Chapter 11

Early the next morning, as a kind of etherealized sunshine broke through the white muslin curtains of Arnfinn’s room, and long streaks of sun-illumined dust stole through the air toward the sleeper’s pillow, there was a sharp rap at the door, and Strand entered. His knapsack was strapped over his shoulders, his long staff was in his hand, and there was an expression of conscious martyrdom in his features. Arnfinn raised himself on his elbows, and rubbed his eyes with a desperate determination to get awake, but only succeeded in gaining a very dim impression of a beard, a blue woolen shirt, and a disproportionately large shoe buckle. The figure advanced to the bed, extended a broad, sun-burned hand, and a deep bass voice was heard to say:

“Good-bye, brother.”

Arnfinn, who was a hard sleeper, gave another rub, and, in a querulously sleepy tone, managed to mutter:

“Why,--is it as late as that--already?”

The words of parting were more remotely repeated, the hand closed about Arnfinn’s half-unfeeling fingers, the lock on the door gave a little sharp click, and all was still. But the sunshine drove the dust in a dumb, confused dance through the room.

Some four hours later, Arnfinn woke up with a vague feeling as if some great calamity had happened; he was not sure but that he had slept a fortnight or more. He dressed with a sleepy, reckless haste, being but dimly conscious of the logic of the various processes of ablution which he underwent. He hurried up to Strand’s room, but, as he had expected, found it empty.

During all the afternoon, the reading of “David Copperfield” was interrupted by frequent mutual condolences, and at times Inga’s hand would steal up to her eye to brush away a treacherous tear. But then she only read the faster, and David and Agnes were already safe in the haven of matrimony before either she or Arnfinn was aware that they had struggled successfully through the perilous reefs and quicksands of courtship.

Augusta excused herself from supper, Inga’s forced devices at merriment were too transparent, Arnfinn’s table-talk was of a rambling, incoherent sort, and he answered dreadfully malapropos, if a chance word was addressed to him, and even the good-natured pastor began, at last, to grumble; for the inmates of the Gran Parsonage seemed to have but one life and one soul in common, and any individual disturbance immediately disturbed the peace and happiness of the whole household. Now gloom had, in some unaccountable fashion, obscured the common atmosphere. Inga shook her small wise head, and tried to extract some little consolation from the consciousness that she knew at least some things which Arnfinn did not know, and which it would be very unsafe to confide to him.

VI.

Four weeks after Strand’s departure, as the summer had already assumed that tinge of sadness which impresses one as a foreboding of coming death, Augusta was walking along the beach, watching the flight of the sea-birds. Her latest “aberration,” as Arnfinn called it, was an extraordinary interest in the habits of the eider-ducks, auks, and sea-gulls, the noisy monotony of whose existence had, but a few months ago, appeared to her the symbol of all that was vulgar and coarse in human and animal life. Now she had even provided herself with a note-book, and (to use once more the language of her unbelieving cousin) affected a half-scientific interest in their clamorous pursuits. She had made many vain attempts to imitate their voices and to beguile them into closer intimacy, and had found it hard at times to suppress her indignation when they persisted in viewing her in the light of an intruder, and in returning her amiable approaches with shy suspicion, as if they doubted the sincerity of her intentions.

She was a little paler now, perhaps, than before, but her eyes had still the same lustrous depth, and the same sweet serenity was still diffused over her features, and softened, like a pervading tinge of warm color, the grand simplicity of her presence. She sat down on a large rock, picked up a curiously twisted shell, and seeing a plover wading in the surf, gave a soft, low whistle, which made the bird turn round and gaze at her with startled distrust. She repeated the call, but perhaps a little too eagerly, and the bird spread its wings with a frightened cry, and skimmed, half flying, half running, out over the glittering surface of the fjord. But from the rocks close by came a long melancholy whistle like that of a bird in distress, and the girl rose and hastened with eager steps toward the spot. She climbed up on a stone, fringed all around with green slimy seaweeds, in order to gain a wider view of the beach. Then suddenly some huge figure started up between the rocks at her feet; she gave a little scream, her foot slipped, and in the next moment she lay--in Strand’s arms. He offered no apology, but silently carried her over the slippery stones, and deposited her tenderly upon the smooth white sand. There it occurred to her that his attention was quite needless, but at the moment she was too startled to make any remonstrance.

“But how in the world, Mr. Strand, did you come here?” she managed at last to stammer. “We all thought that you had gone away.”

“I hardly know myself,” said Strand, in a beseeching undertone, quite different from his usual confident bass. “I only know that--that I was very wretched, and that I had to come back.”

Then there was a pause, which to both seemed quite interminable, and, in order to fill it out in some way, Strand began to move his head and arms uneasily, and at length seated himself at Augusta’s side. The blood was beating with feverish vehemence in her temples, and for the first time in her life she felt something akin to pity for this large, strong man, whose strength and cheerful self-reliance had hitherto seemed to raise him above the need of a woman’s aid and sympathy. Now the very shabbiness of his appearance, and the look of appealing misery in his features, opened in her bosom the gate through which compassion could enter, and, with that generous self-forgetfulness which was the chief factor of her character, she leaned over toward him, and said:

“You must have been very sick, Mr. Strand. Why did you not come to us and allow us to take care of you, instead of roaming about here in this stony wilderness?”

“Yes; I have been sick,” cried Strand, with sudden vehemence, seizing her hand; “but it is a sickness of which I shall never, never be healed.”

And with that world-old eloquence which is yet ever new, he poured forth his passionate confession in her ear, and she listened, hungrily at first, then with serene, wide-eyed happiness. He told her how, driven by his inward restlessness, he had wandered about in the mountains, until one evening at a saeter, he had heard a peasant lad singing a song, in which this stanza occurred:

“A woman’s frown, a woman’s smile, Nor hate nor fondness prove; For maidens smile on him they hate, And fly from him they love.”

Then it had occurred to him for the first time in his life that a woman’s behavior need not be the logical indicator of her deepest feelings, and, enriched with this joyful discovery, inspired with new hope, he had returned, but had not dared at once to seek the Parsonage, until he could invent some plausible reason for his return; but his imagination was very poor, and he had found none, except that he loved the pastor’s beautiful daughter.

The evening wore on. The broad mountain-guarded valley, flooded now to the brim with a soft misty light, spread out about them, and filled them with a delicious sense of security. The fjord lifted its grave gaze toward the sky, and deepened responsively with a bright, ever-receding immensity. The young girl felt this blessed peace gently stealing over her; doubt and struggle were all past, and the sun shone ever serene and unobscured upon the widening expanses of the future. And in his breast, too, that mood reigned in which life looks boundless and radiant, human woes small or impossible, and one’s own self large and all-conquering. In that hour they remodeled this old and obstinate world of ours, never doubting that, if each united his faith and strength with the other’s, they could together lift its burden.

That night was the happiest and most memorable night in the history of the Gran Parsonage. The pastor walked up and down on the floor, rubbing his hands in quiet contentment. Inga, to whom an engagement was essentially a solemn affair, sat in a corner and gazed at her sister and Strand with tearful radiance. Arnfinn gave vent to his joy by bestowing embraces promiscuously upon whomsoever chanced to come in his way.

This story, however, has a brief but not unimportant sequel. It was not many weeks after this happy evening that Arnfinn and the maiden with the “amusingly unclassical nose” presented themselves in the pastor’s study and asked for his paternal and unofficial blessing. But the pastor, I am told, grew very wroth, and demanded that his nephew should first take his second and third degrees, attaching, besides, some very odious stipulations regarding average in study and college standing, before there could be any talk about engagement or matrimony. So, at present, Arnfinn is still studying, and the fair-haired Inga is still waiting.

TRULS, THE NAMELESS.

HE was born in the houseman’s lodge; she in the great mansion. He did not know who his father was; she was the daughter of Grim of Skogli, and she was the only daughter he had. They were carried to baptism on the same day, and he was called Truls, because they had to call him something; she received the name of Borghild, because that had been the name of every eldest born daughter in the family for thirty generations. They both cried when the pastor poured the water on their heads; his mother hushed him, blushed, and looked timidly around her; but the woman who carried Borghild lifted her high up in her arms so that everybody could see her, and the pastor smiled benignly, and the parishioners said that they had never seen so beautiful a child. That was the way in which they began life--he as a child of sin, she as the daughter of a mighty race.

They grew up together. She had round cheeks and merry eyes, and her lips were redder than the red rose. He was of slender growth, his face was thin and pale, and his eyes had a strange, benumbed gaze, as if they were puzzling themselves with some sad, life-long riddle which they never hoped to solve. On the strand where they played the billows came and went, and they murmured faintly with a sound of infinite remoteness. Borghild laughed aloud, clapped her hands and threw stones out into the water, while he sat pale and silent, and saw the great white-winged sea-birds sailing through the blue ocean of the sky.

“How would you like to live down there in the deep green water?” she asked him one day, as they sat watching the eider-ducks which swam and dived, and stood on their heads among the sea-weeds.

“I should like it very well,” he answered, “if you would follow me.”

“No, I won’t follow you,” she cried. “It is cold and wet down in the water. And I should spoil the ribbons on my new bodice. But when I grow up and get big and can braid my hair, then I shall row with the young lads to the church yonder on the headland, and there the old pastor will marry me, and I shall wear the big silver crown which my mother wore when she was married.”

“And may I go with you?” asked he, timidly.

“Yes, you may steer my boat and be my helmsman, or--you may be my bridegroom, if you would like that better.”

“Yes, I think I should rather be your bridegroom,” and he gave her a long, strange look which almost frightened her.

The years slipped by, and before Borghild knew it, she had grown into womanhood. The down on Truls’s cheeks became rougher, and he, too, began to suspect that he was no longer a boy. When the sun was late and the breeze murmured in the great, dark-crowned pines, they often met by chance, at the well, on the strand, or on the saeter-green. And the oftener they met the more they found to talk about; to be sure, it was she who did the talking, and he looked at her with his large wondering eyes and listened. She told him of the lamb which had tumbled down over a steep precipice and still was unhurt, of the baby who pulled the pastor’s hair last Sunday during the baptismal ceremony, or of the lumberman, Lars, who drank the kerosene his wife gave him for brandy, and never knew the difference. But, when the milkmaids passed by, she would suddenly forget what she had been saying, and then they sat gazing at each other in silence. Once she told him of the lads who danced with her at the party at Houg; and she thought she noticed a deeper color on his face, and that he clinched both his fists and--thrust them into his pockets. That set her thinking, and the more she thought, the more curious she grew. He played the violin well; suppose she should ask him to come and fiddle at the party her father was to give at the end of the harvest. She resolved to do it, and he, not knowing what moved her, gave his promise eagerly. It struck her, afterward, that she had done a wicked thing, but, like most girls, she had not the heart to wrestle with an uncomfortable thought; she shook it off and began to hum a snatch of an old song.

“O’er the billows the fleet-footed storm-wind rode, The billows blue are the merman’s abode, So strangely that harp was sounding.”

The memory of old times came back to her, the memory of the morning long years ago, when they sat together on the strand, and he said; “I think I would rather be your bridegroom, Borghild.” The memory was sweet but it was bitter too; and the bitterness rose and filled her heart. She threw her head back proudly, and laughed a strange, hollow laugh. “A bastard’s bride, ha, ha! A fine tale were that for the parish gossips.” A yellow butterfly lighted on her arm, and with a fierce frown on her face she caught it between her fingers. Then she looked pityingly on the dead wings, as they lay in her hand, and murmured between her teeth: “Poor thing! Why did you come in my way, unbidden?”

The harvest was rich, and the harvest party was to keep pace with the harvest. The broad Skogli mansion was festively lighted (for it was already late in September); the tall, straight tallow candles, stuck in many-armed candlesticks, shone dimly through a sort of misty halo, and only suffused the dusk with a faint glimmering of light. And every time a guest entered, the flames of the candles flickered and twisted themselves with the wind, struggling to keep erect. And Borghild’s courage, too, rose and fell with the flickering motion of a flame which wrestles with the wind. Whenever the latch clicked she lifted her eyes and looked for Truls, and one moment she wished that she might never see his face again, and in the next she sent an eager glance toward the door. Presently he came, threw his fiddle on a bench, and with a reckless air walked up to her and held out his hand. She hesitated to return his greeting, but when she saw the deep lines of suffering in his face, her heart went forward with a great tenderness toward him, a tenderness such as one feels for a child who is sick, and suffers without hope of healing. She laid her hand in his, and there it lay for a while listlessly; for neither dared trust the joy which the sight of the other enkindled. But when she tried to draw her hand away, he caught it quickly, and with a sudden fervor of voice he said:

“The sight of you, Borghild, stills the hunger which is raging in my soul. Beware that you do not play with a life, Borghild, even though it be a worthless one.”

There was something so hopelessly sad in his words, that they stung her to the quick. They laid bare a hidden deep in her heart, and she shrank back st the sight of her own vileness. How could she repair the injury she had done him? How could she heal the wound she had inflicted? A number of guests came up to greet her and among them Syvert Stein, a bold-looking young man, who, during that summer, had led her frequently in the dance. He had a square face, strong features, and a huge crop of towy hair. His race was far-famed for wit and daring.

“Tardy is your welcome, Borghild of Skogli,” quoth he. “But what a faint heart does not give a bold hand can grasp, and what I am not offered I take unbidden.”

So saying, he flung his arm about her waist, lifted her from the floor and put her down in the middle of the room. Truls stood and gazed at them with large, bewildered eyes. He tried hard to despise the braggart, but ended with envying him.

“Ha, fiddler, strike up a tune that shall ring through marrow and bone,” shouted Syvert Stein, who struck the floor with his heels and moved his body to the measure of a spring-dance.

Truls still followed them with his eyes; suddenly he leaped up, and a wild thought burned in his breast. But with an effort he checked himself, grasped his violin, and struck a wailing chord of lament. Then he laid his ear close to the instrument, as if he were listening to some living voice hidden there within, ran warily with the bow over the strings, and warbled, and caroled, and sang with maddening glee, and still with a shivering undercurrent of woe. And the dusk which slept upon the black rafters was quickened and shook with the weird sound; every pulse in the wide hall beat more rapidly, and every eye kindled with a bolder fire. Pressently{sic} a Strong male voice sang out to the measure of the violin:

“Come, fairest maid, tread the dance with me; O heigh ho!”

And a clear, tremulous treble answered:

“So gladly tread I the dance with thee; O heigh ho!”

Truls knew the voices only too well; it was Syvert Stein and Borghild who were singing a stave. [8]

Syvert--Like brier-roses thy red cheeks blush, Borghild--And thine are rough like the thorny bush; Both--An’ a heigho!

Syvert--So fresh and green is the sunny lea; O heigh ho! Borghild--The fiddle twangeth so merrily; O heigh ho! Syvert--So lightly goeth the lusty reel, Borghild--And round we whirl like a spinning-wheel; Both--An’ a heigho!

Syvert--Thine eyes are bright like the sunny fjord; O heigh ho! Borghild--And thine do flash like a Viking’s sword; O heigh ho! Syvert--So lightly trippeth thy foot along, Borghild--The air is teeming with joyful song; Both--An’ a heigh ho!

Syvert--Then fairest maid, while the woods are green, O heigh ho! Borghild--And thrushes sing the fresh leaves between; O heigh ho! Syvert--Come, let us dance in the gladsome day, Borghild--Dance hate, and sorrow, and care away; Both--An’ a heigh ho!

The stave was at an end. The hot and flushed dancers straggled over the floor by twos and threes, and the big beer-horns were passed from hand to hand. Truls sat in his corner hugging his violin tightly to his bosom, only to do something, for he was vaguely afraid of himself--afraid of the thoughts that might rise--afraid of the deed they might prompt. He ran his fingers over his forehead, but he hardly felt the touch of his own hand. It was as if something was dead within him--as if a string had snapped in his breast, and left it benumbed and voiceless.

Presently he looked up and saw Borghild standing before him; she held her arms akimbo, her eyes shone with a strange light, and her features wore an air of recklessness mingled with pity.

“Ah, Borghild, is it you?” said he, in a hoarse voice. “What do you want with me? I thought you had done with me now.”

“You are a very unwitty fellow,” answered she, with a forced laugh. “The branch that does not bend must break.”

She turned quickly on her heel and was lost in the crowd. He sat long pondering on her words, but their meaning remained hidden to him. The branch that does not bend must break. Was he the branch, and must he bend or break? By-and-by he put his hands on his knees, rose with a slow, uncertain motion, and stalked heavily toward the door. The fresh night air would do him good. The thought breathes more briskly in God’s free nature, under the broad canopy of heaven. The white mist rose from the fields, and made the valley below appear like a white sea whose nearness you feel, even though you do not see it. And out of the mist the dark pines stretched their warning hands against the sky, and the moon was swimming, large and placid, between silvery islands of cloud. Truls began to beat his arms against his sides, and felt the warm blood spreading from his heart and thawing the numbness of his limbs. Not caring whither he went, he struck the path leading upward to the mountains. He took to humming an old air which happened to come into his head, only to try if there was life enough left in him to sing. It was the ballad of Young Kirsten and the Merman:

“The billows fall and the billows swell, In the night so lone, In the billows blue doth the merman dwell, And strangely that harp was sounding.”

He walked on briskly for a while, and, looking back upon the pain he had endured but a moment ago, he found it quite foolish and irrational. An absurd merriment took possession of him; but all the while he did not know where his foot stepped; his head swam, and his pulse beat feverishly. About midway between the forest and the mansion, where the field sloped more steeply, grew a clump of birch-trees, whose slender stems glimmered ghostly white in the moonlight. Something drove Truls to leave the beaten road, and, obeying the impulse, he steered toward the birches. A strange sound fell upon his ear, like the moan of one in distress. It did not startle him; indeed, he was in a mood when nothing could have caused him wonder. If the sky had suddenly tumbled down upon him, with moon and all, he would have taken it as a matter of course. Peering for a moment through the mist, he discerned the outline of a human figure. With three great strides he reached the birch-tree; at his feet sat Borghild rocking herself to and fro and weeping piteously. Without a word he seated himself at her side and tried to catch a glimpse of her face; but she hid it from him and went on sobbing. Still there could be no doubt that it was Borghild--one hour ago so merry, reckless, and defiant, now cowering at his feet and weeping like a broken-hearted child.

“Borghild,” he said, at last, putting his arm gently about her waist, “you and I, I think, played together when we were children.”

“So we did, Truls,” answered she, struggling with her tears.

“And as we grew up, we spent many a pleasant hour with each other.”

“Many a pleasant hour.”

She raised her head, and he drew her more closely to him.

“But since then I have done you a great wrong,” began she, after a while.

“Nothing done that cannot yet be undone,” he took heart to answer.

It was long before her thoughts took shape, and, when at length they did, she dared not give them utterance. Nevertheless, she was all the time conscious of one strong desire, from which her conscience shrank as from a crime; and she wrestled ineffectually with her weakness until her weakness prevailed.

“I am glad you came,” she faltered. “I knew you would come. There was something I wished to say to you.”

“And what was it, Borghild?”

“I wanted to ask you to forgive me--”

“Forgive you--”

He sprang up as if something had stung him.

“And why not?” she pleaded, piteously.