Björnstjerne Björnson, one of the greatest Scandinavian
writers, was born at Kvikne, in the wild region of the Dovre
Mountains, Norway, Dec. 8, 1832. His father was the village
pastor. Six years later the family removed to Naesset, on the
west coast of Norway. From the grammar school at Molde young
Björnson went to the University of Christiania, and it was
then that he began to write verses and newspaper articles. At
Upsala, in 1856, he understood that he had a definite call to
literature, and at Copenhagen the following year he wrote his
first masterpiece "Synnove Solbakken." This was followed, in
1858, by "Arne," a story which not only brought him into the
front rank of contemporary writers, but also marked a new era
in Norwegian literature. From that time there has been a
succession of novels, short stories, and plays (Björnson on
two occasions has been the director of a theatre) from his
pen. A drama, "The King," produced in 1877, had an after
effect of immense political importance. It was undoubtedly an
attack on the ruler of Norway and Sweden, and every Norwegian
who wished his country to become an independent nation
welcomed Björnson as the leader of this new movement--with
what success there is now no need to relate, since it has
become a matter of history. Björnson died April 25, 1910.
_I.--The Little Song-Maker_
It was up at Kampen that Arne was born. His mother was Margit, the only
child at the little farm among the crags. When she was eighteen, she
stopped too long at a dance one evening; her friends had gone off
without her, so Margit thought the way home would be just as long
whether she waited till the end of the dance or not.
Thus it came about that Margit remained sitting there till Nils
Skrædder, the fiddler, suddenly laid aside his instrument, as was his
wont when he had had more than enough to drink, left the dancers to hum
their own tune, took hold of the prettiest girl he could find, and,
letting his feet keep as good time to the dance as music to a song,
jerked off with the heel of his boot the hat of the tallest man in the
room. "Ho!" laughed he.
As Margit walked home that night, the moon was making wondrous sport
over the snow. When she got to the loft where she slept, she could not
help looking out at it again.
Next time there was a dance in the parish, Margit was present. She did
not care much to dance that evening, but sat listening to the music. But
when the playing ceased the fiddler rose and went straight across to
Margit Kampen. She was scarcely aware of anything, but that she was
dancing with Nils Skrædder!
Before long the weather grew warmer, and there was no more dancing that
spring.
One Sunday, when the summer was getting on, Margit went to church with
her mother. When they were at home again her mother threw both her arms
around her. "Hide nothing from me, my child!" she cried.
Winter came again, but Margit danced no more. Nils Skrædder went on
playing, drank more than formerly, and wound up each party by dancing
with the prettiest girl there. It was said for certain that he could
have whichever he wished of the farmers' daughters, and that Birgit, the
daughter of Böen, was sick for love of him.
Just about this time a child of the cotter's daughter at Kampen was
brought to be christened. It was given the name of Arne, and its father
was said to be Nils Skrædder.
The evening of that day saw Nils at a great wedding party. He would not
play, but drank all he could, and was dancing the whole time. But when
he asked Birgit Böen for a dance, she refused him. He turned and took
hold of the first good-looking girl near. She, too, held back, and
answered a request he whispered in her ear with the words: "The dance
might go further than I should like."
At that Nils drew back, and danced the "Halling" alone. Then he went
into the barn, laid himself down, and wept.
Margit sat at home with her little boy. She heard about Nils going from
dance to dance, and it was not very long before Arne learnt that Nils
Skrædder was his father, and the kind of man he was.
It was when Arne was about six years old that two Americans, visiting
the place when a bridal party was going on, were so much struck by the
way Nils danced the "Halling" that they proposed to take him as their
servant, at whatever wages he wanted. They would call for him on their
way back in about a week's time. Nils was the hero of the evening.
The dance was resumed. Nils looked round at the girls, and went over to
Birgit Böen. He held out his hand, and she put out hers. Then, turning
away with a laugh, he put his arm around the girl next to her, and
danced off with boisterous glee.
Birgit coloured, and a tall, quiet-looking man took her hand, and danced
away. Nils noticed it, and presently danced so hard against them that
both Birgit and her partner fell to the ground.
The quiet-looking man got up, went straight to Nils, took him by the
arm, and knocked him down with a blow over the eyes. Nils fell heavily,
tried to rise, and found that he couldn't--his back was badly hurt.
Meantime, at Kampen, no sooner had the grandmother succeeded in paying
off the last instalment of debt on the farm than she was stricken with
mortal sickness and died.
A fortnight after the funeral six men brought in a litter, and on the
litter lay Nils with his black hair and pale face.
In the springtime, a year after he had been brought to Kampen, Nils and
Margit were married. The fiddler's health was ruined, but he was able to
help in the fields, and look after things. Then, one Sunday afternoon,
when Nils and Arne were out together they saw a wedding procession,
fourteen carriages in all. Nils stood for a long time motionless after
the bride and bridegroom had passed, and for the rest of the day he was
sullen and angry. He went out before supper, and returned at midnight,
drunk.
From that day Nils was constantly going into town and coming home drunk.
He reproached Margit for his wretched life; he cursed her, he struck
her, and beat her. Then would come fits of wild remorse.
As Arne grew up, Nils took him to dances, and the boy learnt to sing all
sorts of songs. His mother taught him to read, and when he was fifteen
he longed to travel and to write songs.
At home, things got worse. As Nils grew feebler he became more drunken
and violent, and often Arne would stay at home to amuse him in order
that Margit might have an hour's peace. Arne began to loathe his father;
but he kept this feeling to himself, as he did his love for his mother.
His one friend was Kristen, the eldest son of a sea-captain. With
Kristen, Arne could talk of books and travel. But there came a day when
Kristen went away to be a sailor, and Arne was left alone.
Life was very heavy for him. He made up songs and put his grief into
them. But for his mother, Arne would have left Kampen--he stood between
her and Nils.
One night, about this time, Nils came back late from a wedding-feast.
Margit had gone to bed, and Arne was reading. The boy helped his father
upstairs, and Nils began quoting texts from the Bible and cursing his
own downfall, shedding drunken tears. Presently he made his way to the
bed, and put his fingers on Margit's throat.
In vain the boy and his mother called on Nils to desist; the drunkard
took no notice. Arne rushed to a corner of the room and picked up an
axe; at the same moment Nils fell down, and, after a piercing shriek,
lay quite still.
All that night they watched by the dead. A feeling of relief came upon
them both.
"He fell of himself," Arne said simply, for at first his mother was
terrified by the sight of the axe.
"Remember, Arne, it's for your sake I've borne it all," Margit said,
weeping. "You must never leave me."
"Never, never," he answered fervently.
_II.--The Call of the Mountains_
Arne grew up reserved and shy; he went on tending the cattle and making
songs. He was now in his twentieth year. The pastor lent him books to
read, the only thing he cared for.
Many a time he would have liked to read aloud to his mother, but he
could not bring himself to do it. One of the songs he made at this time
began:
The parish is all restless, but there's peace in grove and wood.
No beadle here impounds you, to suit his crabbed mood;
No strife profanes our little church, tho' there it rages high,
But then we have no little church, and that, perhaps, is why!
The folks round about got to hear of his songs, and would have been glad
to talk to him; but Arne was shy of people and disliked them, chiefly
because he thought they disliked him.
He gave up tending the cattle, and stayed at home, looking after the
farm. He was near his mother all day now, and she would give him dainty
meals. In his heart was a song with the refrain "Over the mountains
high!" Somehow, Arne could never finish this song.
There was a field labourer named Upland Knut, at whose side Arne often
worked. This man had neither parents nor friends, and when Arne said to
him, "Have you no one at all, then, to love you?" he answered, "Ah, no!
I have no one."
Arne thought of his own mother, and his heart was full of love to her.
What if he were to lose her because he had not sufficiently prized her,
he thought; and he rushed home, to find his mother sleeping gently like
a child.
Mother and son were much together in those days, and once they agreed to
go to a wedding at a neighbouring farm.
For the first time in his life Arne drank too much, and all next day he
lay in the barn. He was full of self-reproach, and it seemed to him that
cowardice was his besetting sin.
Cowardice had been his failing as a boy. It had prevented him taking his
mother's part against his father, from leaving home, from mixing with
people. Cowardice had made him drunk, and, but for his fear and
timidity, his verses would be better.
After searching everywhere for him, Margit eventually found him in the
barn. He tried to soothe her, and vowed that he would join his life more
closely to his mother's in future. What moved him was that his loving,
patient mother said that she had done a grievous wrong against him, and
implored his forgiveness.
"Of course, I forgive you," he said.
"God bless you, my dear, dear Arne."
From that day, Arne was not only happier at home, but he began to look
at other people more kindly, more with his mother's gentle eyes. But he
still went about alone, and a strange longing often possessed his soul.
One summer evening Arne had gone out to sit by the Black Lake, a piece
of water very dark and deep. He sat behind some bushes and looked out
over the water, and at the hills opposite, and at the homesteads in the
valley.
Presently he heard voices close beside him. A young girl, he made out,
was grumbling because she had got to leave the parsonage, where she had
been staying with Mathilde, the parson's daughter, and it was her father
who was taking her home. A third voice, sharp and strident, was heard.
"Hurry up, now, Baard; push off the boat, or we sha'n't be home
to-night."
The rattle of cart-wheels followed, and Baard fetched a box out of the
cart, and carried it down to the boat.
Then Mathilde, the parson's daughter, came running up calling, "Eli!
Eli!"
The two girls wept in each other's arms.
"You must take this," said Mathilde, giving her friend a bird-cage.
"Mother wants you to. Yes, you must take Narrifas, and then you'll often
think of me."
"Eli! Come, come, Eli!" came the summons from the boat.
A moment after, and Arne saw the boat out in the water, Eli standing up
in the stern, holding the bird-cage and waving her hand to Mathilde. His
eyes followed the boat, and he watched it draw near to the land. He
could see the three forms mirrored in the water, and continued gazing
until they had left the boat and gone indoors at the biggest house on
the opposite side of the lake.
Mathilde had sat for some time by the landing stage, but she had left
now, and Arne was alone when Eli came out again for a last look across
the water. Arne could see her image in the lake. "Perhaps she sees me
now," he thought. Then, when the sun had set, he got up and went home,
feeling that all things were at peace.
Arne's fancies for some time now were of dreams of love and fair
maidens. Old ballads and romances mirrored them for him, as the water
had mirrored the young girl.
A two-fold longing--the yearning to have someone to love, and a desire
to do something great--sprang up together in his soul, and melted into
one. Again he began to work at the song, "Over the mountains high,"
altering it, and thinking each time, "One day it will carry me off." But
he never forgot his mother in his thoughts of travel, and decided that
he would send for her as soon as he had got a footing abroad.
There was in the parish a merry old fellow of the name of Ejnar Aasen.
He was well off, and, in spite of a lameness that made him use a crutch,
was fond of organising parties of children to go nutting. All the young
people called him "godfather."
Aasen liked Arne, and invited him to join in the next nutting party, and
though Arne blushed, and made excuses, he decided to go. He found
himself the only young man among many girls. They were not the maidens
of whom he had made songs, nor yet was he afraid of them. They were more
full of life than anything he had seen, and they could make merry over
anything. All of them laughed at Arne, as they caught at the branches,
because he was serious, so that he could not help laughing himself.
After a while they all sat on a large knoll, old Aasen in the middle,
and told stories. And then they were anxious to tell their dreams, but
this could be done only to one person, and Arne was trusted to hear the
dreams. The last of the girls to tell her dreams was called Eli, and she
was the girl he had seen in the boat.
Arne had to say which was the best dream, and as he said he wanted time
to think, they left him sitting on the knoll and trooped off with
godfather. Arne sat for some time, and the old yearnings to travel came
back, and drove him to his song, "Over the mountains high." Now, at
last, he had got the words; and taking paper out of his pocket, he wrote
the song through to the end. When he had finished he rose, and left the
paper on the knoll; and later, when he found he had forgotten it, he
went back. But the paper was gone.
One of the girls, who had returned to seek him, had found--not Arne, but
his song.
_III.--Love's Awakening_
Whenever Arne mentioned his friend Kristen, and wondered why he never
heard from him, his mother left the room, and seemed unhappy for days
afterwards. He noticed, too, that she would get specially nice meals for
him at such times.
He had never been so gentle since his father's death as he was that
winter. On Sundays he would read a sermon to his mother, and go to
church with her; but she knew this was only to win her consent to his
going abroad in the spring. Upland Knut, who had always been alone, now
came to live at Kampen. Arne had become very skilful with axe and saw,
and that winter he was often busy at the parsonage as well as Kampen.
One day a messenger came from Böen to ask him if he would go over there
for some carpentry work. He answered "Yes," without thinking about the
matter. As soon as the man had gone, his mother told him that it was
Baard Böen who had injured his father; but Arne decided to go all the
same.
It was a fine homestead, and Baard and Arne soon became on friendly
terms. He had many talks, too, with Eli, and at times would sing his own
songs to her, and afterwards feel ashamed.
Then Eli fell ill, and Birgit blamed Baard because Mathilde had gone
away from the parsonage on a visit to town without bidding good-bye to
Eli. It seemed to Baard that whatever he did was wrong.
"You either keep silent too much, or you talk too much," said his wife.
During Eli's illness Baard would often sit and talk with Arne, and one
day he told him how he had been driven to attack Nils, and then how he
had courted and won Birgit.
"She was very melancholy at first," said Baard, "and I had nothing to
say; and then she got into bustling, domineering ways, and I had nothing
to say to that. But one day of real happiness I've not had the twenty
years we've been married."
When Eli was getting better, her mother came down one evening and asked
Arne, in her daughter's name, to go up and sing to her. Eli had heard
him singing. Arne was confused, but gave in and went upstairs.
The room was in darkness, and he had not seen Eli since the day she had
fallen ill, and he had helped to carry her to her room. Arne sat down in
a chair at the foot of the bed. When people talk in the dark they are
generally more truthful than when they see one another's faces.
Eli made Arne sing to her, first a hymn, and then a song of his own. For
some time there was silence between them, and then Eli said, "I wonder,
Arne, that you, who have so much that is beautiful within, should want
to go away. You must not go away."
"There are times when I seem not to want to so much," he answered.
Presently Arne could hear her weeping, and he felt that he must
move--either forward or back.
"Eli!"
"Yes." Both voices were at a whisper.
"Give me your hand."
She made no answer. He listened, quickly, closely, stretched out his own
hand, and grasped a warm little hand that lay bare.
There was a step on the stairs; they let go of one another, and Birgit
entered with a light. "You've been sitting too long in the dark," she
said, putting the candle on the table. But neither Eli nor Arne could
bear the light; she turned to the pillow, and he shaded his face with
his hands.
"Ah, yes; it's a bit dazzling at first," said the mother, "but the
feeling soon passes away."
Next day Arne heard that Eli was better and going to come down for a
time after dinner. He at once put his tools together, and bade farewell
to the farm. And when Eli came downstairs he was gone.
_IV.--After Many Years_
It was springtime when Margit went up to the parsonage. There was
something heavy on her heart. Letters had come from Kristen for Arne,
and she had been afraid to give them to her son lest he should go away
and join his friend. Kristen had even sent money, and this Margit had
given to Arne, pretending it had been left him by his grandmother. All
this Margit poured out to the old pastor, and also her fears that Arne
would go travelling.
"Ah!" he said, smiling, "if only there was some little lassie who could
get hold of him. Eli Böen, eh? And if he could manage so that they could
meet sometimes at the parsonage."
Margit looked up anxiously.
"Well, we'll see what we can do," he went on; "for, to tell you the
truth, my wife and daughter have long been of the same mind."
Then came the summer, and one day, when the heavens were clear, Arne
walked out and threw himself down on the grass. He meant to go to the
parsonage and borrow a newspaper. He had not been to Böen since that
night in the sick-room, and now he glanced towards the house, and then
turned away his eyes. Presently he heard someone singing his song, the
song he had lost the very day he made it.
Fain would I know what the world may be
Over the mountains high.
Mine eyes can nought but the white snow see,
And up the steep sides the dark fir-tree,
That climbs as if yearning to know.
Say, tree, dost thou venture to go?
There were eight verses, and Arne stood listening till the last word had
died away. He must see who it was, and presently above him he caught
sight of Eli.
The sunlight was falling straight on her, and it seemed to Arne, as he
looked at her, that he had never seen or dreamt of anything more
beautiful in his life. He watched her get up, without letting himself be
seen, and presently she was gone. Arne no longer wanted to go to the
parsonage, but he went and sat where she had sat, and his breast was
full of gentle feelings.
Eli often went to the parsonage, and one Sunday evening Margit found her
there, and persuaded the girl to walk back to Kampen with her. Eli
entered the house only when she heard that Arne was not at home. It was
the first time she had visited the homestead. Margit took her all over
the house, and showed her Arne's room, and opened a little chest full of
silk kerchiefs and ribbons.
"He bought something each time he's been to the town," Margit remarked.
Eli would have given anything to go away, but she dared not speak.
In a special compartment in the chest she had seen a buckle, a pair of
gold rings, and a hymn-book bound with silver clasps, and wrought on the
clasps was:
"Eli Baardsdatter Böen."
The mother put back the things, closed the box, and clasped the girl to
her heart; for Eli was weeping.
When they were downstairs again, they heard a man's step in the passage,
and Arne entered, and saw Eli.
"You here?" he said, and blushed a fiery red. Then he put his arms
around her, and she leant her head on his breast. He whispered something
in her ear, and for a long while they stood in silence, her arms around
his neck.
As they walked home together in the fair summer evening, they could
utter but few words in their strange, new Happiness. Nature interpreted
their hearts to one another, and on his way back from that first
summer-night's walk, Arne made many new songs.
It was harvest time when the marriage of Eli with Arne was celebrated.
The Black Water was full of boats taking people to Böen.
All the doors were open at the house. Eli was in her room with Mathilde
and the pastor's wife. Arne was downstairs looking out from the window.
Presently Baard and Birgit, both dressed, for church, met on the stairs,
and went up together to a garret where they were alone. Baard had
something to say, but it was hard to say it.
"Birgit," he began, "you've been thinking, as I've been, I daresay. _He_
stood between us two, I know, and it's gone on a long time. To-day a son
of his has come into our house, and to him we've given our only
daughter.... Birgit, can't we, too, join our hearts to-day?"
His voice trembled, but no answer came.