Strife and Peace

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"It is a strange feeling to get everything ready for one's own marriage
in the belief that one shall not long survive it! This removal to
Nordland will be my death, that I know certainly. No, do not look so
terrified! It is in no case so dangerous. And thoughts of an early
death I have long borne in my mind, and therefore I am accustomed to
them."

"Ah!" said Susanna, "those who love and are loved, the happy, should
never die! But why this strange foreboding?"

"I do not know myself!" replied Alette, "but it has accompanied me from
my earliest youth. My mother was born under the beautiful heaven of
Provence, and passed the greater part of her youth in that warm country.
The love of my father made her love in our Norway a second country, and
here she spent the remainder of her life; she never, however, could
rightly bear this cold climate, longed secretly for that warmer land,
and died with the longing. To me has she bequeathed this feeling; and
although I have never seen those orange groves, that warm blue heaven,
of which she so gladly spoke, I drew in from childhood a love to them; I
have, besides, inherited my mother's suffering from cold;--my chest is
not strong, ah!--the long, dark winters of Nordland; the residence on
the sea-shore in a climate which is twice as cold as that to which I
have been accustomed, the sea-mists and storms--ah! I cannot long
withstand them. But Susanna, you must promise me not to say one word of
what I have confided to you, either to Harald or to Lexow!"

"But if they know it," said Susanna, "then you certainly need not go
there. Certainly your bridegroom would for your sake seek out a milder
country----"

"And not feel at home there, and die of longing for his dear Nordland!
No, no, Susanna! I know his love for his native land, and know that this
winterly nature which I dread so much, is precisely his life and his
health. Alf is a Nordlander in heart and soul, and has, as it were,
grown up with the district which his fathers inhabited, and whose
advance and prosperity is his favourite scheme, the principal object of
his activity. No, no! for my sake he shall not tear himself from his
home, his noble efforts. Rather would I, if it must be so, find an early
grave in his Nordland!"

Susanna now desired to know, and Alette communicated to her, various
particulars of the country which was she thought so terrible, and we
will now, with the young friends, cast--

A GLANCE INTO NORDLAND.

All is cold and hard.

BLOM.

The spirit of God yet rests upon Nordland.

Z.

A great part of Norway has, as it were, its face turned away from life.
"The Old Night," which the ancient world considered to be the original
mother of all things, here held the giant child in her dark bosom, and
bound it tight in swaddling bands, out of which it could not shape
itself to joy and freedom. Neither Nordland nor Finmark see the sun for
many months in the year, and the difficulties and dangers of the road
shut them out from intercourse with the southern world. The spirit of
the North Pole rests oppressively over this region, and when in still
August nights it breathes from hence over southern Norway, then withers
the half-ripened harvests of the valleys and the plains, and the
icy-grey face of hunger stares stiffly from the northern cliffs upon
laborious but unhappy human multitudes. The sea breaks upon this coast
against a palisadoed fence of rocks and cliffs, around which swarm
flocks of polar birds with cries and screams. Storms alternate with
thick mists. The cliffs along this coast have extraordinary shapes; now
ascend they upwards like towers, now resemble beasts, now present
gigantic and terrific human profiles; and one can easily imagine how the
popular belief sees in them monsters and giants turned to stone, and why
their ancestors laid their Jotunhem in this desolate wilderness.

And a dark fragment of Paganism still lingers about this region even to
this day. It is frozen fast into the people's imagination; it is turned
to stone in the horrible shapes of nature, which once gave it life. The
light of the Gospel endeavours in vain to dissipate the shadows of a
thousand years; the Old Night holds them back. In vain the Holy Cross is
raised upon all the cliffs; the belief in magic and magic arts lives
still universally among the people. Witches sit, full of malice, in
their caves, and blow up storms for the sea-wanderers, so that they must
be unfortunate; and the ghost Stallo, a huge man, dressed in black, with
a staff in his hand, wanders about in the wildernesses, and challenges
the solitary traveller to meet him in the contest for life and death.

The Laplander, the nomade of the North, roving free with his reindeer
over undivided fields, appears like a romantic feature in this life; but
it must be viewed from afar. Near, every trace of beauty vanishes in the
fumes of brandy and the smoke of the Lapland hut.

Along the coasts, between the cliffs, and the rocks, and the hundreds of
islands which surround this strand, live a race of fishermen, who,
rivalling the sea-mew, skim the sea. Night and day, winter and summer,
swarm their boats upon the waves; through the whistling tempest, through
the foaming breakers, speed they unterrified with their light sails,
that from the depths of the sea they may catch the silvery shoals of
herrings, the greatest wealth of the country. Many annually are
swallowed up of the deep; but more struggle with the elements, and
conquer. Thus amid the daily contest are many powers developed, many a
hero-deed achieved,[13] and people harden themselves against danger and
death, and also against the gentler beauty of life.

Yet it is in this severe region that the eider-duck has its home; it is
upon those naked cliffs where its nest is built, from feathers plucked
from its own breast, that silky soft down which is scattered abroad over
the whole world, that people in the North and in the South may lie warm
and soft. How many suffering limbs, how many aching heads, have not
received comfort from the hard cliffs of Norway.

Upon the boundaries between Nordland and Finmark lies the city of
Tromsoe, the now flourishing centre of these provinces. It was here that
Alette was to spend her life; it was here that affection prepared for
her a warm and peaceful nest, like the eider-duck drawing from its own
breast the means of preparing a soft couch in the bosom of the hard
rock. And after Alette had described to Susanna what terrified her so
much in her northern retreat, she concealed not from her that which
reconciled her so forcibly to it; and Susanna comprehended this very
well, as Alette read to her the following letter:

Tromsoe. May 28th.

Were you but here, my Alette! I miss you every moment whilst I am
arranging my dwelling for your reception, and feel continually the
necessity of asking, "How do you wish it? what think you of it?" Ah,
that you were here, my own beloved, at this moment! and you would be
charmed with this "ice and bear land," before which, I know, you
secretly shudder. The country around here is not wild and dark; as, for
example, at Helgoland. Leafy woods garland the craggy shores of our
island, and around them play the waves of the sea in safe bays and
creeks. Our well-built little city lies sweetly upon the southern side
of the island, only divided from the mainland by a narrow arm of the
sea. My house is situated in the street which runs along the large
convenient harbour. At this moment above twenty vessels lie at anchor,
and the various flags of the different nations wave in the evening wind.
There are English, German, and especially Russian, which come to our
coast, in order to take our fish, our eider-down, and so on, in exchange
for their corn and furs. Besides these, the inhabitants of more southern
regions bring hither a vast number of articles of luxury and fashion,
which are eagerly purchased by the inhabitants of Kola, and the borders
of the White Sea. Long life to Commerce! My soul expands at the sight of
its life. What has not commerce done from the beginning of the world for
the embellishment of life, for promoting the friendly intercourse of
countries and people, for the refinement of manners! It has always given
me the most heartfelt delight, that the wisest and most humane of the
lawgivers of antiquity--Solon--was a merchant. "By trade," says one of
his biographers, "by wisdom and music was his soul fashioned. Long life
to commerce! What lives not through it?" What is all fresh life, all
movement, in reality, but trade, exchange, gift for gift! In love, in
friendship, in the great life of the people, in the quiet family circle,
everywhere where I see happiness and prosperity, see I also trade; nay,
what is the whole earth if not a colony from the mother country of
heaven, and whose well-being and happy condition depend upon free export
and import! The simile might be still further carried out, yet--thou
good Giver above, pardon us that we have ventured upon it!

And you must not fancy, Alette, that the great interest for trade here
excludes the nobler and more refined mental culture. Among the thousand
people who inhabit the city, one can select out an interesting circle
for social intercourse. We also have a theatre, and many pleasures of
refined life. I was yesterday at a ball, where they danced through the
whole night, till--daylight. The good music, the tasteful dresses and
lovely dancing of the ladies; but above all, the tone of social life,
the cordial cheerfulness, astonished several foreigners who were
present, and caused them to inquire whether they were really here under
the seventieth degree of latitude?

But the winter! Methinks I hear you say, "in summer it may be well
enough, but in the long, dark winter." Well then, my Alette,
winter--goes on right excellently when people love one another, when it
is warm at home. Do you remember, Alette, last autumn, how we read
together at Christiansand, in the Morning Paper, the following paragraph
from the Tromsoe News of the fourteenth of October:

"Already for several days successively have we had snow storms, and at
this moment the snow-plough is working to form a road for the
church-going people. The grave-like stillness of night and winter spread
itself with tempest speed over meadow and valley, and only a few cows
wander now like spectres over the snow-covered fields, to pluck their
scanty fare from the twigs which are not yet snowed up."

That little winter-piece pleased me, but at the expression, "the
grave-like stillness of night and winter," you bowed your loving dear
face, with closed eyes, to my breast. Oh, my Alette! thus shall you do
in future, when dread of darkness and cold seize upon you; and upon my
breast, listening to the beating of my heart and to my love, shall you
forget the dark pictures which stand without before your home. Close
your eyes; slumber beloved, whilst I watch over you, and then you will,
with brightening eyes and blooming cheeks, look upon the night and
winter, and feel that its power is not great. Oh, truly can love, this
Geiser of the soul, smelt ice and snow, wherever they may be on earth;
truly, wherever its warm springs swell forth, a southern clime can
bloom; yes, even at the North Pole itself.

Whilst I write this, I hear music, which makes upon me a cheerful and a
melancholy impression at the same time. They are eight Russians, who
sing one of their national songs, whilst in the quiet evening they sail
down the Tromsoe-sound. They sing a quartet, and with the most complete
purity and melody. They sing in a minor key, but yet not mournfully.
They row in the deep shadow of the shore, and at every stroke of the
oars the water shines around the boat, and drops, as of fire, fall from
the oars. The phenomenon is not uncommon on the Atlantic; and know you
not, my Alette, what it is which shines and burns so in the sea? It is
love! At certain moments, the consciousness of the sea-insects rises to
a high pitch of vividness, and millions of existences invisible to the
naked human eye, then celebrate the bliss of their being. In such
moments the sea kindles; then every little worm, inspired by love,
lights up its tiny lamp. Yet only for a moment burns its flame, then all
the quicker to be extinguished. But it dies without pain--dies joyfully.
Rich nature! Good Creator!

My heart also burns. I look upon the illuminated element, which may be
said to be full of enjoyment; I listen to the melody of the singers,
full of joy and pain, and--I stretch forth my arms to you, Alette, my
Alette!

"Oh!" exclaimed Susanna, "how this man loves you, and how you must love
him! Certainly you must live long, that you may be happy together!"

"And if not long," said Alette, "yet for a short time; yes, a short time
I hope to live and to make him happy, to thank him for all his love. And
then----"

Alette stooped down and plucked a beautiful full-blown water-lily which
grew in the river, by whose banks they stood; she showed it to Susanna,
whilst she continued with a pensive smile--

What more then than this?
One moment she is
A friendly ray given,
From her home's shining heaven;
Then is she the flame,
High mid the temple's resounding acclaim--
One moment like this
Bears you up through death's sleep into bliss.--MUNCH.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] The stormy winter of 1839 abounded in misfortunes to the fishermen
of Lofodne, but abounded also in the most beautiful instances of heroic
courage, where life was ventured, and sometimes lost, in order to save a
suffering fellow-creature.

THE RETURN.

To meet, to part;
The welcome, the farewell;
Behold the sum of life!

BJERREGAARD.

Alette set off to fulfil her promise to her uncle in Hallingdal; but in
a few weeks she was again at Semb, in company with Harald and Alf Lexow,
who had fetched her there. Yet this visit could last only for a short
time, for then she had to set out with her bridegroom and her uncle's
family on the journey to Trondhjem, where her marriage was to be
celebrated at the house of a rich and cordial aunt, who had long been
rejoicing in it, and had now for several months been baking and boiling
in preparation for it. Harald also was to accompany them on this
journey.

Alf Lexow was a man in his best years, with an open and generous manner.
His face was small, marked by the smallpox, but otherwise handsome and
full of life and benevolence. He was one of those men whose first glance
attracts one and inspires confidence. Susanna felt great pleasure on
seeing the affectionate, confidential understanding between the
betrothed. She herself also was now happier, because Harald now left
Alette much with her bridegroom, and sought as before for Susanna's
society.

Alette was lively, agreeable, and well-educated; but she liked best to
hear herself talk. So in reality did Harald; and a better listener than
Susanna could nobody have. Contentions occurred no longer; but there was
a something in Susanna which attracted Harald to her more than the
former passion for strife had ever done. He found Susanna's manners
altered for the better; there was in them a something quieter, and, at
the same time, gentler than before; whilst she was now always so kind,
so attentive, and thought of everything which could give pleasure to
others. He saw, at the same time, with what silent solicitude her
thoughts followed Mrs. Astrid, who now, at the approach of autumn--it
was then the end of August--appeared to have relapsed into her dark and
silent mood, out of which she had been aroused for some time. She now
very rarely left her room, except at the hour of dinner.

Harald wished that his sister and brother-in-law elect should witness,
before their departure from the dale, some of the popular assemblings
for games and dancings, and had therefore prepared a rural festival, to
which he invited them and Susanna, and to which we also will now betake
ourselves.

THE HALLING.

This peculiar, wild, affecting music, is our national poetry.

HENR WERGELAND.

The violins ringing;
Not blither the singing
Of birds in the woods and the meadows.

Hurrah! hand round the foaming can--
Skal for the fair maid who dancing began!

Skal for the Jente mine! And
Skal for the Jente thine! And
Skal for the fathers and mothers on benches!

NORWEGIAN SONG.

One lovely afternoon in the early part of September were seen two young
festally-attired peasant maidens gaily talking, hastening along the
footpath through the little wood in Heimdal towards a green open space
surrounded by trees, and where might be seen a crowd of persons of both
sexes assembled, all in peasant dresses. Here was the "Leikevold," or
dancing-ground; and as the young girls approached it, the one said to
the other, "It is certain, Susanna, that the dress becomes you
excellently! Your lovely bright hair shines more beautifully than ever,
plaited with red ribbons. I fancy the costume does not suit me half so
well."

"Because you, best Alette, look like a disguised princess, and I in mine
like a regular peasant girl."

"Susanna, I perceive that you are a flatterer. Let us now see whether
Alf and Harald will recognise the Tellemark 'jente' girls."

They did not long remain in uncertainty on this subject; for scarcely
were they come to the dancing-ground, when two peasants in
Halling-jackets, and broad girdles round their waists, came dancing
towards them, whilst they sang with the others the following
peasant-song:

And I am bachelor, and am not roving;
And I am son unto Gulleig Boe;
And wilt thou be to me faithful and loving,
Then I will choose thee, dear maiden, for me.

Susanna recognised Harald in the young peasant, who thus singing gaily,
politely took her hand, and led her along the lively springing-dance,
which was danced to singing. Alette danced with her Alf, who bore
himself nobly as a Halling-youth.

Never had Susanna looked so well and so happy; but then neither had she
ever enjoyed such pleasure. The lovely evening; the tones of the music;
the life of the dance; Harald's looks, which expressed in a high degree
his satisfaction; the delighted happy faces which she saw around
her--never before had she thought life so pleasant! And nearly all
seemed to feel so too, and all swung round from the joy of their hearts;
silver buckles jingled, and shilling after shilling[14] danced down into
the little gaily painted Hardanger-fiddle, which was played upon with
transporting spirit by an old man, of an expressive and energetic
exterior.

After the first dance, people rested for a moment. They ate apples, and
drank Hardanger-ale out of silver cans. After this there rose an almost
universal cry, which challenged Harald and another young man who was
renowned for his agility and strength, to dance together a "loes
Halling." They did not require much persuasion, and stepped into the
middle of the circle, which enlarged itself, and closed around them.

The musician tuned his instrument, and with his head bowed upon his
breast, began to play with an expression and a life that might be called
inspired. It was one of the wild Maliserknud's most genial compositions.
Was it imagined with the army, in the bivouac under the free nightly
heaven, or in--"slavery," amid evil-doers? Nobody knows; but in both
situations has it charmed forth tones, like his own restless life, which
never will pass from the memory of the people. Now took the
Hardanger-fiddle for the first time its right sound.

Universal applause followed the dancing of the young men; but the
highest interest was excited by Harald, who, in the dance, awoke actual
astonishment.

Perhaps there is no dance which expresses more than the Halling the
temper of the people who originated it, which better reflects the life
and character of the inhabitants of the North.

It begins, as it were, upon the ground, amid jogging little hops,
accompanied by movements of the arms, in which, as it were, a great
strength plays negligently. It is somewhat bear-like, indolent, clumsy,
half-dreaming. But it wakes, it becomes earnest. Then the dancers rise
up and dance, and display themselves in expressions of power, in which
strength and dexterity seem to divert themselves by playing with
indolence and clumsiness, and to overcome them. The same person who just
before seemed fettered to the earth, springs aloft, and throws himself
around in the air as though he had wings. Then, after many break-neck
movements and evolutions, before which the unaccustomed spectator grows
dizzy, the dance suddenly assumes again its first quiet, careless,
somewhat heavy character, and closes, as it began, sunk upon the earth.

Loud shouts of applause, bestowed especially upon Harald, resounded on
all sides as the dance closed. And now they all set themselves in motion
for a great Halling-polska, and every "Gut" chose himself a "Jente."
Harald had scarcely refreshed and strengthened himself with a can of ale
before he again hastened up to Susanna, and engaged her for the
Halling-polska. She had danced it several times in her own country, and
joyfully accepted Harald's invitation.

This dance, too, is deeply characteristic. It paints the Northern
inhabitant's highest joy in life; it is the Berserker-gladness in the
dance. Supported upon the arm of the woman the man throws himself high
in the air; then he catches her in his arms, and swings round with her
in wild circles; then they separate; then they unite again, and
whirl again round, as it were, in superabundance of life and delight.
The measure is determined, bold, and full of life. It is a
dance-intoxication, in which people for the moment release themselves
from every care, every burden and oppression of existence.

Thus felt also at this time Harald and Susanna. Young, strong, agile,
they swung themselves around with certainty and ease, which seemed to
make the dance a sport without any effort; and with eyes steadfastly
riveted on each other, they had no sense of giddiness. They whirled
round, as it were, in a magic circle, to the strange magical music. The
understrings sounded strong and strange. The peculiar enchanted power
which lies in the clear deeps of the water, in the mysterious recesses
of the mountains, in the shades of dark caves, which the skalds have
celebrated under the names of mermaids, mountain-kings, and wood-women,
and which drag down the heart so forcibly into unknown, wondrous
deeps--this dark song of Nature is heard in the understrings[15] of the
Halling's playful, but yet at the same time melancholy, tones. It deeply
seized upon Susanna's soul, and Harald also seemed to experience this
enchantment: Leaving the wilder movements of the dance, they moved
around ever quieter, arm-in-arm.

"Oh, so through life!" whispered Harald's lips, almost involuntarily, as
he looked deep into Susanna's beaming, tearful eyes; and, "Oh, so
through life!" was answered in Susanna's heart, but her lips remained
closed. At this moment she was seized by a violent trembling, which
obliged her to come from dancing, and to sit down, whilst the whole
world seemed going round with her. It was not until she had drunk a
glass of water, which Harald offered to her, that she was able to reply
to his heartfelt and anxious inquiries after her health. Susanna
attributed it to the violent dancing, but declared that she felt herself
again quite well. At that moment Susanna's eyes encountered those of
Alette. She sate at a little distance from them, and observed Harald and
Susanna with a grave, and as it seemed to Susanna, a displeased look.
Susanna felt stung at the heart; and when Alette came to her, and asked
rather coldly how she found herself, she answered also coldly and
shortly.

The sun was going down, and the evening began to be cool. The company
was therefore invited by Harald to a commodious hut, decorated with
foliage and flowers. At Harald's desire, a young girl played now upon
the "langleg,"[16] and sung thereto with a clear lively voice the
Hallingdal song, "Gjetter-livet" (Shepherd-life), which so naively
describes the days of a shepherd-girl in the solitary dales with the
flocks, which she pastures and tends during the summer, without care,
and joyous of mood, although almost separated from her kind;--_almost_,
for Havor, the goatherd, blows his horn on the rocks in the
neighbourhood, and ere long sits beside her on the crags--

The boy with his jew's-harp charms the kine,
And plays upon the flute so fine,
And I sing this song of mine.

So approaches the evening, and "all my darlings," with "song and love,"
are called by their names;--

Come Laikeros, Gullstjerna fine;
Come Dokkerose, darling mine;
Come Bjoelka, Qvittelin!

And cows and sheep come to the well-known voice, and assemble at the
Saeter-hut, lowing and bleating joyfully. Now begins the milking; the
goatherd maiden sings--

When I have milked in these pails of mine,
I lay me down, and sleep divine,
Till day upon the cliffs doth shine.

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