In God's Way: A Novel

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

I.

"----Justification has its origin in the mercy of God. It cannot have it in the sinner or his moral struggles with self; for he is unjust. And as such he neither deserves it nor can he lay claim to it. God's sublime will alone can justify him."

The clergyman walked backwards and forwards, learning by heart from the written sheets he held in his hand. The sun was shining brightly in at both windows; they looked to the southwest and were wide open; a milky whiteness seemed to come through the furthest window and shed itself over the gray varnished floor; fluttering aspen-leaves were reflected on the window; the aspen-trees stood trembling by the railing outside on the road. The scent of auriculas, lilacs, and laburnums streamed in from the garden; he recognised each particular scent floating through the air; for he had planted both trees and flowers himself; they were his pets. If the breeze were a little stronger, regardless of everything, it would waft through the whole garden a powerful whiff from the budding birches and fresh pine-needles on the fir-trees which stood outside his domain; each time followed by a whiff of all sorts of things from the open fields; there was a smell of growing.

Hush!

"----What makes God so merciful to the poor unjust man, who can do nothing by himself? It is His unfathomable love for sinners, His unmerited loving-kindness, that makes him so."

The steamer whistled for the third time; no, this was irresistible, he must watch the steamer as it steamed away from the pier in a long curve, and out across the lake, cutting the mirror-like water in two; the larger share fell to the islands yonder, the lesser to the shore here by the town. He took up his telescope from his desk. The pier down below was full of many-colored parasols, with a mixture of men's hats, mostly dark in colour, and here and there were linen hoods and kerchiefs, oftenest several of them together.

He heard steps to the right in the sand; they came from his mother's garden and were coming to this one--steps of a grown-up person and two small child's steps to one of the other's. "I say, mother, what has the steamer got inside its stomach?" "Ha, ha!" Then there came a woman who gave one the impression of great power and strength. A powerful throat and full chest, exceptionally well made; a dark-looking face, rather large and with a hooked nose; the hair was almost black. She had on a cream-colored muslin dress spotted with bright-red flowers; it was made with a red silk yoke and a belt of the same stuff and colour. It was a striking contrast to her dark complexion, black hair, and clear eyes; she showed her appreciation of the warm spring day by her consummate brilliancy of colouring. But directly she saw the smiling Melancthon face in the window, she let down her red parasol between them. She led her little boy by the hand, a pretty little fellow about four years old, with fair hair and a face like the face of him standing in the window. The boy dropped his mother's hand, opened the gate between the two gardens, and ran past to open the next gate out to the road. As his wife passed by, the clergyman whispered: "I congratulate you! You are charming!" But there was a bitter sweetness in the tone. Ought a clergyman's wife to dress as she did?

Without lowering her parasol, she walked on to the open gate and along the road down toward the town; the little boy hastened to shut the gate and ran after her. "Where are you going?--Down to see!" shouted the boy as he ran on. The back of her neck seen under her hat, her figure against the sunlight, her walk, the bright colours ... the clergyman stood in the window drumming on the sill and whistling noiselessly. His glistening eyes continued to follow her--till he got up, giving a powerful push to the sill with all five fingers.

"----God does not punish, He is long-suffering, He wishes to save. But not as the leader of an army gives quarter, or a king grants an amnesty (perhaps they won't all understand 'amnesty;' should I say--oblivion?... No, that's not enough; 'merciful oblivion;' well then--); but not as the leader of an army gives quarter or a king grants merciful oblivion; not like that does God judge; no, that would be contrary to God's eternal holiness. Justification is certainly an act of mercy, but it is also an act of judgment. It needs a fundamental law, that is, the claims of the law, which is God's own, must be fulfilled."

Now this was decidedly very juridical.

He looked down into the book which lay open on the desk between the two windows; he compared it with the one he held in his hand. All the while he listened to the roar of the steamer which came cutting in across the lake. He felt obliged to look out of the furthest window, and the result was that unconsciously he sat himself down there. The sun was shining on the steamer's white awning, a line of foam stretched between shore and island like a rope; not the tiniest cloud was in the sky, so that the smoke rose up against a clear background and the noise of the steamer was heard distinctly. The clergyman looked from the steamer to the town, to the shore, across the lake, and towards the hills away on the other side of the lake; the snow still lay on most of the distant blue hills. The noise of the steamer seemed to fill everything, like another sermon following upon his own. The modest fragrance coming from his own little garden attracted his eyes from the greater to the less. Little Edward and he had done it all together, that is to say, he had really done it, and little Edward had been there to make mischief. The minister examined first the beds on which as yet nothing had come up, then he looked at those that had been first finished, they already wanted weeding. Little Edward could very well help with that. Tiresome, very; but he had promised himself that nobody but he should touch the garden this year; bending is a healthy thing, it causes the gall to mix freely with the blood. His thoughts turned unconsciously to his wife; when would she come to him with a glass of wine and a bit of cake? It is in the nature of women to guess our weaknesses and to be lenient to them. He looked up, she had disappeared; he then stood bolt upright:

"----The claims of the law, which are God's own, must be fulfilled. If a sinner could do this by himself, then there would be no mercy in justification; consequently it must be by the help of another.

"But even this atonement by another must come of God's saving mercy, if it is not to do away with justification (oh, how juridical!). If this work of mercy is to be a benefit to all, then the atonement must be extended to the whole of sinful humanity. If only the Almighty Himself can bring about a like atonement, a like reconciliation and justification.

"It is a basis of faith for all Christians, that this doctrine of the salvation of the world, and the forgiveness of sins of the whole of humanity, once for all, are obtained through Jesus Christ, and that each individual sinner can reap the benefit thereof."

He looked up. Surely the steamer should be ... yes, there it is. He went to the window and remained standing there. The ship shot out in a straight line towards the headland, which stretched so far that it almost reached to the island. The large town which lay to the right, and of which the headland formed the nose, stretched itself out almost the whole way across; the sea lay between. Farm upon farm lay in the sun, verdant and fruitful; here and there were large gaps that showed the distance between the farms. But that side which stretched out toward the island appeared to be nothing but a flat tongue of land; the steamer had to go through the narrow strait out yonder and disappear in the large bay beyond.

What a puffing and groaning! Just as if nature had learnt to speak! That is to say, the entire surroundings, not only a part of them. Supposing a string were strung across the whole country and a bow were to be drawn over it, it would be like the sound of the steamer's noise----

Hush!

"----God has so willed it, and has ordained it so, that a sinner can be justified by His grace, through Christ who has fulfilled the law for us. The merits of Christ and the righteousness of Christ have paid all our debts. Everyone can in a way take a share for himself of the righteousness that Christ has gained for the world." No, stop a bit, is not that going rather far? Still that is about the meaning of it.

Soon after this he lay stretched out at the window, leaning on his elbows, as if he had no intention of ever getting up again. As Josephine had not returned with the little one, he gazed down the road and over the sea and island, thinking of the islet that lay out there to the left; he could not see it from here; but he knew it was there, and that it was so amusing. His thoughts flew rapidly from the mountains to the steamer again; it was struggling forward towards the little strait. The island out yonder had a garden hat on, and now it seemed as if a veil were added as well from the smoke of the steamboat. Surely the wind was blowing from a different quarter out there? No, now it seems the same over here too. The wind chops and changes at this time of year. No scent from trees, gardens, or fields was wafted towards him now, we shall probably soon see the fan of the screw drawing black lines through the water. To the left, down by the sea, an engine whistle screamed shrilly; perchance a train was about to start, or perhaps they were only shunting a luggage train.

Good heavens, how quiet everything was otherwise! He could hear children's voices from afar, even the very vibrations were audible. Hammering and sawing could be heard every now and then in the new house at the corner of the beach street and the road that turned up this way; the sound seemed to proceed from an empty space. The staccato puffs of the groaning steamer could still be faintly heard in the distance. The house he was in lay in a free and open space, it was therefore that he had so extensive a view and could hear everything so distinctly; all this, however, would be over when once the fields were parcelled off for building purposes.

He fell into deep thought on this subject; would it not be wise for him to buy up land? He wished to do so very much; but house and ground and everything they had belonged to his wife. His own little fortune was invested in the tiny house and garden to the right, where his mother lived.

There are many advantages in having a rich wife, even though the marriage contract may leave her free to dispose of her fortune as she chooses; many little comforts are gained which make life pleasanter and work easier; besides it certainly increases one's authority--particularly a clergyman's. Much good may be done which others have to deny themselves, and this may be turned to power. He had felt this and had felt the comfort of it. It pleased him.

But----. All "buts" proceed from the person who has the disposal of the fortune. "Just as the congregation is subject to Christ----" Hush!--Again he began to read, aloud this time: "An outer foundation for justification is therefore that Jesus has fulfilled the laws; the inner condition is that the sinner believe this. However much God may be reconciled with the world, He can grant His grace to that sinner only who is attached to Christ through faith in Him as his Saviour."

The book was lowered, the minister was not conscious of what he was reading. There was a certain passage in Ephesians that made him pause. If the wife be not subject in all things, ... now, just the fact of the wife having the disposal of her fortune, would sow seeds of dissent.

He was so firmly persuaded of this and could produce such convincing proofs, that he neither saw nor heard a thing, near or distant--except as though he were listening to another person's account of it. He drummed on the window-sill and looked down the road. Two newly awakened butterflies circling round each other above and below his window, had not the smallest idea of all the difficulties that can ensue when one has a fortune and not the disposal of it. A little further away, shaded by the boy's footstool which had stood there forgotten for some days, a graceful declytera with its thin stalk covered with little red bells, rang her wedding-bells, a wedding without the slightest regard to the epistle to the Ephesians, V. 24. Therefore it was overlooked by the minister. Not even the bees belonging to Nergård the gardener--up here perhaps for the first time this year (would they remember the way, now that the wind had changed and the scent of the flowers gave them warning)--not even the bees did he hear buzzing round the new blossoms shaded by the house. Matrimonial difficulties as regards Ephesians V. 24, can weave a covering for the head even though the sun's rays be shining on the hair. His eyes were blind as the wind itself as he let them wander over the town, yonder on the gentle slope, with its three shades of green, the meadows, the corn-fields, and the woods. Just at that moment there lay a long black stripe across the water, and some single wavy lines; he was in the midst of it all, but saw nothing. A cow tethered over the way was lowing for water, water! All around him seemed in a state of invisible expectancy ... until the despairing cry of a child seemed to pierce the warm spring air, ... one single scream. He seemed to hear each vibration, it was like a cutting hand laid on his chest; he started up, listening breathlessly for the next. Would it never come, that next scream; the child must have disappeared after the first ... no, there it is again. The first scream had been despairing, this next was horror itself, and the next one too and the following one!... The minister stood there quite pale, with all his senses on the alert. He heard rapid footsteps across the sand to the right; it was his mother who came to the gate between the two gardens; she was a thin old woman, a black cap covering her chalk-white hair, which framed in a cautious and dry-looking face.

"No," exclaimed the minister, "no, God be praised, that is not Edward; that flourish in the crying was not his; no, there are no flourishes about him; he bellows right out, he does!"

"Whoever it is, it's a bad business," answered she.

"You are right, mother," and in his heart he prayed for the little one crying so pitifully. But when he had done that, he gave thanks that it was not his boy, which was quite allowable.

A tall man in light clothes and with a Stanley hat on, was walking up the road while this was going on. He kept looking at the house and garden; the minister looked at him too, but did not recognize him. He bent his way to that side of the road, straight up to the steps--a tall man with short, sun-burnt face, spectacles, and a peculiar rapid way of walking; but, in all the world?... The minister drew back from the window just as the stranger reached the steps, which he must have taken at a bound, for now there was a footstep in the passage. Then came a knock.

"Come in!"

The door opened wide, but the stranger still stood outside.

"Edward!"

The other made no answer. "What, Edward? you here! without first letting me know? Is it really you?" The minister advanced to meet him, gave him both hands and drew him in. "Welcome! dear old fellow, you are heartily welcome!" His face was red with delight.

Edward's sunburnt hands pressed those of his brother-in-law in answer, his eyes glistened behind his spectacles; but he had not yet spoken.

"Have you not a word to say, old fellow?" exclaimed the minister, dropping his hands and laying his on his shoulders. "Did you not meet your sister?"

"Yes, it was she who told me where you lived."

"And did you run and leave her? You wanted to get on quicker? I suppose the boy walked too slowly for you?" asked the minister, his kind eyes looking into the other's with unmixed joy.

"That was not the only reason. What a pretty place you have here!"

"I am sure your house will be just as nice, although I would have preferred this north side of the town to the centre."

"But there was no choice left me."

"No, that is quite true. As you were going to buy the infirmary, you were obliged to buy the doctor's house as well; for they go together. Everyone thinks it was very cheap. And convenient in every way, and a good deal of ground to it! What a long time you have been away! A long time at a stretch.--And why did you not write now, and let me know? Good heavens, how could I not know you directly! You are really almost totally unchanged." He looked at his brother-in-law's thin face, which seemed to have gained a milder expression. Then he went on talking. They walked up and down beside each other, sometimes standing together at the window. Then Edward turned to him:

"But you, Ole, you are not unchanged."

"Indeed! I thought I was. In fact, everyone says so."

"No, you have got something of a clergyman's manner about you."

"A clergyman? Ha, ha! you mean that I have got stouter? I assure you I do everything a fellow can to prevent it; I work in the garden, I take long walks; but all to no purpose!... You see, my wife takes too good care of me. And everyone here is much too good to me."

"You should do as I do."

"And what do you do?"

"I walk on my hands."

"Ha, ha, ha, on my hands? I, in my position?"

"In your position? If you walked up the church on your hands, that would be a nice sermon!"

"Ha, ha, ha! Can you really walk on your hands?"

"Yes, I say, can?" At the same moment he proceeded to walk on his hands; his short, loose tussore silk coat fell down over his head, the minister gazed at it and at the back of his waistcoat, and at the piece of shirt which showed between it and the band of his trousers, at part of the braces, and lastly at the trousers down to the stockings, and leather shoes with thick, gutta-percha soles. Kallem ran round the room in no time. Ole hardly knew how to take it. Kallem stood panting on his feet again, took off and wiped his spectacles, and began to examine the bookshelves closely in his short-sighted way.

The minister could distinctly feel that there was something the matter. Something must have put his brother-in-law out. Could his sister have said anything to wound him? No, dear me; what could it be? She who admired him so greatly? He would ask right out what it was; why not have it cleared up on the spot? Kallem had put his spectacles on and passed across to the desk; a woodcut of Christ by Michael Angelo hung just above it; he glanced casually at it, and then looked down at the open pamphlet lying on the desk. And before the minister was sufficiently recovered to ask any questions, Kallem said: "Johnsen's systematic theology? I bought it at once at Kristianssand."

"That book? You bought it?"

"Yes, it was never to be had before. However, now it lay on the counter. It was just like a new landchart."

"Yes, it is not like Norway any longer," said the minister. "The most of it is nothing but impossible jurisdiction."

Astonished at the minister's answer, Kallem turned towards him. "Is this way of thinking general among the younger Norwegian theologians?"

"Yes. I laid it there so as to find out to-morrow all the different opinions that exist on the doctrine of propitiation."

"Ah, I see, that is a capital plan." Again Kallem looked out of the window, for the fourth or fifth time. There could be no doubt that something was the matter.

"There they are!" he said. He was standing at the furthest window, and Ole Tuft in front at the other; from it he could see his wife's parasol above her muslin dress; she was walking slowly, and held her little boy by the hand; he was evidently talking incessantly, for his face was turned upwards towards her, whilst he jogged along the uneven road. They kept to the other side. But here, just by the hedge, a lady was walking. She raised her green parasol (what a beauty it was!). She was not as tall as Josephine, but slight; she was looking about and turned slightly; she was fair, with reddish hair, and had a tartan travelling dress on; it had a decidedly foreign cut; she must surely be a stranger. It was not at all wonderful that Edward ran on in front; he wished to be alone and leave them by themselves.

"Who can that lady be walking with Josephine? Did she come by the same steamer as you?"

"Yes, she did."

"Do you know her, then?"

"Yes; she is my wife."

"Your wife? Are you a married man?"

He said this with such a loud voice that both the ladies looked up. In went his head into the room; but nothing but vacant air met him there; the doctor's head was still outside. It was from out there the answer came. "I have been married for six years."

"For six years?" Out popped the minister's head again and stared at Kallem with the greatest astonishment. Six years, he thought. "How long ago is it since?... My dear fellow, it is scarcely six years since?..."

The ladies were now close by; the strange lady walking by the furthest hedge, while Josephine and the boy had crossed over to the other side. "I say, mother, why do little boys fall and knock their heads?" No answer. "I say mother, why don't they fall on their legs?" No answer. "Because the upper part of the body is heaviest, my boy!" It was Kallem who said that. They all three looked up.

He left the window to go and meet them, the minister followed after; but he stopped at the bottom step.

The strange lady's eyes were full of tears when Kallem joined them; in vain she tried to hide it by looking about her on all sides. Josephine was cold and stiff. Little Edward ran up to his father and told him how Nicholas Andersen had climbed up the "ladder" (the boy pointed down to the new house) and "then fallen down." And "the new lady" had tied up his head with her handkerchief. This did not seem to interest the minister as much as the boy expected, so he ran round the house and in to tell his grandmother all about it.

"I suppose I need not introduce her?" said Edward Kallem, with his hand in his wife's and looking at the minister. The latter tried to find something to say, but failed and glanced over at Josephine, who did not look as if she were willing to help him.

It was hardly a week ago since the zealous minister had written condemning the numerous divorces that occurred, followed by fresh marriages; it was an article in the Morgenblad entitled "Marriage or Free-love?" And he had shown, by the most convincing proofs, that, according to the Scripture, the only ground for divorce was infidelity between man and wife. Whatever man could convict his wife of adultery, was free and could marry again; but if any man divorced his wife for other reasons and got married again during her lifetime, then the first marriage was valid and not the other one. Hardly a week ago he had written all this, and with the full consent of his wife. And just because this case of Kallem and Ragni Kule was still so fresh in his memory, he had written how the wife of a sick man had grown weary of the path in life chosen for her by God, and had had secret love-dealings with another man; but as soon as it was discovered, she had left him and got a divorce. Supposing, he wrote, that that woman were to marry the man who had aided her in deceiving her husband? who could call such a marriage as that aught but continued adultery?

He had written it word for word. His wife entirely agreed with him; beforehand, she hated the woman who had captivated her brother. And now they both stood there before her, and Ragni was her brother's wife.

This reunion could hardly have been more unfortunate. They had both been so certain that he was now quite steady. He was a learned man now, and had been offered a professorship; he was in fact the one of all the younger doctors who was most thought of by the others.

This was a dreadful disappointment! And think what it would be to live together with them and introduce them to their circle of friends in the congregation as Mr. and Mrs. Kallem? after putting his name to a declaration that their marriage was not valid!

Of course Kallem must have read it, he who was so eager to keep up with the Norwegian bent of the times, that he actually read Johnsen's dogmas.... In all probability, he would first and foremost read the papers. He had read it, of course, and that explained all. There she stood, not knowing which way to look, but pressing closer to him. And he----? His right arm was round her, as though he wished to proclaim she was his. She held her parasol up in her right hand and persisted in trying to screen herself, but she could not bear it for long, she had to look for her handkerchief, and not finding her own, took possession of Kallem's.

Mechanically the minister said: "Shall we not go in?"

They did as he wished. He showed them over the house, while Josephine went to get some refreshment ready. From the study, which looked into the garden, they went into the large drawing-room looking on to the road, into the drawing-room behind that again, and from there to the kitchen at the north side of the house, and to which there was a separate entrance; on the same side was the larder, and a spare bed-room out to the garden, next to the minister's study, and with a balcony in front corresponding to the steps at the other end of the facade. Upstairs were several bed-rooms, etc. It barely took five minutes to show them over the house. Nothing but a few necessary remarks on the part of the minister, and from Kallem a sneering allusion to the minister's occupying the spare bed-room, while Josephine was upstairs with her boy; a similar speech later on, as he stood before a rare collection of celebrated theologians hanging round Luther's portrait on the largest wall of the room. He refused the refreshments Josephine offered them, said good-bye and went.

Ragni followed them about like an invisible being. As they were going away, her long, narrow, hand whisked through the hands of her brother- and sister-in-law like an ermine through a hole in the wall. Her eyes glanced timidly at them like the shadow of a wing. The minister went out to the steps with them, Josephine remaining behind at the big window.

Kallem walked so quickly that Ragni was obliged to take a little hop at every third step; the minister stood and looked after them. This rapid walking increased her agitation so that, when they had got about half-way between the beach and the minister's house, she asked him to stop. She began to cry.

Kallem was surprised at this display of feeling so different to his own; he was very angry. But he soon understood that she was probably crying on account of his behaviour. He drew her up to the railing, and leaning his back against it, said: "Have I not acted rightly?"

"You were so cruel--oh, so cruel, and not only to him and to her, but to me too; yes, especially to me. You never looked at me, never paid the slightest attention to my being there."

"But, my dear, it was just on your account."

"Well, then I would rather go away again! I cannot bear that!" She threw herself in his arms.

"My dear! did you see what Josephine looked like?"

"Of course I did," answered Ragni, and her head peeped up again, her hat falling off, and her hair tumbled. "She will kill me some day!" and again took refuge in his arms.

"Well, well," said he, "she will not succeed in doing you any harm. But am I not to fight your battles?"

Forth she peeped again: "Not in that way! I would never have thought you were like that! It was so--so unrefined, Edward," and she took and shook him by the coat-collar.

"Listen to me," said he, quietly; "what that fellow has written about us, that is unrefined. And her silence? I thought that worse than anything he had written."

To this she answered nothing. After a pause he heard: "I am not suited for this."

He bent over her head; her hat had fallen off, but they neither of them noticed it; he whispered softly through her reddish hair; she must not give in at once, nor speak of dying or going away again. "We must take it in a more manly way than that, don't you think so too?"

"Yes, yes." Her rough head peeped out again: "But you must remember that now I am with you; you cannot behave quite as if you were alone."

No, he quite saw that, and stood there with a guilty conscience.

At the same time Josephine was again in the room looking on to the road; there was only one window there, but a larger one than was usual, and she stood leaning her head against the window-post. The minister stood behind her. He considered it an untoward accident, his having written that in the Morgenblad.

"Your brother said he had been married six years?"

Josephine turned right round. But after she had thought the matter over, she only said: "Rubbish!" and turned to the window again. The minister thought too that it must be a mistake. They could not have been married before she was legally divorced.

"He was always acting a part," said he; "he took to walking on his hands." She turned towards him again, with eyes wide open with astonishment. "He walked right round the study on his hands," the minister assured her. "He advised me to walk up to the altar in that way. Well, as he even ridicules Luther, I ought certainly to be able to endure his ridicule."

She evidently did not wish him to speak of this meeting at the present moment; it caused her too much pain. He retired to his study, and looked anything but pleased whilst he was filling his pipe.

Josephine had reckoned so much on meeting and living with her brother. She would never listen to the slightest insinuation of a possibility of things turning out differently to what she expected. Perhaps her present suffering was wholesome for her.

Had he himself acted rightly to-day? He certainly thought he had. He only hoped he would always be able to take things as meekly; he was quite certain this was not the last of it.

He enjoyed his pipe and took up his sermon again; but thoughts about Josephine would keep cropping up. He never could feel the same confidence in their married life as others had. She was irritable at times, and this last outbreak had been a bad one. Without doubt, because her thoughts had been entirely taken up by the expected visitor.

Hush!

"----Conversion is a spontaneous proceeding, conclusive forever. All our sins are washed away; we are as pure and holy in God's sight as Christ Himself!"