all winter; we have day nearly all summer--and then the sun is above the
horizon, both day and night. Have you seen it in the night? Do you know
that behind the ocean vapors it often looks three or four times as large
as usual? And then the color-effects upon sky, sea, and mountain! From
the deepest glow of red to the finest, tenderest, golden white. And the
colors of the aurora upon the wintry sky!" etc.
It is the most ardent desire of Sang to heal his wife, as he has healed
many others. But the doubt in her mind baffles him, and for a long time
he is unsuccessful. At last, however, he resolves to make a mighty
effort--to besiege the Lord with his prayer, to wrestle with him, as
Jacob did of old, and not to release him, until he has granted his
petition. While he lies thus before the altar calling upon the Lord in
sacred rapture, a tremendous avalanche sweeps down the mountainside, but
divides, leaving the church and parsonage unharmed. The rumor of this
new wonder spreads like fire in withered grass, and among thousands of
others a number of clergymen, with their bishop, on their way to some
convention, stop to convince themselves of the authenticity of the
miracle, and to determine the attitude which they are to assume toward
it. Then follows a long discussion between the bishop and the clergy
regarding the value of miracles, some maintaining that the church has
outgrown the need of them, others that they are indispensable--that
Christianity cannot survive without them. For has not Christ promised
that "even greater things than these shall ye do?" Is not this a case of
the faith which verily can say to the mountain, "Rise up and cast
thyself into the sea?"
The other miracle, scarcely less marvellous than the deflection of the
avalanche, is that Clara, who has slept for the first time in a month,
now rises from her bed and goes forth to meet her husband, and falls
upon his neck amid the ringing of the church-bells and the hallelujahs
of the assembled multitudes. But when he tries to raise her she is dead,
and he himself, overwhelmed by his emotion, falls dead at her side.
This is so obviously a closet-drama that it is difficult to imagine how
it would look under the illumination of the foot-lights. For all that, I
see a recent announcement that the trial is soon to be made at the
_Théâtre Libre_ in Paris.[10] No Scandinavian theatre, as far as I know,
has as yet had the courage to risk the experiment. In his next play,
however, "Love and Geography" (1885), Björnson reconquered the stage and
repeated his early triumphs. From the scientific seriousness of "Beyond
their Strength" his pendulum swung to the opposite extreme of light
comedy, almost bordering on farce. Not that "Love and Geography" is
without a Björnsonian moral, but it is amusingly, jocosely enforced in
scenes of great vivacity and theatrical effect. This time it is himself
the author has chosen to satirize. The unconscious tyranny of a man who
has a mission, a life-work, is delightfully illustrated in the person of
the geographer, Professor Tygesen, to whom Björn Björnson, the actor,
when he played the part at the Christiania Theatre, had the boldness to
give his father's mask. Professor Tygesen is engaged upon a great
geographical opus, and gradually takes possession of the whole house
with his maps, globes, and books, driving his wife from the parlor floor
and his daughter to boarding-school. So absorbed is he in his work that
he can talk and think of nothing else. He neglects the social forms from
sheer abstraction and becomes almost a boor, because all the world
outside of his book pales into insignificance, and all persons and
events are merely interesting in so far as they can stimulate inquiry or
furnish information bearing upon the immortal opus. The inevitable
consequence follows. The professor alienates all who come in contact
with him. He is on the point of losing the affection of his wife, and
his daughter comes near going astray for want of paternal supervision.
Both these calamities are, however, averted, though in an arbitrary and
highly eccentric manner. The professor's eyes are opened to the error of
his ways, he does penance, and the curtain falls upon a reunited family.
[10] July, 1894.
The unpretentious little story "Dust" (_Stöv_, 1882) undertakes to
demonstrate the unwholesomeness of the religious ideas regarding the
life to come usually impressed upon children by parents and teachers. By
dust Björnson means all obsolete, lifeless matter in the world of
thought which settles upon, and often impairs, the vitality of the
living growth, or even chokes it outright. "When children are taught
that the life here is nothing compared to the life to come--that to be
visible is nothing compared to being invisible--that to be a man is
nothing compared to being an angel--that to be alive is nothing compared
to being dead--then that is not the way to give them the right view of
life; not the way to teach them to love life; not the way to inspire
them with courage, energy, and patriotism."
In his novel "Flags in City and Harbor" (1884), the English translation
of which is entitled "The Heritage of the Kurts," Björnson has attacked
a tremendous problem. He has attempted to illustrate the force of
heredity, and the exact extent to which it may be modified by
environment--to what extent an unfavorable heredity may be counteracted
by a favorable environment. The family of Kurt, whose history is here
traced through five generations, inherits a temperament which would have
secured its survival and raised it to distinction in barbaric ages, but
which will as surely, unless powerfully modified, necessitate its
extinction in the present age. For the Kurts are incapable of
assimilating civilization. An excess of physical vigor in the first Kurt
who settled in Norway takes the form of lawlessness and an entire
absence of moral restraint.
Violence of the most atrocious kind goes unpunished because Kurt is
powerful and has friends at court. In his two legitimate sons, Adler and
Max (he has a host of illegitimate ones), the family temperament is
modified, though in Max, who perpetuates the race, the modification is
not radical. Adler is a weakling of enormous vanity, silent and moody,
and addicted to the pleasures of the table. Max, on the other hand, is a
man of inexhaustible vitality, violent like his father, but possessed of
a gift of speech and a tremendous voice which serve to establish his
authority over the simple inhabitants of the little coast town.
Moreover, he is endowed with great shrewdness and practical sense, and
is an expert in ship-building, agriculture, and other pursuits. But he
is the terror of women, and his sensual excesses so undermine his
strength that he becomes insane, and believes that he is continually
pursued by the spirit of his brother, whose death he had caused. Konrad
Kurt, the son of Max, runs away from home because he cannot endure to
see his mother maltreated by his father. He inherits a shattered
constitution and poor nerves; outwardly he is quite a respectable man,
but he has a strong physical need of drink, and every night he goes to
bed intoxicated. It is the author's purpose to show how the sins of his
fathers, by a physiological necessity, predisposed Konrad Kurt to drink.
His son, John Kurt, who is the result of a criminal relation, is the
complete incarnation of the genius of the family. The fresh blood which
he has derived from his English mother has postponed the doom of the
race and enabled him to repeat, in a modified form, the excesses of his
ancestors. He first distinguishes himself as a virtuoso in swearing. The
magnificent redundance and originality of his oaths make him famous in
the army, which he chooses as the first field of his exploits. Later he
roams aimlessly about the world, merely to satisfy a wild need of
adventure. On his return to his native town he signalizes himself by his
vices as a genuine Kurt. The little town, however, cannot find it in its
heart to condemn a man of so distinguished a race, and society, though
it is fully cognizant of his mode of life, not only tolerates but even
pets him. He is entertaining, has been everywhere and seen everything.
He meets a young girl, named Thomasine Rendalen, the daughter of an
educated peasant, who occupies a position as a teacher. She is large,
ruddy, full of health and uncorrupted vigor. John Kurt takes a violent
fancy to her, and moves heaven and earth to induce her to marry him. He
goes even to the length of bribing all her female friends, and they by
degrees begin to sing his praises. At last she yields; a net of subtle
influences surrounds her, and unconsciously she comes to reflect the
view of society. Her moral prudery begins to appear ridiculous to her,
and the so-called common-sense view predominates. The author here, with
great earnestness, emphasizes the responsibility of society in weakening
the moral resistance of the individual rather than strengthening it.
Thomasine Rendalen would not have married John Kurt if society had not
condoned his offences; and society in condoning such offences undermines
its own foundations.
After his marriage Kurt endeavors to hold his exuberant nature in check,
and for a while is moderately successful. But an uneasy suspicion haunts
him that his wife's friends, in a confidential moment, may expose his
delinquencies, and destroy her confidence in him. He watches her like a
lynx, surprises her at all hours and places, and thereby produces the
suspicion which he is endeavoring to avert. The relation develops with
inevitable logic toward an awful crisis. This is brought about by a mere
trifle. John Kurt, failing to humble his wife, strikes her. The baleful
forces that lurk in the depths of the Kurt temperament rise to the
surface; the whole terrible heritage of savagery overwhelms the feeble
civilization which the last scion has acquired. If Thomasine had been
weak, she would have been killed; but she defends herself with fierce
persistency, and though it seems as if she must succumb, her compact
frame, strengthened by generations of healthful toil, possesses an
endurance which in the end must prevail over the paroxysmal rage of John
Kurt. When the combatants part there is not a whole piece of furniture
in the room. John Kurt retires a conquered man. But with cowardly
viciousness he locks the door and leaves his wife for hours despairing,
while he himself goes to a dinner-party. There he is stricken down by
apoplexy.
The terror with which Thomasine contemplates her approaching maternity
is one of the finest points in the book. Has she the right to perpetuate
such a race, which will be a curse to itself and to future generations?
Would she not confer a boon upon mankind if, by destroying herself, she
sweetened the life-blood of humanity? For by self-destruction she would
forever cut off the turbid current of the Kurt blood which had darkened
the vital stream of the race for centuries. The moral exaltation which
manifests itself in this struggle is most vividly portrayed. She clings
to life desperately; she is young and strong, unsentimental, and averse
to ascetic enthusiasm. It finally occurs to her that her own race, too,
will assert itself in this child; that the pure and vigorous strain
which her own blood will infuse may redeem it from the dark destiny of
the Kurts. She finally resolves upon a compromise; if the child is dark,
like the Kurts, both it and its mother shall die. If it is blue-eyed and
light-haired, like the Rendalens, she will devote her life to
obliterating in it, or transforming into useful activities, the
destructive vigor of the paternal character. Thomas, when he is born,
chooses a golden mean between these two extremes, and perversely makes
his appearance as a red-haired, gray-eyed infant, in which both a Kurt
and a Rendalen might have made comforting observations. He is
accordingly permitted to live, and to become the hero of one of the most
remarkable novels which has ever been published in Scandinavia.
He is by no means a good boy, but his mother, by a kind of heroic
conscientiousness and rationality, slowly conquers him and secures his
attachment. She has solemnly abjured her connection with her husband's
family, assumed her maiden name, and has consecrated her life to what
she regards as the highest utility--the work of education. She wishes to
atone to the race for her guilt in having perpetuated the race of the
Kurts. The scene in which she makes a bonfire of all the ancestral
portraits in the Hall of Knights, and the smell of all the burning Kurts
is blown far and wide over city and harbor, would, in the hands of
another novelist, have been made the central scene in the book. But
Björnson is so tremendously in earnest that he cannot afford to stop and
note picturesque effect. Therefore he relates the burning of the Kurts
quite incidentally, and proceeds at once to talk of more serious things.
By turning the great, dusky, ancestral mansion into a school, Mrs.
Rendalen believes that she can best settle the account of the Kurts with
humanity. All the latest, improved methods of education are introduced.
The Hall of Knights is turned into a chemical laboratory, and the
daylight is allowed to pour unobscured into all its murky recesses.
Through the dim and lofty passage-ways resounds the laughter of
children; on the scenes of so many hoary crimes the prattle of innocent
girls is heard; a multitude of scientific instruments labor to
demonstrate the laws of nature, and to simplify the problem of existence
which the crimes of the Kurts had tended to complicate. Thomas Rendalen,
profoundly impressed as he is with his responsibility as the last
descendant of such a race, takes up this educational mission with a
lofty humanitarian enthusiasm. He has spent many years abroad in
preparing himself for this work, and possesses, like his
great-grandfather, the gift of lucid exposition. But his perpetual and
conscious struggle with his heritage makes him nervous and ill-balanced.
He conceives the idea, fostered both by observation and by the study of
his own family history, that unchastity is the chief curse of humanity,
and the primal cause of the degeneracy of races. He believes that the
false modesty which leaves young people in ignorance of one of the most
important natural functions is largely responsible for the prevailing
immorality, and he advocates, as a remedy, fearless and searching
physiological study. His inaugural address as superintendent of the
school deals uncompromisingly with this subject, and excites such
universal indignation that it comes near wrecking the promising
enterprise. A great speech in a small town, Björnson hints, is always
more or less risky. But we are also given to understand that though
Rendalen obviously speaks out of the author's heart, this very speech
is in itself a subtle manifestation of the Kurt heritage. Rendalen is as
immoderate in virtue as his ancestors have been in vice. The violent
energy which formerly expended itself in lawless acts now expends itself
in an excessive, ascetic enthusiasm for self-conquest and lofty
humanitarian ideals. As a piece of psychology this is admirable.
Prudent, well adapted or adaptable to the civilization in which he
lives, the scion of the Kurts is not yet; but as a promise of the
redemption of the race he represents the first upward step. It is highly
characteristic of Björnson's respect for reality that he makes Rendalen
neither agreeable, handsome, nor lovable; nay, he dwells again and again
on the bad relations which temporarily exist between him and his mother,
between him and the teachers, between him and the town. For all that we
are filled with a profound respect for a man who can fight in himself so
great a fight, and win so great a victory. It is the sturdy peasant
blood which he derived from his mother that enables him to wrestle thus
mightily with the Lord, and extort at last the tardy blessing; for we
are assured in the last pages of the book that he makes a marriage,
which is a further step toward health and virtue. We are not assured
that he conquers happiness either for himself or for his wife; and there
is not a syllable to betray that he cherishes for her any romantic
attachment. But the chances are that, in transforming and ennobling the
Kurt heritage, he insures vigor and usefulness to his descendants. He
bequeathes to them a more wholesome mixture of blood than he himself
possesses, and an energy, nay, perhaps a genius, derived from the Kurts,
which, with an upward instead of a downward tendency, may be a redeeming
force in society instead of a corrupting one.
In order not to miss any phase of his problem, Björnson also takes up
briefly the illegitimate line of the Kurts, which, being unsupplied with
any favorable environment, sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of
vice. The inevitable result is insanity and ultimate extinction. Mrs.
Rendalen's visit to the slums, and her recognition of the peculiar
scream of her own son in a terrible little ragamuffin, is one of the
most remarkable incidents in this remarkable book.
One thing that especially strikes the reader in this novel is the
author's fierce indignation against all shams, deceits, and social lies.
Therefore he calls a spade a spade, and leaves you to blush if you are
so inclined. The young girls whom he introduces are mostly misses in
their teens, and his portrayal of them is physiological rather than
pictorial. The points which he selects for comment are those which would
particularly be noted by their medical advisers; and the progress of
their histories, as he follows them, is characterized by this same
scientific minuteness of observation. Zola's ideal of scientific realism
(which Björnson has repudiated) has nevertheless found its most
brilliant exponent in him. Here the sordid and cruel facts of life are
not dwelt upon by preference; nor are they optimistically glossed over.
I doubt if a great and vital problem has ever been more vigorously,
unflinchingly, and convincingly treated in a work of fiction.
"_Paa Guds Veje_" ("In the Ways of God"), (1889), in which Thomas
Rendalen again figures, though not as hero, is another indictment of
conventional morality. It is a very powerful but scarcely an agreeable
book. The abrupt, laconic style has no flux, no continuity, and gives
the reader the sensation of being pulled up sharply with a curb bit,
whenever he fancies that he has a free rein. Though every page is
crowded with trenchant and often admirable observations, they have not
the coherence of an organic structure, but rather that of a mosaic. The
design is obvious, striking, and impressive. It is neither distorted nor
overdrawn. It is unquestionably thus we treat moral non-conformists,
even though it be in pure self-preservation that they broke the bond
which we are agreed to enforce. The question resolves itself into this:
Has society, in its effort to uphold its moral standards, the right to
exact the sacrifice of life itself and every hope of happiness from the
victims of its own ignorance and injustice? When the young physician,
Edward Kallem, rescues the eighteen-year old Ragni Kule from the
degradation of her marriage to a husband afflicted with a most loathsome
disease, and afterward marries her--does he deserve censure or praise?
Björnson's answer is unmistakable. It is exactly the situation, depicted
five years later, by Madame Sarah Grand in the relation of Edith to the
young rake, Sir Moseley Menteith. Only, Björnson rescues the victim,
while the author of "The Heavenly Twins" makes her perish. In both
instances it is the pious ignorance of clerical parents which
precipitates the tragedy. Ragni's deliverance is, however, only an
apparent one. Society, which without indignation had witnessed her sale
to the corrupt old libertine, is frightfully shocked by her marriage to
Dr. Kallem, and manifests its disapproval with an emphasis which takes
no account of ameliorating circumstances. The sanguinary ingenuity in
the constant slights and stabs to which she is exposed makes her life a
martyrdom and finally kills her. "Contempt will pierce the armor of a
tortoise," says an oriental proverb; and poor Ragni had no chelonian
armor. When her most harmless remarks are misinterpreted and her most
generous acts become weapons wherewith to slay her, she loses all heart
for resistance, and merely lies down to die. Very subtile and beautiful
is the manner in which Björnson indicates the interaction of psychical
and physical conditions. The "soul-frost" which chills the very marrow
of her bones is so vividly conveyed that you shiver sympathetically. The
self-righteous and brutally censorious attitude of the community lowers
the temperature and makes the atmosphere deadly. And the fact that it
is Ragni's unsuspicious innocence, and even her love of her husband,
which expose her to this condemnation is made plain with much delicate
art. Her residence of five years in the United States after her divorce,
and before her second marriage, had, no doubt, accustomed her to a
greater freedom of intercourse between man and woman, and thereby
disposed her to trip rather lightly over the stumbling-blocks of
prudence.
The history of Kallem's sister, Josephine, and her husband, the Reverend
Ole Tuft, which is closely interwoven with the above, furnishes us with
two more characters deeply felt and strongly realized. It is they who
are the chief instruments of Ragni's martyrdom. As the upholders of
social purity, and, as it were, professional guardians of morals, it
would seem that Tuft and his wife had scarcely any choice but to condemn
marriage with a _divorcée_. When, however, after Ragni's death, they
discover whom they have slain--how much purer, nobler, and of more
delicate nature she was than either of them--they are dissolved in shame
and remorse. A tremendous crisis in their spiritual lives is produced by
the mortal peril of their only child, whom Kallem saves by a skilful
operation. Out of the ancient religion of dogmas which judges and damns,
Tuft is by these experiences led into a new religion of love, which
values life above faith, and charity above all. The reconciliation of
brother and sister in the last chapter is profoundly moving. The moral
is emphasized in the phrase with which the story closes: "Wherever good
men walk, there are the ways of God."
The charm of this novel is, to me, that it is strong, virile, instinct
with vital thought. There are blemishes in it, too, which no one will be
likely to overlook. Several chapters read like the reports of a clinic
in a medical journal, so extremely minute and circumstantial are the
accounts of Kallem's operations and hypnotic experiments. An excursion
into botany, _à propos_ of Ragni's walk in the woods, is likewise
overloaded with details and teems with scientific terms. But the
greatest blemish is the outbreak in Kallem (who has the author's fullest
sympathy) of a certain barbaric violence which to civilized people is
well-nigh incomprehensible. Thus, when, after an absence of six years,
he calls upon his brother-in-law, the pastor, he proceeds to turn
handsprings about the latter's study. When, after his marriage, his
sister meets him in the street for the purpose of informing him of the
scandalous rumors concerning his wife, he gives her a box on the ear.