Would she not confer a boon upon mankind if, by destroying herself, she
sweetened the life-blood of humanity? For by self-destruction she would
forever cut off the turbid current of the Kurt blood which had darkened
the vital stream of the race for centuries. The moral exaltation which
manifests itself in this struggle is most vividly portrayed. She clings
to life desperately; she is young and strong, unsentimental, and averse
to ascetic enthusiasm. It finally occurs to her that her own race, too,
will assert itself in this child; that the pure and vigorous strain
which her own blood will infuse may redeem it from the dark destiny of
the Kurts. She finally resolves upon a compromise; if the child is dark,
like the Kurts, both it and its mother shall die. If it is blue-eyed and
light-haired, like the Rendalens, she will devote her life to
obliterating in it, or transforming into useful activities, the
destructive vigor of the paternal character. Thomas, when he is born,
chooses a golden mean between these two extremes, and perversely makes
his appearance as a red-haired, gray-eyed infant, in which both a Kurt
and a Rendalen might have made comforting observations. He is
accordingly permitted to live, and to become the hero of one of the most
remarkable novels which has ever been published in Scandinavia.

He is by no means a good boy, but his mother, by a kind of heroic
conscientiousness and rationality, slowly conquers him and secures his
attachment. She has solemnly abjured her connection with her husband's
family, assumed her maiden name, and has consecrated her life to what
she regards as the highest utility--the work of education. She wishes to
atone to the race for her guilt in having perpetuated the race of the
Kurts. The scene in which she makes a bonfire of all the ancestral
portraits in the Hall of Knights, and the smell of all the burning Kurts
is blown far and wide over city and harbor, would, in the hands of
another novelist, have been made the central scene in the book. But
Bjoernson is so tremendously in earnest that he cannot afford to stop and
note picturesque effect. Therefore he relates the burning of the Kurts
quite incidentally, and proceeds at once to talk of more serious things.

By turning the great, dusky, ancestral mansion into a school, Mrs.
Rendalen believes that she can best settle the account of the Kurts with
humanity. All the latest, improved methods of education are introduced.
The Hall o