One of Lifes Slaves

One of Life's Slaves

The Project Gutenberg eBook, One of Life's Slaves, by Jonas Lauritz
Idemil Lie, Translated by Jessie Muir
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Title: One of Life's Slaves
Author: Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
Translator: Jessie Muir
Release Date: May 18, 2005 [eBook #15853]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE OF
LIFE'S SLAVES***
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ONE OF LIFE'S SLAVES
by
JONAS LIE
Author of "The Visionary," etc. etc.
Translated from the Norwegian by Jessie Muir
London Hodder Brothers 13 New Bridge Street, D.C. Printed by
Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., London & Edinburgh
1895

PREFACE
In a review which appeared in the _Athenæum_, of a translation of one
of Jonas Lie's earlier works--"Den Fremsynte" ("The Visionary")--the

reviewer expressed a hope that I would follow up that translation with
"an English version of Lie's 'Livsslaven,' that intensely tragic and
pathetic story of suffering and wrong." It is in accordance with this
suggestion that the present volume makes its appearance.
In taking Christiania life for the subject of "Livsslaven," Jonas Lie
attempted for the second time to break down the preconceived opinion
of critics, that such a subject did not come within his province. They
were accustomed to have tales of sea-life from his pen, and could not
readily be persuaded that another sphere of life might afford equal
scope for his talent. "Thomas Ross," published in 1878, had treated of
Christiania life, and had attracted but little attention; and now, in the
spring of 1883, appeared this "story of a smith's apprentice, with his
struggles for existence and his ultimate final failure owing to the
irresistible indulgence of a passionate physical instinct." At first this
too seemed to be a failure. To use the words of Arne Garborg, a
Norwegian author and critic, Lie "had spoken--cried out in the passion
or agony of his soul, and people stood there quite calm and as if they
had heard nothing;" there seemed to be a total lack of sympathetic
comprehension on the part of the public. In the end, however, the book
found its way to the hearts of its readers, and, to quote Mr. Gosse's
words on the subject, "achieved a very great success; it was realistic
and modern in a certain sense and to a discreet degree, and it appealed,
as scarcely any Norwegian novel had done before, to all classes of
Scandinavian society."
Lie himself, in speaking of this work, says that a writer should "aim at
presenting his subject in such a way that the reader may see, hear, feel,
and comprehend it with the utmost possible intensity." This precept he
has certainly put into practice in the present instance, for the subject is
treated with such power and so full a grasp, that in reading the book
one feels an actual anxiety, an oppression as of approaching disaster.
This, at any rate, is the case with the original, and I trust that its power
has not been altogether lost in the process of rendering into another
language, but that the stamp of genuineness, the author's leading
characteristic, may to some extent be found also in this translation.
J. MUIR.
CHRISTIANA,
November 10, 1894.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I. NEGLECTED RESPONSIBILITIES
II. A STRICT DISCIPLINARIAN
III. A FIGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
IV. A STOLEN INTERVIEW
V. AMONG THE UNEMPLOYED
VI. THE FACTORY GIRLS
VII. "THE WORLD IS RIGHT ENOUGH AFTER ALL"
VIII. AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL
IX. AN IMPORTANT STEP TAKEN
X. A RISE IN LIFE
XI. THE WEDDING POSTPONED AGAIN
XII. THE FAIR AND THE CONVICT

CHAPTER I
NEGLECTED RESPONSIBILITIES
"Like a prince in his cradle," you say, "with invisible fairies and the
innocent peace of childhood over him!"
What fairy stood by the cradle of Barbara's Nikolai it would be difficult

to say. Out at the tinsmith's, in the little house with the cracked and
broken window-panes in the outskirts of the town, there was often a run
of visitors, generally late at night, when wanderers on the high road
were at a loss for a night's lodging. Many a revel had been held there,
and it was not once only that the cradle had been overturned in a fight,
or that a drunken man had fallen full length across it.
Nikolai's mother was called Barbara, and came from Heimdalhögden,
somewhere far up in the country--a genuine mountain lass, shining with
health, red and white, strong and broad-shouldered, and with teeth like
the foam in the milk