Mary - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (bookstand for reading TXT) 📗

broad forehead aslant in the air, his hand, his short, strong foot--everything was here! The statue affected the beholder like a war-song. For the first time Alice found the word for the effect which Frans produced. She was carried away by the statue as by the rhythm of a march. Exactly what she had often felt when she saw Frans walk! Was this likeness a curious accident, or had he really ... she turned quite hot and had to walk away from the statue and look at something else.

Mary had all the time kept behind Alice, who had quite forgotten her. The question now involuntarily occurred to Alice: Does Mary understand what she sees?

She waited a little before she began to observe. Mary, who was now standing in front of the statue, with her back towards Alice, remained so long motionless that the latter's curiosity increased. She went round and stationed herself among the statues opposite, put on her eye-glass, and looked across. Mary's eyes were half closed; her bosom was heaving. She walked slowly round the statue, then retired to a distance, came back, and stood still again midway between front and side.

Then she looked round for Alice and caught sight of the eye-glasses turned in her direction; Alice was actually holding them on, to see clearer. There could be no mistake--her face was one mischievous smile.

There are things which one woman objects to another understanding. Mary's blood surged; angry and hurt, she took Alice's look as an insult. She turned her back quickly on the acrobat and walked towards the door. But she stopped once or twice, pretending to look at other pieces of sculpture, really to obtain mastery over the uproar in her breast. At last she reached the door. She did not look round to see if Alice were following; she passed through the entrance hall and left the building.

But just as she did so, Frans Roey hurried up--as quickly as if he had been sent for and were arriving too late. He tore off his hat without getting even a nod in answer. He saw nothing but a pair of vacant eyes.

"Oh, please don't be angry any longer!" he said with his broadest east-country accent, good-humouredly and boyishly. Mary's face cleared; she could not help herself; she smiled, and was actually going to take his outstretched hand--when she saw his eyes travel with the speed of lightning to a point behind her and come back with the least little particle of triumph in them. She turned her head and met Alice's eyes. In them there was any amount both of mischief and rejoicing. There had been a plot then! Mary was transformed. As if from the highest church steeple she looked down upon them both--and left them. Her carriage was waiting a short way off; she motioned, and it came in a wide sweep to where she stood. There was no footman; she opened the door before Frans Roey could come to her assistance, and got in as if no one were there. When seated she looked--past Frans--to see if Alice were coming. Fat Alice was waddling slowly along. It was plain, even from a distance, that a wild struggle with suppressed laughter was going on within her. And when she arrived and saw Mary sitting in state looking to the one side, and Frans Roey, the giant, standing on the other like a frightened recruit, she could resist no longer; she gave way to a fit of laughter which shook her heavy body from head to foot. She laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, laughed so that it was with difficulty and not without assistance she found the carriage-step and hauled herself up. She sank on the seat beside Mary, convulsed with laughter; the carriage shook, as she sat with her handkerchief to her face, suppressing screams. She caught a glimpse of Mary's scarlet anger and Frans Roey's pale dismay--and laughed the louder. The very coachman was obliged to laugh too, though what the devil it was about he did not know. And thus they drove off.

Another unsuccessful expedition, another defeat of the highest hopes! It was a long time before Alice could say anything. Then she began by pitying Frans Roey.

"You are too severe with him, Mary. Goodness! how miserable he looked!" And the laughter began again.

But Mary, who had been sitting waiting for an opportunity, now broke out:

"What have I to do with your protege?"

And as if this were not enough, she bent forward to face Alice's laughing eyes:

"You are confusing me with yourself. It is you who are in love with him. Do you imagine that I have not seen that for ever so long? You know best yourselves in what relation you stand to each other. That is no affair of mine. But the 'De'[B] which you both keep up--is it for the purpose of concealment?"


[B] _You_ as distinguished from the familiar _thou_.


Alice's laughter ceased. She turned pale, so pale that Mary was alarmed. Mary tried to withdraw her eyes, but could not; Alice's held them fast through painful changes until they lost all expression. Then Alice's head sank back, whilst a long, heavy sigh resembling the groan of a wounded animal escaped her.

Mary sat motionless, aghast at her own speech.

But it was irrevocable.

Alice suddenly raised her head again and told the coachman to stop. "I have a call to make at this house." The carriage stopped; she opened the door, stepped out, and shut it after her.

With a long look at Mary, she said:

"Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" was answered in a low tone.

Both felt that it was for ever.

Mary drove on. As soon as she reached home, she went straight to the private drawing-room; she had something to say to her father. Before she opened the door, she heard piano-playing, and understood that Joergen Thiis was there. But this did not stop her. With her hat and spring cloak still on, she unexpectedly appeared in the room. Joergen Thiis jumped up from the piano and came towards her, his eyes filling with admiration; her face was all aglow from the tumult within. But something proud and repellent in its sparkle caused him to give up his intention of closer approach.

Then his eyes assumed the gloating, greedy expression which Mary so detested. With a slight bow she passed him and went up to her father, who was sitting as usual in the big chair with a book upon his knee.

"Father, what do you say to our going home now?"

Every face brightened. Mrs. Dawes exclaimed: "Joergen Thiis has just been asking when we intend to go; he wants to travel with us."

Mary did not turn towards Joergen but continued: "I think the steamer sails from Havre to-morrow?"

"It does," answered her father; "but we can't possibly be ready by that time?"

"Yes, we can!" said Mrs. Dawes. "We have this whole afternoon."

"I shall be delighted to help," said Joergen Thiis.

Now Mary bestowed a friendly look on him, before mentioning the price which Alice had advised her to offer for the Dutch coast landscape her father wished to buy. She then went off to begin her own packing.

The four met again before the hotel dinner at half-past seven. Mary came into the room looking tired. Joergen Thiis went up to her and said:

"I hear that you have made Frans Roey's acquaintance, Miss Krog?"

Her father and Mrs. Dawes were listening attentively. This showed that Joergen must have been talking with them on the subject before she entered. Every new male acquaintance she made was a source of anxiety to them. Mary coloured; she felt herself doing so, and the red deepened. The two were watching.

"I have met him at Miss Clerc's," replied Mary. "She and her mother spent several summers in Norway, and were intimate with his family there; they belong to the same town. Is there anything more you wish to know?"

Joergen Thiis stood dismayed. The others stared. He said hastily: "I have just been telling your father and Mrs. Dawes that we younger officers consider Frans Roey the best man we have. So I spoke with no unfriendly intention."

"Nor did I suspect you of any. But as I myself have not mentioned the acquaintance here, I do not think that the subject ought to be introduced by strangers."

In utter consternation Joergen stammered that, that, that he had had no other intention in doing so than to, to, to....

"I know that," Mary replied, cutting short the conversation.

They went down to dinner. At table Joergen as a matter of course returned to the subject. It could not be allowed to drop thus. All Frans Roey's brother officers, he said, regretted that he had exchanged into the engineers. He was a particularly able strategist. Their military exercises, both theoretical and practical, had provided him with opportunities to distinguish himself. Joergen gave instances, but the others did not understand them. So he went on to tell anecdotes of Frans Roey as a comrade, as an officer. These were supposed to show how popular and how ready-witted he was. Mary declared that they chiefly showed how boyish he was. Thereupon Joergen said that he had only heard the stories from others; Frans Roey was older than he.

"What do _you_ think of him?" he suddenly asked in a very innocent manner.

Mary did not answer immediately. Her father and Mrs. Dawes looked up.

"He talks a great deal too much."

Joergen laughed. "Yes; but how can he help that--he who has so much strength?"

"Must it be exercised upon us?"

They all laughed, and the strain which had been making them uncomfortable relaxed. Krog and Mrs. Dawes felt safe, as far as Frans Roey was concerned. So did Joergen Thiis.

At half-past eight they went upstairs again. Mary at once retired to her room, pleading fatigue. She lay and listened to Joergen playing. Then she lay and wept.

* * * * *


Next evening, on the sea, wide and motionless, the faint twilight ushered in the summer night. Two pillars of smoke rose in the distance. Except for these, the dull grey above and beneath was unbroken. Mary leaned against the rail. No one was in sight, and the thud of the engine was the only sound.

She had been listening to music downstairs, and had left the others there. An unspeakable feeling of loneliness had driven her up to this barren outlook--clouds as far as the eye could reach.

Nothing but clouds; not even the reflection of the sun which had gone down.

And was there anything more than this left of the brightness of the world from which she came? Was there not the very same emptiness in and around herself? The life of travel was now at an end; neither her father nor Mrs. Dawes could or would continue to lead it; this she understood. At Krogskogen there was not one neighbour she cared for. In the town, half an hour's journey off, there was not a human being to whom she was bound by any tie of intimacy. She had never given herself time to make such ties. She was at home nowhere. The life which springs from the soil of a place and unites us to everything that