The World's Greatest Books - Volume 1 Part 36

"Yes, I'm coming now, dear!" said Birgit, in a choking voice. She walked across the room to Baard, took his hand in hers, and broke into violent sobs. The two hands clung tight and it was hand in hand they opened the door and went downstairs. And when the bridal train streamed down to the landing stage, and Arne gave his hand to Eli, Baard, against all custom, took Birgit's hand in his own and followed them calmly, happily, smilingly.

In the boat his eyes rested on the bridal pair and on his wife. "Ah!" he said to himself, "no one would have thought such a thing possible twenty years ago."

In G.o.d's Way

"In G.o.d's Way" belongs to the second group of Bjornson's novels, of which the first group is represented by early peasant tales like "Arne." In this later category the stories are of a more or less didactic nature. Although "In G.o.d's Way"

lacks something of the freshness and beauty that distinguished "Arne," it is, nevertheless a powerful and vivid picture of Norwegian religious life; and it is, of all Bjornson's books, the one by which he is most widely known outside his native country. In this story Bjornson has been influenced by the social dramas of his compatriot, Ibsen; but it may be questioned whether he has not brought to his task a higher inspiration and a stronger faith in humanity than the famous dramatist possessed. Published in 1889, the main theme of "In G.o.d's Way" was undoubtedly suggested by the religious excitement which then prevailed in Norway.

_I.--A Strange Home-coming_

Pastor Tuft was walking up and down his study, composing his Sunday sermon. He was a handsome man, with a long, fair face, and dreamy eyes; his wife, Josephine, in the days when she thought she was in love with him, used to call him Melanchthon--that was not many years ago, and he still resembled in appearance the poet of the Reformation. But his features had now lost their fine serenity, and he was glad when his bitter and troubled thoughts on the doctrine of justification--a subject he had chosen for its bearing on his brother-in-law's conduct--were interrupted by his wife. Josephine burst into his study in a state of fierce excitement.

"They will be here in a moment," she said. "The steamer has arrived. Oh, that woman, that woman! She has ruined my brother's life!"

"If he wanted to settle again in Norway with her," said the pastor, "couldn't he have chosen some spot where the story of their misconduct was not known? But to come to the very town! Everybody will remember!"

"Yes," said Josephine; "it is only six years since Edward ran off to America with Soren Kule's wife. Surely, he will not expect you, a minister, to receive the woman, especially as Kule is still living."

While she was talking, Tuft stared out of the window. A tall man in light clothes was coming to the house--a tall man, with a clear-cut, sunburnt face, and a lean, curved nose that gave him the air of a bird of prey. By his side was a lady with sweet, delicate features, dressed in a tartan travelling costume. There was a knock at the door. Josephine went down very slowly, and opened it. "Edward!"

There was a glow in her eyes as she welcomed her brother, and his eyes also lighted up. He was about to cross the threshold, when he noticed that she completely disregarded his companion. In the meantime, Tuft had come to the door; he, too, made no advances. There was always something of the keen, wild look of an eagle about Edward Kallem; it became still more striking as he glared at his sister and brother-in-law.

"Are you waiting," he said, "for me to introduce my wife? Well, here she is--Ragni Kallem."

So the pair had married in America! If Tuft and Josephine had not been so eager to impute every sort of misconduct to runaways, they would have foreseen this natural event. Tuft tried to find something to say, but failed, and glanced at Josephine. But she did not look as if she were willing to help him.

For the fact that Edward and Ragni were now married increased rather than diminished Josephine's bitterness. Although she would not admit it to herself, her religious objections were a mere pretence. She was jealous, jealous with the strange jealousy of a sister who wanted to be all in all to her brilliant brother, and hated that another woman should be more to him than she was. All her life had been centred on him. She had married Ole Tuft, a poor peasant's son, because he was the bosom friend of Edward. Her marriage, she thought, would connect them still more closely. She wanted to live by his side, watching him rise into fame as the greatest doctor in Norway. For young Kallem's masters had predicted that he would prove to be a man of genius.

Possessing considerable wealth, he had taken up the study of medicine, not as a means of livelihood, but as a matter of love and duty. Then, six years ago, he had run off with old Soren Kule's young wife, and Josephine's dream had come to an end, leaving her life little more than a dull, empty round of routine housework.

This was why she now gazed with hard, cold eyes at Ragni. Edward Kallem saw her look of wild hatred, and, taking his weeping wife gently by the arm, he turned away, and led her from the house into the road.

Josephine went upstairs, and gazed from the study window at the retreating figures. Her husband followed her, with a curious look in his eyes. Neither of them spoke. In their hearts was raging a storm of pa.s.sion wilder than the anger which possessed Kallem, and the sorrow which bowed down Ragni.

Josephine left the room without looking-at her husband. He gazed after her still with the same curious look in his eyes. Then, pulling himself together, he went on writing his sermon. "What makes G.o.d so merciful to sinners?" he wrote. "His infinite love? Yes, justification is certainly an act of mercy, but it is also an act of judgment. The claims of the law must be first fulfilled. A sinner must believe in order to be saved."

The point in this was that Edward Kallem was a freethinker. There could be no forgiveness for him. At the bottom of his heart, Tuft was glad that there had been no reconciliation. Ever since he had married the wealthy and beautiful sister of his bosom friend, he had been jealous of Josephine's pa.s.sionate attachment to her brother. Her brother had remained her hero, and the peasant she had married and enriched was little more than her servant.

While, with these bitter thoughts in his head, Tuft was composing his sermon Josephine was writing a dastardly letter. It was to Soren Kule.

Edward and Ragni had returned, married. There was an empty house near the one they had bought. Would Soren Kule come and live in it? So the letter ran. The next day, Sunday, Josephine went to church in a very Christianlike frame of mind. She felt she had done her duty, and avenged herself in doing it.

_II.--The Poison of Tongues_

At first things did not go as Josephine expected. With the exception of his sister and brother-in-law, everybody welcomed Edward Kallem and his wife back to his native town. At the house of Pastor Meek, the oldest and most influential of the clergy, Ragni was introduced to a middle- aged lady, who startled her by saying:

"I am Soren Kule's sister. I want to tell you that, in your position, I should have acted just as you did."

This, indeed, was the general verdict. No one who knew Soren Kule blamed Ragni. An old rake, blind and half-paralysed as the immediate result of ill-living, he had worried his first wife, Ragni's sister, into the grave, and then taken advantage of the young girl's innocence to marry her. The man was a ma.s.s of corruption, and his second marriage was one of those strangely cruel crimes which go unpunished in the present state of society. Kallem, who was then lodging in the same house as Kule, was maddened by it. Being a doctor, he foresaw clearly the fate of the pure, lovely, girlish victim of Kule's brutal pa.s.sion, and in rescuing her from it he had displayed, in the opinion of his friends, the chivalry of soul of a modern knight-errant.

Pastor Meek was a liberal-minded and courageous old man; he showed his sympathy with the Kallems, and his trust in them, in a practical manner.

"My grandson, Karl," he said to Kallem, "is at school here. I wish you would let him come, now and then, to your house. He is only nineteen years old, but he promises to be a first-rate composer. Your wife plays the piano beautifully. They ought to get on well together."

Kallem was so pleased with this mark of approval that he went the next morning to the young musician's lodgings, and invited him to come and live with him. Karl Meek was a lanky, awkward hobbledehoy, with a tousled head of hair and long red hands, which were always covered with chilblains. Ragni asked him to play a simple duet, but he made so many mistakes in playing that she got up from the piano. He was upset, and ran away from the house. Kallem spent an afternoon looking for him, and brought him back with his hair cut, his nails trimmed, and his clothes brushed.

"Can't you see?" said Kallem to his wife. "The lad's shy and afraid of you. Do, my dear, make him feel quite at home."

Ragni was a sweet and gentle woman, and though she did not like Karl much at first, she took him in hand, and, little by little, obtained a great influence over the wild creature. As his fine poetic nature gradually revealed itself, she began to mother him. They were often seen walking out together, and as soon as the snow was firm, they used to go and meet Kallem, and drive home with him, each standing on one of the runners of his sledge. One afternoon, after they had been skating together on the frozen bay, they were returning, without Kallem, when a carriage barred their way. At the sound of Ragni's voice, the man inside said:

"There she goes! Who is it with her? Another man? Ah, I thought that's what would happen!"

Ragni shuddered. It was Soren Kule. The paralysed old rake turned his blind face upon her, as though he could see her, and had caught her doing wrong. The carriage stopped by the next house to the Kallems.

Before Kule could get out, Ragni had run indoors. Shortly afterwards her husband arrived. She saw that he, too, had met Kule, and he saw that she had gone into the bedroom to hide herself. She buried her head in his arms; it seemed to her that the air was now full of evil spirits.

And so it was. Edward Kallem did not know it, as he was now too busy to go out anywhere. He was spending a great deal of his wealth in fitting out a private hospital for the study and treatment of the diseases that he specialised in. But Karl Meek soon became aware of malign influences working around him, and around the two persons for whom he would willingly, nay, happily, have laid down his life. He met an old friend in the street, who said to him:

"How do you stand in regard to Mrs. Kallem?"

Karl did not take in his meaning, and began to praise Ragni enthusiastically.

"Yes, I know all about that," his friend interrupted. "But, to make a clean breast of it, are you her lover?"

"How dare you, how dare you!" cried Karl.

His friend quietly said that he only wanted to warn Karl; the report had certainly got about.

"You've been a great deal together, you know," said his friend; "that has given the scandal-mongers something to go on."

Both Edward and Ragni saw that something had happened to Karl when he returned. He was in a black mood; he did not speak; his blue eyes were, by turns, strangely savage and strangely sorrowful. He had to go home at once, he said. He could not tell them now what the matter was, but he would write to them, as soon as he could pluck up the courage to do so.

He packed his luggage, and Kallem went to see him off.

A few days afterwards, Ragni received a letter from Karl. He was going to Berlin, he said, to take up the study of music seriously. And then, for four pages, he talked about his prospects. But there was another page, a loose one, on which was written in red ink: "Read this when you are alone."

"I have decided, Ragni," Karl wrote, "that it would be wisest to tell you why I left so suddenly. Someone has started a dreadful slander against us. If I do not now tell you, you will hear it from the lips of some enemy. Ah, G.o.d! that I should have brought this upon you! Love you?

Of course I love you. How could I help doing so, after all your kindness to me? And as for Edward, I wors.h.i.+p the ground he treads on. He is the n.o.blest man I have ever met. But do not show him this letter. Spare him the evil news as long as possible. Now that I have gone away, it may all blow over."

Kallem did not get home from the hospital that night until eight o'clock. When he came home his wife was lying in bed with a headache.

She did not get up the next morning. She was in bed several days. When at last she got up, her husband noticed that she had grown very thin; her face had a tired, delicate expression; there were dark rings around her sweet eyes, and she was troubled with a cough.