The Dean, with his wife and daughter, came the following Sunday to return Fru Kaas's visit. She was politeness itself, and specially thanked Helene for her care of Hellebergene. Helene coloured without knowing why, but when Rafael also coloured, she blushed still deeper. This was the event of the visit; nothing else of importance occurred.

In their daily walks through the fields and woods, the two young people soon exhausted the topic of Hellebergene. He took up another theme. His inventions became the topic of conversation. He had acquired, from his studies with his mother, an unusual facility in explaining his meaning, and in Helene he found a listener such as he had rarely before met with. She was sufficiently acquainted with the laws of nature to understand a simple description. But all the same it was not his inventions but himself that he discoursed on. He quite realised this, and became all the more eager. Her eyes made his reasoning clearer. He had never before had such complete faith in himself as when near her, and now no misgivings succeeded.

Helene, however, had not hitherto known the direction and results of his studies. He was an engineer, that was all that she had heard on the subject. When he had told her more about it he rose considerably in her estimation. It was SHE now who began to feel constrained. At first she did not understand why she felt obliged to put more restraint upon herself. After a time she began to excuse herself from joining him, and their walks became more rare. "She had so much to do now."

He did not comprehend the reason of this; he fancied that his mother might be to blame (which, by the way, was quite a mistake), and he grew angry. He was already greatly affronted that his mother had chosen to confound his former gallantries with his present attachment. He quite forgot that at first he had merely sought to amuse himself here as elsewhere. He gave himself up entirely to his passion, which would brook no hindrance, no opposition; it became majestic. In Helene he had found his future life.

But her parents had grown less cordial of late owing to Fru Kaas's coldness, and the time came when all attempts to obtain meetings with Helene failed. He had never been so infatuated. He seemed to see her continually before him—her luxuriant beauty, her light step, her grey eyes gazing steadfastly into his.

Why could they not be married to-morrow or the next day? What could be more natural? What could more certainly help him forward?

The constraint between his mother and himself had reached a greater pitch than ever before. He thought seriously of leaving her and the country. He still had some money left, the proceeds of the patent, and he could easily make more. How irksome it became to him to go into the fields and woods without Helene! He could not study; he had no one to talk to; what should he do?

Devote himself to boating!—row out far beyond the bay, right up to the town! One day, as he rowed along the coast, beyond the bay, he noticed that the clay and flag-stone formation in the hills and ridges was speckled with grey. Helene had told him how extraordinary it looked out there now that the trees were gone, but as they would have had to come out in the boat to see it he had let the remark pass. Now he decided to land there. The shore rose steeply from the water, but he scrambled up. He had expected to find limestone, but he could hardly believe his own eyes: it was cement stone! Absolutely, undoubtedly, cement stone! How far did it extend? As far as he could see; it might even extend to the boundary of the estate. In any case, here was sufficient for extensive works for many, many years, if only there were enough silica with the clay and lime. He had soon knocked off a few pieces, which he put into the boat, and set out for home to analyse them.

Seldom had any one rowed faster than he did; now he shot past the islands into the bay, up to the landing-place before the house. If the cement stone contained the right proportions, here was what would make Helene and himself independent of every one; AND THAT AT ONCE!

A little later, with dirty hands and clothes, his face bathed in perspiration, he rushed up to his mother with the result of his investigations.

"Here is something for you to see."

She was reading; she looked up and turned as white as a sheet.

"Is that the cement stone?" she asked, as she put down her book.

"Did you know about it?" he exclaimed, in the greatest astonishment.

"Good gracious, yes," she answered. She walked across to the window, came back again, pressing her hands together. "So you have found it too?"

"Who did before me?"

"Your father, Rafael, your father, the first time that I was here, a little time before we were to leave." She paused. "He came rushing in as you did just now—not so quickly, not so quickly, he was weak in the legs, but otherwise just like you." She let her eyes rest, with a peculiar look, on Rafael's dirty hands. The hands themselves were not well shaped, they were almost exactly his father's.

Rafael noticed nothing.

"Had HE found the bed of cement stone, then?"

"Yes. He locked the door behind him. I got up from my chair and asked him how he dared? He could hardly speak." She paused for a moment, recalling it all again. "Yes, and it was THAT stuff."

"What did he say, mother?"

She had turned to leave the room.

"Your father believed that I had brought luck to the house."

"And why was it not so, then?"

She faced him quickly. He coloured.

"Pardon, mother, you misunderstood me. I meant, why did it come to nothing about the cement?"

"You did not know your father: there were too many hooks about him for him to be able to carry out anything."

"Hooks?"

"Yes! eccentricity, egotism, passion, which caught fast in everything."

"What did he propose to do?"

"No one was to be allowed to have anything to do with it, no one was to know of it, he was to be everything! For this reason the timber was to be cut down and sold; and when we were married—I say when we were married, the whole of my fortune was to be used as well."

He saw the horror with which she still regarded it; she was passing through the whole struggle again; and he understood that he must not question her further. She made a gesture with her hand; and he asked hurriedly, "Why did you not tell me before, mother?"

"Because it would have brought you no good," she answered decidedly.

He felt, nay, he saw that she believed that it would bring him no good now. She again raised her hand, and he left her.

When he was once more in the boat, taking his great news to the parsonage, he thought to himself, Here is the reason of my father's and mother's deadly enmity.

The cement stone! She did not trust him, she would not give him both herself and her fortune, so there was no cement, nor were any trees felled.

"Well, he scored after all. Yes, and mother too; but God help ME!"

Then he reckoned up what the timber and the fortune together would have been worth, and what further sum could have been raised on the property, the value of the cement-bed being taken into consideration. He understood his father better than his mother. What a fortune, what power, what magnificence, what a life!

At the parsonage he carried every one with him.

The Dean, because he saw at once what this was worth. "You are a rich man now," he said. The Dean's wife, because she felt attracted by his ability and enthusiasm. Helene? Helene was silent and frightened. He turned towards her and asked if she would come with him in the boat to see it. She really must see how extensive the bed was.

"Yes, dear, go with him," said her father.

Rafael wished to sit behind her in the boat and hastened towards the bow; but, without a word, she passed him, sat down, and took her oars; so, after all, he had to sit in front of her.

They thus began at cross purposes. His back was towards her, he saw how the water foamed under her oars, there was a secret struggle, a tacit fear, which was heard in the few words which they exchanged, and which merely increased their constraint.

When they drew near to their destination they were flushed and hot. Now he was obliged to turn round to look for the place of landing. To begin with, they went slowly along the whole cement- bed as far as it was visible. He was now turned so as to face her, and he explained it all to her. She kept her eyes fixed on the cliff, and only glanced at him, or did not look at him all. They turned the boat again, in order to land at the place where he intended the factory to stand. A portion of the rock would have to be blasted to make room, the harbour too must be made safer so that vessels might lie close in, and all this would cost money.

He landed first in order to help her, but she jumped on shore without his assistance; then they climbed upwards, he leading the way, explaining everything as he went; she following with eyes and ears intent.

All for which, from her childhood, she had worked so hard at Hellebergene, and all which she had dreamed of for the estate, had become so little now. It would be many years before the trees yielded any return. But here was promise of immediate prosperity and future wealth if, as she never doubted, he proved to be correct. She felt that this humbled her, made her of no account, but ah! how great it made him seem!

The rowing, the climbing, the excitement, gave animation to Rafael's explanations; face and figure showed his state of tension. She felt almost giddy: should she return to the boat and row away alone? But she was too proud thus to betray herself.

It seemed to her that there was the look of a conqueror in his eyes; but she did not intend to be conquered. Neither did she wish to appear as the one who had remained at home and speculated on his return. That would be simply to turn all that was most cherished, most unselfish in her life, against herself. Something in him frightened her, something which, perhaps, he himself could not master—his inward agitation. It was not boisterous or terrifying; it was glowing, earnest zeal, which seemed to deprive him of power and her of will, and this she would not endure.

Hardly had they gained the summit from which they could look out over the islands to the open sea, and across to Hellebergene, to the parsonage, and the river flowing into the inner bay, than he turned away from it all towards her, as she stood with heaving breast, glowing cheeks, and eyes which dare not turn away from the sea.

"Helene," he whispered, approaching her; he wished to take her in his arms.

She trembled, although she did not turn round; the next moment she sprang away from him, and did not pause till she had got down to the boat, which she was about to push off, but bethought herself that it would be too cowardly, so she remained standing and watched him come after her.

"Helene," he called from above, "why do you run away from me?"

"Rafael, you must not," she answered when he rejoined her. The strongest accent of both prayer and command of which a powerful nature is capable sounded in her words. She in the boat, he on the shore; they eyed one another like two antagonists, watchful and breathing hard, till he loosed the boat, stepped in and pushed off.

She took her seat; but before doing the same he said:

"You know quite well what I wanted to say to you." He spoke with difficulty.

She did not answer and got out her oars; her tears were ready to flow. They rowed home again more slowly than they had come.

A lark hovered over their heads. The note of a thrush was heard away inland. A guillemot skimmed over the water in the same direction as their own, and a tern on curved wing screamed in their wake. There was a sense of expectation over all. The scent of the young fir-trees and the heather was wafted out to them; farther in lay the flowery meadows of Hellebergene. At a great distance an eagle could be seen, high in air, winging his way from the mountains, followed by a flock of screaming crows, who imagined that they were chasing him. Rafael drew Helene's attention to them.

"Yes, look at them," she said; and these few words, spoken naturally, helped to put both more at their ease. He looked round at her and smiled, and she smiled back at him. He felt in the seventh heaven of delight, but it must not be spoken. But the oars seemed to repeat in measured cadence, "It—is—she. It—is—she. It—is—she." He said to himself, Is not her resistance a thousand times sweeter than—

"It is strange that the sea birds no longer breed on the islands in here," he said.

"That is because for a long time the birds have not been protected; they have gone farther out."

"They must be protected again: we must manage to bring the birds back, must we not?"

"Yes," she answered.

He turned quickly towards her. Perhaps she should not have said that, she thought, for had he not said "we"?

To show how far she was from such a thought, she looked towards the land. "The clover is not good this year."

"No. What shall you do with the plot next year?"

But she did not fall into the trap. He turned round, but she looked away.

Now the rush of the river tossed them up and down in a giddy dance, as the force of the stream met the boat. Rafael looked up to where they had walked together the first day. He turned to see if she were not, by chance, looking in the same direction. Yes, she was!

They rowed on towards the landing-place at the parsonage, and he spoke once or twice, but she had learned that that was dangerous. They reached the beach.

"Helene!" said he, as she jumped on shore with a good-bye in passing, "Helene!" But she did not stay. "Helene!" he shouted, with such meaning in it that she turned.

She looked at him, but only remained for a moment. No more was needed! He rowed home like the greatest conqueror that those waters had ever seen. Ever since the Vikings had met together in the innermost creek, and left behind them the barrow which is still to be seen near the parsonage—yes, ever since the elk of the primaeval forest, with mighty antlers, swam away from the doe which he had won in combat, to the other which he heard on the opposite shore. Since the first swarm of ants, like a waving fan, danced up and down in the sunlight, on its one day of flight. Since the first seals struggled against each other to reach the one whom they saw lie sunning herself on the rocks.

Fru Kaas had seen them pass as they rowed out at a furious pace. She had seen them row slowly back, and she understood everything. No sooner had the cement stone been found than—

She paced up and down; she wept.

She did not put any dependence on his constancy; in any case it was too early for Rafael to settle himself here: he had something very different before him. The cement stone would not run away from him, or the girl either, if there were anything serious in it. She regarded his meeting with Helene as merely an obstacle in the way, which barred his further progress.

Rafael rowed towards home, bending to his oars till the water foamed under the bow of his boat. Now he has landed; now he drags the boat up as if she were an eel-pot. Now he strides quickly up to the house.

Frightened, despairing, his mother shrank into the farthest corner of the sofa, with her feet drawn up under her, and, as he burst in through the door and began to speak, she cried out: "Taisez-vous! des egards, s'il vous plait." She stretched out her arms before her as if for protection. But now he came, borne on the wings of love and happiness. His future was there.

He did what he had never done before: went straight up to her, drew her arms down, embraced and kissed her, first on the forehead, then on the cheeks, eyes, mouth, ears, neck, wherever he could; all without a word.

He was quite beside himself.

"Mad boy," she gasped; "des egards, mais Rafael, donc!—Que—" And she threw herself on his breast with her arms round his neck.

"Now you will forsake me, Rafael," she said, crying.

"Forsake you, mother! No one can unite the two wings like Helene."

And now he began a panegyric on her, without measure, and unconscious that he said the same thing over and over again. When he became quieter, and she was permitted to breathe, she begged to be alone: she was used to being alone. In the evening she came down to him, and said that, first of all, they ought to go to Christiania, and find an expert to examine the cement-bed and learn what further should be done. Her cousin, the Government Secretary, would be able to advise them, and some of her other relations as well. Most of them were engineers and men of business. He was reluctant to leave Hellebergene just now, he said, she must understand that; besides, they had agreed not to go away until the autumn. But she maintained that this was the surest way to win Helene; only she begged that, with regard to her, things should remain as they were till they had been to Christiania. On this point she was inflexible, and it was so arranged.

As was their custom, they packed up at once. They drove over to the parsonage that same evening to say good-bye. They were all very merry there: on Fru Kaas's side because she was uneasy, and wished to conceal the fact by an appearance of liveliness; on the Dean's part because he really was in high spirits at the discovery which promised prosperity both to Hellebergene and the district; on his wife's because she suspected something. The most hearty good wishes were therefore expressed for their journey.

Rafael had availed himself of the general preoccupation to exchange a few last words with Helene in a corner. He obtained a half-promise from her that when he wrote she would answer; but he was careful not to say that he had spoken to his mother. He felt that Helene would be startled by a proceeding which came quite naturally to him.

As they drove away, he waved his hat as long as they remained in sight. The waving was returned, first by all, but finally by only one.

The summer evening was light and warm, but not light enough, not warm enough, not wide enough; there did not seem room enough in it for him; it was not bright enough to reflect his happiness. He could not sleep, yet he did not wish to talk; companionship or solitude were alike distasteful to him. He thought seriously of walking or rowing over to the parsonage again and knocking at the window of Helene's room. He actually went down to the boathouse and got out the boat. But perhaps it would frighten her, and possibly injure his own cause. So he rowed out and out to the farthest islands, and there he frightened the birds. At his approach they rose: first a few, then many, then all protested in a hideous chorus of wild screams. He was enveloped in an angry crowd, a pandemonium of birds. But it did not ruffle his good humour. "Wait a bit," he said to them. "Wait a bit, until the islands at Hellebergene are 'protected,' and the whole estate as well. Then you shall come and be happy with us. Good-bye till then!"



CHAPTER 4

He came to Christiania like a tall ship gay with flags. His love was the music on board.

His numerous relations were ready to receive him. Of these many were engineers, who were a jour with all his writings, which they had taken care should be well known. Some of the largest mechanical undertakings in the country were in their hands, so that they had connections in every direction.

Once more the family had a genius in its midst; that is to say, one to make a show with. Rafael went from entertainment to entertainment, from presentation to presentation, and wherever he or his mother went court was paid to them.

In all this the ladies of the family were even more active than their lords; and they had not been in the town many days before every one knew that they were to be the rage.

There are some people who always will hold aloof. They are as irresponsive as a sooty kettle when you strike it. They are like peevish children who say "I won't," or surly old dogs who growl at every one. But HE was so exceedingly genial, a capital fellow with the highest spirits. He had looks as well; he was six feet high; and all those six feet were clothed in perfect taste. He had large flashing eyes and a broad forehead. He was practised in making clear to others all in which he was interested, and at such times how handsome he looked! He was a thorough man of the world, able to converse in several languages at the cosmopolitan dinners which were a speciality of the Ravns. He was the owner of one of the few extensive estates in Norway, and had the control, it was said, of a considerable fortune besides.

The half of this would have been enough to set all tongues wagging; therefore, first the family, then their friends, then the whole town feted him. He was a nine days' wonder! One must know the critical, unimaginative natives of Christiania, who daily pick each other to pieces to fill the void in their existences; one must have admired their endless worrying of threadbare topics to understand what it must be when they got hold of a fresh theme.

Nothing which flies before the storm is more dangerous than desert sand, nothing can surpass a Christiania FUROR.

When it became known that two of his relations who were conversant with the subject, together with a distinguished geologist and a superintendent of mines, had been down to Hellebergene with Rafael, and had found that his statements were well grounded, he was captured and borne off in triumph twenty times a day. It was trying work, but HE was always in the vein, and ready to take the rough with the smooth. In all respects the young madcap was up to the standard, so that day and night passed in a ceaseless whirl, which left every one but himself breathless. The glorious month at Hellebergene had done good. He was drawn into endless jovial adventures, so strange, so audacious, that one would have staked one's existence that such things were impossible in Christiania. But great dryness begets thirst. He was in the humour of a boy who has got possession of a jam-pot, whose mouth, nose, and hands are all besmirched. It is thus that ladies like children best; then they are the sweetest things in the world.

Like a tall, full-grown mountain-ash covered by a flock of starlings, he was the centre of a fluttering crowd. It only remained for him to be deified, and this too came to pass. One day he visited several factories, giving a hint here, another there (he had great practical knowledge and a quick eye) and every hint was of value.

At last in a factory of something the same description as the one in France where he had been the means of economising half the motive power, he suggested a similar plan; he saw on the spot how it could be effected. This became the subject of much conversation. It grew and grew, it rose like the sea after days of westerly gales. This new genius, but little over twenty, would surely some day be the wonder of the country. It soon became the fashion for every manufacturer to invite him to visit his factory, and it was only after they were convinced that they had a god among them that it became serious, for enthusiasm in a manufacturer strikes every one. The ladies only waited for this important moment to go at a bound from the lowest degree of sense to the fifth degree of madness. Their eyes danced on him like sunlight on polished metal. He himself paid little heed to degree or temperature; he was too happy in his genial contentment, and too indifferent as well. One thing which greatly helped to bring him to the right pitch was the family temperament, for it was so like his own. He was a Ravn through and through, with perhaps a little grain of Kaas added. He was what they called pure Ravn, quite unalloyed. He seemed to them to have come straight from the fountain-head of their race, endowed with its primitive strength. This strong physical attribute had perhaps made his abilities more fertile, but the family claimed the abilities, too, as their own.

Through Hans Ravn, Rafael had learned to value the companionship of his relations; now he had it in perfection. For every word that he said appreciative laughter was ready—it really sparkled round him. When he disagreed with prevailing tastes, prejudices, and morals, they disagreed too. When his precocious intelligence burst upon them, they were always ready to applaud. They even met him half-way—they could foresee the direction of his thoughts. As he was young in years and disposition, and at the same time knew more than most young people, he suited both old and young. Ah! how he prospered in Norway!

His mother went with him everywhere. Her life had at one time appeared to her relations to be most objectless, but how much she had made of it! They respected her persevering efforts to attain the goal, and she became aware of this. In the most elegant toilettes, with her discreet manner and distinguished deportment, she was hurried from party to party, from excursion to excursion, until it became too much for her.

It went too far, too; her taste was offended by it; she grew frightened. But the train of dissipation went on without her, like a string of carriages which bore him along with it while she was shaken off. Her eyes followed the cloud of dust far away, and the roll of the wheels echoed back to her.

Helene—how about Helene? Was she too out in the cold? Far from it. Rafael was as certain that she was with him as that his gold watch was next his heart. The very first day that he arrived he wrote a letter to her. It was not long, he had not time for that, but it was thoroughly characteristic. He received an answer at once; the hostess of the pension brought it to him herself. He was so immensely delighted that the lady, who was related to the Dean and who had noticed the post mark, divined the whole affair—a thing which amused him greatly.

But Helene's letter was evasive; she evidently knew him too little to dare to speak out.

He never found time to draw the hostess into conversation on the subject, however. He came home late, he got up late, and then there were always friends waiting for him; so that he was not seen in the pension again until he returned to dress for dinner, during which time the carriage waited at the door, for he never got home till the last moment.

When could he write? It would soon all be done with, and then home to Helene!

The business respecting the cement detained him longer than he had anticipated. His mother made complications; not that she opposed the formation of a company, but she raised many difficulties: she should certainly prefer to have the whole affair postponed. He had no time to talk her round, besides, she irritated him. He told it to the hostess.

A curious being, this hostess, who directed the pension, the business of the inmates, and a number of children, without apparent effort. She was a widow; two of her children were nearly twenty, but she looked scarcely thirty. Tall, dark, clever, with eyes like glowing coals; decided, ready in conversation as in business, like an officer long used to command, always trusted, always obeyed; one yielded oneself involuntarily to her matter-of- course way of arranging everything, and she was obliging, even self-sacrificing, to those she liked—it was true that that was not everybody. This absence of reserve was especially characteristic of her, and was another reason why all relied on her. She had long ago taken up Fru Kaas—entertained her first and foremost. Angelika Nagel used in conversation modern Christiania slang which is the latest development of the language. In the choice of expressions, words such as hideous were applied to what was the very opposite of hideous, such as "hideously amusing," "hideously handsome." "Snapping" to anything that was liquid, as "snapping good punch." One did not say "PRETTY" but "quite too pretty" or "hugely pretty." On the other hand, one did not say "bad" for anything serious, but with comical moderation "baddish." Anything that there was much of went by miles; for instance, "miles of virtue." This slipshod style of talk, which the idlers of large towns affect, had just become the fashion in Christiania. All this seemed new and characteristic to the careless emancipated party which had arisen as a protest against the prudery which Fru Kaas, in her time, had combated. The type therefore amused her:— she studied it.

Angelika Nagel relieved her of all her business cares, which were only play to her. It was the same thing with the question of the cement undertaking. In an apparently careless manner she let drop what had been said and done about it, which had its effect on Fru Kaas. Soon things had progressed so far that it became necessary to consult Rafael about it, and as he was difficult to catch, she sat up for him at night. The first time that she opened the door for him he was absolutely shy, and when he heard what she wanted him for he was above measure grateful. The next time he kissed her! She laughed and ran away without speaking to him—that was all he got for his pains. But he had held her in his arms, and he glowed with a suddenly awakened passion.

She, in the meantime, kept out of his way, even during the day he never saw her unless he sought her. But when he least expected it she again met him at the door; there was something which she really MUST say to him. There was a struggle, but at last she twisted herself away from him and disappeared. He whispered after her as loud as he dared, "Then I shall go away!"

But while he was undressing she slipped into his room.

The next day, before he was quite awake, the postman brought him the warrant for a post-office order for fifteen thousand francs. He thought that there must be a mistake in the name, or else that it was a commission that had been entrusted to him. No! it was from the French manufacturer whose working expenses he had reduced so greatly. He permitted himself, he wrote, to send this as a modest honorarium. He had not been able to do so sooner, but now hoped that it would not end there. He awaited Rafael's acknowledgment with great anxiety, as he was not sure of his address.

Rafael was up and dressed in a trice. He told his news to every one, ran down to his mother and up again; but he had not been a moment alone before the superabundance of happiness and sense of victory frightened him. Now there must be an end of all this, now he would go home. He had not had the slightest prickings of conscience, the slightest longings, until now; all at once they were uncontrollable. SHE stood upon the hilltop, pure and noble. It became agonising. He must go at once, or it would drive him mad. This anxiety was made less acute by the sight of his mother's sincere pleasure. She came up to him when she heard that he had shut himself into his room. They had a really comfortable talk together—finally about the state of their finances. They lived in the pension because they could no longer afford to live in an hotel. The estate would bring nothing in until the timber once more became profitable, and her capital was no longer intact— notwithstanding the prohibition. Now she was ready to let him arrange about the cement company. On this he went out into the town, where his court soon gathered round him.

But the large sum of money which was required could not be raised in a day, so the affair dragged on. He grew impatient, he must and would go; and finally his mother induced her cousin, the Government Secretary, to form the company, and they prepared to leave. They paid farewell visits to some of their friends, and sent cards and messages of thanks to the rest. Everything was ready, the very day had come, when Rafael, before he was up, received a letter from the Dean.

An anonymous letter from Christiania, he wrote, had drawn his attention to Rafael's manner of life there, and he had in consequence obtained further information, the result being that he was, that day, sending his daughter abroad. There was nothing more in the letter. But Rafael could guess what had passed between father and daughter.

He dressed himself and rushed down to his mother. His indignation against the rascally creatures who had ruined his and Helene's future—"Who could it have been?"—was equalled by his despair. She was the only one he cared for; all the others might go to the deuce. He felt angry, too, that the Dean, or any one else, should have dared to treat him in this way, to dismiss him like a servant, not to speak to him, not to put him in a position to speak for himself.

His mother had read the letter calmly, and now she listened to him calmly, and when he became still more furious she burst out laughing. It was not their habit to settle their differences by words; but this time it flashed into his mind that she had not persuaded him to come here merely on account of the cement, but in order to separate him from Helene, and this he said to her.

"Yes," he added, "now it will be just the same with me as it was with my father, and it will be your fault this time as well." With this he went out.

Fru Kaas left Christiania shortly afterwards, and he left the same evening—for France.

From France he wrote the most pressing letter to the Dean, begging him to allow Helene to return home, so that they could be married at once. Whatever the Dean had heard about his life in Christiania had nothing to do with the feelings which he nourished for Helene. She, and she alone, had the power to bind him; he would remain hers for life.

The Dean did not answer him.

A month later he wrote again, acknowledging this time that he had behaved foolishly. He had been merely thoughtless. He had been led on by other things. The details were deceptive, but he swore that this should be the end of it all. He would show that he deserved to be trusted; nay, he HAD shown it ever since he left Christiania. He begged the Dean to be magnanimous. This was practically exile for him, for he could not return to Hellebergene without Helene. Everything which he loved there had become consecrated by her presence; every project which he had formed they had planned together; in fact, his whole future—He fretted and pined till he found it impossible to work as seriously as he wished to do.

This time he received an answer—a brief one.

The Dean wrote that only a lengthened probation could convince them of the sincerity of his purpose.

So it was not to be home, then, and not work; at all events, not work of any value. He knew his mother too well to doubt that now the cement business was shelved, whether the company were formed or not—he was only too sure of that.

He had written to his mother, begging earnestly to be forgiven for what he had said. She must know that it was only the heat of the moment. She must know how fond he was of her, and how unhappy he felt at being in discord with her on the subject which was, and always would be, most dear to him.

She answered him prettily and at some length, without a word about what had happened or about Helene. She gave him a great deal of news, among other things what the Dean intended to do about the estate.

From this he concluded that she was on the same terms with the Dean as before. Perhaps his latest reasons for deferring the affair was precisely this: that he saw that Fru Kaas did not interest herself for it.

It wore on towards the autumn. All this uncertainty made him feel lonely, and his thoughts turned towards his friends at Christiania. He wrote to tell them that he intended to make towards home. He meant, however, to remain a little time at Copenhagen.

At Copenhagen he met Angelika Nagel again. She was in company with two of his student friends. She was in the highest spirits, glowing with health and beauty, and with that jaunty assurance which turns the heads of young men.

He had, during all this time, banished the subject of his intrigue from his mind, and he came there without the least intention of renewing it; but now, for the first time in his life, he became jealous!

It was quite a novel feeling, and he was not prepared to resist it. He grew jealous if he so much as saw her in company with either of the young men. She had a hearty outspoken manner, which rekindled his former passion.

Now a new phase of his life began, divided between furious jealousy and passionate devotion. This led, after her departure, to an interchange of letters, which ended in his following her to Christiania.

On board the steamer he overheard a conversation between the steward and stewardess. "She sat up for him of nights till she got what she wanted, and now she has got hold of him."

It was possible that this conversation did not concern him, but it was equally possible that the woman might have been in the pension at Christiania. He did not know her.

It is strange that in all such intrigues as his with Angelika the persons concerned are always convinced that they are invisible. He believed that, up to this time, no human being had known anything about it. The merest suspicion that this was not the case made it altogether loathsome.

The pension—Angelika—the letters. He would be hanged if he would go on with it for any earthly inducement. Had Angelika angled for him and landed him like a stupid fat fish? He had been absolutely unsuspicious. The whole affair had been without importance, until they met again at Copenhagen. Perhaps THAT, too, had been a deep-laid plan.

Nothing can more wound a man's vanity than to find that, believing himself a victor, he is in truth a captive.

Rafael paced the deck half the night, and when he reached Christiania went to an hotel, intending to go home the next day to Hellebergene, come what would. This and everything of the kind must end for ever: it simply led straight to the devil. When once he was at home, and could find out where Helene was, the rest would soon be settled.

From the hotel he went up to Angelika Nagel's pension to say that some luggage which was there was to be sent down to the hotel at once—he was leaving that afternoon.

He had dined and gone up to his room to pack, when Angelika stood before him. She was at once so pretty and so sad-looking that he had never seen anything more pathetic.

Had he really kept away from her house? Was he going at once?

She wept so despairingly that he, who was prepared for anything rather than to see her so inconsolable, answered her evasively.

Their relations, he said, had had no more significance than a chance meeting. This they both understood; therefore she must realise that, sooner or later, it must end. And now the time was come.

Indeed, it had more significance, she said. There had never been any one to whom she had been so much attached; this she had proved to him. Now she had come here to tell him that she was enceinte. She was in as great despair about it as any one could be. It was ruin for herself and her children. She had never contemplated anything so frightful, but her mad love had carried her away; so now she was where she deserved to be.

Rafael did not answer, for he could not collect his thoughts. She sat at a table, her face buried in her hands, but his eye fell on her strong arms in the close-fitting sleeves, her little foot thrust from beneath her dress; he saw how her whole frame was shaken by sobs. Nevertheless, what first made him collect his thoughts was not sympathy with her who was here before him; it was the thought of Helene, of the Dean, of his mother: what would THEY say?

As though she were conscious whither his thoughts had flown, she raised her head. "Will you really go away from me?" What despair was in her face! The strong woman was weaker than a child.

He stood erect before her, beside his open trunk. He, too, was absolutely miserable.

"What good will it do for me to stay here?" he asked gently.

Her eyes fixed themselves on him, dilating, becoming clearer every moment. Her mouth grew scornful. She seemed to grow taller every moment.

"You will marry me if you are an honourable man!"

"Marry—you?" he exclaimed, first startled, then disdainful. An evil expression came into her eyes; she thrust her head forward; the whole woman collected herself for the attack like a tiger-cat, but it ended with a violent blow on the table.

"Yes you SHALL, devil take me!" she whispered.

She rushed past him to the window. What was she going to do?

She opened it, screamed out he could not clearly hear what, leant far out, and screamed again; then closed it, and turned towards him, threatening, triumphant. He was as white as a sheet, not because he was frightened or dreaded her threats, but because he recognised in her a mortal enemy. He braced himself for the struggle.

She saw this at once. She was conscious of his strength before he had made a movement. There was that in his eye, in his whole demeanour, which SHE would never be able to overcome: a look of determination which one would not willingly contest. If he had not understood her till now, he had equally revealed himself to her.

All the more wildly did she love him. He rejoiced that he had taken no notice of what she had done, but turned to put the last things into his trunk and fasten it. Then she came close up to him, in more complete contrition, penitence, and wretchedness than he had ever seen in life or art. Her face stiffened with terror, her eyes fixed, her whole frame rigid, only her tears flowed quietly, without a sob. She must and would have him. She seemed to draw him to herself as into a vortex: her love had become the necessity of her life, its utterances the wild cry of despair.

He understood it now. But he put the things into his trunk and fastened it, took a few steps about the room, as if he were alone, with such an expression of face that she herself saw that the thing was impossible.

"Do you not believe," she said quietly, "that I would relieve you of all cares, so that you could go on with your own work? Have you not seen that I can manage your mother?" She paused a moment, then added: "Hellebergene—I know the place. The Dean is a relation of mine. I have been there; that would be something that I could take charge of; do you not think so? And the cement quarries," she added; "I have a turn for business: it should be no trouble to you." She said this in an undertone. She had a slight lisp, which gave her an air of helplessness. "Don't go away, to-day, at any rate. Think it over," she added, weeping bitterly again.

He felt that he ought to comfort her.

She came towards him, and throwing her arms round him, she clung to him in her despair and eagerness. "Don't go, don't go!" She felt that he was yielding. "Never," she whispered, "since I have been a widow have I given myself to any one but you; and so judge for yourself." She laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed bitterly.

"It has come upon me so suddenly," he said; "I cannot—"

"Then take time," she interrupted in a whisper, and took a hasty kiss. "Oh, Rafael!" She twined her arms round him: her touch thrilled through him—

Some one knocked at the door: they started away from each other. It was the man who had come for the luggage. Rafael flushed crimson. "I shall not go till to-morrow," he said.

When the man had left the room Angelika sprang towards Rafael. She thanked and kissed him. Oh, how she beamed with delight and exultation! She was like a girl of twenty, or rather like a young man, for there was something masculine in her manner as she left him.

But the light and fire were no sooner withdrawn than his spirits fell. A little later he lay at full length on the sofa, as though in a grave. He felt as though he could never get up from it again. What was his life now? For there is a dream in every life which is its soul, and when the dream is gone the life appears a corpse.

This, then, was the fulfilment of his forebodings. Hither the ravens had followed the wild beast which dwelt in him. It would on longer play and amuse him, but strike its claws into him in earnest, overthrow him, and lap his fresh-spilt blood.

But it was none the less certain that if he left her she would be ruined, she and her child. Then no one would consider him as an honourable man, least of all himself.

During his last sojourn in France, when he could not settle down to a great work which was constantly dawning before him, he had thought to himself—You have taken life too lightly. Nothing great ever comes to him who does so.

Now, perhaps, when he did his duty here; took upon himself the burden of his fault towards her, himself, and others—and bore it like a man; then perhaps he would be able to utilise all his powers. That was what his mother had done, and she had succeeded.

But with the thought of his mother came the thought of Helene, of his dream. It was flying from him like a bird of passage from the autumn. He lay there and felt as though he could never get up again.

From amid the turmoil of the last summer there came to his recollection two individuals, in whom he reposed entire confidence: a young man and his wife. He went to see them the same evening and laid the facts honestly before them, for now, at all events, he was honest. The conclusive proof of being so is to be able to tell everything about oneself as he did now.

They heard him with dismay, but their advice was remarkable. He ought to wait and see if she were enceinte.

This aroused his spirit of contradiction. There was no doubt about it, for she was perfectly truthful. But she might be mistaken; she ought to make quite sure. This suggestion, too, shocked him; but he agreed that she should come and talk things over with them. They knew her.

She came the next day. They said to her, what they could not very well say to Rafael, that she would ruin him. The wife especially did not spare her. A highly gifted young man like Rafael Kaas, with such excellent prospects in every way, must not, when little more than twenty, burden himself with a middle-aged wife and a number of children. He was far from rich, he had told her so himself; his life would be that of a beast of burden, and that too, before he had learned to bear the yoke. If he had to work, to feed so many people, he might strain himself to the uttermost, he would still remain mediocre. They would both suffer under this, be disappointed and discontented. He must not pay so heavy a price for an indiscretion for which she was ten times more to blame than he. What did she imagine people would say? He who was so popular, so sought after. They would fall upon her like rooks at a rooks' parliament and pick her to pieces. They would, without exception, believe the worst.

The husband asked her if she were quite sure that she was enceinte: she ought to make quite certain.

Angelika Nazel reddened, and answered, half scornful, half laughing, that she ought to know.

"Yes," he retorted, "many people have said that—who were mistaken. If it is understood that you are to be married on account of your condition, and it should afterwards turn out that you were mistaken, what do you suppose that people will say? for of course it will get about."

She reddened again and sprang to her feet. "They can say what they please." After a pause she added: "But God knows I do not wish to make him unhappy."

To conceal her emotion she turned away from them, but the wife would not give up. She suggested that Angelika should write to Rafael without further delay, to set him free and let him return home to his mother; there they would be able to arrange matters. Angelika was so capable that she could earn a living anywhere. Rafael too ought to help her.

"I shall write to his mother," Angelika said. "She shall know all about it, so that she may understand for what he is responsible."

This they thought reasonable, and Angelika sat down and wrote. She frequently showed agitation, but she went on quickly, steadily, sheet after sheet. Just then came a ring—a messenger with a letter. The maid brought it in. Her mistress was about to take it, but it was not for her; it was for Angelika—they both recognised Rafael's careless handwriting.

Angelika opened it—grew crimson; for he wrote that the result of his most serious considerations was, that neither she nor her children should be injured by him. He was an honourable man who would bear his own responsibilities, not let others be burdened by them.

Angelika handed the letter to her friend, then tore up the one which she had been writing, and left the house.

Her friend stood thinking to herself—The good that is in us must go bail for the evil, so we must rest and be satisfied.

The discovery which she had made had often been made before, but it was none the less true.



CHAPTER 5

The next day they were married. That night, long after his wife had fallen into her usual healthy sleep, Rafael thought sorrowfully of his lost Paradise. HE could not sleep. As he lay there he seemed to look out over a meadow, which had no springtime, and therefore no flowers. He retraced the events of the past day. His would be a marred life which had never known the sweet joys of courtship.

Angelika did not share his beliefs. She was a stern realist, a sneering sceptic, in the most literal sense a cynic.

Her even breathing, her regular features, seemed to answer him. "Hey-dey, my boy, we shall be merry for a thousand years! Better sleep now, you will need sleep if you mean to try which of us is the stronger."

The next day their marriage was the marvel of the town and neighbourhood.

"Just like his mother!" people exclaimed; "what promise there was in her! She might have chosen so as to have been now in one of the best positions in the country—when, lo and behold! she went and made the most idiotic marriage. The most idiotic? No, the son's is more idiotic still." And so on and so forth.

Most people seem naturally impelled to exalt the hero of the hour higher than they themselves intend, and when a reaction comes, to decry him in an equal degree. Few people see with their own eyes, and on special occasions even magnifying or diminishing glasses are called into play with most amusing results.

"Rafael Kaas a handsome fellow?—well, yes, but too big, too fair, no repose, altogether too restless. Rich? He? He has not a stiver! The savings eaten up long ago, nothing coming in, they have been encroaching on their capital for some time; and the beds of cement stone—who the deuce would join with him in any large undertaking? They talk about his gifts, his genius even; but IS he very highly gifted? Is it anything more than what he has acquired? The saving of motive power at the factory? Was that anything more than a mere repetition of what he had done before?—and that, of course, only what he had seen elsewhere."

Just the same with the hints which he had given. "Merely close personal observation; for it must be admitted that he had more of that than most people; but as for ingenuity! Well, he could make out a good case for himself, but that was about the extent of his ingenuity."

"His earlier articles, as well as those which had recently appeared on the use of electricity in baking and tanning—could you call those discoveries? Let us see what he will invent now that he has come home, and cannot get ideas from reading and from seeing people."

Rafael noticed this change—first among the ladies, who all seemed to have been suddenly blown away, with a few exceptions, who did not respect a marriage like his, and who would not give in.

His relations, also, held somewhat aloof. "It was not thus that he showed himself a true Ravn. He was so in temperament and disposition, perhaps, but it was just his defect that he was only a half-breed."

The change of front was complete: he noticed it on all hands. But he was man enough, and had sufficient obstinacy as well, to let himself be urged on by this to hard work, and in his wife there was still more of the same feeling.

He had a sense of elevation in having done his duty, and as long as this tension lasted it kept him up to the mark. On the day of his marriage (from early in the morning until the time when the ceremony took place) he employed himself in writing to his mother; a wonderful, a solemn letter in the sight of the All-Knowing,—the cry of a tortured soul in utmost peril.

It depended on his mother whether she would receive them and let their life become all that was now possible. Angelika—their business, manager, housekeeper, chief. He—devoted to his experiments. She—the tender mother, the guide of both.

It seemed to him that their future depended on this letter and the answer to it, and he wrote in that spirit. Never had he so fully depicted himself, so fully searched his own heart.

It was the outcome of what he had lived through during these last few days, the mellowing influence of his struggles during the night watches. Nothing could have been more candid.

He was pained that he did not receive an answer at once, although he realised what a blow it would be to her. He understood that, to begin with, it would destroy all her dreams, as it had already destroyed. But he relied on her optimistic nature, which he had never known surpassed, and on the depth of her purpose in all that she undertook. He knew that she drew strength and resolution from all that was deepest in their common life.

Therefore he gave her time, notwithstanding Angelika's restlessness, which could hardly be controlled. She even began to sneer; but there was something holy in his anticipation: her words fell unheeded.

When on the third day he had received no letter, he telegraphed, merely these words: "Mother, send me an answer." The wires had never carried anything more fraught with unspoken grief.

He could not return home. He remained alone outside the town until the evening, by which time the answer might well have arrived. It was there.

"My beloved son, YOU are always welcome; most of all when you are unhappy!" The word YOU was underlined. He grew deadly pale, and went slowly into his own room. There Angelika let him remain for a while in peace, then came in and lit the lamp. He could see that she was much agitated, and that every now and then she cast hasty glances at him.

"Do you know what, Rafael? you ought simply to go straight to your mother. It is too bad, both on account of our future and hers. We shall be ruined by gossip and trash."

He was too unhappy to be contemptuous. She had no respect for anybody or anything, he thought; why, then, should he be angry because she felt none, either for his mother or for his position in regard to her? But how vulgar Angelika seemed to him, as she bent over a troublesome lamp and let her impatience break out! Her mouth but too easily acquired a coarse expression. Her small head would rear itself above her broad shoulders with a snake-like expression, and her thick wrist—

"Well," she said, "when all is said and done, that disgusting Hellebergene is not worth making a fuss over."

Now she is annoyed with herself, he thought, and must have her say. She will not rest until she has picked a quarrel; but she shall not have that satisfaction.

"After all that has been said and all that has happened there—"

But this, too, missed fire. "How could I have supposed that she could manage my mother?" He got up and paced the room. "Is that what mother felt? Yet they were such good friends. I suspected nothing then. How is it that mother's instinct is always more delicate? have I blunted mine?"

When, a little later, Angelika came in again, he looked so unhappy that she was struck by it, and she then showed herself so kind and fertile in resource on his behalf, and there was such sunshine in her cheerfulness and flow of spirits during the evening, that he actually brightened up under it, and thought—If mother could have brought herself to try the experiment, perhaps after all it might have answered. There is so much that is good and capable in this curious creature.

He went to the children. From the first day he and they had taken to each other. They had been unhappy in the great pension, with a mother who seldom came near them or took any notice of them, except as clothes to be patched, mouths to feed, or faults to be punished.

Rafael had in his nature the unconventionality which delights in children's confidence, and he felt a desire to love and to be loved. Children are quick to feel this.

They only wasted Angelika's time. They were in her way now more than ever; for it may be said at once that, Rafael had become EVERYTHING to her. This was the fascination in her, and whatever happened, it never lost its power. Her tenderness, her devotion, were boundless. By the aid of her personal charm, her resourceful ingenuity, she obtained every advantage for him within her range, and even beyond it. It was felt in her devotion by night and day, when anything was to be done, in an untiring zeal such as only so strong and healthy a woman could have had in her power to render. But in words it did not show itself, hardly even in looks: except, perhaps, while she fought to win him, but never since then.

Had she been able to adhere to one line of conduct, if only for a few weeks at a time, and let herself be guided by her never- failing love, he would, in this stimulating atmosphere, have made of his married life what his mother, in spite of all, had made of hers.

Why did not this happen? Because the jealousy which she had aroused in him and which had drawn him to her again was now reversed.

They were hardly married before it was she who was jealous! Was it strange? A middle-aged woman, even though she be endowed with the strongest personality and the widest sympathy, when she wins a young husband who is the fashion—wins him as Angelika won hers— begins to live in perpetual disquietude lest any one should take him from her. Had she not taken him herself?

If we were to say that she was jealous of every human being who came there, man or woman, old or young, beside those whom he met elsewhere, it would be an exaggeration, but this exaggeration throws a strong light upon the state of things, which actually existed.

If he became at all interested in conversation with any one, she always interrupted. Her face grew hard, her right foot began to move; and if this did not suffice, she struck in with sulky or provoking remarks, no matter who was there.

If something were said in praise of any one, and it seemed to excite his interest, she would pooh-pooh it, literally with a "pooh!" a shrug of the shoulders, a toss of the head, or an impatient tap of the foot.

At first he imagined that she really knew something disadvantageous about all those whom she thus disparaged, and he was filled with admiration at her acquaintance with half Norway. He believed in her veracity as he believed in few things. He believed, too, that it was unbounded like so many of her qualities. She said the most cynical things in the plainest manner without apparent design.

But little by little it dawned upon him that she said precisely what it pleased her to say, according to the humour that she was in.

One day, as they were going to table—he had come in late and was hungry—he was delighted to see that there were oysters.

"Oysters! at this time of the year," he cried. "They must be very expensive."

"Pooh! that was the old woman, you know. She persuaded me to take them for you. I got them for next to nothing."

"That was odd; you have been out, then, too?"

"Yes, and I saw YOU; you were walking with Emma Ravn."

He understood at once, by the tone of her voice, that this was not permitted, but all the same he said, "Yes; how sweet she is! so fresh and candid."

"She! Why, she had a child before she was married."

"Emma? Emma Ravn?"

"Yes! But I do not know who by."

"Do you know, Angelika, I do not believe that," he said solemnly.

"You can do as you please about that, but she was at the pension at the time, so you can judge for yourself if I am right."

He could not believe that any human being could so belie themselves. Emma's eyes, clear as water in a fountain where one can count the pebbles at the bottom, rose to his mind, in all their innocence. He could not believe that such eyes could lie. He grew livid, he could not eat, he left the table. The world was nothing but a delusion, the purest was impure.

For a long time after this, whenever he met Emma or her white- haired mother, he turned aside, so as not to come face to face with them.

He had clung to his relations: their weak points were apparent to every one, but their ability and honesty no less so. This one story destroyed his confidence, impaired his self-reliance, shattered his belief, and thus made him the poorer. How could he be fit for anything, when he so constantly allowed himself to be befooled?

There was not one word of truth in the whole story.

His simple confidence was held in her grasp, like a child in the talons of an eagle; but this did not last much longer.

Fortunately, she was without calculation or perseverance. She did not remember one day what she had said the day before; for each day she coolly asserted whatever was demanded by the necessity of the moment. He, on the contrary, had an excellent memory; and his mathematical mind ranged the evidence powerfully against her. Her gifts were more aptness and quickness than anything else, they were without training, without cohesion, and permeated with passion at all points. Therefore he could, at any moment, crush her defence; but whenever this happened, it was so evident that she had been actuated by jealousy that it flattered his vanity; which was the reason why he did not regard it seriously enough— did not pursue his advantage. Perhaps if he had done so, he would have discovered more, for this jealousy was merely the form which her uneasiness took. This uneasiness arose from several causes.

The fact was that she had a past and she had debts which she had denied, and now she lived in perpetual dread lest any one should enlighten him. If any one got on the scent, she felt sure that this would be used against her. It merely depended on what he learned—in other words, with whom he associated.

She could disregard anonymous letters because he did so, but there were plenty of disagreeable people who might make innuendoes.

She saw that Rafael too, to some extent, avoided his countless friends of old days. She did not understand the reason, but it was this: that he, as well, felt that they knew more of her than it was expedient for HIM to know. She saw that he made ingenious excuses for not being seen out with her. This, too, she misconstrued. She did not at all understand that he, in his way, was quite as frightened as she was of what people might say. She believed that he sought the society of others rather than hers. If nothing more came of such intercourse, stories might be told. This was the reason for her slanders about almost every one he spoke to. If they had vilified her, they must be vilified in return.

She had debts, and this could not be concealed unless she increased them; this she did with a boldness worthy of a better cause. The house was kept on an extravagant scale, with an excellent table and great hospitality. Otherwise he would not be comfortable at home, she said and believed.

She herself vied with the most fashionably dressed ladies in the town. Her daily struggle to maintain her hold on him demanded this. It followed, of course, that she got everything for "nothing" or "the greatest bargain in the world." There was always some one "who almost gave it" to her. He did not know himself how much money he spent, perhaps, because she hunted and drove him from one thing to another.

Originally he had thought of going abroad; but with a wife who knew no foreign languages, with a large family—

Here at home, as he soon discovered, every one had lost confidence in him. He dared not take up anything important, or else he wished to wait a little before he came to any definite determination. In the meantime, he did whatever came to hand, and that was often work of a subordinate description. Both from weariness, and from the necessity to earn a living, he ended by doing only mediocre work, and let things drift.

He always gave out that this was only "provisional." His scientific gifts, his inventive genius, with so many pounds on his back, did not rise high, but they should yet! He had youth's lavish estimate of time and strength, and therefore did not see, for a long time, that the large family, the large house were weighing him farther and farther down. If only he could have a little peace, he thought, he would carry out his present ideas and new ones also. He felt such power within him.

But peace was just what he never had. Now we come to the worst, or more properly, to the sum of what has gone before. The ceaseless uneasiness in which Angelika lived broke out into perpetual quarrelling. For one thing, she had no self-command. A caprice, a mistake, an anxiety over-ruled everything. She seized the smallest opportunities. Again—and this was a most important factor—there was her overpowering anxiety to keep possession of him; this drew her away from what she should have paid most heed to, in order to let him have peace. She continued her lavish housekeeping, she let the children drift, she concentrated all her powers on him. Her jealousy, her fears, her debts, sapped his fertile mind, destroyed his good humour, laid desolate his love of the beautiful and his creative power.

He had in particular one great project, which he had often, but ineffectually, attempted to mature. The effort to do so had begun seriously one day on the heights above Hellebergene, and had continued the whole summer. Curiously enough, one morning, as he sat at some most wearisome work, Hellebergene and Helene, in the spring sunshine, rose before him, and with them his project, lofty and smiling, came to him again. Then he begged for a little peace in the house.

"Let me be quiet, if only for a month," he said. "Here is some money. I have got an idea; I must and will have quiet. In a month's time I shall have got on so far that perhaps I shall be able to judge if it is worth continuing. It may be that this one idea may entirely support us."

This was something which she could understand, and now he was able to be quiet.

He had an office in the town, but sometimes took his papers home with him in the evenings, for it often happened that something would occur to him at one moment or another. She bestowed every care on him; she even sat on the stairs while he was asleep at midday, to prevent him from being disturbed.

This went on for a fortnight. Then it so chanced that, when he had gone out for a walk, she rummaged among his papers, and there, among drawings, calculations, and letters, she actually, for once in a way, found something. It was in his handwriting and as follows:

"More of the mother than the lover in her; more of the solicitude of love than of its enjoyment. Rich in her affection, she would not squander it in one day with you, but, mother-like, would distribute it throughout your life. Instead of the whirl of the rapids, a placid stream. Her love was devotion, never absorption. YOU were one and SHE was one. Together we should have been more powerful than two lovers are wont to be."

There was more of this, but Angelika could not read further, she became so furious. Were these his own thoughts, or had he merely copied them? There were no corrections, so most likely it was a copy. In any case it showed where his thoughts were.

Rafael came quietly home, went straight to his room and lighted a candle, even before he took off his overcoat. As he stood he wrote down a few formulae, then seized a book, sat down astride of a chair, and made a rapid calculation. Just then Angelika came in, leaned forward towards him, and said in a low voice:

"You are a nice fellow! Now I know what you have in hand. Look there: your secret thoughts are with that beast."

"Beast!" he repeated. His anger at being disturbed, at her having found this particular paper, and now the abuse from her coarse lips of the most delicate creature he had ever known, and, above all, the absolute unexpectedness of the attack, made him lose his head.

"How dare you? What do you mean?"

"Don't be a fool. Do you suppose that I don't guess that that is meant for the girl who looked after your estate in order to catch you?"

She saw that this hit the mark, so she went still further.

"She, the model of virtue! why, when she was a mere girl, she disgraced herself with an old man."

As she spoke she was seized by the throat and flung backwards on to the sofa, without the grasp being relaxed. She was breathless, she saw his face over her; deadly rage was in it. A strength, a wildness of which she had no conception, gazed upon her in sensual delight at being able to strangle her.

After a wild struggle her arms sank down powerless, her will with them; only her eyes remained wide open, in terror and wonderment.

Dare he? "Yes, he dare!" Her eyes grew dim, her limbs began to tremble.

"You have taken MY apple, I tell you," was heard in a childish voice from the next room, a soft lisping voice.

It came from the most peaceful innocence in the world! It saved her!

He rushed out again; but even when the rage had left him which had seized upon him and dominated him as a rider does a horse, he was still not horrified at himself. His satisfaction at having at length made his power felt was too great for that.

But by degrees there came a revulsion. Suppose he had killed her, and had to go into penal servitude for the rest of his life for it! Had such a possibility come into his life? Might it happen in the future? No! no! no! How strange that Angelika should have wounded him! How frightful her state of mind must be when she could think so odiously of absolutely innocent people; and how angry she must have been to behave in such a way towards him, whom she loved above all others, indeed, as the only one for whom she had to live!

A long, long sum followed: his faults, her faults, and the faults of others. He cooled down and began to feel more like himself.

In an hour or two he was fit to go home, to find her on her bed, dissolved in tears, prepared at once to throw her arms round his neck.

He asked pardon a hundred times, with words, kisses, and caresses.

But with this scene his invention had fled. The spell was broken. It never did more than flutter before him, tempting him to pursue it once more; but he turned away from the whole subject and began to work for money again. Something offered itself just at that moment which Angelika had hunted up.

Back to the unending toil again. Now at last it became an irritation to him: he chafed as the war horse chafes at being made a beast of burden.

This made the scenes at home still worse. Since that episode their quarrels knew no bounds. Words were no longer necessary to bring them about: a gesture, a look, a remark of his unanswered, was enough to arouse the most violent scenes. Hitherto they had been restrained by the presence of others, but now it was the same whether they were alone or not. Very soon, as far as brutality of expression or the triviality of the question was concerned, he was as bad or worse than she.

His idle fancy and creative genius found no other vent, but overthrew and trampled underfoot many of life's most beautiful gifts. Thus he squandered much of the happiness which such talents can duly give. Sometimes his daily regrets and sufferings, sometimes his passionate nature, were in the ascendant, but the cause of his despair was always the same—that this could have happened to him. Should he leave her? He would not thus escape. The state of the case had touched his conscience at first, later he had become fond of the children, and his mother's example said to him, "Hold out, hold out!"

The unanimous prediction that this marriage would be dissolved as quickly as it had been made he would prove to be untrue. Besides, he knew Angelika too well now not to know that he would never obtain a separation from her until, with the law at her back, she had flayed him alive. He could not get free.

From the first it had been a question of honour and duty; honour and duty on account of the child which was to come—and which did not come. Here he had a serious grievance against her; but yet, in the midst of the tragedy, he could not but be amused at the skill with which she turned his own gallantries against him. At last he dared not mention the subject, for he only heard in return about his gay bachelor life.

The longer this state of things lasted and the more it became known, the more incomprehensible it became to most people that they did not separate—to himself, too, at times, during sleepless nights. But it is sometimes the case that he, who makes a thousand small revolts, cannot brace himself to one great one. The endless strife itself strengthens the bonds, in that it saps the strength.

He deteriorated. This married life, wearing in every way, together with the hard work, resulted in his not being equal to more than just the necessities of the day. His initiative and will became proportionately deadened.

A strange stagnation developed itself: he had hallucinations, visions; he saw himself in them—his father! his mother! all the pictures were of a menacing description.

At night he dreamed the most frightful things: his unbridled fancy, his unoccupied creative power, took revenge, and all this weakened him. He looked with admiration at his wife's robust health: she had the physique of a wild beast. But at times their quarrels, their reconciliations, brought revelations with them: he could perceive her sorrows as well. She did not complain, she did not say a word, she could not do so; but at times she wept and gave way as only the most despairing can. Her nature was powerful, and the struggle of her love beyond belief. The beauty of the fulness of life was there, even when she was most repulsive. The wild creature, wrestling with her destiny, often gave forth tragic gleams of light.

One day his relation, the Government Secretary, met him. They usually avoided each other, but to-day he stopped.

"Ah, Rafael," said the dapper little man nervously, "I was coming to see you."

"My dear fellow, what is it?"

"Ah, I see that you guess; it is a letter from your mother."

"From my mother?"

During all the time since her telegram they had not exchanged a word.

"A very long letter, but she makes a condition."

"Hum, hum! a condition?"

"Yes, but do not be angry; it is not a hard one: it is only that you are to go away from the town, wherever you like, so long as you can be quiet, and then you are to read it."

"You know the contents?"

"I know the contents, I will go bail for it."

What he meant, or why he was so perturbed by it, Rafael did not understand, but it infected him; if he had had the money, and if on that day he had been disengaged, he would have gone at once. But he had not the money, not more than he wanted for the fete that evening. He had the tickets for it in his pocket at that moment. He had promised Angelika that he would go there with her, and he would keep his promise, for it had been given after a great reconciliation scene. A white silk dress had been the olive branch of these last peaceful days. She therefore looked very handsome that evening as she walked into the great hall of the Lodge, with Rafael beside her tall and stately. She was in excellent spirits. Her quiet eyes had a haughty expression as she turned her steps with confident superiority towards those whom she wished to please, or those whom she hoped to annoy.

HE did not feel confident. He did not like showing himself in public with her, and lately it had precisely been in public places that she had chosen to make scenes; besides which, he felt nervous as to what his mother could wish to say to him.

A short time before he came to the fete, he had tried, in two quarters, to borrow money, and each time had received only excuses. This had greatly mortified him. His disturbed state of mind, as is so often the case with nervous people, made him excited and boisterous, nay, even made him more than usually jovial. And as though a little of the old happiness were actually to come to him that evening, he met his friend and relative Hans Ravn, him and his young Bavarian wife, who had just come to the town. All three were delighted to meet.

"Do you remember," said Hans Ravn, "how often you have lent me money, Rafael?" and he drew him on one side. "Now I am at the top of the tree, now I am married to an heiress, and the most charming girl too; ah, you must know her better."

"She is pretty as well," said Rafael.

"And pretty as well—and good tempered; in fact, you see before you the happiest man in Norway."

Rafael's eyes filled. Ravn put his hands on to his friend's shoulders.

"Are you not happy, Rafael?"

"Not quite so happy as you, Hans—"

He left him to speak to some one else, then returned again.

"You say, Hans, that I have often lent you money."

"Are you pressed? Do you want some, Rafael? My dear fellow, how much?"

"Can you spare me two thousand kroner?"

"Here they are."

"No, no; not in here, come outside."

"Yes, let us go and have some champagne to celebrate our meeting. No, not our wives," he added, as Rafael looked towards where they stood talking.

"Not our wives," laughed Rafael. He understood the intention, and now he wished to enjoy his freedom thoroughly. They came in again merrier and more boisterous than before.

Rafael asked Hans Ravn's young wife to dance. Her personal attractions, natural gaiety, and especially her admiration of her husband's relations, took him by storm. They danced twice, and laughed and talked together afterwards.

Later in the evening the two friends rejoined their wives, so that they might all sit together at supper. Even from a distance Rafael could see by Angelika's face that a storm was brewing. He grew angry at once. He had never been blamed more groundlessly. He was never to have any unalloyed pleasure, then! But he confined himself to whispering, "Try to behave like other people." But that was exactly what she did not mean to do. He had left her alone, every one had seen it. She would have her revenge. She could not endure Hans Ravn's merriment, still less that of his wife, so she contradicted rudely once, twice, three times, while Hans Ravn's face grew more and more puzzled. The storm might have blown over, for Rafael parried each thrust, even turning them into jokes, so that the party grew merrier, and no feelings were hurt; but on this she tried fresh tactics. As has been already said, she could make a number of annoying gestures, signs and movements which only he understood. In this way she showed him her contempt for everything which every one, and especially he himself, said. He could not help looking towards her, and saw this every time he did so, until under the cover of the laughter of the others, with as much fervour and affection as can be put into such a word, "You jade!" he said.

"Jade; was ist das?" asked the bright-eyed foreigner.

This made the whole affair supremely ridiculous. Angelika herself laughed, and all hoped that the cloud had been finally dispersed. No!—as though Satan himself had been at table with them, she would not give in.

The conversation again grew lively, and when it was at its height, she pooh-poohed all their jokes so unmistakably that they were completely puzzled. Rafael gave her a furious look, and then she jeered at him, "You boy!" she said. After this Rafael answered her angrily, and let nothing pass without retaliation, rough, savage retaliation; he was worse than she was.

"But God bless me!" said good-natured Hans Ravn at length, "how you are altered, Rafael!" His genial kindly eyes gazed at him with a look which Rafael never forget.

"Ja, ich kan es nicht mehr aushalten" said the young Fru Ravn, with tears in her eyes. She rose, her husband hurried to her, and they left together. Rafael sat down again, with Angelika. Those near them looked towards them and whispered together. Angry and ashamed, he looked across at Angelika, who laughed. Everything seemed to turn red before his eyes—he rose; he had a wild desire to kill her there, before every one. Yes! the temptation overpowered him to such an extent that he thought that people must notice it.

"Are you not well, Kaas?" he heard some one beside him say.

He could not remember afterwards what he answered, or how he got away; but still, in the street, he dwelt with ecstasy on the thought of killing her, of again seeing her face turn black, her arms fall powerless, her eyes open wide with terror; for that was what would happen some day. He should end his life in a felon's cell. That was as certainly a part of his destiny as had been the possession of talents which he had allowed to become useless.

A quarter of an hour later he was at the observatory: he scanned the heavens, but no stars were visible. He felt that he was perspiring, that his clothes clung to him, yet he was ice-cold. That is the future that awaits you, he thought; it runs ice-cold through your limbs.

Then it was that a new and, until then, unused power, which underlay all else, broke forth and took the command.

"You shall never return home to her, that is all past now, boy; I will not permit it any longer."

What was it? What voice was that? It really sounded as though outside himself. Was it his father's? It was a man's voice. It made him clear and calm. He turned round, he went straight to the nearest hotel, without further thought, without anxiety. Something new was about to begin.

He slept for three hours undisturbed by dreams; it was the first night for a long time that he had done so.

The following morning he sat in the little pavilion at the station at Eidsvold with his mother's packet of letters laid open before him. It consisted of a quantity of papers which he had read through.

The expanse of Lake Mjosen lay cold and grey beneath the autumn mist, which still shrouded the hillsides. The sound of hammers from the workshops to the right mingled with the rumble of wheels on the bridge; the whistle of an engine, the rattle of crockery from the restaurant; sights and sounds seethed round him like water boiling round an egg.

As soon as his mother had felt sure that Angelika was not really enceinte she had busied herself in collecting all the information about her which it was possible to obtain.

By the untiring efforts of her ubiquitous relations she had succeeded to such an extent and in such detail as no examining magistrate could have accomplished. And there now lay before him letters, explanations, evidence, which the deponent was ready to swear to, besides letters from Angelika herself: imprudent letters which this impulsive creature could perpetrate in the midst of her schemes; or deeply calculated letters, which directly contradicted others which had been written at a different period, based on different calculations. These documents were only the accompaniment of a clear summing-up by his mother. It was therefore she who had guided the investigations of the others and made a digest of their discoveries. With mathematical precision was here laid down both what was certain and what, though not certain, was probable. No comment was added, not a word addressed to himself.

That portion of the disclosures which related to Angelika's past does not concern us. That which had reference to her relations with Rafael began by proving that the anonymous letters, which had been the means of preventing his engagement with Helene, had been written by Angelika. This revelation and that which preceded it, give an idea of the overwhelming humiliation under which Rafael now suffered. What was he that he could be duped and mastered like a captured animal; that what was best and what was worst in him could lead him so far astray? Like a weak fool he was swept along; he had neither seen nor heard nor thought before he was dragged away from everything that was his or that was dear to him.

As he sat there, the perspiration poured from him as it had done the night before, and again he felt a deadly chill. He therefore went up to his room with the papers, which he locked up in his trunk, and then set off at a run along the road. The passers-by turned to stare after the tall fellow.

As he ran he repeated to himself, "Who are you, my lad? who are you?" Then he asked the hills the same question, and then the trees as well. He even asked the fog, which was now rolling off, "Who am I? can you answer me that?"

The close-cropped half-withered turf mocked him—the cleared potato patches, the bare fields, the fallen leaves.

"That which you are you will never be; that which you can you will never do; that which you ought to become you will never attain to! As you, so your mother before you. She turned aside—and your father too—into absolute folly; perhaps their fathers before them! This is a branch of a great family who never attained to what they were intended for."

"Something different has misled each one of us, but we have all been misled. Why is that so? We have greater aims than many others, but the others drove along the beaten highway right through the gates of Fortune's house. We stray away from the highway and into the wood. See! am I not there myself now? Away from the highway and into the wood, as though I were led by an inward law. Into the wood." He looked round among the mountain- ashes, the birches, and other leafy trees in autumn tints. They stood all round, dripping, as though they wept for his sorrow. "Yes, yes; they will see me hang here, like Absalom by his long hair." He had not recalled this old picture a moment before he stopped, as though seized by a strong hand.

He must not fly from this, but try to fathom it. The more he thought of it, the clearer it became: ABSALOM'S HISTORY WAS HIS OWN. He began with rebellion. Naturally rebellion is the first step in a course which leads one from the highway—leads to passion and its consequences. That was clear enough.

Thus passion overpowered strength of purpose; thus chance circumstances sapped the foundations—But David rebelled as well. Why, then, was not David hung up by his hair? It was quite as long as Absalom's. Yes, David was within an ace of it, right up to his old age. But the innate strength in David was too great, his energy was always too powerful: it conquered the powers of rebellion. They could not drag him far away into passionate wanderings; they remained only holiday flights in his life and added poetry to it. They did not move his strength of purpose. Ah, ha! It was so strong in David that he absorbed them and fed on them; and yet he was within an ace—very often. See! That is what I, miserable contemptible wretch, cannot do. So I must hang! Very soon the man with the spear will be after me.

Rafael now set off running; probably he wished to escape the man with the spear. He now entered the thickest part of the wood, a narrow valley between two high hills which overshadowed it. Oh, how thirsty he was, so fearfully thirsty! He stood still and wondered whether he could get anything to drink. Yes, he could hear the murmur of a brook. He ran farther down towards it. Close by was an opening in the wood, and as he went towards the stream he was arrested by something there: the sun had burst forth and lighted up the tree-tops, throwing deep shadows below. Did he see anything? Yes; it seemed to him that he saw himself, not absolutely in the opening, but to one side, in the shadow, under a tree; he hung there by his hair. He hung there and swung, a man, but in the velvet jacket of his childhood and the tight-fitting trousers: he swung suspended by his tangled red hair. And farther away he distinctly saw another figure: it was his mother, stiff and stately, who was turning round as if to the sound of music. And, God preserve him! still farther away, broad and heavy, hung his father, by the few thin hairs on his neck, with wretched distorted face as on his death-bed. In other respects those two were not great sinners. They were old; but his sins were great, for he was young, and therefore nothing had ever prospered with him, not even in his childhood. There had always been something which had caused him to be misunderstood or which had frightened him or made him constantly constrained and uncertain of himself. Never had he been able to keep to the main point, and thus to be in quiet natural peace. With only one exception—his meeting with Helene.

It seemed to him that he was sitting in the boat with her out in the bay. The sky was bright, there was melody in the woods. Now he was up on the hill with her, among the saplings, and she was explaining to him that it depended on her care whether they throve or not.

He went to the brook to drink; he lay down over the water. He was thus able to see his own face. How could that happen? Why, there was sunshine overhead. He was able to see his own face. Great heavens! how like his father he had become. In the last year he had grown very like his father—people had said so. He well remembered his mother's manner when she noticed it. But, good God! were those grey hairs? Yes, in quantities, so that his hair was no longer red but grey. No one had told him of it. Had he advanced so far, been so little prepared for it, that Hans Ravn's remark, "How you are altered, Rafael!" had frightened him?

He had certainly given up observing himself, in this coarse life of quarrels. In it, certainly, neither words nor deeds were weighed, and hence this hunted feeling. It was only natural that he had ceased to observe. If the brook had been a little deeper, he would have let himself be engulfed in it. He got up, and went on again, quicker and quicker: sometimes he saw one person, sometimes another, hanging in the woods.

He dare not turn round. Was it so very wonderful that others besides himself and his family had turned from the beaten track, and peopled the byways and the boughs in the wood? He had been unjust towards himself and his parents; they were not alone, they were in only too large a company. What will unjust people say, but that the very thing which requires strength does not receive it, but half of it comes to nothing, more than half of the powers are wasted. Here, in these strips of woodland which run up the hills side by side, like organ-pipes, Henrik Vergeland had also roamed: within an ace, with him too, within an ace! Wonderful how the ravens gather together here, where so many people are hanging. Ha! ha! He must write this to his mother! It was something to write about to her, who had left him, who deserted him when he was the most unhappy, because all that she cared for was to keep her sacred person inviolate, to maintain her obstinate opinion, to gratify her pique—Oh! what long hair!—How fast his mother was held! She had not cut her hair enough then. But now she should have her deserts. Everything from as far back as he could remember should be recalled, for once in a way he would show her herself; now he had both the power and the right. His powers of discovery had been long hidden under the suffocating sawdust of the daily and nightly sawing; but now it was awake, and his mother should feel it.

People noticed the tall man break out of the wood, jump over hedges and ditches, and make his way straight up the hill. At the very top he would write to his mother!—

He did not return to the hotel till dark. He was wet, dirty, and frightfully exhausted. He was as hungry as a wolf, he said, but he hardly ate anything; on the other hand, he was consumed with thirst. On leaving the table he said that he wished to stay there a few days to sleep. They thought that he was joking, but he slept uninterruptedly until the afternoon of the next day. He was then awakened, ate a little and drank a great deal, for he had perspired profusely; after which he fell asleep again. He passed the next twenty-four hours in much the same way.

When he awoke the following morning he found himself alone.

Had not a doctor been there, and had he not said that it was a good thing for him to sleep? It seemed to him that he had heard a buzz of voices; but he was sure that he was well now, only furiously hungry and thirsty, and when he raised himself he felt giddy. But that passed off by degrees, when he had eaten some of the food which had been left there. He drank out of the water-jug- -the carafe was empty—and walked once or twice up and down before the open window. It was decidedly cold, so he shut it. Just then he remembered that he had written a frightful letter to his mother!

How long ago was it? Had he not slept a long time? Had he not turned grey? He went to the looking-glass, but forgot the grey hair at the sight of himself. He was thin, lank, and dirty.—The letter! the letter! It will kill my mother! There had already been misfortunes enough, more must not follow.

He dressed himself quickly, as if by hurrying he could overtake the letter. He looked at the clock—it had stopped. Suppose the train were in! He must go by it, and from the train straight to the steamer, and home, home to Hellebergene! But he must send a telegram to his mother at once. He wrote it—"Never mind the letter, mother. I am coming this evening and will never leave you again."

So now he had only to put on a clean collar, now his watch—it certainly was morning—now to pack, go down and pay the bill, have something to eat, take his ticket, send the telegram; but first— no, it must all be done together, for the train WAS there; it had only a few minutes more to wait; he could only just catch it. The telegram was given to some one else to send off.

But he had hardly got into the carriage, where he was alone, than the thought of the letter tortured him, till he could not sit still. This dreadful analysis of his mother, strophe after strophe, it rose before him, it again drove him into the state of mind in which he had been among the hills and woods of Eidsvold. Beyond the tunnel the character of the scenery was the same.—Good God! that dreadful letter was never absent from his thoughts, otherwise he would not suffer so terribly. What right had he to reproach his mother, or any one, because a mere chance should have become of importance in their lives?

Would the telegram arrive in time to save her from despair, and yet not frighten her from home because he was coming? To think that he could write in such a way to her, who had but lived to collect the information which would free him! His ingratitude must appear too monstrous to her. The extreme reserve which she was unable to break through might well lead to catastrophes. What might not she have determined on when she received this violent attack by way of thanks? Perhaps she would think that life was no longer worth living, she who thought it so easy to die. He shuddered.

But she will do nothing hastily, she will weigh everything first. Her roots go deep. When she appears to have acted on impulse, it is because she has had previous knowledge. But she has no previous knowledge here; surely here she will deliberate.

He pictured her as, wrapped in her shawl, she wandered about in dire distress—or with intent gaze reviewing her life and his own, until both appeared to her to have been hopelessly wasted—or pondering where she could best hide herself so that she should suffer no more.

How he loved her! All that had happened had drawn a veil over his eyes, which was now removed.

Now he was on board the steamer which was bearing him home. The weather had become mild and summerlike; it had been raining, but towards evening it began to clear. He would get to Hellebergene in fine weather, and by moonlight. It grew colder; he spoke to no one, nor had he eyes for anything about him.