Three Comedies by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📖

(rushing to her side). Leonarda!

Leonarda. No, no! Let me be!

Hagbart. You know your love is too strong for you--will you not give way to it?

Leonarda. Hagbart, there is something about it that is not right--

Hagbart. Do you mean in the way it has come about? In Aagot's having been the means of leading me to you? Think of it, and you will see that it could not have happened otherwise.

Leonarda. Talking about it will not help me. I must see Aagot; I must speak to Aagot.

Hagbart. But you have done that! You know it is you that love me, and not she. You know it is you that I love, and not her. What more do you need?

Leonarda. I want time. I want not to lose the self-control I have won for myself by years of renunciation and self-sacrifice, and was so proud of. But it won't obey me when you speak to me. Your words possess me in spite of myself. If there is any happiness on earth, it is to find one's every thought faultlessly understood. But that happiness brings a pain with it--for me, at any rate. No, don't answer! You are too strong for me; because I love you--love you as only one can who has never believed such joy could exist or could possibly come to her--and now the depths of my peace are troubled with the thought that it is treachery to my child.

Hagbart. But you know that it is not!

Leonarda. I don't know. Let me have time to think! I am afraid, and my fear revives forgotten memories. More than that--I am afraid of the immensity of my love for you, afraid of dragging you with me into a whirlpool of disaster!--No, don't answer! Don't touch me!--Hagbart, do you love me?

Hagbart. Can you ask that?

Leonarda. Then help me! Go away!--Be generous. Let my heart know this triumph and see you in its glorious rays! Other women do not need that, perhaps--but I need it--go!

Hagbart. Leonarda!

Leonarda. Wait till you hear from me. It will not be long. Whatever happens, be patient--and remember, I love you!--No, don't say anything! I have neither courage nor strength for anything more. (Her voice sinks to a whisper.) Go! (He turns to go.) Hagbart! (He stops.) What you have said to me to-day has given me the greatest happiness of my life. But your going away now without a word will be more to me than all you have sail. (He goes out.)

Leonarda (stands for some moments in a kind of ecstasy, moves, and stands still again. Suddenly she calls out): Aagot!

Aagot (from without). Are you there?

Leonarda. My dear child! (Goes out, and cones in again with AAGOT in her arms.) Did you walk?

Aagot. The whole way! (She is carrying her hat in her hand, appears hot and sunburnt, and bears evident signs of laving made a long journey on foot. She takes off a knapsack which she has been carrying on her back.) I washed in a brook to-day and used it as a looking-glass as well!

Leonarda. Have you been walking all night?

Aagot. No; I slept for a little while at Opsal, but I was out by sunrise. It was lovely!

Leonarda. And I have just been arranging to send and fetch you.

Aagot. Really? Well, they can fetch my things. I could not wait any longer.

Leonarda. You look so well.

Aagot. Oh, that is because I am so sunburnt.

Leonarda. You are feeling all right again, then--now?

Aagot. Splendid, aunt! All that is over, now.--I have had a letter from grandmother.

Leonarda. Was that letter from her that I sent on to you? I could not make out whom it was from.

Aagot. Yes, it was from her. Here it is. You must hear it.

Leonarda. Yes.

Aagot (reads). "My dear child. I have not written a letter for many years, so I do not know what this will be like. But Hagbart is away, so I must tell you myself. Do not be distressed any longer. As soon as you are married, I will come and live with you." Isn't that glorious, aunt? (She is trembling with happiness, and throws her arms round LEONARDA'S neck.)

Leonarda. But--

Aagot. But what? There is no more "but" about it, don't you see! It is on your account.

Leonarda. On my account? Yes, but--what about you? How do you stand--with Hagbart?

Aagot. Oh, that?--Well, I will tell you the whole story! I can do that now.--Oh, don't take it all so seriously, aunt! It really is nothing. But let us sit down. (Brings forward a seat, as she speaks.) I really feel as if I wanted to sit down for a little while, too!--Well, you see, it came upon me like an unexpected attack--a blow from behind, as it were. Now, my dear aunt, don't look so troubled. It is all over now. As a matter of fact, the beginning of it all was a play I saw.

Leonarda. A play?

Aagot. We saw it together once, you and I, do you remember? Scribe's Bataille de Dames.

Leonarda. Yes.

Aagot. And I remember thinking and saying to you: That fellow Henri, in the play, was a stupid fellow. He had the choice between a strong-natured, handsome, spirited woman, who was ready to give her life for him, and a child who was really a stupid little thing--for she was, it is no use denying it, aunt--and he chose the insignificant little person. No, I would rather sit down here; I can rest better so. Ah, that is good! And now you mustn't look me in the face oftener than I want to let you, because you take it too dreadfully solemnly, and I am going to tell you something foolish now.--All of a sudden it flashed across my mind: Good heavens! the woman was--, and the little hussy with the curly hair was--, and he? But Hagbart is a man of some sense: he had chosen otherwise! And I did not know; but I realised at the same time that almost from the first day Hagbart used always to talk to you, and only to you, and hardly at all to me except to talk about you. I got so miserable about it that I felt as if some one had put a knife into my heart; and from that moment--I am so ashamed of it now--I had no more peace. I carried an aching pain in my heart night and day, and I thought my heart itself would break merely to see him speak to you or you to him. I am ashamed of myself; because what was more natural than that he should never be tired of talking to you? I never should, myself!

Leonarda. But still I don't see--I don't understand yet--

Aagot. Wait a bit! Oh, don't look so anxiously at me! It is all over now, you know.

Leonarda. What is all over?

Aagot. Bless my soul, wait! Aunt, dear, you are more impatient than I am myself! I do not want you to think me worse than I am, so I must first tell you how I fought with myself. I lay and cried all night, because I could not talk to you about it, and in the daytime I forced myself to seem merry and lively and happy. And then, aunt, one day I said to myself quite honestly: Why should you feel aggrieved at his loving her more than you? What are you, compared with her? And how splendid it would be, I thought, for my dear aunt to find some one she could truly love, and that it should be I that had brought them together!

Leonarda. That was splendid of you, Aagot!

Aagot. Yes, but now I mustn't make myself out better than I am, either. Because I did not always manage to look at it that way; very often something very like a sob kept rising in my throat. But then I used to talk to myself seriously, and say: Even supposing it is your own happiness you are giving up for her sake, is that too much for you to do for her? No, a thousand times no! And even supposing he does not love you any more, ought you not to be able to conquer your own feelings? Surely it would be cowardly not to be able to do that! Think no more of him, if he does not love you!

Leonarda. Aagot, I cannot tell you how I admire you, and love you, and how proud I am of you!

Aagot. Oh, aunt, I never realised as I did then what you have been to me! I knew that if I were capable of any great deed, anything really good or really fine, it was you that had planted the impulse in me. And then I sought every opportunity to bring this about; I wanted to take ever so humble a part in it, but without your hearing a word or a sigh from me. Besides, I had you always before me as an example; because I knew that you would have done it for me--indeed that you had already done as much. Your example was like a shining beacon to me, aunt!

Leonarda. Aagot!

Aagot. But you don't seem to be as happy about it as I am! Don't you understand yet how it all happened?

Leonarda. Yes, but--about the result of it?

Aagot. Dearest, you know all about that!--No, it is true, you don't! I must not forget to tell you that; otherwise you won't be able to understand why I behaved so stupidly at the Bishop's.

Leonarda. No.

Aagot. Well, you see, when I was full of this splendid determination to sacrifice myself so as to make you happy, I used to feel a regular fury come over me because Hagbart noticed no change in me--or, to be more correct, did not understand it in the least. He used to go about as if he were in a dream. Isn't it extraordinary how one thing leads to another? My feeling was stronger than I had any idea of; because when the Bishop wanted to slight you--and that was like a stab from behind, too!--I absolutely lost my head with Hagbart because of his not having prevented that, instead of going about dreaming. I don't know--but--well, you saw yourself what happened. I blurted out the first thing that came into my head and was abominably rude; you were angry; then we made friends again and I went away--and then, aunt--

Leonarda. And then--?

Aagot. Then I thought it all over! All the beautiful things you said to me about him, as we were going home, came back to me more and more forcibly. I saw you as I had always known you, noble and gentle.--It was so wonderful up there, too! The air, the clearness, the sense of space! And the lake, almost always calm, because it was so sheltered! And the wonderful stillness, especially in the evening!--And so it healed, just as a wound heals.

Leonarda. What healed?

Aagot. The pain in my heart, aunt. All the difficulties vanished. I know Hagbart to be what you said--noble and true. And you too, aunt! You would neither of you have wished to give me a moment's pain, even unconsciously, I knew. It was so good to realise that! It was so restful, that often while I was thinking of it, I went to sleep where I sat--I was