community
directory
books
authors
images
encyclopedia

[ Table of Contents ] [ Previous Page ] [ Next Page ]
Absalom's Hair by Bjornstjerne Bjornson
Book, page 11 / 109


The estate, the climate, the exclusive possession of her part of
the house: this was the bait which she had chosen. Harald Kaas was
only a kind of Puck who had to be taken along with it. But it is
doubtful whether this conjecture was any nearer the truth. No one
ever really knew. She was not one of those whom it is easy to
catechise.

Every one wearies at last of trying to solve even the most
interesting of enigmas. No one could tolerate the sound of her
name when, four months after her marriage, she was seen in a stall
at the Christiania Theatre just as in old days, though looking
perhaps a little paler. Every opera-glass was levelled at her. She
wore a light, almost white, dress, cut square as usual. She did
not hide her face behind her fan. She looked about her with her
wondering eyes, as though she was quite unconscious that there
were other people in the theatre or that any one could be looking
at her. Even the most pertinacious were forced to concede that she
was both physically and mentally unique, with a charm all her own.

But just as she had become once more the subject of general
conversation, she disappeared. It afterwards transpired that her
husband had fetched her away, though hardly any one had seen him.
It was concluded that they must have had their first quarrel over
it.

Accurate information about their joint life was never obtained.
The attempts of her relations to force themselves upon them were
quite without result, except that they found out that she was
enceinte, notwithstanding her utmost efforts to conceal the fact.

She sent neither letter nor announcement; but in the summer, when
she was next seen in Christiania, she was wheeling a perambulator
along Karl Johan Street, her eyes as wondering as though some one
had just put it between her hands. She looked handsomer and more
blooming than ever.

In the perambulator lay a boy with his mother's broad forehead,
his mother's red hair. The child was charmingly dressed, and he,
as well as the perambulator, was so daintily equipped, so
completely in harmony with herself, that every one understood the

 
[ Table of Contents ] [ Previous Page ] [ Next Page ]
Google
  Web knowledgerush

Knowledgerush Search


 

Contact UsPrivacy Statement & Terms of Use

 
Copyright © 1999-2004 Knowledgerush.com. All rights reserved.