The most remarkable feature of the nave is the long and unbuttressed west front, 120 feet in extent. Two tiers of arches, dating from about the year 1300, still remain; there is no division of nave or aisle or tower, but three of the lower arches are pierced by doors, the others are divided by shafts. The upper arches do not correspond with the lower ones, than which they are much smaller; they are trefoil-headed and by corbels converted into niches. The general effect is a little like that of the west front of Wells, but not to any very striking extent.
The cathedral is entirely detached, but a short distance to the south, forming barracks and a military museum to-day, are some remains of the L-shaped Palace of the Archbishops, displaying Romanesque and early pointed windows.
[38] Used for Anglican services.
[39] Trondhjem is connected with the interior by some of those superbly made roads for which Norway is so justly famed. They rest upon about four feet of stonework, the pieces diminishing upwards so far as size is concerned. The smaller streams are frequently spanned by arches of hard granite or other rock so neatly cut that no mortar need be used. Sometimes the road itself is cut in the living rock of the hills. The engine sheds are quite a feature of the city, and railways run southward to the new capital by the valleys of Gula and Glommen and past Hamar on its lake, also eastward into Sweden, among the mountains and the lakes. And at a place called Hell the latter line branches northward to Sunnan, near the head of Trondhjem Fjord.
[40] Heimskringla, Story of Harald the Hardredy. Ch. LX.
[41] ib. Ch. CIV.
[42] Heimskringla, Tale of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer. Chs. XXXIV., XXXV.
[43] Unbuttressed massive walls of stone surround a five-bayed nave with aisles, and chancel with north chapel, both round-apsed. The chapel opens to chancel and aisle by doorways rather than arches. The low clearstorey is lighted only on the south, over the east bay of the nave rises a tower that forms a lantern. The nave arcades have thick round pillars with the simplest caps; the chancel is vaulted at a much lower level than the wooden roof of the nave. The inside is very striking.
[44] It is difficult, in reading over the play, to understand by what mental process Nora's preposterous conduct in leaving husband and children on the very vaguest of quests can be justified or even palliated. Ibsen merely professed to point out the hardships endured by women treated as dolls, the remedy for such social evils he did not essay to prescribe. Some of his most charming works, such as Dame Inger of Östraat, deal with Norwegian history.
[45] Ch. XXVII.