Excerpts from
Niels Lyhne
By J. P. Jacobsen
They rowed away in two groups: Erik, Fennimore, and a couple of elderly people in the ship"s dinghy; the others in the Consul"s own boat. The first boat was supposed to row on ahead and make a swing away from land, while the other one would make straight for the shore; the reason for this arrangement was that they wanted to hear how the song would sound across the water on a still evening like this. So Erik and Fennimore sat together on the thwart in the stern of the first boat and took the mandolin along. But the song was long forgotten, for when the oars came up, it became apparent that there was an unusually large amount of phospherescence in the water, and this completely preoccupied them. Gently the boat glided forward, and the dull, smooth surface was rippled into receding lines and circles by a faint white light that barely illuminated the path it took, and only where it was strongest did it send a fine dim glow, like a cloud of light, out over its surroundings. It gleamed white around the oars and glided backward in quivering circles that grew fainter and fainter, and in light drops it dripped from the blades of the oars in a phosphorescent rain that was extinguished in the air but ignited the water, drop by drop. It was so quiet on the fjord, and the rhythm of the oars merely seemed to measure off the silence in pauses of equal lenght. Hushed and soft lay the gray twilight over the silent deep, and the boat and the people were gathered into a dim unity from which the faint phosphorescent sheen limned only the racing oars, and once in a while a rope that dragged, or the calm brown face of a sailor. No one spoke; Fennimore cooled her hand in the water, and she and Erik sat there, facing backwards, and stared at the phosphorescent net that moved soundlessly after the boat, catching their thoughts in its bright mesh.
From J.P Jacobsen: Niels Lyhne
Fjord Press, 1990
Translated by Tiina Nunnally
|
|
