been dearer to me. I was proud of the handsome lively child. I saw a
beautiful future for him. He should realise the ideal of my youth, he
should.... Oh! amid my own poor and desolate life I was yet rich in this
boy. But the man who had received my hand endured not that my heart
should belong to this child. He took a hatred to the poor boy, and my
life became more than ever bitter.--Once I was obliged to make a journey
to visit a sick relative. I wished to take the seven-year-old boy with
me, for he had never been separated from me. But my husband would retain
him with him, and assumed a tone of tenderness to persuade me. This I
could not resist; and spite of the boy's entreaties, and an anxiety
which seemed to me ominous--I left my poor child. I persuaded myself
that I was acting strongly, and I was really weak. I had promised the
child's mother to protect it--I knew that I left it in hard and hostile
hands, and yet!---- When after a week's absence I returned from my
journey, the boy--had vanished. He had gone out one day, it was said,
and never came back again. They had sought for him everywhere, and at
length had found his little hat upon a rock on the edge of the sea--it
was held for certain that he had fallen over it.--I found my husband
busy in taking possession of my sister's property, which in case of the
boy's death should, according to her will, fall to us. From this moment,
my soul was seized with the most horrible suspicions!... God be praised
that these were false! God forgive me that I ever entertained them!
"For twenty years have they gnawed at my heart; for twenty years have
they hung the weight of lead on the fulfilment of my duties. All my
researches were fruitless: no one could be suspected; no one seemed to
have acted herein, except a dreadful fate. This was all:--the boy had
had permission to go out and play, had left the house alone, and no one
had seen him afterwards.
"Twenty years--long, dark years--had passed since this period, and hope
had by degrees expired in my heart, the feeble hope, which sometimes
revived in it, that I should yet recover my beloved child. After having
been many years deprived of both bodily and mental vigour by his
paralysis, my husband died. I was free; but wherefore should I live!...
I had lost my faith in everything which makes life dear, and I stood
alone, on the verge of old age, surrounded by darkness and bitter
memories. Thus did I still feel but a few days ago, when I received a
writing from the present Commandant of K----. Within lay an unsealed
letter, which he said had been found in a drawer into which my husband
was wont to throw old letters and papers, of no worth or
importance.--And this letter ... Oh! how it would have changed my heart,
and my future! This letter was written by my husband, apparently
immediately after his severe paralytic stroke; but its words, in an
unsteady hand, said, that the lost child still lived, and directed me
for further explanation to a certain Sergeant Rönn, in Bergen. Here the
letter appeared to have been broken off by a sudden increase of his
attack. I was, as it chanced, absent from home on this day. When I
returned I found my husband speechless, and nearly lifeless. Life was
indeed restored through active exertions, but consciousness continued
dark, and half of the body powerless;--thus he lived on for some years.
In a moment of clearness which occurred to him shortly before he
expired, I am convinced that he desired to unfold to me the condition of
the boy, or the existence of the aforesaid letter--but death prevented
him ... How this letter became thrown amongst the old papers I do not
understand--perhaps it might be done by my husband's own hand, in that
moment of privation of consciousness in which the letter closed--enough,
the hand of Providence saved it from destruction, and allowed it to
reach me!...
"You know now the cause of my hasty journey. And if it should for me
terminate here--if I shall never achieve the highest wish, and the last
hope of my life--if I never may see again my sister's son, and myself
deliver into his hands that which has been unjustly withheld from
him--then, listen to my prayer, my solemn injunction! Seek out, as soon
as you can, in Bergen, the person whom I have named, and whose address
you will further find in the paper. Tell him, that in my last hour I
commissioned you to act in my stead; spare no expense which may be
necessary--promise, threaten--but search out where my sister's son is to
be found! And then--go to him. Bear to him my last affectionate
greeting; deliver to him this;--it is my Will, and it will put him in
possession of all that I possess, which is properly that of his mother,
for my own is nearly consumed. Tell him that care on his account has
worn away my life, that--my God! What do you? Why do you thus seize my
hand?--you weep!"
"Tell me--" stammered forth Harald, with a voice nearly choked by
emotion; "did this child wear on a ribbon round his neck a little cross
of iron?--the head of a winged cherub in its centre?"
"From his mother's neck," said Mrs. Astrid, "I transferred it to his!"
"And here----here it yet rests!" exclaimed Harald, as he led Mrs.
Astrid's hand to the little cross hanging to his neck. "What
recollections awake now! Yes, it must be so! I cannot doubt----you are
my childhood's first cherisher, my mother's sister!"
A cry of indescribable emotion interrupted Harald. "Good God!" exclaimed
Mrs. Astrid, "you are----"
"Your sister's son; the child that you mourn. At this moment I recognise
again myself and you."
"And I---- Your voice, Harald, has often struck me as strangely
familiar. At this moment I seem again to hear your father's voice. Ah,
speak! speak! for heaven's sake, explain to me----make me certain----
you give me then more than life."
"What shall I say?" continued Harald, in the highest excitement and
disquiet; "much is obscure to myself----incomprehensible. But your
narrative has at this moment called up in me recollections, impressions,
which make me certain that I neither deceive you nor myself. At this
instant I remember with perfect clearness, how I, as a child, one day
ran my little sledge on the hill before the fortress, and how I was
there addressed by the, to me, well-known Sergeant Rönn, but whose name
till this moment had entirely escaped me, who invited me to ascend his
sledge, and take a drive with him. I desired nothing better, and I got
in. I remember also now extremely well that my hat blew off, that I
wished to fetch it, but was prevented by the Sergeant, who threw a cloak
round me, and drove off at full speed. And long did the drive
continue----but from this moment my recollection becomes dark, and I
look back into a time as into a dark night, which ever and anon is
illuminated by lightning. Probably I fell then, into the heavy sickness
which long afterwards checked my growth. I recollect it as a dream, that
I would go home to my mother, but that my cries were hushed by the
Sergeant, first with good words and then with menaces. I remember dimly,
that I at one time found myself in a foul and wretched house, where
hideous men treated me harshly, and I longed to die.---- Then comes,
like a sunbeam, the impression of another home, of a clear heaven, pure
air, green meadows, and of friendly, mild people, who, with infinite
tenderness, cherished the sick and weakly child which I then was. This
home was Alette's; and her excellent parents, after they had recalled me
to life, adopted me as their son. My new relationships became
unspeakably dear to me; I was happy; my illness and the long succeeding
weakness had almost wholly obliterated the memory of the past. I had
forgotten the names of both people and places, yet never did I forget my
childhood's earliest, motherly cherisher. Like a lovely and holy image
has she followed me through life, although, with the lapse of years,
she, as it were, folded herself continually in a thicker veil.
"When I was older, I requested and received from my foster-father an
explanation of my reception into his house. I then found that he had one
day called on Mr. K---- in Christiansand, and had seen there a most
feeble and pale child, who sate in the sunshine on the floor. The child
began to weep, but hushed itself in terror when Mr. K----went up sharply
to it, and threatened it with the dark room. Moved by this occurrence,
my benefactor inquired to whom the boy belonged, and received for answer
that it was a poor child without connexions, and who had been taken in
charity and committed to K----'s care. Alette's father resolved at
once, cost what it would, to take the child out of this keeping, and
offered to take the boy himself, and try what the country air would do
for the restoration of his health. It was in this manner that I came
into the family which I thence called my own. I could obtain no
explanation respecting my parents, nor respecting my peculiar connexion
with Mr. K----. K---- died a few weeks after my removal from his house,
and his wife either knew or pretended to know nothing whatever about me.
"But my excellent foster-parents never allowed me to feel that I had no
real relatives. They made no difference between me and their own child,
and Alette became to me the tenderest and best of sisters. Death
deprived us of this beloved support; Alette's father has been now dead
two years: Alette removed to some near relatives, in order after a
certain time, to give her hand to a man whom she has long loved; and I
sought in travel to dissipate the feeling of desolation which had seized
on my heart. It was at this moment that business, or rather Providence,
conducted me to you. Admiration, and an interest whose power I cannot
describe, drew me towards you; perhaps, unknown to me, darkly operated
in me the delightful recollections of my childhood. At this moment they
have ascended in all their clearness. I seem now again transported into
the years of boyhood, when I called you mother, and loved you even to
adoration; and now--" and with passionate tenderness Harald seized the
hand of Mrs. Astrid, while he stammered forth--"now ... what says your
heart?... Can you trust this dim recollection ... this narrative without
all testimony?... May I again call you mother? Can you, will you,
receive me as son?"
"Do I wish it?... Feel these tears of joy! I have not shed many such
upon earth. I cannot doubt ... I believe ... I am happy!... Thou art my
sister's son, my child ... I have thee again. But oh! have I found thee
merely to see thee die--die here--for my sake? Am I then born to be
unfortunate? This moment is bitter."
"But delightful also!" exclaimed Harald, with warmth; "we have found
each other; we are united."
"To die!"
"Rescue is yet possible!"
"But only through a miracle."
"Providence permits wonderful things to happen; we have just had
evidence of it!" said Harald, with a gentle, admonitory tone.
"Thou art right, Harald; but I have been so unhappy! I have difficulty
to believe in happy miracles. But, at all events, God be praised for
this moment, and let His will be done!"
"Amen!" said Harald softly, but with manly fortitude; and both ceased,
exhausted, and all was in deep darkness around them, for the moon was
gone down, and the snow fell thickly. They seemed to be entombed alive.
But the miracle of rescue was near. There gleamed a light--there were
heard voices out of the snowy wilderness.
"Susanna!" exclaimed, with one voice, Mrs. Astrid and Harald. "Susanna,
our angel of salvation!"
And it was Susanna, who, with a blazing torch in her hand, rushed into
the dark vault. It glittered at once as with a million of diamonds. Some
of these gleamed in human eyes.
"You are saved, God be praised!" exclaimed Susanna. "Here are good,
strong men who will help you. But we must hasten; the snow falls
heavily."
Several peasants, bearing lights and two litters, were now seen; and
Mrs. Astrid and Harald were each laid on one of these, and covered with
soft skins.
"Susanna," said Mrs. Astrid, "come and rest here by me!"
"Nay," answered Susanna, lifting aloft her torch; "I shall go on before
and light the way. Fear not for me; I am strong!"
But a strange sensation suddenly seized her, as if her heart would sink,
and her knees failed her. She stood now a moment, then made a step
forward as to go, then felt her breast, as it were, crushed together.
She dropped on her knees, and the torch fell from her hands. "Hulda!"
she whispered to herself, "my little darling ... farewell!"
"Susanna! gracious Heaven!" exclaimed now two voices at once; and,
strong with terror and surprise, sprang up Mrs. Astrid and Harald, and
embraced Susanna. She sank more and more together. She seized the hands
of her mistress and of Harald, and said with great difficulty, earnestly
praying--"My little Hulda! The fatherless ... motherless ... think of
her!"
"Susanna! my good, dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. Astrid, "thou wilt not,
thou shalt not now die!" And for the first time fell a beam of anxious
love from her dark eyes upon the young, devoted maiden. It was the first
time that Susanna had enjoyed such a glance, and she looked up as
joyfully as if she had gazed into the opened heaven.
"Oh, Harald!" said Susanna, while she gazed at him with inexpressible
tenderness and clearness, "I know that I could not make you happy in
life, but I thank God that I can die for you. Now--now despise not my
love!"--and seizing his hand and that of her mistress, she pressed them
to her bosom, saying, with a sobbing voice, "Pardon my fault, for--my
love's sake!"
A slight shiver passed through her frame, her head sank upon her breast.
Without a sign of life, they laid Susanna by her mistress, who held her
in her arms, and bathed with her tears the young, pallid countenance.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] "Lefse" are thin cakes of dough, which are cut in pieces and baked.
THE AWAKENING.
I woke, for life assumed victorious sway,
And found my being in its weakness lay.
There the beloved ones round my couch I saw.
REIN.
Months went on, and life was for Susanna merely a wild, uneasy dream. In
the delirious fantasies of fever she again lived over the impressions of
the mountain journey, but in darker colours. She saw the subterranean
spirits, how in terrible shapes they raged about in the now wilderness,
and sought to suffocate her beneath piles of snow and ice, which they
flung upon her. Susanna combated with desperate exertions against them,
for she knew that if she fell, the defence for those she loved would be
taken away, and that the subterranean ones could seize upon it; and
therefore any mass of snow which the spirits cast upon her, she cast
back upon them. Finally, the subterranean ones desired a parley, and
promised that if she would voluntarily accompany them, they would permit
her friends to be at peace; yes, even heap upon them wealth and
happiness. Then strove Susanna no longer; but saluting the beautiful
heaven, and earth with its green dales and beloved people, whom she
should behold no more, let herself be dragged down in silence by the
spirits, into their subterranean dwellings, and experienced there
inexpressible torments. But she was contented to suffer for those she
loved; and out of the dark, cold abyss, where she was doomed to dwell,
she sent up the most affectionate, moving farewells to her Hulda, to her
mistress, to Harald, and Alette, revealing thereby, unknown, to herself,
all her heart's secrets, conflicts, and sufferings.
One day it seemed to her that she had already dwelt hundreds of years in
the under world, and she was now in their church, for her time was up,
and she should now die, and in death (that she knew) should she be
delivered from the power of the mountain spirits. But she could feel no
joy over this, so faint was her heart, so chilled was her bosom. She lay
stretched out upon a stone floor, and over her vaulted itself a roof of
ice. That was her funeral vault, and there should she die. And by
degrees all feelings and senses grew benumbed, all torments vanished,
and there came a sleep so deep, but so secret and peaceful, that
Susanna, who still retained her consciousness, regarded death as a
salutary repose, and wished not to awaken. But it seemed to her that the
door of the vault opened, and she saw a light, like that of the sun; and
some one approached her, and touched her lips with a flame--a flame as
of life. Then beat her heart more rapidly, the blood streamed warmly
through her veins, and she looked up and saw a female figure stand by
her pillow, which bent over her with a look full of love and compassion.
The look, the beautiful life-giving look, Susanna seemed to have seen
some time before, and the longer she gazed on the face of this female
shape, the better she seemed to recognise familiar features--the noble
and beloved features of her mistress. But she looked younger and fairer
than formerly. At her feet she saw roses standing, and the sun shone
upon them; but all appeared to her so beautiful, so wonderful, that she
involuntarily whispered:
"Are we now in heaven?"
"Still on the earth," replied a voice, full of tenderness. "Thou wilt
here live for those who love thee."
"Ah! who loves me?" said Susanna, faint and spiritless.
"I!" answered the voice; "I and others. But be calm and quiet--a mother
watches over thee."
And Susanna continued calm and quiet, and resigned herself, in her great
state of weakness, with gratified confidence to the motherly guardian.
Mrs. Astrid's presence, the mere sound of her light tread, the mere
sight of her shadow, operated beneficially on her mind; all that she
received from her hand was to her delicious and healing. There arose
between them a relationship full of pleasantness. Mrs. Astrid, who saw
the young girl as it were born anew under her hands, conceived for her
an attachment which surprised herself, much as it made her happy. The
strong and healthy Susanna had stood too distant from her; the weak, and
in her weakness the so child-like affectionate one, had stolen into her
heart, and she felt her heart thereby bloom, as it were, anew.
Such is the operation of all true devotion, all true affection, and that
in every stage of life; for affection is the summer of life and of the
heart.
So soon as strength and clear memory again revived in Susanna, she
begged to be informed of the fate of all those who had made the mountain
journey. With astonishment and joy did she then learn how Mrs. Astrid
had discovered in Harald her sister's son; and how, by this, much
darkness had vanished from her life.
Through Sergeant Rönn, and the subsequent inquiries to which his
statement led, within a short time perfect clearness was obtained on all
that concerned the circumstances of Harald's childhood. It was then
discovered that Mr. K. had been a confidant of Colonel Hjelm's, and was
of a sufficiently worthless character to enter, for the sake of gain,
into the plans of the Colonel, and to receive Harald, and cause him by
degrees to forget his former circumstances. Sickness came in aid of
severe treatment; and after a sojourn of some months in K.'s house, he
found the poor boy so much stupified, that he could, without fear of the
betrayal of the secret, yield to the solicitations of Mr. Bergman, and
make over to him a child whose daily aspect was a torment to him. But we
return now to the present.
Harald, under skilful medical care in Bergen, after the mountain
journey, was quickly restored to health. When he had attended the
marriage of Alette, he had travelled abroad, but would, in the course of
the summer, return to Semb, where he would settle down, in order to live
for the beloved relative whom he had again discovered.
The guide, the honest old peasant of Hailing, had met with his death on
the mountains. His grandson wept by his corpse till he was himself half
dead with hunger and cold, when the people from the dales, sent by Mrs.
Astrid and Harald, succeeded in making a way through the snow-drifts to
the Björöja-säter, and in rescuing him.
Susanna dropt a tear for the old man's fate, but felt within her a
secret regret not to have died like him. She looked towards the future
with disquiet. But when she could again leave her bed, when Mrs. Astrid
drove her out with her, when she felt the vernal air, and saw the sea,
and the clear heaven above the mountains, and the green orchards at
their feet; then awoke she again vividly to the feeling of the beauty of
the earth, and of life. And she contemplated with admiration and delight
the new objects which surrounded her, as well the magnificent forms of
nature, as the life and the changing scenes in the city; for Susanna
found herself in the lovely and splendidly situated Bergen, the greatest
mercantile city of Norway, the birthplace of Hollberg, Dahl, and Ole
Bull.
Yet would she speedily separate herself from all this, and what was
still harder, from her adored mistress; for Susanna had firmly
determined never again to see Harald. Crimson blushes covered her cheeks
when she recollected her confession in the mountains, at the moment when
she thought herself at the point of death, and she felt that after this
they could not meet, much less live in the same house without mutually
painful embarrassment. She would, therefore, not return again to Semb;
but, so soon as her health would permit it, would go from Bergen by sea
to Sweden, to her native town again, and there, in the bosom of her
little darling, seek to heal her own heart, and draw new strength to
live and labour.
But it was not easy for poor Susanna to announce this resolve to her
mistress. She trembled violently, and could not restrain her tears.
It was at the same time calming and disturbing to her feelings, when
Mrs. Astrid, after she had quietly listened to Susanna, answered with
much composure--
"You are at liberty, Susanna, to act as you find it best; but in three
or four months, for so long will my affairs yet retain me here--in a few
months I shall again return, to Semb, and it would be a trial to me to
be without you on the journey."
"Then I shall accompany you," replied Susanna, glad that she was needed,
"but then ..."
"Then," began again Mrs. Astrid, "when you will leave me, I shall
arrange for your safe return to your native place."
"So then yet some months!" thought Susanna with a melancholy pleasure.
And these months were for her inexpressibly pleasant and strengthening.
Mrs. Astrid occupied herself much with her, and sought in many
particulars to supply the defects of her neglected education. And
Susanna was a quick pupil, and more affectionately than ever did she
attach herself to her mistress, while she on her part experienced even
more and more the truth of the adage: "the breath of youth is
wholesome."
In the beginning of the month of July, Mrs. Astrid travelled again with
Susanna over the mountains which had once threatened them with death;
but at this season of the year, the journey was not dangerous, though
always laborious. Mrs. Astrid was the whole time in the highest spirits,
and seemed every day to become more joyous. Susanna's mood of mind, on
the contrary, became every day more depressed. Even Mrs. Astrid's gaiety
contributed to this. She felt herself infinitely solitary.
It was a beautiful July evening when they descended into Heimdal.
Susanna's heart swelled with sadness as she saw again the places and the
objects which were so dear to her, and which she should now soon quit
for ever. Never had they struck her as so enchanting. She saw the sun's
beams fall on the Kristallberg, and she called to mind Harald's sagas;
she saw the grove of oaks where Mrs. Astrid had sate and had enjoyed the
fragrance which Susanna's hand had prepared for her in silence. And the
spring where the silver-weed and the ladies-mantle grew, the clear
spring where she had spent so many happy hours; Susanna seemed to
_thirst_ for it. The windows in Semb burned with the radiance of the
sun, the house seemed to be illuminated;--in that house she had worked
and ordered; there she had loved; there the flame of the winter evenings
had burned so brightly during Harald's stories. Silently ascended the
pillars of smoke from the cottages in the dale, where she was at home,
knew each child and each cow, knew the cares and the joys which dwelt
there, and where she had first learned rightly to comprehend Harald's
good-heartedness--always Harald--always did she find his image as the
heart in all these reminiscences. But now--- now should she soon leave
all this, all that was beautiful and dear!
They arrived now in Semb, and were greeted by Alfiero with barkings of
clamorous delight.--Susanna, with a tear in her eye, greeted and nodded
to all beloved acquaintances, both people and animals.
The windows in Mrs. Astrid's room stood open, and through them were seen
charming prospects over the dale, with its azure stream, its green
heights and slopes, and the peaceful spire of its church in the
background. She herself stood, as in astonishment, at the beauty of the
grove, and her eyes flashed as she exclaimed--
"See, Susanna! Is not our dale beautiful? And will it not be beautiful
to live here, to make men happy, and be happy oneself?"
Susanna answered with a hasty Yes, and left the room. She felt herself
ready to choke, and yet once more arose Barbra in her, and spoke thus--