reflected that this young man from Christianssand in his cradle had received everythingthat a human being can desire, and almost more than anyone can easily bear.
He had received even more than they knew of. He had a receptive and reflective nature and he had made his experiences in life.
When Arndt was fifteen years old a fisherman’s daughter from Vatne, whose name was Guro, had come as maid to his parents’ home. She was a year older than the son of the house, but the handsome boy, with wealth and the admiration of people surrounding his head like a halo, had awakened a mighty, irresistible emotion in the half-savage girl’s breast. She was incapable of hiding her passion from him; they were lovers before they knew of it. He was so young that he felt no guilt. He had never in his life feared, nor had had reason to fear, that the things he wanted by nature might possibly conflict with noble conduct or ways of thinking. An unknown sweetness and desire, a game which was all the more delightful because it was secret, had grown up between him and Guro. They smiled at each other; they wished each other well from the bottom of their hearts. Of his father and mother—if at that time they ever came into his mind at all—the boy thought: “They would not understand this.” They were so much older than he; as long as he had known them, while he had felt himself full of spirit and determination, they had been staid people. It hardly entered his head that they themselves might once have known the same game.
The secret love affair in the shipowner’s house lasted six weeks. Then one spring night Guro threw her arms around her young lover’s neck and cried out in a storm of tears: “I am a lost creature because I have met you and have looked at you, Arndt!” On the morrow she was gone, and two days later she was found floating in the fjord.
Arndt saw Guro again when she was carried into the house,white, ice-cold, with salt water running from her clothing and her hair. The reason for her desperate act was soon known: Guro was with child. Three days passed during which the boy believed himself to be the one who had caused the young woman’s misfortune and death. But after that time her father and mother came to the town to fetch her body home, and the house got to know that things had been wrong with the girl before she entered it. She had a sweetheart in Vatne; he had deserted her, but had since thought better of it and had twice looked her up in town, asking her to marry him. But now Guro would have nothing to do with him. The master and mistress of the house were dismayed at the dark, sorrowful tale that had come to pass under their roof. They were loath to speak of it in their young son’s hearing, but they felt it to be unavoidable, or even to be their duty, to tell him the truth quite briefly, adding a few solemn words on the wages of sin.
This truth which Arndt had from the lips of his father and mother did away with his own guilt. But it seemed at the same time to do away with everything else, so that he himself was left with empty hands. There was nothing there but a longing which for many a day sucked at his heart, and which was less for the girl herself or the happiness she had brought him than for his own faith in her and in it. A secret felicity in life had revealed itself to him and proved its existence, then immediately afterwards had denied itself and proved that it had never been. And Guro’s farewell words rang in his ears like a fateful prophecy that it was a misfortune to meet him and to look at him, even to those for whom he wished the very best. “I am a lost creature because I have met you!” she had lamented with her tear-wet face against his own. The events had passed through his life in the course of a few months and without any living soul knowing aboutthem. And so to him, the tenderly watched-over child, it was as if he had come to know most of what there is to know in the world in complete
He had received even more than they knew of. He had a receptive and reflective nature and he had made his experiences in life.
When Arndt was fifteen years old a fisherman’s daughter from Vatne, whose name was Guro, had come as maid to his parents’ home. She was a year older than the son of the house, but the handsome boy, with wealth and the admiration of people surrounding his head like a halo, had awakened a mighty, irresistible emotion in the half-savage girl’s breast. She was incapable of hiding her passion from him; they were lovers before they knew of it. He was so young that he felt no guilt. He had never in his life feared, nor had had reason to fear, that the things he wanted by nature might possibly conflict with noble conduct or ways of thinking. An unknown sweetness and desire, a game which was all the more delightful because it was secret, had grown up between him and Guro. They smiled at each other; they wished each other well from the bottom of their hearts. Of his father and mother—if at that time they ever came into his mind at all—the boy thought: “They would not understand this.” They were so much older than he; as long as he had known them, while he had felt himself full of spirit and determination, they had been staid people. It hardly entered his head that they themselves might once have known the same game.
The secret love affair in the shipowner’s house lasted six weeks. Then one spring night Guro threw her arms around her young lover’s neck and cried out in a storm of tears: “I am a lost creature because I have met you and have looked at you, Arndt!” On the morrow she was gone, and two days later she was found floating in the fjord.
Arndt saw Guro again when she was carried into the house,white, ice-cold, with salt water running from her clothing and her hair. The reason for her desperate act was soon known: Guro was with child. Three days passed during which the boy believed himself to be the one who had caused the young woman’s misfortune and death. But after that time her father and mother came to the town to fetch her body home, and the house got to know that things had been wrong with the girl before she entered it. She had a sweetheart in Vatne; he had deserted her, but had since thought better of it and had twice looked her up in town, asking her to marry him. But now Guro would have nothing to do with him. The master and mistress of the house were dismayed at the dark, sorrowful tale that had come to pass under their roof. They were loath to speak of it in their young son’s hearing, but they felt it to be unavoidable, or even to be their duty, to tell him the truth quite briefly, adding a few solemn words on the wages of sin.
This truth which Arndt had from the lips of his father and mother did away with his own guilt. But it seemed at the same time to do away with everything else, so that he himself was left with empty hands. There was nothing there but a longing which for many a day sucked at his heart, and which was less for the girl herself or the happiness she had brought him than for his own faith in her and in it. A secret felicity in life had revealed itself to him and proved its existence, then immediately afterwards had denied itself and proved that it had never been. And Guro’s farewell words rang in his ears like a fateful prophecy that it was a misfortune to meet him and to look at him, even to those for whom he wished the very best. “I am a lost creature because I have met you!” she had lamented with her tear-wet face against his own. The events had passed through his life in the course of a few months and without any living soul knowing aboutthem. And so to him, the tenderly watched-over child, it was as if he had come to know most of what there is to know in the world in complete
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