Kielland, son of a rich and aristocratic merchant, was born at Stavanger, Norway, in 1849. He studied law in Christiania, but preferred the management of a brick and tile kiln. His appointment as burgomaster of Stavanger in 1891 cut short a brilliant poetical career, and he turned to prose. The autobiographical “Garman and Worse” soon gave the public such a series of Norwegian peasant pictures that he was acclaimed one of the four great Norwegians, with Ibsen, Björnson, and Lie.
Kielland’s “novelettes,” or short stories, pictures of prince and peasant, are universally acknowledged to be his best work. They are modeled after the French realists, especially Daudet, as may be seen in “Karen.” He is always protesting against the conventional religion and smug optimism of the conservative class. His style, though frequently lacking in force, is graceful in form and full of biting satire and fresh humor, and his subjects are always well chosen and artistically worked out.
KAREN
BY ALEXANDER KIELLAND
Translated by Leonora Teller. Copyright, 1898, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.
There was once upon a time in Kraruper Inn a maiden named Karen. She attended to the serving of the guests herself, for the landlady lived among her pots and pans in the kitchen. And many people came to Kraruper Inn—neighbors who collected there when the autumn evenings began to darken and sat in the warm room, and drank unlimited quantities of coffee punch. Travelers and wanderers, too, who came in blue with cold, stamping their feet and calling for something hot, that would enable them to reach the next station.
Karen went about silently, without haste, serving each in his turn. She was small and delicate, only a child, earnest and reserved, and the young fellows did not notice her. But she was very dear to the older customers, to whom a visit to the Inn was an event of importance. She prepared their coffee quickly, and served it seven times hot. When she moved about among the guests with her waiter the burly, coarsely dressed men stood aside and made place for her, and every one looked admiringly after her. Karen had great, gray eyes that took in everything, and seemed to look far, far away, and her eyebrows were arched in surprise and wonder. Strangers thought she did not understand their orders; but Karen heard it all, and made never a mistake. She had a way all her own, whether she gazed off into the distance, or listened, or waited, or dreamed. The west wind blew strong; it threw up long, heavy waves from the west sea. Salt and damp, with froth and foam it threw them on the sands. But when the wind reached Kraruper Inn it had only strength enough left to tear open the stable door, and then that which connected the kitchen with the stable. It burst in, filled the space, swung the lantern that hung from the roof back and forth; tore off the hostler’s cap and rolled it out into the darkness; threw the horses’ blankets over their heads, and finally blew a white hen from her perch into the water trough. The hen squawked frightfully, the hostler swore, the chickens cackled. The kitchen was full of smoke; the horses grew restless and beat sparks of fire from the stones with their hoofs. Even the ducks which were gathered quacking together near the manger to be at hand when the oats were scattered, began to chatter, and through it all the wind roared fearfully. At last two men came out of the inn parlor and, putting their broad backs against the door, pushed it shut, while a shower of sparks rained from their pipes over their dark beards. Having done all the mischief possible the wind fled back over the plain, crossed the great pond, and shook the mail coach that rolled majestically along about half a mile from the inn.
“What terrible haste he always makes to reach Kraruper Inn,” muttered the postilion, Anders, cracking his whip over the smoking horses. For the twentieth time the conductor had let down the window to call to him. At first it had been a friendly invitation to take a coffee punch with him, then little by little the good-nature disappeared. Finally the window went down with a bang, and remarks far from conciliating were showered on driver and horses.
The wind swept low on the ground, and long, mysterious sighs murmured through the heather bushes. The moon was full, but thick clouds obscured its light. Behind Kraruper Inn lay the gloomy moor, covered by black heaps of peat and deep, treacherous holes. And between the heather bushes wound a strip of grass that looked like a path, but it was no path, for it came to a sudden end at the brink of a hole deeper than the others, and filled with water. In the grass a sleek fox crouched and waited, and a hare hopped softly over the plain. The fox could reckon with certainty that the hare would not make a long circuit so late in the evening. He stretched out a cautious nose, and, as he sniffed in the direction of the wind and sought a secure post of observation, he thought how wise foxes always were and how stupid the hares.