Essays on Scandinavian Literature, Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen [best ebook reader ubuntu txt] 📗

has frightened many of them away by his heterodoxy, still love him. It is especially his disrespect to the devil (whom he professes not to believe in) which has been a sore trial to the Bible-reading, hymn-singing peasantry. Does not the Bible say that the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour? Nevertheless Björnson has the hardihood to assert that there is no such person. And yet Björnson is a man who can talk most beautifully, and who knows as much as any parson. It is extremely puzzling.

The fact was, Björnson's abolition of the devil, and his declaration of a war against the orthodox miracle faith, were, as far as the Norwegian people were concerned, somewhat premature. The peasant needs the old scriptural devil, and is not yet ready to dispense with him. The devil is a popular character in the folk-stories and legends, and I have known some excellent people who declare that they have seen him. Creeds are like certain ancient tumuli, which now are but graves, but were once the habitations of living men. The dust, ashes, and bones of defunct life which they often contain, nourish in the dark the green grass, the fair flowers, the blooming trees, that shoot up into the light. You cannot dig it all up and throw it out without tearing asunder the net-work of roots which organically connects the living with the dead.

Björnson, though he is an evolutionist, is far removed from the philosophic temper in his dealings with the obsolete or obsolescent remnants in political and religious creeds. He has the healthful intolerance of strong conviction. He is too good a partisan to admit that there may be another side to the question which might be worth considering. With magnificent ruthlessness he plunges ahead, and with a truly old Norse pugnacity he stands in the thick of the fight, rejoicing in battle. Only combat arouses his Titanic energy and calls all his splendid faculties into play.

Even apart from his political propaganda the years 1870-74 were a period of labor and ferment to Björnson. The mightier the man, the mightier the powers enlisted in his conversion, and the mightier the struggle. A tremendous wrench was required to change his point of view from that of a childlike, wondering believer to that of a critical sceptic and thinker. In a certain sense Björnson never took this step; for when the struggle was over, and he had readjusted his vision of life to the theory of evolution, he became as ardent an adherent of it as he had ever been of the _naïve_ Grundtvigian miracle-faith. And with the deep need of his nature to pour itself forth--to share its treasures with all the world--he started out to proclaim his discoveries. Besides Darwin and Spencer, he had made a study of Stuart Mill, whose noble sense of fair-play had impressed him. He plunged with hot zeal into the writings of Steinthal and Max Müller, whose studies in comparative religion changed to him the whole aspect of the universe. Taine's historical criticism, with its disrespectful derivation of the hero from food, climate, and race, lured him still farther away from his old Norse and romantic landmarks, until there was no longer any hope of his ever returning to them. But when from this promontory of advanced thought he looked back upon his idyllic love-stories of peasant lads and lasses, and his taciturn saga heroes, with their predatory self-assertion, he saw that he had done with them forever; that they could never more enlist his former interest. On the other hand, the problems of modern contemporary life, of which he had now gained quite a new comprehension, tempted him. The romantic productions of his youth appeared as a more or less arbitrary play of fancy emancipated from the stern logic of reality. It was his purpose henceforth to consecrate his powers to the study of the deeper soul-life of his own age and the exposition of the forces which in their interdependence and interaction make modern society.

This is the significance of the four-act drama "Bankruptcy," with which, in 1874, he astounded and disappointed the Scandinavian public. I have called it a drama, in accordance with the author's designation on the title-page; but it is, in the best sense, a comedy of manners, of the kind that Augier produced in France; and in everything except the mechanics of construction superior to the plays of Sardou and Dumas. The dialogue has the most admirable accent of truth. It is not unnaturally witty or brilliant; but exhibits exactly the traits which Norwegians of the higher commercial plutocracy are likely to exhibit. All the poetic touches which charmed us in Björnson's saga dramas were conspicuous by their absence. Scarcely a trace was there left of that peculiar and delightful language of his early novels, which can only be described by the term "Björnsonian."

"Dry, prosaic, trivial," said the reviewers; "Björnson has evidently worked out his vein. He has ceased to be a poet. He has lost with his childhood's faith his ideal view of life, and become a mere prosy chronicler of uninteresting everyday events."

This was, indeed, the general verdict of the public twenty years ago. Scarcely anyone had a good word to say for the abused play that marked the poet's fall from the idealism of his early song. But, for all that, "Bankruptcy" made a strong impression upon the boards. It not only conquered a permanent place in the _répertoires_ of the theatres of the Scandinavian capitals, but it spread through Austria, Germany, and Holland, and has finally scored a success at the _Théâtre Libre_ in Paris. There is scarcely a theatre of any consequence in Germany which has not made "Bankruptcy" part of its _répertoire_. At the Royal Theatre in Munich it was accorded a most triumphant reception, and something over sixty representations has not yet exhausted its popularity.

The effort to come to close quarters with reality is visible in every phrase. The denial of the value of all the old romantic stage machinery, with its artificial climaxes and explosive effects, is perceptible in the quiet endings of the acts and the entirely unsensational exposition of the dramatic action. There is one scene (and by no means an unnatural one) in which there is a touch of violence, viz., where Tjaelde, while he hopes to avert his bankruptcy, threatens to shoot Lawyer Berent and himself; but there is a very human quiver in the threat and in the passionate outbreak which precedes it. Nowhere is there a breath of that superheated hot-house atmosphere which usually pervades the modern drama.

"Bankruptcy" deals, as the title indicates, with the question of financial honesty. Zola has in _Le Roman Sentimental_ made the observation that "absolute honesty no more exists than perfect healthfulness. There is a tinge of the human beast in us all, as there is a tinge of illness." Tjaelde, the great merchant, exemplifies this proposition. He is a fairly honest man, who by the modern commercial methods, which, in self-defence, he has been forced to adopt, gets into the position of a rogue. The commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," seems at first glance an extremely simple injunction; but in the light of Björnson's searching analysis it becomes a complex and intricate tangle, capable of interesting shades and _nuances_ of meaning. Tjaelde, in the author's opinion, certainly does steal, when, in order to save himself (and thereby the thousands who are involved in his affairs), he speculates with other people's money and presents a rose-colored account of his business, when he knows that he is on the verge of bankruptcy. But, on the other hand, it is extremely difficult to determine the point where legitimate speculation ceases and the illegitimate begins. And if Tjaelde neglected any legitimate means of saving his estate he would be culpable. A stern code of morals (which the commercial world of to-day would scarcely exact), the poet enforces in the fourth act, where Tjaelde refuses to accept any concession from his creditors, but insists upon devoting the remainder of his life to the liquidation of his debts.

Admirably strong and vital is the exposition of the _rôle_ and functions of money in the modern world, and the nearer and remoter psychological effects of the tremendous tyranny of money. A certain external _éclat_ is required to give the great commercial house the proper splendor in the sight of the world. Thus Tjaelde speculates in hospitality as in everything else, and when he virtually has nothing, makes the grandest splurge in order to give a spurious impression of prosperity. Though by nature an affectionate man, he neglects his family because business demands all his time. He defrauds himself of the happiness which knocks at his door, because business fills his head by night and by day, and absorbs all his energy. A number of parasites (such as the fortune-hunting lieutenant) attach themselves to him, as long as he is reputed to be rich, and make haste to vanish when his riches take wings. On the other hand, the true friends whom in his prosperity he hectored and contemned are revealed by adversity. There would be nothing remarkable in so common an experience, if the friends themselves, as well as the parasites, were not so delightfully delineated. The lieutenant, with his almost farcical interest in the bay trotter, is amusingly but lightly drawn; but the awkward young clerk, Sannaes, who refuses to abandon his master in the hour of trial, is a deeply typical Norwegian figure. All the little coast towns have specimens to show of these aspiring, faithful, sensitively organized souls, who, having had no social advantages are painfully conscious of their deficiencies, but whose patient industry and sterling worth in the end will triumph. No less keenly observed and effectively sketched is the whole gallery of dastardly little village figures--Holm, Falbe, Knutson with an s, Knutzon, with a z, etc. Signe and Valborg, the two daughters of Tjaelde, have, in spite of their diversity, a common tinge of Norwegian nationality which gives a gentle distinctness and relief to the world-old types.

Björnson's next play,[7] "The Editor," grapples with an equally modern and timely subject, viz., the license of the press. With terrible vividness he shows the misery, ruin, and degradation which result from the present journalistic practice of misrepresentation, sophistry, and defamation. It is a very dark picture he draws, with scarcely a gleam of light. The satire is savage; and the quiver of wrath is perceptible in many a sledge-hammer phrase. You feel that Björnson himself has suffered from the terrorism which he here describes, and you would surmise too, even if you did not know it, that the editor whom he has here pilloried is no mere general editorial type, but a well-known person who, until recently, conducted one of the most influential journals in Norway. The play is an act of retribution, and a deserved one. But its weaknesses, which it is vain to disguise, are also explained by the author's personal bias--the desire to wreak vengeance upon an enemy.


[7] All the literary histories and other authorities which I have consulted put the publication of "Bankruptcy," as well as that of "The Editor," in 1875. But my own copy of the latter play bears on its title-page the year 1874.


The situation is as follows: Mr. Evje, a rich and generally respected distiller, has a daughter, Gertrude, who is engaged to Harold Rein, a political leader of peasant origin. Mr. Rein's brother, Halfdan, from whom he has, in a measure, inherited the leadership, is dying from the persecution to which he has been exposed by the Conservative press and public. In his zeal for the Radical cause it is his consolation that he leaves it in such strong hands as those of his brother. The