by Fredrika Bremer
Translated By Mary Howitt.
“I see that we are going to have to-day for dinner onion-milk, one of our most delicious national dishes, and my favourite eating.”
“Usch! One gets quite stupid and sleepy when one only thinks on your national dishes. And still more horrible than your onion-milk, and more unnatural too, is your fruit-soup with little herrings.”
“Fruit-soup with little herrings! Nay, that is the most superexcellent food on the earth, a food which I might call a truly Christian dish.”
“And I might call it a heathenish dish, which no true Christian man could eat.”
“From untold ages it has been eaten by free Norwegian men in the beautiful valleys of Norway.”
“That proves that you free Norwegians are still heathens.”
“I can prove to you that the Norwegians were a Christian people before the Swedes.”
“That you may prove as much as you like, but I shall not believe it.”
“But I will show it to you in print.”
“Then I shall be certain that it is a misprint.”
Harald laughed, and said something about the impossibility of disputing with a Swedish woman. Should now anybody wish to know how it happens that one finds Harald so continually in Susanna’s company in the brewhouse, in the store-room, in the dairy, we can only reply that he must be a great lover of beer, and flour, and milk, or of a certain spice in the every-day soup of life, called bantering.
Mrs. Astrid always breakfasted in her own room, but dined with Harald and Susanna, and saw them often for an hour in the evening. Often during dinner did the contention about Norway and Sweden break out; for the slightest occasion was sufficient to make the burgomaster’s daughter throw herself blindly into the strife for fatherland; and, strange enough, Mrs. Astrid herself sometimes seemed to find pleasure in exciting the contest, as she brought upon the carpet one question or another, as—
“I should like to know whether cauliflower is better in Norway or in Sweden?” or, “I should like to know whether the corn is better in Sweden or in Norway?”
“Quite certainly in Norway,” said Harald.
“Quite decidedly in Sweden,” cried Susanna. And vegetables, and fish, and the coinage, and measures and weights, were all handled and contended for in this way.
Of the corn in Norway, Susanna said, “I have not seen upon this whole estate one single straw which may bear a comparison with that which I have seen in Sweden.”
“The cause of that,” said Harald, “is because you saw here good corn for the first time.”
Of the Norwegian weights, Susanna said, “I never know what I am about with your absurd, nasty Norwegian weights.”
“They are heavier than the Swedish,” replied Harald.
Whenever Susanna became right vehement and right angry, then—it is shocking to say it—Harald laughed with his whole heart, and at times a faint smile brightened also Mrs. Astrid’s pale face, but it resembled the gleam of sunshine which breaks forth in a dark November sky, only to be immediately concealed behind clouds.
Susanna never thought in the least, on these occasions, of putting the bridle on the Barbra temper. She considered it as a holy duty to defend the fatherland in this manner.
But the spirit of contention did not always reign between Harald and Susanna. At intervals the spirit of peace also turned towards them, although as a timid dove, which is always ready soon to fly away hence. When Susanna spoke, as she often did, of that which lived in the inmost of her heart; of her love to her little sister, and the recollections of their being together; of her longings to see her again, and to be able to live for her as a mother for her child,—then listened Harald ever silently and attentively. No jeering smile nor word came to disturb these pure images in Susanna’s soul. And how limningly did Susanna describe the little Hulda’s beauty; the little white child, as soft as cotton-wool, the pious blue eyes, the white little teeth, which glanced out whenever she laughed like bright sunshine, which then lay spread over her whole countenance; and the golden locks which hung so beautifully over forehead and shoulders, the little pretty hands, and temper and heart lively, good, affectionate! Oh! she was in short an angel of God! The little chamber, which Susanna inhabited with her little Hulda, and which she herself had changed from an unused lumber-room into a pretty chamber, and whose walls she herself painted, she painted now from memory yet once more for Harald; and the bed of the little Hulda was surrounded with a light-blue muslin curtain, and how a sunbeam stole into the chamber in the morning, in order to shine on the pillow of the child, and to kiss her little curly head. How roguish was the little one when Susanna came in late at night to go to bed, and cast her first glance on the bed in which her darling lay. But she saw her not, for Hulda drew her little head under the coverlet to hide herself from her sister. Susanna then would pretend to seek for the little one; but she needed only to say with an anxious voice, “where—ah, where is my little Hulda?” in order to decoy forth the head of the little one, to see her arms stretched out, and to hear her say, “here I am, Sanna! here is thy little Hulda!” And she had then her little darling in her arms, and pressed her to her heart; then was Susanna happy, and forgot all the cares and the fatigues of the day.
At the remembrance of these hours Susanna’s tears often flowed, and prevented her remarking the tearful glow which sometimes lit up Harald’s eyes.
Harald, however, had also his relations; not, it is true, of so tender a nature, but yet interesting enough to lay claim to all Susanna’s attention, and to give us occasion to commence a new chapter.