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diff --git a/old/7lbhp10.txt b/old/7lbhp10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..73dbbf8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7lbhp10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7977 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Look Back on Happiness, by Knut Hamsun +#5 in our series by Knut Hamsun + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Look Back on Happiness + +Author: Knut Hamsun + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8445] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 11, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOOK BACK ON HAPPINESS *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Robert Connal +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LOOK BACK ON HAPPINESS + +KNUT HAMSUN + +Translated from the Norwegian +By PAULA WIKING + + + + +LOOK BACK ON HAPPINESS + + + + +I + + +I have gone to the forest. + +Not because I am offended about anything, or very unhappy about men's evil +ways; but since the forest will not come to me, I must go to it. That is +all. I have not gone this time as a slave and a vagabond. I have money +enough and am overfed, stupefied with success and good fortune, if you +understand that. I have left the world as a sultan leaves rich food and +harems and flowers, and clothes himself in a hair shirt. + +Really, I could make quite a song and dance about it. For I mean to roam +and think and make great irons red-hot. Nietzsche no doubt would have +spoken thus: The last word I spake unto men achieved their praise, and +they nodded. But it was my last word; and I went into the forest. For then +did I comprehend the truth, that my speech must needs be dishonest or +foolish.... But I said nothing of the kind; I simply went to the forest. + + * * * * * + +You must not believe that nothing ever happens here. The snowflakes drift +down just as they do in the city, and the birds and beasts scurry about +from morning till night, and from night till morning. I could send solemn +stories from this place, but I do not. I have sought the forest for +solitude and for the sake of my great irons; for I have great irons which +lie within me and grow red-hot. So I deal with myself accordingly. Suppose +I were to meet a buck reindeer one day, then I might say to myself: + +"Great heavens, this is a buck reindeer, he's dangerous!" + +But if then I should be too frightened, I might tell myself a comforting +lie and say it was a calf or some feathered beast. + +You say nothing happens here? + +One day I saw two Lapps meet. A boy and a girl. At first they behaved as +people do. "_Boris!_" they said to each other and smiled. But +immediately after, both fell at full length in the snow and were gone from +my sight. After a quarter of an hour had passed, I thought, "You'd better +see to them; they may be smothered in the snow." But then they got up and +went their separate ways. + +In all my weatherbeaten days, I have never seen such a greeting as that. + + * * * * * + +Day and night I live in a deserted hut of peat into which I must crawl on +my hands and knees. Someone must have built it long ago and used it, for +lack of a better,--perhaps a man who was in hiding, a man who concealed +himself here for a few autumn days. There are two of us in the hut, that +is if you regard Madame as a person; otherwise there is only one. Madame +is a mouse I live with, to whom I have given this honorary title. She eats +everything I put aside for her in the nooks and corners, and sometimes she +sits watching me. + +When I first came, there was stale straw in the hut, which Madame by all +means was allowed to keep; for my own bed I cut fresh pine twigs, as is +fitting. I have an ax and a saw and the necessary crockery. And I have a +sleeping bag of sheepskin with the wool inside. I keep a fire burning in +the fireplace all night, and my shirt, which hangs by it, smells of fresh +resin in the morning. When I want coffee, I go out, fill the kettle with +clean snow, and hang it over the fire till the snow turns to water. + +Is this a life worth living? + +There you have betrayed yourself. This is a life you do not understand. +Yes, your home is in the city, and you have furnished it with vanities, +with pictures and books; but you have a wife and a servant and a hundred +expenses. Asleep or awake you must keep pace with the world and are never +at peace. I have peace. You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and +books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky +that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content. If you ask +me intellectual questions and try to trip me up, then I will reply, for +example, that God is the origin of all things and that truly men are mere +specks and atoms in the universe. You are no wiser than I. But if you +should go so far as to ask me what is eternity, then I know quite as much +in this matter, too, and reply thus: Eternity is merely unborn time, +nothing but unborn time. + +My friend, come here to me and I will take a mirror from my pocket and +reflect the sun on your face, my friend. + +You lie in bed till ten or eleven in the morning, yet you are weary, +exhausted, when you get up. I see you in my mind's eye as you go out into +the street; the morning has dawned too early on your blinking eyes. I rise +at five quite refreshed. It is still dark outdoors, yet there is enough to +look at--the moon, the stars, the clouds, and the weather portents for the +day. I prophesy the weather for many hours ahead. In what key do the winds +whistle? Is the crack of the ice in the Glimma light and dry, or deep and +long? These are splendid portents, and as it grows lighter, I add the +visible signs to the audible ones, and learn still more. + +Then a narrow streak of daylight appears far down in the east, the stars +fade from the sky, and soon light reigns over all. A crow flies over the +woods, and I warn Madame not to go outside the hut or she will be +devoured. + +But if fresh snow has fallen, the trees and copses and the great rocks +take on giant, unearthly shapes, as though they had come from another +world in the night. A storm-felled pine with its root torn up looks like a +witch petrified in the act of performing strange rites. + +Here a hare has sprung by, and yonder are the tracks of a solitary +reindeer. I shake out my sleeping bag and after hanging it high in a tree +to escape Madame, who eats everything, I follow the tracks of the reindeer +into the forest. It has jogged along without haste, but toward a definite +goal--straight east to meet the day. By the banks of the Skiel, which is +so rapid that its waters never freeze, the reindeer has stopped to drink, +to scrape the hillside for moss, to rest a while, and then moved on. + +And perhaps what this reindeer has done is all the knowledge and +experience I gain that day. It seems much to me. The days are short; at +two, I am already strolling homeward in the deep twilight, with the good, +still night approaching. Then I begin to cook. I have a great deal of meat +stored in three pure-white drifts of snow. In fact I have something even +better: eight fat cheeses of reindeer milk, to eat with butter and +crisp-bread. + +While the pot is boiling I lie down, and gaze at the fire till I fall +asleep. I take my midday nap before my meal. And when I waken, the food is +cooked, filling the hut with an aroma of meat and resin. Madame darts back +and forth across the floor and at length gets her share. I eat, and light +my cutty-pipe. + +The day is at an end. All has been well, and I have had no unpleasantness. +In the great silence surrounding me, I am the only adult, roaming man; +this makes me bigger and more important, God's kin. And I believe the +red-hot irons within me are progressing well, for God does great things +for his kin. + +I lie thinking of the reindeer, the path it took, what it did by the +river, and how it continued on its journey. There under the trees it has +nibbled, and its horns have rubbed against the bark, leaving their marks; +there an osier bed has forced it to turn aside; but just beyond, it has +straightened its path and continued east once more. All this I think of. + +And you? Have you read in a newspaper, which disagrees with another +newspaper, what the public in Norway is thinking of old-age insurance? + + + + +II + + +On stormy days I sit indoors and find something to occupy my time. Perhaps +I write letters to some acquaintance or other telling him I am well, and +hope to hear the same from him. But I cannot post the letters, and they +grow older every day. Not that it matters. I have tied the letters to a +string that hangs from the ceiling to prevent Madame from gnawing at them. + + +One day a man came to the hut. He walked swiftly and stealthily; his +clothes were ordinary and he wore no collar, for he was a laboring man. He +carried a sack, and I wondered what could be in it. + +"Good morning," we said to each other. "Fine weather in the woods." + +"I didn't expect to find anybody in the hut," said the man. His manner was +at once forceful and discontented; he flung down the sack without +humility. + +"He may know something about me," I thought, "since he is such a man." + +"Have you lived here long?" he asked. "And are you leaving soon?" + +"Is the hut yours, perhaps?" I asked in my turn. + +Then he looked at me. + +"Because if the hut is yours, that's another matter," I said. "But I don't +intend like a pickpocket to take it with me when I leave." + +I spoke gently and jestingly to avoid committing a blunder by my speech. + +But I had said quite the right thing; the man at once lost his assurance. +Somehow I had made him feel that I knew more about him than he knew about +me. + +When I asked him to come in, he was grateful and said: + +"Thank you, but I'm afraid I'll get snow all over your floor." + +Then he took special pains to wipe his boots clean, and bringing his sack +with him, crawled in. + +"I could give you some coffee," I said. + +"You shouldn't trouble on my account," he replied, wiping his face and +panting with the heat, "though I've been walking all night." + +"Are you crossing the fjeld?" + +"That depends. I don't suppose there's work to be got on a winter day on +the other side, either." + +I gave him coffee. + +"Got anything to eat?" he said. "It's a shame to ask you. A round of +crisp-bread? I had no chance to bring food with me." + +"Yes, I've got bread, butter, and reindeer cheese. Help yourself." + +"It's not so easy for a lot of people in the winter," said the man as he +ate. + +"Could you take some letters to the village for me?" I asked. "I'll pay +you for it." + +"Oh, no, I couldn't do that," the man replied. "I'm afraid that's +impossible. I must cross the fjeld now. I've heard there's work in +Hilling, in the Hilling Forest. So I can't." + +"Must get his back up a bit again," I thought. "He just sits now there +without any guts at all. In the end he'll start begging for a few +coppers." + +I felt his sack and said: + +"What's this you're lugging about with you? Heavy things?" + +"Mind your own business!" was his instant retort, as he drew the sack +closer to him. + +"I wasn't going to steal any of it; I'm no thief," I said, jesting again. + +"I don't care what you are," he muttered. + +The day wore on. Since I had a visitor, I had no desire to go to the +woods, but wanted to sit and talk to him and ask him questions. He was a +very ordinary man, of no great interest to the irons in my fire, with +dirty hands, uneducated and uninteresting in his speech; probably he had +stolen the things in his sack. Later I learned that he was quick in much +small knowledge that life had taught him. He complained that his heels +felt cold, and took off his boots. And no wonder he felt cold, for where +the heels of his stockings should have been there were only great holes. +He borrowed a knife to cut away the ragged edges, and then drew on the +stockings again back to front, so that the torn soles came over his +instep. When he had put on his boots again, he said, "There, now it's nice +and warm." + +He did no harm. If he took down the saw and the ax from their hooks to +inspect them, he put them back again where he had found them. When he +examined the letters, trying perhaps to read the addresses, he did not let +them go carelessly, leaving them to swing back and forth, but held the +string so that it hung motionless. I had no reason to complain about him. + +He had his midday meal with me, and when he had eaten, he said: + +"Do you mind if I cut myself some pine twigs to sit on?" + +He went out to cut off some soft pine, and we had to move Madame's straw +to make room for the man inside the hut. Then we lay on our twigs, burning +resin and talking. + +He was still there in the afternoon, still lying down as though to +postpone the time of his leaving. When it began to grow dark, he went to +the low doorway and looked out at the weather. Then, turning his head +back, he asked: + +"Do you think there'll be snow tonight?" + +"You ask me questions and I ask you questions," I said, "but it looks like +snow; the smoke is blowing down." + +It made him uneasy to think it might snow, and he said he had better leave +that night. Suddenly he flew into a rage. For as I lay there, I stretched, +so that my hand accidentally touched his sack again. + +"You leave me alone!" he shouted, tearing the sack from my grasp. "Don't +you touch that sack, or I'll show you!" + +I replied that I had meant nothing by it, and had no intention of stealing +anything from him. + +"Stealing, eh! What of it? I'm not afraid of you, and don't you go +thinking I am! Look, here's what I've got in the bag," said the man, and +began to rummage in it and to show me the contents: three pairs of new +mittens, some sort of thick cloth for garments, a bag of barley, a side of +bacon, sixteen rolls of tobacco, and a few large lumps of sugar candy. In +the bottom of the bag was perhaps half a bushel of coffee beans. + +No doubt it was all from the general stores, with the exception of a heap +of broken crisp-bread, which might have been stolen elsewhere. + +"So you've got crisp-bread after all," I said. + +"If you knew anything about it, you wouldn't talk like that," the man +replied. "When I'm crossing the fjeld on foot, walking and walking, don't +I need food to put in my belly? It's blasphemy to listen to you!" + +Neatly and carefully he put everything back into the sack, each article in +its turn. He took pains to build up the rolls of tobacco round the bacon, +to protect the cloth from grease stains. + +"You might buy this cloth from me," he said. "I'll +let you have it cheap. It's duffle. It only gets in my way." + +"How much do you want for it?" I asked. + +"There's enough for a whole suit of clothes, maybe more," he said to +himself as he spread it out. + +I said to the man: + +"Truly you come here into the forest bringing with you life and the world +and intellectual values and news. Let us talk a little. Tell me something: +are you afraid your footprints will be visible tomorrow if there's fresh +snow tonight?" + +"That's my business. I've crossed the field before and I know many paths," +he muttered. "I'll let you have the cloth for a few crowns." + +I shook my head, so the man again neatly folded the cloth and put it back +in the bag exactly as though it belonged to him. + +"I'll cut it up into material for trousers; then the pieces won't be so +large, and I'll be able to sell it." + +"You'd better leave enough for a whole suit in one piece," I said, "and +cut up the rest for trousers." + +"You think so? Yes, maybe you're right." + +We calculated how much would be necessary for a grown man's suit, and took +down the string from which the letters hung to measure our own clothes, so +as to be sure to get the measurements right. Then we cut into the edge of +the cloth, and tore it across. In addition to one complete suit, there was +enough left for two good-sized pairs of trousers. + +Then the man offered to sell me other things out of his sack, and I bought +some coffee and a few rolls of tobacco. He put the money away in a leather +purse, and I saw how empty the purse was, and the circumstantial and +poverty-stricken fashion in which he put the money away, afterward feeling +the outside of his pocket. + +"You haven't been able to sell me much," I said, "but I don't need any +more than that." + +"Business is business," said he. "I don't complain." + +It was quite decent of him. + +While he was making ready to depart and clearing his bed of pine needles +out of the way, I thought pityingly of his sordid little theft. Stealing +because he was needy--a side of bacon and a length of cloth which he was +trying to sell in the forest! Theft has indeed ceased to be a matter of +great moment. This is because legal punishment for misdemeanors of all +kinds has also ceased to be of great moment. It is only a dull, human +punishment; the religious element has been removed from the law, and a +local magistrate is no longer a man of mystic power. + +I well remember the last time I heard a judge explain the meaning of the +oath as it should be explained. It chilled us all to the bone to hear him. +We need some witchcraft again, and the Sixth Book of Moses, and the sin +against the Holy Ghost, and signing your name in the blood of a newly +baptized child! Steal a sack of money and silver treasure, if you like, +and hide the sack in the hills where on autumn evenings a blue flame will +hover over the spot. But don't come to me with three pairs of mittens and +a side of household bacon! + +The man no longer worried about the sack; leaving it behind, he crawled +out of the hut to study the weather. The coffee and tobacco I had bought I +put back into the sack, for I did not need them. When he returned, he +said: + +"I think after all I'd better stop the night here with you, if you don't +mind." + +In the evening he gave no indication of being prepared to contribute any +of his own food. I cooked some coffee and gave him some dry bread to eat +with it. + +"You shouldn't have expenses for me," he said. + +Then he began to rummage in his sack again, pushing the bacon well down so +that the cloth might not be stained by it; after this he took off his +leather belt and put it round the sack, with a loop to carry over one +shoulder. + +"Now if I take the neck of the sack over the other shoulder, I'll find it +easier to carry," he said. + +I gave him my letters to post on the other side of the fjeld and he stowed +them away safely, slapping the outside of his pocket afterward; I also +gave him a special envelope in which to keep the money for the stamps, and +tied it to the neck of the sack. + +"Where do you live?" I asked him. + +"Where can a poor man live? Of course I live by the sea. I'm sorry to say +I have a wife and children--no use denying it." + +"How many children have you?" + +"Four. One's got a crippled arm and the others--there's something wrong +with all of them. It's not easy for a poor devil. My wife's ill, and a few +days ago she thought she was dying and wanted Communion." + +A sad note crept into his voice. But the note was false. He was telling me +a pack of lies. When they came to look for him from the village, no +Christian would have the heart to accuse a man with such a large and sick +family. This, no doubt, was his meaning. + +Man, oh man, thou art worse than a mouse! + +I questioned him no further, but asked him to sing something, a ballad or +a song, since we had nothing else to do. + +"I've no heart to sing now," he replied. "Except possibly a hymn." + +"All right; sing a hymn, then." + +"Not now. I'd like to do you a favor, but--" + +His uneasiness was rising. A little later he took his sack and went out. + +"Well, he's gone," I thought, "but he hasn't said the customary +peace-be-with-you. I'm glad I've come into the forest," I thought. "This +is my home, and from this day forth, no mother's son shall come within my +walls again." + +I made an elaborate agreement with myself that I should have no more truck +with men. + +"Madame, come here," I said. "I esteem you highly, and herewith, Madame, I +undertake to enter upon a union with you for life!" + +Half an hour later, the man returned. He carried no sack. + +"I thought you'd gone," I said. + +"Gone? I'm not a dog," he replied. "I've met people before this, and I say +good morning when I come and peace-be-with-you when I go. You shouldn't +sneer at me, you know." + +"What have you done with the sack?" + +"I've carried it part of the way." + +His concealing the sack in case anyone should come proved he had +forethought, for it was easier to get away scot-free without a burden on +one's back. To stop him from telling me any more lies about his poverty, I +said: + +"I expect you've raised plenty of dust in your day? Still do, for that +matter?" + +"Well, I do what I can," he replied cheerfully. "I can lift a barrel +easier than most, and nobody was able to dance me off the floor last +Christmas! Hush--is that someone coming?" + +We listened. His eyes darted toward the entrance, and in a moment he had +chosen to meet danger halfway. He was taut and splendid; I could see his +jaw working. + +"It's nothing," I said. + +Resolute and strong as a bull, he crawled out of the hut and was gone for +a few minutes. When he returned, breathing heavily, he said: + +"It's nothing." + +We lay down for the night. + +"In God's name!" he said, as he settled himself on his pine bed. I fell +asleep at once, and for some time slept deeply. But during the night +restlessness seized on the man again. "Peace be with you!" I heard him +mutter as he crawled out of the hut. + +In the morning I burned the man's bed of pine needles; it made a lively +fire of crackling pine in the hut. + +Outside, the ground was covered with new-fallen snow. + + + + +III + + +There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with +oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to +think idly and slowly as one does it. + +There, now I'll fill the kettle with snow, I think, and now I'm crushing +the coffee beans with a stone; later I must beat my sleeping bag well in +the snow and get the wool white again. There is nothing in this of +literature or great novels or public opinion; does it matter? But then I +haven't been toiling just to get this coffee into my life. Literature? +When Rome ruled the world, she was no more than Greece's apprentice in +literature. Yet Rome ruled the world. Let us look too at another country +we know: it fought a war of independence the glory of which still shines, +and it brought forth the greatest school of painting in the world. Yet it +had no literature, and has none today.... + +Day by day I grow more knowing in the ways of the trees and the moss and +the snow on the ground, and all things are my friends. The stump of a fir +tree stands thawing in the sun; I feel my familiarity with it grow, and +sometimes I stand there loving it, for there is something in it that moves +my soul. The bark is badly broken. One winter in the deep snow, the tree +must have been crippled, and now it points upward long and naked. I put +myself in its place, and look at it with pity. My eyes perhaps have the +simple, animal expression that human eyes had in the age of the mastodons. + +No doubt you will seize this opportunity to mock me, for there are many +amusing things you can say about me and this stump of a fir. Yet in your +heart, you know that I am superior to you in this as in everything else, +with the single exception that I have not your conventional +accomplishments, nor have I passed examinations. About the forest and the +earth you can teach me nothing, for here I feel what no man else has felt. + +Sometimes I take the wrong direction and lose my way. Yes, truly this may +happen sometimes. But I do not begin to twist and lose myself outside my +very door, like the children of the city. I am twelve miles out, far up +the opposite bank of the Skjel River, before I begin to get lost, and then +only on a sunless day, with perhaps thick, wild snow coming down, and no +north or south in the sky. Then you must know the special marks of this +kind of tree and that, the galipot of the pine, the bark of deciduous +trees, the moss that grows at their roots, the angle of the south and +north-pointing branches, the stones that are moss-covered and those that +are bare, and the pattern of the network of veins in the leaves. From all +these things while there is daylight I can find my way. + +But if the dusk falls, I know it will be impossible for me to get home +till the next day. "How shall I pass this night?" I say to myself. And I +roam about till I find a sheltered spot; the best is a crag standing with +its back to the wind. Here I collect a few armfuls of pine needles, button +my jacket tight, and take a long time to settle. No one who has not tried +it knows anything of the fine pleasure that streams through the soul as +one sits in a snug shelter on such a night. I light my pipe to pass the +time, but the tobacco doesn't agree with me because I haven't eaten, so I +put some resin in my mouth to chew as I lie thinking of many things. The +snow continues to fall outside; if I have been lucky enough to find a +shelter facing the right way, the snowdrifts will close in over me and +form a crest like a roof above my retreat. Then I am quite safe, and may +sleep or wake as I please; there will be no danger of freezing my feet. + + * * * * * + +Two men came to my hut; they were in a great hurry, and one of them called +to me: + +"Good morning. Has a man passed this way?" + +I didn't like his face. I was not his servant and his question was too +stupid. + +"Many people may have passed this way. Do you mean have I _seen_ a +man go by?" + +So much for him! + +"I meant what I said," the man replied surlily. "I'm asking you in the +name of the law." + +"Oh." + +I had no desire for further conversation, and crawled into my hut. + +The two men followed me. The constable grinned and said: + +"Did you _see_ a man pass by here yesterday?" + +"No," I said. + +They looked at each other, and took counsel together; then they left the +hut and returned to the village. + +I thought: What zeal this policeman showed in the execution of his duties, +how he shone with public spirit! There will be bonuses for the capture and +transport of the criminal; there will be honor in having carried out the +deed. All mankind should adopt this man because he is its son, created in +its image! Where are the irons? He would rattle the links a little and +lift them on his arm like the train of a riding skirt, to make me feel his +terrifying power to put people in irons ... I feel nothing. + +And what tradesmen--what kings of trade--we have today! They instantly +miss what a man can carry off in a sack, and notify the police. + +From now on I begin to long for the spring. My peat hut lies still too +near to mankind, and I will build myself another when the frost has gone +out of the ground. On the other side of the Skjel, I have chosen a spot in +the forest which I think I shall like. It is twenty-four miles from the +village and eighteen across the fjeld. + + + + +IV + + +Have I said that I was too near men? Heaven help me, for some days in +succession I have been taking strolls in the forest, saying good morning +and pretending I was in human company. If it was a man I imagined beside +me, we carried on a long, intelligent conversation, but if it was a woman, +I was polite: "Let me carry your parcel, miss." Once it must have been the +Lapp's daughter I seemed to meet, for I flattered her most lavishly and +offered to carry her fur cloak if she would take it off and walk in her +skin; tut, tut. + +Heaven help me, I am no longer too near men. And probably I will not build +that peat hut still further away from them. + +The days grow longer, and I do not mind. The truth is that in the winter I +suffered privation and learned much in order to master myself. It has +taken time and sometimes a resolute will, so it cannot be denied that I am +paying for my education rather dearly. Sometimes I have been needlessly +stern with myself. + +"There is a loaf of bread," I said. "It doesn't surprise me, it doesn't +interest me; I am used to it. But if you see no bread for twelve hours, it +will mean something to you," I said, and hid the bread away. + +That was in the winter. + +Were they dreary days? No, good days. My liberty was so great that I could +do and think as I pleased; I was alone, the bear of the forest. But even +in the heart of the forest no man dares speak aloud without looking round; +rather, he walks in silence. For a time you console yourself that it's +typically English to be silent, it's regal to be silent. But suddenly you +find this has gone too far, your mouth begins to wake, to stretch, and +suddenly to shout nonsense. + +"Bricks for the palace! The calf is much stronger today!" + +Perhaps if your voice is strong, the sound will carry for a quarter of a +mile--but then you feel a sting as though after a slap. If only you had +kept your regal silence! One day the postman who crosses the fjeld once a +month came on me just as I had shouted. + +"What?" he called from the wood. + +"Careful below!" I called back to save my face. "I've put out a trap." + +But with the longer days, my courage grows; it must be the spring that +causes this mysterious revival within me, and I no longer fear a shout +more or less. I needlessly rattle my pots and pans as I cook, and I sing +at the top of my voice. It is spring. + +Yesterday I stood on a hillock and looked out across the wintry woods. +They have a different expression now; they have gone gray and bedraggled, +and the midday sun has thawed down the snow and diminished it. There are +catkins everywhere, drifts of them in the underbrush, looking like letters +of the alphabet piled in a heap. The moon rises, the stars break forth. I +am cold and shiver a little, but I have nothing to do in the hut, and +prefer to shiver as long as possible. In the winter I did nothing so +foolish, but went home if I was cold. Now I'm tired of that, too. It is +the spring. + +The sky is pure and cool, lying wide open to all the stars. There is a +great flock of worlds up in that endless meadow, tiny, teeming worlds, so +tiny that they are like the sound of a tinkling bell; as I look at them, I +can hear thousands of tiny bells. Yes, certainly I am being drawn more and +more toward the grassy slopes of spring. + + + + +V + + +I fill the fireplace with pine wood, hoist my belongings to my back, and +leave the hut. "Farewell, Madame." + +That was the end. + +I feel no pleasure at leaving my shelter, but a touch of sadness--as I +always do on leaving a place that has been my home for some time. But all +the world stands outside calling to me. Indeed I am like all lovers of the +woods and fields; wordlessly we had agreed to meet, and as I sat there +last night, I felt my eyes being drawn to the door. + +Several times I look back at the hut, with the smoke rising up from the +chimney; the smoke billows and waves to me, and I wave back. + +The silky pallor of the morning refreshes me; in a long blue haze over the +forest, a slow dawn rises. It looks like a cheerful piratical coast in the +sky before me. The mountains are all on my left. + +After a few hours' march I am like new from top to toe, and I press on +swiftly. I beat the air with my stick, and it says "hoo" as it swishes; +whenever I think I deserve it, I sit down and give myself food. + +No, you have not my pleasures in the town. + +I beat my legs with my stick from the sheer exuberance of living, and +nearly cry out. I behave as though the burden on my back had no weight, +taking needless leaps, and overexerting myself a little; but an +overexertion to which one is driven by inner content is easy to bear. In +my solitude, many miles from men and houses, I am in a childishly happy +and carefree state of mind, which you are incapable of understanding +unless someone explains it to you. I play a little game with myself, +pretending to have discovered a remarkable kind of tree. At first I pay +little attention, then I stretch my neck and contract my eyelids and gaze. + + +"What!" I say to myself. "Surely it couldn't be--" + +I throw down my burden and approach, inspect the tree and nod sagely, +saying it is a strange, fabled tree that I have discovered. And I take out +my notebook and describe it. + +Merely jest and happiness, a queer little impulse to play. Children have +done it before me. And here comes no postman to surprise me. As suddenly +as I have begun the game, I end it again, as children do. But for a moment +I was transported back to the dear, foolish bliss of childhood. + +Perhaps it was the anticipation of soon seeing men again that made me +playful and happy! + +Next day, just as a raw mist descends on mountain and forest, I reach the +Lapp's house. I enter. But though I meet with nothing but kindness, a Lapp +hut contains little that is interesting. There are spoons and knives of +bone on the peat wall, and a small paraffin lamp hangs from the roof. The +Lapp himself is a dull nonentity who can neither tell fortunes nor +conjure. His daughter has gone across the field; she has learned to read, +but not to write, at the village school. The two old people, husband and +wife, are fools. The whole family share a sort of animal dumbness; if I +ask them a question, I may or may not get half a reply: "Mm-no, mm-yes." I +am not a Lapp, and so they distrust me. + +All the afternoon the mist lay white on the forest. I slept a while. In +the evening, the sky was clear again, and there were a few degrees of +frost. I left the hut. The moon stood full and silent above the earth. + +Heigh-ho--what untuned strings! + + But where are the birds all gone away, + and what kind of place is this? + Here where I stand nothing moves or stirs, + in this world that is dead, no event occurs; + I stand in a silvermine. + My eyes sweep round, but I sorely miss + a homely, well-known outline. + + And so he came to a silver wood-- + thus ran an ancient tale. + Here rests a song of shimmering fire + as though it were sung by a starry choir. + And swift in my youth, I leap + to bind fast the troll, the cunning male, + and awaken a maid from her sleep. + + Today I smile at childish tales, + old age has made me wise. + Once proudly in prodigal youth I trod, + now by age my foot is heavily shod; + yet my heart--my heart would fly. + I am driven by fire and bound by ice, + no rest nor repose have I. + + A shuddering chill falls on the night, + like a cloud from the lungs in the cold. + There passed a great gust through the silver lace + of the woods, like a lion's royal pace + on paws that are soundless and still. + It may be a god on his evening stroll. + The roots of the forest thrill. + +When I returned to the hut, the daughter had also returned home, and sat +eating after her long march. Olga the Lapp, tiny and queer, conceived in a +snowdrift, in the course of a greeting. "_Boris_!" they said and +fell on their noses. + +She had bought red and blue pieces of cloth at the draper's shop in the +village, and no sooner had she finished eating than she pushed the cups +and plates away and began to embroider her Sunday jacket with pretty +strips of the cloth. All the while she never spoke a word, because a +stranger was in the room. + +"You know me, Olga, don't you?" + +"Mm." + +"But you look so angry." + +"M-no." + +"How's the snow track across the fjeld?" + +"All right." + +I knew there was a deserted hut the family had once lived in, and asked: + +"How far is it to your old hut?" + +"Not far," said Olga. + +Olga Lapp has someone to smile at surely, even if she will not smile at +me. Here she sits in the great forest, pandering to her vanity and sewing +wonderful scrolls on her jacket. On Sunday, no doubt, she will wear it to +church and meet the man whose eyes it is meant to gladden. + +I was not anxious to stay any longer with these small beings, these human +grains of sand. As I had slept enough in the afternoon and the moon was +bright, I prepared to leave. After laying in a further supply of reindeer +cheese and whatever other food I could get, I left the hut. But what a +surprise: the bright moonlight was gone, and the sky was overcast; there +was no frost, only mild weather and wet woods. It was spring. + +When Olga Lapp saw this, she advised me against leaving; but why should I +listen to her chatter? She came with me a little way into the woods to +direct me, then turned and went back, tiny and queer, her feathers ruffled +like a hen's. + + + + +VI + + +It was difficult to advance. Never mind. A few hours later I found myself +high up on the fjeld; I must have strayed from the path. What is that dark +shape there? A mountain peak. And that over there? Another peak. Let us +pitch camp on the spot, then. + +There was a deep goodness and tenderness about this mild night. I sat in +the dark recalling forgotten memories of my childhood, and many +experiences in this place and that. And what a satisfaction it is, too, to +have money in one's pocket, even if one sleeps in the open! + +During the night I woke up; I found it growing too warm for me under my +crag, and loosened my sleeping bag. It seemed to me, too, that a sound +still hummed in my ear, as though I had called out or sung in my sleep. +Suddenly I felt completely rested, and turned to look about me. It was +dark and mild, a stone-still world. The sky was paler than the ring of +mountains round me; I lay in the center of a city of peaks, at the foot of +a great cliff, huge to the point of deformity. The wind began to blow, and +suddenly there was a booming in the distance. Then came a streak of +lightning, and immediately after the thunder rolled down like a gigantic +avalanche between the most distant peaks. It was matchless to lie there +listening, and a supernatural delight, a thrill of enjoyment, ran through +me. A stranger madness filled me than I had ever felt before, and I gave +it expression by laughing aloud in wanton and humorous abandon. Many a +thought ran through my mind, witticisms alternating with moments of such +great sorrow that I lay sighing deeply. The lightning and thunder came +closer, and it began to rain--a torrential rain. The echoes were +overpowering; all nature was an uproar, a hullabalooing. I tried to +conquer the night by shouting at it, lest mysteriously it should rob me of +my strength and leave me without a will. These mountains, I thought, are +sheer incantations against my journey, great planted curses that block my +path. Or perhaps I have only strayed into a mountains' trade union? But I +nod my head repeatedly. That means I am brave and happy. Perhaps after all +they are only stuffed mountains. + +More lightning and thunder and torrential rain; it felt as though the +near-by echo had slapped me, reverberating a hundred times through me. +Never mind. I have read about many battles and been in a rain of bullets +before this. Yet in a moment of sadness and humility in the presence of +the powers about me, I weep and think: + +"Who am I now among men? Or am I lost already? Am I nothing already?" + +And I cry out and call my name to hear if it still lives. + +A wheel of gold turned before my eyes, and the thunder clapped over my +very head, on my own fjeld. Instantly I started out of the sleeping bag +and left my shelter. The thunder rolled on, there was lightning and more +thunder, worlds were uprooted. Why had I not listened to Olga's advice and +remained in the hut? Is it the Lapps whose magic powers are doing this? +The Lapps? Those human mites, those mountain dwarfs! What is all this +noise to me? I made a feeble effort to walk against it, but stopped again, +for I was among giants, and saw the foolishness of trying to battle with +the thunder. + +I leaned against the side of the mountain: no longer did I stand shouting +and hurling challenges at my opponent, but looked at him with milk-blue +eyes. And now that I have yielded, none but a mountain would be so hard. +But I am not rhymes and rhythms alone; did you think I should waste my +good brain chasing such rainbows? You lie. Here I lean against the whole +world, and you, perhaps, believe the blue of my eyes.... + +At that, the lightning struck me. This was a miracle, and it happened to +me. It ran down my left elbow, scorching the sleeve of my jacket. The +lightning seemed like a ball of wool that dropped to the ground. I felt a +sensation of heat, and saw that the ground farther down the mountain was +struck a loud blow and then split. A great oppression held me down; a +spear of darkness shot through me. And then it thundered beyond all +measure, not long and rumbling, but firm and clear and rattling. + +The storm passed on. + + + + +VII + + +Next day I arrived at the deserted hut, drenched to the skin, struck by +lightning, but in a strangely gentle and yielding mood, as after a +punishment. My good fortune in the midst of my ill-luck made me +overfriendly to everything; I tramped on without hurting the ground, and I +avoided sinful thoughts, though it was spring. I was not even out of +temper when I had to retrace my steps across the fjeld to find my way +again to the hut. I had time; there was no hurry. I was the first tourist +of the spring season, and far too early. + +So I remained at my ease in the hut for a few days. Sometimes at night +verses and small poems blossomed in my mind as though I had become a real +poet. At any rate there were signs that great changes had taken place +within me since the winter, when I had desired nothing but to lie blinking +my eyes and be left in peace. + +One day when everything was thawing in the sun, I left the hut and walked +about the mountains for some hours. I had lately been thinking of writing +some children's verses, addressed to a certain little girl, but nothing +had come of it. Now as I walked on the mountainside, I felt again a desire +for this pastime, and worked at it on several occasions, but could not get +it into shape. The night, when one has slept an hour or two, is the time +when such things come to one. + +So I went straight on to the village and bought myself a good store of +food. There were many people in this district, and it did me good to hear +human speech and laughter again; but there was no place here where I could +stay, and in any case I had come too early. I had much to carry on my way +home to my hut again. About halfway I met a man, a casual laborer, a +vagabond, whose name was Solem. Later I heard that he was the bastard son +of a telegraph operator who had been in Rosenlund nearly a generation +before. + +That this man should have stepped off the path to let me pass with my +burden was a good trait in him, and I thanked him and said, "I shouldn't +have run over you in any case, ha, ha!" + +He asked me if there was much snow on the way to the village. I told him +it was much the same as here. "I see," he said, and turned away. I thought +that perhaps he had come a long way, and since he carried nothing that +looked like provisions, I offered him some of mine in order to make him +talk a little. He thanked me and accepted. + +He was above middle height, and quite young, not more than in his +twenties, possibly just on thirty--a fine fellow. After the swaggering +fashion of wanderers, he had a lock of hair escaping from under the peak +of his cap; but he wore no beard. This full-grown man still shaved without +growing tired of doing so, and this, together with his fringe of hair and +his general manner, gave me the impression that he wished to seem younger +than he was. + +We talked while he ate; he laughed readily and was in a cheerful mood, and +since his face was beardless and hard, it looked like a laughing iron +mask. But he was sensible and pleasant. There was only one thing: I had +been silent for so long that I talked now perhaps too readily; and if it +happened that both this boy Solem and I spoke at once, he would stop +immediately to let me have my say. When this had happened several times, I +grew tired of winning, and stopped too. But that merely made him nod and +say: "Go ahead." + +I explained to him that I idled in solitude, studying strange trees, and +writing a thing or two about them, that I lived in a hut, but that today I +had finished my stock of provisions and had had to go to the village. When +he heard about the hut, he stopped chewing, and sat as though he were +listening; then he said hastily: "Yes, in a way I know these telegraph +poles across the mountains very well. Not these particular poles, but +others. I was a linesman till not long ago." + +"Were you?" I said. "Haven't you passed my hut today?" I added. + +He hesitated a moment, but when he saw that I was not trying to put him in +the wrong, he admitted that he had been in the hut and rested, and found +my crisp-bread there. + +"It wasn't easy to sit there without taking some of it," he said. + +We spoke of many things. His language was hardly coarse at all, nor did he +dawdle over his food. My own manners had run wild to such an extent that I +valued his good behavior. + +He offered to help me carry my pack as a mark of his gratitude for the +food, and I accepted his offer. It was in this way that the stranger +returned to the hut with me. As soon as I came in I saw a note on the +table, a sort of thanks for the bread; it was an extremely ill-mannered +epistle, full of obscene expressions. When Solem saw what I was reading, +his iron face broke into a smile. I pretended not to understand the note +and threw it back on the table; he picked it up and tore it to shreds. + +"I'm sorry you've seen it," he said. "We linesmen have a way of doing that +sort of thing, and I'd forgotten I'd left it here." + +Soon after this he went out. + +He stayed that night and next day, and found a means of repaying me by +washing some of my clothes and making himself useful in other ways. There +was a large tub outside the hut--had been since the Lapps lived there-- +which was cracked and leaked abundantly, but Solem stopped the cracks with +bacon fat and boiled my clothes in it. It was very funny to watch him +imperturbably skimming off the fat that floated up. + +He seemed to want to stay till we had finished the provisions again, and +then to go with me to the village; but when he heard I was going the other +way, to the mountain farm somewhere under the great peaks of the Tore, +where summer visitors stayed and many travelers passed, he wanted to go +there, too. He was a bird of passage. + +"Can't I come with you and help you carry?" he asked me. "I'm used to farm +work, too, and perhaps I can get a job there." + + + + +VIII + + +The bustle of spring season had already started at the great farm; men and +animals were awake, the barn re-echoed with lowing the whole day long, and +the goats had long since been let out to pasture. + +It was a long way between neighbors here; one or two cotters had cleared +an area in the forest, which they had then bought; apart from that, all +the land in sight belonged to the farm. Many new houses had been built +here as the traffic over the fjelds increased, and gargoyles, homelike and +Norwegian, sat on the gable ends, while the sound of a piano came from the +living-room. Do you know the place? You have been here, and the people of +the farm have asked after you. + +Good days, nothing but good days: a suitable transition from solitude. I +speak to the young people who own the homestead now, and to the husband's +old father and young sister Josephine. The old man leaves his room to look +at me. He is terrifyingly old, perhaps ninety; his eyes are worn and +half-crazed, and his figure has shrunk to nothing. He toils with both +hands to drag himself into the day, and each time it is as though he left +his mother's womb anew and found a world before him: + +"Look, how strange, there are houses on the farm," he thinks as he gazes +at them. And when the barn doors stand open, he looks at them, too, and +thinks: + +"Just like a doorway; what can it be? Looks exactly like a doorway...." + +And he stands still a long time staring at it. + +But Josephine, the daughter of his latest marriage, is young and plays the +piano for me. Ah, Josephine! As she runs through the garden, her feet are +like a breeze under her skirt. How kind she is to the visitors! Surely she +has seen us coming a long way off, Solem and myself, and sat down to play +the piano. She has gray, pathetic, young girl's hands--hands which confirm +an old observation of mine that one's hands reveal one's sexual character, +showing chastity, indifference, or passion. + +It is pleasant to watch Josephine crouch down to milk the goat. But she is +only doing this now to charm and please the stranger. Ordinarily she has +no time for such work, for she is too busy at her indoor tasks, waiting at +table and watering the flowers and chatting with me about who climbed the +Tore Peak last summer, and who did it the summer before that. These are +Josephine's tasks. + +Refreshed and rejuvenated, I idle about, stand for a while watching Solem, +who has been put to carting manure, then drift on down through the wood to +the cotters' houses. Neat, compact houses, barns with room for two cows +and a couple of goats in each, half-naked children playing homemade games +outside the barns, quarrels and laughter and tears. The men at both places +cart manure on sleighs, seeking a path where the snow and ice still lie on +the ground, and doing very well with it. I do not descend to the houses, +but watch the work from my point of vantage. Well do I know the life of +labor, and well do I like it. + +It was no small area these cotters had broken up; the homesteads were tiny +but the fences surrounding the land included a good section of forest. +When the ground was cleared all the way to the fence, this would be a farm +with five cows and a horse. Good luck! + +The days pass, the windowpanes have thawed, the snow is melting away, +green things grow against south walls, and the leaves break out in the +woods. My original intention to make great irons hot within me is +unchanged; but if I ever thought this an easy task I must be an incredible +fool. I do not even know with any certainty if there are irons in me +still, or whether I can shape them if there are. Since the winter, life +has made me lonely and small; I idle and loiter here, remembering that +once things were different. Now that I have reached daylight and men +again, I begin to understand all this. I was a different person once. The +wave has its feathered crest, and so had I; wine has its fire, and so had +I. Neurasthenia, the ape of all the diseases, pursues me. + +What then? No, I do not mourn this. Mourn? It is for women to mourn. Life +is only a loan, and I am grateful for the loan. At times I have had gold +and silver and copper and iron and other small metals; it was a great +delight to live in the world, much greater than an endless life away from +the world; but pleasure cannot last. I know of no one who has not been +through the same thing; but I know of no one who will admit it. How they +have declined! But they themselves have said: + +"See how everything is better!" + +At their first jubilee, they left life behind and began a vegetating +existence; once one is fifty, the seventies begin. And the irons were no +longer red-hot; there were no irons. But by heaven, how stubbornly +Simplicity insisted the irons were there, insisted that they were red. + +"See the irons!" Simplicity said. "See how red they are!" + +As though it mattered that death can be kept off for another twenty years +from one who has already begun to perish! I have no use for such a way of +thinking; but you have, no doubt, you with your cheerful mediocrity and +school education. A one-armed man can still walk; a one-legged man can lie +down. Has the forest taught you nothing, then? What have I learned in the +forest? _That young trees grow there_. + +In my footsteps walks youth, youth that is shamelessly, barbarously +scorned, merely because it is young, scorned by stupidity and +degeneration. I have seen this for many years. I know nothing more +despicable than your school education and your school-education standards. +Whether you have a catechism or a compass by which to guide your life is +all the same; come here, my friend, and I will give you a compass made of +my latest iron. + + + + +IX + + +A tourist arrived at the farm: the first tourist. And the master of the +house himself went with him across the fjeld, and as for Solem, why, he, +too, went with him so that he might know the way for later tourists. We +found the fat, short, and thin-haired stranger standing in the yard, an +elderly, well-to-do man who walked for the sake of his health and the last +twenty years of his life. Josephine, the dear girl, made her feet a breeze +beneath her skirts, and got him into the living room, with its piano and +its earthenware bowls with beaded edges. When he was leaving, he brought +out his small change, which Josephine received in her gray, young-girl's +fingers. On the other side of the fjeld, Solem was given two crowns for +acting as guide, and that was good pay. All went so well that the master +himself was content. + +"Now they'll be coming," he said. "If only they would leave us in peace," +he added. + +By this he meant he regretted the good, carefree days that he and his +household had enjoyed till now; but in a few weeks a motor road would be +opened in the neighboring valley, and then it was a question whether the +tourist traffic might not be deflected there. His wife and Josephine were +a little afraid it would be; but he himself had held as long as possible +to the opinion that all their regular visitors who had come again year +after year would remain faithful. No matter how many roads and motor cars +they might have in other places, they could not get the peaks of the Tore +range anywhere but here. + +The master of the house had felt so confident that once more he had much +timber lying by the wall of the barn, ready to be built into new cottages, +with six new guestrooms, a great hall with reindeer horns and log chairs, +and a bathroom. But what was the matter with him today; was he beginning +to doubt? "If only they would leave us in peace," he said. + +A week later Mrs. Brede arrived with her children; she had a cottage to +herself, as in previous summers. So she must be rich and fashionable, this +Mrs. Brede, since she had a cottage to herself. She was a charming lady, +and her little daughters were well-grown, handsome children. They curtsied +to me, making me feel, I don't know why, as though they were giving me +flowers. A strange feeling. + +Then came Miss Torsen and Mrs. Molie, who were both to stay for the +summer. They were followed by Schoolmaster Staur, who would stay a week. +Later came two schoolmistresses, the Misses Johnsen and Palm, and still +later Associate Schoolmaster Hoey and several others--tradesmen, telephone +operators, a few people from Bergen, one or two Danes. There were many of +us at table now, and the talk was lively. When Schoolmaster Staur was +asked if he wanted more soup, he replied: "No, thank you; I require no +more!" and then rolled his eyes at us to show that this was the correct +thing to say. Between meals we made up small parties, going this way and +that on the sides of the fjeld and in the woods. But of transient guests +there were few or none at all, and it was really on these that the house +would earn well--on rooms for a night, on single meals, on cups of coffee. +Josephine seemed to be worrying lately, and her young fingers grew more +greedy as they counted silver coins. + +Lean brook trout, goat's-meat stew, and tinned foods. Some of the guests +were dissatisfied people who spoke of leaving; others praised both the +food and the wild mountain scenery. Schoolmistress Torsen wanted to leave. +She was tall and handsome and wore a red hat on her dark hair; but there +were no suitable young men here, and in the long run it was a bore to +waste her holidays so completely. Tradesman Batt, who had been in both +Africa and America, was the only possibility, for even the Bergensians +amounted to nothing. + +"Where's Miss Torsen?" Batt would ask us. + +"Here I am; I'm coming," the lady answered. + +They did not care for walks up the fjeld, but preferred to go to the woods +together, where they talked for hours. But Tradesman Batt did not amount +to much either; he was short and freckled, and talked of nothing but money +and trade. Besides, he had only a small shop in the town, and dealt in +tobacco and fruit. No, he did not amount to much. + +One day, during a long spell of rain, I sat talking with Miss Torsen. She +was an extraordinary girl, ordinarily proud and reserved, but sometimes +talkative, lively, and perhaps a little inconsiderate, too. We sat in the +living room, with people coming and going continually, but she did not let +that disturb her, and talked in high, clear tones; in her eagerness she +sometimes clasped her hands, and then dragged them apart again. After we +had been sitting there for some time, Tradesman Batt came in, listened to +her for a moment, and then said: + +"I'm going out now, Miss Torsen; are you coming?" + +She swept him once with her eyes from head to foot; then she turned away +and went on talking, looking very proud and determined as she did so. No +doubt she had many good qualities; she was twenty-seven, she said, and +sick and tired of a teacher's life. + +But why had she ever entered on such a life in the first place? + +"Oh, just doing what everybody else did," she replied. "The girls next +door were also going to walk the road of scholarship; to study languages, +as they called it, study grammar; it all sounded so fine. We were going to +be independent and earn a lot of money. That's what I thought! Have a +home, however small, that was quite my own. How we slogged away all +through school! Some of the girls had money, but those of us who were poor +couldn't dress like them, and we hadn't well-kept hands like theirs. And +so we came to avoid all work at home for the sake of our hands. + +"And we played up to the boys at school, too. We thought them such fine +gentlemen; one of them had a riding horse, bit of a fool, of course, but +he was a millionaire's son and awfully decent, gave us banknotes--me, +anyhow--and he kissed me many times. His name was Flaten; his father was a +merchant. Of course, he being so handsome and dashing, we wanted to be +nice to him too. I should have done anything he asked; I used to pray to +God for him. + +"I'm sure I wasn't the only one who wanted to be smart and pretty. That +was how we passed the time. Washing and cooking and mending fell to the +lot of my mother and sisters; we students wouldn't do anything but sit +round being very learned and getting seraphic hands. We were quite mad, as +I don't mind admitting. It was in the course of those years that we +acquired all the distorted ideas we've been burdened with since; we grew +dull with school wisdom, anaemic, unbalanced: sometimes terribly unhappy +about our sad lot, sometimes hysterically happy, and pluming ourselves on +our examinations and our importance. We were the pride of the family. + +"And of course we were independent. We got jobs in offices, at forty +_kroner_ a month. Because now there was no longer anything in the +least extraordinary about us students--we were no rarity, there were +hundreds of us--forty _kroner_ was the most they gave us. Thirty went +to Father and Mother for our keep, and ten for ourselves. It wasn't +enough. We had to have pretty clothes for the office, and we were young, +we liked to walk out; but everything was too dear for us, we went into +debt, and some of us got engaged to poor devils like ourselves. The narrow +school life during our years of development did more than hurt our +intelligence; we wanted to show spirit, too, and not recoil before any +experience, so some of us went to the bad, others married--and with such +antecedents, of course, there was first-rate mismanagement in the home; +others disappeared to America. But probably all of them are still boasting +their languages and their examinations. It's all they have left--not +happiness or health or innocence, but their matriculation. Good God!" + +"But surely some of you have become schoolmistresses with good salaries?" + +"Good salaries! Anyhow, first we had to start studying all over again. As +though Father and Mother and brothers and sisters hadn't sacrificed enough +for our sakes already! There was cramming again for long periods, and then +we began life in the schoolroom--to give to others the same unnatural +upbringing we had had ourselves. Oh, yes, ours was a noble vocation; it +was almost like being missionaries. But now if you'll excuse me, I'd like +to talk about something besides this exalted position. Anything else you +please." + +Tradesman Batt opened the door and said: + +"Are you coming, Miss Torsen? It's stopped raining now." + +"Oh, leave me alone," she replied. + +Tradesman Batt withdrew. + +"Why do you turn him away like that?" I asked. + +"Because ... well, the weather is bad," she said, looking out of the +window. "Besides, he's such a fool. And he takes such liberties." + +How sure of herself she looked, and how right she seemed! + +Poor Miss Torsen! True or not, the news gradually spread that Miss Torsen +had recently lost her post at the school, where indulgence had been +exercised for a long time toward her eccentric methods of teaching. + +So that was it. + +But certainly what she had told me was nonetheless true. + + + + +X + + +The news has leaked out that the master of the homestead here owes a huge +debt, and that because he needs cash he has sold new, valuable plots of +land to his cotters. I am finding out many things now. Mrs. Brede with the +handsome, well-modeled head knows something about everything, for her many +summers at the farm have given her knowledge. When she talks about +conditions here, she need not grope for words. + +The master has taken a large mortgage. + +No one would believe that all is not well here; the many new buildings and +flagpoles, the curtains at the windows and the red-painted well house--all +give an impression of great prosperity. The rooms, too, make a good +impression. I shall not speak of the piano, but here are pictures on the +walls and photographs of the farm seen from all angles; good newspapers +are kept and there is a selection of novels on the tables; though guests +sometimes take books away with them, the books are never missed. Or take a +thing like this: you get your bill on a handsomely printed paper, with a +picture at the top of the farm and the Tore range in the background. In +short, no one would doubt for a moment that there is a fortune here. And +why not, after twenty years as a kind of resort for tourists and +pensioners? + +Nevertheless, the truth is that this homestead with all its interior and +exterior furnishings costs more than the business is worth. Manufacturer +Brede, too, has put money into it, and that is why Mrs. Brede comes here +every year with her children, to get their dividends in board and lodging. + + +No wonder she has a house to herself; after all, it's her own house. + +"It was a good place in the old days," says Mrs. Brede. "Travelers stopped +here and had a meal and a bed for the night; it cost nothing to run the +place then. But the tourist traffic has forced him to make improvements +and enlargements. You have to keep pace with development, and be as good +as other such places in the country; they're all competing. And probably +the master here is not the right man to carry on such an irregular and +capricious business; he has learned to like idleness too much, and lets +the farm take care of itself. But the two cotters are hard-working +fellows. They're nephews of his, and bit by bit they're buying the farm +from him and cultivating it. My husband often says it will end with the +cotters or their children buying this whole place of his, Paul's." + +"How can the cotters get power to do that?" + +"They work hard; they're peasants. They started in the forest with three +or four goats each, first one of them, then the other one, working down in +the village and coming home with food and money, and all the time clearing +their own ground. The goats grew more numerous, a cow was added, they +bought more virgin land, and they acquired still more livestock. They +sowed grain and planted potatoes and cultivated pasture land; the owner +here buys root vegetables from his cotters; he hasn't time to toil with +such things himself; there's a great deal of work in it. Oh, no, they +don't sow anything but green fodder for the stock here; Paul says it's not +worth-while. And in a way he's right. He's tried hiring enough men to run +the farm too, but it won't work. It's just in the spring season that the +tourists start coming, and then the men are constantly being interrupted +in their work on the farm to pilot tourists across the fjeld, or to do +this or that for the guests. And this goes on all through the short summer +months; for several years, they haven't even found the time to spread all +their manure. But the worst time is really the autumn, when the tourists +are all rushing to get home again, and it's quite impossible to do the +harvesting undisturbed. It's almost become a custom here now, my husband +says, for the cotters to get half the harvest of the farm's outlying +fields." + +On my wondering at Mrs. Brede's knowledge of farming, she told me with a +shake of the head that she herself knew very little about it, and had all +her information from her husband. The fact was that every time these +cotters wanted to buy a fresh piece of land from Paul, her husband had to +give his consent. This was because of the mortgage, and this, too, was how +they had learned of these matters. Manufacturer Brede, as a matter of +fact, was most anxious to be released from his undertaking, but this was +by no means easy. It was with great apprehensions that he now regarded the +new automobile route. + +Mrs. Brede was full of a maternal gentleness; she played with her little +girls, and seemed to enjoy an admirable balance of mind. One day, for +example, a goat came home with one of its hind legs broken, and all the +guests hurried out with brandy and lanolin and bandages for the wound; but +Mrs. Brede remained quietly where she was, experienced, wise, and a little +surprised at all the excitement. + +"All you can do with such a goat," she said, "is to slaughter it." + +The lady, I understood, must have married early, for her two little girls +were twelve and ten. Her husband seemed to deal in important business, for +he spent a large part of the year in Iceland, and traveled a good deal +elsewhere as well. This, too, the lady bore quietly. And yet she was still +young and handsome, a little plump, perhaps, for her height, but with a +lovely, unwrinkled skin. She was quite unlike Miss Torsen, the only other +good-looking lady at the farm; Miss Torsen was tall and dark. + +But perhaps Mrs. Brede was not always so calm as she seemed. One evening +when she went down to the men's hut and asked Solem to do her a service, I +saw that her face was strange and covered with blushes. Would Solem come +to her room and repair a window-blind that had fallen down? It was late in +the evening, and the lady seemed to have been in bed already, and to have +risen again. Solem did not appear very willing. Suddenly their eyes met, +and clung for a moment. Yes, certainly, of course he would come.... + +What an iron face he had, and what a rogue he was! + +Mrs. Brede departed. + +But a moment later she returned to say that she had changed her mind. +Never mind, thank you, she would fix the blind in position herself. + + + + +XI + + +An occasional tourist came or went, Solem accompanied him across the +fjeld, and he was gone. But where were all the foreigners this year? +Bennett's and Cook's conducted tours, the hordes that would "do" the +mountain peaks of Norway--where were they? + +At last two solitary Englishmen turned up. They were middle-aged, unshaven +and ill-groomed altogether, two engineers or something of that sort, but +quite as speechless and uncivil as the grandest of the traveling British +clowns. "Guide! Guide!" they called. "You the guide?" Nothing about them +was any different from what we had grown to expect; these two traveled +brainlessly and solemnly to the mountain tops, were in a hurry, had a +purpose, behaved as though they were running to catch a doctor. Solem went +with them to the top and down the other side, and they offered him a +fifty-_oere_ bit. Solem held out the palm of his hand, he told me +afterwards, for he thought they would put more in it, but nothing came of +that. So he created a disturbance--Solem has grown spoiled and insolent +from all his idling with tourists. + +_"Mehr,_ more," said he. + +No, they would not. Solem flung the coin on the ground and struck his +hands together repeatedly. This had the required effect, and one +_krone_ made its appearance. But on Solem's taking the noble lord by +the shoulder and exerting a little pressure, two _kroner_ were at +last forthcoming. + +At length a conducted party arrived. Many tongues, both sexes, huntsmen, +fishermen, dogs, mountaineers, porters. There was a tremendous commotion +at the farm; the flag was run up, Paul bent double under all the orders he +received, and Josephine ran, flew at every call. Mrs. Brede had to give up +her sitting room to three English ladies, and the rest of us were crowded +together as close as possible. I, for my part, was to be allowed to keep +my bed because of my settled age; but I said, "By no means, let this +English solicitor or whatever he is have my bed; what does it matter for a +night!" + +Then I went out. + +If one keeps one's eyes open, one may see a great deal at such a resort in +the daytime. And one may see much at night, too. What is the meaning of +all this bleating of goats in the shed? Why are the animals not at rest? +The door is closed; none of the visiting dogs has got in. Or--_have_ +some of the visiting dogs got in? Vice, like virtue, walks in rings and +circles; nothing is new, all returns to its beginnings and repeats itself. +The Romans ruled the world, yes. They were so mighty, the Romans, so +invincible, that they could permit themselves a vice or two, they could +afford to live at the arena, they had their fun with young boys and +animals. Then one day retribution overtook them, their children's children +lost battles everywhere, and their children's children again only sat--sat +and looked backward. The ring was closed; none were less rulers of the +world than the Romans. + +They paid no attention to me, the two Englishmen in the goats' shed; I was +merely one of the natives, a Norwegian, who had but to accept the ways of +the mighty tourists. But they themselves belonged to that nation of +gamblers, coachmen, and vice which one day the wholesome Gothic soul will +castigate to death.... + +The disturbance continued all night, and very early, the dogs began to +bark. The caravan awoke; it was six in the morning, and doors began to +bang in all the houses. They were in a great hurry, these travelers; they +were running to catch the doctor. They had breakfast in two sessions, but +though the household was bent double before them and gave of its best, +they were not satisfied. "If we had only known a little earlier," said +Paul. But they muttered that we should just wait; there were motor cars in +other places. Then Paul spoke--Paul, the master of the farm, the man who +lived under the Tore peaks: + +"But I'm going to enlarge; don't you see all the timber outside? And I'm +planning to get a telephone...." + +The caravan paid the exact amount of their small bill and departed, +accompanied by the master and Solem, both carrying trunks. + +Peace descended on us again. + +Schoolmaster Staur left now, too. He had been busy collecting plants round +the Tore peaks, and talked about his plants at table in a very learned +fashion, giving the Latin names, and pointing out their peculiarities. +Yes, indeed, he had learned a great deal at school. + +"Here you see an _Artemis cotula_," he said. + +Miss Torsen, who had also imbibed much learning, recognized the name and +said: + +"Yes, take plenty of it with you." + +"What for?" + +"It's insect powder." + +Schoolmaster Staur knew nothing of that, and there was a good deal of +discussion in which Associate Master Hoey had to take a hand. + +No, Schoolmaster Staur knew nothing of that. But he could classify plants +and learn their names by heart. He enjoyed that. The peasant children in +his neighborhood were ignorant of these classes and names, and he could +teach them. He enjoyed that so much. + +But was the spirit of the soil his friend? The plant that is cut down one +year, yet grows again the next--did this miracle make him religious and +silent? The stones, and the heather, and the branches of trees, and the +grass, and the woods, and the wind, and the great heaven of all the +universe--were these his friends? + +_Artemis cotula_.... + + + + +XII + + +When I get tired of Associate Master Hoey and the ladies.... Sometimes I +think of Mrs. Molie. She sits sewing while the Associate Master gravely +keeps her company; they talk about the servants at home whose only desire +is to stay out all night. Mrs. Molie is a thin, flat-chested lady, but +probably she has at one time been less plain; her bluish teeth look as +though they were cold, as though they were made of ice, but perhaps a few +years ago, her full lips and the dark down at the corners of her mouth +seemed to her husband the most beautiful thing he knew. Her husband--well, +he was a seafaring man, a ship's captain; he only came home on rare +occasions, just often enough to increase the family; usually he was in +Australia, China, or Mexico. It was hail and farewell with him. And here +is his wife now for the sake of her health. I wonder--is it only for her +health, or are she and the Associate Master possibly children of the same +provincial town? + +When I get tired of Associate Master Hoey and the ladies, I leave them and +go out. And then I stay out all day long and nobody knows where I keep +myself. It is fitting that a settled man should be different from the +Associate Master, who is very far from being so settled. So I go out. It +is a bright day with just the right amount of warmth, and my summer woods +are filled with the fragrance of plants. I rest frequently, not because I +need to, but because the ground is full of caresses. I go so far that no +one can find me; only then am I released. No sound reaches me from farms +or men, no one is in sight; only this overgrown little goat track, which +is green at the edges and lovely. Only a bit of a goat track which looks +as though it had fallen asleep in the woods, lying there so thin and +lonely. + +You who read this feel nothing, but I who sit here writing feel a kind of +sweetness at the memory of a mere track in the woods. It was like meeting +a child. + +With my hands under my neck and my nose in the air, my eyes flit across +the sky. High up above the peaks of Tore, a clustering mist sways in slow +rhythm, breaks apart and presses close again, fluctuates and strains to +give birth to something. But when I rise to walk on, the end is not yet in +sight. + +I meet a line of ants, a procession of ants, busy travelers. They neither +toil nor carry anything; they simply move. I retrace my steps to see if I +can find their leader, but it is useless: farther and farther I retreat, I +begin to run, but the procession is endless before and behind me. Perhaps +they started a week ago. So I go on my way, and the other insects go on +theirs. + +Surely this is not a mountainside I walk on; this is a bosom, an embrace, +in its softness. I tread gently, for I do not wish to stamp or weigh it +down, and I marvel: a mountain so tender and defenseless, indulgent like a +mother. To think of an ant walking on this! Here and there lie stones, +half-covered with moss, not because they have fallen there, but because +this is their home, and they have lived here long. This is peerless. + +When I reach the top and look back, it is high noon. Far away on another +peak walks one of the cows of the cotters, a strange little cow with red +and white flanks. A crow sits on a high cliff above me and caws down at me +in a voice like an iron rasp scraping against the stone. A warm thrill +runs through me, and I feel, as I have done in the woods so many times +before, that someone has just been here, and has stepped to one side. +Someone is with me here, and a moment later I see his back disappearing +into the woods. "It is God," I think. There I stand, neither speaking nor +singing. I only see. I feel all my face being filled with the sight. "It +was God," I think. + +"A vision," you say. "No, a little insight into things," I reply. "Am I +making a god of nature? Do not you? Have not the Mohammedans their god, +the Jews theirs, the Hindus theirs? No one knows God, my friend; man knows +only gods. And sometimes I meet mine." + +I go home by a different route, which forms a vast arc with the one I came +by. The sun is warmer now and the ground less smooth. I reach a great +ruin, the remnant of a landslide, and here, to amuse myself, I pretend to +be tired, flinging myself on the ground exactly as though someone were +watching me and saw how exhausted I am. It is only for my amusement, +because my brain has been idle so long. The sky is clear everywhere; the +clusters of mist over the Tore peaks are gone, heaven knows where, but +they have stolen away. In their place, an eagle swings in great circles +over the valley. Huge, black, and inaccessible, he traces ring after ring +as though held on a rail in the air, moving with voluptuous languor, a +thick-necked male, a winged stallion exulting. It is like music to watch +him. At length he disappears behind the peaks. + +And here are only myself and the ruin and the little juniper trees. What +miracles all things are! These stones in the ruin perhaps hold some +meaning; they have lain here for thousands of years, but perhaps they, +too, roam, and make an inexpressible journey. The glaciers move, the land +rises, and the land falls; there is no hurry here. But since my +consciousness cannot associate fact with such a conception, it grows blind +with fury and revolts: The ruin cannot move; these are mere words, a game! + +This ruin is a town; here and there lie scattered buildings of stone. It's +a peaceable gathering, without sensations or suicides, and perhaps a +well-shaped soul sits in each of these stones. But heaven protect me just +the same from the inhabitants of these towns! Rolling stones cannot bark, +neither do they attract thieves; they are mere ballast. Quiet behavior: +that is what I hold against them, that they make no fiery gestures; it +would become them to roll a little, but there they lie, with even their +sex unknown. But you saw the eagle instead! Be still.... + +A gentle wind begins to blow, swaying the bracken a little, the flowers +and the straw; but the straw cannot sway, it only trembles. + +I walk on along my great arc and come down by the first cotter's house. + +"Well, I expect you'll end up by building a summer resort too," I tell him +in the course of our conversation. + +"Oh, no; we couldn't venture on anything like that," he replies cunningly. +In his heart I daresay he has no desire to, for he has seen what it leads +to. + +I didn't like him; his eyes were fawning and rested on the ground. He +thought of nothing but land; he was land-greedy, like an animal that +sought to escape its padlock. The other cotter had bought a slightly +larger piece of land than he, a marsh that would feed one cow more; but he +himself had only got this bit of a field. Still, this would amount to +something, too, as long as he kept his health to work it. + +He gripped his spade again. + + + + +XIII + + +Solem was being discussed at dinner; I don't know who began it, but some +of the ladies thought he was good-looking, and they nodded and said, Yes, +he was the right sort. + +"What do you mean by the right sort?" Associate Master Hoey asked, looking +up from his plate. + +No one answered. + +Then Associate Master Hoey could not help smiling broadly, and said: + +"Well, well! I must have a look at this Solem some time. I've never paid +any attention to him." + +Associate Master Hoey might look at Solem all he pleased; he would grow no +bigger for that, nor Solem smaller. The good Mr. Hoey was annoyed, and that +was the truth. It is catching for a woman to discover that a man is "the +right sort"; the other women grow curious, and stick their noses into it: +"So-o-o, is he?" And a few days later the whole flock of them are of one +opinion: "Yes, indeed, he's the right sort!" + +Pity the poor, left-over associate masters then! + +Poor Mr. Hoey; there was Mrs. Molie, too, nodding her head for Solem. To +tell the truth, she had no appearance of knowing much about the matter, +but she could not lag behind the others. + +"So, Mrs. Molie is nodding, too!" said Mr. Hoey, and smiled again. He was +intensely annoyed. Mrs. Molie turned pink and pretty. + +At the next meal, Mr. Hoey could contain himself no longer. + +"Ladies," he said, "mine eyes have now beheld Master Solem." + +"Well?" + +"Common sneak-thief!" + +"Oh, shame!" + +"You must admit he has a brazen look on his face. No beard. Blue chin, a +perfect horse-face...." + +"There's no harm in that," said Mrs. Molie. + +Mrs. Molie doesn't seem to have gone quite out of circulation after all, I +thought. In fact, she had lately been developing quite a little cushion +over her chest, and no longer looked so hunched up. She had eaten well and +slept well, and improved at this resort. Mrs. Molie, I suspect, still has +plenty of life left in her. + +This proved true a few days later. Once again: poor Associate Master Hoey! +For now we had a new visitor at the farm, a gay dog of a lawyer, and he +talked more to Mrs. Molie than to anyone else. Had there been anything +between her and Mr. Hoey? True, he was not much to look at, but then +neither was she. + +The young lawyer was a sportsman, yet he was learned in the social +sciences, too, had been in Switzerland and studied the principle of the +referendum. At first he had worked a few years in an architect's office, +he told us, but then he had changed to the law instead, which in its turn +had led him into social problems. No doubt he was a rich and unselfish man +to be able to change his vocation and to travel in this way. "Ah, +Switzerland!" he said, and his eyes watered. None of us could understand +his fervor. + +"Yes, it must be a wonderful country," Mrs. Molie said. + +The Associate Master looked ready to burst, and was quite incapable of +restraining himself. + +Speaking of Solem, he said suddenly, "I've changed my mind about him +lately. He's ten times better than many another." + +"There, you see!" + +"Yes, he is. And he doesn't pretend to be anything more than he is. And +what he is, is of some use. I saw him slaughter the lame goat." + +"Did you stop to watch that?" + +"I happened to be passing. It was the work of a moment for him. And later +I saw him in the woodshed. He knows his job, that fellow. I can well +understand that the ladies see something in him." + +How the Associate Master clowned! He finished by imploring the wife of the +captain who was sailing the China seas to be sure and remain faithful to +her Chinaman. + +"Do be quiet and let the lawyer tell us about Switzerland," said Mrs. +Molie. + +Witch! Did she want to drive her fellow-being the Associate Master into +jumping off the highest peak of the Tore tonight? + +But then Mrs. Brede took a hand. She understood Mr. Hoey's torment and +wanted to help him. Had not this same Mr. Hoey just expressed himself +kindly about Solem, and was not Solem the lad who one fine evening had +caused her to tear down her window blind? There is cause and effect in all +things. + +"Switzerland," said Mrs. Brede in her gentle fashion, and then she +reddened and laughed a little. "I don't know anything about Switzerland; +but once I bought some dress material that was Swiss, and I've never in my +life been so cheated." + +The lawyer only smiled at this. + +Schoolmistress Johnsen talked about what she had learned, watchmakers and +the Alps and Calvin--- + +"Yes, those are the only three things in a thousand years," said the +Associate Master, his face quite altered and pale with suppressed rage. + +"Really, really, Associate Hoey!" exclaimed Schoolmistress Palm with a +smile. + +But the lawyer focused everyone's admiration on himself by telling them +all about Switzerland, that wonderful country, that model for all small +countries of the world. What social conditions, what a referendum, what +planning in the exploitation of the country's natural wonders! There they +had sanatoriums; there they knew how to deal with tourists! Tremendous! + +"Yes, and what Swiss cheese," said the Associate Master. "It smells like +tourists' feet." + +Dead silence. So Associate Master Hoey was prepared to go to such lengths! + +"Well, what about Norwegian old-milk cheese?" said a Danish voice mildly. + +"Yes, that's filthy stuff, too," Mr. Hoey replied. "Just the thing for +Schoolmaster Staur pontificating in his armchair." + +Laughter. + +Since matters were now smoothed over again, the lawyer could safely +continue: + +"If we could only make such Swiss cheese here," he said, "we should not be +so poor. Generally speaking, I found after my modest investigations in +that country that they are ahead of us in every respect. We have +everything to learn from them: their frugality, their diligence, their +long working hours, the small home industries--" + +"And so on," interrupted Associate Master Hoey. "All trifles, nothingness, +negativity! A country that exists thanks only to the mercy of its +neighbors ought not to be a model for any other country on earth. We must +try to rise above the wretched stench of it, which only makes us ill. The +big countries and big circumstances should be our model. Everything grows, +even the small things, unless they're predestined to a Lilliput existence. +A child can learn from another child, of course, but the model is the +adult. Some day the child will be an adult itself. A pretty state of +affairs it would be if an eternal child, a born pygmy, were to be its +model! But that's what all this rubbish about Switzerland really amounts +to. Why on earth should we, of all people, take the smallest and meanest +country as our model? Things are small enough here anyhow. Switzerland is +the serf of Europe. Have you ever heard of a young South American country +of Norway's size trying to be on a level with Switzerland? Why do you +think Sweden is taking such great strides forward now? Not because it +looks to Switzerland, or to Norway, but to Germany! Honor to Sweden for +that! But what about us? We don't want to be a piddling little nation +stuck up in our mountains, a nation that brings forth peace conferences, +ski-runners, and an Ibsen once every thousand years; we have +potentialities for a thousand times more--" + +The lawyer had for some time been holding up his hand to indicate that he +wanted to reply; now he shouted at the top of his voice: + +"Just a moment!" + +The Associate Master stopped. + +"Just one question--a small, trifling question," said the lawyer, +preparing his ground well. "Have you ever once set foot in the country you +speak of?" + +"I should think I have," replied the Associate Master. + +There! The lawyer got nothing for his trifling question. And then it all +came out what a heartless jilt Mrs. Molie was. She had known all the time +that Mr. Hoey had been on a traveling scholarship in Switzerland, but she +had never mentioned it. What a snake in the grass! She had even encouraged +the lawyer, but no one else, to talk about Switzerland. + +"Oh, yes, of course Associate Master Hoey has been in Switzerland" she +said, as though to clinch the matter. + +"In that case, the Associate Master and I have looked on the country with +different eyes; that's all," said the lawyer, suddenly anxious to end the +controversy. + +"They haven't even folk tales there," said the Associate Master, who +seemed unable to stop. "There they sit, generation after generation, +filing watch springs and piloting Englishmen up their mountains. But it's +a country without folk music or folk tales. I suppose you think we ought +to work hard to resemble the Swiss in that, too?" + +"What about William Tell?" asked Miss Johnsen. + +Several of the ladies nodded, or at any rate Miss Palm did. + +At this point Mrs. Molie turned her head and looked out of the window as +she said: + +"You really had a very different opinion about Switzerland before, Mr. +Associate Master." + +This was a hit below the belt. He wanted to reply, wanted to annihilate +her, but he restrained himself and remained silent. + +"Don't you remember?" she asked, goading him. + +"No," he replied. "You mistook my meaning. Really, I can't understand it, +I usually make myself quite clear; after all, I'm accustomed to explaining +to children." + +Another foul. Mrs. Molie said no more, merely smiling patiently. + +"I can only say that my opinion is diametrically opposed to yours," the +lawyer repeated. "But I did think," he went on, "that this was one thing I +knew something about, however...." + +Mrs. Molie got up and went out with her head bent, seemingly on the point +of bursting into tears. The Associate Master sat still for a moment, and +then followed her, whistling and putting on as brave a manner as though he +felt quite easy in his mind. + +"What's your opinion?" asked Mrs. Brede, turning to the doyen of the +company, namely myself. + +And as becomes a man of settled years, I replied: + +"Probably there has been a little exaggeration on both sides." + +Everybody agreed with this. But I could never have acted as a mediator, +for I thought the Associate Master was right. In one's early seventies, +one still has many pathetically young ideas. + +The lawyer rounded off the discussion thus: + +"Well, when all's said and done we have Switzerland to thank for being +able to sit here at our ease in this comfortable mountain resort. We get +tourists into the country on the Swiss model, and earn money and pay off +our debts. Ask this man if he would have been willing to do without all we +have learned from Switzerland...." + +That evening Mrs. Brede asked, + +"Why did you make Mr. Hoey look so unreasonable today, Mrs. Molie?" + +"I?" said Mrs., Molie innocently. "Well, really--!" + +As a matter of fact, it seemed as though Mrs. Molie had really been +innocent, for the very next morning she and the Associate Master set off +up the fjeld together in a very gay mood, and remained away till midday. +If they had the matter out between them, then no doubt the lady spoke to +her much-tried friend as follows: + +"Surely you can see I'm not interested in that lawyer-person! What an +idea! I only drew him out so you'd have the chance to give him a good +dressing down--don't you understand that? Really, you're the silliest, +sweetest--come here, let me kiss you...." + + + + +XIV + + +Since the departure of the great caravan, there have been no other +visitors. Some of us cannot understand it; others have in a manner of +speaking got a whiff of what is wrong; but all of us still believe there +will be more visitors, because after all we're the only ones that have the +Tore peaks! + +But no one appears. + +The women of the house do their daily work for the inmates and do not +complain, but they are not happy. Paul still takes things quietly; he +sleeps a great deal in his room behind the kitchen, but once or twice I +have seen him walking away from the house at night, walking in deep +thought toward the woods. + +From the neighboring valley comes the rumor that the motor traffic has +started there now. So this is the explanation of the quiet in our valley! +Then one day a Dane came down to us from the fjeld. He had climbed the +Tore peaks from the other side, something that had been thought impossible +till now. He had simply driven in a car to the foot of the mountains and +walked across! + +So we no longer had the Tore peaks to ourselves, either. + +I wonder whether, after all, Paul is not going to try to sow green-fodder +in the long strip of land down by the river. That, at any rate, had been +his original intention, but then came the great caravan, and he neglected +it. Now, of course, the season is too far advanced for sowing, and there +will be nothing but docks and chickweed. Could not the field be turfed, at +least, and sown? Why didn't Paul think of such things instead of walking +the woods at night? + +But Paul has many thoughts. At an early age, his interest in farming was +diverted to the tourist traffic, and there it has remained. He hears that +our lawyer is also an architect and asks him to draw a plan for the big +new house with the six rooms, the hall and the bathroom. Paul has already +ordered the log chairs and the reindeer horns for the hall. + +"If you weren't alone up here, you might have got some of the cars coming +here too," said the lawyer. + +"I've thought of that," Paul replied. "It's not impossible I can do +something about it. But I must have the house first. And I must have a +road." + +The lawyer promised to draw a plan of the house, and went round to look at +the site. The house was to cost such and such a sum. Paul was already +quite convinced that three or four good tourist summers would pay it off. + +Paul was not worrying. As we looked over the site together, I discovered +that he smelled of brandy. + +Finally a small party of Norwegians and foreigners arrived, travelers who +were out to walk, and not to drive in cars. Everyone's spirits rose; the +strangers stayed a few days and nights, and were guided across the fjeld +by Solem, who earned a fair penny. Paul, too, was visibly cheered, and +strolled about the farm in his Sunday clothes. He had a few things to +discuss with the lawyer about the house. + +"If there's anything to consult about, we had better do it now," he said. +"I shall be away for a couple of days." + +So they attended to a few minor matters. + +"Are you going to town?" asked the lawyer. + +"No," Paul replied; "only down to the village. I want to see if I can get +the people there to co-operate on a few ideas of mine: a telephone and +automobile service and so on." + +"Good luck!" said the lawyer. + +So the lawyer sat drafting plans while the rest of us went about our own +affairs. Josephine went to Solem and said: + +"Will you go and sow the field by the river?" + +"Has Paul said so?" he asked. + +"Yes," she replied. + +Solem went very unwillingly. While he was drawing the harrow, Josephine +went down to him and said: + +"Harrow it once more." + +What a brisk little thing she was, with far more forethought than the men! +She looked bewitching, for all her hard work. I have seen her many times +with her hair tumbled, but it didn't matter. And when she pretended that +none but the maids milked the goats and did outside work, it was for the +good name of the house. She had learned to play the piano for the same +reason. The mistress of the house helped her nobly, for both women were +thoughtful and industrious, but Josephine was everywhere, for she was +light as a feather. And the chaste little hands she had! + +"Josephine, Josefriendly!" I called her wittily. + + + + +XV + + +Our dark beauty, Miss Torsen, was now seriously considering taking her +departure. She was healthy enough in any case, so she did not need a stay +in the mountains on that account, and if she was bored, why should she +stay? + +But a minor event caused her to stay. + +In their lack of occupation, the ladies at the resort began to cultivate +Solem. They ate so much and grew so fat and healthy that they felt a need +to busy themselves with something, and to find someone to make a fuss +over. And here was the lad Solem. They got into the habit of telling one +another what Solem had said and what Solem believed, and they all listened +with great interest. Solem himself had grown spoiled, and joked +disrespectfully with the ladies; he called himself a great chap, and once +he had even bragged in a most improper way, saying: + +"Look, here's a sinful devil for you!" + +"Do you know what Solem said to me?" asked Miss Palm. "He's chopping wood +and he's got a bandage on his finger, and it keeps getting caught in the +wood and bothers him, poor fellow. So he said: 'I wish I had time to stop +so I could chop this blasted finger right off my hand!'" + +"Tough, isn't he?" said the other ladies. "He's quite capable of doing it, +too!" + +A little later I passed the woodshed and saw Mrs. Brede there, tying a +fresh bandage on Solem's finger.... Poor lady! She was chaste, but young. + +The days have been oppressively warm for some time now, with the heat +coming down in waves from the mountain and robbing us of all our strength. +But in the evenings we recovered somewhat, and busied ourselves in various +ways: some of us wrote letters or played forfeit games in the garden, +while others were so far restored that they went for a walk "to look at +nature." + +Last Sunday evening I stood talking to Solem outside his room. He had on +his Sunday clothes, and seemed to have no intention of going to bed. + +Miss Torsen came by, stopped, and said: + +"I hear you're going for a walk with Mrs. Brede?" + +Solem removed his cap, which left a red ring round his forehead. + +"Who, me?" he said. "Well, maybe she said something about it. There was a +path through the woods she wanted me to show her, she said." + +Miss Torsen was filled with madness now; handsome and desperate, she paced +back and forth; you could almost see the sparks flying. Her red felt hat +was held on the back of her head by a pin, the brim turned up high in +front. Her throat was bare, her frock thin, her shoes light. + +It was extraordinary to watch her behavior; she had opened a window onto +her secret desires. What cared she for Tradesman Batt! Had she not toiled +through her youth and gained school knowledge? But no reality! Poor Miss +Torsen. Solem must not show a path to any other lady tonight. + +As nothing more was said, and Solem was preparing to depart, Miss Torsen +cleared her throat. + +"Come with me instead!" she said. + +Solem looked round quickly and said, "All right." + +So I left them; I whistled as I walked away with exaggerated indifference, +as though nothing on earth were any concern of mine. + +"Come with me instead," she said. And he went. They were already behind +the outhouses, then behind the two great rowan trees; they hurried lest +Mrs. Brede should see them. Then they were gone. + +A door wide open, but where did it lead? I saw no sweetness in her, +nothing but excitement. She had learned grammar, but no language; her soul +was undernourished. A true woman would have married; she would have been a +man's wife, she would have been a mother, she would have been a +benediction to herself. Why pounce on a pleasure merely to prevent others +from having it? And she so tall and handsome! + +The dog stands growling over a bone. He waits till another dog approaches. +Then suddenly he is overcome with gluttony, pounces on the bone and +crushes it between his teeth. Because the other dog is approaching. + +It seemed as though this small event had to happen before my mind was +ready for the night. I awoke in the dark and felt within me the nursery +rhyme I had dawdled over so long: four rollicking verses about the juniper +tree. + + To the top of the steepest mountains, + where the little juniper stands, + no other tree can follow + from all the forest lands. + Halfway to the hilltop + the shivering pine catches hold; + the birch has actually passed him, + though sneezing with a cold. + But a little shrub outstrips them, + a sturdy fellow he, + and stands quite close to the summit, + though he measures barely a yard. + They look like a train from the valley below + with the shortest one for the guard. + Or else perhaps he's a coachman now--- + why, it's only a juniper tree. + + Down dale there's summer lightning, + green leaves and St. John's feast, + with songs and games of children, + and a dozen dances at least. + But high on the empty mountain + stands a shrub in lonely glory, + with only the trolls that prowl about, + just like in a story. + The wind with the juniper's forelock + is making very free; + it sweeps across the world beneath + that lies there helpless and bare, + but the air on the heights is fresher + than you'll ever find it elsewhere. + None can see so far around + as such a juniper tree. + + There hovers over the mountain + for a moment summer's breath; + at once eternal winter + brings back his companion, death. + Yet sturdy stands the juniper + with needles ever green. + I wonder how the little chap + can bear a life so lean. + He's hard as bone and gristle, + as anyone can see; + when every other tree is stripped, + his berries are scarlet and sleek, + and every berry's plainly marked + with a cross upon its cheek. + So now we know what he looks like too, + this jolly juniper tree. + + At times I think he sings to himself + a cheerful little song: + "I've got a bright blue heaven + to look at all day long!" + Sometimes to his juniper brothers + he calls that they need not fear + the trolls that are prowling and peering + about them far and near. + Gently the winter evening + falls over the copse on the height, + and a thousand stars and candles + are lit in the plains of the sky. + The juniper trees grow weary + and nod their heads on the sly; + before we know it they're fast asleep, + so we say: "Good night, good night!" + +I got up and wrote out these rhymes on a sheet of paper, which I sent to a +little girl, a child with whom I had walked much in the country, and she +learned them at once. Then I read them to Mrs. Brede's little girls, who +stood still like two bluebells, listening. Then they tore the paper out of +my hand and ran to their mother with it. They loved their mother very +much. And she loved them too; they had the most delightful fun together at +bedtime. + +Brave Mrs. Brede with her children! She might have committed a madness, +but could not find it in her heart to do so. Yet did anyone prize her for +that? Who? Her husband? + +A man should take his wife to Iceland with him. Or risk the consequences +of her being left behind for endless days. + + + + +XVI + + +Miss Torsen no longer talks about leaving. Not that she looks very happy +about staying, either; but Miss Torsen is altogether too restless and +strange to be contented with anything. + +Naturally she caught cold after that evening in the woods with Solem, and +stayed in bed with a headache next day; when she got up again, she was +quite all right. + +Was she? Why was her throat so blue under the chin, as though someone had +seized her by it? + +She never went near Solem any more, and behaved as though he were +nonexistent. Apparently there had been a struggle in the woods that had +made her blue under the chin, and they were friends no longer! It was like +her to want nothing real, nothing but the sensation, nothing but the +triumph. Solem had not understood that, and had flown into a passion. Had +it been thus? + +Yes, there was no doubt that Solem had been cheated. He was more direct +and lacked subtlety; he made allusions, and said things like "Oh, yes, +that Miss Torsen, she's a fine one; I'll bet she's as strong as a man!" + +And then he laughed, but with repressed fury. He followed her with gross +eyes wherever she went, and in order to assert himself and seem +indifferent, he would sing a song of the linesman's life whenever she was +about. But he might have saved himself the trouble. Miss Torsen was +stone-deaf to his songs. + +And now it seemed she was going to stay at the resort out of sheer +defiance. We enjoyed her company no more than we had done before, but she +began to make herself agreeable to the lawyer, sitting by his work table +in the living room as he drew plans of houses. Such is the perverse +idleness of summer resorts. + + * * * * * + +So the days pass; they hold no further novelty for me, and I begin to +weary of them. Now and then comes a stranger who is going across the +fjeld, but things are no longer, I am told, as they were in other years, +when visitors came in droves. And things will not improve until we, too, +get roads and cars. + +I have not troubled to mention it before this, but the neighboring valley +is called Stordalen (Great Valley), while ours is only called Reisa after +the river: the whole of the Reisa district is no more than an appendage. +Stordalen has all the advantages, even the name. But Paul, our host, calls +the neighboring valley Little Valley, because, says Paul, the people there +are so petty and avaricious. + +Poor Paul! He has returned from his tour to the village as hopeless as he +went, and hopelessly drunk besides. For more than a day, he stayed in his +room without once emerging. When he reappeared at last, he was aloof and +reserved, pretending he had been very successful during his absence; he +should manage about the cars, never fear! In the evening, after he had had +a few more drinks, he became self-important in a different way: oh, those +fools in the village had no sense of any kind, and had refused to give +their consent to a road to his place. He was the only one with any sense. +Would not such a bit of a road be a blessing to the whole appendage? +Because then the caravans would come, scattering money over the valley. +They understood nothing, those fools! + +"But sooner or later there will have to be a road here," said the lawyer. + +"Of course," replied Paul with finality. + +Then he went to his room and lay down again. + +On another day, a small flock of strangers came again; they had toiled up +themselves, carrying their luggage in the hot sun, and now they wanted +some help. Solem was ready at once, but he could not possibly carry all +the bags and knapsacks; Paul was lying down in his room. I had seen Paul +again during the night go out to the woods, talking loudly and flinging +his arms about as though he had company. + +And here were all the strangers. + +Paul's wife and Josephine came out of the house and sent Solem across to +Einar, the first cotter, to ask if he would come and help them carry. In +the meantime the travelers grew impatient and kept looking at their +watches, for if they could not cross the Tore fjeld before nightfall, they +would have to spend the night outdoors. One of them suggested to the +others that perhaps this delay was intentional. The owner of the place +probably wanted them to spend the night there; they began to grumble among +themselves, and at last they asked: + +"Where is the master, the host?" + +"He's ill," said Josephine. + +Solem returned and said: + +"Einar hasn't time to come; he's lifting his potatoes." + +A pause. + +Then Josephine said: + +"I've got to go across the fjeld anyhow--wait a minute!" + +She was gone for a moment, then returned, loaded the bags and knapsacks on +her little back, and trotted off. The others followed. + +I caught up with Josephine and took her burden from her. But I would not +allow her to turn back, for this little tour away from the house would do +her good. We walked together and talked on the way: she had really no +complaints, she said, for she had a tidy sum of money saved up. + +When we reached the top of the fjeld, Josephine wanted to turn back. She +thought it a waste of time to walk by my side, with nothing to do but +walk. + +"I thought you had to cross the fjeld anyhow?" I said. + +She was too shrewd to deny it outright, for in that case she, the daughter +of the old man at the Tore Peak farm, would have been going with the +tourists solely to carry their luggage. + +"Yes, but there's no hurry. I was to have visited someone, but that can +wait till the winter." + +We stood arguing about this, and I was so stubborn that I threatened to +throw all the luggage down the mountainside, and then she would see! + +"Then I'll just take them and carry them myself," replied Josephine, "and +then _you'll_ see!" + +By this time the others had caught up with us, and before I knew what had +happened, one of the strangers had come forward and lifted the burden from +my back, taken off his cap with a great deal of ceremony, and told me his +own and his companions' names. I must excuse them, I really must forgive +them; this was too bad, he had been so unobserving.... + +I told him I could easily have carried him as well as the bags. It is not +strength I lack; but day and night I carry about with me the ape of all +the diseases, who is heavy as lead. Ah, well, many another groans under a +burden of stupidity, which is little better. We all have our cross to +bear.... + +Then Josephine and I turned homeward again. + + * * * * * + +Yes, indeed, people treat me with uncontrollable politeness; this is +because of my age. People are indulgent toward me when I am troublesome to +others, when I am eccentric, when I have a screw loose; people forgive me +because my hair is gray. You who live by your compass will say that I am +respected for the writing I have been doing all these years. But if that +were so, I should have had respect in my young days when I deserved it, +not now when I no longer deserve it so well. No one--no one in the world-- +can be expected to write after fifty nearly so well as before, and only +the fools or the self-interested pretend to improve after that age. + +Now it is a fact that I have been practicing a most distinctive +authorship, better than most; I know that very well. But this is due, not +so much to my endeavors, as to the fact that I was born with this ability. + +I have made a test of this, and I know it is true. I have thought to +myself: "Suppose someone else had said this!" Well, no doubt others have +said it sometimes, but that has not hurt me. I have gone even further than +this: I have intentionally exposed myself to direct contempt from other +literary men, and this has not hurt me either. So I am sure of my ground. +On the other hand, my way of life has lent me an inner distinction for +which I have a right to demand respect, because it is the fruit of my own +endeavors. You cannot make me out a small man without lying. Yet one can +endure even such a lie if one has character. + +You may quote Carlyle against me--how authors are misjudged!-- +"_Considering what book-writers do in the world, and what the world does +with book-writers, I should say it is the most anomalous thing the world +at present has to show_." You may quote many others as well; they will +assert that a great to-do is made over me for my authorship as well as my +native ability, and my struggle to hammer this ability into a useful +shape. And I say only what is the truth, that most of the fuss is made +because I have reached an age in which my years are revered. + +And that is what seems to me so wrong; it is a custom which makes it easy +to hold down the gifted young in a most hostile and arrogant fashion. Old +age should not be honored for its own sake; it does nothing but halt and +delay the march of man. The primitive races, indeed, have no respect for +old age, and rid themselves unhesitatingly of it and of its defects. A +long time ago I deserved honor much more, and valued it; now, in more than +one sense, I am a richer man and can afford to do without. + +Yet now I have it. If I enter a room, respectful silence falls. "How old +he's grown!" everyone present thinks. And they all remain silent so that I +may speak memorable words in that room. Amazing nonsense! + +The noise should raise the roof when I enter: "Welcome, old fellow and old +companion; for pity's sake don't say anything memorable to us--you should +have done that when you were better able to. Sit down, old chap, and keep +us company. But don't let your old age cast a shadow on us, and don't +restrain us; you have had your day--now it's our turn..." + +This is honest speech. + +In peasant homes they still have the right instinct: the mothers preserve +their daughters, the fathers their sons, from the rough, unpleasant +labors. A proper mother lets her daughter sew while she herself works +among the cattle. And the daughter will do the same with her own daughter. +It is her instinct. + + + + +XVII + + +Dear me, these human beings grow duller every day, and I see nothing in +them that I have not known before. So I sink to the level of watching +Solem's increasing passion for Miss Torsen. But that too is familiar and +dull. + +Solem, after all the attention the ladies have paid him, has a delusion of +greatness; he buys clothes and gilt watch chains for the money he earns, +and on Sundays wears a white woolen pullover, though it is very warm; +round his neck and over his chest lies a costly silk tie tied in a +sailor's knot. No one else is so smart as he, as he well knows; he sings +as he crosses the farmyard, and considers no one too good for him now. +Josephine objects to his loud singing, but Solem lad has grown so +indispensable at the resort that he no longer obeys all orders. He has his +own will in many things, and sometimes Paul himself takes a glass in his +company. + +Miss Torsen appears to have settled down. She is very busy with the +lawyer, and makes him explain each and every angle he draws in his plans. +Quite right of her, too, for undeniably the lawyer is the right man for +her, a wit and a sportsman, well-to-do, rather simple-minded, +strong-necked. At first Mrs. Molie seemed unable to reconcile herself to +the constant companionship of these two in the living room, and she +frequently had some errand that took her there; what was she after, Mrs. +Molie, of the ice-blue teeth? + +At last the lawyer finished his plans and was able to deliver them. He +began to speak again about a certain peak of the Tore range which no one +had yet climbed, and was therefore waiting to be conquered by him. Miss +Torsen objected to this plan, and as she grew to know him better, begged +him most earnestly not to undertake such a mad climb. So he promised with +a smile to obey her wishes. They were in such tender agreement, these two! + +But the blue peak still haunted the lawyer's mind; he pointed it out to +his lady, and smacked his lips, his eyes watering again. + +"Gracious, it makes me dizzy just to look at it!" she said. + +So the lawyer put his arm round her to steady her. + +The sight was painful to Solem, whose eyes were continually on the pair. +One day as we left the luncheon table, he approached Miss Torsen and said: + +"I know another path; would you like to see it tonight?" + +The lady was confused and a little embarrassed, and said at length: + +"A path? No, thank you." + +She turned to the lawyer, and as they walked away together, she said: + +"I never heard of such brazenness!" + +"What got into him?" said the lawyer. + +Solem went away, his teeth gleaming in a sneer. + +That evening, Solem repeated the performance. He went up to Miss Torsen +again and said: + +"What about that path? Shall we go now?" + +As soon as she saw him coming, she turned quickly and tried to elude him. +But Solem did not hesitate to follow her. + +"Now I've just got one thing to say," she said, stopping. "If you're +insolent to me again, I'll see that you're driven off the farm...." + +But it was not easy to drive Solem off the farm. After all, he was guide +and porter to the tourists, and the only permanent laborer on the farm as +well. And soon the hay would have to be brought in, and casual laborers +would be engaged to work under him. No, Solem could not be driven off. +Besides, the other ladies were on his side; the mighty Mrs. Brede alone +could save him by a word. She held the Tore Peak resort in the palm of her +hand. + +Solem was not discharged; but he held himself in check and became a little +more civil. He seemed to suffer as much as ever. Once at midday, as he was +standing in the woodshed, I saw him make a scratch with the ax across the +nail of his thumb. + +"What on earth are you doing?" I asked. + +"Oh, I'm just marking myself," he replied, laughing gloomily. "When this +scratch grows out--" + +He stopped. + +"What then?" + +"Oh, I'll be away from here then," he said. + +But I had the impression that he meant to say something different, so I +probed further. + +"Let me look. Well, it's not a deep scratch; you won't be here long then, +will you?" + +"Nails grow slowly," he muttered. + +Then he strolled away whistling, and I set about chopping wood. + +A little later Solem returned across the farmyard with a cackling hen +under his arm. He went to the kitchen window and called: + +"This the kind of hen you want me to kill?" + +"Yes," was the reply. + +Solem came back to the woodshed and asked me for the ax, as he wanted to +behead a few hens. It was easy to see that he did everything on the farm; +he was, hand and brain, indispensable. + +He laid the hen on a block and took aim, but it was not easy, for she +twisted her head like a snake and would not lie still. She had stopped +cackling now. + +"I can feel her heart jumping inside her," said Solem. + +Suddenly he saw his chance and struck. There lay the head; Solem still +held the body, which jerked under his hand. The thing was done so quickly +that the two sections of the bird were still one in my eyes; I could not +grasp a separation so sudden and unbelievable, and it took my sight a +second or two to overtake the event. Bewilderment was in the expression of +this detached head, which looked as though it could not believe what had +happened, and raised itself a little as if to show there was nothing the +least bit wrong. Solem let the body go. It lay still for a moment, then +kicked its legs, leaped to the ground and began to hop, the headless body +reeling on one wing till it struck the wall and spattered blood in wide +arcs before it fell at last. + +"I let her go too soon after all," said Solem. + +Then he went off to fetch another hen. + + + + +XVIII + + +I return to the mad idea of Solem's being discharged. This would, to be +sure, have averted a certain disaster here at the farm: but who would +fetch and carry then? Paul? But I've told you he just lounges all day in +his room, and has been doing so lately more than ever; the guests never +see him except through an unsuccessful maneuver on his part. + +One evening he came walking across the lawn. He must, in his disregard of +time, have thought the guests had already retired, but we all sat outside +in the mild darkness. When Paul saw us, he drew himself up and saluted as +he passed; then, calling Solem to him, he said: + +"You mustn't cross the field again without letting me know. I was right +there in my room, writing. The idea of Josephine carrying luggage!" + +Paul strode on. But even yet he felt he had not appeared important enough, +so he turned round and asked: + +"Why didn't you take one of my cotters with you to act as porter?" + +"They wouldn't go," Solem replied. "They were busy lifting potatoes." + +"Wouldn't go?" + +"That's what Einar said." + +Paul thought this over. + +"What insolence! They'd better not go too far or I'll drive them off the +place." + +Then the law awoke in the lawyer's bosom, and he asked: + +"Haven't they bought their land?" + +"Yes," said Paul. "But I'm the master of this farm. I have a say in things +too. I'm not without power up here in Reisa, believe me...." + +Then he said sternly to Solem: + +"You come to me next time." + +Whereupon he stalked off to the woods again. + +"He's a bit tight again, our good Paul," said the lawyer. + +Nobody replied. + +"Can you imagine an innkeeper in Switzerland behaving like that?" the +lawyer remarked. + +Mrs. Brede said gently: + +"What a pity! He never drank before." + +And at once the lawyer was charitable again: + +"I'll have a good talk with him," he said. + + * * * * * + +There followed a period in which Paul was sober from morning till night, +when Manufacturer Brede paid us a visit. The flag was hoisted, and there +was great commotion at the farm; Josephine's feet said _whrr_ under +her skirt. The manufacturer arrived with a porter; his wife and children +went far down the road to meet him, and the visitors at the resort sallied +forth too. + +"Good morning!" he greeted us with a great flourish of his hat. He won us +all over. He was big and friendly, fat and cheerful, with the broad good +cheer that plenty of money gives. He became good friends with us at once. + +"How long are you staying, Daddy?" his little girls asked, as they clung +to him. + +"Three days." + +"Is that all!" said his wife. + +"Is that all?" he replied, laughing. "That's not such a short time, my +dear; three days is a lot for me." + +"But not for me and the children," she said. + +"Three whole days," he repeated. "I can tell you I've had to do some +moving to be able to stay as quiet as this, ha, ha!" + +They all went in. The manufacturer had been here before and knew the way +to his wife's cottage. He ordered soda water at once. + +In the evening, when the children had gone to bed, the manufacturer and +his wife joined us in the living room; he had brought whisky with him for +the gentlemen, and ordered soda water; for the ladies he had wine. It was +quite a little party, the manufacturer playing the host with skill, and we +were all well satisfied. When Miss Palm played folk melodies on the piano, +this heavy-built man grew quiet and sentimental; but he didn't think only +of himself, for suddenly he went out and lowered the flag. Flags should be +lowered at sunset, he said. Once or twice he went across to the cottage, +too, to see if the children were sleeping well. Generally speaking, he +seemed fond of the children. Though he owned factories and hotels and many +other things, yet he seemed to take the greatest pride of all in +possessing a couple of children. + +One of the men from Bergen struck his glass for silence, and began to make +a speech. + +The Bergensians had all long been very quiet and retiring, but here was a +perfect occasion for making speeches. Was not here a man from the great +world outside, from the heart of life, who had brought them wine and good +cheer and festivity? Strange wares up here in this world of blue +mountains ... and so on. + +He talked for about five minutes, and became very animated. + +The manufacturer told us a little about Iceland--a neutral country that +neither the Associate Master nor the lawyer had visited, and therefore +could not disagree about. One of the Danes had been there and was able to +confirm the justness of the manufacturer's impressions. + +But most of the time he told cheerful anecdotes: + +"I have a servant, a young lad, who said to me one day, when I was in a +bad temper: 'You've become a great hand at swearing in Icelandic!' Ha, ha, +ha--he appreciated me: 'a great hand at swearing in Icelandic,' he said!" + +Everybody laughed, and his wife asked: + +"And what did you say?" + +"What did I say? Why, I couldn't say anything, could I, ha, ha, ha!" + +Then another man from Bergen took the floor: we must not forget we had the +family of a real man of the world with us here--his wife, "this peerless +lady, scattering charm and delight about her," and the children, dancing +butterflies! And a few minutes later, "Hip, hip, hurrah!" followed by a +flourish on the piano. + +The manufacturer drank a toast with his wife. + +"Well, that's that!" was all he said. + +Mrs. Molie sat off in a corner talking in a loud voice with the Dane who +had come over the top of the Tore from the wrong end; she seemed purposely +to be talking so audibly. The manufacturer's attention was attracted, and +he asked for further information about the motor cars in the neighboring +valley: how many there were, and how fast they could go. The Dane told +him. + +"But just imagine coming across the fjeld from the other side!" said Mrs. +Molie. "It hasn't been done before." + +In response to the manufacturer's questions, the Dane told him about this +adventurous journey also. + +"Isn't there a blue peak somewhere in the mountains about here?" said Mrs. +Molie. "I suppose you'll be going up that next. Where ever will you stop?" + +Yes, the Dane felt quite tempted by this peak, but said he believed it was +unconquerable. + +"I should have climbed that peak long ago if you, Miss Torsen, hadn't +forbidden me," said the lawyer. + +"You'd never have made it," said Mrs. Molie in an indifferent tone. This +was probably her revenge. She turned to the Dane again as though ready to +believe him capable of anything. + +"I shouldn't want anyone to think of climbing that peak," said Miss +Torsen. "It's as bare as a ship's mast." + +"What if I tried it, Gerda?" the manufacturer asked his wife with a smile. +"After all, I'm an old sailor." + +"Nonsense," she said, smiling a little. + +"Well, I climbed the mast of a schooner last spring." + +"Where?" + +"In Iceland." + +"What for?" + +"I don't know, though--all this mountain climbing--I haven't much use for +it," said the manufacturer. + +"What did you do it for? What did you climb the mast for?" his wife +repeated nervously. + +The manufacturer laughed. + +"The curiosity of the female sex--!" + +"How can you do a thing like that! And what about me and the children if +you--" + +She broke off. Her husband grew serious and took her hand. + +"It was stormy, my dear; the sails were flapping, and it was a question of +life and death. But I shouldn't have told you. Well--we'd better say good +night now, Gerda." + +The manufacturer and his wife got up. + +Then the first man from Bergen made another speech. + + * * * * * + +The manufacturer stayed with us for the promised three days, and then made +ready to travel again. His mood never changed; he was contented and +entertaining the whole time. Every evening one whisky and soda was brought +him--no more. Before their bedtime, his little girls had a wildly +hilarious half-hour with him. At night a tremendous snoring could be heard +from his cottage. Before his arrival, the little girls had spent a good +deal of time with me, but now they no longer knew I existed, so taken up +with their father were they. He hung a swing for them between the two +rowan trees in the field, taking care to pack plenty of rag under the rope +so as not to injure the tree. + +He also had a talk with Paul; there were rumors that he was intending to +take his money out of the Tore Peak resort. Paul's head was bent now, but +he seemed even more hurt that the manufacturer should have paid a visit to +the cotters to see how they were getting on. + +"So that's where he's gone?" he said. "Well, let him stay there, for all I +care!" + +The manufacturer cracked jokes to the very end. Of course he was a little +depressed by the farewells, too, but he had to keep his family's courage +up. His wife stood holding one of his arms with both hands, and the +children clung to his other arm. + +"I can't salute you," the manufacturer said to us, smiling. "I'm not +allowed to say good-bye." + +The children rejoiced at this and cried, "No, he can't have his arm back; +Mummy, you hold him tight, too!" + +"Come, come!" the father said. "I've got to go to Scotland, just a short +trip. And when you come home from the mountains, I'll be there, too." + +"Scotland? What are you going to Scotland for?" the children asked. + +He twisted round and nodded to us. + +"These women! All curiosity!" he said. + +But none of his family laughed. + +He continued to us: + +"I was telling my wife a story about a rich man who was curious, too. He +shot himself just to find out what comes after death. Ha, ha, ha! That's +the height of curiosity, isn't it? Shooting yourself to find out what +comes after death!" + +But he could not make his family laugh at this tale, either. His wife +stood still; her face was beautiful. + +"So you're leaving now," was all she said. + +Mr. Brede's porter came out with his luggage; he had stayed at the farm +for these three days in order to be at hand. + +Then the manufacturer walked down through the field, accompanied by his +wife and children. + +I don't know--this man with his good humor and kindliness and money and +everything, fond of his children, all in all to his wife-- + +Was he really everything to his wife? + +The first evening he wasted time on a party, and every night he wasted +time in snoring. And so the three days and nights went by.... + + + + +XIX + + +It is very pleasant here at harvest time. Scythes are being sharpened in +the field, men and women are at work; they go thinly clad and bareheaded, +and call to one another and laugh; sometimes they drink from a bucket of +whey, then set to work again. There is the familiar fragrance of hay, +which penetrates my senses like a song of home, drawing me home, home, +though I am not abroad. But perhaps I am abroad after all, far away from +the soil where I have my roots. + +Why, indeed, do I stay here any longer, at a resort full of +schoolmistresses, with a host who has once more said farewell to sobriety? +Nothing is happening to me; I do not grow here. The others go out and lie +on their backs; I steal off and find relish in myself, and feel poetry +within me for the night. The world wants no, poetry; it wants only verses +that have not been sung before. + +And Norway wants no red-hot irons; only village smiths forge irons now, +for the needs of the mob and the honor of the country. + +No one came; the stream of tourists went up and down Stordalen and left +our little Reisa valley deserted. If only the Northern Railway could have +come to Reisa with Cook's and Bennett's tours--then Stordalen in its turn +would have lain deserted. Meanwhile, the cotters who are cultivating the +soil will probably go on harvesting half the crop of the outlying fields +for the rest of time. There is every reason to think so--unless our +descendants are more intelligent than we, and refuse to be smitten with +the demoralizing effects of the tourist traffic. + +Now, my friend, you mustn't believe me; this is the point where you must +shake your head. There is a professor scuttling about the country, a born +mediocrity with a little school knowledge about history; you had better +ask him. He'll give you just as much mediocre information, my friend, as +your vision can grasp and your brain endure. + + * * * * * + +Hardly had Manufacturer Brede left when Paul began to live a most +irregular life again. More and more all roads were closed to him; he saw +no way out and therefore preferred to make himself blind, which gave him +an excuse for not seeing. Seven of our permanent guests now left together: +the telephone operators, Tradesman Batt, Schoolmistresses Johnsen and +Palm, and two men who were in some sort of business, I don't quite know +what. This whole party went across the fjeld to Stordalen to be driven +about in cars. + +Cases of various kinds of foodstuffs arrived for Paul; they were carried +up one evening by a man from the village. He had to make several journeys +with the side of his cart let down, and bring the cases over the roughest +spots one by one. That was the kind of road it was. Josephine received the +consignment, and noticed that one of the cases gave forth the sound of a +liquid splashing inside. That had come to the wrong place, she said, and +writing another address on it, she told the man to take it back. It was +sirup that had come too late, she said; she had got sirup elsewhere in the +meantime. + +Later in the evening we heard them discussing it in the kitchen; the sirup +had not come too late, Paul said angrily. + +"And I've told you to clear these newspapers away!" he cried. We heard the +sound of paper and glass being swept to the floor. + +Well, things were not too easy for Paul; the days went by dull and empty, +nor had he any children to give him pleasant thoughts at times. Though he +wanted to build still more houses, he could not use half those he had +already. There was Mrs. Brede living alone with her children in one of +them, and since seven of the guests had left, Miss Torsen was also alone +in the south wing. Paul wanted at all costs to build roads and share in +the development of the tourist traffic; he even wanted to run a fleet of +motor cars. But since he had not the power to do this alone and could get +no assistance, nothing was left him but to resign himself. And now to make +matters worse Manufacturer Brede had said he would withdraw his money.... + +Paul's careworn face looked out of the kitchen door. Before going out +himself he wanted to make sure there was no one about, but he was +disappointed in this, for the lawyer at once greeted him loudly: "Good +evening, Paul!" and drew him outside. + +They strolled down the field in the dusk. + +Assuredly there is little to be gained by "having a good talk" with a man +about his drinking; such matters are too vital to be settled by talking. +But Paul seems to have admitted that the lawyer was right in all he said, +and probably left him with good resolutions. + +Paul went down to the village again. He was going to the post office; the +money he had from the seven departed guests would be scattered to all +quarters of the globe. And yet it was not enough to cover everything--in +fact not enough for anything, for interest, repayments, taxes, and +repairs. It paid only for a few cases of food from the city. And of course +he stopped the case of sirup from going back. + +Paul returned blind-drunk because he no longer wished to see. It was the +same thing all over again. But his brain seemed in its own way to go on +searching for a solution, and one day he asked the lawyer: + +"What do you call those square glass jars for keeping small fish in-- +goldfish?" + +"Do you mean an aquarium?" + +"That's it," said Paul. "Are they dear?" + +"I don't know. Why?" + +"I wonder if I could get one." + +"What do you want it for?" + +"Don't you think it might attract people to the place? Oh, well, perhaps +it wouldn't." + +And Paul withdrew. + +Madder than ever. Some people see flies. Paul saw goldfish. + + + + +XX + + +The lawyer is constantly in Miss Torsen's company; he even swings her in +the children's swing, and puts his arm around her to steady her when the +swing stops. Solem watches all this from the field where he is working, +and begins to sing a ribald song. Certainly these two have so ill-used him +that if he is going to sing improper songs in self-defense, this is the +time to do it; no one will gainsay that. So he sang his song very loud, +and then began to yodel. + +But Miss Torsen went on swinging, and the lawyer went on putting his arm +round her and stopping her.... + +It was a Saturday evening. I stood talking to the lawyer in the garden; he +didn't like the place, and wanted to leave, but Miss Torsen would not go +with him, and going alone was such a bore. He did not conceal that the +young woman meant something to him. + +Solem approached, and lifted his cap in greeting. Then he looked round +quickly and began to talk to the lawyer--politely, as became his position +of a servant: + +"The Danish gentleman is going to climb the peak tomorrow. I'm to take a +rope and go with him." + +The lawyer was startled. + +"Is he--?" + +The blankness of the lawyer's face was a remarkable sight. His small, +athletic brain failed him. A moment passed in silence. + +"Yes, early tomorrow morning," said Solem. "I thought I'd tell you. +Because after all it was your idea first." + +"Yes, so it was," said the lawyer. "You're quite right. But now he'll be +ahead of me." + +Solem knew how to get round that. + +"No, I didn't promise to go," he said. "I told him I had to go to the +village tomorrow." + +"But we can't deceive him. I don't want to do that." + +"Pity," said Solem. "Everybody says the first one to climb the Blue Peak +will be in all the papers." + +"He'll take offense," the lawyer murmured, considering the matter. + +But Solem urged him on: + +"I don't think so. Anyhow, you were the first one to talk about it." + +"Everybody here will know, and I'll be prevented," said the lawyer. + +"We can go at dawn," said Solem. + +In the end they came to an agreement. + +"You won't tell anyone?" the lawyer said to me. + + * * * * * + +The lawyer was missed in the course of the morning; he was not in his +room, and not in the garden. + +"Perhaps the Danish mountaineer can tell us where he is," I said. But it +transpired that the Dane had not even thought of climbing the Blue Peak +that day, and knew nothing whatever about the expedition. + +This surprised me greatly. + +I looked at the clock; it was eleven. I had been watching the peak through +my field glasses from the moment I got up, but there was nothing to be +seen. It was five hours since the two men had left. + +At half-past eleven Solem came running back; he was drenched in sweat and +exhausted. + +"Come and help us!" he called excitedly to the group of guests. + +"What's happened?" somebody asked. + +"He fell off." + +How tired Solem was and drenched to the skin! But what could we do? Rush +up the mountainside and look at the accident too? + +"Can't he walk?" somebody asked. + +"No, he's dead," said Solem, looking from one to another of us as though +to read in our faces whether his message seemed credible. "He fell off; he +didn't want me to help him." + +A few more questions and answers. Josephine was already halfway across the +field; she was going to the village to telephone for the doctor. + +"We shall have to get him down," said the Danish mountaineer. + +So he and I improvised a stretcher; Solem was instructed to take brandy +and bandages to the site of the accident, and the Bergensians, the +Associate Master, Miss Torsen, and Mrs. Molie went with him. + +"Did you really say nothing to Solem about climbing the peak today?" I +asked the Dane. + +"No," he replied. "I never said a word about it. If I had meant to go, I +should certainly not have wanted company...." + +Later that afternoon we returned with the lawyer on the stretcher. Solem +kept explaining all the way home how the accident had happened, what he +had said and what the lawyer had said, pointing to objects on the way as +though this stone represented the lawyer and that the abyss into which he +had plunged.... Solem still carried the rope he had not had a chance to +use. Miss Torsen asked no more than anyone else, and made purely +conventional comments: "I advised him against it, I begged him not to +go...." + +But however much we talked, we could not bring the lawyer back to life. +Strange--his watch was still going, but he himself was dead. The doctor +could do nothing here, and returned to his village. + +There followed a depressing evening. Solem went to the village to send a +telegram to the lawyer's family, and the rest of us did what we thought +decent under the circumstances: we all sat in the living room with books +in our hands. Now and again, some reference would be made to the accident: +it was a reminder, we said, how small we mortals were! And the Associate +Master, who had not the soul of a tourist, greatly feared that this +disaster would injure the resort and make things still more difficult for +Paul; people would shun a place where they were likely to fall off and be +killed. + +No, the Associate Master was no tourist, and did not understand the +Anglo-Saxon mind. + +Paul himself seemed to sense that the accident might benefit him rather +than do him harm. He brought out a bottle of brandy to console us on this +mournful evening. + +And since it was a death to which we owed this attention, one of the men +from Bergen made a speech. + + + + +XXI + + +The accident became widely known. Newspapermen came from the city, and +Solem had to pilot them up the mountain and show them the spot where it +had taken place. If the body had not been removed at once, they would have +written about that, too. + +Children and ignoramuses might be inclined to think it foolish that Solem +should be taken from the work in the fields at harvest time, but must not +the business of the tourist resort go before all else? + +"Solem, tourists!" someone called to him. And Solem left his work. A flock +of reporters surrounded him, asked him questions, made him take them to +the mountains, to the river. A phrase was coined at the farm for Solem's +absences: + +"Solem's with death." + +But Solem was by no means with death; on the contrary, he was in the very +midst of life, enjoying himself, thriving. Once again he was an important +personage, listened to by strangers, doling out information. Nor did his +audience now consist of ladies only--indeed, no; this was something new, a +change; these were keen, alert gentlemen from the city. + +To me, Solem said: + +"Funny the accident should have happened just when the scratch on my nail +has grown out, isn't it?" + +He showed me his thumbnail; there was no mark on it. + +The newspaper reporters wrote articles and sent telegrams, not only about +the Blue Peak and the dreadful death, but about the locality, and about +the Tore Peak resort, that haven for the weary, with its wonderful +buildings set like jewels in the mountains. What a surprise to come here: +gargoyles, living room, piano, all the latest books, timber outside ready +for new jewels in their setting, altogether a magnificent picture of +Norway's modern farming. + +Yes, indeed, the newspapermen appreciated it. And they did their +advertising. + +The English arrived. + +"Where is Solem?" they asked, and "Where is the Blue Peak?" they asked. + +"We ought to get the hay in," said Josephine and the wife at the farm. +"There'll be rain, and fifty cartloads are still out!" + +That was all very well, but "Where is Solem?" asked the English. So Solem +had to go with them. The two casual laborers began to cart away the hay, +but then the women had no one to help them rake. Confusion was rife. +Everyone rushed wildly hither and thither because there was no one to lead +them. + +The weather stayed fine overnight; it was patient, slow-moving weather. As +soon as the dew dried up, more hay would be brought in, perhaps all the +hay. Oh, we should manage all right. + +More English appeared; and "Solem--the Blue Peak?" they said. Their +perverse, sportsmen's brains tingled and thrilled; they had successfully +eluded all the resorts on the way, and arrived here without being caught. +There was the Blue Peak, like a mast against the sky! They hurried up so +fast that Solem was hardly able to keep pace with them. They would have +felt for ever disgraced if they had neglected to stand on this admirable +site of a disaster, this most excellent abyss. Some said it would be a +lifelong source of regret to them if they did not climb the Blue Peak +forthwith; others had no desire but to gloat over the lawyer's death fall, +and to shout down the abyss, gaping at the echo, and advancing so far out +on the ledge that they stood with their toes on death. + +But it's an ill wind that blows good to none, and the resort earned a +great deal of money. Paul began to revive again, and the furrows in his +face were smoothed out. A man of worth grows strong and active with good +fortune; in adversity he is defiant. One who is not defiant in adversity +is worth nothing; let him be destroyed! Paul stopped drinking; he even +began to take an interest in the harvesting, and worked in the field in +Solem's place. If only he had begun when the weather was still slow and +patient! + +But at least Paul began to tackle things in the right spirit again; he +only regretted that he had set aside for the cotters those outlying fields +from which they were used to getting half the hay; this year he would have +liked to keep it himself. But he had given his word, and there was nothing +to be done about it. + +Besides, it was raining now. Haymaking had to stop; they could not even +stack what had already been gathered. Outside, three cartloads of fodder +were going to waste. + + * * * * * + +Before long the novelty of the Tore Peak resort wore off again. The +newspapermen wrote and sent telegrams about other gratifying misfortunes, +the death on the Blue Peak having lost its news value. It had been an +intoxication; now came the morning after. + +The Danish mountaineer quite simply deserted. He strapped on his knapsack +and walked across the field like one of the villagers, caring no more for +the Blue Peak. The commotion he had witnessed in the last week had taught +him a lesson. + +And the tourists swarmed on to other places. + +"What harm have I done them," Paul probably +thought, "that they should be going again? Have I been +too much in the fields and too little with them? But I +greeted them humbly and took my man out of the +harvesting work to help them...." + +Then two young men arrived, sprouts off the Norwegian tree, sportsmen to +their finger tips, who talked of nothing but sailing, cycling, and +football; they were going to be civil engineers--the young Norway. They, +too, wanted to see the Blue Peak to the best of their ability; after all, +one must keep pace with modern life. But they were so young that when they +looked up at the peak, they were afraid. Solem had learned more than one +trick in tourist company; craftily he led them on, and then extorted money +from them in return for a promise not to expose their foolishness. So all +was well; the young sprouts came down the mountain again, bragging and +showing off their sportsmanship. One of them brought down a bloodstained +rag which he flung on the ground, saying, + +"There's what's left of your lawyer that fell off." + +"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other sprout. + +Yes, truly, they had acquired dashing ways among their sporting +acquaintances. + +It rained for three weeks; then came two fine days, and then rain again +for a fortnight. The sun was not to be seen, the sky was invisible, the +mountain tops had disappeared; we saw nothing but rain. The roofs at the +Tore Peak resort began to leak more and more. + +The hay that still lay spread on the ground was black and rotting, and the +stacks had gone moldy. + +The cotters had got their hay indoors during the patient spell. They had +carried it, man, woman, and child, on their backs. + +The men from Bergen and Mrs. Brede with her children have left for home. +The little girls curtsied and thanked me for taking them walking in the +hills and telling them stories. The house is empty now. Associate Master +Hoey and Mrs. Molie were the last to go; they left last week, traveling +separately, though both were going to the same small town. + +He went by way of the village--a very roundabout route--while she crossed +the field. It is very quiet now, but Miss Torsen is still here. + +Why do I not leave? Don't know. Why ask? I'm here. Have you ever heard +anyone ask: "How much is a northern light?" Hold your tongue. + +Where should I go if I did leave? Do you imagine I want to go to the town +again? Or do you think I'm longing for my old hut and the winter, and +Madame? I'm not longing for any specific place; I am simply longing. + +Of course I ought to be old enough to understand what all sensible +Norwegians know, that our country is once more on the right road. The +papers are all writing about the splendid progress the tourist traffic has +made in Stordalen since the motor road was opened--ought I not to go there +and feel gratified? + +From old habit, I still take an interest in the few of us who are left; +Miss Torsen is still here. + +Miss Torsen--what more is there to be said about her? Well, she does not +leave; she stays here to complete the picture of the woman Torsen, child +of the middle class who has read schoolbooks all through her formative +years, who has learned all about _Artemis cotula_, but undernourished +her soul. That is what she is doing here. + +I remember a few weeks ago, when we were infested with Englishmen, a young +sprout coming down from the mountain top with a bloodstained rag which he +threw on the ground, saying, "Here's what's left of your lawyer that fell +off!" Miss Torsen heard it, and never moved a muscle. No, she never +mourned the death of the lawyer very keenly; on the contrary, she wrote +off at once to ask another friend to come. When he came, he turned out to +be a swaggering scatterbrain--a "free lance," he called himself in the +visitors' book. I have not mentioned him before because he was less +important than she; less important, in fact, than any of us. He was +beardless and wore his collar open; heaven knows if he wasn't employed at +a theater or in the films. Miss Torsen went to meet him when he came, and +said, "Welcome to our mountains," and "Thanks for coming." So evidently +she had sent for him. But why did she not leave? Why did she seem to +strike root in the place, and even ask others to come here? Yet she had +been the first to want to leave last summer! There was something behind +this. + + + + +XXII + + +I muse on all this, and understand that her staying here is somehow +connected with her carnal desires, with the fact that Solem is still here. +How muddled it all is, and how this handsome girl has been spoiled! I saw +her not long ago, tall and proud, upright, untouched, walking +intentionally close to Solem, yet not replying to his greeting. Did she +suspect him of complicity in the death of the lawyer and avoid him for +that reason? Not in the least; she avoided him less than before, even +letting him take her letters to the post office, which she had not done +previously. But she was unbalanced, a poor thing that had lost her +bearings. Whenever she could, she secretly defiled herself with pitch, +with dung; she sniffed at foulness and was not repelled. + +One day, when Solem swore a needlessly strong oath at a horse that was +restless, she looked at him, shivered, and went a deep red. But she +mastered herself at once, and asked Josephine: + +"Isn't that man leaving soon?" + +"Yes," Josephine replied, "in a few days." + +Though she had seized this opportunity to ask her question with a great +show of indifference, I am certain it was an important one to her. She +went away in silence. + +Yes, Miss Torsen stayed, for she was sexually bound to Solem. Solem's +despair, Solem's rough passion that she herself had inflamed, his +brutality, his masculinity, his greedy hands, his looks--she sniffed at +all this and was excited by it. She had grown so unnatural that her sexual +needs were satisfied by keeping this man at a distance. The Torsen type no +doubt lies in her solitary bed at night, reveling in the sensation that in +another house a man lies writhing for her. + +But her friend, the actor? He was in no sense the other's equal. There was +nothing of the bull in him, nothing of action, only the braggadocio of the +theater.... + + * * * * * + +Here am I, growing small and petty with this life. I question Solem about +the accident. We are alone together in the woodshed. + +Why had he lied and said the Dane wanted to climb the Blue Peak that +unfortunate Sunday morning? + +Solem looked at me, pretending not to understand. + +I repeated my question. + +Solem denied he had said any such thing. + +"I heard you," I said. + +"No, you didn't," he said. + +A pause. + +Suddenly he dropped to the floor of the shed, convulsed, without shape, an +outline merely; a few minutes passed before he got up again. When he was +on his feet once more, pulling his clothes to rights, we looked at each +other. I had no wish to speak to him further, and left him. Besides, he +was going away soon. + +After this, everything was dull and empty again. I went out alone, aping +myself and shouting: "Bricks for the palace! The calf is much stronger +today!" And when this was done, I did other nothings, and when my money +began to run out, I wrote to my publisher, pretending I would soon send +him an unbelievably remarkable manuscript. In short, I behaved like a man +in love. These were the typical symptoms. + +And to take the bull by the horns: no doubt you suspect me of dwelling on +the subject of Miss Torsen out of self-interest? In that case I must have +concealed well in these pages that I never think of her except as an +object, as a theme; turn back the pages and you will see! At my age, one +does not fall in love without becoming grotesque, without making even the +Pharaohs laugh. + + * * * * * + +_Finis._ + +But there is one thing I cannot finish doing, and that is withdrawing to +my room, and sitting alone with the good darkness round me. This, after +all, is the last pleasure. + +An interlude: + +Miss Torsen and her actor are walking this way; I hear their footsteps and +their voices; but since I am sitting in the dark of the evening, I cannot +see them. They stop outside my open window, leaning against it, and the +actor says something, asks her to do something she does not want to do, +tries to draw her with him; but she resists. + +Then he grows angry. + +"What the devil did you send for me for?" he asks roughly. + +And she begins to weep and says: + +"So that's all you've come for! Oh, oh! But I'm not like that at all. Why +can't you leave me alone? I'm not hurting you." + +Am I one who understands women? Self-deception. Vain boasting. I made my +presence known then because her weeping sounded so wretched; I moved a +chair and cleared my throat. + +The sound caught his attention at once, and he hushed her, trying to +listen; but she said: + +"No, it was nothing...." + +But she knew very well this was not true; she knew what the sound was. It +was not the first time Miss Torsen used this trick with me; she had often +pretended that she thought I was not within hearing, and then created some +such delicate situation. Each time I had promised myself not to intervene; +but she had not wept before; now she wept. + +Why did she use these wiles? To clear herself in my eyes--mine, the eyes +of a settled man--to make me believe how good she was, how well-behaved! +But, dear child, I knew that before; I could see it from your hands! You +are so unnatural that in your seven and twentieth year, you walk +unmarried, barren and unopen! + +The pair drifted away. + +And there is something else I cannot finish doing: withdrawing into +solitude in the woods, alone with the good darkness round me. This is the +last pleasure. + +One needs solitude and darkness, not because one flees the company of +others and can endure only one's own, but because of their quality of +loftiness and religion. Strange how all things pass distantly, yet all is +near; we sit in an omnipresence. It must be God. It must be ourselves as a +part of all things. + + What would my heart, where would I stray? + Shall I leave the forest behind me? + It was my home but yesterday; + now toward the city I wend my way; + to the darkness of night I've resigned me. + + The world round me sleeps as I tarry, alone, + soothing my ear with its quiet. + How large and gray is the city of stone + in which the many all hopes enthrone! + Shall I, too, accept their fiat? + + Hark! Do the bells ring on the hillside? + + Back to the peace of the forest I turn + in the nightly hour that's hoarest. + There's a sweet-smelling hedgerow to which I yearn; + I shall rest my head on heather and fern, + and sleep in the depths of the forest. + + Hark, how the bells ring on the hillside! + +Romantic? Yes. Mere sentimentality, mood, rhyme--nothing? Yes. + +It is the last happiness. + + + + +XXIII + + +The sun has returned. Not darkly glowing and regal--more than that: +imperial, because it is flaming. This you do not understand, my friend, +whatever the language in which it is dished up for you. But I say there is +an imperial sun in the sky. + +It's a good day for going to the woods; it is sweeping time, for the woods +are full of yellow things that have come suddenly into being. A short time +ago they were not there, or I did not see them, or they had the earth's +own complexion. There is something unborn about them, like embryos in an +early stage. But if I whirl them about, they are miracles of fulfillment. + +Here are fungi of every sort, mushrooms and puffballs. How close is the +poisonous mushroom to the happy family of the edible mushroom, and how +innocently it stands there! Yet it is deadly. What magnificent cunning! A +spurious fruit, a criminal, habitual vice itself, but preening in splendor +and brilliance, a very cardinal of fungi. I break off a morsel to chew; it +is good and soft on the tongue, but I am a coward and spit it out again. +Was it not the poisonous mushroom that drove men berserker? But in the +dawn of our own day, we die of a hair in the throat. + +The sun is already setting. Far up the mountainside are the cattle, but +they are moving homeward now; I can hear by their bells that they are +moving. Tinkling bells and deep-mouthed bells, sometimes sounding together +as though there were a meaning in it, a pattern of tones, a rapture. + +And rapture, too, to see all the blades of grass and the tiny flowers and +plants. Beside me where I lie is a small pod plant, wonderfully meek, with +tiny seeds pushing out of the pod--God bless it, it's becoming a mother! +It has got caught in a dry twig and I liberate it. Life quivers within it; +the sun has warmed it today and called it to its destiny. A tiny, gigantic +miracle. + +Now it is sunset, and the woods bend under a rustling that passes +through them sweet and heavy; it is the evening. + +I lie for another hour or two; the birds have long since gone to rest, and +darkness falls thick and soft.... As I walk homeward, my feet feel their +way and I hold my hands before me till I reach the field, where it is a +little lighter. I walk on the hay that has been left outdoors; it is tough +and black, and I slip on it because it is already rotting. As I approach +the houses, bats fly noiselessly past me, as though on wings of foam. A +slight shudder convulses me whenever they pass. + +Suddenly I stop. + +A man is walking here. I can see him against the wall of the new house. He +has on a coat that looks like the actor's raincoat, but it is not the +little comedian himself. There he goes, into the house, right into the +house. It is Solem. + +"Why, that's where she sleeps!" I think. "Ah, well. Alone in the building, +in the south wing, Miss Torsen alone--yes, quite alone. And Solem has just +gone in." + +I stand there waiting to be at hand, to rush in to the rescue, for after +all I am a human being, not a brute. Several minutes pass. He has not even +bothered to be very quiet, for I hear him clicking the key in the lock. +Surely I ought to hear a cry now? I hear nothing, nothing; a chair +scraping across the floor, that is all. + +"But good heavens, he may do her some harm! He may injure her; he may +overpower her with rape! Ought I not to tap on the window? I--what for? +But at the very first cry, I shall be on the spot, take my word for it." + +Not a single cry. + +The hours pass; I have settled down to wait. Of course I cannot go my way +and desert a helpless woman. But the hours wear on. A very thorough +business in there, nothing niggardly about this; it is almost dawn. It +occurs to me that he may be killing her, perhaps has killed her already; I +am alarmed and about to get up--when the key clicks in the lock again and +Solem emerges. He does not run, but walks back the way he came, down to +the veranda of my own house. There he hangs the actor's raincoat where it +hung before, and emerges again. But this time he is naked. He has been +naked under the coat all this time. Is it possible? Why not? No +inhibitions, no restraint, no covering; Solem has thought it all out. Now, +stark naked, he stalks to his room. + +What a man! + +I sit thinking and collecting myself and regaining my wits. What has +happened? The south wing is still wrapped in silence, but the lady is not +dead; I can see that from Solem's fearless manner as he goes to his room, +lights the lamp, and goes to bed. + +It relieves me to know she is alive, revives me, and makes me +superlatively brave: if he has dared to kill her, I will report it at +once. I shall not spare him. I shall accuse him of both her death and the +lawyer's. I shall go further: I shall accuse others--the thief of last +winter, the man that stole the sides of bacon from a tradesman and sold me +rolls of tobacco out of his bag. No, I shall not keep silence about +anything then.... + + + + +XXIV + + +When it grew light, Solem went to the kitchen, had his breakfast, settled +his business with Paul and the women, and returned to his room. He was in +no hurry; though it was no longer early in the day, he took his time about +tying his bundles, preparatory to leaving. Lingeringly he looked into the +windows of the south wing as he passed. + +Then Solem was gone. + +A little later Miss Torsen came in to breakfast. She asked at once about +Solem. And why might she be so interested in Solem? She had certainly +stopped in her room intentionally so as to give him time to leave; if she +wanted to see him she could have been here long ago. But was it not safest +to seem a little angry? Supposing, night owl that I was, that I had seen +something! + +"Where is Solem?" she asked indignantly. + +"Solem has gone now," Josephine replied. + +"Lucky for him!" + +"Why?" asked Josephine. + +"Oh, he's a dreadful creature!" + +How agitated she was! But in the course of the day she calmed down. Her +anger dissolved, and there was neither weeping nor a scene; only she did +not walk proudly, as was her habit, but preferred to sit in silence. + +That passed too; she roused herself briskly soon after Solem's departure, +and in a few days she was the same as ever. She took walks, she talked and +laughed with us, she made the actor swing her in the children's swing, as +in the lawyer's day.... + +I went out one evening, for there was good weather and darkness for +walking; there was neither a moon nor stars. The gentle ripple of the +little Reisa river was all the sound I heard; there were God and Goethe +and _ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh'_ that night. On my return, I was in +the mood to walk softly and on tiptoe, so I undressed and went to bed in +the dark. + +Then they came again to my window, those two lunatics, the lady and the +actor. What next? But it was not he that chose this spot; of that I was +sure. She chose it because she was convinced I had returned. There was +something she _wanted_ me to hear. + +Why should I listen to him still pleading with her? + +"I've had enough of this," he said. "I'm leaving tomorrow." + +"Oh, well...." she said. "No, let's not tonight," she added suddenly; +"some other time. Yes? In a few days? We'll talk about it tomorrow. Good +night." + +For the first time it struck me: she wants to rouse you, too, settled man +though you are; she wants to make you as mad as the others! That's what +she's after! + +And now I remember, before the lawyer arrived, when there was Tradesman +Batt--I remember how during his first few days here, she would give me a +kind word or a look that was quite out of the picture, and as unmistakable +as her pride would permit. No, she had no objections to seeing old age +wriggle. And listen to this: before this she had been intent to show a +well-behaved indifference to sex, but that was finished; was she not at +this moment resisting only faintly, and raising definite hopes? "Not +tonight, but some other time," she had said. Yes, a half-refusal, a mere +postponement, that I was meant to hear. She was corrupt, but she was also +cunning, with the cunning of a madman. So corrupt. + +Dear child, Pharaoh laughs before his pyramids; standing before his +pyramids he laughs. He would laugh at me, too. + + * * * * * + +Next day we three remaining guests were sitting in the living room. The +lady and the actor read one book; I read another. + +"Will you," she says to him, "do me a great favor?" + +"With pleasure." + +"Would you go out in the grounds where we sat yesterday and fetch my +galoshes?" + +So he went out to do her this great favor. He sang a well-known popular +song as he crossed the yard, cheerful in his own peculiar way. + +She turned to me. + +"You seem silent." + +"Do I?" + +"Yes, you're very silent." + +"Listen to this," I said, and began to read to her from the book I held in +my hands. I read a longish bit. + +She tried to interrupt me several times, and at length said impatiently: + +"What is this you want me to listen to?" + +"The _Musketeers_. You must admit it's entertaining." + +"I've read it," she said. And then she began to clasp her hands and drag +them apart again. + +"Then you must hear something you haven't read before," I replied, and +went across to my room to fetch a few pages I had written. They were only +a few poems--nothing special, just a few small verses. Not that I am in +the habit of reading such things aloud, but I seized on this for the +moment because I wanted to prevent her from humbling herself, and telling +me anything more. + +While I was reading the poems to her, the actor returned. + +"I couldn't find any galoshes there," he said. + +"No?" she replied absently. + +"No, I really looked everywhere, but...." + +She got up and left the room. + +He looked after her in some surprise, and sat still for a moment. Then it +occurred to him. + +"I believe her galoshes are in the passage outside her door," he said, and +hurried after her. + +I sat back, thinking it over. There had been a sweetness in her face as +she said, "Yes, you're very silent." Had she seen through me and my +pretext for reading to her? Of course she had. She was no fool. I was the +fool, nobody else. I should have driven a sportsman to despair. Some +practice the sport of making conquests and the sport of making love, +because they find it so agreeable; I have never practiced sport of any +kind. I have loved and raged and suffered and stormed according to my +nature--that is all; I am an old-fashioned man. And here I sit in the +shadow of evening, the shadow of the half-century. Let me have done! + +The actor returned to the living room confused and dejected. She had +turned him out; she had wept. + +I was not surprised, for it was the mode of expression of her type. + +"Have you ever heard the like of it? She told me to get out! I shall leave +tomorrow." + +"Have you found the galoshes?" I asked. + +"Of course," he replied. "They were right in the passage. 'Here they are,' +I said to her. 'Yes, yes,' she said. 'Right under your nose,' I said. +'Yes, yes, go away,' she said, and began to cry. So I went away." + +"She'll get over it." + +"Do you think so? Yes, I expect she will. Oh, well, it's my opinion nobody +can understand women, anyhow. But they're a mighty sex, the women, a +mighty sex. They certainly are." + +He sat on a while, but he had no peace of mind, and soon went out again. + + * * * * * + +That evening the lady was in the dining room before us; she was there when +we came in, and we all nodded slightly in greeting. To the actor she was +very kind, quite making up for her petulance of the afternoon. + +When he sat down he found a letter in his table napkin: a written note +folded into the napkin. He was so surprised that he dropped everything he +was doing to unfold and read it. With an exclamation and a smile, his +blue, delighted eyes splashed over her; but she was looking down into her +lap with her forehead wrinkled, so he put the note away in his vest +pocket. + +Then it probably dawned on him that he had betrayed her, and he tried to +cover it up somehow. + +"Well, here goes for food!" he said, as though he were going to require +all his energy for the task of eating. + +Why had she written? There was nothing to prevent her speaking to him. He +had, after all, been sitting on the doorstep when she emerged from her +room and passed him. Had she foreseen that the good comedian could not +contain himself, but would surely let a third person into the secret? + +Why probe or question further? The actor did not eat much, but he looked +very happy. So the note must have said yes, must have been a promise; +perhaps she would not tantalize him further. + + + + +XXV + + +A few days later, they were going to leave. They would travel together, +and that would be the end. + +I might have pitied them both, for though life is good, life is stern. One +result at any rate was accomplished. She had not sent for him in vain, nor +had he come in vain. + +That was the end of the act. But there were more acts to come--many more. + +She had lost much: having been ravished, she gave herself away; why be +niggardly now? And this is the destiny of her type, that they lose +increasingly much, retaining ever less; what need to hold back now? The +ground has been completely shifted: from half-measures to the immolation +of all virtue. The type is well-known, and can be found at resorts and +boarding-houses, where it grows and flourishes. + +In spite of her wasted adolescence, her examination and her +"independence," she has been coming home from her office stool or her +teacher's desk more or less exhausted; suddenly she finds herself in the +midst of a sweet and unlimited idleness, with quantities of tinned food +for her meals. The company round her is continually changing, tourists +come and go, and she passes from hand to hand for walks and talks; the +tone is "country informality." This is sheer loose living; this is a life +stripped of all purpose. She does not even sleep enough because she hears +through the thin wall every sound made by her neighbor in the next room, +while arriving or departing Englishmen bang doors all night. In a short +time she has become a neurotic, sated with company, surfeited with herself +and the place. She is ready to go off with the next halfway respectable +organ grinder that happens along. And so she pairs off with the most +casual visitors, flirts with the guide, hovering about him and making +bandages for his fingers, and at last throws herself into the arms of a +nameless nobody who has arrived at the house today. + +This is the Torsen type. + +And now, at this very moment, she retires to her room to collect the +fragments of herself, in preparation for her departure--at the end of the +summer. It takes time; there are so many fragments, one in every corner. +But perhaps it consoles her to think that she knows the genitive of +_mensa_. + +Things are not quite so bad for the actor. He has staked nothing, is +committed to nothing. No part of his life is destroyed, nor anything +within him. As he came, so he goes, cheerful, empty, nice. In fact he is +even something more of a man because he has really made a conquest. He has +no wish but to spend some pleasant hours with the Torsen type. + +He strolled about the garden waiting for her to get ready. Once she was +visible through the doorway, and he called to her: + +"Aren't you coming soon? Don't forget we've got to cross the mountain!" + +"Well, I can't go bareheaded," she replied. + +He was impatient. + +"No, you've got to put your hat on, and what a lot of time that takes! +Ugh!" + +She measured him coldly and said: + +"You're very--familiar." + +If he had paid her back in the same coin there would have been weeping and +gnashing of teeth and cries of "Go away! Go alone!" and an hour's delay, +and reconciliation and embraces. But the actor's manner changed at once, +and he replied docilely, as his nature was, + +"Familiar? Well--perhaps. Sorry!" + +Then he strolled about the garden again, humming occasionally and swinging +his stick. I took note of the oddly feminine shape of his knees, and the +unusual plumpness of his thighs; there was something unnatural about this +plumpness, as though it did not belong to his sex. + +His shoes were down at the heel, and his collar was open. His raincoat +hung regally from his shoulders and flapped in the wind, though it was not +raining. He was a proud and comical sight. But why speak harsh words about +a raincoat? It was not he, the owner, that had abused it, and it hung from +his shoulders as innocently as a bridal veil. + +Why speak harsh words about anyone? Life is good, but life is stern. +Perhaps when she comes out, I think to myself, the following scene will +take place: I stand here waiting only for this departure. So she gives me +her hand and says good-bye. + +"Why don't you say something?" she asks in order to seem bright and easy +in her mind. + +"Because I don't want to hurt you in the great error of your ways." + +"Ha, ha, ha," she laughs, too loudly and in a forced tone; "the great +error of my ways! Well, really!" + +And her anger grows, while I am assured and fatherly, standing on the firm +ground of conscious virtue. Yet I say an unworthy thing like this: + +"Don't throw yourself away, Miss Torsen!" + +She raises her head then; yes, the Torsen type would raise her head and +reply, pale and offended: + +"Throw myself away?--I don't understand you." + +But it is possible, too, that Miss Torsen, at heart a fine, proud girl, +would have a lucid moment and see things in their true light: + +"Why not, why shouldn't I throw myself away? What is there to keep? I am +thrown away, wasted ever since my school days, and now I am seven and +twenty...." + +My own thoughts run away with me as I stand there wishing I were somewhere +else. Perhaps she, too, in her room wishes me far away. + +"Good-bye," I say to the actor. "Will you remember me to Miss Torsen? I +must go now." + +"Good-bye," says he, shaking hands in some surprise. "Can't you wait a few +minutes? Well, all right, I'll give her your greeting. Good-bye, +good-bye." + +I take a short cut to get out of the way, and as I know every nook and +corner, I am soon outside the farm, and find a good shelter. From here I +shall see when these two leave. She has only to say good-bye now to the +people of the farm. + +It struck me that yesterday was the last time I spoke to her. We spoke +only a few insignificant words that I have forgotten, and today I have not +spoken to her.... + +Here they come. + +Curious--they seemed somehow to have become welded together; though they +walked separately up the mountain track, yet they belonged together. They +did not speak; the essential things had probably already been said. Life +had grown ordinary for them; it still remained to them to be of use to +each other. He walked first, while she followed many paces behind; it was +lonely to look at against the rugged background of the mountain. Where had +her tall figure gone to? She seemed to have grown shorter because she had +hitched up her skirt and was carrying her knapsack on her back. They each +carried one, but he carried hers and she his, probably because, owing to +the greater number of her clothes, hers was the heavier sack. Thus had +they shifted their burdens; what burdens would they carry in the future? +She was, after all, no longer a schoolmistress, and perhaps he was no +longer with the theater or the films. + +I watched those two crossing rocky, mountainous ground, bare ground, with +not a tree anywhere except a few stunted junipers; far away near the ridge +murmured the little Reisa. Those two had put their possessions together, +were walking together; at the next halt they would be man and wife, and +take only one room because it was cheaper. + +Suddenly I started up and, moved by some impulse of human sympathy--nay, +of duty--I wanted to run across to her, talk to her, say a word of +warning: "Don't go on!" I could have done it in a few minutes--a good +deed, a duty.... + +They disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill. + +Her name was Ingeborg. + + + + +XXVI + + +And now I, too, must wander on again, for I am the last at the Tore Peak +farm. The season is wearing on, and this morning it snowed for the first +time--wet, sad snow. + +It is very quiet at the farm now, and Josephine might have played the +piano again and been friendly to the last guest; but now I am leaving, +too. Besides, Josephine has little to play and be cheerful for; things +have gone badly this year, and may grow worse as time goes on. The +prospect is not a good one. "But something will turn up," says Josephine. +She need not worry, for she has money in the bank, and no doubt there is a +young man in the offing, on the other side of the fjeld. + +Oh, yes, Josephine will always manage; she thinks of everything. The other +day, for instance--when Miss Torsen and her friend left. The friend could +not pay his bill, and all he said was that he had expected money, but it +hadn't come, and he couldn't stay any longer because of his private +affairs. That was all very well, but when would the bill be paid? Why, he +would send it from the town, of course; that was where he had his money! + +"But how do we know we'll get the money?--from him, anyway," said +Josephine. "We've had these actor-people here before. And I didn't like +the way he swanked about outside, thinking he was as good as anybody, and +throwing his stick up in the air and catching it again. And then when Miss +Torsen came in to say good-bye, I told her, and I wondered if she couldn't +let me have the money for him. Miss Torsen was shocked, and said, 'Hasn't +he paid himself?' 'No,' I said, 'he hasn't, and this year being such a bad +one, we need every penny.' So then Miss Torsen said of course we should +get the money; how much was it? And I told her, and she said she couldn't +pay for him now, but she would see the money was sent; we could trust her +for that. And I think we can, too. We'll get the money all right, if not +from him. I daresay she'll send it herself...." + +And Josephine went off to serve me my dinner. + +Paul is on his feet now, too. Not that his step is always very steady, but +at least he puts his feet to the ground. But he takes no interest in +things; he does little more than feeding the horses and chopping some +wood. He ought to be clearing the manure out of the summer cow houses for +autumn use, but he keeps putting it off, and probably it will not be done +at all. So far it hasn't mattered, but this morning's first wet snow has +covered the hay outdoors and the maltreated land. And so it will remain +till next spring. Poor Paul! He is an easygoing man at heart, but he +pushes doggedly on against a whirlwind; sometimes he smiles to himself, +knowing how useless it is to struggle--a distorted smile. + +His father, the old man alone in his room, stands sometimes on his +threshold, as he used to do, and reflects. He is lost in memories, for he +has ninety years behind him. The many houses on the farm confuse him a +little; the roofs are all too big for him, and he is afraid they might +come down and carry him off. Once he asked Josephine if it was right that +his hands and fingers should run away from him every day across the +fields. So they put mittens on his hands, but he took to chewing them; in +fact he ate everything he was given, and enjoyed a good digestion. So they +must be thankful he had his health, Josephine said, and could be up and +about. + + * * * * * + +I did not follow the others across the field, but returned the way I had +come last spring, down toward the woods and the sea. It is fitting that I +should go back, always back, never forward again. + +I passed the hut where Solem and I had lived together, and then the +Lapps--the two old people and Olga, this strange cross between a human +being and a dwarf birch. A stove stood against the peat wall, and a +paraffin lamp hung from the roof of their stone-age dwelling. Olga was +kind and helpful, but she looked tiny and pathetic, like a ruffled hen; it +pained me to watch her flit about the room, tiny and crooked, as she +looked for a pair of reindeer cheeses for me. + +Then I reached my own hut of last winter where I had passed so many lonely +months. I did not enter it. + +Or rather, I did enter it, for I had to spend the night there. But I shall +skip this, so for the sake of brevity, I call it not entering. This +morning I wrote something playful about Madame, the mouse I left here last +spring; but tonight I am taking it out again because I am no longer in the +mood, and because there is no point in it. Perhaps it would have amused +you to read it, my friend; but there is no point in amusing you now. I +must deject you now and make you listen to me; there is not much more to +hear. + +Am I moralizing? I am explaining. No, I am not moralizing; I am +explaining. If it is moralizing to see the truth and tell it to you, then +I am moralizing. Can I help that? Intuitively I see into what is distant; +you do not, for this is something you cannot learn from your little +schoolbooks. Do not let this rouse your hatred for me. I shall be merry +again with you later, when my strings are tuned to merriment. I have no +power over them. Now they are tuned to a chorale.... + + * * * * * + +At dawn, in the bright moonlight, I leave the hut and push on quickly in +order to reach the village as soon as possible. But I must have started +too early or walked too fast, for at this rate I shall reach the village +at high noon. What am I chasing after? Perhaps it is feeling the nearness +of the sea that drives me forward. And as I stand on the last high ridge, +with the glitter and roar of the sea far beneath, a sweetness darts +through me like a greeting from another world. "_Thalatta!_" I cry; +and I wipe my eyeglasses tremblingly. The roar from below is sleepless and +fierce, a tone of jungle passion, a savage litany. I descend the ridge as +though in a trance and reach the first house. + +There was no one about, and a few children's faces at a window suddenly +disappeared. Everything here was small and poor, though only the barn was +of peat; the house was a timbered fisherman's home. As I entered the +house, I saw that though it was as poor within as without, the floor was +clean and covered with pine twigs. There were many children here. The +mother was busy cooking something over the fire. + +I was offered a chair, and sitting down, began to chat with a couple of +small boys. As I was in no hurry and asked for nothing, the woman said: + +"I expect you want a boat?" + +"A boat?" I said in my turn, for I had not come by boat on my last visit; +I had walked instead over fjelds and valleys many miles from the sea. +"Yes, why not?" I said. "But where does it go?" + +"I thought you wanted a boat to go to the trading center," she replied, +"because that's where the steamer stops. We've rowed over lots of people +this year." + +Great changes here; the motor traffic in Stordalen must have completely +altered all the other traffic since my last visit ten months ago. + +"Where can I stop for a few days?" I asked. + +"At the trading center, the other side of the islands. Or there's Eilert +and Olaus; they're both on this side. You could go there; they've got big +houses." + +She showed me the two places on this side of the water, close to the +shore, and I proceeded thither. + + + + +XXVII + + +A large house, with and upper story of planks built on later, displayed a +new signboard on the wall: Room and Board. The barn, as usual, was a peat +hut. + +As I did not know which was Eilert and which Olaus, and had stopped to +consider which road to take, a man came hurrying toward me. Ah, well, the +world is a small place; we meet friends and acquaintances everywhere. Here +am I, meeting an old acquaintance, the thief of last winter, the pork +thief. What luck, what a satisfaction! + +This was Eilert. He took in paying guests now. + +At first he pretended not to recognize me, but he soon gave that up. Once +he had done so, however, he carried the thing off in style: + +"Well, well," he said, "what a nice surprise! You are most welcome under +my humble roof, and such it is!" + +My own response was rather less jaunty, and I stood still collecting my +thoughts. When I had asked a few questions, he explained that since the +motor traffic had started in Stordalen, many visitors came through this +way, and sometimes they wanted to stop over at his house before being +rowed across to the steamer. They always came down in the evenings, and it +might be fine, or it might not, and at night the fjord was often wild. He +had therefore had to arrange to house them, because after all, you can't +expect people to spend the night outdoors. + +"So you've turned into a hotelkeeper," I said. + +"Well, you can joke about it," he returned, "but all I do is to give +shelter to the people who come here. That's all the hotel there is to it. +My neighbor Olaus can't do any more either, even if he builds a place +that's ten times as big. Look over there--now he's building another +house--a shed, I'd call it--and he's got three grown men working on it so +he can get it done by next summer. But it won't be much bigger than my +place at that, and anyhow, the gentry don't want to be bothered walking +all that distance to his place when here's my house right at the car stop. +And besides it was me that started it, and if I was Olaus I wouldn't have +wanted to imitate me like a regular monkey and started keeping boarders +which I didn't know the first thing about. But he can't make himself any +different from what he is, so he puts up a few old bits of canvas and rugs +and cardboard inside his barn and gets people to sleep there. But I'd +never ask the gentry to sleep in a barn, a storehouse for fodder and hay +for dumb beasts, if you'll excuse my mentioning it! But of course if +you've no shame in you and don't know how to behave in company--" + +"Lucky I've met you," I said. "Why, I might have gone on down the road to +his place!" + +We walked on together, with Eilert talking and explaining all the way, and +assuring me over and over again that Olaus was a good-for-nothing for +copying him as he did. + +If I had known what was awaiting me, I should certainly have passed by +Eilert's house. But I did not know. I was innocent, though I may not have +appeared so. It cannot be helped. + +"It's too bad I've got somebody in the best room," said Eilert. "They're +gentlefolk from the city. They came down here through Stordalen, and they +had to walk because the cars have stopped for the season. They've been in +my house for quite some days, and I think they'll be staying on a while +yet. I think they're out now, but of course it means I can't let you have +my best room." + +I looked up, and saw a face in the window. A shiver ran through me--no, of +course not a shiver, far from it, but certainly this was a fresh surprise. +What a coincidence! As we were about to enter the door, there was the +actor, too--standing there looking at me: the actor from the Tore Peak +resort. It was his knees, his coat, and his stick. So I was right--I +_had_ recognized her face at an upper window. Yes, indeed, the world +is small. + +The actor and I greeted each other and began to talk. How nice to see me +again! And how was Paul, the good fellow--still soaking himself in liquor, +he supposed? Funny effect it has sometimes; Paul seemed to think the whole +inn was an aquarium and we visitors the goldfish! "Ha, ha, ha, goldfish; I +wish we were, I must say!--Well, Eilert, are we getting some fresh haddock +for supper? Good!--Really, we like it here very much; we've already been +here several days; we want to stay and get a good rest." + +As we stood there, a rather stout girl came down from the loft and +addressed the actor: + +"The missis wants you to come right upstairs." + +"Oh? Very well, at once.... Well, see you later. You'll be stopping here, +too, I expect?" + +He hurried up the stairs. + +Eilert and I followed to my room. + + * * * * * + +As a matter of fact, I went out again with Eilert at once. He had a great +deal to tell me and explain to me, and I was not unwilling to listen to +him then. Really, Eilert was not too bad, a fine fellow with four ragged, +magnificent youngsters by his first wife, who had died two years before, +and another child by his second wife. He must have forgotten, as he told +me this, the yarn about the sick wife and the ailing children that he had +spun for me last winter. The girl who had come down the stairs with the +message from the "missis" was no servant, but Eilert's young wife. And +she, too, was all right--strong and good, handy about the stables, and +pregnant again. + +It all looks good to me, Eilert: your wife and everything you tell me +about your family. + +No one will understand my strange contentment, then; I had been full of an +obscure happiness from the moment I came to this house. Probably a mere +coincidence, but that did not detract from my satisfactory state of mind; +I was pleased with everything, and all things added to my cheerful frame +of mind. There were some pigs by the barn, very affectionate pigs, because +they were used to the children playing with them and kissing them and +riding on their backs. And there was one of the goats, up on the roof of +course, standing so far out along the edge that it was a wonder he didn't +grow dizzy. Seagulls flew criss-cross over the fields, screaming their +own language to one another, and being friends or enemies to the best of +their ability. Down by the mouth of the river, just beneath the sunset, +began the great road that winds up through the woods and the valley. There +is something of the friendliness of a living being about such a forest +road. + +Eilert was going out in his boat to fish haddock, and I went with him. +Actually he should have been getting some meat for us; but he had promised +the gentry from the city some fish, and fish was one of the gifts of God. +Besides, if he lacked meat, he could always slaughter one of the pigs. + +There was a slight wind; but then we wanted some wind, Eilert said, as +long as there was not too much of it. + +"Not reliable tonight though," he said, looking up into the sky; "the +bigger the wind, the stronger the current." + +At first I was very brave, and sat on the thwart thinking of Eilert's +French words: _travali, prekevary, sutinary, mankemang_, and many +others. They've had a long way to travel, coming here by ancient routes +via Bergen, and now they're common property. + +And then suddenly I lost all interest in French words, and felt extremely +ill. It was much too windy, and we got no haddock. + +"Pity she's come up so quick," said Eilert; "let's try inshore for a +while." + +But we got nothing there either, and as the wind increased and the sea +rose, "We'd better go home," said Eilert. + +The sea had been just right before, remarkably so, but now there was +entirely too much of it. Why on earth did I feel so bad? An inner +exhaustion, some emotional excitement, would have explained it. But I had +experienced no emotional excitement. + +We rowed in the foam and feathery jets of spray. "She's rising fast!" +cried Eilert, rowing with all his might. + +I felt so wretched that Eilert told me to ship my oars; he would manage by +himself. But for all my wretchedness, I remembered that they could see me +from the shore, and I would not put down my oars. Eilert's wife might see +me and laugh at me. + +What a revolting business, this seasickness that forced me to put my head +over the gunwale and make a pig of myself! I had a moment's relief, and +then it began all over again. Charming! I felt as though I were in labor; +the wrong way up, of course, through my throat, but it was a delivery +nonetheless. It moved up, then stopped, came on again and stopped, came on +and stopped once more. It was a lump of iron--iron, did I say? No, steel; +I had never felt anything like it before; it was not something I was born +with. All my internal mechanism was stopped by it. Then I took a running +start far down inside me and began, strangely, to howl with all my +strength; but a howl, however successful, cannot break down a lump of +steel. The pains continued. My mouth filled with bile. Soon, thank heaven, +my chest would burst. O--oh--oh.... Then we rowed inside the islands that +served as a breakwater, and I was saved. + +Quite suddenly I was well again, and began to play the clown, imitating my +own behavior in order to deceive the people ashore. And I assured Eilert, +too, that this was the first time I had ever been seasick, so that he +should understand it was nothing to gossip about. After all, he had not +heard about the great seas I had sailed without the slightest discomfort; +once I had been four-and-twenty days on the ocean, with most of the +passengers in bed, and even the captain sick in cascades; but not me! + +"Yes, I get seasick sometimes, too," says Eilert. + +That evening I sat eating alone in the dining room. Since we had not +brought back any haddock, the visitors upstairs had no desire to come +down. All they wanted, Eilert's wife said, was some bread and butter and +milk to be sent up. + + + + +XXVIII + + +Next morning they had gone. + +Yes, indeed, they left at four in the morning, at dawn; I heard them +perfectly well, for my room was near the stairs. The knight of the plump +thighs came first, clumping heavily down the stairs. She hushed him, and +her voice sounded angry. + +Eilert had just risen too, and they stood outside for some minutes, +negotiating with him for the boat--yes, at once; they had changed their +minds and wanted to leave, immediately. Then they went down to the boat, +Eilert with them. I could see them through the window, chilled by the cold +of early morning and short-tempered with each other. There had been a +frost during the night; ice lay on the water in the buckets, and the +ground was harsh to walk on. Poor things--no food, no coffee; a windy +morning, with the sea still running rather high. There they go with their +knapsacks on their backs; she is still wearing her red hat. + +Well, it was no concern of mine, and I lay down again, intending to sleep +till about noon. Nothing was any concern of mine, except myself. I could +not see the boat from my bed, so I got up again--just to while the time +away--to see how far they had gone. Not very far, though both men were +rowing. A little later I got up and looked again--oh, yes, they were +getting on. I took up my post by the window. It was really quite +interesting to watch the boat getting smaller and smaller; finally I +opened the window, even looked through my field-glasses. As it was not yet +quite light, I could not see them very clearly, but the red hat was still +discernible. Then the boat disappeared behind an island. I dressed and +went down. The children were all still in bed, but the wife, Regine, was +up. How calmly and naturally she took everything! + +"Do you know where your husband is?" I asked her. + +"Yes--funny, aren't they?" she replied. "I never saw them till after +they'd left--gone down to the fjord. Where do you suppose they're going? +Haddock fishing?" + +"Maybe," was all I said. But I thought to myself: "They're leaving, all +right. They had their knapsacks on their backs." + +"Funny couple," Regine resumed. "Nothing to eat, no coffee, not a thing! +And the missis not wanting anything to eat last night, neither!" + +I merely shook my head and went out. Regine called to me that coffee was +nearly ready, so if I'd like a cup-- + +Of course the only thing I could do in the face of such foolishness was to +shake my head and go away. One must take the sensible view. How was it +possible to understand such behavior? Nevertheless I, the undersigned, +should have gone on to Olaus yesterday, instead of going fishing. That +would have been still more sensible. What business had I at this house? +Very likely she found it embarrassing to be called the "missis," and this +was why she could neither eat last night nor stay here today. So she had +beaten a retreat, with her friend and her knapsack. + +Well, it was not much to go away with, but perhaps that doesn't matter. As +long as one has a reason to go away. + + * * * * * + +Later in the forenoon Eilert returned home. He was alone, but he came up +the path carrying one of the knapsacks--the larger one. He was in a +furious temper, and kept saying they'd better not try it on him--no, +they'd just better not. + +Of course it was the bill again. + +"She'll probably have a good deal of this sort of trouble," I thought to +myself, "but no doubt she'll get used to it, and take it as nonchalantly +as it should be taken. There are worse things." + +But the fact remains that it was I that upset them, I that had driven them +away without their clothes; perhaps they had really expected some money to +be sent here--who knows? + +I got hold of Eilert. How big was the bill? What, was that all? "Good +heavens! Here you are, here's your money; now row across to them at once +with their clothes!" + +But it all proved in vain, for the strangers had gone; they had arrived +just in time for the boat, and were aboard it at that very moment. + +Well, there was no help for it. + +"Here's their address," says Eilert. "We can send the clothes next +Thursday; that's the next trip the boat goes south again." + +I took down the address, but I was most ungracious to Eilert. Why couldn't +he have kept the other knapsack--why this particular one? + +Eilert replied that it was true the gentleman had offered him the other +one, but he could see from the outside that it was not so good as this +one. And I should remember that the money the missis had paid him hadn't +covered more than the bill for one of them. So it was only reasonable that +he should take the fullest knapsack. As a matter of fact, he had behaved +very well, and that was the truth. Because when she gave him the larger +knapsack, and wrote the address, she had scolded, but he had kept quiet, +and said not another word. And anyway, nobody had better try it on him-- +they'd better not, or he'd know the reason why! + +Eilert shook a long-armed fist at the sky. + +When he had eaten, drunk his coffee, and rested for a while, he was not so +lively and talkative as on the previous day. He had been brooding and +speculating ever since last summer, when the motor traffic started, and +did I think it would be a good idea for him to hire three grown men, too, +and build a much bigger house than Olaus's? + +So he had caught it, too--the great, modern Norwegian disease! + +The knapsack was back in her room again; yes, these were her clothes; I +recognized her blouses, her skirts and her shoes. I hardly looked at them, +of course; just unpacked them, folded them neatly, and put them back in +the bag again; because no doubt Eilert had had them all out in a heap. +This was really my only reason for unpacking them. + + + + +XXIX + + +Once more I was run into a party of English, the last for this year. + +They arrived by steamer in the morning and stopped at the trading station +for a few hours, meanwhile sending up a detachment through the valley to +order a car to meet them. Stordalen, Stordalen, they said. So they had +apparently not yet seen Stordalen--an omission they must repair at once. + +And what a sensation they made! + +They came across by rowboat from the trading station; we could hear them a +long way off, an old man's voice drowning out all the others. Eilert +dropped everything he had in hand, and ran down to the landing place in +order to be the first on the spot. From Olaus's house, too, a man and a +few half-grown boys went down, and from all the houses round swarmed +curious and helpful crowds. There were so many spectators at the landing +place that the old man with the loud voice drew himself up to his full +height in the boat and majestically shouted his English at us, as though +his language must of course be ours as well: + +"Where's the car? Bring the car down!" + +Olaus, who was sharp, guessed what he meant and at once sent his two boys +up the valley to meet the car and hurry it on, for the Englishmen had +arrived. + +They disembarked, they were in a great hurry, they could not understand +why the car had not come to meet them: "What was the meaning of this?" +There were four of them. "Stordalen!" they said. As they came up past +Eilert's house, they looked at their watches and swore because so many +minutes were being wasted. Where the devil was the car? The populace +followed at some distance, gazing with reverence on these dressed-up +fools. + +I remember a couple of them: an old man--the one with the loud voice--who +wore a pleated kilt on each thigh and a jacket of green canvas with braid +and buckles and straps and innumerable pockets all over it. What a man, +what a power! His beard, streaming out from under his nose like the +northern lights, was greenish-white, and he swore like a madman. Another +of the party was tall and bent, a flagpole of sorts, astonishing, +stupendous, with sloping shoulders, a tiny cap perched above extravagantly +arched eyebrows; he was an upended Roman battering ram, a man on stilts. I +measured him with my eyes, and still there was something left over. Yet he +was bent and broken, old before his time, quite bald; but his mouth was +tight as a tiger's, and he had a madness in his head that kept him on the +move. + +"Stordalen!" he cried. + +England will soon have to open old people's homes for her sons. She +desexes her people with sport and obsessive ideas: were not other +countries keeping her in perpetual unrest, she would in a couple of +generations be converted to pederasty.... + +Then the horn of the car was heard tooting in the woods, and everyone +raced to meet it. + +Of course Olaus's two boys had done an honest day's work in meeting the +car so far up the road, and urging the driver to hurry; were they not to +get any reward? True, they were allowed to sit in the back seat for their +return journey and thus enjoyed the drive of a lifetime; but money! They +had acquired enough brazenness in the course of the summer not to +hesitate, and approached the loud-voiced old man, holding out their palms +and clamoring: "Money!" But that did not suit the old man, who entered the +car forthwith, urging his companions to hurry. The driver, no doubt +thinking of his own tips, felt he would serve his passengers best by +driving off with them at once. So off he went. A toot of the horn, and a +rapid fanfare--tara-ra-boom-de-ay! + +The spectators turned homeward, talking about the illustrious visitors. +Foreign lands--ah, no, this country will not bear comparison with them! +"Did you see how tall the younger lord was?" "And did you see the other +one, the one with the skirts and the northern lights?" + +But some of the homeward-turning bumpkins, such as the Olaus family, had +more serious matters on their minds. Olaus for the first time understood +what he had read in the paper so many times, that the Norwegian elementary +school is a worthless institution because it does not teach English to the +children of the lower orders. Here were his boys, losing a handsome tip +merely because they could not swear back intelligibly at the gentleman +with the northern lights. The boys themselves had also something to think +about: "That driver, that scoundrel, that southerner! But just wait!" They +had heard that bits of broken bottle were very good for tires.... + + * * * * * + +I return to her knapsack and her clothes, and the reason why I do so is +that Eilert is so little to be trusted. I want to count her clothes to +make sure none of them disappear; it was a mistake not to have done so at +once. + +It may seem as though I kept returning to these clothes and thinking about +them; but why should I do that? At any rate it is now evident that I was +right in suspecting Eilert, for I heard him going upstairs, and when I +came in, he was turning out the bag and going through the clothes. + +"What are you doing?" I said. + +At first he tried to brazen it out. + +"Never you mind," he replied. But my knowing something about him was so +much to my advantage that he soon drew in his horns. How I wronged him, he +complained, and exploited him: + +"You haven't bought these clothes," he said. "I could have got more for +them if I'd sold them." He had been paid, but he still wanted more, like +the stomach, which goes on digesting after death. That was Eilert. Yet he +was not too bad; he had never been any better, and he certainly had grown +no worse with his new livelihood. + +May no one ever grow worse with a new livelihood! + +So I moved the knapsack and the clothes into my own room in order to take +better care of them. It was a slow job to tidy everything up for the +second time, but it had to be done. Later that evening I would resume my +journey, taking the knapsack with me. I had done with the place, and the +nights were moonlit again. + +Enough of these clothes! + + + + +XXX + + +Once again I am at an age when I walk in the moonlight. Thirty years ago I +walked in the moonlight, too, walked on crackling, snowy roads, on bare, +frozen ground, round unlocked barns, on the hunt for love. How well I +remember it! But it is no longer the same moonlight. I could even read by +it the letter she gave me. But there are no such letters any more. + +Everything is changed. The tale is told, and tonight I walk abroad on an +errand of the head, not of the heart: I shall go across to the trading +center and dispatch a knapsack by the steamer; after that I shall wander +on. And that requires nothing but a little ordinary training in walking, +and the light of the moon to see by. But in those old days, those young +days, we studied the almanac in the autumn to find out if there would be a +moon on Twelfth Night, for we could use it then. + +Everything is changed; I am changed. The tale lies within the teller. + +They say that old age has other pleasures which youth has not: deeper +pleasures, more lasting pleasures. That is a lie. Yes, you have read +right: that is a lie. Only old age itself says this, in a self-interest +that flaunts its very rags. The old man has forgotten when he stood on the +summit, forgotten his own self, his own _alias_, red and white, +blowing a golden horn. Now he stands no longer--no, he sits--it is less of +a strain to sit. But now there comes to him, slow and halting, fat and +stupid, the honor of old age. What can a sitting man do with honor? A man +on his feet can use it; to a sitting man it is only a possession. But +honor is meant to be used, not to be sat with. + +Let sitting men wear warm stockings. + + * * * * * + +What a coincidence: another barn on my road, just as in the days of the +golden horn! It offers me plenty of straw and shelter for the night; but +where is the girl who gave me the letter? How warm her breath was, coming +between lips a little parted! She will come again, of course; let us wait, +we have plenty of time, another twenty years--oh, yes, she will come.... + +I must be on my guard against such traps. I have entered upon the +honorable years; I am weak and quite capable of believing that a barn is a +gift from above: thou well-deserving old man, here is a barn for thee! + +No, thank you, I'm only just in my seventies. + +And so in my errand of the head I pass by the barn. + +Toward morning I find shelter under a projecting crag. It is fitting that +I should live under crags hereafter, and I lie down in a huddle, small and +invisible. Anything else you please, as long as you don't flaunt your +selfishness and your rags! + +I am comfortable now, lying with my head on another person's knapsack full +of used clothes; I am doing this solely because it is just the right size. +But sleep will not come; there are only thoughts and dreams and lines of +poetry and sentimentality. The sack smells human, and I fling it away, +laying my head on my arm. My arm smells of wood--not even wood. + +But the slip of paper with the address--have I got the address? And I +scratch a match to read it through and know it by heart tomorrow. Just a +line in pencil, nothing; but perhaps there is a softness in the letters, a +womanliness--I don't know. + +It doesn't matter. + +I manage to reach the trading center at midday, when everyone is up and +about, and the post office open. They give me a large sheet of wrapping +paper and string and sealing wax; I wrap the parcel and seal it and write +on the outside. There! + +Oh--I forgot the slip of paper with the address--to put it inside, I mean. +Stupid! But otherwise I have done what I should. As I continue on my way, +I feel strangely void and deserted; no doubt because the knapsack was +quite heavy after all, and now I am well rid of it. "The last pleasure!" I +think suddenly. And as I walk on I think irrelevantly: "The last country, +the last island, the last pleasure...." + + + + +XXXI + + +What now? + +I didn't know at first. The winter stood before me, my summer behind me-- +no task, no yearning, no ambition. As it made no difference where I +stayed, I remembered a town I knew, and thought I might as well go there-- +why not? A man cannot forever sit by the sea, and it is not necessary to +misunderstand him if he decides to leave it. So he leaves his solitude-- +others have done so before him--and a mild curiosity drives him to see the +ships and the horses and the tiny frostbitten gardens of a certain town. +When he arrives there, he begins to wonder in his idleness if he does not +know someone in this town, in this terrifyingly large town. The moonlight +is bright now, and it amuses him to give himself a certain address to +visit evening after evening, and to take up his post there as though +something depended on it. He is not expected anywhere else, so he has the +time. Then one evening someone finds him reading under a lamppost, stops +suddenly and stares, takes a few steps toward him, and bends forward +searchingly. + +"Isn't it--? Oh, no, excuse me, I thought--" + +"Yes, it is. Good evening, Miss Torsen." + +"Why, good evening. I thought it looked like you. Good evening. Yes, thank +you, very well. And thanks for the knapsack; I understood all at once--I +quite understand--" + +"Do you live here? What a strange coincidence!" + +"Yes, I live here; those are my windows. You wouldn't like to come up, +would you? No, perhaps you wouldn't." + +"But I know where there are some benches down by the shore. Unless you're +cold?" I suggested. + +"No, I'm not cold. Yes, thank you, I'd like to." + +We went down to a bench, looking like a father and daughter out walking. +There was nothing striking about us, and we sat the whole evening +undisturbed. Later we sat undisturbed on other evenings all through a cold +autumn month. + +Then she told me first the short chapter of her journey home, some of it +only hinted, suggested, and some of it in full; sometimes with her head +deeply bowed, sometimes, when I asked a question, replying by a brief word +or a shake of the head. I write it down from memory; it was important to +her, and it became important for others as well. + +Besides--in a hundred years it will all be forgotten. Why do we struggle? +In a hundred years someone will read about it in memoirs and letters and +think: "How she wriggled, how she fussed--dear me!" There are others about +whom nothing at all will be written or read; life will close over them +like a grave. Either way.... + +What sorrows she had--dear, dear, what sorrows! The day she had been +unable to pay the bill, she thought herself the center of the universe; +everybody stared at her, and she was at her wits' end. Then she heard a +man's voice outside saying: "Haven't you watered Blakka yet?" That was +_his_ preoccupation. So she was not the center of the universe after +all. + +Then she and her companion had left the house, and set out on their tour. +The center? Not at all. Day after day they walked across fields, and +through valleys, had meals in houses by the way, and water from the +brooks. If they met other travelers, they greeted them, or they did not +greet them; no one was less a center of attention than they, and no one +more. Her companion walked in vacant thoughtlessness, whistling as he +went. + +At one place they stopped for food. + +"Will you pay for mine for the time being?" he said. + +She hesitated and then said briefly that she could not pay "for the time +being" all the way. + +"Of course not, by no means," said he. "Just for the moment. Perhaps we +can get a loan further down the valley." + +"I don't borrow." + +"Ingeborg!" said he, pretending playfully to whimper. + +"What is it?" + +"Nothing. Can't I say 'Ingeborg' to my own wife?" + +"I'm not your own wife," she said, getting up. + +"Pish! We were man and wife last night. It says so in the visitors' book." + +She was silent at this. Yes, last night they had been man and wife; that +was to save getting two rooms, and travel economically. But she had been +very foolish to agree to it. + +"'Miss Torsen,' then?" he whimpered. + +And to put an end to the game, she paid for both of them and took her +knapsack on her back. + +They walked again. At the next stop she paid for them both without +discussion--for the evening meal, for bed and breakfast. It grew to be a +habit. They walked on once more. They reached the end of the valley by the +sea, and here she revolted again. + +"Go away--go on by yourself; I don't want you in my room any more!" + +The old argument no longer held good. When he repeated that they saved +money by it, she replied that she for her part required no more than one +room, and was quite able to pay for it. He joked again, whimpered, +"Ingeborg!" and left her. He was beaten, and his back was bent. + +She ate alone that evening. + +"Isn't your husband coming in?" asked the woman of the house. + +"Perhaps he doesn't want anything," she replied. + +There he stood, away by the tiny barn pretending to be interested in the +roof, in the style of building, and walked round looking at it, pursing +his lips and whistling. But she could see perfectly well from the window +that his face was blue and dejected. When she had eaten, she walked down +to the shore, calling as she passed him: + +"Go in and eat!" + +But he had not sunk quite so low; he would not go in to eat, and slept +under no roof that night. + +It ended as such things usually end: when she found him at last next +morning, regretting her action and shaken by his appearance, everything +slipped back again to where it had been. + +They stopped at this place a few days, waiting for the mail boat, when one +evening an elderly man came to the house. She knew him, and he knew them +both; she was thrown into a state of the greatest excitement, made ready +to leave at once, wept and beat her breast, and wanted to go home, +immediately, at once. It ended as such things usually end: when she had +calmed down, she went to bed for the night. She was not the center of the +universe, and the old acquaintance who had happened to pass that way did +not appear to be looking only at her. Nevertheless, she staged a sort of +flight early next morning, in the gray dawn, before other people were up. +This much she did. + +Aboard the mail boat she met no more acquaintances, and had leisure to +think things over calmly. She now broke with her companion in earnest. She +had a minor disagreement with him again, for he had no ticket, and one +word gave rise to the next. It was all very well for her, he said; she had +her return ticket in her pocket. Besides, had he not got himself involved +in all these trials and tribulations because of her letter last summer, +and was she not ashamed of herself? He would not have moved a foot outside +the town had it not been for that letter of hers. Then she gave him her +purse and all her money and asked him to leave her. There was probably +enough to buy him a ticket, and now she would be rid of him. + +"Of course I shouldn't accept this, but there's no other way," he said, +and left her. + +She stood gazing across the water, and wondering what to do. She was in a +bad way now, so very different from what she had once thought; what shame, +what utter futility she had wandered into! She brooded till she was worn +out; then she began to listen to what people about her were saying. Two +men were huddled on benches trying to shelter from the wind; she heard one +of them say he was a schoolmaster, and the other that he was an artisan. +The schoolmaster did not remain seated long, but got up and swaggered +toward her. She passed him in silence and took his place on the bench. + +It was a raw autumn day, and it did her good to get out of the wind. The +artisan probably thought this tall, well-dressed lady had a berth, but +when she sat down, he moved over on his own bench. He was on the point of +lighting his pipe, but stopped. + +"Go on, don't mind me," she said. + +So he lit it, but he was careful not to blow the smoke into her face. + +He was only a youngster, a little over twenty, with thick reddish hair +under his cap, and whitish eyebrows high up on his forehead. His chest was +broad and flat, but his back was round and his hands massive. A great +horse. + +Then a tray was brought him, sandwiches and coffee, which he had evidently +been waiting for; he paid, but went on smoking and let the food stand. + +"Please eat," she said. "You don't mind my sitting here?" + +"Not at all," he replied. He knocked out his pipe slowly, taking plenty of +time over it; then sat still again. + +"I don't really need anything to eat yet, either," he said. + +"Oh--haven't you come far?" + +"No, only last night. Where do you come from, lady?" + +"From the town. I've been on holiday." + +"That's what I thought," he said, nodding his head. + +"I've been up at the Tore Peak farm," she added. + +"The Tore Peak? So." + +"Do you know it?" + +"No, but I know some of the people there." + +A pause. + +"Josephine's there," he resumed. + +"Yes. Do you know her?" + +"Oh, no." + +They talked a little more. The boat sailed on, and they sat there talking; +it was all they had to do. She asked where he came from and what his trade +was, and it seemed he was nothing important, only a paltry carpenter, and +his mother had a small farm. Would the lady like a simple cup of coffee? + +"Why, yes, thank you." Could she have a little of his, "just a little in +the saucer?" + +She poured some of the coffee into the saucer and asked for a bite of food +as well. Never had food tasted so good, and when she had finished, she +thanked him for that, too. + +"Haven't you a berth?" he asked. + +"Yes, but I'd rather stay here," she said. "If I go below, I'll be sick." + +"That's what I thought. Well, now I wonder--" + +With that he got up and walked slowly and heavily away. She watched his +back disappearing down the companion to the lower deck. + +She waited for him a long time, fearing that someone else might come and +take his place. Coffee from the saucer, a good-sized sandwich with the +carpenter: nothing wily or unnatural about that; this sheltered corner +seemed to her like a tiny foothold in life. + +There he was, coming back with more food and coffee, a whole tray in his +big hands. He laughed good-naturedly at himself for walking so carefully. + +She threw up her hands and overdid things a little: + +"Great heavens! Really, you're much, much too kind!" + +"Well, I thought since you were sitting here anyhow--" + +They both ate; she grew warm and sleepy, and leaned back half-dozing. +Every time she opened her eyes, she saw the carpenter lighting his pipe; +he struck two or three matches at once, but he was in no hurry; they were +always half burned before he put his pipe in his mouth and began to suck +at it. The schoolmaster called something to him, drew his attention to +something far inland, but the carpenter merely nodded and said nothing. + +"I wonder if he's afraid he'll wake me," she thought. + +At one stop, her former traveling companion turned up again; he had been +below in the cabin. + +"Aren't you coming down, Ingeborg?" he asked. + +She did not reply. + +The carpenter looked from one to the other. + +"Miss Torsen, then!" whimpered the traveling companion playfully. He stood +waiting a moment, and finally went away. + +"Ingeborg," the carpenter was probably thinking. "Miss Torsen," he was +thinking. + +"How long will you be in the town?" she asked, getting up. + +"Oh, I'll be there some time." + +"What are you doing there?" + +He was a little embarrassed, and since his skin was so fair, she could see +at once that he reddened. He bent forward, planting his elbows on his +knees before he replied. + +"I want to learn a little more in my trade, be an apprentice, maybe. It +all depends." + +"Oh, I see." + +"What do you think of it?" he asked. + +"I think it's a good idea." + +"Do you?" + +They were on deck nearly the whole of the day, but toward evening it +turned bitter cold and windy. When she had grown stiff with sitting, she +got up and stamped her feet, and when she had stamped till she was tired, +she sat down again. Once when she was standing a little distance away, she +saw the carpenter place a parcel on the bench as though to keep her seat +for her. + +Her quondam traveling companion stuck his head out of a doorway, the wind +blowing his hair forward over his forehead, and cried: + +"Ingeborg, go below, will you!" + +"Oh," she groaned. Suddenly she was seized with fury. The ship heeled over +on its side as she walked toward him, and she had to take a few skips to +keep her balance. + +"I don't want you to talk to me again," she hissed at him. "Do you hear? I +mean it, by all that's holy!" + +"Good gracious!" he exclaimed and disappeared. + +At about three o'clock, the carpenter turned up with coffee and sandwiches +again. + +"Really you mustn't be doing this all the time," she said. + +He merely laughed good-naturedly again, and told her to eat if she thought +it was good enough. + +"We'll soon be there now," she said as she ate. "Have you someone to go +to?" + +"Oh, yes, I have a sister." + +Slowly and thoughtfully he took another sandwich and turned it over, +looking at it absently before he took a bite out of it. When he had +finished one mouthful, he took another. And when he had finished that one, +too, he said: + +"I thought that as I'm going to stay in town over the winter, I'd better +learn something. And what with the farm as well--" + +"Yes, indeed." + +"You think so too?" + +"Oh, yes. I think so." + +Why did he tell her about his private affairs? She had private affairs of +her own. She thanked him for the sandwiches and got up. + +As the boat drew alongside the pier, he offered her his hand and said: + +"My name is Nikolai." + +"Oh, yes?" + +"I thought in case we meet again--Nikolai Palm--but I expect the town's +too big--" + +"Yes, I expect it is. Well, thanks ever so much for all your kindness. +Good-bye." + + + + +XXXII + + +I ask Miss Torsen: + +"Have you met the carpenter since?" + +"What carpenter? Oh--no, I haven't. I only told you about him because he's +a sort of mutual acquaintance." + +"Acquaintance?" + +"Yes, of yours and mine. Only indirectly, of course. He happens to be the +brother of that schoolmistress Miss Palm that was at the Tore Peak farm +last summer." + +"Well, the world's a small place. We all belong to the same family." + +"And that's why I've told you all this about him." + +"But you didn't find out about this relationship on the boat, did you? So +you must have met him since." + +"Yes,--well, no, that is to say I've seen him a few times, but not to +speak to. We just said good morning and how are you and so on. Then he +said he was her brother." + +"Ha, ha, ha!" + +"It was just in passing, quite by accident." + +This gave me a good opportunity for saying: "What a lot of things are +accidental! It was an accident that I should have stopped under a +particular lamppost to look up something, to read a few lines. And then +you happened to live there." + +"That's right." + +"I expect you and the carpenter will be getting married," I said. + +"Ha, ha! No, indeed, I shan't marry anyone." + +"No?" + +"You have to be pretty naive to marry." + +"Well, I don't know that being naive does any harm--being not quite so +clever. Where does your cleverness lead you? Only to being cheated. +Because there isn't anybody who's quite clever enough." + +"I should have thought being clever is just the thing to protect you +against being cheated. What else would it do?" + +"Exactly. What else? But the trouble is we trust our cleverness so much +that we get cheated that way. Or else we let things go from bad to worse, +because why should we worry? After all we've got our cleverness to help +get us out of the mess!" + +"Well, in that case it's pretty hopeless!" + +"Relying on your cleverness--yes. That was your own opinion last summer, +you know." + +"Yes, I remember that. I thought--oh, I don't know. But when I came back +to town again it was as though--" + +A pause. + +"I don't know what to think," she said. + +"And I do because I'm old and wise. You see, Miss Torsen, in the old days +people didn't think so much about cleverness and secondary schools and the +right to vote; they lived their lives on a different plane, they were +naive. I wonder if that wasn't a pretty good way to live. Of course people +were cheated in those days, too, but they didn't smart under it so; they +bore it with greater natural strength. We have lost our healthy powers of +endurance." + +"It's getting cold," she said. "Shall we go home?--Yes, of course that's +all quite true, but we're living in modern times. We can't change the +times; I can't, at any rate; I've got to keep up with the times." + +"Yes, that's what it says in the Oslo morning paper. Because it used to +say so in the _Neue Freie Presse_. But a person with character goes +his own way up to a point, even if the majority go a different way." + +"Yes--well, I'm really going to tell you something now," she said, +stopping. "I go to a really sensible school during the day." + +"Do you?" I said. + +"Only this time I'm learning housekeeping; isn't that a good thing?" + +"You mean you're learning to cut sandwiches for yourself?" + +"Ha, ha!" + +"Well, you said you weren't going to marry!" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"Very well. You marry; you settle down in his valley. But first you have +to learn housekeeping so that you can make an omelette or possibly a +pudding for tourists or Englishmen that pass through." + +"His valley? Whose valley?" + +"You'd much better go to his mother's and learn all the housekeeping +you're going to need from her." + +"Really, really," she said smiling as she walked on again, "you're quite +on the wrong track. It isn't he--it isn't anybody." + +"So much the worse for you. There ought to be somebody." + +"Yes, but suppose it's not the one I want." + +"Oh, yes, it will be the one you want. You're big enough and handsome +enough and capable enough." + +"Thank you very much, but--well. Thanks so much. Good night." + +Why did she break off so suddenly and leave me so hurriedly, almost at a +run? Was she crying? I should have liked to have said more, to have been +wise and circumstantial and made useful suggestions, but I was left +standing in a kind of stupid surprise. + +Then something happened. + +"We haven't seen each other for such a long time," she said, the next time +we met. "I'm so glad to see you again. Shall we take a short walk? I was +just--" + +"Going to post a letter, I see." + +"Yes, I was going to post a letter. It's only--it's not--" + +We went to a newspaper office with the letter. It was evidently an +advertisement; perhaps she was trying to find a situation. + +As she came out of the office a gentleman greeted her. She turned a deep +red, and stopped for a moment at the top of the two stone steps leading +from the entrance. Her head was bent almost to her chest, as though she +were looking very carefully at the steps before venturing to come down +them. They greeted each other again; the stranger shook her hand, and they +began to talk. + +He was a man of her own age, good-looking, with a soft, fair beard, and +dark eyebrows that looked as though he had blacked them. He wore a top +hat, and his overcoat, which was open, was lined with silk. + +I heard them mention an evening of the previous week on which they had +enjoyed themselves; it had been a relaxation. There had been quite a +party, first out driving, then at supper together. It was a memory they +had in common. Miss Torsen didn't say much. She seemed a little +embarrassed, but smiling and beautiful. I began to look at the illustrated +papers displayed in the window, when suddenly the thought struck me: "Good +God, she's in love!" + +"Look, I have a suggestion," he said. Then they discussed something, +agreed about something, and she nodded. After that he left her. + +She came toward me slowly and in silence. I spoke to her about some of the +pictures in the window. "Yes," she said, "just think!" But she gazed at +them without seeing anything. Silently we walked on, and for several +minutes, at least, she said nothing. + +"Hans Flaten never changes," she said finally. + +"Is that who it was?" I asked. + +"His name's Flaten." + +"Yes, I remember you mentioned the name last summer. Who is he?" + +"His father's a merchant." + +"But he himself?" + +"His father owns the big shop in Almes Street, you know." + +"Yes, but what about _him_; what does he do?" + +"I don't know if he does anything special; he just studies. His father's +so rich, you know." + +I recalled old Flaten's shop in Almes Street, a good, solid countryman's +shop; in the mornings the yard was always full of horses, while the owners +were busy making purchases in the shop. + +"He's such a man of the world," she went on. "He simply throws money +about--banknotes. When he goes anywhere, the people all whisper, 'That's +Flaten!'" + +"He dresses as though he were a baron," I said. + +"Yes," she replied, rather offended. "Yes, he dresses well--always has." + +"Is that the man you want?" I asked lightly. + +She was silent a moment, and then said with a resolute nod: + +"Yes." + +"What--that dandy?" + +"Why not? We're old friends, we've gone to school together, spent a lot of +time together. It's really based on a firm foundation. He's the only man +I've ever been in love with in all my life, and it's lasted many years. +Sometimes, I'll admit, I forget him, but the moment I see him again, I'm +as much in love as ever. I've told him so, and we both laugh about it, but +that doesn't change it. It's queer." + +"Then I suppose he's too rich to marry her," I thought, and asked nothing +more. + +When we parted, I said: + +"Where does Carpenter Nikolai work?" + +"I don't know," she replied. "Oh, yes, I do know. We're near there, and I +can show you if you like. What do you want to see him for?" + +"Nothing. I just wondered if he's at a good place, with a competent +master." + + * * * * * + +Why did I, indeed, want to see Carpenter Nikolai, the artisan? Yet I have +visited him and made his acquaintance. He is a bull in stature, strong and +plain-featured, a man of few words. Last Saturday we saw the town +together; why, I don't know, but I suggested it myself. + +I made friends with the carpenter for my own sake, because of my +loneliness. I no longer went to the benches by the shore, as the weather +was a little too cold, and Miss Torsen interested me very little now; she +had changed so much since returning to the town. She had become more the +ordinary type of girl, not in any one thing, but in general. She thought +of nothing but vanities and nonsense, and seemed quite to have forgotten +her last summer's wholesome, bitter view of life. Now she was back at +school again, in her leisure hours meeting the gentleman named Flaten, and +this occupied all of her time. Either she had no depths, or she had been +vitiated in the vital years of adolescence. + +"What do you expect me to do?" she asked. "Of course I'm going to school +again; I've been going to school ever since I was a child. I'm no good at +anything else. I can only learn--that's what I'm used to. There isn't much +I can think or do on my own, and I don't enjoy it either. So what do you +expect?" + +No, what could I expect? + +Carpenter Nikolai went to the circus. He was not much surprised at +anything he saw there, or he pretended not to be. The acrobatics on +horseback--"Well, not bad, but after all--!" The tiger--"I thought tigers +were much bigger!" Besides, his big, heavy head seemed preoccupied with +other thoughts, and he paid little attention to the women riders who were +doing their tricks. + +On the way home he said: + +"I ought not to ask you, I expect, but would you go to the _Krone_ +with me tomorrow evening?" + +"The _Krone_--what's that?" + +"It's a place where they dance." + +"A dance hall, in other words. Where is it? Do you feel so much like +dancing?" + +"No, not much." + +"You want to see what goes on there?" + +"Yes." + +"All right, I'll go." + + * * * * * + +It was on a Sunday evening, the girls' and boys' own evening, that the +carpenter and I went to the dance. + +He had decked himself out in a starched collar and a heavy watch chain. +But he was very young, and when you are young, you look well in anything. +He had such remarkable strength that it was never necessary for him to +give way; this had lent him assurance and authority. If you spoke to him, +he was slow to reply, and if you slapped him on the shoulder, he was slow +in turning round to see who had greeted him. He was a pleasant, +good-humored companion. + +We went to the booking office; there was no one there, and the window was +closed. Moreover a notice on the wall announced that the hall was let to a +private club for the first two hours of the evening. + +A few young people came along as we were standing there, read the notice, +and went away again. The carpenter was unwilling to go, looked round, and +went in through the gate as though looking for someone. + +"We can't do anything about it," I called after him. + +"No," he said. "But I wonder--?" + +He crossed the yard and began to look up at all the windows. + +A man came down the stairs. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"My friend wanted to buy a ticket," I replied. The carpenter still showed +no inclination to return from the yard. + +The man approached me, and proved to be the landlord. He explained, like +the notice, that a club had rented the hall for the first two hours. + +"Come along, we can't get in!" I called to my companion. + +But he was in no hurry, so I chatted with the landlord while waiting for +him. + +"Yes, it's rather an exclusive club. Only eight couples, but just the same +they've hired a full orchestra--rich people, you see." + +They had refreshments and plenty of champagne, and then they danced as +though their lives depended on it. Why they did it? Oh, well, young +people, rich and fashionable, bored by Sunday evening at home; they wanted +to work off the week's idleness in two hours, so they danced. Not unusual, +really. + +"And of course," said the landlord, "I earn more in those two hours than +in the whole of the evening otherwise. Liberal people--they don't count +the pennies. And yet there's no wear and tear, because of course people +like that don't dance on their heels." + +The carpenter, who had come halfway back, stood listening to us. + +"What sort of people are they, generally speaking?" I inquired. +"Businessmen, officers, or what?" + +"Excuse me, but I can't tell you that," replied the landlord. "It's a +private party; that's all I can say. To-night, for instance, I don't even +know who they are. The money just came by special messenger." + +"It's Flaten," said the carpenter. + +"Flaten--is it?" said the landlord, as though he did not know it. "Mr. +Flaten has been here before; he's a fine gentleman, always in fashionable +company. So it's Mr. Flaten, is it? Well, excuse me, I must have another +look round the hall--" + +The landlord left us. + +But the carpenter followed him. + +"Couldn't we look on?" he asked. + +"What, at the dancing? Oh, no." + +"In a corner somewhere?" + +"No, I couldn't allow that. I don't even let my own wife and daughter in-- +nobody, not a soul. They wouldn't like it." + +"Are you coming or--?" I called, as though for the last time. + +"Yes, I'm coming," said the carpenter, turning back. + +"So you knew about this party?" I said. + +"Yes," he replied. "She talked about it last Friday." + +"Who talked about it? Miss Torsen?" + +"Yes. She said I might sit in the gallery." + +We walked on down the street, each busy with his own thoughts--or perhaps +with the same thought. I, at least, was furious. + +"Really, my good Nikolai, I have no desire to buy +tickets in order to look at Mr. Flaten and his ladies!" + +"No." + +Curious idea of hers, inviting this man to watch her dance. It was +preposterous, but like her. Last summer, too--did she not like a third +party within hearing whenever she sailed close to the wind? A thought +struck me, and I asked the carpenter as calmly as I could: + +"Did Miss Torsen want me to sit in the gallery, too--did she say anything +about that?" + +"No," he replied. + +"Didn't she say anything about me?" + +"No." + +"You're lying," I thought, "and I daresay she's told you to lie!" I was +highly incensed, but I could not squeeze the truth out of the carpenter. + +Cars rolled up behind us and stopped at the _Krone_. Nikolai turned +and wanted to go back, but when he saw that I kept straight on, he +hesitated a moment and then followed me. I heard him once sighing heavily. + + +We strolled the streets for an hour, while I cooled off and made myself +agreeable to my companion again. We had a glass of beer together, then +went to a cinema, and afterward to a shooting gallery. Finally we went to +a skittle ground, where we stayed for some time. Nikolai was the first to +want to leave; he looked at his watch, and was suddenly in a tearing +hurry. He was hardly even willing to finish the game. + +We had to pass the _Krone_ again. The cars had gone. + +"Just as I thought," said the carpenter, looking very disappointed. I +believe he would have liked to be present when the party came out to enter +their cars. He looked up and down the empty street and repeated, "Just as +I thought!" He was suddenly anxious to go home. + +"No, let's go inside," I said. + + * * * * * + +It was a big, handsome hall with a platform for the orchestra, and a +throng of people on the great floor. We sat in the gallery looking on. + +There was a very mixed crowd: seamen, artisans, hotel staff, shop +assistants, casual workers; the ladies were apparently seamstresses, +servant girls, and shopgirls, with a sprinkling of light-footed damsels +who had no daytime occupation. The floor was crowded with dancers. In +addition to a constable whose duty it was to intervene if necessity arose, +the establishment had its own commissionaire, who walked about the hall +with a stick, keeping an eye on the assembled company. As soon as a dance +was finished, the gentlemen all crowded to the platform and paid ten +_oere_. If anyone seemed to be trying to cheat, the commissionaire +would tap him politely on the arm with his stick. Gentlemen who had to be +tapped many times were regarded as suspicious characters, and might, as a +last resource, even be expelled. Order was admirably maintained. + +Waltz, mazurka, schottische, square dance, waltz. I soon noticed a man who +was dancing with great assiduity, never stopping once--tall, swarthy, +lively--a heartbreaker. The ladies clustered round him. + +"Can that be Solem down there dominating the crowd?" I thought. + +"Wouldn't you like to dance?" I asked Carpenter Nikolai. + +"Oh, no," he replied with a smile. + +"Then we can leave any time you like." + +"All right," he said and remained seated. + +"Your thoughts seem to be far away." + +A long pause. + +"I was thinking that I haven't a horse on my farm. I have to carry all the +manure and the wood myself." + +"So that's why you're so strong." + +"I'll have to go home in a few days and chop wood for the winter." + +"Yes, of course you will." + +"I was going to say--," he persisted, and then fell silent. + +"Yes?" + +"No, it's no use suggesting it. I'd have liked you to come with me this +winter, though--I've got a small spare room." + +"Why should I go there?" Still--it wasn't a bad idea. + +"It would be nice if you could," said the carpenter. + +Just then I heard the name of Solem mentioned in the hall. Yes, there he +was, swaggering as usual, the self-same Solem from Tore Peak. He was +standing alone, in high spirits, announcing that he was Solem--"Solem, my +lad." He appeared not to be in the company of any one lady, for I saw him +choosing partners indiscriminately. Then he chose the wrong lady, and her +partner shook his head and said no. Solem remembered that. He allowed the +couple to dance the next dance, and when it was finished, approached again +and bowed to the lady. Once more he was refused. + +The lady's appearance was striking--sophisticated or innocent, who could +tell? Ash-blonde, tall, Grecian, in a black frock without trimming. How +quiet and retiring she was! Of course she was a tart, but what a gentle +one--a nun of vice, with a face as pure as that of a repentant sinner. +Peerless! + +This was a woman for Solem. + +It was after he had received his second "No" from the gentleman that he +began to talk, to tell everyone that he was "Solem, my lad." But his +boasts were dull: Something was going to happen; he would show them an +image of sin! There was no sting in it; just old, familiar rubbish these +people had heard before. The commissionaire crossed over to him and asked +him to be quiet, pointing at the same time to the constable by the door. +This pouring of oil on the waters was successful, for Solem himself said: +"Hush, we mustn't make trouble." But he did not lose sight of the Grecian +and her partner. + +He allowed a few dances to pass again, himself engaging other partners to +dance with. There was now a huge crowd, all the late-comers having by this +time arrived. Many were crowded off the floor and had to wait, rushing to +get first place in the next dance instead. + +Then something happened. + +A couple slipped and fell. It was Solem and his partner. As he was getting +up again, he tripped up another couple--the Grecian and her partner, both +of whom fell down. And Solem was so strangely clumsy as he rose that his +long arms and legs brought down a third couple. In a few minutes there was +a squirming heap on the floor; screams and oaths were heard, people grew +angry and kicked one another, while Solem skillfully directed the disaster +with sincere and wholehearted malevolence. Couple after couple met their +Waterloo over those already fallen. The commissionaire poked them with his +stick, exhorting them to get up; the constable himself assisted him, and +the music stopped. In the meantime, Solem, acting with the better part of +valor, slipped out of the room and did not return. + +Gradually the fallen couples got to their feet again, rubbing their shins, +dusting off their clothes, some laughing, others swearing. The Grecian +lady's partner had a bleeding wound on his temple, and put his hands to +his head in a daze. Questions were being asked about that--what was his +name?--that tall fellow who had started all the trouble. "Solem," said +some of the ladies. Threats were uttered against Solem: he was the one. +"Go and find him, somebody--we'll show him!"--"Why, he couldn't help it," +said the ladies. + +Ah, Solem, Solem--how the ladies loved him! + +But the Grecian rose from the dust as from a bath. The sand from the floor +clung to her black dress, making it look as though spangled with stardust. +Submissively she accepted the lot of lying under all the others, entwined +in their legs, and smiled when someone pointed out to her that the comb in +her Grecian knot was crushed. + + + + +XXXIII + + +Today, the first of October forty years ago, we drove the snowplow at +home. Yes, I regret to say that I remember forty years ago. + +Nothing escapes my attention yet, but everything moves past me. I sit in +the gallery looking on. If Nikolai the carpenter had been observant, he +would have seen my fingers closing and opening again, my absurdity +augmented by affectation and grimacing. Fortunately he was a child. In the +end I left it all behind me, and took my proper seat. My address is the +chimney corner. + +Now it is winter again, with snow over the north, and Anglo-Saxon claptrap +in the town. This is my desolate period; my wheels stop, my hair stops +growing, my nails stop growing, everything stops growing but the days of +my life. And it is well that my days increase--from now on it is well. + +Not much happens during the winter. Well, of course, Nikolai has got an +overcoat for the first time in his life. He didn't really need it, he +says, but he bought it because of the advertisement; and it was dear, +twenty _kroner_, but he got it for eighteen! I am sure Nikolai is +much happier about his overcoat than Flaten is about his. + +But let me not forget Flaten, for something has happened to him. His +friends have given him a farewell party and drunk him out of bachelordom, +for he is going to marry. It is Miss Torsen who told me this; I met her by +accident again under her own lamppost, and she told me then. + +"And you're not wearing mourning?" I said. + +"Oh, no," she said, smiling. "No, it's something I've known a long time. +Besides, perhaps I'm not very faithful; I don't know." + +"I think you've hit the truth there." + +She looked startled. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I think you've changed very much since last summer. You were straight and +competent then, you saw clearly, you knew what you wanted. What's happened +to your tinge of bitterness? Or have you no longer reason to be bitter?" + +This was all too gravely spoken, but I was like a father and meant well. + +She began to walk on, her head bent in thought. Then she said something +very sensible: + +"Last summer I had just lost my livelihood. I'm telling you things exactly +as they were. I lost my post, which was a very serious matter. This made +me reflect for a time; that's true. But then--I don't know--I'm quite +adult, but not adult enough. I have two sisters who are really steady; +they're married and quite settled, though they're younger than I. I don't +know what's wrong with me." + +"Would you like to go to a concert with me?" I asked. + +"Now? No, thank you, I'm not dressed for it." + +A pause. + +"But it's kind of you to ask me!" she said with sudden pleasure. "It might +have been very nice, but--well, you must let me tell you about the dinner +party, the banquet; what a lot of pranks they thought of!" + +She was right about that; these jolly young people had played a great many +pranks, some of them childish and stupid, others not too bad. First they +had drunk wine of the vintage of 1812. No, first of all, Flaten was sent +an invitation, of course, and it consisted of a painting, a very +emancipated painting in a frame, the only written words being the date and +the place, and the legend: _Ballads, Bachiads, Offenbachiads, +Bacchanales_. Then there were speeches for him who was about to leave +them, and generally speaking a most deafening shouting over the +wineglasses. And there was music, with someone of the company playing all +the time. + +But as the evening wore on, this sort of thing was not enough, and girls +with their faces masked were brought in to dance. As there had been a +great deal of champagne, however, this part of the program tended to +deteriorate into something different, and the girls had to be sent away. +Then the gentlemen went down to the hotel lobby and stood at the door +watching for "opportunities." + +There--a young woman approached carrying a baby and a bundle of clothes. +Great, wet flakes of snow were drifting down, and she bent forward over +the child to shelter it as she walked. + +"Whoa!" said the gentleman and caught hold of her. "Is that your child!" + +"Yes, he's mine." + +"What, a boy?" + +"Yes." + +They talked more with her; she was thin and young, evidently a servant +girl. They also looked at the child, and Helgesen and Lind, who were both +short-sighted, polished their glasses and inspected it carefully. + +"Are you going off to drown the child?" somebody says. + +"No," says the girl in confusion. + +That was a nasty question, all the others agreed, and the first one +admitted it. He went off to fetch his raincoat, and hung it over the +girl's shoulders. Then he tickled the child under the chin and made it +smile--a marvel of a child, human bones and rags and dirt all in one +little bundle. + +"Poor bastard," he said. "Born of a maiden!" + +"That's better!" the others remarked. "Now let's do something," they said. +"Where do you live?" to the girl. + +"I've lived at such and such places," she replied. +"_Have_ lived; very well, this is what we'll do," one of them said, +taking out his pocketbook. The others followed suit, and a great deal of +money was pushed into the girl's hand. + +"Wait a minute--wait--I haven't given her enough; I asked her such a nasty +question," said the first of them. + +"Neither have I," said another, "because we all thought the same thing, +but now we're going to settle some money on this son of a maiden!" + +A collection was taken up, with Helgesen as the cashier. Then Bengt hailed +a cab, invited the girl to enter, and got in after her. + +"Go ahead--I want to go to Langes Street!" he called to the driver. + +Bengt was taking the child home to his mother, the others said. The group +were rather silent after this. + +"Your eyes are so ridiculously wet, Bolt; are you crying about the money?" + + +"What about you?" Bolt replied. "You're as sentimental as an old woman!" + +They grew cheerful again, and there were further "opportunities." A +peasant came down the street with a cow he was taking to the butcher's. + +"What will you charge for letting our guest of honor ride your cow?" young +Rolandsen asked him. The peasant smiled and shook his head. So they bought +the cow from him, paying cash for it. "Wait a minute," they said to the +peasant. Then they put a label on the cow, addressed to a lady they knew. + +"Take it to this address," they said to the peasant. + +By the time they had finished with this, Bengt had returned. + +"Where have _you_ been?" they asked in surprise. + +"The old lady said yes," was all he replied. + +"Hurrah!" they all shouted. "Let's drink to the baby! Here, let's go to +the bar. Did she really say yes? Hurrah for the old lady, too! What are we +standing here for? Let's walk into the bar!" + +_"Walk!"_ someone mocks. "No, indeed, we'll drive-waiter, cars!" + +The waiter rushed inside to telephone. It took some time, as it was +getting late, but the gentlemen waited. It was already closing time and +people were streaming out of the bar. At length the cars arrived, ten of +them, one for each man. The gentlemen entered them. + +"Where to?" asked the drivers. + +"Next door," they said. + +So the cars drove up to the next door of the same house, that being the +bar, and there the gentlemen gravely got out and paid the drivers. + +The bar was closed. + +"Shall we break in?" they said. + +"Of course," they said. + +So they all ran against the door together, till it said _ump!_ and +flew open. The night watchman rushed at them, shouting, and they caught +hold of him, slapped him on the back, and embraced him. Then they went +behind the counter and got out bottles for him and for themselves, +drinking and shouting hurrah for the baby, for Bengt's mother, for the +baby's mother, for the night watchman, for love and for life. When they +had done, they put some banknotes over the night watchman's mouth and tied +a handkerchief over them. Then they went back to the dining room. + +The supper was served. Flaten's plate was a red silk bedroom slipper lined +with glass. They ate and drank and rollicked as long as they had the +strength; the hours passed, and dawn approached. Then Flaten began to +distribute souvenirs among them. One got his watch, another his pocketbook +(which was empty), a third his tie pin. After this he went on to his +shoes, giving one to each of two friends, his trousers to another, and his +shirt to still another, till at length he sat there in the nude. Next they +collected quilts from the hotel bedrooms to wrap him up in--red silk +eiderdown quilts. Flaten fell asleep and the other nine watched over him. +He slept for an hour; it was morning then, and they woke him up. He +started up from the quilts, found he was naked, and sent home for some +more clothes. And then the party began all over again.... + +Later we were discussing Miss Torsen's story; she had forgotten one or two +details which she filled in afterwards. + +"Anyhow, it was lucky for the girl with the baby," she said. + +"And for the baby itself," I said. + +"Yes. But what an idea! Poor old lady, to be told such a tale!" + +"Some day perhaps you'll change your mind about that." + +"You think so? But it would have been nicer still if I'd got the money +they settled on the child." + +"You'll change your mind about that, too." + +"Shall I? Why? When?" + +"When you yourself have a baby that smiles at you." + +"Ugh, how can you say such things!" + +She must have misunderstood my meaning, for she was childishly offended. +To restore her to good humor I asked at random: + +"What sort of food did you get at the party?" + +"Don't know," she replied. + +"Don't you know?" + +"Good lord, no--I wasn't there," she returned in the greatest amazement. + +"Well, no, of course not, I only thought--" + +"Oh, so that's it. That's what you thought!" she said, still more +offended. And she clasped her hands as she had done in the summer, and +tore them apart again. + +"Really and truly, I do assure you--look here, honestly--I only thought +you were taking a culinary interest. After all, you do learn cooking and +such in the daytime." + +"Oh, so you just make conversation with me; you adapt your speech to suit +my narrow outlook!" + +A pause. + +"Anyhow, perhaps you're right up to a point; I might have asked about the +food, only I forgot." + +She seemed very irritable that evening. Would it interest her to talk +about Flaten? A little apprehensively, I ventured: + +"But you haven't told me whom Flaten is going to marry." + +"She's not pretty at all," she replied suddenly. "What do you want to know +for? You don't know her." + +"I suppose Flaten will be entering his father's firm now?" I persisted. + +"Oh, damn Flaten! You seem to care about him a lot more than I do! Flaten, +Flaten, Flaten--how should I know if he's going to enter his father's +firm!" + +"I only thought once he's married--" + +"But she's got money, too. No, I don't think he's going into his father's +firm. He said once he wanted to edit a paper. Well, what's so funny about +that?" + +"I'm not laughing." + +"Yes, you were. Anyhow, Flaten wants to edit a paper. And since Lind +publishes a kennel journal, Flaten wants to publish a human journal, he +says." + +"A human journal?" + +"Yes. And you ought to subscribe to it," she added suddenly, almost +throwing the words into my face. + +She was now in a state of excitement the cause of which I did not +understand, so I remained silent, merely replying, "Ought I? Yes, perhaps +I ought." Then she began to cry. + +"Dear child, don't cry. I shan't torment you any more." + +"You're not tormenting me." + +"Yes, by talking nonsense; I don't seem to strike the right note." + +"Yes, go on talking--that isn't it--I don't know--" + +What could I say to her? But since there is, after all, nothing so +interesting as a question about oneself, I said: + +"You're nervous about something, but it will pass. Perhaps--well, not at +once, of course--but perhaps it has hurt you that--well, that he's going +his own way now. But remember--" + +"You're wrong," she said, shaking her head. "That doesn't really mean +anything to me; I was just slightly attracted to him." + +"But you said he was the only one!" + +"Oh--you know, you think that sort of thing sometimes. Of course I've been +in love with other people, too; I can't deny that. Flaten was very nice, +and took me out driving sometimes, or to a dance or something like that. +And of course I was proud of his paying attention to me in spite of my +having lost my post. I think I could have got a job in his father's shop +but--anyhow, I'm looking for a job now." + +"Are you? I hope you'll find a good one." + +"That's just the point. But I'm not getting any job at all. That is, I +shall in the end, of course, but--well, for instance, in old Flaten's +shop--I shouldn't fit in there." + +"Not very good pay either, I expect?" + +"I'm sure it's not. And then--I don't know; I feel I know too much for it. +That wretched academic training of mine does nothing but harm. Oh, well, +let's not talk any more about me. It must be late; I'd better go." + +I saw her to her door, said good night, and went home. I thought about her +ceaselessly. It was wintry weather, with raw streets and an invisible sky. +No, really, she's not suited for marriage. No man is served with a wife +who is nothing but a student. Why has no one in the country noticed what +the young women are coming to! Miss Torsen's tale of the wild party proved +how accustomed she was to sitting and listening, and then herself +disgorging endless tales. She had done it very well and not omitted much, +but she paid attention only to the fun. A grown-up, eternal schoolgirl, +one who had studied her life away. + +When I reached my own door, Miss Torsen arrived there at the same time; +she had been close at my heels all the way. I guessed this from the fact +that she was not in the least breathless as she spoke. + +"I forgot to ask you to forgive me," she said. + +"My dear girl--?" + +"Oh, for saying what I did. You mustn't subscribe. I'm so sorry about +that. Please be kind and forgive me." + +She took my hand and shook it. + +In my amazement I stammered: + +"It was really a very witty remark: a human journal--ha, ha! Now don't +stand there and get cold; put your gloves on again. Are you walking back?" + + +"Yes. Good night. Forgive me for the whole evening." + +"Let me take you home; why not stay a few minutes--" + +"No, thank you." + +She pressed my hand firmly and left me. + +I suppose she wanted to spare my aging legs, damn them! Nevertheless I +stole after her to see that she got home safely. + + * * * * * + +It happened that Josephine came to the town--Josephine, that spirit of +labor from the Tore Peak farm. I saw her, too, for she came to pay me a +visit. She had looked up my address, and I joked with her again and called +her Josefriendly. + +How was everybody at Tore Peak? Josephine had good news about all of them, +but she shook her head over Paul. Not that he drank much now; but he did +little of anything else either, and had definitely lost interest in his +work. He wanted to sell the farm. He wanted to try carting and delivery by +horse cart in Stordalen. I asked if he had any prospective purchaser. Yes; +Einar, one of the cotters, had had rather an eye on the farm. It all +depended on Manufacturer Brede, who had put so much money into it. + +I remembered her father, the old man from another world, the man with +mittens, who had to be spoon-fed on porridge because he was ninety, who +smelled like an unburied corpse. I remembered him and asked Josephine: + +"Well, I expect your old father is dead by now?" + +"No, praise be," she replied. "Father is better than we dared hope. We +must be thankful he's still on his feet." + +I took Josephine to the cinema and the circus, and she thought it all +quite delightful. But she was shocked at the behavior of the ladies who +rode with so little clothing on. She wanted to go to one of the great +churches, too, and found her way there alone. For several days she was in +the town and did a good deal of shopping. I never once saw her dejected or +brooding about anything, and at length she said good-bye, because she was +going back next day. + +Oh, so she was going home? + +Yes, she had done what she had come to do. She had also been to see Miss +Torsen and got the money for the actor, because of course he had never +sent it. + +"Poor Miss Torsen! She was furious with him for not sending it, and turned +quite red and ashamed, too. She didn't seem to find it very easy either, +because she asked me to wait till next day, but she gave it to me then." + +So Josephine had nothing more to do in the town. +She had just visited Miss Palm, but she had not, on this occasion, met +Miss Palm's brother, Nikolai, who was apprenticed to a master carpenter. +Not that it mattered, Josephine said, because the last time she had seen +him, nothing came of it, anyhow. So that was that. Because she was not a +one to beg--she had some money of her own and livestock as well. As far as +that was concerned, she had some woolen blankets, and two beds complete +with bedding, too, nor did she lack clothes: she had many changes, both +underthings and top ones. Yet in spite of that she had started some more +weaving. + +I asked in some surprise whether they had been engaged. I had had no +inkling-- + +No, but--. Well, not exactly engaged with a ring, and plighting the troth +and all. But that had been their intention. Because otherwise why should +that schoolmistress, that sister of his, Sophie Palm, have come up and +stayed for nothing at the Tore Peak farm for two whole summers, and +behaved as though she were a lady? No, thank you, that was the end of +that. Anyhow, that was what she, Josephine, had thought once, but it was a +Providence that it wasn't going to happen, because there would never have +been anything but trouble. So it was just as well. + +Suddenly Josephine caught herself up: + +"Good gracious--I nearly forgot to buy the indigo. It's for my weaving. +Lucky I remembered it! Well--thanks for your hospitality." + + + + +XXXIV + + +It was between Christmas and the New Year, and I had accompanied Nikolai +to his home. Since the town workshop was closed in any case, he had +decided to go home and fell timber in the woods. + +It was a big farmhouse, enlarged from the old cottage by Nikolai's father, +while Nikolai himself had moved up the roof and built on a second story. +He has plenty of room for me; I have a small room to myself. + +His mother is hard-working and honest; she has a few animals to see to, +and usually she is washing something or other, even if it is nothing more +than some empty potato sacks. She cooks on the kitchen stove, and keeps +her pots and pans shining. She is cleanly, and strains her milk through a +muslin cloth, which she afterward washes and rinses twice. But she picks +food remnants from between the prongs of forks with a hairpin! + +A mirror, pictures of the German Kaiser's family, and a crucifix hang on +the walls of the living room; in one corner are two shelves with oddments, +including a hymnbook and a book of sermons. They are still simple and +orthodox in these parts. The rest of the furniture in the house, the +chairs and tables and cupboards and a cleverly constructed chest, have all +been made by Nikolai himself. + +Nikolai is just as slow and speechless here as in the town; the day after +we arrived he went out to the woods without telling his mother. When I +asked for him, she said: + +"I saw him take the sleigh, so I expect he's gone to the woods." + +His mother's name is Petra, and judging from her appearance she cannot be +much over forty; like her son, she is ruddy and big-muscled, with a fair +complexion and thick, graying hair, a veritable lion's mane. Her eyes are +good companions to her hair--dark, and a little worn now, but still good +enough to see far and sharply across the fjord. She, too, is taciturn, +like all the peasants here, and usually keeps her large mouth shut. + +I ask her how long she has been a widow, and she says, "For nearly a +generation--no, don't let me tell a lie," she corrects herself. "Sophie is +four and twenty now, and it was the year after her birth that he died." + +They had only been married a couple of years. Nikolai is six and twenty. + +I ponder over this arithmetic, but as I am old and incapable, I cannot +make it tally. + +Petra was very proud of her children, especially Sophie, who had gone to +school and passed an examination, and now held such an important post. Of +course her inheritance was used up, but she had her learning instead. +Nobody could ever take that from her. A big, handsome girl, Sophie--look, +here is her portrait. + +I said I had met her at Tore Peak. + +At Tore Peak? Oh, yes, she spent her summers there so as to be among her +equals; you couldn't blame her for that. But she came home every year, +too, as sure as the year came round itself. So I had met her at Tore Peak? + + +Sometimes I went with Nikolai to the forest for timber, and made myself +slightly useful. He is as strong as an ox, and has endurance almost to the +point of insensibility--a cut, black eye--nothing. And now it becomes +evident that his brain works well, too. He should have had a horse, yes, +but he cannot keep a horse till he can provide more fodder. But he cannot +buy more pasture land till he has more money. But he was learning more +about his trade in the town, and when he had finished his course of +training, he would earn more money. After that he would buy a horse. + +I visited the neighbors, too. The farms were small, but the farmers +cultivated as much land as they required, and there was no poverty. Here +were no flowerpots in the windows or pictures on the walls, as at Petra's; +but good, thick furs with woven backs hung over the doors, and the +children looked healthy and well-fed. The neighbors all knew I lived at +Petra's house; every visitor to this district lived at Petra's house--had +done so as long as they could remember. I could sense no hostility to +Petra in these silent people, but the old schoolmaster was more talkative, +and he was quite ready to spread gossip about her. This man was a +bachelor; he had his own house and did his own housework. Had he, perhaps, +at some time felt a secret desire for the widow Petra? + +The schoolmaster gossiped thus: + +People who had visited the village in Petra's girlhood always used to live +at her parents' house. There was a room and a loft, and the engineer that +planned the big road lived there, and so did the two traveling preachers, +to say nothing of the itinerant peddlers who toured the district all the +year round. So it went on for many a year, with the children growing up, +and Petra getting big and hearty. Then Palm came; he was a Swede, a big +merchant--a wholesale merchant, one might almost say, for that period, +with his own boat and even a boy to carry his wares. Well, there were +glass panes again in the windows of Petra's parents' house, and there was +meat on Sundays, for Palm liked things done in style. He gave Petra +presents of dress materials and sweets. Then he was finished with Petra, +and went away to do business elsewhere. But it happened that the child +Petra gave birth to was a boy, and when Palm returned and saw him, he +stayed, and traveled no more. They married, and Palm added two rooms to +the house, for it was his intention to open a shop there. But when he had +built honestly and well, he died. His widow was left with two small +children, but she had means enough, for Palm had had plenty of money. Then +why did not Petra remarry? She could have got a man in spite of the +handicap of two small children, for Petra herself was still a young girl. +But from her childhood days, said the schoolmaster, she had been spoiled +by this love of roving company, and again housed itinerant tramps and +Swedes and peddlers, and thoroughly disgraced herself. Some of them stayed +there for weeks, eating and drinking and idling. It was shameful. Her +parents saw nothing wrong in this because it had always been their way of +living, and besides it brought them a little money. So the years went by. +When the children were grown and Sophie was out of the way, she might have +married even then, for she still had half her money left, and being +childless again, it was not too late. But no, Petra didn't want to, and it +_was_ too late, she said; it was the children's turn to marry now, +she said. + +"Well, she's pretty old now, isn't she?" I said. + +"Yes, time passes," the schoolmaster replied. "I don't know whether anyone +has asked her this year, but last year there was someone--one person--or +so I've heard, so I've been told. But Petra didn't want to. If I could +only guess what she's waiting for." + +"Perhaps she's not waiting at all." + +"Well, it's all the same to me," says the schoolmaster. "But she takes in +all these tramps and peddlers and carries on and makes a public nuisance +of herself...." + +As I walked home from the schoolmaster's, I found I understood Petra's +arithmetic much better. + + * * * * * + +Nikolai has gone back to his workshop in the town, but I have remained +behind. It matters little where I am, for the winter makes a dead man of +me in any case. + +To pass the time, I carefully measure the piece of land that Nikolai is +going to break up when he can afford it, and I calculate what it will cost +him, with drainage and everything: a bare two hundred _kroner_. Then +he could keep a horse. It would have been an act of charity to give him +this money in case his mother could not. He could have added another field +to his land then. + +"Look here, Petra--why don't you give Nikolai the two hundred +_kroner_ he needs for fodder for a horse?" + +"And four hundred to buy the horse," she muttered. + +"That makes six." + +"I haven't got such a lot of six hundred _kroners_ lying about." + +"But wouldn't the horse be useful for plowing?" + +A pause. Then: + +"He can break the ground himself." + +I was not unfamiliar with this line of reasoning. Everyone has his own +problems, and Petra had hers. But the strange thing is that each one of us +struggles for himself as though he had a hundred years to live. I once +knew two brothers named Martinsen who owned a large farm, the produce of +which they sold. Both were well-to-do bachelors without heirs. But both +had diseased lungs, the younger brother's much worse than the elder's. In +the spring, the younger brother became permanently bedridden, but though +he approached his end, he still maintained an interest in everything that +went on at the farm. He heard strangers talking in the kitchen and called +his brother in. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"Only someone to buy eggs." + +"What's the price per score now?" + +His brother told him. + +"Then give him the small eggs," he cautioned. + +A few days later he was dead. His brother lived till his sixty-seventh +year, though his lungs were diseased. When anybody came to buy eggs, he +always gave him the smallest.... + +"But," I insisted to Petra, "Nikolai doesn't want to waste time breaking +his ground himself, does he? Surely if he works at his trade he'll earn +more!" + +"They don't pay for joinery here," Petra replied. "People buy their chairs +and tables from the shops now; it's cheaper." + +"Then why is Nikolai working as an apprentice?" + +"I've asked him the same question," she replied. "Nikolai just wants to be +a carpenter, but it won't get him anywhere. Still, he can do as he likes." + +"Well, what else could he do?" + +A pause. Petra's big mouth is closed. But at length she says: + +"There's plenty of traffic now and a lot of tourists in the summer, both +at Tore Peak and down here on the headland. One time we had two Danes +living here; they had traveled on foot. 'If you had a horse, you could +have driven us here,' they said to me." + +"Ah," I thought to myself, "the cat sticking its nose out of the bag!" + +"'You've got a big house and four rooms,' the Danes said, and 'There are +high mountains and big woods,' they said, 'and fish in the fjord and fish +in the river; there are lots of things here, and there's a broad road +here,' they said. Nikolai was standing next to them and heard it all, too. +'Now we're here,' they said, 'but we can't get away again unless we +walk.'" + +Just to say something, I asked her: + +"Four rooms--I thought you only had three?" + +"Yes, but the workshop could be turned into a room, too," the big mouth +replied. + +"So that's it!" I thought. With hardly a pause, I continued: + +"But if Nikolai were going to deal with tourists, he'd have to get a +horse, wouldn't he?" + +"Well, I suppose we could have managed it," Petra replied. + +"It's four hundred _kroner_." + +"Yes," she said, "and the carriage a hundred and fifty." + +"But this land won't feed a horse!" + +"What do other people feed horses on?" she asked. "They buy sacks of oats +on the headland." + +"That's eighteen _kroner_ a sack." + +"No, seventeen. And you earn as much as that on your first tourist." + +Yes, Petra had it all figured out; she was the born landlady, and had +grown up in a lodginghouse. She could cook, too, for had she not put two +snakes of Italian macaroni in the barley broth? The money for coffee, for +the bed at night and waffles in the morning, had grown so dear to her that +she hid it away, watched it increase, and grew rich on it. She did not +produce like other peasant women, but no one can do everything at one +time, and Petra was a parasite. She did not want to live by earning +something; she wanted to live on the tourists who earned enough +themselves, and could afford to come. + +Splendor and Englishmen, no doubt, in these parts! If it all works out as +it should--and it probably will. + + * * * * * + +It is February. I have an idea, a vagrant idea that comes to me, and I +harbor it: now that there is a little snow, and its crust is hard, I shall +walk across the fields into Sweden. That is what I shall do. + +But before I can do it, I must wait for my laundry, and Petra, who is +cleanly, washes in many waters. So I pass the time in Nikolai's workshop, +where there are many kinds of planes and saws and drills and lathes, and +there I fashion strange things. For the small boys of the neighboring +farm, I make a windmill that will really turn in the wind. It whirls and +rattles well, and I remember my own childhood when we called this +apparatus onomatopoeically a _windwhirr_. + +Besides this, I go out walking, and use my winter head as well as I can, +which is not very well. I do not blame the winter, nor do I blame +anything. But where are the red-hot irons and the youth of omnipotence? +For hours sometimes I walk along a path in the woods with my hands folded +on my back, an old man, my mind gilded for a moment by an occasional +memory; I stop, and raise my eyebrows in surprise. Can this be an iron in +the fire? It is not, for it fades again, and I am left behind in a quiet +melancholy. + +But in order to recall my young days, I pretend to be filled with a +heaven-sent energy. It is by no means all pretense, and pictures rise in +my mind, fragmentary flageolet tones: + + We came from the meadow + and downy heather; + we came from friendship, + too-loo-loo-lay! + A star that watched + saw lips meet lips. + None else so dear, + so sweet as you. + + Those youthful days, + those happy days, + unmatched since then! + but what am I now? + The bees once swarmed, + the swan once played. + There's no play now, + yet too-loo-loo-lay! + +I break off, and put the pencil in my pocket with a tone still resounding +within me. I walk on with some pleasure to myself, at least. + +There is a letter for me. Who on earth has found me out here? The letter +is as follows: + + +Forgive me for writing you, but I should like to talk to you about +something that has happened. I should like to see you as soon as you come +back. There's nothing the matter. Please don't say no. + +Yours, + +Ingeborg Torsen + +I reread it many times. "Something that has happened." But I'm going to +Sweden, I'm going to move about a little, and stop losing myself in the +affairs of others. Do they think I am mankind's old uncle, that I can be +summoned hither and thither to give advice? Excuse me, but I am going to +assert myself and become quite inaccessible; the snow is just right, and I +have planned a big journey--a business tour, I might almost call it, very +important to me--I have a great deal at stake.... How composite is the +mind of man! As I sit talking drivel to myself, and even sometimes saying +an angry word aloud in order that Petra may hear it, I am not at all +displeased at having received this letter; in fact secretly I am so +pleased that I feel ashamed. It is merely because I shall soon see the +town again--the town with its frostbitten gardens and its ships. + +But what on earth can this mean? Has she been to my landlady's and got my +address? Or has she met Nikolai? + +I left at once. + + + + +XXXV + + +My landlady was surprised. + +"Why, good evening. How well and happy you look! Here's your mail." + +"Let it lie. I must tell you, Madame Henriksen, that you are a jewel." + +"Ha, ha, ha!" + +"Yes, you are. You are a very kind woman. But you have given my address to +someone." + +"No, indeed; I swear I haven't." + +"No? Well, then someone else must have done so. Yes, you're right, I am +happy, and tomorrow morning I shall get up very early and walk down by the +shore." + +"But I did send a message," said my landlady. "I hope it wasn't wrong of +me. To a lady who wanted to know as soon as you arrived." + +"A lady? You sent a message just now?" + +"A little while ago, as soon as you came in. A young, handsome lady; she +might have been your daughter, you know." + +"Thank you." + +"Well, I'm only saying what's so. She said she would come at once, because +she had to see you about something." + +The landlady left me. + +So Miss Torsen was coming this very evening; something must have happened. +She had never visited me before. I looked round; yes, everything was neat +and tidy. I washed and made myself ready. There, she can have that chair; +I'd better light the other lamp, too. It might not be a bad idea to sit +down to my correspondence; that would make a good impression, and if I put +some letters in a small, feminine hand on top, it might even make her a +little jealous--hee, hee. Oh, God, ten or fifteen years ago one could play +such tricks; it's too late now.... + +Then she knocked and came in. + +I made no move to shake hands, and neither did she; I merely drew out a +chair for her. + +"Excuse my coming like this," she said. "I asked Mrs. Henriksen to send me +a message; it's nothing serious, and now I feel a little embarrassed about +it, but--" + +I saw that it was something serious, and my heart began to pound. Why +should my heart be affected? + +"This is the first time you've been in my rooms," I said, expectant and on +the defensive. + +"Yes. It's very nice," she said, without looking round. She began to clasp +her hands and pull them apart again till the tips of her gloves projected +beyond her finger tips. She was in a state of great excitement. + +"Perhaps _now_ I've done something you'll approve of?" she said, +suddenly pulling off her glove. + +She had a ring on her finger. + +"Good," I said. It didn't affect me immediately; I was to understand more +later, and merely asked: + +"Are you engaged?" + +"Yes," she replied. And she looked at me with a smile, though her mouth +shook. + +I looked back at her, and I believe I said something like, "Well, now, +well, well!" Then I nodded in a fatherly fashion, bowed formally, and +said: "My heartiest congratulations!" + +"Yes, that's what it's come to," she said. "I think it was the best thing +to do. Perhaps you think it's a bit unreliable of me or rash or--well, +don't you?" + +"Oh, I don't know--" + +"But it was absolutely the best thing. And I just thought I'd tell you." + +I got up. She started, evidently in a very nervous state. But I had only +risen to turn down the lamp behind her, which had begun to smoke. + +A pause. She said nothing more, so what could I say? But as the minutes +passed and I saw she was distressed, I said: + +"Why did you want to tell me this?" + +"Yes--why did I?" + +"Perhaps for a moment you thought you were the center of the world again, +but--" + +"Yes, I expect so." + +She looked about her with great, roving eyes. Then she got up; she had +been sitting all this time as though about to spring at me. I rose, too. +An unhappy woman--I saw that plainly enough; but good heavens, what could +I do? She had come to tell me she was engaged, and at the same time looked +very unhappy. Was that a way to behave? But as she got up, I could see her +face better under her hat--I could see her hair--the hair that was +beginning to show silken and silver at the temples--how beautiful it was! +She was tall and handsome, and her breast was rising and falling--her +great breast--what a great breast she had, rising and falling! Her face +was brown, and her mouth open, just a little open, dry, feverishly dry-- + +"Miss Ingeborg!" + +It was the first time I called her this. And I moved my hand toward her +slightly, longing to touch her, perhaps to fondle her--I don't know-- + +But she had collected herself now, and stood erect and hard. Her eyes had +grown cold; they looked at me, putting me in my place again, as she walked +toward the door. A cry of "No!" escaped me. + +"What's the matter?" she asked. + +"Don't go, not yet, not at once; sit down again and talk to me more." + +"No, you're quite right," she said. "I'm not the center of the universe. +Here I come to bother you with my unimportant troubles, and you--well, of +course, you're busy with your extensive correspondence." + +"Look here, sit down again, won't you? I shan't even read the letters; +they're nothing, only two or three letters perhaps, probably from complete +strangers. Now sit down; tell me everything; you owe me that much. Look, I +shan't even read the letters." + +And with that I swept them up and threw them into the fire. + +"Oh--what are you doing?" she cried, and ran to the fireplace, trying to +save them. + +"Don't bother," I said. "I expect no happiness to come to me through the +post, and sorrows I do not seek." + +She stood so close to me that I found myself again on the point of +touching her, just for a moment, touching her arm; but I caught myself in +time. I had already gone too far, so I said as gently and sympathetically +as I could: + +"Dear child, you must not be unhappy; it will all turn out for the best; +you'll see. Now sit down--there, that's better." + +No doubt she had been taken aback by my violence, for she sank into her +chair almost absently. + +"I'm not unhappy," she said. + +"Aren't you? So much the better!" + +I began to chatter away at top speed, though I tried to restrain myself, +to show that I was nothing more than an uncle to her. I talked to distract +her, to distract us both; I let my tongue wag--I could hear it buzzing. +What could I say? A little of everything--a great deal, in fact: + +"Well, well, child. And whom are you marrying, who is the lucky man? Nice +of you to come and tell me before anyone, really very nice; thank you very +much. You see I've only just come home and I haven't slept much on the +journey. I was anxious to know--well, perhaps not anxious exactly--but +still--You know what such a homecoming is: lots of people, noise, brr!--I +hardly got any sleep. Then I came home, and then you came along--thank you +for coming, Miss Ingeborg--I might be your father and you're just a +child; that's why I say 'Ingeborg.' But when you told me all this, I +hadn't had any sleep, I wasn't quite balanced--not enough to give you +advice; I mean, I hadn't quite appreciated--But now you can quite safely-- +I'd like to know, of course--Is he old? Is he young? Young, of course. I +am imagining what will happen to you now, Miss Ingeborg, in your new +condition. I mean, it will be so entirely different from what you've been +accustomed to, but God bless you, it will all turn out for the best, I'm +sure of that--" + +"But you don't even know who it is!" she interrupted, looking at me +apprehensively again. + +"No, I don't, and I needn't if you'd rather not tell me yet. Who is it? A +dapper little man, I can see that from his ring, a schoolmaster perhaps, a +clever young schoolmaster--" + +She shook her head. + +"Then a big, good-natured man who wants to dance with you--" + +"Yes, perhaps," she said slowly. + +"There you are--you see I've guessed it. A bear who will carry you on his +paws. On your birthday--do you know what he'll give you for your +birthday?" + +But perhaps I was getting too childish; I bored her, and for the first +time she looked away from me, looked at a picture on the wall, then at +another picture. But it was not easy for me to stop now, after having +spoken hardly at all for several weeks, and feeling profoundly excited +besides--heaven only knows why. + +"How did you like the country?" she asked suddenly. As I could not see the +drift of this question, I merely looked at her. + +"Weren't you at Nikolai's mother's house?" she persisted. + +"Yes." + +"What is she like?" + +"Are you interested in her?" + +"No, I don't suppose so. Oh dear!" she sighed wearily. + +"Come, come, you mustn't sound like that when you're newly engaged! What +the country was like? Well, there was a schoolmaster--you know, an old +bachelor, sly, and amusing. Said he knew me, and put on the most +extraordinary airs the first day. And of course I returned the compliment +and said I had come exclusively to meet him. 'Impossible!' he said. 'Why +should it be?' I said; 'forty years a schoolmaster, a respected man, +permanent churchman, chairman, indispensable everywhere!' Well, then I +attended his class. Most impressive. He talked continually; for once he +had an audience, almost like a school inspection. 'You there, Peter! +Ahem,' he said. 'There was a horse and a man, and one of them was riding +on the other's back. Which one was riding, Peter?' 'The man,' Peter +replies. A pause. 'Well, maybe you're right, Peter--maybe the man was +riding. Just like sin, like the devil riding us....'" + +But she was looking at the wall again, drifting away from me again. I +changed the subject clumsily: + +"Of course you'd rather hear about people you know--about Tore Peak, for +instance. Josephine has been in town." + +"Yes, I know," she said, nodding her head. + +"Remember the old man at Tore Peak? I don't think I'll ever forget him. In +a certain number of years I shall be like him--perhaps not quite so old. +Then I shall be a child again with age. One day he came out, and went down +to the field. I saw him; he had mittens on. You know he eats all sorts of +things, and I saw him lie down and eat the hay." + +She stared at me foolishly. + +"But I must say he didn't look as though he had ever eaten hay +before--possibly because it was rotting. It was the hay that had been +left, you know--rotting down for next year--for the next tourist year." + +"You seem to think," she said smiling, "that you have to cheer me up, +because I'm terribly unhappy. I'm quite the reverse. Perhaps he's too good +for me; that's what his sister seems to think, anyhow, because she tried +to stop it. But I'm going to enjoy snubbing that sister of his. Anyhow, +I'm not unhappy, and that isn't the reason I've come. I'd really much +rather have him than anyone else--since I can't get the one I really +want." + +"You've told me this before, child--last winter, in fact. But the man you +want has gone his way--besides, you said yourself that you didn't belong +with him, or rather, that he didn't with you--I mean--" + +"Belong? Do I belong anywhere? Do you think I belong in the place I'm +going to now? I'm afraid I'm not really suitable for anybody--at least I +can't think of anyone I'd suit. I wonder how I'll manage. I wonder if +he'll be able to stand me. But I'll do my very best; I've made up my mind +to that." + +"Well, who is it--do I know him? Of course you suit each other. I can't +believe you don't. He must be in love with you, quite madly in love, and +you must love him in return. I'm sure you'll come through with flying +colors, Miss Ingeborg, because you're capable and intelligent." + +"Oh, well," she said, rising suddenly to her feet. But she hesitated over +something, and seemed about to speak, then changed her mind again. At the +door, she stood with her back to me, pulling on her gloves, and said: + +"So you think I ought to do it?" + +I was taken aback by the question, and replied: + +"Ought to do it? Haven't you done it already?" + +"Yes. That is--well, yes, I've done it, I'm engaged. And I can tell from +your manner that I've done the right thing." + +"Well, I don't know. I can't tell." + +I crossed the room to her. + +"Who is it?" + +"Oh, God, no; let's drop it. I can't bear any more now. Good night." + +She stretched her hand out fumblingly, but since she was looking at the +floor, she could not find mine, and both our hands circled helplessly +round each other for a moment. Then she opened the door and was gone. I +called to her, begging her to wait, seized my hat, and hurried after her. +An empty staircase. I rushed down and opened the street door. An empty +street. She must have run. + +"I'll try to see her tomorrow," I thought. + + * * * * * + +One day, two days, but I did not see her, though I went to all the usual +places. Another day--nothing. Then I thought I would go up to her home and +inquire about her. At first this did not seem to me too improper, but when +it came to the point, I hesitated. There is, after all, something to be +lost by making a fool of oneself. But was I not a kind of uncle? No--yes, +of course, but still-- + +A week passes, two weeks, three. The girl has quite disappeared; I hope +she hasn't had an accident. I mount the stairs to her home and ring the +bell.... + +She's already gone away; they left as soon as they were married, last +week. She's married to Nikolai, Carpenter Nikolai. + + * * * * * + +March--what a month! The winter is over, yet there's no telling how much +longer it may still last. That's what March is for. + +I have lived through another winter and seen the nigger entertainment at +the Anglo-Saxon theater. You were there too, my friend. You saw how +cleverly we all turned somersaults. Why, you even took part yourself, and +you carry about a broken rib as a cherished little memento of the +occasion. I saw it all from a slight distance away, ten miles, to be +exact; no people were near me, but there were seven heavens above. + +And pretty soon I shall be reading what the officials have to say about +the year's harvest in our country; that is to say, the harvest at the +theater--in dollars, and in sterling. + +The waggish professor is enjoying himself, quite in his element. There he +goes, self-assured and complacent, Sir Mediocrity in all his glory. By +next year, he will have dragged other progressive people in his wake; he +will have dressed up Norway still more, and made it still more attractive +to the Anglo-Saxons. More dollars, and more sterling. + +What, do I hear someone objecting? + +Yes, Switzerland. + +Well, then, we shall invite Switzerland to dinner and toast her thus: +"Colleague, our great aim is to resemble you. Who else can squeeze so much +profit out of their mountains? Who else can file at such clockwork? +Switzerland, make yourself at home; we don't want to rob you; there are no +pickpockets at this table. Here's to you!" + +But if that doesn't help, we shall have to roll up our sleeves and fight. +There are still Norwegians left in good old Norway, and our rival--is +Switzerland. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Henriksen brings catkins in a vase into my room. + +"What, is it spring?" + +"Oh, it's getting on." + +"Then I shall be going away. You see, Mrs. Henriksen, I should very much +have liked to stay, because this is really where I belong; but what more +can I do here? I don't work; I merely idle. Do you understand me? I grieve +continually, and my heart sits wrinkled. My most brilliant achievement is +spinning coins: I toss a coin into the air and wait. When I came here last +autumn I wasn't so bad, not nearly so bad. I was only half a year younger +then, yet I was ten years younger. What has happened to me since? Nothing. +Only--I'm not a better man than I was last autumn." + +"But you've been all right all winter, haven't you? And three weeks ago, +when you came back from the country, you were so happy!" + +"Was I? I don't remember that. Ah, well, things don't move so fast, and +nothing has happened to me in these three weeks. Well, never mind; at all +events, I shall go away. I must travel when the spring comes. I have +always done so in the past, and I want to do the same thing now. Sit down, +Mrs. Henriksen." + +"No, thank you, I'm too busy." + +Too busy! Yes, you work--you're not ten years older than you were last +autumn. You think it's hard work to rest on Sundays, don't you? Dear +Madame Henriksen! You and your little daughter knit stockings for the +whole family, you let your rooms, you keep your family together like a +mother. But you mustn't let your little Louise sit for twelve years on a +school form. If you do, you'll hardly ever see her all through her youth, +those formative years of her life. And then she can't be like you or learn +from you. She'll learn to have children easily enough, but she won't learn +to be a mother, and when the time comes for her to keep her home and +family together, she will not be able to do it. She'll only know +"languages" and mathematics and the story of Bluebeard, but that is not +food for the heart of a woman. That is twelve years of continual famine +for her soul. + +"Excuse my asking, but where are you going to?" + +"I don't know, but I'm going. Why, where should I go? I shall go aboard a +steamship and sail, and when I have sailed long enough, I will go ashore. +If I find, on looking about me, that I have traveled too far or not far +enough, I shall board a ship again and sail on. Once I walked across into +Sweden as far as Kalmar and even Oeland, but that was too far, so I turned +back. No one cares to know where I am, least of all myself." + + + + +XXXVI + + +You get used to everything; you even get used to the passage of two years. + +And now it is spring again.... + +It is market day in the frontier town; my room is noisy, for there is +music down in the fields, the roundabout is whirling, the tightrope walker +is gossiping outside his tent, and people of every sort throng the +village. The crowds are great, and there is even a sprinkling of +Norwegians from across the border. Horses snort and whinny, cows low, and +trading is brisk. + +In the display window of the goldsmith across the road, a great cow of +silver has made its appearance, a handsome breeder that the local farmers +stop to admire. + +"She's too smart for my crags," says one of them with a laugh. + +"What do you think's her price?" says another with a laugh. + +"Why, do you want to buy her?" + +"No, haven't got fodder enough this year." + +A man trudges placidly down the road and also stops in front of this +window. I see him from behind, and take note of his massive back. He +stands there a long time, trying to make up his mind, no doubt, for now +and then he scratches his beard. There he goes, sure enough, entering the +shop with a ponderous tread. I wonder if he intends to buy the silver cow! + + +It takes him an age, and still he hasn't come out. What on earth is he +doing in there? Now that I have begun to watch him, I might as well go the +whole hog. So I put on my hat and cross to the goldsmith's window myself, +mingling with the other spectators, and watching the door. + +At last the man re-emerges--yes, it _is_ Nikolai. It was his back and +hands, but he has got a beard now, too. He looks splendid. Imagine +Carpenter Nikolai being here! + +We greet each other, and we talk as he shakes me slowly and ponderously by +the hand. Our conversation is halting, but we get on. Yes, of course, he +has gone into the shop on business, in a kind of way. + +"You've not bought the silver cow, have you?" + +"Oh, no, not that. It didn't amount to anything, really. In fact, I didn't +buy anything." + +By degrees, I discover that he is buying a horse. And he tells me that he +has dug that piece of land of his, and is turning it into pasture, and his +wife--oh, yes, thank you for asking--she lives in health to this day. + +"By the way," he said, "have you come here over the fjeld?" + +"Yes, I came last winter. In December." + +"What a pity I didn't know!" + +I explained that I hadn't had the time to visit his home then; I was in a +hurry, there was some business--- + +"Yes, I understand," he said. + +We said little more, for Nikolai was as taciturn as ever. Besides, he had +other business to attend to; he cannot absent himself from the farm for +long, and had to return next day. + +"Have you bought your horse yet?" + +"Well, no, I haven't." + +"Do you think you will?" + +"I don't know yet. I'm trying to split a difference of five and twenty +_kroner_." + +Later I saw Nikolai going to the goldsmith's again. He seemed to do a +great deal of business there. + +"I could have company across the fjeld now," I thought. "It's spring, and +do I not always travel in the spring?" + +I began to pack my knapsack. + +Nikolai emerged once more, apparently as empty-handed as he had entered. I +opened my window and called to him to ask if he had bought the horse. + +"N-no--the man won't meet my price." + +"Well, can't you meet his?" + +"Y-yes, I could," he replied slowly. "But I don't think I've got enough +money on me." + +"I could lend you some." + +At this Nikolai smiled and shook his head as though my offer were a fairy +tale. + +"Thank you just the same," he said, turning to walk away. + +"Where are you going now?" I asked. + +"To look at another horse. It's old and small, still--" + +Was I thrusting myself on the man? I? Nonsense! I don't see that at all. +He felt offended because I had passed his door last winter without +stopping and now I wanted to make him friendly again. That was all. But as +I wanted no cause for self-reproach, I stopped packing, nor would I ask +Nikolai if I might go back with him. But I went out for a walk in the +town. I had as much right to do that as anyone. + +I met Nikolai in the street with a colt, and we stopped to exchange a few +words. + +"Is it yours?" + +"Yes, I've bought her; the man met me halfway after all," he replied with +a smile. + +We walked along to the stable together and fed and petted the horse. She +was a mare, two and a half years old, with a tawny coat and an off-white +mane and tail--a perfect little lady. + +That evening Nikolai came over to my room of his own accord for a chat +about the mare and the state of the roads. When he was saying good-bye at +the door, he seemed struck by a sudden thought. + +"By the way," he said, "I suppose it's no good asking you, but you could +get a lift for your knapsack, you know. We could be there day after +tomorrow," he added. + +How could I offend him again? + +We walked all next day, spent the night in the mountain hut at the +frontier, and then went on again. Nikolai carried my knapsack all the way, +as well as his own smaller parcels. When I suggested that we should share +the burden, he said it was no weight at all. I think Nikolai wanted to +spare the little tawny lady. + +At noon we saw the fjord beneath us. Nikolai stopped and carefully rubbed +down the mare once more. As our path sloped downward, I felt a pressure, a +contraction in my chest; it was the sea air. Nikolai asked me what was the +matter, but it was nothing. + +On reaching his home, we found the yard well swept, and in the doorway a +woman on her knees with her back toward us, scrubbing the floor. It was +the Saturday cleaning day. + +"Hullo!" Nikolai roared in a tremendously loud voice, stopping dead in his +tracks as he did so. + +The woman in the doorway looked round; her hair was gray, but it was she, +Miss Ingeborg, _Fru_ [Footnote: Mrs. (Translator's note.)] Ingeborg. + +"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, hastily mopping up the rest of the floor. + +"Look at all the cleaning that goes on here!" Nikolai said, laughing. +"That's her idea of fun!" + +And I had believed Carpenter Nikolai incapable of lightheartedness! Yet I +had seen how content he had been all the way home, how deeply content, and +proud of the little lady he was bringing with him. Even now he was still +stroking her. + +Fru Ingeborg rose to her feet, her skirts dark with the damp. It all +seemed strange to me; her hair was so gray. I needed a little time, a +moment, to collect myself, and turned away to give her time, too. + +"What a lovely horse!" I heard her exclaim. + +Nikolai went on stroking the mare. + +"I've brought a visitor with me," he said. + +I went to her and perhaps--I don't know--perhaps I rather overdid my +unconcern. I greeted her and insisted on shaking her wet hand, which she +hesitated to give me. I was anxious to appear quite formal with her, and +shook her hand as I repeated my greeting. + +"Well, of all people!" she replied. + +I persisted in my formal attitude. + +"You must blame your husband," I said. "It's his fault that I'm here." + +"I wish you heartily welcome," she returned. "How lucky I've just got +through the cleaning!" + +A slight pause. We looked at each other; two years had passed since our +last meeting. To break the silence, we all began to admire the mare, +Nikolai swelling with pride. Then we heard a child calling from within the +house, and the young mother ran off. + +"Come in, won't you!" she called back over her shoulder. + +As soon as I entered, I saw that the room had been changed. There was too +much middle-class frippery: white curtains at the windows, numerous +pictures on the walls, a lamp pendent from the ceiling, underneath it in +the center of the room a round table and chairs, knickknacks in a china +cupboard, a pink-painted spinning wheel, flowers in pots--in short, the +room was crowded. This, no doubt, was the sort of thing Fru Ingeborg had +been used to and considered in good taste. But in Petra's day, this had +been a light and spacious room. + +"How's your mother?" I asked Nikolai. + +As usual he was slow to reply. His wife answered for him: + +"She's very well." + +I wanted to ask, "Where is she?" but I refrained. + +"Look, I want to show you something," said Fru Ingeborg. + +It was the child in his bed--a boy, big and handsome, about a year old. He +frowned at me at first, but only for a moment. As soon as he was on his +mother's arm, he looked at me without fear. + +How happy and beautiful the young mother looked! Peerless, indeed, with +her eyes full of an inscrutable graciousness she had not possessed before. + + +"What a fine little _man!_" I said, admiring the boy. + +"I should think he was!" said the mother. + + * * * * * + +You get used to everything. The sea air no longer oppresses me; I can +speak without losing my breath to the woman who is now the mistress of +this house. She likes to talk, too, pouring out her words nervously, as +though it had been a long time since she last opened her mouth. What we +talked about? Well, we neither asked nor answered questions about +measuring angles or analyzing Shakespeare's grammar. + +Had she ever thought her matriculation would land her up here, amid +livestock and Saturday cleaning? + +Oh, that parody of an education! She had taken the first toddling steps in +a dozen sciences, but if she met someone with fully adult knowledge she +was lost. She had other things to think about now, her home and her family +and the farm. Of course there wasn't much livestock, now that Nikolai's +mother had taken half of it with her-- + +"Has Petra gone away?" + +Married--to the schoolmaster. No, Petra hadn't wanted to stay when the +young wife took possession. One evening a strange man had come to the +house, and Petra had wanted to admit him, but Fru Ingeborg would not. She +knew who he was and wanted him to leave. So there were quarrels between +the older woman and the young one. + +Petra was also dissatisfied with the young wife's work in the barn. It was +true she was not very skillful, but she was learning all the time, and +enjoyed improving her skill. She never asked questions; that, she saw, +would have been foolish, but she worked things out by herself, and kept +her eyes open when she visited neighboring farms. That didn't mean to say +she could learn everything. There were things she never learned properly +because she was not "to the manner born." Often the wives of rural +officials are from small towns, and have not learned the ways of the +country, though they must learn them in time. But they never learn them +well. They know only just enough for their daily needs. To set up a weave, +you must have grown up with the sound of the shuttle in your ears; to tend +the cattle as they should be tended, you must have helped your mother +since childhood. You can learn from others, but it will not be in your +blood. + +Not everyone has a man like Nikolai to live with, either. The young wife +is very fond of her Nikolai, this sound, hearty bear who loves her in +return. Besides, Nikolai is not exacting; his wife seems to him peerless +in all she does. Of course she has taken great pains; it has left its mark +on her, too, and she is not gray for nothing. A few months ago she lost a +front tooth, too--broke it on some bird shot left in the breast of a +ptarmigan she was eating. She hardly dared look in the mirror now--didn't +recognize herself. But what did it matter as long as Nikolai.... + +Look what he'd brought her, this brooch, bought at the goldsmith's at the +market: wasn't it lovely? Oh, Nikolai was mad; but she would do anything +in the world for him, too. Imagine using some of the money for the horse +on a brooch! Where is he now, where's he gone to? She'll bet anything he's +stroking the mare again. + +"Nikolai!" she called. + +"Yes," his reply came from the stable. + +She sat down again, crossing her legs. Her face had turned pink; perhaps a +thought, a memory, passed through her mind. She was suffused with +excitement and beauty. Her dress clung to her body, outlining its +contours. She began gently to stroke her knee. + +"Is the child asleep?" I asked. I had to say something. + +"Yes, he's asleep. And think of him!" she exclaimed. "Can you imagine +anything more wonderful? Excuse my talking like this, but.... You know +he's not a year old yet. I never knew children were such a blessing." + +"Well, you see they are." + +"Yes, I thought differently once; I remember that perfectly well, and you +contradicted me. Of course it was stupid of me. Children? Miracles! And +when you're old, they're the only happiness--the last happiness. I shall +have more; I shall have many of them, a whole row of them, like organ +pipes, each taller than the last. They're lovely.... But I wish I hadn't +lost my tooth; it leaves such a black gap. I really feel quite bad about +it, on Nikolai's account. I suppose a false one could be put in, but I +shouldn't dream of it. Besides, I understand it's quite dear. But I've +given up using any arts; I only wish I'd stopped earlier--I've gone on +much too long. Think of all I've missed by it: all my childhood, all my +youth. Haven't I idled away whole summers at resorts, even as a grown +woman? I needed a holiday from my school work, a rest, and immediately +turned it into sheer futility, every day a disgrace. I could cry with +regret. I should have been married ten years ago, and had my husband all +that time, and a home and many children. Now I'm already old, cheated out +of ten years of my life, with gray hair and one tooth gone--" + +"Well, you've lost one tooth, but I've hardly got one left!" + +No sooner had I consoled her thus than I regretted it. Why should I make +myself worse than I am? Things were bad enough anyhow. I was sick with +fury at myself, and grinned and grimaced to show her my teeth: "Here, +don't miss them, have a good look!" But I'm afraid she saw what a fool I +was making of myself; everything I did was wrong. + +Then she consoled me in her turn, as people do when they can well afford +it: + +"What, you old? Nonsense!" + +"Have you met the schoolmaster?" I asked abruptly. + +"Of course. I remember what you told me about him: a horse and a man came +riding along the road.... But he's got sense, and he's terribly stingy. +Oh, he's cunning; he borrows our harrow because ours is new and good. +They've built a house at the end of the valley, and take in travelers-- +quite a big hotel, in fact, with the waitresses dressed in national +costume. Of course Nikolai and I both went to the wedding; Petra really +looked a charming and lovely bride. You mustn't think she and I are still +unfriendly; she likes me better now that I'm more competent, and last +summer they sent for me several times to interpret for some English people +and that sort of thing--at least I know how to say soap and food and +conveyance and tips in other languages! + +"But I don't think I should ever have had any serious trouble with Petra +in the first place if Sophie hadn't come home--you know, the +schoolmistress in the town. She's always found plenty to criticize in me, +so I never liked her very much, I must admit. But when she came here, she +was very arrogant toward me, and lorded it over me, showing off all her +knowledge. I was busy trying to learn what I needed to know for the life +up here, and then she came along and made me look small, talking about the +Seven Years' War all the time. She was terribly learned about the Seven +Years' War, because that's what she had in her examination. And our way of +talking wasn't elegant enough for her; Nikolai used rough country +expressions sometimes, and she didn't like that. But Nikolai speaks quite +well enough, and I can't see what that fool of a sister of his has got to +put on airs for! And on top of that she came home to stay--for six months, +anyhow. She'd been engaged, so then she had to take a six months' holiday. +The baby's with Petra, with his grandmother, so he's well taken care of. +It's a boy, too, but he's hardly got any hair; mine has plenty of hair. +Well, in a way, of course, it's a pity about Sophie, because she'd used up +her legacy and her youth studying to be a schoolmistress, and then she +comes home like that. But she really was insufferable, thinking she was a +lot better than I because she hadn't been discharged, like me. So I asked +her to leave. And then they both left, Sophie and her mother. Anyhow, her +mother and I are quite reconciled. + +"But you mustn't think we've had any help from her to buy the horse. +Nothing of the kind! We borrowed the money from the bank. But we'll +manage, because it's our only debt. Nikolai has made all the furniture in +here himself, the table and china cupboard and everything; we haven't +bought a thing. He's dug up the new field himself, too. And we'll be +getting more cattle; you ought to see what a handsome heifer we've got.... + +"Even the food wasn't good enough for Sophie. Tins saved such a lot of +trouble, she said; we ought to buy tinned food. It was enough to make you +sick to listen to her. I was just beginning to knit, too; I'd got one of +my neighbors to teach me, and I was knitting stockings for myself. But of +course Lady Sophie--well, she bought her stockings in the city. Oh, she +was charming. 'Get out!' I said to her. So they left." + +Nikolai entered the room. + +"Did you want me?" + +"No--oh, yes, I wanted you to come upstairs with me. I need something to +hang things on in front of the fire, a clotheshorse--come along--" + +I stayed behind, thinking: + +"If only it lasts, if only it lasts! She's so overwrought; living on her +nerves. And pregnant again. But what splendid resolution she shows, and +how she's matured in these two years! But it has cost her a great deal, +too. + +"Good luck to you, Ingeborg, good luck!" + +At all events, she had triumphed over Schoolmistress Sophie, who had once +tried so hard to set Nikolai against her. "Get out!" How content Fru +Ingeborg must be--what delight in this small triumph! Life had changed so +much that such things were important to her; she grew heated again when +she mentioned it, and pulled at her fingers as she had done in her +schooldays. And why should she not be content? A small triumph now had the +rank of a bigger one in the old days. Proportions were changed, but her +satisfaction was no less. + +Listen--she has begun to read upstairs; there's the sound of a steady hum. +Yes, it's Sunday today, and she, being the best educated of them, +naturally reads the service. Bravo! Magnificent! She has extended her +self-discipline even to this, for they are all orthodox Christians in this +neighborhood. Believing? No, but not hostile, either. One reads Scripture. +Rather a clever ruse, that of the clotheshorse. + +She has become an excellent cook, too, in the peasant style. Delicious +broth, without noodles, but otherwise just as it should be, with barley, +carrots, and thyme. I doubt whether she has learned this at the domestic +science school. I consider all the things she has learned, and find them +numerous. Had she, perhaps, been a little overstrung in her talk about +children like organ pipes? I don't know, but her nostrils dilated like a +mare's as she spoke. She must have known how unwillingly middle-class +couples have children, and how short is the love between them: in the +daytime they are together so that people might not talk, but the night +separates them. She was different, for she would make hers a house of +fruitfulness: often she and her husband were apart during the day, when +their separate labors called them, but the night united them. + +Bravo, Fru Ingeborg! + + + + +XXXVII + + +Really, it was time I was leaving; at least I could have moved across to +Petra and the Schoolmaster, who take in travelers. Really I ought to do +that.... + +Nikolai has got his tawny lady working on the farm; she's harnessed to a +neat cart that he has made himself and banded with iron. And now the lady +carts manure. The tiny farm with its few head of cattle doesn't yield too +much of this precious substance, so it is soon spread. Then the lady draws +the plow, and looks as though it were no more than the heavy train of a +ball dress behind her! Nikolai has never heard of such a horse before, and +neither has his wife. + +I take a walk down to the newly dug field and look at it from every angle. +Then I take soil in my hand and feel it and nod, exactly as though I knew +something about it. Rich, black soil--sheer perfection. + +I walk so far that I can see the gargoyles on Petra's hotel--and suddenly +turn off the path into the woods, to sheltered groves and catkins and +peace. The air is still; spring will soon be here. + +And so the days wear on. + +I am comfortable and feel very much at home; how I should like to stay +here! I should pay well for my keep, and make myself useful and popular; I +shouldn't harm a fly. But that evening I tell Nikolai that I must think of +moving on; this will not do.... And perhaps he will mention it.... + +"Can't you stop a while longer?" he says. "But I suppose it isn't the kind +of place--" + +"God bless you, Nikolai; it _is_ the kind of place, but--well, it's +spring now, and I always travel in the spring. I should have to be very +low before I gave that up. And besides, I expect you're both pretty tired +of me, at least your wife." + +This, too, I hoped he would mention. + +Then I packed my knapsack and waited. No--no one came to take the knapsack +out of my hand and forbid me to pack any farther. So perhaps Nikolai +hasn't mentioned it. The man never does open his mouth. So I placed the +knapsack on a chair in the middle of the room, all packed and ready, for +everyone to see that we're leaving. And I waited for the morning of the +next day, and this time the knapsack _was_ observed. No, it wasn't. +So I had to wait till the housewife called us to the midday meal, and tell +her then, pointing to what was in the middle of the room: + +"I'm afraid I shall have to be leaving today." + +"No! Really? Why do you want to go away?" she said. + +"Why? Well, don't you think I should?" + +"Well, of course--But you might have stayed on a bit longer; the cows will +be going out to spring pasture now, and we should have had more milk." + +That was all we said about it, and then she went back to her work. + +Bravo, Fru Ingeborg. You're true-blue. It struck me then, as it had done +already on several occasions, that she had grown very like Josephine at +Tore Peak, both in her way of thinking and her mode of expression. Twelve +years of school had laid no foundations in her young mind, though it had +loosened much that was firm within her. But that did not matter, as long +as she kept a firm hold now. + + * * * * * + +Nikolai is going down to the trading center, and since he will be bringing +back some sacks of flour, he intends to drive. I know very well that I +ought to go with him, because then I could catch the mail packet next day +but one. I explain this to Nikolai and pay my bill. While he is harnessing +the horse, I finish packing my bag. + +Oh, these eternal journeys! Hardly am I settled in one place than I am +again unsettled in another--no home, no roots. What are those bells I +hear? Ah, yes--Fru Ingeborg lets the cows out. They are going to pasture +for the first time this spring, so that they shall give more milk.... Here +comes Nikolai to tell me he is ready. Yes, here is the knapsack.... + +"Nikolai, isn't it a bit early to let the cows out?" + +"Yes, but they're getting restless in the cow houses." + +"Yesterday I was in the woods and wanted to sit down, but I cannot sit in +the snow. No, I cannot, though I could ten years ago. I must wait till +there is really something to sit on. A rock is good enough, but you can't +sit on a rock for very long in May." + +Nikolai looks uneasily at the mare through the window. + +"Yes, let's go.... And there were no butterflies, either. You know those +butterflies that have wings exactly like pansies--there weren't any. And +if happiness lives in the forest, I mean if God himself--well, He hasn't +moved out yet; it's too early." + +Nikolai does not reply to my nonsense. After all, it is only the +incoherent expression of a vague feeling, a gentle melancholy. + +We go outside together. + +"Nikolai, I'm not going." + +He turns around and looks at me, his eyes smiling good-humoredly. + +"You see, Nikolai, I think I have got an idea; I feel exactly as though an +idea had come to me that may turn into a great, red-hot iron. So I mustn't +disturb myself. I'm staying." + +"Well, I'm very glad to hear that," says Nikolai. "As long as you like +being here...." + +And a quarter of an hour later, I can see Nikolai and the mare trotting +briskly down the road. Fru Ingeborg stands in the yard with the boy on her +arm to watch the gamboling calves. + +And here stand I. A fine old specimen, I am! + + * * * * * + +Nikolai returned with my mail; quite a little pile had accumulated in the +past few weeks. + +"I thought you're not in the habit of reading your letters," said Fru +Ingeborg banteringly. Nikolai sat listening to us. + +"No," I returned. "Just say the word, and I'll burn them unread." + +Suddenly she turned pale; she had put her hand with a smile on the +letters, brushing my hand as she did so. I felt a great ardor, a moment's +miraculous blood heat, more than blood heat--only for a moment--then she +withdrew her hand and said: + +"Better read them." + +She was deeply flushed now. + +"I saw him burn his letters once," she explained to Nikolai. Then she +found something to do at the stove, while she asked her husband about his +journey, about the road, whether the mare had behaved well--which she had. + + +A minor occurrence, of no importance to anyone. Perhaps I should not have +mentioned it. + + * * * * * + +A few days later. + +The weather has grown warm, my window is open, my door to the living room +is open, all is still; I stand at the window looking out. + +A man entered the courtyard carrying an unshapely burden. I could not see +his face very well, but thought it was Nikolai carrying something, so I +went back to my table to work again. + +A little later I heard someone say "Good morning" in the living room. + +Fru Ingeborg did not return the greeting. Instead, I heard her ask in +loud, hostile tones: + +"What do you want?" + +"I've come to pay you a visit." + +"My husband isn't in--he's in the field." + +"Never mind." + +"I do mind," she cried. "Go away!" + +I don't know what her face looked like then, but her voice was gray--gray +with tears and indignation. In a moment I was in the living room. + +The stranger was Solem. Another meeting with Solem. He was everywhere. Our +eyes met. + +"I think you were asked to leave?" I said. + +"Take it easy, take it easy," he said, in a kind of half-Norwegian, +half-Swedish. "I trade in hides; I go round to the farms buying up hides. +Have you got any?" + +"No!" she cried out. Her voice broke. She was completely distracted, and +suddenly dipped a ladle into a pot that was boiling on the stove: Perhaps +she was on the point of flinging it at him.... + +At this juncture, Nikolai entered the house. + +He was a slow-moving man, but his eyes suddenly quickened as he took in +the situation. Did he know Solem, and had he seen him coming to the farm? +He laughed a little. "Ha, ha, ha," he said, and went on smiling--left his +smile standing. It looked horrible; he was quite white, and his mouth +seemed to have stiffened in a smiling cramp. Here was an equal for Solem, +a sexual colleague, a stallion in strength and stubbornness. And still he +went on smiling. + +"Well, if you haven't any hides--," said Solem, finding the door. Nikolai +followed him, still smiling. In the yard he helped Solem raise his burden +to his back. + +"Oh, thank you," said Solem in an uncomfortable tone. The bale of furs and +skins was a large one; Nikolai picked it up and put it on Solem's back, +swung it to his back in a curious fashion, with needless emphasis. Solem's +knees gave way under him, and he fell on his face. We heard a groan of +pain, for the paved yard was hard as the face of the mountain. Solem lay +still for a moment, then he rose to his feet. His face had struck the +ground in falling, and the blood was running down into his eyes. He tried +to hoist his burden higher up his back, but it remained hanging slack. He +began to walk away, with Nikolai behind him, still smiling. Thus they +walked down the road, one behind the other, and disappeared into the +woods. + +Well, let us be human. That fall to the ground was bad. The heavy burden +hanging down so uncomfortably from one shoulder looked bad. + +Indoors I heard a sound of sobbing; Fru Ingeborg was in a state of +collapse in a chair. And in her condition, too! + +Well, give it time--it will pass off. Gradually we begin to talk, and by +asking her questions, I force her to collect herself. + +"He--that man--that beast--oh, you don't know how dreadful he is--I could +murder him. He was the one--he was the first, but now he's getting it all +back, he's getting more than his own back--you'll see. He was the first; I +was all right till then, but he was the first. Not that it meant a great +deal to me; I don't want to seem any better than I am--it was all the same +to me. But afterward I began to understand. And it drew so much evil in +its train, I fell so low; I was on my knees. It was his fault. And +afterward it all grew clear to me. I want that man to leave me alone; I +don't ever want to see him again. That's not unreasonable, is it?--Oh, +where's Nikolai? You don't think he'll do anything to him, do you? They'll +put him in prison. Please, run after them, stop him! He'll kill him--" + +"No, no. He has too much sense. Besides, he doesn't know, does he, that +Solem has done anything to you?" + +She looked up at me then. + +"Are you asking on your own account?" + +"What do you mean?--I don't understand--" + +"I want to know if you're asking on your own account! Sometimes you seem +as though you were trying to find me out. _No_, I _haven't_ told +my husband. You can think what you please about my honesty. I've only told +him part of it, just a little--that the man wouldn't leave me alone. He's +been here once before; he was the man Petra wanted to admit that I +wouldn't have in. I said to Nikolai, 'I won't have that man coming in +here!' And I told him a little more. But I didn't tell him about myself; +so now what do you think of my honesty? But I don't want to tell him now +either; I don't ever want to tell him. Why? Well, I don't owe you any +explanation. But I don't mind your knowing--yes, I want to tell you, +please! You see, it's not because I'm afraid of Nikolai's anger, but of +his forgiveness--I couldn't bear to go on living as though nothing had +happened. I'm sure he'd try to find excuses for me, because that's his +nature; he's fond of me, and he's a peasant, too, and peasants don't take +these things so seriously. But if he did find excuses for me, he wouldn't +be much good, and I don't want him to be no good; I swear I don't--I'd +rather be no good myself! Oh, we both have faults to forgive in each +other, but we need all of what's left. We don't want to be animals; we +want to be human beings, and I'm thinking of the future and our +children.... But you oughtn't to make me talk so much. Why did you ask me +that?" + +"All I meant was that if Nikolai doesn't know, then it couldn't occur to +him to kill the man, and that was what you were worried about. I just +wanted to reassure you." + +"Yes, you're always so clever; you turn me inside out. I wish now I hadn't +told you--I wish you didn't know; I should have kept it to myself till I +died. Now you just think I'm thoroughly dishonest." + +"On the contrary." + +"Really? Don't you think that?" + +"Quite the contrary. What you've told me is absolutely right, entirely +true and right. And not only that--it's fine." + +"God bless you," she said, and began to sob again. + +"There now, you mustn't cry. Here comes Nikolai walking up the road as +good and placid as ever." + +"Is he? Oh, thank God. You know, I haven't really any fault to find with +him; I was too hasty when I said that. Even if I tried to find something, +I couldn't. Of course he uses expressions sometimes--I mean he says some +words differently, but it was only his sister that put that into my head. +I must go out and meet him now." + +She began to look around for something to slip over her shoulders, but it +took her a few minutes because she was still quite shaken. Before she had +found anything, Nikolai trudged into the yard. + +"Oh, there you are! You haven't done anything rash, have you?" + +Nikolai's features were still a little drawn as he replied: + +"No, I just took him over to see his son." + +"Has Solem got a son here?" I asked. + +Neither of them replied. Nikolai turned to go back to his work, and his +wife went with him across the field. + +Suddenly I understood: Sophie's child. + +How well I remember that day at Tore Peak, when Schoolmistress Sophie Palm +came in to tell us the latest news about Solem, about the bandage on his +finger, the finger he never had time to get rid of--stout fellow! They +made each other's acquaintance then, and probably met again later in the +town. Solem was everywhere. + +The ladies at the Tore Peak resort--well, Solem was no angel, but they did +little to improve him. And so he met this woman who had learned nothing +but to teach.... + + * * * * * + +I ought to have understood before this. I don't understand anything any +more. + +But something has happened to me now. + +At last I'm beginning to suspect that their chief reason for wanting to +keep me here is simply that they need money; my board and rent are to pay +for the mare. That's all it amounts to. + +I should have known it long ago, but I am old. Perhaps I may add without +being misunderstood that the brain withers before the heart. You can see +it in all grandparents. + +At first I said "Bravo!" to my discovery, "Bravo! Fru Ingeborg," I said, +"you are priceless once again!" But human nature is such that I began to +feel hurt. How much better it would be to pay for the mare once and for +all and depart; I should have been more than pleased to do so. But I +should not have succeeded. Nikolai would have shaken his head as though it +were a fairy tale. Then I began to calculate that in fact there couldn't +be much to pay for the mare now--perhaps nothing, perhaps she was paid +for.... + +Fru Ingeborg labors and slaves--I'm afraid she works too hard. She seldom +sits down, though her pregnancy is far advanced now and she needs rest. +She makes beds, cooks, sees to the animals, sews, mends, and washes. Often +a lock of gray hair falls down on either side of her face, and she is so +busy that she lets it hang; it's too short to be fastened back with a pin. +But she looks charming and motherly, with her fine skin and her +well-shaped mouth; she and the child together are sheer beauty. Of course +I help to carry wood and water, but I make more work for her just the +same. When I think of that, I grow hot about the ears. + +But how could I have imagined that anyone would want to keep me for my own +sake? I should not have had all these years too many then, and these +ardors too few. A good thing I've found it out at last. + +In a way the discovery made it easier for me to leave them, and this--time +when I packed my knapsack, I meant it. But at least the child, her boy, +had some love for me, and liked to sit on my arm because I showed him so +much that was strange. It was the child's instinct for the peerless +grandfather. + +At about this time, a sister of Fru Ingeborg's came to the farm to help +with the housework. I began to pack then; overcome with grief, I packed. +To spare Nikolai and the mare, I decided to make my way down to the +steamship landing on foot. I shall also arrange to relieve all of us of +the need for farewells and handshakes and _au revoirs_, believe me! + +But in spite of my resolution, I could not, after all, avoid taking them +both by the hand and thanking them for their hospitality. That was all +that was necessary. I stood in the doorway with my knapsack already on my +back, smiling a little, and behaving splendidly. + +"Yes, indeed," I said, "I must begin to move about again." + +"Are you really going?" said Fru Ingeborg. + +"Why not?" + +"But so suddenly?" + +"Didn't I tell you yesterday?" + +"Yes, of course, but--would you like Nikolai to drive you?" + +"No, thank you." + +The boy was interested now, for I had a knapsack on my back and a coat +with entirely unfamiliar buttons; he wanted me to carry him. Very well, +then--just for a moment. But it was for more than a moment, more than a +few moments, too. The knapsack had to be opened and investigated, of +course. Then Nikolai entered the room. + +Fru Ingeborg said to me: + +"I'm afraid you think that just because my sister's here now--but we've +got another room. And besides, now that it's summer, she could easily +sleep in the loft." + +"But, my dear child, I must leave _some_ time--I have work to do, +too, you know." + +"Well, of course," said Fru Ingeborg, giving it up. + +Nikolai offered to drive me, but did not press me when I thanked him and +refused. + +They came to the gate with me, and watched me walk away, the boy sitting +on his mother's arm. + +At the bend of the road, I turned round to wave--to the child, of course, +not to anyone else--only to the child. But there was no longer anyone +there. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +I have written this story for you. + +Why have I written thus? Because my soul cries out with boredom before +every Christmas, boredom with all the books that are all written the same +way. I had even the intention of writing in dialect, so as to be truly +Norwegian; but when I saw you understood the country's language also, I +gave up writing in dialect because, for one thing, it is becoming +obsolete. + +But why have I gathered so many incongruities within a single framework? +My friend, one of the most celebrated literary creations was written +during a plague, _because_ of a plague--this is my answer. And, my +friend, when you have lived for a long time away from the human beings you +know inside and out, then you indulge once more in the iniquity of speech; +your powers have been so little used that your head is filled with a +thousand sermons. This is my defense. + +If I know you at all, you will revel in one or other of my outspoken +passages; especially where there is a nocturnal episode, you will lick +your chops. But to others you will shake your head and say: "Think of his +writing such things!" Alas, small, vulgar soul, retire into solitude and +try to understand that episode! It has cost me much to surrender it to +you. + +Perhaps, too, you will be interested in myself and ask about my irons? +Well, I may give you their greeting. They are the irons of one who is half +a century old--he has no other kind. But the distinction between myself +and my brother travelers is that I freely admit: I have none but these. +They were planned so big and so red; yet they are small irons, and they +hardly glow. This is the truth. They congregate with the painstaking works +of others round the Christmas table. This is the truth. It is the truth +even though, in spite of everything, they are distinct from the +nothingness of others. You cannot judge this, for you are the modern +spirit in Norway, and this is the spirit I scorn. + +One thing you will admit: you have not wasted your time in "cultured +company"; I have not tried to quench your little upstart heart with a +"lady." I have written about human beings. But within the speech that is +spoken, another lies concealed, like the veins under the skin, like a +story within a story. I have followed the septuagenarian of literature +step by step, and reported the progress of his disintegration. I should +have written this description long ago, but I had not years enough; only +now am I entering upon them, directly and indirectly. I should have done +it while the country was groping for long periods under the shadow of +superannuated incompetence. Instead I do it now, when I myself am being +accused of a tendency to cast shadows. "Sensationalism," you will say, +"chasing after fame!" My dear, chaste friend, I have fame enough for the +last twenty years of my life, and after that I shall be dead. And you? May +you live long; you deserve it. May you almost survive me--in the flesh. + +I have just read what a man on the pinnacle of culture has said: +"Experience shows that when culture spreads, it grows thin and colorless." +Then one must not raise an outcry against the bearers of a new +renaissance. I can no longer herald a renaissance; it is too late now. +Once, when I had the power to do much and the desire to do more, +mediocrity everywhere was too strong. I was the giant with the feet of +clay--the lot of many youths. But now, my small, small friend, look about +you: there has appeared, within even your field of vision, a figure here +and a figure there, a shining crest, lavish with its bounty, geniuses +beneath the open sky--you and I should bid them welcome. I walk in the +evening of life and, trembling, recognize myself in them; they are youth +with jeweled eyes. Yet you begrudge them your recognition; yes, you +begrudge them fame. Because you are nobody. + +To you--to the modern spirit of Norway! I have written this during a +plague, and because of the plague. I cannot stop the rot; no, it is +unassailable now, it flourishes under national protection, +tarara-boom-de-ay. But one day no doubt it will stop. Meanwhile I do what +I can to fight it; you do the reverse. + +Of course I have shouted in the marketplace; perhaps that is why my voice +is hoarse now, cracked at times. There are worse things. A worse thing +would have been if it had not obeyed me. Is there any danger of that? No, +my friend, not for you; you will live till you die, be assured. + +Why have I written to you, of all people? Why do you think? You refused to +be convinced of the truth and integrity of my conclusions; but I shall yet +force you to recognize that I am close to the truth. Not until then shall +I make allowance for the fool in you. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Look Back on Happiness, by Knut Hamsun + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOOK BACK ON HAPPINESS *** + +This file should be named 7lbhp10.txt or 7lbhp10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7lbhp11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7lbhp10a.txt + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Robert Connal +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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