“ He had come to the meeting in company with Lars, but went home alone, although the way was long. It was a cold autumn day, the forest was jagged and bare, the meadow gray-yellow, frost was beginning here and there to remain on the roadside. Disappointment is a terrible companion. Knud felt so small, so desolate, as he walked along; but Lars appeared everywhere before him, towering up to the sky, in the dusk of the evening, like a giant. ”

“ The snow lay on the fields and meadows as smooth and level as the surface of the lake. The shadows of the fences, hayricks, and rollers lay like blue spots upon the white surface. The snow-birds hopped across the road, and the magpies chattered joyously as they ran up and down the fences. Sipi, the bear-dog, with pointed ears and woolly tail, dashed at full gallop before Jalo, who with a dainty movement of his hoofs, as if it were mere play, rushed forward at lightning speed. It was all so cheering that Christian’s depression began to pass away. ”

“ Time, good old time, the eternal wise old gentleman, accomplished his task. Lulu asked herself whether this unmarried sister who acted as bridesmaid should wear a gown of blue silk or a simple one of straw-colored foulard with lace. She asked Roberto if there would be a great many bonbons for her, and Sofia if she would give her that pretty embroidered handkerchief that was like a zephyr, a cloud. Roberto and Sofia, knowing what the girl’s heart was capable of, smiled at her gay thoughtlessness, and loved her, and looked upon her as their Providence. ”

“ Dario Scossi, Cedebonis, and Cariolin finally succeeded in leading Biagio Speranza away, while he cried furiously: “I must kill him! I must kill him! Two of you, you, Scossi, and you, Cariolin, go at once to find him. Ridiculous as it is, atrociously ridiculous, a duel with that wretch, because of that woman in yonder, I must fight, for otherwise when I see him I should kill him like a dog. ”

“ She, alone of all the world, remains to me, and she, Signore Direttore, is Paola.”
The Signore Direttore remained absolutely silent. What, indeed could he say? He only felt that Cassio’s story and his own seemed impossible, though he knew but too well it was but too true. Cassio understood him perfectly.
“It is strange, impossible, is it not? Had I been told it, I would not have believed it.”
“Life is strange,” said the other at last, and he clenched his hands till the nails penetrated the flesh. “The ways of destiny are indeed mysterious.” ”

“ These two monstrous eyes of fire and this hissing, roaring sound belong no longer to the locomotive, for they turn away from the railroad track. And from the churchyard straight toward the house comes an immense procession. The eyes of fire are his grandfather’s, and the long line of followers are all the dead. The train advances steadily toward the gard, roaring, crackling, flashing. The windows blaze in the reflection of the dead men’s eyes. Lars made a mighty effort to control himself, for this was a dream, unquestionably. ”

“ When one loves one marries. It is difficult to awaken love,” and she sighed softly.
“Awaken love, awaken love!” repeated Lulu, in an irritated manner. “It is very easy, Sofia; but when one has a serious brow, like you, sad eyes, and unsmiling lips; when one goes and sits in a corner thinking, while every one else is dancing and jesting; when one reads instead of laughing, and instead of living, dreams; and when one cultivates an old and lackadaisical manner, though still young, then it is difficult to be loved.” ”

“ The villagers made a litter of their spears, on which to carry the body of the free peasant to his home. The dead man aroused awe in their souls, they softened their voices in his presence. When they raised him on to the bier, Tord stood up, shook the hair from his eyes, and spoke in a voice that trembled:
“Tell Unn, for whose sake Berg the Giant became a murderer, that Tord the fisherman, whose father plunders wrecks, and whose mother is a witch—tell her that Tord slew Berg because Berg had taught him that justice is the corner-stone of the world.” ”

“ The spirits of the dead follow me because of your sin. Do you not see how I tremble before you? You have lifted your hand against God himself. What crime is like unto yours? Why did you tell me about the just God? It is you yourself who compel me to betray you. Spare me this sin. Go to the priest yourself.” He sank down on his knees before Berg.
The murderer laid his hand on his head and looked at him. He measured his sin by the terror of his comrade, and it grew and grew to monstrous size. He saw himself in conflict with the Will that rules the world. ”

“ I have need of some one who loves me and calms me. I will resume my position as professor; you shall be the wife of a great poet, who is now miserably wasting his talent. And if you do not understand the poet, no matter; you shall be the wife of a professor; does that content you? and I will liberate you from all these good-for-nothings who came to play the buffoon at your table. Listen; I will give you the greatest proof of my love, of the seriousness of my proposal. When I leave here I must go to the hospital and submit myself to a terrible operation. ”

“ Trunfo, meanwhile, who had resumed his former habits, between one note and another of his hissed opera, instigated Carolinona to avenge herself.
At these vindictive exhortations of his a desire for vengeance flamed in the heart of the Pentoni; but soon after, suffocated, as though the flame had suddenly become smoke—a slow, dense smoke—she buried her face in her hands, and shook her head bitterly.
“Make good your rights,” said Trunfo. “A woman never lacks for means.” ”

“ For the first time in his life Knud saw him as he was, and in his inmost soul he was afraid of him; for this man must always have been his superior. He had taken all Knud himself knew and could impart; he had rejected the tares and kept what produced this strong, hidden growth.
He had been fostered and loved by Knud, but had now become a giant who hated Knud deeply, terribly. Knud could not explain to himself why, but as he looked at Lars he instinctively felt this to be so, and all else becoming swallowed up in this thought he started up, exclaiming:
“But Lars! Lars! ”

“ Berg feigned stupidity, in order to trick the other’s meaning: “How can any one be called a thief who has never stolen?” he said.
The boy’s lips closed tight as if to hold back the words. “But if one has a father who steals—” he threw out after a short pause.
“A man may inherit house and money, but the name thief is given only to him who earns it.”
Tord laughed gently. “But when one has a mother—and that mother comes and cries, and begs one to take upon one’s self the father’s crime—and then one can laugh at the hangman and run away into the woods. ”

“ Every age has its uncertain moral distinctions and its victims.
Honor be to him in his grave, for he had suffered and toiled! Peace be with him! It must be good to rest in the end. But he was not allowed to rest because of his grandson’s vast ambition; his ashes were thrown up with the stones and the gravel. Nonsense! he would only smile at his grandson’s work.
Amid thoughts like these Lars had undressed and gone to bed. Once more his grandfather’s image glided before him. It was sterner now than the first time. Weariness enfeebles us, and Lars began to reproach himself. ”

“ Amid the darkness and roar of elements Cassio lost all perception of time, and as he tossed on his narrow bed, blessed visions came at last to his storm-tossed heart. The sighing of the wind in his distant well-loved mountains; the prints of the wild boar among the green ferns; the noisy stream bounding from rock to rock; the partridges flitting among the flowering oleanders; the joyful neighing of his black horse, and, above all else, the smile of Paola. ”

“ Have I not lost home and fortune? Have I not lost friends, and all the joys that make the life of a man? What more?”
As he heard him speak thus, Tord sprang up in wild terror. “You can repent!” he cried. “My words move your heart? Oh, come with me, come at once. Come, let us go while yet there is time.”
Berg the Giant sprang up also. “You—did it—?”
“Yes, yes, yes. I have betrayed you. But come quickly. Come now, now that you can repent. We must escape. We will escape.”
The murderer stooped to the ground where the battle-ax of his fathers lay at his feet. “Son of a thief,” he hissed. ”

“ Poor Jalo was roughly dragged away to his own barn, and after a time Christian heard the horse snorting and stamping under the blows of Jegor’s whip. To beat Jalo, to abuse such an animal—who ever heard of such a thing?
From that day Christian’s life was a hell. To be compelled to do without the horse was torture enough, but to know that it was in the hands of his worst enemy, that he could never own it again, to see it daily without being able to go near it, was far worse. Everything that Jegor could think of to do to the horse in Christian’s presence to torment him he conscientiously did. ”

“ This calmness was more than Knud could endure.
“What is it that has come among us?” cried he. “We who have, until to-day, been actuated by love and zeal alone, are now stirred up against each other, as though goaded on by some evil spirit,” and he cast a fiery glance at Lars, who replied:
[Pg 519]
“It must be yourself who bring in this spirit, Knud; for I have kept strictly to the matter before us. But you never can see the advantage of anything you do not want yourself; now we shall learn what becomes of the love and the zeal when once this matter is decided as we wish.” ”

“ Berg and Tord thought on awhile with the same thoughts, then Berg said: “You should have seen her when the white monk fell. My wife drew the children about her and cursed Unn. She turned the faces of the children toward her, that they might always remember the woman for whose sake their father had become a murderer. But Unn stood there so quiet and so beautiful that the men who saw her trembled. She thanked me for the deed, and prayed me to flee to the woods at once. She told me never to become a robber, and to use my knife only in some cause equally just.” ”

“ A gaunt, bare hilltop stretched itself through the forest, and all alone upon its crest there stood a towering pine. The red brown trunk was bare, in the thick grown boughs at the top a hawk’s nest rocked in the breeze. So daring had the fugitive grown that on another day he climbed to the nest while his pursuers sought him in the woody slopes below. He sat there and twisted the necks of the young hawks as the hunt raged far beneath him. The old birds flew screaming about him in anger. ”

“ All those youths to whom Knud in his time had given instructions, were now grown up and were the most enlightened men in the parish, thoroughly at home in all its transactions and public affairs. It was against these men that Lars now had to contend, and they had borne him a grudge from their childhood up. When of an evening after one of these stormy proceedings he stood on the steps in front of his house, gazing over the parish, he could hear a sound as of distant rumbling thunder rising toward him from the large gards, now lying in the storm. ”

“ My mother, on the other hand, poor woman, had to sell our one bay mule, and that little bit of vineyard down yonder on the high-road, during the time that I was soldiering. The time is gone when the Lady Bertha span; and you no longer give a thought to the time when we used to talk together from window to courtyard, and when you gave me this handkerchief just before I went away, into which God knows how many tears I wept at going so far that the very name of our land seemed forgotten. But now good-by, Mistress Lola, let us square accounts and put an end to our friendship. ”

“ Tord laughed: “Out there on the rocks where father and mother live? Father plunders the wrecks and mother is a witch. When the weather is stormy she rides out to meet the ships on a seal’s back, and those who are washed overboard from the wrecks belong to her.”
“What does she do with them?” asked Berg.
“Oh, a witch always needs corpses. She makes salves of them, or perhaps she eats them. On moonlit nights she sits out in the wildest surf and looks for the eyes and fingers of drowned children.”
“That is horrible!” said Berg. ”

“ And on the evening when the ballet was performed for the first time she fevered with excitement, as if she were to dance in it herself. She lit the two candles, gray with age and dust, that stood one on each side of a plaster cast of Thorwaldsen’s Christ on the bureau, and sat down on her champagne basket, staring into the light. But she couldn’t bear to be alone that evening. All the old unrest of theatrical life came over her. ”

“ Cariolin, Scossi, ran forward and stopped her; all except Cedebonis and Trunfo rose to their feet and surrounded the weeping woman.
“Rubbish! Absurd!” sneered Trunfo from the table.
But the others, all in chorus, exhorted Carolinona to be of good courage. Was she really afraid that Cocco Bertolli would compel her to marry him? Preposterous, if she did not wish to! Disturbances? But were there not the police to keep him in order? Her promise as he lay at the point of death? What promise? Oh, nonsense! He should be made to understand, willy-nilly, that she had but uttered a pious lie. No? ”