Elsie

by Alexander Lange Kielland

But when they told him, his gypsy blood flamed out in a wild struggle with the jailer and policeman; so they had to put irons on him.

After that, it was again very still in the big, cold, stone building, and the moon proceeded on her round. She had dwelt long upon Elsie, for there was much to see. It was fairly an epitome of a whole human life that lay there, a whole story—an old, old story, too.

There was nothing missing; it was all there. She had her shawl, her gown, her old shoes, and the rags she used for underclothing—yes, in her pocket she had her brown baby hat, too, with the rose-red band. Else she owned nothing; from her baby hat to her last rags they had faithfully followed her; what life had brought her from fall to fall, the current had washed together in one corner of the prison; yes, even to the roses—they were there too! The frost limned them on the glass back of the grating and they shivered upon her hand as if it froze them—or it might be from sympathy.

A couple of mice gnawed and piped beneath the cot; one ran across the floor and was gone. The clock in the church tower struck five; the sound shivered long in the glistening, cold morning air. But the moon slowly withdrew her light up the wall and out through the window; and, as she went, she spread a thick and soft mantle of darkness and oblivion over Elsie asleep.

And the moon went on, letting her cold, impassive eye glide over the earth; and the night crept together into the shadows, ashamed of her evil secrets.

But at last the ponderous, frozen earth turned herself as if in pain away from the moon; and the sun began to shine upon the church spires which were gilded to the honor of God.

And all the city’s church-bells rang and chimed Christmas morning’s festive jubilee out over the whole parish. And the children sprang up in their night-gowns to play with their new toys, or to eat something sweet which it had not been possible for them to find room for yesterday.

But all the grown folks dressed and went to church. So it was crowded and Pastor Martens had to drag himself into the pulpit. The winter sun sported gaily with the broken colors which it took from the pictures in the big choir-window; he shot slanting rays past the altar and sent tinted light, red, green, and burning gold down over the choir. There lay, as it were, a festal smile over the whole church—a beaming, blessed Christmas spirit.

It was on that, too, that Pastor Martens preached.

Christmas was not only a worldly holiday, a heart festival, a children’s festival, but was besides—yes, first and foremost, a religious festival, where every joy, every bliss has deeper base and root. And as he passed on to the text for the day, he dwelt strongly upon the gentle impressions from the Christmas of their childhood; and before the eyes of the parish he summoned the charming pictures of the babe in the manger, of shepherds and angels and offering kings, while the words fell from the pulpit mildly and tenderly, as if in childlike ecstasy.