Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson - Magnhild; Dust

At that time she was fifteen, in her sixteenth year.

The next day the girls passed every free moment in the dining-room, which had now been transformed into a work-shop. The saddler told them of a sojourn of several years in America, and of travels in England and Germany; he talked without interrupting his work and with a frequent intermingling of jests. His narratives were accompanied by the incessant tittering of his listeners. They were scarcely aware themselves how they gradually ceased laughing at him and laughed instead at the witty things he said; neither did they observe until later how much they learned from him. He was so greatly missed by the girls when he left that more than half of their time together was occupied in conversation about him; this lasted for many days after he was gone, and never wholly ceased.

There were two things which had made the strongest impression on Magnhild. The first was the English and German songs the saddler had sung for them. She had paid little attention to the text, unless perhaps occasionally; but how the melodies had captivated her!

While singing hymns one Sunday they had first noticed that Skarlie had a fine voice. Thenceforth he was obliged to sing for them constantly. These foreign melodies of his fluttering thither from a fuller, richer life, freer conditions, larger ideas than their own, clung to Magnhild's fancy the entire summer. They were the first pictures which had awakened actual yearning within her breast. It may also be said that for the first time she comprehended what song was. As she was singing her interminable scales one day, before beginning her studies in singing from note, she came to a full realization of the fact that this song without melody was to her like wings beating against a cage: it fluttered up and down against walls, windows, doors, in perpetual and fruitless longing, aye, until at last it sank like the cobwebs, over everything in the room. She could sit alone out of doors with his songs. While she was humming them, the forest hues dissolved into one picture; and that she had never discovered before. The density, the vigor in the tree-tops, above and below the tree-tops, over the entire mountain wall, as it were, overwhelmed her; the rushing of the waters of the stream attracted her.

The second thing which had made so deep an impression on her, and which was blended with all the rest, was Skarlie's story of how he had become lame. In America, when he was a young man, he had undertaken to carry a boy twelve years old from a burning house; he had fallen with the boy beneath the ruins. Both were extricated, Skarlie with a crushed limb, the boy unscathed. That boy was now one of the most noted men of America.

It was his lot to be saved, "he was destined to something."

This reminder again! The thought of her own fate had heretofore been shrouded in the wintry mantle of the churchyard, amid frost, weeping, and harsh clanging of bells; it had been something sombre. Now it flitted onward to large cities beyond the seas, among ships, burning houses, songs, and great destinies. From this time forth she dreamed of what she was destined to be as something far distant and great.

Late in the autumn all three girls were confirmed. This was such a matter of course to them all that their thoughts were chiefly busied with what they should wear on the day of the ceremony. Magnhild, who had never yet had a garment cut out and made expressly for herself, wondered whether an outfit would now be prepared for her. No. The younger girls were furnished with new silk dresses; an old black dress that had become too tight for the priest's wife was made over for Magnhild.

It was too short both in the waist and in the skirt; but Magnhild scarcely noticed this. She was provided by the governess with a little colored silk neckerchief and a silver brooch; she borrowed the every-day shawl of the mistress of the house; a pair of gloves were loaned her by the governess.

Her inner preparations were not much more extensive than the outer ones.

The day glided tranquilly by without any special emotion. Religious sentiments at the parsonage, as well as elsewhere in the parish, were matters of calm custom. Some tears were shed in church, the priest offered wine and a toast at table, and there was a little talk about what should now be done with Magnhild. This last topic so affected Magnhild that after coffee she went out and sat down alone. She gazed toward the broad rocky path of the land-slide on the verdure-clad mountain, then toward the mighty mass of débris in the midst of the plain, for it was there her home had stood.

Her little brothers and sisters appeared before her, one fair, bright face after another. Her mother came too; and her melancholy eye dwelt lingeringly on Magnhild; even the lines about the mouth were visible. The fine psalm-singing of her mother's gentle voice floated around Magnhild now. There had been sung in church that day one of the hymns her mother used to sing. Once more, too, her father sat on the bench, bowed over the silver work in which he was a master. A book or a newspaper lay at his side; he paused in his work now and then, stole a glance at the page before him, or turned a leaf. His long, delicately cut face inclined occasionally toward the family sitting-room and its inmates. The aged grandparents formed part of the home circle. The grandmother tottered off after some little dainty for Magnhild, while the old grandfather was telling the child a story. The dog, shaggy and gray, lay stretching himself on the hearth. His howl had been the last living sound Magnhild had heard behind her as she was carried downward across the stream. The memory of that awful day once more cast over her childhood the pall of night, thunder, and convulsions of the earth. Covering her face with her hands, she burst into tears.

The saddler's ballads came floating toward her, bringing a sense of want with their obscure dream images. And there drifted past her a motley throng of those half-comprehended songs and the anecdotes upon which she had often placed false interpretations, until, exhausted by the thoughts, emotions, and yearnings of the day, with an aching void within and a dull feeling of resignation, she feel asleep.

In the evening Rönnaug, with whom they had become acquainted during the confirmation instructions, made her appearance; she was out at service in the neighborhood and had a holiday in honor of the occasion. She brought with her a whole budget of gossip concerning the love affairs of the parish, and the inexperienced girls sat with wondering eyes listening. It was she who caused the youngest girl to tear her new silk dress. Rönnaug could roll down hill with such incomprehensible speed that she was induced to repeat the feat several times, and this finally led the priest's daughter to try her skill.

Hereafter Rönnaug often dropped in of an evening when her work was done. They all took delight in her wild exuberance of spirits. She was as hearty and as plump as a young foal; she could scarcely keep the clothes on her back because she was all the time tearing them to tatters, and she had never-ceasing trouble with her hair, which would keep falling over her face because she never had it done up properly. When she laughed, and that was nearly all the time, she tossed back her head, and through two rows of pearly teeth, white as those of a beast of prey, could be seen far down her throat.

In the autumn Skarlie came again. There was a difference between the reception now given him and the former one. The three girls surrounded his sledge, they carried in his luggage, notwithstanding his laughing resistance, their laughter accompanied him as he stood in the passage taking off his furs.

Questions without number were showered like hail upon him the first time they sat with him in the work-room; the girls had an accumulation of treasured-up doubts and queries about things he had told them on his previous visit, and many other perplexing themes which they considered him able to solve. On very few topics did Skarlie hold the prevailing opinions of the parish, but he had a way of deftly turning the subject with a joke when pressed too closely for his precise views. When alone with Magnhild he expressed himself more freely; at first he did so cautiously, but gradually increased his plainness of speech.