Jonas Lie

“ In the light under the astral lamp-shade, aunt was sitting, bowed down over a little black contrivance with the image of a negro on it, and was burning pastilles; her hair, on both sides of her forehead, was made into stiff, grayish curls.
The bright, shining tea-kettle stood singing over the beautiful blue cups of that old Copenhagen porcelain, of which you have four pairs in the cabinet, which came from grandmother's. I could not help looking all the time on aunt's face, with the great earrings showing through the lace. ”

“ There was a snore from the leather-covered chair, and Ma continued, more softly:
She may, indeed, and that tolerably earnestly, wish to rule over a fine salon; but she has not yet been brought clearly to comprehend that with it she must take the man who owns it. There is something in her open nature which always keeps the distance between these two questions too wide for even a captain of cavalry to leap over it. God bless her!
Love is like an awakening, without which we neither know nor understand anything of its holy language ”

“ Thinka's quiet, agreeable pliancy and cool, even poise spread comfort in the house. The captain knew that he only needed to put her on the track of some good idea or other in the way of food, and something always came of it. She was so handy, while, when Ma yielded, it was always done so clumsily and with difficulty, just as if she creaked on being moved, so to speak, that he became fretful, and began to dispute in spite of it, notwithstanding she knew very well he could not bear it. ”

“ For you see, Thinka, when you have gone through balls here as I have, you do not any longer skip about blindly with all the lights in your eyes. You know a little by yourself; one way or another, there ought to be something in the manner of the person. Oh, this ball chat! I say, as Grip does: I am tired, tired, tired of it. Aunt isn't any longer so eager that I shall be there, though many times more eager than I.
There I am now looked upon as haughty and critical and whatever else it is, only because I will not continually find something to talk away about! ”

“ This was Nordland, one of the northerly provinces of Norway, beyond the Arctic Circle, under the glory of the midnight sun, where, however, a long and sunless winter fostered in the minds of the inhabitants a brooding melancholy which peopled mountain and sea, nature's every nook and cranny, with strange and awe-inspiring creatures. ”

“ A sort of close odor of punch and tobacco smoke frozen together rose up through the stairs in the cold, and every time the door was opened and showed the heavy, smoky, blue gleam of light in the great room, she could hear officers' names, fragments of laughter, of violent positive assertions, with profane imprecations by all possible and impossible powers of the heavens above and the earth beneath, and between them her father's gay voice,—all chopped off in mince-meat every time the door was shut. ”

“ His deep bass came out with full force in the silence under the knoll.
The lake was like a mirror, and the captain took one trout after another.
Torsknut, with patches and fields of snow on the summit, stood on its head deep down below them, so that it almost caused a giddy feeling when they looked out over the boat-rail. And when they arrived under the cattle station, the steep green mountain side, with all the grazing cattle, was reproduced so clearly that they could count the horns in the water.
"Nay, here the cows walk like flies on the wall," said the captain. ”

“ If the person was some poor old crone of the other sex, to her astonishment a copper coin fell down on the road before her: "There, Kari; there, Siri: you may want something to order a crutch carriage with."
A surprise which was so much the greater as the captain at other times cherished a genuine liking for flaying old beggar women. The whole stock of tempestuous oaths and of abusive words coined in the inspiration of the moment, which was in his blood from the drill-ground and military life, must now and then have an outbreak. ”

“ What can Nature mean in letting such a host of existences, in which hearts are beating, succumb and be lost in this choice, or does it thereby in its great crucible make an exact assay, without which nothing succeeds in passing over into a more complete development—who can unriddle Nature's runes? My hope for Inger-Johanna is that the fund or the weight of personality, which she possesses in her own nature, will preponderate in the scales of her choice in the decisive moment. ”

“ Discreetly done, as Lie surely could do it, this may be a most effective way of revolutionizing conscience. In this artistic manner Lie was, and no doubt consciously, a reformer. To be sure, this is not art for art's sake; it is something more human: art engaged in the pursuit of stimulating noble and healthful thought for the purpose of raising the average of human happiness.
It was this calm and restrained realistic method that Lie now applied in a series of novels which succeeded The Family at Gilje. ”

“ Jörgen, hurry!" came from Ma, who saw herself more and more deprived of her most needed forces.
Great-Ola had put up the sheriff's horse, and now stood pounding again at the mortar in his white surplice—thump, thump, thump, thump.
"Are you out of your senses out here? Don't you think?" said the captain, bouncing in; he spoke in a low voice, but for that reason the more passionately. "Aren't you going to mangle, too? Then the sheriff would get a thundering with a vengeance, both over his head and under his feet. It shakes the floor." ”

“ Yesterday evening Grip came again. We have not seen him at all since the first time Captain Rönnow was here. And can any one imagine such a man? He seems to see nothing in him. He sat and contradicted, and was so cross and disagreeable the whole evening that aunt was quite tired of him. He argued about living externally, hollow drum, and some such things, as if it were not just the genuine manliness and naturalness that one must value so much in Captain Rönnow. ”

“ In the chamber above, impatient hearts were hammering and beating.
While Jörgen went to sleep with the image before him of his lieutenant who gaped like Svarten when he came out of the stable door into the light, and after Torbjörg had put out the candle, the sisters stole out into the great, cold, dark hall. There they all three stood, leaning over the balustrade, and gazing down on the fur coats and mufflers, which hung on the timber wall, and on the whip and the two sabre sheaths and the case of bottles, which were dimly lighted by the stable lantern on the hall table. ”

“ First and foremost, I must tell you that Inger-Johanna is a lady in every respect, but still with more substance to her, if I may express myself so, and stronger will than our poor Eleonore. It is certain that she in many ways overawes, not to say domineers over, your sister-in-law, strict and domineering as she otherwise has the reputation of being. And, therefore, she must resort to underhand means in many things, when she finds that it won't do to play the game openly before Inger-Johanna, which, according to my best convictions, has been the case with regard to the captain. ”

“ Great-Ola had not had a steadier horse in the stall by the side of Svarten, nevertheless—"You shall grow old in my barn; do you understand, you young Svarten? shall go to the city in pairs with your uncle—before the carriage for Inger—There now, you beast—of a—dog"—swip—swish—swip—swish—"I shall teach you to drop your bad habits, I shall. Whoa!" he thundered. "There! there!"
There was a whole train of gay fellows who were standing, talking, shouting, and drinking in the road outside the gate to the Bergset farm. ”

“ The execution-server had a kind of ancient deferential respect for Grip. He knew that he had belonged to the higher sphere, and that he still, whenever he liked, might show himself in the houses both of the sheriff and of old Rist, places which he never left without improvements in his outfit.
"I will confide a secret to you, Reierstad. If you are a little of a genius, then you must drink—at least it was true in my time. There was great havoc on that kind, you see, on account of the vacuum. Did you not notice something of that?"
"Hi, hi, hi," neighed Simensen. ”

“ To talk to her and make her prudent would be to show colors to the blind; she must believe blindly in the one who advises her. Therefore it is you, Gitta, who must take hold and write.
Ma laid the letter down in her lap; she sat in the light, looking paler and sharper even than common.
It was easy for Aunt Alette, the excellent Aunt Alette, to think so happily that everything should be as it ought to be. She had her little inheritance to live on and was not dependent on any one. ”

“ In the common room below, between the sofa and the stove, the captain's wife, in an old brown linsey-woolsey dress, sat sewing. She had a tall, stiff figure, and a strong, but gaunt, dried-up face, and had the appearance of being anxiously occupied at present by an intricate problem—the possibility of again being able to put a new durable patch on the seat of Jörgen's trousers; they were always bottomless—almost to desperation. ”

“ Jörgen moved uneasily.
"If you move off the spot, boy, I'll break your arms and legs in pieces!" foamed the captain, now red as copper. "Sit—sit still and read!"
He intended also to sit still himself. That scoundrel of a trader—he should fasten his horse himself at the doorsteps, and help himself as he could.
"I hear them talking—Great-Ola."
"Hold your tongue!" said the captain in a murderous deep bass, and with a pair of eyes fixed on his son as if he could eat him.
"Yes; but, father, it is really—"
A pull on his forelock and a box on the ears sent him across the floor. ”

“ In the hope that a sincere conduct and intention will not be misconstrued, I herewith address the prayer and the question to you and your dear wife—whether you will trust to me the future of your precious Inger-Johanna?
What a man can do to smooth and make easy her path of life, that I dare promise, on my parole d'honneur, she shall never lack. ”

“ The captain did not feel safe from dizziness this year. He went about continually making stops, and the one who must always go with him on his different trips over the grounds, stop when he stopped and go when he went, was Inger-Johanna. It was as if he seemed to find strength for himself in her erect carriage, and besides wanted to make sure that she was not going about grieving.
"Do you believe that she will ride or drive?" he asked Ma out in the pantry. "She stands there planting here and there and taking up and putting down in the garden; she is not accustomed to that now, Ma, you see. ”

“ But victory is still victory, and when the captain afterwards went into the sitting-room, humming contentedly, it was not without a little amused recollection of his strategy,—for, "yes, upon my soul," he could feel that his arms ached afterwards, nevertheless. And he rubbed them two or three times before he tied a napkin around his neck and seated himself at the table in order to do justice to the warm blood-pudding, with raisins and butter on it, which Thinka brought in to him. ”

“ After the necessary part of it was swallowed and the children were sent upstairs, the captain sat, now quite cozy and comfortable, before the table, which was still extended, with his tobacco and his taste of toddy made of the French brandy, whose transformation into Christmas punch was going on in the kitchen, from which there was also heard the sizzling of the waffle-iron.
"Only strong, Ma,—only strong!—Then you can manage with the brown sugar.—Yes, yes," tasting of the wooden dipper which his wife brought in, "you can treat the sheriff to that with pleasure." ”

“ Not once during the whole winter have I frozen my fingers! We go out for a short drive in the forenoon, and then I go with aunt in the shops in the afternoon, and that is the whole of it. And you can believe it is quite another thing to go out here than at home; when I only jumped over a little pile of shovelled-up snow, in order to get into the sleigh more quickly, aunt said that every one could instantly see manners from my state of nature, as she always says. For all the movements I make, I might just as well have chains on both legs, like the prisoners we see some days in the fort. ”

“ Her eyes glanced from the floor halfway up to her parents, as she quietly went out, leaving the parasol lying on the table.
"I guess you will use your linen for a wedding outfit, Ma," said the captain, slapping his hands and swinging his hat with a flourish. "What would you say to the sheriff for a son-in-law here at Gilje?"
"You saw that Thinka went out, Jäger." Ma's voice trembled a little. "Very likely she is thinking that it is not long since his wife was laid in the grave. Thinka is very good, and would like to submit to us; but there may be limits to what we can ask." ”

“ He straightened up hurriedly. "Do you think Great-Ola has the wit to rub Svarten with Riga liniment on the bruise on his neck and to take the bottle with him in his bag? If I had not thought of that now, Svarten would have had to trot with it. Run down and tell him that, Thea.—Oh, no!"56 he drew a despairing breath; "I must go myself, and see that it is done right."
There was a pause until his footfall had ceased to creak on the lowest step. Then Ma began to pack with precipitous haste: "It is best to spare your father from the rush of blood to his head." ”

“ Among the many friends that Lie made in the capital city during his university days, Björnson became the most intimate. He seems from the very first to have espied the artist in Lie, and didxvii much to help him in understanding his own strange self. It had begun to worry Lie that his friends thought him eccentric. And not only this: the mystic, superstitious, magic-loving Finn in his nature often frightened him. Hence he made great efforts to counteract his tendency to fantastic musing and to develop his paternal heritage: the rationalist and realist in himself. ”

“ Small circumstances make small folk, more's the pity; large ones ought to make them otherwise.—My brother has made her a happy wife."
"Done. Will you allow an old friend to work a little for your attractive little Inger?" returned Captain Rönnow.
"I think that Ma will thank you. What do you say, Gitta? Then you will have a peg to hang one of them on. It can't be from one of us two that Inger-Johanna has inherited her beauty, Ma!" said Captain Jäger, coughing and warding off his wife's admonitory look; "but there is blood, both on her father's and mother's side. ”