In God's Way: A Novel

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Then he suggested that it would be quite the correct thing for them to go and have a little farewell feast at the confectioner's. She agreed with him, and they settled that they would all meet the next day, the children too, and have it all over again just like the last time. And so they did. Fru Kule was not quite so shy as the other day, Kallem himself was in the best of spirits, and the children were uproarious. He was full of the wildest, maddest love fancies as they went merrily home he dancing along with Juanita on his head, and teaching the sisters to sing, "Is she not a dear wee thing, my little Juanita?"

He was at the railway station the day the sister was to leave. Several of their relations and friends were there to say good-bye. Both the sisters were very unhappy; the one to be left behind perhaps the most so; she wept unceasingly, even after the train had gone. For a moment he thought of going away and leaving the relations alone together, but she said: "Oh, no, don't go!" And yet there was no reason for her wishing him to stay; she walked home beside him and the others, crying all the way; and when the others left them and went their own way, and he and she stood before their door, she could find nothing to say, but just went on up-stairs. On the stairs he asked her if she and the children would like to go for a drive; it might cheer her up a little. She only shook her head. "Tomorrow perhaps?" asked he, respectfully, as he opened the door for her. She went in, but came back to say, "Thank you, to-morrow!" gave him her hand and a look from her dear eyes full of tears.

He fancied he could tell from her deep distress that she must feel lonely. Not perhaps in everyday life, because her imagination kept her time occupied; but when anything out of the common happened, rousing her and awakening her from her dreams, then she would look around and see that she was forsaken.

The next day he took her and the children out in a sledge and drove them himself. After the drive he went in to see Kule, who thanked him in his heavy sort of way for being so kind to the children. They showed Kallem all their toys, and Kule asked his wife to play a piece when the children were sent away; he sat himself, smoking a long pipe, which his wife usually had to fill for him; Kallem had done it now in her stead. Kallem saw then, for the first time, a stout kitchen-maid, an elderly, masculine-looking woman, who sang in a northern dialect, like birds shrieking over the sea. She was both cook and Kule's attendant. Apparently the wife was allowed entire liberty in whatever concerned herself, that is to say, the children and her music. At this moment she was playing that same piece by the Russian composer which he had heard from his own room, and perhaps better. Not because he was particularly attentive; he was looking at her. The upper part of the face now flashing down over the keys and music was very different to how he knew it; probably it was like this Rendalen had seen her. How much she would have to go through before the lower part of the face was equally developed? A few days ago he had had a letter from a cousin who lived at Madison, in Wisconsin; he had been made professor at the university there, and his wife, a Norwegian lady, studied under him. Something of the kind would be necessary to bring life and shape into these dull cheeks and weak chin, that vacillating mouth with the cracked lips. But how touching it was to see all this child-like dependence. Close by he saw the husband's huge hands resting on the arm of his chair--he lay back in the chair like a dead river-god in breeches. Whilst she was playing, the door to the right was opened, and in came the third supernatural, north-country being, an old lady with white hair, a large round face, and horn spectacles; this was the aunt, she was taller than Kallem, and stout in proportion to her height. The young wife moved about amongst them like a pleasure-yacht among Atlantic steamers laden to sinking-point. She looked upon Kallem now as an intimate friend, although she had probably not confided in him at all; but their mutual youth sought to conspire against all that was a hindrance and hard to bear. In his love for her he grew impatient, longing to set her free; the thought that he could not do it made the air of the room seem quite oppressive. It distressed him greatly, this incomprehensible connection.

The impressions he received from this visit disturbed him in his studies for his examination, which, until that day, had been very regular.

He formed the wildest of plans, even wrote over to his cousins in America, and asked if they could receive a young lady to live with them. He confided in Rendalen, who at first protested angrily; but at last Kallem convinced him. Her feeling of individual responsibility ought to be aroused, she ought to be shown the dangers of continuing her present life; above all, she ought to be sent away, far away, where she would have freedom of thought and liberty to develop.... Kallem gained more and more assurance, and his love grew stronger from all this self-imposed solicitude. Each time he met her, however short were the meetings, even though he only bowed to her on the street or in the corridor, strengthened him in the conviction that she was his, and his only, and must be set free!

This was before he had said a word to her about it.

Often before had he been in love, and often had pretended without its being the real thing; but now he had a longing to save, and then re-form, all that was so pure yet so undeveloped, so talented and yet so forlorn, it lay in his disposition, this desire, and he gave himself up to it with all his soul. She, for her part, lost somewhat of her shyness each time they met; it seemed as though he really were a comfort to her after her sister left; indeed, unless he were much mistaken, he was even more than that. At all events, there was one unmistakable sign; he had told her that he stayed at home in the evenings on purpose to hear her play, and that he left his door ajar the better to hear; now she played every evening and often for a long time.

When he met her out with the children, and took them to the confectioner's, he had the greatest desire to speak out; but her manner prevented it. It was her trustful innocence that was the principal hindrance, and he dared not startle her. All the energy in him drove him to action; but his love for her lent itself to her wish for a poetical pastime where love might not be mentioned, although everything was symbolical of it. There was a charm about their intercourse the like of which he had never experienced.

On a certain evening, once every week, she took part in a private concert, or something of the kind, at the house of some of her husband's relations, the same house, in fact, where she had gone to that dance. Kallem made his way in to these evenings, through his fellow-student, her nephew. Of course he went there solely and entirely so as to be able to walk home with her at night. At this time the snow was gone and the streets were full of ice. When he told her that he was going to be there, too, and would be allowed to see her home (at which she was very pleased), it was an understood thing that he always had either a sledge or carriage for her.