In God's Way: A Novel

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

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.