The Visionary Part 8

This church was once the most northern border-fortress of Christendom, and stood grandly with its white towers, the far-echoing tones of its bells and its sacred song, like a giant bishop in white surplice, who bore St. Olaf's consecration and altar lights into the darkness among the Finmark trolls. Its power over men's minds has been correspondingly deep and great. Thither past generations for miles round have wended in Sunday dress before other churches were built up there. If the soapstone font which stands in the choir could enumerate the names of those baptised at it, or the altar the bridal pairs that have been married there, or the venerable church itself tell what it knew, we should hear many a strange tale.

Protestantism has plundered the church there as elsewhere; remains of its painted altar-shrines are found as doors to the peasants' cupboards, and what was most imposing about the building is in ruins. But the work of destruction could not be carried farther. The old Roman Catholic church feeling surrounds it to a certain extent to this day, with the old legends that float around it, and is kept up by the foreign paintings in the choir, by the mystical vaults, and by all the ruins, which the Nordlander's imagination builds up into indistinct grandeur.

The poor man there is, moreover, a Catholic in no small degree in his religious mode of thought and in his superst.i.tion. It comes quite naturally to him, in deadly peril, to promise a wax candle to the church, or to offer prayer to the Virgin Mary. He knows well enough that she is dethroned, but nevertheless he piously includes her in his devotions.

I dwell upon the memories of this church and its surroundings, because during the two years I stayed at Trondenaes I was so strongly influenced by their power over the imagination. The hollow ground with the supposed underground vaults were to me like a covered abyss, full of mysteries, and in the church--whose silence I often sought, since it lies, with its strangely thought-absorbing interior, close to the parsonage, and, as a rule, stood open on account of the college organ practice--daylight sometimes cast shadows in the aisles and niches as if beings from another age were moving about.

I made great progress in Latin and Greek under the teaching of the agreeable, well-informed minister, in whose house I lived, and in other subjects under one of the masters of the college; but in my leisure hours I sought the spots which gave so much occupation to my fancy, and therefore Trondenaes was anything but the right place for my diseased mind.

My nervous excitability has some connection with the moon's changes as I have since noticed. At such times the church exercised an almost irresistible fascination over me; I stole there unnoticed and alone, and would sit for hours lost in thought over one thing and another, indistinct creations of my imagination, and among them Susanna's light form, which sometimes seemed to float towards me, without my ever being quite able to see her face.

It was late in the spring of the second year I was at Trondenaes, that one midday, being under the influence of one of these unhealthy moods, I sat in the church on a raised place near the high altar, meditating, with Susanna's blue cross in my hand.

My eye fell on a large dark picture on the wall beside the altar, which I had often seen, but without its having made any special impression on me. It represented in life-size a martyr who has been cast into a thorn-bush; the sharp thorns, as long as daggers, pierced his body in all directions, and he could not utter a complaint, because one great sharp thorn went into his throat and out at his open mouth.

The expression of this face struck me all at once as terrible. It regarded me with a look of silent understanding, as though I were a companion in suffering, and would have to lie there when its torments had at last come to an end. It was impossible to remove my eyes from the picture; it seemed to become alive, now coming quite near, now going far away into a darkness that my own dizzy head created.

It was as though in this picture the curtain was drawn aside from a part of my own soul's secret history, and it was only by an effort of will, called forth by a fear of becoming too far absorbed into my own fancy, that I succeeded in tearing myself away from it.

When I turned, there stood in the light that fell from the window near the front pew, the lady with the rose. She wore an expression of infinite sadness, as though she knew well the connection between me and the picture, and as if the briar-spray in her hand were only a miniature of the thorn-bush in which yonder martyr lay.

In the lonely stillness of the church a panic came over me, an inexpressible terror of unseen powers, and I fled precipitately.

When I got outside, I discovered that I had lost Susanna's blue cross.

It could only be in the church on the step where I had been sitting. At that moment, while my heart was still throbbing with terror, I would not have gone back again into the church for anything in the world--except Susanna's blue cross. I found it, when I carefully searched the floor where I had been sitting.

The second time during these years that my nervous system gave evidence of its unsoundness was late in the autumn, a month or two before I was to go home.

A peasant, who had gone in to see the minister, had fastened his horse, which was wall-eyed, to the churchyard wall. I began to look at it; and the recollection of its dead, expressionless glance followed me for the rest of the day. It seemed to me as if its eyes, instead of looking out, looked inwards into a world invisible to me, and as if it would be quite natural if it forgot to obey the reins, and left the ordinary highway for the road to Hades, along which the dead are travelling.

With this in my mind, I sat that afternoon in the parsonage where people were talking of all kinds of things, and there suddenly appeared before me a home face, pale and with a strained look, and soon after I could see that the man to whom it belonged was striving desperately to climb up from the raging surf on to a rock. It was no other than our man Anders. He fixed his dull, gla.s.sy eyes upon me as he struggled, apparently hindered from saving himself by something down at his feet, which I could not see. He looked as if he wanted to tell me something.

The vision only lasted a moment; but a torturing almost unbearable feeling, that in the same moment some misfortune was befalling us at home, drove me from the room to wander restlessly in the fields for the rest of the day.

When I came back they asked me what had been the matter, that I had so suddenly turned deadly pale and hurried from the room.

A fortnight later there came a sad letter from home. My father's yacht, the _Hope_, which, after the custom of those days, was not insured, and was loaded for the most part with fish, which my father had bought at his own cost, had been wrecked on the way from Bergen in a storm on Stadt Sea. The ship had sprung a leak, and late in the afternoon had to be run ash.o.r.e. The crew had escaped with their lives, but our man Anders had had both legs broken.

This shipwreck gave the first decided blow to my father's fortune. The second was to come towards the end of the following year, in the loss of another yacht, the _Unity_; and the third blow, with more important results, was struck when it was at last decided by Government that our trading station was not to be a stopping-place for steamers.

CHAPTER VIII

_AT HOME_

In December I was once more at home, where I found everything outwardly the same as of old, only, possibly by reason of what had pa.s.sed, still quieter and sadder. My father was restlessly active, but not very communicative. He probably did not consider me fitted to share his anxieties.

Susanna, who, like myself, was now over nineteen years of age, was on a visit at a house some miles away and was to come home at Christmas. My longing for her was indescribable.

It was during the last dark, stormy week before Christmas, that the Spanish brig _Sancta Maria_ was driven by the weather in to our station, in a rather damaged condition, which, with the poor labour we could command, resulted in her having to lie under repair for nearly six weeks.

The captain, who owned both ship and cargo, was a tall, sallow, becomingly-dressed Spaniard, with iron-grey hair, black eyes, and large features. With him was his son, Antonio Martinez, a handsome young man with an olive-brown face and fiery eyes like his father's.

My father, who had done Senor Martinez considerable service in the getting in the cargo, now invited him, with Nordland hospitality, to put up at our house.

Although the intercourse between us could not be very lively, as the foreigners only understood a few Norwegian words and were often obliged to have recourse to a phrase-book, it was soon evident that they were both very agreeable men. Their princ.i.p.al occupation consisted in making and smoking cigarettes the whole day, and in superintending the work on the brig.

The dark season has a depressing effect upon the spirits of many in the North, especially on those days when there is very little to do. Thus, during Christmas, and especially on Christmas Eve, my father used to be excessively melancholy. While gaiety filled the whole house, and the smartly-dressed servants kept Christmas round the kitchen table, which was adorned with treble-branched candlesticks, he generally sat shut up in the office with his own thoughts, and would not be disturbed by any one.

This Christmas Eve, however, he was in the parlour for a while, on Senor Martinez's account; but he was silent and dejected the whole time, as if he were only longing for his solitary office, to which, moreover, he retired directly after supper.

CHAPTER IX

_THE CHRISTMAS VISIT_

About Christmas-time that winter in our part of Lofoten there were a number of foreigners, mostly ships' captains, who, on account of bad weather or damage to their vessels, were staying at different places on sh.o.r.e, as Martinez was with us. There were also notabilities from the south on public business. One result of this was a number of social gatherings, in which the hosts vied with one another in open hospitality.

On the third New Year's day [The 3rd of January.] we were invited to dinner and a ball at the house of the wealthy magistrate, Rost, where some of the gentlemen from the south were staying for the time. It was only a journey of a mile and a half [Between ten and eleven English miles.] for us, but many had six or eight miles to go, and the greater part of that by sea.

Rost's large rooms could accommodate a great number of guests, but this time, in order to put up for the night all those invited, he had had to take a neighbouring house in addition.

In proceeding with the account of this visit, which was to be so eventful and exciting for me, I have promised myself to be short, and shall thus omit many a feature and many an outline that belongs to a more detailed representation of the life in Nordland.

According to the invitation, we were to dine at three, but most of the boats made their appearance two or three hours in advance of that time.

While the ladies were dressing upstairs, the gentlemen a.s.sembled in an intentionally dimly-lighted room, where they could take a "mouthful" and a dram, which were very acceptable after the journey. They were also made acquainted with one another by the careful host.

We waited long and in vain for the minister and his ladies, and at last had to go to table without them.

The doors of the large, brilliantly-lighted dining-room were now thrown open, the guests streamed upstairs, and, after much stopping in the doorway and long polite disputes over the order of precedence, took their places 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.s.sive silver plate. Three places were reserved for the minister and his family up by the notabilities. My father sat by Senor Martinez at the princ.i.p.al table, and I, in modesty, farther down at one of the side tables.

The dinner was of that good, old, genial sort which is now unfortunately going more and more out of fashion. It is true, people ate with their knives and knew nothing about silver forks; but on the other hand there was real happiness in the gathering, and it formed the subject of many an entertaining conversation for long after.

At first, while we were still chilled by the cold feeling of the white cloth, and awed by the festal atmosphere, it was indeed very stiff.

Neighbours scarcely ventured to whisper to one another, and the young ladies in ball-dresses, who, as if by a magnetic cohesion, were all together, sat for a long time in a row in deep, embarra.s.sed silence, like a hedge of blue, red, and white flowers, in which no bird dared sing.

The dinner began by the host bidding his guests welcome. He next proposed in succession the healths of the notabilities present in rather long, prepared speeches, which were responded to by them.

After this everyone felt that they had pa.s.sed over the official threshold to enjoyment.

The host, with lightened heart, now entered upon the much shorter and simpler toasts for the absent, among whom, first and foremost, was the "good minister and his family." Several besides myself noticed that my father left his gla.s.s untouched at this toast.

In the meantime the courses went round, and as the level of the wine in the bottles sank, the gaiety rose. Many a quick, sharp brain 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 in the form of stories with a point that was sometimes, perhaps, rather coa.r.s.e--gave a lively impression of the peculiar Nordland humour.

It was only what, at that time, usually happened at parties, when the company leave the table, that there were a few who could not rise from their chairs, and others who, as a result of the attempt, were afterwards missing. Among the latter I was unfortunately cla.s.sed.