Mary by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (adult books to read TXT) 📕

groom were to be seen. There must have been a struggle, since there had been time to clear the way; or else the horses must have bolted a long way off. Up here, inside the gate, all the carriages had disappeared from the central passage. Alice's stood blocked nearest the gate, against the left footpath. They hear shouts behind them; probably the whole Avenue is being cleared. But no one looks that way, all gaze straight ahead, at the magnificent animals that are tearing frantically towards them. Driven by curiosity, the crowds on both sides swayed back and forwards. Terrified voices outside the gate cried: "Shut the gates!" A furious protest, a thousand-voiced jeer, answered them from within. In the carriages every one was standing; many had mounted the seats, Mary and Alice among the number. It seemed as if the horses' pace increased the nearer they came; both coachman and groom were tugging at the reins with might and main, but this only excited them the more. A man wearing a tall hat was leaning his whole body out of the carriage, probably to discover where he was going to break his neck. Some dogs were following, with strenuous protest. Up here they allured others on to the road, but these did not venture far out. Two or three that did, knocked up against each other with such violence that one fell and was run over; the carriage bounded, the dog howled; his comrades stopped for a moment.

Now a man, disengaging himself from the crowd at the iron gate, ran into the middle of the road. People shouted to him; they waved with sticks and umbrellas; they threatened. Two gendarmes ventured out a few steps after him and gesticulated and shouted; a single park-keeper inside the gate did the same, but ran back terrified. Instead of attending to these shouts and threats, the man measured the horses with his eye, moved to the left, to the right, back again to the left ... evidently preparing to throw himself on them.

The moment the crowd comprehended this, it became silent, so silent that the birds could be heard singing in the trees. And heard, too, the dull, distant sound from the giant town, which never ceases, borne hither by the breeze. Its monotonous tone underlay the twitter of the birds. Strange it was, but the horses of the carriages drawn up by the roadside stood as intent as the human beings; they did not stir a foot.

The frantic pair reach the man in the middle of the avenue. He turns with the speed of an arrow in the direction they are going, and runs along with them, flinging himself against the side of the horse next him....

"It is he!" cried Alice, deathly pale, and gripping Mary so violently that they were both on the point of toppling over. Women's screams resounded wild and shrill, the deeper roars of the men following. He was now hanging on to the horse. Alice closed her eyes. Mary turned away. Was he running, or was he being dragged? Stop them he could not!

Again a few seconds of terrible silence; only the dogs and the horses' hoofs were heard. Then a short cry, then thousands, then jubilation, wild, endless jubilation--handkerchiefs waving, and hats and parasols. The crowd burst into the Avenue again from both sides like a flood. The space by the gate was filled in an instant. The frenzied animals stood trembling, in a lather of foam, close to Alice's carriage. Mary saw a grey-clad Englishman, an erect old man with a white beard and a tall hat; she saw a young lady hanging on his arm, and she heard him say: "Well done, young man!" A roar of laughter followed. And not till now did she see him who had evoked it--still gripping the horse's nostrils, hatless, waistcoat torn, hand bleeding, his perspiring, excited face at this moment turned laughingly towards the Englishman. At exactly the same time the man caught sight of Alice, who was still standing on the seat of her carriage. He instantly deserted horses, carriage, Englishman, and forced his way through the crowd towards her.

"Dear people, get me out of this!" he said quickly, in the broadest of "Eastern" Norwegian. Before Alice had time to answer, or even to step down from the seat, and long before the groom could swing himself down from the box, he had opened the carriage door and was standing beside them. He handed first Alice and then her friend down from the seat. Then he said to the coachman in French:

"Drive me home as soon as you can move. You remember the address?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Capitaine," replied the coachman, touching his hat respectfully, with a look of admiration.

As Frans Roey turned to sit down, his face contracted, and he exclaimed, catching hold of his foot: "Oh!----the devil! that brute must have trodden on me. I never felt it till now."

As he spoke, he met Mary's large, astonished eyes; he had not looked at her before, not even when he was assisting her down from the seat. The change in his expression was so sudden and so extremely comical that both ladies burst out laughing. Frans raised his bleeding hand to his hat--and discovered that he had no hat. Then he laughed too.

The coachman had in the meantime manoeuvred them a few yards forwards, and they were beginning to turn.

"I don't suppose I need tell you who she is?" laughed Alice.

"No," answered Roey, looking so hard at Mary that she blushed.

"Good heavens! Think of your daring to do that!" It was Alice who spoke.

"Oh! It's not so dangerous as it looks," he replied, without taking his eyes off Mary. "There's a trick in it. I've done it twice before." He was speaking to Mary alone. "I saw at once that only one horse had lost its head; the other was being dragged along. So I went for the mad one.--Goodness! what a sight I am!" He had not discovered till now that his waistcoat was in rags, that his watch was gone, and that blood was dripping from his hand. Mary offered him her handkerchief. He looked at the delicate square of embroidery and then at her again: "No, Miss Krog; that would be like stitching birch-bark with silk."

Roey lived quite near the iron gate, to the right, so they arrived in a few moments. Thanking them heartily, and without offering his bleeding hand, he jumped out. Whilst he limped across the pavement, erect, huge, and the carriage was turning, Alice whispered in English: "If one could only have a model like that, Mary!"

Mary looked at her in surprise: "Well--is it not possible?"

Alice looked back at Mary, still more surprised: "Nude, I mean."

Mary almost started from her seat, then bent forward and looked straight into Alice's face. Alice met her eyes with a teasing laugh.

Mary leaned back and gazed straight in front of her.

* * * * *


On account of the injury to his foot, Frans Roey had to keep quiet for some days. The first time he called on Alice, Mary, according to agreement, was sent for. But she felt so strangely agitated that she dared not go. Next time curiosity, or whatever the feeling was, brought her. But she came late, and hardly had she looked him in the face again before she wished that she had not come. There was an intensity about him which the fine lady felt to be intrusive, almost insulting. Her whole being was like a surging sea; she followed him with her eyes and with her ears; her thoughts were in a whirl, and so was her blood. This must pass over soon, she thought. But it did not. Alice's entrancement--love, to call it by the right name--audible and visible in every word, every look, added to her confusion. Was he really so ugly? That broad, upright forehead, these small, sparkling eyes, the compressed lips and projecting chin, produced in conjunction an impression of unusual strength; but the face was made comical by there being no nose to speak of. Very comical, too, was most of his conversation. He was in such high spirits and so full of fun and fancies that the rattle never ceased. His manners were not overbearing; on the contrary, he was politeness itself, attentive, at times quite the gallant. What overpowered was his forcefulness. Force spoke in his voice and glanced from his eyes. But the body, too, played its part--the strong hand, the small, foot, compact, the shoulders, the neck, the chest--these spoke too, they insisted, they demonstrated. One could not escape from them for a moment. And the talk never ceased.

Mary was unaccustomed to any style of conversation except that of international society--light talk of wind and weather, of the events of the day, of literature and art, of incidents of travel--the whole at arm's length. Here everything was personal and almost intimate. She felt that she herself acted upon Frans like wine. His intoxication increased; he let himself go more and more. This excited her too much; it gave her a feeling of insecurity. As soon as politeness allowed of it, she took leave, nervous, confused, as a matter of fact in wild retreat. She promised herself solemnly that she would never go back again.

Not until later in the day did she join her father and Mrs. Dawes. She did not say a word about her meeting with Frans Roey. Nor had she done so on the previous occasion. Mrs. Dawes told her to look at a visiting-card which was lying on the table.

"Joergen Thiis? Is he here?"

"He has been here all winter. But he had only just heard of our arrival."

"He asked to be remembered to you," put in Anders, who was, as usual, sitting reading.

It was a rest even to think of Joergen Thiis. Last winter he and she had seen a good deal of each other in Paris. Both at private houses and at official balls at the Elysees and the Hotel de Ville he had been of their party. He was a squire to be proud of, good-looking, gentlemanly, courteous.

Her father mentioned that Joergen was intending to exchange into the diplomatic service.

"Surely money is required for that?" said Mary.

"He is Uncle Klaus's heir," replied Mrs. Dawes.

"Are you certain of this?"

"No, not certain."

"And has not Uncle Klaus lost a good deal of money lately?"

Mrs. Dawes did not answer. Krog said:

"We have heard something to that effect."

"In that case will he be able to help him?"

No one replied.

"Then it does not seem to me that Joergen's prospects are particularly good," concluded Mary.

Roey was in France on special Government business, which often took him away from Paris. He had to go just at this time, so Mary felt safe. But one morning when she made an early call on Alice--the two had arranged to go into town together--there he sat! He jumped up and came towards her, his eyes beaming admiration and delight upon her. He seized her hand in both of his. She had never beheld such radiant happiness. She felt herself turn scarlet. Alice laughed, which made things worse. But Frans Roey's loquacity came to their assistance. It was excessive to-day even for him. He plunged at once into a description of a gigantic