章节正文
brighter moments, and people noticed that these
were most likely to occur when Aasa, his daughter,
was near. Lage was probably also the only
being whom Aasa's presence could cheer; on
other people it seemed to have the very opposite
effect; for Aasa was--according to the testimony
of those who knew her--the most peculiar creature
that ever was born. But perhaps no one
did know her; if her father was right, no one
really did--at least no one but himself.
Aasa was all to her father; she was his past
and she was his future, his hope and his life;
and withal it must be admitted that those who
judged her without knowing her had at least in
one respect as just an opinion of her as he; for
there was no denying that she was strange,
very strange. She spoke when she ought to be
silent, and was silent when it was proper to
speak; wept when she ought to laugh, and
laughed when it was proper to weep; but her
laughter as well as her tears, her speech like her
silence, seemed to have their source from within
her own soul, to be occasioned, as it were, by
something which no one else could see or hear.
It made little difference where she was; if the
tears came, she yielded to them as if they were
something she had long desired in vain. Few
could weep like her, and "weep like Aasa
Kvaerk," was soon also added to the stock of
parish proverbs. And then her laugh! Tears
may be inopportune enough, when they come
out of time, but laughter is far worse; and when
poor Aasa once burst out into a ringing laughter
in church, and that while the minister was
pronouncing the benediction, it was only with
the greatest difficulty that her father could
prevent the indignantcongregation from seizing
her and carrying her before the sheriff for
violation of the church-peace. Had she been poor
and homely, then of course nothing could have
saved her; but she happened to be both rich
and beautiful, and to wealth and beauty much
is pardoned. Aasa's beauty, however, was also
of a very unusual kind; not the tame sweetness
so common in her sex, but something of the
beauty of the falcon, when it swoops down upon
the unwatchful sparrow or soars round the lonely
crags; something of the mystic depth of the
dark tarn, when with bodeful trembling you
gaze down into it, and see its weird traditions
rise from its depth and hover over the pine-tops
in the morning fog. Yet, Aasa was not dark;
her hair was as fair and yellow as a wheat-field
in August, her forehead high and clear, and her
mouth and chin as if cut with a chisel; only her
eyes were perhaps somewhat deeper than is
common in the North, and the longer you
looked at them the deeper they grew, just like
the tarn, which, if you stare long enough into
it, you will find is as deep as the heavens above,
that is, whose depth only faith and fancy can
fathom. But however long you looked at Aasa,
you could never be quite sure that she looked at
you; she seemed but to half notice whatever
went on around her; the look of her eye was
always more than half inward, and when it
shone the brightest, it might well happen that
she could not have told you how many years
she had lived, or the name her father gave her
in baptism.
Now Aasa was eighteen years old, and could
knit, weave, and spin, and it was full time that
wooers should come. "But that is the consequence
of living in such an out-of-the-way
place," said her mother; "who will risk his
limbs to climb that neck-breaking rock? and the
round-about way over the forest is rather too
long for a wooer." Besides handling the loom
and the spinning-wheel, Aasa had also learned
to churn and make cheese to perfection, and
whenever Elsie grieved at her strange behavior
she always in the end consoled herself with the
reflection that after all Aasa would make the
man who should get her an excellent housewife.
The farm of Kvaerk was indeed most singularly
situated. About a hundred feet from the
house the rough wall of the mountain rose steep
and threatening; and the most remarkable part
of it was that the rock itself caved inward and
formed a lofty arch overhead, which looked like
a huge door leading into the mountain. Some
short distance below, the slope of the fields
ended in an abruptprecipice; far underneath
lay the other farm-houses of the valley, scattered
like small red or gray dots, and the river wound
onward like a white silver stripe in the shelter
of the dusky forest. There was a path down
along the rock, which a goat or a brisk lad
might be induced to climb, if the prize of the
experiment were great enough to justify the
hazard. The common road to Kvaerk made a
large circuit around the forest, and reached the
valley far up at its northern end.
It was difficult to get anything to grow at
Kvaerk. In the spring all the valley lay bare
and green, before the snow had begun to think
of melting up there; and the night-frost would
be sure to make a visit there, while the fields
along the river lay silently drinking the summer
dew. On such occasions the whole family at
Kvaerk would have to stay up during all the
night and walk back and forth on either side of
the wheat-fields, carrying a long rope between
them and dragging it slowly over the heads of
the rye, to prevent the frost from settling; for
as long as the ears could be kept in motion,
they could not freeze. But what did thrive at
Kvaerk in spite of both snow and night-frost was
legends, and they throve perhaps the better for
the very sterility of its material soil. Aasa of
course had heard them all and knew them by
heart; they had been her friends from childhood,
and her only companions. All the servants,
however, also knew them and many others
besides, and if they were asked how the mansion
of Kvaerk happened to be built like an eagle's
nest on the brink of a precipice, they would tell
you the following:
Saint Olaf, Norway's holy king, in the time of
his youth had sailed as a Viking over the wide
ocean, and in foreign lands had learned the
doctrine of Christ the White. When he came
home to claim the throne of his hereditary
kingdom, he brought with him tapers and black
priests, and commanded the people to overthrow
the altars of Odin and Thor and to believe alone
in Christ the White. If any still dared to
slaughter a horse to the old gods, he cut off
their ears, burned their farms, and drove them
houseless from the smoking ruins. Here in the
valley old Thor, or, as they called him, Asathor,
had always helped us to vengeance and victory,
and gentle Frey for many years had given us
fair and fertile summers. Therefore the peasants
paid little heed to King Olaf's god, and
continued to bring their offerings to Odin and
Asathor. This reached the king's ear, and he
summoned his bishop and five black priests, and
set out to visit our valley. Having arrived
here, he called the peasants together, stood up
on the Ting-stone, told them of the great things
that the White Christ had done, and bade them
choose between him and the old gods. Some
were scared, and received baptism from the
king's priests; others bit their lips and were
silent; others again stood forth and told Saint
Olaf that Odin and Asathor had always served
them well, and that they were not going to give
them up for Christ the White, whom they had
never seen and of whom they knew nothing.
The next night the red cock crew[9] over ten
farms in the valley, and it happened to he theirs
who had spoken against King Olaf's god. Then
the peasants flocked to the Ting-stone and
received the baptism of Christ the White. Some
few, who had mighty kinsmen in the North,
fled and spread the evil tidings. Only one
neither fled nor was baptized, and that one was
Lage Ulfson Kvaerk, the ancestor of the present
Lage. He slew his best steed before Asathor's
altar, and promised to give him whatever he
should ask, even to his own life, if he would
save him from the vengeance of the king. Asathor
heard his prayer. As the sun set, a storm
sprung up with thick darkness and gloom, the
earth shook, Asathor drove his chariot over the
heavens with deafening thunder and swung his
hammer right and left, and the crackling lightning
flew through the air like a hail-storm of
fire. Then the peasants trembled, for they knew
that Asathor was wroth. Only the king sat
calm and fearless with his bishop and priests,
quaffing the nut-brown mead. The tempest
raged until morn. When the sun rose, Saint
Olaf called his hundred swains, sprang into the
saddle and rode down toward the river. Few
men who saw the angry fire in his eye, and the
frown on his royal brow, doubted whither he
was bound. But having reached the ford, a
wondrous sight met his eye. Where on the day
before the highway had wound itself up the
slope toward Lage Kvaerk's mansion, lay now a
wild ravine; the rock was shattered into a
thousand pieces, and a deep gorge, as if made
by a single stroke of a huge hammer, separated
the king from his enemy. Then Saint Olaf
made the sign of the cross, and mumbled the
name of Christ the White; but his hundred
swains made the sign of the hammer under their
cloaks, and thought, Still is Asathor alive.
[9] "The red cock crew" is the expression used
were most likely to occur when Aasa, his daughter,
was near. Lage was probably also the only
being whom Aasa's presence could cheer; on
other people it seemed to have the very opposite
effect; for Aasa was--according to the testimony
of those who knew her--the most peculiar creature
that ever was born. But perhaps no one
did know her; if her father was right, no one
really did--at least no one but himself.
Aasa was all to her father; she was his past
and she was his future, his hope and his life;
and withal it must be admitted that those who
judged her without knowing her had at least in
one respect as just an opinion of her as he; for
there was no denying that she was strange,
very strange. She spoke when she ought to be
silent, and was silent when it was proper to
speak; wept when she ought to laugh, and
laughed when it was proper to weep; but her
laughter as well as her tears, her speech like her
silence, seemed to have their source from within
her own soul, to be occasioned, as it were, by
something which no one else could see or hear.
It made little difference where she was; if the
tears came, she yielded to them as if they were
something she had long desired in vain. Few
could weep like her, and "weep like Aasa
Kvaerk," was soon also added to the stock of
parish proverbs. And then her laugh! Tears
may be inopportune enough, when they come
out of time, but laughter is far worse; and when
poor Aasa once burst out into a ringing laughter
in church, and that while the minister was
pronouncing the benediction, it was only with
the greatest difficulty that her father could
prevent the indignantcongregation from seizing
her and carrying her before the sheriff for
violation of the church-peace. Had she been poor
and homely, then of course nothing could have
saved her; but she happened to be both rich
and beautiful, and to wealth and beauty much
is pardoned. Aasa's beauty, however, was also
of a very unusual kind; not the tame sweetness
so common in her sex, but something of the
beauty of the falcon, when it swoops down upon
the unwatchful sparrow or soars round the lonely
crags; something of the mystic depth of the
dark tarn, when with bodeful trembling you
gaze down into it, and see its weird traditions
rise from its depth and hover over the pine-tops
in the morning fog. Yet, Aasa was not dark;
her hair was as fair and yellow as a wheat-field
in August, her forehead high and clear, and her
mouth and chin as if cut with a chisel; only her
eyes were perhaps somewhat deeper than is
common in the North, and the longer you
looked at them the deeper they grew, just like
the tarn, which, if you stare long enough into
it, you will find is as deep as the heavens above,
that is, whose depth only faith and fancy can
fathom. But however long you looked at Aasa,
you could never be quite sure that she looked at
you; she seemed but to half notice whatever
went on around her; the look of her eye was
always more than half inward, and when it
shone the brightest, it might well happen that
she could not have told you how many years
she had lived, or the name her father gave her
in baptism.
Now Aasa was eighteen years old, and could
knit, weave, and spin, and it was full time that
wooers should come. "But that is the consequence
of living in such an out-of-the-way
place," said her mother; "who will risk his
limbs to climb that neck-breaking rock? and the
round-about way over the forest is rather too
long for a wooer." Besides handling the loom
and the spinning-wheel, Aasa had also learned
to churn and make cheese to perfection, and
whenever Elsie grieved at her strange behavior
she always in the end consoled herself with the
reflection that after all Aasa would make the
man who should get her an excellent housewife.
The farm of Kvaerk was indeed most singularly
situated. About a hundred feet from the
house the rough wall of the mountain rose steep
and threatening; and the most remarkable part
of it was that the rock itself caved inward and
formed a lofty arch overhead, which looked like
a huge door leading into the mountain. Some
short distance below, the slope of the fields
ended in an abruptprecipice; far underneath
lay the other farm-houses of the valley, scattered
like small red or gray dots, and the river wound
onward like a white silver stripe in the shelter
of the dusky forest. There was a path down
along the rock, which a goat or a brisk lad
might be induced to climb, if the prize of the
experiment were great enough to justify the
hazard. The common road to Kvaerk made a
large circuit around the forest, and reached the
valley far up at its northern end.
It was difficult to get anything to grow at
Kvaerk. In the spring all the valley lay bare
and green, before the snow had begun to think
of melting up there; and the night-frost would
be sure to make a visit there, while the fields
along the river lay silently drinking the summer
dew. On such occasions the whole family at
Kvaerk would have to stay up during all the
night and walk back and forth on either side of
the wheat-fields, carrying a long rope between
them and dragging it slowly over the heads of
the rye, to prevent the frost from settling; for
as long as the ears could be kept in motion,
they could not freeze. But what did thrive at
Kvaerk in spite of both snow and night-frost was
legends, and they throve perhaps the better for
the very sterility of its material soil. Aasa of
course had heard them all and knew them by
heart; they had been her friends from childhood,
and her only companions. All the servants,
however, also knew them and many others
besides, and if they were asked how the mansion
of Kvaerk happened to be built like an eagle's
nest on the brink of a precipice, they would tell
you the following:
Saint Olaf, Norway's holy king, in the time of
his youth had sailed as a Viking over the wide
ocean, and in foreign lands had learned the
doctrine of Christ the White. When he came
home to claim the throne of his hereditary
kingdom, he brought with him tapers and black
priests, and commanded the people to overthrow
the altars of Odin and Thor and to believe alone
in Christ the White. If any still dared to
slaughter a horse to the old gods, he cut off
their ears, burned their farms, and drove them
houseless from the smoking ruins. Here in the
valley old Thor, or, as they called him, Asathor,
had always helped us to vengeance and victory,
and gentle Frey for many years had given us
fair and fertile summers. Therefore the peasants
paid little heed to King Olaf's god, and
continued to bring their offerings to Odin and
Asathor. This reached the king's ear, and he
summoned his bishop and five black priests, and
set out to visit our valley. Having arrived
here, he called the peasants together, stood up
on the Ting-stone, told them of the great things
that the White Christ had done, and bade them
choose between him and the old gods. Some
were scared, and received baptism from the
king's priests; others bit their lips and were
silent; others again stood forth and told Saint
Olaf that Odin and Asathor had always served
them well, and that they were not going to give
them up for Christ the White, whom they had
never seen and of whom they knew nothing.
The next night the red cock crew[9] over ten
farms in the valley, and it happened to he theirs
who had spoken against King Olaf's god. Then
the peasants flocked to the Ting-stone and
received the baptism of Christ the White. Some
few, who had mighty kinsmen in the North,
fled and spread the evil tidings. Only one
neither fled nor was baptized, and that one was
Lage Ulfson Kvaerk, the ancestor of the present
Lage. He slew his best steed before Asathor's
altar, and promised to give him whatever he
should ask, even to his own life, if he would
save him from the vengeance of the king. Asathor
heard his prayer. As the sun set, a storm
sprung up with thick darkness and gloom, the
earth shook, Asathor drove his chariot over the
heavens with deafening thunder and swung his
hammer right and left, and the crackling lightning
flew through the air like a hail-storm of
fire. Then the peasants trembled, for they knew
that Asathor was wroth. Only the king sat
calm and fearless with his bishop and priests,
quaffing the nut-brown mead. The tempest
raged until morn. When the sun rose, Saint
Olaf called his hundred swains, sprang into the
saddle and rode down toward the river. Few
men who saw the angry fire in his eye, and the
frown on his royal brow, doubted whither he
was bound. But having reached the ford, a
wondrous sight met his eye. Where on the day
before the highway had wound itself up the
slope toward Lage Kvaerk's mansion, lay now a
wild ravine; the rock was shattered into a
thousand pieces, and a deep gorge, as if made
by a single stroke of a huge hammer, separated
the king from his enemy. Then Saint Olaf
made the sign of the cross, and mumbled the
name of Christ the White; but his hundred
swains made the sign of the hammer under their
cloaks, and thought, Still is Asathor alive.
[9] "The red cock crew" is the expression used
- peculiar [pi´kju:liə]
a.特有的；奇异的 (初中英语单词) - knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- minister [´ministə] n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词)
- sheriff [´ʃerif] n.郡长；行政长官 (初中英语单词)
- wealth [welθ] n.财富，财产 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- sparrow [´spærəu] n.麻雀 (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- cheese [tʃi:z] n.干酪，乳酪 (初中英语单词)
- remarkable [ri´mɑ:kəbl] a.值得注意的；显著的 (初中英语单词)
- overhead [´əuvə,hed] ad.当头 a.在头上的 (初中英语单词)
- valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
- circuit [´sə:kit] n.环行 v.(绕....)环行 (初中英语单词)
- silently [´sailəntli] ad.寂静地；沉默地 (初中英语单词)
- freeze [fri:z] v.结冰；凝固；冷淡 (初中英语单词)
- christ [kraist] n.基督 int.天啊! (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
- spoken [´spəukən] speak的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- ancestor [´ænsəstə] n.祖宗，祖先 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- thunder [´θʌndə] n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- highway [´haiwei] n.公路，大道 (初中英语单词)
- hammer [´hæmə] n.锤子 v.重击 (初中英语单词)
- homely [´həumli] a.朴素的；不漂亮的 (高中英语单词)
- inward [´inwəd] a.向内的；心灵上的 (高中英语单词)
- perfection [pə´fekʃən] n.完美；极致；熟练 (高中英语单词)
- abrupt [ə´brʌpt] a.突然的；粗鲁的 (高中英语单词)
- stripe [straip] n.条纹，条子 (高中英语单词)
- thrive [θraiv] vi.兴旺；繁荣 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- throne [θrəun] n.宝座；王位 (高中英语单词)
- vengeance [´vendʒəns] n.报复，复仇 (高中英语单词)
- fertile [´fə:tail] a.肥沃的；有繁殖力的 (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- tidings [´taidiŋz] n.消息，音信 (高中英语单词)
- chariot [´tʃæriət] n.古时双轮战车 (高中英语单词)
- fearless [´fiələs] a.不怕的，无畏的 (高中英语单词)
- mansion [´mænʃən] n.大厦；宅第；官邸 (高中英语单词)
- withal [wi´ðɔ:l] ad.加之；同样；然而 (英语四级单词)
- indignant [in´dignənt] a.义愤的，愤慨的 (英语四级单词)
- congregation [,kɔŋgri´geiʃən] n.集合；团体 (英语四级单词)
- falcon [´fɔ:kən] n.隼，猎鹰 (英语四级单词)
- chisel [´tʃizəl] n.凿子 v.凿；欺骗；干涉 (英语四级单词)
- precipice [´presipis] n.悬崖；危急的处境 (英语四级单词)
- baptism [´bæptizəm] n.洗礼 (英语四级单词)
- ravine [rə´vi:n] n.沟壑；深谷 (英语四级单词)
- mystic [´mistik] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (英语六级单词)
- august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
- viking [´vaikiŋ] a.北欧海盗 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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