One hour after, Signe knew Petra's whole history, which she at once communicated to her father. On his advice, Signe wrote the same day to Odegaard, and continued to do so; as long as Petra was in their house.
When that evening Petra laid down to rest, in the soft eider down, in a warm room with crackling birch wood in the stove, and the New Testament laid between the two lights on the white toilet table,--she thanked her God, as she took the book, for all, the evil as well as the good.
As a young man, the dean with an ardent temperament and talent for oratory, had wished to study for the ministry; his parents, people of wealth, had been against it; they would have preferred to see him choose what they called an independent position; but their opposition served only to increase his zeal, and when he had graduated, he went abroad to study further. During a preliminary stay in Denmark, he used often to meet a lady, who belonged to a religious sect not sufficiently strict for him, and to whom he was therefore opposed: he sought continually to influence her, but the way in which she looked at him, thereby bringing him to silence, he could never forget during the whole of his sojourn on the continent. When he returned, he at once visited her. They had a good deal of intercourse, and grew in intimacy, till at last they became engaged, and were soon after married. And now it was evident that each of them had their own private thoughts; he had purposed to draw her over with all her simple grace, to his gloomy teaching, and she had been so innocently certain of being able to win his power and eloquence over to the service of her church. His first most cautious attempt was met by her first most cautious:--he drew back, disappointed, mistrustful. She saw it at once, and from that day he watched for her next attempt, while she did the same for his. But neither of them tried it again, for both had become afraid: he was afraid of his own passionate nature, and she, lest by a vain attempt, she might spoil her opportunity of influencing him; for she never gave up hope,--she had made it the aim of her life. But it never came to a conflict; for where she was, such could not be; yet to his active will, his repressed emotions, he must give vent, and so it happened every time he entered the pulpit and saw her seated below. The members of his church were drawn in with him as in a whirlwind, he excited them, and soon they him. She saw it, and sought to give rest to her foreboding heart in deeds of benevolence,----and later, when she became a mother, in the daughter, on whom she lavished her tenderness, physical and mental, and bore her to her quiet hours. There she gave, there she took, there in the child's innocence, she watched over her own great child, there she held the feast of love, and from there she returned to him in his strictness, with the united mildness of a woman and a Christian;--it was impossible for him to say anything that could wound her then. He might indeed love her above all else on earth, but he grew more sorrowful, the more he became convinced that he could not help her in the matter of her salvation. With a mother's quiet right, she withdrew the child also from his religious instruction; the child's songs, the child's questions soon became a new and deep source of pain to him,--and now when his violent agitation had excited him to hardness in the pulpit, his wife only received him with the greater mildness as they walked home together. The eyes spoke, but the mouth not a single word. And the daughter clung to his hand, and looked at him with eyes that were the mother's.
All sorts of subjects were discussed in this house, only not that which was the root of all their thoughts. But at length this strain could be born no longer; she smiled still, it is true; but only because she did not venture to weep. When the time drew near that the daughter must be prepared for confirmation, and consequently by the right of his office, he could draw her as quietly over to his instruction, as hitherto the mother had held her in hers, the anxiety rose to its height, and after the Sunday when the noting down of the candidates for confirmation was announced, the mother became ill, like we are when wearied out. She said smilingly, that she could not walk any more, and a few days later, also smilingly, that how she could not sit. Though she could not speak to the daughter she would yet have her always beside her, for she could see her. And the daughter knew what she would most like; she read to her out of The Book of Life, and sang to her the hymns of her childhood, the new and peaceful hymns of her fellow believers. It was long before the dean realised what was here preparing; but when he did realise it, he lost the threads, he could only keep his thoughts to one point,--to hear her say something to him, just a few words, but she was not able to do it; she could no longer speak. He stood at the foot of the bed, and watched, and prayed; she smiled upon him, till he fell on his knees, took the daughter's hand and laid it in the mother's, as if he said: "Here, you take her,--with you she shall ever remain!" Then she smiled as never before,--and in that smile she passed away.
After this, it was long before the dean could be led into conversation; another was appointed to perform his duties,--he himself wandered from room to room, from place to place, as though seeking something. He went about quietly; when he spoke it was in a subdued tone, and it was only by adopting the whole of this silent method, that little by little, the daughter could share his society. But now she helped him in his search, every word of the mother's was recalled,--what she would have wished, became their guide for the future. The daughter's communion with her, that to which he himself had been a stranger, was now lived over again;--all was gone over afresh from the first hour the child could remember; the mother's hymns were sung, her prayers were prayed, the sermons she had thought most of, were read over one by one, and her explanations and observations upon them, lovingly remembered in faith. Thus roused to activity, he felt a desire to visit the place where he had found her, there, in the same manner, to follow in her footsteps. They went, and in making her life entirely his own, he partly recovered. Himself a new beginner, he took an interest in every new effort around him, the great, the small, national, political,--which gave him back much of his own young life. His powers streamed in again, and with them his longings,--now he would preach the Word so that it would prepare for life, and not alone for death!
Before he again shut himself in with his beloved work in his mountain home, he felt a desire to take an enlarged view of the world elsewhere. They therefore continued their journey further, and had now many pleasing remembrances.
Among these people lived Petra.