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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Absalom's Hair, by Bjornstjerne Bjornson
+
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+Title: Absalom's Hair
+
+Author: Bjornstjerne Bjornson
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5052]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 11, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ABSALOM'S HAIR ***
+
+
+
+
+Nicole Apostola, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+ABSALOM'S HAIR
+
+BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 1
+
+
+Harald Kaas was sixty.
+
+He had given up his free, uncriticised bachelor life; his yacht
+was no longer seen off the coast in summer; his tours to England
+and the south had ceased; nay, he was rarely to be found even at
+his club in Christiania. His gigantic figure was never seen in the
+doorways; he was failing.
+
+Bandy-legged he had always been, but this defect had increased;
+his herculean back was rounded, and he stooped a little. His
+forehead, always of the broadest--no one else's hat would fit him-
+-was now one of the highest, that is to say, he had lost all his
+hair, except a ragged lock over each ear and a thin fringe behind.
+He was beginning also to lose his teeth, which were strong though
+small, and blackened by tobacco; and now, instead of "deuce take
+it" he said "deush take it."
+
+He had always held his hands half closed as though grasping
+something; now they had stiffened so that he could never open them
+fully. The little finger of his left hand had been bitten off "in
+gratitude" by an adversary whom he had knocked down: according to
+Harald's version of the story, he had compelled the fellow to
+swallow the piece on the spot.
+
+He was fond of caressing the stump, and it often served as an
+introduction to the history of his exploits, which became greater
+and greater as he grew older and quieter.
+
+His small sharp eyes were deep set and looked at one with great
+intensity. There was power in his individuality, and, besides
+shrewd sense, he possessed a considerable gift for mechanics. His
+boundless self-esteem was not devoid of greatness, and the
+emphasis with which both body and soul proclaimed themselves made
+him one of the originals of the country.
+
+Why was he nothing more?
+
+He lived on his estate, Hellebergene, whose large woods skirted
+the coast, while numerous leasehold farms lay along the course of
+the river. At one time this estate had belonged to the Kurt
+family, and had now come back to them, in so far as that Harald's
+father, as every one knew, was not a Kaas at all, but a Kurt; it
+was he who had got the estate together again; a book might be
+written about the ways and means that he had employed.
+
+The house looked out over a bay studded with islands; farther out
+were more islands and the open sea. An immensely long building,
+raised on an old and massive foundation, its eastern wing barely
+half furnished, the western inhabited by Harald Kaas, who lived
+his curious life here.
+
+These wings were connected by two covered galleries, one above the
+other, with stairs at each end.
+
+Curiously enough, these galleries did not face the sea, that is,
+the south, but the fields and woods to the north. The portion of
+the house between the two wings was a neutral territory--namely, a
+large dining-room with a ballroom above it, neither of which was
+used in later years.
+
+Harald Kaas's suite of rooms was distinguished from without by a
+mighty elk's head with its enormous antlers, which was set up over
+the gallery.
+
+In the gallery itself were heads of bear, wolf, fox and lynx, with
+stuffed birds from land and sea. Skins and guns hung on the walls
+of the anteroom, the inner rooms were also full of skins and
+impregnated with the smell of wild animals and tobacco-smoke.
+Harald himself called it "Man-smell;" no one who had once put his
+nose inside could ever forget it.
+
+Valuable and beautiful skins hung on the walls and covered the
+floors; his very bed was nothing else; Harald Kaas lay, and sat,
+and walked on skins, and each one of them was a welcome subject of
+conversation, for he had shot and flayed every single animal
+himself. To be sure, there were those who hinted that most of the
+skins had been bought from Brand and Company, of Bergen, and that
+only the stories were shot and flayed at home.
+
+I for my part think that this was an exaggeration; but be that as
+it may, the effect was equally thrilling when Harald Kaas, seated
+in his log chair by the fireside, his feet on the bearskin, opened
+his shirt to show us the scars on his hairy chest (and what scars
+they were!) which had been made by the bear's teeth, when he had
+driven his knife, right up to the haft, into the monster's heart.
+All the queer tankards, and cupboards, and carved chairs listened
+with their wonted impassiveness.
+
+Harald Kaas was sixty, when, in the month of July, he sailed into
+the bay accompanied by four ladies whom he had brought from the
+steamer--an elderly lady and three young ones, all related to him.
+They were to stay with him until August.
+
+They occupied the upper storey. From it they could hear him
+walking about and grunting below them. They began to feel a little
+nervous. Indeed, three of them had had serious misgivings about
+accepting the invitation; and these misgivings were not diminished
+when, next morning, they saw Kaas composedly strolling up from the
+sea stark naked!
+
+They screamed, and, gathering together, still in their nightgowns,
+held a council of war as to the advisability of leaving at once;
+but when one of them cried "You should not have called us, Aunt,
+and then we should not have seen him," they could not help
+laughing, and therewith the whole affair ended. Certainly they
+were a little stiff at breakfast; but when Harold Kaas began a
+story about an old black mare of his which was in love with a
+young brown horse over at the Dean's, and which plunged madly if
+any other horse came near her, but, on the other hand, put her
+head coaxingly on one side and whinnied "like a dainty girl"
+whenever the parson's horse came that way--well, at that they had
+to give in, as well first as last.
+
+If they had strayed here out of curiosity they must just put up
+with the "NIGHT side of nature," as Harald Kaas expressed it, with
+the stress on the first word.
+
+For all that they were nearly frightened out of their wits the
+very next night, when he discharged his gun right under their
+windows. The aunt even asserted that he had shot through her open
+casement. She screamed loudly, and the others, starting from their
+sleep, were out on the floor before they knew where they were.
+Then they crouched in the windows and peeped out, although their
+aunt declared that they would certainly be shot--they really must
+see what it was.
+
+Yes! there they saw him among the cherry and apple trees, gun in
+hand, and they could hear him swearing. In the greatest
+trepidation they crept back into bed again. Next morning they
+learned that he had shot at some night prowlers, one of whom had
+got "half the charge in his leg, that he had, Deush take him! It
+ain't the prowling I mind, but that he should prowl here. We
+bachelors will have no one poaching on our preserves."
+
+The four ladies sat as stiff as four church candles, till at
+length one of them sprang up with a scream, the others joining in
+chorus.
+
+The visitors were not bored; Harald Kaas dealt too much in the
+unexpected for that. There was a charm, too, in the great woods,
+where there had been no felling since he had come into the
+property, and there were merry walks by the riverside and plenty
+of fish in the river.
+
+They bathed, they took delightful sails in the cutter and drives
+about the neighbourhood, though certainly the turn-out was none of
+the smartest.
+
+The youngest of the girls, Kristen Ravn, presently became less
+eager to join in these expeditions. She had fallen in love with
+the disused east wing of the house, and there she spent many a
+long hour, alone by the open window, gazing out at the great lime-
+trees which stood straggling, gaunt, and mysterious.
+
+"You ought to build a balcony here, out towards the sea," she
+said. "Look how the water glitters between the limes."
+
+When once she had hit upon a plan, Kristen Ravn never relinquished
+it, and when she bad suggested it some four or five times, he
+promised that it should be done. But on the heels of this scheme
+came another.
+
+"Below the first balcony there must be another wider one," said
+she in her soft voice, "and it must have steps at each end down to
+the lawn--the lawn is so lovely just here."
+
+The unheard-of presumption of her demand inoculated him with the
+idea, and at length he consented to this as well.
+
+"The rooms must be refurnished," she gravely commanded. "The one
+next to the balcony which is to be built under here shall be in
+yellow pine, and the floor must be polished." She pointed with her
+long delicate hand. "ALL the floors must be polished. I will give
+you the design for the room above, I have thought it carefully
+out." And in imagination she papered the walls, arranged the
+furniture, and hung up curtains of wondrous patterns.
+
+"I know, too, how the other rooms are to be done," she added. And
+she went from one to the other, remaining a little while in each.
+He followed, like an old horse led by the bridle.
+
+Before their visit was half over he most coolly neglected three
+out of his four guests.
+
+His deep-set eyes twinkled with the liveliest admiration whenever
+she approached. He sought in the faces of the others the
+admiration which he himself felt: he would amble round her like an
+old photographic camera which had the power of setting itself up.
+
+But from the day when she took down from his bookshelf a French
+work on mechanics, a subject with which she was evidently
+acquainted and for which she declared that she had a natural
+aptitude, it was all over with him. From that day forward, if she
+were present, he effaced himself both in word and action.
+
+In the mornings when he met her in one of her characteristic
+costumes he laughed softly, or gazed and gazed at her, and then
+glanced towards the others. She did not talk much, but every word
+that she uttered aroused his admiration. But he was most of all
+captivated when she sat quietly apart, heedless of every one: at
+such times he resembled an old parrot expectant of sugar.
+
+His linen had always been snowy white, but beyond this he had
+taken no special pains with his toilet; but now he strutted about
+in a Tussore silk coat, which he had bought in Algiers, but had at
+once put aside because it was too tight--he looked like a clipt
+box hedge in it.
+
+Now, who was this lion-tamer of twenty-one, who, without in the
+least wishing to do so, unconsciously even (she was the quietest
+of the party), had made the monarch of the forest crouch at her
+feet and gaze at her in abject humility?
+
+Look at her, as she sits there, with her loose shining hair of the
+prettiest shade of dark red; look at her broad forehead and
+prominent nose, but more than all at those large wondering eyes;
+look at her throat and neck, her tall slight figure; notice
+especially the Renaissance dress which she wears, its style and
+colour, and your curiosity will still remain unsatisfied, for she
+has an individuality all her own.
+
+Kristen Ravn had lost her mother at her birth and her father when
+she was five years old. The latter left her a handsome fortune,
+with the express condition that the investments should not be
+changed, and that the income should be for her own use whether she
+married or not. He hoped by this means to form her character. She
+was brought up by three different members of her wide-branching
+family, a family which might more properly be termed a clan,
+although they had no common characteristics beyond a desire to go
+their own way.
+
+When two Ravns meet they, as a rule, differ on every subject; but
+as a race they hold religiously together--indeed, in their eyes
+there is no other family which is "amusing," the favourite
+adjective of the Ravns.
+
+Kristen had a receptive nature; she read everything, and
+remembered what she read; that is say, she had a logical mind, for
+a retentive memory implies an orderly brain. She was consequently
+NUMBER ONE in everything which she took up. This, coupled with the
+fact that she lived among those who regarded her somewhat as a
+speculation, and consequently flattered her, had early made an
+impression on her nature, quite as great, indeed, as the
+possession of money.
+
+She was by no means proud, it was not in the Ravn nature to be so;
+but at ten years old she had left off playing; she preferred to
+wander in the woods and compose ballads. At twelve she insisted on
+wearing silk dresses, and, in the teeth of an aunt all curls and
+lace and with a terrible flow of words, she carried her point. She
+held herself erect and prim in her silks, and still remained
+NUMBER ONE. She composed verses about Sir Adge and Maid Else,
+about birds and flowers and sad things.
+
+On reaching the age at which other girls, who have the means,
+begin to wear silk dresses, she left them off. She was tired, she
+said, of the "smooth and glossy."
+
+She now grew enthusiastic for fine wool and expensive velvet of
+every shade. Dresses in the Renaissance style became her
+favourites, and the subject of her studies. She puffed out her
+bodices like those in Leonardo's and Rafael's portraits of women,
+and tried in other ways as well to resemble them.
+
+She left off writing verses, and wrote stories instead; the style
+was good, though they were anything rather than spontaneous.
+
+They were short, with a more or less clear pointe. Stories by a
+girl of eighteen do not as a general rule make a sensation, but
+these were particularly audacious. It was evident that their only
+object was to scandalise. Instead of her own name she used the
+nom-de-plume of "Puss." This, however, was only to postpone the
+announcement that the author who scandalised her readers most, and
+that at a time when every author strove to do so, was a girl of
+eighteen belonging to one of the first families in the country.
+
+Soon every one knew that "Puss" was she of the tumbled red locks,
+"the tall Renaissance figure with the Titian hair."
+
+Her hair was abundant, glossy, and slightly curling; she still
+wore it hanging loose over her neck and shoulders, as she had done
+as a child. Her great eyes seemed to look out upon a new world;
+but one felt that the lower part of her face was scarcely in
+harmony with the upper. The cheeks fell in a little; the prominent
+nose made the mouth look smaller than it actually was; her neck
+seemed only to lead the eye downward to her bosom, which almost
+appeared to caress her throat, especially when her head was bent
+forward, as was generally the case. And very beautiful the throat
+was, delicate in colour, superb in contour, and admirably set upon
+the bust. For this reason she could never find in her heart to
+hide this full white neck, but always kept it uncovered. Her
+finely moulded bust surmounting a slender waist and small hips,
+her rounded arms, her long hands, her graceful carriage, in her
+tightly-fitting dress, formed such a striking picture that one did
+more than look--one was obliged to study her, When the elegance
+and beauty of her dress were taken into account, one realised how
+much intelligence and artistic taste had here been exercised.
+
+She was friendly in society, natural and composed, always occupied
+with something, always with that wondering expression. She spoke
+very little, but her words were always well chosen.
+
+All this, and her general disposition, made people chary of
+opposing her, more especially those who knew how intelligent she
+was and how much knowledge she possessed.
+
+She had no friends of her own, but her innumerable relations
+supplied her with society, gossip, and flattery, and were at once
+her friends and body-guard. She would have had to go abroad to be
+alone.
+
+Among these relations she was a princess: they not only paid her
+homage, but had sworn by "Life and Death" that she must marry
+without more ado, which was absolutely against her wish.
+
+From her childhood she had been laying by money, but the amount of
+her savings was far less than her relations supposed. This rather
+mythical fortune contributed not a little to the fact that "every
+one" was in love with her. Not only the bachelors of the family,
+that was a matter of course, but artists and amateurs, even the
+most blase, swarmed round her, la jeunesse doree (which is homely
+enough in Norway), without an exception. A living work of art,
+worth more or less money, piquante and admired, how each longed to
+carry her home, to gloat over her, to call her his own!
+
+There was surely more intensity of feeling near her than near
+others, a losing of oneself in one only; that unattainable dream
+of the world-weary.
+
+With her one could lead a thoroughly stylish life, full of art and
+taste and comfort. She was highly cultivated, and absolutely
+emancipated--our little country did not, in those days, possess a
+more alluring expression.
+
+When face to face with her they were uncertain how to act, whether
+to approach her diffidently or boldly, smile or look serious, talk
+or be silent.
+
+What these idle wooers gleaned from her stories, her
+characteristic dress, her wondering eyes, and her quiet
+dreaminess, was not the highest, but they expended their energy
+thereon; so that their unbounded discomfiture may be imagined
+when, in the autumn, the news spread that Fruken Kristen Ravn was
+married to Harald Kaas.
+
+They burst into peals of derisive laughter they scoffed, they
+exclaimed; the only explanation they could offer was that they had
+too long hesitated to try their fortune.
+
+There were others, who both knew and admired her, who were no less
+dismayed. They were more than disappointed--the word is too weak;
+to many of them it seemed simply deplorable. How on earth could it
+have happened? Every one, herself excepted, knew that it would
+ruin her life.
+
+On Kristen Ravn's independent position, her strong character, her
+rare courage, on her knowledge, gifts, and energy, many,
+especially women, had built up a future for the cause of Woman.
+Had she not already written fearlessly for it? Her tendency
+towards eccentricity and paradox would soon have worn off, they
+thought, as the struggle carried her forward, and at last she
+might have become one of the first champions of the cause. All
+that was noblest and best in Kristen must predominate in the end.
+
+And now the few who seek to explain life's perplexities rather
+than to condemn them discovered--Some of them, that the defiant
+tone of her writings and her love of opposition bespoke a degree
+of vanity sufficient to have led her into fallacy. Others
+maintained that hers was essentially a romantic nature which might
+cause her to form a false estimate both of her own powers and of
+the circumstances of life. Others, again, had heard something of
+how this husband and wife lived, one in each wing of the house,
+with different staffs of servants, and with separate incomes; that
+she had furnished her side in her own way, at her own expense, and
+had apparently conceived the idea of a new kind of married life.
+Some people declared that the great lime-trees near the mansion at
+Hellebergene were alone responsible for the marriage. They soughed
+so wondrously in the summer evenings, and the sea beneath their
+branches told such enthralling stories. Those grand old woods, the
+like of which were hardly to be found in impoverished Norway, were
+far dearer to her than was her husband. Her imagination had been
+taken captive by the trees, and thus Harald Kaas had taken HER.
+The estate, the climate, the exclusive possession of her part of
+the house: this was the bait which she had chosen. Harald Kaas was
+only a kind of Puck who had to be taken along with it. But it is
+doubtful whether this conjecture was any nearer the truth. No one
+ever really knew. She was not one of those whom it is easy to
+catechise.
+
+Every one wearies at last of trying to solve even the most
+interesting of enigmas. No one could tolerate the sound of her
+name when, four months after her marriage, she was seen in a stall
+at the Christiania Theatre just as in old days, though looking
+perhaps a little paler. Every opera-glass was levelled at her. She
+wore a light, almost white, dress, cut square as usual. She did
+not hide her face behind her fan. She looked about her with her
+wondering eyes, as though she was quite unconscious that there
+were other people in the theatre or that any one could be looking
+at her. Even the most pertinacious were forced to concede that she
+was both physically and mentally unique, with a charm all her own.
+
+But just as she had become once more the subject of general
+conversation, she disappeared. It afterwards transpired that her
+husband had fetched her away, though hardly any one had seen him.
+It was concluded that they must have had their first quarrel over
+it.
+
+Accurate information about their joint life was never obtained.
+The attempts of her relations to force themselves upon them were
+quite without result, except that they found out that she was
+enceinte, notwithstanding her utmost efforts to conceal the fact.
+
+She sent neither letter nor announcement; but in the summer, when
+she was next seen in Christiania, she was wheeling a perambulator
+along Karl Johan Street, her eyes as wondering as though some one
+had just put it between her hands. She looked handsomer and more
+blooming than ever.
+
+In the perambulator lay a boy with his mother's broad forehead,
+his mother's red hair. The child was charmingly dressed, and he,
+as well as the perambulator, was so daintily equipped, so
+completely in harmony with herself, that every one understood the
+reply that she gave, when, after the usual congratulations, her
+acquaintances inquired, "Shall we soon have a new story from
+you?"--she answered, "A new story? Here it is!"
+
+But, notwithstanding the unalloyed happiness which she displayed
+here, it could no longer be concealed that more often than not she
+was absent from home, and that she never mentioned her husband's
+name. If any one spoke of him to her, she changed the subject. By
+the time that the boy was a year old, it had become evident that
+she contemplated leaving Hellebergene entirely. She had been in
+Christiania for some time and had gone home to make arrangements,
+saying that she should come back in a few days.
+
+But she never did so.
+
+The day after her return home, while the numerous servants at
+Hellebergene, as well as the labourers with their wives and
+children, were all assembled at the potato digging, Harald Kaas
+appeared, carrying his wife under his left arm like a sack. He
+held her round the waist, feet first, her face downwards and
+hidden by her hair, her hands convulsively clutching his left
+thigh, her legs sometimes hanging down, sometimes straight out. He
+walked composedly out with her, holding in his right hand a bunch
+of long fresh birch twigs. A little way from the gallery he
+paused, and laying her across his left knee, he tore off some of
+her clothes, and beat her until the blood flowed. She never
+uttered a sound. When he put her from him, she tremblingly
+rearranged--first her hair, thus displaying her face just as the
+blood flowed back from it, leaving it deadly white. Tears of pain
+and shame rolled down her cheeks; but still not a sound. She tried
+to rearrange her dress, but her tattered garments trailed behind
+her as she went back to the house. She shut the door after her,
+but had to open it again; her torn clothes had caught fast in it.
+
+The women stood aghast; some of the children screamed with fright:
+this infected the rest, and there was a chorus of sobs. The men,
+most of whom had been sitting smoking their pipes, but who had
+sprung to their feet again, stood filled with shame and
+indignation.
+
+It had not been without a pang that Harald Kaas had done this, his
+face and manner had shown it for a long time and still did so; but
+he had expected that a roar of laughter would greet his
+extraordinary vagary. This was evident from the composure with
+which he had carried his wife out; and still more from the glance
+of gratified revenge with which he looked round him afterwards.
+But there was only dead stillness, succeeded by weeping, sobbing,
+and indignation. He stood there for a moment, quite overcome, then
+went indoors again, a defeated, utterly broken man.
+
+In every encounter with this delicate creature the giant had been
+worsted.
+
+After this, however, she never went beyond the grounds. For the
+first few years she was only seen by the people about the estate,
+and by them but seldom. Sometimes she would take her boy out in
+his little carriage, or, as time went on, would lead him by the
+hand, sometimes she was alone. She was generally wrapped in a big
+shawl, a different one for each dress she wore, and which she
+always held tightly round her. This was so characteristic of her
+that to this day I hear people from the neighbourhood talk about
+it as though she were never seen otherwise.
+
+What then did she do? She studied; she had given up writing: for
+more than one reason it had become distasteful to her. She had
+changed roles with her husband, giving herself up to mathematics,
+chemistry, and physics, she made calculations and analyses--
+sending for books and materials for these objects. The people on
+the estate saw nothing extraordinary in all this. From the first
+they had admired her delicacy and beauty. Every one admired her;
+it was only the manner and degree that varied.
+
+Little by little she came to be regarded as one whose life and
+thoughts were beyond their comprehension.
+
+She sought no one, but to those who came to her she never refused
+help--more or less. She made herself well acquainted with the
+facts of each case; no one could ever deceive her. Whether she
+gave much or little, she imposed no conditions, she never lectured
+them. Her opinion was expressed by the amount that she gave.
+
+Her husband's behaviour towards her was such that, had she not
+been very popular, she could not have remained at Hellebergene;
+that is to say, he opposed and thwarted her in every way he could;
+but every one took her part.
+
+The boy! Could not he have been a bond of union? On the contrary,
+there were those who declared that it was from the time of his
+birth that things had gone amiss between the parents. The first
+time that his father saw him the nurse reported that he "came in
+like a lord and went out like a beggar!" The mother lay down again
+and laughed; the nurse had never seen the like of it before. Had
+he expected that his child must of necessity resemble him, only to
+find it the image of its mother?
+
+When the boy was old enough he loved to wander across to his
+father's rooms where there were so many curious things to see; his
+father always received him kindly, talking in a way suited to his
+childish intelligence, but he would take occasion to cut away a
+quantity of his hair. His mother let it grow free and long like
+her own, and his father perpetually cut it. The boy would have
+been glad enough to be rid of it, but when he grew a little older,
+he comprehended his father's motive, and thenceforth he was on his
+guard.
+
+When the people on the estate had told him something of his
+father's highly-coloured histories of his feats of strength and
+his achievements by land and water, the boy began to feel a shy
+admiration for him, but at the same time he felt all the more
+strongly the intolerable yoke which he laid upon them--upon every
+living being on the estate. It became a secret religion with him
+to oppose his father and help his mother, for it was she who
+suffered. He would resemble her even to his hair, he would protect
+her, he would make it all up to her. It was a positive delight to
+him when his father made him suffer: he absolutely felt proud when
+he called him Rafaella, instead of Rafael, the name which his
+mother had chosen for him; it was the one that she loved best.
+
+No one was allowed to use the boats or the carriage, no one might
+walk through the woods, which had been fenced in, the horses were
+never taken out. No repairs were undertaken; if Fru Kaas attempted
+to have anything done at her own expense, the workmen were ordered
+off: there could no longer be any doubt about it, he wished
+everything to go to rack and ruin. The property went from bad to
+worse, and the woods--well! It was no secret, every one on the
+place talked about it--the timber was being utterly ruined. The
+best and largest trees were already rotten; by degrees the rest
+would become so.
+
+At twelve years of age Rafael began to receive religious teaching
+from the Dean: the only subject in which his mother did not
+instruct him. He shared these lessons with Helene, the Dean's only
+child, who was four years younger than Rafael and of whom he was
+devotedly fond.
+
+The Dean told them the story of David. The narrative was unfolded
+with additions and explanations; the boy made a picture of it to
+himself; his mother had taught him everything in this way.
+
+Assyrian warriors with pointed beards, oblique eyes, and oblong
+shields, had to represent the Israelites; they marched by in an
+endless procession. He saw the blue-green of the vineyards on the
+hillside, the shadow of the dusty palm-trees upon the dusty road.
+Then a wood of aromatic trees into which all the warriors fled.
+
+Then followed the story of Absalom.
+
+"Absalom rebelled against his father, what a dreadful thing to
+think of," said the Dean. "A grown-up man to rebel against his
+father." He chanced to look towards Rafael, who turned as red as
+fire.
+
+The thought which was constantly in his mind was that when he was
+grown up he should rebel against his father.
+
+"But Absalom was punished in a marvellous manner," continued the
+Dean. "He lost the battle, and as he fled through the woods, his
+long hair caught in a tree, the horse ran away from under him, and
+he was left hanging there until he was run through by a spear."
+
+Rafael could see Absalom hanging there, not in the long Assyrian
+garments, not with a pointed beard. No! Slender and young, in
+Rafael's tight-fitting breeches and stockings, and with his own
+red hair! Ah! how distinctly he saw it! The horse galloping far
+away--the grey one at home which he used to ride by stealth when
+his father was asleep after dinner. He could see the tall, slender
+lad, dangling and swaying, with a spear through his body.
+Distinctly! Distinctly!
+
+This vision, which he never mentioned to a soul, he could not get
+rid of. To be left hanging there by his hair--what a strange
+punishment for rebelling against his father!
+
+Certainly he already knew the history, but till now he had paid no
+special heed to it.
+
+It was on a Friday that this great impression had been made on
+him, and on the following Thursday morning he awoke to see his
+mother standing over him with her most wondering expression. Her
+hair still as she had plaited it for the night; one plait had
+touched him on the nose and awoke him before she spoke. She stood
+bending over him, in her long white nightgown with its dainty lace
+trimming, and with bare feet. She would never have come in like
+that if something terrible had not happened. Why did she not
+speak? only look and look--or was she really frightened?
+
+"Mother!" he cried, sitting up.
+
+Then she bent close down to him. "THE MAN IS DEAD," she whispered.
+It was his father whom she called "the man," she never spoke of
+him otherwise.
+
+Rafael did not comprehend what she said, or perhaps it paralysed
+him. She repeated it again louder and louder, "The man is dead,
+the man is dead."
+
+Then she stood upright, and putting out her bare feet from under
+her nightgown, she began to dance--only a few steps; and then she
+slipped away through the door which stood half open. He jumped up
+and ran after her; there she lay on the sofa, sobbing. She felt
+that he was behind her, she raised herself quickly, and, still
+sobbing, pressed him to her heart.
+
+Even when they stood together beside the body, the hand which he
+had in his shook so that he threw his arms round her, thinking
+that she would fall.
+
+Later in life, when he recalled this, he understood what she had
+silently endured, what an unbending will she had brought to the
+struggle, but also what it had cost her.
+
+At the time he did not in the least comprehend it. He imagined
+that she suffered from the horror of the moment as he himself did.
+
+There lay the giant, in wretchedness and squalor! He who had once
+boasted of his cleanliness, and expected the like in others, lay
+there, dirty and unshaven, under dirty bed clothes, in linen so
+ragged and filthy that no workman on the estate had worse. The
+clothes which he had worn the day before lay on a chair beside the
+bed, miserably threadbare, foul with dirt, sweat, and tobacco, and
+stinking like everything else. His mouth was distorted, his hands
+tightly clenched; he had died of a stroke.
+
+And how forlorn and desolate was all around him! Why had his son
+never noticed this before? Why had he never felt that his father
+was lonely and forsaken? To how great an extent no words could
+express.
+
+Rafael burst into tears; louder and louder grew his sobbing, until
+it sounded through all the rooms. The people from the estate came
+in one by one. They wished to satisfy their curiosity.
+
+The boy's crying, unconsciously to himself, influenced them all:
+they saw everything in a new light. How unfortunate, how desolate,
+how helpless had he been who now lay there. Lord, have mercy on us
+all!
+
+When the corpse of Harald Kaas had been laid out, the face shaved,
+and the eyes closed, the distortion was less apparent. They could
+trace signs of suffering, but the expression was still virile. It
+seemed a handsome face to them now
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 2
+
+
+Within a few days of the funeral mother and son were in England.
+
+Rafael was now to enter upon a long course of study, for which, by
+his earlier education, his mother had prepared him, and for which,
+by painful privations, she had saved up sufficient money.
+
+The property was to the last degree impoverished, and burdened
+with mortgages, and the timber only fit for fuel.
+
+Their neighbour the Dean, a clear-headed and practical man, took
+upon himself the management of affairs; as money was needed the
+work of devastation must begin at once. The mother and son did not
+wish to witness it.
+
+They came to England like two fugitives who, after many and great
+trials, for affection's sake seek a new home and a new country.
+
+Rafael was then twelve years old.
+
+They were inseparable, and in the shiftless life that they led in
+their new surroundings they became, if possible, more closely
+attached to each other.
+
+Yet not long afterwards they had their first disagreement.
+
+He had gone to school, had begun to learn the language and to make
+friends, and had developed a great desire to show off.
+
+He was very tall and slender and was anxious to be athletic. He
+took an active part in the play-ground, but here he achieved no
+great success. On the other hand, thanks to his mother, he was
+better informed than his comrades, and he contrived to obtain
+prominence by this. This prominence must be maintained, and
+nothing answered so well as boasting about Norway and his father's
+exploits. His statements were somewhat exaggerated, but that was
+not altogether his fault, He knew English fairly well, but had not
+mastered its niceties. He made use of superlatives, which always
+come the most readily. It was true that he had inherited from his
+father twenty guns, a large sailing-boat, and several smaller
+ones; but how magnificent these boats and guns had become!
+
+He intended to go to the North Pole, he said, as his father had
+done, to shoot white bears, and invited them all to come with him.
+
+He made a greater impression on his hearers than he himself was
+aware of; but something more was wanted, for it was impossible to
+foretell from day to day what might be expected of him. He had to
+study hard in order to meet the demand.
+
+As an outcome of this, he betook himself one evening to the
+hairdresser's, with some of his schoolfellows, and, without more
+ado, requested him to cut his hair quite close. That ought to
+satisfy them for a long time.
+
+The other boys had teased him about his hair, and it got in the
+way when he was playing--he hated it. Besides, ever since the
+story of Absalom's rebellion and punishment, it had remained a
+secret terror to him, but it had never before occurred to him to
+have it cut off.
+
+His schoolfellows were dismayed, and the hairdresser looked on it
+as a work of wilful destruction.
+
+Rafael felt his heart begin to sink, but the very audacity of the
+thing gave him courage They should see what he dare do. The
+hairdresser hesitated to act without Fru Kaas's knowledge, but at
+length he ceased to make objections.
+
+Rafael's heart sank lower and lower, but he must go through with
+it now. "Off with it," he said, and remained immovable in the
+chair.
+
+"I have never seen more splendid hair," said the hairdresser
+diffidently, taking up the scissors but still hesitating.
+
+Rafael saw that his companions were on the tiptoe of expectation.
+"Off with it," he said again with assumed indifference.
+
+The hairdresser cut the hair into his hand and laid it carefully
+in paper.
+
+The boys followed every snip of the scissors with their eyes,
+Rafael with his ears; he could not see in the glass.
+
+When the hairdresser had finished and had brushed his clothes for
+him, he offered him the hair. "What do I want with it?" said
+Rafael. He dusted his elbows and knees a little, paid, and left
+the shop, followed by his companions. They, however, exhibited no
+particular admiration. He caught a glimpse of himself in the glass
+as he went out, and thought that he looked frightful.
+
+He would have given all that he possessed (which was not much), he
+would have endured any imaginable suffering, he thought, to have
+his hair back again.
+
+His mother's wondering eyes rose up before him with every shade of
+expression; his misery pursued him, his vanity mocked him. The end
+of it all was that he stole up to his room and went to bed without
+his supper.
+
+But when his mother had vainly waited for him, and some one
+suggested that he might be in the house, she went to his room.
+
+He heard her on the stairs; he felt that she was at the door. When
+she entered he had hidden his head beneath the bedclothes. She
+dragged them back; and at the first sight of her dismay he was
+reduced to such despair that the tears which were beginning to
+flow ceased at once.
+
+White and horror-struck she stood there; indeed she thought at
+first that some one had done it maliciously; but when she could
+not extract a word of enlightenment, she suspected mischief.
+
+He felt that she was waiting for an explanation, an excuse, a
+prayer for forgiveness, but he could not, for the life of him, get
+out a word.
+
+What, indeed, could he say? He did not understand it himself. But
+now he began to cry violently. He huddled himself together,
+clasping his head between his hands. It felt like a bristly
+stubble.
+
+When he looked up again his mother was gone.
+
+A child sleeps in spite of everything. He came down the next
+morning in a contrite mood and thoroughly shamefaced. His mother
+was not up; she was unwell, for she had not slept a wink. He heard
+this before he went to her. He opened her door timidly. There she
+lay, the picture of wretchedness.
+
+On the toilet-table, in a white silk handkerchief, was his hair,
+smoothed and combed.
+
+She lay there in her lace-trimmed nightgown, great tears rolling
+down her cheeks. He had come, intending to throw himself into her
+arms and beg her pardon a thousand times. But he had a strong
+feeling that he had better not do so, or was he afraid to? She was
+in the clouds, far, far away. She seemed in a trance: something,
+at once painful and sacred, held her enchained. She was both
+pathetic and sublime,
+
+The boy stepped quietly from the room and hurried off to school.
+
+She remained in bed that day and the next, and made him sit with
+the servant in order that she might be alone. When she was in
+trouble she always behaved thus, and that he should cross her in
+this way was the greatest trial that she had ever known. It came
+upon her, too, like a deluge of rain from a clear sky. NOW it
+seemed to her that she could foresee his future--and her own.
+
+She laid the blame of all this on his paternal ancestry. She could
+not see that incessant artistic fuss and too much intellectual
+training had, perhaps, aroused in him a desire for independence.
+
+The first time that she saw him again with his cropped head, which
+grew more and more like his father's in shape, her tears flowed
+quietly.
+
+When he wished to come to her side, she waived him back with her
+shapely hand, nor would she talk to him; when he talked she hardly
+looked at him; till at last he burst into tears. For he suffered
+as one can suffer but once, when the childish penitence is fresh
+and therefore boundless, and when the yearning for love has
+received its first rebuff.
+
+But when, on the fifth day, she met him coming up the stairs, she
+stood still in dismay at his appearance: pale, thin, timid; the
+effect perhaps heightened by the loss of his hair. He, too, stood
+still, looking forlorn and abject, with disconsolate eyes. Then
+hers filled; she stretched out her arms. He was once more in his
+Paradise, but they both cried as though they must wade through an
+ocean of tears before they could talk to each other again.
+
+"Tell me about it now," she whispered. This was in her own room.
+They had spoken the first fond words and kissed each other over
+and over again. "How could this have happened, Rafael?" she
+whispered again, with her head pressed to his; she did not wish to
+look at him while she spoke.
+
+"Mother," he answered, "it is worse to cut down the woods at home,
+at Hellebergene, than that I--"
+
+She raised her head and looked at him. She had taken off her hat
+and gloves, but now she put them quickly on again.
+
+"Rafael, dear," she said, "shall we go for a walk together in the
+park, under the grand old trees?"
+
+She had felt his retort to be ingenious.
+
+After this episode, however, England, and more especially her
+son's schoolfellows, became distasteful to her, and she constantly
+made plans to keep him away from the latter out of school hours.
+
+She found this very easy; sometimes she went over his studies with
+him, at others they visited all the Manufactories and "Works" for
+miles round.
+
+She liked to see for herself and awakened the same taste in him.
+
+Factories which, as a rule, were closed to visitors, were readily
+opened to the pretty elegant lady and her handsome boy, "who after
+all knew nothing at all about it;" and they were able to see
+almost all that they wished. It was a less congenial task to use
+her influence to turn his thoughts to higher things, but it was
+rarely, nevertheless, that she failed. She struggled hard over
+what she did not understand and sought for help. To explain these
+things to Rafael in the most attractive manner possible became a
+new occupation for her.
+
+His natural disposition inclined him to such studies; but to a boy
+of thirteen, who was thus kept from his comrades and their sports,
+it soon became a nuisance.
+
+No sooner had Fru Kaas noticed this than she took active steps.
+They left England and crossed to France.
+
+The strange speech threw him back on her; no one shared him with
+her. They settled in Calais. A few days after their arrival she
+cut her hair short; she hoped that it would touch him to see that
+as he would not look like her, she tried to look like him--to be
+a. boy like him. She bought a smart new hat, she composed a jaunty
+costume, new from top to toe, for EVERYTHING must be altered with
+the hair. But when she stood before him, looking like a girl of
+twenty-five, merry, almost boisterous, he was simply dismayed--
+nay, it was some time before he could altogether comprehend what
+had happened. As long as he could remember his mother, her eyes
+had always looked forth from beneath a crown; more solemn, more
+beautiful.
+
+"Mother," he said, "where are you?"
+
+She grew pale and grave, and stammered something about its being
+more comfortable--about red hair not looking well when it began to
+lose its colour--and went into her room. There she sat with his
+hair before her and her own beside it; she wept.
+
+"Mother, where are you?" She might have answered, "Rafael, where
+are you?"
+
+She went about with him everywhere. In France two handsome,
+stylishly dressed people are always certain to be noticed, a thing
+which she thoroughly appreciated.
+
+During their different expeditions she always spoke French; he
+begged her to talk Norse at least now and then, but all in vain.
+
+Here, too, they visited every possible and impossible factory.
+Unpractical and reserved as she was on ordinary occasions, she
+could be full of artifice and coquetry whenever she wished to gain
+access to a steam bakery and particular as she generally was about
+her toilette, she would come away again sooty and grimy if thereby
+she could procure for Rafael some insight into mechanics. She
+shrank from foul air as from the cholera, yet inhaled sulphuric
+acid gas as though it had been ozone for his sake.
+
+"Seeing for yourself, Rafael, is the substance, other methods are
+its shadow;" or "Seeing for yourself, Rafael, is meat and drink,
+the other is but literature."
+
+He was not quite of the same opinion: he thought that Notre Dame
+de Paris, from which he was daily dragged away, was the richest
+banquet that he had yet enjoyed, while from the factory of Mayel
+et fils there issued the most deadly odours.
+
+His reading--she had encouraged him in it for the sake of the
+language and had herself helped him; now she was jealous of it and
+could not be persuaded to get him new books; but he got them
+nevertheless.
+
+They had been in Calais for several months; he had masters and was
+beginning to feel himself at home, when there arrived at the
+pension a widow from one of the colonies, accompanied by her
+daughter, a girl of thirteen.
+
+The new comers had not appeared at meals for more than two days
+before the young gentleman began to pay his court to the young
+lady. From the first moment it was a plain case. Very soon every
+one in the pension was highly amused to notice how fluent his
+French was becoming; his choice of words at times was even
+elegant! The girl taught him it without a trace of grammar, by
+charm, sprightliness, a little nonsense; a pair of confiding eyes
+and a youthful voice were sufficient. It was from her that he got,
+by stealth, one novel after another. By stealth it had to be; by
+stealth Lucie had procured them; by stealth she gave them to him;
+by stealth they were read; by stealth she took them back again.
+This reading made him a little absent-minded, but otherwise
+nothing betrayed his flights into literature: to be sure, they
+were not very wonderful.
+
+Fru Kaas noticed her son's flirtation, and smiled with the rest
+over his progress in French. She had less objection to this
+friendship, in which, to a great extent, she shared, than to those
+in England, from which she had been quite excluded. In the
+evenings she would take the mother and daughter out for short
+excursions; and these she greatly enjoyed. But the novel reading
+which the young people carried on secretly had resulted in
+conversations of a "grown up" type. They talked of love with the
+deep experience which is proper to their age, they talked with
+still greater discretion as to when their wedding should take
+place; on this point they indirectly said much which caused them
+many a delightful tremor. As they were accustomed to talk about
+themselves before others, to describe their feelings in a veiled
+form, it often happened when there were many people near that they
+carried this amusement further, and before they were themselves
+aware of it, they were in the full tide of a symbolic language and
+played "catch" with each other.
+
+Fru Kaas noticed one evening that the word "rose" was drawn out to
+a greater length than it was possible for any rose to attain to;
+at the same time she saw the languishing look in their eyes, and
+broke in with the question, "What do you mean about the rose,
+child?"
+
+If any one had peeped behind a rose-bush and caught them kissing
+one another, a thing they had never done, they could not have
+blushed more.
+
+The next day Fru Kaas found new rooms, a long way from the quay
+near which they were living.
+
+Rafael had suffered greatly at being torn away from England just
+as he had come down from his high horse and had put himself on a
+par with his companions, but not the least notice was taken of his
+trouble; it had only annoyed his mother.
+
+To be absolutely debarred from the books he was so fond of had
+been hard; but up to this time, being in a foreign land, amid
+foreign speech, he had always fallen back upon her. Now he openly
+defied her. He went straight off to the hotel and sought out
+Madame Mery and her daughter as though nothing had occurred. This
+he did every day when he had finished his lessons. Lucie had now
+become his sole romance; he gave all his leisure time to her, and
+not only that (for it no longer sufficed to see her at her
+mother's), they met on the quay! At times a maid-servant walked
+with them for appearance sake, at others she kept in the
+background. Sometimes they would go on board a Norwegian ship,
+sometimes they wandered about or strolled beneath some great
+trees. When he saw her in her short frock come out of the door,
+saw her quick movements, and her lively signals to him with
+parasol or hat or flowers, the quay, the ships, the bales, the
+barrels, the air, the noise, the crowd, all seemed to play and
+sing,
+
+  "Enfant! si j'etais roi je donerais l'empire,
+   Et mon char, et mon septre, et mon peuple a genoux,"
+
+and he ran to meet her.
+
+He never dared to do more than to take both her chubby brown
+hands, nor to say more than "You are very sweet, you are very very
+good." And she never went further than to look at him, walk with
+him, laugh with him, and say to him, "You are not like the
+others." What experiences there had been in the life of this girl
+of thirteen goodness alone knows. He never asked her, he was too
+sure of her.
+
+He learned French from her as one bird feeds from another's bill,
+or as one who looks at his image in a fountain, as be drinks from
+it.
+
+One day, as mother and son were at breakfast, she glanced quietly
+across at him. "I heard of an excellent preparatory school of
+mechanics at Rouen," she said, "so I wrote to inquire about it,
+and here is the answer. I approve of it in all respects, as you
+will do when you read it. I think that we shall go to Rouen; what
+do you say to it?"
+
+He grew first red, then white; then put down his bread, his table
+napkin; got up and left the room. Later in the day she asked him
+whether he would not read the letter; he left her without
+answering. At last, just as he was going to meet Lucie on the
+quay, she said, and this time with determination, that they were
+to leave in the course of an hour. She had already packed up; as
+they stood there the man came to fetch the luggage. At that moment
+he felt that he could thoroughly understand why his father had
+beaten her.
+
+As they sat in the carriage which took them to the station he
+suffered keenly. It could not nave been worse, he thought, if his
+mother had stabbed him with a knife. He did not sit beside her in
+the railway carriage.
+
+During the first days at Rouen he would not answer when she spoke
+to him, nor ask a single question. He had adopted her own tactics;
+he carried them through with a cruelty of which he was not aware.
+
+For a long time he had been disposed to criticise her; now that
+this criticism was extended to all that she said or did, the
+spirit of accusation tinctured her whole life; their joint past
+seemed altered and debased.
+
+His father's bent form, in the log chair on the hairless skin,
+malodorous and dirty, rose up before him, in vivid contrast with
+his mother in her well appointed, airy, perfumed rooms!
+
+When Rafael stood by his father's body he had felt the same thing-
+-that the old man had been badly treated. He himself had been
+encouraged to neglect his father, to shun him, to evade his
+orders. At that time he had laid the blame on the people on the
+estate; now he put it all down to his mother's account. His father
+had certainly adored her once, and this feeling had changed into
+wild self-consuming hatred. What had happened? He did not know;
+but he could not but admit that his mother would have tried the
+patience of Job.
+
+He pictured to himself how Lucie would come running with her
+flowers, search for him over the whole quay, farther and farther
+every time, standing still at last. He could not think of it
+without tears, and without a feeling of bitterness.
+
+But a child is a child. It was not a life-long grief. As the place
+was new and historically interesting, and as lessons had now begun
+and his mother was always with him, this feeling wore off, but the
+mutual restraint was still there. The critical spirit which had
+first been roused in England never afterwards left Rafael.
+
+The hours of study which they passed together produced good
+results. Beginning as her pupil, he had ended by becoming her
+teacher. She was anxious to keep up with him, and this was an
+advantage to him, on account of her almost too minute accuracy,
+but still more from her intelligent questions. Apart from study
+they passed many pleasant hours together, but they both knew that
+something was missing in their conversation which could never be
+there again.
+
+At longer or shorter intervals a shy silence interrupted this
+intercourse. Sometimes it was he, sometimes she, who, for some
+cause or other, often a most trivial one, elected not to reply,
+not to ask a question, not to see. When they were good friends he
+appreciated the best side of her character, the self-sacrificing
+life which she led for him. When they were not friends it was
+exactly the opposite. When they were friends, he, as a rule, did
+whatever she wished. He tried to atone for the past. He was in the
+land of courtesy and influenced by its teaching. When he was not
+friends with her he behaved as badly as possible. He early got
+among bad companions and into dissipated habits; he was the very
+child of Rebellion. At times he had qualms of conscience on
+account of it.
+
+She guessed this, and wished him to guess that she guessed it.
+
+"I perceive a strange atmosphere here, fie! Some one has mixed
+their atmosphere with yours, fie!" And she sprinkled him with
+scent.
+
+He turned as red as fire and, in his shame and misery, did not
+know which way to look. But if he attempted to speak she became as
+stiff as a poker, and, raising her small hand, "Taisez-vous des
+egards, sil vous plait."
+
+It must be said in her excuse that, notwithstanding the daring
+books which she had written, she had had no experience of real
+life; she knew no form of words for such an occasion. It came at
+last to this pass, that she, who had at one time wished to control
+his whole life and every thought in it, and who would not share
+him with any one, not even with a book, gradually became unwilling
+to have any relations with him outside his studies.
+
+The French language especially lends itself to formal intercourse
+and diplomacy. They grasped this fact from the first. It may,
+indeed, have contributed to form their mutual life. It was more
+equitable and caused fewer collisions. At the slightest
+disagreement it was at once "Monsieur mon fils" or simply
+"Monsieur," or "Madame ma mere," or "Madame."
+
+At one time his health seemed likely to suffer: his rapid growth
+and the studies, to which she kept him very closely, were too much
+for his strength.
+
+But just then something remarkable occurred. At the time when
+Rafael was nineteen he was one day in a French chemical factory,
+and, as it were in a flash, saw how half the power used in the
+machinery might be saved. The son of the owner who had brought him
+there was a fellow-student. To him he confided his discovery. They
+worked it out together with feverish excitement to the most minute
+details. It was very complex, for it was the working of the
+factory itself which was involved. The scheme was carefully gone
+into by the owner, his son, and their assistants together, and it
+was decided to try it. It was entirely successful; LESS than half
+the motive power now sufficed.
+
+Rafael was away at the time that it was inaugurated; he had gone
+down a mine. His mother was not with him; he never took her down
+mines with him. As soon as ever he returned home he hurried off
+with her to see the result of his work. They saw everything, and
+they both blushed at the respect shown to them by the workmen.
+They were quite touched when, the owner being called, they heard
+his expressions of boundless delight. Champagne flowed for them,
+accompanied by the warmest thanks. The mother received a beautiful
+bouquet. Excited by the wine and the congratulations, proud of his
+recognition as a genius, Rafael left the place with his mother on
+his arm. It seemed to him as though he were on one side, and all
+the rest of the world on the other. His mother walked happily
+beside him, with her bouquet in her hand. Rafael wore a new
+overcoat--one after his own heart, very long and faced with silk,
+and of which he was excessively proud. It was a clear winter's
+day; the sun shone on the silk, and on something more as well.
+
+"There is not a speck on the sky, mother," he said.
+
+"Nor one on your coat either," she retorted; for there had been a
+great many on his old one, and each had had its history.
+
+He was too big now to be turned to ridicule, and too happy as
+well. She heard him humming to himself: it was the Norwegian
+national air. They came back to the town again as from Elysium.
+All the passers-by looked at them: people quickly detect
+happiness. Besides Rafael was a head taller than most of them and
+fairer in complexion. He walked quickly along beside his elegant
+mother, and looked across the Boulevard as though from a sunny
+height.
+
+"There are days on which one feels oneself a different person," he
+said.
+
+"There are days on which one receives so much," she answered,
+pressing his arm.
+
+They went home, threw aside their wraps, and looked at one
+another. Sketches of the machinery which they had just seen lay
+about, as well as some rough drawings. These she collected and
+made into a roll.
+
+"Rafael," she said, and drew herself up, half laughing, half
+trembling, "kneel; I wish to knight you."
+
+It did not seem unnatural to him; he did so.
+
+"Noblesse oblige," she said, and let the roll of paper approach
+his head; but therewith she dropped it and burst into tears.
+
+He spent a merry evening with his friends, and was
+enthusiastically applauded. But as he lay in bed that night he
+felt utterly despondent. The whole thing might, after all, have
+been a mere chance. He had seen so much, had acquired so much
+information; it was no discovery that he had made. What was it,
+then? He was certainly not a genius; that must be an exaggeration.
+Could one imagine a genius without a victor's confidence, or had
+his peculiar life destroyed that confidence? This anxiety which
+constantly intruded itself; this bad conscience; this dreadful,
+vile conscience; this ineradicable dread; was it a foreboding? Did
+it point to the future?
+
+It was about half a year after this that his desultory studies
+became concentrated on electricity, and after a time this took
+them to Munich. During the course of these studies he began to
+write, quite spontaneously. The students had formed a society, and
+Rafael was expected to contribute a paper. But his contribution
+was so original that they begged him to show it to the professor,
+and this encouraged him greatly. It was the professor, too, who
+had his first article printed. A Norwegian technical periodical
+accepted a subsequent one, and this was the external influence
+which turned his thoughts once more towards Norway. Norway rose
+before him as the promised land of electricity. The motive power
+of its countless waterfalls was sufficient for the whole world! He
+saw his country during the winter darkness gleaming with electric
+lustre. He saw her, too, the manufactory of the world, the
+possessor of navies. Now he had something to go home for!
+
+His mother did not share his love for their country, and had no
+desire to live in Norway. But the money which she had saved up for
+his education bad been spent long ago. Hellebergene had had its
+share. The estate did not yield an equivalent, for it was
+essentially a timbered estate, and the trees on it were still
+immature.
+
+So it was to be home! A few years alone at Hellebergene was just
+what he wished for. But--something always occurred to prevent
+their departure at the time fixed for it. First he was detained by
+an invention which he wished to patent. Up to the present time he
+had only sketched out ideas which others had adopted; now it was
+to be different. The invention was duly patented and handed over
+to an agent to sell; but still they did not start. What was the
+hindrance? Another invention with a fresh patent more likely to
+sell than the first, which unfortunately did not go off. This
+patent was also taken out, which again cost money, and was handed
+over to the agent to be sold. Could he not start now? Well, yes,
+he thought he could. But Fru Kaas soon realised that he was not
+serious, so she sought the help of a young relative, Hans Ravn, an
+engineer, like most of the Ravns. Rafael liked Hans, for he was
+himself a Ravn in temperament, a thing that he had not realised
+before; it was quite a revelation to him. He had believed that the
+Ravns were like his mother, but now found that she greatly
+differed from them. To Hans Ravn Fru Kaas said plainly that now
+they must start. The last day of May was the date fixed on, and
+this Hans was to tell every one, for it would make Rafael bestir
+himself, his mother thought, if this were known everywhere. Hans
+Ravn spread this news far and near, partly because it was his
+province to do so, partly because he hoped it would be the
+occasion of a farewell entertainment such as had never been seen.
+A banquet actually did take place amid general enthusiasm, which
+ended in the whole company forming a procession to escort their
+guest to his house. Here they encountered a crowd of officers who
+were proceeding home in the same manner. They nearly came to
+blows, but fraternised instead, and the engineers cheered the
+officers and the officers the engineers.
+
+The next day the history of the two entertainments and the
+collision between the guests went the round of the papers.
+
+This produced results which Fru Kaas had not foreseen. The first
+was a very pleasant one. The professor who had had Rafael's first
+article published drove up to the door, accompanied by his family.
+He mounted the stairs, and asked her if she would not, in their
+company, once more visit the prettiest parts of Munich and its
+vicinity. She felt flattered, and accepted the invitation. As they
+drove along they talked of nothing but Rafael: partly about his
+person, for he was the darling of every lady, partly about the
+future which lay before him. The professor said that he had never
+had a more gifted pupil. Fru Kaas had brought an excellent
+binocular glass with her, which she raised to her eyes from time
+to time to conceal her emotion, and their hearty praise seemed to
+flood the landscape and buildings with sunshine.
+
+The little party lunched together, and drove home in the
+afternoon.
+
+When Fru Kaas re-entered her room, she was greeted by the scent of
+flowers. Many of their friends who had not till now known when
+they were to leave had wished to pay them some compliment. Indeed,
+the maid said that the bell had been ringing the whole morning. A
+little later Rafael and Hans Ravn came in with one or two friends.
+They proposed to dine together. The sale of the last patent seemed
+to be assured, and they wished to celebrate the event. Fru Kaas
+was in excellent spirits, so off they went.
+
+They dined in the open air with a number of other people round
+them. There was music and merriment, and the subdued hum of
+distant voices rose and fell in the twilight. When the lamps were
+lighted, they had on one side the glare of a large town, on the
+other the semi-darkness was only relieved by points of light; and
+this was made the subject of poetical allusions in speeches to the
+friends who were so soon to leave them.
+
+Just then two ladies slowly passed near Rafael's chair. Fru Kaas,
+who was sitting opposite, noticed them, but he did not. When they
+had gone a short distance they stood still and waited, but did not
+attract his attention. Then they came slowly back again, passing
+close behind his chair, but still in vain. This annoyed Fru Kaas.
+Her individuality was so strong that her silence cast a shadow
+over the whole party; they broke up.
+
+The next morning Rafael was out again on business connected with
+the patent. The bell rang, and the maid came in with a bill; it
+had been brought the previous day as well, she said. It was from
+one of the chief restaurateurs of the town, and was by no means a
+small one. Fru Kaas had no idea that Rafael owed money--least of
+all to a restaurateur. She told the maid to say that her son was
+of age, and that she was not his cashier. There was another ring--
+the maid reappeared with a second bill, which had also been
+brought the day before. It was from a well-known wine merchant;
+this, too, was not a small one. Another ring; this time it was a
+bill for flowers and by no means a trifle. This, too, had been
+brought the day before. Fru Kaas read it twice, three times, four
+times: she could not realise that Rafael owed money for flowers--
+what did he want them for? Another ring; now it was a bill from a
+jeweller. Fru Kaas became so nervous at the ringing and the bills
+that she took to flight. Here, then, was the explanation of their
+postponed departure: he was held captive; this was the reason for
+all his anxiety about selling the patent. He had to buy his
+freedom. She was hardly in the street when an unpretending little
+old woman stepped up to her, and asked timidly if this might be
+Frau von Kas? Another bill, thought Fru Kaas, eyeing her closely.
+She reminded one of a worn-out rose-bush with a few faded blossoms
+on it: she seemed poor and inexperienced in all save humility.
+
+"What do you want with me?" inquired Fru Kaas sympathetically,
+resolved to pay the poor thing at once, whatever it might be.
+
+The little woman begged "Tausend Mal um Verzeihung," but she was
+"Einer Beamten-Wittwe" and had read in the paper that the young
+Von Kas was leaving, and both she and her daughter were in such
+despair that she had resolved to come to Frau von Kas, who was the
+only one--and here she began to cry.
+
+"What does your daughter want from me?" asked Fru Kaas rather less
+gently.
+
+"Ach! tausend Mal um Verzeihung gnadige Frau," her daughter was
+married to Hofrath von Rathen--"ihrer grossen Schonheit wegen"--
+ah, she was so unhappy, for Hofrath von Rathen drank and was cruel
+to her. Herr von Kas had met her at the artists' fete--"Und so
+wissen Sie zwei so junge, reizende Leute." She looked up at Fru
+Kaas through her tears--looked up as though from a rain-splashed
+cellar window; but Fru Kaas had reverted to her abrupt manner, and
+as if from an upper storey the poor little woman heard, "What does
+your daughter want with my son?"
+
+"Tausend Mal um Verzeihung," but it had seemed to them that her
+daughter might go with them to Norway, Norway was such a free
+country. "Und die zwei Jungen haben sich so gern."
+
+"Has he promised her this?" said Fru Kaas, with haughty coldness.
+
+"Nein, nein, nein," was the frightened reply. They two, mother and
+daughter, had thought of it that day. They had read in the paper
+that the young Von Kas was going away. "Herr Gott in Himmel!" if
+her daughter could thus be rid at once of all her troubles! Frau
+von Kas had not an idea of what a faithful soul, what a tender
+wife her daughter was.
+
+Fru Kaas crossed hastily over to the opposite pavement. She did
+not go quite so fast as a person in chase of his hat, but it
+seemed to the poor little creature, left in the lurch, with folded
+hands and frightened eyes, that she had vanished faster than her
+hopes. On the other side of the waystood a pretty young flower-
+girl who was waiting for the elegant lady hurrying in her
+direction. "Bitte, gnadige Frau." Here is another, thought the
+hunted creature. She looked round for help, she flew up the
+street, away, away--when another lady popped up right in front of
+her, evidently trying to catch her eye. Fru Kaas dashed into the
+middle of the street and took refuge in a carriage.
+
+"Where to?" asked the driver.
+
+This she had not stopped to consider, but nevertheless answered
+boldly, "The Bavaria!"
+
+In point of fact she had had an idea of seeing the view of the
+city and its environs from "Bavaria's" lofty head before leaving.
+There were a great many people there, but Fru Kaas's turn to go up
+soon came; but just as she had reached the head of the giantess
+and was going to look out, she heard a lady whisper close behind
+her, "That is his mother." It was probable that there were several
+mothers up there in "Bavaria's" head beside Fru Kaas, nevertheless
+she gathered her skirts together and hurried down again.
+
+Rafael came home to dine with his mother; he was in the highest
+spirits--he had sold his patent. But he found her sitting in the
+farthest corner of the sofa, with her big binocular glass in her
+hand. When he spoke to her she did not answer, but turned the
+glass with the small end towards him; she wished him to look as
+far off as possible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 3
+
+
+It was a bright evening in the beginning of June that they
+disembarked from the steamer, and at once left the town in the
+boat which was to take them to Hellebergene. They did not know any
+of the boatmen, although they were from the estate; the boat also
+was new.
+
+But the islands among which they were soon rowing were the old
+ones, which had long awaited them and seemed to have swum out to
+meet them, and now to move one behind the other so that the boat
+might pass between them. Neither mother nor son spoke to the men,
+nor did they talk to each ether. In thus keeping silence they
+entered into each other's feelings, for they were both awestruck.
+It came upon them all at once. The bright evening light over sea
+and islands, the aromatic fragrance from the land,--the quick
+splash of a little coasting steamer as she passed them--nothing
+could cheer them.
+
+Their life lay there before them, bringing responsibilities both
+old and new. How would all that they were coming to look to them,
+and how far were they themselves now fitted for it?
+
+Now they had passed the narrow entrance of the bay, and rounded
+the last point beneath the crags of Hellebergene. The green
+expanse opened out before them, the buildings in its midst. The
+hillsides had once been crowned and darkly clad with luxuriant
+woods. Now they stood there denuded, shrunk, formless, spread over
+with a light green growth leaving some parts bare. The lowlands,
+as well as the hills which framed them, were shrunk and
+diminished, not in extent but in appearance. They could nut
+persuade themselves to look at it. They recalled it all as it had
+been and felt themselves despoiled.
+
+The buildings had been newly painted, but they looked small by
+contrast with those which they had in their minds. No one awaited
+them at the landing, but a few people stood about near the
+gallery, looking embarrassed--or were they suspicious? The
+travellers went into Fru Kaas's old rooms, both up stairs and
+down. These were just as they had left them, but how faded and
+wretched they looked! The table, which was laid for supper, was
+loaded with coarse food like that at a farmer's wedding.
+
+The old lime-trees were gone. Fru Kaas wept.
+
+Suddenly she was reminded of something. "Let us go across to the
+other wing," she said this as if there they would find what was
+wanting. In the gallery she took Rafael's arm; he grew curious.
+His father's old rooms had been entirely renovated for him. In
+everything, both great and small, he recognised his mother's
+designs and taste. A vast amount of work, unknown to him, an
+endless interchange of letters and a great expenditure of money.
+How new and bright everything looked! The rooms differed as much
+from what they had been, as she had endeavoured to make Rafael's
+life from the one that had been led in them.
+
+They two had a comfortable meal together after all, followed by a
+quiet walk along the shore. The wide waters of the bay gleamed
+softly, and the gentle ripple took up its old story again while
+the summer night sank gently down upon them.
+
+Early the next morning Rafael was out rowing in the bay, the play-
+ground of his childhood. Notwithstanding the shorn and sunken
+aspect of the hills, his delight at being there again was
+indescribable. Indescribable because of the loneliness and
+stillness: no one came to disturb him. After having lived for many
+years in large towns, to find oneself alone in a Norwegian bay is
+like leaving a noisy market-place at midday and passing into a
+high vaulted church where no sound penetrates from without, and
+where only one's own footstep breaks the silence. Holiness,
+purification, abstraction, devotion, but in such light and freedom
+as no church possesses. The lapse of time, the past were
+forgotten; it was as though he had never been away, as though no
+other place had ever known him.
+
+Indescribable, for the intensity of his feelings surpassed
+anything that he had hitherto known. New sensations, impressions
+of beauty absolutely forgotten since childhood, or remembered but
+imperfectly, crowded upon him, speaking to him like welcoming
+spirits.
+
+The altered contour of the hills, the dear familiar smell, the sky
+which seemed lower and yet farther off, the effects of light in
+colder tones, but paler and more delicate. Nowhere a broad plain,
+an endless expanse. No! all was diversified, full of contrast,
+broken; not lofty, still unique, fresh, he had almost said
+tumultuous.
+
+Each moment he felt more in accord with his memories, his nature
+was in harmony with it all.
+
+He paused between each stroke of the oars, soothed by the gentle
+motion; the boat glided on, he had not concerned himself whither,
+when he heard from behind the sound of oars which was not the echo
+of his own. The strokes succeeded each other at regular intervals.
+He turned.
+
+At that moment Fru Kaas came out on to the terrace with her big
+binocular. She had had her coffee, and was ready to enjoy the view
+over the bay, the islands, and the open sea. Rafael, she was told,
+had already gone out in the boat. Yes! there he was, far out. She
+put up her glass at the moment that a white painted boat shot out
+towards his brown one. The white one was rowed by a girl in a
+light-coloured dress. "Grand Dieu! are there girls here too?"
+
+Now Rafael ceases rowing, the girl does the same, they rest on
+their oars and the boats glide past each other. Fru Kaas could
+distinguish the girl's shapely neck under her dark hair, but her
+wide-brimmed straw hat hid her face.
+
+Rafael lets his oars trail along the water and resting on them
+looks at her, and now her oars also touch the water as she turns
+towards him. Do they know each other? Quickly the boats draw
+together; Rafael puts out his hand and draws them closer, and now
+he gives HER his hand. Fru Kaas can see Rafael's profile so
+plainly that she can detect the movement of his lips. He is
+laughing! The stranger's face is hidden by her hat, but she can
+see a full figure and a vigorous arm below the half-sleeve. They
+do not loose their hands; now he is laughing till his broad
+shoulders shake. What is it? What is it? Can any one have followed
+him from Munich? Fru Kaas could remain where she was no longer.
+She went indoors and put down the glass; she was overcome by
+anxiety, filled with helpless anger. It was some time before she
+could prevail on herself to go out and resume her walk. The girl
+had turned her boat. Now they are rowing in side by side, she as
+strongly as he. Whenever Fru Kaas looked at her son he was
+laughing and the girl's face was turned towards his. Now they head
+for the landing-place at the parsonage. Was it Helene? The only
+girl for miles round, and Rafael had hooked himself on to her the
+very first day that he was at home. These girls who can never see
+him without taking a fancy to him! Now the boats are beached, not
+on the shingle, where the stones would be slippery. No! on the
+sand, where they have run them up as high as possible. Now she
+jumps lightly and quickly out of her boat, and he a little more
+heavily out of his; they grasp each other's hands again. Yes!
+there they were.
+
+Fru Kaas turned away; she knew that for the moment she was nothing
+more than an old chattel pushed away into a corner.
+
+It was Helene. She knew that they had arrived and thought that she
+would row past the house; and thus it was that she had encountered
+Rafael, who had simply gone out to amuse himself.
+
+As they had lain on their oars and the boats glided silently past
+each other, he thought to himself, "That girl never grew up here,
+she is cast in too fine a mould for that; she is not in harmony
+with the place." He saw a face whose regular lines, and large grey
+eyes, harmonised well with each other, a quiet wise face, across
+which all at once there flew a roguish look. He knew it again. It
+had done him good before to-day. Our first thought in all
+recognitions, in all remembrances--that is to say, if there is
+occasion for it--is, has that which we recognise or recall done us
+good or evil?
+
+This large mouth, those honest eyes, which have a roguish look
+just now, had always, done him good.
+
+"Helene!" he cried, arresting the progress of his boat.
+
+"Rafael!" she answered, blushing crimson and checking her boat
+too.
+
+What a soft contralto voice!
+
+When he came in to breakfast, beaming, ready to tell everything,
+he was confronted by two large eyes, which said as plainly as
+possible, "Am I put on one side already?" He became absolutely
+angry. During breakfast she said, in a tone of indifference, that
+she was going to drive to the Dean's, to thank him for the
+supervision which he had given to the estate during all these
+years. He did not answer, from which she inferred that he did not
+wish to go with her. It was some time before she started. The
+harness was new, the stable-boy raw and untrained. She saw nothing
+more of Rafael.
+
+She was received at the parsonage with the greatest respect, and
+yet very heartily. The Dean was a fine old man and thoroughly
+practical. His wife was of profounder nature. Both protested that
+the care of the estate had been no trouble to them, it had only
+been a pleasant employment; Helene had now undertaken it.
+
+"Helene?"
+
+Yes; it had so chanced that the first bailiff at Hellebergene had
+once been agronomist and forester on a large concern which was in
+liquidation, Helene had taken such a fancy to him, that when she
+was not at school, she went with him everywhere; and, indeed, he
+was a wonderful old man. During these rambles she had learned all
+that he could teach her. He had an especial gift for forestry. It
+was a development for her, for it gave a fresh interest to her
+life. Little by little she had taken over the whole care of the
+estate. It absorbed her.
+
+Fru Kaas asked if she might see Helene, to thank her.
+
+"But Helene has just gone out with Rafael, has she not?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure," answered Fru Kaas. She would not show surprise;
+but she asked at once for her carriage.
+
+Meanwhile the two young people had determined to climb the ridge.
+At first they followed the course of the river, Helene leading the
+way. It was evident that she had grown up in the woods. How strong
+and supple she was, and how well she acquitted herself when she
+had to cross a brook, climb a wooded slope, force a way through a
+barrier of bristly young fir-trees which opposed her passage, or
+surmount a heap of clay at a quarry, of which there were a great
+many about there. Each difficulty was in turn overcome. The ascent
+from the river was the most direct and the pleasantest, which was
+the reason that they had come this way. Rafael would not be
+outdone by her, and kept close at her heels. But, great heavens!
+what it cost him. Partly because he was out of practice, partly--
+
+"It is a little difficult to get over here," she said. A tree had
+fallen during the last rainy weather, and hung half suspended by
+its roots, obstructing the path. "You must not hold by it, it
+might give way and drag us with it."
+
+At last there is something which she considers difficult, he
+thought.
+
+She deliberated for a moment before the farthest-spreading
+branches which had to be crossed; then, lifting her skirts to her
+knees, over them she went, and over the next ones as well, and
+then across the trunk to the farthest side, where there were no
+branches in the way; then obliquely up the hillside. She stood
+still at the top of the height and watched him crawl up after her.
+
+It cost him a struggle; he was out of breath and the perspiration
+poured off him. When he got up to her, everything swam before him;
+and although it was only for a fraction of a second, it left him
+fairly captivated by her strength,
+
+She stood and looked at him with bright, roguish eyes. She was
+flushed and hot, and her bosom rose and fell quickly; but there
+was no doubt that she could at once have taken an equally long and
+steep climb. He was not able to speak a word.
+
+"Now turn round and look at the sea," she said.
+
+The words affected him as though great Pan had uttered them from
+the mountains far behind. He turned his eyes towards them. It
+seemed as though Nature herself had spoken to him. The words
+caressed him as with a hand now cold, now warm, and he became a
+different being. For he had lost himself--lost himself in her as
+she walked along the river-bank and climbed the hillside. She
+seemed to draw fresh power from the woods, to grow taller, more
+agile, more vigorous. The fervour of her eyes, the richness of her
+voice, the grace of her movements, the glimpses of her soul, had
+allured him down there in the valley, beside the rushing river,
+and the feeling of loss of individuality had increased with the
+exertion and the excitement. No ball-room or play-ground, no
+gymnasium or riding-school can display the physical powers, and
+the spirit which underlies them, the unity of mind and body, as
+does the scaling of steep hills and rocky slopes. At last,
+intoxicated by these feelings, he thought to himself--I am
+climbing after her, climbing to the highest pinnacle of happiness.
+Up there! Up there! The composure of her manner towards him, her
+freedom from embarrassment, maddened him. Up there! Up there! And
+ever as they mounted she became more spirited, he more distressed.
+Up there! Up there! His eyes grew dim, for a few seconds he could
+not move, could not speak. Then she had said, "Now you must look
+at the sea."
+
+He seemed to see with different eyes, to be endowed with new
+sensations, and these new sensations gave answer to what the
+distant mountains had said. They answered the sea out there before
+him, the island-studded sea, the open sea beyond, the wide
+swelling ocean, the desires and destinies of life all the world
+over. The sea lay steel-bright beneath the suffused sunlight, and
+seemed to gaze on the rugged land as on a beloved child instinct
+with vital power. Cling thou to the mighty one, or thy strength
+will be thine undoing!
+
+And many of the inventions which he had dreamed of loomed vaguely
+before him. They lay outside there. It depended on him whether he
+should one day bring them safely into port.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" said she, the sound of her voice
+put these thoughts to flight and recalled him to the present. He
+felt how full and rich her contralto voice was, A moment ago he
+could have told her this, and more besides, as an introduction to
+still more. Now he sat down without answering, and she did the
+same.
+
+"I come up here very often," she said, "to look at the sea. From
+here it seems the source of life and death; down there it is a
+mere highway." He smiled. She continued: "The sea has this power,
+that whatever pre-occupation one may bring up here, it vanishes in
+a moment; but down below it remains with one."
+
+He looked at her.
+
+"Yes, it is true," said she, and coloured.
+
+"I do not in the least doubt it," he replied.
+
+But she did not continue the subject. "You are looking at the
+saplings, I see."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You must know that last year there was a long drought; almost all
+the young trees up here withered away, and in other places on the
+hillsides also, as you see." She pointed as she spoke. "It looks
+so ugly as one comes into the bay. I thought about that yesterday.
+I thought also that you should not be here long before you saw
+that you had done us an injustice, for could anything be prettier
+than that little fir-tree down there in the hollow? just look at
+its colour; that is a healthy fellow! and these sturdy saplings,
+and that little gem there!" The tones of Helene's voice betrayed
+the interest which she felt. "But how that one over there has
+grown." She scrambled across to it, and he after her. "Do you see?
+two branches already; and what branches!" They knelt down beside
+it. "This boy has had parents of whom he can boast, for they have
+all had just as much and just as little shelter. Oh! the
+disgusting caterpillars." She was down before the little tree at
+the side which was being spun over. She cleared it, and got up to
+fetch some wet mould, which she laid carefully round the sprouts.
+"Poor thing I it wants water, although it rained tremendously a
+little time ago."
+
+"Are you often up here?" he asked.
+
+"It would all come to nothing if I were not!" She looked at him
+searchingly. "You do not, perhaps, believe that this little tree
+knows me; every one of them, indeed. If I am long away from them
+they do not thrive, but when I am often with them they flourish."
+She was on her knees, supporting herself with one hand, while with
+the other she pulled up some grass. "The thieves," said she,
+"which want to rob my saplings."
+
+If it had been a little person who had said this; a little person
+with lively eyes and a merry mouth--but Helene was tall and
+stately; her eyes were not lively, but met one with a steady gaze.
+Her mouth was large, and gave deliberate utterance to her
+thoughts.
+
+Whoever has read Helene's words quickly, hurriedly, must read them
+over again. She spoke quietly and thoughtfully, each syllable
+distinct and musical. She was not the same girl who had led the
+way by river and hill. Then she seemed to glory in her strength;
+now her energy had changed to delicate feeling.
+
+One of the most remarkable women in Scandinavia, who also had
+these two sides to her character, and made the fullest use of
+both, Johanne Luise Hejberg, once saw Helene when she had but just
+attained to womanhood. She could not take her eyes off her; she
+never tired of watching her and listening to her. Did the aged
+woman, then at the close of her life, recognise anything of her
+own youth in the girl? Outwardly too they resembled each other.
+Helene was dark, as Fru Hejberg had been; was about the same
+height, with the same figure, but stronger; had a large mouth,
+large grey eyes like hers, into which the same roguish look would
+start. But the greatest likeness was to be found in their natures:
+in Fru Hejberg's expression when she was quiet and serious; in a
+certain motherliness which was the salient feature in her nature.
+
+"What a healthy girl!" said she; bade some one bring Helene to
+her, and drawing her towards her, kissed her on the forehead.
+
+Helene and her companion had crossed to the other side of the
+hill, for he positively must see the "Buckthorn Swamp"; but when
+they got down there he did not know it again: it was covered by
+luxuriant woods.
+
+"Yes! It is old Helgesen who deserves the credit of that," she
+said. "He noticed that an artificial embankment had converted this
+great flat into a swamp, so he cut through it. I was only a child
+then, but I had my share in it. They gave me a bit of ground down
+by the river to plant Kohl Kabi in. I looked after it the whole
+summer. Later on I had a larger piece. With the profits we cut
+ditches up to here. In the fourth year we bought plants. In fact,
+he so arranged it, that I paid for it all with my work, the old
+rogue!"
+
+When Rafael got home his mother was at table: she had not waited
+for him, a sure sign that she felt aggrieved. No attempts on his
+part to set things right succeeded. She would not answer, and soon
+left the room. It now struck him how pleasant it would have been
+for his mother if he had taken her with him to explore and make
+acquaintance with this new Hellebergene. The evening before, in
+his father's rooms, it had seemed as though nothing could ever
+separate them--and the first thing in the morning he was off with
+some one else. This evening he knew that nothing could be done,
+but next morning he begged her earnestly to come with them, and
+they would show her what he had seen the day before; but she only
+shook her head and took up a book. Day after day he made a similar
+request, but always with the same result. She thought that these
+invitations were merely formal, and so, from one point of view,
+they were. He was most ready to appease her, most ready to show
+her everything, for he felt himself to blame, though he certainly
+thought that she might have understood; but her presence would
+have marred their tete-a-tete; he would have been embarrassed
+enough if she had acquiesced!
+
+The Dean, with his wife and daughter, came the following Sunday to
+return Fru Kaas's visit. She was politeness itself, and specially
+thanked Helene for her care of Hellebergene. Helene coloured
+without knowing why, but when Rafael also coloured, she blushed
+still deeper. This was the event of the visit; nothing else of
+importance occurred.
+
+In their daily walks through the fields and woods, the two young
+people soon exhausted the topic of Hellebergene. He took up
+another theme. His inventions became the topic of conversation. He
+had acquired, from his studies with his mother, an unusual
+facility in explaining his meaning, and in Helene he found a
+listener such as he had rarely before met with. She was
+sufficiently acquainted with the laws of nature to understand a
+simple description. But all the same it was not his inventions but
+himself that he discoursed on. He quite realised this, and became
+all the more eager. Her eyes made his reasoning clearer. He had
+never before had such complete faith in himself as when near her,
+and now no misgivings succeeded.
+
+Helene, however, had not hitherto known the direction and results
+of his studies. He was an engineer, that was all that she had
+heard on the subject. When he had told her more about it he rose
+considerably in her estimation. It was SHE now who began to feel
+constrained. At first she did not understand why she felt obliged
+to put more restraint upon herself. After a time she began to
+excuse herself from joining him, and their walks became more rare.
+"She had so much to do now."
+
+He did not comprehend the reason of this; he fancied that his
+mother might be to blame (which, by the way, was quite a mistake),
+and he grew angry. He was already greatly affronted that his
+mother had chosen to confound his former gallantries with his
+present attachment. He quite forgot that at first he had merely
+sought to amuse himself here as elsewhere. He gave himself up
+entirely to his passion, which would brook no hindrance, no
+opposition; it became majestic. In Helene he had found his future
+life.
+
+But her parents had grown less cordial of late owing to Fru Kaas's
+coldness, and the time came when all attempts to obtain meetings
+with Helene failed. He had never been so infatuated. He seemed to
+see her continually before him--her luxuriant beauty, her light
+step, her grey eyes gazing steadfastly into his.
+
+Why could they not be married to-morrow or the next day? What
+could be more natural? What could more certainly help him forward?
+
+The constraint between his mother and himself had reached a
+greater pitch than ever before. He thought seriously of leaving
+her and the country. He still had some money left, the proceeds of
+the patent, and he could easily make more. How irksome it became
+to him to go into the fields and woods without Helene! He could
+not study; he had no one to talk to; what should he do?
+
+Devote himself to boating!--row out far beyond the bay, right up
+to the town! One day, as he rowed along the coast, beyond the bay,
+he noticed that the clay and flag-stone formation in the hills and
+ridges was speckled with grey. Helene had told him how
+extraordinary it looked out there now that the trees were gone,
+but as they would have had to come out in the boat to see it he
+had let the remark pass. Now he decided to land there. The shore
+rose steeply from the water, but he scrambled up. He had expected
+to find limestone, but he could hardly believe his own eyes: it
+was cement stone! Absolutely, undoubtedly, cement stone! How far
+did it extend? As far as he could see; it might even extend to the
+boundary of the estate. In any case, here was sufficient for
+extensive works for many, many years, if only there were enough
+silica with the clay and lime. He had soon knocked off a few
+pieces, which he put into the boat, and set out for home to
+analyse them.
+
+Seldom had any one rowed faster than he did; now he shot past the
+islands into the bay, up to the landing-place before the house. If
+the cement stone contained the right proportions, here was what
+would make Helene and himself independent of every one; AND THAT
+AT ONCE!
+
+A little later, with dirty hands and clothes, his face bathed in
+perspiration, he rushed up to his mother with the result of his
+investigations.
+
+"Here is something for you to see."
+
+She was reading; she looked up and turned as white as a sheet.
+
+"Is that the cement stone?" she asked, as she put down her book.
+
+"Did you know about it?" he exclaimed, in the greatest
+astonishment.
+
+"Good gracious, yes," she answered. She walked across to the
+window, came back again, pressing her hands together. "So you have
+found it too?"
+
+"Who did before me?"
+
+"Your father, Rafael, your father, the first time that I was here,
+a little time before we were to leave." She paused. "He came
+rushing in as you did just now--not so quickly, not so quickly, he
+was weak in the legs, but otherwise just like you." She let her
+eyes rest, with a peculiar look, on Rafael's dirty hands. The
+hands themselves were not well shaped, they were almost exactly
+his father's.
+
+Rafael noticed nothing.
+
+"Had HE found the bed of cement stone, then?"
+
+"Yes. He locked the door behind him. I got up from my chair and
+asked him how he dared? He could hardly speak." She paused for a
+moment, recalling it all again. "Yes, and it was THAT stuff."
+
+"What did he say, mother?"
+
+She had turned to leave the room.
+
+"Your father believed that I had brought luck to the house."
+
+"And why was it not so, then?"
+
+She faced him quickly. He coloured.
+
+"Pardon, mother, you misunderstood me. I meant, why did it come to
+nothing about the cement?"
+
+"You did not know your father: there were too many hooks about him
+for him to be able to carry out anything."
+
+"Hooks?"
+
+"Yes! eccentricity, egotism, passion, which caught fast in
+everything."
+
+"What did he propose to do?"
+
+"No one was to be allowed to have anything to do with it, no one
+was to know of it, he was to be everything! For this reason the
+timber was to be cut down and sold; and when we were married--I
+say when we were married, the whole of my fortune was to be used
+as well."
+
+He saw the horror with which she still regarded it; she was
+passing through the whole struggle again; and he understood that
+he must not question her further. She made a gesture with her
+hand; and he asked hurriedly, "Why did you not tell me before,
+mother?"
+
+"Because it would have brought you no good," she answered
+decidedly.
+
+He felt, nay, he saw that she believed that it would bring him no
+good now. She again raised her hand, and he left her.
+
+When he was once more in the boat, taking his great news to the
+parsonage, he thought to himself, Here is the reason of my
+father's and mother's deadly enmity.
+
+The cement stone! She did not trust him, she would not give him
+both herself and her fortune, so there was no cement, nor were any
+trees felled.
+
+"Well, he scored after all. Yes, and mother too; but God help ME!"
+
+Then he reckoned up what the timber and the fortune together would
+have been worth, and what further sum could have been raised on
+the property, the value of the cement-bed being taken into
+consideration. He understood his father better than his mother.
+What a fortune, what power, what magnificence, what a life!
+
+At the parsonage he carried every one with him.
+
+The Dean, because he saw at once what this was worth. "You are a
+rich man now," he said. The Dean's wife, because she felt
+attracted by his ability and enthusiasm. Helene? Helene was silent
+and frightened. He turned towards her and asked if she would come
+with him in the boat to see it. She really must see how extensive
+the bed was.
+
+"Yes, dear, go with him," said her father.
+
+Rafael wished to sit behind her in the boat and hastened towards
+the bow; but, without a word, she passed him, sat down, and took
+her oars; so, after all, he had to sit in front of her.
+
+They thus began at cross purposes. His back was towards her, he
+saw how the water foamed under her oars, there was a secret
+struggle, a tacit fear, which was heard in the few words which
+they exchanged, and which merely increased their constraint.
+
+When they drew near to their destination they were flushed and
+hot. Now he was obliged to turn round to look for the place of
+landing. To begin with, they went slowly along the whole cement-
+bed as far as it was visible. He was now turned so as to face her,
+and he explained it all to her. She kept her eyes fixed on the
+cliff, and only glanced at him, or did not look at him all. They
+turned the boat again, in order to land at the place where he
+intended the factory to stand. A portion of the rock would have to
+be blasted to make room, the harbour too must be made safer so
+that vessels might lie close in, and all this would cost money.
+
+He landed first in order to help her, but she jumped on shore
+without his assistance; then they climbed upwards, he leading the
+way, explaining everything as he went; she following with eyes and
+ears intent.
+
+All for which, from her childhood, she had worked so hard at
+Hellebergene, and all which she had dreamed of for the estate, had
+become so little now. It would be many years before the trees
+yielded any return. But here was promise of immediate prosperity
+and future wealth if, as she never doubted, he proved to be
+correct. She felt that this humbled her, made her of no account,
+but ah! how great it made him seem!
+
+The rowing, the climbing, the excitement, gave animation to
+Rafael's explanations; face and figure showed his state of
+tension. She felt almost giddy: should she return to the boat and
+row away alone? But she was too proud thus to betray herself.
+
+It seemed to her that there was the look of a conqueror in his
+eyes; but she did not intend to be conquered. Neither did she wish
+to appear as the one who had remained at home and speculated on
+his return. That would be simply to turn all that was most
+cherished, most unselfish in her life, against herself. Something
+in him frightened her, something which, perhaps, he himself could
+not master--his inward agitation. It was not boisterous or
+terrifying; it was glowing, earnest zeal, which seemed to deprive
+him of power and her of will, and this she would not endure.
+
+Hardly had they gained the summit from which they could look out
+over the islands to the open sea, and across to Hellebergene, to
+the parsonage, and the river flowing into the inner bay, than he
+turned away from it all towards her, as she stood with heaving
+breast, glowing cheeks, and eyes which dare not turn away from the
+sea.
+
+"Helene," he whispered, approaching her; he wished to take her in
+his arms.
+
+She trembled, although she did not turn round; the next moment she
+sprang away from him, and did not pause till she had got down to
+the boat, which she was about to push off, but bethought herself
+that it would be too cowardly, so she remained standing and
+watched him come after her.
+
+"Helene," he called from above, "why do you run away from me?"
+
+"Rafael, you must not," she answered when he rejoined her. The
+strongest accent of both prayer and command of which a powerful
+nature is capable sounded in her words. She in the boat, he on the
+shore; they eyed one another like two antagonists, watchful and
+breathing hard, till he loosed the boat, stepped in and pushed
+off.
+
+She took her seat; but before doing the same he said:
+
+"You know quite well what I wanted to say to you." He spoke with
+difficulty.
+
+She did not answer and got out her oars; her tears were ready to
+flow. They rowed home again more slowly than they had come.
+
+A lark hovered over their heads. The note of a thrush was heard
+away inland. A guillemot skimmed over the water in the same
+direction as their own, and a tern on curved wing screamed in
+their wake. There was a sense of expectation over all. The scent
+of the young fir-trees and the heather was wafted out to them;
+farther in lay the flowery meadows of Hellebergene. At a great
+distance an eagle could be seen, high in air, winging his way from
+the mountains, followed by a flock of screaming crows, who
+imagined that they were chasing him. Rafael drew Helene's
+attention to them.
+
+"Yes, look at them," she said; and these few words, spoken
+naturally, helped to put both more at their ease. He looked round
+at her and smiled, and she smiled back at him. He felt in the
+seventh heaven of delight, but it must not be spoken. But the oars
+seemed to repeat in measured cadence, "It--is--she. It--is--she.
+It--is--she." He said to himself, Is not her resistance a thousand
+times sweeter than--
+
+"It is strange that the sea birds no longer breed on the islands
+in here," he said.
+
+"That is because for a long time the birds have not been
+protected; they have gone farther out."
+
+"They must be protected again: we must manage to bring the birds
+back, must we not?"
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+He turned quickly towards her. Perhaps she should not have said
+that, she thought, for had he not said "we"?
+
+To show how far she was from such a thought, she looked towards
+the land. "The clover is not good this year."
+
+"No. What shall you do with the plot next year?"
+
+But she did not fall into the trap. He turned round, but she
+looked away.
+
+Now the rush of the river tossed them up and down in a giddy
+dance, as the force of the stream met the boat. Rafael looked up
+to where they had walked together the first day. He turned to see
+if she were not, by chance, looking in the same direction. Yes,
+she was!
+
+They rowed on towards the landing-place at the parsonage, and he
+spoke once or twice, but she had learned that that was dangerous.
+They reached the beach.
+
+"Helene!" said he, as she jumped on shore with a good-bye in
+passing, "Helene!" But she did not stay. "Helene!" he shouted,
+with such meaning in it that she turned.
+
+She looked at him, but only remained for a moment. No more was
+needed! He rowed home like the greatest conqueror that those
+waters had ever seen. Ever since the Vikings had met together in
+the innermost creek, and left behind them the barrow which is
+still to be seen near the parsonage--yes, ever since the elk of
+the primaeval forest, with mighty antlers, swam away from the doe
+which he had won in combat, to the other which he heard on the
+opposite shore. Since the first swarm of ants, like a waving fan,
+danced up and down in the sunlight, on its one day of flight.
+Since the first seals struggled against each other to reach the
+one whom they saw lie sunning herself on the rocks.
+
+Fru Kaas had seen them pass as they rowed out at a furious pace.
+She had seen them row slowly back, and she understood everything.
+No sooner had the cement stone been found than--
+
+She paced up and down; she wept.
+
+She did not put any dependence on his constancy; in any case it
+was too early for Rafael to settle himself here: he had something
+very different before him. The cement stone would not run away
+from him, or the girl either, if there were anything serious in
+it. She regarded his meeting with Helene as merely an obstacle in
+the way, which barred his further progress.
+
+Rafael rowed towards home, bending to his oars till the water
+foamed under the bow of his boat. Now he has landed; now he drags
+the boat up as if she were an eel-pot. Now he strides quickly up
+to the house.
+
+Frightened, despairing, his mother shrank into the farthest corner
+of the sofa, with her feet drawn up under her, and, as he burst in
+through the door and began to speak, she cried out: "Taisez-vous!
+des egards, s'il vous plait." She stretched out her arms before
+her as if for protection. But now he came, borne on the wings of
+love and happiness. His future was there.
+
+He did what he had never done before: went straight up to her,
+drew her arms down, embraced and kissed her, first on the
+forehead, then on the cheeks, eyes, mouth, ears, neck, wherever he
+could; all without a word.
+
+He was quite beside himself.
+
+"Mad boy," she gasped; "des egards, mais Rafael, donc!--Que--" And
+she threw herself on his breast with her arms round his neck.
+
+"Now you will forsake me, Rafael," she said, crying.
+
+"Forsake you, mother! No one can unite the two wings like Helene."
+
+And now he began a panegyric on her, without measure, and
+unconscious that he said the same thing over and over again. When
+he became quieter, and she was permitted to breathe, she begged to
+be alone: she was used to being alone. In the evening she came
+down to him, and said that, first of all, they ought to go to
+Christiania, and find an expert to examine the cement-bed and
+learn what further should be done. Her cousin, the Government
+Secretary, would be able to advise them, and some of her other
+relations as well. Most of them were engineers and men of
+business. He was reluctant to leave Hellebergene just now, he
+said, she must understand that; besides, they had agreed not to go
+away until the autumn. But she maintained that this was the surest
+way to win Helene; only she begged that, with regard to her,
+things should remain as they were till they had been to
+Christiania. On this point she was inflexible, and it was so
+arranged.
+
+As was their custom, they packed up at once. They drove over to
+the parsonage that same evening to say good-bye. They were all
+very merry there: on Fru Kaas's side because she was uneasy, and
+wished to conceal the fact by an appearance of liveliness; on the
+Dean's part because he really was in high spirits at the discovery
+which promised prosperity both to Hellebergene and the district;
+on his wife's because she suspected something. The most hearty
+good wishes were therefore expressed for their journey.
+
+Rafael had availed himself of the general preoccupation to
+exchange a few last words with Helene in a corner. He obtained a
+half-promise from her that when he wrote she would answer; but he
+was careful not to say that he had spoken to his mother. He felt
+that Helene would be startled by a proceeding which came quite
+naturally to him.
+
+As they drove away, he waved his hat as long as they remained in
+sight. The waving was returned, first by all, but finally by only
+one.
+
+The summer evening was light and warm, but not light enough, not
+warm enough, not wide enough; there did not seem room enough in it
+for him; it was not bright enough to reflect his happiness. He
+could not sleep, yet he did not wish to talk; companionship or
+solitude were alike distasteful to him. He thought seriously of
+walking or rowing over to the parsonage again and knocking at the
+window of Helene's room. He actually went down to the boathouse
+and got out the boat. But perhaps it would frighten her, and
+possibly injure his own cause. So he rowed out and out to the
+farthest islands, and there he frightened the birds. At his
+approach they rose: first a few, then many, then all protested in
+a hideous chorus of wild screams. He was enveloped in an angry
+crowd, a pandemonium of birds. But it did not ruffle his good
+humour. "Wait a bit," he said to them. "Wait a bit, until the
+islands at Hellebergene are 'protected,' and the whole estate as
+well. Then you shall come and be happy with us. Good-bye till
+then!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 4
+
+
+He came to Christiania like a tall ship gay with flags. His love
+was the music on board.
+
+His numerous relations were ready to receive him. Of these many
+were engineers, who were a jour with all his writings, which they
+had taken care should be well known. Some of the largest
+mechanical undertakings in the country were in their hands, so
+that they had connections in every direction.
+
+Once more the family had a genius in its midst; that is to say,
+one to make a show with. Rafael went from entertainment to
+entertainment, from presentation to presentation, and wherever he
+or his mother went court was paid to them.
+
+In all this the ladies of the family were even more active than
+their lords; and they had not been in the town many days before
+every one knew that they were to be the rage.
+
+There are some people who always will hold aloof. They are as
+irresponsive as a sooty kettle when you strike it. They are like
+peevish children who say "I won't," or surly old dogs who growl at
+every one. But HE was so exceedingly genial, a capital fellow with
+the highest spirits. He had looks as well; he was six feet high;
+and all those six feet were clothed in perfect taste. He had large
+flashing eyes and a broad forehead. He was practised in making
+clear to others all in which he was interested, and at such times
+how handsome he looked! He was a thorough man of the world, able
+to converse in several languages at the cosmopolitan dinners which
+were a speciality of the Ravns. He was the owner of one of the few
+extensive estates in Norway, and had the control, it was said, of
+a considerable fortune besides.
+
+The half of this would have been enough to set all tongues
+wagging; therefore, first the family, then their friends, then the
+whole town feted him. He was a nine days' wonder! One must know
+the critical, unimaginative natives of Christiania, who daily pick
+each other to pieces to fill the void in their existences; one
+must have admired their endless worrying of threadbare topics to
+understand what it must be when they got hold of a fresh theme.
+
+Nothing which flies before the storm is more dangerous than desert
+sand, nothing can surpass a Christiania FUROR.
+
+When it became known that two of his relations who were conversant
+with the subject, together with a distinguished geologist and a
+superintendent of mines, had been down to Hellebergene with
+Rafael, and had found that his statements were well grounded, he
+was captured and borne off in triumph twenty times a day. It was
+trying work, but HE was always in the vein, and ready to take the
+rough with the smooth. In all respects the young madcap was up to
+the standard, so that day and night passed in a ceaseless whirl,
+which left every one but himself breathless. The glorious month at
+Hellebergene had done good. He was drawn into endless jovial
+adventures, so strange, so audacious, that one would have staked
+one's existence that such things were impossible in Christiania.
+But great dryness begets thirst. He was in the humour of a boy who
+has got possession of a jam-pot, whose mouth, nose, and hands are
+all besmirched. It is thus that ladies like children best; then
+they are the sweetest things in the world.
+
+Like a tall, full-grown mountain-ash covered by a flock of
+starlings, he was the centre of a fluttering crowd. It only
+remained for him to be deified, and this too came to pass. One day
+he visited several factories, giving a hint here, another there
+(he had great practical knowledge and a quick eye) and every hint
+was of value.
+
+At last in a factory of something the same description as the one
+in France where he had been the means of economising half the
+motive power, he suggested a similar plan; he saw on the spot how
+it could be effected. This became the subject of much
+conversation. It grew and grew, it rose like the sea after days of
+westerly gales. This new genius, but little over twenty, would
+surely some day be the wonder of the country. It soon became the
+fashion for every manufacturer to invite him to visit his factory,
+and it was only after they were convinced that they had a god
+among them that it became serious, for enthusiasm in a
+manufacturer strikes every one. The ladies only waited for this
+important moment to go at a bound from the lowest degree of sense
+to the fifth degree of madness. Their eyes danced on him like
+sunlight on polished metal. He himself paid little heed to degree
+or temperature; he was too happy in his genial contentment, and
+too indifferent as well. One thing which greatly helped to bring
+him to the right pitch was the family temperament, for it was so
+like his own. He was a Ravn through and through, with perhaps a
+little grain of Kaas added. He was what they called pure Ravn,
+quite unalloyed. He seemed to them to have come straight from the
+fountain-head of their race, endowed with its primitive strength.
+This strong physical attribute had perhaps made his abilities more
+fertile, but the family claimed the abilities, too, as their own.
+
+Through Hans Ravn, Rafael had learned to value the companionship
+of his relations; now he had it in perfection. For every word that
+he said appreciative laughter was ready--it really sparkled round
+him. When he disagreed with prevailing tastes, prejudices, and
+morals, they disagreed too. When his precocious intelligence burst
+upon them, they were always ready to applaud. They even met him
+half-way--they could foresee the direction of his thoughts. As he
+was young in years and disposition, and at the same time knew more
+than most young people, he suited both old and young. Ah! how he
+prospered in Norway!
+
+His mother went with him everywhere. Her life had at one time
+appeared to her relations to be most objectless, but how much she
+had made of it! They respected her persevering efforts to attain
+the goal, and she became aware of this. In the most elegant
+toilettes, with her discreet manner and distinguished deportment,
+she was hurried from party to party, from excursion to excursion,
+until it became too much for her.
+
+It went too far, too; her taste was offended by it; she grew
+frightened. But the train of dissipation went on without her, like
+a string of carriages which bore him along with it while she was
+shaken off. Her eyes followed the cloud of dust far away, and the
+roll of the wheels echoed back to her.
+
+Helene--how about Helene? Was she too out in the cold? Far from
+it. Rafael was as certain that she was with him as that his gold
+watch was next his heart. The very first day that he arrived he
+wrote a letter to her. It was not long, he had not time for that,
+but it was thoroughly characteristic. He received an answer at
+once; the hostess of the pension brought it to him herself. He was
+so immensely delighted that the lady, who was related to the Dean
+and who had noticed the post mark, divined the whole affair--a
+thing which amused him greatly.
+
+But Helene's letter was evasive; she evidently knew him too little
+to dare to speak out.
+
+He never found time to draw the hostess into conversation on the
+subject, however. He came home late, he got up late, and then
+there were always friends waiting for him; so that he was not seen
+in the pension again until he returned to dress for dinner, during
+which time the carriage waited at the door, for he never got home
+till the last moment.
+
+When could he write? It would soon all be done with, and then home
+to Helene!
+
+The business respecting the cement detained him longer than he had
+anticipated. His mother made complications; not that she opposed
+the formation of a company, but she raised many difficulties: she
+should certainly prefer to have the whole affair postponed. He had
+no time to talk her round, besides, she irritated him. He told it
+to the hostess.
+
+A curious being, this hostess, who directed the pension, the
+business of the inmates, and a number of children, without
+apparent effort. She was a widow; two of her children were nearly
+twenty, but she looked scarcely thirty. Tall, dark, clever, with
+eyes like glowing coals; decided, ready in conversation as in
+business, like an officer long used to command, always trusted,
+always obeyed; one yielded oneself involuntarily to her matter-of-
+course way of arranging everything, and she was obliging, even
+self-sacrificing, to those she liked--it was true that that was
+not everybody. This absence of reserve was especially
+characteristic of her, and was another reason why all relied on
+her. She had long ago taken up Fru Kaas--entertained her first and
+foremost. Angelika Nagel used in conversation modern Christiania
+slang which is the latest development of the language. In the
+choice of expressions, words such as hideous were applied to what
+was the very opposite of hideous, such as "hideously amusing,"
+"hideously handsome." "Snapping" to anything that was liquid, as
+"snapping good punch." One did not say "PRETTY" but "quite too
+pretty" or "hugely pretty." On the other hand, one did not say
+"bad" for anything serious, but with comical moderation "baddish."
+Anything that there was much of went by miles; for instance,
+"miles of virtue." This slipshod style of talk, which the idlers
+of large towns affect, had just become the fashion in Christiania.
+All this seemed new and characteristic to the careless emancipated
+party which had arisen as a protest against the prudery which Fru
+Kaas, in her time, had combated. The type therefore amused her:--
+she studied it.
+
+Angelika Nagel relieved her of all her business cares, which were
+only play to her. It was the same thing with the question of the
+cement undertaking. In an apparently careless manner she let drop
+what had been said and done about it, which had its effect on Fru
+Kaas. Soon things had progressed so far that it became necessary
+to consult Rafael about it, and as he was difficult to catch, she
+sat up for him at night. The first time that she opened the door
+for him he was absolutely shy, and when he heard what she wanted
+him for he was above measure grateful. The next time he kissed
+her! She laughed and ran away without speaking to him--that was
+all he got for his pains. But he had held her in his arms, and he
+glowed with a suddenly awakened passion.
+
+She, in the meantime, kept out of his way, even during the day he
+never saw her unless he sought her. But when he least expected it
+she again met him at the door; there was something which she
+really MUST say to him. There was a struggle, but at last she
+twisted herself away from him and disappeared. He whispered after
+her as loud as he dared, "Then I shall go away!"
+
+But while he was undressing she slipped into his room.
+
+The next day, before he was quite awake, the postman brought him
+the warrant for a post-office order for fifteen thousand francs.
+He thought that there must be a mistake in the name, or else that
+it was a commission that had been entrusted to him. No! it was
+from the French manufacturer whose working expenses he had reduced
+so greatly. He permitted himself, he wrote, to send this as a
+modest honorarium. He had not been able to do so sooner, but now
+hoped that it would not end there. He awaited Rafael's
+acknowledgment with great anxiety, as he was not sure of his
+address.
+
+Rafael was up and dressed in a trice. He told his news to every
+one, ran down to his mother and up again; but he had not been a
+moment alone before the superabundance of happiness and sense of
+victory frightened him. Now there must be an end of all this, now
+he would go home. He had not had the slightest prickings of
+conscience, the slightest longings, until now; all at once they
+were uncontrollable. SHE stood upon the hilltop, pure and noble.
+It became agonising. He must go at once, or it would drive him
+mad. This anxiety was made less acute by the sight of his mother's
+sincere pleasure. She came up to him when she heard that he had
+shut himself into his room. They had a really comfortable talk
+together--finally about the state of their finances. They lived in
+the pension because they could no longer afford to live in an
+hotel. The estate would bring nothing in until the timber once
+more became profitable, and her capital was no longer intact--
+notwithstanding the prohibition. Now she was ready to let him
+arrange about the cement company. On this he went out into the
+town, where his court soon gathered round him.
+
+But the large sum of money which was required could not be raised
+in a day, so the affair dragged on. He grew impatient, he must and
+would go; and finally his mother induced her cousin, the
+Government Secretary, to form the company, and they prepared to
+leave. They paid farewell visits to some of their friends, and
+sent cards and messages of thanks to the rest. Everything was
+ready, the very day had come, when Rafael, before he was up,
+received a letter from the Dean.
+
+An anonymous letter from Christiania, he wrote, had drawn his
+attention to Rafael's manner of life there, and he had in
+consequence obtained further information, the result being that he
+was, that day, sending his daughter abroad. There was nothing more
+in the letter. But Rafael could guess what had passed between
+father and daughter.
+
+He dressed himself and rushed down to his mother. His indignation
+against the rascally creatures who had ruined his and Helene's
+future--"Who could it have been?"--was equalled by his despair.
+She was the only one he cared for; all the others might go to the
+deuce. He felt angry, too, that the Dean, or any one else, should
+have dared to treat him in this way, to dismiss him like a
+servant, not to speak to him, not to put him in a position to
+speak for himself.
+
+His mother had read the letter calmly, and now she listened to him
+calmly, and when he became still more furious she burst out
+laughing. It was not their habit to settle their differences by
+words; but this time it flashed into his mind that she had not
+persuaded him to come here merely on account of the cement, but in
+order to separate him from Helene, and this he said to her.
+
+"Yes," he added, "now it will be just the same with me as it was
+with my father, and it will be your fault this time as well." With
+this he went out.
+
+Fru Kaas left Christiania shortly afterwards, and he left the same
+evening--for France.
+
+From France he wrote the most pressing letter to the Dean, begging
+him to allow Helene to return home, so that they could be married
+at once. Whatever the Dean had heard about his life in Christiania
+had nothing to do with the feelings which he nourished for Helene.
+She, and she alone, had the power to bind him; he would remain
+hers for life.
+
+The Dean did not answer him.
+
+A month later he wrote again, acknowledging this time that he had
+behaved foolishly. He had been merely thoughtless. He had been led
+on by other things. The details were deceptive, but he swore that
+this should be the end of it all. He would show that he deserved
+to be trusted; nay, he HAD shown it ever since he left
+Christiania. He begged the Dean to be magnanimous. This was
+practically exile for him, for he could not return to Hellebergene
+without Helene. Everything which he loved there had become
+consecrated by her presence; every project which he had formed
+they had planned together; in fact, his whole future--He fretted
+and pined till he found it impossible to work as seriously as he
+wished to do.
+
+This time he received an answer--a brief one.
+
+The Dean wrote that only a lengthened probation could convince
+them of the sincerity of his purpose.
+
+So it was not to be home, then, and not work; at all events, not
+work of any value. He knew his mother too well to doubt that now
+the cement business was shelved, whether the company were formed
+or not--he was only too sure of that.
+
+He had written to his mother, begging earnestly to be forgiven for
+what he had said. She must know that it was only the heat of the
+moment. She must know how fond he was of her, and how unhappy he
+felt at being in discord with her on the subject which was, and
+always would be, most dear to him.
+
+She answered him prettily and at some length, without a word about
+what had happened or about Helene. She gave him a great deal of
+news, among other things what the Dean intended to do about the
+estate.
+
+From this he concluded that she was on the same terms with the
+Dean as before. Perhaps his latest reasons for deferring the
+affair was precisely this: that he saw that Fru Kaas did not
+interest herself for it.
+
+It wore on towards the autumn. All this uncertainty made him feel
+lonely, and his thoughts turned towards his friends at
+Christiania. He wrote to tell them that he intended to make
+towards home. He meant, however, to remain a little time at
+Copenhagen.
+
+At Copenhagen he met Angelika Nagel again. She was in company with
+two of his student friends. She was in the highest spirits,
+glowing with health and beauty, and with that jaunty assurance
+which turns the heads of young men.
+
+He had, during all this time, banished the subject of his intrigue
+from his mind, and he came there without the least intention of
+renewing it; but now, for the first time in his life, he became
+jealous!
+
+It was quite a novel feeling, and he was not prepared to resist
+it. He grew jealous if he so much as saw her in company with
+either of the young men. She had a hearty outspoken manner, which
+rekindled his former passion.
+
+Now a new phase of his life began, divided between furious
+jealousy and passionate devotion. This led, after her departure,
+to an interchange of letters, which ended in his following her to
+Christiania.
+
+On board the steamer he overheard a conversation between the
+steward and stewardess. "She sat up for him of nights till she got
+what she wanted, and now she has got hold of him."
+
+It was possible that this conversation did not concern him, but it
+was equally possible that the woman might have been in the
+pension at Christiania. He did not know her.
+
+It is strange that in all such intrigues as his with Angelika the
+persons concerned are always convinced that they are invisible. He
+believed that, up to this time, no human being had known anything
+about it. The merest suspicion that this was not the case made it
+altogether loathsome.
+
+The pension--Angelika--the letters. He would be hanged if he
+would go on with it for any earthly inducement. Had Angelika
+angled for him and landed him like a stupid fat fish? He had been
+absolutely unsuspicious. The whole affair had been without
+importance, until they met again at Copenhagen. Perhaps THAT, too,
+had been a deep-laid plan.
+
+Nothing can more wound a man's vanity than to find that, believing
+himself a victor, he is in truth a captive.
+
+Rafael paced the deck half the night, and when he reached
+Christiania went to an hotel, intending to go home the next day to
+Hellebergene, come what would. This and everything of the kind
+must end for ever: it simply led straight to the devil. When once
+he was at home, and could find out where Helene was, the rest
+would soon be settled.
+
+From the hotel he went up to Angelika Nagel's pension to say that
+some luggage which was there was to be sent down to the hotel at
+once--he was leaving that afternoon.
+
+He had dined and gone up to his room to pack, when Angelika stood
+before him. She was at once so pretty and so sad-looking that he
+had never seen anything more pathetic.
+
+Had he really kept away from her house? Was he going at once?
+
+She wept so despairingly that he, who was prepared for anything
+rather than to see her so inconsolable, answered her evasively.
+
+Their relations, he said, had had no more significance than a
+chance meeting. This they both understood; therefore she must
+realise that, sooner or later, it must end. And now the time was
+come.
+
+Indeed, it had more significance, she said. There had never been
+any one to whom she had been so much attached; this she had proved
+to him. Now she had come here to tell him that she was enceinte.
+She was in as great despair about it as any one could be. It was
+ruin for herself and her children. She had never contemplated
+anything so frightful, but her mad love had carried her away; so
+now she was where she deserved to be.
+
+Rafael did not answer, for he could not collect his thoughts. She
+sat at a table, her face buried in her hands, but his eye fell on
+her strong arms in the close-fitting sleeves, her little foot
+thrust from beneath her dress; he saw how her whole frame was
+shaken by sobs. Nevertheless, what first made him collect his
+thoughts was not sympathy with her who was here before him; it was
+the thought of Helene, of the Dean, of his mother: what would THEY
+say?
+
+As though she were conscious whither his thoughts had flown, she
+raised her head. "Will you really go away from me?" What despair
+was in her face! The strong woman was weaker than a child.
+
+He stood erect before her, beside his open trunk. He, too, was
+absolutely miserable.
+
+"What good will it do for me to stay here?" he asked gently.
+
+Her eyes fixed themselves on him, dilating, becoming clearer every
+moment. Her mouth grew scornful. She seemed to grow taller every
+moment.
+
+"You will marry me if you are an honourable man!"
+
+"Marry--you?" he exclaimed, first startled, then disdainful. An
+evil expression came into her eyes; she thrust her head forward;
+the whole woman collected herself for the attack like a tiger-cat,
+but it ended with a violent blow on the table.
+
+"Yes you SHALL, devil take me!" she whispered.
+
+She rushed past him to the window. What was she going to do?
+
+She opened it, screamed out he could not clearly hear what, leant
+far out, and screamed again; then closed it, and turned towards
+him, threatening, triumphant. He was as white as a sheet, not
+because he was frightened or dreaded her threats, but because he
+recognised in her a mortal enemy. He braced himself for the
+struggle.
+
+She saw this at once. She was conscious of his strength before he
+had made a movement. There was that in his eye, in his whole
+demeanour, which SHE would never be able to overcome: a look of
+determination which one would not willingly contest. If he had not
+understood her till now, he had equally revealed himself to her.
+
+All the more wildly did she love him. He rejoiced that he had
+taken no notice of what she had done, but turned to put the last
+things into his trunk and fasten it. Then she came close up to
+him, in more complete contrition, penitence, and wretchedness than
+he had ever seen in life or art. Her face stiffened with terror,
+her eyes fixed, her whole frame rigid, only her tears flowed
+quietly, without a sob. She must and would have him. She seemed to
+draw him to herself as into a vortex: her love had become the
+necessity of her life, its utterances the wild cry of despair.
+
+He understood it now. But he put the things into his trunk and
+fastened it, took a few steps about the room, as if he were alone,
+with such an expression of face that she herself saw that the
+thing was impossible.
+
+"Do you not believe," she said quietly, "that I would relieve you
+of all cares, so that you could go on with your own work? Have you
+not seen that I can manage your mother?" She paused a moment, then
+added: "Hellebergene--I know the place. The Dean is a relation of
+mine. I have been there; that would be something that I could take
+charge of; do you not think so? And the cement quarries," she
+added; "I have a turn for business: it should be no trouble to
+you." She said this in an undertone. She had a slight lisp, which
+gave her an air of helplessness. "Don't go away, to-day, at any
+rate. Think it over," she added, weeping bitterly again.
+
+He felt that he ought to comfort her.
+
+She came towards him, and throwing her arms round him, she clung
+to him in her despair and eagerness. "Don't go, don't go!" She
+felt that he was yielding. "Never," she whispered, "since I have
+been a widow have I given myself to any one but you; and so judge
+for yourself." She laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed
+bitterly.
+
+"It has come upon me so suddenly," he said; "I cannot--"
+
+"Then take time," she interrupted in a whisper, and took a hasty
+kiss. "Oh, Rafael!" She twined her arms round him: her touch
+thrilled through him--
+
+Some one knocked at the door: they started away from each other.
+It was the man who had come for the luggage. Rafael flushed
+crimson. "I shall not go till to-morrow," he said.
+
+When the man had left the room Angelika sprang towards Rafael. She
+thanked and kissed him. Oh, how she beamed with delight and
+exultation! She was like a girl of twenty, or rather like a young
+man, for there was something masculine in her manner as she left
+him.
+
+But the light and fire were no sooner withdrawn than his spirits
+fell. A little later he lay at full length on the sofa, as though
+in a grave. He felt as though he could never get up from it again.
+What was his life now? For there is a dream in every life which is
+its soul, and when the dream is gone the life appears a corpse.
+
+This, then, was the fulfilment of his forebodings. Hither the
+ravens had followed the wild beast which dwelt in him. It would on
+longer play and amuse him, but strike its claws into him in
+earnest, overthrow him, and lap his fresh-spilt blood.
+
+But it was none the less certain that if he left her she would be
+ruined, she and her child. Then no one would consider him as an
+honourable man, least of all himself.
+
+During his last sojourn in France, when he could not settle down
+to a great work which was constantly dawning before him, he had
+thought to himself--You have taken life too lightly. Nothing great
+ever comes to him who does so.
+
+Now, perhaps, when he did his duty here; took upon himself the
+burden of his fault towards her, himself, and others--and bore it
+like a man; then perhaps he would be able to utilise all his
+powers. That was what his mother had done, and she had succeeded.
+
+But with the thought of his mother came the thought of Helene, of
+his dream. It was flying from him like a bird of passage from the
+autumn. He lay there and felt as though he could never get up
+again.
+
+From amid the turmoil of the last summer there came to his
+recollection two individuals, in whom he reposed entire
+confidence: a young man and his wife. He went to see them the same
+evening and laid the facts honestly before them, for now, at all
+events, he was honest. The conclusive proof of being so is to be
+able to tell everything about oneself as he did now.
+
+They heard him with dismay, but their advice was remarkable. He
+ought to wait and see if she were enceinte.
+
+This aroused his spirit of contradiction. There was no doubt about
+it, for she was perfectly truthful. But she might be mistaken; she
+ought to make quite sure. This suggestion, too, shocked him; but
+he agreed that she should come and talk things over with them.
+They knew her.
+
+She came the next day. They said to her, what they could not very
+well say to Rafael, that she would ruin him. The wife especially
+did not spare her. A highly gifted young man like Rafael Kaas,
+with such excellent prospects in every way, must not, when little
+more than twenty, burden himself with a middle-aged wife and a
+number of children. He was far from rich, he had told her so
+himself; his life would be that of a beast of burden, and that
+too, before he had learned to bear the yoke. If he had to work, to
+feed so many people, he might strain himself to the uttermost, he
+would still remain mediocre. They would both suffer under this, be
+disappointed and discontented. He must not pay so heavy a price
+for an indiscretion for which she was ten times more to blame than
+he. What did she imagine people would say? He who was so popular,
+so sought after. They would fall upon her like rooks at a rooks'
+parliament and pick her to pieces. They would, without exception,
+believe the worst.
+
+The husband asked her if she were quite sure that she was
+enceinte: she ought to make quite certain.
+
+Angelika Nazel reddened, and answered, half scornful, half
+laughing, that she ought to know.
+
+"Yes," he retorted, "many people have said that--who were
+mistaken. If it is understood that you are to be married on
+account of your condition, and it should afterwards turn out that
+you were mistaken, what do you suppose that people will say? for
+of course it will get about."
+
+She reddened again and sprang to her feet. "They can say what they
+please." After a pause she added: "But God knows I do not wish to
+make him unhappy."
+
+To conceal her emotion she turned away from them, but the wife
+would not give up. She suggested that Angelika should write to
+Rafael without further delay, to set him free and let him return
+home to his mother; there they would be able to arrange matters.
+Angelika was so capable that she could earn a living anywhere.
+Rafael too ought to help her.
+
+"I shall write to his mother," Angelika said. "She shall know all
+about it, so that she may understand for what he is responsible."
+
+This they thought reasonable, and Angelika sat down and wrote. She
+frequently showed agitation, but she went on quickly, steadily,
+sheet after sheet. Just then came a ring--a messenger with a
+letter. The maid brought it in. Her mistress was about to take it,
+but it was not for her; it was for Angelika--they both recognised
+Rafael's careless handwriting.
+
+Angelika opened it--grew crimson; for he wrote that the result of
+his most serious considerations was, that neither she nor her
+children should be injured by him. He was an honourable man who
+would bear his own responsibilities, not let others be burdened by
+them.
+
+Angelika handed the letter to her friend, then tore up the one
+which she had been writing, and left the house.
+
+Her friend stood thinking to herself--The good that is in us must
+go bail for the evil, so we must rest and be satisfied.
+
+The discovery which she had made had often been made before, but
+it was none the less true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER 5
+
+
+The next day they were married. That night, long after his wife
+had fallen into her usual healthy sleep, Rafael thought
+sorrowfully of his lost Paradise. HE could not sleep. As he lay
+there he seemed to look out over a meadow, which had no
+springtime, and therefore no flowers. He retraced the events of
+the past day. His would be a marred life which had never known the
+sweet joys of courtship.
+
+Angelika did not share his beliefs. She was a stern realist, a
+sneering sceptic, in the most literal sense a cynic.
+
+Her even breathing, her regular features, seemed to answer him.
+"Hey-dey, my boy, we shall be merry for a thousand years! Better
+sleep now, you will need sleep if you mean to try which of us is
+the stronger."
+
+The next day their marriage was the marvel of the town and
+neighbourhood.
+
+"Just like his mother!" people exclaimed; "what promise there was
+in her! She might have chosen so as to have been now in one of the
+best positions in the country--when, lo and behold! she went and
+made the most idiotic marriage. The most idiotic? No, the son's is
+more idiotic still." And so on and so forth.
+
+Most people seem naturally impelled to exalt the hero of the hour
+higher than they themselves intend, and when a reaction comes, to
+decry him in an equal degree. Few people see with their own eyes,
+and on special occasions even magnifying or diminishing glasses
+are called into play with most amusing results.
+
+"Rafael Kaas a handsome fellow?--well, yes, but too big, too fair,
+no repose, altogether too restless. Rich? He? He has not a stiver!
+The savings eaten up long ago, nothing coming in, they have been
+encroaching on their capital for some time; and the beds of cement
+stone--who the deuce would join with him in any large undertaking?
+They talk about his gifts, his genius even; but IS he very highly
+gifted? Is it anything more than what he has acquired? The saving
+of motive power at the factory? Was that anything more than a mere
+repetition of what he had done before?--and that, of course, only
+what he had seen elsewhere."
+
+Just the same with the hints which he had given. "Merely close
+personal observation; for it must be admitted that he had more of
+that than most people; but as for ingenuity! Well, he could make
+out a good case for himself, but that was about the extent of his
+ingenuity."
+
+"His earlier articles, as well as those which had recently
+appeared on the use of electricity in baking and tanning--could
+you call those discoveries? Let us see what he will invent now
+that he has come home, and cannot get ideas from reading and from
+seeing people."
+
+Rafael noticed this change--first among the ladies, who all seemed
+to have been suddenly blown away, with a few exceptions, who did
+not respect a marriage like his, and who would not give in.
+
+His relations, also, held somewhat aloof. "It was not thus that he
+showed himself a true Ravn. He was so in temperament and
+disposition, perhaps, but it was just his defect that he was only
+a half-breed."
+
+The change of front was complete: he noticed it on all hands. But
+he was man enough, and had sufficient obstinacy as well, to let
+himself be urged on by this to hard work, and in his wife there
+was still more of the same feeling.
+
+He had a sense of elevation in having done his duty, and as long
+as this tension lasted it kept him up to the mark. On the day of
+his marriage (from early in the morning until the time when the
+ceremony took place) he employed himself in writing to his mother;
+a wonderful, a solemn letter in the sight of the All-Knowing,--the
+cry of a tortured soul in utmost peril.
+
+It depended on his mother whether she would receive them and let
+their life become all that was now possible. Angelika--their
+business, manager, housekeeper, chief. He--devoted to his
+experiments. She--the tender mother, the guide of both.
+
+It seemed to him that their future depended on this letter and the
+answer to it, and he wrote in that spirit. Never had he so fully
+depicted himself, so fully searched his own heart.
+
+It was the outcome of what he had lived through during these last
+few days, the mellowing influence of his struggles during the
+night watches. Nothing could have been more candid.
+
+He was pained that he did not receive an answer at once, although
+he realised what a blow it would be to her. He understood that, to
+begin with, it would destroy all her dreams, as it had already
+destroyed. But he relied on her optimistic nature, which he had
+never known surpassed, and on the depth of her purpose in all that
+she undertook. He knew that she drew strength and resolution from
+all that was deepest in their common life.
+
+Therefore he gave her time, notwithstanding Angelika's
+restlessness, which could hardly be controlled. She even began to
+sneer; but there was something holy in his anticipation: her words
+fell unheeded.
+
+When on the third day he had received no letter, he telegraphed,
+merely these words: "Mother, send me an answer." The wires had
+never carried anything more fraught with unspoken grief.
+
+He could not return home. He remained alone outside the town until
+the evening, by which time the answer might well have arrived. It
+was there.
+
+"My beloved son, YOU are always welcome; most of all when you are
+unhappy!" The word YOU was underlined. He grew deadly pale, and
+went slowly into his own room. There Angelika let him remain for a
+while in peace, then came in and lit the lamp. He could see that
+she was much agitated, and that every now and then she cast hasty
+glances at him.
+
+"Do you know what, Rafael? you ought simply to go straight to your
+mother. It is too bad, both on account of our future and hers. We
+shall be ruined by gossip and trash."
+
+He was too unhappy to be contemptuous. She had no respect for
+anybody or anything, he thought; why, then, should he be angry
+because she felt none, either for his mother or for his position
+in regard to her? But how vulgar Angelika seemed to him, as she
+bent over a troublesome lamp and let her impatience break out! Her
+mouth but too easily acquired a coarse expression. Her small head
+would rear itself above her broad shoulders with a snake-like
+expression, and her thick wrist--
+
+"Well," she said, "when all is said and done, that disgusting
+Hellebergene is not worth making a fuss over."
+
+Now she is annoyed with herself, he thought, and must have her
+say. She will not rest until she has picked a quarrel; but she
+shall not have that satisfaction.
+
+"After all that has been said and all that has happened there--"
+
+But this, too, missed fire. "How could I have supposed that she
+could manage my mother?" He got up and paced the room. "Is that
+what mother felt? Yet they were such good friends. I suspected
+nothing then. How is it that mother's instinct is always more
+delicate? have I blunted mine?"
+
+When, a little later, Angelika came in again, he looked so unhappy
+that she was struck by it, and she then showed herself so kind and
+fertile in resource on his behalf, and there was such sunshine in
+her cheerfulness and flow of spirits during the evening, that he
+actually brightened up under it, and thought--If mother could have
+brought herself to try the experiment, perhaps after all it might
+have answered. There is so much that is good and capable in this
+curious creature.
+
+He went to the children. From the first day he and they had taken
+to each other. They had been unhappy in the great pension, with a
+mother who seldom came near them or took any notice of them,
+except as clothes to be patched, mouths to feed, or faults to be
+punished.
+
+Rafael had in his nature the unconventionality which delights in
+children's confidence, and he felt a desire to love and to be
+loved. Children are quick to feel this.
+
+They only wasted Angelika's time. They were in her way now more
+than ever; for it may be said at once that, Rafael had become
+EVERYTHING to her. This was the fascination in her, and whatever
+happened, it never lost its power. Her tenderness, her devotion,
+were boundless. By the aid of her personal charm, her resourceful
+ingenuity, she obtained every advantage for him within her range,
+and even beyond it. It was felt in her devotion by night and day,
+when anything was to be done, in an untiring zeal such as only so
+strong and healthy a woman could have had in her power to render.
+But in words it did not show itself, hardly even in looks: except,
+perhaps, while she fought to win him, but never since then.
+
+Had she been able to adhere to one line of conduct, if only for a
+few weeks at a time, and let herself be guided by her never-
+failing love, he would, in this stimulating atmosphere, have made
+of his married life what his mother, in spite of all, had made of
+hers.
+
+Why did not this happen? Because the jealousy which she had
+aroused in him and which had drawn him to her again was now
+reversed.
+
+They were hardly married before it was she who was jealous! Was it
+strange? A middle-aged woman, even though she be endowed with the
+strongest personality and the widest sympathy, when she wins a
+young husband who is the fashion--wins him as Angelika won hers--
+begins to live in perpetual disquietude lest any one should take
+him from her. Had she not taken him herself?
+
+If we were to say that she was jealous of every human being who
+came there, man or woman, old or young, beside those whom he met
+elsewhere, it would be an exaggeration, but this exaggeration
+throws a strong light upon the state of things, which actually
+existed.
+
+If he became at all interested in conversation with any one, she
+always interrupted. Her face grew hard, her right foot began to
+move; and if this did not suffice, she struck in with sulky or
+provoking remarks, no matter who was there.
+
+If something were said in praise of any one, and it seemed to
+excite his interest, she would pooh-pooh it, literally with a
+"pooh!" a shrug of the shoulders, a toss of the head, or an
+impatient tap of the foot.
+
+At first he imagined that she really knew something
+disadvantageous about all those whom she thus disparaged, and he
+was filled with admiration at her acquaintance with half Norway.
+He believed in her veracity as he believed in few things. He
+believed, too, that it was unbounded like so many of her
+qualities. She said the most cynical things in the plainest manner
+without apparent design.
+
+But little by little it dawned upon him that she said precisely
+what it pleased her to say, according to the humour that she was
+in.
+
+One day, as they were going to table--he had come in late and was
+hungry--he was delighted to see that there were oysters.
+
+"Oysters! at this time of the year," he cried. "They must be very
+expensive."
+
+"Pooh! that was the old woman, you know. She persuaded me to take
+them for you. I got them for next to nothing."
+
+"That was odd; you have been out, then, too?"
+
+"Yes, and I saw YOU; you were walking with Emma Ravn."
+
+He understood at once, by the tone of her voice, that this was not
+permitted, but all the same he said, "Yes; how sweet she is! so
+fresh and candid."
+
+"She! Why, she had a child before she was married."
+
+"Emma? Emma Ravn?"
+
+"Yes! But I do not know who by."
+
+"Do you know, Angelika, I do not believe that," he said solemnly.
+
+"You can do as you please about that, but she was at the pension
+at the time, so you can judge for yourself if I am right."
+
+He could not believe that any human being could so belie
+themselves. Emma's eyes, clear as water in a fountain where one
+can count the pebbles at the bottom, rose to his mind, in all
+their innocence. He could not believe that such eyes could lie. He
+grew livid, he could not eat, he left the table. The world was
+nothing but a delusion, the purest was impure.
+
+For a long time after this, whenever he met Emma or her white-
+haired mother, he turned aside, so as not to come face to face
+with them.
+
+He had clung to his relations: their weak points were apparent to
+every one, but their ability and honesty no less so. This one
+story destroyed his confidence, impaired his self-reliance,
+shattered his belief, and thus made him the poorer. How could he
+be fit for anything, when he so constantly allowed himself to be
+befooled?
+
+There was not one word of truth in the whole story.
+
+His simple confidence was held in her grasp, like a child in the
+talons of an eagle; but this did not last much longer.
+
+Fortunately, she was without calculation or perseverance. She did
+not remember one day what she had said the day before; for each
+day she coolly asserted whatever was demanded by the necessity of
+the moment. He, on the contrary, had an excellent memory; and his
+mathematical mind ranged the evidence powerfully against her. Her
+gifts were more aptness and quickness than anything else, they
+were without training, without cohesion, and permeated with
+passion at all points. Therefore he could, at any moment, crush
+her defence; but whenever this happened, it was so evident that
+she had been actuated by jealousy that it flattered his vanity;
+which was the reason why he did not regard it seriously enough--
+did not pursue his advantage. Perhaps if he had done so, he would
+have discovered more, for this jealousy was merely the form which
+her uneasiness took. This uneasiness arose from several causes.
+
+The fact was that she had a past and she had debts which she had
+denied, and now she lived in perpetual dread lest any one should
+enlighten him. If any one got on the scent, she felt sure that
+this would be used against her. It merely depended on what he
+learned--in other words, with whom he associated.
+
+She could disregard anonymous letters because he did so, but there
+were plenty of disagreeable people who might make innuendoes.
+
+She saw that Rafael too, to some extent, avoided his countless
+friends of old days. She did not understand the reason, but it was
+this: that he, as well, felt that they knew more of her than it
+was expedient for HIM to know. She saw that he made ingenious
+excuses for not being seen out with her. This, too, she
+misconstrued. She did not at all understand that he, in his way,
+was quite as frightened as she was of what people might say. She
+believed that he sought the society of others rather than hers. If
+nothing more came of such intercourse, stories might be told. This
+was the reason for her slanders about almost every one he spoke
+to. If they had vilified her, they must be vilified in return.
+
+She had debts, and this could not be concealed unless she
+increased them; this she did with a boldness worthy of a better
+cause. The house was kept on an extravagant scale, with an
+excellent table and great hospitality. Otherwise he would not be
+comfortable at home, she said and believed.
+
+She herself vied with the most fashionably dressed ladies in the
+town. Her daily struggle to maintain her hold on him demanded
+this. It followed, of course, that she got everything for
+"nothing" or "the greatest bargain in the world." There was always
+some one "who almost gave it" to her. He did not know himself how
+much money he spent, perhaps, because she hunted and drove him
+from one thing to another.
+
+Originally he had thought of going abroad; but with a wife who
+knew no foreign languages, with a large family--
+
+Here at home, as he soon discovered, every one had lost confidence
+in him. He dared not take up anything important, or else he wished
+to wait a little before he came to any definite determination. In
+the meantime, he did whatever came to hand, and that was often
+work of a subordinate description. Both from weariness, and from
+the necessity to earn a living, he ended by doing only mediocre
+work, and let things drift.
+
+He always gave out that this was only "provisional." His
+scientific gifts, his inventive genius, with so many pounds on his
+back, did not rise high, but they should yet! He had youth's
+lavish estimate of time and strength, and therefore did not see,
+for a long time, that the large family, the large house were
+weighing him farther and farther down. If only he could have a
+little peace, he thought, he would carry out his present ideas and
+new ones also. He felt such power within him.
+
+But peace was just what he never had. Now we come to the worst, or
+more properly, to the sum of what has gone before. The ceaseless
+uneasiness in which Angelika lived broke out into perpetual
+quarrelling. For one thing, she had no self-command. A caprice, a
+mistake, an anxiety over-ruled everything. She seized the smallest
+opportunities. Again--and this was a most important factor--there
+was her overpowering anxiety to keep possession of him; this drew
+her away from what she should have paid most heed to, in order to
+let him have peace. She continued her lavish housekeeping, she let
+the children drift, she concentrated all her powers on him. Her
+jealousy, her fears, her debts, sapped his fertile mind, destroyed
+his good humour, laid desolate his love of the beautiful and his
+creative power.
+
+He had in particular one great project, which he had often, but
+ineffectually, attempted to mature. The effort to do so had begun
+seriously one day on the heights above Hellebergene, and had
+continued the whole summer. Curiously enough, one morning, as he
+sat at some most wearisome work, Hellebergene and Helene, in the
+spring sunshine, rose before him, and with them his project, lofty
+and smiling, came to him again. Then he begged for a little peace
+in the house.
+
+"Let me be quiet, if only for a month," he said. "Here is some
+money. I have got an idea; I must and will have quiet. In a
+month's time I shall have got on so far that perhaps I shall be
+able to judge if it is worth continuing. It may be that this one
+idea may entirely support us."
+
+This was something which she could understand, and now he was able
+to be quiet.
+
+He had an office in the town, but sometimes took his papers home
+with him in the evenings, for it often happened that something
+would occur to him at one moment or another. She bestowed every
+care on him; she even sat on the stairs while he was asleep at
+midday, to prevent him from being disturbed.
+
+This went on for a fortnight. Then it so chanced that, when he had
+gone out for a walk, she rummaged among his papers, and there,
+among drawings, calculations, and letters, she actually, for once
+in a way, found something. It was in his handwriting and as
+follows:
+
+"More of the mother than the lover in her; more of the solicitude
+of love than of its enjoyment. Rich in her affection, she would
+not squander it in one day with you, but, mother-like, would
+distribute it throughout your life. Instead of the whirl of the
+rapids, a placid stream. Her love was devotion, never absorption.
+YOU were one and SHE was one. Together we should have been more
+powerful than two lovers are wont to be."
+
+There was more of this, but Angelika could not read further, she
+became so furious. Were these his own thoughts, or had he merely
+copied them? There were no corrections, so most likely it was a
+copy. In any case it showed where his thoughts were.
+
+Rafael came quietly home, went straight to his room and lighted a
+candle, even before he took off his overcoat. As he stood he wrote
+down a few formulae, then seized a book, sat down astride of a
+chair, and made a rapid calculation. Just then Angelika came in,
+leaned forward towards him, and said in a low voice:
+
+"You are a nice fellow! Now I know what you have in hand. Look
+there: your secret thoughts are with that beast."
+
+"Beast!" he repeated. His anger at being disturbed, at her having
+found this particular paper, and now the abuse from her coarse
+lips of the most delicate creature he had ever known, and, above
+all, the absolute unexpectedness of the attack, made him lose his
+head.
+
+"How dare you? What do you mean?"
+
+"Don't be a fool. Do you suppose that I don't guess that that is
+meant for the girl who looked after your estate in order to catch
+you?"
+
+She saw that this hit the mark, so she went still further.
+
+"She, the model of virtue! why, when she was a mere girl, she
+disgraced herself with an old man."
+
+As she spoke she was seized by the throat and flung backwards on
+to the sofa, without the grasp being relaxed. She was breathless,
+she saw his face over her; deadly rage was in it. A strength, a
+wildness of which she had no conception, gazed upon her in sensual
+delight at being able to strangle her.
+
+After a wild struggle her arms sank down powerless, her will with
+them; only her eyes remained wide open, in terror and wonderment.
+
+Dare he? "Yes, he dare!" Her eyes grew dim, her limbs began to
+tremble.
+
+"You have taken MY apple, I tell you," was heard in a childish
+voice from the next room, a soft lisping voice.
+
+It came from the most peaceful innocence in the world! It saved
+her!
+
+He rushed out again; but even when the rage had left him which had
+seized upon him and dominated him as a rider does a horse, he was
+still not horrified at himself. His satisfaction at having at
+length made his power felt was too great for that.
+
+But by degrees there came a revulsion. Suppose he had killed her,
+and had to go into penal servitude for the rest of his life for
+it! Had such a possibility come into his life? Might it happen in
+the future? No! no! no! How strange that Angelika should have
+wounded him! How frightful her state of mind must be when she
+could think so odiously of absolutely innocent people; and how
+angry she must have been to behave in such a way towards him, whom
+she loved above all others, indeed, as the only one for whom she
+had to live!
+
+A long, long sum followed: his faults, her faults, and the faults
+of others. He cooled down and began to feel more like himself.
+
+In an hour or two he was fit to go home, to find her on her bed,
+dissolved in tears, prepared at once to throw her arms round his
+neck.
+
+He asked pardon a hundred times, with words, kisses, and caresses.
+
+But with this scene his invention had fled. The spell was broken.
+It never did more than flutter before him, tempting him to pursue
+it once more; but he turned away from the whole subject and began
+to work for money again. Something offered itself just at that
+moment which Angelika had hunted up.
+
+Back to the unending toil again. Now at last it became an
+irritation to him: he chafed as the war horse chafes at being made
+a beast of burden.
+
+This made the scenes at home still worse. Since that episode their
+quarrels knew no bounds. Words were no longer necessary to bring
+them about: a gesture, a look, a remark of his unanswered, was
+enough to arouse the most violent scenes. Hitherto they had been
+restrained by the presence of others, but now it was the same
+whether they were alone or not. Very soon, as far as brutality of
+expression or the triviality of the question was concerned, he was
+as bad or worse than she.
+
+His idle fancy and creative genius found no other vent, but
+overthrew and trampled underfoot many of life's most beautiful
+gifts. Thus he squandered much of the happiness which such talents
+can duly give. Sometimes his daily regrets and sufferings,
+sometimes his passionate nature, were in the ascendant, but the
+cause of his despair was always the same--that this could have
+happened to him. Should he leave her? He would not thus escape.
+The state of the case had touched his conscience at first, later
+he had become fond of the children, and his mother's example said
+to him, "Hold out, hold out!"
+
+The unanimous prediction that this marriage would be dissolved as
+quickly as it had been made he would prove to be untrue. Besides,
+he knew Angelika too well now not to know that he would never
+obtain a separation from her until, with the law at her back, she
+had flayed him alive. He could not get free.
+
+From the first it had been a question of honour and duty; honour
+and duty on account of the child which was to come--and which did
+not come. Here he had a serious grievance against her; but yet, in
+the midst of the tragedy, he could not but be amused at the skill
+with which she turned his own gallantries against him. At last he
+dared not mention the subject, for he only heard in return about
+his gay bachelor life.
+
+The longer this state of things lasted and the more it became
+known, the more incomprehensible it became to most people that
+they did not separate--to himself, too, at times, during sleepless
+nights. But it is sometimes the case that he, who makes a thousand
+small revolts, cannot brace himself to one great one. The endless
+strife itself strengthens the bonds, in that it saps the strength.
+
+He deteriorated. This married life, wearing in every way, together
+with the hard work, resulted in his not being equal to more than
+just the necessities of the day. His initiative and will became
+proportionately deadened.
+
+A strange stagnation developed itself: he had hallucinations,
+visions; he saw himself in them--his father! his mother! all the
+pictures were of a menacing description.
+
+At night he dreamed the most frightful things: his unbridled
+fancy, his unoccupied creative power, took revenge, and all this
+weakened him. He looked with admiration at his wife's robust
+health: she had the physique of a wild beast. But at times their
+quarrels, their reconciliations, brought revelations with them: he
+could perceive her sorrows as well. She did not complain, she did
+not say a word, she could not do so; but at times she wept and
+gave way as only the most despairing can. Her nature was powerful,
+and the struggle of her love beyond belief. The beauty of the
+fulness of life was there, even when she was most repulsive. The
+wild creature, wrestling with her destiny, often gave forth tragic
+gleams of light.
+
+One day his relation, the Government Secretary, met him. They
+usually avoided each other, but to-day he stopped.
+
+"Ah, Rafael," said the dapper little man nervously, "I was coming
+to see you."
+
+"My dear fellow, what is it?"
+
+"Ah, I see that you guess; it is a letter from your mother."
+
+"From my mother?"
+
+During all the time since her telegram they had not exchanged a
+word.
+
+"A very long letter, but she makes a condition."
+
+"Hum, hum! a condition?"
+
+"Yes, but do not be angry; it is not a hard one: it is only that
+you are to go away from the town, wherever you like, so long as
+you can be quiet, and then you are to read it."
+
+"You know the contents?"
+
+"I know the contents, I will go bail for it."
+
+What he meant, or why he was so perturbed by it, Rafael did not
+understand, but it infected him; if he had had the money, and if
+on that day he had been disengaged, he would have gone at once.
+But he had not the money, not more than he wanted for the fete
+that evening. He had the tickets for it in his pocket at that
+moment. He had promised Angelika that he would go there with her,
+and he would keep his promise, for it had been given after a great
+reconciliation scene. A white silk dress had been the olive branch
+of these last peaceful days. She therefore looked very handsome
+that evening as she walked into the great hall of the Lodge, with
+Rafael beside her tall and stately. She was in excellent spirits.
+Her quiet eyes had a haughty expression as she turned her steps
+with confident superiority towards those whom she wished to
+please, or those whom she hoped to annoy.
+
+HE did not feel confident. He did not like showing himself in
+public with her, and lately it had precisely been in public places
+that she had chosen to make scenes; besides which, he felt nervous
+as to what his mother could wish to say to him.
+
+A short time before he came to the fete, he had tried, in two
+quarters, to borrow money, and each time had received only
+excuses. This had greatly mortified him. His disturbed state of
+mind, as is so often the case with nervous people, made him
+excited and boisterous, nay, even made him more than usually
+jovial. And as though a little of the old happiness were actually
+to come to him that evening, he met his friend and relative Hans
+Ravn, him and his young Bavarian wife, who had just come to the
+town. All three were delighted to meet.
+
+"Do you remember," said Hans Ravn, "how often you have lent me
+money, Rafael?" and he drew him on one side. "Now I am at the top
+of the tree, now I am married to an heiress, and the most charming
+girl too; ah, you must know her better."
+
+"She is pretty as well," said Rafael.
+
+"And pretty as well--and good tempered; in fact, you see before
+you the happiest man in Norway."
+
+Rafael's eyes filled. Ravn put his hands on to his friend's
+shoulders.
+
+"Are you not happy, Rafael?"
+
+"Not quite so happy as you, Hans--"
+
+He left him to speak to some one else, then returned again.
+
+"You say, Hans, that I have often lent you money."
+
+"Are you pressed? Do you want some, Rafael? My dear fellow, how
+much?"
+
+"Can you spare me two thousand kroner?"
+
+"Here they are."
+
+"No, no; not in here, come outside."
+
+"Yes, let us go and have some champagne to celebrate our meeting.
+No, not our wives," he added, as Rafael looked towards where they
+stood talking.
+
+"Not our wives," laughed Rafael. He understood the intention, and
+now he wished to enjoy his freedom thoroughly. They came in again
+merrier and more boisterous than before.
+
+Rafael asked Hans Ravn's young wife to dance. Her personal
+attractions, natural gaiety, and especially her admiration of her
+husband's relations, took him by storm. They danced twice, and
+laughed and talked together afterwards.
+
+Later in the evening the two friends rejoined their wives, so that
+they might all sit together at supper. Even from a distance Rafael
+could see by Angelika's face that a storm was brewing. He grew
+angry at once. He had never been blamed more groundlessly. He was
+never to have any unalloyed pleasure, then! But he confined
+himself to whispering, "Try to behave like other people." But that
+was exactly what she did not mean to do. He had left her alone,
+every one had seen it. She would have her revenge. She could not
+endure Hans Ravn's merriment, still less that of his wife, so she
+contradicted rudely once, twice, three times, while Hans Ravn's
+face grew more and more puzzled. The storm might have blown over,
+for Rafael parried each thrust, even turning them into jokes, so
+that the party grew merrier, and no feelings were hurt; but on
+this she tried fresh tactics. As has been already said, she could
+make a number of annoying gestures, signs and movements which only
+he understood. In this way she showed him her contempt for
+everything which every one, and especially he himself, said. He
+could not help looking towards her, and saw this every time he did
+so, until under the cover of the laughter of the others, with as
+much fervour and affection as can be put into such a word, "You
+jade!" he said.
+
+"Jade; was ist das?" asked the bright-eyed foreigner.
+
+This made the whole affair supremely ridiculous. Angelika herself
+laughed, and all hoped that the cloud had been finally dispersed.
+No!--as though Satan himself had been at table with them, she
+would not give in.
+
+The conversation again grew lively, and when it was at its height,
+she pooh-poohed all their jokes so unmistakably that they were
+completely puzzled. Rafael gave her a furious look, and then she
+jeered at him, "You boy!" she said. After this Rafael answered her
+angrily, and let nothing pass without retaliation, rough, savage
+retaliation; he was worse than she was.
+
+"But God bless me!" said good-natured Hans Ravn at length, "how
+you are altered, Rafael!" His genial kindly eyes gazed at him with
+a look which Rafael never forget.
+
+"Ja, ich kan es nicht mehr aushalten" said the young Fru Ravn,
+with tears in her eyes. She rose, her husband hurried to her, and
+they left together. Rafael sat down again, with Angelika. Those
+near them looked towards them and whispered together. Angry and
+ashamed, he looked across at Angelika, who laughed. Everything
+seemed to turn red before his eyes--he rose; he had a wild desire
+to kill her there, before every one. Yes! the temptation
+overpowered him to such an extent that he thought that people must
+notice it.
+
+"Are you not well, Kaas?" he heard some one beside him say.
+
+He could not remember afterwards what he answered, or how he got
+away; but still, in the street, he dwelt with ecstasy on the
+thought of killing her, of again seeing her face turn black, her
+arms fall powerless, her eyes open wide with terror; for that was
+what would happen some day. He should end his life in a felon's
+cell. That was as certainly a part of his destiny as had been the
+possession of talents which he had allowed to become useless.
+
+A quarter of an hour later he was at the observatory: he scanned
+the heavens, but no stars were visible. He felt that he was
+perspiring, that his clothes clung to him, yet he was ice-cold.
+That is the future that awaits you, he thought; it runs ice-cold
+through your limbs.
+
+Then it was that a new and, until then, unused power, which
+underlay all else, broke forth and took the command.
+
+"You shall never return home to her, that is all past now, boy; I
+will not permit it any longer."
+
+What was it? What voice was that? It really sounded as though
+outside himself. Was it his father's? It was a man's voice. It
+made him clear and calm. He turned round, he went straight to the
+nearest hotel, without further thought, without anxiety. Something
+new was about to begin.
+
+He slept for three hours undisturbed by dreams; it was the first
+night for a long time that he had done so.
+
+The following morning he sat in the little pavilion at the station
+at Eidsvold with his mother's packet of letters laid open before
+him. It consisted of a quantity of papers which he had read
+through.
+
+The expanse of Lake Mjosen lay cold and grey beneath the autumn
+mist, which still shrouded the hillsides. The sound of hammers
+from the workshops to the right mingled with the rumble of wheels
+on the bridge; the whistle of an engine, the rattle of crockery
+from the restaurant; sights and sounds seethed round him like
+water boiling round an egg.
+
+As soon as his mother had felt sure that Angelika was not really
+enceinte she had busied herself in collecting all the information
+about her which it was possible to obtain.
+
+By the untiring efforts of her ubiquitous relations she had
+succeeded to such an extent and in such detail as no examining
+magistrate could have accomplished. And there now lay before him
+letters, explanations, evidence, which the deponent was ready to
+swear to, besides letters from Angelika herself: imprudent letters
+which this impulsive creature could perpetrate in the midst of her
+schemes; or deeply calculated letters, which directly contradicted
+others which had been written at a different period, based on
+different calculations. These documents were only the
+accompaniment of a clear summing-up by his mother. It was
+therefore she who had guided the investigations of the others and
+made a digest of their discoveries. With mathematical precision
+was here laid down both what was certain and what, though not
+certain, was probable. No comment was added, not a word addressed
+to himself.
+
+That portion of the disclosures which related to Angelika's past
+does not concern us. That which had reference to her relations
+with Rafael began by proving that the anonymous letters, which had
+been the means of preventing his engagement with Helene, had been
+written by Angelika. This revelation and that which preceded it,
+give an idea of the overwhelming humiliation under which Rafael
+now suffered. What was he that he could be duped and mastered like
+a captured animal; that what was best and what was worst in him
+could lead him so far astray? Like a weak fool he was swept along;
+he had neither seen nor heard nor thought before he was dragged
+away from everything that was his or that was dear to him.
+
+As he sat there, the perspiration poured from him as it had done
+the night before, and again he felt a deadly chill. He therefore
+went up to his room with the papers, which he locked up in his
+trunk, and then set off at a run along the road. The passers-by
+turned to stare after the tall fellow.
+
+As he ran he repeated to himself, "Who are you, my lad? who are
+you?" Then he asked the hills the same question, and then the
+trees as well. He even asked the fog, which was now rolling off,
+"Who am I? can you answer me that?"
+
+The close-cropped half-withered turf mocked him--the cleared
+potato patches, the bare fields, the fallen leaves.
+
+"That which you are you will never be; that which you can you will
+never do; that which you ought to become you will never attain to!
+As you, so your mother before you. She turned aside--and your
+father too--into absolute folly; perhaps their fathers before
+them! This is a branch of a great family who never attained to
+what they were intended for."
+
+"Something different has misled each one of us, but we have all
+been misled. Why is that so? We have greater aims than many
+others, but the others drove along the beaten highway right
+through the gates of Fortune's house. We stray away from the
+highway and into the wood. See! am I not there myself now? Away
+from the highway and into the wood, as though I were led by an
+inward law. Into the wood." He looked round among the mountain-
+ashes, the birches, and other leafy trees in autumn tints. They
+stood all round, dripping, as though they wept for his sorrow.
+"Yes, yes; they will see me hang here, like Absalom by his long
+hair." He had not recalled this old picture a moment before he
+stopped, as though seized by a strong hand.
+
+He must not fly from this, but try to fathom it. The more he
+thought of it, the clearer it became: ABSALOM'S HISTORY WAS HIS
+OWN. He began with rebellion. Naturally rebellion is the first
+step in a course which leads one from the highway--leads to
+passion and its consequences. That was clear enough.
+
+Thus passion overpowered strength of purpose; thus chance
+circumstances sapped the foundations--But David rebelled as well.
+Why, then, was not David hung up by his hair? It was quite as long
+as Absalom's. Yes, David was within an ace of it, right up to his
+old age. But the innate strength in David was too great, his
+energy was always too powerful: it conquered the powers of
+rebellion. They could not drag him far away into passionate
+wanderings; they remained only holiday flights in his life and
+added poetry to it. They did not move his strength of purpose. Ah,
+ha! It was so strong in David that he absorbed them and fed on
+them; and yet he was within an ace--very often. See! That is what
+I, miserable contemptible wretch, cannot do. So I must hang! Very
+soon the man with the spear will be after me.
+
+Rafael now set off running; probably he wished to escape the man
+with the spear. He now entered the thickest part of the wood, a
+narrow valley between two high hills which overshadowed it. Oh,
+how thirsty he was, so fearfully thirsty! He stood still and
+wondered whether he could get anything to drink. Yes, he could
+hear the murmur of a brook. He ran farther down towards it. Close
+by was an opening in the wood, and as he went towards the stream
+he was arrested by something there: the sun had burst forth and
+lighted up the tree-tops, throwing deep shadows below. Did he see
+anything? Yes; it seemed to him that he saw himself, not
+absolutely in the opening, but to one side, in the shadow, under a
+tree; he hung there by his hair. He hung there and swung, a man,
+but in the velvet jacket of his childhood and the tight-fitting
+trousers: he swung suspended by his tangled red hair. And farther
+away he distinctly saw another figure: it was his mother, stiff
+and stately, who was turning round as if to the sound of music.
+And, God preserve him! still farther away, broad and heavy, hung
+his father, by the few thin hairs on his neck, with wretched
+distorted face as on his death-bed. In other respects those two
+were not great sinners. They were old; but his sins were great,
+for he was young, and therefore nothing had ever prospered with
+him, not even in his childhood. There had always been something
+which had caused him to be misunderstood or which had frightened
+him or made him constantly constrained and uncertain of himself.
+Never had he been able to keep to the main point, and thus to be
+in quiet natural peace. With only one exception--his meeting with
+Helene.
+
+It seemed to him that he was sitting in the boat with her out in
+the bay. The sky was bright, there was melody in the woods. Now he
+was up on the hill with her, among the saplings, and she was
+explaining to him that it depended on her care whether they throve
+or not.
+
+He went to the brook to drink; he lay down over the water. He was
+thus able to see his own face. How could that happen? Why, there
+was sunshine overhead. He was able to see his own face. Great
+heavens! how like his father he had become. In the last year he
+had grown very like his father--people had said so. He well
+remembered his mother's manner when she noticed it. But, good God!
+were those grey hairs? Yes, in quantities, so that his hair was no
+longer red but grey. No one had told him of it. Had he advanced so
+far, been so little prepared for it, that Hans Ravn's remark, "How
+you are altered, Rafael!" had frightened him?
+
+He had certainly given up observing himself, in this coarse life
+of quarrels. In it, certainly, neither words nor deeds were
+weighed, and hence this hunted feeling. It was only natural that
+he had ceased to observe. If the brook had been a little deeper,
+he would have let himself be engulfed in it. He got up, and went
+on again, quicker and quicker: sometimes he saw one person,
+sometimes another, hanging in the woods.
+
+He dare not turn round. Was it so very wonderful that others
+besides himself and his family had turned from the beaten track,
+and peopled the byways and the boughs in the wood? He had been
+unjust towards himself and his parents; they were not alone, they
+were in only too large a company. What will unjust people say, but
+that the very thing which requires strength does not receive it,
+but half of it comes to nothing, more than half of the powers are
+wasted. Here, in these strips of woodland which run up the hills
+side by side, like organ-pipes, Henrik Vergeland had also roamed:
+within an ace, with him too, within an ace! Wonderful how the
+ravens gather together here, where so many people are hanging. Ha!
+ha! He must write this to his mother! It was something to write
+about to her, who had left him, who deserted him when he was the
+most unhappy, because all that she cared for was to keep her
+sacred person inviolate, to maintain her obstinate opinion, to
+gratify her pique--Oh! what long hair!--How fast his mother was
+held! She had not cut her hair enough then. But now she should
+have her deserts. Everything from as far back as he could remember
+should be recalled, for once in a way he would show her herself;
+now he had both the power and the right. His powers of discovery
+had been long hidden under the suffocating sawdust of the daily
+and nightly sawing; but now it was awake, and his mother should
+feel it.
+
+People noticed the tall man break out of the wood, jump over
+hedges and ditches, and make his way straight up the hill. At the
+very top he would write to his mother!--
+
+He did not return to the hotel till dark. He was wet, dirty, and
+frightfully exhausted. He was as hungry as a wolf, he said, but he
+hardly ate anything; on the other hand, he was consumed with
+thirst. On leaving the table he said that he wished to stay there
+a few days to sleep. They thought that he was joking, but he slept
+uninterruptedly until the afternoon of the next day. He was then
+awakened, ate a little and drank a great deal, for he had
+perspired profusely; after which he fell asleep again. He passed
+the next twenty-four hours in much the same way.
+
+When he awoke the following morning he found himself alone.
+
+Had not a doctor been there, and had he not said that it was a
+good thing for him to sleep? It seemed to him that he had heard a
+buzz of voices; but he was sure that he was well now, only
+furiously hungry and thirsty, and when he raised himself he felt
+giddy. But that passed off by degrees, when he had eaten some of
+the food which had been left there. He drank out of the water-jug-
+-the carafe was empty--and walked once or twice up and down before
+the open window. It was decidedly cold, so he shut it. Just then
+he remembered that he had written a frightful letter to his
+mother!
+
+How long ago was it? Had he not slept a long time? Had he not
+turned grey? He went to the looking-glass, but forgot the grey
+hair at the sight of himself. He was thin, lank, and dirty.--The
+letter! the letter! It will kill my mother! There had already been
+misfortunes enough, more must not follow.
+
+He dressed himself quickly, as if by hurrying he could overtake
+the letter. He looked at the clock--it had stopped. Suppose the
+train were in! He must go by it, and from the train straight to
+the steamer, and home, home to Hellebergene! But he must send a
+telegram to his mother at once. He wrote it--"Never mind the
+letter, mother. I am coming this evening and will never leave you
+again."
+
+So now he had only to put on a clean collar, now his watch--it
+certainly was morning--now to pack, go down and pay the bill, have
+something to eat, take his ticket, send the telegram; but first--
+no, it must all be done together, for the train WAS there; it had
+only a few minutes more to wait; he could only just catch it. The
+telegram was given to some one else to send off.
+
+But he had hardly got into the carriage, where he was alone, than
+the thought of the letter tortured him, till he could not sit
+still. This dreadful analysis of his mother, strophe after
+strophe, it rose before him, it again drove him into the state of
+mind in which he had been among the hills and woods of Eidsvold.
+Beyond the tunnel the character of the scenery was the same.--Good
+God! that dreadful letter was never absent from his thoughts,
+otherwise he would not suffer so terribly. What right had he to
+reproach his mother, or any one, because a mere chance should have
+become of importance in their lives?
+
+Would the telegram arrive in time to save her from despair, and
+yet not frighten her from home because he was coming? To think
+that he could write in such a way to her, who had but lived to
+collect the information which would free him! His ingratitude must
+appear too monstrous to her. The extreme reserve which she was
+unable to break through might well lead to catastrophes. What
+might not she have determined on when she received this violent
+attack by way of thanks? Perhaps she would think that life was no
+longer worth living, she who thought it so easy to die. He
+shuddered.
+
+But she will do nothing hastily, she will weigh everything first.
+Her roots go deep. When she appears to have acted on impulse, it
+is because she has had previous knowledge. But she has no previous
+knowledge here; surely here she will deliberate.
+
+He pictured her as, wrapped in her shawl, she wandered about in
+dire distress--or with intent gaze reviewing her life and his own,
+until both appeared to her to have been hopelessly wasted--or
+pondering where she could best hide herself so that she should
+suffer no more.
+
+How he loved her! All that had happened had drawn a veil over his
+eyes, which was now removed.
+
+ Now he was on board the steamer which was bearing him home. The
+weather had become mild and summerlike; it had been raining, but
+towards evening it began to clear. He would get to Hellebergene in
+fine weather, and by moonlight. It grew colder; he spoke to no
+one, nor had he eyes for anything about him.
+
+The image of his mother, wrapped in her long shawl--that was all
+the company he had. Only his mother! No one but his mother!
+Suppose the telegram had but frightened her the more--that to see
+HIM now appeared the worst that could happen. To read such a
+crushing doom for her whole life, and that from him! She was not
+so constituted that it could be cancelled by his asking
+forgiveness and returning to her. On the contrary, it would
+precipitate the worst, it must do so.
+
+The violent perspiration began again; he had to put on more wraps.
+His terror took possession of him: he was forced to contemplate
+the most awful possibilities--to picture to himself what death his
+mother would choose!
+
+He sprang to his feet and paced up and down. He longed to throw
+himself into somebody's arms, to cry aloud. But he knew well that
+he must not let such words escape him.--He HAD to picture her as
+she handled the guns, until she relinquished the idea of using any
+of them. Then he imagined her recalling the deepest hiding-places
+in the woods--where were they all?
+
+HE recalled them, one after another. No, not in any of THOSE, for
+she wished to hide herself where she would never be found! There
+was the cement-bed; it went sheer down there, and the water was
+deep!--He clung to the rigging to prevent himself from falling. He
+prayed to be released from these terrors. But he saw her floating
+there, rocked by the rippling water. Was it the face which was
+uppermost, or was it the body, which for a while floated higher
+than the face?
+
+His thoughts were partially diverted from this by people coming up
+to ask him if he were ill. He got something warm and strong to
+drink, and now the steamer approached the part of the coast with
+which he was familiar. They passed the opening into Hellebergene,
+for one has to go first to the town, and thence in a boat. It now
+became the question, whether a boat had been sent for him. In that
+case his mother was alive, and would welcome him. But if there was
+no boat, then a message from the gulf had been sent instead!
+
+And there was no boat!--
+
+For a moment his senses failed him; only confused sounds fell on
+his ear. But then he seemed to emerge from a dark passage. He must
+get to Hellebergene! He must see what had happened; be would go
+and search!
+
+By this time it was growing dark. He went on shore and looked
+round for a boat as though half asleep. He could hardly speak, but
+he did not give in till he got the men together and hired the
+boat. He took the helm himself, and bade them row with all their
+might. He knew every peak in the grey twilight. They might depend
+on him, and row on without looking round. Soon they had passed the
+high land and were in among the islands. This time they did not
+come out to meet him; they all seemed gathered there to repel him.
+No boat had been sent; there was, therefore, nothing more for him
+to do here. No boat had been sent, because he had forfeited his
+place here. Like savage beasts, with bristles erect, the peaks and
+islands arrayed themselves against him. "Row on, my lads," he
+cried, for now arose again in him that dormant power which only
+manifested itself in his utmost need.
+
+"How is it with you, my boy? I am growing weary. Courage, now, and
+forward!"
+
+Again that voice outside himself--a man's voice. Was it his
+father's?
+
+Whether or not it were his father's voice, here before his
+father's home he would struggle against Fate.
+
+In man's direst necessity, what he has failed in and what he can
+do seem to encounter each other. And thus, just as the boat had
+cleared the point and the islands and was turning into the bay, he
+raised himself to his full height, and the boatmen looked at him
+in astonishment. He still grasped the rudder-lines, and looked as
+though he were about to meet an enemy. Or did he hear anything?
+was it the sound of oars?
+
+Yes, they heard them now as well. From the strait near the inlet a
+boat was approaching them. She loomed large on the smooth surface
+of the water and shot swiftly along.
+
+"Is that a boat from Hellebergene?" shouted Rafael. His voice
+shook.
+
+"Yes," came a voice out of the darkness, and he recognised the
+bailiff's voice. "Is it Rafael?"
+
+"Yes. Why did you not come before?"
+
+"The telegram has only just arrived."
+
+He sat down. He did not speak. He became suddenly incapable of
+uttering a word.
+
+The other boat turned and followed them. Rafael nearly ran his
+boat on shore; he forgot that he was steering. Very soon they
+cleared the narrow passage which led into the inner bay, and
+rounded the last headland, and there!--there lay Hellebergene
+before them in a blaze of light! From cellar to attic, in every
+single window, it glowed, it streamed with light, and at that
+moment another light blazed out from the cairn on the hill-top.
+
+It was thus that his mother greeted him. He sobbed; and the
+boatmen heard him, and at the same time noticed that it had grown
+suddenly light. They turned round, and were so engrossed in the
+spectacle that they forgot to row.
+
+"Come! you must let me get on," was all that he could manage to
+say.
+
+His sufferings were forgotten as he leapt from the boat. Nor did
+it disturb him that he did not meet his mother at the landing-
+place, or near the house, nor see her on the terrace. He simply
+rushed up the stairs and opened the door.
+
+The candles in the windows gave but little light within. Indeed,
+something had been put in the windows for them to stand on, so
+that the interior was half in shadow. But he had come in from the
+semi-darkness. He looked round for her, but he heard some one
+crying at the other end of the room. There she sat, crouched in
+the farthest corner of the sofa, with her feet drawn up under her,
+as in old days when she was frightened. She did not stretch out
+her arms; she remained huddled together. But he bent over her,
+knelt down, laid his face on hers, wept with her. She had grown
+fragile, thin, haggard, ah! as though she could be blown away. She
+let him take her in his arms like a child and clasp her to his
+breast; let him caress and kiss her. Ah, how ethereal she had
+become! And those eyes, which at last he saw, now looked tearfully
+out from their large orbits, but more innocently than a bird from
+its nest. Over her broad forehead she had wound a large silk
+handkerchief in turban fashion. It hung down behind. She wished to
+conceal the thinness of her hair. He smiled to recognise her again
+in this. More spiritualised, more ethereal in her beauty, her
+innermost aspirations shone forth without effort. Her thin hands
+caressed his hair, and now she gazed into his eyes.
+
+"Rafael, my Rafael!" She twined her arms round him and murmured
+welcome. But soon she raised her head and resumed a sitting
+posture. She wished to speak. He was beforehand with her.
+
+"Forgive the letter," he whispered with beseeching eyes and voice,
+and hands upraised.
+
+"I saw the distress of your soul," was the whispered answer, for
+it could not be spoken aloud. "And there was nothing to forgive,"
+she added. She had laid her face against his again. "And it was
+quite true, Rafael," she murmured.
+
+She must have passed through terrible days and nights here, he
+thought, before she could say that.
+
+"Mother, mother! what a fearful time!"
+
+Her little hand sought his: it was cold; it lay in his like an egg
+in a deserted nest. He warmed it and took the other as well.
+
+"Was not the illumination splendid?" she said. And now her voice
+was like a child's.
+
+He moved the screen which obstructed the light: he must see her
+better. He thought, when he saw the look of happiness in her face,
+if life looks so beautiful to her still, we shall have a long time
+together.
+
+"If you had told me all that about Absalom, the picture which you
+made when you were told the story of David, Rafael; if you had
+only told me that before!" She paused, and her lips quivered.
+
+"How could I tell it to you, mother, when I did not understand it
+myself?"
+
+"The illumination--that must signify that I, too, understand. It
+ought to light you forward; do you not think so?"
+
+
+
+
+A PAINFUL MEMORY FROM CHILDHOOD
+
+I must have been somewhere about seven years old, when one Sunday
+afternoon a rumour reached the parsonage that, on that same day,
+two men, rowing past the Buggestrand in Eidsfjord, had discovered
+a woman who had fallen over a cliff, and had remained half lying,
+half hanging, close to the water's edge.
+
+Before moving her, they tried to find out from her who had thrown
+her over.
+
+It was thirty-five miles by water to the doctor's, and then an
+order for admission to the hospital had also to be procured. She
+had lain twenty-four hours before help reached her, and shortly
+afterwards she died. Before she breathed her last, she said it was
+Peer Hagbo who had done it. "But," she added, "they mustn't do him
+any harm."
+
+Everybody knew that there had been an attachment between the girl,
+who was in service at Hagbo's, and the son of the house, and the
+shrewd ones instantly guessed why he wanted to get her out of the
+way.
+
+I remember clearly the arrival of the news. It was, as I have
+said, on a Sunday afternoon, her death having occurred on the
+morning of the same day.
+
+It was in the very middle of summer, when the whole place was
+flooded with sunshine and gladness. I remember how the light
+faded, faces turned to stone, the fjord grew dim, and village and
+forest shrank away into shadow. I remember that even the next day
+I felt as though a blow had been dealt to ordinary existence. I
+knew that I need not go to school. Men knocked off work, leaving
+everything just as it was, and sat down with idle hands. The women
+especially were paralysed: it was evident they felt themselves
+threatened, they even said as much. When strangers came to the
+parsonage their bearing and expression showed that the murder lay
+heavy on their minds, and they read the same story in us. We took
+each other's hands with a sense of remoteness. The murder was the
+only thing that was present with us. Whatever we talked of we
+seemed to hear of the murder in voice and word. The last
+consciousness at night and the first in the morning was that
+everything was unsettled, and that the joy of life was suddenly
+arrested, like the hands on a dial at a certain hour.
+
+But by degrees the murder fell into its proper place among other
+interests; curiosity and gossip had made it commonplace. It was
+taken up, turned over, considered, picked at and pulled about,
+till it became simply "the last new thing." Soon we knew every
+detail of the relation between the murdered and the murderer. We
+knew who it was that Peer's mother had wanted him to marry; we
+knew the Hagbo family in and out, and their history for
+generations past.
+
+When the magistrate came to the parsonage to institute the
+preliminary inquiry, the murder was merely an inexhaustible theme
+of conversation. But the next day when the bailiff and some other
+men appeared with the murderer, a new feeling took possession of
+me, a feeling of which I could not have imagined myself capable--
+an overpowering compassion. A young good-looking lad, well grown,
+slightly built, rather small than otherwise, with dark not very
+thick hair, with appealing eyes which were now downcast, with a
+clear voice, and about his whole personality a certain charm,
+almost refinement; a creature to associate with life, not death,
+with gladness, with gaiety. I was more sorry for him than I can
+say. The bailiff and the other people spoke kindly to him too, so
+they must have felt the same. Only the peppery little clerk came
+out with some hard words, but the accused stood cap in hand and
+made no answer.
+
+He paced up and down the yard in his shirt sleeves--the day was
+very warm--with a flat cloth cap over his close-cut hair, and his
+hands in his trousers pockets, or toying restlessly with a piece
+of straw. The parsonage dog had found companions, and the youth
+followed the dog's frolic with his eyes, and gazed at the chickens
+and at us children as though he longed to be one of us. The girl's
+words, "But don't do him any harm," rang in my ears unceasingly--
+whether he walked about or stood still or sat down. I knew that he
+would certainly be beheaded, and, believing that it must be soon,
+I was filled with horror at the thought of his saying to himself,
+In a month I shall die--and then in a week--in a day--an hour...
+it must be utterly unendurable. I slipped behind him to see his
+neck, and just at that moment he lifted his hand up to it, a
+little brown hand; and I could not get rid of the thought that
+perhaps his fingers would come in the way when the axe was
+falling.
+
+He and the warders were asked to come in and dine. I felt I must
+see if it were really possible for him to eat. Yes, he ate and
+chatted just like the rest, and for a time I forgot my terror. But
+no sooner was I outside again and alone than I fell to thinking of
+it with might and main, and it seemed to me very hard that her
+words, "But you mustn't do him any harm," should be so utterly
+disregarded. I felt I must go in and say as much to father. But
+he, slow and serious, and the clerk, little and dapper, were
+walking up and down the room deep in conversation, far, far above
+all my misery. I slipped out again, and stroked the coat which
+Peer had taken off.
+
+The inquiry was held in my schoolroom. My master acted as
+secretary to the court, and I got leave to sit there and listen.
+For the matter of that, the clerk spoke in so loud a voice that it
+could be heard through the open window by every one in the place.
+The unfortunate youth was called upon to account for the entire
+day on which the murder had been committed--for every hour of that
+Sunday. He denied that he had killed her--denied it with the
+utmost emphasis: "It was not he who had done it." The magistrate's
+examination was both acutely and kindly conducted; Peer was moved
+to tears, but no confession could be drawn from him.
+
+"This will be a long business, madam," said the magistrate to my
+mother when the first day's inquiry was over. But later in the
+evening Peer's sister came to the parsonage and remained with him
+all through the night. They were heard whispering and crying
+unceasingly. In the morning Peer was pale and silent; before the
+court he took all the blame upon himself.
+
+The way it had happened, he explained, was that he had been her
+lover, and that his mother had strongly disapproved of the
+connection. So one Sunday as the girl, prayer-book in hand, was
+going to church, he met her in the wood. They sat down, and he
+asked if she intended to declare him the father of the child she
+was about to bear; for it was in this time of sore necessity that
+she was going to seek consolation in the church. She replied that
+she could accuse no one else. He spoke of the shame it would bring
+on him, and how annoyed his mother already was. Yes, yes, she knew
+that too well. His mother was very angry with her; and she thought
+it strange of Peer that he didn't stand up for her; he knew best
+whose fault it was that all this had happened. But Peer hinted
+that she had been compliant to others as well as to himself, and
+therefore he would not submit to being given out as the child's
+father. He tried to make her angry, but did not succeed, she was
+so gentle. He had an axe lying concealed in the heather near where
+he sat. He took it and struck her on the head from behind. She did
+not lose consciousness at once, but tried to defend herself while
+she begged for her life. He could give no clear account of what
+happened afterwards. It seemed almost as though he himself had
+lost consciousness. As to the other events, he accepted the
+account of them which had been given in the evidence against him.
+
+His sister waited at the parsonage until he came from the
+examination, worn out and with eyes red with weeping. Once more
+they went aside and whispered. I remember nothing more of her than
+that she held her head down and wept a great deal.
+
+ It was in the winter that he was to be executed. The announcement
+was made at such short notice that every one in the house had to
+bestir himself--father was to deliver an exhortation at the place
+of execution, and the Dean, whose parishioner the condemned man
+was, together with the bailiff, had arranged to come to us the day
+before.
+
+Peer and his warders and a friend, his instructor during the time
+of his imprisonment, schoolmaster Jakobsen, were to sleep down in
+the schoolhouse, which was part of the farm property belonging to
+the old parsonage. Meals were to be carried from our house to the
+prisoner and Jakobsen.
+
+I remember that they came in the morning in two boat-loads from
+Molde: the Dean, the bailiff, the military escort, and the
+condemned man. But I had to sit in the old schoolhouse, and not
+even later in the day was I allowed to go down to where they were.
+
+This prohibition made the whole proceeding the more mysterious. It
+grew dark early. The sea ran black against a whitish and in some
+places bare-swept beach. The ragged clouds chased each other
+across the sky. We were afraid a storm was coming on. Then one of
+the parsonage chimneys caught on fire, and most of the soldiers
+came rushing up to offer help. The great fire-ladder was brought
+from under the storehouse. It was unusually heavy and clumsy, so
+it was difficult to get it raised, till father broke into the
+midst of the crowd, ordered them all to stand back, and set it up
+by himself. This is still remembered in the parish; and also that
+the bailiff, an active little fellow, took a bucket in each hand
+and went up the ladder till he reached the turf roof. The black
+fjord, the hurrying clouds, the menace of the coming day, the
+blaze of the fire, the bustle and din...and then the silence
+afterwards! People whispered as they moved about the rooms and out
+in the yard, whence they looked down upon the schoolhouse-prison
+where the steady light burned.
+
+Schoolmaster Jacobsen was sitting there now with his friend. They
+were singing and praying together, I heard from those who had been
+down in that direction. Peer's family came in the evening in a
+boat, went up to see him, and took leave of him. I heard how
+dauntless he was in his confidence that the next day he would be
+with God, and how beautifully he talked to his people, and
+especially how he begged them to take an affectionate greeting to
+his mother, and be good to her as long as she lived. Some said she
+had come in the boat with the rest, but would not go up to see
+him. That was not true, any more than that some of them were at
+the execution the next day, which was also reported.
+
+I wakened the next morning under a weight of apprehension. The
+weather had changed and was fair now, but it felt oppressive
+nevertheless. No one spoke loud, and people said as little as
+possible. I was to be allowed to go with the rest and look on; so
+I made haste to find my tutor, whom I had been told not to leave.
+The two clergymen came out in their cassocks. We went down to the
+landing-place and rowed the first part of the way. The condemned
+man and his escort had gone on before, and waited at the place
+where we disembarked, in order to walk the latter part of the way
+to the place of execution, a kilometer or so distant. The
+execution had to take place at a cross-roads, and there was only
+one in the neighbourhood--namely, at Ejdsvaag, nearly seven miles
+away from where the murder was committed. The bailiff headed the
+procession, then came the soldiers, then the condemned man, with
+the Dean on one side and my father on the other, then Jacobsen and
+my tutor, with me between them, then some more people, followed by
+more soldiers. We walked cautiously along the slippery road. The
+clergyman talked constantly to the condemned man, who was now very
+pale. His eyes had grown gentle and weary and he said very little.
+My mother, who had been very kind to him, and whom he had thanked
+for all she had done, had sent him a bottle of wine to keep up his
+strength. The first time that my tutor offered him some, he looked
+at the clergyman as though asking if there were anything sinful in
+accepting it. My father quoted St. Paul's advice to Timothy, and
+instantly he drank off a long draught.
+
+By the wayside stood people curious to see him, and they joined
+the procession as it passed along. Among them were some of his
+comrades, to whom he sorrowfully nodded. Once or twice he lifted
+his cap, the same flat one I had seen him in the first time. It
+was evident that his comrades had a regard for him; and I saw,
+too, some young women who were crying, and made no attempt to
+conceal it. He walked along with his hands clasped at his breast,
+probably praying.
+
+We were all startled by the captain's loud and commonplace word of
+command, "Attention!" as we reached the appointed place. A body of
+soldiers stood drawn up in a hollow square, which closed in after
+admitting the bailiff, the clergyman, the condemned man, and a few
+besides, among whom was myself. A great silent crowd stood round,
+and over their heads one saw the mounted figure of the sheriff in
+his cocked hat. When the soldiers who came with us, having carried
+out various sharp words of command, had taken their places in the
+square, the further proceedings began by the sheriff's reading
+aloud the death sentence and the royal order for the execution.
+
+The sheriff stationed himself directly in front of the place where
+some planed boards were laid over the grave. At one end of it
+stood the block. On the other side of the grave a platform had
+been erected, from which the Dean was to speak. Peer Hagbo knelt
+below on the step, with his face buried in his hands, close to the
+feet of his spiritual adviser. The Dean was of Danish birth, one
+of the many who, at the time of the separation, had chosen to make
+their home in Norway. His addresses were beautiful to read, but
+one couldn't always hear him, and least of all when he was moved,
+as was frequently the case. He shouted the first words very loud;
+then his head sank down between his shoulders, and he shook it
+without a pause while he closed his eyes and uttered some
+smothered sounds, catching his breath between them. The points of
+his tall shirt-collar, which reached to the middle of his ears (I
+have never since seen the like), stuck up on each side of the bare
+cropped head with the two double chins underneath, and the whole
+was framed between his shoulders, which, by long practice, he
+could raise much higher than other men. Those who did not know
+him--for to know him was to love him--could hardly keep from
+laughing. His speech was neither heard nor understood, but it was
+short. His emotion forced him to break it off suddenly. One thing
+alone we all understood: that he loved the pale young man whom he
+had prepared for death, and that he wished that all of us might go
+to our God as happy and confident as he who was to die to-day.
+When he stepped down they embraced each other for the last time.
+Peer gave his hand to my father and to a number besides, and then
+placed himself by his friend Jakobsen. The latter knew what this
+meant. He took off a kerchief and bound Peer's eyes, while we saw
+him whisper something to him and receive a whispered answer. Then
+a man came forward to bind Peer's hands behind his back, but he
+begged to be left free, and his prayer was granted. Then Jakobsen
+took him by the hand and led him forward. At the place where Peer
+was to kneel Jakobsen stopped short, and Peer slowly bent his
+knees. Jakobsen bent Peer's head down until it rested on the
+block; then he drew back and folded his hands. All this I saw, and
+also that a tall man came and took hold of Peer's neck, while a
+smaller man drew forth from a couple of folded towels a shining
+axe with a remarkably broad thin blade. It was then I turned away.
+I heard the captain's horrible "Present arms"; I heard some one
+praying "Our Father"--perhaps it was Peer himself--then a blow
+that sounded exactly as if it went into a great cabbage. At once I
+looked round again, and saw one leg kicking out, and a yard or two
+beyond the body lay the head, the mouth gasping and gasping as if
+for air.
+
+The executioner's assistant sprang forward and took hold of it by
+the ends of the handkerchief that had bandaged the eyes, and threw
+it into the coffin beside the body, where it fell with a dull
+sound. The boards were laid over the coffined remains, and the
+whole hastily lifted up and lowered into the grave.
+
+Then my father got up on the platform. Every one could understand
+what HE said, and his powerful voice was heard to such a distance
+that even now it is remembered in the district. Following up the
+thunderous admonition of the execution itself, he warned the young
+against the vices which prevailed in the parish--against
+drunkenness, fighting, unchastity, and other misconduct. They must
+have liked the discourse very much, for it was stolen out of the
+pocket of his gown on the way home.
+
+As for me, I left the place as sick at heart, as overwhelmed with
+horror, as if it were my turn to be executed next. Afterwards I
+compared notes with many others, who owned to exactly the same
+feeling. Father and the Dean dined at the captain's with the other
+officials; but they separated and went home directly after dinner.
+
+
+
+
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