Mary - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (bookstand for reading TXT) 📗

to laugh about in that?"

"There is certainly nothing to cry about."

He was in a very jovial mood, and would fain have put his arm round her and danced down to the pier, as many of the others were doing. But Mary warded him off.

"I was very sorry to hear it," she said.

Then he understood that she was in earnest.

"The fact is, Miss Krog, that Norwegians, generally speaking, don't know what obedience and discipline are. During the short time we have them under command, we must teach them."

"Teach them in what way?"

"In small things, of course."

"By plaguing them about small things?"

"Exactly."

"Giving orders for which they see no necessity?"

"Precisely. They must learn to give up reasoning. They must obey. And what they do, they must do properly; exactly as it should be done."

Mary did not answer. She addressed another couple who now made up to them, and continued doing so till they all reached the pier.

On board the steamer she noticed that Joergen Thiis was out of humour. When they landed, he was not standing at the gangway. Without any previous arrangement, the whole party accompanied her home to the house on the market-place. They sang and shouted under the windows until she came out on the balcony and threw flowers down on them--those she had brought home with her and any more she could find. Then they dispersed, laughing and joking.

As they were going off, she looked for Joergen; he was not there. This vexed her; she felt that she had rewarded him ill for one of the most delightful days in her life.

Entertainments, large and small, followed one on the other. But Joergen Thiis was absent from them all. He had first gone home to see his parents, then to Christiania. Mary had never devoted much thought to Joergen Thiis, but now that he kept away, she could not help remembering that she had chiefly him to thank for the happy meeting with the young people of her own age. And that remarkable toast of his--"fidelity to the ideal"--at the time he proposed it she had merely thought: How sentimental Joergen Thiis can be! Now she thought: Perhaps it was an allusion to me? She was accustomed to such exaggerations; and she did not care in the least for Joergen Thiis. But when she remembered how deeply in love he had fallen at their first meeting, and how all these years he had been exactly the same whenever and wherever they met, the matter assumed a more serious aspect. The gloating, greedy eyes acquired something almost touching. The fact that he could not bear to be with her when she was the least displeased with him was another proof of the strength of his attachment. His saying nothing, but simply staying away, appealed to her.

One day Mille Falke, the consumptive head-schoolmaster's pretty, gentle wife, came out to see Mary. She had had a letter from Joergen Thiis. A party of ten Christiania people had arranged a trip to the North Cape. They had taken their berths two months ago; now circumstances prevented their going. Joergen Thiis had been asked if he could not take the tickets and find nine people to accompany him on the glorious excursion. In the small towns there was more neighbourliness; it was easier there to make up such a party. Joergen Thiis declared himself willing if Mary Krog would agree to go; he knew that in this case he would have no trouble in finding others.

Mrs. Falke laid the matter before Mary with the soft, feline persuasiveness which few could resist. Mary had, however, not the slightest desire either to sit on the deck of a steamer in the midsummer heat, or to interrupt all that was going on at home--it was much too pleasant. At the same time she was unwilling to offend Joergen Thiis again. She consulted with her father and Mrs. Dawes; she listened once again to Mrs. Falke--and consented.

Early in July the party assembled at night on board the coasting-steamer which was to take them to Bergen, the starting-point of the excursion proper. They were six ladies and four gentlemen. The eldest lady was the respected principal of the chief girls' school in the town--mother of one of the gentlemen and former instructress of three of the other ladies. She was the moral support of the party. Two of its members were on their honeymoon, and they were teased by the others the whole time. It was worth doing, for they were quick-witted, both of them, and gave as good as they got. Then there was a young merchant, who paid attention to two of the ladies, unable--so it was averred--to make up his mind which he liked best. The whole party, including the ladies in question, did their best to assist him in coming to a decision. The very first night on the coasting-steamer, a schoolmaster was christened "the forsaken one." All the others, with the exception of the old lady kept up a constant racket; no one slept. He alone could neither dance nor sing, and he was incapable of flirting; he could not even be flirted with, it put him out so terribly. The consequence was that all the ladies, even Mary, made love to "the forsaken one," simply to enjoy his misery.

The originator of most of the mischief that went on was Joergen Thiis; teasing was his passion. His inventiveness in this domain was not always free from malice.

At first he himself was unmolested. But in course of time even "the forsaken one" ventured to attack him. His appetite, his inclination to tyrannise, and especially his role as Mary's humble servant, were made subjects of jest. Mary had the Krogs' keen eye for exaggeration in every shape, so she laughed along with the rest, even when it was at his submissiveness to her they were laughing. Joergen was not in the least disturbed. He ate as much as ever, was as strict as ever in his capacity of leader, and continued, unmoved, to play the part of Mary's inventive, ever-ready squire.

The ship had its full complement of passengers, amongst them a number of foreigners; but Joergen Thiis's merry party was the centre of attraction. Nature made such perpetual calls on the passengers' admiration that they were not in too close and constant contact with each other. It was as if they were attending some grand performance. One marvel followed the other. The length of the days, too, had its influence. Each night was shorter than the last, until there was none at all. They sailed on into unquenchable, inextinguishable light, and this produced a kind of intoxication. They drank, they danced, they sang; they were all equally highly strung. They proposed things which under other circumstances would have seemed impossible; here they were in keeping with the wildness of the landscape, the intoxication of the light. One day in a strong wind Mary lost her hat; two cavaliers jumped overboard after it. One of them was, of course, Joergen Thiis. The minds of all were working at higher pressure than that of every day. Some of them became exhausted and slept whole days and nights. But most of them held out--at least as long as they were northward bound--Mary amongst the number.

Joergen Thiis, with his persistent deference, in the end obliged all of them to treat Mary more or less as he did himself. Nor did anything occur the whole time to disturb this position of hers--thanks principally to her own carefully cultivated reserve of manner.

When they returned to the coasting-steamer, genuine gratitude prompted her to invite Joergen Thiis to go home with her to Krogskogen. "I can't stand such a sudden break-up," she said.

He stayed for some days, delighted with the beauty and comfort of everything. Such art taste as he possessed lay chiefly in the direction of knick-knacks; he was devoted to foreign curios, and of these there was abundance. The rooms and their furniture and decorations were exactly to his taste. To Mrs. Dawes, who encouraged him to speak freely, he confided that the comfort and quiet disposed him amorously. He sat often and long at the piano extemporising; and it was always in an erotic strain.

He treated Mary with the same deference when they were alone as when they were in company with others. All the time she had known him he had not let fall a single word which could be interpreted as a preface to love-making, no, not even as the preface to a preface. And this she appreciated.

They wandered together through the woods and the fields. They rowed together to relations' houses to pay calls. Joergen had the key to the bathing-house, where he went before any one else was up, and often again after their excursions.

Mary herself had become more sociable. Joergen told her so.

"Yes," answered she. "The Norwegian young people associate with each other more like brothers and sisters than those of other countries, and are consequently different--freer, franker. They have infected me."

One morning Joergen had to go to town, and Mary accompanied him. She wished to call on Uncle Klaus, his foster-father, whom she had not seen since she came home.

Klaus was sitting behind a cloud of smoke, like a spider behind its grey web. He jumped up when he saw Mary enter, declared he was ashamed of himself, and led her into the big drawing-room. Joergen had warned her that he was not likely to be in a good humour; he had been losing money again. And they had not sat long in the empty, stiff drawing-room before he began to complain of the times. As was his habit, he rounded his back and sprawled out his legs, supporting his elbows on them and pressing the points of his long fingers together.

"Yes, you two are well off, who do nothing but amuse yourselves!"

He possibly thought that this remark demanded some reparation, for his next was: "I have never seen a handsomer pair!"

Joergen laughed, but coloured to the roots of his hair. Mary sat unmoved.

Joergen accompanied her to the house on the market-place; it was quite near. He did not say a word on the way, and took leave immediately. Afterwards he sent to let her know that he would be obliged to stay in town till the evening; then he would cycle out. Mary herself left at the previously appointed hour.

On her way home in the steamer she revolved the idea: Joergen Thiis and herself a pair. No! This she had never contemplated. He was a handsome, well-bred man, a courteous, pleasant companion, a really gifted musician. His ability, his tact, were unanimously acknowledged. Even that which at one time had repelled her so strongly, the sensuality, which would suddenly leap into his eyes and produce that insufferable gloating expression--perhaps it was of this underlying quality that all the rest were cultivated developments? Might it not account for his appreciation of the perfect in art, in discipline, in language? Still there remained something unexplained. But it was a matter of indifference to her what it was. She cast all these reflections aside; it was no concern of hers.

As she came on board she had noticed a peasant-woman who had once been their servant; now she went and sat down beside her. The woman was gratified.

"And how is your father, Miss? I am old now, and I have known many people in my day, but never a kinder man than Mr. Krog. There's no one like him."

The affectionate warmth of these