The Fisher Maiden

Front matter

The present edition of Björnstjerne Björnson’s Works is published by special arrangement with the author. Mr. Björnson has designated Prof. Rasmus B. Anderson as his American translator, coöperates with him, and revises each work before it is translated, thus giving his personal attention to this edition.

The Fisher Maiden was written in 1867 and 1868, and was published simultaneously in Norway and Germany. The popularity of the story is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that it has appeared in four German and in two English translations, the present being the third.

The characters are, perhaps, less ideal than those of his peasant stories, and the style throughout indicates that the author has entered upon a new era in his literary development. His aim here is to show how irresistible is the power of innate vocation and natural talent, and to vindicate the theatre as a place not only of amusement, but also of instruction, against the unjust criticisms of the clergy.

Publishers' Note

The present edition of Björnstjerne Björnson’s Works is published by special arrangement with the author. Mr. Björnson has designated Prof. Rasmus B. Anderson as his American translator, coöperates with him, and revises each work before it is translated, thus giving his personal attention to this edition.

Preface

The Fisher Maiden was written in 1867 and 1868, and was published simultaneously in Norway and Germany. The popularity of the story is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that it has appeared in four German and in two English translations, the present being the third.

The characters are, perhaps, less ideal than those of his peasant stories, and the style throughout indicates that the author has entered upon a new era in his literary development. His aim here is to show how irresistible is the power of innate vocation and natural talent, and to vindicate the theatre as a place not only of amusement, but also of instruction, against the unjust criticisms of the clergy.

In the weird poem, in the eleventh chapter, on the young viking, Mr. Björnson depicts, in strangely profound sentences, his own career, his early struggles, and the victory he so quickly gained. Indeed, as Björnson said to me in 1872, the Fisher Maiden is Björnson himself, and in the young viking he has given, in a few enigmatic strokes, a picture of both the heroine and the author. Nowhere does Mr. Björnson’s patriotism burst forth in purer and nobler strains than in the short poem that follows soon after that on the young viking. It is all aglow with love and pride and confidence and hope, and is a perfect mirror of the poet’s feelings and aspirations in the midst of his great success.

The poems in this volume are translated by Augusta Plesner and Frederika Richardson, with the exception of the one at the end of chapter iv., beginning, “Ah, sweet is Love’s first meeting!” and the one in chapter ix., beginning “Joy now is kindled,” both of which are by Auber Forestier. Music has been written for “Ah, sweet is Love’s first meeting,” by Halfdan Kjerulf, and for “Joy now is kindled,” by Edward Grieg. The latter may be found in the “Norway Music Album.”

Asgard, Madison, Wisconsin. March, 1882.

Chapter I

Where herring have for a long time been caught in abundance, there gradually grows up a town, provided that other circumstances are favorable. Not only may it be said of such towns that they are cast up out of the sea, but at a great distance they actually resemble washed-up timber and fragments of wreck, or a mass of keeled boats, overturned by the fishermen for shelter some stormy night. A nearer view shows how entirely by chance the whole has been built, for here a rock lies in the midst of a thoroughfare, there water divides the borough into three or four parts, while the streets wind and curve in every direction. But there is one quality common to them all: there is refuge in the harbor for the largest ships; it is as snug in there as in a box; and therefore these havens are very grateful to vessels that with tattered sails and battered

bulwarks are driven in from the open sea in search of a breathing-place.

In a small town of this kind all is still; everything noisy is banished to the wharves, where are moored the peasants’ boats, and where ships load and unload. Along the wharves runs the one street of our little town; the white and red one and two-story houses are on the opposite side; but they are not built wall to wall, they have neat gardens around them; and so there is a long, broad street which, when the wind blows landward, is filled with the odor of whatever may be on the wharves. It is quiet here—not from fear of the police, for as a rule there is none,—but from dread of gossip, since all the inhabitants know one another. When you walk down the street you must bow at each window, where usually sits an old lady who is ready to return your greeting. Moreover, you must salute every one you meet; for all these people, as they move so noiselessly about, are continually reflecting on what is proper in general and for themselves in particular. He who oversteps the standard prescribed for his rank or social position, forfeits his good name; for not only is he known to his neighbors, but so are his father and his grandfather, and inquiries are at once made as to whether there has ever before been seen a tendency in the family to unseemly behavior.

To this peaceful town fared, many years ago, that worthy man, Per Olsen. He came from the country, where he had earned a livelihood by peddling and fiddling. He opened a shop in the town for his old customers, where, in addition to his other wares, he sold brandy and bread; and be might often be heard pacing up and down in the chamber behind the shop, playing spring-dances and wedding-marches. Each time he passed the glass loop-hole in the door, he would peep through, and if a customer was entering the shop he would wind up his playing with a trill and go in, Business flourished; he married and had a son whom he named after himself, calling him not Per, though, but Peter.

Little Peter was to become what Per knew he was not—an educated man; and so the boy was entered at the Latin school. When those who should have been his comrades thrashed him home from their games because he was a son of Per Olsen, his father thrashed him back again,—there was no other way of educating the boy. Consequently little Peter felt forsaken at school, grew indolent, and gradually became so totally indifferent to everything that his father could neither beat a smile nor a tear out of him. Then Per did away with the floggings and placed the boy in the shop. Greatly was he astonished when he saw his son dealing out to each customer exactly what was asked for, neither giving a grain too much, nor eating a prune himself, but weighing, reckoning, and entering the sales, with unmoved countenance, usually without speaking, and though slowly yet with scrupulous accuracy.

Again the father became hopeful, and sent his son by a herring boat to Hamburg, in order to place him at a commercial college, and give him an opportunity to acquire polished manners. Peter was absent eight months; that was long enough, no doubt. Before starting for home he had provided himself with six new suits of clothes, and when he landed he wore them all, one over the other, “for all articles in actual wear are exempt from duty.” He made precisely the same appearance in the street the next day as when he came ashore, minus his circumference. He walked stiff and straight, without a curve in his arms or hands; he bowed with a sudden jerk, bending as if he had no joints, only to grow the next moment as rigid as ever; he had become the embodi- ment of politeness, but not a word did he have to say for himself; his manners were abrupt and tinged with a certain shyness. He no longer wrote his name Olsen, but Ohlsen, which gave the wags of the town opportunity for the following conundrum:—

“How far did Peter Olsen get in Hamburg?”

Answer: “To the first letter.”

He had furthermore meditated calling himself “Pedro;” but having had so much annoyance to endure for the sake of the h, he gave up this idea and subscribed himself P. Ohlsen. He enlarged his father’s business, and at the age of twenty-two married a shop-girl with red hands in order to have some one to keep house; for his father had just become a widower and Peter thought it was safer to take a wife than a housekeeper. On the anniversary of their wedding-day, she presented him with a son, who a week later was christened Pedro.

Now that worthy Per Olsen had become a grandfather, he felt, as it were, an inner call to grow old, so he gave up his business to his son, took a seat on a bench outside the door and smoked plug tobacco in a short pipe. Discovering one day that life was growing tedious out there he began to wish for a speedy death, and as all his wishes had been quietly fulfilled, so it was with this one.

While Peter, the son, had inherited exclusively one side of his father’s talents—business shrewdness,—Pedro, the grandson, seemed to have exclusively inherited the other—taste and ear for music. He was very slow in learning to read, but could sing quite early; he played the flute so well that he attracted much attention; he had a refined look and a tender heart. This, however, was only a source of annoyance to his father, who wanted to bring the boy up to his own business-like activity. When Pedro was forgetful about anything, he was neither scolded nor flogged as his father had been; he was pinched. This was done very quietly, with a kindliness of manner that might almost be termed politeness. Each evening when his mother undressed him she counted the black and blue spots on his body and covered them with kisses; but she offered no resistance, for she herself got pinched. For every rent in the boy’s clothes,—which were his father’s Hamburg suits made over,—for every stain on his school-books, she was blamed. Consequently, the continual cry was: “Do not do that, Pedro! Take care, Pedro! Remember, Pedro!”—and the boy was afraid of his father and tired of his mother. At the hands of his comrades he suffered no harm, as he always began to cry at the least provocation and beg them to spare his clothes; but he was nicknamed “withered-branch,” and not deemed worthy of much notice. He was like a sickly, featherless duckling, always waddling about after the flock and running far away by itself to eat the scanty morsel it had succeeded in snatching from the others. No one shared with him, neither did he, therefore, share with any one.

Soon, however, he discovered that his lot would be different among the humbler children of the town; they had more patience with him because he was more genteel than they. A tall, sturdy girl, who held undisputed sway over a whole troop of boys, took a fancy to him. He never grew weary of looking at her. She had raven-black hair which formed one mass of curls about her head, and was never combed save with the fingers; she had vigorous blue eyes, a narrow brow, and all her features blended into but one expression. She was always in a whirl of excitement or at work, went barefoot, bare-armed, and sunburned in the summer, and in the winter was clad as lightly as other children are in the summer. Her father was a pilot and fisherman; she ran from house to house selling his fish, she sat at the oars keeping the boat still against wind and tide, and when he was out piloting, she carried on the fishing alone. No one could pass her without turning to take a second look, so self-reliant was she. Her name was Gunlaug, but she was called the fisher maiden, a title she accepted as her rank. In the childish games she always sided with the weak; she had an impulse to defend others, and she now became the protector of this refined, delicate boy.

In her boat he could play his flute, which had been solemnly forbidden at home, as it was thought it would take his mind from his studies. She rowed him out on the fjord, she took him with her on her long fishing expeditions, soon he even made night excursions with her. They used to row out toward the setting sun in the clear, calm summer evenings, he playing his flute, or listening to her while she told him all she knew about mermen, spectres, shipwrecks, foreign lands, and black people, just as she had heard it from the sailors. She shared her food with him as she did her knowledge, and he accepted all, giving nothing in return; for he neither brought food from home nor imagination from school. They would row about until the sun went down behind the snow-clad mountains and then, landing on some rocky island, kindle a fire, that is, she would gather together twigs and brushwood, while he sat and looked on. She always carried along with her one of her father’s sea jackets and a bed-spread for him; in these she would wrap him. She tended the fire and he went to sleep; she kept herself awake with snatches of songs and hymns, singing in a loud clear voice until he was asleep, then in a softer tone. When the sun once more rose in the opposite horizon, and cast over the mountains a pale yellow light as a harbinger of its approach, she would awaken him. The forest was still dark, the meadow gloomy, but both gradually became suffused with a gleaming, roseate light until the mountain crest glowed and all the colors of the rainbow came pouring over the scene. Then they would push the boat back into the water, plow the waves in the dark morning breeze, and soon near the shore where the other fishermen were anchored.

When winter set in and the trips ceased, he sought her in her home; he came frequently and watched her while she worked; but neither he nor she spoke much; it seemed as if they were merely waiting together for the summer. When it came it robbed him, alas, of the new prospects life was unfolding to him, Gunlaug’s father died, and she left the town, while Pedro, by the advice of his teachers, was put into the shop. There he served behind the counter with his mother; for his father, who had gradually become the color of the groats he had so long been weighing, was forced to take to his bed in the back chamber. Even from there he wanted to have part in everything going on; must know what each one had sold, but would pretend not to hear until he got his wife or son near enough to pinch them. And when the wick had become quite dry in this small lamp, one night it went out. The wife wept, she knew not precisely why; but the son could not press out a tear, As they had money enough to live on, they wound up the business, removed every trace of it, and turned the shop into a sitting-room. There the mother sat by the window knitting stockings; Pedro established himself in the room on the other side of the passage, and devoted his time to flute-playing. No sooner had summer come, however, than he bought a little light sailing-boat, crossed over to the rocky island, and stopped where Gunlaug was wont to anchor.

And one day, as he lay reposing in the heather, he saw a boat steering straight toward him; it came alongside his own, and Gunlaug stepped out. She was wholly unchanged, although she was now fully grown and taller than other women. But the moment she laid eyes on him she slowly drew back; it had not occurred to her that he too had grown up.

She did not know this pale, thin face; it was no longer sickly and refined, it was dull and heavy. But as he gazed at her his eyes became filled with the calm light of bygone dreams; she came forward again, and each step nearer seemed to take a year from him; when she stood beside him, where he had jumped up, he laughed like a child, talked like a child; that old face was like a mask concealing a hidden child: he had become older, it was true, but he had not grown.

Still, it was just this child she was seeking, and now that she had found him again she knew not what next she should do; she laughed and blushed. Involuntarily he felt something like power rising within him; it was for the first time in his life. At the same moment he grew handsome—it was, perhaps, but for an instant, but in that instant she was won.

Hers was one of those natures that can only love the weak on whom tenderness has been lavished by them. She had meant to pass two days in town; she remained two months. During these two months Pedro grew more than during all the rest of his youth; he was so far uplifted beyond his dream-life and lethargy that he made plans—he resolved to go abroad and study music. One day when he was speaking of this, she grew pale and said: “Yes—but then we must get married first.” He looked at her; she fixed her eyes firmly on him in return; then they both flushed crimson, and he said, “What would people say to that?”

Gunlaug had never imagined that he could have a will opposed to her own, because she had never cherished a wish that was not his. But now she read in the depths of his soul that he had never for a moment thought of sharing with her anything but what she herself had given. In one minute she discovered that it had been thus all their lives. She had begun with compassion and ended with love for the object of her own kindness. Well for her could she but have retained her self-control a little while longer. He saw her rising anger, and in terror cried: “I will.” She heard it; but indignation at her own stupidity and his wretched weakness, at her own shame and his cowardice, seethed up with such fiery speed to the point of explosion, that never did love kindled in childhood and radiant sunset, cradled by the waves and moonbeams, with the tones of a flute and low singing for an accompaniment, have a more sorrowful end. She seized him with both hands, lifted him from the ground and thrashed him to her heart's content; then she rowed back to town and forthwith started on foot across the mountains.

Pedro had sailed out that morning a lovesick youth, on his way to conquer manhood; he rowed home again an aged person who had never known manhood. His life owned but one remembrance, and that his own folly had lost; he had but one place of resort in the world, and thither he no longer dared go. While brooding over his own wretchedness and how all this had come to pass, his enterprising mood sank, as it were, into a slough, never more to rise. The small boys of the town, remarking his strange ways, soon began tormenting him, and as he had always been a mysterious character to the townsfolk, no one knowing anything about his ways or means, it did not occur to any one to interfere in his behalf. Soon he scarcely dared stir out of his house, at all events, not in the streets. His whole existence became one struggle with the boys, who doubtless did him the same service as gnats of a hot summer day: without them he would have sunk into an unbroken stupor.

Nine years later Gunlaug returned to the town quite as unexpectedly as she had left it. She brought with her a little girl about eight years old, the image of her former self, only that everything about the child was more refined and seemed, so to speak, as if wrapt in a dream. Gunlaug had been married, it was said, money had been left her, and now she had come back to open a sailor’s inn.

This she managed so well that merchants and skippers got into the habit of coming to her to hire hands, sailors to seek employment. She never charged a penny commission, but despotically wielded the power this agency gave her. Although she was but a woman, and never left her house, she was most emphatically, “the influential man” of the town. She was called “fisher Gunlaug,” or “Gunlaug on the hill-side;” her title of “fisher maiden” was transferred to her daughter, who went ranging about the town at the head of an army of small boys.

It is the daughter’s story which is here to be told. She had something of her mother’s strength of character, and she found opportunity to use it.

Chapter II

The many lovely gardens of the town, now in their second and third bloom, were fragrant after rain. The sun was setting behind the mountains of eternal snow; the whole sky above them was in a blaze of glory, and the snow peaks gave back a subdued reflection. The nearer mountains lay wrapped in shadows, but they were nevertheless radiant with their many-hued autumnal forests. The rocky islands which formed a long line in the midst of the fjord, as if they came rowing into the harbor, revealed still more gorgeous coloring in their dense woods than did the mountains, because they could more distinctly be seen. The sea was calm; a large ship was just being towed in. The inhabitants of the town sat out on the steps of their porches, that were well sheltered by the rose-bushes on either side; they were talking across from porch to porch, running over to visit one another, or exchanging greetings with the passers-by, who were on their way to the long avenues outside the town. Save the occasional tones of a piano, floating through some open window, scarcely a sound broke in upon the conversation; the last rays of the setting sun, as they lingered on the sea, increased the sense of perfect peace.

Then suddenly there arose as great a tumult in the heart of the town, as if a battery had been opened there. Boys shouted, girls screamed, other boys hurrahed, old women scolded and commanded, the policeman’s big dog barked, and every cur in town bayed in return. People inside were forced to come pouring out in the street. So tremendous became the noise that even the amtmand had to turn on his porch and drop the words, “Something must be the matter.”

“What is it?” was asked in excited tones of those on the steps by people rushing in from the avenues. “Ay, what is it?” replied those on the steps. “Dear me! what can be the matter?” all now inquired when any one appeared from the centre of the town. But as this town lies like a half-moon about a gently winding bay, it was quite a long time before the reply could reach both ends of the street. “It is only the fisher maiden.”

This adventurous spirit, screened by a for- midable mother, and sure of the protection of every seaman (for an extra dram was to be had gratis of the mother for such service), at the head of her small army had made an assault on a large apple-tree in Pedro Ohlsen’s orchard. The plan of attack was as follows: some of the small boys were to attract Pedro to the front of his house by slapping the rose-bushes against the window-panes; meanwhile, one was to shake the tree, which stood in the centre of the garden, and the rest were to fling apples in all directions over the fence—not to steal them, far from it! merely to have some fun.

This ingenious plan had been hatched that same evening in the rear of Pedro’s garden; but, as luck would have it, Pedro was seated just inside the fence, and heard every word. Somewhat before the appointed time he managed to get the intoxicated policeman of the town and his large dog into his back room, where they were both treated. When the fisher maiden’s curly pate was seen above the paling, and at the same time a multitude of little eager faces were peeping through on every side, Pedro suffered the small rogues to shake the rose-bushes in the front of the house with all their might—he calmly waited in the back room. And when the whole troop had noise- lessly gathered about the tree in the garden, just as the fisher maiden, barefoot and tattered, had climbed up to give it a shaking, the back door burst open, and Pedro and the policeman rushed out, armed with clubs, and with the great dog at their heels. A shriek of dismay arose among the boys; a troop of little girls, who in all innocence were playing “tag” outside the fence, supposing some one was being murdered in the garden, fell to screaming most lustily. The boys who had escaped, hurrahed; those who had been caught in the fence howled under the strokes of the clubs, and in order that the whole might be complete, a number of old women, who always spring up where the shrieks of boys are heard, blended their shrill voices with the rest. Even Pedro and the policeman were alarmed, and began to make terms with the old women; but, meanwhile, the boys ran away. The dog, who had been the greatest terror of all to the boys, clearing the fence, set out in pursuit of them,—for this was sport for him. On they sped through the town like wild ducks: boys, girls, the dog, and screams.

All the while the fisher maiden sat quietly up the tree, thinking that nobody had noticed her. Cowering in the topmost branch, she followed, through the foliage, the progress of the contest. But when the policeman, in a fit of fury, had made a sally on the old crones outside, Pedro Ohlsen, left alone in the garden, walked straight under the tree, looked up, and called out:—

“Come down this moment, you wretch!”

There was heard not the slightest sound from the tree.

“Will you come down, I say? I know you are up there!”

The most profound silence!

“I will go into the house for my gun and shoot up at you; yes, I will!”

He made a movement to go.

“Booh-hooh-hooh!” come from the tree.

“Oh, you may bawl as much as you please, for I am going to put a whole charge of shot into you up there; I can tell you!”

“Oh, booh-hooh-hooh-hooh!” came in owl-like tones. “I am so frightened.”

“Oh, the deuce you are! You are the worst mischief-maker of the whole lot; but I have you now!”

“Oh, you dear, good, kind man, you! I will never do so any more.”

And with this she aimed a rotten apple right at his nose, and a ringing peal of laughter fol- lowed it. The apple was mashed over his whole face; and while he was wiping it away, she sprang down and was scaling the fence before he could reach her. She would have cleared it had she not been so terrified lest he was at her heels, that she let go instead of calmly working her way over. When he caught hold of her she set up a scream; it rang out with such a shrill, wailing, piercing sound that he grew alarmed, and loosed his grasp. At her signal of terror, the people outside the paling uplifted their voices, too; and hearing this she at once gathered courage.

“Let me go, or I will tell my mother!” she threatened, and was now all flash and fire.

Then he recognized her face, and shrieked, “Your mother? Who is your mother?”

“Gunlaug on the hill-side, fisher Gunlaug,” the girl repeated, triumphantly, for she saw his dismay.

Near-sighted as he was, he had never noticed her before now; he was the only one in town who did not know who she was; he did not so much as know that Gunlaug was in the place. Like one possessed he cried out:—

“What is your name?”

“Petra!” the girl shouted, still louder than before.

“Petra!” shrieked Pedro, and turning, fled into the house as if he had encountered the Evil One himself.

But as the pallor of terror and that of the direst wrath bear a close resemblance to each other, Petra supposed he had rushed in after his gun. Fear overpowered her, she already felt the shot in her back, and as the garden gate was just then broken open from the outside, she bolted through, her dark hair flowing behind her like a stream of terror, her eyes flaming; the dog, whom she met in her fight, turned and pursued her, barking, and then she bolted into the house, stumbling against her mother who was just coming in from the kitchen with a dish of soup in her hand. The girl fell on the dish, the soup streamed over the floor, and a “the deuce take it!” from the mother, accompanied the fall, But as Petra lay sprawling there in the soup, she bawled:—