A Happy Boy by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (electronic book reader TXT) 📖

a fine blue broadcloth suit, blue checked shirt, and a soft silk neckerchief; he had a small face, vigorous blue eyes, a laughing, defiant mouth. He was handsome. Oyvind looked more and more intently, finally scanned himself also; he had had new trousers for Christmas, which he had taken much delight in, but now he saw that they were only gray wadmal; his jacket was of the same material, but old and dark; his vest, of checked homespun, was also old, and had two bright buttons and a black one. He glanced around him and it seemed to him that very few were so poorly clad as he. Marit wore a black, close-fitting dress of a fine material, a silver brooch in her neckerchief and had a folded silk handkerchief in her hand. On the back of her head was perched a little black silk cap, which was tied under the chin with a broad, striped silk ribbon. She was fair and had rosy cheeks, and she was laughing; the man was talking to her and was laughing too. The fiddler started another tune, and the dancing was about to begin again. A comrade came and sat down beside Oyvind.

"Why are you not dancing, Oyvind? " he asked pleasantly.

"Dear me!" said Oyvind, "I do not look fit."

"Do not look fit?" cried his comrade; but before he could say more, Oyvind inquired,--

"Who is that in the blue broadcloth suit, dancing with Marit?"

"That is Jon Hatlen, he who has been away so long at an agricultural school and is now to take the gard."

At that moment Marit and Jon sat down.

"Who is that boy with light hair sitting yonder by the fiddler, staring at me?" asked Jon.

Then Marit laughed and said,--

"He is the son of the houseman at Pladsen."

Oyvind had always known that he was a houseman's son; but until now he had never realized it. It made him feel so very little, smaller than all the rest; in order to keep up he had to try and think of all that hitherto had made him happy and proud, from the coasting hill to each kind word. He thought, too, of his mother and his father, who were now sitting at home and thinking that he was having a good time, and he could scarcely hold back his tears. Around him all were laughing and joking, the fiddle rang right into his ear, it was a moment in which something black seemed to rise up before him, but then he remembered the school with all his companions, and the school-master who patted him, and the priest who at the last examination had given him a book and told him he was a clever boy. His father himself had sat by listening and had smiled on him.

"Be good now, dear Oyvind," he thought he heard the school-master say, taking him on his lap, as when he was a child. "Dear me! it all matters so little, and in fact all people are kind; it merely seems as if they were not. We two will be clever, Oyvind, just as clever as Jon Hatlen; we shall yet have good clothes, and dance with Marit in a light room, with a hundred people in it; we will smile and talk together; there will be a bride and bridegroom, a priest, and I will be in the choir smiling upon you, and mother will be at home, and there will be a large gard with twenty cows, three horses, and Marit as good and kind as at school."

The dancing ceased. Oyvind saw Marit on the bench in front of him, and Jon by her side with his face close up to hers; again there came that great burning pain in his breast, and he seemed to be saying to himself: "It is true, I am suffering."

Just then Marit rose, and she came straight to him. She stooped over him.

"You must not sit there staring so fixedly at me," said she; "you might know that people are noticing it. Take some one now and join the dancers."

He made no reply, but he could not keep back the tears that welled up to his eyes as he looked at her. Marit had already risen to go when she saw this, and paused; suddenly she grew as red as fire, turned and went back to her place, but having arrived there she turned again and took another seat. Jon followed her forthwith.

Oyvind got up from the bench, passed through the crowd, out in the grounds, sat down on a porch, and then, not knowing what he wanted there rose, but sat down again, thinking he might just as well sit there as anywhere else. He did not care about going home, nor did he desire to go in again, it was all one to him. He was not capable of considering what had happened; he did not want to think of it; neither did he wish to think of the future, for there was nothing to which he looked forward.

"But what, then, is it I am thinking of?" he queried, half aloud, and when he had heard his own voice, he thought: "You can still speak, can you laugh?" And then he tried it; yes, he could laugh, and so he laughed loud, still louder, and then it occurred to him that it was very amusing to be sitting laughing here all by himself, and he laughed again. But Hans, the comrade who had been sitting beside him, came out after him.

"Good gracious, what are you laughing at?" he asked, pausing in front of the porch. At this Oyvind was silent.

Hans remained standing, as if waiting to see what further might happen. Oyvind got up, looked cautiously about him and said in a low tone,--

"Now Hans, I will tell you why I have been so happy before: it was because I did not really love any one; from the day we love some one, we cease to be happy," and he burst into tears.

"Oyvind!" a voice whispered out in the court; "Oyvind!" He paused and listened. "Oyvind," was repeated once more, a little louder. "It must be she," he thought.

"Yes," he answered, also in a whisper; and hastily wiping his eyes he came forward.

A woman stole softly across the gard.

[Transcriber's Note: The above sentence should read, "A woman stole softly across the yard." In other early translations, the words "yard" and "court-yard" are used here. "Gard" in this case is apparently a typo. The use of the word, "gard" throughout the rest of this story refers to "farm."]

"Are you there?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, standing still.

"Who is with you?"

"Hans."

But Hans wanted to go.

"No, no!" besought Oyvind.

She slowly drew near them, and it was Marit.

"You left so soon," said she to Oyvind.

He knew not what to reply; thereupon Marit, too, became embarrassed, and all three were silent. But Hans gradually managed to steal away. The two remained behind, neither looking at each other, nor stirring. Finally Marit whispered:--

"I have been keeping some Christmas goodies in my pocket for you, Oyvind, the whole evening, but I have had no chance to give them to you before."

She drew forth some apples, a slice of a cake from town, and a little half pint bottle, which she thrust into his hand, and said he might keep. Oyvind took them.

"Thank you!" said he, holding out his hand; hers was warm, and he dropped it at once as if it had burned him.

"You have danced a good deal this evening," he murmured.

"Yes, I have," she replied, "but _you_ have not danced much," she added.

"I have not," he rejoined.

"Why did you not dance?"

"Oh"--

"Oyvind!"

"Yes."

"Why did you sit looking at me so?"

"Oh--Marit!"

"What!"

"Why did you dislike having me look at you?"

"There were so many people."

"You danced a great deal with Jon Hatlen this evening."

"I did."

"He dances well."

"Do you think so?"

"Oh, yes. I do not know how it is, but this evening I could not bear to have you dance with him, Marit."

He turned away,--it had cost him something to say this.

"I do not understand you, Oyvind."

"Nor do I understand myself; it is very stupid of me. Good-by, Marit; I will go now."

He made a step forward without looking round. Then she called after him.

"You make a mistake about what you saw."

He stopped.

"That you have already become a maiden is no mistake."

He did not say what she had expected, therefore she was silent; but at that moment she saw the light from a pipe right in front of her. It was her grandfather, who had just turned the corner and was coming that way. He stood still.

"Is it here you are, Marit?"

"Yes."

"With whom are you talking?"

"With Oyvind."

"Whom did you say?"

"Oyvind Pladsen."

"Oh! the son of the houseman at Pladsen. Come at once and go in with me."


CHAPTER V.


The next morning, when Oyvind opened his eyes, it was from a long, refreshing sleep and happy dreams. Marit had been lying on the cliff, throwing leaves down on him; he had caught them and tossed them back again, so they had gone up and down in a thousand colors and forms; the sun was shining, and the whole cliff glittered beneath its rays. On awaking Oyvind looked around to find them all gone; then he remembered the day before, and the burning, cruel pain in his heart began at once. "This, I shall never be rid of again," thought he; and there came over him a feeling of indifference, as though his whole future had dropped away from him.

"Why, you have slept a long time," said his mother, who sat beside him spinning. "Get up now and eat your breakfast; your father is already in the forest cutting wood."

Her voice seemed to help him; he rose with a little more courage. His mother was no doubt thinking of her own dancing days, for she sat singing to the sound of the spinning-wheel, while he dressed himself and ate his breakfast. Her humming finally made him rise from the table and go to the window; the same dullness and depression he had felt before took possession of him now, and he was forced to rouse himself, and think of work. The weather had changed, there had come a little frost into the air, so that what yesterday had threatened to fall in rain, to-day came down as sleet. Oyvind put on his snow-socks, a fur cap, his sailor's jacket and mittens, said farewell, and started off, with his axe on his shoulder.

Snow fell slowly, in great, wet flakes; he toiled up over the coasting hill, in order to turn into the forest on the left. Never before, winter or summer, had he climbed this hill without recalling something that made him happy, or to which he was looking forward. Now it was a dull, weary walk. He slipped in