Three Dramas - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (best biographies to read TXT) 📗

shyly). My child! Who put such a happy idea into your head?

Valborg (putting an arm round his neck). Father, forgive me for all that I have neglected to do! You shall see how I will try and make up for it! How hard I shall work!

Tjaelde (still half incredulous). My child! My child!

Valborg. I feel--I cannot tell you how deeply--a craving for love and for work! (Throws both her arms round his neck.) Oh, father, how I love you!--and how I shall work for you!

Tjaelde. Ah, that is the Valborg I have waited for, ever since you were a little child! But we had drifted away from one another, somehow.

Valborg. No more about the past! Look forward, father, look forward! Concerns "that would not be affected by the uncertainties of high finance,"--weren't those his words?

Tjaelde. So you were struck by that expression, too?

Valborg. That may mean a future for us now! We will have a home all to ourselves--a little house down on the shore--and I shall help you, and Signe will help mother--we shall know what it is to live, for the first time!

Tjaelde. What happiness it will be!

Valborg. Only look forward, father! Look forward! A united family is invincible!

Tjaelde. And to think that such help should come to me now!

Valborg. Yes, now we are all going to our posts--and all together, where formerly you stood alone! You will have good fairies round you; wherever you look, you will see happy faces and busy fingers all day long; and we shall all enjoy our meals and our evenings together, just as we did when we were children!

Tjaelde. That, above everything!

Valborg. Ha, ha!--it is after the rain that the birds sing blithest, you know! And this time our happiness can never miscarry, because we shall have something worth living for!

Tjaelde. Let us go to your mother! This will cheer her heart!

Valborg. Ah, how I have learnt to love her! What has happened to-day has taught me.

Tjaelde. It is for her that we shall all work now.

Valborg. Yes--for her, for her. She shall rest now. Let us go to her!

Tjaelde. Kiss me first, my dear. (His voice trembles.) It is so long since you did!

Valborg (kissing him). Father!

Tjaelde. Now let us go to your mother. (The curtain falls as they go out together.)


ACT IV


(SCENE.--In the garden of TJAELDE'S new home, on the shore of the fjord, three years later. A view of tranquil sunlit sea, dotted with boats, in the background. On the left a portion of the house is seen, with an open window within which VALBORG is seen writing at a desk. The garden is shaded with birch trees; flower-beds run round the house, and the whole atmosphere one of modest comfort. Two small garden tables and several chairs are in the foreground on the right. A chair standing by itself, further back, has evidently had a recent occupant. When the curtain rises the stage is empty, but VALBORG is visible at the open window. Soon afterwards TJAELDE comes in, wheeling MRS. TJAELDE in an invalid chair.)

Mrs. Tjaelde. Another lovely day!

Tjaelde. Tjaelde. Lovely! There was not a ripple on the sea last night. I saw a couple of steamers far out, and a sailing ship that had hove to, and the fisher-boats drifting silently in.

Mrs. Tjaelde. And think of the storm that was raging two days ago!

Tjaelde. And think of the storm that broke over our lives barely three years ago! I was thinking of that in the night.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Sit down here with me.

Tjaelde. Shall we not continue our stroll?

Mrs. Tjaelde. The sun is too hot.

Tjaelde. Not for me.

Mrs. Tjaelde. You big strong man! It is too hot for me.

Tjaelde (taking a chair). There you are, then.

Mrs. Tjaelde (taking off his hat and wiping his forehead). You are very hot, dear. You have never looked so handsome as you do now!

Tjaelde. That's just as well, as you have so much time to admire me now!

Mrs. Tjaelde. Now that I find getting about so difficult, you mean? Ah, that is only my pretence, so as to get you to wheel me about!

Tjaelde (with a sigh). Ah, my dear, it is good of you to take it so cheerfully. But that you should be the only one of us to bear such hard traces of our misfortune--

Mrs. Tjaelde (interrupting him). Do you forget your own whitened hair? That is a sign of it, too, but a beautiful one! And, as for my being an invalid, I thank God every day for it! In the first place I have almost no pain, and then it gives me the opportunity to feel how good you are to me in every way.

Tjaelde. You enjoy your life, then?

Mrs. Tjaelde. Yes, indeed I do--and just as I should wish to.

Tjaelde. Just to be spoiled, and yourself to spoil us?

Valborg (from the window). I have finished the accounts, father.

Tjaelde. Doesn't it come out at about what I said?

Valborg. Almost exactly. Shall I enter it in the ledger at once?

Tjaelde. Oho! You are glad then, as you seem in such it hurry?

Valborg. Certainly! Such a good stroke of business!

Tjaelde. And both you and Sannaes tried your best to dissuade me from it!

Valborg. Such a pair of wiseacres!

Mrs. Tjaelde. Ah, your father is your master, my dear!

Tjaelde. Tjaelde. Oh, it is easy enough to captain a small army that marches on, instead of a big one that is in retreat. (VALBORG goes on with her work.)

Mrs. Tjaelde. And yet it seemed hard enough for us to give it up.

Tjaelde. Yes, yes--oh, yes. I can tell you, I was thinking of that last night. If God had given me what I begged for then, what state should we have been in now? I was thinking of that, too.

Mrs. Tjaelde. It is the fact of the estate being at last wound up that has brought all these thoughts into your mind, dear?

Tjaelde. Yes.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Then I must confess that I, too, have scarcely been able to think of anything else since yesterday, when Sannaes went into town to settle it up. This a red-letter day! Signe is wrestling with a little banquet for us; we shall see what an artist she has become! Here she is!

Tjaelde. I think I will just go and look over Valborg's accounts. (Goes to the window. SIGNE comes out of the house, wearing a cook's apron and carrying a basin.)

Signe. Mother, you must taste my soup! (Offers her a spoonful.)

Mrs. Tjaelde. Clever girl! (Tastes the soup.) Perhaps it would stand a little--. No, it is very good as it is. You are clever!

Signe. Am I not! Will Sannaes be back soon?

Mrs. Tjaelde. Your father says we may expect him any moment.

Tjaelde (at the window, to VALBORG). No, wait a moment. I will come in. (Goes into the house, and is seen within the window beside VALBORG.)

Mrs. Tjaelde. My little Signe, I want to ask you something?

Signe. Do you?

Mrs. Tjaelde. What was in the letter you had yesterday evening?

Signe. Aha, I might have guessed that was it! Nothing, mother.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Nothing that pained you, then?

Signe. I slept like a top all night--so you can judge for yourself.

Mrs. Tjaelde. I am so glad. But, you know, there seems to me something a little forced in the gay way you say that?

Signe. Does there? Well, it was something that I shall always be ashamed of; that is all.

Mrs. Tjaelde. I am thankful to hear it, for--

Signe (interrupting her). That must be Sannaes. I hear wheels. Yes, here he is! He has come too soon; dinner won't be ready for half an hour yet.

Mrs. Tjaelde. That doesn't matter.

Signe. Father, here is Sannaes!

Tjaelde (from within). Good! I will come out! (SIGNE goes into the house as TJAELDE comes out. SANNAES comes in a moment later.)

Tjaelde and Mrs. Tjaelde. Welcome!

Sannaes. Thank you! (Lays down his dust-coat and driving gloves on a chair, and comes forward.)

Tjaelde. Well?

Sannaes. Yes--your bankruptcy is discharged!

Mrs. Tjaelde. And the result was--?

Sannaes. Just about what we expected.

Tjaelde. And, I suppose, just about what Mr. Berent wrote?

Sannaes. Just about, except for one or two inconsiderable trifles. You can see for yourself. (Gives him a bundle of papers.) The high prices that have ruled of late, and good management, have altered the whole situation.

Tjaelde (who has opened the papers and glanced at the totals). A deficit of L12,000.

Sannaes. I made a declaration on your behalf, that you intended to try and repay that sum, but that you should be at liberty to do it in whatever way you found best. And so--

Tjaelde. And so--?

Sannaes.--I proferred on the spot rather more than half the amount you still owed Jakobsen.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Not really? (TJAELDE takes out a pencil and begins making calculations on the margins of the papers.)

Sannaes. There was general satisfaction--and they all sent you their cordial congratulations.

Mrs. Tjaelde. So that, if all goes well--

Tjaelde. Yes, if things go as well with the business as they promise to, Sannaes, in twelve or fourteen years I shall have paid every one in full.

Mrs. Tjaelde. We haven't much longer than that left to live, dear!

Tjaelde. Then we shall die poor. And I shall not complain!

Mrs. Tjaelde. No, indeed! The honourable name you will leave to your children will be well worth it.

Tjaelde. And they will inherit a sound business, which they can go on with if they choose.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Did you hear that, Valborg?

Valborg (from the window). Every word! (SANNAES bows to her.) I must go in and tell Signe! (Moves away from the window.)

Mrs. Tjaelde. What did Jakobsen say?--honest old Jakobsen?

Sannaes. He was very much affected, as you would expect. He will certainly be coming out here to-day.

Tjaelde (looking up from the papers). And Mr. Berent?

Sannaes. He is coming hard on my heels. I was to give you his kind regards and tell you so.

Tjaelde. Splendid! We owe him so much.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Yes, he has been a true friend to us. But, talking of true friends, I have something particular to ask _you_, Sannaes.

Sannaes. Me, Mrs. Tjaelde?

Mrs. Tjaelde. The maid told me that yesterday, when you went into town, you took the greater part of your belongings with you. Is that so?

Sannaes. Yes, Mrs. Tjaelde.

Tjaelde. What does that mean? (To his wife.) You said nothing about it to me, my dear.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Because I thought it might be a misunderstanding. But now I must ask what was the meaning of it. Are you going away?

Sannaes (fingering a chair, in evident confusion). Yes, Mrs. Tjaelde.

Tjaelde. Where to? You never said anything about it.

Sannaes. No; but I have always considered that I should have finished my task here as soon as the estate was finally wound up.

Tjaelde and Mrs. Tjaelde. You mean