In God's Way: A Novel

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

The next morning she walked backwards and forwards before the south side of the house, equally terrified, equally undecided. There had been snow, but it was nearly all melted again; it was the first snow that winter. A thick fog lay over the mountain ridges, so thick that it looked like a separate, impenetrable country, bordering on the mountains and stretching as far as the eye could reach. A long tongue of this strange country jutted out into the wood like a secret of utmost importance. She felt cold, she could not go far without being seen by people on the road, and to-day she could not let herself be seen, perhaps never again.

A useless fight that, among the different kinds of trees round about the farms. Furthest away from the houses a forest of firs; it looked almost black through the heavy mist; nearer to the houses a wood of leafy trees began, long-necked aspen and twisted birch, showing light yellow against the dark; nearer still there was mountain-ash and bird-cherry, blood-red in colour; maple, too, and other trees in endless variety of shades, from colourless as flax to deep red-gold. Tall asps and alders, too old to bear foliage, spread their naked branches out over the bright colours of the others, like blue-gray smoke.

She stamped her feet, but could not get any warmth into them; she would not go further, nor yet go in before she had decided what she was to do! What if Kallem did get to know of it? And what if he did not?

The meadows were divided in two by ploughed fields. Besides that there were only dull green fields of rye, sown in harvest-time, clover-fields in stubble. But see those discontented gray-looking fields further away from the houses, that are never noticed except when they are to be plundered; there are too many of them in the country.

But Juanita? How did she get into this harvest picture? The freshest, clearest reminiscence of that first spring? Ah, now awoke her longing for the children. Now she was sure that he was not where they were; so she could travel down to Rendalen's and see them.

As long as that lasted she would not be forced to decide what was the right thing to do; and she needed a respite. Just a short little letter to Karl Meek, that he must not write to her oftener just now, perhaps later on; she would let him know. These few words to Karl--should she telegraph them? Not from here! But she would start at once and telegraph on her way.

There arose in her a purpose, a command as strong as though she had nothing left for her to do but to see the children once again. When Kallem came home soon after, and she was pacing up and down the floor to try and get her feet warm, she said to him that she must see the children again, and it seemed to him that the recollection of her life together with Kule had turned into a longing for the children; this was very natural. "Start at once!" said he; "later on it may be too cold." He did not quite mean it to have been to-day; but that was what she wished, and in the afternoon he took her to the station.

As soon as she arrived at the Rendalens, she wrote a despairing letter, the meeting with the children had been terrible; they did not know her! And she, too, hardly recognised them! They were certainly well brought up children, but not as though they had belonged to her sister; there was no family likeness there, but a likeness to him, the father--he come of a stronger race. They were big, fat children; they stared at her without being able to understand her. And all the other strange faces, always noticing and watching her. She would have gone home again directly, if she had not had such a very bad cold. Her next letter was a little more cheerful; not because she was better pleased with the children--they were just like strangers and were wanting in "spirituality;" each time she took them in to her room to talk to them, or play for them, she could feel that it bored them. But her intercourse with the excellent people at the school and in the neighbourhood, afforded her great pleasure; "if only we had something similar," said she, with a sigh.

He had a letter from Rendalen, too, expressing, in strong terms, the delight of the entire little colony at having her amongst them. He put forward "an unanimous request" to be allowed to keep her for a time; she seemed tired after her journey and not very well; it would be good for her to have a rest.

She remained away a fortnight altogether. She came home again one cold day in mid-winter, looking pale, having still a bad cold, and very nervous, incapable of saying how dreadful it was for her to be again amongst people who looked upon her as an improper person. Kallem was alarmed at her cold and at her looking so ill; their meeting could hardly be called a meeting, there was an anxious examination of her chest, a languid account of her visit; she was tired and wished to go to bed.