ABSALOM'S HAIR

BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON




CHAPTER 1


Harald Kaas was sixty.

He had given up his free, uncriticised bachelor life; his yacht
was no longer seen off the coast in summer; his tours to England
and the south had ceased; nay, he was rarely to be found even at
his club in Christiania. His gigantic figure was never seen in the
doorways; he was failing.

Bandy-legged he had always been, but this defect had increased;
his herculean back was rounded, and he stooped a little. His
forehead, always of the broadest--no one else's hat would fit him-
-was now one of the highest, that is to say, he had lost all his
hair, except a ragged lock over each ear and a thin fringe behind.
He was beginning also to lose his teeth, which were strong though
small, and blackened by tobacco; and now, instead of "deuce take
it" he said "deush take it."

He had always held his hands half closed as though grasping
something; now they had stiffened so that he could never open them
fully. The little finger of his left hand had been bitten off "in