THE SCENE.
One evening just before Christmas the theatre of the metropolis was
sold out; a new actress was to appear, about whom there were the
greatest expectations. Sprung from the people--her mother was a poor
fisherwoman--she had reached her present position by the help of others
who had discovered her talents, and she gave great promise. In the time
before the curtain rose, all sorts of things were whispered about her;
she was said to have been a strange unruly child, and later when grown
up, to have been betrothed to six at one time, and to have kept it
going for half a year. The town was in such an uproar on her account,
that she had had to be conducted out of it by a guard of police; it was
remarkable that the director should allow such a character to appear.
Others affirmed there was not the slightest truth in the statement; she
had been educated in a clergyman's family in Bergen's shire, from the
time she was ten years old; she was a cultivated and amiable girl, they
knew her well, she must have wonderful talent; she was so handsome.
Others were there who were better authority. First the well-known fish
merchant, Yngve Vold. He had come here accidentally on a business
journey; it was said that the brilliant Spanish lady, to whom he was
married, made the house at home so hot, that he travelled merely to
cool himself. He had taken the largest box in the house, and invited
his hotel acquaintances to go with him to see "something, devilish
something!" He was in remarkable spirits, till he suddenly caught sight
of----could it be he?----in a box in the second tier and with a whole
ship's company round him?----no! yes!----verily it was Gunnar Ask!
Gunnar Ask who through his mother's money had become owner and captain
of "The Norwegian Constitution," had in cruising out of the fiord come
to sail side by side with a ship bearing the name: "The Danish
Constitution," and as Gunnar thought he observed it trying to pass him,
such certainly could not be permitted; he put out all the sail he
possessed, the old Constitution creaked, and the consequence was, that
in his endeavour to scud before the wind as long and as far as
possible, he ran the ship aground in a most preposterous place, and was
now reluctantly detained in the town while the vessel was being patched
up. One day he met Petra in the street, and she was so thoroughly kind
both then and afterwards, that he not only forgot his grudge, but
called himself the greatest fool that ever sailed from their native
place, that he could ever have imagined himself worthy of such a girl
as Petra. To-day he had taken tickets at a premium for the whole of his
crew, and mentally resolved to treat them between each act, and the
seamen, all from Petra's native place, and familiar with the mother's
tavern, that earthly paradise, felt Petra's honour to be their own, and
sat and promised each other that they would applaud as had never been
heard before.
Down below in the parquet one could see the dean's thick bristly hair.
He looked calm, he had entrusted her cause to a Higher Power. By his
side sat Signe, now Signe Odegaard. Her husband, herself and Petra, had
just returned from a three month's tour on the continent; she looked
happy, as she sat and smiled over to Odegaard, for between them sat an
old woman with snow-white hair, that rose above her brown face like a
crown; sitting higher than everybody, she could be seen from the whole
house, and soon every opera glass was directed towards her, for it was
said she was the young actress's mother. She who bore a man's name, now
also produced so powerful an impression, that she shed peace over the
daughter. A youthful people is full of expectancy, it possesses faith
in the inner power of its nature, and the faith was roused by the sight
of this mother? She herself saw neither anything nor anybody; she was
indifferent as to what was coming; she was there only to see whether
people were kind to her daughter or not.
The time was almost up; conversation died away in the suspense that by
degrees pervaded all, and did them good.
A flourish of drums, trumpets and horns, suddenly opened the overture;
Oehlenschlaeger's "Axel and Valborg" was to be played, and Petra had
herself chosen this. She was sitting behind the scenes and listening.
Before the curtain, the small number of her countrymen that the house
could muster, were trembling on her account, as one always does when
expecting anything personally dear of one's own to be brought forward.
It was as if each were about to appear on the stage himself; at such
moments many prayers arise, even from hearts that otherwise seldom
pray.
The overture grew softer, peace fell over the harmonies, they melted
gradually away as in sunlight. It was over,--anxious silence ensued.
The curtain rose.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Norwegian idiom, to get a long nose--to be
disappointed.--Tr.]
[Footnote 2: The farms are often built on a steep mountain side.--Tr.]
* * * * *
BURNETT AND HOOD, MIDDLESBROUGH.
OVIND:
A STORY OF COUNTRY LIFE IN NORWAY,
BY
BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON,
TRANSLATED BY
S. AND E. HJERLEID.
_Elegantly bound, Crown 8vo_.
LONDON: SIMPKIN MARSHALL AND CO.
MIDDLESBROUGH: BURNETT AND HOOD.
* * *
NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
"We drop from fairy land to one almost as attractive in _Ovind_....
There is about it a delightful freshness."--_Athenaeum_, Nov. 20, 1869.
"_Ovind_ is thoroughly simple and genuine, a word-painting wonderfully
like those Scandinavian pictures which most of us saw for the first
time in the Exhibition of 1862.... Its subdued harmonious tones have a
singular charm about them, and leave a very distinct impression."--_The
Spectator_, Dec. 25, 1869.
"The tale is told in simple language with many quaint touches of
humour."--_Daily Telegraph_, Dec, 24, 1869.
"The story relates simply, but very beautifully, the young loves of a
peasant boy and a landowners grand-daughter, and introduces in the
course of the narrative very many Norwegian customs."--_Public
Opinion_, Dec. 11, 1869.
"The great merits of Bjoernson's literary style are his intense
originality and unfaltering simplicity. All his writings are thoroughly
true to nature, while the sombre scenery of his native land inspires
him with a diction which we meet with in no other books, and is
entirely his own."--_The Examiner and London Review_, Jan. 1, 1870.
"One of the most winning little stories we have ever read."--_The
Literary Churchman_, Nov. 29, 1869.
"The translators are to be congratulated upon their successful
rendering of the story, the publishers have also got up the book in a
highly creditable manner. Altogether the translation is well worthy of
all who are interested in Scandinavian literature."--_Iron and Coal
Trades Review_, Dec. 22, 1869.
"Opens to us a field of freshness and beauty which never loses its
charm for readers of all ages."--_Standard_, Jan. 26, 1870.
"It is not for the novelty of the story so much as for the fresh vivid
picture it presents of peasant life in Norway that we commend the book
to the English reader."--_Trubner's American and Oriental Literary
Record_, Dec. 24, 1869.
"This is a charmingly simple and beautiful story ... It is as real as
actual life, and as poetical as Milton's Paradise, not great with
ponderous thoughts, but running over with exquisite poetry, suggesting
new worlds of beauty lying under every day things.... A pure spiritual
beauty, which the author has drawn from the simplest outward things in
peasant life, lies over all the story, and bathes everything in the
cool calm light of heaven."--_The Border Advertiser_, Dec. 19, 1869.
"The book is indeed redolent of country pastures, of sweet smelling
pine woods, of happy, glad, unsophisticated Northern life.... It
touches chords lying hidden in the depths of the mysteries of race and
language, and moves us as, perhaps, no book of the warm but alien south
could succeed in doing."--_Northern Daily Express_.
"The story has enough of originality, and of the foreign element, to
make it quite worthy of translation and of general acceptance."--_The
Illustrated London News_, July 23, 1870.
"We cannot speak too highly of the excellence of this translation. It
reads as if it had been originally written in English."--_The
Manchester Weekly Times_, June 11, 1870.
THE NEWLY-MARRIED COUPLE:
BY
BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON.
TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN
BY S. AND E. HJERLEID.
_Price 1s; Cloth bound 2s_.
LONDON: TRUeBNER AND CO.
* * *
MUSIC.
THE WEDDING IN HARDANGER.
(Arranged as a Solo.)
Words by Munch. Translated from the Norwegian, by S. and E. Hjerleid.
Music by Kjerulf.
(The Song by which the Swedish Singers won the Prize at the Paris
Exhibition of 1867.)
_1s. 6d. post free from the Translators, North Ormesby, Middlesbrough_.
LONDON: F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW.
* * *
BURNETT AND HOOD, PRINTERS, MIDDLESBROUGH.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Fisher Girl, by Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson