Chapter XII: The Scene

One evening just before Christmas the theatre of the metropolis was sold out; a new actress was to appear, about whom there were the greatest expectations. Sprung from the people--her mother was a poor fisherwoman--she had reached her present position by the help of others who had discovered her talents, and she gave great promise. In the time before the curtain rose, all sorts of things were whispered about her; she was said to have been a strange unruly child, and later when grown up, to have been betrothed to six at one time, and to have kept it going for half a year. The town was in such an uproar on her account, that she had had to be conducted out of it by a guard of police; it was remarkable that the director should allow such a character to appear. Others affirmed there was not the slightest truth in the statement; she had been educated in a clergyman's family in Bergen's shire, from the time she was ten years old; she was a cultivated and amiable girl, they knew her well, she must have wonderful talent; she was so handsome.

Others were there who were better authority. First the well-known fish merchant, Yngve Vold. He had come here accidentally on a business journey; it was said that the brilliant Spanish lady, to whom he was married, made the house at home so hot, that he travelled merely to cool himself. He had taken the largest box in the house, and invited his hotel acquaintances to go with him to see "something, devilish something!" He was in remarkable spirits, till he suddenly caught sight of----could it be he?----in a box in the second tier and with a whole ship's company round him?----no! yes!----verily it was Gunnar Ask! Gunnar Ask who through his mother's money had become owner and captain of "The Norwegian Constitution," had in cruising out of the fiord come to sail side by side with a ship bearing the name: "The Danish Constitution," and as Gunnar thought he observed it trying to pass him, such certainly could not be permitted; he put out all the sail he possessed, the old Constitution creaked, and the consequence was, that in his endeavour to scud before the wind as long and as far as possible, he ran the ship aground in a most preposterous place, and was now reluctantly detained in the town while the vessel was being patched up. One day he met Petra in the street, and she was so thoroughly kind both then and afterwards, that he not only forgot his grudge, but called himself the greatest fool that ever sailed from their native place, that he could ever have imagined himself worthy of such a girl as Petra. To-day he had taken tickets at a premium for the whole of his crew, and mentally resolved to treat them between each act, and the seamen, all from Petra's native place, and familiar with the mother's tavern, that earthly paradise, felt Petra's honour to be their own, and sat and promised each other that they would applaud as had never been heard before.

Down below in the parquet one could see the dean's thick bristly hair. He looked calm, he had entrusted her cause to a Higher Power. By his side sat Signe, now Signe Odegaard. Her husband, herself and Petra, had just returned from a three month's tour on the continent; she looked happy, as she sat and smiled over to Odegaard, for between them sat an old woman with snow-white hair, that rose above her brown face like a crown; sitting higher than everybody, she could be seen from the whole house, and soon every opera glass was directed towards her, for it was said she was the young actress's mother. She who bore a man's name, now also produced so powerful an impression, that she shed peace over the daughter. A youthful people is full of expectancy, it possesses faith in the inner power of its nature, and the faith was roused by the sight of this mother? She herself saw neither anything nor anybody; she was indifferent as to what was coming; she was there only to see whether people were kind to her daughter or not.

The time was almost up; conversation died away in the suspense that by degrees pervaded all, and did them good.

A flourish of drums, trumpets and horns, suddenly opened the overture; Oehlenschlaeger's "Axel and Valborg" was to be played, and Petra had herself chosen this. She was sitting behind the scenes and listening.

Before the curtain, the small number of her countrymen that the house could muster, were trembling on her account, as one always does when expecting anything personally dear of one's own to be brought forward. It was as if each were about to appear on the stage himself; at such moments many prayers arise, even from hearts that otherwise seldom pray.

The overture grew softer, peace fell over the harmonies, they melted gradually away as in sunlight. It was over,--anxious silence ensued.

The curtain rose.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Norwegian idiom, to get a long nose--to be disappointed.--Tr.]

[Footnote 2: The farms are often built on a steep mountain side.--Tr.]

* * * * *
BURNETT AND HOOD, MIDDLESBROUGH.

OVIND:

A STORY OF COUNTRY LIFE IN NORWAY,

BY

BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON,

TRANSLATED BY

S. AND E. HJERLEID.

_Elegantly bound, Crown 8vo_.

LONDON: SIMPKIN MARSHALL AND CO.

MIDDLESBROUGH: BURNETT AND HOOD.

* * *

NOTICES OF THE PRESS.

"We drop from fairy land to one almost as attractive in _Ovind_.... There is about it a delightful freshness."--_Athenaeum_, Nov. 20, 1869.

"_Ovind_ is thoroughly simple and genuine, a word-painting wonderfully like those Scandinavian pictures which most of us saw for the first time in the Exhibition of 1862.... Its subdued harmonious tones have a singular charm about them, and leave a very distinct impression."--_The Spectator_, Dec. 25, 1869.

"The tale is told in simple language with many quaint touches of humour."--_Daily Telegraph_, Dec, 24, 1869.

"The story relates simply, but very beautifully, the young loves of a peasant boy and a landowners grand-daughter, and introduces in the course of the narrative very many Norwegian customs."--_Public Opinion_, Dec. 11, 1869.

"The great merits of Bjoernson's literary style are his intense originality and unfaltering simplicity. All his writings are thoroughly true to nature, while the sombre scenery of his native land inspires him with a diction which we meet with in no other books, and is entirely his own."--_The Examiner and London Review_, Jan. 1, 1870.

"One of the most winning little stories we have ever read."--_The Literary Churchman_, Nov. 29, 1869.

"The translators are to be congratulated upon their successful rendering of the story, the publishers have also got up the book in a highly creditable manner. Altogether the translation is well worthy of all who are interested in Scandinavian literature."--_Iron and Coal Trades Review_, Dec. 22, 1869.

"Opens to us a field of freshness and beauty which never loses its charm for readers of all ages."--_Standard_, Jan. 26, 1870.

"It is not for the novelty of the story so much as for the fresh vivid picture it presents of peasant life in Norway that we commend the book to the English reader."--_Trubner's American and Oriental Literary Record_, Dec. 24, 1869.

"This is a charmingly simple and beautiful story ... It is as real as actual life, and as poetical as Milton's Paradise, not great with ponderous thoughts, but running over with exquisite poetry, suggesting new worlds of beauty lying under every day things.... A pure spiritual beauty, which the author has drawn from the simplest outward things in peasant life, lies over all the story, and bathes everything in the cool calm light of heaven."--_The Border Advertiser_, Dec. 19, 1869.

"The book is indeed redolent of country pastures, of sweet smelling pine woods, of happy, glad, unsophisticated Northern life.... It touches chords lying hidden in the depths of the mysteries of race and language, and moves us as, perhaps, no book of the warm but alien south could succeed in doing."--_Northern Daily Express_.

"The story has enough of originality, and of the foreign element, to make it quite worthy of translation and of general acceptance."--_The Illustrated London News_, July 23, 1870.

"We cannot speak too highly of the excellence of this translation. It reads as if it had been originally written in English."--_The Manchester Weekly Times_, June 11, 1870.

THE NEWLY-MARRIED COUPLE:

BY

BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON.

TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN

BY S. AND E. HJERLEID.

_Price 1s; Cloth bound 2s_.

LONDON: TRUeBNER AND CO.

* * *

MUSIC.

THE WEDDING IN HARDANGER.

(Arranged as a Solo.)

Words by Munch. Translated from the Norwegian, by S. and E. Hjerleid. Music by Kjerulf.

(The Song by which the Swedish Singers won the Prize at the Paris Exhibition of 1867.)

_1s. 6d. post free from the Translators, North Ormesby, Middlesbrough_.

LONDON: F. PITMAN, 20, PATERNOSTER ROW.

* * *
BURNETT AND HOOD, PRINTERS, MIDDLESBROUGH.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Fisher Girl, by Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson