Captain Mansana and Mother\'s Hands

B >> Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson >> Captain Mansana and Mother\'s Hands

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Here was coquetry, perhaps, but with scarcely a particle of the quality
which singles out first one and then another. Not the faintest hint of
allurement in the voice. There was no sort of enervating tenderness in
that uninterrupted outpouring of health, capacity and joyousness.

This was the reason of her success--be it said to the credit of those
who surrounded her. No one came first, no one was especially
distinguished. They all received their meed, each after his kind.

This unanimous admiration and homage had sprung into existence the
previous autumn, when the cavalry colonel, who had married her mother's
sister, brought her back from Paris. This persistent candidate for the
favour of men and women, who neglected no one except his own wife, had
since the previous autumn had no more pressing or more important duty
than to introduce his beautiful niece into society. He performed this
office on horseback at her side, at balls at her side, at theatres and
concerts at her side; he allowed no one else to take his place. He gave
riding-parties in her honour, and the whole body of cavalry succumbed;
he gave a ball in her honour at which half the assembly fell victims;
he took her to the officers' great banquet, and all the guests were
smitten. As an old courtier he knew every move of the game; she never
appeared under unfavourable circumstances or to no purpose--on this
occasion, every person present had been specially invited.

As to that, they all responded as willingly as possible; but otherwise
they would simply not have known of it, or the duty of the service
might not have allowed them to come, or many of them would have
considered it obtrusive. Now they were there by order; to an officer
the feeling that he is obeying an order adds sensibly to his enjoyment.
Just look at the little general's back, as he kisses her hand, brings
her greetings from his Majesty and gives her the bouquet which he
himself has gathered for her in the morning! Look at his back, I say;
it seems made to be patted and currycombed like a horse's. As he
straightens himself again, he looks as happy in the beams from her eyes
as a stiff-legged dog who sniffs meat under a napkin.

I have said that those present had the feeling, and to an officer it is
an agreeable one, of paying homage to order. That his Majesty himself
had approved of her was a higher consecration yet. In the winter, out
on the ice, he had deigned to fasten on her skates. It is true that she
was not alone in this great distinction, or in becoming a member of the
Royal Skating Club. The same honour was accorded to a great number of
young girls besides. But every cavalry and artillery officer
present--and there were many of them standing by when he knelt to
fasten on her skates--considered it a special distinction offered to
_their_ lady.

Supported by the infantry, they sped after her over the glittering ice,
without pause or stop--the Swedes as well. It needed but little stretch
of fancy to picture her leading a sortie, to see in imagination horses,
artillery, powder waggons, gliding over the mirror-like surface to the
sound of horns, tramping of hoofs, and neighing of horses.

But, if she had presented no other aspect than this, all her beauty,
exceptional as it was, would not have accomplished what we have just
seen.

No, there was more than that. She was not a woman to be seized, caught,
held fast--it was like trying to take burning fire in one's hand. "She
was neither for men nor women," some said of her, and the thought
spurred them on. She eluded those who were in her presence, to the
absent she seemed a meteor; if memory is itself luminous, its glow is
heightened by reflection from others.

This impression was strengthened by certain sayings of hers, some of
which went the rounds.

When the King fastened on her skates he said gallantly: "You have the
most charming little foot." "Yes, from to-day onwards," she replied.

A jovial colonel of artillery had dissipated a fortune on his comrades,
on women, and on himself. "I lay my heart at your feet," he said. "Why,
what would you have left to give away?" she laughed, and gave him her
hand for the polonaise.

She stopped in the polonaise before a young lieutenant, who turned
scarlet. "You are one of those one could die for," he whispered.

She took his arm in a friendly manner. "Well, to live for me would
probably be a bore for both of us."

She once went to the poet-in-ordinary of the regiment, a smart captain,
to offer him a philippine. "Do you wish it?" she asked. "There is one
thing we all wish in respect to you," he answered, "but we can never
manage to say it--what can the reason be?" "To say what?" she asked.
"'I love you.'" "Oh! of course, they know that I should laugh at it,"
she laughed; and offered him the half almond, and from that time they
remained as good friends as ever.

But there were other kinds of sayings of hers which aroused yet more
respect. A discussion was going on one day at the fireside about a
certain gate which was called the "gate of truth"; all who went through
it were _obliged_ to say what they thought, upon which she exclaimed:
"Ah, then I should get to know what I think myself!" One of those
present said that those were exactly the words which the Danish Bishop
Monrad had used when he heard of the gate. "And he was called a
sphinx," added the speaker.

She sat quietly for a little while, became paler and paler, and then
got up. Some time after she was found in an adjoining room weeping.

A learned man said at the dinner-table: "Those who are destined for
something great know it from childhood." "Yes, but they know not for
what!" she rejoined quickly. But then she became embarrassed. She tried
to make a better thing of it, and said: "Some know it, and others
don't," and then she became more abashed, and her embarrassment gave
her an irresistible charm. People like to be conscious of the presence
of lofty yearnings, even though they don't betray themselves.

In a confidential circle one evening people were talking of a young
widow. "She is rejuvenating herself in a new love," said one.

"No, she is rather taking up a mission, a self-sacrificing mission,"
said another, who maintained that he knew her better.

"Well, I don't care which it is, provided she is devoting herself to
something," said the first. "It is in devotion to something outside
oneself that salvation is found--call it rejuvenation or what you
will."

She had been listening to this. At first she was indifferent, then she
pricked up her ears, and finally her attention became riveted. Then she
broke out: "No, the point is _not_ to devote oneself." No one replied;
it made a strange impression. Had anything happened, or was it a
presentiment? Or was she thinking of something special, which no one
present knew anything about? Or of something great for the sake of
which it was worth waiting?

That which seems a little mysterious impresses people's minds. The
better principled, the higher natured among the officers conceived
respect for her. The feeling spread, and bore fruit. With disciplined
wills, nothing takes root more quickly than respect.

There were certainly some who saw in her "devil take me!" the finest
thoroughbred in Norway. Again there were those who would "by all the
powers!" have given their hope of salvation for--I dare not say for
what. But there were also those who thought of the times of chivalry
and saw in their mind's eye the token the lady fastened on her true
knight's breast as a consecration. A glance, a word from her, a dance
with her, was the token. Her glory fell upon them, there was something
nobler and more beautiful in them from that moment.

How many there were who tried to draw her from memory! for she would
not be photographed. It became a common pastime to draw her profile;
some attained the greatest proficiency in the art. With a broomhandle
in the snow, with a match in cigar ashes, with skates on the ice.

On the whole, it certainly was to the credit of the regiment that she
should be so universally and unprecedentedly admired. Her uncle
naturally believed that he was the cause of it, but the truth was that
the way he advertised her would have spoiled the whole thing for any
one else. She could endure the advertisement. And now he had been put
aside, without himself understanding how it had happened. He, who on
this day had organised the whole assembly, was standing quivering with
eagerness to be abreast of the situation; but he could not. It all went
on over his head, as though on the second storey. He spurred himself up
with exaggerated gaiety, with abnormal energy, but he fell back, became
superfluous, became actually in the way. His wife laughed openly at
him; he, who when he was abroad had hidden his wedding-ring in his
pocket, and was ready to do the same thing again, was left lying in a
pocket himself, like an empty cigar-case.

His wife was enchanted. From the beginning she had been alarmed when
his miracle of a niece was brought into the house. The ostentatious
partiality with which he introduced her into society produced results
which went beyond his previsions. The crowd of worshippers kept growing
greater and denser; after the episode with the King the enthusiasm rose
to a kind of frenzy for a time. The rate of speed grew with the number;
the colonel struggled to keep up like a broken-winded horse.

The bell rings a second time, there is a movement in the crowd, renewed
clanking of spurs and swords, waving of hands, vociferous greetings.
The heroine of the hour saluted, waved farewell for the thousandth
time, gay words were spoken, smiles and bows were rapidly dispensed
with cheerful grace. She was quite equal to the situation! The large,
checked travelling dress, the light hat with the veil now hanging down
from it, now floating in the wind, the haughty poise of the head, the
perfect figure, all this stood in the sunshine of the homage round her.
Surely it was into a golden carriage drawn by white doves that she was
stepping? For the moment, it was no farther than to her mother's side
at the open carriage-door, whence she smiled down to the colonel on one
side, the general on the other, the ladies round them. Farther back
still her eyes fell on all the uplifted moustaches, the light ones, the
brown, the black, the dyed, the thin moustaches, the thick, the curved,
and the inane, the drooping, the smartly curled. Among that melancholy
and shaggy crowd a few clean-shaven faces looked like those of Swedish
tenors.

"I hope you will have a pleasant journey," said the old general. The
gallant horseman was too discreet to try to say anything more marked.
"Thank you for the pleasure you have given us this winter, my girl!" It
was the colonel's shrill voice. The bystanders should see what a
fatherly comrade he could be. "Yes, I've often pitied you this winter,
uncle," was the answer he received. "Now you must have a thorough rest
in the summer!"

The colonel's wife laughed. It was the signal that all the rest must
laugh.

The faces turned up towards her--most of them honest, good-natured,
cheerful--almost every one of them reminded her of some amusing moment;
an autumn and winter of riding-parties, skating, snow-shoeing, drives,
balls, dinners, concerts; a wild dance over shining ice and drifting
snow, or through a sea of light and music mingled with the ring of
glasses, with laughter and animated talk. Not one of her recollections
had anything unpleasant about it. All stood out clear, brilliant as a
parade of cavalry. A few proposals, amongst others some initiated by
her worthy uncle, had vanished like a crowd of motes. She felt a
grateful happiness for what she had experienced, for every one's
goodness, till the very last moment. It overwhelmed her, it sparkled in
her eyes, it shone in her eager manner, it was communicated to all
those who stood beneath, and to the very flowers she held. But a
feeling of having received too much, far too much, was there the whole
time. Through it all a dread of future emptiness that gave her an
unendurable pang. If only it were over!

The tickets were looked at, the doors shut, she came forward again to
the open window. She held the flowers in one hand, her handkerchief in
the other; she was crying. The youthful figure stood in the window as
though in a frame, her head, with the light hat and veil, leaning out
of it. Why in all the world was such a picture not painted?

Discipline forbade that any one should press forward so long as the
general, the colonel, and the ladies formed a circle; each one remained
in his place. Since those near the window didn't speak, all were
silent. They saw her weeping, saw her bosom heave. _She_ saw them
as in a mist, and it all became painful to her. Could the whole thing
be real?

All of a sudden her tears were dried. A compassionate soul beneath, who
also felt the painfulness of the situation, asked whether they would
reach home to-day, to which she eagerly answered, "Yes." Then she
remembered her mother and made room for her at her side, but her mother
would not come forward. There was even something in the mother's eyes
which as she met them chilled and frightened her. She forgot it, for
the whistle took the train away from the crowd, the whole circle fell
back a step or two. Greetings were exchanged with increased cordiality,
her handkerchief waved, the warmth in her eyes came back. They flashed
again. All that could be seen of her called greetings to them, and they
to her, as they followed. Now the lieutenants and all the young men
were the foremost! Now feelings of a different sort found a different
expression. The clashing of swords and spurs, the colours of the
uniforms, the waving of arms, the tramping of feet made her dizzy. With
her body leaning far out she reached her arms to them as they did to
her; but the speed soon became too great, a few reckless enthusiasts
still ran along, the rest remained behind in a cloud of steam, and
lamented. Her handkerchief was still visible like a dove against a dark
sky.

As she drew back she felt an aching void, but she remembered her
mother's eyes; had they the same look in them? Yes.

So she tried to appear as though she were not excited or agitated. She
took her hat off and put it above her. But her mother's eyes had
awakened the reaction which was latent in herself, conflicting feelings
surged within her; she tried to conceal them, tried to recover herself,
then threw herself down, turned her face away, and lay full length on
the seat. A little while after, her mother heard her crying; she saw it
too, from the heaving of her back.

Presently the daughter felt the mother's gloveless hand under her head.
She was pushing a cushion underneath it. This did her good, merely to
feel that her mother wanted her to sleep. Yes, she longed terribly to
sleep. And in a few minutes she slept.

PART II

The river cut its way through the landscape in long curves. From the
south bow window in the hotel, the mother and daughter followed its
course through tangled underwood and birch forest; sometimes it
disappeared, and then shone out again, and at last became fully
visible. There was a great deal of traffic going on, the hum of it
reached their ears.

Down at the station, loaded trucks were being wheeled about. Behind the
hotel were the works, the sawmill; smothered thuds and blows were
heard, and more faintly the roar of the waterfall; over everything else
the shrill sound of the planks as the saw went through them. This was
one of the great timber districts; the pine-trees darkened the heights
as far as one could see, and that was very far, for the valley was
broad and straight.

"Dear, it is nearly seven o'clock. What has become of the horses?"

"I had thought of sleeping here to-night, and not starting till
to-morrow morning."

"Sleep here, mother?" She turned towards her mother with a look of
surprise.

"I want very much to talk to you this evening."

The daughter recognised in her mother's eyes the same expression she
had seen there at the station at Christiania: and she flushed. Then she
turned back again into the room.

"Yes, suppose we take a walk." The mother came and put her arm round
her neck.

Shortly after they were down by the river. It was between lights, and
the softened hues of plain and ridge gave one a feeling of uncertainty.

A perfumed air was wafted from wood and meadow, and the rush of the
river rose fiercely to their ears.

"It was of your father I wished to speak."

"My father?"

The daughter tried to stop her, but the mother went on.

"It was here I first saw him. Did you never hear his name mentioned in
Christiania?"

"No." A tolerably long silence followed the "No."

"If I have never spoken of him freely, I had my reasons, Magne. You
shall hear them now. For now I can tell you everything; I have not been
able to do so before."

She waited for the daughter to make some rejoinder; but she made none.

The mother turned half round and pointed up towards the station, that
is, towards the house which stood beside it.

"Can you see that broad roof there, to the right of the hotel? There
are the assembly rooms, the library, and the rest. Your father has the
credit of it; he gave all the timber. Well, it was there I first saw
him, or rather from there I first saw him. I sat among the people who
were going to hear him; the whole of the ground-floor is one single
room with broad sloping galleries, and it is built after the American
fashion; you know that your father went over there when he had finished
his studies. Come, now, let us go on farther; I love this path by the
riverside. I walked along it with your father just six weeks to the
hour and day after I had first seen him, and by that time we were
married."

"I know."

"You also know that I was maid of honour to the Queen when I came here.
She intended going farther out towards the fjord, but first we were to
spend a few days here among the mountains.

"We came here one Saturday afternoon (as you and I have to-day) and
remained over Sunday. There was a great crowd of people on Sunday to
see the Queen; they knew she was to go to church. In the afternoon
they all thronged to the assembly rooms to hear your father speak.
I had seen the announcement of it in the hotel. The Queen read it
too; I stood at her side and said, 'I do so terribly want to go.'
'Yes, go,' she answered, 'but you must be escorted by one of the
gentlemen-in-waiting.' 'Here among the peasants!' I asked, and I
took measures to go alone.

"I found a seat under the gallery, but near a large window, from which
I could see a long way down the road. And as Karl Mander didn't come at
the right time (he very seldom did) all necks were stretched to get a
glimpse of him on the road; so I saw that he was to come from that
direction. I looked, too, with the rest, and a long way off there were
three men visible, walking arm-in-arm, one tall and two smaller, the
tallest in the middle. I have very good sight, and thought at once that
he could not be one of those, for they had been having too festive a
time. They happened to stand still just at the moment, then they came
along wavering, first to the right, then to the left. People began to
whisper and titter. As the three drew nearer I felt instinctively that
the tall one was Karl Mander, and felt ashamed."

"Was he drunk?"

"Yes, he was, and the others as well; and very drunk too, both the
doctor and the lawyer; and the worst of it was, they were neither of
them his friends or partisans. It was a trick they had played on him,
for that was what people were in the habit of doing. They had
undertaken to make him drunk; but they had become still more drunk
themselves."

"How horrible, mother!" She wanted to stop; but the mother went on.

"Yes. I had read all kinds of things about Karl Mander--but it was a
different thing to see him."

"Were you not afraid?"

"Yes. It was disgusting. But when they came near enough for me to
distinguish their faces, and all the people in the crowd who could see
them laughed aloud, I shook off my fear; and when they came quite
close, Karl Mander appeared to me such a marvel that I absolutely
delighted in him. I admit it."

"How a marvel?"

"He was the embodiment of beaming joy! Picture a whole brigade of
cavalry in the maddest gallop, you would not get such a sense of
exuberant delight! The powerful figure with the mighty head held these
two little men, one under each arm, as though he were dragging along
two poachers. And as he did so he laughed and shouted like a boisterous
child. He looked as kindly and gladsome as the longest day in the year
up at the North Pole. As for the others who had set themselves to make
him tipsy--for, as I have told you, it was the fashionable amusement at
that time to make Karl Mander drunk--he brought them alongside in
triumph. He was tremendously proud of it. He was tall and
broad-shouldered, in his light checked woollen suit, which was very
thin and fine; for he could not endure heat, he was foremost among the
worshippers of cold water, and bathed in it, even when he had to break
the ice. He held his hat, which was a soft one and could be folded up,
in his left hand. That was how he was always seen; he never wore his
hat at home, and out of doors he carried it in his hand.

"A great bushy head of hair, extraordinarily thick and brown; which at
this moment was falling over the lofty brow--(yes, your brow is like
his)--and then the beard! I have never seen so beautiful a beard. It
was of a light colour and very thick, but the chief peculiarity of it
was its delicate curliness. It was positively beautiful in itself--as a
beard seldom is.

"And then those deep shining eyes--yours are _something_ like
them--and the clearly cut curve of the nose! He was a gentleman."

"Was he?"

"Heaven! haven't I managed to give you that impression?"

"Yes, yes--but others have----" She was silent, and the mother paused.

"Magne! I have not been able, I have not wished, to shield you from all
this. As long as you were a child, a young girl, I could not explain
everything to you exactly as it was. It would also have led you to try
to defend that which you had not yet the power to defend, and that
would have done you harm. And there was something else besides.

"But now you shall know it. Since your childhood I have never given you
any advice which did not come from your father. You never saw him, but
all the same I can say that you have never seen nor heard anything but
him. Through me, you understand!"

"How so, mother?"

"Well, we are coming to that. Now I must make you understand how I came
to marry him."

"Yes, dear!"

"He stood there on the platform and drank down water, glass after
glass. He drank the entire contents of the water-bottle and called for
more. The people laughed, and he laughed. He held the water-bottle and
glass in a drunken grasp, and he looked up and round him, as though he
was not properly conscious of himself or of us. And he laughed. But
through it all I saw the godlike in him.

"A free man's open, joyous spirit, dear; unruffled self-reliance in
reaching out for that which he needed. You should have seen his firm,
capable hands, hardened by toil. And his face--the face of a man who
overflows with all good gifts."

"What did people say?"

"They knew him, they were only amused. And he was amused. When he began
to speak he had his tongue completely under control. It seemed to me
that the voice was unnatural, it sounded as though it came from inward
depths. But it was his natural voice. He had hardly begun when
something happened. A crowd of ladies and gentlemen strolled by, among
them some of the Queen's suite. We could see them from our place near
the window, and he saw them too; we saw that they pointed in.

"He stopped short, turned quite pale, and drew a breath so deep that we
all heard it. Then he drank more water. It was long before he could go
on speaking. They all looked at him, some whispered among themselves.
Up to now he had spoken like a great machine which gives the first
irregular beats with pauses between. But now he rose, and when he began
to speak again he was sober. I tell you he was absolutely sober. Let me
tell you by degrees, or you won't understand.

"His speech--do you know to what it can be compared? A fugue of Bach's.
There was something fulminating but abundant, uninterruptedly abundant,
and often so gentle; but there was this great difference, that he often
groped for a word, changed it, altered it again, and yet it was
incessant, and reverberant in spite of it all--that was the wonderful
part of it. An irresistible reckless eagerness and haste. One wondered
if there could be more, and there was always more, and nearly always
something extraordinary.

"I had often heard people described as being possessed by some force
of nature, but I had never seen it. Least of all at the Court, where
marked personality is rare. I was at last face to face with one. The
man who stood there was _obliged_ to speak--in the same way, probably,
as at a generous table he was _obliged_ to drink. I knew that he
managed his two farms, and worked on them himself when he had time, and
I imagined that I could see the giant finding relaxation in the work;
but I saw clearly that his mind would work on as actively all the same,
and that head and hands would vie with each other which should weary
first.

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