The Visionary: Pictures From Nordland

ather or damage to their vessels, were staying at different places on shore, as Martinez was with us. There were also notabilities from the

te, R?st, where some of the gentlemen from the south were staying for the time. It was only a journey of a mile and a half

s, but this time, in order to put up for the night all those

g for me, I have promised myself to be short, and shall thus omit many a feature and

time. While the ladies were dressing upstairs, the gentlemen assembled in an intentionally dimly-lighted room, where they could take a

minister and his ladies, and at l

laces round the great loaded horse-shoe table, that glittered gaily with a compact row of wine bottles, treble-branched candlesticks, high cake-dishes, and, especially up by the place of honour, a perfect heap of ma

t is true, people ate with their knives and knew nothing about silver forks; but on the other hand there was r

eighbours scarcely ventured to whisper to one another, and the young ladies in ball-dresses, who, as if by a magnetic cohesion, were all tog

proposed in succession the healths of the notabilities present in

they had passed over the off

or the absent, among whom, first and foremost, was the "good minister and his family."

that here found its own ground now came to the fore, and the falling hail of jests and witty and amusing sayings-the last generally i

able, that there were a few who could not rise from their chairs, and others who, as a re

Wadel, with his long, dryly comical face, firing off one witticism after another, and at my side whispered the hump-backed clerk Gram, who was famed for his cleverness, and feared for his biting tongue. His sharp remarks upon the different people who sat at the table, grew in ill-nature as he drank, and if his words had been heard, the expression of many a be

ds in the moving room we squeezed past each other, round the table, between the wall and the chairs, in two opposite streams, and thanked our hosts for the dinner. [It is a Norw

d felt that I was lying in a soft eider-down bed. Little by little all that had passed dawned upon my recoll

. It then appeared that it was past two o'clock in the morning, and to the circumstance that I had thus slept six or seven hours in success

ect lazaretto for the same class of fallen after dinner as myself, and among them I noti

spirited gesticulations, that dancing was now g

, shot like lightning through my mind. How I could have forgotten her, though even f

n going on merrily for several hours to the sound of violin, clarionet, and violo

door through which the heat streamed out into the cold passage like a mist, I suffered ver

' dresses touched me, and gradually I began, as far as m

est up among some elderly ladies, in earne

laying cards downstairs; bu

tiful hair of a shade nearly golden, with a large silver pin like a dart run through it, and a light wreath. The lady was taller and fuller in figure than Susanna, but with a certain grace that reminded me of

, which rested confidingly on the shoulder of the evidently happy Martinez. What I saw was only a broad, pure, innocent bro

tall, elegant, distinguished

. When just opposite to me the lady raised her eyes, her glance fell upon me, and a dee

s Sus

ted her beauty had developed wonderfully. The tender seventeen-

top of the room near th

hrough my mind, that probably young Martinez had been winning favour with Susanna the whole evening, since he was now her partner in this particular dance. I noticed how the m

d been lying intoxicated, like a beast, and

o explain to Susanna a new figure which was just going to begin, how he sometimes bent over her, as if whispering confidentially, and how she, from her seat, looked up at h

rown-up woman she now wished forgotten. She might consider that after our agreement about the two trial years, everything between u

began, with a sudden inspiration, to converse eagerly with Merchant R.'s pretty daughter, who

the place where I stood. I picked it up, went up the room, and stiffly handed it to the minister's wife, who-in consequence either of my behaviour at the dinner-table, or of somet

ous, but uncertain expression, as if she could not quite make up her mind what

out my foot, a little ill-naturedly, so that he should trip over it. And I do not quite know how it happened, but the next time Martinez passed, he fell full length on the fl

ook he received in return for his, however, revealed to him, though involuntarily, the whole truth; for he was in the act of rushing at me, when he was unexpectedly sto

denly turned her face to me with a look so beaming with joy, that from de

y conduct for the last hour must have occasioned her; for she had soon seen that I was not intoxicated, and coquetry was a thing too far from her own sincere,

good-natured as in reality he was, he consented to be appeased. His face did grow rather long when, immediately after, Su

he white ball-dress, whom a short while ago I had not reco

ir; my arm was round her waist, and I felt how yieldingly she leant upon me, happy and trusting as a child, as we swayed in the dance. Her forehead was near my lips, a

y invulnerable to the less friendly glances of her mother. It appeared that Susanna was then reprimande

ace, and saw Susanna and Marti

ld childish defiance after reproof; but soon her

ienced, I suddenly felt the oppressive, uneasy sense of terror and misfortune come over me, which general

kingly beautiful corpse, and the green wreath with the small white flowers hung

dark, amid sparks from thousands of lights, g

the arm, and led me out into the cool passage, and from thence into a litt

t I had recovered, he sat down by me on the bed, gentle and f

in order, I suppose, to observe me, he said he had noticed me this evening, from the time I came into the room, and thought that my fanc

of exciting idea was harmful in the highest degree; he had, he gently added, unfortunately had experience of this in the case of my own poor

fancy taking root. And he would say it not only for my own sake, but also for Susanna's, for he was very fond

ent on with a gesture, as if performing a last, decisive operation on the candle, even be regarded in the same light as if a leper married without heeding that he thereby transmitted his disease to his children. I must not, however-here he rose and laid his hand consolingly on my shoulder

serious nod; be could easily see that for the moment I was not i

ss, the death-blow to all

rly. My life's old foreboding of misfortune was now at last confirmed. Susanna had theref

e by little I felt myself with a dull pain die away, as it were, from everything that was dear to me in the world. My body seemed to stiffe

mist, the door opened, and a lady came in. She began hastily to repair with pins before the mirror a re

thing told her that it must be I who lay there, for

ht nor the time to wake me. She stood by me for a moment as if considering, then

my father and the Martinezes had so much to do and our house was not very far, we were to go h

the end of the week. In the meantime, as, early the next day, the minister and his wife were

's words about my position being like that of a leper had throbbed as a boil, growing harder and more painful w

wish to unite her fate to a man who was insane, only because that man wa

acefulness. When all was said and done, it was really the best thing I could think of, to give m

of speaking out decidedly and clearly to her; for

ile the others were out for a walk, that I f

, a lace collar and narrow sleeves with cuffs at the wrists. Her hair was

she bent forward into the light from the stove door, it fell upon her expressive face, while I, in my endeavour t

last, leaning her elbows on her knees, she covered her eyes with her hands

really loved one another in a different way, like brother and sister-she suddenly raised her head in wild defiance, so that I could look straight into her tear-stained face, threw her arms around my neck and forced me down on my knees in front of her. She pressed my head close up to her

iolent, until at last it rose to a desperate, convulsive sobbing, which I could no longer control, and which thoroughly alarmed Susanna; for she hush

willed in her beautiful, agitated face. I must believe, she at last assured me with the quick movement of her head, with which she always emphasised her words, that concerning ourselves she knew a thousand t

Dr. K.-he evidently became more and more an object of hatred to her the longer she discussed him-thought differently from God. Besides, she believed so surely-and her voice here became wonderfully gentle and soft, almost a whisper-that just this, as we two were so fond of one another, would be

would confide everything about our engagement to her father. It ought, both for my sake and hers, to be no longer a secret. Her father was very fond of her, and, if need be, sh

tirely to dispel this idea, she stood upright before me, and asked me, as she looked with passionate eagerness into my face, to say that we still were, and in spite of

warmly and passionately once, twice,

ng nature, had fought the fight for us both and for a right that could not, perhaps,

that could be called chivalrous sacrifice on my side only lay lower than our love, was even simply an unworthy offence to it. In true love the

ing in the stern of our ten-oared boat, together with my father and the two Martinezes, in the

ainst a rather stiff breeze which blew up the Sound, so t

that had passed during this shor

g of such health, happiness, and joy, as only those know to whose lot it has fallen to sleep the sleep of the really happy. And thus it was every night. I

love would become to me a spring of health, be