Bildungsromans; Norway -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
gathered up the empty bottles and glasses,--"as long as I don't mention
it, you needn't do so." When she; had gathered up what she could carry,
she went out and came in again for the remainder, and from that hour,
she held undisputed sway.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FIRST ACT.
It was evening and quite dusk when the vessel cast anchor in the
harbour of Bergen. Petra half stupified from sea-sickness, was led in
the captain's boat, through a multiplicity of ships large and small,
till at last they emerged at the quay, which was covered with ferrymen,
the narrow alleys leading to it swarming with peasants and street boys.
They stopped before a neat little house, where at the request of the
Captain, an old woman gave Petra a most kind reception. She stood in
need of rest and sleep, and both of these she obtained. Lively and
well, she awoke next day at noon, to new sounds and a new dialect, and
when the blind was drawn up, to a new landscape, new people, and a new
town. She had become new herself she thought, as she stood before the
looking glass,--that face was not the old one. True, she could not
define the difference, and did not understand that at her age, trouble
and sorrow have a refining, spiritualising influence; but seeing
herself in the glass, made her think of the last nights, and trembling
at the remembrance, she hastened to make herself ready to go down to
the new life awaiting her. There, she met her hostess, and several
ladies, who, after eyeing her profoundly, promised to do what they
could for her, and began by taking her round the town. Having several
things to buy, she ran up for her pocket book, but she felt ashamed to
take the thick clumsy old thing down stairs, so she opened it, to take
out the money there. Instead of 100 specie dollars she found 300! That
must be Pedro Ohlsen again, who against her mother's will and knowledge
had given her money. She had so little understanding about the worth of
things, that the greatness of the sum did not astonish her; neither did
it strike her therefore, to seek further for the cause of such great
benevolence. Instead of a glowing letter of thanks with questions
indicating a suspicion of the truth Pedro Ohlsen got a letter sent down
from Gunlaug, and addressed to herself, wherein the daughter with
undisguised annoyance, betrayed her benefactor, and asked what she was
to do with the gift thus clandestinely made her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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