LOVE AND THE SEA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22094, 27 April 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

LOVE AND THE SEA

SWEDISH AUTHOR'S ROMANCE

A novel which is full of the tang and freshness of the sea and of the realistic interpretation of life on a cargo boat is " Brave Fugitive." It tells the story of Margaret Bramstedt, who leaves her home in order to get away from constricted surroundings, and takes a position as sole stewardess on bbard the Aramk, a cargo ship whose voyages give the author many opportunities for swift pen pictures of various European ports and their merchandise. The Baltic, the North Sea, the Mediterranean pass before our eyes veiled in grey hazes, brushed with storm, or shimmering in sunshine, but these descriptions form only a minor part of a book whose chief object is to trace the gradual development of love with a married man. Captain Ebheson, of the Aramis, very soon falls in love with his pretty stewardess, and her feeble resistance to this overmastering passion soon gives way to the complete abandonment of moral principles, Margaret makes one or two attempts to run away, but life always brings them together again; and when one of the crew, who are all keenly alive as to how matters stand between the captain and his stewardess, writes to Mrs. Ebjbeson and informs her anonymously of the whole affair, the captain's wife ceases to write to him, causing much uneasiness to his fatherly if not wifely instincts. At last; after a final parting, the captain returns home, resolved to be faithful to his wife, who is one of life's poor things, and who nearly drives him mad with her moods, fads and tears. Her anxiety concerning his faithlessness has lowered her state of health, so that a chill ends not long afterwards in her death; and Captain Ebheson, a sadder and older man, with a young family to leave to the tender mprcies of housekeepers, once more takes to the seat , . , Again he encounters Margaret, who has risen from her humble position to that of hostess on a large tourist liner; and at last these two come together lawfully, Margaret devoting herself to the care of her late rival's children. In the world of light fiction this novel, in its skilful, easy-flowing translation, is a very readable production, and stands well above the host of stories so glibly produced to-day. It portrays a very real life, which has evidently been experienced by the writer; and the study of Captain Ebbeson is surely a living portrait of a man beset by temptation and not very expert in resisting it.

" Brave Fugitive," by Dagmar Edquiat. (Lovat Dickson and Thomson.)