Easter Sunday. The good weather had ended suddenly. Now there was frost, north wind, and driving snow again; but nevertheless it wasn’t winter now, even if they were getting winter weather all the same. Spring had entered into their minds; and that was the important thing. What did it matter if it snowed and blew cold? That was nothing to talk about. Every night that came was shorter and shorter, the sun came up earlier and earlier. . . . Spring, the wonderful, the inexplicable! Was it strange then that the old people, the custodians of memory, they who carried the past and what had happened in it with them, spoke mainly of springs past and gone? The winters, the long, dark winters, were forgotten. The winter, the snow and the dark, had been nothing remarkable; their minds had liberated themselves from the winters as time had passed. No, it was in the blue spring days, in the pale nights that the saga lived on. In the brooks which were released on the mountain sides, in the rivers which rose out of the ice, on the bare mountain, in the ice which moved in great shining floes on the tarns and lakes, in the young leaves, in the white bird‐cherry blossom; there, the saga had its roots. And the fairy tales too! No one had seen a woodlandp. 279 fairy on a winter night, no one had heard the hill folk’s delicate brass bells ringing to the north in the hills in the driving snow and darkness, nobody had seen stately knights on black horses with gold bridles and silver shoes on All Saints’ Day—no, St. Hallvard’s Day and Midsummer, that was the time.

Today, Easter Sunday, the church bells were ringing in snow and wind, but with a springlike sound. And people were on their way to church, in groups, by themselves, bright in thought and buoyant in will. They had come from afar, from the mountains and the out‐of‐the‐way valleys, they came on skis, driving, and on foot.

When the final peal had been rung and the church was full to overflowing and they sat with their hymn books open, the sacristan, Ol‐Kanelesa, came out into the nave and read the bidding prayer. He had a large volume of sermons under his arm. He was pale. And when he opened the book and began to read from it, everybody knew that the pastor was absent.

Was he ill? Yes, he was. Someone who sat up in the front pews whispered to the people next to him that Benjamin Sigismund had had to take to his bed on Good Friday after the service. It was said he was very ill. Would he get over it? Hm! Well! The regimental surgeon had been up to see him, but what he thought no one knew. Doctor Wellerop never let anything out.

This news now passed from mouth to mouth down through the whole of the church—and all this whispering disturbed Ol‐Kanelesa in his reading, and he stopped for a moment and glared severely and commandingly over his spectacles down at the congregation. It had its effect; Ol‐Kanelesa was not to be trifled with, even if he was only a blacksmith and an unfrocked schoolmaster. Then he continued his reading. Of those who were at church today, there were some who had neither heard Sigismund’s inaugural sermon or his Good Friday sermon two days ago, and who had only been witness to his fulminations; it seemed to them that it was almost morep. 280 edifying to listen to Ol‐Kanelesa. Yes, for once in a while at all events—and then there was Ol‐Kanelesa’s singing. He sang so the organ almost stopped playing.

Nevertheless, there was an air of depression over the people in Bergstaden’s great church today. . . . The thought that perhaps they would never again hear Sigismund made them understand, for the first time, how fond they were of him. He had, in spite of everything that could be said against him, been close to them. Yes, closer than any other pastor had been in living memory. That he had thundered at them and had chastized them was perhaps nothing so very much to object to when they really reflected on it. He did, after all, clear the air. He raised up their hearts and minds. If a new pastor came it was not at all certain that he would be able to help them in their spiritual and physical need as Benjamin Sigismund had done. When had anybody known him to say no when they came to him? Never! Night or day, it was the same to him. He had fleeced them, that he had, made them pay down to their last shilling—but he had never turned them away when they were in need. But where was there a parson who didn’t demand his dues? And all that talk about him—no, that couldn’t have been as bad as the gossips had made out, either.

Especially, there were many of them who had been confirmed by him who today quite openly grieved at the thought that he would soon be gone forever. All of them had some bright memory or other from the weeks they had spent up at the vestry preparing for their confirmation. . . . One he had patted on the shoulder, another he had praised although he had hardly learnt anything. And the things they had been reprimanded for were now forgotten. Even those who had failed, however bitter it was, and however much they had wept over it then, they too had forgotten. . . . And wasn’t it a joy and delight when they sat around him in the spring sunshine up there? If they could have that time over again, they wouldn’t hesitate. And those who had lost some of their loved ones, and there were many of them—they could tellp. 281 that Sigismund wasn’t a man who made their burden heavier. “Rest assured, my dear friend, that the dear departed has entered into the joy of his Lord; there where there is no more weeping and no more fear, but where God himself has dried every tear from their face. In a short time we shall, through the merits of our Lord Jesus, be joined with them again, never more to part.” They were words they knew by heart. When sorrow laid them low and the days became long and their poor hearts suffered woe and distress, then they remembered Sigismund’s words. Then things brightened, then life was worth living again—even during the long days of sorrow and longing, life was worth living.

The spring passed. And it became summer—it was the time when the bird cherry flowered and the sun shone all day.

Benjamin Sigismund continued to keep to the house. He was not more ill than before; but his strength was broken. Death was quietly working away at him. In Bergstaden’s church the Reverend Holger Hannig, the parish priest of Aalen and Holtaalen, officiated every fourth Sunday now. He was a quiet and pious man—but, no, he was not Benjamin Sigismund. They were all agreed on that. He always visited his sick colleague when he visited Bergstaden. Sigismund received him coolly and formally, as he sat silent and withdrawn in his chair. And the confession which Holger Hannig expected from Sigismund failed to materialize. Sigismund treated the other persons of rank and condition in Bergstaden in the same way when they came to see how his Reverence was. He had nothing to say to them. Nothing! In general he was not very friendly. And however much worse his illness became, he did not drop this, frankly speaking, stupid air of superiority. Thus Mr. Dopp one day got such a reception that it took away all his desire to continue with his short visits to the manse. “Mr. Dopp,” Sigismund said, “have you nothing better to do than to wear out my doorstep?” At which Mr. Dopp hadp. 282 taken his hat, bowed, and left—but he remained standing out on the steps for a long time polishing his spectacles—he even polished the sidepieces. That man‐eating prelate could just be permitted to sit there.

And then the exasperated mine secretary walked with small quick steps over the street and into his office. There he tore off his spectacles and threw them over onto an open ledger and rubbed his eyes.

His bookkeepers saw that he was annoyed—but they took good care not to inquire why. He would tell them right enough as soon as he had collected himself. Provided they took care not to contradict him, but agree with him, he was usually in such a good humor that they were given the rest of the day off. And to be let off now on a summer’s day, that was just what they wanted—for they all had houses and gardens to look after.

But there was one person to whom Sigismund never showed the door: that was Ol‐Kanelesa. He was always welcome.

But Sigismund didn’t say very much to him now, either. He had become a silent and withdrawn man. The two of them could sit for hours at a time without speaking. Ol‐Kanelesa got used to sitting there and not speaking. He kept up the fire on the hearth, passed one or another book to the pastor, and moved the candle near to his chair.

But all these books were a gold mine for Ol‐Kanelesa. He spent more than one evening, sitting on the curb of the hearth and with his glasses on the very tip of his nose, holding an old chronicle up in the light from the fire. Here, with all this learning, he spent many a good hour. And there was much in it which reminded him of the departed von Westen Hammond’s days. In a way he relived part of his youth again. On the evenings he was not down at Sigismund’s, he sat at home in Elisabeth Cottage and told little Ellen about what he had read—about what he had read now and what he had read before, when the other Ellen was alive. And the child sat there beside him, listening with large, shining eyes. She, too, in that way, entered into a new and unknown world; a worldp. 283 far, far away beyond this world. Her mind will be the richer for it, Ol‐Kanelesa thought. . . . It was a treasure which gold and silver and precious stones could not equal.

Nor was Benjamin Sigismund idle now—now on the brink of the deep grave. He taught his sons languages and was busily engaged in equipping them for life. No doubt he was moving farther away from them for every day that passed. He didn’t grieve so much over that now.

But no. One day when Laurentius, the elder boy, came in with his Latin grammar, pain at the thought of parting from him overwhelmed him. He drew the boy to him, embraced him, and sobbed.

“Laurentius,” he said. “Will you promise your father one thing, one thing you must keep?”

“Yes, Father,” the boy said. “That I will.”

“Will you promise me that you will never pass judgment on your father?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You are still far too young to understand—but will you remember what I have said?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. Now let me hear how much you know.”

He felt reassured. He had settled an important matter.1

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Otherwise, Sigismund was glad when his parishioners visited him. Now, when he was ill and couldn’t come to them, they came to him with all their small and big troubles and sought advice, guidance, and help.

“It is only now that I have become the pastor of this mountain people, Ole,” he said animatedly to Ol‐Kanelesa. “Now that I stand, staff in hand, ready to depart, my ministry is beginning. Can you understand it?”

Ol‐Kanelesa moved his spectacles with two fingers up onto his forehead and put the book he was holding quietly down on the hearth.

“Yes, I think I can understand that too.”

“Do you really?”

“He wants you to have your reward, you too.”

“Reward, I?”

“He said, you remember, that those who came at the eleventh hour should get just the same reward as those who had worked in his vineyard all day.”

“I, reward? No, Ole, I have in no wise earned any reward.”

Ol‐Kanelesa picked up his book and continued reading. He, with his poor learning, couldn’t discuss the words of the Scripture with a scholar.

But when Ol‐Kanelesa had left and Benjamin Sigismund was left sitting in his cushioned chair—and the night with its long hours came, and the quiet and the loneliness came, then Fear came, too, tiptoeing up to him. It stared at him with its face close to his.

“Sigismund,” it said. “Your hour is approaching. Do you know me? I am the ashen cheek, the dimmed eyes, and the folded hands.”

He said:

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“Get behind me, Fear. Why are you always waiting on me?”

“Oh, thou foolish and blind man. I have waited on everybody. Everybody, I tell you, Benjamin Sigismund. I have entered into all hearts, into all minds. Yes, I tell you. On this earth there are not hearts created that I have not entered into. Have you thought of eternity, Sigismund?”

Now Fear began to shout at him:

“Don’t you merit eternal life then, my dear sir? Haven’t you worked zealously and in the sweat of your brow in the vineyard from the early morning hour? After all, you’re already a Knight of the North Star.”

Benjamin Sigismund trembled and his teeth chattered. He froze. He burned, sweated, and froze. Eternal damnation and eternal death were already here, ready to seize both his hands and take him into the darkness——

Then he heard Ol‐Kanelesa’s voice:

“He said, you remember, that he who came at the eleventh hour should get just as great a reward as he who had worked in the vineyard all day.”

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings the law of God shall be proclaimed.

Now Fear departed. He heard its flat‐trodden slippers clattering on the threshold.

And the summer passed; and the autumn came. Autumn, the hardest of all the seasons, harder than winter itself. In the cold, dark autumn much is to wither and die; it is the autumn and the darkness which kill.

One evening, at the end of November, Benjamin Sigismund had Ol‐Kanelesa sent for.

“Today, when the door was open, a white bird came in, Ole. It came right over to my bed. Do you think it was an omen?”

“Was it a ptarmigan?”

“Yes, perhaps it was a ptarmigan.”

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“It might have been frightened by a hawk, then?”

“It is possible that it was, Ole. But why should it seek refuge just here in my room? Had such a white bird come into me when I was well, it would have rejoiced me, but now—now when I am in bed, weak and exhausted, everything that happens which is a little out of the ordinary becomes a messenger of death. I see death in everything now. I believe for certain that that white bird was an omen.”

“Heed not the cries of birds,” Ol‐Kanelesa said.

He thought, bad though it was, that the pastor was right this time. Without a doubt it was an omen—but he was not the man to confirm it. Hadn’t Sigismund suffered enough now anyway? He could clearly see from day to day how suffering ploughed deeper and deeper furrows in his face. He was a strong man, Benjamin Sigismund; it took time. Suffering had still many furrows to plough.

Sigismund lay there with closed eyes, thinking of what Ole had said about bird cries; they were words from the Scriptures.

“Do you know, Ole Korneliusen, what I have decided to do today.”

“No, your Reverence.”

“I will burn my boats—my miserable, insignificant boats. They have all been carrying the garish sail of vanity. You see, there is a whole lot of my scholarly work lying here, a couple of theses, the whole lot products of the arrogance of my manhood. Will you light a fire on the hearth.”

And while Ol‐Kanelesa took down the flint and striker from the mantlepiece, Sigismund got out of bed. He was afflicted by a pain in his side and had great difficulty in getting on his clothes. But gradually it was easier. . . . The fire and the light stimulated him. And then he began to empty all his drawers and cupboards and chests.

“Here, Ole. Let everything be consigned to the flames. Quickly, so that I am not tempted to take it back. Here is ap. 287 dissertation which cost me my sleep for six months. Into the flames with it!”

And Ol‐Kanelesa put the dissertation in the fire. He didn’t say anything, but he thought: Is the pastor going off his head? He, Ol‐Kanelesa, was standing here now, making himself a guilty party to something which was certainly quite wrong.

Sigismund was on his knees beside a big chest of drawers holding some letters which were tied with linen thread; old, yellowing letters addressed with an old‐fashioned hand, they were. He half‐closed his eyes and passed the letters to Ol‐Kanelesa—without looking in his direction.

“Quickly, Ole. Quickly!”

As Ol‐Kanelesa was on the point of putting the bundle into the fiery glow, Sigismund called out: “Stop, Ole! Not those; they are my dear mother’s letters. No, I cannot burn these. Will you promise me that you will put them in my coffin—they shall follow me to the grave.” His voice was almost stifled by sobs. “Never has a mother penned such a sum of love as these letters contain. Remember, they must lie on my left side, right up against my heart. Do you promise that, Ole Korneliusen?”

“Yes, if I survive your Reverence, it shall be done.”

Sigismund got up with great effort. He face was wet with tears.

“Thank you, Ole. Thank you, thank you.” And he added, now in a brighter tone, as he went over to the cupboard where documents and securities were kept. “The fire shall receive, by way of recompense, a little compensation for what we have just deprived it of.”

He took out his Order of the North Star.

Now, Ol‐Kanelesa was horrified.

“Your Reverence is surely not thinking of burning that up?”

“Yes, just that. No one shall be permitted on my behalf to make a show with this tinsel at my grave.”

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And he took and threw the order into the blaze. It burnt well—

Thy draught seems like honey, But loathsome when drunk, Vanity of vanities,

he said.

Now he sank down exhausted on the curb of the hearth and continued to sit there staring into the lapping flames.

Was he now ready for his journey? Yes, soon. . . . There was only one thing left.

. . . When Ol‐Kanelesa that evening, stiff at the knees, groped his way slowly and carefully down the dark back steps of the manse, there was someone who suddenly gripped his arm.

“Is it you, Uncle Ola?”

“Gunhild!” he said. “You standing here?”

“Is yon Benjamin very bad now?” she whispered, without letting go her grasp. “Is he dying?”

“Sigismund, you mean?”

“Yes, Uncle,” she said firmly. “I mean him, yes. Him and no one else!”

“No—he’s out of bed, now and again that is.”

“Is he up this evening too, then?”

She didn’t whisper any more. Her words sounded more like a cry.

“He’s getting ready for bed now.”

Ol‐Kanelesa wanted to pass but Gunhild held him back.

“Has he asked you about me any time?”

“Not so far as I can remember, Gunhild.”

“So he hasn’t asked you then?”

“No,” Ol‐Kanelesa said. “He hasn’t. He has more important things to think about now, has our Sigismund, than that there——”

“Uncle,” she interrupted. “I don’t know you any more.”

Ol‐Kanelesa relented. He put his hand on her shoulder as she stood on the steps below him, and said—now with a kind voice:

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“Are you still thinking about Sigismund?”

“I should think I do.”

“Hm. That’s been a dangerous fire to put out.”

“Evening after evening I’ve stood down here on the steps, listening and waiting for you. . . . I’ve heard the church clock strike one hour after the other. Three evenings you passed me here without seeing me. All three times I reached out for your arm but missed it. And when I tried to speak I couldn’t open my mouth. Uncle, will you come with me up to Benjamin?”

“Now, tonight? No, it can’t be done, Gunhild.”

“No. No. Perhaps it can’t.” She stepped aside so that he could pass. “I must surely never come up here again.”

And stiff in her joints and limbs after standing still for so long on the narrow, cold stairs, she began to go down them.

Ol‐Kanelesa came silently after her.

Down in the entrance gate he said:

“Things aren’t good for you now, are they?”

“Not good,” she laughed. “Was it not good you said, Uncle?”

Her words had an inner hard, mocking sound; they cut the old blacksmith to the quick—for only someone who was destined to be damned both in this world and the next, and saw no chance of salvation any more, could find it in them to talk in that way.

“So I won’t get to see Benjamin any more now. Not before we——?”

Ol‐Kanelesa guessed what she was going to say. And he interjected:

“Keep quiet, Gunhild. Not another word.” He spoke so loud that people who were passing in the autumn gloom out on the street stopped. “Pray to God to keep you from wilful sin, Gunhild.”

She staggered backwards towards the wall as if avoiding a blow. She had never heard him speak so loud and harshly before. Had he, too, become someone else? If so, then it was only she who had to go here on this earth and be always the same.

p. 290

“You can see Sigismund again. I promise you that, Gunhild. Whether you’ll feel worse instead of better after it—well, that must be your own affair. Just reflect on it. If you want to see him, then you shall. But you need time to think it over. Don’t hurry. He won’t die yet.”

And then he went. And without saying farewell. And without turning to see whether Gunhild followed him. He had to hurry up to Elisabeth Cottage to say goodnight to someone there—someone who had lain there struggling with sleep, waiting for him, little Ellen; God bless her! May God give her a brighter and happier lot in life than that granted to her poor misguided mother.

Candles were burning up at Gunhild Finne’s. And candle after candle burned low. Finally, she had no candles left. Now it was only the light from the hearth which illuminated the dark, uncared‐for cottage—for the cobwebs still hung in peace under the beams, as did the dust which was now many years old; the window panes were always yellow.

The spinning wheel stood with yarn in the spool in the middle of the room—it didn’t occur to her to move it over to the wall when she had finished with it, as others did. Here, the wheel could just stand where it stood, in the middle of the floor. It didn’t stand in anybody’s way—it was ages now since a visitor had set foot inside the door.

The house was more revolting to look at than ever before. Not even the floor was washed once a week now, it was scarcely swept with a broom. Nor was the ash on the hearth carried out at intervals—no, Gunhild had simply piled it up against the side of one of the walls. And when a storm blew from the north and gusts of wind came down the chimney, it blew dry ash from the heap over the floor and up onto chairs, table, and benches and down into the food dishes. It was worse here than in the worst miners’ barracks, where there were only men.

p. 291

There tonight, in this terrible hole, in this horror, was Gunhild Finne, dressed in her best, dressed for church! She had put on her silver‐buckled shoes, the ones she had danced in at her wedding. Down over her breast hung her bonnet strings embroidered with pearls, over her shoulders she wore a rose‐embroidered, fringed kerchief from Jönköping in Sweden. Her dress, in the dark, severe style worn by young married women, suited her. Sorrow and pain had tried in vain to mark her face with their sharp plowshares.

For a whole week she had gone in her church attire. For a whole week she had waited and watched. However tired she was, sleep helped but little. If she lay on her bed or sat down in a chair, sleep fled—it was as if it grinned at her from the door and had only made a fool of her.

“Will you sleep while he watches?” Sleep called out from the door. “Will you slumber and rest while he struggles with death?”

And then she began to walk to and fro across the floor, from one window to the other. She tried to peer out through some round patches on the windowpanes, where the sulphur smoke from the outdoor smelting ovens had not gathered. It was as if she stood there looking for somebody. Sometimes she would stand there in the middle of the room holding her breath and listening. But she didn’t hear the wagoners’ bells, chiming through the night outside, nor the sound of the horses’ hooves. . . . She only heard the quiet. Not the quiet on earth; no, the quiet of eternity. Of the eternity into which we shall all one day enter. Was Benjamin Sigismund entering it now? When she stood there and closed her eyes, it seemed to her that she already saw him in there. He stood there erect. And with a long, black, ankle‐length cape round his shoulders.

Then she began to call out:

“Benjamin, wait for me! I will come with you, Benjamin!”

Had she called out? No, not with her lips and voice. Not with words. Nevertheless! She had certainly never called so loudly before.

The wood out in the woodshed had been burned up. Shep. 292 hadn’t, like the others, supplied herself with wood and peat for the winter. Nor with food either. What did she want with fuel and food? Would the wood warm her? Would the food fill her?

Now only a few red embers flickered on the hearth. She sat for a while on a stool, bent over, staring into them. And then they went out too. . . . Then she jumped up. She dared not be in here any longer. She was afraid of the dark.

On the sulphur‐yellow windows she saw that the moon was shining. Was it a full moon? It was better to be out under the open sky than sit here. Why was the air so suffocating? Dust. Dust, which had eaten its way into tables, benches, walls, roof.

Then she went out. She went without putting on her coat. She had the feeling, too, that she was no longer alone in here. Was David here? Or Benjamin Sigismund?

Just as she got out onto the steps, the clock in the church tower struck two.

Wasn’t it more than two o’clock? She thought it was at least five. Would this night never end?

The night was cold and clear. She saw there was snow in the air. And the light from the moon cast a blue, silvery sheen over everything. . . . She now began to feel really cold.

Would this night never end? What should she do with herself? Go down to Ol‐Kanelesa and little Ellen? No. Besides, she had no thoughts for Ellen now. Although she was Ellen’s mother. But could a mother forget her child? Yes—No. All the same, tonight there was someone—someone, who was nearer to her.

A terrifying thought! What if God decided to take little Ellen from her?

“Lord! Lord! Be merciful and do not punish me so hard,” she prayed. “Truly my sins are great, but thy mercy is greater.”

She ran on, the lash on her back. She had no more tears to weep. If only she had.

Here, on her right hand, she had the churchyard. The grave crosses stood there, casting black shadows. By each cross ap. 293 figure stood enveloped in a black cloak—silent and immovable they stood there. No, they were only the shadows from the crosses she saw.

And over there by the stone wall an isolated cross stood: David’s cross! Wasn’t there someone standing there by the cross calling to her?

“Gunhild!” it called. “Gunhild! Gunhild!”

Was it David’s voice? She turned her face away—and ran, ran. She ran for a long time—mile after mile, hour after hour along a naked, stony strand. The churchyard, the crosses, the shadows, sailed along silently out there.

She only came to herself when she stood outside the wall down where Benjamin Sigismund lived and stared up at the windows.

Was a light burning up in his room? No, of course, it was only the moon shining on the window.

“Benjamin! Benjamin!”

Here calm descended on her again. Now she began to walk up the street again. The clock still hadn’t struck three. She walked as if delirious. Where should she go? Home? No! She daren’t go there any more; up there somebody sat waiting for her. She couldn’t rid herself of the thought that David was there tonight.

At Ol‐Kanelesa’s smithy she stopped. And almost without thinking she turned the key. A grating sound came from the big rusty lock. She started in a cold sweat. Tonight everything had got a voice. Everything she touched shrieked. To high heaven! And with her hand on the worn key she stood for a long time and listened.

No, now everything was quiet. Now everybody and everything slept. Even at the big hostels for the wagoners both men and animals were asleep. No gates were opened and shut. No horses’ bells rang at the entrances to the big courtyards.

She crept into the smithy. She groped her way forward to the forge and sat down on a chopping block beside it.

In the quiet and the dark in there a heavy drowsiness camep. 294 over her. She felt more secure now. She could again think calmly and composedly about things. And strange though it was, she thought more of David now than of Sigismund. She wondered whether David had lived through the same terrors the last night he lived as she had tonight. Had fear pierced him to the marrow as it had pierced her during these long hours? Yes, for Retribution never let its stinging scourge rest—it was vigilant and watched carefully that no one sneaked away. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. So many times, as she sat behind the spinning wheel and spun and spun, she had tried to imagine how David had really felt on that night. And just as she had imagined it—so had she experienced it herself tonight.

“Oh, David! David! Did I cause you so much pain? Now everything is too late. . . . Nothing can be put right again. And to sit here and repent, that is little help to you, David.”

The clock in the church tower then struck three. Not more than three strokes did it strike!

Again the rusty lock creaked. The door opened slowly. Ol‐Kanelesa stood in the opening with an oil lamp.

“I knew it was you, Gunhild. Are you cold?”

His voice was cold and severe. He came in and seized her by the arm.

“Are you cold?” he repeated. “Come now! You can’t sit here destroying yourself.”

“Uncle,” she began. “You must let me be in peace.”

“Come!” he said severely. “Now you must do as I want, Gunhild.”

“Can’t I please myself then?”

“No. Nobody can do as he pleases. Come! I’ve said.”

His grip was firm and hard; there was a rugged will in that grip. She dared not resist. And she went with him. She staggered in front of him up to Elisabeth Cottage. He blew out the lamp and trotted after her, close on her heels.

At the doorstep outside the cottage she stopped.

“Come!” he said again. “We’ve further to go, we have.”

“Why can’t we go in here?” Gunhild asked.

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She stood there supporting her back against the railings.

“The door’s locked,” he said. “Little Ellen’s not going to see her mother—not as she is tonight.”

Then, finally, tears came.

“Oh, let me go in to Ellen, Uncle. She’s my child.”

“Not tonight. Come now!”

“Uncle Ola! Are you so heartless?”

“One thing at a time, Gunhild. Come, do you hear?”

“No, I can’t bear to go past this door tonight.”

“Tonight you must choose between two things: either to go in to Ellen and never see Sigismund again. Or if you want to see him again, you must promise me that Ellen remains here. Here with me. Then I’ll have her to myself. Tonight you must answer me that, Gunhild.”

She didn’t reflect. She said:

“Ellen can stay here.”

And then Gunhild went off quickly and defiantly up the street. Ol‐Kanelesa was taken aback. He had not expected to get that answer. Well, maybe he had expected that too. He had to test her. In a few hours he might perhaps have some use for what she had just told him. He was glad that Gunhild had answered as she had.

He changed the lamp over into his other hand and went quickly after her.

“Wait a little, Gunhild.”

Gunhild stopped and turned towards him. She stood there erect and unyielding. And she looked him straight in the face.

“Now I want to be alone, Uncle. We have nothing more to talk about, we two.”

“We have a great deal to talk about, now.” His voice was strangely kind. “Now I know what I wanted to know.”

“Uncle. I owed you much. You are a good father to me, you—but now I have repaid you. You demanded a high interest on what I owed you. No one could have demanded a higher one.”

“Tomorrow you can have the interest. Then we will move our light up to your cottage.”

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“Ellen, do you mean?”

“Yes, it’s she who has been my light now. When she’s gone it’ll be dark down in Elisabeth Cottage.”

Gunhild could hear how difficult it was for him to say these words. She had never heard him speak so strangely before.

“You mustn’t think about me now,” he continued. “I’m old. And it’s dawning on me that I shall soon be moving myself, too.”

“But Uncle!”

“There’s another Ellen waiting for me. She has waited a long time.”

Gunhild went over to him and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. His cheek was wet.

Early the next morning Ol‐Kanelesa walked down the main street, dressed in yellow, tawed elkskin trousers and a blue tailjacket. Where was the sacristan going, all dressed up, and so early in the day?

Those who approached Ol‐Kanelesa to ask him where he was going now were imperiously waved aside with his stick. It was clear he hadn’t time to talk to anybody. Besides, he looked so serious that they didn’t venture to be too forward with him. If he was in that frame of mind they could be exposing themselves to a stinging retort. In general, he had become more and more sharp of tongue with the years. He was almost dangerous.

No, Ol‐Kanelesa was not always so gruff. When he came along leading little Ellen, Gunhild Finne’s wee girl, he laughed and was in good humor—but if she wasn’t with him, it was no longer advisable to let a straw come in his path.

At the pump he met the Works’ managing director, Joachim Fredrik Daldorph. He was no less curious than the others. The great man placed himself with his gold‐mounted stick in Ol‐Kanelesa’s path.

“May I ask where our sacristan is making for so early?”

“I’m going up to Mughøla to survey Endre Paasla’s mine.”

p. 297

Mr. Daldorph didn’t like that answer. He tried nevertheless to laugh. But he couldn’t find a ready answer—the matter of surveying miner Endre Paalsen’s mine shaft was a painful episode. The shaft had had to be surveyed and measurements taken twice, as the first survey had, notoriously, turned out to be completely wrong.

And, without raising his cap and without looking up at Director Daldorph, Ol‐Kanelesa trudged on.

“I say, Ole,” Daldorph called out. He had little desire to come off second best. “Who’s going to help you with this, you can hardly do it yourself, can you?”

Ol‐Kanelesa did an about‐turn, went straight up to Daldorph, looked him straight in the face, and said with a wicked grin:

“I’d begun to think about getting Julie Bjelke to come.”

Mr. Daldorph then raised his gold‐mounted cane. “Watch your tongue, sacristan!”

After that the all‐powerful director could stand no more stray shots—the affair of Miss von Bjelke and the Works was something Mr. Daldorph last of all wanted to hear talked about. Otherwise he was a sensible man. A capable mining man who never deliberately did wrong to anyone. He could quite well take a joke against himself without showing his teeth; but when it was a matter of the Works’ honor and reputation—no. He wasn’t going to put up with that.

Ol‐Kanelesa now rushed in through the gateway of the manse.

Here his face became serious again. He stopped and breathed heavily. Today he was on an errand he would have preferred not to have had—he still didn’t know how he was going to carry it out. He wanted most of all to turn back.

Slowly he went up the steep back stairs. This was his usual way. It also gave him the chance, before he went in to the pastor, to exchange a few words with the elder Miss Bjørnstrup who was still here helping. From this obliging lady he learnt how Sigismund had been since his last visit. Thus, Ol‐Kanelesa never went in quite unprepared to the pastor.

p. 298

Miss Bjørnstrup told him that the pastor had had a restless night. She took her apron to her eyes and began to cry. The housekeeper and she had lain awake almost the whole night and had heard his Reverence praying aloud several times. Now he was asleep—yes, it now looked as if peace had finally descended on him.

“Then I’d best sit down and wait until his Reverence awakes.” Ol‐Kanelesa looked round for a chair. “He must get all the sleep he can. He’s had a long night, I can see.”

“Oh, he suffers terribly,” the tender‐hearted Miss Bjørnstrup sobbed. “Do you know what he said, Ole?”

“No.”

“‘Miss Bjørnstrup,’ he said. ‘Do you know who Nemesis is?’ ‘No, Mr. Sigismund,’ I answered. ‘You don’t?’ he said. ‘Then I prefer not to tell you who he is. You, who are so good, will never get a visit from him.’ Who is it, Ole?”

“Hm! It’s retribution, that’s what it is, Miss.”

“How do you know that? Are you so learned?”

“I’ve only blundered my way through a few books.”

“In dear departed Thomas von Westen’s writings?”

“In them, too.”

“But you intended to become a pastor yourself at that time, didn’t you? I heard it from your betrothed, Miss Ellen.”

“God bless her!” was all Ol‐Kanelesa said—at that moment Sigismund called out from his bedroom:

“Is Ole Korneliusen out there?”

Ol‐Kanelesa took off his cap. He grew pale as he stood there. Sigismund’s voice had taken on such an unpleasant hollow sound.

And Ol‐Kanelesa tiptoed quietly in.

“Good morning, Ole,” Sigismund said and drew himself up in bed. “Thank you for coming. Thank you! Thank you!”

He seized Ol‐Kanelesa’s hand and held it for a long time between both of his.

“Do you know what I did during the night, Ole?”

“No.”

“I have prayed for David—David Finne; for his soul, Ip. 299 mean. Don’t you, too, believe that one can pray for a dead person? The Lord’s boundless love can certainly include the departed—also those who, according to our ideas, did not enter into his glory. Our Lord and Saviour assuredly did not descend to the kingdom of the dead in order to increase their tortures, but to alleviate them.”

Ol‐Kanelesa stood bent over him. Sigismund’s face shone with peace, happiness, victory.

“And I have also prayed for her—for Gunhild.”

“Gunhild too?”

“I prayed that the light and the wondrous sun of grace might very soon dawn for her. She is still so young. She has quite certainly a long life before her. Ole, does Gunhild hate me?”

Ol‐Kanelesa pursed his lips and shook his head. It seemed to him that this was the best answer he could give.

“Are you quite certain of it, Ole?”

“Yes.”

“And do you have clear proofs of it?”

Ol‐Kanelesa then began to tell him, slowly and with much detail, what had passed between them during the night. . . . Now he was wondering whether she might come up and speak with the pastor?

Sigismund lay for a while with his eyes closed. His face, which recently had shone with peace, once again took a sorrowing expression; suffering again came into it.

“I don’t know, Ole,” Sigismund said. “She will come in here in possession of her full health and in the beauty of her youth. And I—I lie here ill, marked by death. Don’t you think we shall both be the losers in eternity if we see each other again? When we parted, we felt in spite of everything that we were one. If we see each other now, we will perhaps discover that time and the years have moved us far from each other.”

Ol‐Kanelesa withdrew his hand carefully.

Of course Sigismund was right. But would Gunhild understand this?

p. 300

“No, Ole,” Benjamin Sigismund said, and sat up in bed. “Two souls which once have been one will quickly find each other again. I want to see Gunhild. Yes, I want to see her, Ole Korneliusen.”

The pastor is making a mistake here, Ol‐Kanelesa thought. But he didn’t want to discuss it now. Besides, he ought only to wish that it was him and not Sigismund who was mistaken. For other reasons, too, he preferred to get out of discussing these things. He had lived here now for almost two generations and formed some opinions—opinions which for him had acquired value. Why should he now, in his old age, destroy them?

“Help me up, Ole. These pains are plaguing me. Thank you! Thank you! Kari, bring a little warm water in here. No, its the pain in the left side—now, that was a bit better. Would you be so kind, Ole, to find my razor?”

And while Sigismund with great difficulty got his clothes on, Ol‐Kanelesa stropped his razor. At intervals, he plucked a hair from his head and tested the edge on it—it was a poor razor.

“How happy I am that Gunhild wants to talk to me, Ole. Is she just as beautiful and wonderful?”

“Beautiful and wonderful?” Ol‐Kanelesa repeated. “She’s just about the same as people usually are.”

He had never thought that Gunhild was—beautiful and wonderful. Wasn’t that what Sigismund had called her? No, one could hardly say that Gunhild was that, nor anyone else either; yes, one! She was certainly one you could call both beautiful and wonderful. No, this wretched razor! The best thing would be to try spreading a little ash on the strop. Yes, now the edge was coming up. Wasn’t that what he had thought, that ash would help?

“What do you think, Ole, do I look very ill?”

“Your Reverence could have looked worse.”

He hadn’t the heart to say what he thought. The truth was: the pastor looked fey. It was impossible that he could be long for this life.

p. 301

“Thank you, Ole. Put the razor there. Thank you, Kari. Let me have the water over here by the bed.”

The housekeeper dried her wet fingers on her skirt and then gave Ol‐Kanelesa a furtive glance. He pretended not to see it.

“Will you ask Gunhild to come then, Ole Korneliusen? Give her my warmest greetings. And say that I am so happy that she wants to come.”

“What time shall she come, then?”

“Now, at once—no, not just yet. Ask her to come when the clock in the church tower strikes ten.”

Then it was Ol‐Kanelesa who seized Sigismund’s hand.

“You mustn’t ask too much of each other, you and Gunhild. The world has been harsh with you both since you last met.”

He put his cap on and left—as quietly as he had come.

In the cold half‐darkness between the ancient timber walls out on the veranda, he stopped with bowed head and stared at the ground. Then he went a few steps down the stairs; but in the middle he stopped again. . . . He was not so certain that he would see Benjamin Sigismund again.

Ol‐Kanelesa clutched his breast. When Sigismund was gone, it would be desolate and lonely here in Bergstaden. He had been a good friend; he couldn’t remember a better—although there was a great difference between them in rank and station. He pondered a little, too, as to whether he ought not to go up to him again and thank him for their friendship. Tomorrow it might be too late. . . . He went up a step, but stopped again. He couldn’t do it. It would probably only scare Benjamin. Then it was better to let it be. In a short time he would, anyway, meet his friend again. On the other side they would meet again. . . . He, Ol‐Kanelesa, was an old man. He, too, would soon have to take his wanderer’s staff in his hand and depart.

No smoke rose up from Ol‐Kanelesa’s smithy that day; the door was closed and the key taken out. Where was he then? He wasn’t up at Elisabeth Cottage. Nor had anybody seen him in Bergstaden since early this morning when he was standing, dressed in his Sunday best, down at the pump talking top. 302 Mr. Daldorph. Was he up at the pastor’s? No. Miss Bjørnstrup could only say that he left there a little after the clock struck nine. But he hadn’t looked well. He had been unusually pale.

About seven o’clock in the evening, a furnace minder, Jon Haraldsen Benz, had come with a load of hay on his back from his pasture up at the Hitter Lake. He had seen Ol‐Kanelesa about midday walking quickly up the road over the sand banks. What had become of him, he couldn’t say. He hadn’t thought much about it.

In Benjamin Sigismund’s study the resinous pine wood was burning with almost black flames.

Joachim Fredrik Daldorph, who was scarcely any friend of Benjamin Sigismund—that Swedish knight!—had one night in the autumn, without saying anything, sent two good loads of oily, phosphorescent pine of the finest sort up to the manse—it was mainly the result of an impulse on Mr. Daldorph’s part. However, now he was ill this odd pastor was very welcome to this little gift. Here in Bergstaden, where almost everybody burned nothing but damp peat and birch from which there was little or no blaze, phosphorescent firewood was a rarity.

With Miss Bjørnstrup’s help Sigismund had eventually found out who the donor was. Sigismund had then written a charming little letter to the director. He had the very same evening read the letter aloud to his cousin, Mrs. Dagmar Irgens. And moved to tears the beautiful lady had exclaimed: “In spite of everything, he’s a great man, Joachim Fredrik.” “Yes, perhaps he is,” the director had answered, and threw the pastor’s letter into the fire. “I know that there are certain women who like to think that.” To this Mrs. Irgens had made no reply. . . . She just went on sitting there with bowed head, busily knitting a pair of mittens she had thought of giving her cousin on his birthday. He could use them on his many journeys to the mines in the coming winter.

. . . No other light was burning in Sigismund’s study. Hep. 303 sat fully dressed in his chair. He sat for long periods with closed eyes and let the warmth from the hearth shine on his pale face and cold hands. Gunhild sat on a stool—a little in the shadows.

“Gunhild,” he said. “Do you remember the last time we two sat and talked to each other?”

“Yes, Benjamin.”

“And you can now think of it without bitterness?”

“Yes, yes.”

“How I love you—for that.”

“And you, Benjamin, can you also think of it—without being bitter.”

“Can I?” He smiled as if in a dream. “There are no shadows over that memory now. None, Gunhild.”

And they went on sitting there, without saying anything—for a long time.

They had sat there together for many hours now, but little had been said between them. Where should they begin and where should they end? And that which had been said had been said by Benjamin. She had sat for so many years at the spinning wheel and had been silent. She had forgotten to speak. . . . She could only think and ponder. And be silent.

“Now I will try to walk to and fro in the room a little. Yes, I am feeling better now. Today, I shall walk a little—tomorrow a little more, the next day a little more still. Perhaps God wills that I shall become quite fit?”

He stretched out his hand to her.

And again Benjamin Sigismund stood beside her. For the first time for many years—many long years. . . . He put his arm in hers. And, thus linked, they walked several times to and fro between the window and the hearth.

And then he turned suddenly towards her. He took her head between his hands and looked into her face.

“Oh, you mountain rose! How can you love me now—now, when— Oh, you see yourself how I look.”

“Benjamin.” She leaned towards him. “If anybody found thep. 304 mountain rose lying in the street, they would spit on it and kick it out of the way.”

He put his hand on her mouth, so that she could say no more.

“Will you first answer my question, Gunhild?”

“Does it matter how anyone looks?” She said. “Aren’t you what you are—however you look? If it’s appearance it depends on, then I’ll go. And then I’ll never come back again, Benjamin.”

“You are right, Gunhild. Certainly, you are right. You, too, are what you are, Gunhild.”

“Are you tired, Benjamin?”

“No, no. I am not tired. No, I do not know. I only know that we have found each other again—we two lost creatures. And even if eternity sinks down between us, it cannot part us.” And after a little he said: “How beautiful this day has been. All the days of sorrow, the hours of adversity, darkness, and fear are to be reckoned as nothing compared with the happy hours we have lived through today. How richly merciful God has been towards us two. Tomorrow we will go to church and thank him. And should my hour of death be postponed—let us say a few weeks—no, days—then you shall be my bride. The Reverend Mr. Holger can then marry us on the twenty‐fifth Sunday after Trinity. I am quite certain that I shall live for a time yet—live so that we can be apportioned that happiness which we have been allotted.”

He had tired himself with talking. He had to sit down again.

“Tomorrow when you come back, you will find me strong and many years younger. And then you can stay with me the whole day. Then we will only talk of our future, short or long, it stands in the hands of the Lord. How I look forward to your coming again tomorrow. You must come early, you promise that, don’t you, Gunhild?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Tonight we shall not watch, we two. We shall go to bed, grateful and secure. Our night watches are at an end. . . . Even the fourth night watch is at an end.”

p. 305

“Yes, Benjamin.”

“About midday your uncle, Ole Korneliusen, is also certain to come. He is a noble man. His thoughts have been with us today. I have felt it the whole time. He has certainly knelt somewhere or other and prayed for us. I have felt that too. I want to thank him for it.”

Gunhild then said good night and left. Benjamin Sigismund went with her down to the door. He opened it wide so that she could see her way down the stairs.

She went down the stairs backwards—so as to see him as he stood there in the light of the fire. He was just as young and handsome now as on that first spring morning when she met him up by the church gate.

. . . That night a furious raging storm passed over the mountains and Bergstaden. People awoke about midnight with the north wind and driving snow howling in the chimneys and thrashing against the windows. Up in the churchyards there was a rending sound of old grave crosses being blown over. Tonight nature itself was obliterating and annihilating many a half‐forgotten memory. Name boards were torn out and thrown amongst the grave mounds; grave stones were snowed up. But there were three crosses which the north wind couldn’t master this time either, they were the three iron crosses Ol‐Kanelesa had put up—the crosses over his brother’s, Ellen von Westen Hammond’s, and David Finne’s graves. They went on standing.

During the most powerful gusts of wind there was a clinking sound from the big bell in the tower; a generation might pass between each time that happened. When it did happen, it seldom meant anything good.

And the men got out of bed and closed the dampers in the chimney breasts. Afterwards they lay there for a long time, listening to the storm before they got off to sleep again. But would there be reports of disasters after this? If this winter continued as it had begun it would be bad enough both for man and beast. True enough there had been peace and goodp. 306 harvests for a while now—but Poverty still sat grey, skinny, and shivering in many a home.

And as the night had been, so was the day too. The storm lifted a little in the grey of the dawn; then it began again with renewed rage. Walls and fences were lashed by the snow until the whole town lay completely white, snowdrifts hung in draperies out over the eaves; in the streets it was almost impassable.

Gunhild Finne was on her way down the main street. She had promised Benjamin to come early. She heard people calling and shouting in the driving snow—but she took no heed of it. She just went on. She hadn’t any time to stop and talk to anybody.

She ran up the steep stairs in the manse. And it seemed as if her heart stood still in her breast. She didn’t know why.

On the landing she met Miss Bjørnstrup. Her face was puffed up and tear stained.

“Mr. Sigismund is dead,” she said.

She let herself down on a clothes’ chest and sobbed into her apron.

Gunhild pushed past her and went in. There Miss Bjørnstrup and some others found her standing in front of the bed, staring fixedly down at the dead man.

Benjamin Sigismund lay as if he was asleep, with his hands folded over his chest. The housekeeper had found him in that position. His face expressed nothing but peace.

Gunhild was the only one who didn’t cry. When they spoke to her, they got no answer. She didn’t look up at them. She only looked at him, Benjamin.

About midday she went back up the main street again; the storm kept her hidden and threw a white, closely fitting cape over her shoulders. She could hardly be distinguished from the snow.

At Elisabeth Cottage six men were struggling, amongst them Jon Haraldsen Benz, to carry in the body of a frozen man through the narrow door; it was Ol‐Kanelesa.

p. 307

An ore wagoner from the Storvarts mine had found him sitting stiff and lifeless in a snowdrift at the north end of the Hitter Lake.

Gunhild was passing by. She heard little Ellen’s frantic wailing from inside the cottage.

Now it was no longer snow that was falling; it was fire——