Truls, the Nameless by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen

HE was born in the houseman's lodge; she in the great mansion. He did / not know who his father was; she was the daughter of Grim of Skogli, and / she was the only daughter he had. They were carried to baptism on / the same day, and he was called Truls, because they had to call him / something; she received the name of Borghild, because that had been the / name of every eldest born daughter in the family for thirty generations. / They both cried when the pastor poured the water on their heads; his / mother hushed him, blushed, and looked timidly around her; but the woman / who carried Borghild lifted her high up in her arms so that everybody / could see her, and the pastor smiled benignly, and the parishioners said / that they had never seen so beautiful a child. That was the way in which / they began life -- he as a child of sin, she as the daughter of a mighty / race.

They grew up together. She had round cheeks and merry eyes, and her lips / were redder than the red rose. He was of slender growth, his face was / thin and pale, and his eyes had a strange, benumbed gaze, as if they / were puzzling themselves with some sad, life-long riddle which they / never hoped to solve. On the strand where they played the billows came / and went, and they murmured faintly with a sound of infinite remoteness. / Borghild laughed aloud, clapped her hands and threw stones out into / the water, while he sat pale and silent, and saw the great white-winged / sea-birds sailing through the blue ocean of the sky.