I have been alone now for five years, working away, though I was left enough to keep me before. Someway I have not the same gladness in my work of late years. Working for one's self seems a poor end, even if one puts by money. But this has little or nothing to do with the white elf, has it?
Christiania is a singular city if one knows how to see under the surface, and I enjoyed my stay there greatly. The Hull boat was to sail at 4.30, and I had sent my things down early; for I was to dine at the Grand at two with a cousin, a typical Christiania man. It was a fine, clear day, and Karl Johann was thronged with folks. The band was playing in the park, and pretty girls and laughing students walked up and down. Every one who is anybody may generally be seen about that time. Henrik Ibsen—if you did not know him from his portrait, you would take him to be a prosperous merchant—was going home to dine; but Björnstjerne Björnson, in town just then, with his grand, leonine head, and the kind, keen eyes behind his glasses, was standing near the Storthing House with a group of politicians probably discussing the vexed question of separate consulship. In no city does one see such characteristic odd faces and such queerly cut clothes. The streets are full of students. The farmers' sons among them are easily recognized by their homespun, sometimes home-made, suits, their clever heads and intelligent faces; from them come the writers and brain-carriers of Norway. The Finns, too, have a distinctive type of head, and a something elusive in the expression of their changeful eyes; but all, the town students too, of easier manners and slangier tongues,—all alike are going, as finances permit, to dine in restaurant or steam-kitchen. I saw the menu for to-day posted up outside the door of the latter as I passed,—"Rice porridge and salt meat soup, 6d.,"—and Hans Jörgen came back with a vivid picture of childhood days, when every family in the little coast-town where we lived had a fixed menu for every day in the week; and it was quite a distinction to have meat-balls on pickled-herring day, or ale soup when all the folks in town were cooking omelets with bacon. How he used to eat rice porridge in those days! I can see him now put his heels together and give his awkward bow as he said, "Tak for Maden tante!"
Well, we are sitting in the Grand Café after dinner, at a little table near the door, watching the people pass in and out. An ubiquitous "sample-count" from Berlin is measuring his wits with a young Norwegian merchant; he is standing green chartreuse. It pays to be generous even for a German, when you can oust honest Leeds cloth with German shoddy: at least, so my cousin says. He knows every one by sight, and points out all the celebrities to me. Suddenly he bows profoundly. I look round: a tall woman with very square shoulders, and gold-rimmed spectacles is passing us with two gentlemen. She is English, by her tailor-made gown and little shirt-front, and noticeable anywhere.
"That lady," says my cousin, "is a compatriot of yours. She is a very fine person, a very learned lady; she has been looking up referats in the University Bibliothek. Professor Sturm—he is a good friend of me—did tell me. I forget her name; she is married. I suppose her husband he stay at home and keep the house!"
My cousin has just been refused by a young lady dentist, who says she is too comfortably off to change for a small housekeeping business; so I excuse his sarcasm.
We leave as the time draws on, and sleigh down to the steamer. I like the jingle of the bells, and I feel a little sad; there is a witchery about the country that creeps into one and works like a love-philter, and if one has once lived up there, one never gets it out of one's blood again. I go on board, and lean over and watch the people; there are a good many for winter time. The bell rings. Two sleighs drive up, and my compatriot and her friends appear; she shakes hands with them, and comes leisurely up the gang-way. The thought flits through me that she would cross it in just that cool way if she were facing death; it is foolish, but most of our passing thoughts are just as inconsequent. She calls down a remembrance to some one in such pretty Norwegian, much prettier than mine, and then we swing round. Handkerchiefs wave in every hand. Never have I seen such persistent handkerchief-waving as at the departure of a boat in Norway; it is a national characteristic. If you live at the mouth of a fjord, and go to the market-town at the head of it for your weekly supply of coffee-beans, the population give you a "send off" with fluttering kerchiefs; it is as universal as the "Thanks." Hans Jörgen says I am Anglicized, and only see the ridiculous side, forgetting the kind feelings that prompt it.
I find a strange pleasure in watching the rocks peep out under the snow, the children dragging their hand-sleds along the ice. All the little bits of winter life of which I get flying glimpses as we pass, bring back scenes grown dim in the years between. There is a mist ahead; and when we pass Dröbak cuddled like a dormouse for winter's sleep, I go below. A bright coal-fire burns in the open grate of the stove, and the "Rollo" saloon looks very cosy. My compatriot is stretched in a big arm-chair reading. She is sitting comfortably with one leg crossed over the other, in the manner called shockingly unladylike of my early lessons in deportment. The flame flickers over the patent leather of her neat low-heeled boot, and strikes a spark from the pin in her tie. There is something manlike about her; I don't know where it lies, but it is there. Her hair curls in gray-flecked rings about her head; it has not a cut look, seems rather to grow short naturally. She has a charming, tubbed look; of course every lady is alike clean, but some men and women have an individual look of sweet cleanness that is a beauty of itself. She feels my gaze, and looks up and smiles; she has a rare smile,—it shows her white teeth and softens her features.
"The fire is cosy, isn't it? I hope we shall have an easy passage, so that it can be kept in."
I answer something in English.
She has a trick of wrinkling her brows; she does it now as she says,—