The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1984, Qupperneq 43

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
41
Planks had been placed at the foot of the
fall.
“This is my shower bath,” said Bjom-
son as he stripped; and there presently he
stood firm as a rock beneath the cataract,
the water pouring over his strong shoulders,
his white head white as the foam, and
shouting with joy of the morning. So might
some great old water god have stood and
laughed amid the sun-flashing spray. It was
a picture of elemental energy never to be
forgotten; and as one watched him there
one could well understand the power that
made him the uncrowned king of his
country.
Then, nothing loath, we repaired to the
house for breakfast; and here again all was
saga, and one seemed to be seated in the
hall of Sigurd the Volsung; for the master
of the house and his lady, beautiful and
commanding like her lord, sat at the end of
a long table, royally side by side, on a
slightly raised dais, with my friend and me,
their guests, to right and left of them. One
expected an aged harper to appear at any
moment. Below us sat Bjomson’s daughter,
Bergliot, named after his greatest poem, a
glorious girl made out of gold and the blue
sky, with whom, married men though we
were, Johnson and I at once fell hopelessly
in love. The tall brothers of the old ballads
were not lacking, and other members of the
household lined the table. The breakfast,
too, belonged to saga— no breakfast-food-
and-glass-of-milk musiness, but the robust
Norwegian breakfast of heroes — roast
meats and pungently spiced and smoked
fishes, and, if not exactly horns of mead,
bumpers of ale and apertifs of schnapps.
But before we ate anything, there was a
ceremony to be performed. Bjomson rose,
and making us welcome in one of his
eloquent speeches, he bade the company
drink skal to his guests, which was
promptly done with a noble heartiness.
Mrs. Bjomson had inquired about my wife,
why was she not with me, and so forth.
“But you have her photograph in your
pocket,” added the poet. “Out with it!”
So, the photograph being produced,
Bjomson held it up to the company, and
once more bade them drink skal to the
absent English lady.
It was a gloriously different world from
London, a dream out of a book of Norse
fairy tales, romantically unreal, yet how
invigoratingly human, with what a gusto in
living!
We spent several days with the great
Norseman, and I had many talks with him,
pacing to and fro in his library, his hand,
father-like on my shoulder. We talked
much of English literature, in which, of
course, he was well read, and he inquired if
I knew his great English friends Mr. Gosse
and Mr. Archer, a respectful acquaintance
with whom I was happy to acknowledge.
But at that time his heart was more occu-
pied with the politics of his country, as he
was engaged just then in his great patriotic
struggle to separate Norway from Sweden,
in which, of course, he eventually suc-
ceeded.
As everyone knows, he was a great
orator, with a voice that carried across huge
crowds in the open air. I never heard him
under such conditions, but I shall never
forget his radiant, impassioned eloquence,
as I walked to and fro by his side in that
Aulestad study. Once— as with Meredith,
though not so disastrously — I came near
to putting my foot in it. It was a terrible
thing to do, but he generously forgave me,
for I was a stranger, and naturally didn’t
know better. I mentioned the name of
Ibsen. Then indeed he looked like an old
lion. He stopped short, fire in his eyes and
nostrils, and shaking his great white mane,
he thundered out, “Ibsen!” A pause, and
then again, with withering contempt,
“Ibsen is not a man; he is only a pen!”
I knew nothing then of the bitter rivalry
between the two great men, nor, I suppose,
had Bjomson at that time any inkling of the