Magnhild; Dust

by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

"I see by your looks that you know it yourself," she whispered slowly, in reply; her lips quivered, the tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks: but otherwise she lay quite still. Her hands—oh, how thin they were; the ring was much too large on her finger, and this he remembered having noticed before; but why had he not reflected on what it meant?

Her hands lay stretched out on either side of the body which seemed to him so slender beneath the coverlet and sheet. The lace about her wrists was unrumpled, as though she had not stirred since she was dressed for the morning, and that must now be several hours since.

"Why, Amalie," he burst out, and knelt down at her bedside.

"It was not thus I meant it," replied she, but in so soft a whisper that under other circumstances he could not have heard it.

"What do you mean by 'thus,' Amalie? Oh, try once more to answer me! Amalie!"

He saw that she wanted to reply, but either could not, or else had thought better of it. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, filled her eyes and were shed again, her lips quivered, but as noiselessly as this occurred, just so still she lay. Finally she raised her large eyes to his face. He bowed closer to her to catch the words: "I would not take them from—you," spoken in a whisper as before; the word "you" was uttered by itself, and in the same low tone as the rest, encompassed with a tenderness and a mournfulness which nothing on earth could exceed in strength.

He dared not question further, although he failed to understand his wife. He only comprehended that something had occurred that same forenoon which had turned the current of life to that of death. She lay there paralyzed. Her immobility was that of terror; something extraordinary had weighed her down to this speechless silence, had crushed her. But he also comprehended that behind this noiseless immobility there was an agitation so great that her heart was ready to burst; he knew that there was danger, that his presence increased the danger, that there must be help sought; in other words, he comprehended that if he did not go away himself, his face as it must now look was enough to kill her. He never knew how he got away. He can remember that he was on a stairway, for he recollects seeing a picture that his wife herself must have hung up, it was one representing St. Christopher carrying the child Jesus over a brook. He found himself lying on the sofa in the large sitting-room, with something wet on his brow, and a couple of people at his side, of whom one was Stina. He struggled for a long time as with a bad dream. At the sight of Stina his terror returned. "Stina, how is it with Amalie?" The answer was that she was in a raging fever.

"But what happened this forenoon while I was absent?"

Stina knew nothing. She did not even understand his question. She was not the one who had attended Fru Atlung in the forenoon; she had watched in the night, and then the patient's fever fancies were happy ones, as they had again become. Had the doctor been with her in the forenoon? No, he was expected now. He had said yesterday that to-day he would not come until later than usual. This indicated a feeling of security on the doctor's part.

Had Fru Atlung spoken with any one else? If so it must be the sick-nurse. "Bring her here!" Stina left the room. Atlung also sent away the others who had assembled around him, he needed to collect his thoughts. He sat up, with his head between his hands, and before he knew it he was weeping aloud. He heard his own sobs resounding through the large room and he shuddered. He felt sure; oh, he felt but too sure, that he would sit here alone and hear this wail of misery for weeks. And in this sense of boundless bereavement, her image stood forth distinctly: she came from her bed in her white garment and told him word for word what she had meant. Her prayer to God had been to be allowed to keep her boys, and now this had been granted in a terrible way for she was to have them with her in death. It was this which had paralyzed her. And the beloved one repeated: "I did not mean it thus, I would not take them from—you."