,
between him and the teachers, between him and the town. For all that we
are filled with a profound respect for a man who can fight in himself so
great a fight, and win so great a victory. It is the sturdy peasant
blood which he derived from his mother that enables him to wrestle thus
mightily with the Lord, and extort at last the tardy blessing; for we
are assured in the last pages of the book that he makes a marriage,
which is a further step toward health and virtue. We are not assured
that he conquers happiness either for himself or for his wife; and there
is not a syllable to betray that he cherishes for her any romantic
attachment. But the chances are that, in transforming and ennobling the
Kurt heritage, he insures vigor and usefulness to his descendants. He
bequeathes to them a more wholesome mixture of blood than he himself
possesses, and an energy, nay, perhaps a genius, derived from the Kurts,
which, with an upward instead of a downward tendency, may be a redeeming
force in society instead of a corrupting one.

In order not to miss any phase of his problem, Bjoernson also takes up
briefly the illegitimate line of the Kurts, which, being unsupplied with
any favorable environment, sinks deeper and deeper into the mire of
vice. The inevitable result is insanity and ultimate extinction. Mrs.
Rendalen's visit to the slums, and her recognition of the peculiar
scream of her own son in a terrible little ragamuffin, is one of the
most remarkable incidents in this remarkable book.

One thing that especially strikes the reader in this novel is the
author's fierce indignation against all shams, deceits, and social lies.
Therefore he calls a spade a spade, and leaves you to blush if you are
so inclined. The young girls whom he introduces are mostly misses in
their teens, and his portrayal of them is physiological rather than
pictorial. The points which he selects for comment are those which would
particularly be noted by their medical advisers; and the progress of
their histories, as he follows them, is characterized by this same
scientific minuteness of observation. Zola's ideal of scientific realism
(which Bjoernson has repudiated) has nevertheless found its most
brilliant exponent in him. Here the sordid and cruel facts of life are
not dwelt upon by preference; nor are they optimistically glossed over.
I doubt if a great and vital problem has ever been more vigorously,
unflinchingly, and convincingly treated in a work