Strife and Peace
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Fredrika Bremer >> Strife and Peace
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There were this year among the visitors at the watering-place of
Gustafsberg, which lay near to Uddevalla, a Norwegian Colonel and his
lady. He was lame from a paralytic stroke, and had lost the use of his
speech and of his hands. He was a large man, of a fierce, stern
exterior; and although he seemed to endure nobody near him but his wife,
and perpetually demanded her care, still it was evidently not out of
love. And although his wife devoted herself unweariedly and
self-denyingly to his service, still this evidently was not from love
either, but from some other extraordinary power. Her own health was
visibly deeply affected, and violent spasms often attacked her breast;
but night or day, whenever it was his will to rise, it was her patient,
bowed neck around which his arm was laid. She stood by his side, and
supported him in the cold shower-bath, which was intended to re-awaken
his dormant power of life, at the same time that it destroyed hers. She
was ever there, always firm and active, seldom speaking, and never
complaining. By the painful contraction of her countenance alone, and by
the peculiarity of laying her hand upon her heart, it could be seen that
she suffered. Susanna had an opportunity of seeing all this, and
admiration and sympathy filled her breast. Before long she was fortunate
enough to assist the noble lady, to offer to her her strong youthful arm
as support, and to watch over the sick man when his wife was compelled
to close her eyes from fatigue. And fortunately the invalid endured her.
Susanna was witness of the last horrible scenes by the death-bed of the
Colonel. He seemed to make violent efforts to say something, but--he
could not. Then he made signs that he wished to write something; but his
fingers could not hold the pen. Then presented itself a horrible
disquiet on his distorted features. With that his wife bowed herself
over him, and with an expression of the greatest anxiety, seized one of
his hands and whispered--"Give me only a sign, as answer! Tell me! Tell
me! does he yet live?"
The sick man riveted upon her a strong gaze, and--bowed his head. Was
this an assenting answer, or was it the hand of death which forbad an
answer? No one could tell, for he never again raised his head. It was
his last movement.
For many days afterwards a quick succession of spasmodic attacks seemed
to threaten the widowed lady with approaching death. Susanna watched
incessantly beside her, and felt herself happy in being able to watch
over her and to serve her. Susanna had conceived an almost passionate
devotion for Mrs. Astrid; such as young girls often feel for elderly,
distinguished women, to whom they look up as to the ideal of their sex.
And when Mrs. Astrid returned to Norway, Susanna kissed with tears her
little Hulda, but yet felt herself happy to follow such a mistress, and
to serve her in the rural solitude to which she betook herself. Susanna
journeyed to the foreign country, but retained deep in her heart her
little Hulda and her life's plan.
MRS. ASTRID.
Did ye but feel, O stars! who see
The whole earth's silent misery,
Then never would your glances rest
With such calm radiance on her breast.
HENR WERGELAND.
As Susanna withdrew from Harald, and from the water of discord, she was
quite in an excited and bad temper; but as soon however as she
approached the wing of the house which Mrs. Astrid inhabited, she became
calmer. She looked up to her window, and saw there her noble but gloomy
profile. It was bent down, and her head seemed as it were depressed by
dark thoughts. At this sight, Susanna forgot all her own ill humour.
"Oh!" sighed she, "if I could only make her happier!"
This was Susanna's daily subject of thought, but it became to her every
day a darker riddle. Mrs. Astrid appeared to be indifferent to
everything around her here. Never did she give an order about anything
in the house, but let Susanna scold there and govern just as she would.
Susanna took all the trouble she could to provide the table of her
mistress with everything good and delicious which lay in her power; but
to her despair the lady ate next to nothing, and never appeared to
notice whether it was prepared well or ill.
Now before Susanna went into the house, she gathered several of the most
beautiful flowers which the autumn frost had spared, made a nosegay of
them, and with these in her hand stept softly into Mrs. Astrid's room.
"Bowed with grief," is the expression which describes Mrs. Astrid's
whole being. The sickly paleness of her noble countenance, the depressed
seldom-raised eyelids, the inanimate languor of her movements, the
gloomy indifference in which her soul seemed to be wrapped,--like her
body in its black mourning habiliments, when she sate for hours in her
easy-chair, often without occupation, the head bowed down upon the
breast; all this indicated a soul which was severely fettered by long
suffering.
Suffering in the north has its own peculiar character. In the south it
burns and consumes. In the north it kills slowly; it freezes, it
petrifies by degrees. This has been acknowledged for untold ages, when
our forefathers sought for images of that which they felt to be the most
terrible in life; thus originated the fable of the subterranean dwelling
of Hela, of the terrors of the shore of corpses--in one word, the "Hell
of the North, with its infinite, treeless wildernesses; with cold,
darkness, mist, clammy rivers, chill, distilling poison, cities
resembling clouds filled with rain, feetless hobgoblins," and so on.
In the Grecian Tartarian dance of the Furies there is life and wild
strength, there is in its madness a certain intoxication which deprives
it of its feeling of deep misery. The heart revolts not so much from
these pictures of terror, as from the cold, clammy, dripping ones which
the chill north exhibits--ah! not alone in poetry.
As Susanna entered the apartment of Mrs. Astrid, she found her sitting,
as usual, sunk in deep melancholy. Upon a table before her lay paper and
pens, and a book, in which she appeared to have been reading. It was the
Bible; it lay open at the book of Job, and the following passages were
underlined:
My soul is weary of my life, for my days are vanity.
Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.
Mrs. Astrid's eyes were riveted upon these last words, as Susanna
softly, and with a warm heart, approached her, and with a cordial "Ah!
be so good," presented to her the nosegay.
The lady looked up at the flowers, and an expression of pain passed over
her countenance as she turned away her head and said, "They are
beautiful, but keep them, Susanna, they are painful to my eyes."
She resumed her former position, and Susanna, much troubled, drew back;
after a short silence, however, she again ventured to raise her voice,
and said, "We have got to-day a beautiful salmon-trout, will you not,
Mrs. Astrid, have it for dinner? Perhaps with egg-sauce, and perhaps I
might roast a duck, or a chicken----"
"Do whatever you like, Susanna," said the lady, interrupting her, and
with indifference. But there was something so sorrowful in this
indifference, that Susanna, who had again approached her, could not
contain herself; she quickly threw herself before her mistress, clasped
her knees, and said:
"Ah, if I could only do something to please my lady; if I could only do
something."
But Susanna's warm glance, beaming with devotion, met one so dark, that
she involuntarily started back.
"Susanna," said Mrs. Astrid, as with gloomy seriousness she laid her
hand upon her shoulder and gently put her back, "gratify me in one
thing, attach not thyself to me. It will not lead to good. I have no
attachment to give--my heart is dead! Go, my child," continued she more
kindly, "go, and do not trouble thyself about me. My wish, the only good
thing for me, is to be alone."
Susanna went now, her heart filled with the most painful feelings. "Not
trouble myself about her!" said she to herself, as she wiped away a
tear; "not trouble myself about her, as if that were so easy."
After Susanna was gone, Mrs. Astrid threw a melancholy glance upon the
papers which lay before her. She seized the pen, and laid it down again.
She seemed to shudder at the thought of using it; at length she overcame
herself, and wrote the following letter:
"You wish that I should write to you. I write for that reason; but
what--what shall I say to you? My thanks for your letter, my paternal
friend, the teacher of my youth; thanks that you wish to strengthen and
elevate my soul. But I am old, bowed down, wearied, embittered--there
dwells no strength, no living word more in my breast. My friend, it is
too late--too late!
"You would raise my glance to heaven; but what is the glory of the sun
to the eye that--sees no longer? What is the power of music to the deaf
ear? What is all that is beautiful, all that is good in the world, to
the heart that is dead, that is turned to stone in a long, severe
captivity? Oh, my friend, I am unworthy of your consolation, of your
refreshing words. My soul raises itself against them, and throws them
from herself as 'words, words, words,' which have sounded beautifully
and grandly for thousands of years, whilst thousands of souls are
inconsolably speechless.
"Hope? I have hoped so long. I have already said to myself so long, 'a
better day comes! The path of duty conducts to the home of peace and
light, be the way ever so full of thorns. Go only steadfastly forward,
weary pilgrim, go, go, and thou wilt come to the holy land!' And I have
gone--I have gone on through the long, weary day, for above thirty
years; but the way stretches itself out farther and farther--my hopes
have withered, have died away, the one after the other;--I see now no
goal, none, but the grave! Love, love! Ah, if you knew what an
inexpressibly bitter feeling this word awakens in me! Have I not loved,
loved intensely? And what fruit has my love borne? It has broken my
heart, and has brought unhappiness to those whom I loved. It is in vain
that you would combat a belief which has taken deep root in me. I
believe that there are human beings who are born and pre-ordained to
misfortune, and who communicate misfortune to all who approach them, and
_I believe that I belong to these_. Let me, therefore, fly from my kind,
fly from every feeling which binds me to them. Why should I occasion
more mischief than I have already done?
"Why do you desire me to write? I wish not to pour my bitterness into
the heart of another; I wish to grieve no one, and--what have I now
done?
"There is a silent combat which goes through the world, which is fought
out in the reserved human heart, and at times--fearfully! It is the
combat with evil and bitter thoughts. They are such thoughts as
sometimes take expression, expression written in fire and blood. Then
are they read before the judgment-seat and condemned. In many human
hearts, however, they rage silently for long years; then are undermined
by degrees, health, temper, love, faith, faith in life and faith in--a
good God. With this sinks everything.
"Could I believe that my devoted, true pilgrimage by the side of a
husband whom I once so tenderly loved, and for whose sake I dragged on
life in the fortress of which he was the commander, in comparison of
which the life of the condemned criminal is joy; whom I followed
faithfully, though I no longer loved him, because it was needful to him;
because, without me, he would have been given over to dark
spirits--followed, because right and duty demanded it; because I had
promised it before God--Oh! could I believe that this fidelity had
operated beneficially--that my endeavours had borne any fruit--I should
not then, as now, ask 'why was I born? why have I lived?' But nothing,
nothing!
"Could I think that on the other side of the grave I should meet the
gentle loving look of my only sister--would I gladly die. But what
should I reply to her, if she asked after her child of sorrow? How would
she look upon the unfaithful protectress?
"Oh, my friend! My misfortune has nothing in common with that of
romances, nothing with that of which most the deep shades only serve to
set off the most beautiful lights. It is a wearisome winter twilight;
which only conducts to a deeper night. And am I alone in this condition?
Open the pages of history, look around you in the present day, and you
will see a thousand-fold sufferings, unmerited sufferings, which, after
a long agony lead--to despair. But another, a happier life! Only
consolation, only hope, only true point of light in the darkness of
earthly existence!--no, no! I will not abandon thee! I will trust in
thee; and in this belief will be silenced the murmurings which so often
arise against the Creator of the world.
"I am ill, and do not believe that I shall live over this winter.
Breathing is difficult to me; and perhaps the inexpressible heaviness
which burdens me may contribute to this torment. When I sit up sleepless
in my bed through the long nights, and see the night in myself, behind
me and before me, then dark, horrible phantasies surround me, and I
often think that insanity, with ashy cheeks, stony and rigid gaze,
approaches me, will darken my reason and bewilder my mind. How can I
wish to live? When it is evening, I wish it were morning; and when it is
morning, I wish that the day was over, and that it were again evening.
Every hour is to me a burden and a torment.
"For this cause, my friend, pray God for me that I may soon die!
Farewell! Perhaps I may write no more. But my last clear thought will be
for you. Forgive the impatience, the bitterness, which shows itself in
this letter. Pray for me, my friend and teacher, pray that I may be able
to compose myself, and to pray yet before I die!"
NEW CONTENTIONS.
We're living a peculiar life,
With serious words and serious strife.
MUNCH.
Whilst we leave the pale Mrs. Astrid alone with her dark thoughts, we
are led by certain extraordinary discords to look around in
THE BREWHOUSE.
Harald found himself there for the purpose of tasting the new beer which
Susanna had brewed; but before he had swallowed down a good draught, he
said, with a horrible grimace, "It is good for nothing--good for nothing
at all!"
Somewhat excited, Susanna made reply, "Perhaps you will also assert that
Baroness Rosenhjelm's brewing-recipe is good for nothing!"
"That I assert decidedly. Does not she give coffee-parties? And a
coffee-bibber is always a bad housewife; and as Baroness Rosenhjelm is a
coffee-bibber, therefore----"
"I must tell you," interrupted Susanna, vehemently, "that it is
unbecoming and profane of you to talk in this way of such an excellent
lady, and a person of such high rank!"
"High! How high may she be?"
"A deal higher than you are, or ever can be, that I can assure you!"
"Higher than me! then of a certainty she goes on stilts. Now, I must say
that is the very tip-top of gentility and politeness. One may forgive a
lady giving coffee-parties, and decorating and dressing herself up, but
to go on stilts, only on purpose to be higher than other folks, and to
be able to look over their heads, that is coming it strong over us. How
can such a high person ever come down low enough to brew good beer? But
a Swedish woman can never brew good beer, for----"
"She will not brew a single drop for you abominable Norwegians, for you
have neither reason, nor understanding, nor taste, nor----"
Out of the brewhouse flew Susanna, in the highest indignation, throwing
down a glass of beer which Harald had poured out during the contention
for her, but which now would have gone right over if he had not saved it
by a spring.
Towards the evening of the same day we see the contending parties again
met in
THE GARRET.
"Are you yet angry?" asked Harald, jokingly, as he stretched in his head
through the garret-door, where Susanna was sitting upon a flour-tub, as
on a throne, with all the importance and dignity of a store-room queen,
holding in her hand a sceptre of the world-famous sweet herbs--thyme,
marjoram, and basil, which she was separating into little bundles,
whilst she cast a searching glance around her well-ordered kingdom.
The bread-chests were heaped up, for she had just baked oaten-bread;
bacon-sausages and hams hung full of gravy, from the roof, as well as
great bundles of dried fish; little bags full of all kinds of vegetables
stood in their appointed places, and so on.
Harald looked also around the garret, and truly with the eye of a
connoisseur, and said, although he had yet received no answer to his
question--
"It is certain that I never saw a better provided or better arranged
store-room!"
Susanna would not exhibit one gleam of the pleasure she felt at this
praise.
"But," continued Harald, "you must confess that it does not require so
very much skill to preserve the store-room and cellar well supplied in a
country so rich in all the good things of life as our Norway--
Well-beloved land, with heaven-high mountains,
Fruit-bearing valleys, and fish-giving shores!"
"Fish also have we, thank God, in Sweden," replied Susanna, drily.
"Oh, but not to compare with our fish! Or would you seriously set your
perch and carp against our mackerel, herrings, haddocks, flounders, and
all our unparalleled quantities of fish?"
"All your Norwegian kind of fish I would give for one honest Swedish
pike."
"A pike! Is there then in Sweden really nothing but pike?"
"In Sweden there are all kinds of fish that there are in Norway, and a
great deal bigger and fatter."
"Yes, then they come from our coasts. We take what we want, and that
which remains we let swim to Sweden, that down there they may have
somewhat also. But I have forgotten that I myself am going a-fishing,
and will catch little fishes, great fishes, a deal of fish. Adieu,
Mamsel Susanna. I shall soon come back with fish."
"You had best stop with your Norwegian fishes," cried Susanna after him.
But Harald did not stop with the fishes. On the morrow we see him
following Susanna into
THE DAIRY.
"I see that we are going to have to-day for dinner onion-milk, one of
our most delicious national dishes, and my favourite eating."
"Usch! One gets quite stupid and sleepy when one only thinks on your
national dishes. And still more horrible than your onion-milk, and more
unnatural too, is your fruit-soup with little herrings."
"Fruit-soup with little herrings! Nay, that is the most superexcellent
food on the earth, a food which I might call a truly Christian dish."
"And I might call it a heathenish dish, which no true Christian man
could eat."
"From untold ages it has been eaten by free Norwegian men in the
beautiful valleys of Norway."
"That proves that you free Norwegians are still heathens."
"I can prove to you that the Norwegians were a Christian people before
the Swedes."
"That you may prove as much as you like, but I shall not believe it."
"But I will show it to you in print."
"Then I shall be certain that it is a misprint."
Harald laughed, and said something about the impossibility of disputing
with a Swedish woman. Should now anybody wish to know how it happens
that one finds Harald so continually in Susanna's company in the
brewhouse, in the store-room, in the dairy, we can only reply that he
must be a great lover of beer, and flour, and milk, or of a certain
spice in the every-day soup of life, called bantering.
Mrs. Astrid always breakfasted in her own room, but dined with Harald
and Susanna, and saw them often for an hour in the evening. Often during
dinner did the contention about Norway and Sweden break out; for the
slightest occasion was sufficient to make the burgomaster's daughter
throw herself blindly into the strife for fatherland; and, strange
enough, Mrs. Astrid herself sometimes seemed to find pleasure in
exciting the contest, as she brought upon the carpet one question or
another, as--
"I should like to know whether cauliflower is better in Norway or in
Sweden?" or, "I should like to know whether the corn is better in Sweden
or in Norway?"
"Quite certainly in Norway," said Harald.
"Quite decidedly in Sweden," cried Susanna. And vegetables, and fish,
and the coinage, and measures and weights, were all handled and
contended for in this way.
Of the corn in Norway, Susanna said, "I have not seen upon this whole
estate one single straw which may bear a comparison with that which I
have seen in Sweden."
"The cause of that," said Harald, "is because you saw here good corn for
the first time."
Of the Norwegian weights, Susanna said, "I never know what I am about
with your absurd, nasty Norwegian weights."
"They are heavier than the Swedish," replied Harald.
Whenever Susanna became right vehement and right angry, then--it is
shocking to say it--Harald laughed with his whole heart, and at times a
faint smile brightened also Mrs. Astrid's pale face, but it resembled
the gleam of sunshine which breaks forth in a dark November sky, only to
be immediately concealed behind clouds.
Susanna never thought in the least, on these occasions, of putting the
bridle on the Barbra temper. She considered it as a holy duty to defend
the fatherland in this manner.
But the spirit of contention did not always reign between Harald and
Susanna. At intervals the spirit of peace also turned towards them,
although as a timid dove, which is always ready soon to fly away hence.
When Susanna spoke, as she often did, of that which lived in the inmost
of her heart; of her love to her little sister, and the recollections of
their being together; of her longings to see her again, and to be able
to live for her as a mother for her child,--then listened Harald ever
silently and attentively. No jeering smile nor word came to disturb
these pure images in Susanna's soul. And how limningly did Susanna
describe the little Hulda's beauty; the little white child, as soft as
cotton-wool, the pious blue eyes, the white little teeth, which glanced
out whenever she laughed like bright sunshine, which then lay spread
over her whole countenance; and the golden locks which hung so
beautifully over forehead and shoulders, the little pretty hands, and
temper and heart lively, good, affectionate! Oh! she was in short an
angel of God! The little chamber, which Susanna inhabited with her
little Hulda, and which she herself had changed from an unused
lumber-room into a pretty chamber, and whose walls she herself painted,
she painted now from memory yet once more for Harald; and the bed of the
little Hulda was surrounded with a light-blue muslin curtain, and how a
sunbeam stole into the chamber in the morning, in order to shine on the
pillow of the child, and to kiss her little curly head. How roguish was
the little one when Susanna came in late at night to go to bed, and cast
her first glance on the bed in which her darling lay. But she saw her
not, for Hulda drew her little head under the coverlet to hide herself
from her sister. Susanna then would pretend to seek for the little one;
but she needed only to say with an anxious voice, "where--ah, where is
my little Hulda?" in order to decoy forth the head of the little one, to
see her arms stretched out, and to hear her say, "here I am, Sanna! here
is thy little Hulda!" And she had then her little darling in her arms,
and pressed her to her heart; then was Susanna happy, and forgot all the
cares and the fatigues of the day.
At the remembrance of these hours Susanna's tears often flowed, and
prevented her remarking the tearful glow which sometimes lit up Harald's
eyes.
Harald, however, had also his relations; not, it is true, of so tender a
nature, but yet interesting enough to lay claim to all Susanna's
attention, and to give us occasion to commence a new chapter.
EVENING HOURS.
I like the life, where rule and line appeareth,
In the mill's clapping and the hammer's blow;
I give to him the path who burthens beareth,
He worketh for a useful end I know.
But he, who for the klip-klap never heareth
The call of bells to feeling's holiday--
Hath but sham-life, mechanically moving,
Soul-less he is, unconscious and unloving.
Fly agile arrow, rattling in thy speeding
Over the busy emmet's roof of clay,
And waken spiritual life!
FOSS.
Harald related willingly, and related uncommonly well;--an entertaining
and a happy gift, which one often meets with in Norway among all
classes, both in men and women, and which they appear to have inherited
from their ancestors the Scalds; and besides this, he was well
acquainted with the natural wonders and legends of the mountain region.
And it is precisely in mountain regions where the most beautiful
blossoms of the people's poetry have sprung as if from her heart. The
ages of the Sagas and the heathens have left behind their giant traces.
River and mountain have their traditions of spectres and
transformations; giant "cauldrons" resound in the mountains, and
monumental stones are erected over warriors, who "buckled on their
belts," and fell in single combat. From Hallingdal went forth the
national Polska (the Halling), and only the Hardanger-fela (the
Hallingdal fiddle) can rightly give its wild, extraordinary melody. Most
beautiful are the flowers of remembrance which the Christian antiquity
exhibits, and the eternal snow upon the crowns of the ancient mountains
is not more imperishable than these innocent roses at their feet. So
long as Gausta stands, and the Rjukan sings his thunder-song, will the
memory of Mari-Stien live, and his tales of joy and sorrow be told; so
long as the ice-sea of Folgefond rests over his silent, dark secrets,[1]
so long will the little island become green, of which it is said, that
it is eternally wetted with the tears of true love.
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