Björnstjerne Björnson's Stories

THE Björnson who recently visited America, and who has written Magnhild and Dust, differs from the Björnson whose Artie delighted English and American readers sixteen years ago. That was an exquisite pastoral, in which the restlessness of youth was given a poetic form of rare beauty. In Magnhild, the latest of the series of volumes¹ which now presents Björnson’s tales in uniform English dress, there is a restlessness of thought, which springs not from wondering ignorance of life, as in Arne, but from discontent at evils which have been discovered from long and hard experience of the world.

Me find a spiritual chronology in this remarkable series. The earliest stories were the short sketches, Thrond, A Dangerous Wooing, and The Bear Hunter, which immediately preceded the publication of Synnöve Solbakken. Thrond is a curious piece of fantastic writing, in which a boy’s mind, bred among Northern myths, peers out into the world ; everything is seen in a mirage, and the commonest circumstances of life are lifted into the supernatural. A Translated by RASMUS B. ANDERSON. Seven volumes. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1881, 1882.

Arne and A Happy Boy are somewhat complementary tales, and in these a new phase of Björnson’s genius and his spiritual growth are seen. In Arne, as we have intimated, there is disclosed a restlessness which fills the mind of the hero, and makes the burden of his life to be in the lyric which he sings : —

The fullness of a mother’s love, expressed in silence, yet deep as life, holds the boy fast till a finer, stronger chain has bound him to the valley. His restlessness is transmuted into a longing for the completion of his human love, and an exquisite touch makes two other human lives, which have been separated, find a, reunion through the fruition of Arne and Eli. A Happy Boy takes up this note of sweet content with which Arne ceases, and carries it forward in a light, happy, serene strain. There is no unrest in the book ; only the smiles and frowns of a checkered life, which never loses sight of its aim, and does not miss its goal.

A single short story of this period, The Eagle’s Nest, gives a hint of that daring which appeared in A Dangerous Wooing, but by its close reminds one of the failure which awaits adventure; it is antithetical to the earlier story, and prelusive of notes to be struck later. One other tale, of full proportions, but limited in compass, belongs to this group, the Railroad and the Churchyard, in which the author discovers his strong interest in a struggle between two typical natures. Nevertheless, he appears to stand quite outside of the circle in which the conflict goes on, and to find his pleasure in the noble reconciliation which rounds the tale.

All of the stories which we have enumerated belong to the first period of Björnson’s activity. They appeared between the years 1856 and 1860; that is, when the author was from twenty-four to twenty-eight years of age, and while he was struggling for a position as journalist and manager. Seven or eight years later came another group, of which the most important was The Fisher Maiden ; and the minor ones were Blakken, Fidelity, and A Problem of Life. Now The Fisher Maiden is indicative of transition. The problem which stirs the soul of Petra and of Ödegaard is that which comes sooner or later to every earnest person, — the problem of vocation. The story continues to be of peasant and of country life, but the horizon has widened. Ödegaard is a man who was destined for the priesthood, but has found his education in other lands, and has come back to Norway, still searching for his vocation. Petra does not ask herself the questions which Ödegaard is constantly struggling with, but her woman’s instinct guides her as unerringly as his man’s reason. The priest, with whom Petra makes her home, has had his experience, and thinks continentally within his mountain parish. The reader feels that the book is one of discussion, of question and answer. He perceives that the author, since his last book, has seen the world, has been possessed by it, and comes hack to this peasant life as one who looks at it now from the outside. The characters are more firmly outlined than in the previous books, yet, artistically, The Fisher Maiden suffers in contrast, for the motif is not from within the story ; it must be sought for in the author’s mind. He is working at problems, and is less an artist. lie has something to do with his book ; it is a means, and not an end.

Of the minor pieces, Blakken is merely a breezy sketch of a dun-colored horse, which Björnson’s father owned, and gives occasion for some lively reminiscences. Fidelity is a striking illustration of Norwegian peasant life, and is also a reminiscence. In both of these slight examples, one can see Björnson’s free hand and a masculine manner quite different from that earlier shown. He is, in these, quite plainly, a man who has returned to his parish ; not one who has never left it. A Problem of Life appears to be a study in tragedy ; built, very possibly, upon some incident in real life, but having a violent character, which separates it somewhat from the reader’s sympathy.

After an interval of three or four years two more stories appeared, The Bridal March and Captain Mansana; the latter rather a sketch for a story than a carefully developed novel. The Bridal March is more deliberately wrought. It takes a Norse family, over which a fate seemed to hang, and shows by what power of resolute youth the spell was broken. The scenes are still Norwegian, the characters are Norse, but the artist who deals with the material is one who has studied literature, and has observed men and women elsewhere; so that he has, as it were, constructed a Romeo and Juliet out of Scandinavian material. The passion of the story is powerful ; there is a pent-up energy felt through all the earlier part, and when the storm of love bursts the reader is swept along by it. Again we are reminded how far we have strayed from Arne. There was naïveté and the artless art. Here is a man’s work, vigorous and effective, showing confidence in self, yet touched also by a half-pitying tone, as of one who compassionates the narrow lives of his characters.

Captain Mansana was the result of study and travel in Italy. Björnson asserts that the figure is taken directly from life. One may well believe this ; but he will also believe that the Italian was a Berserker in disguise, and that Italian passion was translated into Northern might. Andersen came from the North, and wrote The Improvisatore. There was a rich flowering forth of a root which was transplanted just in time. Bjornson, when he went to Italy, was too solidly formed in Ids own mind to be irresistibly affected by Italian art and nature.

When Bjornson returned from Italy he wrote another Northern story, Magnhild, which was not published until 1877, three years later ; and if we may trust very common rumor, it closes the author’s larger work in the field of fiction. So far as his own professions are to be regarded, we may not look for further Norse tales from him. It does not need his word to show that another Arne, or Synnove Solbakken, or A Happy Boy is impossible. In this last important novel, one may readily see how little there is left of the earlier Björnson, — how little, and yet how much. That keen insight which is the eye of truth, that revealing touch which is the hand of a creator, are in Magnhild as in Arne. The landscape, the cold life, which is rather lighted than warmed, the sturdy, repressed natures, the deep stirrings of the soul, —all these reappear in this latest novel, and remind one of the mastery of the author. There is also in each case the marvelous power to make the reader feel the interpretation of a look, a gesture, and to carry him across chasms of incident and conversation, which Björnson has even more finely than Turgenef. But how entirely has the author’s attitude toward his subject changed! With what different emotions is he concerned ! Into the dull peasant life he shoots a flame from the feverish world outside, and the character whom he chooses to lift out of the surroundings is no longer a wondering boy, but a suffering woman. He portrays the landscape and figures, so far as these are Norwegian, as if he found in these, not the hidden poetry which charmed his early years, but a dull background from which to project life of another sort. He takes a girl who has been saved from physical destruction for some indefinite destiny, and first binds her to a Caliban of a fellow, a beast whom no power can transform into a beautiful young prince ; then, when she is fast bound, introduces into her life the opportunity for artistic expression through associations which are perilous to her nature. It is not altogether clear what Mr. Bjornson was working out in this tale. His hints and side-glances are sometimes enigmatical, but he permits the reader to see a pure-minded woman, conscious in a dumb way of higher possibilities of life, disappointed, turned back upon herself, and almost in despair, yet all the while unconsciously making herself a touch-stone to all the natures with whom she comes in contact.

The problem of the book, translated into the baldest phrase, may be said to be, What shall such a woman do with her husband ? and the answer here apparently is, Leave him. It will not do, however, to dismiss Magnhild as a mere contribution to the question of the subjection of women. We may guess that Björnson the philosopher and philanthropist was perplexed in his mind on this subject, but Björnson the artist was still too potent a force to be set aside. Magnhild has the marks of great power ; it has also the signs of a most restless spirit. We venture the conjecture that the fine woman is Norway, mated, but not married, to a royal regime in the person of Skarlie ; and that Bjornson’s advice to this woman, longing for the higher air, is to leave her husband, to free herself from debasing conditions. Be this as it may, there is not here the repose of a strong artist, who has overcome, but the searchings, the explorations, the deep discouragements, of a spirit stormy and passionate, moved by noble impulses, but driven from without by forces not yet subdued to its high will.

We have left but one short story, the latest from Björnson’s pen, the story of Dust, which is one of the saddest of tales, and indeed is no tale, but a fragment of human life. It is dreary in its portraiture of people who have lost all the clews to life and immortality, and go sobbing through the woods. The two lost children of the pitiful story are no more wandering than the father and mother and maid ; and the friend who visits them seems to have no power to set them on the right road. It is the last word of Björnson ; no, it is the latest word.

We have been so much interested in the spiritual chronology of these remarkable books that we find it difficult to come back to other considerations which are suggested. There is much that might be said concerning the relation which this Norse story-telling bears to the old sagas, for Bjõrnson is a legitimate successor of the saga-men. Much, too, might be said of the power with which Norse mountains cast their shadows over, and Norse fjords send their inlets into, this literature. However we may consider these stories, and whatever speculations they may lead us into respecting the author, we cannot escape from the most impressive fact, — that in this group of stories we have a distinct addition to the world’s literature. That the novels of Bjõrnson should have been gathered into one uniform English dress is a slight tribute to his genius. It is of much more importance that every American student of pure literature should study these books as the exponents of a high and noble genius. It is worth while to master the Norse language just to read Bjõrnson’s writings ; the reader of these translations will be the first to admit this.