In God's Way: A Novel

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Kallem replied: "Come to dinner with me and bring the children with you!"

VII.

The whole of that night and the next day there was a tremendous fall of snow, and toward evening the wind rose to a perfect storm; it drifted and piled up the newly fallen snow in great heaps. The storm passed away; but the snow fell on with equal violence. People from the country who were going to the ball got the snow-plough to drive right down to the town; in the town itself they were driving it about for the second time that day. To the ball! to the ball! The first large ball at Christmas-tide.

To the ball! to the ball! In those larger towns, where dancing is a business kept up by the young people in turn at different houses and assemblies, no one there can have any idea of the upset caused in a small town by the prospect of the first Christmas ball, and especially amongst those young people from the country who drive in, ready-dressed for the ball underneath their furs. But just as the snow-plough good-naturedly pushes the superfluous snow to both sides, so does this old-established custom and their natural shyness do away with more than the half of all they had been romancing about together. A nice, well-behaved flock appears, who at first seem hardly to know each other.

Kallem was lying on the sofa, and was in capital spirits. That excellent woman, Sissel Aune, was recovering, the husband was going about to-day drunk with happiness, and with brandy, which the neighbours forced on him. The children had been there to dinner, although the servant did not approve of it; in that respect she was like Ragni, those two were like each other in many ways.

The children were not quite so shy as Andersen's children, who were also of the party. Kallem had played the piano for them, indifferently enough, but he had walked on his hands to perfection, and the saddler had had much to say about the mason Andersen's death. It was truth had killed Andersen; so many there are who live by lying that it is necessary some should be killed by truth, and more of such like rubbish, which Aase thought wonderful.

A long and very cheery letter from Ragni lay spread out on Kallem's stomach; he had been reading it through for the second time. Karl had enclosed a report of her state after the doctor's departure, and that was amusing too, especially a description of her first attempt at using snow-skates (which also proved to be the last). Through it all one could see her innate cowardice.

Now he was going to a ball where a minister's wife was to be patroness! She and her smart friend, Lilli Bing. Was Josephine doing this against her husband's wishes? It was a public secret that such was the case; Lilli Bing had betrayed it to him. The minister's wife was the first ball-room lady in the town! The gentlemen fought for the chance of merely whirling her once round in a cotillon tour. He could see her in fancy, tall, bare-necked, dark-eyed, warm and glowing from dancing. Yes, he would have a dance with her too. He felt a longing to see her, he could not conceal the fact. He put Ragni's letter on one side, Karl's too, and the book he had been reading, then he got up, turned down the lamp, told the servant he meant to go out, then went up to dress.

It was quite extraordinary the quantity of snow that fell; not the star-like flakes, but broad big ones, chasing one after the other. If there had been the slightest wind it would have been impossible to find one's way. The lamps were dim, the light hardly reached beyond the glass, and there was not a sound all round. Rain has a sound, and has too a scenery of its own, but snow envelops and hides away everything, never does one feel so utterly alone as in the midst of a fall of snow. Kallem had not even a garden fence to guide him, he did not stumble over a single stone by the way, none of the trees in the garden either bowed or inclined their heads for him; he could no longer even see them, they were wrapped up and sent away. The church still stood there, but it was transformed into a heap of stones with a white staff up it. He and the church, and the church and he, there was none besides.

The houses down the street seemed to retreat in the background; they looked like so many great wizards sitting there with huge paws in front; once those paws had been stairs. A couple of boats lay up-turned down on the sand at the end of the beach street; they looked like white elephants at rest. The sea was like a sea of snow; but strange to say the island had floated loose and drifted away, it was no longer visible. It was full moon, according to the almanac, and it certainly was not dark, although the moon was snowed away from the bewitched world.