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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Great Hunger
+
+Author: Johan Bojer
+
+Release Date: May 30, 2006 [EBook #2943]
+Last Updated: November 1, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT HUNGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT HUNGER
+
+
+By Johan Bojer
+
+
+
+
+Translated from the Norwegian by
+
+W. J. Alexander Worster and C. Archer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT HUNGER
+
+
+
+
+Book I
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+For sheer havoc, there is no gale like a good northwester, when it roars
+in, through the long winter evenings, driving the spindrift before it
+between the rocky walls of the fjord. It churns the water to a froth
+of rushing wave crests, while the boats along the beach are flung in
+somersaults up to the doors of the grey fisher huts, and solid old barn
+gangways are lifted and sent flying like unwieldy birds over the fields.
+“Mercy on us!” cry the maids, for it is milking-time, and they have
+to fight their way on hands and knees across the yard to the cowshed,
+dragging a lantern that WILL go out and a milk-pail that WON’T be held.
+And “Lord preserve us!” mutter the old wives seated round the stove
+within doors--and their thoughts are far away in the north with the
+Lofoten fishermen, out at sea, maybe, this very night.
+
+But on a calm spring day, the fjord just steals in smooth and shining
+by ness and bay. And at low water there is a whole wonderland of strange
+little islands, sand-banks, and weed-fringed rocks left high and dry,
+with clear pools between, where bare-legged urchins splash about, and
+tiny flat-fish as big as a halfpenny dart away to every side. The air is
+filled with a smell of salt sea-water and warm, wet beach-waste, and
+the sea-pie, see-sawing about on a big stone in the water, lifts his red
+beak cheerily sunwards and pipes: “Kluip, kluip! the spring has come!”
+
+On just such a day, two boys of fourteen or thereabouts came hurrying
+out from one of the fishermen’s huts down towards the beach. Boys
+are never so busy as when they are up to some piece of mischief, and
+evidently the pair had business of this sort in hand. Peer Troen,
+fair-haired and sallow-faced, was pushing a wheelbarrow; his companion,
+Martin Bruvold, a dark youth with freckles, carried a tub. And both
+talked mysteriously in whispers, casting anxious glances out over the
+water.
+
+Peer Troen was, of course, the ringleader. That he always was: the
+forest fire of last year was laid at his door. And now he had made it
+clear to some of his friends that boys had just as much right to lay
+out deep-sea lines as men. All through the winter they had been kept at
+grown-up work, cutting peat and carrying wood; why should they be left
+now to fool about with the inshore fishing, and bring home nothing
+better than flounders and coal-fish and silly codlings? The big deep-sea
+line they were forbidden to touch--that was so--but the Lofoten fishery
+was at its height, and none of the men would be back till it was over.
+So the boys had baited up the line on the sly down at the boathouse the
+day before, and laid it out across the deepest part of the fjord.
+
+Now the thing about a deep-sea line is that it may bring to the surface
+fish so big and so fearsome that the like has never been seen before.
+Yesterday, however, there had been trouble of a different sort. To their
+dismay, the boys had found that they had not sinkers enough to weight
+the shore end of the line; and it looked as if they might have to give
+up the whole thing. But Peer, ever ready, had hit on the novel idea of
+making one end fast to the trunk of a small fir growing at the outermost
+point of the ness, and carrying the line from there out over the open
+fjord. Then a stone at the farther end, and with the magic words, “Fie,
+fish!” it was paid out overboard, vanishing into the green depths. The
+deed was done. True, there were a couple of hooks dangling in mid-air
+at the shore end, between the tree and the water, and, while they might
+serve to catch an eider duck, or a guillemot, if any one should chance
+to come rowing past in the dark and get hung up--why, the boys might
+find they had made a human catch. No wonder, then, that they whispered
+eagerly and hurried down to the boat.
+
+“Here comes Peter Ronningen,” cried Martin suddenly.
+
+This was the third member of the crew, a lanky youth with whitish
+eyebrows and a foolish face. He stammered, and made a queer noise
+when he laughed: “Chee-hee-hee.” Twice he had been turned down in the
+confirmation classes; after all, what was the use of learning lessons
+out of a book when nobody ever had patience to wait while he said them?
+
+Together they ran the boat down to the water’s edge, got it afloat, and
+scrambled in, with much waving of patched trouser legs. “Hi!” cried a
+voice up on the beach, “let me come too!”
+
+“There’s Klaus,” said Martin. “Shall we take him along?”
+
+“No,” said Peter Ronningen.
+
+“Oh yes, let’s,” said Peer.
+
+Klaus Brock, the son of the district doctor, was a blue-eyed youngster
+in knickerbockers and a sailor blouse. He was playing truant, no
+doubt--Klaus had his lessons at home with a private tutor--and would
+certainly get a thrashing from his father when he got home.
+
+“Hurry up,” called Peer, getting out an oar. Klaus clambered in, and the
+white-straked four-oar surged across the bay, rocking a little as the
+boys pulled out of stroke. Martin was rowing at the bow, his eyes fixed
+on Peer, who sat in the stern in command with his eyes dancing, full of
+great things to be done. Martin, poor fellow, was half afraid already;
+he never could understand why Peer, who was to be a parson when he grew
+up, was always hitting upon things to do that were evidently sinful in
+the sight of the Lord.
+
+Peer was a town boy, who had been put out to board with a fisherman in
+the village. His mother had been no better than she should be, so people
+said, but she was dead now, and the father at any rate must be a rich
+gentleman, for he sent the boy a present of ten whole crowns every
+Christmas, so that Peer always had money in his pocket. Naturally, then,
+he was looked up to by the other boys, and took the lead in all things
+as a chieftain by right.
+
+The boat moved on past the grey rocks, the beach and the huts above it
+growing blue and faint in the distance. Up among the distant hills a red
+wooden farm-house on its white foundation wall stood out clear.
+
+Here was the ness at last, and there stood the fir. Peer climbed up
+and loosed the end of the line, while the others leaned over the side,
+watching the cord where it vanished in the depths. What would it bring
+to light when it came up?
+
+“Row!” ordered Peer, and began hauling in.
+
+The boat was headed straight out across the fjord, and the long line
+with its trailing hooks hauled in and coiled up neatly in the bottom
+of a shallow tub. Peer’s heart was beating. There came a tug--the
+first--and the faint shimmer of a fish deep down in the water. Pooh!
+only a big cod. Peer heaved it in with a careless swing over the
+gunwale. Next came a ling--a deep water fish at any rate this time. Then
+a tusk, and another, and another; these would please the women, being
+good eating, and perhaps make them hold their tongues when the men came
+home. Now the line jerks heavily; what is coming? A grey shadow comes in
+sight. “Here with the gaff!” cries Peer, and Peter throws it across to
+him. “What is it, what is it?” shriek the other three. “Steady! don’t
+upset the boat; a catfish.” A stroke of the gaff over the side, and a
+clumsy grey body is heaved into the boat, where it rolls about, hissing
+and biting at the bottom-boards and baler, the splinters crackling under
+its teeth. “Mind, mind!” cries Klaus--he was always nervous in a boat.
+
+But Peer was hauling in again. They were nearly half-way across the
+fjord by now, and the line came up from mysterious depths, which no
+fisherman had ever sounded. The strain on Peer began to show in his
+looks; the others sat watching his face. “Is the line heavy?” asked
+Klaus. “Keep still, can’t you?” put in Martin, glancing along the
+slanting line to where it vanished far below. Peer was still hauling. A
+sense of something uncanny seemed to be thrilling up into his hands
+from the deep sea. The feel of the line was strange. There was no great
+weight, not even the clean tug-tug of an ordinary fish; it was as if a
+giant hand were pulling gently, very gently, to draw him overboard and
+down into the depths. Then suddenly a violent jerk almost dragged him
+over the side.
+
+“Look out! What is it?” cried the three together.
+
+“Sit down in the boat,” shouted Peer. And with the true fisherman’s
+sense of discipline they obeyed.
+
+Peer was gripping the line firmly with one hand, the other clutching one
+of the thwarts. “Have we another gaff?” he jerked out breathlessly.
+
+“Here’s one.” Peter Ronningen pulled out a second iron-hooked cudgel.
+
+“You take it, Martin, and stand by.”
+
+“But what--what is it?”
+
+“Don’t know what it is. But it’s something big.”
+
+“Cut the line, and row for your lives!” wailed the doctor’s son. Strange
+he should be such a coward at sea, a fellow who’d tackle a man twice his
+size on dry land.
+
+Once more Peer was jerked almost overboard. He thought of the forest
+fire the year before--it would never do to have another such mishap
+on his shoulders. Suppose the great monster did come up and capsize
+them--they were ever so far from land. What a to do there would be
+if they were all drowned, and it came out that it was his fault.
+Involuntarily he felt for his knife to cut the line--then thrust it back
+again, and went on hauling.
+
+Here it comes--a great shadow heaving up through the water. The huge
+beast flings itself round, sending a flurry of bubbles to the surface.
+And there!--a gleam of white; a row of great white teeth on the
+underside. Aha! now he knows what it is! The Greenland shark is the
+fiercest monster of the northern seas, quite able to make short work of
+a few boys or so.
+
+“Steady now, Martin--ready with the gaff.”
+
+The brute was wallowing on the surface now, the water boiling around
+him. His tail lashed the sea to foam, a big, pointed head showed up,
+squirming under the hook. “Now!” cried Peer, and two gaffs struck at
+the same moment, the boat heeled over, letting in a rush of water, and
+Klaus, dropping his oars, sprang into the bow, with a cry of “Jesus,
+save us!”
+
+Next second a heavy body, big as a grown man, was heaved in over the
+gunwale, and two boys were all but shot out the other way. And now the
+fun began. The boys loosed their hold of the gaffs, and sprang apart to
+give the creature room. There it lay raging, the great black beast of
+prey, with its sharp threatening snout and wicked red eyes ablaze. The
+strong tail lashed out, hurling oars and balers overboard, the long
+teeth snapped at the bottom-boards and thwarts. Now and again it would
+leap high up in the air, only to fall back again, writhing furiously,
+hissing and spitting and frothing at the mouth, its red eyes glaring
+from one to another of the terrified captors, as if saying: “Come
+on--just a little nearer!”
+
+Meanwhile, Martin Bruvold was in terror that the shark would smash the
+boat to pieces. He drew his knife and took a step forward--a flash in
+the air, and the steel went in deep between the back fins, sending up
+a spurt of blood. “Look out!” cried the others, but Martin had already
+sprung back out of reach of the black tail. And now the dance of death
+began anew. The knife was fixed to the grip in the creature’s back;
+one gaff had buried its hook between the eyes, and another hung on the
+flank--the wooden shafts were flung this way and that at every bound,
+and the boat’s frame shook and groaned under the blows.
+
+“She’ll smash the boat and we’ll go to the bottom,” cried Peer.
+
+And now HIS knife flashed out and sent a stream of blood spouting from
+between the shoulders, but the blow cost him his foothold--and in a
+moment the two bodies were rolling over and over together in the bottom
+of the boat.
+
+“Oh, Lord Jesus!” shrieked Klaus, clinging to the stempost. “She’ll kill
+him! She’ll kill him!”
+
+Peer was half up now, on his knees, but as he reached out a hand to
+grasp the side, the brute’s jaws seized on his arm. The boy’s face
+was contorted with pain--another moment and the sharp teeth would have
+bitten through, when, swift as thought, Peter Ronningen dropped his
+oars and sent his knife straight in between the beast’s eyes. The blade
+pierced through to the brain, and the grip of the teeth relaxed.
+
+“C-c-cursed d-d-devil!” stammered Peter, as he scrambled back to
+his oars. Another moment, and Peer had dragged himself clear and was
+kneeling by the forward thwart, holding the ragged sleeve of his wounded
+arm, while the blood trickled through his fingers.
+
+When at last they were pulling homeward, the little boat overloaded with
+the weight of the great carcase, all at once they stopped rowing.
+
+“Where is Klaus?” asked Peer--for the doctor’s son was gone from where
+he had sat, clinging to the stem.
+
+“Why--there he is--in the bottom!”
+
+There lay the big lout of fifteen, who already boasted of his
+love-affairs, learned German, and was to be a gentleman like his
+father--there he lay on the bottom-boards in the bow in a dead faint.
+
+The others were frightened at first, but Peer, who was sitting washing
+his wounded arm, took a dipper full of water and flung it in the
+unconscious one’s face. The next instant Klaus had started up sitting,
+caught wildly at the gunwale, and shrieked out:
+
+“Cut the line, and row for your lives!”
+
+A roar of laughter went up from the rest; they dropped their oars and
+sat doubled up and gasping. But on the beach, before going home,
+they agreed to say nothing about Klaus’s fainting fit. And for weeks
+afterwards the four scamps’ exploit was the talk of the village, so that
+they felt there was not much fear of their getting the thrashing they
+deserved when the men came home.
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+When Peer, as quite a little fellow, had been sent to live with the old
+couple at Troen, he had already passed several times from one adopted
+home to another, though this he did not remember. He was one of the
+madcaps of the village now, but it was not long since he had been a
+solitary child, moping apart from the rest. Why did people always say
+“Poor child!” whenever they were speaking about his real mother? Why did
+they do it? Why, even Peter Ronningen, when he was angry, would stammer
+out: “You ba-ba-bastard!” But Peer called the pock-marked good-wife at
+Troen “mother” and her bandy-legged husband “father,” and lent the old
+man a hand wherever he was wanted--in the smithy or in the boats at the
+fishing.
+
+His childhood was passed among folk who counted it sinful to smile, and
+whose minds were gloomy as the grey sea-fog with poverty, psalm-singing,
+and the fear of hell.
+
+One day, coming home from his work at the peat bog, he found the elders
+snuffling and sighing over their afternoon meal. Peer wiped the sweat
+from his forehead, and asked what was the matter.
+
+The eldest son shoved a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, wiped his
+eyes, swallowed, and said: “Poor Peer!”
+
+“Aye, poor little chap,” sighed the old man, thrusting his horn spoon
+into a crack in the wall that served as a rack.
+
+“Neither father nor mother now,” whimpered the eldest daughter, looking
+over to the window.
+
+“Mother? Is she--”
+
+“Ay, dearie, yes,” sighed the old woman. “She’s gone for sure--gone to
+meet her Judge.”
+
+Later, as the day went on, Peer tried to cry too. The worst thing of all
+was that every one in the house seemed so perfectly certain where his
+mother had gone to. And to heaven it certainly was not. But how could
+they be so sure about it?
+
+Peer had seen her only once, one summer’s day when she had come out
+to see the place. She wore a light dress and a big straw hat, and he
+thought he had never seen anything so beautiful before. She made no
+secret of it among the neighbours that Peer was not her only child;
+there was a little girl, too, named Louise, who was with some folks
+away up in the inland parishes. She was in high spirits, and told risky
+stories and sang songs by no means sacred. The old people shook their
+heads over her--the younger ones watched her with sidelong glances. And
+when she left, she kissed Peer, and turned round more than once to look
+back at him, flushed under her big hat, and smiling; and it seemed to
+Peer that she must surely be the loveliest creature in all the world.
+
+But now--now she had gone to a place where the ungodly dwell in
+such frightful torment, and no hope of salvation for her through all
+eternity--and Peer all the while could only think of her in a light
+dress and a big straw hat, all song and happy laughter.
+
+Then came the question: Who was to pay for the boy now? True, his
+baptismal certificate said that he had a father--his name was Holm,
+and he lived in Christiania--but, from what the mother had said, it was
+understood that he had disappeared long ago. What was to be done with
+the boy?
+
+Never till now had Peer rightly understood that he was a stranger here,
+for all that he called the old couple father and mother.
+
+He lay awake night after night up in the loft, listening to the talk
+about him going on in the room below--the good-wife crying and saying:
+“No, no!”, the others saying how hard the times were, and that Peer
+was quite old enough now to be put to service as a goat-herd on some
+up-country farm.
+
+Then Peer would draw the skin-rug up over his head. But often, when one
+of the elders chanced to be awake at night, he could hear some one in
+the loft sobbing in his sleep. In the daytime he took up as little room
+as he could at the table, and ate as little as humanly possible; but
+every morning he woke up in fear that to-day--to-day he would have to
+bid the old foster-mother farewell and go out among strangers.
+
+Then something new and unheard of plumped down into the little cottage
+by the fjord.
+
+There came a registered letter with great dabs of sealing-wax all over
+it, and a handwriting so gentlemanly as to be almost unreadable. Every
+one crowded round the eldest son to see it opened--and out fell five
+ten-crown notes. “Mercy on us!” they cried in amazement, and “Can it
+be for us?” The next thing was to puzzle out what was written in the
+letter. And who should that turn out to be from but--no other than
+Peer’s father, though he did not say it in so many words. “Be good to
+the boy,” the letter said. “You will receive fifty crowns from me every
+half-year. See that he gets plenty to eat and goes dry and well shod.
+Faithfully your, P. Holm, Captain.”
+
+“Why, Peer--he’s--he’s--Your father’s a captain, an officer,” stammered
+the eldest girl, and fell back a step to stare at the boy.
+
+“And we’re to get twice as much for him as before,” said the son,
+holding the notes fast and gazing up at the ceiling, as if he were
+informing Heaven of the fact.
+
+But the old wife was thinking of something else as she folded her hands
+in thankfulness--now she needn’t lose the boy.
+
+“Properly fed!” No need to fear for that. Peer had treacle with his
+porridge that very day, though it was only a week-day. And the eldest
+son gave him a pair of stockings, and made him sit down and put them on
+then and there; and the same night, when he went to bed, the eldest girl
+came and tucked him up in a new skin-rug, not quite so hairless as the
+old one. His father a captain! It seemed too wonderful to be true.
+
+From that day times were changed for Peer. People looked at him with
+very different eyes. No one said “Poor boy” of him now. The other boys
+left off calling him bad names; the grown-ups said he had a future
+before him. “You’ll see,” they would say, “that father of yours will get
+you on; you’ll be a parson yet, ay, maybe a bishop, too.” At Christmas,
+there came a ten-crown note all for himself, to do just as he liked
+with. Peer changed it into silver, so that his purse was near bursting
+with prosperity. No wonder he began to go about with his nose in the
+air, and play the little prince and chieftain among the boys. Even Klaus
+Brock, the doctor’s son, made up to him, and taught him to play cards.
+But--“You surely don’t mean to go and be a parson,” he would say.
+
+For all this, no one could say that Peer was too proud to help with the
+fishing, or make himself useful in the smithy. But when the sparks flew
+showering from the glowing iron, he could not help seeing visions of his
+own--visions that flew out into the future. Aye, he WOULD be a priest.
+He might be a sinner now, and a wild young scamp; he certainly did curse
+and swear like a trooper at times, if only to show the other boys that
+it was all nonsense about the earth opening and swallowing you up. But
+a priest he would be, all the same. None of your parsons with spectacles
+and a pot belly: no, but a sort of heavenly messenger with snowy white
+robes and a face of glory. Perhaps some day he might even come so far
+that he could go down into that place of torment where his mother lay,
+and bring her up again, up to salvation. And when, in autumn evenings,
+he stood outside his palace, a white-haired bishop, he would lift up his
+finger, and all the stars should break into song.
+
+Clang, clang, sang the anvil under the hammer’s beat.
+
+In the still summer evenings a troop of boys go climbing up the naked
+slopes towards the high wooded ranges to fetch home the cows for the
+milking. The higher they climb, the farther and farther their sight can
+travel out over the sea. And an hour or two later, as the sun goes down,
+here comes a long string of red-flanked cattle trailing down, with a
+faint jangle of bells, over the far-off ridges. The boys halloo them
+on--“Ohoo-oo-oo!”--and swing their ringed rowan staves, and spit red
+juice of the alder bark that they are chewing as men chew tobacco. Far
+below them they see the farm lands, grey in shadow, and, beyond, the
+waters of the fjord, yellow in the evening light, a mirror where red
+clouds and white sails and hills of liquid blue are shining. And away
+out on the farthest headland, the lonely star of the coast light over
+the grey sea.
+
+On such an evening Peer came down from the hills just in time to see a
+gentleman in a carriole turn off from the highway and take the by-road
+down towards Troen. The horse balked suddenly at a small bridge, and
+when the driver reined him in and gave him a cut with his whip, the
+beast reared, swung about, and sent the cart fairly dancing round on its
+high wheels. “Oh, well, then, I’ll have to walk,” cried the gentleman
+angrily, and, flinging the reins to the lad behind him, he jumped down.
+Just at this moment Peer came up.
+
+“Here, boy,” began the traveller, “just take this bag, will you? And--”
+ He broke off suddenly, took a step backward, and looked hard at the boy.
+“What--surely it can’t be--Is it you, Peer?”
+
+“Ye-es,” said Peer, gaping a little, and took off his cap.
+
+“Well, now, that’s funny. My name is Holm. Well, well--well, well!”
+
+The lad in the cart had driven off, and the gentleman from the city and
+the pale country boy with the patched trousers stood looking at each
+other.
+
+The newcomer was a man of fifty or so, but still straight and active,
+though his hair and close-trimmed beard were sprinkled with grey. His
+eyes twinkled gaily under the brim of his black felt hat; his long
+overcoat was open, showing a gold chain across his waistcoat. With a
+pair of gloves and an umbrella in one hand, a light travelling bag
+in the other, and his beautifully polished shoes--a grand gentleman,
+thought Peer, if ever there was one. And this was his father!
+
+“So that’s how you look, my boy? Not very big for your age--nearly
+sixteen now, aren’t you? Do they give you enough to eat?”
+
+“Yes,” said Peer, with conviction.
+
+The pair walked down together, towards the grey cottage by the fjord.
+Suddenly the man stopped, and looked at it through half-shut eyes.
+
+“Is that where you’ve been living all these years?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“In that little hut there?”
+
+“Yes. That’s the place--Troen they call it.”
+
+“Why, that wall there bulges so, I should think the whole affair would
+collapse soon.”
+
+Peer tried to laugh at this, but felt something like a lump in his
+throat. It hurt to hear fine folks talk like that of father and mother’s
+little house.
+
+There was a great flurry when the strange gentleman appeared in the
+doorway. The old wife was kneading away at the dough for a cake, the
+front of her all white with flour; the old man sat with his spectacles
+on, patching a shoe, and the two girls sprang up from their spinning
+wheels. “Well, here I am. My name’s Holm,” said the traveller, looking
+round and smiling. “Mercy on us! the Captain his own self,” murmured the
+old woman, wiping her hands on her skirt.
+
+He was an affable gentleman, and soon set them all at their ease. He sat
+down in the seat of honour, drumming with his fingers on the table, and
+talking easily as if quite at home. One of the girls had been in service
+for a while in a Consul’s family in the town, and knew the ways of
+gentlefolk, and she fetched a bowl of milk and offered it with a curtsy
+and a: “Will the Captain please to take some milk?” “Thanks, thanks,”
+ said the visitor. “And what is your name, my dear? Come, there’s nothing
+to blush about. Nicoline? First-rate! And you? Lusiana? That’s right.”
+ He looked at the red-rimmed basin, and, taking it up, all but emptied it
+at a draught, then, wiping his beard, took breath. “Phu!--that was good.
+Well, so here I am.” And he looked around the room and at each of them
+in turn, and smiled, and drummed with his fingers, and said, “Well,
+well--well, well,” and seemed much amused with everything in general.
+“By the way, Nicoline,” he said suddenly, “since you’re so well up in
+titles, I’m not ‘Captain’ any more now; they’ve sent me up this way as
+Lieutenant-Colonel, and my wife has just had a house left her in your
+town here, so we may be coming to settle down in these parts. And
+perhaps you’d better send letters to me through a friend in future. But
+we can talk about all that by and by. Well, well--well, well.” And all
+the time he was drumming with his fingers on the table and smiling. Peer
+noticed that he wore gold sleeve-links and a fine gold stud in his broad
+white shirt-front.
+
+And then a little packet was produced. “Hi, Peer, come and look; here’s
+something for you.” And the “something” was nothing less than a real
+silver watch--and Peer was quite unhappy for the moment because he
+couldn’t dash off at once and show it to all the other boys. “There’s
+a father for you,” said the old wife, clapping her hands, and almost
+in tears. But the visitor patted her on the shoulder. “Father? father?
+H’m--that’s not a thing any one can be so sure about. Hahaha!” And
+“hahaha” echoed the old man, still sitting with the awl in his hand.
+This was the sort of joke he could appreciate.
+
+Then the visitor went out and strolled about the place, with his
+hands under his coat tails, and looked at the sky, and the fjord, and
+murmured, “Well, well--well, well,” and Peer followed him about all
+the while, and gazed at him as he might have gazed at a star. He was to
+sleep in a neighbour’s house, where there was a room that had a bed with
+sheets on it, and Peer went across with him and carried his bag. It was
+Martin Bruvold’s parents who were to house the traveller, and people
+stood round staring at the place. Martin himself was waiting outside.
+“This a friend of yours, Peer? Here, then, my boy, here’s something to
+buy a big farm with.” This time it was a five-crown note, and Martin
+stood fingering it, hardly able to believe his eyes. Peer’s father was
+something like a father.
+
+It was a fine thing, too, to see a grand gentleman undress. “I’ll have
+things like that some day,” thought Peer, watching each new wonder that
+came out of the bag. There was a silver-backed brush, that he brushed
+his hair and beard with, walking up and down in his underclothes and
+humming to himself. And then there was another shirt, with red stripes
+round the collar, just to wear in bed. Peer nodded to himself, taking
+it all in. And when the stranger was in bed he took out a flask with a
+silver cork, that screwed off and turned into a cup, and had a dram for
+a nightcap; and then he reached for a long pipe with a beaded cord, and
+when it was drawing well he stretched himself out comfortably and smiled
+at Peer.
+
+“Well, now, my boy--are you getting on well at school?”
+
+Peer put his hands behind him and set one foot forward. “Yes--he says
+so--teacher does.”
+
+“How much is twelve times twelve?”
+
+That was a stumper! Peer hadn’t got beyond ten times ten.
+
+“Do they teach you gymnastics at the school?”
+
+“Gym--? What’s that?”
+
+“Jumping and vaulting and climbing ropes and drilling in squads--what?”
+
+“But isn’t it--isn’t that wicked?”
+
+“Wicked! Hahaha! Wicked, did you say? So that’s the way they look
+at things here, is it? Well, well--well, well! Hahaha! Hand me that
+matchbox, my boy. H’m!” He puffed away for a while in silence. Then,
+suddenly:
+
+“See here, boy. Did you know you’d a little sister?”
+
+“Yes, I know.”
+
+“Half-sister, that is to say. I didn’t quite know how it was myself. But
+I may as well tell you, my boy, that I paid the same for you all along,
+the same as now. Only I sent the money by your mother, and she--well,
+she, poor girl, had another one to look after, and no father to pay for
+it. So she made my money do for both. Hahaha! Well, poor girl, we
+can’t blame her for that. Anyhow, we’ll have to look after that little
+half-sister of yours now, I suppose, till she grows up. Don’t you think
+so yourself?”
+
+Peer felt the tears coming. Think so!--indeed he did.
+
+Next day Peer’s father went away. He stood there, ready to start, in the
+living-room at Troen, stiff felt hat and overcoat and all, and said,
+in a tone like the sheriff’s when he gives out a public notice at the
+church door:
+
+“And, by the way, you’re to have the boy confirmed this year.”
+
+“Yes, to be sure we will,” the old mother hastened to say.
+
+“Then I wish him to be properly dressed, like the best of the other
+youngsters. And there’s fifty crowns for him to give the school-teacher
+and the parson as a parting gift.” He handed over some more notes.
+
+“Afterwards,” he went on, “I mean, of course, to look after him until
+he can make his own way in a respectable position. But first we must see
+what he has a turn for, and what he’d like to be himself. He’d better
+come to town and talk it over with me--but I’ll write and arrange all
+that after he’s confirmed. Then in case anything unexpected should
+happen to me, there’s some money laid by for him in a savings bank
+account; he can apply to a friend of mine, who knows all about it. Well,
+good-bye, and very many thanks!”
+
+And the great man smiled to right and left, and shook them all by the
+hand, and waved his hat and was gone.
+
+For the next few days Peer walked on air, and found it hard to keep his
+footing at all on the common earth. People were for ever filling his
+head with talk about that savings bank account--it might be only a few
+thousands of crowns--but then again, it might run up to a million. A
+million! and here he was, eating herrings for dinner, and talking to
+Tom, Dick, and Harry just like any one else. A million crowns!
+
+Late in the autumn came the confirmation, and the old wooden church,
+with its tarred walls, nestled among its mighty tree-tops, sent its
+chimes ringing and ringing out into the blue autumn air. It seemed
+to Peer like some kindly old grandmother, calling so lovingly: “Come,
+come--old and young--old and young--from fjord and valley--northways and
+southways; come, come--this day of all days--this day of all days--come,
+come, come!” So it had stood, ringing out the chimes for one generation
+after another through hundreds of years, and now it is calling to us.
+And the young folks are there, looking at one another in their new
+clothes, and blowing their noses on clean white handkerchiefs, so
+carefully folded. There comes Peter Ronningen, passed by good luck this
+year, but forced to turn out in a jacket borrowed from Peer, as
+the tailor wasn’t ready with his own new things. The boys say
+“how-do-you-do” and try to smile like grown-up folks. One or two of them
+may have some little account dating from old school-fights waiting to
+be settled--but, never mind--just as well to forget old scores now. Peer
+caught sight of Johan Koja, who stole a pencil from him last summer,
+but, after all, even that didn’t seem worth making a fuss about. “Well,
+how’ve you been getting on since last summer?” they ask each other, as
+they move together up the stone steps to the big church door, through
+which the peal of the organ comes rolling out to meet them.
+
+How good it seems, and how kind, the little church, where all you see
+bids you welcome! Through the stained-glass windows with their tiny
+leaded panes falls a light so soft that even poor ugly faces seem
+beautiful. The organ tones are the very light itself turned into sweet
+sound. On one side of the nave you can see all the boys’ heads, sleek
+with water; on the other the little mothers to be, in grown-up dress
+to-day for the first time, kerchief on head and hymn-book in hand, and
+with careful faces. And now they all sing. The elder folks have taken
+their places farther back to-day, but they join in, looking up now and
+again from the book to those young heads in front, and wondering how
+they will fare in life. And the young folk themselves are thinking as
+they sing, “To-day is the beginning of new things. Play and frolic are
+over and done with; from today we’re grown-up.” But the church and all
+in it seemed to say: “If ever you are in heavy trouble, come hither to
+me.” Just look at that altar-piece there--the wood-carvings are a whole
+Bible in themselves--but Moses with the Tables of the Law is gentle of
+face to-day; you can see he means no harm after all. St. Peter, with the
+keys, pointing upwards, looks like a kind old uncle, bringing something
+good home from market. And then the angels on the walls, pictured or
+carved in wood, have borrowed the voice of the organ and the tones of
+the hymn, and they widen out the vaulted roof into the dome of heaven;
+while light and song and worshippers melt together and soar upwards
+toward the infinite spaces.
+
+Peer was thinking all the time: I don’t care if I’m rich as rich, I WILL
+be a priest. And then perhaps with all my money I can build a church
+that no one ever saw the like of. And the first couple I’ll marry there
+shall be Martin Bruvold and little sister Louise--if only he’ll have
+her. Just wait and see!
+
+A few days later he wrote to his father, asking if he might come into
+town now and go to school. A long time passed, and then at last a letter
+came in a strange hand-writing, and all the grown folks at Troen came
+together again to read it. But what was their amazement when they read:
+
+“You will possibly have learned by now from the newspapers that your
+benefactor, Colonel Holm, has met his death by a fall from a horse. I
+must therefore request you to call on me personally at your earliest
+convenience, as I have several matters to settle with you. Yours
+faithfully, J. Grundt, Senior Master.”
+
+They stood and looked at one another.
+
+Peer was crying--chiefly, it must be admitted, at the thought of having
+to bid good-bye to all the Troen folks and the two cows, and the calf,
+and the grey cat. He might have to go right on to Christiania, no later
+than to-morrow--to go to school there; and when he came back--why, very
+likely the old mother might not be there any more.
+
+So all three of them were heavy-hearted, when the pock-marked good-wife,
+and the bow-legged old man, came down with him to the pier. And soon he
+was standing on the deck of the fjord steamer, gazing at the two figures
+growing smaller and smaller on the shore. And then one hut after another
+in the little hamlet disappeared behind the ness--Troen itself was
+gone now--and the hills and the woods where he had cut ring staves
+and searched for stray cattle--swiftly all known things drew away and
+vanished, until at last the whole parish was gone, and his childhood
+over.
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+As evening fell, he saw a multitude of lights spread out on every side
+far ahead in the darkness. And next, with his little wooden chest on his
+shoulder, he was finding his way up through the streets by the quay to
+a lodging-house for country folk, which he knew from former visits, when
+he had come to the town with the Lofoten boats.
+
+Next morning, clad in his country homespun, he marched up along River
+Street, over the bridge, and up the hill to the villa quarter, where he
+had to ask the way. At last he arrived outside a white-painted wooden
+house standing back in a garden. Here was the place--the place where his
+fate was to be decided. After the country fashion he walked in at the
+kitchen door.
+
+A stout servant maid in a big white apron was rattling the rings of the
+kitchen range into place; there was a pleasing smell of coffee and good
+things to eat. Suddenly a door opened, and a figure in a dressing-gown
+appeared--a tall red-haired man with gold spectacles astride on a long
+red nose, his thick hair and scrubby little moustaches touched
+with grey. He gasped once or twice and then started
+sneezing--hoc-hoc-put-putsch!--wiped his nose with a large
+pocket-handkerchief, and grumbled out: “Ugh!--this wretched cold--can’t
+get rid of it. How about my socks, Bertha, my good girl; do you think
+they are quite dry now?”
+
+“I’ve had them hung up ever since I lit the fire this morning,” said the
+girl, tossing her head.
+
+“But who is this young gentleman, may I ask?” The gold spectacles were
+turned full on Peer, who rose and bowed.
+
+“Said he wanted to speak to you, sir,” put in the maid.
+
+“Ah. From the country, I see. Have you anything to sell, my lad?”
+
+“No,” said Peer. He had had a letter. . . .
+
+The red head seemed positively frightened at this--and the dressing-gown
+faltered backwards, as if to find support. He cast a hurried glance at
+the girl, and then beckoned with a long fore-finger to Peer. “Yes, yes,
+perfectly so. Be so good as to come this way, my lad.”
+
+Peer found himself in a room with rows of books all round the walls, and
+a big writing-table in the centre. “Sit down, my boy.” The schoolmaster
+went and picked out a long pipe, and filled it, clearing his throat
+nervously, with an occasional glance at the boy. “H’m--so this is you.
+This is Peer--h’m.” He lit his pipe and puffed a little, found himself
+again obliged to sneeze--but at last settled down in a chair at the
+writing-table, stretched out his long legs, and puffed away again.
+
+“So that’s what you look like?” With a quick movement he reached for a
+photograph in a frame. Peer caught a glimpse of his father in uniform.
+The schoolmaster lifted his spectacles, stared at the picture, then let
+down his spectacles again and fell to scrutinising Peer’s face. There
+was a silence for a while, and then he said: “Ah, indeed--I see--h’m.”
+ Then turning to Peer:
+
+“Well, my lad, it was very sudden--your benefactor’s end--most
+unexpected. He is to be buried to-day.”
+
+“Benefactor?” thought Peer. “Why doesn’t he say ‘your father’?”
+
+The schoolmaster was gazing at the window. “He informed me some time ago
+of--h’m--of all the--all the benefits he had conferred on you--h’m! And
+he begged me to keep an eye on you myself in case anything happened to
+him. And now”--the spectacles swung round towards Peer--“now you are
+starting out in life by yourself, hey?”
+
+“Yes,” said Peer, shifting a little in his seat.
+
+“You will have to decide now what walk in life you are to--er--devote
+yourself to.”
+
+“Yes,” said Peer again, sitting up straighter.
+
+“You would perhaps like to be a fisherman--like the good people you’ve
+been brought up among?”
+
+“No.” Peer shook his head disdainfully. Was this man trying to make a
+fool of him?
+
+“Some trade, then, perhaps?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Oh, then I suppose it’s to be America. Well, you will easily find
+company to go with. Such numbers are going nowadays--I am sorry to say.
+. . .”
+
+Peer pulled himself together. “Oh, no, not that at all.” Better get it
+out at once. “I wish to be a priest,” he said, speaking with a careful
+town accent.
+
+The schoolmaster rose from his seat, holding his long pipe up in the air
+in one hand, and pressing his ear forward with the other, as though to
+hear better. “What?--what did you say?”
+
+“A priest,” repeated Peer, but he moved behind his chair as he spoke,
+for it looked as if the schoolmaster might fling the pipe at his head.
+
+But suddenly the red face broke into a smile, exposing such an array of
+greenish teeth as Peer had never seen before. Then he said in a sort of
+singsong, nodding: “A priest? Oh, indeed! Quite a small matter!” He rose
+and wandered once or twice up and down the room, then stopped,
+nodded, and said in a fatherly tone--to one of the bookshelves:
+“H’m--really--really--we’re a little ambitious, are we not?”
+
+He turned on Peer suddenly. “Look here, my young friend--don’t you think
+your benefactor has been quite generous enough to you already?”
+
+“Yes, indeed he has,” said Peer, his voice beginning to tremble a
+little.
+
+“There are thousands of boys in your position who are thrown out in the
+world after confirmation and left to shift for themselves, without a
+soul to lend them a helping hand.”
+
+“Yes,” gasped Peer, looking round involuntarily towards the door.
+
+“I can’t understand--who can have put these wild ideas into your head?”
+
+With an effort Peer managed to get out: “It’s always been what I wanted.
+And he--father--”
+
+“Who? Father--? Do you mean your benefactor?”
+
+“Well, he was my father, wasn’t he?” burst out Peer.
+
+The schoolmaster tottered back and sank into a chair, staring at Peer as
+if he thought him a quite hopeless subject. At last he recovered so far
+as to say: “Look here, my lad, don’t you think you might be content to
+call him--now and for the future--just your benefactor? Don’t you think
+he deserves it?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” whispered Peer, almost in tears.
+
+“You are thinking, of course--you and those who have put all this
+nonsense into your head--of the money which he--h’m--”
+
+“Yes--isn’t there a savings bank account--?”
+
+“Aha! There we are! Yes, indeed. There is a savings bank account--in my
+care.” He rose, and hunted out from a drawer a small green-covered book.
+Peer could not take his eyes from it. “Here it is. The sum entered here
+to your account amounts to eighteen hundred crowns.”
+
+Crash! Peer felt as if he had fallen through the floor into the
+cellarage. All his dreams vanished into thin air--the million
+crowns--priest and bishop--Christiania--and all the rest.
+
+“On the day when you are in a fair way to set up independently as an
+artisan, a farmer, or a fisherman--and when you seem to me, to the best
+of my judgment, to deserve such help--then and not till then I place
+this book at your disposal. Do you understand what I say?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I am perfectly sure that I am in full agreement with the wishes of
+the donor in deciding that the money must remain untouched in my safe
+keeping until then.”
+
+“Yes,” whispered Peer.
+
+“What?--are you crying?”
+
+“N-no. Good-morning--”
+
+“No, pray don’t go yet. Sit down. There are one or two things we must
+get settled at once. First of all--you must trust me, my good boy. Do
+you believe that I wish you well, or do you not?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Then it is agreed that all these fancies about going to college and so
+forth must be driven out of your head once for all?”
+
+“Y-yes, sir.”
+
+“You can see yourself that, even supposing you had the mental
+qualifications, such a sum, generous as it is in itself, would not
+suffice to carry you far.”
+
+“No-no, sir.”
+
+“On the other hand, if you wish it, I will gladly arrange to get you an
+apprentice’s place with a good handicraftsman here. You would have free
+board there, and--well, if you should want clothes the first year or so,
+I dare say we could manage that. You will be better without pocket-money
+to fling about until you can earn it for yourself.”
+
+Peer sighed, and drooped as he stood. When he saw the green-backed book
+locked into its drawer again, and heard the keys rattle as they went
+back into a pocket under the dressing-gown, he felt as if some one were
+pointing a jeering finger at him, and saying, “Yah!”
+
+“Then there’s another thing. About your name. What name have you thought
+of taking, my lad--surname, I mean?”
+
+“My name is Peer Holm!” said the boy, instinctively drawing himself up
+as he had done when the bishop had patted his head at the confirmation
+and asked his name.
+
+The schoolmaster pursed up his lips, took off his spectacles and wiped
+them, put them on again, and turned to the bookshelves with a sigh. “Ah,
+indeed!--yes--yes--I almost thought as much.”
+
+Then he came forward and laid a hand kindly on Peer’s shoulder.
+
+“My dear boy--that is out of the question.”
+
+A shiver went through Peer. Had he done something wrong again?
+
+“See here, my boy--have you considered that there may be others of that
+name in this same place?”
+
+“Yes--but--”
+
+“Wait a minute--and that you would occasion these--others--the deepest
+pain and distress if it should become known that--well, how matters
+stand. You see, I am treating you as a grown-up man--a gentleman. And
+I feel sure you would not wish to inflict a great sorrow--a crushing
+blow--upon a widow and her innocent children. There, there, my boy,
+there’s nothing to cry about. Life, my young friend, life has troubles
+that must be faced. What is the name of the farm, or house, where you
+have lived up to now?”
+
+“T--Troen.”
+
+“Troen--a very good name indeed. Then from to-day on you will call
+yourself Peer Troen.”
+
+“Y-yes, sir.”
+
+“And if any one should ask about your father, remember that you are
+bound in honour and conscience not to mention your benefactor’s name.”
+
+“Y-yes.”
+
+“Well, then, as soon as you have made up your mind, come at once and let
+me know. We shall be great friends yet, you will see. You’re sure you
+wouldn’t like to try America? Well, well, come along out to the kitchen
+and see if we can find you some breakfast.”
+
+Peer found himself a moment after sitting on a chair in the kitchen,
+where there was such a good smell of coffee. “Bertha,” said the
+schoolmaster coaxingly, “you’ll find something good for breakfast for my
+young friend here, won’t you?” He waved a farewell with his hand, took
+down his socks from a string above the stove, and disappeared through
+the door again.
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+When a country boy in blue homespun, with a peaked cap on his blond
+head, goes wandering at random through the streets of a town, it is no
+particular concern of any one else. He moves along, gazing in at shop
+windows, hands deep in his pockets, whistling, looking at everything
+around him--or at nothing at all. And yet--perhaps in the head under
+that peaked cap it seems as if a whole little world had suddenly
+collapsed, and he may be whistling hard to keep from crying in the
+streets for people to see. He steps aside to avoid a cart, and runs into
+a man, who drops his cigar in the gutter. “Confounded country lout!”
+ says the man angrily, but passes on and has forgotten boy and all the
+next moment. But a little farther on a big dog comes dashing out of a
+yard and unluckily upsets a fat old woman on the pavement, and the boy
+with the peaked cap, for all his troubles, cannot help doubling up and
+roaring with laughter.
+
+That afternoon, Peer sat on one of the ramparts below the fortress,
+biting at a stalk of grass, and twirling the end in his fingers. Below
+him lay town and fjord in the mild October sunlight; the rumble of
+traffic, the noises from workshops and harbour, came up to him through
+the rust-brown luminous haze. There he sat, while the sentry on the
+wall above marched back and forth, with his rifle on his shoulder,
+left--right--left.
+
+You may climb very high up indeed, and fall down very deep, and no such
+terrible harm done after all, as long as you don’t absolutely break your
+neck. And gradually Peer began to realise that he was still alive, after
+all. It is a bad business when the world goes against you, even though
+you may have some one to turn to for advice and sympathy. But when all
+the people round you are utter strangers, there is nothing to be done
+but sit down and twirl a straw, and think things out a bit for yourself.
+Peer’s thoughts were of a thing in a long dressing-gown that had taken
+his bank book and locked it up and rattled the keys at him and said
+“Yah!” and deposed him from his bishopric and tried to sneeze and
+squeeze him into a trade, where he’d have to carry a pressing-iron all
+his life and be Peer Troen, Tailor. But he wouldn’t have that. He sat
+there bracing himself up, and trying to gather together from somewhere
+a thing he had never had much need of before--to wit, a will of his own,
+something to set up against the whole wide world. What was he to do now?
+He felt he would like to go back to Troen first of all, and talk things
+over with the old father and mother; they would be sorry for him there,
+and say “Poor boy,” and pray for him--but after a day or two, he knew,
+they would begin to glance at him at meals, and remember that there was
+no one to pay for him now, and that times were hard. No, that was no
+refuge for him now. But what could he do, then? Clearly it was not such
+a simple matter to be all alone in the world.
+
+A little later he found himself on a hillside by the Cathedral
+churchyard, sitting under the yellowing trees, and wondering dreamily
+where his father was to be buried. What a difference between him and
+that schoolmaster man! No preaching with him; no whining about what his
+boy might call himself or might not. Why must he go and die?
+
+It was strange to think of that fine strong man, who had brushed his
+hair and beard so carefully with his silver-backed brush--to think that
+he was lying still in a coffin now, and would soon be covered up with
+earth.
+
+People were coming up the hill now, and passing in to the churchyard.
+The men wore black clothes and tall shiny hats--but there were some
+officers too, with plumes and sashes. And then a regimental band--with
+its brass instruments. Peer slipped into the churchyard with the crowd,
+but kept apart from the rest, and took up his stand a little way off,
+beside a big monument. “It must be father’s funeral,” he thought to
+himself, and was broad awake at once.
+
+This, he guessed, must be the Cadet School, that came marching in, and
+formed up in two lines from the mortuary chapel to the open grave.
+The place was nearly full of people now; there were women holding
+handkerchiefs to their eyes, and an elderly lady in black went into
+the chapel, on the arm of a tall man in uniform. “That must be father’s
+wife,” thought Peer, “and the young ladies there in black are--my
+half-sisters, and that young lieutenant--my half-brother.” How strange
+it all was! A sound of singing came from the chapel. And a little later
+six sergeants came out, carrying a coffin all heaped with flowers.
+“Present arms!” And the soldiers presented, and the band played a slow
+march and moved off in front of the coffin, between the two lines of
+soldiers. And then came a great following of mourners. The lady in black
+came out again, sobbing behind her handkerchief, and hardly able to
+follow, though she clung to the tall officer’s arm. But in front of
+the pair, just behind the coffin itself, walked a tall man in splendid
+uniform, with gold epaulettes, plumed hat, and sword, bearing a cushion
+with two jewelled stars. And the long, long train of mourners moved
+slowly, gently on, and there--there by the grave, stood the priest,
+holding a spade.
+
+Peer was anxious to hear what the priest would have to say about his
+father. Involuntarily he stole a little nearer, though he felt somehow
+that it would not do to come too close.
+
+A hymn was sung at the graveside, the band accompanying. Peer took off
+his cap. He was too taken up to notice that one of the mourners was
+watching him intently, and presently left the group and came towards
+him. The man wore spectacles, and a shiny tall hat, and it was not until
+he began to sneeze that Peer recognised him. It was the schoolmaster,
+glaring at him now with a face so full of horror and fury that the
+spectacles almost seemed to be spitting fire.
+
+“You--you--Are you mad?” he whispered in Peer’s face, clenching his
+black gloved hands. “What are you doing here? Do you want to cause a
+catastrophe to-day of all days? Go--get away at once, do you hear me?
+Go! For heaven’s sake, get away from here before any one sees.” Peer
+turned and fled, hearing behind him as he went a threatening “If ever
+you dare--again--,” while the voices and the band, swelling higher in
+the hymn, seemed to strike him in the back and drive him on.
+
+He was far down in the town before he could stop and pull himself
+together. One thing was clear--after this he could never face that
+schoolmaster again. All was lost. Could he even be sure that what he had
+done wasn’t so frightfully wrong that he would have to go to prison for
+it?
+
+Next day the Troen folk were sitting at their dinner when the eldest son
+looked out of the window and said: “There’s Peer coming.”
+
+“Mercy on us!” cried the good-wife, as he came in. “What is the matter,
+Peer? Are you ill?”
+
+Ah, it was good that night to creep in under the old familiar skin-rug
+once more. And the old mother sat on the bedside and talked to him
+of the Lord, by way of comfort. Peer clenched his hands under the
+clothes--somehow he thought now of the Lord as a sort of schoolmaster
+in a dressing-gown. Yet it was some comfort all the same to have the old
+soul sit there and talk to him.
+
+Peer had much to put up with in the days that followed--much tittering
+and whispers of “Look! there goes the priest,” as he went by. At
+table, he felt ashamed of every mouthful he took; he hunted for jobs as
+day-labourer on distant farms so as to earn a little to help pay for
+his keep. And when the winter came he would have to do as the others
+did--hire himself out, young and small as he was, for the Lofoten
+fishing.
+
+But one day after church Klaus Brock drew him aside and got him to talk
+things over at length. First, Klaus told him that he himself was going
+away--he was to begin in one of the mechanical workshops in town, and
+go from there to the Technical College, to qualify for an engineer. And
+next he wanted to hear the whole truth about what had happened to
+Peer that day in town. For when people went slapping their thighs and
+sniggering about the young would-be priest that had turned out a
+beggar, Klaus felt he would like to give the lot of them a darned good
+hammering.
+
+So the two sixteen-year-old boys wandered up and down talking, and
+in the days to come Peer never forgot how his old accomplice in the
+shark-fishing had stood by him now. “Do like me,” urged Klaus. “You’re
+a bit of a smith already, man; go to the workshops, and read up in your
+spare time for the entrance exam to the Technical. Then three years at
+the College--the eighteen hundred crowns will cover that--and there you
+are, an engineer--and needn’t even owe any one a halfpenny.”
+
+Peer shook his head; he was sure he would never dare to show his face
+before that schoolmaster again, much less ask for the money in the bank.
+No; the whole thing was over and done with for him.
+
+“But devil take it, man, surely you can see that this ape of a
+schoolmaster dare not keep you out of your money. Let me come with you;
+we’ll go up and tackle him together, and then--then you’ll see.” And
+Klaus clenched his fists and thrust out one shoulder fiercely.
+
+But when January came, there was Peer in oil-skins, in the foc’s’le of
+a Lofoten fishing-smack, ploughing the long sea-road north to the
+fishing-grounds, in frost and snow-storms. All through that winter he
+lived the fisherman’s life: on land, in one of the tiny fisher-booths
+where a five-man crew is packed like sardines in an air so thick you can
+cut it with a knife; at sea, where in a fair wind you stand half the day
+doing nothing and freezing stiff the while--and a foul wind means out
+oars, and row, row, row, over an endless plain of rolling icy combers;
+row, row, till one’s hands are lumps of bleeding flesh. Peer lived
+through it all, thinking now and then, when he could think at all, how
+the grand gentlefolk had driven him out to this life because he was
+impertinent enough to exist. And when the fourteen weeks were past, and
+the Lofoten boats stood into the fjord again on a mild spring day, it
+was easy for Peer to reckon out his earnings, which were just nothing at
+all. He had had to borrow money for his outfit and food, and he would be
+lucky if his boy’s share was enough to cover what he owed.
+
+A few weeks later a boy stood by the yard gate of an engineering works
+in the town just as the bell was ringing and the men came streaming out,
+and asked for Klaus Brock.
+
+“Hullo, Peer--that you? Been to Lofoten and made your fortune?”
+
+The two boys stood a moment taking stock of one another: Klaus
+grimy-faced and in working-clothes--Peer weather-beaten and tanned by
+storm and spray.
+
+The manager of the factory was Klaus’s uncle, and the same afternoon his
+nephew came into the office with a new hand wanting to be taken on as
+apprentice. He had done some smithy work before, he said; and he was
+taken on forthwith, at a wage of twopence an hour.
+
+“And what’s your name?”
+
+“Peer--er”--the rest stuck in his throat.
+
+“Holm,” put in Klaus.
+
+“Peer Holm? Very well, that’ll do.”
+
+The two boys went out with a feeling of having done something rather
+daring. And anyway, if trouble should come along, there would be two of
+them now to tackle it.
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+In a narrow alley off Sea Street lived Gorseth the job-master, with a
+household consisting of a lean and skinny wife, two half-starved horses,
+and a few ramshackle flies and sledges. The job-master himself was a
+hulking toper with red nose and beery-yellow eyes, who spent his nights
+in drinking and got home in the small hours of the morning when his wife
+was just about getting up. All through the morning she went about the
+place scolding and storming at him for a drunken ne’er-do-well, while
+Gorseth himself lay comfortably snoring.
+
+When Peer arrived on the scene with his box on his shoulder, Gorseth was
+on his knees in the yard, greasing a pair of leather carriage-aprons,
+while his wife, sunken-lipped and fierce-eyed, stood in the kitchen
+doorway, abusing him for a profligate, a swine, and the scum of the
+earth. Gorseth lay there on all-fours, with the sun shining on his bald
+head, smearing on the grease; but every now and then he would lift his
+head and snarl out, “Hold your jaw, you damned old jade!”
+
+“Haven’t you a room to let?” Peer asked.
+
+A beery nose was turned towards him, and the man dragged himself up and
+wiped his hands on his trousers. “Right you are,” said he, and led the
+way across the yard, up some stairs, and into a little room with two
+panes of glass looking on to the street and a half-window on the yard.
+The room had a bed with sheets, a couple of chairs, and a table in front
+of the half-window. Six and six a month. Agreed. Peer took it on the
+spot, paid down the first month’s rent, and having got rid of the man
+sat down on his chest and looked about him. Many people have never a
+roof to their heads, but here was he, Peer, with a home of his own.
+Outside in the yard the woman had begun yelping her abuse again, the
+horses in the stable beneath were stamping and whinnying, but Peer
+had lodged in fisher-booths and peasants’ quarters and was not too
+particular. Here he was for the first time in a place of his own, and
+within its walls was master of the house and his own master.
+
+Food was the next thing. He went out and bought in supplies, stocking
+his chest with plain country fare. At dinner time he sat on the lid,
+as fishermen do, and made a good solid meal of flat bannocks and cold
+bacon.
+
+And now he fell-to at his new work. There was no question of whether it
+was what he wanted or not; here was a chance of getting up in the world,
+and that without having to beg any one’s leave. He meant to get on. And
+it was not long before his dreams began to take a new shape from his new
+life. He stood at the bottom of a ladder, a blacksmith’s boy--but up
+at the top sat a mighty Chief Engineer, with gold spectacles and white
+waistcoat. That was where he would be one day. And if any schoolmaster
+came along and tried to keep him back this time--well, just let him
+try it. They had turned him out of a churchyard once--he would have his
+revenge for that some day. It might take him years and years to do it,
+but one fine day he would be as good as the best of them, and would pay
+them back in full.
+
+In the misty mornings, as he tramped in to his work, dinner-pail in
+hand, his footsteps on the plank bridge seemed hammering out with
+concentrated will: “To-day I shall learn something new--new--new!”
+
+The great works down at the harbour--shipyard, foundry, and machine
+shops--were a whole city in themselves. And into this world of fire and
+smoke and glowing iron, steam-hammers, racing wheels, and bustle and
+noise, he was thrusting his way, intent upon one thing, to learn and
+learn and ever learn. There were plenty of those by him who were content
+to know their way about the little corner where they stood--but they
+would never get any farther. They would end their days broken-down
+workmen--HE would carve his way through till he stood among the masters.
+He had first to put in some months’ work in the smithy, then he would
+be passed on to the machine shops, then to work with the carpenters
+and painters, and finally in the shipyard. The whole thing would take
+a couple of years. But the works and all therein were already a kind of
+new Bible to him; a book of books, which he must learn by heart. Only
+wait!
+
+And what a place it was for new adventures! Many times a day he
+would find himself gazing at some new wonder; sheer miracle and
+revelation--yet withal no creation of God’s grace, but an invention of
+men. Press a button, and behold, a miracle springs to life. He would
+stare at the things, and the strain of understanding them would
+sometimes keep him awake at night. There was something behind this,
+something that must be--spirit, even though it did not come from God.
+These engineers were priests of a sort, albeit they did not preach nor
+pray. It was a new world.
+
+One day he was put to riveting work on an enormous boiler, and for the
+first time found himself working with a power that was not the power of
+his own hands. It was a tube, full of compressed air, that drove home
+the rivets in quick succession with a clashing wail from the boiler that
+sounded all over the town. Peer’s head and ears ached with the noise,
+but he smiled all the same. He was used to toil himself, in weariness of
+body; now he stood here master, was mind and soul and directing will. He
+felt it now for the first time, and it sent a thrill of triumph through
+every nerve of his body.
+
+But all through the long evenings he sat alone, reading, reading, and
+heard the horses stamping in the stable below. And when he crept
+into bed, well after midnight, there was only one thing that troubled
+him--his utter loneliness. Klaus Brock lived with his uncle, in a fine
+house, and went to parties. And he lay here all by himself. If he were
+to die that very night, there would be hardly a soul to care. So utterly
+alone he was--in a strange and indifferent world.
+
+Sometimes it helped him a little to think of the old mother at Troen,
+or of the church at home, where the vaulted roof had soared so high over
+the swelling organ-notes, and all the faces had looked so beautiful. But
+the evening prayer was no longer what it had been for him. There was no
+grey-haired bishop any more sitting at the top of the ladder he was to
+climb. The Chief Engineer that was there now had nothing to do with Our
+Lord, or with life in the world to come. He would never come so far now
+that he could go down into the place of torment where his mother lay,
+and bring her up with him, up to salvation. And whatever power and
+might he gained, he could never stand in autumn evenings and lift up his
+finger and make all the stars break into song.
+
+Something was past and gone for Peer. It was as if he were rowing away
+from a coast where red clouds hung in the sky and dream-visions filled
+the air--rowing farther and farther away, towards something quite new. A
+power stronger than himself had willed it so.
+
+One Sunday, as he sat reading, the door opened, and Klaus Brock entered
+whistling, with his cap on the back of his head.
+
+“Hullo, old boy! So this is where you live?”
+
+“Yes, it is--and that’s a chair over there.”
+
+But Klaus remained standing, with his hands in his pockets and his cap
+on, staring about the room. “Well, I’m blest!” he said at last. “If he
+hasn’t stuck up a photograph of himself on his table!”
+
+“Well, did you never see one before? Don’t you know everybody has them?”
+
+“Not their own photos, you ass! If anybody sees that, you’ll never hear
+the last of it.”
+
+Peer took up the photograph and flung it under the bed. “Well, it was a
+rubbishy thing,” he muttered. Evidently he had made a mistake. “But what
+about this?”--pointing to a coloured picture he had nailed up on the
+wall.
+
+Klaus put on his most manly air and bit off a piece of tobacco plug.
+“Ah! that!” he said, trying not to laugh too soon.
+
+“Yes; it’s a fine painting, isn’t it? I got it for fourpence.”
+
+“Painting! Ha-ha! that’s good! Why, you silly cow, can’t you see it’s
+only an oleograph?”
+
+“Oh, of course you know all about it. You always do.”
+
+“I’ll take you along one day to the Art Gallery,” said Klaus. “Then
+you can see what a real painting looks like. What’s that you’ve got
+there--English reader?”
+
+“Yes,” put in Peer eagerly; “hear me say a poem.” And before Klaus could
+protest, he had begun to recite.
+
+When he had finished, Klaus sat for a while in silence, chewing his
+quid. “H’m!” he said at last, “if our last teacher, Froken Zebbelin,
+could have heard that English of yours, we’d have had to send for a
+nurse for her, hanged if we wouldn’t!”
+
+This was too much. Peer flung the book against the wall and told the
+other to clear out to the devil. When Klaus at last managed to get a
+word in, he said:
+
+“If you are to pass your entrance at the Technical you’ll have to have
+lessons--surely you can see that. You must get hold of a teacher.”
+
+“Easy for you to talk about teachers! Let me tell you my pay is twopence
+an hour.”
+
+“I’ll find you one who can take you twice a week or so in languages and
+history and mathematics. I daresay some broken-down sot of a student
+would take you on for sevenpence a lesson. You could run to that,
+surely?”
+
+Peer was quiet now and a little pensive. “Well, if I give up butter, and
+drink water instead of coffee--”
+
+Klaus laughed, but his eyes were moist. Hard luck that he couldn’t offer
+to lend his comrade a few shillings--but it wouldn’t do.
+
+So the summer passed. On Sundays Peer would watch the young folks
+setting out in the morning for the country, to spend the whole day
+wandering in the fields and woods, while he sat indoors over his books.
+And in the evening he would stick his head out of his two-paned window
+that looked on to the street, and would see the lads and girls coming
+back, flushed and noisy, with flowers and green boughs in their hats,
+crazy with sunshine and fresh air. And still he must sit and read on.
+But in the autumn, when the long nights set in, he would go for a walk
+through the streets before going to bed, as often as not up to the white
+wooden house where the manager lived. This was Klaus’s home. Lights in
+the windows, and often music; the happy people that lived here knew and
+could do all sorts of things that could never be learned from books. No
+mistake: he had a goodish way to go--a long, long way. But get there he
+would.
+
+One day Klaus happened to mention, quite casually, where Colonel Holm’s
+widow lived, and late one evening Peer made his way out there, and
+cautiously approached the house. It was in River Street, almost hidden
+in a cluster of great trees, and Peer stood there, leaning against the
+garden fence, trembling with some obscure emotion. The long rows of
+windows on both floors were lighted up; he could hear youthful laughter
+within, and then a young girl’s voice singing--doubtless they were
+having a party. Peer turned up his collar against the wind, and tramped
+back through the town to his lodging above the carter’s stable.
+
+For the lonely working boy Saturday evening is a sort of festival. He
+treats himself to an extra wash, gets out his clean underclothes from
+his chest, and changes. And the smell of the newly-washed underclothing
+calls up keenly the thought of a pock-marked old woman who sewed
+and patched it all, and laid it away so neatly folded. He puts it on
+carefully, feeling almost as if it were Sunday already.
+
+Now and again, when a Sunday seemed too long, Peer would drift into the
+nearest church. What the parson said was all very good, no doubt, but
+Peer did not listen; for him there were only the hymns, the organ, the
+lofty vaulted roof, the coloured windows. Here, too, the faces of the
+people looked otherwise than in the street without; touched, as it were,
+by some reflection from all that their thoughts aspired to reach. And
+it was so homelike here. Peer even felt a sort of kinship with them all,
+though every soul there was a total stranger.
+
+But at last one day, to his surprise, in the middle of a hymn, a voice
+within him whispered suddenly: “You should write to your sister. She’s
+as much alone in the world as you are.”
+
+And one evening Peer sat down and wrote. He took quite a lordly tone,
+saying that if she wanted help in any way, she need only let him know.
+And if she would care to move in to town, she could come and live with
+him. After which he remained, her affectionate brother, Peer Holm,
+engineer apprentice.
+
+A few days later there came a letter addressed in a fine slanting hand.
+Louise had just been confirmed. The farmer she was with wished to keep
+her on as dairymaid through the winter, but she was afraid the work
+would be too heavy for her. So she was coming in to town by the boat
+arriving on Sunday evening. With kind regards, his sister, Louise Hagen.
+
+Peer was rather startled. He seemed to have taken a good deal on his
+shoulders.
+
+On Sunday evening he put on his blue suit and stiff felt hat, and walked
+down to the quay. For the first time in his life he had some one else to
+look after--he was to be a father and benefactor from now on to some one
+worse off than himself. This was something new. The thought came back to
+him of the jolly gentleman who had come driving down one day to Troen to
+look after his little son. Yes, that was the way to do things; that was
+the sort of man he would be. And involuntarily he fell into something of
+his father’s look and step, his smile, his lavish, careless air. “Well,
+well--well, well--well, well,” he seemed saying to himself. He might
+almost, in his fancy, have had a neat iron-grey beard on his chin.
+
+The little green steamboat rounded the point and lay in to the quay,
+the gangways were run out, porters jumped aboard, and all the passengers
+came bundling ashore. Peer wondered how he was to know her, this sister
+whom he had never seen.
+
+The crowd on deck soon thinned, and people began moving off from the
+quay into the town.
+
+Then Peer was aware of a young peasant-girl, with a box in one hand and
+a violin-case in the other. She wore a grey dress, with a black kerchief
+over her fair hair; her face was pale, and finely cut. It was his
+mother’s face; his mother as a girl of sixteen. Now she was looking
+about her, and now her eyes rested on him, half afraid, half inquiring.
+
+“Is it you, Louise?”
+
+“Is that you, Peer?”
+
+They stood for a moment, smiling and measuring each other with their
+eyes, and then shook hands.
+
+Together they carried the box up through the town, and Peer was so much
+of a townsman already that he felt a little ashamed to find himself
+walking through the streets, holding one end of a trunk, with a
+peasant-girl at the other. And what a clatter her thick shoes made on
+the pavement! But all the time he was ashamed to feel ashamed. Those
+blue arch eyes of hers, constantly glancing up at him, what were they
+saying? “Yes, I have come,” they said--“and I’ve no one but you in all
+the world--and here I am,” they kept on saying.
+
+“Can you play that?” he asked, with a glance at her violin-case.
+
+“Oh well; my playing’s only nonsense,” she laughed. And she told how the
+old sexton she had been living with last had not been able to afford a
+new dress for her confirmation, and had given her the violin instead.
+
+“Then didn’t you have a new dress to be confirmed in?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But wasn’t it--didn’t you feel horrible, with the other girls standing
+by you all dressed up fine?”
+
+She shut her eyes for a moment. “Oh, yes--it WAS horrid,” she said.
+
+A little farther on she asked: “Were you boarded out at a lot of
+places?”
+
+“Five, I think.”
+
+“Pooh--why, that’s nothing. I was at nine, I was.” The girl was smiling
+again.
+
+When they came up to his room she stood for a moment looking round the
+place. It was hardly what she had expected to find. And she had not been
+in town lodgings before, and her nose wrinkled up a little as she smelt
+the close air. It seemed so stuffy, and so dark.
+
+“We’ll light the lamp,” he said.
+
+Presently she laughed a little shyly, and asked where she was to sleep.
+
+“Lord bless us, you may well ask!” Peer scratched his head. “There’s
+only one bed, you see.” At that they both burst out laughing.
+
+“The one of us’ll have to sleep on the floor,” suggested the girl.
+
+“Right. The very thing,” said he, delighted. “I’ve two pillows; you can
+have one. And two rugs--anyway, you won’t be cold.”
+
+“And then I can put on my other dress over,” she said. “And maybe you’ll
+have an old overcoat--”
+
+“Splendid! So we needn’t bother any more about that.”
+
+“But where do you get your food from?” She evidently meant to have
+everything cleared up at once.
+
+Peer felt rather ashamed that he hadn’t money enough to invite her to a
+meal at an eating-house then and there. But he had to pay his teacher’s
+fees the next day; and his store-box wanted refilling too.
+
+“I boil the coffee on the stove there overnight,” he said, “so that it’s
+all ready in the morning. And the dry food I keep in that box there.
+We’ll see about some supper now.” He opened the box, fished out a loaf
+and some butter, and put the kettle on the stove. She helped him to
+clear the papers off the table, and spread the feast on it. There was
+only one knife, but it was really much better fun that way than if he
+had had two. And soon they were seated on their chairs--they had a chair
+each--having their first meal in their own home, he and she together.
+
+It was settled that Louise should sleep on the floor, and they both
+laughed a great deal as he tucked her in carefully so that she shouldn’t
+feel cold. It was not till afterwards, when the lamp was out, that
+they noticed that the autumn gales had set in, and there was a loud
+north-wester howling over the housetops. And there they lay, chatting to
+each other in the dark, before falling asleep.
+
+It seemed a strange and new thing to Peer, this really having a relation
+of his own--and a girl, too--a young woman. There she lay on the floor
+near by him, and from now on he was responsible for what was to become
+of her in the world. How should he put that job through?
+
+He could hear her turning over. The floor was hard, very likely.
+
+“Louise?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did you ever see mother?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Or your father?”
+
+“My father?” She gave a little laugh.
+
+“Yes, haven’t you ever seen him either?”
+
+“Why, how should I, silly? Who says that mother knew herself who it
+was?”
+
+There was a pause. Then Peer brought out, rather awkwardly: “We’re all
+alone, then--you and I.”
+
+“Yes--we are that.”
+
+“Louise! What are you thinking of taking to now?”
+
+“What are you?”
+
+So Peer told her all his plans. She said nothing for a little while--no
+doubt she was lying thinking of the grand things he had before him.
+
+At last she spoke. “Do you think--does it cost very much to learn to be
+a midwife?”
+
+“A midwife--is that what you want to be, girl?” Peer couldn’t help
+laughing. So this was what she had been planning in these days--since he
+had offered to help her on in the world.
+
+“Do you think my hands are too big?” she ventured presently--he could
+just hear the whisper.
+
+Peer felt a pang of pity. He had noticed already how ill the red swollen
+hands matched her pale clear-cut face, and he knew that in the country,
+when any one has small, fine hands, people call them “midwife’s hands.”
+
+“We’ll manage it somehow, I daresay,” said Peer, turning round to the
+wall. He had heard that it cost several hundred crowns to go through the
+course at the midwifery school. It would be years before he could get
+together anything like that sum. Poor girl, it looked as if she would
+have a long time to wait.
+
+After that they fell silent. The north-wester roared over the housetops,
+and presently brother and sister were asleep.
+
+When Peer awoke the next morning, Louise was about already, making
+coffee over the little stove. Then she opened her box, took out a yellow
+petticoat and hung it on a nail, placed a pair of new shoes against the
+wall, lifted out some under-linen and woollen stockings, looked at them,
+and put them back again. The little box held all her worldly goods.
+
+As Peer was getting up: “Gracious mercy!” she cried suddenly, “what is
+that awful noise down in the yard?”
+
+“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about,” said Peer. “It’s only the
+job-master and his wife. They carry on like that every blessed morning;
+you’ll soon get used to it.”
+
+Soon they were seated once more at the little table, drinking coffee
+and laughing and looking at each other. Louise had found time to do her
+hair--the two fair plaits hung down over her shoulders.
+
+It was time for Peer to be off, and, warning the girl not to go too far
+from home and get lost, he ran down the stairs.
+
+At the works he met Klaus Brock, and told him that his sister had come
+to town.
+
+“But what are you going to do with her?” asked Klaus.
+
+“Oh, she’ll stay with me for the present.”
+
+“Stay with you? But you’ve only got one room and one bed, man!”
+
+“Well--she can sleep on the floor.”
+
+“She? Your sister? She’s to sleep on the floor--and you in the bed!”
+ gasped Klaus.
+
+Peer saw he had made a mistake again. “Of course I was only fooling,” he
+hastened to say. “Of course it’s Louise that’s to have the bed.”
+
+When he came home he found she had borrowed a frying-pan from the
+carter’s wife, and had fried some bacon and boiled potatoes; so that
+they sat down to a dinner fit for a prince.
+
+But when the girl’s eyes fell on the coloured print on the wall, and
+she asked if it was a painting, Peer became very grand at once. “That--a
+painting? Why, that’s only an oleograph, silly! No, I’ll take you along
+to the Art Gallery one day, and show you what real paintings are like.”
+ And he sat drumming with his fingers on the table, and saying: “Well,
+well--well, well, well!”
+
+They agreed that Louise had better look out at once for some work to
+help things along. And at the first eating-house they tried, she was
+taken on at once in the kitchen to wash the floor and peel potatoes.
+
+When bedtime came he insisted on Louise taking the bed. “Of course all
+that was only a joke last night,” he explained. “Here in town women
+always have the best of everything--that’s what’s called manners.” As he
+stretched himself on the hard floor, he had a strange new feeling. The
+narrow little garret seemed to have widened out now that he had to find
+room in it for a guest. There was something not unpleasant even in lying
+on the hard floor, since he had chosen to do it for some one else’s
+sake.
+
+After the lamp was out he lay for a while, listening to her breathing.
+Then at last:
+
+“Louise.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Is your father--was his name Hagen?”
+
+“Yes. It says so on the certificate.”
+
+“Then you’re Froken Hagen. Sounds quite fine, doesn’t it?”
+
+“Uf! Now you’re making fun of me.”
+
+“And when you’re a midwife, Froken Hagen might quite well marry a
+doctor, you know.”
+
+“Silly! There’s no chance--with hands like mine.”
+
+“Do you think your hands are too big for you to marry a doctor?”
+
+“Uf! you ARE a crazy thing. Ha-ha-ha!”
+
+“Ha-ha-ha!”
+
+They both snuggled down under the clothes, with the sense of ease and
+peace that comes from sharing a room with a good friend in a happy
+humour.
+
+“Well, good-night, Louise.”
+
+“Good-night, Peer.”
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+So things went on till winter was far spent. Now that Louise, too, was
+a wage-earner, and could help with the expenses, they could dine
+luxuriously at an eating-house every day, if they pleased, on meat-cakes
+at fourpence a portion. They managed to get a bed for Peer that could
+be folded up during the day, and soon learned, too, that good manners
+required they should hang up Louise’s big woollen shawl between them
+as a modest screen while they were dressing and undressing. And Louise
+began to drop her country speech and talk city-fashion like her brother.
+
+One thought often came to Peer as he lay awake. “The girl is the very
+image of mother, that’s certain--what if she were to go the same way?
+Well, no, that she shall not. You’re surely man enough to see to that.
+Nothing of that sort shall happen, my dear Froken Hagen.”
+
+They saw but little of each other during the day, though, for they were
+apart from early in the morning till he came home in the evening. And
+when he lectured her, and warned her to be careful and take no notice
+of men who tried to speak to her, Louise only laughed. When Klaus Brock
+came up one day to visit them, and made great play with his eyes while
+he talked to her, Peer felt much inclined to take him by the scruff of
+the neck and throw him downstairs.
+
+When Christmas-time was near they would wander in the long evenings
+through the streets and look in at the dazzlingly lit shop-windows, with
+their tempting, glittering show of gold and finery. Louise kept asking
+continually how much he thought this thing or that cost--that lace,
+or the cloak, or the stockings, or those gold brooches. “Wait till you
+marry that doctor,” Peer would say, “then you can buy all those
+things.” So far neither of them had an overcoat, but Peer turned up his
+coat-collar when he felt cold, and Louise made the most of her thick
+woollen dress and a pair of good country gloves that kept her quite
+warm. And she had adventured on a hat now, in place of her kerchief, and
+couldn’t help glancing round, thinking people must notice how fine she
+was.
+
+On Christmas Eve he carried up buckets of water from the yard, and she
+had a great scrubbing-out of the whole room. And then they in their
+turn had a good wash, helping each other in country fashion to scrub
+shoulders and back.
+
+Peer was enough of a townsman now to have laid in a few little presents
+to give his sister; but the girl, who had not been used to such doings,
+had nothing for him, and wept a good deal when she realised it. They ate
+cakes from the confectioner’s with syrup over them, and drank chocolate,
+and then Louise played a hymn-tune, in her best style, on her violin,
+and Peer read the Christmas lessons from the prayer-book--it was all
+just like what they used to do at Troen on Christmas Eve. And that
+night, after the lamp was put out, they lay awake talking over plans for
+the future. They promised each other that when they had got well on in
+the world, he in his line and she in hers, they would manage to live
+near each other, so that their children could play together and grow
+up good friends. Didn’t she think that was a good idea? Yes, indeed she
+did. And did he really mean it? Yes, of course he meant it, really.
+
+But later on in the winter, when she sat at home in the evenings waiting
+for him--he often worked overtime--she was sometimes almost afraid.
+There was his step on the stairs! If it was hurried and eager she would
+tremble a little. For the moment he was inside the door he would burst
+out: “Hurrah, my girl! I’ve learnt something new to-day, I tell you!”
+ “Have you, Peer?” And then out would pour a torrent of talk about
+motors and power and pressures and cylinders and cranes and screws, and
+such-like. She would sit and listen and smile, but of course understood
+not a word of it all, and as soon as Peer discovered this he would get
+perfectly furious, and call her a little blockhead.
+
+Then there were the long evenings when he sat at home reading, by
+himself or with his teacher and she had to sit so desperately still that
+she hardly dared take a stitch with her needle. But one day he took it
+into his head that his sister ought to be studying too; so he set her
+a piece of history to learn by the next evening. But time to learn
+it--where was that to come from? And then he started her writing to his
+dictation, to improve her spelling--and all the time she kept dropping
+off to sleep. She had washed so many floors and peeled so many potatoes
+in the daytime that now her body felt like lead.
+
+“Look here, my fine girl!” he would storm at her, raging up and down
+the room, “if you think you can get on in the world without education,
+you’re most infernally mistaken.” He succeeded in reducing her to
+tears--but it wasn’t long before her head had fallen forward on the
+table again and she was fast asleep. So he realised there was nothing
+for it but to help her to bed--as quietly as possible, so as not to wake
+her up.
+
+Some way on in the spring Peer fell sick. When the doctor came, he
+looked round the room, sniffed, and frowned. “Do you call this a place
+for human beings to live in?” he asked Louise, who had taken the day
+off. “How can you expect to keep well?”
+
+He examined Peer, who lay coughing, his face a burning red. “Yes,
+yes--just as I expected. Inflammation of the lungs.” He glanced round
+the room once more. “Better get him off to the hospital at once,” he
+said.
+
+Louise sat there in terror at the idea that Peer was to be taken away.
+And then, as the doctor was going, he looked at her more closely, and
+said: “You’d do well to be a bit careful yourself, my good girl. You
+look as if you wanted a change to a decent room, with a little more
+light and air, pretty badly. Good-morning.”
+
+Soon after he was gone the hospital ambulance arrived. Peer was carried
+down the stairs on a stretcher, and the green-painted box on wheels
+opened its door and swallowed him up; and they would not even let her go
+with him. All through the evening she sat in their room alone, sobbing.
+
+The hospital was one of the good old-fashioned kind that people don’t
+come near if they can help it, because the walls seem to reek of the
+discomfort and wretchedness that reign inside. The general wards--where
+the poor folks went--were always so overcrowded that patients with all
+sorts of different diseases had to be packed into the same rooms, and
+often infected each other. When an operation was to be performed, things
+were managed in the most cheerfully casual way: the patient was laid
+on a stretcher and carried across the open yard, often in the depth of
+winter, and as he was always covered up with a rug, the others usually
+thought he was being taken off to the dead-house.
+
+When Peer opened his eyes, he was aware of a man in a white blouse
+standing by the foot of his bed. “Why, I believe he’s coming-to,” said
+the man, who seemed to be a doctor. Peer found out afterwards from a
+nurse that he had been unconscious for more than twenty-four hours.
+
+He lay there, day after day, conscious of nothing but the stabbing of
+a red-hot iron boring through his chest and cutting off his breathing.
+Some one would come every now and then and pour port wine and naphtha
+into his mouth; and morning and evening he was washed carefully with
+warm water by gentle hands. But little by little the room grew lighter,
+and his gruel began to have some taste. And at last he began to
+distinguish the people in the beds near by, and to chat with them.
+
+On his right lay a black-haired, yellow-faced dock labourer with a
+broken nose. His disease, whatever it might be, was clearly different
+from Peer’s. He plagued the nurse with foul-mouthed complaints of
+the food, swearing he would report about it. On the other side lay an
+emaciated cobbler with a soft brown beard like the Christ pictures, and
+cheeks glowing with fever. He was dying of cancer. At right angles with
+him lay a man with the face and figure of a prophet--a Moses--all bushy
+white hair and beard; he was in the last stage of consumption, and his
+cough was like a riveting machine. “Huh!” he would groan, “if only I
+could get across to Germany there’d be a chance for me yet.” Beside him
+was a fellow with short beard and piercing eyes, who was a little off
+his head, and imagined himself a corporal of the Guards. Often at night
+the others would be wakened by his springing upright in bed and calling
+out: “Attention!”
+
+One man lay moaning and groaning all the time, turning from side to side
+of a body covered with sores. But one day he managed to swallow some of
+the alcohol they used as lotion, and after that lay singing and weeping
+alternately. And there was a red-bearded man with glasses, a commercial
+traveller; he had put a bullet into his head, but the doctors had
+managed to get it out again, and now he lay and praised the Lord for his
+miraculous deliverance.
+
+It was strange to Peer to lie awake at night in this great room in the
+dim light of the night-lamp; it seemed as if beings from the land of the
+dead were stirring in those beds round about him. But in the daytime,
+when friends and relations of the patients came a-visiting, Peer could
+hardly keep from crying. The cobbler had a wife and a little girl who
+came and sat beside him, gazing at him as if they could never let him
+go. The prophet, too, had a wife, who wept inconsolably--and all the
+rest seemed to have some one or other to care for them. But where was
+Louise--why did Louise never come?
+
+The man on the right had a sister, who came sweeping in, gorgeous in her
+trailing soiled silk dress. Her shoes were down at heel, but her hat was
+a wonder, with enormous plumes. “Hallo, Ugly! how goes it?” she said;
+and sat down and crossed her legs. Then the pair would talk mysteriously
+of people with strange names: “The Flea,” “Cockroach,” “The Galliot,”
+ “King Ring,” and the like, evidently friends of theirs. One day she
+managed to bring in a small bottle of brandy, a present from “The
+Hedgehog,” and smuggle it under the bedclothes. As soon as she had gone,
+and the coast was clear, Peer’s neighbour drew out the bottle, managed
+to work the cork out, and offered him a drink. “Here’s luck, sonny; do
+you good.” No--Peer would rather not. Then followed a gurgling sound
+from the docker’s bed, and soon he too was lying singing at the top of
+his voice.
+
+At last one day Louise came. She was wearing her neat hat, and had a
+little bundle in her hand, and as she came in, looking round the room,
+the close air of the sick-ward seemed to turn her a little faint. But
+then she caught sight of Peer, and smiled, and came cautiously to him,
+holding out her hand. She was astonished to find him so changed. But as
+she sat down by his pillow she was still smiling, though her eyes were
+full of tears.
+
+“So you’ve come at last, then?” said Peer.
+
+“They wouldn’t let me in before,” she said with a sob. And then Peer
+learned that she had come there every single day, but only to be told
+that he was too ill to see visitors.
+
+The man with the broken nose craned his head forward to get a better
+view of the modest young girl. And meanwhile she was pulling out of
+the bundle the offering she had brought--a bottle of lemonade and some
+oranges.
+
+But it was a day or two later that something happened which Peer was
+often to remember in the days to come.
+
+He had been dozing through the afternoon, and when he woke the lamp was
+lit, and a dull yellow half-light lay over the ward. The others seemed
+to be sleeping; all was very quiet, only the man with the sores was
+whimpering softly. Then the door opened, and Peer saw Louise glide in,
+softly and cautiously, with her violin-case under her arm. She did not
+come over to where her brother lay, but stood in the middle of the ward,
+and, taking out her violin, began to play the Easter hymn: “The mighty
+host in white array.” *
+
+
+     * “Den store hvide Flok vi se.”
+
+
+The man with the sores ceased whimpering; the patients in the beds round
+about opened their eyes. The docker with the broken nose sat up in bed,
+and the cobbler, roused from his feverish dream, lifted himself on his
+elbow and whispered: “It is the Redeemer. I knew Thou wouldst come.”
+ Then there was silence. Louise stood there with eyes fixed on her
+violin, playing her simple best. The consumptive raised his head and
+forgot to cough; the corporal slowly stiffened his body to attention;
+the commercial traveller folded his hands and stared before him. The
+simple tones of the hymn seemed to be giving new life to all these
+unfortunates; the light of it was in their faces. But to Peer, watching
+his sister as she stood there in the half-light, it seemed as if she
+grew to be one with the hymn itself, and that wings to soar were given
+her.
+
+When she had finished, she came softly over to his bed, stroked his
+forehead with her swollen hand, then glided out and disappeared as
+silently as she had come.
+
+For a long time all was silent in the dismal ward, until at last the
+dying cobbler murmured: “I thank Thee. I knew--I knew Thou wert not far
+away.”
+
+When Peer left the hospital, the doctor said he had better not begin
+work again at once; he should take a holiday in the country and pick up
+his strength. “Easy enough for you to talk,” thought Peer, and a couple
+of days later he was at the workshop again.
+
+But his ways with his sister were more considerate than before, and he
+searched about until he had found her a place as seamstress, and saved
+her from her heavy floor-scrubbing.
+
+And soon Louise began to notice with delight that her hands were much
+less red and swollen than they had been; they were actually getting soft
+and pretty by degrees.
+
+Next winter she sat at home in the evenings while he read, and made
+herself a dress and cloak and trimmed a new hat, so that Peer soon had
+quite an elegant young lady to walk out with. But when men turned round
+to look at her as she passed, he would scowl and clench his fists. At
+last one day this was too much for Louise, and she rebelled. “Now, Peer,
+I tell you plainly I won’t go out with you if you go on like that.”
+
+“All right, my girl,” he growled. “I’ll look after you, though, never
+fear. We’re not going to have mother’s story over again with you.”
+
+“Well, but, after all, I’m a grown-up-girl, and you can’t prevent people
+looking at me, idiot!”
+
+Klaus Brock had been entered at the Technical College that autumn,
+and went about now with the College badge in his cap, and sported a
+walking-stick and a cigarette. He had grown into a big, broad-shouldered
+fellow, and walked with a little swing in his step; a thick shock of
+black hair fell over his forehead, and he had a way of looking about him
+as if to say: “Anything the matter? All right, I’m ready!”
+
+One evening he came in and asked Louise to go with him to the theatre.
+The young girl blushed red with joy, and Peer could not refuse; but he
+was waiting for them outside the yard gate when they came back. On a
+Sunday soon after Klaus was there again, asking her to come out for a
+drive. This time she did not even look to Peer for leave, but said “yes”
+ at once. “Just you wait,” said Peer to himself. And when she came back
+that evening he read her a terrific lecture.
+
+Soon he could not help seeing that the girl was going about with
+half-shut eyes, dreaming dreams of which she would never speak to
+him. And as the days went on her hands grew whiter, and she moved more
+lightly, as if to the rhythm of unheard music. Always as she went about
+the room on her household tasks she was crooning some song; it seemed
+that there was some joy in her soul that must find an outlet.
+
+One Saturday in the late spring she had just come home, and was getting
+the supper, when Peer came tramping in, dressed in his best and carrying
+a parcel.
+
+“Hi, girl! Here you are! We’re going to have a rare old feast to-night.”
+
+“Why--what is it all about?”
+
+“I’ve passed my entrance exam for the Technical--hurrah! Next
+autumn--next autumn--I’ll be a student!”
+
+“Oh, splendid! I AM so glad!” And she dried her hand and grasped his.
+
+“Here you are--sausages, anchovies--and here’s a bottle of brandy--the
+first I ever bought in my life. Klaus is coming up later on to have a
+glass of toddy. And here’s cheese. We’ll make things hum to-night.”
+
+Klaus came, and the two youths drank toddy and smoked and made speeches,
+and Louise played patriotic songs on her violin, and Klaus gazed at her
+and asked for “more--more.”
+
+When he left, Peer went with him, and as the two walked down the street,
+Klaus took his friend’s arm, and pointed to the pale moon riding high
+above the fjord, and vowed never to give him up, till he stood at the
+very top of the tree--never, never! Besides, he was a Socialist now, he
+said, and meant to raise a revolt against all class distinctions. And
+Louise--Louise was the most glorious girl in all the world--and now--and
+now--Peer might just as well know it sooner as later--they were as good
+as engaged to be married, he and Louise.
+
+Peer pushed him away, and stood staring at him. “Go home now, and go to
+bed,” he said.
+
+“Ha! You think I’m not man enough to defy my people--to defy the whole
+world!”
+
+“Good-night,” said Peer.
+
+Next morning, as Louise lay in bed--she had asked to have her breakfast
+there for once in a way--she suddenly began to laugh. “What ARE you
+about now?” she asked teasingly.
+
+“Shaving,” said Peer, beginning operations.
+
+“Shaving! Are you so desperate to be grand to-day that you must scrape
+all your skin off? You know there’s nothing else to shave.”
+
+“You hold your tongue. Little do you know what I’ve got in front of me
+to-day.”
+
+“What can it be? You’re not going courting an old widow with twelve
+children, are you?”
+
+“If you want to know, I’m going to that schoolmaster fellow, and going
+to wring my savings-bank book out of him.”
+
+Louise sat up at this. “My great goodness!” she said.
+
+Yes; he had been working himself up to this for a year or more, and now
+he was going to do it. To-day he would show what he was made of--whether
+he was a snivelling child, or a man that could stand up to any
+dressing-gown in the world. He was shaving for the first time--quite
+true. And the reason was that it was no ordinary day, but a great
+occasion.
+
+His toilet over, he put on his best hat with a flourish, and set out.
+
+Louise stayed at home all the morning, waiting for his return. And at
+last she heard him on the stairs.
+
+“Puh!” he said, and stood still in the middle of the room.
+
+“Well? Did you get it?”
+
+He laughed, wiped his forehead, and drew a green-covered book from his
+coat-pocket. “Here we are, my girl--there’s fifty crowns a month for
+three years. It’s going to be a bit of a pinch, with fees and books, and
+living and clothes into the bargain. But we’ll do it. Father was one of
+the right sort, I don’t care what they say.”
+
+“But how did you manage it? What did the schoolmaster say?”
+
+“‘Do you suppose that you--you with your antecedents--could ever pass
+into the Technical College?’ he said. And I told him I HAD passed. ‘Good
+heavens! How could you possibly qualify?’ and he shifted his glasses
+down his nose. And then: ‘Oh, no! it’s no good coming here with tales of
+that sort, my lad.’ Well, then I showed him the certificate, and he got
+much meeker. ‘Really!’ he said, and ‘Dear me!’ and all that. But I say,
+Louise--there’s another Holm entered for the autumn term.”
+
+“Peer, you don’t mean--your half-brother?”
+
+“And old Dressing-gown said it would never do--never! But I said it
+seemed to me there must be room in the world for me as well, and I’d
+like that bank book now, I said. ‘You seem to fancy you have some legal
+right to it,’ he said, and got perfectly furious. Then I hinted that
+I’d rather ask a lawyer about it and make sure, and at that he regularly
+boiled with rage and waved his arms all about. But he gave in pretty
+soon all the same--said he washed his hands of the whole thing.
+‘And besides,’ he said, ‘your name’s Troen, you know--Peer Troen.’
+Ho-ho-ho--Peer Troen! Wouldn’t he like it! Tra-la-la-la!--I say, let’s
+go out and get a little fresh air.”
+
+Peer said nothing then or after about Klaus Brock, and Klaus himself was
+going off home for the summer holidays. As the summer wore on the town
+lay baking in the heat, reeking of drains, and the air from the stable
+came up to the couple in the garret so heavy and foul that they were
+sometimes nearly stifled.
+
+“I’ll tell you what,” said Peer one day, “we really must spend a few
+shillings more on house rent and get a decent place to live in.”
+
+And Louise agreed. For till the time came for him to join the College
+in the autumn, Peer was obliged to stick to the workshops; he could not
+afford a holiday just now.
+
+One morning he was just starting with a working gang down to Stenkjaer
+to repair some damage in the engine-room of a big Russian grain boat,
+when Louise came and asked him to look at her throat. “It hurts so
+here,” she said.
+
+Peer took a spoon and pressed down her tongue, but could not see
+anything wrong. “Better go and see the doctor, and make sure,” he said.
+
+But the girl made light of it. “Oh, nonsense!” she said; “it’s not worth
+troubling about.”
+
+Peer was away for over a week, sleeping on board with the rest. When
+he came back, he hurried home, suddenly thinking of Louise and her sore
+throat. He found the job-master greasing the wheels of a carriage, while
+his wife leaned out of a window scolding at him. “Your sister,”
+ repeated the carter, turning round his face with its great red lump of
+nose--“she’s gone to hospital--diphtheria hospital--she has. Doctor was
+here over a week ago and took her off. They’ve been here since poking
+round and asking who she was and where she belonged--well, we didn’t
+know. And asking where you were, too--and we didn’t know either. She was
+real bad, if you ask me--”
+
+Peer hastened off. It was a hot day, and the air was close and heavy.
+On he went--all down the whole length of Sea Street, through the
+fishermen’s quarter, and a good way further out round the bay. And then
+he saw a cart coming towards him, an ordinary work-cart, with a coffin
+on it. The driver sat on the cart, and another man walked behind, hat in
+hand. Peer ran on, and at last came in sight of the long yellow building
+at the far end of the bay. He remembered all the horrible stories he had
+heard about the treatment of diphtheria patients--how their throats had
+to be cut open to give them air, or something burned out of them with
+red-hot irons--oh! When at last he had reached the high fence and rung
+the bell, he stood breathless and dripping with sweat, leaning against
+the gate.
+
+There was a sound of steps within, a key was turned, and a porter with a
+red moustache and freckles about his hard blue eyes thrust out his head.
+
+“What d’you want to go ringing like that for?”
+
+“Froken Hagen--Louise Hagen--is she better? How--how is she?”
+
+“Lou--Louise Hagen? A girl called Louise Hagen? Is it her you’ve come to
+ask about?”
+
+“Yes. She’s my sister. Tell me--or--let me in to see her.”
+
+“Wait a bit. You don’t mean a girl that was brought in here about a week
+ago?”
+
+“Yes, yes--but let me in.”
+
+“We’ve had no end of bother and trouble about that girl, trying to find
+out where she came from, and if she had people here. But, of course,
+this weather, we couldn’t possibly keep her any longer. Didn’t you meet
+a coffin on a cart as you came along?”
+
+“What--what--you don’t mean--?”
+
+“Well, you should have come before, you know. She did ask a lot for some
+one called Peer. And she got the matron to write somewhere--wasn’t it to
+Levanger? Were you the fellow she was asking for? So you came at last!
+Oh, well--she died four or five days ago. And they’re just gone now to
+bury her, in St. Mary’s Churchyard.”
+
+Peer turned round and looked out over the bay at the town, that lay
+sunlit and smoke-wreathed beyond. Towards the town he began to walk, but
+his step grew quicker and quicker, and at last he took off his cap
+and ran, panting and sobbing as he went. Have I been drinking? was the
+thought that whirled through his brain, or why can’t I wake? What is
+it? What is it? And still he ran. There was no cart in sight as yet; the
+little streets of the fisher-quarter were all twists and turns. At last
+he reached Sea Street once more, and there--there far ahead was
+the slow-moving cart. Almost at once it turned off to the right and
+disappeared, and when Peer reached the turning, it was not to be seen.
+Still he ran on at haphazard. There seemed to be other people in the
+streets--children flying red balloons, women with baskets, men with
+straw hats and walking-sticks. But Peer marked his line, and ran
+forward, thrusting people aside, upsetting those in his way, and dashing
+on again. In King Street he came in sight of the cart once more, nearer
+this time. The man walking behind it with his hat in his hand had red
+curling hair, and walked with a curtsying gait, giving at the knees and
+turning out his toes. No doubt he made his living as mourner at funerals
+to which no other mourners came. As the cart turned into the churchyard
+Peer came up with it, and tried to follow at a walk, but stumbled and
+could hardly keep his feet. The man behind the cart looked at him.
+“What’s the matter with you?” he asked. The driver looked round, but
+drove on again at once.
+
+The cart stopped, and Peer stood by, leaning against a tree for support.
+A third man came up--he seemed to be the gravedigger--and he heard the
+three discussing how long they might have to wait for the parson. “The
+time’s just about up, isn’t it?” said the driver, taking out his watch.
+“Ay, the clerk said he’d be here by now,” agreed the gravedigger, and
+blew his nose.
+
+Soon the priest came in sight, wearing his black robe and white ruff;
+there were doubtless to be other funerals that day. Peer sank down on a
+bench and looked stupidly on while the coffin was lifted from the cart,
+carried to the grave, and lowered down. A man with spectacles and a red
+nose came up with a hymn-book, and sang something over the grave. The
+priest lifted the spade--and at the sound of the first spadeful of earth
+falling on Louise’s coffin, Peer started as if struck, and all but fell
+from his seat.
+
+When he looked up again, the place was deserted. The bell was ringing,
+and a crowd was collecting in another part of the churchyard. Peer sat
+where he was, quite still.
+
+In the evening, when the gravedigger came to lock the gates, he had
+to take the young man by the shoulder and shake him to his senses.
+“Locking-up time,” he said. “You must go now.”
+
+Peer rose and tried to walk, and by and by he was stumbling blindly out
+through the gate and down the street. And after a time he found himself
+climbing a flight of stairs above a stable-yard. Once in his room, he
+flung himself down on the bed as he was, and lay there still.
+
+The close heat of the day had broken in a downpour of rain, which
+drummed upon the roof above his head, and poured in torrents through the
+gutters. Instinctively Peer started up: Louise was out in the rain--she
+would need her cloak. He was on his feet in a moment, as if to find
+it--then he stopped short, and sank slowly back upon the bed.
+
+He drew up his feet under him, and buried his head in his arms. His
+brain was full of changing, hurrying visions, of storm and death, of
+human beings helpless in a universe coldly and indifferently ruled by a
+will that knows no pity.
+
+Then for the first time it was as if he lifted up his head against
+Heaven itself and cried: “There is no sense in all this. I will not bear
+it.”
+
+Later in the night, when he found himself mechanically folding his hands
+for the evening prayer he had learnt to say as a child, he suddenly
+burst out laughing, and clenched his fists, and cried aloud: “No, no,
+no--never--never again.”
+
+Once more it came to him that there was something in God like the
+schoolmaster--He took the side of those who were well off already. “Yes,
+they who have parents and home and brothers and sisters and worldly
+goods--them I protect and care for. But here’s a boy alone in the world,
+struggling and fighting his way on as best he can--from him I will
+take the only thing he has. That boy is nothing to any one. Let him be
+punished because he is poor, and cast down to the earth, for there is
+none to care for him. That boy is nothing to any one--nothing.” Oh, oh,
+oh!--he clenched his fists and beat them against the wall.
+
+His whole little world was broken to pieces. Either God did not exist at
+all, or He was cold and pitiless--one way of it was as bad as the other.
+The heavenly country dissolved into cloud and melted away, and above
+was nothing but empty space. No more folding of your hands, like a fool!
+Walk on the earth, and lift up your head, and defy Heaven and fate,
+as you defied the schoolmaster. Your mother has no need of you to save
+her--she is not anywhere any more. She is dead--dead and turned to clay;
+and more than that there is not, for her or for you or any other being
+in this world.
+
+Still he lay there. He would fain have slept, but seemed instead to sink
+into a vague far-away twilight that rocked him--rocked him on its dark
+and golden waves. And now he heard a sound--what was it? A violin. “The
+mighty host in white array.” Louise--is it you--and playing? He could
+see her now, out there in the twilight. How pale she was! But still she
+played. And now he understood what that twilight was.
+
+It was a world beyond the consciousness of daily life--and that
+world belonged to him. “Peer, let me stay here.” And something in him
+answered: “Yes, you shall stay, Louise. Even though there is no God and
+no immortality, you shall stay here.” And then she smiled. And still she
+played. And it was as though he were building a little vaulted chapel
+for her in defiance of Heaven and of God--as though he were ringing
+out with his own hands a great eternal chime for her sake. What was
+happening to him? There was none to comfort him, yet it ended, as he
+lay there, with his pouring out something of his innermost being, as an
+offering to all that lives, to the earth and the stars, until all seemed
+rocking, rocking with him on the stately waves of the psalm. He lay
+there with fast-closed eyes, stretching out his hands as though afraid
+to wake, and find it all nothing but a beautiful dream.
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+The two-o’clock bell at the Technical College had just begun to ring,
+and a stream of students appeared out of the long straggling buildings
+and poured through the gate, breaking up then into little knots and
+groups that went their several ways into the town.
+
+It was a motley crowd of young men of all ages from seventeen to thirty
+or more. Students of the everlasting type, sent here by their parents as
+a last resource, for--“he can always be an engineer”; young sparks who
+paid more attention to their toilet than their books, and hoped to
+“get through somehow” without troubling to work; and stiff youths of
+soldierly bearing, who had been ploughed for the Army, but who likewise
+could “always be engineers.” There were peasant-lads who had crammed
+themselves through their Intermediate at a spurt, and now wore the
+College cap above their rough grey homespun, and dreamed of getting
+through in no time, and turning into great men with starched cuffs and
+pince-nez. There were pale young enthusiasts, too, who would probably
+end as actors; and there were also quondam actors, killed by the
+critics, but still sufficiently alive, it seemed, “to be engineers.” And
+as the young fellows hurried on their gay and careless way through the
+town, an older man here and there might look round after them with a
+smile of some sadness. It was easy to say what fate awaited most of
+them. College ended, they would be scattered like birds of passage
+throughout the wide world, some to fall by sunstroke in Africa, or
+be murdered by natives in China, others to become mining kings in the
+mountains of Peru, or heads of great factories in Siberia, thousands of
+miles from home and friends. The whole planet was their home. Only a few
+of them--not always the shining lights--would stay at home, with a post
+on the State railways, to sit in an office and watch their salaries
+mount by increments of L12 every fifth year.
+
+“That’s a devil of a fellow, that brother of yours that’s here,” said
+Klaus Brock to Peer one day, as they were walking into town together
+with their books under their arms.
+
+“Now, look here, Klaus, once for all, be good enough to stop calling
+him my brother. And another thing--you’re never to say a word to any one
+about my father having been anything but a farmer. My name’s Holm, and
+I’m called so after my father’s farm. Just remember that, will you?”
+
+“Oh, all right. Don’t excite yourself.”
+
+“Do you suppose I’d give that coxcomb the triumph of thinking I want to
+make up to him?”
+
+“No, no, of course not.” Klaus shrugged his shoulders and walked on,
+whistling.
+
+“Or that I want to make trouble for that fine family of his? No, I may
+find a way to take it out of him some day, but it won’t be that way.”
+
+“Well, but, damn it, man! you can surely stand hearing what people say
+about him.” And Klaus went on to tell his story. Ferdinand Holm, it
+seemed, was the despair of his family. He had thrown up his studies
+at the Military Academy, because he thought soldiers and soldiering
+ridiculous. Then he had made a short experiment with theology, but found
+that worse still; and finally, having discovered that engineering was
+at any rate an honest trade, he had come to anchor at the Technical
+College. “What do you say to that?” asked Klaus.
+
+“I don’t see anything so remarkable about it.”
+
+“Wait a bit, the cream of the story’s to come. A few weeks ago he
+thrashed a policeman in the street--said he’d insulted a child, or
+something. There was a fearful scandal--arrest, the police-court, fine,
+and so forth. And last winter what must he do but get engaged, formally
+and publicly engaged, to one of his mother’s maids. And when his mother
+sent the girl off behind his back, he raised the standard of revolt
+and left home altogether. And now he does nothing but breathe fire and
+slaughter against the upper classes and all their works. What do you say
+to that?”
+
+“My good man, what the deuce has all this got to do with me?”
+
+“Well, I think it’s confoundedly plucky of him, anyhow,” said Klaus.
+“And for my part I shall get to know him if I can. He’s read an awful
+lot, they say, and has a damned clever head on his shoulders.”
+
+On his very first day at the College, Peer had learned who Ferdinand
+Holm was, and had studied him with interest. He was a tall,
+straight-built fellow with reddish-blond hair and freckled face, and
+wore a dark tortoiseshell pince-nez. He did not wear the usual College
+cap, but a stiff grey felt hat, and he looked about four or five and
+twenty.
+
+“Wait!” thought Peer to himself--“wait, my fine fellow! Yes, you were
+there, no doubt, when they turned me out of the churchyard that day. But
+all that won’t help you here. You may have got the start of me at first,
+and learned this, that, and the other, but--you just wait.”
+
+But one morning, out in the quadrangle, he noticed that Ferdinand Holm
+in his turn was looking at him, in fact was putting his glasses straight
+to get a better view of him--and Peer turned round at once and walked
+away.
+
+Ferdinand, however, had been put into a higher class almost at once, on
+the strength of his matriculation. Also he was going in for a different
+branch of the work--roads and railway construction--so that it was only
+in the quadrangle and the passages that the two ever met.
+
+But one afternoon, soon after Christmas, Peer was standing at work in
+the big designing-room, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning
+round, saw Klaus Brock and--Ferdinand Holm.
+
+“I wanted to make your acquaintance,” said Holm, and when Klaus had
+introduced them, he held out a large white hand with a red seal-ring on
+the first finger. “We’re namesakes, I understand, and Brock here tells
+me you take your name from a country place called Holm.”
+
+“Yes. My father was a plain country farmer,” said Peer, and at once felt
+annoyed with himself for the ring of humility the words seemed to have.
+
+“Well, the best is good enough,” said the other with a smile. “I say,
+though, has the first-term class gone as far as this in projection
+drawing? Excuse my asking. You see, we had a good deal of this sort of
+thing at the Military Academy, so that I know a little about it.”
+
+Thought Peer: “Oh, you’d like to give me a little good advice,
+would you, if you dared?” Aloud he said: “No, the drawing was on the
+blackboard--the senior class left it there--and I thought I’d like to
+see what I could make out of it.”
+
+The other sent him a sidelong glance. Then he nodded, said,
+“Good-bye--hope we shall meet again,” and walked off, his boots creaking
+slightly as he went. His easy manners, his gait, the tone of his voice,
+all seemed to irritate and humiliate Peer. Never mind--just let him
+wait!
+
+Days passed, and weeks. Peer soon found another object to work for
+than getting the better of Ferdinand Holm. Louise’s dresses hung still
+untouched in his room, her shoes stood under the bed; it still seemed
+to him that some day she must open the door and walk in. And when he
+lay there alone at night, the riddle was always with him: Where is she
+now?--why should she have died?--would he never meet her again? He saw
+her always as she had stood that day playing to the sick folks in the
+hospital ward. But now she was dressed in white. And it seemed quite
+natural now that she had wings. He heard her music too--it cradled and
+rocked him. And all this came to be a little world apart, where he could
+take refuge for Sunday peace and devotion. It had nothing to do with
+faith or religion, but it was there. And sometimes in the midst of
+his work in the daytime he would divine, as in a quite separate
+consciousness, the tones of a fiddle-bow drawn across the strings, like
+reddish waves coming to him from far off, filling him with harmony, till
+he smiled without knowing it.
+
+Often, though, a sort of hunger would come upon him to let his being
+unfold in a great wide wave of organ music in the church. But to church
+he never went any more. He would stride by a church door with a kind of
+defiance. It might indeed be an Almighty Will that had taken Louise from
+him, but if so he did not mean to give thanks to such a Will or bow
+down before it. It was as though he had in view a coming reckoning--his
+reckoning with something far out in eternity--and he must see to it that
+when that time came he could feel free--free.
+
+On Sunday mornings, when the church bells began to ring, he would
+turn hastily to his books, as if to find peace in them.
+Knowledge--knowledge--could it stay his hunger for the music of the
+hymn? When he had first started work at the shops, he had often and
+often stood wide-eyed before some miracle--now he was gathering the
+power to work miracles himself. And so he read and read, and drank in
+all that he could draw from teacher or book, and thought and thought
+things out for himself. Fixed lessons and set tasks were all well
+enough, but Peer was for ever looking farther; for him there were
+questions and more questions, riddles and new riddles--always new,
+always farther and farther on, towards the unknown. He had made as yet
+but one step forward in physics, mathematics, chemistry; he divined that
+there were worlds still before him, and he must hasten on, on, on. Would
+the day ever come when he should reach the end? What is knowledge? What
+use do men make of all that they have learned? Look at the teachers, who
+knew so much--were they greater, richer, brighter beings than the rest?
+Could much study bring a man so far that some night he could lift up a
+finger and make the stars themselves break into song? Best drive ahead,
+at any rate. But, again, could knowledge lead on to that ecstasy of the
+Sunday psalm, that makes all riddles clear, that bears a man upwards
+in nameless happiness, in which his soul expands till it can enfold the
+infinite spaces? Well, at any rate the best thing was to drive ahead,
+drive ahead both early and late.
+
+One day that spring, when the trees in the city avenues were beginning
+to bud, Klaus Brock and Ferdinand Holm were sitting in a cafe in North
+Street. “There goes your friend,” said Ferdinand; and looking from the
+window they saw Peer Holm passing the post-office on the other side of
+the road. His clothes were shabby, his shoes had not been cleaned, he
+walked slowly, his fair head with its College cap bent forward, but
+seemed nevertheless to notice all that was going on in the street.
+
+“Wonder what he’s going pondering over now,” said Klaus.
+
+“Look there--I suppose that’s a type of carriage he’s never seen before.
+Why, he has got the driver to stop--”
+
+“I wouldn’t mind betting he’ll crawl in between the wheels to find out
+whatever he’s after,” laughed Klaus, drawing back from the window so as
+not to be seen.
+
+“He looks pale and fagged out,” said Ferdinand, shifting his glasses. “I
+suppose his people aren’t very well off?”
+
+Klaus opened his eyes and looked at the other. “He’s not overburdened
+with cash, I fancy.”
+
+They drank off their beer, and sat smoking and talking of other things,
+until Ferdinand remarked casually: “By the way--about your friend--are
+his parents still alive?”
+
+Klaus was by no means anxious to go into Peer’s family affairs, and
+answered briefly--No, he thought not.
+
+“I’m afraid I’m boring you with questions, but the fact is the
+fellow interests me rather. There is something in his face,
+something--arresting. Even the way he walks--where is it I’ve seen some
+one walk like that before? And he works like a steam-engine, I hear?”
+
+“Works!” repeated Klaus. “He’ll ruin his health before long, the way he
+goes on grinding. I believe he’s got an idea that by much learning he
+can learn at last to--Ha-ha-ha!”
+
+“To do what?”
+
+“Why--to understand God!”
+
+Ferdinand was staring out of the window. “Funny enough,” he said.
+
+“I ran across him last Sunday, up among the hills. He was out studying
+geology, if you please. And if there’s a lecture anywhere about
+anything--whether it’s astronomy or a French poet--you can safely swear
+he’ll be sitting there, taking notes. You can’t compete with a fellow
+like that! He’ll run across a new name somewhere--Aristotle, for
+instance. It’s something new, and off he must go to the library to look
+it up. And then he’ll lie awake for nights after, stuffing his head with
+translations from the Greek. How the deuce can any one keep up with
+a man who goes at things that way? There’s one thing, though, that he
+knows nothing about.”
+
+“And that is?”
+
+“Well, wine and women, we’ll say--and fun in general. One thing he
+isn’t, by Jove!--and that’s YOUNG.”
+
+“Perhaps he’s not been able to afford that sort of thing,” said
+Ferdinand, with something like a sigh.
+
+The two sat on for some time, and every now and then, when Klaus was off
+his guard, Ferdinand would slip in another little question about Peer.
+And by the time they had finished their second glass, Klaus had admitted
+that people said Peer’s mother had been a--well--no better than she
+should be.
+
+“And what about his father?” Ferdinand let fall casually.
+
+Klaus flushed uncomfortably at this. “Nobody--no--nobody knows much
+about him,” he stammered. “I’d tell you if I knew, hanged if I wouldn’t.
+No one has an idea who it was. He--he’s very likely in America.”
+
+“You’re always mighty mysterious when you get on the subject of his
+family, I’ve noticed,” said Ferdinand with a laugh. But Klaus thought
+his companion looked a little pale.
+
+A few days later Peer was sitting alone in his room above the stables,
+when he heard a step on the stairs, the door opened, and Ferdinand Holm
+walked in.
+
+Peer rose involuntarily and grasped at the back of his chair as if to
+steady himself. If this young coxcomb had come--from the schoolmaster,
+for instance--or to take away his name--why, he’d just throw him
+downstairs, that was all.
+
+“I thought I’d like to look you up, and see where you lived,” began
+the visitor, laying down his hat and taking a seat. “I’ve taken you
+unawares, I see. Sorry to disturb you. But the fact is there’s something
+I wanted to speak to you about.”
+
+“Oh, is there?” and Peer sat down as far as conveniently possible from
+the other.
+
+“I’ve noticed, even in the few times we’ve happened to meet, that you
+don’t like me. Well, you know, that’s a thing I’m not going to put up
+with.”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked Peer, hardly knowing whether to laugh or not.
+
+“I want to be friends with you, that’s all. You probably know a good
+deal more about me than I do about you, but that need not matter.
+Hullo--do you always drum with your fingers on the table like that?
+Ha-ha-ha! Why, that was a habit of my father’s, too.”
+
+Peer stared at the other in silence. But his fingers stopped drumming.
+
+“I rather envy you, you know, living as you do. When you come to be a
+millionaire, you’ll have an effective background for your millions. And
+then, you must know a great deal more about life than we do; and the
+knowledge that comes out of books must have quite another spiritual
+value for you than for the rest of us, who’ve been stuffed mechanically
+with ‘lessons’ and ‘education’ and so forth since we were kids. And now
+you’re going in for engineering?”
+
+“Yes,” said Peer. His face added pretty clearly, “And what concern is it
+of yours?”
+
+“Well, it does seem to me that the modern technician is a priest in
+his way--or no, perhaps I should rather call him a descendant of old
+Prometheus. Quite a respectable ancestry, too, don’t you think? But has
+it ever struck you that with every victory over nature won by the human
+spirit, a fragment of their omnipotence is wrested from the hands of
+the gods? I always feel as if we were using fire and steel, mechanical
+energy and human thought, as weapons of revolt against the Heavenly
+tyranny. The day will come when we shall no longer need to pray.
+The hour will strike when the Heavenly potentates will be forced to
+capitulate, and in their turn bend the knee to us. What do you think
+yourself? Jehovah doesn’t like engineers--that’s MY opinion.”
+
+“Sounds very well,” said Peer briefly. But he had to admit to himself
+that the other had put into words something that had been struggling for
+expression in his own mind.
+
+“Of course for the present we two must be content with smaller things,”
+ Ferdinand went on. “And I don’t mind admitting that laying out a bit of
+road, or a bit of railway, or bridging a ditch or so, isn’t work that
+appeals to me tremendously. But if a man can get out into the wide
+world, there are things enough to be done that give him plenty of chance
+to develop what’s in him--if there happens to be anything. I used
+to envy the great soldiers, who went about to the ends of the earth,
+conquering wild tribes and founding empires, organising and civilising
+where they went. But in our day an engineer can find big jobs too, once
+he gets out in the world--draining thousands of square miles of swamp,
+or regulating the Nile, or linking two oceans together. That’s the sort
+of thing I’m going to take a hand in some day. As soon as I’ve finished
+here, I’m off. And we’ll leave it to the engineers to come, say in a
+couple of hundred years or so, to start in arranging tourist routes
+between the stars. Do you mind my smoking?”
+
+“No, please do,” said Peer. “But I’m sorry I haven’t--”
+
+“I have--thanks all the same.” Ferdinand took out his cigar-case, and
+when Peer had declined the offered cigar, lit one himself.
+
+“Look here,” he said, “won’t you come out and have dinner with me
+somewhere?”
+
+Peer started at his visitor. What did all this mean?
+
+“I’m a regular Spartan, as a rule, but they’ve just finished dividing up
+my father’s estate, so I’m in funds for the moment, and why shouldn’t
+we have a little dinner to celebrate? If you want to change, I can wait
+outside--but come just as you are, of course, if you prefer.”
+
+Peer was more and more perplexed. Was there something behind all this?
+Or was the fellow simply an astonishingly good sort? Giving it up at
+last, he changed his collar and put on his best suit and went.
+
+For the first time in his life he found himself in a first-class
+restaurant, with small tables covered with snow-white tablecloths,
+flowers in vases, napkins folded sugar-loaf shape, cut-glass bowls, and
+coloured wine-glasses. Ferdinand seemed thoroughly at home, and treated
+his companion with a friendly politeness. And during the meal he managed
+to make the talk turn most of the time on Peer’s childhood and early
+days.
+
+When they had come to the coffee and cigars, Ferdinand leaned across the
+table towards him, and said: “Look here, don’t you think we two ought to
+say thee and thou* to each other?”
+
+
+     * “Tutoyer,” the mode of address of intimate friendship or
+     relationship.
+
+
+“Oh, yes!” said Peer, really touched now.
+
+“We’re both Holms, you know.”
+
+“Yes. So we are.”
+
+“And, after all, who knows that there mayn’t be some sort of connection?
+Come, now, don’t look like that! I only want you to look on me as your
+good friend, and to come to me if ever there’s anything I can do. We
+needn’t live in each other’s pockets, of course, when other people are
+by--but we must take in Klaus Brock along with us, don’t you think?”
+
+Peer felt a strong impulse to run away. Did the other know everything?
+If so, why didn’t he speak straight out?
+
+As the two walked home in the clear light of the spring evening,
+Ferdinand took his companion’s arm, and said: “I don’t know if you’ve
+heard that I’m not on good terms with my people at home. But the very
+first time I saw you, I had a sort of feeling that we two belonged
+together. Somehow you seemed to remind me so of--well, to tell the
+truth, of my father. And he, let me tell you, was a gallant gentleman--”
+
+Peer did not answer, and the matter went no farther then.
+
+But the next few days were an exciting time for Peer. He could not
+quite make out how much Ferdinand knew, and nothing on earth would
+have induced him to say anything more himself. And the other asked no
+questions, but was just a first-rate comrade, behaving as if they had
+been friends for years. He did not even ask Peer any more about his
+childhood, and never again referred to his own family. Peer was always
+reminding himself to be on his guard, but could not help feeling glad
+all the same whenever they were to meet.
+
+He was invited one evening, with Klaus, to a wine-party at Ferdinand’s
+lodging, and found himself in a handsomely furnished room, with pictures
+on the walls, and photographs of his host’s parents. There was one of
+his father as a young man, in uniform; another of his grandfather, who
+had been a Judge of the Supreme Court. “It’s very good of you to be
+so interested in my people,” said Ferdinand with a smile. Klaus Brock
+looked from one to the other, wondering to himself how things really
+stood between the two.
+
+The summer vacation came round, and the students prepared to break up
+and go their various ways. Klaus was to go home. And one day Ferdinand
+came to Peer and said: “Look here, old man. I want you to do me a great
+favour. I’d arranged to go to the seaside this summer, but I’ve a
+chance of going up to the hills, too. Well, I can’t be in two places
+at once--couldn’t you take on one of them for me? Of course I’d pay
+all expenses.” “No, thank you!” said Peer, with a laugh. But when Klaus
+Brock came just before leaving and said: “See here, Peer. Don’t you
+think you and I might club together and put a marble slab over--Louise’s
+grave?”, Peer was touched, and clapped him on the shoulder. “What a good
+old fellow you are, Klaus,” he said.
+
+Later in the summer Peer set out alone on a tramp through the country,
+and whenever he saw a chance, he would go up to one of the farms and
+say: “Would you like to have a good map of the farm? It’ll cost ten
+crowns and my lodging while I’m at it.” It made a very pleasant holiday
+for him, and he came home with a little money in his pocket to boot.
+
+His second year at the school was much like the first. He plodded along
+at his work. And now and then his two friends would come and drag him
+off for an evening’s jollification. But after he had been racketing
+about with the others, singing and shouting through the sleeping
+town--and at last was alone and in his bed in the darkness, another and
+a very different life began for him, face to face with his innermost
+self. Where are you heading for, Peer? What are you aiming at in
+all your labours? And he would try to answer devoutly, as at evening
+prayers: Where? Why, of course, I am going to be a great engineer. And
+then? I will be one of the Sons of Prometheus, that head the revolt
+against the tyranny of Heaven. And then? I will help to raise the great
+ladder on which men can climb aloft--higher and higher, up towards the
+light, and the spirit, and mastery over nature. And then? Live happily,
+marry and have children, and a rich and beautiful home. And then? Oh,
+well, one fine day, of course, one must grow old and die. And then? And
+then? Aye, what then?
+
+At these times he found a shadowy comfort in taking refuge in the world
+where Louise stood--playing, as he always saw her--and cradling himself
+on the smooth red billows of her music. But why was it that here most of
+all he felt that hunger for--for something more?
+
+Ferdinand finished his College course, and went out, as he had said,
+into the great world, and Klaus went with him. And so throughout his
+third year Peer was mostly to be seen alone, always with books under his
+arm, and head bent forward.
+
+Just as he was getting ready to go up for his final examination, a
+letter from Ferdinand arrived, written from Egypt. “Come over here,
+young fellow,” he wrote. “We have got good billets at last with a big
+British firm--Brown Bros., of London--a firm that’s building railways
+in Canada, bridges in India, harbour works in Argentina, and canals and
+barrages here in Egypt. We can get you a nice little post as draughtsman
+to begin with, and I enclose funds for the passage out. So come along.”
+
+But Peer did not go at once. He stayed on another year at the College,
+as assistant to the lecturer on mechanics, while himself going through
+the road and railway construction course, as his half-brother had done.
+Some secret instinct urged him not to be left behind even in this.
+
+As the year went on the letters from his two comrades became more and
+more pressing and tempting. “Out here,” wrote Klaus, “the engineer is
+a missionary, proclaimer, not Jehovah, but the power and culture of
+Europe. You’re bound to take a hand in that, my boy. There’s work worthy
+of a great general waiting for you here.”
+
+At last, one autumn day, when the woods stood yellow all around the
+town, Peer drove away from his home with a big new travelling-trunk
+strapped to the driver’s seat. He had been up to the churchyard before
+starting, with a little bunch of flowers for Louise’s grave. Who could
+say if he would ever see it again?
+
+At the station he stood for a moment looking back over the old city with
+its cathedral, and the ancient fortress, where the sentry was pacing
+back and forth against the skyline. Was this the end of his youth?
+Louise--the room above the stables--the hospital, the lazarette, the
+College. . . . And there lay the fjord, and far out somewhere on the
+coast there stood no doubt a little grey fisher-hut, where a pock-marked
+goodwife and her bow-legged goodman had perhaps even now received the
+parcel of coffee and tobacco sent them as a parting gift.
+
+And so Peer journeyed to the capital, and from there out into the wide
+world.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+Some years had passed--a good many years--and once more summer had come,
+and June. A passenger steamer, bound from Antwerp to Christiania, was
+ploughing her way one evening over a sea so motionlessly calm that it
+seemed a single vast mirror filled with a sky of grey and pink-tinged
+clouds. There were plenty of passengers on board, and no one felt
+inclined for bed; it was so warm, so beautiful on deck. Some artists, on
+their way home from Paris or Munich, cast about for amusements to pass
+the time; some ordered wine, others had unearthed a concertina, and very
+soon, no one knew how, a dance was in full swing. “No, my dear,” said
+one or two cautious mothers to their girls, “certainly not.” But before
+long the mothers were dancing themselves. Then there was a doctor in
+spectacles, who stood up on a barrel and made a speech; and presently
+two of the artists caught hold of the grey-bearded captain and chaired
+him round the deck. The night was so clear, the skies so ruddily
+beautiful, the air so soft, and out here on the open sea all hearts were
+light and happy.
+
+“Who’s that wooden-faced beggar over there that’s too high and mighty
+for a little fun?” asked Storaker the painter, of his friend the
+sculptor Praas.
+
+“That fellow? Oh, he’s the one that was so infernally instructive at
+dinner, when we were talking about Egyptian vases.”
+
+“So it is, by Jove! Schoolmaster abroad, I should think. When we got
+on to Athens and Greek sculpture he condescended to set us right about
+that, too.”
+
+“I heard him this morning holding forth to the doctor on Assyriology. No
+wonder he doesn’t dance!”
+
+The passenger they were speaking of was a man of middle height, between
+thirty and forty apparently, who lay stretched in a deck-chair a little
+way off. He was dressed in grey throughout, from his travelling-cap
+to the spats above his brown shoes. His face was sallow, and the short
+brown beard was flecked with grey. But his eyes had gay little gleams in
+them as they followed the dancers. It was Peer Holm.
+
+As he sat there watching, it annoyed him to feel that he could not let
+himself go like the others. But it was so long since he had mixed with
+his own countrymen, that he felt insecure of his footing and almost like
+a foreigner among them. Besides, in a few hours now they should sight
+the skerries on the Norwegian coast; and the thought awoke in him a
+strange excitement--it was a moment he had dreamed of many and many a
+time out there in the wide world.
+
+After a while stillness fell on the decks around him, and he too went
+below, but lay down in his cabin without undressing. He thought of
+the time when he had passed that way on the outward voyage, poor and
+unknown, and had watched the last island of his native land sink below
+the sea-rim. Much had happened since then--and now that he had at last
+come home, what life awaited him there?
+
+A little after two in the morning he came on deck again, but stood
+still in astonishment at finding that the vessel was now boring her way
+through a thick woolly fog. The devil! thought he, beginning to tramp up
+and down the deck impatiently. It seemed that his great moment was to be
+lost--spoiled for him! But suddenly he stopped by the railing, and stood
+gazing out into the east.
+
+What was that? Far out in the depths of the woolly fog a glowing spot
+appeared; the grey mass around grew alive, began to move, to redden, to
+thin out as if it were streaming up in flames. Ah! now he knew! It was
+the globe of the sun, rising out of the sea. On board, every point where
+the night’s moisture had lodged began to shine in gold. Each moment it
+grew clearer and lighter, and the eye reached farther. And before he
+could take in what was happening, the grey darkness had rolled itself
+up into mounds, into mountains, that grew buoyant and floated aloft and
+melted away. And there, all revealed, lay the fresh bright morning, with
+a clear sun-filled sky over the blue sea.
+
+It was time now to get out his field-glasses. For a long time he stood
+motionless, gazing intently through them.
+
+There! Was it his fancy? No, there far ahead he can see clearly now a
+darker strip between sky and sea. It’s the first skerry. It is Norway,
+at last!
+
+Peer felt a sudden catch in his breath; he could hardly stand still, but
+he stopped again and again in his walk to look once more at the far-off
+strip of grey. And now there were seabirds too, with long necks and
+swiftly-beating wings. Welcome home!
+
+And now the steamer is ploughing in among the skerries, and a world
+of rocks and islets unfolds on every side. There is the first red
+fisher-hut. And then the entrance to Christiansand, between wooded hills
+and islands, where white cottages shine out, each with its patch of
+green grassland and its flagstaff before it.
+
+Peer watched it all, drinking it in like nourishment. How good it all
+tasted--he felt it would be long before he had drunk his fill.
+
+Then came the voyage up along the coast, all through a day of brilliant
+sunshine and a luminous night. He saw the blue sounds with swarms of
+white gulls hovering above them, the little coast-towns with their long
+white-painted wooden houses, and flowers in the windows. He had never
+passed this way before, and yet something in him seemed to nod and say:
+“I know myself again here.” All the way up the Christiania Fjord there
+was the scent of leaves and meadows; big farms stood by the shore
+shining in the sun. This was what a great farm looked like. He
+nodded again. So warm and fruitful it all seemed, and dear to him as
+home--though he knew that, after all, he would be little better than a
+tourist in his own country. There was no one waiting for him, no one to
+take him in. Still, some day things might be very different.
+
+As the ship drew alongside the quay at Christiania, the other passengers
+lined the rail, friends and relations came aboard, there were tears and
+laughter and kisses and embraces. Peer lifted his hat as he passed down
+the gangway, but no one had time to notice him just now. And when he
+had found a hotel porter to look after his luggage, he walked up alone
+through the town, as if he were a stranger.
+
+The light nights made it difficult to sleep--he had actually forgotten
+that it was light all night long. And this was a capital city--yet so
+touchingly small, it seemed but a few steps wherever he went. These were
+his countrymen, but he knew no one among them; there was no one to greet
+him. Still, he thought again, some day all this might be very different.
+
+At last, one day as he stood looking at the window of a bookseller’s
+shop, he heard a voice behind him: “Why, bless me! surely it’s Peer
+Holm!” It was one of his fellow-students at the Technical College,
+Reidar Langberg, pale and thin now as ever. He had been a shining light
+at the College, but now--now he looked shabby, worn and aged.
+
+“I hardly knew you again,” said Peer, grasping the other’s hand.
+
+“And you’re a millionaire, so they say--and famous, out in the big
+world?”
+
+“Not quite so bad as that, old fellow. But what about you?”
+
+“I? Oh, don’t talk about me.” And as they walked down the street
+together, Langberg poured out his tale, of how times were desperately
+bad, and conditions at home here simply strangled a man. He had started
+ten or twelve years ago as a draughtsman in the offices of the State
+Railways, and was still there, with a growing family--and “such
+pay--such pay, my dear fellow!” He threw up his eyes and clasped his
+hands despairingly.
+
+“Look here,” said Peer, interrupting him. “Where is the best place in
+Christiania to go and have a good time in the evening?”
+
+“Well, St. Hans Hill, for instance. There’s music there.”
+
+“Right--will you come and dine with me there, to-night--shall we say
+eight o’clock?”
+
+“Thanks. I should think I would!”
+
+Peer arrived in good time, and engaged a table on a verandah. Langberg
+made his appearance shortly after, dressed in his well-saved Sunday
+best--faded frock-coat, light trousers bagged at the knees, and a straw
+hat yellow with age.
+
+“It’s a pleasure to have someone to talk to again,” said Peer. “For the
+last year or so I’ve been knocking about pretty much by myself.”
+
+“Is it as long as that since you left Egypt?”
+
+“Yes; longer. I’ve been in Abyssinia since then.”
+
+“Oh, of course, I remember now. It was in the papers. Building a railway
+for King Menelik, weren’t you?”
+
+“Oh, yes. But the last eighteen months or so I’ve been idling--running
+about to theatres and museums and so forth. I began at Athens and
+finished up with London. I remember one day sitting on the steps of the
+Parthenon declaiming the Antigone--and a moment with some meaning in it
+seemed to have come at last.”
+
+“But, dash it, man, you’re surely not comparing such trifles with a
+thing like the great Nile Barrage? You were on that for some years,
+weren’t you? Do let’s hear something about that. Up by the first
+cataract, wasn’t it? And hadn’t you enormous quarries there on the spot?
+You see, even sitting at home here, I haven’t quite lost touch. But
+you--good Lord! what things you must have seen! Fancy living at--what
+was the name of the town again?”
+
+“Assuan,” answered Peer indifferently, looking out over the gardens,
+where more and more visitors kept arriving.
+
+“They say the barrage is as great a miracle as the Pyramids. How many
+sluice-gates are there again--a hundred and . . . ?”
+
+“Two hundred and sixteen,” said Peer. “Look!” he broke off. “Do you know
+those girls over there?” He nodded towards a party of girls in light
+dresses who were sitting down at a table close by.
+
+Langberg shook his head. He was greedy for news from the great world
+without, which he had never had the luck to see.
+
+“I’ve often wondered,” he went on, “how you managed to come to the front
+so in that sort of work--railways and barrages, and so forth--when, your
+original line was mechanical engineering. Of course you did do an extra
+year on the roads and railway side; but . . .”
+
+Oh, this shining light of the schools!
+
+“What do you say to a glass of champagne?” said Peer. “How do you like
+it? Sweet or dry?”
+
+“Why, is there any difference? I really didn’t know. But when one’s a
+millionaire, of course . . .”
+
+“I’m not a millionaire,” said Peer with a smile, and beckoned to a
+waiter.
+
+“Oh! I heard you were. Didn’t you invent a new motor-pump that drove all
+the other types out of the field? And besides--that Abyssinian railway.
+Oh well, well!” he sighed, “it’s a good thing somebody’s lucky. The rest
+of us shouldn’t complain. But how about the other two--Klaus Brock and
+Ferdinand Holm? What are they doing now?”
+
+“Klaus is looking after the Khedive’s estates at Edfina. Agriculture by
+steam power; his own railway lines to bring in the produce, and so
+on. Yes, Klaus has ended up in a nice little place of his own. His
+district’s bigger than the kingdom of Denmark.”
+
+“Good heavens!” Langberg nearly fell off his chair. “And Ferdinand Holm;
+what about him?”
+
+“Oh, he’s got bigger things on hand. Went nosing about the Libyan
+desert, and found that considerable tracts of it have water-veins only a
+few yards beneath the surface. If so, of course, it’s only a question of
+proper plant to turn an enormous area into a paradise for corn-growing.”
+
+“Good gracious! What a discovery!” gasped the other, almost breathless
+now.
+
+Peer looked out over the fjord, and went on: “Last year he managed at
+last to get the Khedive interested, and they’ve started a joint-stock
+company now, with a capital of some millions. Ferdinand is chief
+engineer.”
+
+“And what’s his salary? As much as fifty thousand crowns?”
+
+“His pay is two hundred thousand francs a year,” said Peer, not without
+some fear that his companion might faint. “Yes, he’s an able fellow, is
+Ferdinand.”
+
+It took Langberg some time to get his breath again. At last he asked,
+with a sidelong glance:
+
+“And you and Klaus Brock--I suppose you’ve put your millions in his
+company?”
+
+Peer smiled as he sat looking out over the garden. Lifting his glass,
+“Your good health,” he said, for all answer.
+
+“Have you been in America, too?” went on the other. “No, I suppose not!”
+
+“America? Yes, a few years back, when I was with Brown Bros., they sent
+me over one time to buy plant. Nothing so surprising in that, is there?”
+
+“No, no, of course not. I was only thinking--you went about there,
+I daresay, and saw all the wonderful things--the miracles of science
+they’re always producing.”
+
+“My dear fellow, if you only knew how deadly sick I am of miracles
+of science! What I’m longing for is a country watermill that takes
+twenty-four hours to grind a sack of corn.”
+
+“What? What do you say?” Langberg bounced in his chair. “Ha-ha-ha!
+You’re the same old man, I can see.”
+
+“I’m perfectly serious,” said Peer, lifting his glass towards the other.
+“Come. Here’s to our old days together!”
+
+“Aye--thanks, a thousand thanks--to our old days together!--Ah,
+delicious! Well, then, I suppose you’ve fallen in love away down there
+in the land of the barbarians? Haven’t you? Ha-ha-ha!”
+
+“Do you call Egypt a land of barbarians?”
+
+“Well, don’t the fellahs still yoke their wives to their ploughs?”
+
+“A fellah will sit all night long outside his hut and gaze up at the
+stars and give himself time to dream. And a merchant prince in Vienna
+will dictate business letters in his automobile as he’s driving to the
+theatre, and write telegrams as he sits in the stalls. One fine day
+he’ll be sitting in his private box with a telephone at one ear and
+listening to the opera with the other. That’s what the miracles of
+science are doing for us. Awe-inspiring, isn’t it?”
+
+“And you talk like that--a man that’s helped to harness the Nile, and
+has built railways through the desert?”
+
+Peer shrugged his shoulders, and offered the other a cigar from his
+case. A waiter appeared with coffee.
+
+“To help mankind to make quicker progress--is that nothing?”
+
+“Lord! What I’d like to know is, where mankind are making for, that
+they’re in such a hurry.”
+
+“That the Nile Barrage has doubled the production of corn in
+Egypt--created the possibilities of life for millions of human
+beings--is that nothing?”
+
+“My good fellow, do you really think there aren’t enough fools on this
+earth already? Have we too little wailing and misery and discontent and
+class-hatred as it is? Why must we go about to double it?”
+
+“But hang it all, man--what about European culture? Surely you felt
+yourself a sort of missionary of civilisation, where you have been.”
+
+“The spread of European civilisation in the East simply means that half
+a dozen big financiers in London or Paris take a fancy to a certain
+strip of Africa or Asia. They press a button, and out come all the
+ministers and generals and missionaries and engineers with a bow: At
+your service, gentlemen!
+
+“Culture! One wheel begets ten new ones. Brr-rrr! And the ten again
+another hundred. Brr-rr-rrr--more speed, more competition--and all for
+what? For culture? No, my friend, for money. Missionary! I tell you, as
+long as Western Europe with all its wonders of modern science and its
+Christianity and its political reforms hasn’t turned out a better type
+of humanity than the mean ruck of men we have now--we’d do best to
+stay at home and hold our counfounded jaw. Here’s ourselves!” and Peer
+emptied his glass.
+
+This was a sad hearing for poor Langberg. For he had been used to
+comfort himself in his daily round with the thought that even he, in his
+modest sphere, was doing his share in the great work of civilising the
+world.
+
+At last he leaned back, watching the smoke from his cigar, and smiling a
+little.
+
+“I remember a young fellow at the College,” he said, “who used to talk
+a good deal about Prometheus, and the grand work of liberating humanity,
+by stealing new and ever new fire from Olympus.”
+
+“That was me--yes,” said Peer with a laugh. “As a matter of fact, I was
+only quoting Ferdinand Holm.”
+
+“You don’t believe in all that now?”
+
+“It strikes me that fire and steel are rapidly turning men into beasts.
+Machinery is killing more and more of what we call the godlike in us.”
+
+“But, good heavens, man! Surely a man can be a Christian even if . . .”
+
+“Christian as much as you like. But don’t you think it might soon be
+time we found something better to worship than an ascetic on a cross?
+Are we to keep on for ever singing Hallelujah because we’ve saved our
+own skins and yet can haggle ourselves into heaven? Is that religion?”
+
+“No, no, perhaps not. But I don’t know . . .”
+
+“Neither do I. But it’s all the same; for anyhow no such thing as
+religious feeling exists any longer. Machinery is killing our longings
+for eternity, too. Ask the good people in the great cities. They spend
+Christmas Eve playing tunes from The Dollar Princess on the gramophone.”
+
+Langberg sat for a while watching the other attentively. Peer sat
+smoking slowly; his face was flushed with the wine, but from time to
+time his eyes half-closed, and his thoughts seemed to be wandering in
+other fields than these.
+
+“And what do you think of doing now you are home again?” asked his
+companion at last.
+
+Peer opened his eyes. “Doing? Oh, I don’t know. Look about me first of
+all. Then perhaps I may find a cottar’s croft somewhere and settle down
+and marry a dairymaid. Here’s luck!”
+
+The gardens were full now of people in light summer dress, and in the
+luminous evening a constant ripple of laughter and gay voices came up
+to them. Peer looked curiously at the crowd, all strangers to him, and
+asked his companion the names of some of the people. Langberg pointed
+out one or two celebrities--a Cabinet Minister sitting near by, a famous
+explorer a little farther off. “But I don’t know them personally,” he
+added. “Can’t afford society on that scale, of course.”
+
+“How beautiful it is here!” said Peer, looking out once more at the
+yellow shimmer of light above the fjord. “And how good it is to be home
+again!”
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+He sat in the train on his way up-country, and from the carriage window
+watched farms and meadows and tree-lined roads slide past. Where was
+he going? He did not know himself. Why should not a man start off at
+haphazard, and get out when the mood takes him? At last he was able to
+travel through his own country without having to think of half-pennies.
+He could let the days pass over his head without care or trouble, and
+give himself good leisure to enjoy any beauty that came in his way.
+
+There is Mjosen, the broad lake with the rich farmlands and long wooded
+ridges on either side. He had never been here before, yet it seemed as
+if something in him nodded a recognition to it all. Once more he sat
+drinking in the rich, fruitful landscape--the wooded hills, the fields
+and meadows seemed to spread themselves out over empty places in his
+mind.
+
+But later in the day the landscape narrowed and they were in
+Gudbrandsdalen, where the sunburned farms are set on green slopes
+between the river and the mountains. Peer’s head was full of pictures
+from abroad, from the desert sands with their scorched palm-trees to the
+canals of Venice. But here--he nodded again. Here he was at home, though
+he had never seen the place before; just this it was which had been
+calling to him all through his long years of exile.
+
+At last on a sudden he gathered up his traps and got out, without the
+least idea even of the name of the station. A meal at the hotel, a
+knapsack on his back, and hey!--there before him lies the road, up into
+the hills.
+
+Alone? What matter, when there are endless things that greet him
+from every side with “Welcome home!” The road is steep, the air grows
+lighter, the homesteads smaller. At last the huts look like little
+matchboxes--from the valley, no doubt, it must seem as if the people up
+here were living among the clouds. But many and many a youth must have
+followed this road in the evenings, going up to court his Mari or his
+Kari at the saeter-hut, the same road and the same errand one generation
+after another. To Peer it seemed as if all those lads now bore him
+company--aye, as if he discovered in himself something of wanton youth
+that had managed to get free at last.
+
+Puh! His coat must come off and his cap go into the knapsack. Now,
+as the valley sinks and sinks farther beneath him, the view across it
+widens farther and farther out over the uplands beyond. Brown hills and
+blue, ridges livid or mossy-grey in the setting sun, rising and falling
+wave behind wave, and beyond all a great snowfield, like a sea of
+white breakers foaming against the sky. But surely he had seen all this
+before?
+
+Ah! now he knew; it was the Lofoten Sea over again--with its white
+foam-crested combers and long-drawn, heavy-breathing swell--a rolling
+ocean turned to rock. Peer halted a moment leaning on his stick, and
+his eyes half-closed. Could he not feel that same ocean-swell rising
+and sinking in his own being? Did not the same waves surge through
+the centuries, carrying the generations away with them upon great
+wanderings? And in daily life the wave rolls us along in the old
+familiar rhythm, and not one in ten thousand lifts his head above it to
+ask: whither and why! Even now just such a little wave has hold of
+him, taking him--whither and why? Well, the coming days might show;
+meanwhile, there beyond was the sea of stone rolling its eternal cadence
+under the endless sky.
+
+He wiped his forehead and turned and went his way.
+
+But what is that far off in the north-east? three sisters in white
+shawls, lifting their heads to heaven--that must be Rondane. And see how
+the evening sun is kindling the white peaks to purple and gold.
+
+Puh!--only one more hill now, and here is the top at last. And there
+ahead lie the great uplands, with marsh and mound and gleaming tarns.
+Ah, what a relief! What wonder that his step grows lighter and quicker?
+Before he knows it he is singing aloud in mere gaiety of heart. Ah, dear
+God, what if after all it were not too late to be young!
+
+A saeter. A little hut, standing on a patch of green, with split-stick
+fence and a long cow-house of rough planks--it must be a saeter! And
+listen--isn’t that a girl singing? Peer slipped softly through the gate
+and stood listening against the wall of the byre. “Shap, shap, shap,”
+ went the streams of milk against the pail. It must be a fairy sitting
+milking in there. Then came the voice:
+
+
+      Oh, Sunday eve, oh, Sunday eve,
+      Ever wast thou my dearest eve!
+
+
+“Shap, shap, shap!” went the milk once more in the pail--and suddenly
+Peer joined in:
+
+
+      Oh bright, oh gentle Sunday eve--
+      Wilt ever be my dearest eve!
+
+
+The milking stopped, a cowbell tinkled as the cow turned her inquiring
+face, and a girl’s light-brown head of hair was thrust out of the
+doorway--soon followed by the girl herself, slender, eighteen,
+red-cheeked, fresh and smiling.
+
+“Good evening,” said Peer, stretching out his hand.
+
+The girl looked at him for a moment, then cast a glance at her own
+clothes--as women will when they see a man who takes their fancy.
+
+“An’ who may you be?” she asked.
+
+“Can you cook me some cream-porridge?”
+
+“A’ must finish milking first, then.”
+
+Here was a job that Peer could help with. He took off his knapsack,
+washed his hands, and was soon seated on a stool in the close sweet air
+of the shed, milking busily. Then he fetched water, and chopped some
+wood for the fire, the girl gazing at him all the time, no doubt
+wondering who this crazy person could be. When the porridge stood ready
+on the table, he insisted on her sitting down close to him and sharing
+the meal. They ate a little, and then laughed a little, and then
+chatted, and then ate and then laughed again. When he asked what he had
+to pay, the girl said: “Whatever you like”--and he gave her two crowns
+and then bent her head back and kissed her lips. “What’s the man up to?”
+ he heard her gasp behind him as he passed out; when he had gone a good
+way and turned to look back, there she was in the doorway, shading her
+eyes and watching him.
+
+Whither away now? Well, he was pretty sure to reach some other inhabited
+place before night. This, he felt, was not his abiding-place. No, it was
+not here.
+
+It was nearly midnight when he stood by the shore of a broad mountain
+lake, beneath a snow-flecked hill-side. Here were a couple of saeters,
+and across the lake, on a wooded island, stood a small frame house that
+looked like some city people’s summer cottage. And see--over the lake,
+that still mirrored the evening red, a boat appeared moving towards the
+island, and two white-sleeved girls sat at the oars, singing as they
+rowed. A strange feeling came over him. Here--here he would stay.
+
+In the saeter-hut stood an enormously fat woman, with a rope round
+her middle, evidently ready to go to bed. Could she put him up for the
+night? Why, yes, she supposed so--and she rolled off into another room.
+And soon he was lying in a tiny chamber, in a bed with a mountainous
+mattress and a quilt. There was a fresh smell from the juniper twigs
+strewed about the newly-washed floor, and the cheeses, which stood in
+rows all round the shelf-lined walls. Ah! he had slept in many places
+and fashions--at sea in a Lofoten boat; on the swaying back of a camel;
+in tents out in the moonlit desert; and in palaces of the Arabian
+Nights, where dwarfs fanned him with palm-leaves to drive away the heat,
+and called him pasha. But here, at last, he had found a place where it
+was good to be. And he closed his eyes, and lay listening to the murmur
+of a little stream outside in the light summer night, till he fell
+asleep.
+
+Late in the forenoon of the next day he was awakened by the entry of the
+old woman with coffee. Then a plunge into the blue-green water of
+the mountain lake, a short swim, and back to find grilled trout and
+new-baked waffles and thick cream for lunch.
+
+Yes, said the old woman, if he could get along with the sort of victuals
+she could cook, he might stay here a few days and welcome. The bed was
+standing there empty, anyway.
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+So Peer stays on and goes fishing. He catches little; but time goes
+leisurely here, and the summer lies soft and warm over the brown and
+blue hillsides. He has soon learned that a merchant named Uthoug,
+from Ringeby, is living in the house on the island, with his wife and
+daughter. And what of it?
+
+Often he would lie in his boat, smoking his pipe, and giving himself
+up to quiet dreams that came and passed. A young girl in a white boat,
+moving over red waters in the evening--a secret meeting on an island--no
+one must know just yet. . . . Would it ever happen to him? Ah, no.
+
+The sun goes down, there come sounds of cow-bells nearing the saeters,
+the musical cries and calls of the saeter-girls, the lowing of the
+cattle. The mountains stand silent in the distance, their snow-clad tops
+grown golden; the stream slides rippling by, murmuring on through the
+luminous nights.
+
+Then at last came the day of all days.
+
+He had gone out for a long tramp at random over the hills, making his
+way by compass, and noting landmarks to guide him back. Here was a marsh
+covered with cloud-berries--the taste brought back his own childhood. He
+wandered on up a pale-brown ridge flecked with red heather--and what was
+that ahead? Smoke? He made towards it. Yes, it was smoke. A ptarmigan
+fluttered out in front of him, with a brood of tiny youngsters at her
+heels--Lord, what a shave!--he stopped short to avoid treading on them.
+The smoke meant someone near--possibly a camp of Lapps. Let’s go and
+see.
+
+He topped the last mound, and there was the fire just below. Two girls
+jumped to their feet; there was a bright coffee-kettle on the fire, and
+on the moss-covered ground close by bread and butter and sandwiches laid
+out on a paper tablecloth.
+
+Peer stopped short in surprise. The girls gazed at him for a moment, and
+he at them, all three with a hesitating smile.
+
+At last Peer lifted his hat and asked the way to Rustad saeter. It took
+them some time to explain this, and then they asked him the time. He
+told them exactly to the minute, and then showed them his watch so that
+they might see for themselves. All this took more time. Meanwhile, they
+had inspected each other, and found no reason to part company just yet.
+One of the girls was tall, slender of figure, with a warm-coloured oval
+face and dark brown hair. Her eyebrows were thick and met above the
+nose, delightful to look at. She wore a blue serge dress, with the skirt
+kilted up a little, leaving her ankles visible. The other was a blonde,
+smaller of stature, and with a melancholy face, though she smiled
+constantly. “Oh,” she said suddenly, “have you a pocket-knife by any
+chance?”
+
+“Oh yes!” Peer was just moving off, but gladly seized the opportunity to
+stay a while.
+
+“We’ve a tin of sardines here, and nothing to open it with,” said the
+dark one.
+
+“Let me try,” said Peer. As luck would have it, he managed to cut
+himself a little, and the two girls tumbled over each other to tie up
+the wound. It ended, of course, with their asking him to join their
+coffee-party.
+
+“My name is Merle Uthoug,” said the dark one, with a curtsy.
+
+“Oh, then, it’s your father who has the place on the island in the
+lake?”
+
+“My name’s only Mork--Thea Mork. My father is a lawyer, and we have a
+little cottage farther up the lake,” said the blonde.
+
+Peer was about to introduce himself, when the dark girl interrupted:
+“Oh, we know you already,” she said. “We’ve seen you out rowing on the
+lake so often. And we had to find out who you were. We have a good pair
+of glasses . . .”
+
+“Merle!” broke in her companion warningly.
+
+“. . . and then, yesterday, we sent one of the maids over reconnoitring,
+to make inquiries and bring us a full report.”
+
+“Merle! How can you say such things?”
+
+It was a cheery little feast. Ah! how young they were, these two girls,
+and how they laughed at a joke, and what quantities of bread and butter
+and coffee they all three disposed of! Merle now and again would give
+their companion a sidelong glance, while Thea laughed at all the wild
+things her friend said, and scolded her, and looked anxiously at Peer.
+
+And now the sun was nearing the shoulder of a hill far in the west, and
+evening was falling. They packed up their things, and Peer was loaded up
+with a big bag of cloud-berries on his back, and a tin pail to carry in
+his hand. “Give him some more,” said Merle. “It’ll do him good to work
+for a change.”
+
+“Merle, you really are too bad!”
+
+“Here you are,” said the girl, and slid the handle of a basket into his
+other hand.
+
+Then they set out down the hill. Merle sang and yodelled as they went;
+then Peer sang, and then they all three sang together. And when they
+came to a heather-tussock or a puddle, they did not trouble to go round,
+but just jumped over it, and then gave another jump for the fun of the
+thing.
+
+They passed the saeter and went on down to the water’s edge, and Peer
+proposed to row them home. And so they rowed across. And the whole time
+they sat talking and laughing together as if they had known each other
+for years.
+
+The boat touched land just below the cottage, and a broad-shouldered man
+with a grey beard and a straw hat came down to meet them. “Oh, father,
+are you back again?” cried Merle, and, springing ashore, she flung her
+arms round his neck. The two exchanged some whispered words, and the
+father glanced at Peer. Then, taking off his hat, he came towards him
+and said politely, “It was very kind of you to help the girls down.”
+
+“This is Herr Holm, engineer and Egyptian,” said Merle, “and this is
+father.”
+
+“I hear we are neighbours,” said Uthoug. “We’re just going to have tea,
+so if you have nothing better to do, perhaps you will join us.”
+
+Outside the cottage stood a grey-haired lady with a pale face, wearing
+spectacles. She had a thick white woollen shawl over her shoulders, but
+even so she seemed to feel cold. “Welcome,” she said, and Peer thought
+there was a tremor in her voice.
+
+There were two small low rooms with an open fireplace in the one, and in
+it there stood a table ready laid. But from the moment Merle entered
+the house, she took command of everything, and whisked in and out. Soon
+there was the sound of fish cooking in the kitchen, and a moment later
+she came in with a plate full of lettuce, and said: “Mr. Egyptian--you
+can make us an Arabian salad, can’t you?”
+
+Peer was delighted. “I should think so,” he said.
+
+“You’ll find salt and pepper and vinegar and oil on the table there, and
+that’s all we possess in the way of condiments. But it must be a real
+Arabian salad all the same, if you please!” And out she went again,
+while Peer busied himself with the salad.
+
+“I hope you will excuse my daughter,” said Fru Uthoug, turning her pale
+face towards him and looking through her spectacles. “She is not really
+so wild as she seems.”
+
+Uthoug himself walked up and down the room, chatting to Peer and asking
+a great many questions about conditions in Egypt. He knew something
+about the Mahdi, and General Gordon, and Khartoum, and the strained
+relations between the Khedive and the Sultan. He was evidently a
+diligent reader of the newspapers, and Peer gathered that he was a
+Radical, and a man of some weight in his party. And he looked as if
+there was plenty of fire smouldering under his reddish eyelids: “A bad
+man to fall out with,” thought Peer.
+
+They sat down to supper, and Peer noticed that Fru Uthoug grew less pale
+and anxious as her daughter laughed and joked and chattered. There even
+came a slight glow at last into the faded cheeks; the eyes behind the
+spectacles seemed to shine with a light borrowed from her daughter’s.
+But her husband seemed not to notice anything, and tried all the time to
+go on talking about the Mahdi and the Khedive and the Sultan.
+
+So for the first time for many years Peer sat down to table in a
+Norwegian home--and how good it was! Would he ever have a home of his
+own, he wondered.
+
+After the meal, a mandolin was brought out, and they sat round the fire
+in the great fireplace and had some music. Until at last Merle rose and
+said: “Now, mother, it’s time you went to bed.”
+
+“Yes, dear,” came the answer submissively, and Fru Uthoug said
+good-night, and Merle led her off.
+
+Peer had risen to take leave, when Merle came in again. “Why,” she said,
+“you’re surely not going off before you’ve rowed Thea home?”
+
+“Oh, Merle, please . . .” put in the other.
+
+But when the two had taken their places in the boat and were just about
+to start up the lake, Merle came running down and said she might just as
+well come too.
+
+Half an hour later, having seen the young girl safely ashore at her
+father’s place, Merle and Peer were alone, rowing back through the still
+night over the waters of the lake, golden in the light and dark blue in
+the shadows. Merle leaned back in the stern, silent, trailing a small
+branch along the surface of the water behind. After a while Peer laid in
+his oars and let the boat drift.
+
+“How beautiful it is!” he said.
+
+The girl lifted her head and looked round. “Yes,” she answered, and Peer
+fancied her voice had taken a new tone.
+
+It was past midnight. Heights and woods and saeters lay lifeless in the
+soft suffused reddish light. The lake-trout were not rising any more,
+but now and again the screech of a cock-ptarmigan could be heard among
+the withies.
+
+“What made you come just here for your holiday, I wonder,” she asked
+suddenly.
+
+“I leave everything to chance, Froken Uthoug. It just happened so. It’s
+all so homelike here, wherever one goes. And it is so wonderful to be
+home in Norway again.”
+
+“But haven’t you been to see your people--your father and mother--since
+you came home?”
+
+“I--! Do you suppose I have a father and mother?”
+
+“But near relations--surely you must have a brother or sister somewhere
+in the world?”
+
+“Ah, if one only had! Though, after all, one can get on without.”
+
+She looked at him searchingly, as if trying to see whether he spoke in
+earnest. Then she said:
+
+“Do you know that mother dreamed of you before you came?”
+
+“Of me?” Peer’s eyes opened wide. “What did she dream about me?”
+
+A sudden flush came to the girl’s face, and she shook her head. “It’s
+foolish of me to sit here and tell you all this. But you see that was
+why we wanted so much to find out about you when you came. And it gives
+me a sort of feeling of our having known each other a long time.”
+
+“You appear to have a very constant flow of high spirits, Froken
+Uthoug!”
+
+“I? Why do you think--? Oh, well, yes. One can come by most things, you
+know, if one has to have them.”
+
+“Even high spirits?”
+
+She turned her head and looked towards the shore. “Some day perhaps--if
+we should come to be friends--I’ll tell you more about it.”
+
+Peer bent to his oars and rowed on. The stillness of the night drew them
+nearer and nearer together, and made them silent; only now and then they
+would look at each other and smile.
+
+“What mysterious creature is this I have come upon?” thought Peer. She
+might be about one-or two-and-twenty. She sat there with bowed head, and
+in this soft glow the oval face had a strange light of dreams upon it.
+But suddenly her glance came back and rested on him again, and then she
+smiled, and he saw that her mouth was large and her lips full and red.
+
+“I wish I had been all over the world, like you,” she said.
+
+“Have you never been abroad, Froken Uthoug?” he asked.
+
+“I spent a winter in Berlin, once, and a few months in South Germany. I
+played the violin a little, you see; and I hoped to take it up seriously
+abroad and make something of it--but--”
+
+“Well, why shouldn’t you?”
+
+She was silent for a little, then at last she said: “I suppose you are
+sure to know about it some day, so I may just as well tell you now.
+Mother has been out of her mind.”
+
+“My dear Froken--”
+
+“And when she’s at home my--high spirits are needed to help her to be
+more or less herself.”
+
+He felt an impulse to rise and go to the girl, and take her head between
+his hands. But she looked up, with a melancholy smile; their eyes met in
+a long look, and she forgot to withdraw her glance.
+
+“I must go ashore now,” she said at last.
+
+“Oh, so soon! Why, we have hardly begun our talk!”
+
+“I must go ashore now,” she repeated; and her voice, though still
+gentle, was not to be gainsaid.
+
+At last Peer was alone, rowing back to his saeter. As he rowed he
+watched the girl going slowly up towards the cottage. When she reached
+the door she turned for the first time and waved to him. Then she
+stood for a moment looking after him, and then opened the door and
+disappeared. He gazed at the door some time longer, as if expecting to
+see it open again, but no sign of life was to be seen.
+
+The sun’s rim was showing now above the distant ranges in the east, and
+the white peaks in the north and west kindled in the morning glow. Peer
+laid in his oars again, and rested, with his elbows on his knees and his
+head in his hands. What could this thing be that had befallen him today?
+
+How could those peaks stand round so aloof and indifferent, and leave
+him here disconsolate and alone?
+
+What was it, this new rushing in his ears; this new rhythm of his pulse?
+He lay back at last in the bottom of the boat, with hands clasped behind
+his head, and let boat and all things drift.
+
+And when the glare of the rising sun came slanting into the boat and
+beat dazzlingly in his face, he only turned his head a little and let it
+shine full upon him.
+
+Now she is lying asleep over there, the morning streaming red through
+her window--of whom is she dreaming as she sleeps?
+
+Have you ever seen such eyebrows before? To press one’s lips to them--to
+take her head between one’s hand . . . and so it is to save your mother
+that you give up your own dreams, and to warm her soul that you keep
+that flame of gladness burning in you? Is that the sort you are?
+
+Merle--was ever such a name? Are you called Merle?
+
+Day spreads over the heavens, kindling all the night-clouds, great and
+small, to gold and scarlet. And here he lies, rocking, rocking, on no
+lake, but on a red stately-heaving ocean swell.
+
+Ah! till now your mind has been so filled with cold mechanics, with
+calculations, with steel and fire. More and more knowledge, ever more
+striving to understand all things, to know all, to master all. But
+meanwhile, the tones of the hymn died within you, and the hunger for
+that which lies beyond all things grew ever fiercer and fiercer. You
+thought it was Norway that you needed--and now you are here. But is it
+enough?
+
+Merle--is your name Merle?
+
+There is nothing that can be likened to the first day of love. All your
+learning, your travel, and deeds and dreams--all has been nothing but
+dry firewood that you have dragged and heaped together. And now has come
+a spark, and the whole heap blazes up, casting its red glow over earth
+and heaven, and you stretch out your cold hands, and warm them, and
+shiver with joy that a new bliss has come upon the earth.
+
+And all that you could not understand--the relation between the spark
+of eternity in your soul and the Power above, and the whole of endless
+space--has all of a sudden become so clear that you lie here trembling
+with joy at seeing to the very bottom of the infinite enigma.
+
+You have but to take her by the hand, and “Here are we two,” you say to
+the powers of life and death. “Here is she and here am I--we two”--and
+you send the anthem rolling aloft--a strain from little Louise’s
+fiddle-bow mingling with it--not to the vaultings of any church, but
+into endless space itself. And Thou, Power above, now I understand Thee.
+How could I ever take seriously a Power that sat on high playing with
+Sin and Grace--but now I see Thee, not the bloodthirsty Jehovah, but a
+golden-haired youth, the Light itself. We two worship Thee; not with a
+wail of prayer, but with a great anthem, that has the World-All in it.
+All our powers, our knowledge, our dreams--all are there. And each
+has its own instrument, its own voice in the mighty chorus. The dawn
+reddening over the hills is with us. The goat grazing on that northern
+hillside, dazzled with sun-gold when it turns its head to the east--it
+is with us, too. The waking birds are with us. A frog, crawling up out
+of a puddle and stopping to wonder at the morning--it is there. Even the
+little insect with diamonds on its wings--and the grass-blade with
+its pearl of dew, trying to mirror as much of the sky as it can--it is
+there, it is there, it is there. We are standing amid Love’s first day,
+and there is no more talk of grace or doubt or faith or need of aid;
+only a rushing sound of music rising to heaven from all the golden
+rivers in our hearts.
+
+The saeters were beginning to wake. Musical cries came echoing as the
+saeter-girls chid on the cattle, that moved slowly up to the northern
+heights, with lowings and tinkling of bells. But Peer lay still where
+he was--and presently the dairy-maid at the saeter caught sight of what
+seemed an empty boat drifting on the lake, and was afraid some accident
+had happened.
+
+“Merle,” thought Peer, still lying motionless. “Is your name Merle?”
+
+The dairy-maid was down by the waterside now, calling across toward the
+boat. And at last she saw a man sit up, rubbing his eyes.
+
+“Mercy on us!” she cried. “Lord be thanked that you’re there. And you
+haven’t been in the whole blessed night!”
+
+A goat with a broken leg, set in splints, had been left to stray at will
+about the cattle-pens and in and out of the house, while its leg-bones
+were setting. Peer must needs pick up the creature and carry it round
+for a while in his arms, though it at once began chewing at his beard.
+When he sat down to the breakfast-table, he found something so touching
+in the look of the cream and butter, the bread and the coffee, that
+it seemed a man would need a heart of stone to be willing to eat such
+things. And when the old woman said he really ought to get some food
+into him, he sprang up and embraced her, as far as his arms would go
+round. “Nice carryings on!” she cried, struggling to free herself. But
+when he went so far as to imprint a sounding kiss on her forehead, she
+fetched him a mighty push. “Lord!” she said, “if the gomeril hasn’t gone
+clean out of his wits this last night!”
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+Ringeby lay on the shore of a great lake; and was one of those busy
+commercial towns which have sprung up in the last fifty years from
+a nucleus consisting of a saw-mill and a flour-mill by the side of a
+waterfall. Now quite a number of modern factories had spread upwards
+along the river, and the place was a town with some four thousand
+inhabitants, with a church of its own, a monster of a school building,
+and numbers of yellow workmen’s dwellings scattered about at random in
+every direction. Otherwise Ringeby was much like any other little town.
+There were two lawyers, who fought for scraps of legal business, and the
+editors of two local papers, who were constantly at loggerheads before
+the Conciliation Board. There was a temperance lodge and Workers’ Union
+and a chapel and a picture palace. And every Sunday afternoon the good
+citizens of Ringeby walked out along the fjord, with their wives on
+their arms. On these occasions most of the men wore frock coats and grey
+felt hats; but Enebak, the tanner, being hunchbacked, preferred a tall
+silk hat, as better suited to eke out his height.
+
+On Saturday evenings, when twilight began to fall, the younger men would
+meet at the corner outside Hammer’s store, to discuss the events of the
+week.
+
+“Have you heard the latest news?” asked Lovli, the bank cashier, of his
+friend the telegraphist, who came up.
+
+“News? Do you tell me that there’s ever any news in this accursed hole?”
+
+“Merle Uthoug has come back from the mountains--engaged to be married.”
+
+“The devil she is! What does the old man say to that?”
+
+“Oh, well, the old man will want an engineer if he’s to get the new
+timber-mills into his clutches.”
+
+“Is the man an engineer?”
+
+“From Egypt. A Muhammadan, I daresay. Brown as a coffee-berry, and
+rolling in money.”
+
+“Do you hear that, Froken Bull? Stop a minute, here’s some news for
+you.”
+
+The girl addressed turned aside and joined them. “Oh, the same piece
+of news that’s all over the town, I suppose. Well, I can tell you, he’s
+most tremendously nice.”
+
+“Sh!” whispered the telegraphist. Peer Holm was just coming out of the
+Grand Hotel, dressed in a grey suit, and with a dark coat over his arm.
+He was trying to get a newly-lit cigar to draw, as he walked with a
+light elastic step past the group at the corner. A little farther up the
+street he encountered Merle, and took her arm, and the two walked off
+together, the young people at the corner watching them as they went.
+
+“And when is it to be?” asked the telegraphist.
+
+“He wanted to be married immediately, I believe,” said Froken Bull, “but
+I suppose they’ll have to wait till the banns are called, like other
+people.”
+
+Lorentz D. Uthoug’s long, yellow-painted wooden house stood facing the
+market square; the office and the big ironmonger’s shop were on the
+ground floor, and the family lived in the upper storeys. “That’s
+where he lives,” people would say. Or “There he goes,” as the broad,
+grey-bearded man passed down the street. Was he such a big man, then?
+He could hardly be called really rich, though he had a saw-mill and a
+machine-shop and a flour-mill, and owned a country place some way out
+of the town. But there was something of the chieftain, something of the
+prophet, about him. He hated priests. He read deep philosophical works,
+forbade his family to go to church, and had been visited by Bjornson
+himself. It was good to have him on your side; to have him against you
+was fatal--you might just as well clear out of the town altogether. He
+had a finger in everything that went on; it was as if he owned the whole
+town. He had been known to meet a youth he had never spoken to before in
+the street and accost him with a peremptory “Understand me, young man;
+you will marry that girl.” Yet for all this, Lorentz Uthoug was not
+altogether content. True, he was head and shoulders above all the
+Ringeby folks, but what he really wanted was to be the biggest man in a
+place a hundred times as large.
+
+And now that he had found a son-in-law, he seemed as it were to be
+walking quietly round this stranger from the great world, taking his
+measure, and asking in his thoughts: “Who are you at bottom? What have
+you seen? What have you read? Are you progressive or reactionary? Have
+you any proper respect for what I have accomplished here, or are you
+going about laughing in your sleeve and calling me a whale among the
+minnows?”
+
+Every morning when Peer woke in his room at the hotel he rubbed his
+eyes. On the table beside his bed stood a photograph of a young girl.
+What? Is it really you, Peer, that have found someone to stand close to
+you at last? Someone in the world who cares about you. When you have a
+cold, there’ll be people to come round and be anxious about you, and ask
+how you are getting on. And this to happen to you!
+
+He dined at the Uthougs’ every day, and there were always flowers beside
+his plate. Often there would be some little surprise--a silver spoon or
+fork, or a napkin-ring with his initials on. It was like gathering
+the first straws to make his new nest. And the pale woman with the
+spectacles looked kindly at him, as if to say: “You are taking her from
+me, but I forgive you.”
+
+One day he was sitting in the hotel, reading, when Merle came in.
+
+“Will you come for a walk?” she asked.
+
+“Good idea. Where shall we go to-day?”
+
+“Well, we haven’t been to see Aunt Marit at Bruseth yet. We really ought
+to go, you know. I’ll take you there to-day.”
+
+Peer found these ceremonial visits to his new relatives quite amusing;
+he went round, as it were, collecting uncles and aunts. And to-day there
+was a new one. Well, why not?
+
+“But--my dear girl, have you been crying?” he asked suddenly, taking her
+head in his hands.
+
+“Oh, it’s nothing. Come--let’s go now.” And she thrust him gently away
+as he tried to kiss her. But the next moment she dropped into a chair,
+and sat looking thoughtfully at him through half-closed eyes, nodding
+her head very slightly. She seemed to be asking herself: “Who is this
+man? What is this I am taking on me? A fortnight ago he was an utter
+stranger--”
+
+She passed her hand across her brow. “It’s mother--you know,” she said.
+
+“Is anything special wrong to-day?”
+
+“She’s so afraid you’re going to carry me off into the wide world at a
+moment’s notice.”
+
+“But I’ve told her we’re going to live here for the present.”
+
+The girl drew up one side of her mouth in a smile, and her eyelids
+almost closed. “And what about me, then? After living here all these
+years crazy to get out into the world?”
+
+“And I, who am crazy to stay at home!” said Peer with a laugh. “How
+delicious it will be to have a house and a family at last--and peace and
+quiet!”
+
+“But what about me?”
+
+“You’ll be there, too. I’ll let you live with me.”
+
+“Oh! how stupid you are to-day. If you only knew what it means, to throw
+away the best years of one’s youth in a hole like this! And besides--I
+could have done something worth while in music--”
+
+“Why, then, let’s go abroad, by all means,” said Peer, wrinkling up his
+forehead as if to laugh.
+
+“Oh, nonsense! you know it’s quite impossible to go off and leave mother
+now. But you certainly came at a very critical time. For anyway I was
+longing and longing just then for someone to come and carry me off.”
+
+“Aha! so I was only a sort of ticket for the tour.” He stepped over and
+pinched her nose.
+
+“Oh! you’d better be careful. I haven’t really promised yet to have you,
+you know.”
+
+“Haven’t promised? When you practically asked me yourself.”
+
+She clapped her hands together. “Why, what shameless impudence! After my
+saying No, No, No, for days together. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t--I said
+it ever so many times. And you said it didn’t matter--for YOU WOULD.
+Yes, you took me most unfairly off my guard; but now look out for
+yourself.”
+
+The next moment she flung her arms round his neck. But when he tried to
+kiss her, she pushed him away again. “No,” she said, “you mustn’t think
+I did it for that!”
+
+Soon they were walking arm-in-arm along the country road, on their way
+to Aunt Marit at Bruseth. It was September, and all about the wooded
+hills stood yellow, and the cornfields were golden and the rowan berries
+blood-red. But there was still summer in the air.
+
+“Ugh! how impossibly fast you walk,” exclaimed Merle, stopping out of
+breath.
+
+And when they came to a gate they sat down in the grass by the wayside.
+Below them was the town, with its many roofs and chimneys standing out
+against the shining lake, that lay framed in broad stretches of farm and
+field.
+
+“Do you know how it came about that mother is--as she is?” asked Merle
+suddenly.
+
+“No. I didn’t like to ask you about it.”
+
+She drew a stalk of grass between her lips.
+
+“Well, you see--mother’s father was a clergyman. And when--when father
+forbade her to go to church, she obeyed him. But she couldn’t sleep
+after that. She felt--as if she had sold her soul.”
+
+“And what did your father say to that?”
+
+“Said it was hysteria. But, hysteria or not, mother couldn’t sleep. And
+at last they had to take her away to a home.”
+
+“Poor soul!” said Peer, taking the girl’s hand.
+
+“And when she came back from there she was so changed, one would hardly
+have known her. And father gave way a little--more than he ever used to
+do--and said: ‘Well, well, I suppose you must go to church if you wish,
+but you mustn’t mind if I don’t go with you.’ And so one Sunday she took
+my hand and we went together, but as we reached the church door, and
+heard the organ playing inside, she turned back. ‘No--it’s too late
+now,’ she said. ‘It’s too late, Merle.’ And she has never been since.”
+
+“And she has always been--strange--since then?”
+
+Merle sighed. “The worst of it is she sees so many evil things
+compassing her about. She says the only thing to do is to laugh them
+away. But she can’t laugh herself. And so I have to. But when I go away
+from her--oh! I can’t bear to think of it.”
+
+She hid her face against his shoulder, and he began stroking her hair.
+
+“Tell me, Peer”--she looked up with her one-sided smile--“who is
+right--mother or father?”
+
+“Have you been trying to puzzle that out?”
+
+“Yes. But it’s so hopeless--so impossible to come to any sort of
+certainty. What do you think? Tell me what you think, Peer.”
+
+They sat there alone in the golden autumn day, her head pressed against
+his shoulder. Why should he play the superior person and try to put her
+off with vague phrases?
+
+“Dear Merle, I know, of course, no more than you do. There was a time
+when I saw God standing with a rod in one hand and a sugar-cake in the
+other--just punishment and rewards to all eternity. Then I thrust Him
+from me, because He seemed to me so unjust--and at last He vanished,
+melting into the solar systems on high, and all the infinitesimal
+growths here on the earth below. What was my life, what were my dreams,
+my joy or sorrow, to these? Where was I making for? Ever and always
+there was something in me saying: He IS! But where? Somewhere beyond and
+behind the things you know--it is there He is. And so I determined
+to know more things, more and more and more--and what wiser was I? A
+steam-hammer crushes my skull one day--and what has become of my part in
+progress and culture and science? Am I as much of an accident as a fly
+on an ant? Do I mean no more? Do I vanish and leave as little trace?
+Answer me that, little Merle--what do YOU think?”
+
+The girl sat motionless, breathing softly, with closed eyes. Then she
+began to smile--and her lips were full and red, and at last they shaped
+themselves to a kiss.
+
+
+Bruseth was a large farm lying high above the town, with its garden and
+avenues and long verandahs round the white dwelling-house. And what a
+view out over the lake and the country far around! The two stood for a
+moment at the gate, looking back.
+
+Merle’s aunt--her father’s sister--was a widow, rich and a notable
+manager, but capricious to a degree, capable of being generous one day
+and grasping the next. It was the sorrow of her life that she had no
+children of her own, but she had not yet decided who was to be her heir.
+
+She came sailing into the room where the two young people were waiting,
+and Peer saw her coming towards them, a tall, full-bosomed woman
+with grey hair and florid colour. Oho! here’s an aunt for you with a
+vengeance, he thought. She pulled off a blue apron she was wearing and
+appeared dressed in a black woollen gown, with a gold chain about her
+neck and long gold earrings.
+
+“So you thought you’d come over at last,” she said. “Actually remembered
+my existence, after all, did you, Merle?” She turned towards Peer, and
+stood examining him, with her hands on her hips. “So that’s what you
+look like, is it, Peer? And you’re the man that was to catch Merle?
+Well, you see I call you Peer at once, even though you HAVE come all the
+way from--Arabia, is it? Sit down, sit down.”
+
+Wine was brought in, and Aunt Marit of Bruseth lifted a congratulatory
+glass toward the pair with the following words:
+
+“You’ll fight, of course. But don’t overdo it, that’s all. And mark my
+words, Peer Holm, if you aren’t good to her, I’ll come round one fine
+day and warm your ears for you. Your healths, children!”
+
+The two went homewards arm-in-arm, dancing down the hillsides, and
+singing gaily as they went. But suddenly, when they were still some
+way from the town, Merle stopped and pointed. “There,” she
+whispered--“there’s mother!”
+
+A solitary woman was walking slowly in the twilight over a wide field
+of stubble, looking around her. It was as if she were lingering here to
+search out the meaning of something--of many things. From time to time
+she would glance up at the sky, or at the town below, or at people
+passing on the road, and then she would nod her head. How infinitely far
+off she seemed, how utterly a stranger to all the noisy doings of men!
+What was she seeing now? What were her thoughts?
+
+“Let us go on,” whispered Merle, drawing him with her. And the young
+girl suddenly began to sing, loudly, as if in an overflow of spirits;
+and Peer guessed that it was for her mother’s sake. Perhaps the lonely
+woman stood there now in the twilight smiling after them.
+
+
+One Sunday morning Merle drove up to the hotel in a light cart with a
+big brown horse; Peer came out and climbed in, leaving the reins to her.
+They were going out along the fjord to look at her father’s big estate
+which in olden days had been the County Governors’ official residence.
+
+It is the end of September. The sun is still warm, but the waters of the
+lake are grey and all the fields are reaped. Here and there a strip of
+yellowing potato-stalks lies waiting to be dug up. Up on the hillsides
+horses tethered for grazing stand nodding their heads slowly, as if they
+knew that it was Sunday. And a faint mist left by the damps of the night
+floats about here and there over the broad landscape.
+
+They passed through a wood, and came on the other side to an avenue
+of old ash trees, that turned up from the road and ran uphill to a big
+house where a flag was flying. The great white dwelling-house stood
+high, as if to look out far over the world; the red farm-buildings
+enclosed the wide courtyard on three sides, and below were gardens and
+broad lands, sloping down towards the lake. Something like an estate!
+
+“What’s the name of that place?” cried Peer, gazing at it.
+
+“Loreng.”
+
+“And who owns it?”
+
+“Don’t know,” answered the girl, cracking her whip.
+
+Next moment the horse turned in to the avenue, and Peer caught
+involuntarily at the reins. “Hei! Brownie--where are you going?” he
+cried.
+
+“Why not go up and have a look?” said Merle.
+
+“But we were going out to look at your father’s place.”
+
+“Well, that is father’s place.”
+
+Peer stared at her face and let go the reins. “What? What? You don’t
+mean to say your father owns that place there?”
+
+A few minutes later they were strolling through the great, low-ceiled
+rooms. The whole house was empty now, the farm-bailiff living in the
+servants’ quarters. Peer grew more and more enthusiastic. Here, in these
+great rooms, there had been festive gatherings enough in the days of the
+old Governors, where cavaliers in uniform or with elegant shirt-frills
+and golden spurs had kissed the hands of ladies in sweeping silk robes.
+Old mahogany, pot-pourri, convivial song, wit, grace--Peer saw it all in
+his mind’s eye, and again and again he had to give vent to his feelings
+by seizing Merle and embracing her.
+
+“Oh, but look here, Merle--you know, this is a fairy-tale.”
+
+They passed out into the old neglected garden with its grass-grown paths
+and well-filled carp-ponds and tumble-down pavilions. Peer rushed about
+it in all directions. Here, too, there had been fetes, with coloured
+lamps festooned around, and couples whispering in the shade of every
+bush. “Merle, did you say your father was going to sell all this to the
+State?”
+
+“Yes, that’s what it will come to, I expect,” she answered. “The place
+doesn’t pay, he says, when he can’t live here himself to look after it.”
+
+“But what use can the State make of it?”
+
+“Oh, a Home for Imbeciles, I believe.”
+
+“Good Lord! I might have guessed it! An idiot asylum--to be sure.” He
+tramped about, fairly jumping with excitement. “Merle, look here--will
+you come and live here?”
+
+She threw back her head and looked at him. “I ask you, Merle. Will you
+come and live here?”
+
+“Do you want me to answer this moment, on the spot?”
+
+“Yes. For I want to buy it this moment, on the spot.”
+
+“Well, aren’t you--”
+
+“Look, Merle, just look at it all. That long balcony there, with the
+doric columns--nothing shoddy about that--it’s the real thing. Empire. I
+know something about it.”
+
+“But it’ll cost a great deal, Peer.” There was some reluctance in her
+voice. Was she thinking of her violin? Was she loth to take root too
+firmly?
+
+“A great deal?” he said. “What did your father give for it?”
+
+“The place was sold by auction, and he got it cheap. Fifty thousand
+crowns, I think it was.”
+
+Peer strode off towards the house again. “We’ll buy it. It’s the
+very place to make into a home. . . . Horses, cattle, sheep, goats,
+cottars--ah! it’ll be grand.”
+
+Merle followed him more slowly. “But, Peer, remember you’ve just taken
+over father’s machine-shops in town.”
+
+“Pooh!” said Peer scornfully. “Do you think I can’t manage to run that
+village smithy and live here too! Come along, Merle.” And he took her
+hand and drew her into the house again.
+
+It was useless to try to resist. He dragged her from room to room,
+furnishing as he went along. “This room here is the dining-room--and
+that’s the big reception-room; this will be the study--that’s a boudoir
+for you. . . . Come now; to-morrow we’ll go into Christiania and buy the
+furniture.”
+
+Merle gasped for breath. He had got so far by this time that the
+furnishing was complete and they were installed. They had a governess
+already, and he was giving parties too. Here was the ballroom. He
+slipped an arm round her waist and danced round the room with her, till
+she was carried away by his enthusiasm, and stood flushed and beaming,
+while all she had dreamed of finding some day out in the wide world
+seemed suddenly to unfold around her here in these empty rooms. Was this
+really to be her home? She stopped to take breath and to look around
+her.
+
+Late that evening Peer sat at the hotel with a note-book, working the
+thing out. He had bought Loreng; his father-in-law had been reasonable,
+and had let him have the place, lands and woods and all, for the
+ridiculous price he had paid himself. There was a mortgage of thirty
+thousand crowns on the estate. Well, that might stand as it was, for the
+bulk of Peer’s money was tied up in Ferdinand Holm’s company.
+
+A few days after he carried Merle off to the capital, leaving the
+carpenters and painters hard at work at Loreng.
+
+One day he was sitting alone at the hotel in Christiania--Merle was out
+shopping--when there was a very discreet knock at the door.
+
+“Come in,” called Peer. And in walked a middle-sized man, of thirty or
+more, dressed in a black frock-coat with a large-patterned vest, and his
+dark hair carefully combed over a bald patch on the crown. He had a
+red, cheery face; his eyes were of the brightest blue, and the whole man
+breathed and shone with good humour.
+
+“I am Uthoug junior,” said the new-comer, with a bow and a laugh.
+
+“Oh--that’s capital.”
+
+“Just come across from Manchester--beastly voyage. Thanks, thanks--I’ll
+find a seat.” He sat down, and flung one striped trouser-leg over the
+other.
+
+Peer sent for some wine, and in half an hour the two were firm allies.
+Uthoug junior’s life-story to date was quickly told. He had run away
+from home because his father had refused to let him go on the stage--had
+found on trial that in these days there weren’t enough theatres to go
+round--then had set up in business for himself, and now had a general
+agency for the sale of English tweeds. “Freedom, freedom,” was his idea;
+“lots of elbow-room--room to turn about in--without with your leave or
+by your leave to father or anyone! Your health!”
+
+
+A week later the street outside Lorentz D. Uthoug’s house in Ringeby was
+densely crowded with people, all gazing up at the long rows of lighted
+windows. There was feasting to-night in the great man’s house. About
+midnight a carriage drove up to the door. “That’s the bridegroom’s,”
+ whispered a bystander. “He got those horses from Denmark!”
+
+The street door opened, and a white figure, thickly cloaked, appeared
+on the steps. “The bride!” whispered the crowd. Then a slender man in
+a dark overcoat and silk hat. “The bridegroom!” And as the pair passed
+out, “Hip-hip-hip--” went the voice of the general agent for English
+tweeds, and the hurrahs came with a will.
+
+The carriage moved off, and Peer sat, with his arm round his bride,
+driving his horses at a sharp trot out along the fjord. Out towards his
+home, towards his palace, towards a new and untried future.
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+A little shaggy, grey-bearded old man stood chopping and sawing in
+the wood-shed at Loreng. He had been there longer than anyone could
+remember. One master left, another took his place--what was that to
+the little man? Didn’t the one need firewood--and didn’t the other need
+firewood just the same? In the evening he crept up to his den in the
+loft of the servants’ wing; at meal-times he sat himself down in the
+last seat at the kitchen-table, and it seemed to him that there was
+always food to be had. Nowadays the master’s name was Holm--an engineer
+he was--and the little man blinked at him with his eyes, and went on
+chopping in the shed. If they came and told him he was not wanted and
+must go--why, thank heaven, he was stone deaf, as everyone knew. Thud,
+thud, went his axe in the shed; and the others about the place were so
+used to it that they heeded it no more than the ticking of a clock upon
+the wall.
+
+In the kitchen of the big house two girls stood by the window peeping
+out into the garden and giggling.
+
+“There he is again,” said Laura. “Sh! don’t laugh so loud. There! now
+he’s stopping again!”
+
+“He’s whistling to a bird,” said Oliana. “Or talking to himself perhaps.
+Do you think he’s quite right in his head?”
+
+“Sh! The mistress’ll hear.”
+
+It was no less a person than the master of Loreng himself whose
+proceedings struck them as so comic.
+
+Peer it was, wandering about in the great neglected garden, with his
+hands in the pockets of his knickerbockers and his cap on the back of
+his head, stopping here and there, and moving on again as the fancy
+took him. Sometimes he would hum a snatch of a song, and again fall
+to whistling; here he would pick up a twig and look at it, or again
+it might be a bird, or perhaps an old neglected apple-tree that seemed
+worth stopping to talk to. The best of it was that these were his own
+lands and his own woods that lay there in the rusty October sunshine.
+Was all that nothing? And the hill over on the farther shore, standing
+on its head in the dark lake-mirror, clothed in a whole world of
+colour--yellow leaves and green leaves, and light red and dark red, and
+golden and blood-red patches, with the dark green of the pines between.
+His eyes had all this to rest on. Did he really live here? What abundant
+fruitfulness all around him! What a sky, so wide, so golden that it
+seemed to ring again. The potato-stalks lay uprooted, scattered on the
+fields; the corn was safely housed. And here he stood. He seemed again
+to be drawing in nourishment from all he saw, drinking it greedily.
+The empty places in his mind were filled; the sight of the rich soft
+landscape worked on his being, giving it something of its own abundant
+fruitfulness, its own wide repose.
+
+And--what next?
+
+“What next?” he mimicked in his thoughts, and started again tramping up
+and down the garden paths. What next--what next? Could he not afford
+now to take his time--to rest a little? Every man must have an end in
+view--must strive to reach this goal or that. And what was his object
+now? What was it he had so toiled for, from those hard years in the
+loft above the stable even until now? What was it? Often it seemed as if
+everything were going smoothly, going of itself; as if one day, surely,
+he would find his part in a great, happy world-harmony. But had he not
+already found it? What more would he have? Of course he had found it.
+
+But is this all, then? What is there behind and beyond? Hush! have done
+with questioning. Look at the beauty around you. Here is peace, peace
+and rest.
+
+He hurried up to the house, and in--it might help matters if he could
+take his wife in his arms; perhaps get her to come out with him a while.
+
+Merle was in the pantry, with a big apron on, ranging jars of preserves
+on the shelves.
+
+“Here, dearest little wife,” cried Peer, throwing his arms about her,
+“what do you say to a little run?”
+
+“Now? Do you suppose a housewife has nothing better to do than gad
+about? Uf! my hair! you’ll make it come down.”
+
+Peer took her arm and led her over to a window looking out on the lake.
+“There, dearest! Isn’t it lovely here?”
+
+“Peer, you’ve asked me that twenty times a day ever since we came.”
+
+“Yes, and you never answer. And you’ve never once yet run and thrown
+your arms round my neck and said how happy you were. And it’s never yet
+come to pass that you’ve given me a single kiss of your own accord.”
+
+“I should think not, when you steal such a lot.” And she pushed him
+aside, and slipped under his arm, and ran out of the room. “I must go in
+and see mother again to-day,” she said as she went.
+
+“Huit! Of course!” He paced up and down the room, his step growing
+more and more impatient. “In to mother--in to mother! Always and
+everlastingly mother and mother and nothing else. Huit!” and he began to
+whistle.
+
+Merle put her head in at the door. “Peer--have you such a terrible lot
+of spare time?”
+
+“Well, yes and no. I’m busy enough looking about in every corner here
+for something or another. But I can’t find it, and I don’t even know
+exactly what it is. Oh well, yes--I have plenty of time to spare.”
+
+“But what about the farm?”
+
+“Well, there’s the dairy-woman in the cow-house, and the groom in the
+stables, and the bailiff to worry the tenants and workpeople. What am I
+to do--poke around making improvements?”
+
+“But what about the machine-shop?”
+
+“Don’t I go in twice a day--cycle over to see how things are going? But
+with Rode for manager--that excellent and high-principled engineer--”
+
+“Surely you could help him in some way?”
+
+“He’s got to go on running along the line of rails he’s used to--nothing
+else for it, my darling. And four or five thousand crowns a year, net
+profit--why, it’s magnificent!”
+
+“But couldn’t you extend the business?”
+
+He raised his eyebrows, and his mouth pursed itself up.
+
+“Extend--did you say extend? Extend a--a doll’s house!”
+
+“Oh, Peer, you shouldn’t laugh at it--a thing that father took so much
+pains to set going!”
+
+“And YOU shouldn’t go worrying me to get to work again in earnest,
+Merle. You shouldn’t really. One of these days I might discover that
+there’s no way to be happy in the world but to drag a plough and look
+straight ahead and forget that there’s anything else in existence. It
+may come to that one day--but give me a little breathing-space first,
+and you love me. Well, good-bye for a while.”
+
+Merle, busying herself again in her pantry, glanced out of the window
+and saw him disappear into the stables. At first she had gone with
+him when he wandered about like this, touching and feeling all his
+possessions. In the cattle-stalls, it might be, stroking and patting,
+getting himself covered with hairs, and chattering away in childish
+glee. “Look, Merle--this cow is mine, child! Dagros her name is--and
+she’s mine. We have forty of them--and they’re all mine. And that nag
+there--what a sight he is! We have eight of them. They’re mine. Yours
+too, of course. But you don’t care a bit about it. You haven’t even
+hugged any of them yet. But when a man’s been as poor as I’ve been--and
+suddenly wakened up one day and found he owned all this--No, wait a
+minute, Merle--come and kiss old Brownie.” She knew the ritual now--he
+could go over it all again and again, and each time with the same happy
+wonder. Was it odious of her that she was beginning to find it a little
+comic? And how did it come about that often, when she might be filled
+with the deepest longing for him, and he burst in upon her boisterously,
+hungry for her caresses, she would grow suddenly cold, and put him
+aside? What was the matter? Why did she behave like this?
+
+Perhaps it was because he was so much the stronger, so overwhelming in
+his effect on her that she had to keep a tight hold on herself to avoid
+being swept clean away and losing her identity. At one moment they might
+be sitting in the lamplight, chatting easily together, and so near in
+heart and mind; and the next it would be over--he would suddenly have
+started up and be pacing up and down the room, delivering a sort of
+lecture. Merle--isn’t it marvellous, the spiritual life of plants? And
+then would come a torrent of talk about strange plant-growths in
+the north and in the south, plants whose names she had never even
+heard--their struggle for existence, their loves and longings, their
+heroism in disease, the divine marvel of their death. Their inventions,
+their wisdom, aye, their religious sense--is it not marvellous, Merle?
+From this it was only a step to the earth’s strata, fossils, crystals--a
+fresh lecture. And finally he would sum up the whole into one great
+harmony of development, from the primary cell-life to the laws of
+gravitation that rule the courses of the stars. Was it not marvellous?
+One common rhythm beating through the universe--a symphony of
+worlds!--And then he must have a kiss!
+
+But she could only draw back and put him gently aside. It was as if he
+came with all his stored-up knowledge--his lore of plants and fossils,
+crystals and stars--and poured it all out in a caress. She could almost
+have cried out for help. And after hurrying her through the wonders
+of the universe in this fashion, he would suddenly catch her up in his
+arms, and whirl her off in a passionate intoxication of the senses till
+she woke at last like a castaway on an island, hardly knowing where or
+what she was. She laughed, but she could have found it in her heart to
+weep. Could this be love? In this strong man, whose life till now had
+been all study and work, the stored-up feeling burst vehemently forth,
+now that it had found an outlet. But why did it leave her so cold?
+
+When Peer came in from the stables, humming a tune, he found her in the
+sitting-room, dressed in a dark woollen dress with a red ribbon round
+her throat.
+
+He stopped short: “By Jove--how that suits you, Merle!”
+
+She let her eyes linger on him for a moment, and then came up and threw
+her arms round his neck.
+
+“Did he have to go to the stables all alone today?”
+
+“Yes; I’ve been having a chat with the young colt.”
+
+“Am I unkind to you, Peer?”
+
+“You?--you!”
+
+“Not even if I ask you to drive me in to see mother?”
+
+“Why, that’s the very thing. The new horse I bought yesterday from
+Captain Myhre should be here any minute--I’m just waiting for it.”
+
+“A new horse--to ride?”
+
+“Yes. Hang it--I must get some riding. I had to handle Arab horses for
+years. But we’ll try this one in the gig first.”
+
+Merle was still standing with her arms round his neck, and now she
+pressed her warm rich lips to his, close and closer. It was at
+such moments that she loved him--when he stood trembling with a joy
+unexpected, that took him unawares. She too trembled, with a blissful
+thrill through soul and body; for once and at last it was she who gave.
+
+“Ah!” he breathed at last, pale with emotion. “I--I’d be glad to die
+like that.”
+
+A little later they stood on the balcony looking over the courtyard,
+when a bearded farm-hand came up with a big light-maned chestnut horse
+prancing in a halter. The beast stood still in the middle of the yard,
+flung up its head, and neighed, and the horses in the stable neighed in
+answer.
+
+“Oh, what a beauty!” exclaimed Merle, clapping her hands.
+
+“Put him into the gig,” called Peer to the stable-boy who had come out
+to take the horse.
+
+The man touched his cap. “Horse has never been driven before, sir, I was
+to say.”
+
+“Everything must have a beginning,” said Peer.
+
+Merle glanced at him. But they were both dressed to go out when the
+chestnut came dancing up before the door with the gig. The white hoofs
+pawed impatiently, the head was high in the air, and the eyes flashed
+fire--he wasn’t used to having shafts pressing on his sides and wheels
+rumbling just behind him. Peer lit a cigar.
+
+“You’re not going to smoke?” Merle burst out.
+
+“Just to show him I’m not excited,” said Peer. No sooner had they taken
+their seats in the gig than the beast began to snort and rear, but
+the long lash flicked out over its neck, and a minute later they were
+tearing off in a cloud of dust towards the town.
+
+
+Winter came--and a real winter it was. Peer moved about from one window
+to another, calling all the time to Merle to come and look. He had
+been away so long--the winter of Eastern Norway was all new to him.
+Look--look! A world of white--a frozen white tranquillity--woods,
+plains, lakes all in white, a fairy-tale in sunlight, a dreamland at
+night under the great bright moon. There was a ringing of sleigh-bells
+out on the lake, and up in the snow-powdered forest; the frost stood
+thick on the horses’ manes and the men’s beards were hung with icicles.
+And in the middle of the night loud reports of splitting ice would come
+from the lake--sounds to make one sit up in bed with a start.
+
+Driving’s worth while in weather like this--come, Merle. The new
+stallion from Gudbrandsdal wants breaking in--we’ll take him. Hallo! and
+away they go in their furs, swinging out over the frozen lake, whirling
+on to the bare glassy ice, where they skid and come near capsizing,
+and Merle screams--but they get on to snow, and hoofs and runners grip
+again. None of your galloping--trot now, trot! And Peer cracks his whip.
+The black, long-maned Gudbrandsdaler lifts his head and trots out. And
+the evening comes, and under the wide and starry sky they dash up again
+to Loreng--Loreng that lies there lighting them home with its long rows
+of glowing windows. A glorious day, wife!
+
+Or they would go out on ski over the hills to the woodmen’s huts in the
+forest, and make a blazing fire in the big chimney and drink steaming
+coffee. Then home again through one of those pale winter evenings with
+a violet twilight over woods and fields and lake, over white snow and
+blue. Far away on the brown hillside in the west stands a farmhouse,
+with all its windows flaming with the reflection from a golden cloud.
+Here they come rushing, the wind of their passing shaking the snow from
+the pines; on, on, over deep-rutted woodcutters’ roads, over stumps and
+stones--falling, bruising themselves, burying their faces deep in
+the snow, but dragging themselves up again, smiling to each other and
+rushing on again. Then, reaching home red and dripping, they lean the
+ski up against the wall, and stamp the snow off their boots.
+
+“Merle,” said Peer, picking the ice from his beard, “we must have a
+bottle of Burgundy at dinner to-night.”
+
+“Yes--and shall we ring up and ask someone to come over?”
+
+“Someone--from outside? Can’t we two have a little jollification all to
+ourselves?”
+
+“Yes, yes, of course, if you like.”
+
+A shower-bath--a change of underclothes--how delicious! And--an idea!
+He’ll appear at dinner in evening dress, just for a surprise. But as
+he entered the room he stopped short. For there stood Merle herself in
+evening dress--a dress of dark red velvet, with his locket round her
+neck and the big plaits of hair rolled into a generous knot low on her
+neck. Flowers on the table--the wine set to warm--the finest glass, the
+best silver--ptarmigan--how splendid! They lift their glasses filled
+with the red wine and drink to each other.
+
+The frozen winter landscape still lingered in their thoughts, but the
+sun had warmed their souls; they laughed and jested, held each other’s
+hands long, and sat smiling at each other in long silences.
+
+“A glorious day to-day, Merle. And to-morrow we die.”
+
+“What do you say!--to-morrow!”
+
+“Or fifty years hence. It comes to the same thing.” He pressed her hand
+and his eyes half closed.
+
+“But this evening we’re together--and what could we want more?”
+
+Then he fell to talking of his Egyptian experiences. He had once spent
+a month’s holiday in visiting ruined cities with Maspero, the great
+Maspero himself, going with him to Luxor, to Karnak, with its great
+avenues of sphinxes, to El Amarna and Shubra. They had looked on ancient
+cities of temples and king’s mausoleums, where men thousands of years
+dead lay as if lost in thought, with eyes wide open, ready at any moment
+to rise and call out: Slave, is the bath ready? There in the middle of
+a cornfield rises an obelisk. You ask what it is--it is all that is left
+of a royal city. There, too, a hundred thousand years ago maybe, young
+couples have sat together, drinking to each other in wine, revelling in
+all the delights of love--and where are they now? Aye, where are they,
+can you tell me?
+
+“When that journey was over, Merle, I began to think that it was not
+mere slime of the Nile that fertilised the fields; it was the mouldered
+bodies of the dead. I rode over dust that had been human fingers, lips
+that had clung in kisses. Millions and millions of men and women have
+lived on those river-banks, and what has become of them now? Geology.
+And I thought of the millions of prayers wailed out there to the sun and
+stars, to stone idols in the temples, to crocodiles and snakes and the
+river itself, the sacred river. And the air, Merle--the air received
+them, and vibrated for a second--and that was all. And even so our
+prayers go up, to this very day. We press our warm lips to a cold stone,
+and think to leave an impression. Skaal!”
+
+But Merle did not touch her glass; she sat still, with her eyes on the
+yellow lampshade. She had not yet given up all her dreams of going forth
+and conquering the world with her music--and he sat there rolling out
+eternity itself before her, while he and she herself, her parents, all,
+all became as chaff blown before the wind and vanished.
+
+“What, won’t you drink with me? Well, well--then I must pledge you by
+myself. Skaal!”
+
+And being well started on his travellers’ tales he went on with them,
+but now in a more cheerful vein, so that she found it possible to smile.
+He told of the great lake-swamps, with their legions of birds, ibis,
+pelicans, swans, flamingos, herons, and storks--a world of long beaks
+and curved breasts and stilt-like legs and shrieking and beating of
+wings. Most wonderful of all it was to stand and watch and be left
+behind when the birds of passage flew northward in their thousands in
+the spring. My love to Norway, he would say, as they passed. And in the
+autumn to see them return, grey goose, starling, wagtail, and all the
+rest. “How goes it now at home?” he would think--and “Next time I’ll go
+with you,” he would promise himself year after year.
+
+“And here I am at last! Skaal!”
+
+“Welcome home,” said Merle, lifting her glass with a smile.
+
+He rang the bell. “What do you want?” her eyes asked.
+
+“Champagne,” said Peer to the maid, who appeared and vanished again.
+
+“Are you crazy, Peer?”
+
+He leaned back, flushed and in happy mood, lit a cigarette and told of
+his greatest triumph out there; it was after he had finished his work at
+the cataracts, and had started again with a branch of the English
+firm in Alexandria. One morning in walked the Chief and said: “Now,
+gentlemen, here’s a chance for a man that has the stuff in him to win
+his spurs--who’s ready?” And half a score of voices answered “I.” “Well,
+here’s the King of Abyssinia suddenly finds he must be in the fashion
+and have a railway--couple of hundred miles of it--what do you say to
+that?” “Splendid,” we cried in chorus. “Well, but we’ve got to compete
+with Germans, and Swiss, and Americans--and we’ve got to win.” “Of
+course”--a louder chorus still. “Now, I’m going to take two men and give
+them a free hand. They’ll go up there and survey and lay out lines, and
+work out the whole project thoroughly, both from the technical and
+the financial side--and a project that’s better and cheaper than the
+opposition ones. Eight months’ work for a good man, but I must have it
+done in four. Take along assistants and equipment--all you need--and a
+thousand pounds premium to the man who puts it through so that we get
+the job.”
+
+“Peer--were you sent?” Merle half rose from her seat in her excitement.
+
+“I--and one other.”
+
+“Who was that?”
+
+“His name was Ferdinand Holm.”
+
+Merle smiled her one-sided smile, and looked at him through her
+long lashes. She knew it had been the dream of his life to beat that
+half-brother of his in fair fight. And now!
+
+“And what came of it?” she asked, with a seeming careless glance at the
+lamp.
+
+Peer flung away his cigarette. “First an expedition up the Nile, then
+a caravan journey, camels and mules and assistants and provisions and
+instruments and tents and quinine--heaps of quinine. Have you any
+idea, I wonder, what a job like that means? The line was to run through
+forests and tunnels, over swamps and torrents and chasms, and everything
+had to be planned and estimated at top speed--material, labour, time,
+cost and all. It was all very well to provide for the proper spans and
+girders for a viaduct, and estimate for thoroughly sound work in casting
+and erecting--but even then it would be no good if the Germans could
+come along and say their bridge looked handsomer than ours. It was a
+job that would take a good man eight months, and I had to get it done
+in four. There are just twelve hours in a day, it’s true--but then
+there are twelve more hours in the night. Fever? Well, yes. And
+sunstroke--yes, both men and beasts went down with that. Maps got washed
+out by the rain. I lost my best assistant by snakebite. But such things
+didn’t count as hindrances, they couldn’t be allowed to delay the work.
+If I lost a man, it simply meant so much more work for me. After a
+couple of months a blacksmith’s hammer started thumping in the back
+of my head, and when I closed my eyes for a couple of hours at night,
+little fiery snakes went wriggling about in my brain. Tired out? When
+I looked in the glass, my eyes were just two red balls in my head. But
+when the four months were up, I was back in the Chief’s office.”
+
+“And--and Ferdinand Holm?”
+
+“Had got in the day before.”
+
+Merle shifted a little in her seat. “And so--he won?”
+
+Peer lit another cigarette. “No,” he said--the cigarette seemed to draw
+rather badly--“I won. And that’s how I came to be building railways in
+Abyssinia.”
+
+“Here’s the champagne,” said Merle. And as the wine foamed in the
+glasses, she rose and drank to him. She said nothing, only looked at him
+with eyes half veiled, and smiled. But a wave of fire went through him
+from head to foot.
+
+“I feel like playing to-night,” she said.
+
+It was rarely that she played, though he had often begged her to. Since
+they had been married she had seemed loth to touch her violin, feeling
+perhaps some vague fear that it would disturb her peace and awaken old
+longings.
+
+Peer sat on the sofa, leaning forward with his head in his hands,
+listening. And there she stood, at the music-stand, in her red dress,
+flushed and warm, and shining in the yellow lamplight, playing.
+
+Then suddenly the thought of her mother came to her, and she went to the
+telephone. “Mother--are you there, mother? Oh, we’ve had such a glorious
+day.” And the girl ran on, as if trying to light up her mother’s heart
+with some rays of the happiness her own happy day had brought her.
+
+A little later Peer lay in bed, while Merle flitted about the room,
+lingering over her toilet.
+
+He watched her as she stood in her long white gown before the
+toilet-table with the little green-shaded lamps, doing her hair for the
+night in a long plait. Neither of them spoke. He could see her face
+in the glass, and saw that her eyes were watching him, with a soft,
+mysterious glance--the scent of her hair seemed to fill the place with
+youth.
+
+She turned round towards him and smiled. And he lay still, beckoning her
+towards him with shining eyes. All that had passed that evening--their
+outing, and the homeward journey in the violet dusk, their little feast,
+and his story, the wine--all had turned to love in their hearts, and
+shone out now in their smile.
+
+It may be that some touch of the cold breath of the eternities was still
+in their minds, the remembrance of the millions on millions that die,
+the flight of the aeons towards endless darkness; yet in spite of all,
+the minutes now to come, their warm embrace, held a whole world of
+bliss, that out-weighed all, and made Peer, as he lay there, long to
+send out a hymn of praise into the universe, because it was so wonderful
+to live.
+
+He began to understand why she lingered and took so long. It was a sign
+that she wanted to surprise him, that her heart was kind. And her light
+breathing seemed even now to fill the room with love.
+
+Outside in the night the lake-ice, splitting into new crevices, sent up
+loud reports; and the winter sky above the roof that sheltered them was
+lit with all its stars.
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+For the next few years Peer managed his estate and his workshop, without
+giving too much of his time to either. He had his bailiff and his
+works-manager, and the work went on well enough in its accustomed
+grooves. If anyone had asked him what he actually did himself all the
+time, he would have found it hard to answer. He seemed to be going
+round gathering up something not clearly defined. There was something
+wanting--something missed that now had to be made good. It was not
+knowledge now, but life--life in his native land, the life of youth,
+that he reached out to grasp. The youth in him, that had never had free
+play in the years of early manhood, lay still dammed up, and had to find
+an outlet.
+
+There were festive gatherings at Loreng. Long rows of sleighs drove in
+the winter evenings up from the town and back again. Tables were spread
+and decked with glass and flowers, the rooms were brightly lit, and
+the wine was good. And sometimes in the long moonlit nights respectable
+citizens would be awakened by noisy mirth in the streets of the little
+town, and, going to the window in their night-shirts, would see sleighs
+come galloping down, with a jangle of bells, full of laughing, singing
+young people, returning from some excursion far up in the hills, where
+there had been feasting and dancing. Here a young lawyer--newly married
+and something of a privileged buffoon--was sitting on the lap of
+somebody else’s wife, playing a concertina, and singing at the top of
+his voice. “Some of that Loreng man’s doings again,” people would say.
+“The place has never been the same since he came here.” And they would
+get back to bed again, shaking their heads and wondering what things
+were coming to.
+
+Peer drove out, too, on occasion, to parties at the big country houses
+round, where they would play cards all night and have champagne sent
+up to their rooms next morning, the hosts being men who knew how to
+do things in style. This was glorious. Not mathematics or religion any
+more--what he needed now was to assimilate something of the country
+life of his native land. He was not going to be a stranger in his own
+country. He wanted to take firm root and be able to feel, like others,
+that he had a spot in the world where he was at home.
+
+Then came the sunny day in June when he stood by Merle’s bed, and she
+lay there smiling faintly her one-sided smile, with a newborn girl on
+her arm.
+
+“What are we to call her, Peer?”
+
+“Why, we settled that long ago. After your mother, of course.”
+
+“Of course her name’s to be Louise,” said Merle, turning the tiny red
+face towards her breast.
+
+This came as a fresh surprise. She had been planning it for weeks
+perhaps, and now it took him unawares like one of her spontaneous
+caresses, but this time a caress to his inmost soul.
+
+He made a faint attempt at a joke. “Oh well, I never have any say in
+my own house. I suppose you must have it your own way.” He stroked her
+forehead; and when she saw how deeply moved he was, she smiled up at him
+with her most radiant smile.
+
+On one of the first days of the hay-harvest, Peer lay out on a sunny
+hillside with his head resting on a haycock, watching his people at
+work. The mowing machine was buzzing down by the lake, the spreader at
+work on the hill-slopes, the horses straining in front, the men sitting
+behind driving. The whole landscape lay around him breathing summer and
+fruitfulness. And he himself lay there sunk in his own restful quiet.
+
+A woman in a light dress and a yellow straw hat came down the field
+road, pushing a child’s cart before her. It was Merle, and Merle was
+looking round her, and humming as she came. Since the birth of her child
+her mind was at peace; it was clear that she was scarcely dreaming now
+of conquering the world with her music--there was a tiny being in the
+little cart that claimed all her dreams. Never before had her skin
+been so dazzling, her smile so red; it was as if her youth now first
+blossomed out in all its fullness; her eyes seemed opened wide in a dear
+surprise.
+
+After a while Peer went down and drove the mowing machine himself. He
+felt as if he must get to work somehow or other to provide for his wife
+and child.
+
+But suddenly he stopped, got down, and began to walk round the machine
+and examine it closely. His face was all alert now, his eyes keen and
+piercing. He stared at the mechanism of the blades, and stood awhile
+thinking.
+
+What was this? A happy idea was beginning to work in his mind. Vague
+only as yet--there was still time to thrust it aside. Should he?
+
+
+Warm mild days and luminous nights. Sometimes he could not sleep for
+thinking how delicious it was to lie awake and see the sun come up.
+
+On one such night he got up and dressed. A few minutes later there was
+a trampling of hoofs in the stable-yard and the chestnut stallion
+appeared, with Peer leading him. He swung himself into the saddle, and
+trotted off down the road, a white figure in his drill suit and cork
+helmet.
+
+Where was he going? Nowhere. It was a change, to be up at an unusual
+hour and see the day break on a July morning.
+
+He trotted along at an easy pace, rising lightly in the stirrups, and
+enjoying the pleasant warmth the rider feels. All was quiet around him,
+the homesteads still asleep. The sky was a pearly white, with here and
+there a few golden clouds, reflected in the lake below. And the broad
+meadows still spread their many-coloured flower-carpet abroad; there was
+a scent in the air of leaf and meadow-grass and pine, he drew in deep
+breaths of it and could have sung aloud.
+
+He turned into the by-road up the hill, dismounting now and again to
+open a gate; past farms and little cottages, ever higher and higher,
+till at last he reached the topmost ridge, and halted in a clearing. The
+chestnut threw up his head and sniffed the air; horse and rider were
+wet with the dew-drip from the trees, that were now just flushing in the
+first glow of the coming sun. Far below was the lake, reflecting sky
+and hills and farmsteads, all asleep. And there in the east were the red
+flames--the sun--the day.
+
+The horse pawed impatiently at the ground, eager to go on, but Peer
+held him back. He sat there gazing under the brim of his helmet at the
+sunrise, and felt a wave of strange feeling passing through his mind.
+
+It seemed to him impossible that he should ever reach a higher pitch of
+sheer delight in life. He was still young and strong; all the organs of
+his body worked together in happy harmony. No cares to weigh upon his
+mind, no crushing responsibilities; the future lying calm and clear in
+the light of day, free from dizzy dreams. His hunger after knowledge
+was appeased; he felt that what he had learned and seen and gathered was
+beginning to take living organic form in his mind.
+
+But then--what then?
+
+The great human type of which you dreamed--have you succeeded in giving
+it life in yourself?
+
+You know what is common knowledge about the progress of humanity; its
+struggle towards higher forms, its gropings up by many ways toward the
+infinite which it calls God.
+
+You know something of the life of plants; the nest of a bird is a
+mystery before which you could kneel in worship. A rock shows you the
+marks of a glacier that scraped over it thousands of years ago, and
+looking on it you have a glimpse of the gigantic workings of the solar
+system. And on autumn evenings you look up at the stars, and the light
+and the death and the dizzy abysses of space above you send a solemn
+thrill through your soul.
+
+And this has become a part of yourself. The joy of life for you is to
+grasp all you can compass of the universe, and let it permeate your
+thought and sense on every side.
+
+But what then? Is this enough? Is it enough to rest thus in yourself?
+
+Have you as yet raised one stepping-stone upon which other men can climb
+and say: Now we can see farther than before?
+
+What is your inner being worth, unless it be mirrored in action?
+
+If the world one day came to be peopled with none but supermen--what
+profit in that, as long as they must die?
+
+What is your faith?
+
+Ah, this sense of exile, of religious homelessness! How many times have
+you and Merle lain clasping each other’s hands, your thoughts wandering
+together hand in hand, seeking over earth or among the stars for some
+being to whom you might send up a prayer; no slavish begging cry for
+grace and favour, but a jubilant thanksgiving for the gift of life.
+
+But where was He?
+
+He is not. And yet--He is.
+
+But the ascetic on the cross is a God for the sick and aged. What of us
+others? When shall the modern man, strong, scientifically schooled, find
+a temple for the sacred music, the anthem of eternity in his soul?
+
+The sun rose up from behind a distant hill-crest, scattering gold
+over the million spires of the pine-forest. Peer bent forward, with
+red-gleaming dewdrops on his hand and his white sleeve, and patted the
+neck of his restless beast.
+
+It was two o’clock. The fires of morning were lit in the clouds and in
+all the waters over the earth. The dew in the meadows and the pearls on
+the wings of butterflies began to glisten.
+
+“Now then, Bijou!--now for home!”
+
+And he dashed off down the grass-grown forest paths, the chestnut
+snorting as he galloped.
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+“Hei, Merle; We’re going to have distinguished visitors--where in the
+world have you got to!” Peer hurried through the rooms with an open
+telegram in his hand, and at last came upon his wife in the nursery.
+“Oh, is it here you are?”
+
+“Yes--but you shout so, I could hear you all through the house. Who is
+it that’s coming?”
+
+“Ferdinand Holm and Klaus Brock. Coming to the christening after all.
+Great Caesar!--what do you say to that, Merle?”
+
+Merle was pale, and her cheeks a little sunken. Two years more had
+passed, and she had her second child now on her knee--a little boy with
+big wondering eyes.
+
+“How fine for you, Peer!” she said, and went on undressing the child.
+
+“Yes; but isn’t it splendid of them to set off and come all that way,
+just because I asked them? By Jove, we must look sharp and get the place
+smartened up a bit.”
+
+And sure enough the whole place was soon turned upside-down--cartloads
+of sand coming in for the garden walks and the courtyard, and painters
+hard at work repainting the houses. And poor Merle knew very well that
+there would be serious trouble if anything should be amiss with the
+entertainment indoors.
+
+At last came the hot August day when the flags were hoisted in honour of
+the expected guests. Once more the hum of mowing machines and hay-rakes
+came from the hill-slopes, and the air was so still that the columns of
+smoke from the chimneys of the town rose straight into the air. Peer
+had risen early, to have a last look round, inspecting everything
+critically, from the summer dress Merle was to wear down to the horses
+in the stable, groomed till their coats shone again. Merle understood.
+He had been a fisher-boy beside the well-dressed son of the doctor, and
+something meaner yet in relation to the distinguished Holm family. And
+there was still so much of the boy in him that he wanted to show now at
+his very best.
+
+A crowd of inquisitive idlers had gathered down on the steamboat landing
+when the boat swung in and lay by the pier. The pair of bays in the
+Loreng carriage stood tossing their heads and twitching and stamping as
+the flies tormented them; but at last they got their passengers and were
+given their heads, setting off with a wild bound or two that scattered
+those who had pressed too near. But in the carriage they could see the
+two strangers and the engineer, all three laughing and gesticulating,
+and talking all at once. And in a few moments they vanished in a cloud
+of dust, whirling away beside the calm waters of the fjord.
+
+Some way behind them a cart followed, driven by one of the stable-boys
+from Loreng, and loaded with big brass-bound leather trunks and a
+huge chest, apparently of wood, but evidently containing something
+frightfully heavy.
+
+Merle had finished dressing, and stood looking at herself in the glass.
+The light summer dress was pretty, she thought, and the red bows at neck
+and waist sat to her satisfaction. Then came the roll of wheels outside,
+and she went out to receive her guests.
+
+“Here they are,” cried Peer, jumping down. “This is Ferdinand Pasha,
+Governor-General of the new Kingdom of Sahara--and this is His Highness
+the Khedive’s chief pipe-cleaner and body-eunuch.”
+
+A tall, stooping man with white hair and a clean-shaven, dried-up face
+advanced towards Merle. It was Ferdinand Holm. “How do you do, Madam?”
+ he said, giving her a dry, bony hand.
+
+“Why, this is quite a baronial seat you have here,” he added, looking
+round and settling his pince-nez.
+
+His companion was a round, plump gentleman, with a little black goatee
+beard and dark eyes that blinked continually. But his smile was full of
+mirth, and the grip of his hand felt true. So this was Klaus Brock.
+
+Peer led his two friends in through the rooms, showing them the view
+from the various windows. Klaus broke into a laugh at last, and turned
+to Merle: “He’s just the same as ever,” he said--“a little stouter, to
+be sure--it’s clear you’ve been treating him well, madam.” And he bowed
+and kissed her hand.
+
+There was hock and seltzer ready for them--this was Merle’s idea, as
+suitable for a hot day--and when the two visitors had each drunk off
+a couple of glasses, with an: “Ah! delicious!”, Peer came behind her,
+stroked her hand lightly and whispered, “Thanks, Merle--first-rate idea
+of yours.”
+
+“By the way,” exclaimed Ferdinand Holm suddenly, “I must send off a
+telegram. May I use the telephone a moment?”
+
+“There he goes--can’t contain himself any longer!” burst out Klaus
+Brock with a laugh. “He’s had the telegraph wires going hard all the way
+across Europe--but you might let us get inside and sit down before you
+begin again here.”
+
+“Come along,” said Peer. “Here’s the telephone.”
+
+When the two had left the room, Klaus turned to Merle with a smile.
+“Well, well--so I’m really in the presence of Peer’s wife--his wife in
+flesh and blood. And this is what she looks like! That fellow always had
+all the luck.” And he took her hand again and kissed it. Merle drew it
+away and blushed.
+
+“You are not married, then, Mr. Brock?”
+
+“I? Well, yes and no. I did marry a Greek girl once, but she ran away.
+Just my luck.” And he blinked his eyes and sighed with an expression so
+comically sad that Merle burst out laughing.
+
+“And your friend, Ferdinand Holm?” she asked.
+
+“He, dear lady--he--why, saving your presence, I have an idea there’s a
+select little harem attached to that palace of his.”
+
+Merle turned towards the window and shook her head with a smile.
+
+An hour later the visitors came down from their rooms after a wash and
+a change of clothes, and after a light luncheon Peer carried them off to
+show them round the place. He had added a number of new buildings, and
+had broken new land. The farm had forty cows when he came, now he had
+over sixty. “Of course, all this is a mere nothing for fellows like you,
+who bring your harvest home in railway trains,” he said. “But, you see,
+I have my home here.” And he waved his hand towards the house and the
+farmstead round.
+
+Later they drove over in the light trap to look at the workshop, and
+here he made no excuses for its being small. He showed off the
+little foundry as if it had been a world-famous seat of industry, and
+maintained his serious air while his companions glanced sideways at him,
+trying hard not to smile.
+
+The workmen touched their caps respectfully, and sent curious glances at
+the strangers.
+
+“Quite a treat to see things on the Norwegian scale again,” Ferdinand
+Holm couldn’t resist saying at last.
+
+“Yes, isn’t it charming!” cried Peer, putting on an air of ingenuous
+delight. “This is just the size a foundry should be, if its owner is to
+have a good time and possess his soul in peace.”
+
+Ferdinand Holm and Brock exchanged glances. But next moment Peer led
+them through into a side-room, with tools and machinery evidently having
+no connection with the rest.
+
+“Now look out,” said Klaus. “This is the holy of holies, you’ll see.
+He’s hard at it working out some new devilry here, or I’m a Dutchman.”
+
+Peer drew aside a couple of tarpaulins, and showed them a mowing machine
+of the ordinary type, and beside it another, the model of a new type he
+had himself devised.
+
+“It’s not quite finished yet,” he said. “But I’ve solved the main
+problem. The old single knife-blade principle was clumsy; dragged, you
+know. But with two blades--a pair of shears, so to speak--it’ll work
+much quicker.” And he gave them a little lecture, showing how much
+simpler his mechanism was, and how much lighter the machine would be.
+
+“And there you are,” said Klaus. “It’s Columbus’s egg over again.”
+
+“The patent ought to be worth a million,” said Ferdinand Holm, slowly,
+looking out of the window.
+
+“Of course the main thing is, to make the work easier and cheaper for
+the farmers,” said Peer, with a rather sly glance at Ferdinand.
+
+Dinner that evening was a festive meal. When the liqueur brandy went
+round, Klaus greeted it with enthusiasm. “Why, here’s an old friend, as
+I live! Real Lysholmer!--well, well; and so you’re still in the land of
+the living? You remember the days when we were boys together?” He lifted
+the little glass and watched the light play in the pale spirit. And the
+three old friends drank together, singing “The first full glass,” and
+then “The second little nip,” with the proper ceremonial observances,
+just as they had done in the old days, at their student wine-parties.
+
+The talk went merrily, one good story calling up another. But Merle
+could not help noticing the steely gleam of Ferdinand Holm’s eyes, even
+when he laughed.
+
+The talk fell on new doings in Egypt, and as Peer heard more and more of
+these, it seemed to her that his look changed. His glance, too, seemed
+to have that glint of steel, there was something strange and absent in
+his face; was he feeling, perhaps, that wife and children were but
+a drag on a man, after all? He seemed like an old war-horse waking
+suddenly at the sound of trumpets.
+
+“There’s a nice little job waiting for you, by the way,” said Ferdinand
+Holm, lifting his glass to Peer.
+
+“Very kind of you, I’m sure. A sub-directorship under you?”
+
+“You’re no good under any one. You belong on top.” Ferdinand illustrated
+his words with a downward and an upward pointing of the finger. “The
+harnessing of the Tigris and Euphrates will have to be taken in hand.
+It’s only a question of time.”
+
+“Thanks very much!” said Peer, his eyes wide open now.
+
+“The plan’s simply lying waiting for the right man. It will be carried
+out, it may be next year, it may be in ten years--whenever the man comes
+along. I would think about it, if I were you.”
+
+All looked at Peer; Merle fastened her eyes on him, too. But he laughed.
+“Now, what on earth would be the satisfaction to me of binding in bands
+those two ancient and honourable rivers?”
+
+“Well, in the first place, it would mean an increase of many millions
+of bushels in the corn production of the world. Wouldn’t you have any
+satisfaction in that?”
+
+“No,” said Peer, with a touch of scorn.
+
+“Or regular lines of communication over hundreds of thousands of square
+miles of the most fertile country on the globe?”
+
+“Don’t interest me,” said Peer.
+
+“Ah!” Ferdinand Holm lifted his glass to Merle. “Tell me, dear lady, how
+does it feel to be married to an anachronism?”
+
+“To--to what?” stammered Merle.
+
+“Yes, your husband’s an anachronism. He might, if he chose, be one of
+the kings, the prophets, who lead the van in the fight for civilisation.
+But he will not; he despises his own powers, and one day he will start a
+revolution against himself. Mark my words. Your health, dear lady!”
+
+Merle laughed, and lifted her glass, but hesitatingly, and with a
+side-glance towards Peer.
+
+“Yes, your husband is no better now than an egoist, a collector of happy
+days.”
+
+“Well, and is that so very wicked?”
+
+“He sits ravelling out his life into a multitude of golden threads,”
+ went on Ferdinand with a bow, his steely eyes trying to look gentle.
+
+“But what is wrong in that?” said the young wife stoutly.
+
+“It is wrong. It is wasting his immortal soul. A man has no right to
+ravel out his life, even though the threads are of gold. A man’s days of
+personal happiness are forgotten--his work endures. And your husband
+in particular--why the deuce should HE be so happy? The world-evolution
+uses us inexorably, either for light or for fuel. And Peer--your
+husband, dear lady--is too good for fuel.”
+
+Merle glanced again at her husband. Peer laughed, but then suddenly
+compressed his lips and looked down at his plate.
+
+Then the nurse came in with little Louise, to say good-night, and
+the child was handed round from one to the other. But when the little
+fair-haired girl came to Ferdinand Holm, he seemed loth to touch her,
+and Merle read his glance at Peer as meaning: “Here is another of the
+bonds you’ve tied yourself up with.”
+
+“Excuse me,” he said suddenly, looking at his watch, “I’m afraid I must
+ask for the use of the telephone again. Pardon me, Fru Holm.” And he
+rose and left the room. Klaus looked at the others and shook his head.
+“That man would simply expire if he couldn’t send a telegram once an
+hour,” he said with a laugh.
+
+Coffee was served out on the balcony, and the men sat and smoked. It
+was a dusky twilight of early autumn; the hills were dark blue now and
+distant; there was a scent of hay and garden flowers. After a while
+Merle rose and said good-night. And in her thoughts, when she found
+herself alone in her bedroom, she hardly knew whether to be displeased
+or not. These strange men were drawing Peer far away from all that had
+been his chief delight since she had known him. But it was interesting
+to see how different his manner was towards the two friends. Klaus Brock
+he could jest and laugh with, but with Ferdinand Holm he seemed always
+on his guard, ready to assert himself, and whenever he contradicted him
+it was always with a certain deference.
+
+The great yellow disc of the moon came up over the hills in the east,
+drawing a broad pillar of gold across the dark water. And the three
+comrades on the balcony sat watching it for a while in silence.
+
+“So you’re really going to go on idling here?” asked Ferdinand at last,
+sipping his liqueur.
+
+“Is it me you mean?” asked Peer, bending slightly forward.
+
+“Well, I gather you’re going round here simply being happy from morning
+to night. I call that idling.”
+
+“Thanks.”
+
+“Of course, you’re very unhappy in reality. Everyone is, as long as he’s
+neglecting his powers and aptitudes.”
+
+“Very many thanks,” said Peer, with a laugh. Klaus sat up in his chair,
+a little anxious as to what was coming.
+
+Ferdinand was still looking out over the lake. “You seem to despise your
+own trade--as engineer?”
+
+“Yes,” said Peer.
+
+“And why?”
+
+“Why, I feel the lack of some touch of beauty in our ceaseless craving
+to create something new, something new, always something new. More gold,
+more speed, more food--are these things not all we are driving at?”
+
+“My dear fellow, gold means freedom. And food means life. And speed
+carries us over the dead moments. Double the possibilities of life for
+men, and you double their numbers.”
+
+“And what good will it do to double their numbers? Two thousand million
+machine-made souls--is that what you want?”
+
+“But hang it all, man,” put in Klaus Brock eagerly, “think of our dear
+Norway at least. Surely you don’t think it would be a misfortune if
+our population increased so far that the world could recognise our
+existence.”
+
+“I do,” said Peer, looking away over the lake.
+
+“Ah, you’re a fanatic for the small in size and in numbers.”
+
+“I am loth to see all Norway polluted with factories and proletariat
+armies. Why the devil can’t we be left in peace?”
+
+“The steel will not have it,” said Ferdinand Holm, as if speaking to the
+pillar of moonlight on the water.
+
+“What? Who did you say?” Peer looked at him with wide eyes.
+
+Ferdinand went on undisturbed: “The steel will not have peace. And the
+fire will not. And Prometheus will not. The human spirit has still
+too many steps to climb before it reaches the top. Peace? No, my
+friend--there are powers outside you and me that determine these
+things.”
+
+Peer smiled, and lit a new cigar. Ferdinand Holm leaned back in his
+chair and went on, addressing himself apparently to the moon.
+“Tigris and Euphrates--Indus and Ganges--and all the rest of this
+planet--regulate and cultivate the whole, and what is it after all?
+It’s only a question of a few years. It is only a humble beginning. In
+a couple of centuries or so there will be nothing left to occupy us
+any more on this little globe of ours. And then we’ll have to set about
+colonising other worlds.”
+
+There was silence for a moment. Then Peer spoke.
+
+“And what do we gain by it all?” he asked.
+
+“Gain? Do you imagine there will ever be any ‘thus far and no farther’
+for the spirit of man? Half a million years hence, all the solar systems
+we know of now will be regulated and ordered by the human spirit.
+There will be difficulties, of course. Interplanetary wars will arise,
+planetary patriotism, groups of planetary powers in alliances and
+coalitions against other groups. Little worlds will be subjugated by
+the bigger ones, and so on. Is there anything in all this to grow dizzy
+over? Great heavens--can anyone doubt that man must go on conquering and
+to conquer for millions of years to come? The world-will goes its way.
+We cannot resist. Nobody asks whether we are happy. The will that works
+towards the infinite asks only whom it can use for its ends, and who is
+useless. Viola tout.”
+
+“And when I die,” asked Peer--“what then?”
+
+“You! Are you still going about feeling your own pulse and wanting to
+live for ever? My dear fellow, YOU don’t exist. There is just one person
+on our side--the world-will. And that includes us all. That’s what I
+mean by ‘we.’ And we are working towards the day when we can make
+God respect us in good earnest. The spirit of man will hold a Day
+of Judgment, and settle accounts with Olympus--with the riddle, the
+almighty power beyond. It will be a great reckoning. And mark my
+words--that is the one single religious idea that lives and works in
+each and every one of us--the thing that makes us hold up our heads and
+walk upright, forgetting that we are slaves and things that die.”
+
+Suddenly he looked at his watch. “Excuse me a moment. If the telegraph
+office is open . . .” and he rose and went in.
+
+When he returned, Klaus and Peer were talking of the home of their
+boyhood and their early days together.
+
+“Remember that time we went shark-fishing?” asked Klaus.
+
+“Oh yes--that shark. Let me see--you were a hero, weren’t you, and beat
+it to death with your bare fists--wasn’t that it?” And then “Cut the
+line, cut the line, and row for your lives,” he mimicked, and burst out
+laughing.
+
+“Oh, shut up now and don’t be so witty,” said Klaus. “But tell me, have
+you ever been back there since you came home?”
+
+Peer told him that he had been to the village last year. His old
+foster-parents were dead, and Peter Ronningen too; but Martin Bruvold
+was there still, living in a tiny cottage with eight children.
+
+“Poor devil!” said Klaus.
+
+Ferdinand Holm had sat down again, and now he nodded towards the moon.
+“An old chum of yours? Well, why don’t we send him a thousand crowns?”
+
+There was a little pause. “I hope you’ll let me join you,” went on
+Ferdinand, taking a note for five hundred crowns from his waistcoat
+pocket. “You don’t mind, do you?”
+
+Peer glanced at him and took the note. “I’m delighted for poor old
+Martin’s sake,” he said, putting the note in his waistcoat pocket.
+“That’ll make fifteen hundred for him.”
+
+Klaus Brock looked from one to the other and smiled a little. The talk
+turned on other things for a while, and then he asked:
+
+“By the way, Peer, have you seen that advertisement of the British
+Carbide Company’s?”
+
+“No, what about?”
+
+“They want tenders for the damming and harnessing of the Besna River,
+with its lake system and falls. That should be something in your line.”
+
+“No,” said Ferdinand sharply. “I told you before--that job’s too small
+for him. Peer’s going to the Euphrates.”
+
+“What would it amount to, roughly?” said Peer, addressing no one in
+particular.
+
+“As far as I could make out, it should be a matter of a couple of
+million crowns or thereabout,” said Klaus.
+
+“That’s not a thing for Peer,” said Ferdinand, rising and lifting his
+hand to hide a yawn. “Leave trifles like that to the trifling souls.
+Good-night, gentlemen.”
+
+A couple of hours later, when all was silent throughout the house, Peer
+was still up, wandering to and fro in soft felt slippers in the great
+hall. Now and again he would stop, and look out of the window. Why could
+he not sleep? The moon was paling, the day beginning to dawn.
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+
+The next morning Merle was alone in the pantry when she heard steps
+behind her, and turned her head. It was Klaus Brock.
+
+“Good-morning, madam--ah! so this is what you look like in morning
+dress. Why, morning neglige might have been invented for you, if I
+may say so. You might be a Ghirlandajo. Or no, better still, Aspasia
+herself.”
+
+“You are up early,” said Merle drily.
+
+“Am I? What about Ferdinand Holm then? He has been up since sunrise,
+sitting over his letters and accounts. Anything I can help you with? May
+I move that cheese for you?--Well, well! you are strong. But there, I’m
+always de trop where women are concerned.”
+
+“Always de trop?” repeated Merle, watching him through her long lashes.
+
+“Yes--my first and only love--do you know who she was?”
+
+“No, indeed. How should I?”
+
+“Well, it was Louise--Peer’s little sister. I wish you could have known
+her.”
+
+“And since then?” Merle let her eyes rest on this flourishing gentleman,
+who looked as if he could never have had a trouble in the world.
+
+“Since then, dear lady?--since then? Let me see. Why, at this moment I
+really can’t remember ever having met any other woman except . . .”
+
+“Except . . . ?”
+
+“Except yourself, madam.” And he bowed.
+
+“You are TOO kind!”
+
+“And, that being so, don’t you think it’s your plain duty, as a
+hospitable hostess, to grant me . . .”
+
+“Grant you--what? A piece of cheese?”
+
+“Why, no, thanks. Something better. Something much better than that.”
+
+“What, then?”
+
+“A kiss. I might as well have it now.” As he took a step nearer, she
+looked laughingly round for a way of escape, but he was between her and
+the door.
+
+“Well,” said Merle, “but you must do something to make yourself useful
+first. Suppose you ran up that step-ladder for me.”
+
+“Delighted. Why, this is great fun!” The slight wooden ladder creaked
+under the weight of his solid form as he climbed. “How high am I to go?”
+
+“To reach the top shelf--that’s it. Now, you see that big brown jar?
+Careful--it’s cranberries.”
+
+“Splendid--I do believe we’re to have cranberry preserve at dinner.” By
+standing on tiptoe he managed to reach and lift the heavy jar, and stood
+holding it, his face flushed with his exertions.
+
+“And now, little lady?”
+
+“Just stay there a moment and hold it carefully; I have to fetch
+something.” And she hurried out.
+
+Klaus stood at the top of the ladder, holding the heavy jar. He looked
+round. What was he to do with it? He waited for Merle to return--but she
+did not appear. Someone was playing the piano in the next room. Should
+he call for help? He waited on, getting redder and redder in the face.
+And still no Merle came.
+
+With another mighty effort he set the jar back in its place, and then
+climbed down the ladder and walked into the drawing-room, very red and
+out of breath. In the doorway he stopped short and stared.
+
+“What--well, I’ll--And she’s sitting here playing the piano!”
+
+“Yes. Aren’t you fond of music, Herr Brock?”
+
+“I’ll pay you out for this,” he said, shaking a finger at her. “Just you
+wait and see, little lady, if I don’t pay you out, with interest!” And
+he turned and went upstairs, chuckling as he went.
+
+Peer was sitting at the writing-table in his study when Klaus came in.
+“I’m just sealing up the letter with the money for Martin Bruvold,”
+ he said, setting the taper to a stick of sealing wax. “I’ve signed it:
+‘From the shark fishers.’”
+
+“Yes, it was a capital idea of Ferdinand’s. What d’you think the poor
+old fellow’ll say when he opens it and the big notes tumble out?”
+
+“I’d like to see his face,” said Peer, as he wrote the address on the
+envelope.
+
+Klaus dropped into a leather armchair and leaned back comfortably. “I’ve
+been downstairs flirting a little with your wife,” he said. “Your wife’s
+a wonder, Peer.”
+
+Peer looked at him, and thought of the old days when the heavy-built,
+clumsy doctor’s son had run about after the servant-girls in the town.
+He had still something of his old lurching walk, but intercourse with
+the ladies of many lands had polished him and given lightness and ease
+to his manner.
+
+“What was I going to say?” Klaus went on. “Oh yes--our friend
+Ferdinand’s a fine fellow, isn’t he?”
+
+“Yes, indeed.”
+
+“I felt yesterday exactly as I used to feel when we three were together
+in the old days. When I listen to his talk I can’t help agreeing with
+him--and then you begin to speak, and what you say, too, seems to be
+just what I’ve been thinking in my inmost soul. Do you think I’ve become
+shallow, Peer?”
+
+“Well, your steam ploughs look after themselves, I suppose, and the
+ladies of your harem don’t trouble you overmuch. Do you read at all?”
+
+“Best not say too much about that,” said Klaus with a sigh, and it
+suddenly struck Peer that his friend’s face had grown older and more
+worn.
+
+“No,” said Klaus again. “Better not say much about that. But tell me,
+old fellow--you mustn’t mind my asking--has Ferdinand ever spoken to you
+as his brother . . . or . . .”
+
+Peer flushed hotly. “No,” he said after a pause.
+
+“No?”
+
+“I owe more to him than to anybody in the world. But whether he regards
+me as a kinsman or simply as an object for his kindness to wreak itself
+on is a matter he’s always left quite vague.”
+
+“It’s just like him. He’s a queer fellow. But there’s another thing. . .
+.”
+
+“Well?” said Peer, looking up.
+
+“It’s--er--again it’s rather a delicate matter to touch on. I know,
+of course, that you’re in the enviable position of having your fortune
+invested in the best joint-stock company in the world--”
+
+“Yes; and so are you.”
+
+“Oh, mine’s a trifle compared with yours. Have you still the whole of
+your money in Ferdinand’s company?”
+
+“Yes. I’ve been thinking of selling a few shares, by the way. As you
+may suppose, I’ve been spending a good deal just lately--more than my
+income.”
+
+“You mustn’t sell just now, Peer. They’re--I daresay you’ve seen that
+they’re down--below par, in fact.”
+
+“What--below par! No, I had no idea of that.”
+
+“Oh, only for the time being, of course. Just a temporary drop. There’s
+sure to be another run on them soon, and they’ll go up again. But
+the Khedive has the controlling interest, you know, and he’s rather
+a ticklish customer. Ferdinand is all for extension--wants to keep
+on buying up new land--new desert, that is. Irrigation there’s just a
+question of power--that’s how he looks at it. And of course the bigger
+the scale of the work the cheaper the power will work out. But the
+Khedive’s holding back. It may be just a temporary whim--may be all
+right again to-morrow. But you never know. And if you think Ferdinand’s
+the man to give in to a cranky Khedive, you’re much mistaken. His idea
+now is to raise all the capital he can lay hands on, and buy him out!
+What do you say to that? Buy the Khedive clean out of the company. It’s
+a large order. And if I were you, old man, as soon as the shares go up
+again a bit, I’d sell out some of my holding, and put the money into
+something at home here. After all, there must be plenty of quite useful
+things to be had here.”
+
+Peer frowned, and sat for a while looking straight before him. “No,” he
+said at last. “As things stand between Ferdinand Holm and me--well, if
+either of us goes back on the other, it’s not going to be me.”
+
+“Ah, in that case--I beg your pardon,” said Klaus, and he rose and
+departed.
+
+The christening was a great occasion, with a houseful of guests, and a
+great deal of speechmaking. The host was the youngest and gayest of
+the party. The birth of his son should be celebrated in true Ethiopian
+fashion, he declared--with bonfires and boating parties.
+
+The moon was hidden that evening behind thick dark clouds, but the boats
+full of guests glided over the black water to the accompaniment of music
+and laughter. The young madcap of a lawyer was there, again sitting on
+the lap of someone else’s wife, and playing a concertina, till people
+in the farms on shore opened their windows and put their heads out to
+listen.
+
+Later on the bonfires blazed up all along the lake shore and shone like
+great flaming suns in the water below. The guests lay on the grass in
+little groups round picnic suppers, and here and there a couple wandered
+by themselves, talking in whispers.
+
+Merle and Peer stood together for a moment beside one of the bonfires.
+Their faces and figures were lit by the red glow; they looked at each
+other and exchanged a smile. He took her hand and led her outside the
+circle of light from the fire, and pointed over to their home, with all
+its windows glowing against the dark.
+
+“Suppose this should be the last party we give, Merle.”
+
+“Peer, what makes you say that?”
+
+“Oh, nothing--only I have a sort of feeling, as if something had just
+ended and something new was to begin. I feel like it, somehow. But I
+wanted to thank you, too, for all the happy times we’ve had.”
+
+“But Peer--what--” She got no farther, for Peer had already left her and
+joined a group of guests, where he was soon as gay as the rest.
+
+Then came the day when the two visitors were to leave. Their birthday
+gift to the young gentleman so lately christened Lorentz Uthoug stood in
+the drawing-room; it was a bust in red granite, the height of a man,
+of the Sun-god Re Hormachis, brought with them by the godfathers from
+Alexandria. And now it sat in the drawing-room between palms in pots,
+pressing its elbows against its sides and gazing with great dead eyes
+out into endless space.
+
+Peer stood on the quay waving farewell to his old comrades as the
+steamer ploughed through the water, drawing after it a fan-shaped trail
+of little waves.
+
+And when he came home, he walked about the place, looking at farms and
+woods, at Merle and the children, with eyes that seemed to her strange
+and new.
+
+Next night he stayed up once more alone, pacing to and fro in the great
+hall, and looking out of the windows into the dark.
+
+Was he ravelling out his life into golden threads that vanished and were
+forgotten?
+
+Was he content to be fuel instead of light?
+
+What was he seeking? Happiness? And beyond it? As a boy he had called
+it the anthem, the universal hymn. What was it now? God? But he would
+hardly find Him in idleness.
+
+You have drawn such nourishment as you could from joy in your home, from
+your marriage, your fatherhood, nature, and the fellowmen around you
+here. There are unused faculties in you that hunger for exercise; that
+long to be set free to work, to strive, to act.
+
+You should take up the barrage on the Besna, Peer. But could you get
+the contract? If you once buckle-to in earnest, no one is likely to beat
+you--you’ll get it, sure enough. But do you really want it?
+
+Are you not working away at a mowing-machine as it is? Better own up
+that you can’t get on without your old craft, after all--that you must
+for ever be messing and meddling with steel and fire. You can’t help
+yourself.
+
+All the things your eyes have been fixed on in these last years have
+been only golden visions in a mist. The steel has its own will. The
+steel is beginning to wake in you--singing--singing--bent on pressing
+onward. You have no choice.
+
+The world-will goes on its way. Go with it or be cast overboard as
+useless.
+
+And still Peer walked up and down, up and down.
+
+Next morning he set off for the capital. Merle watched the carriage as
+it drove away, and thought to herself: “He was right. Something new is
+beginning.”
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+
+There came a card from Peer, with a brief message: “Off to inspect the
+ground.” A fortnight later he came home, loaded with maps and plans. “Of
+course I’m late for the fair, as usual,” he said. “But wait a bit.”
+
+He locked himself into his room. At last Merle knew what it was like
+to have him at work. She could hear him in the mornings, walking up and
+down and whistling. Then silence--he would be standing over his table,
+busy with notes and figures. Then steps again. Now he was singing--and
+this was a novelty to himself. It was as if he carried in him a store
+of happiness, a treasure laid by of love, and the beauty of nature, and
+happy hours, and now it found its way out in song. Why should he not
+sing over the plans for a great barrage? Mathematics are dry work
+enough, but at times they can be as living visions, soaring up into the
+light. Peer sang louder. Then silence again. Merle never knew now when
+he stopped work and came to bed. She would fall asleep to the sound
+of his singing in his own room, and when she woke he would already be
+tramping up and down again in there; and to her his steps seemed
+like the imperious tread of a great commander. He was alight with new
+visions, new themes, and his voice had a lordly ring. Merle looked at
+him through half-closed eyes with a lingering glance. Once more he was
+new to her: she had never seen him like this.
+
+At last the work was finished, and he sent in his tender. And now he was
+more restless than ever. For a week he waited for an answer, tramping in
+and out of the place, going off for rides on Bijou, and coming back with
+his horse dripping with sweat. An impatient man cannot possibly ride
+at any pace but a gallop. The days passed; Peer was sleepless, and ate
+nothing. More days passed. At last he came bursting into the nursery
+one morning: “Trunk call, Merle; summons to a meeting of the Company
+Directors. Quick’s the word. Come and help me pack--sharp.” And in no
+time he was off again to the city.
+
+Now it was Merle’s turn to walk up and down in suspense. It mattered
+little to her in itself whether he got the work or not, but she was
+keenly anxious that he should win.
+
+A couple of days later a telegram came: “Hurrah, wife!” And Merle danced
+round the room, waving the telegram above her head.
+
+The next day he was back home again and tramping up and down the room.
+“What do you think your father will say to it, Merle--ha!”
+
+“Father? Say to what?”
+
+“When I ask him to be my surety for a couple of hundred thousand
+crowns?”
+
+“Is father to be in it, too?” Merle looked at him open-eyed.
+
+“Oh, if he doesn’t want to, we’ll let him off. But at any rate I’ll ask
+him first. Goodbye.” And Peer drove off into town.
+
+In Lorentz Uthoug’s big house you had to pass through the hardware shop
+to get to his office, which lay behind. Peer knocked at the door, with
+a portfolio under his arm. Herr Uthoug had just lit the gas, and was
+on the point of sitting down at his American roll-top desk, when Peer
+entered. The grey-bearded head with the close thick hair turned towards
+him, darkened by the shadow from the green shade of the burner.
+
+“You, is it?” said he. “Sit down. You’ve been to Christiania, I hear.
+And what are you busy with now?”
+
+They sat down opposite each other. Peer explained, calmly and with
+confidence.
+
+“And what does the thing amount to?” asked Uthoug, his face coming out
+of the shadow and looking at Peer in the full light.
+
+“Two million four hundred thousand.”
+
+The old man laid his hairy hands on the desk and rose to his feet,
+staring at the other and breathing deeply. The sum half-stunned him.
+Beside it he himself and his work seemed like dust in the balance. Where
+were all his plans and achievements now, his greatness, his position,
+his authority in the town? Compared with amounts like this, what were
+the paltry sums he had been used to handle?
+
+“I--I didn’t quite catch--” he stammered. “Did you say two millions?”
+
+“Yes. I daresay it seems a trifle to you,” said Peer. “Indeed, I’ve
+handled contracts myself that ran to fifty million francs.”
+
+“What? How much did you say?” Uthoug began to move restlessly about the
+room. He clutched his hair, and gazed at Peer as if doubting whether he
+was quite sober.
+
+At the same time he felt it would never do to let himself be so easily
+thrown off his balance. He tried to pull himself together.
+
+“And what do you make out of it?” he asked.
+
+“A couple of hundred thousand, I hope.”
+
+“Oh!” A profit on this scale again rather startled the old man. No, he
+was nothing; he never had been anything in this world!
+
+“How do you know that you will make so much?”
+
+“I’ve calculated it all out.”
+
+“But if--but how can you be sure of it? Suppose you’ve got your figures
+wrong?” His head was thrust forward again into the full light.
+
+“I’m in the habit of getting my figures right,” said Peer.
+
+When he broached the question of security, the old man was in the act of
+moving away from him across the room. But he stopped short, and looked
+back over his shoulder.
+
+“What? Security? You want me to stand security for two million crowns?”
+
+“No; the Company asks for a guarantee for four hundred thousand.”
+
+After a pause the old man said: “I see. Yes, I see. But--but I’m not
+worth as much as that altogether.”
+
+“I can put in three hundred thousand of the four myself, in shares. And
+then, of course, I have the Loreng property, and the works. But put it
+at a round figure--will you guarantee a hundred thousand?”
+
+There was another pause, and then the reply came from the far end of the
+room to which Uthoug had drifted: “Even that’s a big sum.”
+
+“Of course if you would rather not, I could make other arrangements. My
+two friends, who have just been here--” He rose and began to gather up
+his papers.
+
+“No, no; you mustn’t be in such a hurry. Why, you come down on a
+man like an avalanche. You must give me time to think it over--till
+to-morrow at least. And the papers--at any rate, I must have a look at
+them.”
+
+Uthoug passed a restless and troubled night. The solid ground seemed to
+have failed him; his mind could find no firm foothold. His son-in-law
+must be a great man--he should be the last to doubt it. But a hundred
+thousand--to be ventured, not in landed property, or a big trade deal,
+but on the success of a piece of construction work. This was something
+new. It seemed fantastic--suited to the great world outside perhaps,
+or the future. Had he courage enough to stand in? Who could tell what
+accidents, what disasters might not happen? No! He shook his head.
+He could not. He dared not. But--the thing tempted him. He had always
+wanted to be something more than a whale among the minnows. Should
+he risk it? Should he not? It meant staking his whole fortune, his
+position, everything, upon the outcome of a piece of engineering that
+he understood nothing whatever about. It was sheer speculation; it
+was gambling. No, he must say: No. Then he was only a whale among the
+minnows, after all. No, he must say: Yes. Good God! He clenched his
+hands together; they were clammy with sweat, and his brain was in a
+whirl. It was a trial, a temptation. He felt an impulse to pray. But
+what good could that do--since he had himself abolished God.
+
+Next day Merle and Peer were rung up by telephone and asked to come in
+to dinner with the old folks.
+
+But when they were all sitting at table, they found it impossible to
+keep the conversation going. Everyone seemed shy of beginning on the
+subject they were all thinking about. The old man’s face was grey
+with want of sleep; his wife looked from one to the other through her
+spectacles. Peer was calm and smiling.
+
+At last, when the claret came round, Fru Uthoug lifted her glass and
+drank to Peer. “Good fortune!” she said. “We won’t be the ones to stand
+in your way. Since you think it is all right, of course it is. And we
+all hope it will turn out well for you, Peer.”
+
+Merle looked at her parents; she had sat through the meal anxious and
+troubled, and now the tears rose into her eyes.
+
+“Thanks,” said Peer, lifting his glass and drinking to his host and
+hostess. “Thanks,” he repeated, bowing to old Uthoug. The matter was
+arranged. Evidently the two old folks had talked it over together and
+come to an agreement.
+
+It was settled, but all four felt as if the solid ground were rocking
+a little under their feet. All their future, their fate, seemed staked
+upon a throw.
+
+A couple of days later, a day of mild October sunshine, Peer happened
+to go into the town, and, catching sight of his mother-in-law at the
+window, he went off and bought some flowers, and took them up to her.
+
+She was sitting looking out at the yellow sky in the west, and she
+hardly turned her head as she took the flowers. “Thanks, Peer,” she
+said, and continued gazing out at the sky.
+
+“What are you thinking of, dear mother?” asked Peer.
+
+“Ah! it isn’t a good thing always to tell our thoughts,” she said, and
+she turned her spectacled eyes so as to look out over the lake.
+
+“I hope it was something pleasant?”
+
+“I was thinking of you, Peer. Of you and Merle.”
+
+“It is good of you to think of us.”
+
+“You see, Peer, there is trouble coming for you. A great deal of
+trouble.” She nodded her head towards the yellow sky in the west.
+
+“Trouble? Why? Why should trouble come to us?”
+
+“Because you are happy, Peer.”
+
+“What? Because I am--?”
+
+“Because all things blossom and flourish about you. Be sure that there
+are unseen powers enough that grudge you your happiness.”
+
+Peer smiled. “You think so?” he asked.
+
+“I know it,” she answered with a sigh, gazing out into the distance.
+“You have made enemies of late amongst all those envious shadows that
+none can see. But they are all around us. I see them every day; I have
+learned to know them, in all these years. I have fought with them. And
+it is well for Merle that she has learned to sing in a house so full of
+shadows. God grant she may be able to sing them away from you too.”
+
+When Peer left the house he felt as if little shudders of cold were
+passing down his back. “Pooh!” he exclaimed as he reached the street.
+“She is not right in her head.” And he hurried to his carriole and drove
+off home.
+
+“Old Rode will be pleased, anyhow,” he thought. “He’ll be his own master
+in the workshop now--the dream of his life. Well, everyone for himself.
+And the bailiff will have things all his own way at Loreng for a year or
+two. Well, well! Come up, Brownie!”
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+
+“Peer, you’re surely not going away just now? Oh, Peer, you mustn’t. You
+won’t leave me alone, Peer!”
+
+“Merle, dear, now do be sensible. No, no--do let go, dear.” He tried to
+disengage her hands that were clasped behind his neck.
+
+“Peer, you have never been like this before. Don’t you care for me any
+more--or the children?”
+
+“Merle, dearest, you don’t imagine that I like going. But you surely
+don’t want me to have another big breach this year. It would be sheer
+ruin, I do assure you. Come, come now; let me go.”
+
+But she held him fast. “And what happens to those dams up there is more
+to you now than what becomes of me!”
+
+“You will be all right, dear. The doctor and the nurse have promised to
+be on the spot the moment you send word. And you managed so well before.
+. . . I simply cannot stay now, Merle. There’s too much at stake. There,
+there, goodbye! Be sure you telegraph--” He kissed her over the eyes,
+put her gently down into a chair, and hurried out of the room, feeling
+her terrified glance follow him as he went.
+
+The April sun had cleared away the snow from the lowlands, but when
+Peer stepped out of the train up in Espedal he found himself back in
+winter--farms and fields still covered, and ridges and peaks deep
+in white dazzling snow. And soon he was sitting wrapped in his furs,
+driving a miserable dun pony up a side-valley that led out on to the
+uplands.
+
+The road was a narrow track through the snow, yellow with horse-dung,
+and a mass of holes and ruts, worn by his own teams that had hauled
+their heavy loads of cement this way all through that winter and the
+last, up to the plateau and across the frozen lakes to Besna.
+
+The steel will on. The steel cares nothing for human beings. Merle must
+come through it alone.
+
+When a healthy, happy man is hampered and thwarted in a great work
+by annoyances and disasters, he behaves like an Arab horse on a heavy
+march. At first it moves at a brisk trot, uphill and downhill, and it
+goes faster and faster as its strength begins to flag. And when at last
+it is thoroughly out of breath and ready to drop, it breaks into an easy
+gallop.
+
+This was not the work he had once dreamed of finding. Now, as
+before, his hunger for eternal things seemed ever at the side of his
+accomplishment, asking continually: Whither? Why? and What then?
+
+But by degrees the difficulties had multiplied and mounted, till at last
+his whole mind was taken up by the one thought--to put it through. Good
+or bad in itself--he must make a success of it. He had undertaken it,
+and he must see it through. He must not be beaten.
+
+And so he fought on. It was merely a trial of strength; a fight with
+material difficulties. Aye, but was that all it was? Were there not
+times when he felt himself struggling with something greater, something
+worse? A new motive force seemed to have come into his life--misfortune.
+A power outside his own will had begun to play tricks with him.
+
+Your calculations may be sound, correct in every detail, and yet things
+may go altogether wrong.
+
+Who could include in his calculations the chance that a perfectly sober
+engineer will get drunk one day and give orders so crazy that it costs
+tens of thousands to repair the damage? Who could foresee that against
+all probability a big vein of water would be tapped in tunnelling, and
+would burst out, flooding the workings and overwhelming the workmen--so
+that the next day a train of unpainted deal coffins goes winding out
+over the frozen lakes?
+
+More than once there had been remarks and questions in the newspapers:
+“Another disaster at the Besna Falls. Who is to blame?”
+
+It was because he himself was away on a business journey and Falkman had
+neglected to take elementary precautions that the big rock-fall
+occurred in the tunnel, killing four men, and destroying the new Belgian
+rock-drill, that had cost a good hundred thousand, before it had begun
+to work. This sort of thing was not faulty calculation--it was malicious
+fate.
+
+“Come up, boy! We must get there to-night. The flood mustn’t have a
+chance this year to lay the blame on me because I wasn’t on the spot.”
+
+And then, to cap the other misfortunes, his chief contractor for
+material had gone bankrupt, and now prices had risen far above the rates
+he had allowed for--adding fresh thousands to the extra expenditure.
+
+But he would put the thing through, even if he lost money by it. His
+envious rivals who had lately begun to run down his projects in the
+technical papers--he would make them look foolish yet.
+
+And then?
+
+Well, it may be that the Promethean spirit is preparing a settling day
+for the universe somewhere out in infinity. But what concern is that of
+mine? What about my own immortal soul?
+
+Silence--push on, push on. There may be a snowstorm any minute. Come
+up--get along, you scarecrow.
+
+The dun struggles on to the end of a twelve-mile stage, and then the
+valley ends and the full blast from the plateau meets them. Here lies
+the posting station, the last farm in the valley. He swings into the
+yard and is soon sitting in the room over a cup of coffee and a pipe.
+
+Merle? How are things with Merle now?
+
+Ah! here comes his own horse, the big black stallion from Gudbrandsdal.
+This beast’s trot is a different thing from the poor dun’s--the sleigh
+flies up to the door. And in a moment Peer is sitting in it again in his
+furs.
+
+Ah! what a relief to have a fresh horse, and one that makes light of
+the load behind him. Away he goes at a brisk trot, with lifted head and
+bells jingling, over the frozen lakes. Here and there on the hillslopes
+a grey hut or two show out--saeters, which have lain there unchanged
+for perhaps a couple of thousand years. But a new time is coming. The
+saeter-horns will be heard no longer, and the song of the turbines will
+rise in their place.
+
+An icy wind is blowing; the horse throws up its head and snorts. Big
+snowflakes come driving on the wind, and soon a regular snowstorm is
+raging, lashing the traveller’s face till he gasps. First the horse’s
+mane and tail grow white with snow, then its whole body. The drifts grow
+bigger, the black has to make great bounds to clear them. Bravo, old
+boy! we must get there before dark. There are brushwood brooms set out
+across the ice to mark the way, but who could keep them in sight in a
+driving smother like this? Peer’s own face is plastered white now, and
+he feels stunned and dazed under the lash of the snow.
+
+He has worked under the burning suns of Egypt--and now here. But the
+steel will on. The wave rolls on its way over all the world.
+
+If this snow should turn to rain now, it will mean a flood. And then the
+men will have to turn out to-night and work to save the dams.
+
+One more disaster, and he would hardly be able to finish within the
+contract time. And that once exceeded, each day’s delay means a penalty
+of a thousand crowns.
+
+It is getting darker.
+
+At last there is nothing to be seen on the way but a shapeless mass of
+snow struggling with bowed head against the storm, wading deep in the
+loose drifts, wading seemingly at haphazard--and trailing after it an
+indefinable bundle of white--dead white. Behind, a human being drags
+along, holding on for dear life to the rings on the sleigh. It is the
+post-boy from the last stage.
+
+At last they were groping their way in the darkness towards the shore,
+where the electric lights of the station showed faintly through the
+snow-fog. And hardly had Peer got out of the sleigh before the snow
+stopped suddenly, and the dazzling electric suns shone over the place,
+with the workmen’s barracks, the assistants’ quarters, the offices, and
+his own little plank-built house. Two of the engineers came out to meet
+him, and saluted respectfully.
+
+“Well, how is everything getting on?”
+
+The greybeard answered: “The men have struck work to-day.”
+
+“Struck? What for?”
+
+“They want us to take back the machinist that was dismissed the other
+day for drunkenness.”
+
+Peer shook the snow from his fur coat, took his bag, and walked over to
+the building, the others following. “Then we’ll have to take him back,”
+ he said. “We can’t afford a strike now.”
+
+
+A couple of days later Peer was lying in bed, when the post-bag was
+brought in. He shook the letters out over the coverlet, and caught sight
+of one from Klaus Brook.
+
+What was this? Why did his hand tremble as he took it up? Of course it
+was only one of Klaus’s ordinary friendly letters.
+
+
+DEAR FRIEND,--This is a hard letter to write. But I do hope you have
+taken my advice and got some of your money at any rate over to Norway.
+Well, to be as brief as possible! Ferdinand Holm has decamped, or is
+in prison, or possibly worse--you know well enough it’s no good asking
+questions in a country like this when a big man suddenly disappears.
+He had made enemies in the highest places; he was playing a dangerous
+game--and this is the end of it.
+
+You know what it means when a business goes into liquidation out here,
+and no strong man on the spot to look after things. We Europeans can
+whistle for our share.
+
+You’ll take it coolly, I know. I’ve lost every penny I had--but you’ve
+still got your place over there and the workshops. And you’re the sort
+of fellow to make twice as much next time, or I don’t know you. I hope
+the Besna barrage is to be a success.
+
+Yours ever,
+
+KLAUS BROCK.
+
+P.S.--Of course you’ll understand that now my friend has been thrown
+overboard it will very likely be my turn next. But I can’t leave now--to
+try would rouse suspicion at once. We foreigners have some difficult
+balancing to do, to escape a fall. Well, if by chance you don’t hear
+from me again, you’ll know something has happened!
+
+
+Outside, the water was streaming down the channels into the fall. Peer
+lay still for a while, only one knee moving up and down beneath the
+clothes. He thought of his two friends. And he thought that he was now a
+poor man--and that the greater part of the burden of the security would
+fall now on old Lorentz D. Uthoug.
+
+Clearly, Fate has other business on hand than making things easy for
+you, Peer. You must fight your fight out single-handed.
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+
+One evening in the late autumn Merle was sitting at home waiting for her
+husband. He had been away for several weeks, so it was only natural that
+she should make a little festivity of his return. The lamps were lit in
+all the rooms, wood fires were crackling in all the stoves, the cook was
+busy with his favourite dishes, and little Louise, now five years old,
+had on her blue velvet frock. She was sitting on the floor, nursing two
+dolls, and chattering to them. “Mind you’re a good girl now, Josephine.
+Your grandpa will be here directly.” Merle looked in through the kitchen
+door: “Have you brought up the claret, Bertha? That’s right. You’d
+better put it near the stove to warm.” Then she went round all the rooms
+again. The two youngest children were in bed--was there anything more to
+be done?
+
+It would be an hour at least before he could be here, yet she could not
+help listening all the time for the sound of wheels. But she had not
+finished yet. She hurried up to the bathroom, turned on the hot water,
+undressed, and put on an oilskin cap to keep her hair dry, and soon
+she was splashing about with soap and sponge. Why not make herself as
+attractive as she could, even if things did look dark for them just now?
+
+A little stream of talk went on in her brain. Strange that one’s
+body could be so great a pleasure to another. Here he kissed you--and
+here--and here--and often he seemed beside himself with joy. And do
+you remember--that time? You held back and were cold often--perhaps too
+often--is it too late now? Ah! he has other things to think of now. The
+time is gone by when you could be comfort enough to him in all troubles.
+But is it quite gone by? Oh yes; last time he came home, he hardly
+seemed to notice that we had a new little girl, that he had never seen
+before. Well, no doubt it must be so. He did not complain, and he
+was calm and quiet, but his mind was full of a whole world of serious
+things, a world where there was no room for wife and children. Will it
+be the same this evening again? Will he notice that you have dressed so
+carefully to please him? Will it be a joy to him any more to feel his
+arms around you?
+
+She stood in front of the big, white-framed mirror, and looked
+critically at herself. No, she was no longer young as she had been. The
+red in her cheeks had faded a little these last few years, and there
+were one or two wrinkles that could not be hidden. But her eyebrows--he
+had loved to kiss them once--they were surely much as before. And
+involuntarily she bent towards the glass, and stroked the dark growth
+above her eyes as if it were his hand caressing her.
+
+She came down at last, dressed in a loose blue dress with a broad lace
+collar and blond lace in the wide sleeves. And not to seem too
+much dressed, she had put on a red-flowered apron to give herself a
+housewifely look.
+
+It was past seven now. Louise came whimpering to her, and Merle sank
+down in a chair by the window, and took the child on her lap, and
+waited.
+
+The sound of wheels in the night may mean the approach of fate itself.
+Some decision, some final word that casts us down in a moment from
+wealth to ruin--who knows? Peer had been to England now, trying to come
+to some arrangement with the Company. Sh!--was that not wheels? She
+rose, trembling, and listened.
+
+No, it had passed on.
+
+It was eight o’clock now, time for Louise to go to bed; and Merle began
+undressing her. Soon the child was lying in her little white bed, with
+a doll on either side. “Give Papa a tiss,” she babbled, “and give him
+my love. And Mama, do you think he’ll let me come into his bed for a bit
+tomorrow morning?”
+
+“Oh yes, I’m sure he will. And now lie down and go to sleep, there’s a
+good girl.”
+
+Merle sat down again in the room and waited. But at last she rose, put
+on a cloak and went out.
+
+The town lay down there in the autumn darkness under a milk-white mist
+of light. And over the black hills all around rose a world of stars.
+Somewhere out there was Peer, far out maybe upon some country road, the
+horse plodding on through the dark at its own will, its master sitting
+with bowed head, brooding.
+
+“Help us, Thou above--and help him most, he has had so much adversity in
+these last days.”
+
+But the starry vault seems icy cold--it has heard the prayers of
+millions and millions before--the hearts of men are nothing to the
+universe.
+
+Merle drooped her head and went in again to the house.
+
+It was midnight when Peer drove up the hill towards his home. The
+sight of the great house with its brilliantly lighted windows jarred so
+cruelly on his wearied mind that he involuntarily gave the horse a cut
+with his whip.
+
+He flung the reins to the stable-boy who had come out with a lantern,
+and walked up the steps, moving almost with a feeling of awe in this
+great house, as if it already belonged to someone else.
+
+He opened the door of the drawing-room--no one there, but light, light
+and comfort. He passed through into the next room, and there sat Merle,
+alone, in an armchair, with her head resting on the arm, asleep.
+
+Had she been waiting so long?
+
+A wave of warmth passed through him; he stood still, looking at her; and
+presently her bowed figure slowly straightened; her pale face relaxed
+into a smile. Without waking her, he went on into the nursery, where
+the lights were still burning. But here the lights shone only on three
+little ones, lying in their clean night-clothes, asleep.
+
+He went back to the dining-room; more lights, and a table laid for
+two, a snowy cloth and flowers, and a single carnation stuck into his
+napkin--that must be from Louise--little Louise.
+
+At last Merle was awakened by the touch of his hand on her shoulder.
+
+“Oh, are you there?”
+
+“Good-evening, Merle!” They embraced, and he kissed her forehead. But
+she could see that his mind was busy with other things.
+
+They sat down to table, and began their meal. She could read the
+expression of his face, his voice, his calm air--she knew they meant bad
+news.
+
+But she would not question him. She would only try to show him that all
+things else could be endured, if only they two loved each other.
+
+But the time had passed when an unexpected caress from her was enough
+to send him wild with joy. She sat there now trembling inwardly with
+suspense, wondering if he would notice her--if he could find any comfort
+in having her with him, still young and with something of her beauty
+left.
+
+He looked over to her with a far-away smile. “Merle,” he asked, “what do
+you think your father is worth altogether?” The words came like a quiet
+order from a captain standing on the bridge, while his ship goes down.
+
+“Oh, Peer, don’t think about all that to-night. Welcome home!” And she
+smiled and took his hand.
+
+“Thanks,” he said, and pressed her fingers; but his thoughts were still
+far off. And he went on eating without knowing what he ate.
+
+“And what do you think? Louise has begun the violin. You’ve no idea how
+the little thing takes to it.”
+
+“Oh?”
+
+“And Asta’s got another tooth--she had a wretched time, poor thing,
+while it was coming through.”
+
+It was as if she were drawing the children up to him, to show him that
+at least he still had them.
+
+He looked at her for a moment. “Merle, you ought never to have married
+me. It would have been better for you and for your people too.”
+
+“Oh, nonsense, Peer--you know you’ll be able to make it all right
+again.”
+
+They went up to bed, and undressed slowly. “He hasn’t noticed me yet,”
+ thought Merle.
+
+And she laughed a little, and said, “I was sitting thinking this evening
+of the first day we met. I suppose you never think of it now?”
+
+He turned round, half undressed, and looked at her. Her lively tone
+fell strangely on his ears. “She does not ask how I have got on, or how
+things are going,” he thought. But as he went on looking at her he began
+at last to see through her smile to the anxious heart beneath.
+
+Ah, yes; he remembered well that far-off summer when life had been a
+holiday in the hills, and a girl making coffee over a fire had smiled at
+him for the first time. And he remembered the first sun-red night of his
+love on the shining lake-mirror, when his heart was filled with the rush
+of a great anthem to heaven and earth.
+
+She stood there still. He had her yet. But for the first time in their
+lives she came to him now humbly, begging him to make the best of her as
+she was.
+
+An unspeakable warmth began to flow through his heavy heart. But he
+did not rush to embrace her and whirl her off in a storm of passionate
+delight. He stood still, staring before him, and, drawing himself up,
+swore to himself with fast-closed lips that he would, he WOULD trample a
+way through, and save things for them both, even yet.
+
+The lights were put out, and soon they lay in their separate beds,
+breathing heavily in the dark. Peer stretched himself out, with his face
+up, thinking, with closed eyes. He was hunting in the dark for some way
+to save his dear ones. And Merle lay so long waiting for one caress from
+him that at last she had to draw out her handkerchief and press it over
+her eyes, while her body shook with a noiseless sobbing.
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+
+Old Lorentz D. Uthoug rarely visited his rich sister at Bruseth, but
+to-day he had taken his weary way up there, and the two masterful old
+folks sat now facing each other.
+
+“So you’ve managed to find your way up here?” said Aunt Marit, throwing
+out her ample bosom and rubbing her knees like a man.
+
+“Why, yes--I thought I’d like to see how you were getting on,” said
+Uthoug, squaring his broad shoulders.
+
+“Quite well, thanks. Having no son-in-law, I’m not likely to go
+bankrupt, I daresay.”
+
+“I’m not bankrupt, either,” said old Uthoug, fixing his red eyes on her
+face.
+
+“Perhaps not. But what about him?”
+
+“Neither is he. He’ll be a rich man before very long.”
+
+“He!--rich! Did you say rich?”
+
+“Before a year’s out,” answered the old man calmly. “But you’ll have to
+help.”
+
+“I!” Aunt Marit shifted her chair backwards, gaping. “I, did you say?
+Ha-ha-ha! Just tell me, how many hundreds of thousands did he lose over
+that ditch or drain or whatever it was?”
+
+“He was six months behind time in finishing it, I know. But the
+Company agreed to halve the forfeit for delay when they’d seen what a
+masterpiece the work was.”
+
+“Ah, yes--and what about the contractors, whom he couldn’t pay, I hear?”
+
+“He’s paid them all in full now. The Bank arranged things.”
+
+“I see. After you and he had mortaged every stick and rag you had in the
+world. Yes, indeed--you deserve a good whipping, the pair of you!”
+
+Uthoug stroked his beard. “From a financial point of view the thing
+wasn’t a success for him, I’ll admit. But I can show you here what
+the engineering people say about it in the technical papers. Here’s an
+article with pictures of him and of the barrage.”
+
+“Well! he’d better keep his family on pictures in the papers then,” said
+the widow, paying no attention to the paper he offered.
+
+“He’ll soon be on top again,” said her brother, putting the papers back
+in his pocket. He sat there in front of her quite unruffled. He would
+let people see that he was not the man to be crushed by a reverse; that
+there were other things he valued more than money.
+
+“Soon be on top?” repeated Aunt Marit. “Has he got round you again with
+some nonsense?”
+
+“He’s invented a new mowing machine. It’s nearly finished. And the
+experts say it will be worth a million.”
+
+“Ho! and you want to come over me with a tale like that?” The widow
+shifted her chair a little farther back.
+
+“You must help us to carry on through this year--both of us. If you will
+stand security for thirty thousand, the bank . . .”
+
+Aunt Marit of Bruseth slapped her knees emphatically. “I’ll do nothing
+of the sort!”
+
+“For twenty thousand, then?”
+
+“Not for twenty pence!”
+
+Lorentz Uthoug fixed his gaze on his sister’s face; his red eyes began
+to glow.
+
+“You’ll have to do it, Marit,” he said calmly. He took a pipe from his
+pocket and set to work to fill and light it.
+
+The two sat for a while looking at each other, each on the alert for
+fear the other’s will should prove the stronger. They looked at each
+other so long that at last both smiled involuntarily.
+
+“I suppose you’ve taken to going to church with your wife now?” asked
+the widow at last, her eyes blinking derision.
+
+“If I put my trust in the Lord,” he said, “I might just sit down and
+pray and let things go to ruin. As it is, I’ve more faith in human
+works, and that’s why I’m here now.”
+
+The answer pleased her. The widow at Bruseth was no churchgoer herself.
+She thought the Lord had made a bad mistake in not giving her any
+children.
+
+“Will you have some coffee?” she asked, rising from her seat.
+
+“Now you’re talking sense,” said her brother, and his eyes twinkled. He
+knew his sister and her ways. And now he lit his pipe and leaned back
+comfortably in his chair.
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+
+Once more Peer stood in his workroom down at the foundry, wrestling with
+fire and steel.
+
+A working drawing is a useful thing; an idea in one’s head is all very
+well. But the men he employed to turn his plans into tangible models
+worked slowly; why not use his own hands for what had to be done?
+
+When the workmen arrived at the foundry in the morning there was
+hammering going on already in the little room. And when they left in the
+evening, the master had not stopped working yet. When the good citizens
+of Ringeby went to bed, they would look out of their windows and see his
+light still burning.
+
+Peer had had plenty to tire him out even before he began work here. But
+in the old days no one had ever asked if he felt strong enough to do
+this or that. And he never asked himself. Now, as before, it was a
+question of getting something done, at any cost. And never before had
+there been so much at stake.
+
+The wooden model of the new machine is finished already, and the
+castings put together. The whole thing looks simple enough, and
+yet--what a distance from the first rough implement to this thing, which
+seems almost to live--a thing with a brain of metal at least. Have not
+these wheels and axles had their parents and ancestors--their pedigree
+stretching back into the past? The steel has brought forth, and its
+descendants again in turn, advancing always toward something finer,
+stronger, more efficient. And here is the last stage reached by human
+invention in this particular work up to now--yet, after all, is it
+good enough? An invention successful enough to bring money in to the
+inventor--that is not all. It must be more; it must be a world-success,
+a thing to make its way across the prairies, across the enormous plains
+of India and Egypt--that is what is needed. Sleep? rest? food? What are
+such things when so much is at stake!
+
+There was no longer that questioning in his ear: Why? Whither? What
+then? Useless to ponder on these things. His horizon was narrowed down
+to include nothing beyond this one problem. Once he had dreamed of a
+work allied to his dreams of eternity. This, certainly, was not it. What
+does the gain amount to, after all, when humanity has one more machine
+added to it? Does it kindle a single ray of dawn the more in a human
+soul?
+
+Yet this work, such as it was, had now become his all. It must and
+should be all. He was fast bound to it.
+
+When he looked up at the window, there seemed to be faces at each pane
+staring in. “What? Not finished yet?” they seemed to say. “Think what it
+means if you fail!” Merle’s face, and the children’s: “Must we be driven
+from Loreng, out into the cold?” The faces of old Uthoug and his wife:
+“Was it for this you came into an honourable family? To bring it to
+ruin?” And behind them, swarming, all the town. All knew what was at
+stake, and why he was toiling so. All stared at him, waiting. The Bank
+Manager was there too--waiting, like the rest.
+
+One can seize one’s neck in iron pincers, and say: You shall! Tired?
+difficulties? time too short?--all that doesn’t exist. You shall!
+Is this thing or that impossible? Well, make it possible. It is your
+business to make it possible.
+
+He spent but little time at home now; a sofa in the workshop was his
+bed. Often Merle would come in with food for him, and seeing how pale
+and grey and worn out he was, she did not dare to question him. She
+tried to jest instead. She had trained herself long ago to be gay in a
+house where shadows had to be driven off with laughter.
+
+But one day, as she was leaving, he held her back, and looked at her
+with a strange smile.
+
+“Well, dear?” she said, with a questioning look.
+
+He stood looking at her as before, with the same far-off smile. He was
+looking through her into the little world she stood for. This home, this
+family that he, a homeless man, had won through her, was it all to go
+down in shipwreck?
+
+Then he kissed her eyes and let her go.
+
+And as her footsteps died away, he stood a moment, moved by a sudden
+desire to turn to some Power above him with a prayer that he might
+succeed in this work. But there was no such Power. And in the end his
+eyes turned once more to the iron, the fire, his tools, and his own
+hands, and it was as though he sighed out a prayer to these: “Help
+me--help me, that I may save my wife and children’s happiness.”
+
+Sleep? rest? weariness? He had only a year’s grace. The bank would only
+wait a year.
+
+Winter and spring passed, and one day in July he came home and rushed in
+upon Merle crying, “To-morrow, Merle! They will be here to-morrow!”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“The people to look at the machine. We’re going to try it to-morrow.”
+
+“Oh, Peer!” she said breathlessly, gazing at him.
+
+“It’s a good thing that I had connections abroad,” he went on. “There’s
+one man coming from an English firm, and another from America. It ought
+to be a big business.”
+
+The morrow came. Merle stood looking after her husband as he drove off,
+his hat on the back of his head, through the haze that followed the
+night’s rain. But there was no time to stand trembling; they were to
+have the strangers to dinner, and she must see to it.
+
+Out in the field the machine stood ready, a slender, newly painted
+thing. A boy was harnessing the horses.
+
+Two men in soft hats and light overcoats came up; it was old Uthoug,
+and the Bank Manager. They stopped and looked round, leaning on their
+sticks; the results of the day were not a matter of entire indifference
+to these two gentlemen. Ah! here was the big carriage from Loreng, with
+the two strangers and Peer himself, who had been down to fetch them from
+the hotel.
+
+He was a little pale as he took the reins and climbed to his seat on
+the machine, to drive it himself through the meadow of high, thick
+timothy-grass.
+
+The horses pricked up their ears and tried to break into a gallop, the
+noise of the machine behind them startling them as usual at first, but
+they soon settled down to a steady pace, and the steel arm bearing the
+shears swept a broad swath through the meadow, where the grass stood
+shining after the rain.
+
+The two strangers walked slowly in the rear, bending down now and again
+to look at the stubble, and see if the shears cut clean. The tall man
+with the heavy beard and pince-nez was the agent for John Fowler of
+Leeds; the little clean-shaven one with the Jewish nose represented
+Harrow & Co. of Philadelphia.
+
+Now and again they called to Peer to stop, while they investigated some
+part of the machine.
+
+They asked him then to try it on different ground; on an uneven slope,
+over little tussocks; and at last the agent for Fowler’s would have it
+that it should be tried on a patch of stony ground. But that would spoil
+the shears? Very likely, but Fowler’s would like to know exactly how the
+shears were affected by stones on the ground.
+
+At last the trials were over, and the visitors nodded thoughtfully to
+each other. Evidently they had come on something new here. There were
+possibilities in the thing that might drive most other types out of the
+field, even in the intense competition that rages all round the world in
+agricultural machinery.
+
+Peer read the expression in their eyes--these cold-blooded specialists
+had seen the vision; they had seen gold.
+
+But all the same there was a hitch--a little hitch.
+
+Dinner was over, the visitors had left, and Merle and Peer were alone.
+She lifted her eyes to his inquiringly.
+
+“It went off well then?” she asked.
+
+“Yes. But there is just one little thing to put right.”
+
+“Still something to put right--after you have worked so hard all these
+months?” She sat down, and her hands dropped into her lap.
+
+“It’s only a small detail,” he said eagerly, pacing up and down. “When
+the grass is wet, it sticks between the steel fingers above the shears
+and accumulates there and gets in the way. It’s the devil and all that
+I never thought of testing it myself in wet weather. But once I’ve got
+that right, my girl, the thing will be a world-success.”
+
+Once more the machine was set up in his workshop, and he walked around
+it, watching, spying, thinking, racking his brain to find the little
+device that should make all well. All else was finished, all was
+right, but he still lacked the single happy thought, the flash of
+inspiration--that given, a moment’s work would be enough to give this
+thing of steel life, and wings with which to fly out over the wide
+world.
+
+It might come at any moment, that happy thought. And he tramped round
+and round his machine, clenching his fists in desperation because it was
+so slow in coming.
+
+The last touch only, the dot upon an i, was wanting. A slight change in
+the shape or position of the fingers, or the length of the shears--what
+was it he wanted? How could he sleep that night?
+
+He felt that he stood face to face with a difficulty that could have
+been easily solved had he come fresh to the work, but that his tortured
+brain was too worn out to overcome.
+
+But when an Arab horse is ready to drop with fatigue, then is the time
+when it breaks into a gallop.
+
+He could not wait. There were the faces at the window again, staring and
+asking: “Not finished yet?” Merle, the children, Uthoug and his wife,
+the Bank Manager. And there were his competitors the world over. To-day
+he was a length ahead of them, but by to-morrow he might be left behind.
+Wait? Rest? No!
+
+It was autumn now, and sleepless nights drove him to a doctor, who
+prescribed cold baths, perfect quiet, sleeping draughts, iron and
+arsenic. Ah, yes. Peer could swallow all the prescriptions--the one
+thing he could not do was rest or sleep.
+
+He would sit late into the night, prostrate with exhaustion, watching
+the dying embers of the forge, the steel, the tools. And innumerable
+sparks would begin to fly before his eyes, and masses of molten iron to
+creep about like living things over walls and floor.--And over by the
+forge was something more defined, a misty shape, that grew in size and
+clearness and stood at last a bearded, naked demigod, with fire in one
+hand and sledgehammer in the other.
+
+“What? Who is that?”
+
+“Man, do you not know me?”
+
+“Who are you, I ask?”
+
+“I have a thing to tell you: it is vain for you to seek for any other
+faith than faith in the evolution of the universe. It will do no good to
+pray. You may dream yourself away from the steel and the fire, but you
+must offer yourself up to them at last. You are bound fast to these
+things. Outside them your soul is nothing. God? happiness? yourself?
+eternal life for you? All these are nothing. The will of the world rolls
+on towards its eternal goal, and the individual is but fuel for the
+fire.”
+
+Peer would spring up, believing for a moment that someone was really
+there. But there was nothing, only the empty air.
+
+Now and again he would go home to Loreng, but everything there seemed to
+pass in a mist. He could see that Merle’s eyes were red, though she
+sang cheerily as she went about the house. It seemed to him that she had
+begged him to go to bed and rest, and he had gone to bed. It would be
+delicious to sleep. But in the middle of the night it was borne in upon
+him that the fault lay in the shape of the shears after all, and
+then there was no stopping him from getting up and hurrying in to the
+workshop. Winter has come round again, and he fights his way in through
+a snow-storm. And in the quiet night he lights his lamp, kindles the
+forge fire, screws off the blades of the shears once more. But when he
+has altered them and fixed them in place again, he knows at once that
+the defect was not in them after all.
+
+Coffee is a good thing for keeping the brain clear. He took to making it
+in the workshop for himself--and at night especially a few cups did him
+good. They were so satisfying too, that he felt no desire for food. And
+when he came to the conclusion that the best thing would be to make each
+separate part of the machine over again anew, coffee was great help,
+keeping him awake through many a long night.
+
+It began to dawn upon him that Merle and his father-in-law and the Bank
+Manager had taken to lurking about the place night and day, watching and
+spying to see if the work were not nearly done. Why in the devil’s name
+could they not leave him in peace--just one week more? In any case, the
+machine could not be tried before next summer. At times the workers at
+the foundry would be startled by their master suddenly rushing out from
+his inner room and crying fiercely: “No one is to come in here. I WILL
+be left in peace!”
+
+And when he had gone in again, they would look at each other and shake
+their heads.
+
+One morning Merle came down and walked through the outer shops, and
+knocked at the door of her husband’s room. There was no answer; and she
+opened the door and went in.
+
+A moment after, the workmen heard a woman’s shriek, and when they ran in
+she was bending over her husband, who was seated on the floor, staring
+up at her with blank, uncomprehending eyes.
+
+“Peer,” she cried, shaking his shoulder--“Peer, do you hear? Oh, for
+God’s sake--what is it, my darling--”
+
+*****
+
+One April day there was a stir in the little town of Ringeby, and
+a stream of people, all in their best clothes (though it was only
+Wednesday), was moving out along the fjord road to Loreng. There were
+the two editors, who had just settled one of their everlasting disputes,
+and the two lawyers, each still intent on snatching any scraps of
+business that offered; there were tradesmen and artisans; and nearly
+everyone was wearing a long overcoat and a grey felt hat. But the tanner
+had put on a high silk hat, so as to look a little taller.
+
+Where the road left the wood most of them stopped for a moment to look
+up at Loreng. The great white house seemed to have set itself high on
+its hill to look out far and wide over the lake and the country round.
+And men talked of the great doings, the feasting and magnificence, the
+great house had seen in days gone by, from the time when the place had
+been a Governor’s residence until a few years back, when Engineer Holm
+was in his glory.
+
+But to-day the place was up to auction, with stock and furniture,
+and people had walked or driven over from far around. For the bank
+management felt they would not be justified in giving any longer grace,
+now that Peer Holm was lying sick in hospital, and no doctor would
+undertake to say whether he would ever be fit to work again.
+
+The courtyard was soon crowded. Inside, in the great hall, the
+auctioneer was beginning to put up the lots already, but most people
+hung back a little, as if they felt a reluctance to go in. For the
+air in there seemed charged with lingering memories of splendour and
+hospitality, from the days when cavaliers with ruffles and golden spurs
+had done homage there to ladies in sweeping silk robes--down to the last
+gay banquets to which the famous engineer from Egypt had loved to gather
+all the gentry round in the days of his prosperity.
+
+Most of the people stood on the steps and in the entrance-hall. And now
+and again they would catch a glimpse of a pale woman, dressed in black,
+with thick dark eyebrows, crossing the courtyard to a servant’s house or
+a storehouse to give some order for moving the things. It was Merle, now
+mistress here no longer.
+
+Old Lorentz D. Uthoug met his sister, the mighty lady of Bruseth, on
+the steps. She looked at him, and there was a gleam of derision in
+her narrowed eyes. But he drew himself up, and said as he passed her,
+“You’ve nothing to be afraid of. I’ve settled things so that I’m not
+bankrupt yet. And you shall have your share--in full.”
+
+And he strode in, a broad-shouldered, upright figure, looking calmly
+at all men, that all might see he was not the man to be crushed by a
+reverse.
+
+Late in the day the chestnut, Bijou, was put up for sale. He was led
+across the courtyard in a halter, and as he came he stopped for a
+moment, and threw up his head, and neighed, and from the stables the
+other horses neighed in answer. Was it a farewell? Did he remember
+the day, years ago, when he had come there first, dancing on his
+white-stockinged feet, full of youth and strength?
+
+But by the woodshed there stood as usual a little grey old man, busy
+sawing and chopping, as if nothing at all was the matter. One master
+left, another took his place; one needed firewood, it seemed to him, as
+much as the other. And if they came and gave him notice--why, thank the
+Lord, he was stone deaf. Thud, thud, the sound of the axe went on.
+
+A young man came driving up the hill, a florid-faced young man, with
+very blue eyes. He took off his overcoat in the passage, revealing a
+long black frock coat beneath and a large-patterned waistcoat. It was
+Uthoug junior, general agent for English tweeds. He had taken no part
+in his brother-in-law’s business affairs, and so he was able to help his
+father in this crisis.
+
+But the auction at Loreng went on for several days.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+
+Once more a deep valley, with sun-steeped farms on the hillsides between
+the river and the mountain-range behind.
+
+One day about midsummer it was old Raastad himself that came down to
+meet the train, driving a spring-cart, with a waggon following behind.
+Was he expecting visitors? the people at the station asked him. “Maybe
+I am,” said old Raastad, stroking his heavy beard, and he limped about
+looking to his horses. Was it the folk who had taken the Court-house?
+“Ay, it’s likely them,” said the old man.
+
+The train came in, and a pale man, with grey hair and beard, and blue
+spectacles, stepped out, and he had a wife and three children with him.
+“Paul Raastad?” inquired the stranger. “Ay, that’s me,” said the old
+man. The stranger looked up at the great mountains to the north, rising
+dizzily into the sky. “The air ought to be good here,” said he. “Ay, the
+air’s good enough, by all accounts,” said Raastad, and began loading up
+the carts.
+
+They drove off up the hill road. The man and his wife sat in the
+spring-cart, the woman with a child in her lap, but a boy and a girl
+were seated on the load in the baggage-waggon behind Raastad. “Can we
+see the farm from here?” asked the woman, turning her head. “There,”
+ said the old man, pointing. And looking, they saw a big farmstead high
+up on a sunny hill-slope, close under the crest, and near by a long
+low house with a steep slate roof, the sort of place where the district
+officers used to live in old days. “Is that the house we are to live
+in?” she asked again. “Ay, that’s it, right enough,” said old Raastad,
+and chirruped to his horses.
+
+The woman looked long at the farm and sighed. So this was to be their
+new home. They were to live here, far from all their friends. And
+would it give him back his health, after all the doctors’ medicines had
+failed?
+
+A Lapland dog met them at the gate and barked at them; a couple of pigs
+came down the road, stopped and studied the new arrivals with profound
+attention, then wheeled suddenly and galloped off among the houses.
+
+The farmer’s wife herself was waiting outside the Court-house, a tall
+wrinkled woman with a black cap on her head. “Welcome,” she said,
+offering a rough and bony hand.
+
+The house was one of large low-ceiled rooms, with big stoves that would
+need a deal of firewood in winter. The furniture was a mixture of every
+possible sort and style: a mahogany sofa, cupboards with painted roses
+on the panels, chairs covered with “Old Norse” carving, and on the walls
+appalling pictures of foreign royal families and of the Crucifixion.
+“Good Heavens!” said Merle, as they went round the rooms alone: “how
+shall we ever get used to all this?”
+
+But just then Louise came rushing in, breathless with news.
+“Mother--father--there are goats here!” And little Lorentz came toddling
+in after her: “Goats, mother,” he cried, stumbling over the doorstep.
+
+The old house had stood empty and dead for years. Now it seemed to have
+wakened up again. Footsteps went in and out, and the stairs creaked once
+more under the tread of feet, small, pattering, exploring feet, and
+big feet going about on grown-up errands. There was movement in every
+corner: a rattle of pots and pans in the kitchen; fires blazed up, and
+smoke began to rise from the chimney; people passing by outside looked
+up at it and saw that the dead old house had come to life again.
+
+Peer was weak still after his illness, but he could help a little with
+the unpacking. It took very little, though, to make him out of breath
+and giddy, and there was a sledge-hammer continually thumping somewhere
+in the back of his head. Suppose--suppose, after all, the change here
+does you no good? You are at the last stage. You’ve managed to borrow
+the money to keep you all here for a year. And then? Your wife and
+children? Hush!--better not think of that. Not that; think of anything
+else, only not that.
+
+Clothes to be carried upstairs. Yes, yes--and to think it was all to end
+in your living on other people’s charity. Even that can’t go on long. If
+you should be no better next summer--or two years hence?--what then?
+For yourself--yes, there’s always one way out for you. But Merle and the
+children? Hush, don’t think of it! Once it was your whole duty to finish
+a certain piece of work in a certain time. Now it is your duty to get
+well again, to be as strong as a horse by next year. It is your duty. If
+only the sledge-hammer would stop, that cursed sledge-hammer in the back
+of your head.
+
+Merle, as she went out and in, was thinking perhaps of the same thing,
+but her head was full of so much else--getting things in order and the
+household set going. Food had to be bought from the local shop; and how
+many litres of milk would she require in the morning? Where could she
+get eggs? She must go across at once to the Raastads’ and ask. So the
+pale woman in the dark dress walked slowly with bowed head across the
+courtyard. But when she stopped to speak to people about the place, they
+would forget their manners and stare at her, she smiled so strangely.
+
+“Father, there’s a box of starlings on the wall here,” said Louise as
+she lay in bed with her arms round Peer’s neck saying good-night. “And
+there’s a swallow’s nest under the eaves too.”
+
+“Oh, yes, we’ll have great fun at Raastad--just you wait and see.”
+
+Soon Merle and Peer too lay in their strange beds, looking out at the
+luminous summer night.
+
+They were shipwrecked people washed ashore here. But it was not so clear
+that they were saved.
+
+Peer turned restlessly from side to side. He was so worn to skin and
+bone that his nerves seemed laid bare, and he could not rest in any
+position. Also there were three hundred wheels whirring in his head, and
+striking out sparks that flew up and turned to visions.
+
+Rest? why had he never been content to rest in the days when all went
+well?
+
+He had made his mark at the First Cataract, yes, and had made big sums
+of money out of his new pump; but all the time there were the gnawing
+questions: Why? and whither? and what then? He had been Chief Engineer
+and had built a railway, and could have had commissions to build more
+railways--but again the questions: Why? and what then? Home, then, home
+and strike root in his native land--well, and had that brought him rest?
+What was it that drove him away again? The steel, the steel and the
+fire.
+
+Ah! that day when he had stepped down from the mowing machine and had
+been ensnared by the idea of improving it. Why had he ever taken it
+up? Did he need money? No. Or was the work at a standstill? No. But the
+steel would on; it had need of a man; it had taken him by the throat and
+said, “You shall!”
+
+Happiness? Rest? Ah no! For, you see, a stored-up mass of knowledge and
+experience turns one fine day into an army of evil powers, that lash
+you on and on, unceasingly. You may stumble, you may fall--what does
+it matter? The steel squeezes one man dry, and then grips the next. The
+flame of the world has need of fuel--bow thy head, Man, and leap into
+the fire.
+
+To-day you prosper--to-morrow you are cast down into a hell on earth.
+What matter? You are fuel for the fire.
+
+But I will not, I will not be swallowed up in the flame of the world,
+even though it be the only godhead in the universe. I will tear myself
+loose, be something in and for myself. I will have an immortal soul.
+The world-transformation that progress may have wrought a thousand years
+hence--what is it to me?
+
+Your soul? Just think of all your noble feelings towards that true-born
+half-brother of yours--ha-ha-ha! Shakespeare was wrong. It’s the bastard
+that gets cheated.
+
+“Dearest Peer, do, for God’s sake, try to get to sleep.”
+
+“Oh yes. I’ll get to sleep all right. But it’s so hot.” He threw off the
+clothes and lay breathing heavily.
+
+“I’m sure you’re lying thinking and brooding over things. Can’t you do
+what the Swedish doctor told you--just try to think that everything is
+dark all round you.”
+
+Peer turns round, and everything around him is dark. But in the heart of
+that darkness waves arise, waves of melody, rolling nearer, nearer.
+It is the sound of a hymn--it is Louise standing playing, his sister
+Louise. And what peace--O God, what peace and rest!
+
+But soon Louise fades away, she fades away, and vanishes like a flame
+blown out. And there comes a roaring noise, nearer and nearer, grinding,
+crashing, rattling--and he knows now what it is only too well: it is the
+song of the steel.
+
+The roar of steel from ships and from railway-trains, with their pairs
+of yellow evil eyes, rushing on, full of human captives, whither?
+Faster, faster--driven by competition, by the steel demon that hunts men
+on without rest or respite--that hurries on the pulse of the world to
+fever, to hallucination, to madness.
+
+Crashing of steel girders falling, the hum of wheels, the clash of
+cranes and winches and chains, the clang of steam-hammers at work--all
+are in that roar. The fire flares up with hellish eyes in every dark
+corner, and men swarm around in the red glow like evil angels. They are
+the slaves of steel and fire, lashed onwards, never resting.
+
+Is this the spirit of Prometheus? Look, the will of steel is flinging
+men up into the air now. It is conquering the heavens. Why? That it may
+rush the faster. It craves for yet more speed, quicker, quicker, dizzier
+yet, hurrying--wherefore?--whither? Alas! it knows not itself.
+
+Are the children of the earth grown so homeless? Do they fear to take a
+moment’s rest? Do they dread to look inward and see their own emptiness?
+Are they longing for something they have lost--some hymn, some harmony,
+some God?
+
+God? They find a bloodthirsty Jehovah, and an ascetic on the cross. What
+gods are these for modern men? Religious history, not religion.
+
+“Peer,” says Merle again, “for God’s sake try to sleep.”
+
+“Merle, do you think I shall get well here?”
+
+“Why, don’t you feel already how splendid the air is? Of course you’ll
+get well.”
+
+He twined his fingers into hers, and at last the sound of Louise’s hymn
+came to him once more, lifting and rocking him gently till his eyes
+closed.
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+
+A little road winds in among the woods, two wheel-tracks only, with a
+carpet of brown pine-needles between; but there are trees and the sky,
+quiet and peace, so that it’s a real blessing to walk there. It rises
+and falls so gently, that no one need get out of breath; indeed,
+it seems to go along with one all the time, in mere friendliness,
+whispering: “Take it easy. Take your time. Have a good rest here.” And
+so on it goes, winding in among the tree-trunks, slender and supple as a
+young girl.
+
+Peer walked here every day. He would stop and look up into the tops of
+the fir trees, and walk on again; then sit down for a moment on a mossy
+stone; but only for a moment--always he was up again soon and moving on,
+though he had nowhere to go. But at least there was peace here. He would
+linger watching an insect as it crept along a fir branch, or listening
+to the murmur of the river in the valley far below, or breathing in the
+health-giving scent of the resin, thick in the warm air.
+
+This present life of his was one way of living. As he lay, after a
+sleepless night, watching the window grow lighter with the dawn, he
+would think: Yet another new day--and nothing that I can do in it.
+
+And yet he had to get up, and dress, and go down and eat. His bread had
+a slightly bitter taste to him--it tasted of charity and dependence, of
+the rich widow at Bruseth and the agent for English tweeds. And he must
+remember to eat slowly, to masticate each mouthful carefully, to rest
+after meals, and above all not to think--not to think of anything in the
+wide world. Afterwards, he could go out and in like other people, only
+that all his movements and actions were useless and meaningless in
+themselves; they were done only for the sake of health, or to keep
+thoughts away, or to make the time go by.
+
+How had this come to pass? He found it still impossible to grasp how
+such senseless things can happen and no Providence interfere to set them
+right. Why should he have been so suddenly doomed to destruction?
+Days, weeks and months of his best manhood oozing away into empty
+nothingness--why? Sleeplessness and tortured nerves drove him to do
+things that his will disowned; he would storm at his wife and children
+if a heel so much as scraped on the floor, and the remorse that
+followed, sometimes ending in childish tears, did no good, for the next
+time the same thing, or worse, would happen again. This was the burden
+of his days. This was the life he was doomed to live.
+
+But up here on the little forest track he harms no one; and no racking
+noises come thrusting sharp knives into his spine. Here is a great
+peace; a peace that does a man good. Down on the grassy slope below
+stands a tumble-down grey barn; it reminds him of an old worn-out horse,
+lifting its head from grazing to gaze at you--a lonely forsaken creature
+it seems--to-morrow it will sink to the ground and rise no more--yet IT
+takes its lot calmly and patiently.
+
+Ugh! how far he has got from Raastad. A cold sweat breaks out over his
+body for fear he may not have strength to walk back again uphill. Well,
+pull yourself together. Rest a little. And he lies down on his back in a
+field of clover, and stares up at the sky.
+
+A stream of clean air, fresh from the snow, flows all day long down the
+valley; as if Jotunheim itself, where it lies in there beneath the sky,
+were breathing in easy well-being. Peer fills his lungs again and again
+with long deep draughts, drinking in the air like a saving potion. “Help
+me then, oh air, light, solitude! help me that I may be whole once more
+and fit to work, for this is the one and only religion left me to cling
+to.”
+
+High above, over the two mountain ranges, a blue flood stands immovable,
+and in its depths eternal rest is brooding. But is there a will there
+too, that is concerned with men on earth? You do not believe in it, and
+yet a little prayer mounts up to it as well! Help me--thou too. Who?
+Thou that hearest. If Thou care at all for the miserable things called
+men that crawl upon the earth--help me! If I once prayed for a great
+work that could stay my hunger for things eternal, I repent me now
+and confess that it was pride and vanity. Make me a slave, toiling at
+servile tasks for food, so that Merle and the children be not taken from
+me. Hearest Thou?
+
+Does anyone in heaven find comfort in seeing men tortured by blind
+fortune? Are my wife and my children slaves of an unmeaning chance--and
+yet can smile and laugh? Answer me, if Thou hearest--Thou of the many
+names.
+
+A grasshopper is shrilling in the grass about him. Suddenly he starts up
+sitting. A railway-train goes screaming past below.
+
+And so the days go on.
+
+Each morning Merle would steal a glance at her husband’s face, to see
+if he had slept; if his eyes were dull, or inflamed, or calm. Surely he
+must be better soon! Surely their stay here must do him good. She
+too had lost faith in medicines, but this air, the country life, the
+solitude--rest, rest--surely there must soon be some sign that these
+were helping him.
+
+Many a time she rose in the morning without having closed her eyes all
+night. But there were the children to look after, the house to see to,
+and she had made up her mind to get on without a maid if she possibly
+could.
+
+“What has taken you over to the farm so much lately?” she asked one day.
+“You have been sitting over there with old Raastad for hours together.”
+
+“I--I go over to amuse myself and pass the time,” he said.
+
+“Do you talk politics?”
+
+“No--we play cards. Why do you look at me like that?”
+
+“You never cared for cards before.”
+
+“No; but what the devil am I to do? I can’t read, because of these
+cursed eyes of mine--and the hammering in my head. . . . And I’ve
+counted all the farms up and down the valley now. There are fifty in
+all. And on the farm here there are just twenty-one houses, big and
+little. What the devil am I to take to next?”
+
+Merle sighed. “It is hard,” she said. “But couldn’t you wait till the
+evening to play cards--till the children are in bed--then I could play
+with you. That would be better.”
+
+“Thank you very much. But what about the rest of the day? Do you know
+what it’s like to go about from dawn to dark feeling that every minute
+is wasted, and wasted for nothing? No, you can’t know it. What am I
+to do with myself all through one of these endless, deadly days? Drink
+myself drunk?”
+
+“Couldn’t you try cutting firewood for a little?”
+
+“Firewood?” He whistled softly. “Well, that’s an idea. Ye--yes. Let’s
+try chopping firewood for a change.”
+
+Thud, thud, thud!
+
+But as he straightened his back for a breathing-space, the whirr, whirr
+of Raastad’s mowing machine came to him from the hill-slope near by
+where it was working, and he clenched his teeth as if they ached. He
+was driving a mowing machine of his own invention, and it was raining
+continually, and the grass kept sticking, sticking--and how to put it
+right--put it right? It was as if blows were falling on festering wounds
+in his head, making him dance with pain. Thud, thud, thud!--anything to
+drown the whirr of that machine.
+
+But a man may use an axe with his hands, and yet have idiotic fancies
+all the time bubbling and seething in his head. The power to hold in
+check the vagaries of imagination may be gone. From all sides they come
+creeping out in swarms, they swoop down on him like birds of prey--as if
+in revenge for having been driven away so often before--they cry: here
+we are! He stood once more as an apprentice in the mechanical works,
+riveting the plates of a gigantic boiler with a compressed-air
+tube--cling, clang! The wailing clang of the boiler went out over
+the whole town. And now that same boiler is set up inside his
+head--cling-clang--ugh! A cold sweat breaks out upon his body; he throws
+down the axe; he must go--must fly, escape somewhere--where, he cannot
+tell. Faces that he hates to think of peer out at him from every corner,
+yapping out: “Heh!--what did we say? To-day a beggar--to-morrow a madman
+in a cell.”
+
+But it may happen, too, that help comes in the night. Things come back
+to a man that it is good to remember. That time--and that other. . . . A
+woman there--and the one you met in such a place. There is a picture
+in the Louvre, by Veronese: a young Venetian woman steps out upon the
+marble stairway of a palace holding a golden-haired boy by the hand;
+she is dressed in black velvet, she glows with youth and happiness. A
+lovers’ meeting in her garden? The first kiss! Moonlight and mandolins!
+
+A shudder of pleasure passes through his weary body. Bright
+recollections and impressions flock towards him like spirits of
+light--he can hear the rushing sound of their wings--he calls to them
+for aid, and they encircle him round; they struggle with the spirits of
+darkness for his soul. He has known much brightness, much beauty in his
+life--surely the bright angels are the stronger and must conquer. Ah!
+why had he not lived royally, amidst women and flowers and wine?
+
+One morning as he was getting up, he said: “Merle, I must and will hit
+upon something that’ll send me to bed thoroughly tired out.”
+
+“Yes dear,” she answered. “Do try.”
+
+“I’ll try wheeling stones to begin with,” he said. “The devil’s in it if
+a day at that doesn’t make a man sleep.”
+
+So that day and for many days he wheeled stones from some newly broken
+land on the hillside down to a dyke that ran along the road.
+
+Calm, golden autumn days; one farm above another rising up towards the
+crest of the range, all set in ripe yellow fields. One little cottage
+stands right on the crest against the sky itself, and it, too, has its
+tiny patch of yellow corn. And an eagle sails slowly across the deep
+valley from peak to peak.
+
+People passing by stared at Peer as he went about bare-headed, in his
+shirt-sleeves, wheeling stones. “Aye, gentlefolks have queer notions,”
+ they would say, shaking their heads.
+
+“That’s it--keep at it,” a dry, hacking voice kept going in Peer’s head.
+“It is idiocy, but you are doomed to it. Shove hard with those skinny
+legs of yours; many a jade before you has had to do the same. You’ve got
+to get some sleep tonight. Only ten months left now; and then we shall
+have Lucifer turning up at the cross-roads once more. Poor Merle--she’s
+beginning to grow grey. And the poor little children--dreaming of father
+beating them, maybe, they cry out so often in their sleep. Off now,
+trundle away. Now over with that load; and back for another.
+
+“You, that once looked down on the soulless toil for bread, you have
+sunk now to something far more miserable. You are dragging at a load
+of sheer stupidity. You are a galley-slave, with calamity for your
+task-master. As you move the chains rattle. And that is your day.”
+
+He straightens himself up, wipes the sweat from his forehead, and begins
+heaving up stones into his barrow again.
+
+How long must it last, this life in manacles? Do you remember Job?
+Job? Aye, doubtless Jehovah was sitting at some jovial feast when he
+conceived that fantasy of a drunken brain, to let Satan loose upon a
+happy man. Job? His seven sons and daughters, and his cattle, and his
+calves were restored unto him, but we read nothing of any compensation
+made him for the jest itself. He was made to play court fool, with his
+boils and his tortures and his misery, and the gods had their bit
+of sport gratis. Job had his actual outlay in cattle and offspring
+refunded, and that was all. Ha-ha!
+
+Prometheus! Is it you after all that are the friend of man among the
+gods? Have you indeed the power to free us all some day? When will you
+come, then, to raise the great revolt?
+
+Come, come--up with the barrow again--you see it is full.
+
+“Father, it’s dinner-time. Come along home,” cries little Louise, racing
+down the hill with her yellow plaits flying about her ears. But she
+stops cautiously a little distance off--there is no knowing what sort of
+temper father may be in.
+
+“Thanks, little monkey. Got anything good for dinner to-day?”
+
+“Aha! that’s a secret,” said the girl in a teasing voice; she was
+beaming now, with delight at finding him approachable. “Catch me,
+father! I can run quicker than you can!”
+
+“I’m afraid I’m too tired just now, my little girl.”
+
+“Oh, poor papa! are you tired?” And she came up and took him by the
+hand. Then she slipped her arm into his--it was just as good fun to walk
+up the hill on her father’s arm like a grown-up young lady.
+
+Then came the frosts. And one morning the hilltops were turned into
+leaden grey clouds from which the snow came sweeping down. Merle stood
+at the window, her face grey in the clammy light. She looked down the
+valley to where the mountains closed it in; it seemed still narrower
+than before; one’s breath came heavily, and one’s mind seemed stifled
+under cold damp wrappings.
+
+Ugh! Better go out into the kitchen and set to work again--work--work
+and forget.
+
+Then one day there came a letter telling her that her mother was dead.
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+
+DEAR KLAUS BROCK,--
+
+Legendary being! Cast down from Khedivial heights one day and up again
+on high with Kitchener the next. But, in Heaven’s name, what has taken
+you to the Soudan? What made you go and risk your life at Omdurman? The
+same old desperation, I suppose, that you’re always complaining about.
+And why, of all things, plant yourself away in an outpost on the edge
+of the wilderness, to lie awake at nights nursing suicidal thoughts over
+Schopenhauer? You have lived without principles, you say. And wasted
+your youth. And are homeless now all round, with no morals, no country,
+no religion. But will you make all this better by making things much
+worse?
+
+You’ve no reason to envy me my country life, by the way, and there’s
+no sense in your going about longing for the little church of your
+childhood, with its Moses and hymns and God. Well, longing does no harm,
+perhaps, but don’t ever try to find it. The fact is, old fellow, that
+such things are not to be found any more.
+
+I take it that religion had the same power on you in your childhood
+as it had with me. We were wild young scamps, both of us, but we liked
+going to church, not for the sake of the sermons, but to bow our heads
+when the hymn arose and join in singing it. When the waves of the
+organ-music rolled through the church, it seemed--to me at least--as if
+something were set swelling in my own soul, bearing me away to lands
+and kingdoms where all at last was as it should be. And when we went out
+into the world we went with some echo of the hymn in our hearts, and we
+might curse Jehovah, but in a corner of our minds the hymn lived on as
+a craving, a hunger for some world-harmony. All through the busy day
+we might bear our part in the roaring song of the steel, but in the
+evenings, on our lonely couch, another power would come forth in our
+minds, the hunger for the infinite, the longing to be cradled and borne
+up on the waves of eternity, whose way is past all finding out.
+
+Never believe, though, that you’ll find the church of your childhood
+now in any of our country places. We have electric light now everywhere,
+telephones, separators, labour unions and political meetings, but the
+church stands empty. I have been there. The organ wails as if it had the
+toothache, the precentor sneezes out a hymn, the congregation does not
+lift the roof off with its voice, for the very good reason that there
+is no congregation there. And the priest, poor devil, stands up in his
+pulpit with his black moustache and pince-nez; he is an officer in
+the army reserve, and he reads out his highly rational remarks from a
+manuscript. But his face says all the time--“You two paupers down there
+that make up my congregation, you don’t believe a word I am saying;
+but never mind, I don’t believe it either.” It’s a tragic business when
+people have outgrown their own conception of the divine. And we--we
+are certainly better than Jehovah. The dogma of the atonement, based
+on original sin and the bloodthirstiness of God, is revolting to us; we
+shrug our shoulders, and turn away with a smile, or in disgust. We are
+not angels yet, but we are too good to worship such a God as that.
+
+There is some excuse for the priest, of course. He must preach of some
+God. And he has no other.
+
+Altogether, it’s hardly surprising that even ignorant peasants shake
+their heads and give the church a wide berth. What do they do on
+Sundays, then? My dear fellow, they have no Sunday. They sit nodding
+their heads over a long table, waiting for the day to pass. They remind
+one of plough horses, that have filled their bellies, and stand snoring
+softly, because there’s no work today.
+
+The great evolutionary scheme, with its wonders of steel and miracles of
+science, goes marching on victoriously, I grant you, changing the face
+of the world, hurrying its pulse to a more and more feverish beat. But
+what good will it do the peasant to be able to fly through the air on
+his wheelbarrow, while no temple, no holy day, is left him any more on
+earth? What errand can he have up among the clouds, while yet no heaven
+arches above his soul?
+
+This is the burning question with all of us, with you in the desert as
+with us up here under the Pole. To me it seems that we need One who will
+make our religion new--not merely a new prophet, but a new God.
+
+You ask about my health--well, I fancy it’s too early yet to speak about
+it. But so much I will say: If you should ever be in pain and suffering,
+take it out on yourself--not on others.
+
+Greetings from us all.
+
+Yours,
+
+PEER DALESMAN.
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+
+Christmas was near, the days were all grey twilight, and there was a
+frost that set the wall-timbers cracking. The children went about
+blue with cold. When Merle scrubbed the floors, they turned into small
+skating-rinks, though there might be a big fire in the stove. Peer waded
+and waded through deep snow to the well for water, and his beard hung
+like a wreath of icicles about his face.
+
+Aye, this was a winter.
+
+Old Raastad’s two daughters were in the dairy making whey-cheese. The
+door was flung open, there was a rush of frosty air, and Peer stood
+there blinking his eyes.
+
+“Huh! what smokers you two are!”
+
+“Are we now?” And the red-haired one and the fair-haired one both
+giggled, and they looked at each other and nodded. This queer
+townsman-lodger of theirs never came near them that he didn’t crack
+jokes.
+
+“By the way, Else, I dreamed last night that we were going to be
+married.”
+
+Both the girls shrieked with delight at this.
+
+“And Mari, you were married to the bailiff.”
+
+“Oh my! That old creature down at Moen?”
+
+“He was much older. Ninety years old he was.”
+
+“Uf!--you’re always at your nonsense,” said the red-haired girl,
+stirring away at her huge, steaming cauldron.
+
+Peer went out again. The girls were hardly out of their teens, and yet
+their faces seemed set already and stiff with earnestness. And whenever
+Peer had managed to set them laughing unawares, they seemed frightened
+the next minute at having been betrayed into doing something there was
+no profit in.
+
+Peer strode about in the crackling snow with his fur cap drawn down over
+his ears. Jotunheim itself lay there up north, breathing an icy-blue
+cold out over the world.
+
+And he? Was he to go on like this, growing hunchbacked under a burden
+that weighed and bowed him down continually? Why the devil could he not
+shake it off, break away from it, and kick out bravely at his evil fate?
+
+“Peer,” asked Merle, standing in the kitchen, “what did you think of
+giving the children for a Christmas present?”
+
+“Oh, a palace each, and a horse to ride, of course. When you’ve more
+money than you know what to do with, the devil take economy. And what
+about you, my girl? Any objection to a couple of thousand crowns’ worth
+of furs?”
+
+“No, but seriously. The children haven’t any ski--nor a hand-sleigh.”
+
+“Well, have you the money to buy them? I haven’t.”
+
+“Suppose you tried making them yourself?”
+
+“Ski?” Peer turned over the notion, whistling. “Well, why not? And a
+sleigh? We might manage that. But what about little Asta?--she’s too
+little for that sort of thing.”
+
+“She hasn’t any bed for her doll.”
+
+Peer whistled again. “There’s something in that. That’s an idea. I’m not
+so handless yet that I couldn’t--”
+
+He was soon hard at it. There were tools and a joiner’s bench in an
+outhouse, and there he worked. He grew easily tired; his feet tried
+constantly to take him to the door, but he forced himself to go on. Is
+there anything in the notion that a man can get well by simply willing
+it? I will, will, will. The thought of others besides himself began to
+get the upper hand of those birds of prey ravening in his head. Presents
+for the children, presents that father had made himself--the picture
+made light and warmth in his mind. Drive ahead then.
+
+When it came to making the iron ribbons for the sleigh runners he had
+to go across to the smithy; and there stood a cottar at work roughing
+horseshoes. Red glowing iron once more, and steel. The clang of hammer
+on anvil seemed to tear his ears; yet it drew him on too. It was long
+since last he heard that sound. And there were memories.
+
+“Want this welded, Jens? Where’s the borax? Look here, this is the way
+of it.”
+
+“Might ha’ been born and bred a smith,” said Jens, as he watched the
+deft and easy hammer-strokes.
+
+Christmas Eve came, and the grey farm-pony dragged up a big wooden case
+to the door. Peer opened it and carried in the things--a whole heap of
+good things for Christmas from the Ringeby relations.
+
+He bit his lips when he saw all the bags piled up on the kitchen table.
+There had been a time not long ago when Merle and he had loaded up a
+sledge at the Loreng storehouse and driven off with Christmas gifts to
+all the poor folk round. It was part of the season’s fun for them. And
+now--now they must even be glad to receive presents themselves.
+
+“Merle--have WE nothing we can give away this year?”
+
+“I don’t know. What do you think?”
+
+“A poor man’s Christmas it’ll be with a vengeance--if we’re only to take
+presents, and haven’t the least little thing to give away.”
+
+Merle sighed. “We must hope it won’t happen to us again,” she said.
+
+“I won’t have it happen to us now,” he said, pacing up and down.
+“There’s that poor devil of a joiner down at Moen, with consumption. I’m
+going down there with a bit of a parcel to chuck in at his door, if I
+have to take your shift and the shirt off my back. You know yourself it
+won’t be any Christmas at all, if we don’t do something.”
+
+“Well--if you like. I’ll see if we can’t find something among the
+children’s clothes that they can do without.”
+
+The end of it was that Merle levied toll on all the parcels from home,
+both rice and raisins and cakes, and made up little packets of them to
+send round by him. That was Merle’s way; let her alone and she would hit
+upon something.
+
+The snow creaked and crackled underfoot as Peer went off on his errand.
+A starry sky and a biting wind, and light upon light from the windows of
+the farms scattered over the dark hillsides. High above all, against the
+sky, there was one little gleam that might be a cottage window, or might
+be a star.
+
+Peer was flushed and freshened up when he came back into the warmth of
+the room. And a chorus of joyful shouts was raised when Merle announced
+to the children: “Father’s going to bath you all to-night.”
+
+The sawed-off end of a barrel was the bathing-tub, and Peer stood in the
+kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, holding the naked little bodies as
+they sprawled about in the steaming water.
+
+Mother was busy with something or other in the sitting-room. But it was
+a great secret, and the children were very mysterious about it. “No, no,
+you mustn’t go in,” they said to little Asta, who went whimpering for
+her mother to the door.
+
+And later in the evening, when the Christmas-tree was lit up, and the
+windows shone white with frost, there were great doings all about the
+sitting room floor. Louise got her ski on and immediately fell on her
+face; Lorentz, astride of the new sleigh, was shouting “Hi, hi!--clear
+the course there!”, and over in a corner sat little Asta, busy putting
+her baby to bed and singing it to sleep.
+
+Husband and wife looked at each other and smiled.
+
+“What did I tell you?” said Merle.
+
+
+Slowly, with torturing slowness, the leaden-grey winter days creep by.
+For two hours in the middle of the day there is pale twilight--for two
+hours--then darkness again. Through the long nights the north wind howls
+funeral dirges--hu-u-u-u--and piles up the snow into great drifts across
+the road, deep enough, almost, to smother a sleigh and its driver. The
+days and nights come and go, monotonous, unchanged; the same icy grey
+daylight, and never a human soul to speak to. Across the valley a great
+solid mountain wall hems you in, and you gaze at it till it nearly
+drives you mad. If only one could bore a hole through it, and steal a
+glimpse of the world beyond, or could climb up to the topmost ridge and
+for a moment look far round to a wide horizon, and breathe freely once
+more.
+
+At last one day the grey veil lifts a little. A strip of blue sky
+appears--and hearts grow lighter at the sight. The snow peaks to the
+south turn golden. What? Is it actually the sun? And day by day now a
+belt of gold grows broader, comes lower and lower on the hillside, till
+the highest-lying farms are steeped in it and glow red. And at last one
+day the red flame reaches the Courthouse, and shines in across the floor
+of the room where Merle is sitting by the window patching the seat of a
+tiny pair of trousers.
+
+What life and cheer it brings with it!
+
+“Mother--here’s the sun,” cries Louise joyfully from the doorway.
+
+“Yes, child, I see it.”
+
+But Louise has only looked in for a moment to beg some cake for Lorentz
+and herself, and be off again on her ski to the hill-slopes. “Thank you,
+mother--you’re a darling!” And with a slice in each hand she dashes out,
+glowing with health and the cold air.
+
+If only Peer could glow with health again! But though one day they might
+persuade themselves that now--now at last he had turned the corner--the
+next he would be lying tossing about in misery, and it all seemed
+more hopeless than ever. He had taken to the doctors’ medicines
+again--arsenic and iron and so forth--and the quiet and fresh air they
+had prescribed were here in plenty; would nothing do him any good? There
+were not so many months of their year left now.
+
+And then? Another winter here? And living on charity--ah me! Merle shook
+her head and sighed.
+
+The time had come, too, when Louise should go to school.
+
+“Send the children over to me--all three of them, if you like,” wrote
+Aunt Marit from Bruseth. No, thanks; Merle knew what that meant. Aunt
+Marit wanted to keep them for good.
+
+Lose her children--give away her children to others? Was the day to come
+when that burden, too, would be laid upon them?
+
+But schooling they must have; they must learn enough at least to fit
+them to make a living when they grew up. And if their own parents could
+not afford them schooling, why--why then perhaps they had no right to
+keep them?
+
+Merle sewed and sewed on, lifting her head now and again, so that the
+sunlight fell on her face.
+
+How the snow shone--like purple under the red flood of sunlight. After
+all, their troubles seemed a little easier to bear to-day. It was as if
+something frozen in her heart were beginning to thaw.
+
+Louise was getting on well with her violin. Perhaps one day the child
+might go out into the world, and win the triumphs that her mother had
+dreamed of in vain.
+
+There was a sound of hurried steps in the passage, and she started and
+sat in suspense. Would he come in raging, or in despair, or had the
+pains in his head come back? The door opened.
+
+“Merle! I have it now. By all the gods, little woman, something’s
+happened at last!”
+
+Merle half rose from her seat, but sank back again, gazing at his face.
+
+“I’ve got it this time, Merle,” he said again. “And how on earth I never
+hit on it before--when it’s as simple as shelling peas!”
+
+He was stalking about the room now, with his hands in his pockets,
+whistling.
+
+“But what is it, Peer?”
+
+“Why, you see, I was standing there chopping wood. And all the time
+swarms of mowing machines--nine million of them--were going in my head,
+all with the grass sticking fast to the shears and clogging them up. I
+was in a cold sweat--I felt myself going straight to hell--and then,
+in a flash--a flash of steel--it came to me. It means salvation for us,
+Merle, salvation.”
+
+“Oh, do talk so that I can understand a little of what you’re saying.”
+
+“Why, don’t you see--all that’s wanted is a small movable steel brush
+above the shears, to flick away the grass and keep them clear. Hang it
+all, a child could see it. By Jove, little woman, it’ll soon be changed
+times with us now.”
+
+Merle laid her work down in her lap and let her hands fall. If this were
+true!
+
+“I’ll have the machine up here, Merle. Making the brushes and fixing
+them on will be no trouble at all--I can do it in a day in the smithy
+here.”
+
+“What--you had better try! You’re just beginning to get a little better,
+and you want to spoil it all again!”
+
+“I shall never get well, Merle, as long as I have that infernal machine
+in my head balancing between world-success and fiasco. It presses on my
+brain like a leaden weight, I shall never have a decent night’s sleep
+till I get rid of it. Oh, my great God--if times were to change some
+day--even for us! Well! Do you think I wouldn’t get well when that day
+came!”
+
+This time she let him take her in his arms. But when he had gone, she
+sat still, watching the sun sink behind the snow-ranges, till her eyes
+grew dim and her breath came heavily.
+
+A week later, when the sun was flaming on the white roofs, the grey pony
+dragged a huge packing-case up to Raastad. And the same day a noise of
+hammer and file at work was heard in the smithy.
+
+What do a few sleepless nights matter now? And they are sleepless not so
+much from anxiety--for this time things go well--as because of dreams.
+And both of them dream. They have bought back Loreng, and they wander
+about through the great light rooms once more, and all is peace and
+happiness. All the evil days before are as a nightmare that is past.
+Once more they will be young, go out on ski together, and dine together
+after, and drink champagne, and look at each other with love in their
+eyes. Once more--and many times again.
+
+“Good-night, Merle.”
+
+“Good-night, Peer, and sleep well.”
+
+Day after day the hammering went on in the smithy.
+
+A few years back he could have finished the whole business in a couple
+of days. But now, half an hour’s work was enough to tire him out. It is
+exhausting work to concentrate your thoughts upon a single point, when
+your brain has long been used to play idly with stray fancies as they
+came. He found, too, that there were defects to be put right in the
+parts he thought were complete before, and he had no assistants now, no
+foundry to get castings from, he must forge out each piece with his own
+hands, and with sorry tools.
+
+What did it matter?
+
+He began to discipline his brain, denying himself every superfluous
+thought. He drew dark curtains across every window in his consciousness,
+save one--the machine. After half an hour’s work he would go back to bed
+and rest--just close his eyes, and rest. This too was discipline. Again
+he flooded all his mind with darkness, darkness, to save his strength
+for the half-hour of work next day.
+
+Was Merle fearful and anxious? At all events she said no word about the
+work that so absorbed him. He was excited enough as it was. And now when
+he was irritable and angry with the children, she did not even look
+at him reproachfully. They must bear it, both she and the children--it
+would soon be all over now.
+
+In the clear moonlight nights, when the children were in bed, the two
+would sometimes be seen wandering about together. They went with their
+arms about each other’s waists, talking loudly, laughing a great deal,
+and sometimes singing. People going by on the road would hear the
+laughter and singing, and think to themselves: It’s either someone
+that’s been drinking, or else that couple from the Court-house.
+
+The spring drew on and the days grew lighter.
+
+
+But at the Hamar Agricultural Exhibition, where the machine was tried,
+an American competitor was found to be just a little better. Everyone
+thought it a queer business; for even if the idea hadn’t been directly
+stolen from Peer, there could be no doubt that his machine had suggested
+it. The principles adopted were the same in both cases, but in the
+American machine there was just enough improvement in carrying them out
+to make it doubtful whether it would be any use going to law over the
+patent rights. And besides--it’s no light matter for a man with no money
+at his back to go to law with a rich American firm.
+
+In the mighty race, with competitors the wide world over, to produce the
+best machine, Peer had been on the very point of winning. Another man
+had climbed upon his chariot, and then, at the last moment, jumped a few
+feet ahead, and had thereby won the prize.
+
+So that the achievement in itself be good, the world does not inquire
+too curiously whether it was honestly achieved.
+
+And there is no use starting a joint-stock company to exploit a new
+machine when there is a better machine in the field.
+
+The steel had seized on Peer, and used him as a springboard. But the
+reward was destined for another.
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+
+Herr Uthoug Junior, Agent for English tweeds, stepped out of the train
+one warm day in July, and stood for a moment on the station platform
+looking about him. Magnificent scenery, certainly. And this beautiful
+valley was where his sister had been living for more than a year.
+Splendid air--and yet somehow it didn’t seem to have done his
+brother-in-law much good. Well, well! And the neatly dressed young
+gentleman set off on foot towards Raastad, asking his way from time
+to time. He wanted to take them by surprise. There had been a family
+council at Ringeby, and they had agreed that some definite arrangement
+must be made for the future of the sister and her husband, with whom
+things had gone so hopelessly wrong.
+
+As he turned up the by-road that led to the farm, he was aware of a
+man in his shirt-sleeves, wheeling a barrow full of stones. What? He
+thought--could he be mistaken? No--sure enough it was Peer Holm--Peer
+Holm, loading up stones and wheeling them down the hill as zealously as
+if he were paid for every step.
+
+The Agent was not the man for lamentations or condolences. “Hullo!” he
+cried. “Hard at it, aren’t you? You’ve taken to farming, I see.”
+
+Peer stood up straight, wiped his hands on his trousers, and came
+towards him. “Good heavens! how old he has grown!” thought Uthoug to
+himself. But aloud he said, “Well, you do look fit. I’d hardly have
+known you again.”
+
+Merle caught sight of the pair from the kitchen window. “Why, I do
+believe--” she exclaimed, and came running out. It was so long since she
+had seen any of her people, that she forgot her dignity and in a moment
+had her arms round her brother’s neck, hugging him.
+
+No, certainly Uthoug junior had not come with lamentations and
+condolences. He had a bottle of good wine in his bag, and at supper he
+filled the glasses and drank with them both, and talked about theatres
+and variety shows, and gave imitations of well-known actors, till he had
+set the two poor harassed creatures laughing. They must need a little
+joy and laughter--ah! well he knew how they must need it.
+
+But he knew, too, that Merle and Peer were on tenterhooks waiting to
+know what the family had decided about their future. The days of their
+life here had been evil and sad, but they only hoped now that they might
+be able to stay on. If the help they had received up to now were taken
+from them, they could neither afford to stay here nor to go elsewhere.
+What then could they do? No wonder they were anxious as they sat there.
+
+After supper he went out for a stroll with Peer, while Merle waited at
+home in suspense. She understood that their fate was being settled as
+she waited.
+
+At last they returned--and to her astonishment they came in laughing.
+
+Her brother said good-night, and kissed her on the forehead, and patted
+her arm and was kindness itself. She took him up to his room, and would
+have liked to sit there a while and talk to him; but she knew Peer had
+waited till they were alone to tell her the news that concerned them so
+nearly. “Good-night, then, Carsten,” she said to her brother, and went
+downstairs.
+
+And then at last she and Peer were sitting alone together, at her
+work-table by the window.
+
+“Well?” said Merle.
+
+“The thing is this, Merle. If we have courage to live at all, we must
+look facts in the face as they are.”
+
+“Yes, dear, but tell me . . .”
+
+“And the facts are that with my health as it now is I cannot possibly
+get any employment. It is certain that I cannot. And as that is the
+case, we may as well be here as anywhere else.”
+
+“But can we stay on here, Peer?”
+
+“If you can bear to stay with a miserable bungler like me--that, of
+course, is a question.”
+
+“Answer me--can we stay here?”
+
+“Yes. But it may be years, Merle, before I’m fit to work again--we’ve
+got to reckon with that. And to live on charity year after year is what
+I cannot and will not endure.”
+
+“But what are we to do, then, Peer? There seems to be no possible way
+for me to earn any money.”
+
+“I can try, at any rate,” he answered, looking out of the window.
+
+“You? Oh no, Peer. Even if you could get work as a draughtsman, you know
+quite well that your eyes would never stand . . .”
+
+“I can do blacksmith’s work,” he said.
+
+There was a pause. Merle glanced at him involuntarily, as if she could
+hardly believe her ears. Could he be in earnest? Was the engineer of the
+Nile Barrage to sink into a country blacksmith?
+
+She sighed. But she felt she must not dishearten him. And at last she
+said with an effort: “It would help to pass the time, I daresay. And
+perhaps you would get into the way of sleeping better.” She looked out
+of the window with tightly compressed lips.
+
+“And if I do that, Merle, we can’t stay on in this house. In fact a
+great box of a place like this is too big for us in any case--when you
+haven’t even a maid to help you.”
+
+“But do you know of any smaller house we could take?”
+
+“Yes, there’s a little place for sale, with a rood or two of ground. If
+we had a cow and a pig, Merle--and a few fowls--and could raise a
+bushel or two of corn--and if I could earn a few shillings a week in the
+smithy--we wouldn’t come on the parish, at any rate. I could manage the
+little jobs that I’d get--in fact, pottering about at them would do me
+good. What do you say?”
+
+Merle did not answer; her eyes were turned away, gazing fixedly out of
+the window.
+
+“But there’s another question--about you, Merle. Are you willing to sink
+along with me into a life like that? I shall be all right. I lived in
+just such a place when I was a boy. But you! Honestly, Merle, I don’t
+think I should ask it of you.” His voice began to tremble; he pressed
+his lips together and his eyes avoided her face.
+
+There was a pause. “How about the money?” she said, at last. “How will
+you buy the place?”
+
+“Your brother has promised to arrange about a loan. But I say again,
+Merle--I shall not blame you in the least if you would rather go and
+live with your aunt at Bruseth. I fancy she’d be glad to have you, and
+the children too.”
+
+Again there was silence for a while. Then she said: “If there are two
+decent rooms in the cottage, we could be comfortable enough. And as you
+say, it would be easier to look after.”
+
+Peer waited a little. There was something in his throat that prevented
+speech. He understood now that it was to be taken for granted, without
+words, that they should not part company. And it took him a little time
+to get over the discovery.
+
+Merle sat facing him, but her eyes were turned to the window as before.
+She had still the same beautiful dark eyebrows, but her face was faded
+and worn, and there were streaks of grey in her hair.
+
+At last he spoke again. “And about the children, Merle.”
+
+She started. “The children--what about them?” Had it come at last, the
+thing she had gone in fear of so long?
+
+“Aunt Marit has sent word to ask if we will let your brother take Louise
+over to stay with her.”
+
+“No!” Merle flung out. “No, Peer. Surely you said no at once. Surely you
+wouldn’t let her go. You know what it means, their wanting to have her
+over there.”
+
+“I know,” he nodded. “But there’s another question: in Louise’s own
+interest, have we any right to say no?”
+
+“Peer,” she cried, springing up and wringing her hands, “you mustn’t ask
+it of me. You don’t want to do it yourself. Surely we have not come to
+that--to begin sending--giving away--no, no, no!” she moaned. “Do you
+hear me, Peer? I cannot do it.”
+
+“As you please, Merle,” he said, rising, and forcing himself to speak
+calmly. “We can think it over, at any rate, till your brother leaves
+tomorrow. There are two sides to the thing: one way of it may hurt us
+now; the other way may be a very serious matter for Louise, poor thing.”
+
+Next morning, when it was time to wake the children, Peer and Merle
+went into the nursery together. They stopped by Louise’s bed, and stood
+looking down at her. The child had grown a great deal since they came
+to Raastad; she lay now with her nose buried in the pillow and the fair
+hair hiding her cheek. She slept so soundly and securely. This was home
+to her still; she was safer with father and mother than anywhere else in
+the world.
+
+“Louise,” said Merle, shaking her. “Time to get up, dear.”
+
+The child sat up, still half asleep, and looked wonderingly at the two
+faces. What was it?
+
+“Make haste and get dressed,” said Peer. “Fancy! You’re going off with
+Uncle Carsten today, to see Aunt Marit at Bruseth. What do you say to
+that?”
+
+The little girl was wide awake in a moment, and hopped out of bed at
+once to begin dressing. But there was something in her parents’ faces
+which a little subdued her joy.
+
+That morning there was much whispering among the children. The two
+youngest looked with wondering eyes at their elder sister, who was going
+away. Little Lorentz gave her his horse as a keepsake, and Asta gave her
+youngest doll. And Merle went about trying to make believe that Louise
+was only going on a short visit, and would soon be coming back.
+
+By dinner-time they had packed a little trunk, and Louise, in her
+best dress, was rushing about saying goodbye all round the farm, the
+harvesters, whom she had helped to drive in the hay, coming in for a
+specially affectionate farewell. Her last visit was to Musin, the grey
+horse, that was grazing tethered behind the smithy. Musin was busy
+cropping the turf, but he just lifted his head and looked at her--she
+plucked a handful of grass, and offered it, and when he had disposed of
+that, she patted his muzzle, and he let her cling round his neck for a
+moment.
+
+“I’ll be sure to write,” she cried out to no one in particular, as she
+went back over the courtyard again.
+
+The train moved out of the station, taking with it Uthoug junior and
+Louise, each waving from one of the windows of the compartment.
+
+And Peer and Merle were left on the platform, holding their two youngest
+children by the hand. They could still see a small hand with a white
+handkerchief waving from the carriage window. Then the last carriage
+disappeared into the cutting, and the smoke and the rumble of the train
+were all that was left.
+
+The four that were left behind stood still for a little while, but they
+seemed to have moved unconsciously closer together than before.
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+
+Some way up from the high-road there stands a little one-storeyed house
+with three small windows in a row, a cowshed on one side of it and a
+smithy on the other. When smoke rises from the smithy, the neighbours
+say: “The engineer must be a bit better to-day, since he’s at it in the
+smithy again. If there’s anything you want done, you’d better take it to
+him. He doesn’t charge any more than Jens up at Lia.”
+
+Merle and Peer had been living here a couple of years. Their lives had
+gone on together, but there had come to be this difference between them:
+Merle still looked constantly at her husband’s face, always hoping that
+he would get better, while he himself had no longer any hope. Even
+when the thump, thumping in his head was quiet for a time, there was
+generally some trouble somewhere to keep him on the rack, only he did
+not talk about it any more. He looked at his wife’s face, and thought
+to himself: “She is changing more and more; and it is you that are to
+blame. You have poured out your own misery on her day and night. It is
+time now you tried to make some amends.” So had begun a struggle to keep
+silence, to endure, if possible to laugh, even when he could have found
+it in his heart to weep. It was difficult enough, especially at first,
+but each victory gained brought with it a certain satisfaction which
+strengthened him to take up the struggle again.
+
+In this way, too, he learned to look on his fate more calmly. His humour
+grew lighter; it was as if he drew himself up and looked misfortune in
+the eyes, saying: “Yes, I know I am defenceless, and you can plunge me
+deeper and deeper yet; but for all that, if I choose to laugh you cannot
+hinder me.”
+
+How much easier all things seemed, now that he looked no longer for any
+good to come to him, and urged no claims against anyone either in heaven
+or on earth. But when he was tired out with his work at the forge, there
+was a satisfaction in saying to his wife: “No, Merle, didn’t I tell
+you I wouldn’t have you carrying the water up? Give me the bucket.”
+ “You?--you look fit for it, don’t you?” “Hang it all, am I a man, or am
+I not? Get back to your kitchen--that’s the place for a woman.” So he
+carried water, and his mood was the brighter for it, though he might
+feel at times as if his back were breaking. And sometimes, “I’m feeling
+lazy, to-day, Merle,” he would say. “If you don’t mind I’ll stay in bed
+a bit longer.” And she understood. She knew from experience that these
+were the days when his nightmare headache was upon him, and that it was
+to spare her he called it laziness.
+
+They had a cow now, and a pig and some fowls. It was not exactly on the
+same scale as at Loreng, but it had the advantage that he could manage
+it all himself. Last year they had raised so many potatoes that they had
+been able to sell a few bushels. They did not buy eggs any more--they
+sold them. Peer carried them down himself to the local dealer, sold them
+at market price, and bought things they might need with the money. Why
+not? Merle did not think it beneath her to wash and scrub and do the
+cooking. True enough, things had been different with them once, but it
+was only Merle now who ever had moments of dreaming that the old days
+might come back. Otherwise, for both him and her it was as if they had
+been washed ashore on a barren coast, and must try to live through the
+grey days as best they could.
+
+It would happen once in a while that a mowing machine of the new
+American type would be sent in by some farmer to the smithy for repairs.
+When this happened, Peer would shut his lips close, with a queer
+expression, look at the machine for a moment, and swallow something in
+his throat. The man who had stolen this thing from him and bettered it
+by a hairsbreadth was doubtless a millionaire by now on the strength of
+it.
+
+It cost him something of an effort to take these repairs in hand, but he
+bowed his head and set to. Merle, poor girl, needed a pair of shoes.
+
+At times, too, he would turn from the anvil and the darkness within and
+come out into the doorway for a breath of air; and here he would look
+out upon the day--the great broad empty day.
+
+A man with a sledge-hammer in his hands instinctively looks up at the
+heavens. He has inherited that instinct from his great ancestor, who
+brought down fire and thought to men, and taught them to rebel against
+God.
+
+Peer looked at the sky, and at the clouds, sweeping across it in a
+meaningless turmoil. Rebellion against someone up there? But heaven is
+empty. There is no one to rebel against.
+
+But then all the injustice, the manifold iniquity! Who is to sit in
+judgment on it at the great day?
+
+Who? No one.
+
+What? Think of the millions of all kinds of martyrs, who died under the
+bloodiest torments, yet innocent as babes at the breast--is there to be
+no day of reparation for them?
+
+None.
+
+But there must be a whole world-full of victims of injustice, whose
+souls flit restlessly around, because they died under a weight of
+undeserved shame--because they lost a battle in which the right was
+theirs--because they suffered and strove for truth, but went down
+because falsehood was the stronger. Truth? Right? Is there no one, then,
+who will one day give peace to the dead in their graves and set things
+in their right places? Is there no one?
+
+No one.
+
+The world rolls on its way. Fate is blind, and God smiles while Satan
+works his will upon Job.
+
+Hold your peace and grip your sledge-hammer, idiot. If ever your
+conscience should embrace the universe, that day the horror of it would
+strike you dead. Remember that you are a vertebrate animal, and it is by
+mistake that you have developed a soul.
+
+Cling, clang. The red sparks fly from the anvil. Live out your life as
+it is.
+
+But there began to dawn in him a strange longing to be united to
+all those unfortunates whom fate had blindly crushed; to gather them
+together, not to a common lamentation, but to a common victory. Not for
+vengeance, but for a song of praise. Behold, Thou eternal Omnipotence,
+how we requite Thy cruelty--we praise life: see how much more godlike we
+are than Thou.
+
+A temple, a temple for the modern spirit of man, hungry for
+eternity--not for the babbling of prayers, but for a hymn from man’s
+munificent heart sent pealing up to heaven. Will it come--will it one
+day be built?
+
+
+One evening Peer came home from the post-office apparently in high
+spirits. “Hi, Merle, I’ve got a letter from the Bruseth lady.”
+
+Merle glanced at Lorentz, who had instinctively come close to her, and
+was looking at his father.
+
+“From Bruseth? How is Louise getting on?” she asked.
+
+“You can see for yourself. Here’s the letter,” said he.
+
+Merle read it through hurriedly, and glanced at Lorentz once more.
+
+That evening, after the children had gone to bed, the father and mother
+sat up talking together in a low voice.
+
+And Merle had to admit that her husband was right. It would be selfish
+of them to keep the boy here, when he might be heir to Bruseth some day
+if they let him go.
+
+Suppose he stayed and worked here under his father and learned to be a
+smith? The blacksmith’s day is over--factories do all the work now.
+
+And what schooling could he get away here in the country? Aunt Marit
+offered to send him to a good school.--And so the die was cast for him
+too.
+
+But when they went with the boy to see him off at the station, the
+mother’s handkerchief was at her eyes all the time, do what she would.
+
+And when they came home she had to lie down in bed, while Peer went
+about the place, humming to himself, while he got ready a little supper
+and brought it to her bedside.
+
+“I can’t understand how you can take it so easily,” she burst out.
+
+“No--no,” he laughed a little oddly. “The less said about that the
+better, perhaps.”
+
+But the next day it was Peer who said he felt lazy again and would lie
+still a bit. Merle looked at him and stroked his forehead.
+
+And the time went on. They worked hard and constantly to make both ends
+meet without help, and they were content to take things as they came.
+When the big dairy was started close by, he made a good deal of money
+setting up the plant, but he was not above sharpening a drill for the
+road-gangs either. He was often to be seen going down to the country
+store in a sleeved waistcoat with a knapsack on his back. He carried his
+head high, the close-trimmed beard was shading over into white, his face
+often had the strained look that comes from sleeplessness, but his step
+was light, and he still had a joke for the girls whom he met.
+
+In summer, the neighbours would often see them shutting up the house and
+starting off up the hill with knapsack and coffee-kettle and with little
+Asta trotting between them. They were gone, it might be, to try and
+recapture some memory of old days, with coffee in the open air by a
+picnic fire.
+
+In the autumn, when the great fields yellowed all the hillsides, Peer
+and Merle had a little plot of their own that showed golden too. The
+dimensions of things had shrunk not a little for these two. A bushel
+of corn was much to them now. It hit them hard if their potato-patch
+yielded a couple of measures less than they had reckoned on. But the
+housewives from the farms near by would often look in on Merle to see
+how bright and clean she kept her little house; and now that she had
+no one to help her, she found time herself to teach the peasant girls
+something of cooking and sewing.
+
+But one habit had grown upon her. She would stand long and long by the
+window looking down the valley to where the hills closed it in. It
+was as if she were looking constantly for something to come in sight,
+something that should bring them better days. It was a kind of Sunday
+for her to stand there and look and wait.
+
+And the time went on.
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+
+DEAR KLAUS BROCK,
+
+I write to tell you of what has lately happened to us here, chiefly in
+the hope that it may be some comfort to yourself. For I have discovered,
+dear friend, that this world-sorrow of ours is something a man can get
+over, if only he will learn to see with his own eyes and not with those
+of others.
+
+Most men would say things have steadily gone from bad to worse with
+me, and certainly I shall not pretend to feel any love for suffering
+in itself. On the contrary, it hurts. It does not ennoble. It rather
+brutalises, unless it becomes so great that it embraces all things. I
+was once Engineer in charge at the First Cataract--now I am a blacksmith
+in a country parish. And that hurts. I am cut off from reading because
+of my eyes, and from intercourse with people whose society would be a
+pleasure because there are no such people here. All this hurts, even
+when you’ve grown used to it--a good thing in itself it is not. Many
+times I have thought that we must have reached the very bottom of the
+inclined plane of adversity, but always it proved to be only a break.
+The deepest deep was still to come. You work on even when your head
+feels like to split; you save up every pin, every match; and yet the
+bread you eat often tastes of charity. That hurts. You give up hoping
+that things may be better some day; you give up all hope, all dreams,
+all faith, all illusions--surely you have come to the end of all things.
+But no; the very roots of one’s being are still left; the most precious
+thing of all is still left. What can that be, you ask?
+
+That is what I was going to tell you.
+
+The thing that happened came just when things were beginning to look
+a little brighter for us. For some time past my head had been less
+troublesome, and I had got to work on a new harrow--steel again; it
+never lets one rest--and you know what endless possibilities a man sees
+in a thing like that. Merle was working with fresh courage. What do you
+think of a wife like that? taking up the cross of her own free will, to
+go on sharing the life of a ruined man? I hope you may meet a woman of
+her sort one day. True, her hair is growing grey, and her face lined.
+Her figure is not so straight as once it was; her hands are red and
+broken. And yet all this has a soul of its own, a beauty of its own,
+in my eyes, because I know that each wrinkle is a mark left by the time
+when some new trouble came upon us, and found us together. Then one day
+she smiles, and her smile has grown strained and full of sadness, but
+again it brings back to me times when both heaven and earth breathed
+cold upon us and we drew closer to each other for warmth. Our happiness
+and our sufferings have moulded her into what she now is. The world may
+think perhaps that she is growing old; to me she is only more beautiful
+than before.
+
+And now I am coming to what I was going to tell you. You will understand
+that it was not easy to send away the two children, and it doesn’t make
+things better to get letters from them constantly begging us to let them
+come home again. But we had still one little girl left, little Asta, who
+was just five. I wish you could have seen her. If you were a father and
+your tortured nerves had often made you harsh and unreasonable with
+the two elder ones, you would try--would you not?--to make it up in
+loving-kindness to the one that was left. Asta--isn’t it pretty? Imagine
+a sunburnt little being with black hair, and her mother’s beautiful
+eyebrows, always busy with her dolls, or fetching in wood, or baking
+little cakes of her own for father when mother’s baking bread for us
+all, chattering to the birds on the roof, or singing now and then, just
+because some stray note of music has come into her head. When mother is
+busy scrubbing the floor, little Asta must needs get hold of a wet rag
+behind her back and slop away at a chair, until she has got herself in a
+terrible mess, and then she gets smacked, and screams for a moment, but
+soon runs out and sings herself happy again. When you’re at work in
+the smithy, there comes a sound of little feet, and “Father, come to
+dinner”; and a little hand takes hold of you and leads you to the door.
+“Are you going to bath me to-night, father?” Or “Here’s your napkin,
+father.” And though there might be only potatoes and milk for dinner,
+she would eat as if she were seated at the grandest banquet. “Aren’t
+potatoes and milk your favourite dish, father?” And she makes faces at
+you in the eagerness of her questionings. At night she slept in a box
+at the foot of our bed, and when I was lying sleepless, it would often
+happen that her light, peaceful breathing filled me too with peace; and
+it was as if her little hand took mine and led me on to sleep itself, to
+beautiful, divine sleep.
+
+And now, as I come to the thing that happened, I find it a little hard
+to write--my hand begins to tremble. But my hope is that there may be
+some comfort in it for you too, as there has proved to be for Merle and
+me in the end.
+
+Our next neighbours here were a brazier and his wife--poor folks, like
+ourselves. Soon after we first came I went over to have a talk with him.
+I found him a poor wizened little creature, pottering about with his
+acids, and making a living as best as he could, soldering and tinning
+kettles and pans. “What do you want?” he asked, looking askance at me;
+and as I went out, I heard him bolt the door behind me. Alas! he was
+afraid--afraid that I was come to snatch his daily bread from him. His
+wife was a big-boned fleshy lump of a woman, insolent enough in her
+ways, though she had just been in prison for criminal abetment in the
+case of a girl that had got into trouble.
+
+One Sunday morning I was standing looking at some apple trees in bloom
+in his garden. One of them grew so close to the fence that the branches
+hung over on my side, and I bent one down to smell the blossom. Then
+suddenly I heard a cry: “Hi, Tiger! catch him!” and the brazier’s great
+wolf-dog came bounding down, ready to fly at my throat. I was lucky
+enough to get hold of its collar before it could do me any harm, and I
+dragged it up to its owner, and told him that if anything of the sort
+happened again I’d have the sheriff’s officer after him. Then the music
+began. He fairly let himself go and told me what he thought of me. “You
+hold your jaw, you cursed pauper, coming here taking the bread out
+of honest working people’s mouths,” and so on. He hissed it out,
+flourishing his arms about, and at last it seemed to me he was fumbling
+about for a knife or something to throw at my head. I couldn’t help
+laughing. It was a scene in the grand style between two Great Powers in
+the world-competition.
+
+A couple of days later I was standing at the forge, when I heard a
+shriek from my wife. I rushed out--what could be the matter? Merle was
+down by the fence already, and all at once I saw what it was--there was
+Asta, lying on the ground under the body of a great beast.
+
+And then--Well, Merle tells me it was I that tore the thing away from
+the little bundle of clothes beneath it, and carried our little girl
+home.
+
+A doctor is often a good refuge in trouble, but though he may sew up a
+ragged tear in a child’s throat ever so neatly, it doesn’t necessarily
+follow that it will help much.
+
+There was a mother, though, that would not let him go--that cried and
+prayed and clung about him, begging him to try once more if nothing
+could be done. And when at last he was gone, she was always for going
+after him again, and grovelled on the floor and tore her hair--could
+not, would not, believe what she knew was true.
+
+And that night a father and mother sat up together, staring strangely in
+front of them. The mother was quiet now. The child was laid out, decked
+and ready. The father sat by the window, looking out. It was in May, and
+the night was grey.
+
+Now it was that I began to realise how every great sorrow leads us
+farther and farther out on the promontory of existence. I had come to
+the outermost point now--there was no more.
+
+And I discovered too, dear friend, that these many years of adversity
+had shaped me not in one but in various moulds, for I had in me the
+stuff for several quite distinct persons, and now the work was done, and
+they could break free from my being and go their several ways.
+
+I saw a man rush out into the night, shaking his fist at heaven and
+earth; a madman who refused to play his part in the farce any more, and
+so rushed down towards the river.
+
+But I myself sat there still.
+
+And I saw another, a puny creature, let loose; a humble, ashen-grey
+ascetic, that bent his head and bowed under the lash, and said: “Thy
+will be done. The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away--” A pitiful being
+this, that stole out into the night and disappeared.
+
+But I myself sat there still.
+
+I sat alone on the promontory of existence, with the sun and the stars
+gone out, and ice-cold emptiness above me, about me, and in me, on every
+side.
+
+But then, my friend, by degrees it dawned on me that there was still
+something left. There was one little indomitable spark in me, that began
+to glow all by itself--it was as if I were lifted back to the first day
+of existence, and an eternal will rose up in me, and said: Let there be
+light!
+
+This will it was that by and by grew and grew in me, and made me strong.
+
+I began to feel an unspeakable compassion for all men upon earth, and
+yet in the last resort I was proud that I was one of them.
+
+I understood how blind fate can strip and plunder us of all, and yet
+something will remain in us at the last, that nothing in heaven or
+earth can vanquish. Our bodies are doomed to die, and our spirit to
+be extinguished, yet still we bear within us the spark, the germ of an
+eternity of harmony and light both for the world and for God.
+
+And I knew now that what I had hungered after in my best years was
+neither knowledge, nor honour, nor riches; nor to be a priest or a great
+creator in steel; no, friend, but to build temples; not chapels for
+prayers or churches for wailing penitent sinners, but a temple for the
+human spirit in its grandeur, where we could lift up our souls in an
+anthem as a gift to heaven.
+
+I could never do this now. Perhaps there was nothing that I could do any
+more. And yet it seemed to me as I sat there that I had conquered.
+
+What happened then? Well, there had been a terrible drought all that
+spring--it is often so in this valley. The eternal north wind sent the
+dry mould sweeping in clouds over the whole countryside, and we were
+threatened with one of our worst years of scarcity if the rain didn’t
+come.
+
+At last people ventured to sow their corn, but then the frosts set in,
+and snow and sleet, and the seed froze in the earth. My neighbour the
+brazier had his patch of ground sown with barley--but now he would have
+to sow it again, and where was he to get the seed? He went from farm to
+farm begging for some, but people hated the sight of him after what had
+happened about Asta--no one would lend him any, and he had no money to
+buy. The boys on the roads hooted after him, and some of the neighbours
+talked of driving him out of the parish.
+
+I wasn’t able to sleep much the next night either, and when the clock
+struck two I got up. “Where are you going?” asked Merle. “I want to see
+if we haven’t a half-bushel of barley left,” I said. “Barley--what do
+you want with barley in the middle of the night?” “I want to sow the
+brazier’s plot with it,” I said, “and it’s best to do it now, so that
+nobody will know it was me.”
+
+She sat up and stared at me. “What? His--the--the brazier’s?”
+
+“Yes,” said I. “It won’t do us any good, you know, to see his bit of
+field lying bare all summer.”
+
+“Peer--where are you going?”
+
+“I’ve told you,” said I, and went out. But I knew that she was dressing
+and meant to come too.
+
+It had rained during the night, and as I came out the air was soft and
+easy to breathe. The morning still lay in a grey half-light with yellow
+gleams from the wind-clouds to the north. The scent of the budding
+birches was in the air, the magpies and starlings were up and about,
+but not a human soul was to be seen; the farms were asleep, the whole
+countryside was asleep.
+
+I took the grain in a basket, climbed over the neighbour’s fence and
+began to sow. No sign of life in the house; the sheriff’s officer had
+come over and shot the dog the day before; no doubt the brazier and his
+wife were lying sleeping, dreaming maybe of enemies all around, trying
+their best to do them harm.
+
+Dear friend, is there any need to tell the rest? Just think, though, how
+one man may give away a kingdom, and it costs him nothing, and another
+may give up a few handfuls of corn, and it means to him not only all
+that he has, but a world of struggle and passion before he can bring his
+soul to make that gift. Do you think that is nothing? As for me--I did
+not do this for Christ’s sake, or because I loved my enemy; but because,
+standing upon the ruins of my life, I felt a vast responsibility.
+Mankind must arise, and be better than the blind powers that order its
+ways; in the midst of its sorrows it must take heed that the god-like
+does not die. The spark of eternity was once more aglow in me, and said:
+Let there be light.
+
+And more and more it came home to me that it is man himself that must
+create the divine in heaven and on earth--that that is his triumph over
+the dead omnipotence of the universe. Therefore I went out and sowed the
+corn in my enemy’s field, that God might exist.
+
+Ah, if you had known that moment! It was as if the air about me grew
+alive with voices. It was as though all the unfortunates I had seen and
+known were bearing me company; more and more they came; the dead too
+were joined to us, an army from times past and long ago. Sister Louise
+was there, she played her hymn, and drew the voices all together into a
+choir, the choir of the living and the dead, the choir of all mankind.
+See, here are we all, your sisters and brothers. Your fate is ours. We
+are flung by the indifferent law of the universe into a life that we
+cannot order as we would; we are ravaged by injustice, by sickness and
+sorrow, by fire and blood. Even the happiest must die. In his own home
+he is but on a visit. He never knows but that he may be gone tomorrow.
+And yet man smiles and laughs in the face of his tragic fate. In the
+midst of his thraldom he has created the beautiful on earth; in the
+midst of his torments he has had so much surplus energy of soul that he
+has sent it radiating forth into the cold deeps of space and warmed them
+with God.
+
+So marvellous art thou, O spirit of man! So godlike in thy very nature!
+Thou dost reap death, and in return thou sowest the dream of everlasting
+life. In revenge for thine evil fate thou dost fill the universe with an
+all-loving God.
+
+We bore our part in his creation, all we who now are dust; we who sank
+down into the dark like flames gone out;--we wept, we exulted, we felt
+the ecstasy and the agony, but each of us brought our ray to the mighty
+sea of light, each of us, from the negro setting up the first mark above
+the grave of his dead to the genius raising the pillars of a temple
+towards heaven. We bore our part, from the poor mother praying beside
+a cradle, to the hosts that lifted their songs of praise high up into
+boundless space.
+
+Honour to thee, O spirit of man. Thou givest a soul to the world,
+thou settest it a goal, thou art the hymn that lifts it into harmony;
+therefore turn back into thyself, lift high thy head and meet proudly
+the evil that comes to thee. Adversity can crush thee, death can blot
+thee out, yet art thou still unconquerable and eternal.
+
+Dear friend, it was thus I felt. And when the corn was sown, and I went
+back, the sun was glancing over the shoulder of the hill. There by the
+fence stood Merle, looking at me. She had drawn a kerchief forward over
+her brow, after the fashion of the peasant women, so that her face was
+in shadow; but she smiled to me--as if she, too, the stricken mother,
+had risen up from the ocean of her suffering that here, in the daybreak,
+she might take her share in the creating of God. . . .
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
+
+
+PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES
+
+
+For the convenience of readers a few points in which Norwegian
+pronunciation differs from English are noted below:
+
+The vowels a, e, and i in the middle of words are pronounced much as in
+Italian.
+
+aa = long o, as in “post” or “pole.”
+
+e final is sounded, as in German; thus Louise, Merle, etc.
+
+d final is nearly always elided; thus Raastad = Rosta’.
+
+g before e or i is hard; thus Ringeby, not Rinjeby.
+
+j = the English y; thus Bojer = Boyer, Jens = Yens.
+
+l before another consonant is sounded; thus Holm, not Home.
+
+
+CURRENCY
+
+
+The unit of currency in Norway is the crown (krone), which in normal
+conditions is worth something over thirteen pence, so that about
+eighteen crowns go to the pound sterling. Thus Peer Holm’s fortune in
+the Savings Bank represented about L100 in English money, and a million
+crowns is equivalent to about $260,000 in American money.
+
+To avoid encumbering the reader unnecessarily with the details of
+Norwegian currency, small amounts have been represented in this
+translation by their equivalents in English money.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer
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