Arne; A Sketch of Norwegian Country Life Part 5

'Why are you singing psalms?' the magistrate asked from outside the wall. 'May be the bells were never tolled for him,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then he began praying out loud, as earnestly as ever he could. 'Why are you praying?' asked the magistrate from outside the wall. 'No doubt, he has been a great sinner,' answered Big Lazy-bones. Then a time after, all got so still that the magistrate might have gone to sleep. But then came a shrieking that made the very barracks shake: 'I'll call again!'--Then came a h.e.l.lish noise and crash: 'Out with that fifty dollars of mine!' roared Big Lazy-bones: and the shrieking and cras.h.i.+ng came again. Then the magistrate burst open the door; the people rushed in with poles and firebrands; and there lay Big Lazy-bones on the floor, with the skeleton on the top of him."

There was a deep silence all round the table. At last a man who was lighting his clay-pipe said, "Didn't he go mad from that very time?"

"Yes, he did."

Arne fancied everybody was looking at him, and he dared not raise his eyes. "I say, as I said before," continued the man who had told the tale, "nothing can be buried so deeply that it won't one day be brought to light."

"Well, now I'll tell you about a son who beat his own father," said a fair stout man with a round face. Arne no longer knew where he was sitting.

"This son was a great fellow, almost a giant, belonging to a tall family in Hardanger; and he was always at odds with somebody or other. He and his father were always quarrelling about the yearly allowance; and so he had no peace either at home or out.

"This made him grow more and more wicked; and the father persecuted him. 'I won't be put down by anybody,' the son said. 'Yes, you'll be put down by me so long as I live,' the father answered. 'If you don't hold your tongue,' said the son, rising, 'I'll strike you.'--'Well, do if you dare; and never in this world will you have luck again,'

answered the father, rising also.--'Do you mean to say that?' said the son; and he rushed upon him and knocked him down. But the father didn't try to help himself: he folded his arms and let the son do just as he liked with him. Then he knocked him about, rolled him over and over, and dragged him towards the door by his white hair. 'I'll have peace in my own house, at any rate,' said he. But when they had come to the door, the father raised himself a little and cried out, 'Not beyond the door, for so far I dragged my own father.' The son didn't heed it, but dragged the old man's head over the threshold.

'Not beyond the door, I say!' And the old man rose, knocked down the son and beat him as one would beat a child."

"Ah, that's a sad story," several said. Then Arne fancied he heard some one saying, "It's a wicked thing to strike one's father;" and he rose, turning deadly pale.

"Now I'll tell _you_ something," he said; but he hardly knew what he was going to say: words seemed flying around him like large snowflakes. "I'll catch them at random," he said and began:--

"A troll once met a lad walking along the road weeping. 'Whom are you most afraid of?' asked the troll, 'yourself or others?' Now, the boy was weeping because he had dreamed last night he had killed his wicked father; and so he answered, 'I'm most afraid of myself.'--'Then fear yourself no longer, and never weep again; for henceforward you shall only have strife with others.' And the troll went his way. But the first whom the lad met jeered at him; and so the lad jeered at him again. The second he met beat him; and so he beat him again. The third he met tried to kill him; and so the lad killed him. Then all the people spoke ill of the lad; and so he spoke ill again of all the people. They shut the doors against him, and kept all their things away from him; so he stole what he wanted; and he even took his night's rest by stealth. As now they wouldn't let him come to do anything good, he only did what was bad; and all that was bad in other people, they let him suffer for. And the people in the place wept because of the mischief done by the lad; but he did not weep himself, for he could not. Then all the people met together and said, 'Let's go and drown him, for with him we drown all the evil that is in the place.' So they drowned him forthwith; but afterwards they thought the well where he was drowned gave forth a mighty odor.

"The lad himself didn't at all know he had done anything wrong; and so after his death he came drifting in to our Lord. There, sitting on a bench, he saw his father, whom he had not killed, after all; and opposite the father, on another bench, sat the one whom he had jeered at, the one he had beaten, the one he had killed, and all those whom he had stolen from, and those whom he had otherwise wronged.

"'Whom are you afraid of,' our Lord asked, 'of your father, or of those on the long bench?' The lad pointed to the long bench.

"'Sit down then by your father,' said our Lord; and the lad went to sit down. But then the father fell down from the bench with a large axe-cut in his neck. In his seat, came one in the likeness of the lad himself, but with a thin and ghastly pale face; another with a drunkard's face, matted hair, and drooping limbs; and one more with an insane face, torn clothes, and frightful laughter.

"'So it might have happened to you,' said our Lord.

"'Do you think so?' said the boy, catching hold of the Lord's coat.

"Then both the benches fell down from heaven; but the boy remained standing near the Lord rejoicing.

"'Remember this when you awake,' said our Lord; and the boy awoke.

"The boy who dreamed so is I; those who tempted him by thinking him bad are you. I am no longer afraid of myself, but I am afraid of you.

Do not force me to evil; for it is uncertain if I get hold of the Lord's coat."

He ran out: the men looked at each other.

VII.

THE SOLILOQUY IN THE BARN.

On the evening of the day after this, Arne was lying in a barn belonging to the same house. For the first time in his life he had become drunk, and he had been lying there for the last twenty-four hours. Now he sat up, resting upon his elbows, and talked with himself:

"... Everything I look at turns to cowardice. It was cowardice that hindered me from running away while a boy; cowardice that made me listen to father more than to mother; cowardice also made me sing the wicked songs to him. I began tending the cattle through cowardice,--to read--well, that, too, was through cowardice: I wished to get away from myself. When, though a grown up lad, yet I didn't help mother against father--cowardice; that I didn't that night--ugh!--cowardice! I might perhaps have waited till she was killed! ... I couldn't bear to stay at home afterwards--cowardice; still I didn't go away--cowardice; I did nothing, I tended cattle ...

cowardice. 'Tis true I promised mother to stay at home; still I should have been cowardly enough to break my promise if I hadn't been afraid of mixing among people. For I'm afraid of people, mainly because I think they see how bad I am; and because I'm afraid of them, I speak ill of them--a curse upon my cowardice! I make songs through cowardice. I'm afraid of thinking bravely about my own affairs, and so I turn aside and think about other people's; and making verses is just that.

"I've cause enough to weep till the hills turned to lakes, but instead of that I say to myself, 'Hush, hush,' and begin rocking. And even my songs are cowardly; for if they were bold they would be better. I'm afraid of strong thoughts; afraid of anything that's strong; and if ever I rise into it, it's in a pa.s.sion, and pa.s.sion is cowardice. I'm more clever and know more than I seem; I'm better than my words, but my cowardice makes me afraid of showing myself in my true colors. Shame upon me! I drank that spirits through cowardice; I wanted to deaden my pain--shame upon me! I felt miserable all the while I was drinking it, yet I drank; drank my father's heart's-blood, and still I drank! In fact there's no end to my cowardice; and the most cowardly thing is, that I can sit and tell myself all this!

"... Kill myself? Oh, no! I am a vast deal too cowardly for that.

Then, too, I believe a little in G.o.d ... yes, I believe in G.o.d. I would fain go to Him; but cowardice keeps me from going: it would be such a great change that a coward shrinks from it. But if I were to put forth what power I have? Almighty G.o.d, if I tried? Thou wouldst cure me in such a way as my milky spirit can bear; wouldst lead me gently; for I have no bones in me, nor even gristle--nothing but jelly. If I tried ... with good, gentle books,--I'm afraid of the strong ones--; with pleasant tales, stories, all that is mild, and then a sermon every Sunday, and a prayer every evening. If I tried to clear a field within me for religion; and worked in good earnest, for one cannot sow in laziness. If I tried; dear mild G.o.d of my childhood, if I tried!"

But then the barn-door was opened, and the mother came rus.h.i.+ng across the floor. Her face was deadly pale, though the perspiration dropped from it like great tears. For the last twenty-four hours she had been rus.h.i.+ng hither and thither, seeking her son, calling his name, and scarcely pausing even to listen, until now when he answered from the barn. Then she gave a loud cry, jumped upon the hay-mow more lightly than a boy, and threw herself upon Arne's breast....

... "Arne, Arne are you here? At last I've found you; I've been looking for you ever since yesterday; I've been looking for you all night long! Poor, poor Arne! I saw they worried you, and I wanted to come to speak to you and comfort you, but really I'm always afraid!"

... "Arne, I saw you drinking spirits! Almighty G.o.d, may I never see it again! Arne, I saw you drinking spirits." It was some minutes before she was able to speak again. "Christ have mercy upon you, my boy, I saw you drinking spirits! ... You were gone all at once, drunk and crushed by grief as you were! I ran all over the place; I went far into the fields; but I couldn't find you: I looked in every copse; I questioned everybody; I came here, too; but you didn't answer.... Arne, Arne, I went along the river; but it seemed nowhere to be deep enough...." She pressed herself closer to him.

"Then it came into my mind all at once that you might have gone home; and I'm sure I was only a quarter of an hour going there. I opened the outer-door and looked in every room; and then, for the first time, I remembered that the house had been locked up, and I myself had the key; and that you could not have come in, after all. Arne, last night I looked all along both sides of the road: I dared not go to the edge of the ravine.... I don't know how it was I came here again; n.o.body told me; it must have been the Lord himself who put it into my mind that you might be here!"

She paused and lay for a while with her head upon his breast.

He tried to comfort her.

"Arne, you'll never drink spirits again, I'm sure?"

"No; you may be sure I never will."

"I believe they were very hard upon you? they were, weren't they?"

"No; it was I who was _cowardly_," he answered, laying a great stress upon the word.

"I can't understand how they could behave badly to you. But, tell me, what did they do? you never will tell me anything;" and once more she began weeping.

"But you never tell me anything, either," he said in a low gentle voice.

"Yet you're the most in fault, Arne: I've been so long used to be silent through your father; you ought to have led me on a little.--Good Lord! we've only each other; and we've suffered so much together."

"Well, we must try to manage better," Arne whispered.

... "Next Sunday I'll read the sermon to you."

"G.o.d bless you for it." ...

"Arne!"

"Well!"

"There's something I must tell you."

"Well, mother, tell me it."

"I've greatly sinned against you; I've done something very wrong."