Mary - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (bookstand for reading TXT) 📗

foundry from which he had just come, and drew them along with him. They saw the half-naked men standing with their hooks on the edge of the stream of boiling, bubbling, fiery-red metal; they felt the power of the machinery, and saw the human beings creeping among it like cautious ants in a giant forest. He tried, too, to explain this machinery to them in detail. And he made them understand perfectly; but time wore on, and the two friends had to go.

Alice was in the best of spirits during their drive. It was so evident that Frans had made a strong impression to-day.

On the following morning Mary went off on a motor excursion with some American friends. She was away for several days. And the first thing she did on her return was to call on Alice. There, sure enough, sat Frans Roey! Both he and Alice jumped up, delighted. Alice embraced and kissed her. "Runaway, runaway!" she exclaimed. It is not enough to say that Frans Roey's eyes sparkled; they fired a royal salute. From the moment Mary shook hands with him, he talked incessantly. He was so foolishly in love that Alice began to feel alarmed. Fortunately he had to go soon, to keep a business appointment. Mary was left in a stormy swell; the sea would not go down. Alice saw this and tried to calm her by eager, anxious attempts to explain him. But this only further confused her; she left.

As she came downstairs to join her father and Mrs. Dawes in the afternoon--she had felt it necessary to take a rest--she heard piano-playing. She knew at once that it was Joergen Thiis who was entertaining the old people. He was a first-rate musician, and he loved their piano. It was to go with them to Norway. She went straight up to him, and thanked him for being so attentive to her father and Aunt Eva; unfortunately they were left much alone. He replied that their appreciation of his music gratified him exceedingly, and that the piano was a great attraction, being a particularly fine instrument.

The conversation during and after dinner showed Mary how accustomed these three were to be together; they could do without her. She felt really grateful, and they had a pleasant evening. There was much talk of home, for which the old people were longing.

Joergen was hardly gone before Mrs. Dawes said: "What a pleasant, well-bred man Joergen is, child!"

Anders looked at Mary and smiled.

"At what are you smiling, Father?"

"Nothing"--his smile growing broader.

"You want to know my opinion of him?"

"Yes, what do you think of him?"

Mrs. Dawes was all ear.

"Well...."

"You have not made up your mind?"

"Yes ... yes."

"Speak out, then."

"I do really like him."

"But there is a something?"

Now it was she who smiled. "I don't like the way his eyes seem to draw me in."

Her father laughed:

"To gloat over you like food. Eh?"

"Yes, exactly."

"He's a bon-viveur, you see--like his father."

"But, like his father, he has so many good qualities," put in Mrs. Dawes.

"He has," said Anders Krog seriously.

Mary said no more. She bade them good-night, and offered him her forehead to kiss.

A few days later Mary went to Alice's house at an early hour. Anders Krog had seen some old Chinese porcelain which he thought of buying; but Alice's advice was indispensable. At this time of day and in the studio Mary could be certain of finding her alone--at least alone with her model.

She went straight in without speaking to the porter. Alice opened the door herself. She had on her studio-dress and her hand was dirty, so that she could not take Mary's.

"You are busy with a model," whispered Mary.

"I shall be presently," answered Alice with a curious smile. "The model is waiting in the next room. But come in."

When Mary passed beyond the curtain she saw the reason why the model was waiting in the next room. In the studio sat Frans Roey. Thus early in the day and rapt in thought! He did not even notice them entering. This was the first time Mary had seen him serious; and seriousness became the manly figure and the strong face much better than wanton hilarity.

"Do you not see who has come?" asked Alice.

He sprang up....

The conversation that day was serious. Frans was in a dejected mood; it was easy for Mary to divine that they had been talking about her.

They all consequently felt a little awkward at first, until Alice turned the conversation on a topic from that morning's newspapers. Two murders, instigated by jealousy--one of them of the most terrible description--had horrified them all, but especially Frans. He maintained that the idea of the marriage relation peculiar to the Romance nations is still that of the age when the wife was the husband's property, and when, in consequence of this, unfaithfulness was punished by death. Christianity, he allowed, in course of time, also made the husband the wife's property, especially in Roman Catholic countries. In these the spouses rivalled each other in killing--the wife the husband, the husband the wife. This assertion gave rise to an argument. Mary agreed that neither of the contracting parties owned the other. After marriage, as before, they were free individuals, with a right to dispose of themselves. Love alone decided. If love ceased, because development made of one or other a different being from what he or she was at the time of marriage; or if one of them met another human being who took possession of his or her soul and thoughts and changed the whole tenor of life, then the deserted spouse must submit--neither condemn nor kill. But Frans Roey and she disagreed when they discussed what ought to separate husband and wife--and still more when they came to what ought to keep them together. She was much more exacting than he. He suggested jokingly that her theory was: Married people have full liberty to separate, but this liberty they must not use. She declared his to be: Married people ought as a rule to separate; if they have no real reason, they can borrow one.

This conversation meant more to them than the words implied. It impressed him as a new beauty in her that she was queenly. This cast a new glory over all the rest.

The queenliness did not consist in desire to rule. It was purely self-defence; but the loftiest. Her whole nature was concentrated in it, luminously. "Touch me not!" said eyes, voice, bearing. There was preparedness, undoubtedly, if need were, for the martyr's crown. She became much greater--but also more helpless. Such as she look too high and fall the first step they take. And great is generally their fall.

Frans gazed at her; he forgot to answer, forgot what she had said. He seemed to hear a voice calling: "Protect her!" Chivalry entered into his love, and issued its high behests.

Mary saw him withdraw himself from their conversation; but this did not stop her; the subject was too absorbing. When he came back to it again he heard her divulging her inmost thoughts, undoubtedly with no idea that she was doing so. She told what she had thought ever since she could think on such subjects at all. It came as naturally to her to do so as to lift her dress where the road was dirty, or to swim when she could no longer keep her footing.--Individuality must be preserved, must grow, be neither curbed nor soiled. With this she began, with this she ended. But she was all the time conscious of a curious attraction towards Frans which led her to speak out. It was so long since they had been together. She did not know that the person who can draw forth our thoughts is, in the nature of things, a person who has power over us. She only felt that she was obliged to speak--and to keep control over herself. A sweet feeling, which she experienced for the first time.

The conversation changed into talk which became ever more intimate, and lost itself at last in a silence of looks and long-drawn breaths. Alice had gone to her model. They became confused when they discovered that they were alone. They stopped talking and looked away from each other.

After short visits to one and another of the many works of art in the studio, their attention concentrated itself on a faun without arms. It stood laughing at them. They talked about this fragment of antique sculpture merely that there might not be silence. Where had it been found? To what age did it belong? It must surely have been an animal. They spoke in subdued tones, with caressing voices, and unsteady eyes. Nor were their feet steadier. They felt themselves lighter than before, as if they were in higher air. And it seemed to them as if their thoughts lay bare, and they themselves were transparent.

Presently Alice joined them again. She looked at them with eyes that awoke both. "Have you done with marriage now?" she asked. It was about marriage they had been talking when she left them.

Mary remembered that she had an errand, and that her carriage was waiting. Frans Roey also remembered what he ought to be doing. They went off together, across the court and through the outer gate, to her carriage. But they could not strike the same tone as before, so they did not speak.

Hat in hand, Frans opened the carriage-door. Mary got in without raising her eyes. When, after seating herself, she turned to bow, the strongest eyes she had ever looked into were waiting for her--full of passion and reverence.

Two hours later Frans was with Alice again. He could not remain longer alone with his heaven-storming hopes.

Where had he been in the interval? In town, buying a cast of Donatello's St. Cecilia. He had been obliged to compare. But Alice of course knew, he said, how wretchedly inferior Donatello's Cecilia was.

Alice began to be seriously alarmed. "My dear friend, you will spoil everything for yourself. It is in your nature."

He answered proudly: "Never yet have I seriously set myself an aim which I have not accomplished."

"I quite believe that. You can work, you can overcome difficulties, and you can also wait."

"I can."

"But you cannot suppress yourself; you cannot allow her to come to you."

Frans was hurt. "What do you mean, Alice?"

"I want to remind you, dear friend, that you don't know Mary; you don't know the world she lives in. You are a bear from the backwoods."

"It may be that I am a bear. I don't deny that. But what if she should have become fond of a bear? One is not easily mistaken in such matters."

He would not allow his high hopes to be cast down. He came beseechingly towards her--even tried to embrace her; he was given to hugging.

"Come now, Frans; behave yourself. And remember, this is the second time you have disturbed me."

"You shall be disturbed. You shall not go on modelling your prisoner in there. Dear Alice, my own friend--you shall model my happiness."

"What more can I do for you than I have done?"

"You can procure me admission to the house."

"That is not such an easy matter."

"Bah! You can manage it quite well. You must! you must!"

He talked, coaxed, caressed, until