +Anne Kvæn, a pock-marked, masculine-looking woman, with +little brown eyes, rough, iron-grey hair, strongly marked, almost +witch-like features, and as a rule a short, black clay pipe in her +mouth. She had been my mother's nurse, and was attached to her with +her whole soul. When my mother went out of her mind, she begged +earnestly to become her guardian in the blue room; but this had to +be given up, as it was evident that it was just her presence that +most excited the patient's mind. My mother could not bear to see +father either, and me they never dared show her at all.</p> + +<p>Old Anne Kvæn had been my mother's only confidante. She +was extremely superstitious and strange. In her imagination, +hobgoblins and gnomes occupied the store-house and boat-house, as +surely as my father resided in the main building; and under the +mountain to the east of the harbour, the underground people carried +on, invisibly, their fishing and trading with Bergen, just as my +father did his, visibly, in the world. Old Anne had certainly +filled my poor mother's head with her mystic superstition, to no +less an extent than she did mine. There were all kinds of marks and +signs to be made from morning till night, and she always wore an +uneasy look, as though she were keeping watch. When a boat came in, +you ought to turn towards the sea, and spit, and mutter a few words +against sea-sprites. She could see every man's double. [The spirit +which every one is supposed to have as a follower and companion +through life.] On its account the door must be shut to quickly +after any one had gone out; and she could always hear a warning +beforehand when father was coming home from a journey.</p> + +<p>When Anne Kvæn had no longer leave to go into the blue +room to my mother, she silently went through all kinds of +performances outside the door. I remember once standing on the +stairs, and seeing her bowing and curtseying, wetting her finger +every now and then, drawing on the door with it, and muttering, +until I fled in terror.</p> + +<p>In her incantation formulæ, the word "Jumala" often +occurred, the name of the Bjarmers' old god, whose memory, in the +far north, is not so completely eradicated as one would think, and +who to this day has perhaps some sacrificial stone or other on the +wide mountain wastes of Finland. Against Lap witchcraft—and a +suspicion of it was fastened on almost every Lap boat that landed +at the quay—she also had her charms; she apparently melted +down Fin and Christian gods together in her mystical incantations, +for the confounding of Lap witchcraft.</p> + +<p>In the midst of such mental impressions as these, I grew up.</p> + +<p>The parsonage, with the white-towered church beside it, lay only +a short way from us, down by the sea, on the right-hand side of the +bay, looking out from our trading-place, which lay farther in.</p> + +<p>There was a tutor in the place—we always called him "the +student"—and I went to lessons every day with the minister's +two children, a bright boy of the name of Carl, who was a year +younger than I, namely twelve, and his sister Susanna, of exactly +the same age as myself, a blue-eyed wild child, with a quantity of +yellow hair, which was always requiring to be pushed back from her +forehead; when she could do so unnoticed by the student, she made +all kinds of faces and grimaces across at us, to make us laugh.</p> + +<p>The tutor was, in fact, exceedingly strict, and inspired the +greatest respect. The torture in which we sat when at school, not +daring to look up at one another for fear our laughter should break +out, was really anything but pleasant; for every time it exploded +we fared very badly; in the first place, we had our hair pulled and +our ears boxed, and in the next, long written harangues in our +mark-books about our behaviour.</p> + +<p>Susanna was often utterly merciless; it came to such a pass, +that with only a little wink in the corner of her eye, she could +instantly put us in a state of fever, so that we would sit with +cheeks as red as apples, and our eyes fastened on our books, until +we could contain ourselves no longer. She tried especially to work +upon me, though she knew I must pay dearly for misconduct at home; +for father was a severe man, who had very little comprehension of +children.</p> + +<p>In play hours, we romped with more animation than children +generally indulge in.</p> + +<p>In contrast to the strict, gloomy life at home, with father +always either out on business, or up in the office; where, from the +blue room, often came noises and cries from my poor insane mother, +and where Anne Kvæn was always going about, like a wandering +spirit, playing with the parsonage children was like a life in some +other and happier, more sunshiny part of the globe.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_II'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h2><i>ON THE SHORE</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>The shore is an even more attractive playground for children in +Nordland than here in the south of Norway. At low-tide there is a +much longer stretch of beach than here.</p> + +<p>The sandy bottom lies bare, with pools in it here and there, in +which small fish swim, while down by the sea there sits a solitary +gull on a stone, or a sea-fowl walks by the water's edge. The fine, +wave-marked sand is full of heaps, covered with lines, left by the +large, much sought after bait-worms, that burrow down into the +earth. Hidden among the stones, or in the masses of sea-weed, lie +the quick, transparent, shrimp-like sand-hoppers, which dart +through the shallow water when they are pursued. They are used by +small boys as bait, upon a bent pin, to catch young coal-fish.</p> + +<p>Upon the high grassy hill above the beach, among some large +stones, we three children built our own warehouse of flat stone +slabs, with store-house, boat-house and quay below.</p> + +<p>In the boat-house we had all kinds of boats, small and great, +from the four-oared punt up to the ten-oared galley, some of wood +and bark, others of the boat-shaped, blue mussel shells. Our +greatest pride, the large yacht—a great, mended trough, with +one mast and a deck, that was constantly being fitted out for the +Bergen market—was still not the best; and I can remember how +I many a time sat in church and made believe that we owned the +splendid, full-rigged ship, with cannon, that hung under the +chancel arch, [A ship, symbolical of the church, often hangs in +Norwegian churches.] and how, while the minister was preaching, I +pictured to myself all kinds of sailing-tours, which Carl and +Susanna, but especially Susanna, should look on at in wonder. That +ship was the only thing that was wanting to my happiness.</p> + +<p>In the bay, by father's quay, there was a deep, shelving bank, +where, at the end of the summer, came shoals of young cod-fish and +other small fry; and there we boys carried on our fishing, each +with his linen thread and bent pin. We cut the fish open, and hung +them over the drying poles standing in the field over by our own +warehouse for the preparation of dried fish, and we let the liver +stand in small tubs to rot until it became train-oil. Both products +were then duly put away in our store-house, ready "to go to Bergen" +later on, in the yacht; and Heaven knows we worked and slaved as +eagerly and earnestly at our work as the grown-up people did at +theirs, yet the only real return we had for it was the sunshine we +got over our sunburnt, happy faces.</p> + +<p>Carl was a slenderly-built boy, who generally followed his more +energetic sister in everything. Both children had thick yellow +hair; Susanna's curled in ringlets that seemed to twinkle round her +head every time she moved—which, as already said, she +constantly did with a toss of her head, to keep her hair off her +forehead. Both had alike a fair, brilliant complexion, and +beautiful blue eyes. I do not know whether Susanna at that time was +tall or short for her age—I only know I thought her at least +of the same height as myself, though she must really have been half +a head shorter; the difference was probably made up by my +admiration.</p> + +<p>I remember her, as she went to church on Sundays with her +mother, a little, pale, soberly-clad, busy woman, who was always, +except on Sunday mornings, knitting a long, dreary stocking. +Susanna walked along the sand-strewn path to church in a white or +blue dress, with a dark shepherdess hat on her head, a little white +pocket-handkerchief folded behind a very large old hymn-book, and +white stockings, and shoes with a band crossed over the instep. I +did not think there could be a prettier costume in the world than +Susanna's Sunday dress.</p> + +<p>In church the minister's family sat in the first pew, right +under the pulpit, and we—my father and I—a few pews +behind; and we children exchanged many a Freemason's sign, +intelligible only to ourselves.</p> + +<p>But once Susanna wounded me deeply, even to bitter tears. It +became evident to me that she had made my father the subject of one +of her lively remarks. With his good strong voice, he used to sing +the hymns in the simple country fashion, very loud; but—what +I and many others considered very effective—at the end of +each verse he added a peculiar turn to the last note, which did not +belong to the tune, and was of his own composition. This had been +made a subject of remark at the parsonage, and, like a little +pitcher, Susanna had ears. When she noticed that I had found this +out, she looked very unhappy.</p> + +<p>When Carl was thirteen, he was sent to the grammar-school in +Bergen, and the "expensive" tutor went away by the last steamboat +that same autumn.</p> + +<p>From this time Susanna's education was carried on by her +parents, and I was obliged to acquire my learning from the clerk, a +good-natured old man, who himself knew very little more than how to +play the violin, which he did with passion, and a sympathetic if +uncultivated taste.</p> + +<p>When the clerk had gained my father's permission for me to learn +the violin—and I, like him, preferred this kind of +entertainment to learning lessons—three whole years, in other +words, the time until I was sixteen years of age, were divided +between violin-playing and idleness.</p> + +<p>Perhaps if my mind, during this period of my life, had been +properly kept under the daily discipline of work, much in me might +have been developed differently. At it was, the whole of my +imaginary life was unfortunately put into my own power, and I laid +the foundation of fancies which afterwards gained the mastery over +my life, to a ruinous extent. Some strongly impressionable natures +require that the dividing line drawn in every one's consciousness +between fancy and reality, shall be constantly and thoroughly +maintained, lest it be obliterated at certain points, and the real +and the imaginary become confused.</p> + +<p>Although we no longer had the same abundant opportunities for +meeting as before, Susanna and I were, notwithstanding, constant +and confidential playmates throughout our childhood.</p> + +<p>When she had anything to confide to me, she generally watched by +the gate that crossed the road by the parsonage lands, at the time +when I went to or came from the clerk's.</p> + +<p>One day, as I came homewards along the road, with my books under +my arm, she was sitting in her blue-checked frock and straw hat, on +the steps by the side of the gate. She looked as if she were in a +very bad temper, and I could see at once that I was in for +something.</p> + +<p>She did not answer my greeting; but when I attempted to slip +through the gate a little more quickly than she liked, she asked me +in an irritated tone if it were true, as they said, that I was so +lazy that they could make nothing of me at home.</p> + +<p>Susanna had often teased me; but what wounded me this time was +that I saw that they had been making my father and me the subject +of censorious remarks at the parsonage, and that Susanna had been a +party to it. Had I known that she now sat there as my defeated +advocate, I should certainly have done otherwise than I did, for +with an offended look I passed on without bestowing a word upon +her.</p> + +<p>When I came home, I heard that the minister and my father had +had a disagreement in the Court of Reconciliation. The minister, +who was a commissioner of that court, had said that he thought my +father went too quickly forward in a certain case, and my father +had given him a hasty answer. It was on this occasion that judgment +was passed upon us in the parsonage.</p> + +<p>This state of affairs between our elders caused some shyness +between us children, and I remember that at first I was even afraid +to go by the parsonage, for fear of meeting the minister on the +road.</p> + +<p>Susanna, however, made several attempts at advances; but at the +first glimpse of her blue-checked frock I always went a long way +round, through the field above the road, or waited among the trees +until she was gone.</p> + +<p>For some time I saw nothing of her; but one day, as I was going +through the gate, I saw written in pencil on the white board of the +post that marked the rode [Rode—a length of road. The +high-road is divided into rodes, and the division between these is +marked by posts, on which stand the names of the houses, whose +owners have to keep that portion of the road in repair.]: "You are +angry with me, but S. is not at all angry with you."</p> + +<p>I knew the large clumsy writing well, and I went back to the +gate two or three times that day to read it over and over again. It +was Susanna in a new character; I saw her in thought behind the +letters as behind a balustrade. In the afternoon I wrote +underneath: "Look on the back of the post!" and there I wrote: "D. +is not angry with S. either."</p> + +<p>The next day Susanna was standing by the fence in the garden +when I passed, but pretended not to see me; she probably repented +having been so ready to make advances.</p> + +<p>Although outwardly their relations were polite in the extreme, +in reality my father's intercourse with the minister was from this +time broken off; they never, except on special occasions and in +response to a solemn invitation, set foot within one another's +door. This again gave a kind of clandestine character to the +intercourse between me and Susanna. No command was laid upon us, +yet we only met, as it were, by stealth.</p> + +<p>We were both lonely children. Susanna sat at home, a prisoner to +every-day tediousness, under her mother's watchful eye, and in my +dreary home I always had a feeling of cold and fright, and as if +all gladness were over with Susanna at the parsonage. It was +therefore not surprising that we were always longing to be +together.</p> + +<p>As we grew older, opportunities were less frequent, but the +longing only became the greater by being repressed, and the moments +we could spend together gradually acquired, unknown to us, another +than the old childish character. To talk to her had now become a +solace to me, and many a day I haunted the parsonage lands, only to +get a glimpse of her.</p> + +<p>I was about sixteen, when one morning, as I passed the parsonage +garden, she beckoned to me, and handed me a flower over the wall, +and then she hastily ran in, right across the carrot beds, as if +she were afraid some one would see.</p> + +<p>It was the first time it had struck me how beautiful she was, +and for many a day I thought of her as she stood there in the +garden among the bushes with the morning sun shining down upon +her.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_III'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h2><i>THE SERVANTS' HALL</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>The ghostly spirit which ran through our house, first had free +outlet down in the servants' hall, when the men and maids, and the +wayfarers who were putting up for the night, sat in the evening in +the red glow from the stove, and told all kinds of tales about +shipwrecks and ghosts.</p> + +<p>On the bench in the space between the stove and the wall, sat +the strong, handsome man Jens with his carpentering and repairs; he +used to do his work, and listen in silence to the others. By the +stove "Komag-Nils" busied himself with greasing komags +[Komag—a peculiar kind of leather boot used by the Fins.] or +skins—he had this name, because he made komags. Komag-Nils +was a little fellow, with untidy yellow hair, which hung over his +eyes, and a face as round as a moon, on which the nose looked like +a little button; when he laughed, his wide thin-lipped mouth and +large jaws gave him almost the expression of a death's-head. His +small, watery eyes blinked at you mysteriously, but showed plainly +that he was not wanting in common sense. It was he, in fact, who +could tell the greatest number of stories, but still more was it he +who could get a stranger to tell stories of the visible or the +invisible world just as they occurred to him.</p> + +<p>A third man went by a nickname, which, however, they never gave +him within his hearing; Anders Lead-head, was so called, because he +now and then had bad fits of drinking, and nearly lost his place in +consequence. And yet in his way he was extremely capable. In any +real dilemma—in a storm—he rose at once to the +responsible post of captain in the boat; for there was but one +opinion of his capability as a sailor. When the danger was over, he +fell back again into the insignificant man.</p> + +<p>A girl of twenty years of age, whom we called French Martina, +was also one of the regular servants of the house. She seemed of a +totally different race of beings from the ordinary Nordlander, was +quick and lively, with thick, curly black hair, round a brown oval +face with strikingly regular features. She was slenderly built, of +middle height, and had a good figure. Her eyes, beneath strongly +marked, black eyebrows, were as black as coal; and when she was +angry, they could flash fire. She was in love with the silent Jens, +and was extremely jealous, without the slightest cause. It was said +that these two would make a match when he had been on two or three +more fishing expeditions, but the matter was not officially +announced at any rate, I think because Jens made a passive +resistance as long as he could, and never actually proposed to her. +French Martina was, by birth, one of the illegitimate children of +those fishing districts, whose fathers are foreign skippers or +sailors. Her father was said to have been a French sailor.</p> + +<p>I was strictly forbidden by my father to go into the servants' +hall in the evening; he knew very well that a good many things were +said there that were not fit for children's ears. But then, on the +other hand, it was just down there that the most interesting things +in the world were talked about. The consequence was that I used to +steal down secretly. I remember how, one dark autumn evening, when +I had slipped in, I listened, while Komag-Nils—the man with +the yellow hair and death's-head grin when he laughed—told a +dreadful ghost story from Erlandsen's predecessor's time.</p> + +<p>At that time there stood an old store-house not far from the +parsonage. One Christmas Eve they sat drinking and merry-making in +the warehouse. At eleven o'clock the ale gave out, and a man named +Rasmus, who was a strong, courageous fellow, was sent to the +store-house, where the beer-cask lay, to fill a large pewter jug, +which he took with him. When he got there, Rasmus set the lantern +on the cask, and began to draw. When the jug was full, and he was +just meditating putting it to his lips, he saw, over the beer +barrel, lying with its body in the shadow, where all the barrels +stood in a row, a terribly big, broad, dark form, from which there +came an icy breath, as if from a door that stood open; it blinked +at him with two great eyes like dull, horn lanterns, and said: "A +thief at the Christmas ale"! But Rasmus did not neglect his +opportunity. He flung the heavy jug right in the goblin's face, and +ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. Outside there was +moonlight on the snow; he heard cries and howls down on the shore, +and became aware that goblins were pursuing him in ever-increasing +numbers. When he came to the churchyard wall they were close upon +him, and in his extremity he bethought himself of shouting over the +wall: "Help me now, all ye dead!" for the dead are enemies of the +goblins. He heard them all rising, and noises and yells as of a +battle followed. He himself was closely pursued by a goblin, who +was just on the point of springing upon him as he seized the latch +of the door, and got safely in. But then he fell fainting on the +floor. The next day—the first Christmas Day [In Norway, +Christmas Day is called "first Christmas Day"; the day after, +"second Christmas Day," and so on to the end of the +week.]—the people going to church saw, strewn all around on +the graves, pieces of coffin-boards, and all kinds of old sodden +oars, and such timbers as usually sink to the bottom after a +shipwreck. They were the weapons that the dead and the goblins had +used, and from various things it could be gathered that the dead +were the victors. They also found both the pewter jug and the +lantern down in the store-house. The pewter jug had been beaten +flat against the goblin's skull, and the goblin had smashed the +lantern when Rasmus escaped.</p> + +<p>Komag-Nils could also tell a great deal about people with second +sight and their visions of things, sometimes in the spirit world, +sometimes in actual life, of which they either feel a warning, +or—as if in a kind of atmospheric reflection before their +mental vision—can see what is happening at that very moment +in far distant places. They may be sitting in merry company, and +all at once, becoming pale and disturbed, they gaze absently before +them into space. They see all kinds of things, and sometimes an +exclamation escapes them, such as: "A fire has broken out in +Merchant N.N.'s buildings in ——vaagen"! or "Trondhjem +is burning now"! Sometimes they see a long funeral procession +passing, with such distinctness that they can describe the place +and appearance of every man in it, the coffin and the streets +through which the procession wends its way. They will say: "A great +man is being buried down in Kristiania"; and when the news comes, +it always corresponds with their statement. It may happen, at sea, +that such a man will say to the captain that he will do well to go +out of his course for a little while; and he is always obeyed, for +the crew are quite sure that he beholds in front of the ship what +none of them perceive, perhaps a goblin in his half-boat, or a +spectre, or something else that brings misfortune.</p> + +<p>One of Komag-Nils' many stories of this kind had happened to an +acquaintance of his during the winter fishing. The weather had been +very stormy for two days, but on the third had so far lulled that +one of the boats' crews that had been lodging in the fishing hut, +thought that it would be quite possible to draw their nets. But the +rest did not care to venture. Now it is a custom that the different +boats' crews shall give each other a hand in launching the boats, +and this was now to be done. When they came down to the ten-oared +boat, which was drawn a good way up the beach, they found both oars +and thwarts reversed, and, in addition to this, it was impossible, +even with their united efforts, to move it. They tried once, twice, +three times without avail. And then one of them, who was known to +have second sight, said that from what he saw, it was better that +they should not touch the boat that day: it was too heavy for human +power. In one of the crews that put up in the fishing-hut there was +a lively boy of fourteen, who entertained them the whole time with +tricks of all kinds, and was never quiet. He took up a huge stone +and threw it with all his might into the stern of the boat. +Instantly there rushed out, visible to every one, a gnome in +seaman's dress with a great bunch of seaweed for a head. It had +been sitting at the stern weighing down the boat, and now rushed +out into the sea, dashing the water up in spray round it as it +went. After that the boat went smoothly into the water. The man +with the second sight looked at the boy, and said he ought not to +have done as he had; but the boy only laughed and said that he did +not believe in goblins or spirits. In the night, when they had come +home and lay sleeping in the hut, at about twelve o'clock they +heard the boy crying for help. One of the men thought, too, he saw +by the dim light of the oil lamp a great hand stretching in from +the door up to the bench on which the boy lay. Before they had so +far collected themselves as to lay hold of the hand, the boy, +crying out and resisting, was already dragged to the door. And now +a hard struggle took place in the doorway, the goblin pulling the +boy by the legs, while the whole crew held him by the arms and the +upper part of his body. In this way, at the hour of midnight, he +was dragged backwards and forwards in the half-open doorway, now +the men, now the goblin, having the better of the struggle. All at +once the goblin let go his hold, so that the whole crew fell over +one another backwards on to the floor. But the boy was dead, and +they understood that it was only then that the goblin had let go. +The following winter they used to hear wailings at midnight in the +fishing-hut, and they had no peace until it was moved away to +another spot.</p> + +<p>The Nordlander has the same, or even a greater pride in owning +the fastest sailing-boat, that the East countryman in many places +has in having the fastest trotting-horse. A really good boat is +talked of in as many districts in the north, as, a really fine +trotter would be in the south. All sorts of traditions about the +speed and wonderful racing powers of the boats are current in +Nordland, and romantic tales are told of some of them. The best +boats in Nordland now came from Ranen, where boatbuilding has made +great strides. To build a good boat with the correct water-lines +requires genius, and cannot be learned theoretically; for it is a +matter of special skill on the part of the builder of each boat. +Ill-constructed boats are sometimes put together but they are, of +course, unsatisfactory and sail only moderately well. The Nordland +boat-builders have long since discovered the high fore and aft, +sharp-keeled boat, to be the most practical, with one mast and a +broad, prettily cut square sail admirably suited to what is most +required, rapid sailing in fore and side winds, though less so for +tacking. The boat is exactly the same shape under water as the +fast-sailing clippers for which the English and Americans have of +late become famed. What it has cost the Nordlanders to perfect the +form that now enables them almost to fly before the wind, away from +mighty curling billows which would bury the boat, if they reached +it; how many generations have suffered and toiled and thought over, +and corrected this shape under pain of death, so to speak, for +every mistake made! In short, the history of the Nordland boat, +from the days of men who first waged war with the ocean up there, +to this day is a forgotten Nordland saga, full of the great +achievements of the steadily toiling workman.</p> + +<p>One winter's evening in January, a little while before the +fishing began, I heard a story told by a man of one of the large +boats' crews who were then spending the night at our house. He was +started by two or three of Komag-Nils' stories, and wanted to show +us that where he came from, down at Dönö near Ranen, in +Helgeland, there were as many and as wonderful stories and boats, +as with us in Nordland. The narrator was a little, quick-speaking +fellow, who sat the whole time rocking backwards and forwards, and +fidgetting upon the bench, while he talked. With his sharp nose, +and round, reddish little eyes, he resembled a restless sea-bird on +a rock. Every now and then he broke off to dive down into his +provision box, as if every time he did so he took out of it a fresh +piece of his story. The story was as follows:</p> + +<p>On Kvalholmen, in Helgeland, there lived a poor fisherman named +Elias, with his wife Karen, who had formerly been servant at the +minister's over at Alstadhaug. They had put up a cottage at +Kvalholmen, and Elias was now in the Lofoten fishing-trade, working +for daily wages.</p> + +<p>It was pretty evident that lonely Kvalholmen was haunted. When +the husband was away, the wife heard many dismal noises and cries, +which could not come from anything good. One day when she was up on +the mountain, cutting grass for winter fodder for the two or three +sheep they owned, she distinctly heard the sound of talking on the +beach below, but dared not look to see who was there.</p> + +<p>Every year there came a child, but the parents were both +industrious. When seven years had passed there were six children in +the cottage; and that same autumn the man had scraped together so +much that he thought he could afford to buy a six-oared boat, and +henceforward sail to the fishing in his own boat.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<p>One day as he was walking along with a halibut pike [A long +wooden pole with a barbed iron point to spear halibut with.] in his +hand, meditating over his intention, he stumbled unexpectedly, upon +an immense seal, which lay sunning itself behind a rock down on the +shore. The seal was quite as little prepared for the man as the man +for it. Elias, however, was not slow; from the rock where he stood +he thrust the long heavy pike into its back, just below the +head.</p> + +<p>And then there was a scene! All at once the seal raised itself +upon its tail straight up in the air, as high as a boat-mast, +showed its teeth and looked at Elias with two bloodshot eyes, so +maliciously and venomously, that he was nearly frightened out of +his senses. Then the seal rushed straight into the sea, leaving a +track of blood-tinged foam behind it. Elias saw nothing more of it; +but the same afternoon the halibut pike, with the iron point broken +off, was washed up at the landing-stage in Kval creek where the +house stood.</p> + +<p>Elias thought no more of the affair. The same autumn he bought +his six-oared boat, for which he had put up a little boat-house +during the summer.</p> + +<p>One night as he lay thinking about this new boat of his, it +struck him that in order to make it thoroughly secure he ought, +perhaps, to put one more plank to support it on each side. He was +so fond of the boat, that it was nothing but a pleasure for him to +get up and go with a lantern to look at it.</p> + +<p>While he stood holding the light up over the boat, he suddenly +caught sight of a face in the corner, upon a heap of fishing-net, +that exactly resembled the seal's. The creature showed its teeth +angrily at him and the light, its mouth seeming the whole time to +grow wider and wider, and then a huge man rushed out through the +boat-house door, but not too quickly for Elias to see, by the light +of the lantern, that out of his back there stuck a long iron spike. +Now Elias began to understand a little; but still he was more +afraid on account of his boat than for his own life, and he sat in +the boat himself, with the lantern, and kept guard. When his wife +came to look for him in the morning she found him sleeping, with +the extinguished lantern by his side.</p> + +<p>One morning in the following January when he put out to fish +with two men in his boat besides himself, he heard in the dark a +voice that came from a rock at the entrance to the creek. It +laughed scornfully, and said: "When you get a ten-oared boat, take +care, Elias!"</p> + +<p>However, it was many years before anything happened to the +ten-oared boat, and by that time his eldest son, Bernt, was +seventeen. That autumn Elias went into Ranen with his whole family +in the six-oared boat, to exchange it for a ten-oared boat. Only a +newly confirmed Fin girl, whom they had taken in some years before, +was left at home.</p> + +<p>Elias had in his eye a half-decked ten-oared boat, which the +best boat-builder in Ranen had finished and tarred that very +autumn. Elias knew very well what a boat should be, and thought he +had never seen one so well built under the water-line. Above, on +the contrary, it was only fairly good, so that to any one less +experienced it looked heavy, and with no beauty to speak of.</p> + +<p>The builder knew this just as well as Elias. He said he believed +it would be the first boat in Ranen for sailing; but that, all the +same, Elias should have it cheap, if he would only promise one +thing, and that was, not to make any alteration in it, not so much +as to put a line on the tar. Only when Elias had expressly promised +this did he get the boat.</p> + +<p>But "the fellow," who had taught the builder the shape for his +boats below water-line—above it, he was obliged to work as he +could by himself, and that was often poorly enough—had +probably advised him beforehand, to sell it cheaply, so that Elias +should have it, and also to make it a condition that the boat +should not be marked in any way. The cross [Customary with +fishermen in Nordland to keep evil spirits away.] usually painted +fore and aft, did not, therefore, appear on the boat.</p> + +<p>Elias now thought of sailing home, but first went to the shop +and laid in a supply of Christmas goods including a little keg of +brandy for himself and his family. Delighted as he was with his +purchase, both he and his wife took that day a little more than was +good for them, and Bernt, the son, also had a taste.</p> + +<p>Their shopping done, they set out to sail the new boat home. It +had no other ballast than himself, his wife and children, and the +Christmas fare. His son Bernt sat in the fore-part, his wife, with +the help of the second son, held the halliard, and Elias sat at the +helm, while the two younger boys, twelve and fourteen years of age, +were to take turns at baling.</p> + +<p>They had eight miles [About thirty-eight English miles = eight +Norwegian sea miles.] to sail, and when they got out to sea, it was +pretty evident that they would come to prove the boat the first +time she was used. A storm was gradually rising, and the +foam-crests began to break on the great waves.</p> + +<p>Now Elias saw what sort of a boat he had; she cleared the waves +like a sea-bird, without so much as a drop coming in, and he +therefore judged that he did not need to take in a reef, which in +an ordinary ten-oared boat he would be obliged to do in such +weather.</p> + +<p>Later in the day he noticed, not far off on the sea, another +ten-oared boat fully manned and with four reefs in the sail, +exactly as he had. Her course was the same as his, and he thought +it rather strange that he had not seen her before. She seemed +desirous of racing with him, and when Elias saw this he could not +refrain from letting out another reef.</p> + +<p>The boat now flew with the speed of an arrow past naze, island +and rock, till Elias thought he had never been for such a splendid +sail before, and the boat now showed herself to be, as she really +was, the first boat in Ranen.</p> + +<p>In the meantime the sea had grown rougher, and two considerable +waves had already broken over them. They broke in at the bow where +Bernt sat, and flowed out to leeward near the stern.</p> + +<p>Since it had become darker, the other boat had kept quite close, +and they were now so near to one another that a scoop could have +been thrown across from one boat to the other.</p> + +<p>And thus they sailed, side by side, in the growing storm, +throughout the evening. The fourth reef of the sail ought properly +to have been taken in, but Elias was loth to give up the race, and +he thought he would wait until they took a reef in over in the +other boat, where it must be needed quite as much as in his. The +brandy keg went round from time to time, for there was now both +cold and wet to be kept out.</p> + +<p>The phosphorescence that played in the black waves near Elias's +boat shone weirdly in the foam round the other boat, which seemed +to plough up and roll waves of fire about her sides. By their +bright light he could even distinguish the spars and ropes in her. +He could also distinctly see the men on board, with sou'westers on +their heads; but as their windward side was nearest, they all had +their backs turned to him, and were nearly hidden by the +gunwale.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there broke over the bows, where Bernt sat, a +tremendous wave whose white crest Elias had long seen through the +darkness. It seemed to stop the whole boat for an instant, the +timbers quivered and shook under its weight, and when the boat, +which for a few seconds lay half-capsized, righted herself and went +on her way again, it streamed out astern. While this was happening, +he fancied there were ghastly cries in the other boat. But when it +was over, his wife, who sat at the halliard, said in a voice that +cut him to the heart: "Good God! Elias, that wave took Martha and +Nils with it!"—these were their youngest children, the former +nine, the latter seven years old, who had been sitting in the bow, +near Bernt. To this Elias only answered: "Don't let go the rope, +Karen, or you will lose more!"</p> + +<p>It was now necessary to take in the fourth reef, and, when that +was done, Elias found that the fifth ought to be taken in too, for +the storm was increasing; yet in order to sail the boat free of the +ever-increasing seas he dared not, on the other hand, take in more +sail than was absolutely necessary. But the little sail they could +carry became gradually less and less. The spray dashed in their +faces, and Bernt and his next youngest brother Anton, who till now +had helped his mother with the halliard, were at last obliged to +hold the yard, an expedient resorted to when the boat cannot even +bear to go with the last reef—in this case the fifth.</p> + +<p>The companion boat, which had in the meantime vanished, now +suddenly appeared again beside them with exactly the same amount of +sail as Elias's boat; and he began rather to dislike the look of +the crew on board of her. The two men who stood there holding the +yard, whose pale faces he could distinguish under the sou'westers, +seemed to him, in the curious light from the breaking foam, more +like corpses than living beings, and apparently they did not speak +a word.</p> + +<p>A little to windward he saw once more the high white crest of +another huge wave coming through the dark, and he prepared for it +in time. The boat was laid with her stem in a slanting direction to +it, and with as much sail as she could carry, in order to give her +sufficient speed to cleave it and sail right through it. In it +rushed with the roar of a waterfall; again the boat half heeled +over, and when the wave was past his wife no longer sat at the +halliard, and Anton no longer stood holding the yard—they had +both gone overboard.</p> + +<p>This time, too, Elias thought he heard the same horrible cries +in the air; but in the midst of them he distinctly heard his wife +calling his name in terror. When he comprehended that she was +washed overboard, he only said: "In Jesus' name!" and then was +silent. His inclination was to follow her, but he felt, too, that +he must do what he could to save the rest of the freight he had on +board—namely, Bernt and his two other sons, the one twelve, +the other fourteen, who had baled the boat for a time, but had now +found a place in the stern behind their father.</p> + +<p>Bernt now had to mind the sail alone; and he and his father, as +far as was possible, helped one another. Elias dared not let go the +tiller, and he held it firmly with a hand of iron that had long +lost feeling from the strain.</p> + +<p>After a while the companion boat appeared again; as before, it +had been absent for a time. Now, too, Elias saw more of the big man +who sat in the stern in the same place as himself. Out of his back, +below the sou'wester, when he turned, stuck a six-inch-long iron +spike which Elias thought he ought to know. And now, in his own +mind, he had come to a clear understanding upon two points: one was +that it was no other than the sea-goblin himself who was steering +his half-boat by his side and was leading him to destruction, and +the other, that it was so ordained that he was sailing his last +voyage that night. For he who sees the goblin on the sea is a lost +man. He said nothing to the others for fear of making them lose +courage; but he silently committed his soul to God.</p> + +<p>For the last few hours he had been obliged to go out of his +course for the storm; the air too became thick with snow, and he +saw that he would have to wait for dawn before he could find out +his whereabouts. In the meantime they sailed on. Now and then the +boys in the stern complained of the cold, but there was nothing to +be done in the wet, and moreover Elias's thoughts were of very +different things. He had such an intense desire for revenge, that, +if he had not had the lives of his three remaining children to +defend, he would have attempted by a sudden turn of his own boat to +run into and sink the other, which still, as if in mockery, kept by +his side, and whose evil object he understood only too well. If the +halibut pike could wound the goblin before, then surely a knife or +a landing-hook might now, and he felt that he would gladly give his +life for a good blow at the monster who had so unmercifully taken +his dearest from him, and still wanted more victims.</p> + +<p>Between three and four in the morning Elias saw, advancing +through the dark, another foam-crest, so high that at first he +thought they must be near breakers, close to land. But he soon saw +that it really was an enormous wave. Then he fancied he distinctly +heard laughter over in the other boat, and the words, "Now your +boat will capsize, Elias!" Elias, who foresaw the disaster, said +aloud: "In Jesus' name!" and told his sons to hold on, with all +their might, to the willow bands on the rowlocks when the boat went +under, and not to leave go until she rose again. He made the elder +boy go forward to Bernt; he himself held the younger close to him, +quietly stroking his cheek, and assured himself that he had a good +hold. The boat was literally buried under the foam-drift, then +gradually lifted at the bow, and went under. When she rose again, +keel uppermost, Elias, Bernt, and the twelve-year-old Martin still +held on to the willow bands. But the third brother was gone.</p> + +<p>The first thing to be done now was to cut the shrouds on one +side, so that the mast could float beside them, instead of greatly +adding to the unsteadiness of the boat underneath; and the next to +get up on to the rolling keel and knock the plug in, which would +let out the air underneath, so that the boat could lie still. After +great exertion they succeeded in this, and then Elias, who was the +first to get on to the keel, helped the others up too.</p> + +<p>And there they sat through the long winter night, clinging +convulsively with hands and knees to the keel over which the waves +washed again and again.</p> + +<p>After two or three hours had passed, Martin whom his father had +supported as well as he could the whole time, died of exhaustion, +and slipped down into the sea. They had already tried calling out +for help several times, but gave it up, because they saw it was of +no use.</p> + +<p>While Elias and Bernt sat alone upon the overturned boat, Elias +said to his son that he was quite sure he himself would go to "be +with mother," but he had strong hopes that Bernt might yet be +saved, if he only held out like a man. Then he told him of the +goblin he had wounded in the back with the halibut pike, and how it +had revenged itself upon him, and would not give up "until they +were quits."</p> + +<p>It was about nine in the morning, when the dawn began to show +grey. Then Elias handed to Bernt, who sat by his side, his silver +watch with the brass chain, which he had broken in two in drawing +it out from under his buttoned-up waistcoat. He still sat for a +while, but, as it grew lighter, Bernt saw that his father's face +was deadly pale, his hair had parted in several places as it often +does when death is near, and the skin was torn from his hands by +holding on to the keel. The son knew that his father could not last +long, and wanted, as well as the pitching would allow, to move +along and support him; but when Elias noticed this he said: "Only +hold fast, Bernt! In Jesus' name, I am going to mother" and +thereupon threw himself backwards off the boat.</p> + +<p>When the sea had got its due, it became, as every one knows who +has sat long upon an upturned boat, a good deal quieter. It became +easier for Bernt to hold on; and with the growing day there came +more hope. The storm lulled, and when it became quite light, it +seemed to him he ought to know where he was, and that he lay +drifting outside his own native place, Kvalholmen.</p> + +<p>He began once more to call for help, but hoped most in a current +which he knew set in to land at a place where a naze on the island +broke the force of the waves, so that there was smooth water +within. He did drift nearer and nearer, and at last came so near to +one rock that the mast, which was floating by the side of the boat, +was lifted up and down the slope of the rock by the waves. Stiff as +all his joints were with sitting and holding on, he yet succeeded +by great exertion in climbing up on to the rock, where he hauled up +the mast and moored the boat.</p> + +<p>The Fin servant-maid who was alone in the house, had thought for +a few hours that she heard cries of distress, and as they continued +she climbed the hill to look out. There she saw Bernt upon the +rock, and the boat, bottom upwards, rocking up and down against it. +She immediately ran down to the boat-house, launched the old +four-oared boat, and rowed it along the shore, round the island, +out to him.</p> + +<p>Bernt lay ill under her care the whole winter, and did not go +fishing that year. People thought, too, after this that he was now +and then a little strange.</p> + +<p>He had a horror of the sea, and would never go on it again. He +married the Fin girl and moved up to Malangen, where he bought a +clearing, and is now doing well.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_IV'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h2><i>AMONG THE VÆTTE ROCKS</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>It was summer. Susanna and I were now in our seventeenth year, +and it was settled that we should be confirmed in the autumn.</p> + +<p>It was this year that my father was involved in his unequal +struggle with the authorities—among whom were the sheriff and +the minister—as to whether our trading-place should be a +permanent stopping-place for the Nordland steamer. This was a +matter of vital importance to my father, and the dispute about it, +which also interested the whole district, had already begun to be +rather warm.</p> + +<p>This was, in fact, not the least important object that the +sheriff had in view when he came that summer on a visit to the +minister, who was a very influential man.</p> + +<p>Outwardly there was as yet no rupture between my father and the +minister, and it must have been for the purpose of manifesting this +publicly that during the sheriff's visit my father was invited over +to the minister's two or three times.</p> + +<p>It was thus that my father and I were one day asked to go on a +sailing-trip out to the Vætte Rocks, which lay half a mile +away. We were first to fish, and then to eat milk-rings [The thick +sour cream off the pans in which milk has been set up.] on land at +Gunnar's Place, a house rented from the parsonage.</p> + +<p>There was always a certain solemnity about the occasion when the +minister's white house-boat with four men at the oars glided out of +the bay, and a considerable number of spectators generally stood on +shore to watch it. That day, father, too, stood out on the steps, +with a telescope. He had excused himself from going, but with good +tact had let me go.</p> + +<p>In the cabin, which was open on account of the heat, sat the +minister's wife and the sheriff's two ladies, and outside, one on +each side, the minister and the sheriff, smoking their +silver-mounted meerschaum pipes, and chatting comfortably: they +were college-friends. Susanna and I, together with the housemaid +from Trondhjem, who was adorned for the occasion, had a place in +the roomy bow. The minister's wife wanted to keep that part of the +boat in which she had an immense provision basket—a regular +portable larder—under her own eye. The big basket and the +little lady entirely occupied one bench, while the two other +ladies, with their starched dresses, quite filled up the rest of +the narrow cabin.</p> + +<p>There was not a breath stirring, and the West Fjord heaved in +long, smooth swells. The fjord lay like a giant at rest, sunning +itself. The wonderfully clear air allowed the eye to see over the +mountain ranges, almost into eternity, while an aërial +reflection—an inverted mountain, with a house under it and a +couple of spouting whales—built up a fairytale for us over +the blue stretch of sea. Now and then we met a sea-fowl, floating +on the smooth water; and in our wake gambolled a porpoise or +two.</p> + +<p>A little before midday we got in among the Vætte Rocks, +and set about fishing; for first, without considering the provision +basket, we had to procure our own dinner.</p> + +<p>On the outer side of the rocks the surf broke noisily in the +still day, and sent up great white jets, or retreated with a long +sucking sound, as if the ocean drew deep, regular, breaths. +Restless as Susanna was, she bent over the gunwale, until her hair +almost dipped in her own image in the water, to look through the +transparent sea at the fish, which, at a depth of fifteen or twenty +fathoms, glided in and out among the seaweed over the +greenish-white bottom, and crowded round the lines with which the +grown-up people with their double tackle often drew up two fish at +once. In her eagerness she called me stone-blind, whenever I could +not see just the fish she meant. And short-sighted I was, too, but +Susanna's slightest movement interested me more than any fish.</p> + +<p>The scene was indeed enchanting. The white boat rocked over its +image, as if it hung in space. Gunnar's Place, too, lay reflected +in the water, with field-patches below it, and birch-clad slopes +above and around it. The air, which had, later in the day, become +misty with the heat, was filled with the strong scent of foliage, +such as is only known in the south when it has been raining.</p> + +<p>In less than an hour the pail was full of fish, enough for a +"boiling," and we landed.</p> + +<p>The minister's wife meantime had a table brought out on to the +grass in front of the house, and on the fine damask cloth she had +placed several milk-rings. She had also made <i>romme gröd</i> +[Thick cream, either sweet or sour, boiled.] and, as far as space +would permit, had loaded the table with courses from the provision +basket.</p> + +<p>But at last the wine and good things began to confuse the +sheriff's brain a little. To the intense horror of the minister's +wife, he related how her husband, grey-haired and strict as he now +was, had been an unusually gay fellow in his youth, and how they +had played many a mad prank together.</p> + +<p>When the sheriff found that he had made a mistake, he tried to +mend matters by a serious toast, in which he expressed a hope that, +for the sake of the district, the minister would be able to defeat +all the machinations of his intriguing neighbour—here he was +stopped in his speech by a meaning look from the minister over at +me, as I sat at the end of the table—and ended with some +wandering remarks, which were meant to turn off the whole +thing.</p> + +<p>I turned cold, and the perspiration stood on my forehead, and I +must have been as white as a sheet. For my father's sake, I thought +I must keep up appearances, but the food stuck in my throat, and I +could not swallow another mouthful. I looked across at Susanna; she +was crimson.</p> + +<p>There was a short silence, during which every one ruminated over +what had passed, until the summer day's drowsiness became too +overpowering, and the minister and the sheriff, who were both +accustomed to take an after-dinner nap, proposed that every one +should seek a shady place and rest for an hour.</p> + +<p>After what had passed at table I felt utterly miserable. They +had allowed so offensive an opinion about my father to escape, that +it was torture to me to remain any longer in their company.</p> + +<p>A little beyond the house, the hill sloped down into a narrow +valley, with birches and willows on the ridge on both sides, and +among them there flowed over the flint stones a clear, twinkling +little brook, in which glided a trout or two. While the others +slept, I went up along the bank, and lay down to brood in solitude +over my sorrow.</p> + +<p>I do not know how long I had lain thus; but when I looked up, +Susanna sat there in great agitation. She thought they had behaved +badly towards me, she said, and then, as though she could not bear +to see me distressed, she silently stroked the hair back from my +forehead again and again.</p> + +<p>There was a warmth in the little hand and an eloquence in her +face as she struggled to keep back her tears, that my heart, so +hungering after affection, could not withstand.</p> + +<p>I do not know how it came about, but I only remember that I +stood and pressed her passionately to my heart, with my cheek +against hers, and begged her to love me, only a little, and I would +love her without measure the whole of my life. I remember, too, +that she answered "Yes," and that we both cried.</p> + +<p>A little while after we stood hand in hand, smiling and looking +at one another. A new thought had simultaneously come to us +both—that now we were engaged. Susanna was the first to give +it expression, and said, as she looked at me out of the depths of +her faithful blue eyes, that from this time I must always remember +that she was fond of me, however unkind the others were.</p> + +<p>We heard them calling us, and—what we had never thought of +doing before—Susanna hurried on by herself a little way, so +that we each came back to the others alone.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> +<p>It was far on into the morning of the next day, when Anne +Kvæn roused me with a shake, as she had been accustomed to do +since I was a child, and told me that my father had started that +morning for Tromsö. He had been up to my room before he went, +and when he came down again said that I lay smiling in my sleep, +and "looked so happy, poor boy"!</p> + +<p>It was very seldom that any sympathetic words came from my +father, so these are imprinted on my memory.</p> + +<p>My father himself at that time was anything but cheerful. The +steamboat dispute lay heavy on his heart, and he now wanted to try, +as a last resort, to have the matter thoroughly aired in the +newspapers, and it was about this that he now wanted to apply +personally to a solicitor at Tromsö.</p> + +<p>These circumstances, however, did not come to my knowledge at +that time.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_V'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h2><i>CONFIRMATION</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>While matters were in this state between our parents, the time +came for Susanna and me to be confirmed. As I was not entered until +some time after the confirmation course had begun, it was arranged +that, besides the class in the church every Monday, I was to read +alone with the minister on Fridays.</p> + +<p>In his abrupt way my father made me a little private speech, in +which he expressed a hope that I would not disgrace him before the +minister.</p> + +<p>The lesson up in the minister's study was an entirely new mental +development for me. The big, grey-haired man, with his broad, +powerful face, and massive silver spectacles, generally pushed up +on to his forehead above the heavy eyebrows, sat on the sofa with +his big meerschaum pipe in his mouth, and expounded, while I, smart +and attentive, listened in the chair on the opposite side of the +table.</p> + +<p>I became more and more convinced that the minister must be an +honourable and thoroughly sincere man, but at the same time hard +and severe; for he always talked about our duties, and that we must +not think that pardon would be given us if we tried to escape from +them. Sometimes, too, he would be in the humour for reflections +which were not quite intended for me; there were all kinds of +attempts to reason away doubts that might possibly arise in matters +of belief, especially about miracles, which he generally wanted to +explain in a natural way. He could be exceedingly clever in his +comparisons, and I used then to think in this, as in much of the +strong-willed expression of his face when he talked, that I +recognised Susanna's nature. The small, well-shaped hands and the +well-proportioned though not tall figure, she had evidently +inherited from her father, as also a certain quick movement of the +head when her words were to be made more impressive than usual. But +Susanna had in addition a warmth and impulsiveness, almost volcanic +in their nature, which struck me as foreign to the expression that +lay in the minister's cold, clear, intelligent eyes.</p> + +<p>The minister praised me for my thoughtfulness, but repeated +several times, to my secret humiliation, that I had a way of +furtively looking down that I must try to get rid of. He doubtless +thought that I was excessively embarrassed, perhaps, too, that I +suffered under the consciousness of my father's position with +regard to him.</p> + +<p>However that may be, his cold, piercing, blue or grey eyes +sometimes looked at me as if they saw right through me and cut me +up like an orange, right into my secret with Susanna. I felt like a +traitor who was betraying his confidence, and I pictured to myself +what he would think of me one day, when he came to know all, and +that during his instruction on the subject of my eternal happiness +I could have sat before him so false and bold. I became more and +more convinced during the lessons on the Explanation, [Of Luther's +Catechism] that my relations with Susanna, as long as they were +kept a secret from her parents, were wrong, and now I was going, +with this deliberate sin on my conscience, coolly and with +premeditation to kneel at the Lord's Table.</p> + +<p>These scruples haunted me at home, too, and at last became a +real martyrdom to me. All sin, said the Explanation, could be +forgiven, except sin against the Holy Ghost.</p> + +<p>The deeper my imagination was plunged in meditation on this +mysterious crime against Heaven, which was beyond the limits of +pardon and could not be forgiven, the higher rose the torturing +anxiety in my mind lest the very sin that I was now calmly and +deliberately about to commit, was of that kind.</p> + +<p>My hesitation was especially on the subject of the Sacrament, +which I now boldly, and with full purpose, intended to desecrate, +by concealing the fact that I was deceiving the very person that +would give it to me. I tried in vain to dismiss these thoughts, or +at any rate to put them off, until the very last day before +confirmation. My mind became every day more uneasy, and in my +imagination there arose thoughts that no longer depended on my own +will, and I stood dismayed before all the visions and possibilities +of hell's terror.</p> + +<p>I dared not reassure myself by trying to get Susanna to talk +about my fears; for as long as she was ignorant that what was to be +done was a sin, she was not to blame; and rather than involve her +with myself, I would bear my burden alone. To reveal the whole +thing at the last moment to the stern minister would, of course, +disclose our engagement, would be an unbearable scandal for us +both, and, as I thought, would only result in my losing Susanna; +and this I dared not risk without her consent. The whole thing was +thus knotted into an impossible ring, out of which no escape seemed +possible.</p> + +<p>On the last two Mondays when I stood in the church while the +minister examined us, I often looked earnestly over at Susanna. She +stood there, bright, smiling and inattentive; she suspected +nothing, and could give no help.</p> + +<p>During the days immediately before the confirmation my distress +rose to fever height, several times I was scarcely in my right +mind, and felt dreadfully unhappy. It seemed to me at last that I +was actually throwing away my eternal happiness for Susanna's sake. +At night I started up from terrifying dreams, in which I saw myself +kneeling at the altar with Susanna beside me—she looking so +unsuspecting, so supernaturally beautiful, while the minister stood +with a face of thunder, as if he knew that a soul would now be +destroyed, and that, in the Communion, he was carrying out God's +vengeance. Another night I awoke with a fancy that a scornful laugh +came from under the bed, and with a conviction that the Evil One +lurked there, curled up like a great snake. I hid myself with a +beating heart under the down quilt, until I heard people moving in +the yard below in the morning, and then I ventured to fly from the +room.</p> + +<p>It was Confirmation Day.</p> + +<p>I stood at the glass that morning, before church-time, dressing +myself in my new clothes, in the "blue room," the room in which my +mother had been confined during the many years she was ill. I could +see, through the small-paned windows, boat after boat full of +nicely-dressed confirmation candidates, with their parents in +holiday costume, rowing, in the bright autumn day, across the bay, +and landing, some at our pier, others at the parsonage +landing-place.</p> + +<p>An impression of solemnity suddenly filled me with despair; I +thought of how all these people would come into God's kingdom as +easily as they were now rowing into the sunny bay this quiet Sunday +morning, while I alone stood without hope of salvation. I saw all +at once that in my sad, spiritually dark home, I had always, from +childhood upwards, really had a feeling in my inmost heart that +happiness and blessedness were not meant for me, and that all the +happiness and joy I hitherto had was really only borrowed sunshine +from the parsonage. And with the sin I was carrying, I could only +have Susanna as a loan until I died, when we should have to part, +and I must go back to the evil powers of unhappiness, which, from +my earliest hour here at home, had taken possession of me.</p> + +<p>I leant against the wall and cried.</p> + +<p>As I was about to continue my dressing, and turned to the glass, +it was without terror, even with a certain tranquillity, that my +gaze fell on the old vision of my childhood, the lady with the rose +whom I saw standing behind me in the open chamber-door, pale and +sorrowful, looking at me, until she suddenly vanished.</p> + +<p>The church bells were ringing and the people were streaming +towards the church. To-day Anne Kvæn and all the house +servants were also among the churchgoers. Father went with me, and +bowed respectfully to the minister when they met at the +entrance.</p> + +<p>The order in which we confirmation candidates were to stand in +church had been decided the Monday before. I was to stand first on +the boys' side, Susanna first on the girls' side.</p> + +<p>One hymn had already been sung before Susanna came with her +mother, dressed like a grown-up lady in a black silk dress, with +gauze on her neck and arms, and a locket on her breast. She +remained sitting by her mother in the parsonage pew until the +affecting sermon was over.</p> + +<p>I must have looked very ill and exhausted; for as the minister +began the catechising at me, he stopped in the middle of a question +with a look as if asking what was the matter with me. I answered +his question correctly, and with a nod he went across to Susanna, +who stood there with folded hands, looking down, tearful and rather +pale with excitement before her question came. While her father put +it, she looked up at him with her sweet blue eyes so innocently and +trustfully that it was more than clear that she had no thought of +an evil conscience at that moment. When it was got through and her +father went on to the next candidate, she smiled, relieved though +serious, across to me as if I were the person to whom she could +properly turn in this hour.</p> + +<p>I looked, as often as I could do so unnoticed, across to her as +she stood there, tall and beautiful, with her luxuriant hair +dressed in grown-up fashion. Now and then she looked across at me, +but I avoided meeting her eye. Her glance now seemed to add to my +sin, just as every sacred word I heard only added to my load, and +had an effect the very opposite of comforting.</p> + +<p>The service was long, and the nervous strain affected me, as it +has often done since, in such a way that there was a singing in my +ears and dark spots swam before my eyes. Wherever I looked there +appeared to my horror a dark blot, and, full of anxiety, I thought +that perhaps this was already the beginning of the curse. I dared +not look at Susanna any more for fear of throwing the black spot on +her, and at last I could not forbear looking at the floor where I +stood to see if there were possibly burnt marks under my feet. I +thought of the sea-sprite, who in Vaagen's church had enticed the +minister's daughter to go with him, and whose instinct had driven +him out of church during the blessing, whereas I was condemned to +stand.</p> + +<p>After the promise was given, I remember only dimly that another +discourse was pronounced and more hymns were sung.</p> + +<p>When I once more found myself upon the way home with my father, +who with an anxious look supported me, my last recollection of the +whole thing was that Susanna, who I suppose discovered that I was +ill, had towards the end of the service looked at me with just the +same expression as the lady with the rose had done that very +morning—quiet, pale, sorrowful, like one who would be glad to +help, but could not.</p> + +<p>I think that what my father had said to me about not disgracing +him before the minister contributed not a little to the fact that I +kept up to the last; for I fainted as soon as we got home and was +put to bed, while my father, who had now become seriously alarmed, +immediately sent an express messenger for the doctor.</p> + +<p>When he came the next day, he found me in wild delirium. My +fancy overflowed, like a river from which all dams are removed, +with a stream of the wildest conceptions. It seemed to me that +dreadful forms danced and nodded round the bed, and among them one +with a long letter of condemnation, with a seal under it, and that +Anne Kvæn was there, rolling glittering eyes, while now and +again Susanna looked at me with a glance full of pain, as if it +were not in her power to hinder my perdition.</p> + +<p>From what I learned afterwards, the doctor at first thought it +was a nervous fever, but from certain symptoms and the nature of my +ravings, concerning which Anne Kvæn, who probably had her own +thoughts on the subject, thought it necessary to inform him, he +quite changed his opinion. He had attended my poor mother in her +mental illness, and now found the same fancy about the lady and the +rose, and the same dread of evil spirits in me the son.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> +<p>Three weeks later I was quite well again, though pale and +exhausted by the long nervous paroxysms. The whole millstone weight +of sin was, as it were, gone from my bosom, and I went to the altar +without the smallest scruple.</p> + +<p>And I felt quite a dignified person when, on the following +Sunday, I went on a confirmation visit to the parsonage in my black +dress-coat. On this occasion Susanna sat—perhaps a little on +show on my account—like a grown-up lady at her own work-table +in the window-seat. When her mother went out of the room to fetch +red-currant wine and cakes, I, at a sign from her, had hastily to +look at her precious work-table with all the drawers, both those +above and those that appeared below when she pushed the upper +drawers away. In one of these last, which she opened with an arch +look, but shut again like lightning as her mother came in, lay the +brass ring with glass stones in it that I had once given her, and I +recognised two or three old scraps of letters dating from the time +when we were children.</p> + +<p>When I went away it was with a beating heart, for I had +unexpectedly an interview in which Susanna's true feeling had been +revealed to me more clearly than it could have been by any verbal +assurance.</p> + +<p>It struck me that something must lately have happened at home, +for the curt, cold way in which my father used to treat me was +wonderfully changed. For instance, he made me a present of a +double-barrelled gun in a sealskin case, and a watch, and he +proposed that during the days before my going away Jens and the +four-oared boat should be at my disposal as often as I wished to go +out shooting or fishing.</p> + +<p>I understood what had happened when the doctor one day made his +appearance, and asked me to go up with him to my room.</p> + +<p>The broadly-built, bald, little doctor, in his homespun coat, +and steel-rimmed spectacles on his snub-nose, was one of the hardy +people of our fjord districts who glory in going out in all kinds +of weather. You always saw him in the best of spirits when he had +just been out in stormy weather. He was a decided and clear-headed +man, whose manner involuntarily inspired confidence, and he also +possessed a warmth and open-heartedness that made him, when he +chose, very winning. He was the doctor both at our house and the +parsonage, and a confidential friend of both families.</p> + +<p>When we came up to my room, he told me to sit down and listen to +him, while he himself, as usual, made out a route on the floor, +where, with his hands behind him, he could walk up and down while +he talked.</p> + +<p>He had, he said, considered carefully whether he should conceal +from me what he had on his mind, or speak out as he was now doing, +but had decided on the latter course, as my recovery depended upon +my being perfectly clear as to what it was I was suffering from. My +last illness had, partly at any rate, been an outbreak of a +disposition to insanity, which he knew lay in the family on my +mother's side for several generations back. That this outbreak had +now taken place in me was certainly due to the fact that I had +given myself up to all kinds of imaginary influences, in +conjunction with the idle life which he knew I had always led at +home. The only certain means for stopping the development of this +disposition was work with a fixed, determined end in view—for +instance, study—which he thought I showed an ability for, and +in addition a healthy life—walks, hunting, fishing, +companions and interests; but no more idleness, no more exciting +novels, no more unhealthy dreams. He had talked to my father upon +the subject, and recommended that I should go to the training +college at Trondenæs as a fitting preparation for study, and +as a measure that would also afford the necessary interruption to +my present life.</p> + +<p>When the doctor soon after left me, I remained sitting in my +room, serious and much moved.</p> + +<p>That I had thus become transparent to myself, and had solved my +own riddle, was an extraordinary relief to me—I may say it +was an episode in my life.</p> + +<p>The feeling of being mentally ill, which had always, as long as +I could remember, lain a silent pressure, a foreboding of +unhappiness, in the background of my mind—although dissipated +in the brighter summer-time of my companionship with +Susanna—was therefore no sin, no burden of crime, no dark +mysterious exception in me from every other natural order of +things, but only a disease, actually only a disease, which was to +be treated with a correspondingly natural treatment!</p> + +<p>I had never thought that any one could be as glad to hear that +he was mad, or at any rate that there was danger of his becoming +so, as over-good news; but now I know that such a thing can be.</p> + +<p>I prayed now, as it seemed for the first time in my life, +really, confidently, and trustfully to God, to whom I stood in the +same relation as every one else, or, if there were any difference, +even nearer, because I was a poor, sick creature.</p> + +<p>I felt as if God's sun had shone out upon me after a long, +weary, rainy day. I prayed for myself, for Susanna, for my father; +and in the enjoyment of this new condition of security I went on to +pray first for every single person at home, then for those at the +parsonage, then for the clerk, and at last, for want of others, as +we do in church, for "all who are sick and sorrowful," among whom, +with a glad heart, I now classed myself.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_VI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h2><i>AT THE CLERK'S</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>It was only two days before I was to start for Trondenæs +in a vessel which was lying ready to go north.</p> + +<p>While I was irresolutely considering every possible means of +getting a last talk with Susanna before I started, there came a +message from the clerk to say that I must be sure to come out to +him the next day at eleven o'clock precisely; he would not be at +home later.</p> + +<p>The same morning that the message came Susanna had been at the +clerk's. Without saying a word, she sat down at the table with her +face buried in her arms.</p> + +<p>When the alarmed clerk pressed the "child of his heart"—as +he called her in his concern—for an explanation, she at +length lifted up a tear-stained face to him, and said she was +crying because she was so very, very unhappy.</p> + +<p>"But why, dear Susanna?"</p> + +<p>"Because," burst suddenly on his ear, "I love David, and he +loves me, and we are engaged; but no one must know it except +you—and you will not betray us?"</p> + +<p>With this last question she threw herself weeping upon the neck +of the stunned and bewildered clerk, who in his heart was already +won over, long before he had made out what it was he was +undertaking.</p> + +<p>He replaced Susanna in her chair, talked to her and comforted +her until he had matured in his own mind the sensible reply, that +we ought to look upon the coming two years of separation as trial +years, and therefore, during that time, we ought not to write to +one another. Only, he had to promise in return that we should meet +the next morning at his house for a few moments, for a last +farewell, and that, during the time I was away, he should tell her +everything he heard about me.</p> + +<p>When I came to him the next day, I found him sitting on a wooden +chair, very serious and thoughtful, with his arms supported on his +knees, and staring down at the floor, which was strewn with +juniper, as if for a grand occasion. My arrival did not seem to +disturb his reflections, although a little nod when I entered +showed me that at any rate I was noticed. He swung his violin +slowly backwards and forwards before his knees, with a gentle twang +of the strings at each swing, so that it sounded like a far-off +church bell. His gentle grey eyes rested on me with a pondering, +critical gaze, as if he were really looking at me now for the first +time, and a faint smile showed that the examination had not a bad +result.</p> + +<p>A little while after, a shadow crossed the doorway, and to my +surprise Susanna came in. She came quickly up to me, blushing, and +took my hand, saying:</p> + +<p>"Dear David, the clerk knows everything; he has given us leave +to say good-bye here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, children, I have," said the clerk, "but only for a few +moments, because Susanna begged so hard for it, and also that you +may both hear my opinion of the whole thing after thinking it +over."</p> + +<p>He now made a little speech, in which he said that he did not +see anything very wrong in our loving one another, although we were +indeed absurdly young. He hoped, too—and he had thought a +great deal about it—that our not revealing our engagement to +our parents was excusable, as they would scarcely even look at the +matter as really serious, and we might feel hurt. He did not intend +to be a receiver of secret love-letters, as Susanna had asked him, +and that both for his own sake and for ours, because we ought to +use the approaching two years of trial to see if there really were +any truth in our love, or if it were only a childish fancy of the +kind that afterwards evaporates.</p> + +<p>With these words the old clerk good-naturedly left the room.</p> + +<p>When we were alone, Susanna told me in a whisper why she had +ventured to confide in the clerk. She had heard at home that in his +youth he had once been disappointed in love, and that that was the +reason why he had never married, and had become so strange. Then in +eager haste she drew out of her pocket—she still wore her +old, short, blue-checked, every-day dress, but her hair "in +grown-up fashion"—a cross of small, blue beads. She also drew +from her pocket a silk cord which I was to wear round my neck +nearest my heart.</p> + +<p>With some further trouble she produced from the pocket that +contained so much, a small pair of scissors. With these she cut off +a curl of my hair, just that black one on the temple, that she had +long had her eye upon, she said, and which she meant to keep in her +confirmation locket. When I asked for one of hers that I "had long +had my eye upon," she said it was not necessary, as the bead cross +she had given me was threaded on her own hair.</p> + +<p>Then there was something I must promise her, which she had +thought out while she sat sewing at home, for she thought of so +much then. It was, that when I became a student, I should give her +a gold engagement ring with the inscription "David and Susanna" on +one half of the inside, and on the other half there should be "like +David and Jonathan." It was the disagreement between our parents +that had made her think of this.</p> + +<p>"But," she broke off, "you are not listening to me, David?"</p> + +<p>And, indeed, I was thinking about something else, and that was, +whether I dared give her a farewell kiss: I remembered last summer +out among the Vætte Rocks.</p> + +<p>At that moment there was a scraping of feet on the doorstep +outside, which meant that the clerk thought our interview must soon +come to an end, and, to my disappointment, Susanna hastened to hide +the presents, which I still held in my hand, in my breast pocket. +She had just done this when the clerk came in, and said that now we +must say good-bye to one another.</p> + +<p>Susanna looked at the clerk, and then, pale, and with eyes full +of tears, at me, as if the thought that we were to part now struck +her for the first time. She made a quick movement—she +evidently wanted to throw her arms round my neck, but restrained +herself, because the clerk was present.</p> + +<p>So she only took my hand, lifted it to her lips without saying a +word and hurried away.</p> + +<p>It was more than I could bear, and I think it was too much for +the old clerk too. He walked up and down, gently twanging his +violin strings, while I, at the table, let my tears flow +freely.</p> + +<p>Before I left he played a beautiful little piece which he had +composed when he was twenty. It touched me deeply, because I felt +as if it were written about Susanna and me; it echoed long after in +my mind, so that I learnt it by heart.</p> + +<p>"There is a continuation of it," said he, when he had ended, and +then—after a short pause as of sad recollection—"but it +is not very cheerful, and is not suitable for you!"</p> + +<p>The next morning early, when the yacht sailed, a handkerchief +was waved from the drawing-room window in the parsonage, and, in +answer, a glazed hat was lifted on board.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_VII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h2><i>TRONDENÆS</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>On a naze to the north of Hind Island in Sengen lies +Trondenæs church and parsonage. The latter was a royal palace +in Saint Olaf's time, and Thore Hund's brother Siver lived there. +Bjark Island, where Thore Hund had his castle, is only a few miles +off.</p> + +<p>The church itself is in many respects a remarkable historical +monument. Its two towers, of which one was square and covered with +copper, and had an iron spire, and the other octagonal, exist only +in legends, and of the famous "three wonderfully high, equal-sized +statues" there are only remains which are to be seen at the west +doorway.</p> + +<p>This church was once the most northern border-fortress of +Christendom, and stood grandly with its white towers, the +far-echoing tones of its bells and its sacred song, like a giant +bishop in white surplice, who bore St. Olaf's consecration and +altar lights into the darkness among the Finmark trolls. Its power +over men's minds has been correspondingly deep and great. Thither +past generations for miles round have wended in Sunday dress before +other churches were built up there. If the soapstone font which +stands in the choir could enumerate the names of those baptised at +it, or the altar the bridal pairs that have been married there, or +the venerable church itself tell what it knew, we should hear many +a strange tale.</p> + +<p>Protestantism has plundered the church there as elsewhere; +remains of its painted altar-shrines are found as doors to the +peasants' cupboards, and what was most imposing about the building +is in ruins. But the work of destruction could not be carried +farther. The old Roman Catholic church feeling surrounds it to a +certain extent to this day, with the old legends that float around +it, and is kept up by the foreign paintings in the choir, by the +mystical vaults, and by all the ruins, which the Nordlander's +imagination builds up into indistinct grandeur. The poor man there +is, moreover, a Catholic in no small degree in his religious mode +of thought and in his superstition. It comes quite naturally to +him, in deadly peril, to promise a wax candle to the church, or to +offer prayer to the Virgin Mary. He knows well enough that she is +dethroned, but nevertheless he piously includes her in his +devotions.</p> + +<p>I dwell upon the memories of this church and its surroundings, +because during the two years I stayed at Trondenæs I was so +strongly influenced by their power over the imagination. The hollow +ground with the supposed underground vaults were to me like a +covered abyss, full of mysteries, and in the church—whose +silence I often sought, since it lies, with its strangely +thought-absorbing interior, close to the parsonage, and, as a rule, +stood open on account of the college organ practice—daylight +sometimes cast shadows in the aisles and niches as if beings from +another age were moving about.</p> + +<p>I made great progress in Latin and Greek under the teaching of +the agreeable, well-informed minister, in whose house I lived, and +in other subjects under one of the masters of the college; but in +my leisure hours I sought the spots which gave so much occupation +to my fancy, and therefore Trondenæs was anything but the +right place for my diseased mind.</p> + +<p>My nervous excitability has some connection with the moon's +changes as I have since noticed. At such times the church exercised +an almost irresistible fascination over me; I stole there unnoticed +and alone, and would sit for hours lost in thought over one thing +and another, indistinct creations of my imagination, and among them +Susanna's light form, which sometimes seemed to float towards me, +without my ever being quite able to see her face.</p> + +<p>It was late in the spring of the second year I was at +Trondenæs, that one midday, being under the influence of one +of these unhealthy moods, I sat in the church on a raised place +near the high altar, meditating, with Susanna's blue cross in my +hand.</p> + +<p>My eye fell on a large dark picture on the wall beside the +altar, which I had often seen, but without its having made any +special impression on me. It represented in life-size a martyr who +has been cast into a thorn-bush; the sharp thorns, as long as +daggers, pierced his body in all directions, and he could not utter +a complaint, because one great sharp thorn went into his throat and +out at his open mouth.</p> + +<p>The expression of this face struck me all at once as terrible. +It regarded me with a look of silent understanding, as though I +were a companion in suffering, and would have to lie there when its +torments had at last come to an end. It was impossible to remove my +eyes from the picture; it seemed to become alive, now coming quite +near, now going far away into a darkness that my own dizzy head +created.</p> + +<p>It was as though in this picture the curtain was drawn aside +from a part of my own soul's secret history, and it was only by an +effort of will, called forth by a fear of becoming too far absorbed +into my own fancy, that I succeeded in tearing myself away from +it.</p> + +<p>When I turned, there stood in the light that fell from the +window near the front pew, the lady with the rose. She wore an +expression of infinite sadness, as though she knew well the +connection between me and the picture, and as if the briar-spray in +her hand were only a miniature of the thorn-bush in which yonder +martyr lay.</p> + +<p>In the lonely stillness of the church a panic came over me, an +inexpressible terror of unseen powers, and I fled +precipitately.</p> + +<p>When I got outside, I discovered that I had lost Susanna's blue +cross. It could only be in the church on the step where I had been +sitting. At that moment, while my heart was still throbbing with +terror, I would not have gone back again into the church for +anything in the world—except Susanna's blue cross. I found +it, when I carefully searched the floor where I had been +sitting.</p> + +<p>The second time during these years that my nervous system gave +evidence of its unsoundness was late in the autumn, a month or two +before I was to go home.</p> + +<p>A peasant, who had gone in to see the minister, had fastened his +horse, which was wall-eyed, to the churchyard wall. I began to look +at it; and the recollection of its dead, expressionless glance +followed me for the rest of the day. It seemed to me as if its +eyes, instead of looking out, looked inwards into a world invisible +to me, and as if it would be quite natural if it forgot to obey the +reins, and left the ordinary highway for the road to Hades, along +which the dead are travelling.</p> + +<p>With this in my mind, I sat that afternoon in the parsonage +where people were talking of all kinds of things, and there +suddenly appeared before me a home face, pale and with a strained +look, and soon after I could see that the man to whom it belonged +was striving desperately to climb up from the raging surf on to a +rock. It was no other than our man Anders. He fixed his dull, +glassy eyes upon me as he struggled, apparently hindered from +saving himself by something down at his feet, which I could not +see. He looked as if he wanted to tell me something. The vision +only lasted a moment; but a torturing almost unbearable feeling, +that in the same moment some misfortune was befalling us at home, +drove me from the room to wander restlessly in the fields for the +rest of the day.</p> + +<p>When I came back they asked me what had been the matter, that I +had so suddenly turned deadly pale and hurried from the room.</p> + +<p>A fortnight later there came a sad letter from home. My father's +yacht, the <i>Hope</i>, which, after the custom of those days, was +not insured, and was loaded for the most part with fish, which my +father had bought at his own cost, had been wrecked on the way from +Bergen in a storm on Stadt Sea. The ship had sprung a leak, and +late in the afternoon had to be run ashore. The crew had escaped +with their lives, but our man Anders had had both legs broken.</p> + +<p>This shipwreck gave the first decided blow to my father's +fortune. The second was to come towards the end of the following +year, in the loss of another yacht, the <i>Unity</i>; and the third +blow, with more important results, was struck when it was at last +decided by Government that our trading station was not to be a +stopping-place for steamers.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_VIII'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h2><i>AT HOME</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>In December I was once more at home, where I found everything +outwardly the same as of old, only, possibly by reason of what had +passed, still quieter and sadder. My father was restlessly active, +but not very communicative. He probably did not consider me fitted +to share his anxieties.</p> + +<p>Susanna, who, like myself, was now over nineteen years of age, +was on a visit at a house some miles away and was to come home at +Christmas. My longing for her was indescribable.</p> + +<p>It was during the last dark, stormy week before Christmas, that +the Spanish brig <i>Sancta Maria</i> was driven by the weather in +to our station, in a rather damaged condition, which, with the poor +labour we could command, resulted in her having to lie under repair +for nearly six weeks.</p> + +<p>The captain, who owned both ship and cargo, was a tall, sallow, +becomingly-dressed Spaniard, with iron-grey hair, black eyes, and +large features. With him was his son, Antonio Martinez, a handsome +young man with an olive-brown face and fiery eyes like his +father's.</p> + +<p>My father, who had done Señor Martinez considerable +service in the getting in the cargo, now invited him, with Nordland +hospitality, to put up at our house.</p> + +<p>Although the intercourse between us could not be very lively, as +the foreigners only understood a few Norwegian words and were often +obliged to have recourse to a phrase-book, it was soon evident that +they were both very agreeable men. Their principal occupation +consisted in making and smoking cigarettes the whole day, and in +superintending the work on the brig.</p> + +<p>The dark season has a depressing effect upon the spirits of many +in the North, especially on those days when there is very little to +do. Thus, during Christmas, and especially on Christmas Eve, my +father used to be excessively melancholy. While gaiety filled the +whole house, and the smartly-dressed servants kept Christmas round +the kitchen table, which was adorned with treble-branched +candlesticks, he generally sat shut up in the office with his own +thoughts, and would not be disturbed by any one.</p> + +<p>This Christmas Eve, however, he was in the parlour for a while, +on Señor Martinez's account; but he was silent and dejected +the whole time, as if he were only longing for his solitary office, +to which, moreover, he retired directly after supper.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_IX'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h2><i>THE CHRISTMAS VISIT</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>About Christmas-time that winter in our part of Lofoten there +were a number of foreigners, mostly ships' captains, who, on +account of bad weather or damage to their vessels, were staying at +different places on shore, as Martinez was with us. There were also +notabilities from the south on public business. One result of this +was a number of social gatherings, in which the hosts vied with one +another in open hospitality.</p> + +<p>On the third New Year's day [The 3rd of January.] we were +invited to dinner and a ball at the house of the wealthy +magistrate, Röst, where some of the gentlemen from the south +were staying for the time. It was only a journey of a mile and a +half [Between ten and eleven English miles.] for us, but many had +six or eight miles to go, and the greater part of that by sea.</p> + +<p>Röst's large rooms could accommodate a great number of +guests, but this time, in order to put up for the night all those +invited, he had had to take a neighbouring house in addition.</p> + +<p>In proceeding with the account of this visit, which was to be so +eventful and exciting for me, I have promised myself to be short, +and shall thus omit many a feature and many an outline that belongs +to a more detailed representation of the life in Nordland.</p> + +<p>According to the invitation, we were to dine at three, but most +of the boats made their appearance two or three hours in advance of +that time. While the ladies were dressing upstairs, the gentlemen +assembled in an intentionally dimly-lighted room, where they could +take a "mouthful" and a dram, which were very acceptable after the +journey. They were also made acquainted with one another by the +careful host.</p> + +<p>We waited long and in vain for the minister and his ladies, and +at last had to go to table without them.</p> + +<p>The doors of the large, brilliantly-lighted dining-room were now +thrown open, the guests streamed upstairs, and, after much stopping +in the doorway and long polite disputes over the order of +precedence, took their places round the great loaded horse-shoe +table, that glittered gaily with a compact row of wine bottles, +treble-branched candlesticks, high cake-dishes, and, especially up +by the place of honour, a perfect heap of massive silver plate. +Three places were reserved for the minister and his family up by +the notabilities. My father sat by Señor Martinez at the +principal table, and I, in modesty, farther down at one of the side +tables.</p> + +<p>The dinner was of that good, old, genial sort which is now +unfortunately going more and more out of fashion. It is true, +people ate with their knives and knew nothing about silver forks; +but on the other hand there was real happiness in the gathering, +and it formed the subject of many an entertaining conversation for +long after.</p> + +<p>At first, while we were still chilled by the cold feeling of the +white cloth, and awed by the festal atmosphere, it was indeed very +stiff. Neighbours scarcely ventured to whisper to one another, and +the young ladies in ball-dresses, who, as if by a magnetic +cohesion, were all together, sat for a long time in a row in deep, +embarrassed silence, like a hedge of blue, red, and white flowers, +in which no bird dared sing.</p> + +<p>The dinner began by the host bidding his guests welcome. He next +proposed in succession the healths of the notabilities present in +rather long, prepared speeches, which were responded to by +them.</p> + +<p>After this everyone felt that they had passed over the official +threshold to enjoyment.</p> + +<p>The host, with lightened heart, now entered upon the much +shorter and simpler toasts for the absent, among whom, first and +foremost, was the "good minister and his family." Several besides +myself noticed that my father left his glass untouched at this +toast.</p> + +<p>In the meantime the courses went round, and as the level of the +wine in the bottles sank, the gaiety rose. Many a quick, sharp +brain that here found its own ground now came to the fore, and the +falling hail of jests and witty and amusing sayings—the last +generally in the form of stories with a point that was sometimes, +perhaps, rather coarse—gave a lively impression of the +peculiar Nordland humour.</p> + +<p>It was only what, at that time, usually happened at parties, +when the company leave the table, that there were a few who could +not rise from their chairs, and others who, as a result of the +attempt, were afterwards missing. Among the latter I was +unfortunately classed.</p> + +<p>The impression of the moment has always had a great power over +me, and, unaccustomed as I was both to this kind of gaiety and to +strong drink, I had surrendered myself without a thought to the +mirth that buzzed around me. I think I never laughed so much in my +whole life together as I did at that dinner-table. Nearly opposite +to me sat the red-haired merchant Wadel, with his long, dryly +comical face, firing off one witticism after another, and at my +side whispered the hump-backed clerk Gram, who was famed for his +cleverness, and feared for his biting tongue. His sharp remarks +upon the different people who sat at the table, grew in ill-nature +as he drank, and if his words had been heard, the expression of +many a beaming face would certainly have changed. I believe, also, +that he took a secret pleasure in trying to make me intoxicated; at +any rate he was unwearied in filling my glass, especially when the +heating wines began to go round. His quick, sharp snake's-eyes and +a few whispered words directed my now thoroughly beclouded +attention to many a comical scene around me.</p> + +<p>At length it seemed to me that the room and the table were going +up and down, as if we were sitting in a large cabin in rough +weather. I also remember indistinctly that afterwards in the moving +room we squeezed past each other, round the table, between the wall +and the chairs, in two opposite streams, and thanked our hosts for +the dinner. [It is a Norwegian custom to shake hands with and thank +the host and hostess, after a meal, for the hospitality of which +one has partaken. Children in the same way always thank their +parents.]</p> + +<p>After all this I remember nothing, until I awoke, in total +darkness, as if out of a heavy confused dream, and felt that I was +lying in a soft eider-down bed. Little by little all that had +passed dawned upon my recollection, and I comprehended that I had +been put to bed in one of the guest-chambers in the neighbouring +house.</p> + +<p>While I lay pondering over this, and feeling intensely unhappy, +the elder Señor Martinez came in with a candle in his hand +to look after me. It then appeared that it was past two o'clock in +the morning, and to the circumstance that I had thus slept six or +seven hours in succession I probably owed the fact that I no longer +felt any physical indisposition; but morally I suffered all the +more from a feeling of shame.</p> + +<p>As far as I could understand, as I dressed myself, the house had +been turned into a perfect lazaretto for the same class of fallen +after dinner as myself, and among them I noticed, with a kind of +revengeful joy, Gram the clerk, my hump-backed mischievous +neighbour.</p> + +<p>Señor Martinez made known to me, by all kinds of spirited +gesticulations, that dancing was now going on briskly, and that I +must join the dancers.</p> + +<p>The thought that Susanna must have come long ago, and must have +been waiting in vain, shot like lightning through my mind. How I +could have forgotten her, though even for an instant, was a riddle; +but the fact that I had done so weighed heavily upon me.</p> + +<p>The dining-room was now transformed into a ball-room, and +dancing had already been going on merrily for several hours to the +sound of violin, clarionet, and violoncello. At an opportune +moment, in the middle of a dance, I slipped in unnoticed.</p> + +<p>At first, as I stood in my tight white kid gloves, pale and +embarrassed, down by the open door through which the heat streamed +out into the cold passage like a mist, I suffered very much from +the feeling that every one would look at me and remember my +unseemly behaviour.</p> + +<p>Couple after couple glided past, so near that the ladies' +dresses touched me, and gradually I began, as far as my near sight +would allow, to find my bearings in the room.</p> + +<p>The minister's wife sat on the sofa, farthest up among some +elderly ladies, in earnest conversation with the little bald +doctor.</p> + +<p>The minister was probably playing cards downstairs; but of +Susanna I saw nothing.</p> + +<p>At the upper end of the room, young Martinez, with a beaming +face, was just dancing a polka with a strikingly beautiful girl +dressed in white, with a fluttering blue ribbon round her waist. +She had thick beautiful hair of a shade nearly golden, with a large +silver pin like a dart run through it, and a light wreath. The lady +was taller and fuller in figure than Susanna, but with a certain +grace that reminded me of her. The light, almost fashionably +delicate way in which she placed her small feet in dancing—it +was as though she floated—also resembled Susanna, and I +therefore followed the pair with unconscious interest.</p> + +<p>My short sight prevented me from distinguishing well, and as +they passed me, the lady's bent head was hidden by her own arm, +which rested confidingly on the shoulder of the evidently happy +Martinez. What I saw was only a broad, pure, innocent brow, which +could belong to but one person in the world, and that an escaped +lock of hair played upon the round white shoulder.</p> + +<p>I felt my knees tremble. This tall, elegant, distinguished lady +could never be Susanna!</p> + +<p>With a feeling of jealousy I watched the pair intently until the +next time they came by. When just opposite to me the lady raised +her eyes, her glance fell upon me, and a deep blush suddenly +overspread her face and neck right down to the lace edging on her +dress.</p> + +<p>It was Susanna!</p> + +<p>During the scarcely more than two years that we had been +separated her beauty had developed wonderfully. The tender +seventeen-year-old girl-bud had developed into a splendid +full-grown woman.</p> + +<p>The pair sat down at the top of the room near the row of elderly +ladies.</p> + +<p>I saw next that these two were going through the last long-dance +of the ball, the cotillon, which is generally varied by an endless +number of figures, and the thought darted through my mind, that +probably young Martinez had been winning favour with Susanna the +whole evening, since he was now her partner in this particular +dance. I noticed how the minister's wife paid him marked attention, +and I reflected bitterly that he was both a rich man, and also, +though shorter in stature, looked much more grown-up and manly than +I.</p> + +<p>A knife seemed to go through my heart. I had been lying +intoxicated, like a beast, and allowed a stranger to take Susanna +from me.</p> + +<p>With wild jealousy I noticed how the handsome Martinez, dumb, +but speaking with his dark, fiery eyes, was trying, amid laughter +and all kinds of lively nods and gestures, to explain to Susanna a +new figure which was just going to begin, how he sometimes bent +over her, as if whispering confidentially, and how she, from her +seat, looked up at him and laughed merrily, as only Susanna could +laugh. He took her hand and made her try the step on the floor in +front of their seats, and this seemed to be even more amusing.</p> + +<p>Young Martinez evidently engrossed her, and I feared she perhaps +thought our old relations were only childish fancies, which as a +grown-up woman she now wished forgotten. She might consider that +after our agreement about the two trial years, everything between +us was to be at an end, so that, as grown-up people we could talk +and laugh over the whole affair without misunderstanding each +other.</p> + +<p>My blood boiled, and I felt that I must revenge myself. Before I +had quite considered how, I began, with a sudden inspiration, to +converse eagerly with Merchant R.'s pretty daughter, who happened +to be standing close to me, so that it might appear as if I were +paying court to her.</p> + +<p>When presently Susanna passed us in the new figure, she looked +in a wondering, questioning way at me. The next time she passed, +she inadvertently dropped her handkerchief just at the place where +I stood. I picked it up, went up the room, and stiffly handed it to +the minister's wife, who—in consequence either of my +behaviour at the dinner-table, or of something else—received +me with marked reserve and coldness. I bowed as coldly to her, and +then returned to my old place, where I resumed the interrupted +lively conversation with Miss R.</p> + +<p>Shortly after, Susanna again came past, and this time looked at +me with a serious, but uncertain expression, as if she could not +quite make up her mind what to think; after that she purposely +dropped her eyes every time she passed me.</p> + +<p>I discovered to my satisfaction that Martinez really danced +clumsily. While I talked with forced gaiety to my pretty companion, +I was secretly tempted, all unnoticed, to put out my foot, a little +ill-naturedly, so that he should trip over it. And I do not quite +know how it happened, but the next time Martinez passed, he fell +full length on the floor, and must have hurt himself considerably; +in falling, however, he was gallant enough to let go the support he +might have had in his partner, so that Susanna only half fell.</p> + +<p>He rose, and looked angrily at me, the innocent cause of the +mishap, who was apparently too much engrossed in my neighbour to +have even noticed what was going on. The look he received in return +for his, however, revealed to him, though involuntarily, the whole +truth; for he was in the act of rushing at me, when he was +unexpectedly stopped by Susanna, a trifle pale, stepping in front +of him, and, with the bearing of a woman of the world, quietly +stretching out her hand for him to conduct her farther.</p> + +<p>As Susanna went arm in arm up the room with the limping +Martinez, she suddenly turned her face to me with a look so beaming +with joy, that from deep despair I was suddenly raised to the +happiest, most exulting certainty.</p> + +<p>She had evidently understood that Martinez's misfortune was an +act of revenge on my part, for her sake, and her mind was thereby +relieved of the doubt which my conduct for the last hour must have +occasioned her; for she had soon seen that I was not intoxicated, +and coquetry was a thing too far from her own sincere, truthful +nature for her to be able to imagine it in me. In perfect +truthfulness, she was really only a refined, feminine edition of +her father's strong nature.</p> + +<p>I went and made repeated apologies to young Martinez for my +awkwardness, while Susanna sat by and listened, and at length, +good-natured as in reality he was, he consented to be appeased. His +face did grow rather long when, immediately after, Susanna proposed +that I should lead her through the figure now going on, so that he +could rest his injured leg for the next.</p> + +<p>Yes, I danced with her, a beautiful, full-grown woman in the +white ball-dress, whom a short while ago I had not recognised, +because her own splendidly developed beauty hid her.</p> + +<p>We had taught one another to dance, and I think we both danced +unusually well. The light wreath with its delicate white flowers, +set off the beauty of her luxuriant hair; my arm was round her +waist, and I felt how yieldingly she leant upon me, happy and +trusting as a child, as we swayed in the dance. Her forehead was +near my lips, and as our eyes sought each other's during the dance, +they said again and again, how delightful it was to meet, when we +had longed so for one another for two whole years.</p> + +<p>When I took her back to her place I received a pressure of the +hand and a look, which made me completely invulnerable to the less +friendly glances of her mother. It appeared that Susanna was then +reprimanded for her neglect of the young Señor Martinez, but +the doctor, who sat beside her, spoke in her defence.</p> + +<p>I stood once more in my old place, and saw Susanna and Martinez +go through the next figure.</p> + +<p>Her curling lip showed at first a trace of the old childish +defiance after reproof; but soon her expression became more +tranquil and thoughtful.</p> + +<p>Taken up as I was with the sight of her; and possibly weak after +the many and varied emotions I had experienced, I suddenly felt the +oppressive, uneasy sense of terror and misfortune come over me, +which generally accompanies my visions. I attempted to leave the +room, but the vision was upon me before I could do so.</p> + +<p>I saw Susanna's face while she danced with Martinez, as white as +that of a strikingly beautiful corpse, and the green wreath with +the small white flowers hung in her hair like wet sea-grass. It +seemed as if water were streaming down her.</p> + +<p>The blood rushed to my heart; the room was now dark, amid sparks +from thousands of lights, going round before my eyes with the +dancing pair.</p> + +<p>I should certainly have fainted at the door, had not the doctor +taken me by the arm, and led me out into the cool passage, and from +thence into a little guest-chamber, where he made me drink some +water and lie down on the bed.</p> + +<p>When he came back, half an hour after the attack, and saw that I +had recovered, he sat down by me on the bed, gentle and friendly, +and began in his sincere way to speak out, as he said.</p> + +<p>As he thoughtfully unravelled with the snuffers the wick of the +candle which he had in his hand, having taken it from the +dressing-table, in order, I suppose, to observe me, he said he had +noticed me this evening, from the time I came into the room, and +thought that my fancy inclined to the beautiful Susanna L., but +that I was jealous of young Martinez. He had also heard a little +bird sing about this before.</p> + +<p>It was a feeling which many young people would only be the +better for and be developed by, but for me, with my mental +disposition, this kind of exciting idea was harmful in the highest +degree; he had, he gently added, unfortunately had experience of +this in the case of my own poor mother; for her discovery, in my +childhood, that I had inherited her mental disease, had only been +the accidental cause of her loss of reason.</p> + +<p>As a physician and a friend he would now say this, while he +thought there was still time for me to prevent this fancy taking +root. And he would say it not only for my own sake, but also for +Susanna's, for he was very fond of her, and would very unwillingly +see her led into what, from a human point of view, could only end +in sorrow.</p> + +<p>One thing I must consider, he continued—after a long +pause, during which he seemed to be considering whether he should +say all he had to say, and finally decided upon doing so—and +that was, that my unfortunate hereditary disposition did not allow +of my thinking of marriage; it might, he went on with a gesture, as +if performing a last, decisive operation on the candle, even be +regarded in the same light as if a leper married without heeding +that he thereby transmitted his disease to his children. I must +not, however—here he rose and laid his hand consolingly on my +shoulder—take these things too much to heart. The most bitter +remedies—and unfortunately the truth was such—are +generally the wholesomest, and for my sick, dreaming nature, he +thought, after earnest, mature consideration, that the unvarnished +truth was the only means of giving health and salvation.</p> + +<p>After once more holding up the candle over me, he retired with, +a serious nod; be could easily see that for the moment I was not in +a condition to carry on any conversation, or give him any +answer.</p> + +<p>It was, in all friendliness, the death-blow to all my dreams and +illusions.</p> + +<p>I felt stunned by the blow, although my inward understanding had +not yet taken it in clearly. My life's old foreboding of misfortune +was now at last confirmed. Susanna had therefore, for me, been but +borrowed sunshine now, and my hopes were to be extinguished for +ever.</p> + +<p>I lay perfectly calm, rather seeing this with my mind's eye than +thinking it, while the music sounded faintly from the ball-room, +and little by little I felt myself with a dull pain die away, as it +were, from everything that was dear to me in the world. My body +seemed to stiffen under the sorrow, and Susanna's face, without a +gleam of life in it, stood before me like something unnatural: my +love was a dead history.</p> + +<p>As I still lay in a dull, motionless stupor, through which +everything without appeared to me in a half mist, the door opened, +and a lady came in. She began hastily to repair with pins before +the mirror a rent in her dress, but suddenly stopped, alarmed at +seeing some one in the half-darkness lying on the bed.</p> + +<p>I recognised Susanna, and, as it seemed to me, something told +her that it must be I who lay there, for she approached as if to +see, and whispered my name.</p> + +<p>She probably thought I was asleep, as no answer came, and that +it was neither right nor the time to wake me. She stood by me for a +moment as if considering, then bent over me till I felt her warm +breath, gently kissed my forehead, and went out.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;'> +<p>A Christmas visit in northern districts generally lasts a couple +of days, often more. But, as my father and the Martinezes had so +much to do and our house was not very far, we were to go home as +early as the next evening, while most of the others were to wait +until the following day.</p> + +<p>The minister's family, however, were to remain as guests, +together with the "notabilities," to the end of the week. In the +meantime, as, early the next day, the minister and his wife were +going to call on a family in the neighbourhood, Susanna had to stay +at the magistrate's house.</p> + +<p>I, like the other guests, had not risen until far on in the +morning, but in my brain during all the time Dr. K.'s words about +my position being like that of a leper had throbbed as a boil, +growing harder and more painful with my changing ideas on the +subject, until all at once their meaning stood clear with its whole +sting before me.</p> + +<p>I loved Susanna a thousand times more than myself, and should I +selfishly wish to unite her fate to a man who was insane, only +because that man was myself? And perhaps my mental condition would +grow worse as time went on.</p> + +<p>I began to feel within me a pious courage for self-sacrifice, +and with it came calm, soothing peacefulness. When all was said and +done, it was really the best thing I could think of, to give my +life for Susanna, and this thought at last inspired me with an +almost fanatical wish to do so.</p> + +<p>My mind was made up; and my plan was the simple one of speaking +out decidedly and clearly to her; for I would not for all the world +deceive her in any way.</p> + +<p>It was in the afternoon, in the twilight, while the others were +out for a walk, that I found an opportunity of talking to her +alone.</p> + +<p>That day Susanna had on a black silk dress which fitted her to +perfection, a lace collar and narrow sleeves with cuffs at the +wrists. Her hair was fastened with a silver arrow as at the ball, +but it was her only ornament.</p> + +<p>She sat thoughtfully listening to me in front of the +newly-lighted stove where we had placed ourselves. Every time she +bent forward into the light from the stove door, it fell upon her +expressive face, while I, in my endeavour to be true, told her, +possibly with exaggerated colouring, all about my mental condition, +and what Dr. K. had said.</p> + +<p>As I talked I saw her face growing paler and more and more +serious, until at last, leaning her elbows on her knees, she +covered her eyes with her hands so that I could only see that her +lips were trembling and that she was crying.</p> + +<p>When I came to what the doctor had said about my condition +resembling that of a leper, and that thus God Himself had placed an +obstacle in the way of our union, while I tried consolingly to +represent to her that for the whole of our life, with the exception +of the last two years, we had really loved one another in a +different way, like brother and sister—she suddenly raised +her head in wild defiance, so that I could look straight into her +tear-stained face, threw her arms around my neck and forced me down +on my knees in front of her. She pressed my head close up to her +throbbing heart as if she would defend me against all who wanted to +injure me. Then with her hand she stroked the hair back from my +forehead—I felt her tears falling on my face—and she +repeated caressingly again and again as if in delirium, that no one +in the world should take me from her.</p> + +<p>This was too much for my weary, suffering heart; I seized both +her hands in mine and cried over them, with my head in her lap. My +weeping grew more violent, until at last it rose to a desperate, +convulsive sobbing, which I could no longer control, and which +thoroughly alarmed Susanna; for she hushed me, called me by my +name, and kissed me like a child, to quiet me. I felt such a deep +need of having my cry out, that it could not now be stopped.</p> + +<p>When at last I became quieter she once more clasped her hands +about my neck, as if to compel my attention, bent forward, and +looked long into my eyes with an expression both persuasively +eloquent and strong-willed in her beautiful, agitated face. I must +believe, she at last assured me with the quick movement of her +head, with which she always emphasised her words, that concerning +ourselves she knew a thousand times better than any doctor what God +would have, and in this we ought to obey God and not a doctor's +human wisdom. And I was in many things so intensely simple-minded, +that I could be made to believe anything.</p> + +<p>People like the doctor, she said, had no idea what love was. Had +I been strong and well, it would certainly have been God's will +that she should have shared the good with me, and so it must just +as much be His will that the same love should share my sorrow and +sickness; but it was in this that Dr. K.—he evidently became +more and more an object of hatred to her the longer she discussed +him—thought differently from God. Besides, she believed so +surely—and her voice here became wonderfully gentle and soft, +almost a whisper—that just this, as we two were so fond of +one another, would be a better cure for me than anything a doctor +could invent. At any rate, she felt within herself that she would +fall ill and give way to despair if I no longer cared for her, for +had we not cared for each other as long as we could remember, and +it was certainly too late to think of separating us.</p> + +<p>One thing must now be settled—and at the thought her face +assumed an expression of determined will, which reminded me of her +father—and that was that, as soon as possible, she would +confide everything about our engagement to her father. It ought, +both for my sake and hers, to be no longer a secret. Her father was +very fond of her, and, if need be, she would tell him seriously +that it would be of no use either for him, or for anyone +else—by this she meant her mother—to try any longer to +get a doctor to separate us by guile.</p> + +<p>Anything like a brotherly and sisterly love between us, as she, +with scornful contempt in her look, expressed it, she would not +hear of, least of all now, and as if entirely to dispel this idea, +she stood upright before me, and asked me, as she looked with +passionate eagerness into my face, to say that we still were, and +in spite of everything and everybody always should remain, +faithfully betrothed, even if I never became so well that we could +marry here on earth—and to give her my kiss upon it.</p> + +<p>I took her in my arms, and kissed her warmly and passionately +once, twice, three times, until she freed herself.</p> + +<p>While she was speaking it had dawned upon me that she, with her +strong, healthy, loving nature, had fought the fight for us both +and for a right that could not, perhaps, be proved in words, but +the sanctity of which, I felt, was beyond all artificial proof.</p> + +<p>Susanna now again belonged to me in another, truer, and more +real way than I had ever dreamt of or suspected, as I comprehended +that everything that could be called chivalrous sacrifice on my +side only lay lower than our love, was even simply an unworthy +offence to it. In true love the cross is borne by both the lovers, +and the one who "chivalrously" wishes to bear it alone, only cheats +the other of part of his best possession.</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;'> +<p>An hour after this interview with Susanna, which ended in +renewed vows and promises, I was sitting in the stern of our +ten-oared boat, together with my father and the two Martinezes, in +the dark winter evening, while the moon was sailing behind a +countless number of little grey clouds.</p> + +<p>Father sat in silence and steered, while the men rowed against a +rather stiff breeze which blew up the Sound, so that we might get +the wind in our sails the rest of the way.</p> + +<p>I quietly thought over everything that had passed during this +short visit, and felt infinitely happy.</p> + +<p>We reached home late at night. I tried to keep awake and to +think about Susanna and all she had said to me, but I slept like a +log, and awoke with a feeling of such health, happiness, and joy, +as only those know to whose lot it has fallen to sleep the sleep of +the really happy. And thus it was every night. I fell asleep before +my prayers were ended, sang in the morning, and felt light-hearted +almost to reckless gaiety, happy and ready for work the whole day +long.</p> + +<p>This proved how truly Susanna had said that our love would +become to me a spring of health, better than any doctor's human +wisdom could devise.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_X'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h2><i>THE STORM</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>It was late in the afternoon of the Saturday after Twelfth Night +that the terrible two days' storm began, which is still spoken of +by many as one of the most violent that has visited Lofoten within +the memory of man.</p> + +<p>It was fortunate that the fishing had not yet begun—the +storm raged with grey sky, sleet, and tremendous seas from the +south-west right up the West Fjord—or perhaps as large a +number of wrecks might have been heard of as in the famous storm of +1849, when in one day several hundred boats were lost. This time +only a few boats were wrecked on their way to the fishing, and +several yachts and a couple of larger vessels were stranded.</p> + +<p>The storm increased during the night; we could feel how the +house yielded at each burst, groaning at every joist, and we all +sat up and watched with lights, as if by silent agreement.</p> + +<p>All window-shutters, doors, and openings were carefully closed. +The tiles rattled noisily at each gust, so that we were afraid the +roof would be broken in, and the wind in the chimney made a deep, +weird, growling noise, which in the fiercest attacks on the house +sounded like a loud, horrible monster voice out in the night, +sometimes almost like a wild cry of distress.</p> + +<p>We sat in the sitting-room in a silence that was only now and +then broken by some remark about the weather, or when one or other +of the men came in from making the round of the house to see how +things were going on.</p> + +<p>My father sat in restless anxiety about the storehouse, and +about his yacht lying down in the bay, which, because of the heavy +seas which came in, in spite of the harbour's good position, had +been trebly moored in the afternoon. I saw him several times fold +his hands as if in prayer, and then, as if cheered, walk up and +down the room for a while, until anxiety again overcame him, and he +sat down looking straight before him, gloomy and pale as +before.</p> + +<p>The storm rather increased than abated. Once we heard a dull +thud, which might well have come from the storehouse. I saw drops +of perspiration standing on my father's forehead, and was deeply +pained to see his anguish of mind, without being able to do +anything to help him.</p> + +<p>A little while after he went out into the office with a candle +and came back with an old large-type prayer-book, in which he +turned to a prayer and a hymn to be sung during a storm at sea.</p> + +<p>All the servants without being called, gathered in the parlour +for family worship.</p> + +<p>My father sat with the prayer-book in his great rough hands, +which he had folded on the table before him, between the two +candles. First he read the prayer, and then sang all the verses of +the hymn, while those of us who knew the tune joined by degrees in +the refrain. It was altogether as if we were holding prayers in a +ship's cabin while the vessel was in danger, and my father must +have had the idea from some such scene in his hard youth. During +prayers we all thought the storm abated a little, and that it only +began again after they were ended.</p> + +<p>We found the elder Martinez on his knees by his bedside, +perpetually crossing himself before a crucifix. He had less reason +for anxiety than we, for his brig lay with extra moorings under +land in a little creek sheltered from the wind and waves. He very +much regretted now, however, that he had not gone on board to his +son and the men.</p> + +<p>Towards morning the storm abated a little, and, tired as we +were, we went to bed, while two of the servants still sat up.</p> + +<p>It was about ten o'clock in the morning, when it began to grow +light, that we could first see the destruction done. Several +hundred tiles from the house roof lay spread over the yard, part of +the outer pannelling of the wall on the windward side was torn +away, and the end of the pier lay on one side down in the sea, a +couple of piles having been displaced by the waves. The storehouse, +too, had suffered some damage.</p> + +<p>Our yacht, however, was most evidently in danger. Two of her +ropes had given way, the anchors having lost their hold, and +everything now depended upon the third and longest rope, which was +fastened to the mooring ring on the rock at the mouth of the bay. +There was only the ship's dog on board, a large white poodle, which +stood with its fore-paws on the stern bulwarks and barked, without +our being able to hear a sound in the wind, while the waves washed +over the yacht's bows.</p> + +<p>The situation was desperate, for the long rope was stretched as +tight as a violin string, and the middle of it scarcely touched the +water. It was blowing so hard, too, that a man could hardly stand +upright, but was obliged to creep along the clean-swept snow-field, +so that there could be no thought of helping.</p> + +<p>I had crept up the hill at the back of the house, and stood in +the shelter of a rocky knoll, from which I could see both out over +the sea and down into the bay.</p> + +<p>West Fjord on this wintry day lay as if covered with a silvery +grey smoke from the spray that was driving across the sea. Beneath +the cliffs the waves came in like great, green, foam-topped +mountains, breaking on the shore with a noise like thunder, and +then retreating an immense distance, leaving a long stretch of dry +beach.</p> + +<p>At one place, where a rock went perpendicularly down to the sea, +a great, broad jet of spray was sent straight up every time a wave +broke, and was driven in over the land by the wind like smoke. At +another place the waves stormed in a Titanic way a sloping rock, +which lay, now in foam, now high and dry, and I saw a poor +exhausted gull, which had probably got out from its mountain cliff +into the wind, fighting and battling in it, often with its wings +almost twisted.</p> + +<p>In anxious suspense I watched the yacht down in the bay. To my +astonishment, I saw a man on board, and recognised the stalwart +Jens, who had ventured out with one of the men, from the windward +side, in a six-oared boat. After a short stay on board he stepped +down alone into the boat with a rope round his waist, and began the +dangerous work of hauling the boat against the waves, along the +tight land-rope, out towards the rock.</p> + +<p>I expected every instant that the boat would fill, and it seemed +to me that the waves washed in several times. As the boat slowly +worked its way along, father and all the servants followed it +anxiously with their eyes, from the beach.</p> + +<p>When Jens had got up on to the rock, over which the waves washed +one after another, so that he often stood in water up to his knees, +he secured the boat, and began to haul in the line, drawing after +it through the water a thick cable, which the man on board was +paying out gradually. He had just begun to fasten it to the mooring +ring, and had only the last two knots in the rope to make, when we +all became aware of three tremendous waves that would infallibly +break over the rock.</p> + +<p>Jens's life was evidently in danger, and the yacht too, which, +with her one overstrained rope, would scarcely be able to bear the +pressure.</p> + +<p>I saw French Martina, his <i>fiancée</i>, clasp her hands +above her head and run out into the surf, almost as if she thought +of throwing herself into the water to go to him, and I think that +not one of the others looking on dared to draw breath.</p> + +<p>It appeared that Jens had noticed the danger himself; he +hastened down to the boat, in which he could still shelter himself, +but it was only to take up from it the line, which he calmly wound +several times round his body and through the mooring ring, as he +could no longer rely upon his own giant strength.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely completed these preparations, when the first +wave, which he faced with bent head, broke right over him and the +rock. The interval before the second came he employed in making +another knot in the land-rope.</p> + +<p>Again came a wave, and again Jens stood firm, and he now made +the final knot in the rope that saved the yacht.</p> + +<p>He had now made trial of what the force of a wave could be. He +threw the line from his back up round his great broad shoulders, +turned his strong pale face towards our house for a moment, as if +it were quite possible that he was now bidding it farewell, and +bent his head towards the third and last wave, which was advancing +with a foaming crest, as usual, larger than its two +predecessors.</p> + +<p>When the wave had broken in foam, and gone by, no Jens stood on +the rock.</p> + +<p>I ran down in horror to the others. When I got there, they had +recovered, besides the boat, which had been torn from the rock, the +apparently lifeless body of Jens, and were now carrying it to the +house.</p> + +<p>The wave had dragged him along, the line that he had round his +shoulders having slipped up to his neck, and taken clothes and skin +with it. He now lay unconscious from the pressure of the water, and +with one arm, torn and bleeding from the line, in a twisted +position: it was laid bare, at one place even to the bone.</p> + +<p>Father walked with a pale face and supported him while they +carried him up and put him to bed.</p> + +<p>When he recovered consciousness, he began spitting blood, and +had a difficulty in speaking; but father, who examined his chest, +said joyfully that there was no danger.</p> + +<p>By this exploit of saving the yacht Jens became famed as a hero +far and wide; from that day forward, he was one of my father's +trusted men, and in the following summer he and French Martina were +married.</p> + +<hr style='width: 65%;'> +<a name='CHAPTER_XI'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h2><i>CONCLUSION</i></h2> + +<br> + + +<p>I can now calmly write down the little, for me so much, that +remains to be told—for many years it would have been +impossible.</p> + +<p>The storm lasted from Saturday midday until Sunday night, when +towards morning the wind gradually subsided into complete +stillness, although the sea continued restless.</p> + +<p>The same day, Monday, at midday, there landed at the parsonage +landing-place, not the minister's white house-boat, that was +expected home, but an ordinary tarred, ten-oared boat, with a +number of people in it.</p> + +<p>From it four of the men slowly bore a burden between them up to +the house, while a big man and a little woman went, bowed down, +hand in hand, after them. It was the minister and his wife.</p> + +<p>I understood at once what had happened, and my heart cried with +despair.</p> + +<p>The dreadful message, which came to us directly after, told me +nothing new—it only confirmed my belief that it was the +minister's daughter Susanna they had borne up.</p> + +<p>The parsonage boat had been only a little more than +three-quarters of a mile away from home that Saturday morning when +the storm came on so suddenly. A "windfall" had come down with +terrible force from the mountains into the Sound, and had capsized +the boat, which was not far from land.</p> + +<p>The minister had quickly helped his wife up on to the boat, and +the men held on round the edge, while they drifted before the wind +the short distance in to the shore. But he searched in vain for his +child, to find her and save her.</p> + +<p>With the sea seething round the boat, the strong man three times +in his despair let go his hold in order to swim to the place where +he imagined he saw her in the water. He was going to try again, but +his wife, in great distress, begged his men to hinder him, and they +did so.</p> + +<p>They said afterwards that they saw drops of perspiration running +down the minister's forehead, as he lay there on the boat in the +wintry-cold sea, and that they believed he even thought of +purposely letting go his hold that he might follow his +daughter.</p> + +<p>Too late they found out that Susanna was under the boat. She had +become entangled in a rope, so that she could not rise to the +surface.</p> + +<p>Her death had at any rate been quick and painless.</p> + +<p>The whole of Saturday and Sunday, while the storm lasted, they +were compelled to lie weatherbound at a peasant's house in the +neighbourhood, where the minister's wife had kept her bed from +exhaustion and grief.</p> + +<p>The minister had sat nearly the whole time in the large parlour +where they had laid Susanna, and talked with his God; and on Monday +morning, when they were to go home, he was resigned and cairn, +arranged everything, and comforted his poor, weeping wife.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> +<p>I had lain in dumb, despairing sorrow the whole afternoon and +throughout the long night, and determined to go the next day and +see Susanna for the last time.</p> + +<p>Early in the forenoon, the minister unexpectedly entered our +parlour, and asked to speak to my father. He looked pale and solemn +as he sat on the sofa, with his stick in front of him, and +waited.</p> + +<p>When my father came in at the door, the minister rose and took +his hand, while the tears stood in his eyes.</p> + +<p>After a pause, as if to recover himself, he said that my father +saw before him an unhappy but humble man, whom God had to chasten +severely before his will would bend to Him. He wanted now, because +of his unhappiness, to ask my father not to deny him his old +friendship any longer.</p> + +<p>Of the matter that had caused the estrangement he would not now +speak; he had acted to the best of his judgment. There was, +however, something else which now lay on his heart, and here he put +his hand on my shoulder and drew me affectionately to him, as he +once more sat down on the sofa.</p> + +<p>His daughter Susanna, he continued, sighing at the name, a few +days before God took her to Himself, had admitted him into her +confidence, and told him that she had loved me from the time she +was a child, and that we two had already given each other our +promise, with the intention of telling our parents when I became a +student.</p> + +<p>At first he had been strongly opposed to the engagement for many +reasons, first and foremost my health and our youth. But Susanna +had shown such intense earnestness in the matter and expressed such +determined will, that, knowing her nature, it became clear to him +that this affection had been growing for many years and could not +now be rooted up. And it was now the greatest comfort he had in the +midst of his sorrow, that the same morning on which they were to +start on their ill-fated journey home, he had given in, and had +also promised to use his influence in getting my father to give his +consent.</p> + +<p>Instead of this he now stood without a daughter, and only as one +bringing tidings that the disaster had fallen on my father's house +too, and struck his only child. He wished, he hoped with my +father's permission, henceforth to regard me as his son.</p> + +<p>My father sat a long time, surprised and pale; he seemed to have +great difficulty in taking in what was said.</p> + +<p>At last he rose and in silence gave his hand to the minister. +Then he laid it on my shoulder so that I felt its pressure, looked +into my eyes and said, in a low, wonderfully gentle voice:</p> + +<p>"The Lord be with you, my son! Sorrow has visited you young; +only, do not be weak in bearing it!"</p> + +<p>He was going out to leave us alone together, but bethought +himself in the doorway, and said that I had better go with the +minister and take a last farewell of Susanna.</p> + +<p>A little later the minister and I were walking side by side +along the road. Our relations had now become confidential, and to +comfort me he told me all that Susanna had said to induce him to +consent. She knew, thank God, he concluded with a sigh of relief, +that she had in her father a friend in whom she could confide in +the hour of need.</p> + +<p>The minister led me into the room with its drawn blinds; he +stood for a moment by the bier, then the tears fell like rain down +his broad, strong face, and he turned and went out.</p> + +<p>She lay there in her maidenly white dress. They had twined a +wreath of green leaves with white flowers about her head, and for a +moment I saw again the vision I had at the ball. The delicate hands +now lay meekly folded upon her breast, and on the engagement finger +I recognised with tears my own old bronze ring with the purple +glass stones in it, that she had worn from the moment she had +obtained her father's consent. The expression of the mouth, so +energetic in life, was transformed in death into a quiet, happy +smile, in which her beautiful delicate face, with its broad pure +marble brow shone with a heavenly radiance; she lay in such +innocent security, as if she now knew the secret of true love's +victory over everything here on earth, and was only gone in +advance, with white wings on her shoulders, to teach it to me, +since God had not allowed her to share the burden of my cross here +below.</p> + +<p>When I noticed that they wanted me to go, I silently repeated +"Our Father" over her as a last farewell, pressed one gentle kiss +upon her brow, then one upon her mouth, and one upon her folded +hands where the bronze ring was, and went out without looking +back.</p> + +<p>Two days after, I followed Susanna's remains to the grave.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> +<p>One sunshiny day in winter, when I as usual visited the place +where she rested in the churchyard, the snow had drifted over her +grave. It lay pure and dazzlingly white, with the fine upper edge +like translucent marble in the sunlight.</p> + +<p>I took this to mean that Susanna would have me think of her in +her shining bridal dress before God, in order to give me courage to +go my lonely way through life, and not to fear that the hardest of +all trials—even insanity, if it came and enthralled me in its +confusion—could separate us.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> +<p>Late in the summer, when I was to go south by the steamer, +together with the minister and his wife, who had both, in a short +time, aged perceptibly, and who were now moving to a southern +parish, I went for the last time to take leave of my sorrowful +friend, the clerk.</p> + +<p>He played the beautiful, joyful, beloved piece again for me, +which he had composed when he was twenty, and which I had thought +suited Susanna and me so well, and now he played the continuation +too—it was wonderfully touching and sad, but with comfort in +it, like a psalm.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> +<p>Thus ends a poor, delicate Nordlander's simple story; for to +tell how, with my father's help, I became a student with +"<i>laud</i>" [There are four grades in the Academic Degrees +Examination—viz., <i>laudabilis præ ceteris, +laudabilis, haud illaudabilis</i>, and +<i>non-contemnendus</i>.]—he died the same year that I passed +my <i>Examen artium</i>, a respected but ruined man—and how I +afterwards became something of a literary man, a private tutor and +a master in a school, is only to relate the outward circumstances +of a monotonous life, whose thoughts all dwell in the past.</p> + +<p>My love for Susanna has, as she said to me with such confidence, +been the fountain of health that saved me from the worst madness. +When restlessness came over me, and I roamed about aimlessly in +field and forest, it always came to a crisis, when I saw her, in +her white dress, floating by a little way off, or sometimes even +coming gently towards me; then the danger was over for the +time.</p> + +<p>During the last two years, when I have been getting worse, I +have not been fortunate enough to see her, and have had a dreary +time, often as if the darkness were closing helplessly round +me.</p> + +<p>But not long ago, as I lay ill in my garret, Susanna came one +night, when the full moon was shining, up to the bed, in her white +bridal dress, with a wreath upon her beautiful hair, and beckoned +to me with the hand that bore the ring. I know she came to bring me +the glad tidings that I shall soon go hence and see again the love +of my youth.</p> + +<hr style='width: 85%;'> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13922 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + + diff --git a/13922-h/images/JL001.jpg b/13922-h/images/JL001.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b21d973 --- /dev/null +++ b/13922-h/images/JL001.jpg |
