JENNY
THE BORZOI-GYLDENDAL BOOKS
The firm of Gyldendal [GyldendalskeBoghandel Nordisk Forlag] is the oldestand greatest publishing house inScandinavia, and has been responsible, since itsinception in 1770, for giving to the world someof the greatest Danish and Norwegian writersof three centuries. Among them are suchnames as Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Pontoppidan,Brandes, Gjellerup, Hans ChristianAndersen, and Knut Hamsun, the Nobel Prizewinner for 1920, whose works I am publishingin America.
It is therefore with particular satisfactionthat I announce the completion of arrangementswhereby I shall bring out in this countrycertain of the publications of this famoushouse. The books listed below are the first ofthe Borzoi-Gyldendal books.
The Sworn Brothers
A Tale of the Early Days of Iceland.Translated from the Danish of GunnarGunnarsson [Icelandic] by C.Field and W. Emmé.
Grim: the Story of a Pike
Translated from the Danish ofSvend Fleuron by Jessie Muir andW. Emmé.
Illustrated in black and white byDorothy P. Lathrop.
Jenny
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Publisher, NEW YORK
JENNY
A NOVEL
TRANSLATED FROM
THE NORWEGIAN OF
SIGRID UNDSET
BY W. EMMÉ
NEW YORK
ALFRED · A · KNOPF
1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PART ONE
I
As Helge Gram turned the corner into Via Condottiin the dusk a military band came down the streetplaying “The Merry Widow” in such a crazy, whirlingtime that it sounded like wild bugle calls. The small, darksoldiers rushed past in the cold afternoon, more like a Romancohort intent on attacking barbarian hosts than peaceful menreturning to their barracks for supper. That was perhaps thecause of their haste, Helge thought, smiling to himself, for ashe stood there watching them, his coat-collar turned up for thecold, a peculiar atmosphere of history had pervaded him—butsuddenly he found himself humming the same tune, and continuedhis way in the direction where he knew the Corso lay.
He stopped at the corner and looked. So that was theCorso—an endless stream of carriages in a crowded street,and a surging throng of people on a narrow pavement.
He stood still, watching the stream run past him, and smiledat the thought that he could drift along this street every eveningin the dusk among the crowds, until it became as familiarto him as the best-known thoroughfare of his own city—Christiania.He was suddenly seized wit